Captives (2 page)

There was a glow about Callaghan now, his silver hair still immaculate, his suit crisp, as Martin's father began to shift uncomfortably, out of his depth, in his ill-fitting black designer suit.

“No, I wouldn't deny that the diary has made money.”

“And the Deschamps, as you know, Tony, claim that that was your intention from the start. They say that the only ‘voice' speaking to you out there was one saying you could make a lot of money out of the experience—that you concentrated your efforts on your diary to the exclusion of all else.”

“That's crazy—I mean, not crazy, but absolutely mistaken. After all, none of us had any idea we were going to get out of there alive. I just thought that if we did, then it was—and is—a story that deserves to be told. As a tribute to everything we went through and especially…”

“To little Louise.”

“To Louise, yes.”

“Because, Lord, it must have been horrendous never knowing if Nick was alive or dead—but that's not quite the same as losing a daughter.”

Martin saw the statement as a trap, something to draw some ire from his father or a few more beads of sweat under the lights. His father swallowed and remained calm.

“I would never, in a million years, claim that it was. And I don't think anything I've written or said would give that impression.”

It was, however, the impression, or something like it, the Deschamps had taken. Martin glanced to the foot of his bed, where the crumpled newspaper article was spread out. He'd saved it from the bin into which his mother had thrown it.
AT OUR DAUGHTER'S COST
, read the banner headline. Below it, the Deschamps, recently separated (“The loss of Louise,” Melanie Deschamps tells us, “was a pain we just couldn't share…”), outlined the case against Tony Phillips and his wife, Carol. Whenever there was work to be done—the setting up of a camp, the digging of a latrine, the gathering of firewood—the Deschamps claimed, Tony Phillips would be lost in his diary and his wife in those crude line drawings that now illustrated it.

The girl who appeared in the main photograph—there was a smaller one inset of the smiling family of three—was naturally more groomed than she had looked in the famous
Captives
photograph. This was a school photograph, after all. She wore her auburn hair long over her shoulders;: the studio lighting had emphasized its reddish hue. Martin remembered the day when she'd insisted it be shorn because of the heat. He remembered her long neck; the trail of light hairs that led down to her back.

The uniform and the pose naturally gave the picture a formality, but there was a light in her eyes, an openness that took in the joking photographer. To those who could see it, there was the same light in the eyes of the girl whose knee lay against his in that forest—a slight pressure he felt more keenly than almost anything that had touched him in all the days since.

There had been the briefest pause in the interview, as if Callaghan knew this was the time to let Martin's father off the leash; either to offer a credible defense or to bury himself. His father took his chance.

“Can I say here, as I've said before, that I—or any other person with an ounce of feeling—would do anything to change the end of the story? But fighting isn't going to bring Louise back. As for profits, I've offered to set up a scholarship or some kind of trust fund in Louise's name as a memorial—”

“Which her family reject.”

“Unfortunately, at the moment, yes.”

“What reasons do they give for this decision?”

“I really don't want to speak for the Deschamps. They have their reasons. All I would say is that I too recognize a young life is beyond price.”

There were a few claps from the audience, during which his father turned to the side table, lifted the tumbler, and took a good gulp of water.

“I'm sure we all agree with that sentiment. Lastly, Tony, what do you say to their criticism that you present the guerrillas in a favorable light?”

Oh, Dad, you old hippie, Martin thought, you've been rumbled.

“Oh, that. Well, naturally, I utterly condemn their actions. I hope that's clear in the diary.”

“Certainly it is. But there's also a way in which their leader emerges as a figure of dignity, a poet to boot—he and his sidekick, Maria.”

“Maria couldn't really be described as—” his father began, then changed his mind. He sensed time was running out. And he had an important point to make.

“I don't know about that,” he said. “I think that's really for the reader to decide.”

