Luis let his irritation show. “That would also be easier for the Americans to find us. No trucks, Alvarado. We make a trail through the jungle to the first checkpoint. We’ll get them on trucks at that point.”
“We’ll lose at least ten more from the land mines as we march,” Alvarado said.
“We march them in front of us. Better one of them step on a paw-breaker than one of us, eh?” Luis grinned at Alvarado. “And put the fat ones in the front. I want to keep the fit ones for working.”
“And the women?”
“The women we reserve for other things.”
Alvarado laughed.
6
EMMA CAME TO SOME TIME LATER. THE TREES STILL BURNED. Heat reflected off the landing strip, creating waves that looked like transparent streamers undulating upward. She disentangled herself from the bush and moved farther up the mountain to get a better view of the landing strip.
The surviving passengers sat huddled in a circle at the beginning of the runway. Some leaned against their neighbors, while others curled forward with their heads on their knees. Emma recognized several from the plane. An older gentleman, with a full head of white hair, sat tall, despite his age. All but four had their hands tied behind their backs.
Thirty guerrillas, armed with assault rifles, guarded them. They all wore the same dirty green fatigues with lace-up boots. Some drank from canteens that they kept in holders attached to their belts, some smoked cigarettes, and others sucked on hand-rolled brown sticks that looked like joints. All were armed.
One guerrilla stood out from the others. Lean, wiry, with an unshaven, rat-thin face and crazy pinball eyes, he shouted orders and marched back and forth in front of the circle of survivors. The others jumped to obey him.
They’d landed on a dirt airstrip the size of a football field backed on one side by a mountain, on the other by dense foliage. Several trees and jet parts still smoldered, sending thin ribbons of gray smoke into the air. The jungle threatened to encroach on all sides. Stately trees fought with smaller palms for every inch of available space and light. Tropical vines coiled around everything upright and ran along the ground, searching for their next host. The foliage formed a living wall.
Huge potholes dotted the dirt strip, creating a hazard for the landing gear of any plane forced to use it. A deep gash ran the length of it. The end of the gash disappeared under the aft section of the jet. Sun beat down on the strip. Charred bodies, still smoking, littered the dirt around the aft section. Emma gritted her teeth to stop the nausea that rose at the sight of the dead.
The guerrillas barked orders at several male passengers as they worked to pull blackened suitcases from the remains of the cargo hold. Emma recognized one of the passengers who’d sat in the third row. About thirty, tall and slender, with thick dark hair and dressed in a polo shirt and khakis, he had spent the entire flight typing furiously on a laptop computer, stopping only to stare around the first-class cabin with a hyperalert demeanor. On the plane Emma had pegged him either as an overworked oil executive or a paranoid coke addict. She had dubbed him “Wary Man” and hadn’t thought about him again. Now soot covered his face and his polo shirt was in tatters, but he still exuded an air of silent intensity.
A surprising amount of cargo survived the plane’s ill-fated landing. Four guerrillas went to work emptying the suitcases, removing anything valuable. They took laptop computers, jewelry cases, and cameras, but left most of the contents scattered on the ground. Clothing, toiletries, shoes, and hair dryers littered the runway.
One passenger fell to his knees from heat and exhaustion. Rat Face pushed off the Jeep he leaned against and sauntered over. He barked an order in Spanish to a nearby comrade. The soldier grabbed the passenger by the arm and dragged him back to the circle, dumping him facedown in the dirt. The other passengers stayed frozen, staring at the prone man, fear on their faces.
The guerrillas pointed to another passenger sitting in the circle. They untied his hands and pushed him toward the discarded cargo. He joined the others, which Emma now dubbed the “work crew.” At one point, she watched Wary Man push a suitcase and a silver metal briefcase behind some wreckage when the guerrillas weren’t looking.
The noise of engines accompanied by a cloud of dust came from a road that ran up a hill next to the airstrip. Two flatbed pickup trucks appeared only twenty-five feet below Emma’s perch. They ground to a halt at the edge of the airstrip, the doors flew open, and three men stepped out.
The first man out of the trucks wore green twill pants and a collared shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His hair was dark and full, but his face was etched with wrinkles. Emma held her breath as he scanned the foliage in her direction. His eyes held a dead look that frightened Emma with its intensity. She shivered in the heat.
He pulled on a cigarette as he scrutinized the smoldering airplane. Two men surrounded him. These wore fatigues like the rest of the guerrillas on the airstrip, but theirs looked cleaner, and their shirts were sleeved. They dogged the smoking man’s steps while holding machine guns at the ready.
Smoking Man strolled to the back of one flatbed, lowered the hatch, and flipped open a laptop computer. Next to the computer sat two large field phones, each in its own individual bag. Both the phones and the computer had some sort of satellite uplink. The man dialed a number and chatted on the phone, stopping every few minutes to consult the computer screen.
The second phone sat in the corner of the flatbed, next to a mesh bag of apples and a liter bottle of seltzer water. Emma focused on the apples. Her mouth watered at the thought of them. Her stomach growled and her throat burned. She was so thirsty that each swallow felt painful. If she could reach the flatbed undetected, she could take both the field phone and an apple. There were so many in the bag, she doubted the man would notice one less. She would wait until dark to make her move.
Smoking Man finished with his phone call and waved Rat Face over. Smoking Man pointed to something on the computer screen before indicating the passengers huddled on the airstrip. Smoking Man, Rat Face, and the bodyguards spread out, walking through the people, looking at faces. If a passenger stared downward, the men snapped out an order. The passenger looked up.
When they reached the end of the huddled group, Smoking Man shook his head at Rat Face. He tossed his cigarette on the ground and strolled over to him. Another conference. This time there was a lot of yelling on both sides. Rat Face indicated the bodies gathered around the plane’s aft section. He walked over and kicked one of the burned corpses. He put his hands in the air and shrugged.
Emma gasped. That a human being could treat another in such a fashion, even after death, was a matter beyond her comprehension
Smoking Man barked an order. The guerrillas jumped up and started unloading metal disks from the back of the truck. They carried each disk gingerly, as if it were fine china, not a hunk of steel. Emma watched as they hid these disks on the side of the dirt road, alternating sides in a zigzag pattern. Her heart dropped once she realized that the only road to the wreckage would be booby-trapped with land mines. The entire hijacking now appeared to have been planned with an almost military efficiency. Her hopes of a quick search-and-rescue mission were fast disappearing. The enormity of her situation was sinking in, and along with the realization came anger. She settled back in to watch the proceedings with an eye toward disrupting their plans.
While the guerrillas unloaded the disks from the first truck, Smoking Man’s bodyguard climbed into the second truck. Emma scrambled to her feet. Her fear of losing the phone and food was so great that, for a brief moment, she almost ran straight to the truck. She caught herself and slid behind the trunk of a large palm. She watched while the truck drove away. Emma closed her eyes and put her cheek against the tree. After a minute she slumped back down to the ground.