A King's ransom

by James Grippando

  Strange, but as yet he wasn’t overly concerned for his own safety. He worried about Cathy and wondered how she’d handle this. Who would break the news to her? Would it come by telephone, or would someone visit the house? Thankfully, Nick lived close by. This was going to be tough on the whole family, but it was hard to feel too sorry for himself. Hours of darkness behind the blindfold had forever etched in his memory the horrifying image of his friends riddled with bullets, dead on the deck of the Nina as their blood ran together in a crimson pool. Hector and Livan, two good guys in the wrong place with the wrong gringo at the wrong time. That was the scariest part for Matthew. He knew nothing about his captors except for one telling piece of information: with impunity, they killed the innocent.

  “Stop,” said the guard. It was the first word of English that Matthew had heard since the abduction, but the commands quickly reverted to Spanish. “Espera.” Wait.

  Matthew was squinting. Even the twilight of early evening was more than his sensitive eyes could stand. The setting sun was a bright orange ball in a magenta sky that hovered above the jagged ridges of snowcapped mountains. There was a break in the clouds, and long golden rays streamed like lasers across the open valley. Suddenly the light was gone, and he was standing in the long shadow of two other guerrillas. The first thing that impressed him was their weapons. Both were heavily armed, one with an AK-47 and two bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossing his chest, the other with an Israeli-made Galil assault rifle and a pair of grenades hooked to his belt. The second thing to strike Matthew was the obvious youth in their faces. They were barely teenagers.

  The stocky one motioned with his gun, directing Matthew to a fallen log at the side of the road. “El bano,” he said.

  Peeing in the weeds was just something Matthew was going to have to get used to.

  Unescorted, he crossed the road and stopped at the log. The guerrillas were still watching as he unzipped, though he wasn’t sure why, except to further humiliate him. Finally they turned away and shared a cigarette. They didn’t seem overly concerned about his possible escape, probably because they were in the middle of nowhere. The dirt road they had traveled seemed to dissect an abandoned farm. Across the field, the dilapidated barn was barely standing. What was once a farmhouse had burned to its foundation so long ago that the remains were almost completely covered with weeds. Beyond were endless fields of some kind of crop. Sugarcane, was what it looked like. That gave Matthew a start. From his last trip to Colombia more than twenty years ago he remembered where most of the Colombian sugarcane was grown.

  Good lord, they’ve dragged me as far as Cali. That gave him insight into the identity of his captors. The areas south of Cali were guerrilla strongholds of various Marxist groups.

  He zipped his fly and glanced back at the guards. One was sitting in the truck with his hat over his eyes. The other was throwing stones at a fence post. Matthew took the moment of privacy to take stock of his possessions. Passport, gone. Wallet, gone. Ditto for his wristwatch. They’d left him with the clothes on his back and one essential that in these surroundings seemed like a luxury-his reading glasses. He didn’t imagine he’d be doing much reading. These sons of bitches appeared to be the most desperate group of illiterates he’d ever encountered.

  Again he glanced at the guards. Now they were both seated in the van, their backs to their prisoner. Matthew took a good look across the valley. The tall sugarcane wasn’t that far away. In an all-out sprint he could reach it in sixty seconds, maybe less. It might take these stupid guards that long to notice he was gone. The downside, of course, was that he knew that these guys could shoot. Hector and Livan were the no-longer-living proof of that. One more look. The guy in the hat was sound asleep. The other was fiddling with the van’s radio. This was an opportunity. It might be his last opportunity. His heart was pounding, as if waiting for the brain to send the message-Run for it!

  Suddenly, out of the weeds, another guerrilla rose, then two more. They were standing between Matthew and the sugarcane, just ten yards away from him. They’d been hiding on their bellies, invisible in their camouflage fatigues. Had he run for it, he would have stepped right on them.