His father's instincts had been right. For immediately, Callaghan was thanking his father for “coming on the show” and “being so candid” and “sharing his incredible story with us all on such an
un-tropical
night.” “Good luck with the film” was his final comment, a clear indication of the line he had been following throughout the interview. But, as his father nodded briefly at the audience's applause and shook Callaghan's hand, Martin thought it could have been a lot worse, and his last answer about “letting the reader decide” had been a good one.

He flicked off the TV and reached for the stack of four Sunday supplements that currently made up the published diary. But there were steps on the stairs. He threw part of his bedcover over the magazines. His mother opened the door, enough to pop her head in.

“Did you see it?” she asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“What did you think?”

“I thought he came out of it OK.”

“Me too. Quite a relief.”

They exchanged fleeting smiles.

“Aren't you going to come down to join us?”

Us.

“Nick would like that. Dad'll be home soon. We could watch a video.”

“It's a DVD these days, Mum.”

“Yes, sorry, of course, a DVD.”

“Maybe later.”

“All right … You OK up here? Warm enough? It's perishing outside.”

“I'm fine. Like, we do have central heating.”

“Yes, sorry, of course. What are you going to be doing?”

“Just reading. Listening to music.”

“Oh.”

His mother stood in the doorway in silence, as if frozen there.

“Mum.”

“Yes, Martin.”

“Is there anything else?”

“No. Nothing. Just wondering what you're reading.”

“Just stuff.”

“Oh, well.” She had moved into the room now and reached out a hand to stroke his hair, but he bent his head away from her.

“Sure you're all right?”

“Perfectly. Now please, Mum…”

His mother gave him one last weak smile and closed the door after her.

*   *   *

The diaries were published in magazine form as
Exclusive: Captives,
a lurid red title slantwise across the photograph of them all hunkering down in the forest. Below the photograph,
The Diary by Tony Phillips
was in sober black lettering. Of course, the published diaries could not show what the original diary did in its thick black notebook: namely, a deep triple scoring under the previous day's entry, an over-poetic description of a day spent snorkeling in clear blue waters. These scores, more eloquently than anything else, marked the fearful border they had all crossed.
Jesus, what has happened? What will happen now?

Martin knew that finally he had to read the diaries for himself. It had been easier till now to let his father speak for them all—it had after all been a story his father was desperate to tell. But now was the time to get the measure of his father's story and to test it against the one he had pieced together for himself. He was aware of the tangled landscape he would have to enter once more and didn't know quite what he would find there—what false trails his father might have laid. He took a deep breath and opened the magazine.

Naturally enough, as his father had admitted openly, the diaries had been rewritten—“lightly edited,” the editor more guardedly claimed—for publication, and there was evidence of the dead hand of a sub-editor at work in each of the headings. But it was clear to Martin that his father had thought long and hard about the best way into the story. In the end he had discovered that the best way in was simply to highlight the dilemma of where to start and to give the story straight.…

[PART ONE]

THE DIARIES

[CAPTIVES 1]

THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS

Day One

God, where to begin? How to write of this horror? We're kidnapped—held hostage—Carol, Martin, and me. We don't know where Nick is, but pray he's escaped all this. There's a great need, in spite of everything, to keep calm. Perhaps the diary can help to order my thoughts, to keep a hold on what's happening to us.

*   *   *

Two days ago—only two days?—we turned up at Island Adventure to take up our booking of two days' trekking in the National Park. There was another family going—a Frenchman, his American wife, and their daughter, who is sixteen or so: Martin's age. The Frenchman is fair, tall, and athletic—the kind who look as if they could walk all day—and I noted a small wave of anxiety cross Carol's face. I told her to take her measure not from him, but from his wife—already you could see sweat gathering behind her dimpled knees and edging the broad hair band that fought to contain the wild curls of her hair. Besides, I pointed out, there was also a couple in early retirement, the Lehmans, whom we'd eaten with at the hotel the previous evening.

