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

by Cassie Kimbrough

  Over the next two hours, the train went back and forth half a dozen times. By then it was so crowded that people were standing in the aisles. Some of them had spread out makeshift beds on the floor, and newly boarding passengers had to pick their way among the sleeping bodies.

  It was 11:30 P.M. when we finally left the station. The children had long since fallen asleep, and Bob, Lloyd, and I had exhausted our supply of jokes about being in the Twilight Zone, doomed never to leave the Juliaca train station. I was grateful for Bob's alpaca rug, which had been pressed into service as a sleeping bag. Lloyd and I had wrapped Michael in it, and he lay asleep on the table like a giant cocoon. Jane was curled up beside me on the seat with her head in my lap.

  For hours I watched through the window as the train passed through a shadowy landscape of moonlit mountains. Sometimes flat pools of water glinted in the moonlight. There were no towns, no houses, no living thing in sight, not even a tree. We were above the timberline. The train stopped every once in a while for more passengers, who appeared out of nowhere. Frosty air seeped through the window glass. My teeth chattered, and my feet were like blocks of ice. I was thankful for the wig—it helped keep my head warm. Across from me Lloyd snored softly, his chin resting on his chest. As the train rolled on into the night, time seemed to stand still. It began to seem as if I had always been on that train and would never get off again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Saturday, April 30, 1988

  As the first light of morning came through the windows, brakes squealed and the train lurched to a stop. It was 5 A.M. People began to stir. Bob stood up and stretched. "I've got butt-itis," he griped, then repeated it in Spanish, to the amusement of our fellow passengers. Jane sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  "Are we there yet?"

  "Not yet."

  "Where are we?" I didn't know. Nowhere, as far as I could tell.

  An hour passed. Then someone tramped by outside our windows, shouting, "Trasborde! Trasborde!"

  The Peruvians quickly began gathering their bundles and pushing off the train. There was mass confusion.

  "What's going on?" Bob asked someone.

  "We're transferring to another train."

  "No," someone else said, "We're supposed to stay put. There's another train on the way. We have to wait for it."

  "What's wrong with our train?"

  No one knew. Finally we joined the crowd bustling off the train. It seemed they were heading for another train that was waiting to take us the rest of the way to Arequipa. The ground outside was white and crunchy with frost. I took the largest duffle bag, Michael shouldered the smaller one, and Jane carried my purse slung across her thin shoulders. The Peruvians were sliding down the steep embankment and scurrying across the flatter terrain below us. Lloyd and Bob followed suit. I knew I couldn't make it down the embankment with Jane and Michael—they might fall, and I didn't have any spare hands for them to hold. We'd have to pick our way alongside the tracks.

  There was scarcely room to walk single file with the train on one side and the embankment dropping off on the other. Jane and Michael whimpered but said nothing as they slipped and stumbled over the rocky, frozen ground. Our hands were soon black with soot from clutching at the sides of the train to keep from falling. We rounded a curve in the tracks and I saw why the train could not go on: four cars, including the two engines, had derailed and were leaning outward at a precarious angle. I shivered as I looked next to us over a cliff which fell hundreds of feet down the mountainside. If the cars had derailed completely, they might have pulled the whole train over the cliff with them, with us inside.

  We caught up with Bob and Lloyd at the replacement train. They were leaning on their luggage and surveying the scene.

  "This train is a lot smaller," said Bob. "Eight cars smaller."

  The Peruvians had sized up the situation with practiced quickness, and the new train was already full and overflowing. Still more passengers swirled around us looking for cars that had enough space to hold them. People were jammed inside some of the cars so that the doors were impossible to open. There were no railroad employees in sight to try to make order out of the chaos.

  "I'll go check again to see if there's one we can get on," Bob said. He returned red-faced and panting.

  "There's no room anywhere," he puffed. "We've got to get on one of these." I looked at the Peruvians pushing and shoving onto the cars in front of us. Then I looked around at the bleak landscape, a sort of frozen tundra surrounded by craggy mountains, and for a crazy moment considered staying and waiting for the next train. But there wouldn't be another train for at least twelve hours, and there was no food or shelter here. Besides, somewhere in those mountains bands of terrorists lurked.

