The bathroom door opened. Leandra’s expression was one of desolation.
‘Sorry,’ I mouthed.
Her lip quivered. I’m not sure if it was to form a smile or to let the floodgates open. She became resolute.
‘No, I need to tell someone. I’ve had to carry all this for the past four years. I try to put on a good front, but it haunts my every waking hour.’
She mounted the bed and sat alongside me, her legs drawn to her chest, her arms embracing them, her forehead resting on her knees.
‘I can’t tell you anything about my journey here. It’s all a blank, other than that most of it was by sea, and as I said before, I arrived in a mini-sub. I’m not even sure to this day if my father organized my kidnap with Perez and the death of Andreas. It was even a blur after I arrived here. If it wasn’t for Marina, the woman who looked after me and reminded me I had a baby inside me to feed, I would have died of starvation.’
I took hold of her hand. ‘Your child?’ I said in a whisper. I gave her hand a squeeze.
Leandra leaned forward and then began slowly rocking back and forth. ‘They have her.’ She lifted her head, her eyes rolled to the ceiling. There were no tears now, just a blank stare.
Even if I had had my full voice, I couldn’t have prompted her. The revelation her child had lived left me in shock.
‘A month before term, I started to have labour pains. A helicopter arrived to take me to a hospital, so I was told.’ She banged her fists on her knees. ‘We arrived at a farm. I went into labour and gave birth a month early. All I heard them say was that it was a girl. A woman wrapped my baby in a cloth, handed it to a smelly little fat guy, and that’s the last I saw of Rosa. You want to know why I can’t escape. I’ll tell you why. It’s because they’ve said until they exchange me with my sister, I won’t be reunited with my child.’
I choked on the doubts I had had about her. Tears streamed down my cheeks, blurring my vision. She was right on the button; I had lost nothing by comparison. I expected her to break down with an emotional response at having had to re-live the trauma. Then she had probably done all the breaking down she had needed over this past four years.
The room was deadly quiet. I forced a whisper.
‘I guess my hand isn’t that important, considering. Sorry.’
‘Your hand? Oh yeah. Let’s see the damage,’ she said and cleared her nose with a sniffle. Reaching over to the cart, she took some tissues, wiping first her eyes and then mine. She took my clenched fist in her hand.
‘Wait,’ I said in a croak. ‘Open the closet door.’ I could just about raise a finger, pointing to the one in the corner.
She gave me a puzzled look, but did as I told her and returned to my side. With the camera obscured, I tried to unravel my fingers, but the joints had locked. She pried them open one at a time. The blister had popped, leaving raw, exposed flesh.
In the centre of my palm, digging into the wound, there was what I had been guarding.
‘My God,’ she gasped. ‘How did you get that?’
Chapter 23
The Key
Leandra’s story had taken all the thunder out of the revelation that I had acquired a key to my ankle tracker. I no longer felt smug about possessing it, just thankful that it was a distraction for her tormented mind. Also, it reminded me that just maybe, somehow my brain cells had left a route open for me to squeeze out a final act of defiance before fading out back in the torture room.
She wasted no time cleaning and preparing to bandage my hand. She placed the key on the palm side of my partially bandaged hand. Three more wraps of the bandage and she started to tie it off in a knot.
The door snapped ajar, followed by the guard shouldering it open and crashing it against the wall. He aimed his assault rifle in our direction. Our eyes briefly locked. Glancing sideways at the open closet door, the guard lowered his rifle and relaxed his stance as he closed the door, then pulled his radio to his lips. Giving the all clear, he hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him as he departed.
‘Phew, that was close,’ Leandra said and wiped her hand across her forehead.
According to the clock on the news channel, It had taken six and a half minutes for whoever was monitoring the room to become worried enough to sound an alert.
Leandra asked, ‘How did you manage to get the key?’
I tried to answer, but I could only gulp.