There was the usual lack of urgency. A small group of men in T-shirts and baseball caps came and went, greeting one another—
Buenos días, qué pasa?
etc.—the smiles broadening the more we looked at our watches. But I've learned that's the way here; eventually things do happen. So we sat in the shade of the dingy office of Island Adventure—I could laugh at the name now!—our overnight packs by our sides, made small talk with the other couples, and waited. We learned the other family's name was Deschamps—Jacques and Melanie. After a while their daughter, Louise, sighed loudly and went outside to sit on the wooden steps.

Just when Martin and Nick had put that “Come on, Dad, make something happen!” look on their faces, three battered old taxis drew up. The man who'd introduced himself to us as “Gabriel, your guide”—a thin, jaundiced-looking man, who'd been passing the time scribbling notes and numbers on scraps of paper—came out of the shadows and told us the taxis would take us to the start of the trail. “Do we really need three taxis?” I said. I mean, I've seen them pack six people and their luggage into an average-sized family car.

“
Seguro,
” the guide said. “Is better for you, no?”

“
Que faire?
” I said to the Frenchman and was immediately embarrassed, as he speaks perfect English, though still with a trace of accent. He shrugged.

“Please,” said Carol, “we've waited long enough. Don't start an argument over nothing.”

“Nothing, yes,” said the guide, and smiled weakly at Carol. I felt irritation rise in me, but then again, what was the point? We'd paid in dollars beforehand and I couldn't think how they could profit from us further—but I wouldn't have put it past them to try. We grabbed our bags and stepped outside the office into the morning sun. The white face of the church was dazzling.

Nick, Mr. Sociable, said he'd go last with the Lehmans. They were delighted: “Hey, we're a family too!” We got into the cars—smelling of hot earth and rubber—and soon were heading along the waterfront and out of town. We held on to the seats as the car rolled to avoid potholes, lorries packed with people, bicycles, walkers. The driver smiled at us in his mirror, his eyes masked with sunglasses. Our guide, who was sitting beside him, turned around once to apologize for the state of their roads. As we left the coast and cleared most of the signs of small villages, the road got even rougher, the vegetation denser, and I felt excitement at the promise of adventure.

What happened next is a blur.

*   *   *

There are petrol gasoline barrels across the road. Our car stops. I glance behind and see the Deschamps's car right behind us. It's a large sedan and I can't see past it to the Lehmans' taxi. Shadows cross the windows of our car. Three men in shabby gray uniforms open the doors and wave guns in our faces. They reach in and pull us out by our shoulders. We never see our driver's face or the guide's to know whether this ambush has been expected or is a terror for them, too. Towels are put over our heads, our wrists bound, and we're pulled past the petrol gasoline barrels up onto the back of a lorry. There's shouting—harsh orders from them, terrified shouts from us. What did I manage? “Keep calm, do as they say.” Something like that. There's the hollow sound of the petrol gasoline barrels being tipped over and rolled to the roadside, and then the lorry fires into life. From beneath the rim of my hood, I see Martin has a trickle of blood from a gash on his shin, I imagine from when he's been pushed into the back of the lorry. I also see worn black boots and metal gun barrels resting on knees. My own tied hands are shaking. I glimpse other hands reaching for our bags and rifling through them; catch that twist of a lower body as something is thrown far away.

We continue down the road for another few miles. This driver's not concerned with avoiding potholes and we roll into each other helplessly. The hoods have made us silent, each of us locked in our own terror. The only sounds that escape are either curses or prayers: “Jesus, Jesus, what's happening?”

The lorry slows, turns, and dips into a ditch with such suddenness, we're all thrown forward. It feels as if the lorry could roll over completely. “Save us!” shouts Carol. Our guards push us back, and the lorry revs till its front wheels are pushed out and it bucks and rolls its way across what I realize is a ford, and finally we're off the road and onto a dirt track. I tilt my head back and see a half-moon of green and the red track lengthening behind us. After half an hour or so of this, the towels are removed from our heads. For a few seconds, sunlight blinds us.