  There was no time to think. Steam started puffing between the wheels. Lloyd shouted, "Get on now!"

  He and Bob headed for one of the coaches. I hoisted the duffle bags onto my shoulder, grabbed the children's hands, and ran for the nearest coach. People were blocking the doorway and hanging off the steps. I pushed a white-faced Jane and Michael onto the steps ahead of me and clung to the handrail with one hand. Metal screamed on metal and the train jolted into movement. I swung precariously from the bottom step. Then brown hands reached down and pulled Jane and Michael to safety on the landing, and the wall of bodies parted enough for me to follow them. I pushed Jane and Michael ahead of me through the door of the coach, then we picked our way over bundles and bodies to the middle of the car. For a few moments I gripped Jane's and Michael's hands and we stood swaying to the movement of the train, wedged in too tightly to fall. Then a teenager took Michael onto her lap and someone cleared a space on the table for Jane to sit. A bespectacled university student gave me his bundle to sit on in the aisle.

  It was 6:30 a.m. We were still five hours away from Arequipa.

  Jane and Michael were wide awake now and over their fright. Michael took out his transformer truck and kept up a nonstop stream of chatter in Spanish, entertaining all the passengers within earshot. Latin Americans dote on children, and the Peruvians were delighted with these little gringos who talked and sang in Spanish. Jane contentedly played with her Skipper doll and drew pictures with a box of pencils that we dug out of the duffle bag. My fellow passengers talked quietly or dozed. No one complained. Like Bolivians, they seemed to accept chaotic situations with equanimity. I admired their endurance, but couldn't help daydreaming about the glories of a shower, a bed, and a meal.

  Two hours later Jane looked at me with a pale, miserable face and said, "Mommy, I don't feel good." I had forgotten that she had a tendency to get carsick. In fact, it was amazing that it hadn't happened sooner on this trip. I took out the one Kleenex I had left and snatched Michael's woolen cap off his head to press it into service as a motion sickness bag. There was nowhere to take her, so Jane threw up where she sat.

  Instantly people were helpful, clearing more space on the table for her to lie down, opening the window for fresh air, producing a plastic bag to line Michael's dripping cap with. Jane lay on the table for the rest of the trip, eyes closed, clutching the cap, wretching occasionally. All I could do was pat her hand and shield her face from the sun coming through the window. The endless journey continued; the train rolled on.

  Finally, at 11 A.M., three hours behind schedule, we arrived at the Arequipa station. We had been on the train for fourteen hours. I scanned the jostling crowd for Lloyd and Bob and then spotted them, rumpled and unshaven, standing by their luggage. They grinned and gave the thumbs up. We looked at each others' road-weary faces and laughed, giddy with relief at finally escaping the train from hell.

  Outside the station, Lloyd surveyed with distaste the beat-up taxi that Bob had hailed.

  "Don't they have something bigger than that?"

  Bob said with exasperation, "This is all there is, Lloyd! There ain't nothin' else! We're not in Houston, you know." Lloyd grumbled, but we took the taxi.

  Arequipa was tidy and clean-swept, and its streets were
lined with whitewashed buildings. It was easy to see why it was also called “The White City.” No beggars or street vendors were in sight. Bob explained that in Peru there was a government ban on public begging. The taxi driver asked if we were interested in seeing the Virgin of something-or-other, apparently a local tourist attraction. Bob said irritably, "No, no, the last thing I'm interested in right now is a virgin."

  The taxi took us to a fine old hotel on the main square, surrounded by elegant colonial buildings. Bob registered himself, me, and the kids under his name, as if we were a family, and Lloyd registered separately in the room next door.

  The first order of business was food. We dumped our luggage in the room and then headed straight for the restaurant. Since leaving Juliaca, the children and I had not eaten or drunk anything except a small can of guayaba juice that we'd shared on the train.

