A King's ransom

25

Nineteen hours in Colombia. I’d counted off every one of them, including the wee hours of a sleepless night.

Alex and I had returned from the restaurant before midnight. She went straight to bed. The couch was all mine. I nearly dozed off around 1:00 A.M., then shot bolt upright at the shrill noise of what at first sounded like a drunk screaming his lungs out on the balcony next door. Turned out it was actually a rooster crowing at the moon. Naturally this startled me, since it was hours before dawn and silly me had always thought it was the big orange ball on the horizon that got roosters to crowing. Once awake, I quickly put aside the whole question of this bird’s lousy sense of timing and wondered, more to the point, what in the world a rooster was doing in an apartment building in downtown Bogota in the first place. I had just about convinced myself that it was all a dream when, fifteen minutes later, the crazy bird crowed again, this time waking Alex. She came out to the kitchen for a drink of water and explained that roosters lose all sense of time when housed in a high-rise building. Her tone was so matter-of-fact, as if the whole world knew how screwed up an urban rooster could be. She went back to sleep without a problem. I, on the other hand, was awake for good, anticipating the cock’s next untimely crow, checking the clock repeatedly, counting the hours and then the minutes to our deadline, even though the letter from the kidnappers had set a time for our meeting that wasn’t determined by any clock or insomniac rooster: Sunday at sunrise.

At 4:00 A.M. I was dressed and ready to leave the apartment. Alex was in the shower. I waited in the living room, no television and no radio. Noise traveled freely in the old apartment, even through closed doors, and without moving from the couch I could still hear Alex humming what sounded like a bolero as streams of hot water pelted her firm body. The thought of her nakedness flashed in my mind, though I was far too stressed to be even remotely aroused. Last night’s dinner and conversation still had me puzzled anyway. One moment it had felt like a first date, the next like a jailhouse interview with a convicted felon. The last thing it had resembled was a conversation with a trained negotiator the night before a first communication with kidnappers. Only now, as we were about to head out and accomplish the thing we had come here to do, did I finally see the wisdom in her curious method. We had prepared thoroughly back in Miami, and any last-minute discussion about the kidnapping would only have made me crazy with anticipation and worry. She’d taken my mind as far away from this morning’s meeting as possible, teasing me with her past, even flirting a little with her eyes over a delicious Antioquian dinner. My friend J. C. would have said she was messing with my head. In reality she was just keeping my head screwed on before the most stressful event in my life. At least, that’s what I assumed she was doing.

“You ready, Nick?” she asked as she emerged from her bedroom.

“I think so.”

“You nervous?”

“I know so.”

“I can go alone, if you want.”

“Are you crazy? Let’s do it.”

It was almost two hours before sunrise when we left the apartment and drove east to Calle 20 in the historic Barrio la Candelaria, Bogota’s well-preserved city center. We parked near Quinta de Bolivar, an impressive colonial mansion that was once Bolivar’s home, now a museum. More important, it marked the beginning of our climb to Monserrate, the lower of two impressive peaks that rise to the east of Bogota.

Monserrate was a popular tourist destination. At over thirty-two hundred meters, the summit offered an inspiring view, though according to Alex the expensive French restaurant alone was worth the journey. It could be reached by a funicular railway and cable car, but not at five o’clock in the morning. At that time of day walking was the only option, and it took us about an hour and fifteen minutes with no rest stops. It turned cooler as we climbed, and in the early-morning dampness I was glad for a thick sweater and jacket. Alex and I took turns carrying the shortwave radio in the backpack. Fortunately, the path was comfortably graded, and dressed stone from bottom to top offered secure footing. To my surprise, we weren’t the only climbers. The safety was marginal, but even bandits had to sleep, and Sunday at 5:00 A.M. was about the only time anyone in their right mind ascended Monserrate in the dark.

Four climbers in front of us headed straight for the observation deck near the old church. We walked in the same general direction, past the street vending stalls that were all closed, heading finally toward the picnic grounds behind the church. The kidnappers hadn’t told us to ascend to the top of Monserrate to enjoy views of the city’s tiled roofs and the plains that stretched beyond to the rim of the savanna. It was all about reception on our shortwave radio.

Alex set up the radio on a picnic table near the ridge. For miles below us stretched Bogota and the suburbs it had swallowed to the north. The sun had not yet appeared, but its anticipatory glow was already brightening the horizon. It was that ambiguous hour between night and day. Block by block the shadows were disappearing. The city lights seemed fuzzy, still burning but fading fast, like persistent guests who’d overstayed their welcome. It would be daylight in a few minutes, and in a few hours the park would be crowded with visitors. For now, however, Alex and I were completely alone. She switched on the shortwave radio and set it to the frequency the kidnappers had specified in their letter. I heard nothing but static, but it wasn’t quite sunrise. All we could do was wait.

“What if they don’t call us?” I asked.

“They will.”

She answered with such assurance that I didn’t doubt her for a second.

The radio hissed in a low, empty tone that signified nothing. Alex listened, alert for any change in reception. For nearly twenty minutes we sat at that picnic table, the radio set to the same blank frequency. Through the trees I watched the top of the orange globe rise from behind the peaks to the east. With each passing minute it grew bigger, its arrival magnified by the low band of clouds that turned purple and pink, an endless ribbon stretching the length of the Andes. Slowly the ribbon burned away, and the sun was alone in the sky, too bright to look at directly. At that very moment the radio crackled. At first it was a subtle break in the hiss. Then we heard the voice in Spanish.

