by Gary Brozek
Much of the problems stemmed from the fact that, in what we started to refer to as the Mud Camp, we were in much more of a confined space than we had been at either Monkey Village or the New Camp. We weren’t just in the same area, we were right on top of one another. Americans have a pretty large personal space we like to keep around ourselves, and ours had been reduced greatly. Rubbing up against one another physically and emotionally was bound to cause friction. We’d seen some of that in the New Camp even when we weren’t so close together.
One recurring issue at the Mud Camp revolved around the pigs. The FARC had placed a little garbage dump near Tom’s hooch so that it was away from their camp, and at night, some of the camp pigs would root around in the trash—particularly around five in the morning, at first light. This would wake up Tom, who would then shout at them to quiet down. Tom didn’t realize that his shouting was louder than the pigs, loud enough to wake up Keith and me. Keith was very direct in asking Tom to stop his yelling, which in turn pissed Tom off. He’d tell Keith to shut up, and they would part ways angry at each other. We didn’t have a lot to think about during the day, so the two of them would stew all day about what was said and the next day the pig fight would start all over again.
It didn’t go like that every day, but it seemed there was always something little that was setting one of us off. Just like people everywhere, you put up with something annoying for a while, but you store away that anger or resentment for later use. You don’t realize that you’re stockpiling things, but you are. All of us were or had been married, and we all knew that fighting fair meant sticking to the issue at hand, but whenever we were upset about something, some slight we’d stored up would be taken out in the heat of the moment, growing out of proportion until it stank like a spoiled piece of meat.
Part of the reason why Tom and Keith got on each other’s nerves more than I got on theirs was a difference in personality. Tom was a reserved guy, a true Yankee in temperament, while Keith was louder and assertive, a self-proclaimed southern backwoods redneck. Under the best of circumstances, they wouldn’t have gotten on well all the time. Tom hated tension in the camp, just hated it. He knew it added to our collective anxiety, and so when he found himself getting sucked into an argument or tiff, it made him feel even worse.
I wasn’t immune to these run-ins or feeling the effects of them. We had to learn to accommodate certain things. Though we were able to bathe regularly, wearing rubber boots all day produced a foot odor in Keith and me that could have killed a cat and made small children cry. Tom had to put up with that, but he did for the most part because it was something we couldn’t really control. But sitting six inches away from someone while eating every meal for a couple of months, you get tired of their openmouthed chewing or even the sound of their lips smacking when they first open them to take a bite. In that confined space, everything was intensified.
Tom and Keith admitted that in some ways they were like oil and water, and as a result they were less tolerant of each other and each other’s idiosyncrasies than they were of me and mine. As it turned out, the one thing they could always talk about was a subject that I often grew tired of: airplanes. Both of them were airplane fanatics. If they could, they would have talked about airplanes twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week (and at times I felt like they were). Normally I could have just walked away when a conversation wasn’t to my liking, but I had nowhere to go. It was enough to make me scream, and sometimes I did.
In spite of all this, most of the time we were as thick as thieves. The Mud Camp’s conditions, the cords and harnesses, the severe blow to our hopes of a quick release, all combined to really rub us all raw. Even when those disputes were at their worst, we were becoming close as brothers. We were seeing the guards as even more of an adversary than before. With the cords around our necks and being tied up, we became more dependent on them. We hated that and they hated that. If you had to pee, you needed a guard to come and untie you and take you to the trench. Sometimes they didn’t feel like letting you go, so they wouldn’t. For an adult to have to plead with someone to let you relieve yourself was incredibly demeaning. It seemed to be the FARC’s intent to drag us down as low as they could.
Pretty much everything contributed to our misery in the Mud Camp. From late May through the summer, we were in the rainy season. Everything was soaking wet and muddy. When we went to bathe in the nearby creek, we had to pass by the kitchen or what the FARC called the rancho. Water was obviously needed for cooking, so the rancho was often placed as close to the creek as possible. That made sense. What didn’t make sense was the FARC throwing all their garbage in the water right where we were to bathe and wash our clothes. We would be wading in the river in a floating stew of onion skins, vegetable tops, and animals parts, and that was supposed to pass for a bathing area.
Toward the very end of our stay at the Mud Camp, Pollo came into our area and tossed nine bars of soap on the ground. These blue bars were very valuable to everyone. Though they were intended to be used as laundry soap, they were mild enough and more plentiful than the bath soap we used to clean ourselves and nearly everything else we had.
“Where you’re going, this is hard to find,” Pollo said cryptically.
His words frightened us. If we were heading deeper into the jungle and farther from whatever supply lines the FARC had, it meant our release was even more remote than we’d thought. We’d also heard some bombing activity, not as close to us as previously, but hearing it had put Tom in a poor mood. He said that he had gotten it into his mind, and he didn’t know exactly why, that there would be a fifteen-day cease-fire prior to our release. When the bombs fell, it added an additional fifteen days to his sentence. Keith knew that Pollo’s indication about a possible release in time for his son’s birthday on May 20 was just so much more of the usual FARC lies that we’d fallen victim to again.