  We sat outside on the hotel's upper veranda, which ran the length of the hotel, a full block long, and looked out over the main plaza. Bob ordered a dozen bottles of water and vast quantities of food. Michael and Jane ran up and down the veranda, working off all the pent-up energy and tension of the past eighteen hours. Bob said they reminded him of balloons zipping around with the air let out of them. It seemed incredible that it had been only a day and a half since we'd left La Paz.

  Lloyd, who was usually fastidious about his food, told us how on the train he'd devoured part of a grimy orange that had been passed the length of the car to him via who-knows-how-many hands and had already been nibbled on by who-knows-how-many other mouths. We laughed as he recounted how he'd stood up all the way to Arequipa, propping up the mountain of gear belonging to the Australian climbing group. They were on their way to climb Mount Coropuna, one of the highest peaks in South America, outside Arequipa. It seemed that the people in their car, too, had developed a kind of temporary camaraderie and helpfulness, the kind that happens in a crisis among people who would otherwise have nothing in common.

  After lunch we all went to our rooms and napped. I was disappointed that the room had two single beds instead of a double; I was getting used to sleeping cuddled up with my long-lost babies. But the disappointment passed quickly. Maybe because I hadn't slept in two days, the narrow bed with its scratchy blanket felt delicious. Just being horizontal was a blissful sensation. I started tingling from head to toe as my sluggish blood, which seemed to have congealed in a frozen slush somewhere near my feet, began flowing upward again. I told myself that from then on, I would only have to remind myself how it felt to sit up all night on the train, and I'd be able to lie down and sleep comfortably almost anywhere.

  We ate supper at a Chinese restaurant that Bob discovered just around the corner from the hotel. We dallied at a toy store on the way, and Lloyd bought Jane a stuffed “Hello Kitty” and Michael a Winnie the Pooh bear. In the restaurant, again we ordered piles of food, most of which remained uneaten.

  Afterward, Lloyd and I strolled around the plaza with the children. They raced here and there, but I didn't let them get more than 50 feet out of reach. Meanwhile Bob went to check out the flight situation. He found that in Arequipa, as in Juliaca, all flights to Lima were booked for several days.

  Back at the hotel we enjoyed more luxuries: hot showers, clean towels, and flush toilets. Through the window Jane and Michael watched the antics of a family of alley cats on the roof next door. We were finally safe, I thought.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sunday, May 1, 1988

  Early in the morning, as we were getting ready for breakfast, Lloyd knocked at the door. He told the kids to wait in the next room with Bob, then sat down and began, "I don't want to alarm you, but--." He told me that the previous night he and Bob had called their wives long distance. "My wife got a phone call from Guy's son. He told her that Guy had called him from Bolivia. Apparently Guy couldn't say much, but he did say he was in a lot of trouble and needed $10,000 in cash to get out." He continued, “We figure he was arrested in La Paz, maybe at the airport on Saturday morning. They probably traced him to the rented Jeep. As soon as we get out of here, Bob's going back to La Paz to try to get him out."

  I swallowed, dismayed. Lloyd went on, "And in spite of Bob's carefree attitude, we're not out of the woods yet. Down at the desk some police—probably from Interpol—were going over the hotel register and asking a lot of questions. It was about something that happened in Bolivia on Friday." My throat went dry.

  "How did you find out?"

  "Bob just happened to be standing there at the desk when the police came up." A shiver ran down my spine.

  "We found out something else too. The train derailed because terrorists dynamited the tracks." He paused while this sank in. So the Sendero Luminoso had been in those hills. "We've been lucky so far. But our luck could run out at any time. We're not going to wait around here any longer. As soon as we get some breakfast, we're going to leave for the airport and we're going to get on a plane today. We've got to get out of here." He stood up and glowered at me. "Whatever happens, don't let go of those children. If we have to, Bob and I will get physical." Then he left.

  The room swam for a moment. All the tension and terror of the past two days came flooding back. Mustn't show it. Must be calm and cheerful for the children. I could hear their chirping voices through the thin wall from the room next door. I remained seated on the bed until the wild beating of my heart slowed down. Then I stood up to gather the children and go down to breakfast.