“Rey family. Are you there?”

Alex grabbed the microphone. “Yes. We’re here. Go ahead, please.”

“Good morning, my friend.”

It sickened me to hear him call me “friend,” but Alex just rolled with it. “Good morning. We’ve been expecting you.”

“ ‘We?’ ” he said, his tone slightly suspicious. “Exactly who is there with you?”

“Don’t worry, no police. Just me and a member of the family. That’s it. I’m their representative. Call me Alex.”

“All right. Call me Joaquin. I’m sure we will get along just fine. So long as the Rey family is prepared to pay us some money.”

“We don’t even have a demand yet.”

“I thought we’d let you open.”

“Excuse me?”

“You have a member of the family there, don’t you?”

“Yes, but-”

“Who is it?”

“The son.”

“That must be Nick.”

It was strange to hear my name, but at least it confirmed that we were really dealing with the kidnappers.

“That’s right,” said Alex.

“Perfect. Ask him how much his father is worth to him.”

“Knock off the games,” she said harshly.

“It’s not a game. I’m sitting here with his father. Tell Nick to make an offer. If it’s enough, I’ll let his father go free. If it’s not enough, I’ll kill him.”

I looked at Alex, my heart pounding. “Could he be serious?” I asked softly.

She spoke into the microphone, “This isn’t the way we do business. The family has come to deal in good faith. I was hoping you would do the same.”

“Really? Well, how’s this for good faith? I have a pistol to his father’s head as we speak. Make an offer. Make it a good one.”

“Stop this right now,” said Alex.

“Are you offering nothing?”

I gave her a hard look, wanting to make sure she knew what she was doing.

She said, “We’ve come to listen to your demand. Not to make an offer.”

“If the family was dealing in good faith, the son would know exactly how much to offer.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He knows what his father is worth. I know what his father is worth. It’s just a question of who is going to be the first to spit out the number.”

“We’re listening.”

“No, I’m listening. I want to hear the son say it. If I don’t hear the right number, the next sound you’ll hear is the crack of my pistol.”

“We don’t play guessing games.”

“You’ll do what I tell you to do,” he said sternly.

“Then tell us what you want.”

There was silence on the line. My hands were shaking. Nearly ten seconds passed. I looked helplessly at Alex. I was sure the gun would go off.

“Three million dollars,” he said.

Alex laughed. I snatched the microphone from her hand and covered it so the kidnappers couldn’t hear. “Don’t laugh at him! The crazy son of a bitch is going to shoot my father.”

“I know what I’m doing,” she said as she took it back from me.

The kidnapper said, “Do you think I’m joking?”

“Claro,” said Alex. “Three million dollars? You might as well ask for three billion.”

“That’s our demand.”

“Fine. Here’s our demand. We need proof that Matthew Rey is alive.”

“You get only what you pay for.”

“No. Before we plunk down a cent, we need proof.”

“What do you want?”

I knew what she was going to say. Alex and I had worked this out in Miami. “We want Matthew to answer a question. His son had a dog when he was a child. A golden retriever. What was his name?”

“Okay. We’ll get that.”

“You said Matthew was sitting there with you. Ask him now.”

“Can’t do that.”

Alex covered the microphone and said, “I knew he was bluffing.”

This time I wasn’t so sure she really knew.

“Have the answer at our next talk,” she told the kidnapper.

“Easy enough. Same time, same place. Four weeks from today.”

I whispered, but it was still a shriek. “Four weeks!”

She gave me a little wave, as if to convey that the timetable was reasonable. “Four weeks it is.”

“Of course, at that time I will expect you to have a commitment from the family to pay us three million dollars.”

“We’re not going to pay you three million dollars. The family doesn’t have that kind of money.”

“I know with certainty that they do. They’ll pay it, or Matthew Rey is a dead man.”

The radio hissed. We didn’t hear another word.

“He’s gone?” I asked.

“For now.” Alex switched off the radio.

“What do you think?”

“First off, don’t you ever snatch the microphone from my hand while I’m negotiating.”

“Sorry. When you laughed at his demand, I thought for sure he was going to pull the trigger.”

“The way I handled it is the way the game is played. I must have told you a dozen times that most kidnappers settle for ten to fifteen percent of the original demand.”

“I know. This guy just didn’t seem all that open to negotiation.”

For a split second her tough exterior melted, and I saw a look of concern in her eyes. I asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that you may be right.”

“What?”

“You heard how he was talking. The way he stressed that both you and he know your father is worth three million dollars.”

“So you’re saying what? He knows my father bought kidnap-and-ransom insurance?”

“I’m saying more than that. I’m afraid he might know the exact amount of coverage.”

A chill ran right through me. “So my instinct is right? It’s no coincidence that the policy was for three million dollars and he asked for the same amount?”

“It’s possible it’s a coincidence. Three million is a nice round figure, and kidnappers always demand millions for Americans, usually somewhere between one and five.”

“But you don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

“I’m reading between the lines, but I think he was telling us that much.”

“My God. What could be worse than a kidnapper who knows we have a three-million-dollar policy and an insurance company that refuses to pay?”

She looked away. She clearly didn’t have an answer for that one. And neither did I.

The morning sun was burning brightly now, but I still felt cold. We packed up the radio and started back down the mountain.