  The one in the middle came forward. He seemed a good bit older than the others, maybe thirty. Matthew recognized the eyes from the shrimp boat. He was the leader, the one who’d sported the Australian-style hat. The one who had murdered Hector and Livan.

  “You were thinking about it, weren’t you?” he said in English.

  “What?” said Matthew.

  “You were going to run.”

  “No.”

  “You lie. I saw it in your eyes.”

  Matthew glanced back at the two guards in the truck. They were standing, watching and smiling. They’d set him up. The whole incident had been a test to see if he’d try to escape.

  He stepped closer, then stopped, staring Matthew directly in the eye. “My name is Joaquin. You are a prisoner of war, and you are now my responsibility. You will never escape, so don’t try.”

  “Whose war?”

  “The people’s.”

  “Who are you?”

  “That is not your concern.”

  “What do you plan to do with me?”

  “We intend to treat you as you deserve to be treated. If you are good, we are good to you. If you are bad, your family will be negotiating not for your release but for the return of your lifeless corpse for a proper burial. Do you understand me?”

  Matthew was silent for fear of what he might say in anger. The audacity of this common criminal with a so-called cause was more than he could stand.

  “Do you understand?” Joaquin said, more pointedly.

  “I don’t understand any of this. This is crazy. You and your whole idiotic group of teenage Rambos is crazy.”

  Joaquin glared. “Don Matthew, your attitude is not good. You have already cost me one good man. You are quickly proving to be more trouble than you are worth.”

  Matthew said nothing. Joaquin turned away, then said something in Spanish to the smaller guard that Matthew didn’t quite hear.

  “Adelante,” said the little one. Another surprise: The voice was a girl’s.

  As commanded, he started walking back toward the truck, but she gave him a shove in the other direction, prodding him again with the AK-47. They walked through chest-high weeds until they came to a small clearing of softer grass with the cold black ashes of an extinguished campfire in the center. Two mules were tied to a tree, both bearing a mountain of gear and supplies. Beside them were two goats, a large black one and a smaller white one.

  “Stop,” she said in Spanish. “On your knees, eyes forward.”

  Slowly he knelt in the grass, his arms at his sides. He could sense she was standing behind him, but he didn’t look. He felt vulnerable, defenseless, and now he regretted the insults he’d hurled at Joaquin. These losers had murdered his friends, but he’d have to hold his tongue. They’d kill him just as quickly, especially if he continued to antagonize their leader in front of his little band of juvenile delinquents. He braced himself for some kind of disciplinary action, possibly a beating.

  He heard footsteps behind, heavy boots coming swiftly toward him. He didn’t look back. He just gritted his teeth, expecting a swift kick to the kidneys. Joaquin suddenly whisked past him, then stopped, a long serrated knife in hand. He got down on one knee and began to sharpen it on a rock, the grinding noise piercing Matthew’s ears. When he finished, he held the blade at eye level, the metal glistening in the setting sun.

  Matthew could not tear his eyes away from the eight-inch blade.

  Then, in one swift motion, Joaquin wheeled, reached behind him, and grabbed the smaller goat by the throat. He pinned the animal on its back, jabbed the knife in its underbelly, and slit upward, tearing the ribs from the sternum.

  It screeched in utter agony, a sound unlike any Matthew had heard since his days in Vietnam. It convulsed and kicked, still alive, blood spewing onto the ground. Matthew c
ould hear the last breaths sucking through the gaping wound, through the sliced lungs.

  Joaquin rose, unmoved by the horrific sounds of pain. He simply watched and listened as the animal’s screeches gradually weakened, its life-ending throes losing their kick. The agony lasted a solid minute, and then Joaquin seemed bored. He unholstered his pistol and shot the dying goat in the head.

  Then he turned toward the prisoner.

  My God, is this the way I’m going to die?

  Matthew preferred to be shot making a run for it than to be mutilated by this butcher. His muscles tightened as Joaquin drew near. He was about to lash out, but he held back at the last instant, convincing himself in that tense moment that he was surely worth more alive than dead to Joaquin.

