Kidnapped and a Daring Escape (29 page)

    
André’s face lights up. "What I brilliant idea, Bianca. It’s perfect. It
will land him in serious trouble. You know how they work these things?
When they discover that a parcel contains drugs, they send it on to the
recipient and then swoop on him after he accepts it."

    
Yes, that is what she is banking on will happen.

    
"I’ll check if they have a suitable box or wrapping material at the
reception."

    
He rushes out to go down to the desk, while she revels in the thought
of paying Franco back in kind. A few minutes later, André returns with
a fairly large box and a roll of sealing tape. He cuts the box to size. Then
he wipes all surfaces of the bag both inside and outside with a humid
cloth to remove any fingerprints, packs it in the box and seals it with
tape. Bianca helps. It is all done in silence. She dictates Franco’s address
in Rome, and they use the Cipriano Hotel in Popayàn as the sender.
André writes with his left hand. They will airmail it from the airport,
with a customs declaration stating ‘handbag left behind by guest’.
Finished, he also wipes the sealing tape to remove any fingerprints. No
fingerprints will stick to the rough cardboard surface.

    
"Another thing accomplished," he comments.

    
Yes, another thing accomplished. She smiles at him, amused by his
casual understatement of what they just have done. She notices that
André’s thoughts have already moved on. He says: "I suggest you forget
about the jewelry and the perfume."

    
She nods. Yes, he’s right, she reflects. I don’t want him to go back to
that hotel and complain or involve the police.

    
"We can buy you a new perfume in Bogotà."

    
"It cost over eighty euros."

    
"That’s only about six of those," he replies, pointing to the stack of
twenty-dollar bills. "We might as well put that money to good use."

    
"And buying me perfume is a good use for it?" she chuckles.

    
"Yes, I like you smelling nice, although I like the natural perfume of
your delicious breasts best."

    
Sudden warmth radiates from her solar plexus. She stops looking
through her thing and searches his eyes. She sees his smile, sees love in
them. She wants him.

    
"Later, love; we’ll make love later. Let’s first finish packing."

    
He has seen right through me, she muses, pleased that he is so much
in tune with her.

    
"Do you have photocopies of your papers and credit card?" he asks.

    
"Yes." She pulls them from an inside pocket in the cover of her
suitcase. "Franco insisted that we all do that."

    
"That should speed up getting new travel documents."

    
"You have copies too?"

 
    
"Yes, I’m a seasoned traveler. There is even a copy with my parents."

    
It is getting on to midnight. "Shall we call now?" he questions again.

    
She nods.

    
"Do you want to talk?"

    
"Yes."

    
He dials the number and passes her the iPhone. It rings six times
before she hears rustling noises for several seconds. Finally, a grumpy
voice replies: "Claudia Farnese. Who calls at this ungodly hour … or is
it you, Franco?"

    
Bianca gasps, drops the gadget and clasps both hands to her face.
André catches it in midair. She hears him say: "Awfully sorry, wrong
number."

    
"Who was it that upset you so?" he questions.

    
"Claudia Farnese, the woman Franco lived with for several years
before our engagement. He called her the morning after we were taken,
even before he called my parents." The last comes out like a wail.

    
André says nothing, simply hugs her. He was right, screams her mind,
he was right, as he always is. There is another woman. Franco never
broke with her. For more than a year, he pretended to love me and all he
was after was my money. It feels like a blow to the stomach. She is
nauseated.

    
"Come love, I’m with you," André murmurs softly, stroking her hair,
"and I love you."

    
She clings to him, wiping her tears on his shirt. And then anger takes
over. She disengages: "The miserable bastard. I’ll make him pay for
that."

    
"No, you will not. We have no solid evidence against him that will
hold up in a court of law. Nor is it worth to waste your energy into
making him pay. Forget about him. He’s not worth it. Love me instead
all the more."

    
"Yes, André," she replies, half sobs, half chuckles. "I have you. I love
you."

    
She raises her face and seeks his kiss.

    
"Come, let’s now go to bed. The Swiss number can wait."

11

The first thing they do at the airport is to airmail the package to Franco.
André is careful not to touch any sealing tape. The noisy turboprop takes
off toward the west and rapidly gains height, before turning northeast.
Bianca has a window seat on the right-hand side. She is holding André’s
hand. There is not much cloud cover over the mountains. The two
volcanoes show off their splendor. In the distance to the southeast, she
can guess the area where they crossed over the mountain range five days
earlier. Only five days? It already seems ages ago. She squeezes André’s
hand and feels a rush of love fill her heart, overwhelmed by its intensity.
He is my man. He is taking me back home, safe and sound, and then we
will get married. She remembers him saying at that little lake "I doubt
you will ever marry Franco" or something to that effect. It made me so
angry then, she reflects, but he was right. He saved me from a serious
mistake. Franco isn’t worth it. She even finds it hard to understand what
attracted her to ‘the professor’. Now she can even laugh at that. Compared to André, he is bland, dull, pompous in his archaeology expertise,
already an old, staid man. She only hopes that she will never have to face
him again, at least not alone.