  In the hotel coffee shop we played the role of tourists. Bob asked a man at the next table to take a picture of us: Lloyd smiling proudly, I in my now rather disheveled wig, Jane and Michael grinning above plates of pancakes, and Bob wearing a t-shirt with "Miami" in six-inch letters across his ample belly.

  Waving his fork enthusiastically, Bob began to discuss the possibility of rescuing Guy from the La Paz prison with a hot air balloon.

  "The good thing about hot air balloons is that no matter how many holes get shot into them, they'll still fly," he chuckled. He was all but rubbing his hands together at the prospect.

  "You really thrive on this stuff, don't you?" I asked.

  "Yeah, I guess I do. Maybe I watched too much Mission: Impossible when I was a kid."

  "No, you're just nuts, that's all. Both of you," I laughed. Maybe the fact that they could make jokes about Guy's predicament was part of what made them good at what they did. After all, crying and wringing their hands wouldn't do Guy any good. Soon I was joking along with them. Maybe I was going a little bit nuts myself.

  In minutes we arrived at the entrance to the airport. The gatekeeper waved us to one side, and a grim-faced policeman advanced. He peered through the window studying our faces. I waited, scarcely breathing. Now what? The policeman ordered the driver to open the trunk and Bob jumped out of the taxi too. Lloyd said nothing. His face betrayed no emotion.

  As they searched the trunk, I prayed the now-familiar prayer, "Dear God, not now. We're so close—don't let me lose them now." Bob and the driver got back in the taxi, and we pulled away.

  "He was looking for arms," Bob explained. "Apparently a lot of guns are being smuggled in for the Sendero Luminoso." I let out my breath and tightened my grip on the children's hands. How many more such moments would we have to get through before we were really home free?

  The airport was small but busy, with people crowding around the ticket counters. I waited with Lloyd at one of the counters while Bob went briskly back and forth among the various airlines trying to get tickets to Lima. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea.

  I sat the kids on the floor, out of sight behind the luggage, and positioned myself next to them. If someone was looking for a tall gringa, I was not going to make it easy for them.

  Bob managed to get us on the waiting list on every flight leaving for Lima that morning. Finally, a bribe of $60 convinced the AeroPeru agent to simply scratch five paid passengers off his list and pencil in our names instead. The flight would be leaving in twenty-five minutes.
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  As we waited in line to board, Jane slipped away. I looked around for her in panic. Bob nudged me gently and pointed. There she was, a small hooded figure in baggy jeans two sizes too big, kneeling with folded hands before a Catholic shrine in the corner. She quietly rejoined us a moment later. Afterward, I asked what she had been praying for, and she said, "For a safe trip home."

  We were first in line to board. I sat in the aisle seat and immediately buckled Jane and Michael into the seats beside me.

  "Keep their seatbelts buckled at all times, so nobody can grab them out of their seats," Lloyd said. It was 9:40 A.M.

  The stewardess passed around the Lima newspapers, and I scanned the international headlines for news of the kidnapping. Nothing. It was Sunday, May 1, Labor Day in Bolivia, and the country was still plagued with nationwide strikes and turmoil on the eve of the Pope's visit. Lloyd commented that we'd escaped Bolivia in the nick of time. With the escalating unrest, the borders would clamp down until after the Pope left.

  Bob and Lloyd studied flight schedules. The next flight to Miami wouldn't be until Monday. We'd have to spend the night in Lima. They were uneasy about it—Lima was the logical place for someone to watch for us, since it was the only city in Peru with flights to the United States. During the flight Michael peppered me with questions about an in-flight comic book he was looking at.

  It was 11 A.M. when we landed in Lima.

  "Bob," Lloyd said, "you get off the plane ahead of us and do some reconnoitering. See if somebody's hanging around watching for us. If there is, distract him."

  Lloyd, the children, and I stayed in our seats while everyone else disembarked. Then, holding tightly to Jane's and Michael's hands, I followed Lloyd off the plane and into the terminal. He was walking briskly, and we half ran to keep up with him. I glanced around the concourse. Bob was nowhere in sight.

  Then, about a hundred yards ahead of us, Bob appeared, waving us on. Lloyd broke into a trot, and we followed suit.