  Joaquin wiped the bloody knife on Matthew’s shirt, one flat side and then the other. “Don’t ever run from me,” he said in a low, threatening tone. “I promise, death will not come so quickly for you.”

  Matthew glared at him, wishing he could just deck this monster.

  “Up,” ordered Joaquin.

  Matthew rose, saying nothing. So much for Joaquin’s promise to treat him well. Matthew had the feeling it was only the first of many lies.

  Joaquin said, “What you said before is true. This is crazy. We are all crazy.” Then he turned to his guerrillas and shouted, “?Bienvenidos a Locombia!”

  They laughed. It was a wordplay on “Colombia” that Matthew had seen before in newspapers, with no exact translation. But he got the drift. Welcome to Crazyland.

  At Joaquin’s command, one guerrilla took Matthew by the left arm, the other by the right, as they led him to the pack mules.

  8

  I had a bizarre dream that night. My family owned a gold mine. We agreed to pay the kidnappers a king’s ransom for my father’s release. It was delivered in a dump truck, tons of glittering gold dust. The guerrillas came with shovels and wheelbarow. When the last of the mountain had been hauled away, the rebels released their hostage. Out from the jungle walked an eighty-six-year-old man who was not my father. Frantic, I chased after the guerrillas and shouted at the top of my lungs that they’d made a terrible mistake. One of them finally stopped and turned, almost laughing as he answered in the exact voice of the Colombian police officer I’d spoken to on the phone last evening.

  You are Senor Alvarez, no?

  Some people find meaning in dreams. I usually dismissed the good ones as wishful thinking and the power of suggestion; the bad ones I chalked up to stress, anxiety, and the power of indigestion. This time I wasn’t taking any chances. The next morning I drove to the Miami field office for a personal visit with the FBI.

  I arrived at half past nine, took the elevator to the second floor, and checked in with the receptionist who sat on the other side of the bulletproof glass. I told her my name and why I was there.

  “You want Agent Nettles, our legal liaison for international kidnappings.”

  “I’ve seen him already. I’d like to see his supervisor, please.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. But it’s no exaggeration to say that this is a matter of life and death. Please, I really need to see someone with authority.”

  She gave me a quick once-over, as if trying to determine whether I was a nutcase. “I’ll see who’s available,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  I sat in the Naugahyde chair and waited. Rising from the table beside me was a three-foot-tall trophy from a regional softball league. On the wall were two plaques that bore the names of FBI agents who’d lost their lives in the line of duty. It was in chronological order. There seemed to be more in recent years, like everything else. More guns. More criminals. More dead FBI agents. More Americans kidnapped abroad.

  Finally the door opened and the receptionist called for me. “Come with me, please.”

  She clipped a visitor’s badge to my shirt, and I followed her down the brightly lit hall. We made several turns, then came to a larger room that was partitioned into smaller workstations by chest-high dividers. Dozens of agents and other personnel were busy in their pods, reviewing files, working at computer terminals, or talking on the telephone. Work here was done without the noise and confusion of police stations, where people always seemed to be shouting at each other or dodging some drunk who was about to vomit on their shoes. An FBI field office had an air of dignity, practically a church, compared to the zoo-in-blue downtown.

  We stopped at a conference room. Three walls were windowless; the fourth was completely glass and faced the interior workstations. Inside were two agents who rose from the table to greet me. The older one was Agent Sam Huitt, a man about my dad’s age. He had the same lines around his eyes as Dad did, too, not from years of squinting in the sun, I surmised, but from habitually narrowing his gaze with suspicion. The younger agent was Angela Pintero, a tall woman with olive skin and short brown hair styled into tight, efficient curls. We exchanged pleasantries and then took our seats, me across the table from the two of them.

  “Are you Agent Nettles’s supervisor?” I asked Huitt.

  “Not directly, but I am a supervisory special agent. And I’m aware of the impasse between the bureau and the State Department.”