    
The flight to Bogotà is just over an hour. A taxi takes them to the
small, nondescript Hotel Léon near the University, where André stayed
on his arrival in Colombia. The owner recognizes him and does not even
ask for passports.

    
They settle into their small room. She watches André fiddle with his
iPhone.

    
"What are you doing?" she queries.

    
"I’m checking what calls ‘
le trapu
’ charged to my account." He holds
the screen for her to see. "Do you recognize any of these numbers?"

    
She scans through them. "No."

    
"These here," he points to three numbers listed, "are all to the
Cipriano. These two only in the last three days, after we escaped,
probably to check whether we have turned up yet. This one was made the
morning after we were kidnapped. And look at the time."

    
"Why?"

    
"It was made before Franco called Rome. So that leads to two
conclusions. First, that it was a call to Franco, and second —"

    
"— to tell him we had been kidnapped?"

    
"Not we, only you. My kidnapping was opportunistic."

    
"That was their big mistake, wasn’t it," she says, smiling.

    
"Oh, I would have gone after you even if they had let me go, which
was unlikely. It was more likely that they would have killed me on the
spot. They don’t want witnesses."

    
"Oh," Bianca utters, her heart taking a leap, and then she hugs him.

* * *

The third taxi ride of the day is to the Italian Embassy. Bianca identifies
herself to the young woman at the information desk, telling her that her
passport got stolen, and presents her photocopies.

    
"Bianca Pacelli, you said?" the young woman queries, frowning. "The
daughter of
Signor
Giorgio Pacelli of Rome?"

    
Bianca feels uncomfortable under her critical scrutiny. She nods,
replying "yes" in a low voice. So they must know of the kidnapping, she
figures.

    
"Please, take a seat, while I call the chargé d’affaires of the Embassy,
and keep these." She hands back the photocopies.

    
Bianca and André sit on the vinyl-covered bench along the wall, while
the clerk talks excitedly in a low voice into the phone.

    
"He will receive you shortly," she says after hanging up. She goes
back to work, but periodically glances at them.

    
On a low table is the morning edition of the main Bogota newspaper.
Absentmindedly, Bianca looks at the headline on the front page. ‘
Ex-Paras
drug dealers slain in Popayàn shoot-out’. It feels like a cold hand
is gripping her heart. She tries to calm herself by breathing deeply. André
killed them, screams her mind.

    
 André picks up the paper and holds it such that she can read too. It
reports that Monday evening there was a shoot-out outside a hotel in
Popayàn between two criminals the police have tried to apprehend for
several years already. It names them as Max Bequilà and José Nantos.
The police speculate that the killing was due to an internal feud over the
leadership of the group. Both men suffered a single shot. Bequilà was
dead when the police arrived; Nantos succumbed to internal bleeding on
the way to the hospital. The hotel staff claims not to have witnessed what
happened. Since the bullets found matched the weapons the two men
were carrying, the police is not looking for anyone else.

    
Their eyes meet, his calm, as usual. She knows that hers show fear. He
puts the paper down and takes her hand, whispering: "So it goes. No
danger from that quarter anymore."

    
"Did you know?" she asks in a whisper.

    
"I suspected it."

    
The phone buzzes and the young woman answers. She invites them to
follow her and ushers them down the corridor into a sizable office. A
man in his late thirties rises from his desk and shakes hands. He
introduces himself as Marcello Baldetti, chargé d’affaires of the
Embassy. Looking expectantly at André, he asks: "And you are …?"

    
"André Villier. I’m only here accompanying Miss Pacelli."

    
Baldetti now turns to her: "I’m surprised to see you. We were
informed only last week that you were taken hostage at San Agustin and
that a ransom demand was posted. And now I see you here."

    
"Yes, both André Villier and I were kidnapped on Friday, ten days ago
near San Agustin. They took our passports and drugged us, that is, they
drugged me, but André was able to deceive them, and then we were
marched two days into the mountains. André managed to escape and two
days later came to rescue me. We were able to elude our pursuers in the
Caqueta Valley and flee back to Popayàn."

    
"How remarkable. We will give you a detailed debriefing later. How
did you manage to get here? Presumably all your money and credit cards
were taken from you."

    
"I stole some money from our captors, enough to survive for a few
days and pay the airfares," André replies.

    
Baldetti raises his eyebrows. "Just like that … I assume you contacted
the police?"

    
"No, we did not. I did not consider that a safe course of action, nor did
we want to be detained, and possibly exposed to a renewed kidnapping."

    
"Hmm, the kidnapping has been reported to the security police and
they will have to be informed of your release. I am certain they will want
to debrief both of you."