A few days later, we learned that we were going to be on the move again. We did the best we could to tell ourselves that the move was a good thing—but we were poking at the ashes of a fire that had long since gone out. We moved out overnight, and even though the march was only a few hours, we were in agony. The nearly five weeks at the Mud Camp of being tied up and not allowed to move freely had taken their toll. It was only when we’d been forced to march that we understood just how much our physical condition had deteriorated. Wherever they were taking us, we were hoping that it wouldn’t be far. After a four-hour slog, we camped along a river for three nights, before aluminum river canoes showed up to whisk us away, deeper into the jungle than we’d ever been.
SIX
Proof of Life
July 2003—September 2003
KEITH
I never would have guessed that knowing how many bars of soap I had at my disposal would have such an influence on my outlook. When Pollo dumped those things at our feet and told us they’d be in short supply, he might as well have been dumping our hearts onto the ground. As quickly as we scrambled to pick up those blue bars, I knew we’d have to be just as fast at picking ourselves up if we were going to make it back to higher emotional ground. A day or so later, Ferney dropped off more razors, toothpaste, and toothbrushes. Message received, sir: We were going away for a long time to a place or places where resupply was going to be tough. As much as we’d been able in the past to spin a spiderweb of hope out of the most insignificant of things—hat vs. hatless guards, being near a road, changes in the guards’ shift patterns—there was no denying this new reality.
To give you a better idea of how much our inactivity affected our previous reality, we could barely scrub our clothes for more than a minute or two without being winded. Though it only lasted a few hours, we were grateful to be loaded into boats for the next part of our trek. The FARC had a number of twenty-foot-long aluminum river canoes. Seated on slat benches, we took off down a tree-choked stream, though it was hard to tell if it was an actual stream or if the rainy season had simply flooded the whole area. At times, there was so
much vegetation clogging the water that our canoe trip wasn’t much different from hiking through the jungle. The boats were made by a company called Duroboat and those things lived up to their name. Our boat driver would gun that Yamaha forty-horse engine and drive that thing like a bulldozer as he plowed through the debris.
Sometimes we’d have to go so close to the water’s banks that we had to duck under the low-hanging branches and then endure a rain of insects, spiders, and other creepy-crawlies as they shook loose from their perches. We’d long since gotten used to being stung or bitten, and though I would swell up like a balloon every time the wasps got me, I was never worse for the wear.
Despite the insects, this three-day boat trip was a real treat. We’d been living under confinement in the jungle for about six months, and during that time, we weren’t just under the FARC’s umbrella, we were under the flora and fauna’s umbrella as well. As down as we were about the prospect of another release going by the wayside, being out in even the limited space of the water was a literal breath of fresh air. Even better was when we reached the more open areas where the boat could maneuver freely and the sun shone on our pale white skin.
With blue July sky above us, and even bluer skies on the horizon, the boat trip felt a little bit like a vacation. Being under a jungle canopy for any length of time has a very depressing effect on you. We noticed the difference even when we were on a march and came into a clearing. It was like a spot of sun on an otherwise rainy day. You’d enter it and feel a sudden boost of energy; you’d exit it and feel that energy just drain away.
Unlike when we were marching, we were doing a lot of our moving during daylight hours. We’d travel most of the morning and usually quit in early afternoon. Even when we were in open areas, the FARC didn’t seem to be as on edge as they had previously. None of the guerrillas scanned the skies for planes; none of them watched the banks for signs of Colombian military activity. Marc, Tom, and I were still in our harnesses and ropes, but the guards eased up on the no-talking rule. The three of us didn’t abuse the privilege, but one of our main topics of discussion was how openly we were being moved—we knew that we were close to “civilization” a few times because we could hear other boats navigating tributaries to our left and right.
We could only draw two logical conclusions for the change in our movement: The first was that the FARC had agreed to some kind of deal on us and had gotten the DMZ they were always asking for—thus, we could travel without fear of being detected. The second was that somehow the FARC had gotten intel from the Colombian military that had informed them that this was a cool zone. The second seemed more unlikely. We hadn’t seen much in the way of tactical competence from the FARC up until then, so why would we assume that they were able to engage in any kind of covert operations at higher levels.
All through the boat ride, we were still in travel mode—just sleeping on the ground, sometimes for a single night and sometimes for more. On July 23, 130 days into our captivity, the Fat Man walked into one of these temporary camps with his Santa Claus aura. He sat down at a barlike table the FARC had carried with them and hastily set up in a few minutes near our campsite. We immediately sensed something was up. Sombra had two switches—badass and nice guy—but that day he seemed different. He reached into his shirt pocket and showed us that he had lollipops. He signaled for Tom to come and sit with him on the same bench. Sombra was in his speechifying mood, so Marc and I could hear what he was saying.
“Tomorrow we will once again demonstrate our strength and unity to all the world. They will understand our commitment to our cause and see how just we are.”
Tom decided to play along. “You love the peace, I know. But what does that have to do with us?”
