Captives (3 page)

Carol's wide-eyed, frozen with horror, even as she's jiggled about on the lorry.

“Look,” I say, “maybe it's a good thing he's not here. He's not been taken. He must have got away. With the Lehmans.”

But it's as if she hasn't heard me.

“Nick, Nick,
Nick.
” The last word she almost screams, and one of the captors frowns at her and wags a finger.

“Oh my God,” she says. “Oh my God.”

She's still saying that as the lorry gutters to a halt, and they pull us down off it by our shoulders, and throw our packs after us. One of the men takes my wrists and, with a machete, slices through the twine that binds them. The machete's a polished blade the length of my forearm—the man half smiles as he gestures to the others to hold out their hands too. We glance at one another—six of us—through faces stained with dirt and sweat and tears. The lorry turns, the dust settles, and we start up a narrow track, heading for the hills.

“Oh, God, where can Nick be? Pray that he's safe.”

*   *   *

There are five guerrillas—what else can they be?—three men, a woman, and a youngster who could be little older than Martin. But they're all armed with light machine guns and we are all—the Deschamps and us—terrified.

The woman looks at Martin's shin as if in disgust. We wait as she takes a tube of something and a bandage out of her backpack and hands them roughly to Carol.

“Bind tight,” the boy says. “Take no chances in this place.” He speaks each word clearly and frowns to make his point.

“Take no chances,” Carol repeats to herself. “Take no chances. Take no chances.” She looks a slight and fragile figure, kneeling before Martin, binding his wound.

When it's done, I squeeze Carol's arm and Martin's and I note Jacques does the same to his wife and daughter. I think panic has silenced us all.

What surprises me is that we're still in the farmed fringes of the foothills. We walk through fields where cows are pastured and pass the occasional simple farm with a couple of plots fenced in by cacti and pigs rooting about outside. Sometimes there's someone working, cutting at an old tree with a machete or hoeing the red earth. They look up and wave their machetes at us. Our captors wave casually back, as if we're all just out for a stroll.

We're not. A dog runs too close to us, barking. One of the men, the huge black one, grabs the back of its neck and slits its throat with his machete. There's a gush of blood, then the carcass is thrown into the undergrowth. Carol leans into me, but we daren't stop.

*   *   *

We walk the rest of that day in our enforced silence—fear has given us all the energy, for the pace is as brisk as the slopes allow and we don't stop for rest. Finally we reach two old shelters in a clearing—simple struts designed to support a roof of palm leaves. They've not been used for a long time. The palms are brittle, the ash from the fire trampled into the earth. In one shelter a rusted old pot is tipped on its side. We eat what we've brought with us for lunch—a ham sandwich each—with what's left of our bottled water. One of the men comes over to us with the boy. The man is thirty or so, with dark brown cropped hair and the beginnings of a beard. Without raising his voice, he has issued most of the day's orders. The boy tells us we are to do as we're told and nothing will happen to us. But we must expect to be with them for quite some time.

“What do you want of us?” says Jacques. “Let our wives and children go.”

But the leader shakes his head. “You are to ask no questions,” says the boy. “You,” he says to the Deschamps, “other shelter. Sleep now.”

*   *   *

We spread out our cotton sleeping bags on the earth. The sun is gone, as quickly as if the leader took it with him when he turned his back on us.

“How's your leg?” I ask Martin, knowing there's a million questions I could ask, but am too scared to raise for his sake, for Carol's, for mine.

“It'll be OK.”

We sleep with Martin between us, sleep out of utter exhaustion. During the black night, I think I must have dreamed this. The dawn brings the truth that the nightmare is real.

Day Two

We walk another day along forest tracks, till our muscles ache and our clothes stick to us. We stop in a clearing—I can't tell one from another—and make a kind of encampment.

“You must build two shelters—like last night,” says the boy, and one of the men, the one who killed the dog, hands Jacques a machete, handle first, with a slight smile. Jacques glances at me, taken aback. But should either of us have been surprised? Earlier in the day we climbed up to a kind of saddle in the hills that gave us a view of the valley and beyond. Nothing. Nothing but thick forest in every direction. Through the boy, the leader told us that if we run we are lost, and we put the rest of the group in danger. Then he tapped his gun, as a warning. Still, though they keep their guns with them at all times, they point them at us a good deal less and they clearly don't fear giving us a machete. Or letting us go a little off the trail to do our business. Nor do they make any effort to prevent us hearing their names. Between us, we have worked out that the leader is called Rafael and the boy Eduardo. The woman's name is Maria, and the names we had to work hardest to get are “the silent watchers”—as we call them—Miguel, the dog-killer, and El something or other.

We all do our bit in constructing the shelter, but Jacques especially sets about the task as if to show them what we are made of. Tall and muscular, he was born, you would think, to wield a machete—he knows the proper weight to put behind it and each stroke falls with the same accuracy. He strips branches for uprights and makes niches to slot in the smaller branches, which will support the thatch of palm leaves.

“One here, here, here, and here.” Two of us to each one, we grip the uprights and drive our weight down on them, turning as we do so, till they are rooted in the earth. The guerrillas have finished their shelter. They sit a little away, talking and occasionally looking across at us. Once there is laughter. Then we captives are all at it, collecting palm leaves that have fallen or those they've cut and not used for their own shelter. We weave them in. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good for a first effort and I think that concentrating on the activity does something to lift our spirits. The second shelter takes half the time and there's even a feeling of pride when the leader, Rafael, passes each of them and says, “
No está mal. No está mal.
”

“Pah,” says Maria through puckered lips.