‘Never mind. I’ll see if I can find some glycerine for your throat in the medical cupboard. I’m sure we have some.’ Leandra slid off the bed and walked out of the room.
Part of me couldn’t help but dwell on her story. The fact that they had her in checkmate, with no way out, other than to tip over the king and to concede the game, brought on a shudder. Only pure evil could devise such a strategy. Admiration – that was the only word I could think of to describe what I felt for her. Admiration that she had found the strength in captivity to live with her situation, to stand tall in front of her jailers and to re-set the board in the hope of winning.
The door opened and in breezed Leandra, carrying a large jar and a spoon.
‘Sorry, no glycerine, but I found some malt extract. It should help.’ With the top unscrewed, she spooned the malt and twisted the syrup on the spoon to defy gravity. ‘Open wide.’
Taking in the full spoonful by scraping it on my teeth, I played with it using my tongue so a small portion could glide down my gizzard. The rest followed, providing instant relief.
‘Water,’ I said. That single word brought a smile to her lips.
This time I managed a full glass without a straw.
‘Do you think you could eat solids?’
A shake of my head side-to-side answered that question.
‘Fine, I’ll try blending some dinner and see if you can manage that. We have to build up your strength. But first I’m dying to know how you got hold of the key.’
‘It’s the key... from the guard who carried me through the woods. I took it when he lifted me over his shoulder.’ I held out the glass for more water. She filled it and passed it to me. I took a small sip before continuing. ‘Luckily, he didn’t notice when I grabbed his chain with the key and snapped it from around his neck. Then...’ Gagging, I took another sip of water. ‘The chain slithered from my fingers along the trail in the woods, hopefully for him to find it on his way back to the barracks and think he lost the key in the undergrowth.’
My head sunk into the pillow from the effort of talking.
‘You’d better hope that’s what he does think, or they may just turn up and tear the room and you apart. Still, good to hear they didn’t completely break you. Well done.’ A wry smile broke out and transformed into a grin, showing her perfect set of teeth. ‘Listen, I’ll go downstairs to the kitchen to blend you a liquid lunch. When I come back maybe we can come up with some ideas for you to escape.’
‘Downstairs? How do you get...?’ I pointed to the breakfast cart. ‘It’s been puzzling me.’
‘How do I get it up the stairs, is that what you’re asking?’
I nodded.
‘Simple. I use the dumbwaiter at the end of the corridor next to the CCTV monitoring room. Got to go, back soon.’
Trying unsuccessfully not to dwell on her words that maybe they would come looking in my direction for the key, I watched her leave the room, humming a tune as she closed the door.
I had to wonder if her tenacity was more of a by-product of looking after me as her surrogate child, especially with the way she fussed around me. Clearly, she had the ability to focus on the positive, even if she had left me with a negative. Only the fact that she said eighteen hours had passed and the few hours since, made me believe the guard thought his key had been lost somewhere back along the trail.
It occurred to me that I was fortunate to have benefitted from her misfortune and experience. Except for Marina bullying Leandra during her own journey and telling her to focus on the path ahead, I guessed I could be still wallowing in m
y own self-pity. Perhaps, I thought, without Leandra pulling me through the hole in the ice into which I had sunk, I would have been no use to anyone, least of all my family. With my mind stuck in the molasses of despair – as it had been – and only fit for a stint in a mental asylum, there was no doubt that I owed Leandra my sanity.
Thinking about the miracle of the brain, consciousness and the power of reasoning, I tried to relate them to my experience with their methods of torture. Reasoning, though practical on many levels, could be a blessing or a curse. Working out scenarios in a threatening situation, as I now knew firsthand, was a curse. My mind painting pictures of the many ways that they could have acted to hurt my family had finally done the damage.
Back in the barracks room during the waterboarding and interrogation, it had been a slow build up to a nightmare of epic magnitude. Confused by sleep deprivation, mind-warping suggestions, my life slipping away, and the pictures they showed of my family being stalked had broken my resolve. The experience left me thinking I was no more than a worm.
