Kidnapped and a Daring Escape (12 page)

    
André studies the beasts more carefully. They look ugly. Their coats
are motley, matt and unkempt, their bodies excessively lean, ribs
showing. He reckons that they are underfed, permanently hungry and
therefore all the more dangerous. But that also offers an opportunity.
Thrown a good-size chunk of meat each, they can be distracted from their
guard duty. But he has no meat and even if he had, how could he get it to
them before they bark, raising the alarm, or worse attack if they roam free
at night.

    
It is past noon by the stand of the sun when two men issue from the
front door of the big house. He recognizes the smaller of the two as ‘
le
vilain
’. Both men take a drink from the trough and then enter the middle
house. A while later, they come out again, accompanied by a third, and
go back into the big house. He discerns fleeting movement behind the
window of the front room. The most likely reason for them assembling
there is to eat lunch.

    
That makes a total of six men so far, counting the two he saw going
down the track. He doubts that there are more or else they would have
joined the other three for lunch, except that there may be one more
guarding Bianca. He still hasn’t discovered for certain where she is kept.
He reasons that sooner or later, somebody will bring her food, maybe
empty a bucket of night soil. If nobody leaves the house with a bowl of
food, then she must be imprisoned in the big house.

    
Some time later, the third man goes back to the middle house.
Could
he be the guard and their hostage be held there?

    
A nagging feeling in his stomach prompts André to eat a row of
chocolate and two dried figs. Although he is tempted to have more, he
reminds himself that this may be the only food he and Bianca may have
to share for their lunches. The water in the trough makes him wish to
have a drink too.

    
Late afternoon he sees the dogs raise their heads, all alert. One gets up
and both look down the track. The reason becomes clear shortly. ‘
Le
premier
’ and another man are carrying a body on an improvised stretcher.
The two dogs trail after them. They set the stretcher down near the
trough. Both men take a long drink and splatter their faces. The dogs
sniff around the body. Shouting, ‘
le premier
’ shoes them away and then
goes into the house through the kitchen. A minute or two later, he comes
out again, this time accompanied by ‘
le vilain
’ and the one André saw
with him at noon. They bend over the body. ‘
Le vilain
’ checks the man’s
pockets. The only item he finds is the wallet. He clearly seems upset and
gesticulates wildly. The occasional indistinct word drifts up. André
would have liked to hear what they say. Do they suspect that he got away
alive? They might see the empty pockets of the dead man and the missing
pack and AK47 as suspicious. Leaving everything with the dead man
would have allayed that. They might then have assumed that his own
body was swept away by the river. However, regrets now don’t change
a thing, and he needed both the pack and the weapon. He had no choice
but to take them.

    
The four stand around the body, talking, after a while joined by ‘
la
bonne
’ and the man in the middle house. So his count was right. There
are six of them. ‘
Le premier
’ fetches a shovel and starts to dig a grave a
bit below the houses. The guy who accompanied him takes over after a
few minutes and they alternate. They wrap the body in a tattered blanket
and lower him into the hole. Then all six men form a circle around the
grave, heads lowered, hands held in prayer, while ‘
le vilain
’ speaks.
When he is finished, each crosses himself. ‘
Le vilain
’ and ‘
la bonne
’
leave for the main house. Another returns to the middle house — again
André wonders whether he is Bianca’s guard. Two go to the third house,
leaving ‘
le premier
’ alone at the grave. He shovels the earth back in and
then remains there for several minutes longer, crossing himself at the
end. He too ambles to the third house. It seems to be the one occupied by
the ‘foot soldiers’, André guesses.

    
The goat finally makes an appearance. It is grazing close to the grave,
a rope around the neck, attached to the closest derelict house.

