A King's ransom

28

The Swede was beginning to freak. Matthew had been watching Jan closely the last few days, fearful that he might do something stupid. He’d been acting strange ever since the guerrillas took the Canadian into the jungle and shot him. One minute he was withdrawn, the next surly and angry. Perhaps it was his way of grieving. He and Will used to argue and hurl insults back and forth, and only after the execution did Matthew get the sense that the two men hadn’t merely worked for the same mining company but had actually been close friends.

Just days after Will’s death two new prisoners arrived, a young married couple from Japan. The woman spoke English and told Matthew what had happened. They were bird-watching along the Colombian border near Ecuador, one of the most beautiful hiking areas in the world. They’d felt safe because they were traveling with a guide who knew the area and, presumably, the dangers. Joaquin and four of his guerrillas surprised them near a mountain stream during their lunch break. The guide was Colombian and talked to Joaquin for nearly half an hour, at times a heated discussion. In the end the guide went free and the tourists were taken away at gunpoint. The woman had been angry at first, suspecting that the guide had pleaded for his own release and not theirs. Soon she realized that the more likely scenario was that she and her husband had been set up from the very beginning, led into Joaquin’s lair by their own guide, who was probably haggling with Joaquin over his commission.

The arrival of new prisoners further unsettled a group that was already on edge from the execution. The threat of death had always been in the air, but the lone gunshot that had pierced the night and the empty space around the campfire the following morning had made it all too real. Each of them had submitted to captivity while clinging dearly to the notion that a prisoner was more valuable alive than dead. Surely Joaquin wouldn’t discard his merchandise and deprive himself of a hefty ransom. Will’s death and the wisdom of the old-looking Colombian with orange hair-“Flea Man,” as Jan called him-had set them all straight.

“Sometimes it’s just easier for a guy like Joaquin to negotiate with the family for the return of a dead body,” said the Flea Man.

With tensions running high, Matthew was thankful for his new source of sanity: fishing. While Joaquin and his abduction team were out hunting for Japanese tourists, Matthew had convinced the remaining guards that he could fish trout from the stream. They were as tired of the bland diet as anyone, so they let him try. He fashioned a hook from a small safety pin, and the line was a six-foot length of thread he unraveled from the frayed hem of a canvas tarp. Worms and grubs were a plentiful source of bait. In the company of two guerrillas, he fished almost an entire afternoon and caught sixty-one trout from a quiet eddy near a fallen log. They were no bigger than his hand, but anything larger would have snapped the line of thread and taken off with his only hook. Last night Aida had grilled them over the fire in the hut, and the guerrillas ate most of them. She brought the five smallest ones to Matthew, his reward for having caught them. The other prisoners got the usual rice and beans. Matthew gave one fish to each of them. Even with the heads on, they were barely enough to add a little flavor to the rice.

Yesterday it had rained all day, so they didn’t go fishing. This afternoon, however, the sun was shining, and the guerrillas were hungry for more trout. They’d found another safety pin, and Matthew rigged up a second line with more canvas thread. He told them he couldn’t watch both lines at once without risk of losing one of them, so they let him bring along a fishing buddy. The prisoners drew straws to see who could go. The Swede won.

They left camp after lunch and returned to the same eddy, about a fifteen-minute walk. Four guards went this time because of the extra prisoner. For added security they chained the prisoners together at their ankles. Aida and her boyfriend perched themselves atop a rock in the sun. They were soon groping each other. The two other guerrillas entertained themselves with a Spanish-language travel book that Joaquin had taken from the guide who’d led the Japanese tourists into trouble. Every few minutes they hooted with laughter, pointing at yet another passage that read, “This area is safe for tourists.” Travel books were like the kidnapper’s guide to hunting and fishing.

In thirty minutes Matthew had caught eleven trout. The Swede hadn’t caught any.

“Will you stop making me look bad?” said Jan.

“You’re doing fine. Just be patient.”

“Don’t patronize me. These guerrillas are going to think I’m worthless.”

Matthew smiled, thinking he was kidding. But Jan’s expression was tense and deadly serious. “Lighten up, all right?”

“How do you expect me to lighten up? Can’t you see I’m next on their list?”

“What list?”

Jan lowered his voice, as if to make double sure that the guards couldn’t overhear. “Their list of expendables.”

Matthew glanced toward Aida and her boyfriend. They’d moved from atop the rock to the bushes behind it. “You’re giving these punks too much credit. They don’t make lists.”

“Go ahead, brush it off. You’re now their fair-haired boy, Mr. Fisherman. But me, I’m just Will’s friend. Will, the pain in the ass.”

“They’re not going to kill you just because of that.”

“You heard what the Flea Man said. Joaquin’s group has enough guards to handle five or six prisoners, tops. With this new Japanese couple, we have seven now.”

“He also said Joaquin eliminates only the ones who look like they won’t pay off. Will was stupid. He flaunted the fact that his family wouldn’t pay.”

“That wasn’t just a pact he’d entered into with his wife. That’s the philosophy of our whole company. Will and I got extra pay to come to Colombia, but we knew that if we were kidnapped, the company wouldn’t pay.”

“Joaquin doesn’t have to know that.”

“He’ll know soon enough. I’m not married. I don’t have a wife or family to come up with the money to get me out of here. Joaquin is sure to make a ransom demand on my company. And they won’t pay.”

Matthew lowered his eyes. A trout was skimming the surface, flirting with his hook. “You don’t know that for sure.”

“Management thinks exactly the way Will did. I’m telling you because I trust you. My only way out of here is on my own two feet.”

“You mean an escape?” Matthew whispered.

Jan made a face, as if saying it would jinx things. “If I stay, I’m a dead man. And you’re in the same boat.”

“Why do you say that?”

“These little underlings might like you now that you’re catching fish for them. But Joaquin, he’s got a score to settle with you. That guerrilla who got killed in the shoot-out on your boat in Cartagena was one of his best men.”

Matthew froze for an instant. He hadn’t told anyone about Cartagena. “How did you know about that?”

“I keep my ears open. The guards talk plenty.”

Matthew said nothing, thinking.

“So you with me or not, fisherman?”

Again Matthew lowered his eyes toward the fish. It was about to bite, then swam away from the hook. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I have responsibilities here.”

“What?”

“The two young Colombians. When Joaquin took us back from FARC, he said he’d kill Emilio if I tried to escape. He’ll kill Rosa if I succeed.”

“It’s a bluff. He won’t kill two prisoners with families willing to pay.”

“I can’t risk it.”

“Don’t be a fool. You need to look out for number one. You said your wife is pregnant, right? Your family needs you.”

That was true, in part. The family needed him-the new family anyway, the baby who might never know his father. It would have been easy for Matthew to feel sorry for himself, but he felt even worse for the much younger parents who might never see any of their children grow. Matthew had been blessed with the chance to raise two children to adulthood. Sometimes he’d felt as though he’d screwed it up; often he wished he were closer to his children. But there was no denying he’d been given the chance. Whether he deserved a second one, he couldn’t say.

“I just can’t run out of here at someone else’s expense.”

“They’d do it to you, my friend. This is the law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest.”

“I told you, I can’t.”

“All right. I’m on my own. But think about it, will you?”

“Sure,” he said, but he knew that escape wasn’t an option. It wasn’t even necessary. Maybe Joaquin was angry about the shoot-out in Cartagena, but in the end a ransom payment would surely ease his grief and erase whatever anger he felt toward Matthew. Joaquin loved money, and Matthew’s insurance company had plenty to give.

But why was it taking so long?

Just hope I picked a good company, he thought as he turned away from Jan and refocused on his fishing.