In contrast, my reasoning that Leandra was telling the truth and that she was on my team was proving to be a blessing. With someone on the inside, I had a reason to be optimistic that I could escape. All I could hope was that the experience hadn’t left me delusional.
Trying to clear my mind, I turned up the volume on the news channel. All the talk was about the president wanting to push legislation through to legalize the undocumented immigrants. I thought it a coincidence, considering Perez’s original demand. Pity he hadn’t left that part in the ransom, without the ex gratia payment, then they’d at least think they were influencing matters as part of the negotiations. Truth be told, the cynic in me reckoned it had more to do with capturing the Hispanic vote and being able to add more than twelve million voters to the tally once they were legal.
It was obvious that my situation would become public eventually, but the image on the television screen hit me like a runaway train. A mug shot of me appeared on a news bulletin. It wasn’t flattering, probably a picture taken from my personnel file. I looked like one of the felons they’d shown earlier; it was hardly the sort of image to evoke sympathy.
Electronic gizmos sent the picture to the corner of the screen to reveal the reporter.
‘Following our previous report on the disappearance of drug enforcement agent Kurt Rawlings, we have confirmation that a ransom demand has been received at DEA headquarters. The FBI has been called in to handle the negotiations. We understand that Agent Rawlings’ wife is to attend a press conference and televised appeal for his safe return tomorrow afternoon. We have no further information at this time, but we will be covering and broadcasting the appeal and we will keep you informed when further details emerge.’
He didn’t even break a sweat as he moved onto the next subject about some episode of The Simpsons. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from him, but it all just seemed so damned plastic. It seemed as if the report on my kidnapping was an afterthought to add to more interesting entertainment.
Leandra walked into the bedroom. She looked anxious.
‘Listen, Kurt. I can’t stay now, but I’ll be back later. Perez is back.’
Hurrying over to the cart, Leandra pushed it close to the bed and set down a steaming mug. The aroma of the soup set my stomach churning. I attempted a smile as best I could as a thank you for her consideration.
‘Wait until it’s cooled.’ She smiled and fluffed up the pillows. ‘If you can’t manage on your own, I’ll help you when I get back.’
I wanted to tell her about the news report, but hearing Perez was in the building left the words stuck in my throat. Slipping my hand over hers, I gave it a gentle squeeze. She placed her other hand over mine and returned the gesture before retracting them and straightening her skirt.
‘Look, I really have to go. I have to help prepare coffee and snacks in the kitchen. They’re holding a meeting in the dining room. His top commanders are there. In addition to that, there are four guys from the U.S. I’ve never seen before. Pedro is setting up a white board, so it looks like he’s going to be presenting something. By the way, Ana tells me a picture of you has been shown on Mexican television.’
‘Yeah, in the U.S. too.’
‘Listen, I’ll try to find out what’s happening and report back.’
I nodded and she left the room. I wished she could have stayed. Closing my eyes, I thought I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall during the meeting.
Chapter 24
Surreal Dream
The bedside lamp lit the room as I opened my eyes to a new day. Glancing at the bottom of the bed, I noticed Leandra was lying there on top of the sheet, clutching a pillow as a comforter. I felt sorry for her – they had run her ragged the previous evening, fetching and carrying for the meeting Perez held, but she’d still found the time to see to my taking food and liquids. She’d not even changed out of her uniform. Besides dishevelled clothing, straggles of hair had loosened from her bun and draped over her face.
Running my fingers over the television remote, I pressed the ON button and muted the sound.
Looking at the date on the screen, confusion scrambled my thought processes as I tried to work out how many days had gone by since my kidnapping. Going over events, it was hard to believe it had been seven days. I was sure it had been six, but I had lost a day.
Leandra stirred, lifting her head and sweeping the strands of hair from over her face. My eyes jolted to the door. Stony Face barged into the room. A red pinprick of light danced on the sheets as he brought his automatic rifle to line up with my chest. When I looked down, the red-laser spot settled on my pyjama top.
