He started where Joaquin had started, with the tip of the long blade between his thumb and index finger. He left it there for several long, silent moments, afraid to move.
Finally, Joaquin cocked his pistol. “Begin.”
Will drew a deep breath, then slowly moved the blade from the first position to the second, then to the third, the fourth.
“Rapido,” said Joaquin.
He picked up the pace. The tapping continued. A rhythm was building, though not as steady as Joaquin’s. Will’s eyes bulged, the intense concentration broken only by intermittent flashes of pain from the slightest of scratches. The first nick was to the ring finger, followed by several clean taps, then another glancing blow to a knuckle. Little white and crimson specks of flesh were starting to collect on the blade.
“Count it off!”
“One, two, three, four.”
“?Rapido!”
Will was too breathless to count. Joaquin pressed the barrel of his pistol to the prisoner’s forehead. “?Mas rapido!”
Will turned it up a notch, his hand a blur, the tapping incessant, his breathing erratic, until he could maintain the pace no longer.
The tapping ended with a thud-then a bloodcurdling scream. It rolled across the mountain peaks, down into the valley, then returned in what seemed like three or four waves in a long, chilling echo. The knife was protruding from his hand, having made short work of the tender webbing between his thumb and index finger.
Joaquin grabbed the handle and held the blade in place, so that Will couldn’t remove it from the wound without ripping the skin.
“Get it out!”
Joaquin held the blade firm. Then in one quick motion he jerked it down like a mini-guillotine, adding a little hop to bring down the full force of his body weight. The bone snapped with a loud pop. Another scream followed, this one even worse than the other.
The severed thumb rolled off the stump and landed at Joaquin’s feet.
Even the guerrillas were stunned silent. Matthew started forward to help, but Aida trained her rifle on him, stopping him in his tracks.
“Por favor. He’ll bleed to death!”
The stump was soaked in red. Will was holding his bloody hand between his legs. “You animal! You didn’t have to do this to me!”
Joaquin gave a signal to Aida, who then allowed Matthew to pass. Another guerrilla tossed him an old gray scarf, which Matthew wrapped around Will’s hand to stop the bleeding. The hand felt cold. His whole body was like ice, his face pale.
“He’s going into shock!” said Matthew. “We need more blankets.”
No one moved.
“If he dies, you get no ransom,” said Matthew.
Joaquin seemed torn, as if giving the man a blanket might undermine the point he’d been trying to make in front of the prisoners. But Matthew could see in his face that his own point about the ransom was hitting home. Joaquin finally gave the order, and one of the guards disappeared into the hut for some blankets.
Will was shivering in Matthew’s arms. “It’s going to be all right,” Matthew said quietly. “Just hang in there.”
Joaquin took the knife and gave it one last flick. The tip stuck perfectly into the tree stump. Then he picked up the severed thumb and held it up for the other prisoners to see.
“No need for Don William to write a letter now,” said Joaquin. “His wife gets this.”
The prisoners stood silent. Finally the young mother in the group began to weep. Joaquin started to walk away, then stopped and addressed the group in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.
“Soon I’ll ask each of you to write another letter home. Not just to prove you’re alive but, more important, to urge your families to pay your ransom. Write it. Write it with conviction.” He turned away and headed for the smoky hut.
Matthew kept pressure on Will’s bloody stump to control the bleeding. Part of him wanted to grab the knife and tell Joaquin that the Rey family would never pay either, but this man was evil, perhaps even psychopathic. There was no telling what he’d do to keep his prisoners in line, to squeeze a ransom out of their families.
Thank God I bought insurance, he thought as the Canadian groaned once more in pain, his body growing colder in Matthew’s arms.
19
I wanted to see Grandma before going to Bogota. Maybe I was dreaming, but I was truly hopeful that the kidnappers would let me speak to Dad on the telephone once I got to Bogota. I wanted to be able to pass along at least one lucid thought from his mother.
On the day before my scheduled departure, I woke early and drove south to the Florida Keys, knowing that Grandma was better early in the morning. The Keys were better in the morning, too. Here, a ride down U.S. 1 in a topless Jeep was the next best thing to boating. A series of bridges connected one small key to the next, with turquoise waters to the east and west. Sunrise was like a starting pistol for fishermen, though they moved out to sea at the pace of the tortoise, not the hare. The boats-some large, some barely big enough for a man and his catch-dotted the waters for miles. Another world. My normal A.M. commute would have found me stuck in traffic on my way downtown, car exhaust instead of fresh sea air.
As I approached the old Red Cross cement home in which my father had been raised, I saw a young boy and his dad putting their boat into the water. It made me think back to my own childhood. My father and I had done that once. Once. One time in my whole life, my father had taken me fishing, just the two of us. We’d never fully recovered.
I was still hoping that someday we’d sort that out.
Grandma was around back on the patio, seated at a cast-aluminum table beneath a broad, shady umbrella. She invited me to join her for orange juice. That was a better start than last time, when she’d thrown me out of the house. Better, though not perfect. She still called me Matthew and obviously thought I was her son, but the nurse had a plan. She’d found an old photo album filled with pictures of Grandma and my father. My walking her through it might help clear her memory. I liked the idea. Grandma’s mind was sharpest when trained on the distant past. For me, it was definitely an education. Some of the photos I’d never seen before.
“You were such a cutie,” said Grandma, beaming. She was speaking of my father at a childhood birthday party.
“How old there?” I asked.
“Four. That was the year I gave you that fire truck. It didn’t make it to your fifth.”
So strange, I thought, this Alzheimer’s disease. She could remember a gift given almost a half century ago, but she was too confused to realize that I was her grandson.
“Did I not take care of my things?”
“I wouldn’t say that. You were just a boy. All boy.”
“A regular troublemaker, huh?”
She looked at me with sad eyes, laid her hand on mine. “No, honey. You didn’t have to make trouble. It found us.”
I wanted to follow up, but I was beginning to feel guilty about pretending to be my father. Was I being deceitful? Or was it an act of kindness toward an old woman who for the first time in months was holding a conversation that she could enjoy, that she could at least think was normal?
“Who’s that?” I asked as I pointed to another photo.
“Your sister, of course.”
Sister? I didn’t have an aunt. I’d always thought Dad was an only child. “Are you sure?”
“I know my own children,” she said sharply.
I didn’t point out the irony. At the same time I didn’t dismiss her claim that this was her daughter. “Where is she now?”
Her eyes turned misty. Her hands began to shake. “Why do you do these things to me?” she said, her mouth tightening.
“Do what?”
She slammed the photo album shut. “Playing with me that way. Do you enjoy this? ‘Where is she today?’ ” she said, mocking my question. “What kind of nonsense is that? I have a good mind to crack you across the head. No, both sides of the head.”