It's not the time to speak of luck, yet even in this terrible situation I think we are lucky with our fellow captives. Both are practical and calm in the circumstances and I think Louise could be a companion for Martin through whatever we must endure. We take some comfort in that.

Day Three

Today our mood darkens. We've nothing to occupy ourselves, so we sit in the green shadows, overseen by the silent watchers. They're each so different. Miguel is a giant of a man, dark as teak with intense eyes. El Taino—he sounds his name out for us, almost like a challenge
(Ta-ee-no)
—is small and lithe, his skin almost bronze in the sunlight. Two of the fingers of his right hand are twisted and stiff from some old injury. He carries his hand across his chest, so his damaged fingers are impossible to miss.

We're trying to work out why we're in this mess. The Deschamps received the same embassy advice as we did. They too were told that unrest is reported in isolated parts of the island, mostly in the mountain regions. But the tourist centers are heavily protected and the National Parks contain no dangers. The insurgents, in short, we were told, are interested in government installations, “not a bunch of tourists.”

Jacques and Melanie have been more thorough. He consulted the Internet, but much the same advice was posted there: “No viable reason why tourists should not enjoy a holiday with a difference on the small but enchanting island of Santa Clara.”

“‘Holiday with a difference,'” groans Melanie, and it's the first time that any of us has smiled since our capture.

“So why are we here? What can they want with us?” Carol asks. “I mean, what good can we be to them?”

“Well, what I know,” says Melanie, “is that the guerrillas want to be rid of General Quitano—head honcho, El Presidente. He started out as a reformer, a champion of the people, but his government's now mired in corruption and he's desperately clinging to power.”

“Impressive,” I say.

“‘
The Trip of a Lifetime,
' according to the ad,” says Melanie. “I at least wanted to read about where I was going.”

“And,” says Jacques, “clinging to power means being up America's backside and taking the tourist dollar.”

“So that's what all this is about,” I say.

“Am I missing something here?” says Melanie.

“Well, it's obvious—it's an attack on the tourist dollar. There's no surer way to cripple the island's economy than to show it's not safe for tourists anymore.”

“Yep,” says Melanie, “and while we're on it, no surer way to draw attention to human rights abuses than to kidnap a few rich westerners.”

“But what's wrong with the tourist dollar? I thought they were all desperate for it,” says Louise.

“Right,” says Jacques, “but that's only because their own money's next to useless. How many times have you had a
peso
note in your hand since we got here?”

“Will they kill us?” asks Martin. The sudden question sends a chill through our discussion. For a moment I don't know what to say.

*   *   *

Martin raised himself up and turned to face the small mirror on his bedroom wall.

“Will they kill us?” He asked it. And again, “
Will
they kill us?”

Taxi Driver.
It was one of his father's favorite films. Robert De Niro, isolated and crazed, turning to a mirror again and again: “You talkin' to me? You talkin' to
me?
” Of course, Martin couldn't match De Niro's intensity—there was still too much of the boy's softness in his adolescent face—so there was a slight unsteadiness in his voice as he held his own gaze.

As he read, he could see himself so clearly, huddled in the green margins of the diary, bent over a tin plate of rice or listening to the sense others were attempting to make of what was happening to them. All the time he'd wanted to be different; to be lithe, to be able to flow up hillsides without panting, to trim a branch without sweat running into his eyes. Instead he'd found himself to be the owner of a large, ungainly body that constantly betrayed him. There were times when he felt the only power he had was to will invisibility upon himself. But there were other times, like this one, when he needed to hear his own voice—the silence which followed it, the concern on his father's face—needed to feel his own words rolling from his mouth like four single beads. And he needed to hear himself again within these white walls, to be sure he had been there and would be again, as far as his imagination would let him.

*   *   *

“Will they kill us?” asks Martin. The sudden question sends a chill through our discussion. For a moment I don't know what to say and am grateful for Jacques, who fills the gap.

“I think no,” he says. “Think how your shin was bandaged so quickly. It's as live tourists we're of value to them. The only thing is, the longer they keep us, the more valuable we are.” Then he adds, “For a time, anyway.”

“But,” says Louise, “the government and the Americans—they'll come for us. Won't they, Dad?”

“They'll certainly try,” says Jacques.

There's a silence then, and Rafael, who's been standing a little way off, staring out over the hillside, turns to us slowly.

“Your analysis of the situation is not far from the truth.” We stare at him in astonishment.

“Ah, yes, I can speak English well enough. Maria too. El Taino knows a few words. Only Miguel cannot understand your language.” He's smiling slightly as he speaks, enjoying our bewilderment.

“You see, at the start there is much to think of and much tension in the air—yes?—and it is better if we do not speak. Too many questions. Too many questions. Better leave it all to Eduardo”

“A boy?” says Melanie.

“Eduardo the guerrilla,” Rafael shoots back. “Perhaps you should know that Eduardo's parents were both ‘disappeared' by Quitano's illegal government. He may still look like a boy to your eyes, but there is a guerrilla's iron in his heart.”

“So,
will
you kill us?” asks Martin, looking straight at Rafael.

“We do not want to have to. It is as this man says. You are of value to us alive. We have let the government know that we have taken this action to draw attention to the abuse of human rights caused by nickel mining in the north. When there is an international commission set up and announced on national television, you will be released.”