Where Are My Children? The True Story of a Mother Who Risked Her Life to Rescue Her Kidnapped Children

by Cassie Kimbrough

  "Knowing about it and being involved in it are two different things," Dunlop replied. "We can't help you get possession of the children or leave the country with them. But they are legally entitled to passports. We can try to get those for you."

  I fixed what I hoped was a disingenuous gaze on my face as I listened to them offer advice on how to resnatch the children, what routes to use to take them out of the country, what documents I would need.

  "Copacabana or Desaguadero would probably be the best places to cross the border," Dr. Garza was saying. "Stay away from the airport. You'll need exit visas, of course. I don't know how you're going to get those."

  "I know someone who could get those for her," Dr. Castillo offered. El Capitan to the rescue.

  "At the border you could tell them you're a tourist and didn't know about the exit visas," said Dunlop. "If you offered money, you might get away with that."

  "What about entry visas? The kids' passports wouldn't show that they ever entered Bolivia. Won't they question that?" I asked.

  "Tell them you lost their passports while you were here and they were just reissued," said Dr. Garza.

  "What about the passports?" I asked. "Is it possible for me to get them today?"

  "Today? No, that's not possible," Dunlop said. "Normally it takes five working days to process them. They have to be approved by the State Department in Washington first, and we don't have a telex here like the consulates in the bigger capitals. What we do is send the applications to Lima and they telex them to Washington from there."

  Five days! And what if the State Department in Washington blew the whistle on me? I would just have to hope that the bureaucracy's right hand wouldn't know what its left hand was doing.

  Dunlop added, "I'll see what I can do. I'll try to have them for you on Monday."

  It was twelve noon. Alicia glanced at her watch and everyone stood up. Lunchtime. Everything closed during the two-hour lunch period.

  We shook hands all around, and Dunlop escorted us to the door. He waited as Dr. Castillo walked ahead a few steps, then whispered, "Think it over carefully before you decide to do anything. There are risks involved. The problem is to know whom to trust." His forehead was creased with concern. I told him I would.

  My spirits were soaring. They had been so kind, so full of concern and advice. I didn't feel as alone as before, cooped up in the hotel with only my anxious thoughts to keep me company. Monday I would have the passports. Soon I could be leaving here with my children. My outlook was brighter than it had been since I'd arrived. Had it been only two days ago? It seemed much longer.

  Dr. Castillo and I decided to discuss more about El Capitan over lunch. A few streets over in a tiny upstairs restaurant, there was barely enough room to squeeze between the tables. The restaurant was full, so we had to share a table with an elderly German woman. During our meal, she mumbled continuously to herself and slipped food from her plate into her purse. There was no menu, only the special for the day. First we were served the appetizer: a slice of bread decorated with swirls of mustard and ketchup. I set mine aside to wait for the next course, peanut soup, a delicious local dish.

  In such close quarters it was impossible to discuss kidnapping plans, so the conversation took a more personal turn.

  Dr. Castillo told me a little about his own divorce and how it had affected his relationship with his only child, a son.

  I leaned across the table toward him. "I wish there were some way that Federico and I could reach a compromise, before I make any plans to try to kidnap them back. I never wanted it to be this way. I don't want them to be without a father."

  "I could try to talk to his lawyer about it," Dr. Castillo offered. "His name is Ruben Aguilar. I know him."

  "If he would let the kids come back and live with me, I'd send them to Bolivia every year to spend the summers with him. Of course I'd need some kind of guarantee that he'd let me have them back. Wouldn't it be great if he'd agree to something like that?"

  It would. Then I could cancel the whole risky kidnap operation, the kids could have both parents, we could both have the kids, and everyone could live happily ever after. Maybe too much to hope for, but it could happen.

  Dr. Castillo said, "Catereen, I don't know you well. But I can tell that you're not a bad person. You didn't deserve this. You will get your children back."

  I felt I could trust Dr. Castillo, that he really did have my best interests at heart.

  Before we parted, he said he would try to get in touch with El Capitan the following morning. I would call him Saturday afternoon to learn the outcome of their conversation.

