“So what are you saying? I’m next?”
“No. Clearly it’s me. But once I’m gone, it’s only a matter of time before they take care of you.”
“They’re not going to kill me and give up a ransom.”
“Don’t kid yourself. That Japanese couple is loaded, and the Japanese have a reputation for always paying. Joaquin doesn’t need your ransom. One snag in the negotiations, he’ll kill you for the fun of it.”
Up ahead, the scouts emerged from the jungle and reported to Joaquin. Apparently they’d found what they were looking for. Two guards approached the Japanese couple. Joaquin and three others came for Matthew and Jan.
“What now?” said Jan.
“We’re going for a walk,” said Joaquin.
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
They walked single file with the Japanese prisoners toward a densely forested part of the jungle. It was more overgrown and much darker than anything they’d covered all day. An animal growled from somewhere in the thicket, and the Japanese woman clung to her husband. He sniped at Joaquin in Japanese, and the tone if not the words conveyed his message. From behind, a guerrilla shoved him and brandished his weapon, threatening him into silence. The mysterious animal growled again. Hundreds of birds suddenly exploded from the tree branches high overhead. It was nearly deafening, the flutter of wings and all that screeching and cawing. They warned of danger. Unfazed, Joaquin and his two machete-wielding scouts led them deeper into the jungle, brushing back bamboo stalks and droopy green elephant ear plants. Five armed guerrillas followed closely behind the prisoners.
Matthew wasn’t sure what was going on. It seemed odd that the three Colombian prisoners had been left behind.
“Stop,” Joaquin said.
They’d reached a clearing at the edge of a cliff. A canyon stretched before them, a huge gorge with steep walls that descended at least seven hundred feet. A muddy river snaked tortuously below, its raging waters the only audible sound in the valley. With this view, Matthew gained a full appreciation of Colombia’s nickname, “the Tibet of the Andes.”
He focused on what at first glance looked like a huge bird swooping across the canyon, and then he realized it was a man-carrying a pig. A steel cable stretched from one side of the mountain to the other, which Matthew hadn’t noticed right away, because it was covered in part by a low-hanging cloud. The man was seated in a rope sling, zipping across the canyon on a simple pulley-and-tackle system, easily topping thirty-five miles per hour. He was just fifty feet away from the cliff’s edge and closing fast. The cable whined as he applied the brake, a crude wooden fork that the rider squeezed to create friction. The added weight of the pig had given him too much momentum, and he slammed into a wall of old tires that brought him to an abrupt stop. He picked himself up, and he and his pig scampered away without fuss. As if this were just an everyday trip from the market in a country with too few roads and bridges.
Matthew watched as one of the guerrillas strapped himself into the sling on a parallel cable that sloped in the opposite direction for return traffic. He pushed himself off the cliff, shouting like a bungee jumper as he sped away on the steel cable, hanging perilously above a river that churned two hundred meters below, and finally disappearing into the thick white cloud that filled the valley.
“What do you make of this?” Matthew whispered.
“I don’t know,” Jan said under his breath. “But I wouldn’t count on it being good.”
Matthew exchanged a wary glance with the Japanese prisoners, nervously waiting his turn.
33
Matthew could not believe his eyes.After crossing the canyon, they’d walked for twenty minutes, mostly uphill along a narrow and at times overgrown jungle path. The last hundred-yard stretch had been downright frightening. The path was at its narrowest along the edge of a steep cliff. The rocks were slippery, the footing unsure. Any lapse in concentration could have meant a two-hundred-foot drop straight down into the ravine, instant death. But finally they’d reached their destination, a surprising reward.
“Will you look at that,” said Matthew.
Before them was a large pond, a warm and wet hole in the jungle canopy where the sun streamed in. Clouds of steam wafted up from the calm, flat waters. Matthew could feel the heat in the soles of his shoes, and each step toward the water brought the audible crunch of ancient volcanic cinders beneath the overgrowth of fallen jungle foliage, grass, and mosses that had gathered over the centuries. Joaquin had brought them to an extinct crater, a tiny geothermal paradise where nature warmed the waters to bath temperature. To a man who hadn’t bathed in weeks, this was heaven on earth.
“You have ten minutes,” said Joaquin. “Head above water at all times. If we lose sight of any one of you, we shoot everyone.”
The guerrillas positioned themselves at evenly spaced intervals along the water’s edge. The prisoners looked at each other with some humility. Without words, Matthew and Jan agreed not to lay eyes on the woman. Matthew removed his clothes eagerly and immersed himself up to his neck. On so many levels it was sensual overload, and for the first time in nearly a month he was actually smiling. The waters warmed him to his core, soothing the elbows, wrists, and other joints that ached from cold and wet mountain air. He would have loved to dunk his head under and swim to the bottom, but he didn’t doubt for a minute that Joaquin would commence fire on him and the others the instant he disappeared from view. He swam the breaststroke, the first exercise he’d had since jumping off the boat in Cartagena-and the thought of Cartagena brought him back to reality. Here he was frolicking in the warm waters, almost grateful to Joaquin. Gratitude was the last thing he should have been feeling. He could never let himself forget that his Nicaraguan friends, Hector and his son Livan, were dead at the hands of this monster.
Floating on his back, Matthew glanced toward Joaquin on the shoreline. They didn’t make eye contact. The guerrilla was fixated on the naked Japanese woman, having positioned himself perfectly for a peep show.
Ten minutes passed quickly. Joaquin called them back to shore. Matthew swam as close in as possible, then rose and ran to his clothes on the rocks. Jan was right behind him. The warm waters had turned his pasty pallor pink, and the air felt very cold. Ten meters to their left, the Japanese couple helped each other to shore. The woman covered herself quickly, still enduring the weight of Joaquin’s stare.
“Leave the old clothes,” shouted Joaquin.
They stopped dressing. One of the other guerrillas came forward and gave each of them clean trousers and a warm shirt. The Japanese bowed and thanked him profusely. Even Jan muttered a reluctant “Gracias.” Matthew just took the clothes, in no mood to thank a murdering kidnapper for the necessities of life.
They dressed quickly, and Matthew was happy to leave his smelly garments behind. He hated to indulge himself in false hopes, but one thought consumed him: Could this mean they’re letting us go?
Instantly, thoughts of Cathy flooded his mind. He wondered how his wife was handling the pregnancy, if she was showing yet, if she’d started decorating the baby’s room. He wondered if she’d received any of the late-night messages he’d tried to convey through nothing more than mind power. He had no idea if telepathy worked, but it was all he had, and he concentrated very hard when he told her that he loved her every night. He thought of Nick and Lindsey, too, but that was risky. He’d made mistakes with his children, and the memories weren’t always pleasant. A guerrilla camp in the mountains was no place for regrets, not for a man who knew that he might never even see his family again, let alone make things right.