“An international press will be here tomorrow to speak with all of you.”
“International press?”
“Yes, a well-known journalist and others will speak with you.” Sombra paused for dramatic effect. “I need to know your clothes sizes. You must look good for your visitors. You will have a chance to clean up.”
Tom turned to us while Sombra sat and held the lollipops in his hand like a kid’s doctor waiting to deliver an inoculation. “He seems to be saying that this is a big deal. Besides talking about the journalist, he used the term prueba de vida—proof of life.”
We’d heard the term before, but we were wondering exactly how the Fat Man and his cronies conducted such a thing. We knew the basics, that we’d be photographed or videotaped with some dated document, a newspaper usually from the day of the proof of life, to show everyone that we were still alive. We didn’t have much time for who, what, when, where, or why questions. A couple of guards came in holding their hands up like just-scrubbed surgeons going into an operating theater. They had scissors in them, and we were clearly the objects of their intentions. The rest of the guards gathered around to watch us get our haircuts. After that, we were brought big bowls of rice and canned tuna. We were clearly being worked. They wanted us to be happy and full-bellied for this proof of life meeting.
We took advantage of the situation by talking openly.
“What else did he say? Did he let us know how the proof of life was going to go down?” I asked.
“He said that we would send a communication to our families and that would fuel an interchange. He didn’t give me any more details than that.”
Marc scratched at his neck, trying to rid himself of newly cut hairs, “Why would they go through all this trouble to let people know we’re alive if they weren’t going to release us? They must have worked some deal.”
“I wonder if the journalist is from CNN? Christiane Amanpour does a whole bunch of their international stuff,” I added.
Tom said, “I don’t care who they send, just that this proof of life gets back to our families.”
Marc smiled and shook his head. “I know. Shane and my mom are going to see this and they’re going to be excited. Can you imagine sitting at home and seeing our faces come up on-screen? After all this time. They have to have known that we were alive, right?”
Marc returned to a question that had been on all our minds for so long. We knew the military had seen us alive that first day when the helo gunner and I had made eye contact. Without any proof of life since then, did any of them wonder if the FARC had executed us? I had to push that thought away.
“Somebody in our government has been in touch with them, Marc. They know we’re out here. We aren’t forgotten. This proof of life is probably a demand from somebody through channels that lead to D.C. They know, bro.”
Following a mostly sleepless night, Sombra retrieved us the next morning. We’d been told to prepare for an overnight stay, so we packed light. The Frenchman, Milton, Smiley, and a couple of other guards accompanied us. At one point, we had to stop for refueling on a small island. Sombra walked off with Ferney and we were left with Milton and another guard. They started talking and eventually the news leaked out to us that Colin Powell, the God-bless-him-four-star-general secretary of state of the United States of America, had just been in Colombia on our behalf. We were all completely jacked up to hear that.
Immediately our brains’ motors spun up and we were wondering who else besides the press might show up at our proof of life. We thought of the U.S. ambassador to Colombia at the time, Anne Patterson, other possible State Department officials, maybe even representatives of Northrop Grumman. We also talked about what Colombian officials might be there—Interior and Justice Minister Fernando Londoño and others.
Once back on the boat, we were handed blindfolds and a lame apology from Sombra for the “necessity.” A short while later, they placed us under black plastic, but the smell of gas under there was making us all sick. We raised hell until they lifted the plastic and let us remain visible the rest of the way. After a four-to six-hour boat ride, we were led off the boats by our harnesses and up an incline. The sounds of the jungle and the boat motor were replaced by the noises of passing cars and human voices. We were p
laced in some kind of vehicle—likely the back of one of their Toyota Land Cruiser trucks—and driven off. We could feel the breeze on our faces and hear the hum of civilization all around us. When we stopped, we were helped out of the truck, and a guard took each of us by his harness and cord. They led us along a wooden boardwalk, and as we walked, chatter from a crowd gathered and the roar of a portable generator rose up around us.
I assumed that we were being taken somewhere like a hotel room or someplace else for the prueba de vida, but when we were sat down in chairs and our blindfolds were removed, I saw that we were in another small twelve-by-twelve room made of tablas. Just as we had been when we met Gómez, Ramírez, and Mono JoJoy, we were now zoo animals. A whole group of FARC we’d never seen before passed by the open door of the room we were in and they were staring at us. Most of them put on a big macho display of anger directed at the gringos until the Frenchman and the Fat Man put an end to viewing hours and led us to another small room with tablas supported on sawhorses. So much for nice beds and a turndown service at night.
In an adjoining room, there was a large plastic water barrel. Because we’d been communing with the pigs at the Mud Camp, their indiscriminate pissing and shitting in the mud at our swimming area made us wary of water of any kind. We pulled the top and couldn’t believe what we were seeing—the bottom of the barrel—for once literally instead of figuratively. We’d been so used to drinking and bathing in cloudy brown water that the sight of the bottom of that barrel through the crystal-clear water had us staring like we were reading the formula for turning lead into gold. It was so pristine we were tempted not to use it all, but hygiene and vanity won out.