‘What the hell’s going in here with you two?’
Leandra turned to me and her gaze met mine. Her vision floated down to my chest area and her mouth gaped open. She scrambled on the bed to face Stony and to shield me, clutching a pillow to her chest.
She flipped her head and looked in Stony’s direction, then shouted, ‘What do you think we’re doing? Put the rifle down. The room’s monitored, you, oaf.’ Leandra launched the pillow at him and he tossed it to one side with the barrel of his rifle. Leandra slipped off the bed and stood in front of him, poking a finger into his chest. ‘Haven’t you done enough? You broke him – are you going to mend him? Someone’s got to nurse him back to health and I don’t see you doing it.’
Stony’s face reddened. He swung the rifle behind his back, grabbed her pointing finger and pushed her to sit on the corner of the bed. His other hand rose, as if to strike her.
‘Fight someone your own size, coward,’ I said, though I was in no fit state to protect her.
He threw me a sneer and let go of her finger. Then he turned his attention to Leandra and said, ‘Perez and his guests want breakfast. See to it... now.’
Leandra’s hands were trembling on the bed cover. She pushed herself to stand and faced him.
‘After you,’ she said, in the manner of an order, picked up her shoes from the floor, and ushered him with a push out of the room, closing the door behind her.
I heaved a sigh of relief. Her spunky attitude had sure put him in his place. Maybe when Stony threw me that sneer, he’d seen I was in no fit state for a fight, with my wrists and hand bandaged. Perhaps he’d thought better of making me pay for my intervention. It was hard to figure him. Underneath his tough exterior, I wondered if he had morals and my calling him a coward had made him think better of striking her. It was worth noting his reaction as a possible chink in his armour.
A dream I had had during the night returned to haunt me. The face mask they had given me before filming the ransom speech had been nagging at my mind before I fell asleep and must have induced the nightmare.
Prodded out of the seat of a vehicle, a team of Perez’s guards stood at either side of me. We stood at the entrance to a bridge. At the other end of the bridge, I could see Mary, the kids, and some suited guys. One of the suits looked at us through binoculars and signa
lled. My family and the guys in suits started to push shopping carts to the centre of the bridge. When they reached the middle, they stopped, discarded the carts, and walked back. Pushed forward, the guards still flanking me, I walked at an ever-quickening pace. The shopping carts, I noticed, had loose hundred-dollar bills and tins of beans stacked in the basket. I continued to walk on toward freedom and my family. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that the guards were running, pushing the carts back toward a gigantic head of Perez, his mouth open to form a tunnel, his tongue draping over his bottom lip and merging with the road. Once the guards were inside his mouth, it closed and his tongue brushed his lips as if he had quenched his appetite. I was ten yards from Mary and she stepped toward me. My essence seemed to float from my body and I looked on as a spectator.
We both quickened our step, running into each other’s arms, embraced and kissed. Mary drew back and screamed, clawing at my face and ripping away layers of skin to reveal Stony’s face.
That’s when I woke up sweating. Surreal as it was, I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what the facemask was about and if they intended exchanging some stooge for the money. It would save them having to provide me bed and breakfast. The thought I was still alive gave me hope that my dream was just that, a dream – and in reality the mask had been just a cleansing treatment.
The next hour I spent channel hopping. This was going to be a tough day, waiting for the news broadcast of Mary’s plea to my kidnappers. It was a relief when Leandra backed into the room with the breakfast cart.
‘I’ve made you some oats with milk. That should go down easy, but first your medication while your breakfast cools,’ she said. ‘No hot coffee, just fresh juice.’
My throat wasn’t that bad, but all my joints were still stiff. Swallowing the painkiller didn’t present a problem. Neither did the heat cream she rubbed into my muscles.
With all the fussing and breakfast out of the way, it was down to business.
‘Listen, I need you to help me out of bed. The sooner I can get some mobility back, the better.’
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