    
The sun has disappeared behind the mountains to the west, when
André finally gets confirmation as to where Bianca is kept. ‘
La bonne
’
carries a steaming bowl and a cup of liquid to the middle house. At the
steps, he picks up the bucket. The bucket for Bianca to relieve herself,
André figures. Watching the small windows for movement, he sees
somebody go past the first. Half a minute later the movement is in the
other direction, and ‘
la bonne
’ comes out again, empty-handed. The light
is fading when he returns half an hour later. André observes the same
short movements behind the window, before the young man comes out
again with the empty bowl and cup. There is no more doubt that Bianca
is being held in the back room of that house. Its little window is too high
up for him to reach and is probably nailed shut. The front is the only way
in.

    
The two dogs have positioned themselves near the wooden gate of the
yard behind the kitchen, looking expectantly to its door. A short time
later they are rewarded. ‘
La bonne
’ brings out two bowls.
Dry dog food?
André wonders. It makes sense. It is lighter to carry in and what meat is
available is most likely reserved for the humans. One of the dogs finishes
quickly and, after licking his bowl, approaches the other, but is promptly
chased away by a vicious snarl. He goes back to licking his own bowl
some more. When the other dog starts wandering down the track, the first
licks that one’s bowl clean before finally returning to their resting place.

    
Lights switch on, first in the kitchen and the front room of the main
house, then in the third house, but none in the middle one. Shortly
afterward, everybody assembles again at the big house. It is time for
dinner. André eats a couple of figs and then slowly savors another two
squares of the rather rough chocolate, wishing it was good Swiss one.
Still hungry, he knows that he will have to remain here for quite a while
longer to observe what happens at night.

    
The moon is out when four of the men leave the big house, one
entering the middle one but not the same as during the day, the other
three going to the last house, the dogs trailing behind them. They again
stretch out where André saw them when he arrived. So they are in fact
left to roam outside. A second light appears in the window next to the
front room of the big house.
A bedroom?
he wonders. A few minutes
later the lights go out one by one. It is time to make his way back to his
own hideaway, have a hot meal and drink, and figure out how to free
Bianca.

    
While lying on a patch of soft grass, protected by the plastic sheet
hung over the rope strung between two trees, he reviews in his mind the
observations he made. If he finds a means to neutralize the dogs, he is
confident that he would be able to enter the middle house, overwhelm the
possibly sleeping guard without causing any noise, get Bianca out and
then flee with her. The kidnappers would expect them to try to return to
San Agustin. To fool them, he would leave in the opposite direction, go
deeper into the mountains and over into the Caqueta valley. But
everything hinges on him being able to neutralize the dogs or else their
barking will wake the whole camp. The obvious ploy is to feed them
meaty bones. That would occupy them. Maybe he can kill an animal, but
he hasn’t seen any rabbits or one of the Andean tapirs or a spectacled
bear. From what he read, the former prefer the high grasslands, the latter
the warmer jungle forests. A hawk or two might do, but again he can
hardly shoot them with his AK47. Not only would it be difficult to hit a
soaring bird with this clumsy and inaccurate weapon, but the report of
shots might easily be heard up in the settlement. The goat tethered on the
terrace is the only readily available source of meat. The problem of how
to get it to the dogs without them raising the alarm though still remains.
He racks his brain in vain for a solution until sleep carries him away.

    
At dawn next day, he knows the perfect solution — the dead man’s
spare clothing. The lingering smell in them and the pack itself should
fool the dogs into mistaking him for Rinaldo. At least he hopes this to be
the case. He quickly rises and puts his nose into the garments. There is
still a strong smell. He wraps them inside the plastic sheet to conserve it.

    
"I have an important date tonight," he murmurs to himself, smiling.
He will try to catch another fish in the river and rest much of the day in
preparation for the coming night’s work.