  Back at the hotel, I gave my report to the men. They were encouraged by the news that the passports would be ready by Monday and as surprised as I was that the people at the consulate had been so helpful.

  "You didn't mention us, did you?" Lloyd asked sharply.

  "No, of course not. Dr. Castillo doesn't know anything, either."

  Lloyd was especially interested in El Capitan and what he could do for us. He and Bob started arguing about whether to bring El Capitan in on the plans.

  Lloyd said, "I think we ought to hear his ideas. We might find out something useful."

  Bob's blue eyes were uncharacteristically icy. "Lloyd, I've seen it happen time and time again. Each person you bring in decreases your chances of success by 25%. It's just too risky. How do we know we can trust this guy? What do we know about him?" His voice rose in exasperation. "Hell, we don't even know his name!"

  Guy sat there quietly listening. Apparently he was used to arguments like these. He caught my eye and made a face as Lloyd and Bob wrangled back and forth. It was to become a familiar scene over the next few days.

  But Lloyd was the boss, and he had the final word: if El Capitan offered to help, I was to listen to his ideas and then pass them on to Lloyd. Lloyd also decided that it would be best for me to get out of the hotel and stay somewhere else. How about the Food Aid International apartment? There I would be safe from discovery and I could keep a watch on the children's comings and goings at the school. I was hesitant about bringing FAI into it, but then I supposed there would be no harm in simply staying in the apartment.

  When I called the office, I was told that Russ was in Tahiti on his honeymoon. Good. That meant he wouldn't be implicated in any of this. I talked to Roberto, the Bolivian who was in charge in Russ's absence. We knew each other from when I'd worked there. As soon as I told Roberto that I was in La Paz, he offered me a place to stay, in Russ's old apartment. I didn't even have to ask.

  "There are two couples living there now," he explained, "but there's plenty of room for you too. Anyway, Ben and Susana will be out in the countryside for the next few days."

  Roberto offered to pick me up from the hotel and drive me to the apartment. I told Lloyd, Bob, and Guy the good news and then quickly gathered together my things and met Roberto outside. On the way to the apartment, I told him my by now well-rehearsed cover story and he caught me up on FAI news. Russ had just gotten married to a Bolivian woman. Ben, a Hunger Corps volunteer from the States, had recently gotten married to a Bolivian girl, too. She worked with him in the village of Tairo by Lake Titicaca, where they lived alongside the Aymara people in a mud hut with no electricity and no plumbing. When they were in town, they stayed at the FAI apartment.

  The other couple staying at the apartment was new to Bolivia, having just arrived from the Midwest about two weeks ago. They were still in training, learning the language and visiting different FAI projects. I looked forward to meeting them. By now I was desperate for human company. Sure, there were Lloyd, Bob, and Guy. They made certain that I had everything I needed physically. But they were usually gone. And I was forbidden to call anyone back home. I knew that the volunteers in the FAI apartment would be kind and concerned.

  We drove past Amor de Dios. The gate was closed and the windows were dark. Roberto drove to the small parking lot in the rear of the apartment building. We walked up three flights
of outside stairs and then down a corridor to the FAI apartment in the corner. Dan and Jennifer answered the doorbell. They were young, probably in their early twenties. Dan was stocky and blond, with a brash grin. Jennifer, her pale face framed by a cloud of dark hair, seemed more serious and quiet.

  They showed me to my room: a maid's cubicle about four feet by six feet, with a single cot squeezed into it. Behind it was the lavanderia, a dank room with a cement sink for washing clothes. Its ceiling was festooned with clotheslines hung with an assortment of dripping pants, underwear, and shirts.

  Dan and Jennifer assured me that I was welcome to stay as long as I needed to. They showed me where to find extra blankets in the hall closet. A few minutes later, they had to leave for a dinner invitation.