  “Good. Because I’m making it my business to break the impasse. Agent Nettles tried to help, but his hands were clearly tied. If you can’t do better, I’d like to speak to your supervisor.”

  “I’m confident we can help.”

  “That’s encouraging. Do you have anything specific in mind?”

  “First, I propose to listen. You came to us. I presume you have some thoughts of your own as to how we can solve the problem.”

  Huitt sat back with hands clasped behind his head. Pintero was poised to take notes. They seemed to operate the way Duncan and I did, the senior guy running the show, the other playing backup.

  “Here’s the way I see it,” I said. “The State Department insists that FBI negotiators can’t be involved if they plan to assist the family in the payment of a ransom. After speaking with my father’s business partner last night, my fear is that the kidnappers will demand a ransom that my family can’t possibly pay. If that’s the case, we might as well have the FBI negotiators on our side trying to get the kidnappers to release my father for no ransom. Let’s just tell the State Department we’ll play by their rules.”

  He smiled thinly, as if amused. “That’s a little transparent, don’t you think?”

  “How so?”

  “If I were the State Department, I would suspect that your overall plan is simply to get the FBI involved, get them entrenched in the case, and then ultimately ignore the no-concessions policy and pay a ransom.”

  The guy was onto me. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

  “Yes. Take a step back and ask yourself why the FBI really declined the State Department’s invitation to participate in this case.”

  I didn’t like his tone. Things had suddenly moved from a friendly discussion to a subtle confrontation, one I didn’t fully understand. “You’re going to have to help me out there, Mr. Huitt.”

  “Did you know that your father has been stopped and interrogated by U.S. customs nineteen times in the last five years?”

  That one hit me like ice water. “No.”

  “Does it surprise you?”

  “Not really. He probably fits an arbitrary profile the government has developed. As often as he travels alone between Miami and Central America, it honestly surprises me that he hasn’t been stopped more often.”

  They just stared at me, silent accusers. Their gaze made me look away, through the conference room’s glass wall. At one of the workstations outside the conference room, I noticed a bumper sticker tacked up on the bulletin board. It read, SO MANY COLOMBIANS, SO LITTLE TIME.

  “Am I in the narcotics unit?” I asked.

  “Yes. I’m a squad leader.”

  “My father’s been kidnapped. Why am I talking to narcotics agents?”

  “
Because we’re the ones you need to play ball with.”

  “What?”

  “You give us something, we give you something. Quid pro quo.”

  “You’d better mean squid pro quo, because that’s about all the Rey family can give you. My father’s a fisherman.”

  “Fisherman, huh?”

  “Yeah. Fisherman.”

  “Whatever you say. But if you stick to that story, we get nowhere in our efforts to resolve the so-called policy differences between the FBI and the State Department.”

  I leaned into the table and looked him in the eye. “Let me make sure I understand. You’re telling me that this deadlock between the FBI and the State Department can be cleared up if. . what?”

  “If you cut the crap about your old man being a fisherman.”

  “But that’s what he is.”

  “Humor us,” said Huitt. “For argument’s sake, let’s say he’s not.”

  I was getting angry. “Okay, let’s play fantasy world. My dad’s not a fisherman. Then what? You’re saying that the FBI will help him get released from his kidnappers, but only if I give you information that will land him in jail the minute he returns to the United States? That’s crazy.”

  “We’re not after your old man. It’s his business partner we want. The Nicaraguan, Guillermo Cruz.”

  “I barely even know Guillermo.”

  “That’s our point,” said the female agent, her only contribution.

  I looked at her, then at Huitt. Both were deadpan. There was nothing I could say in Guillermo’s defense. I’d met him only once in my life.

  Huitt said, “Talk to your mother, see how much she knows. If you can come up with something compelling on Cruz, we’re in business. We get the man we want. Your father gets an FBI negotiator working on his case. Your whole family can have immunity from prosecution.”