5

It seems to Bianca that by the third day at the camp her life in captivity
has already settled into a routine. With the first rays of the sun, the young
man brings her a cup of water and a bowl of hot corn mash. While she is
eating, he returns with a plastic pail of water for washing. Half an hour
later, he comes back once more, pours the water from the pail into the
bucket of night soil, and takes everything away. She spends the first hour
or so of the morning sitting or standing in the sun, shifting position with
the rays, until it rises too high into the sky to reach the window. Then she
does her walking exercise — a thousand times diagonally between two
corners of the room, roughly three miles. The time that passes seems
more important than the exercise itself. In the afternoon she rests on the
mattress, her thoughts invariably circling about what is going to happen,
how long she will be incarcerated like this, fighting the anguish that is
always hovering to swamp her mind. She takes refuge in daydreaming.
She misses not getting any lunch and by the time the bowl of beans
arrives in the evening, together with the rinsed out bucket, she is
ravenous. Then she lies down again, trying to find sleep that refuses to
come.

* * *

The sun is disappearing behind the steep slopes to the west of André’s
hideaway. Its last dying rays have almost dried his skin. He hopes the
vigorous wash with soap will temporarily reduce his own body odor.
After lunch, he even washed his underpants and socks and let them dry
in the sun — anything to disguise his scent. He struggles into the dirty
shirt, pullover, and pants of the dead man. The garments are far too small
for his tall frame. They are restrictive and feel unpleasant. Even he can
smell the rancid odor of the previous owner. After tying his boots he puts
on the man’s camouflage parka and stuffs the dirty socks and underwear
into its sleeves. The man’s bandanna and gloves he will only put on once
he is in position near the camp. His own outer clothing, wrapped in the
plastic sheet, is inside the pack.

    
Within half an hour, the short dusk will plunge the area into deep
darkness with only the night sky as a guide, provided clouds do not
obscure even that source of light. The moon will only rise well after dark,
lighting the way in time for fleeing with Bianca, if everything goes to
plan.

    
"It’s time to move," he tells himself. It will be easier to get close to the
hamlet while he has still sufficient visibility. He counts on none of the
six men venturing away from their hideout this late in the day.

    
A quarter hour later, he reaches the place from where he can see the
houses. Dusk is falling quickly. Scanning the area systematically, he gets
a glimpse of the two dogs lying in front of the closest unoccupied house.
Suddenly, one rises, looking in his direction. For a moment André is
afraid that he might have become aware of him. But then the animal
stretches, yawns, and meanders up the path through the houses, disappearing from view. The other follows him. Dinnertime, flashes through
his mind. They will be occupied for the next ten minutes or so. He
counted on this. It will make it easier for him to get close to the houses.

    
Just before the last bend in the path some forty yards from the closest
house, he hides in the undergrowth and makes himself comfortable. He
knows that he will be in for a wait of several hours until the six men
complete their evening ritual and turn in. A short time later, the dogs trot
back to their resting place. They look around, sniffing the air, but then lie
down again. A good sign, he figures. Whatever they smell does not alarm
them.

    
Weak lights appear in the big house and the one occupied by the foot
soldiers. A bit later, three guys come out and walk up the path to the big
house. One of them briefly enters into the middle house, the one he
figures Bianca is locked in. A fourth man follows him out. Dinnertime.
Last night, it took them almost two hours before they were finished.

    
André’s plan is to wait until everybody is asleep, before throwing the
goat to the dogs. While they are occupied, he is going to overpower the
guard by rendering him temporarily unconscious, gag and tie him up, and
then flee with Bianca. For a moment he is tempted to take advantage of
the guard’s absence and free her right away, but then discards the idea.
Coming away from dinner, the men are likely to see and possibly hear the
dogs ripping into the goat. They would suspect foul play and check on
their hostage. It would not give Bianca and him a sufficient head start. It
is better to stick to the original plan. But he might as well find out if the
dogs will mistake him for the dead man. If they don’t, he will have no
choice but to kill them and hope that in the resulting shoot out with the
six men, he will come out on top. Having them all together in the big
house is to his advantage. If he plays it right, he might be able to take out
several as they come rushing from the big house. He keeps his fingers
crossed that the AK47 will function properly.