  I explored the apartment. It was just as I had remembered it. Three years earlier, my good friend and coworker, Gloria Alvarez, had lived there. Gloria was a bubbly Texan from Houston, and like me, had married a Bolivian and moved to Bolivia. They had gotten a divorce shortly before she'd begun working at FAI. It was Gloria who had "discovered" this apartment. Count on Gloria, who loved her creature comforts, to find the coziest apartment this side of the Chuquiyapu River.

  By American standards it was lacking in several departments—the toilet flushed at whim, the "shower" was more of a trickle, the hot water was depleted in minutes, and there was no heat. But by Bolivian standards it was luxurious indeed. Its most attractive feature was the wall of windows facing south in the living room. When the sun was shining through, the chilly room warmed up to a cozy temperature. In the afternoon you could bask in the sun like a cat.

  But the most important thing about the apartment to me was the perfect view it provided of the children's school. The coincidence was almost uncanny. I considered it an encouraging sign. Maybe the gods were smiling on this venture after all.

  I fixed myself a plain supper of rice, bread, and hot chocolate. Then I sat on the sofa next to the living room window. It was already dark, but for a long time I gazed out at the schoolyard and tried to imagine Jane and Michael running and playing there every day.

  I was in bed before Dan and Jennifer returned. The night was chilly, and it didn't help that the tiny windows high up on the walls of the room wouldn't close. A bare light bulb from the corridor outside shined a glaring light into the room. I burrowed deeper into the sleeping bag—which smelled as if it had held many an unwashed volunteer just in from the countryside—and tried to sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Saturday, April 23, 1988

  I woke up aching all over and sniffling. Added to the altitude sickness and a still painful sunburn, I now had a miserable cold.

  Dan and Jennifer left early to go to El Alto, the slum area on the altiplano surrounding La Paz, to look over some of the FAI nutrition centers. I showered, teeth chattering, in a thin trickle of lukewarm water. Then I gratefully washed out some clothes. I had packed light, expecting to be in Bolivia only two or three days, and by now I had worn everything several times without a washing. Clean clothes would feel good. My blue jeans would have to remain unwashed—it would have taken days for them to drip dry in the laundry room.

  Early in the afternoon, I called Dr. Castillo. His meeting with Federico's lawyer had not been fruitful. Ruben Aguilar had flatly refused to consider any sort of compromise. Dr. Castillo was a little disquieted by some of the things Federico had told his lawyer about me. As he reeled them off, I laughed out loud at Federico's creativity, which seemed to increase with time. One of his new allegations was that my first lawyer had quit working for me and had sought out Federico to represent him instead. I assured Dr. Castillo that none of it was true.

  With relief in his voice he said, "Then you have nothing to worry about."

  He added that he hadn't been able to get in touch with El Capitan, but would keep trying.

  I wandered into the living room to enjoy the sun streaming in the windows. The view to the east was breathtaking. Just behind the parking lot, there was a sheer drop into a valley below. Cars snaked along a road that had been chiseled into the red cliffs of the canyon, and even through the windowpanes I could hear the roar of the Chuquiyapu River below.

  The road led into the bedroom suburbs of La Paz, where Embassy personnel lived in huge houses surrounded by well-manicured gardens. We had rented a house in Obrajes, a more modest middle-class section of one of those suburbs.

  I spent the afternoon composing a letter in Spanish to the Mother Superior at Amor de Dios. Lloyd thought that in a pinch such a letter might come in handy. It might at least buy some time if we presented it when we tried to take the children. I rather doubted that the Mother Superior would take the time to read a 15-page letter while two of her charges were being spirited away. But better to leave no stone unturned. At least the letter spelled out that I had legal custody of the children as far as the United States was concerned, and that Federico had taken them illegally. As proof we would enclose translated copies of the Texas court documents.

  When Dan and Jennifer got back that night, they made a delicious supper of rice and fresh baked fish. Roberto had already told Dan and Jennifer my basic cover story. I was relieved that they hadn't asked a lot of questions up to now. But tonight the inevitable question came out: "Why don't you just kidnap them back?" I looked into their eyes and was about to tell them the, usual lie, that first I wanted to go the legal route. Instead I hesitated, then admitted, "Well, I've been considering that."

  Immediately Dan was bursting with ideas on how it could be carried out. He ended up outlining a plan almost identical to Lloyd's—which wasn't surprising, considering how few options there were. But Dan added a new wrinkle: Jennifer, posing as a schoolgirl, could help. Like all the other children at the Amor de Dios school, she could wear a white duster over her clothes. Her Mona Lisa coloring and delicate features made her indistinguishable from the older girls at the school. Most of them were from upper-class Bolivian families, descendants of the Spaniards, with lighter skin and more delicate features than the indigenous people.

  "Jennifer can stop the kids as they're coming down the ramp. Nobody would think anything about her taking them back out the gate, to buy candy or something." Candy vendors set up their stands just outside the school gate every morning. "You could be waiting by the candy stand and just take them from there. I could be a lookout, or maybe even distract the guard or the MP's out there directing traffic in front of the school. I could be the dumb gringo tourist asking directions or something. And Jennifer could slip in and out so fast that nobody would notice her."

  Jennifer sat quietly listening to all this. She added, "In fact, Dan could be on the other side of the fence, in our driveway. You could be there with him, where the kids could see you. You could talk to them through the fence and they'd go back up the ramp with me for sure."

  But would they? I wondered. This was one of my deepest fears about the whole operation. What if Federico had brainwashed the kids to be afraid of me? What if they refused to go with me?

  Surely Federico had coached them for the possibility that I might show up someday. Surely he wouldn't risk making the same mistake I had.

  Mr. Rosenthal had scoffed at my worries: "Cass, they'll go with you. The minute they see you they're gonna forget anything he might have said. I don't doubt that in the slightest."

  Still I worried. Everything depended on it.

  Finally, after holding it in so long and with the relief of having a sympathetic audience, I confided in Dan and Jennifer. I told them I had come to Bolivia to resnatch Jane and Michael. I also told them about Lloyd, Bob, and Guy, although I didn't give any names—and then swore them to secrecy. Dan and Jennifer were more eager than ever to help.

  "I can just imagine what the folks back home will say when we tell them we helped kidnap two kids out of Bolivia!" Dan said.

  I said, "Be sure you really want to do this. I don't want anybody to get in trouble." They said there was no thinking to do; their decision wa
s made.

  Their enthusiasm was catching. Already I felt more confident about our prospects. With Dan and Jennifer playing their roles, the plan was so much more workable—there were fewer things to go wrong, fewer things to arouse suspicion. If I were the one trying to go down the ramp, the guard might stop me. Or I might be discovered as I was hiding in the bathroom. Riskiest of all, I might be stopped while trying to leave with the kids. I didn’t blend in very well with my height and coloring. I wouldn't even have the wig on as a disguise, so that Jane and Michael would be sure to recognize me. And what if Federico had alerted the people at the school to watch out for me?

  Yes, the plan could work with Dan and Jennifer.

  Lloyd called the next day, using the prearranged code: two rings, a pause, two rings, a pause, and then on the third set of rings I'd answer. He came by the apartment after Dan and Jennifer left for church. Striding to the living room windows he exulted, "This is amazing! The location is perfect!" He turned to me, his face glowing. "In fact, it's more than that—it's downright providential! I almost feel like I'm on a divine mission." I had never seen him so enthusiastic.

  "We finally got a room at the Crillon. You know, we tried to before, but it was full." The Crillon was an old hotel next door to Nila's apartment building. Now Lloyd and the men would be able to monitor Federico's comings and goings from their hotel room.

  "I feel really confident about the whole operation," he said.

  He perched his bulk gingerly on the edge of a small bench and leaned forward earnestly. "I feel more confident about your part in this too. At first, I have to admit I was skeptical about you. I thought you were too emotionally involved to be effective. But since we've been here, I've gotten to know you better. I've seen that you have courage and insight. I respect your ideas. And you're a lot tougher than you look."

  He smiled, "In fact, I consider you part of the team now."

  I wondered if that meant I'd be told what was going on from now on. Nevertheless I was pleased with his unexpected praise.