Kidnapped and a Daring Escape (7 page)

    
"Remove your money belt," he orders.

    
"I don’t wear a money belt," André replies.

    
"Show! Open your pants!"

    
André pulls up his shirt, partially undoes the leather belt so that he can
pull down his pants a hand-width, and reveals hairy skin below his belly
button.

    
Their captor looks disappointed. Before André can do up his belt, the
man reaches for his left wrist and removes the watch, quickly inspects it,
and mutters: "Not worth much."

    
He turns to her. She closes her eyes, dreading what is to come, finding
it suddenly hard to breathe. Although there is really no need — she only
wears a cotton shirt — he pats down the side of her chest, giving her
breast a slight squeeze and then rubs down the right of her tight-fitting
pant legs, both outside and inside.

    
She hears André exclaim: "
Hombre
, show the
señorita
some respect."
She opens her eyes, just as the man punches André hard on the side of the
face, bellowing at the same time: "Shut up. Nobody asks you."

    
André hardly reacts, eyeing his assailant defiantly. The side of his face
slowly colors blue. Renewed fright assails her. Please André, don’t make
them angry, she prays silently.

 
    
His rebuke though seems to have the desired effect. Rather than also
do her left leg, the man orders her to empty her pant pockets. She only
has some Kleenex paper towels in one. He makes her remove her
earrings, her engagement ring and her gold watch, but leaves the silver
chain and cross pendant she has around the neck.

    
"
Señorita,
your money belt," he demands.

    
She lowers the zipper of her pants, revealing the top of her black
thong, unclips the cloth bag and passes it to him, zipping herself up
quickly.

    
"Where’s your purse and passport?"

    
"On the floor of the Jeep." Her voice trembles. One thought, more like
prayer, is repeating itself in her mind: "Let them only be robbers, let them
only be robbers." Losing her possessions is the least of her fears.

    
The man who pocketed their things now goes over to the Jeep. He
removes her jacket, purse, camera, and pack, which also contains her cell
phone.

    
"What are we going to do with the guy?" questions the man holding
the gun at them. "I thought we only wanted the girl."

    
Did she hear right? They only want the girl?

    
"We’ll take them both. Didn’t you see the Swiss passport? He may be
worth quite a bit."

    
A silent scream tears through her mind. They are kidnapping us. Her
whole body begins to shake uncontrollably. She feels André’s hand
briefly touch her shoulder and hears him whisper: "Courage, Bianca,
we’re still unharmed."

    
The apparent leader now removes two sets of handcuffs from his
jacket. They are ordered to face the Toyota and bring their hands to their
back. A second later she hears the metal clip snap close around her wrist.
Next he produces two loose hoods and slips one over André’s head, the
other over hers. She feels him tighten a strap. She almost screams in
fright, swamped by claustrophobia and the feeling of not getting enough
air.

    
"Please, let me see," she sobs.

    
His only response is a firm grip on her elbow. She stumbles a few
steps and then is pushed and pulled up a high step into the vehicle.

    
"Lie down and stay put." She recognizes it as the voice of the leader.
He forces her to bend her legs into a crouching position.

    
A few seconds later somebody else is made to lie down next to her.
André, she guesses. At least I’m not alone. It offers scant comfort.

    
"No sound from either of you. Understood?" the leader growls.

    
She nods, shaking in fright. Next, she senses a blanket being spread
over them. It smells of horse. Several light objects are thrown on top of
them.

    
"Move your head to create enough breathing space," she hears André’s
whisper.

    
A short time later, doors are slammed shut, the motor starts, and they
move off. As the vehicle accelerates and negotiates turns, she is thrown
around, bumping both into the metal wall, as well as André’s softer body.
She notices that they continue to go uphill. After a while, the cramped
position becomes uncomfortable, then painful, every pothole, bump, or
stone in the road feeling like a punch to her right shoulder and hip.
Several times she cries out in pain, when her head bumps into the sides
or floor of the car.

    
"Move closer to me, away from the wall, so that I can cushion you a
bit," André tells her.

    
For a moment, she is beyond reacting.

    
"Come, Bianca. Do it."

    
"I can’t." She begins to sob.

    
"Pull your knees up and wedge them against the wall and then lift your
hips, pushing back."

    
She forces herself to do it in spite of the pain. A leg is wrapped over
her left thigh, preventing her from sliding away with the swaying of the
vehicle. It removes one source of getting hurt, but not the pain of having
to lie on the side.

    
"I must confess that this isn’t the way I dreamed of lying with you,"
he chuckles.

    
"Oh, André, I’m frightened to death and you joke," she sobs.

    
"I’m sorry, Bianca. I thought a bit of humor would help. I won’t do it
again."

    
She feels his nose nuzzle the back of her head.

    
"Courage, Bianca. If you are a believer, pray if that helps … or would
it help to talk?"

    
She answers with a sob. "I’m so frightened; I can’t help it. What are
they going to do with us?"

    
"I guess they want to ransom us. Is your family wealthy?"

    
"Yes."

    
"Wealthy enough for a ransom of two to four million euros?"

    
Four million? Would her father be able to raise this much? Panic
creeps again into her voice. "Will they ask for that much?"

    
"Yes, that’s the usual amount."

    
Yes, her father should be able to raise that much. "I guess my father
can pay that." She is certain he would pay whatever is needed to get her
released. "And what about you?"

    
"Not the slightest chance of that. My father is a humble carpenter in
a small village above Lake Geneva. My parents own little more than a
small old cottage."

    
"So what happens if the ransom isn’t paid?"

    
"I let you answer than question yourself."

    
How can he speak so casually? "Aren’t you frightened?"

    
"I am, but being frightened will not change a thing. You have to focus
on the present and the future, on what will allow you to come out of this
sound in both body and mind. Look, Bianca, if you want to get out of this
sane, you have to exercise infinite patience. It will not be over in just a
few days. From what I’ve heard, it takes weeks before the ransom
demand is presented and then weeks, if not months before all arrangements for payment have been made and the condition and location for
your release negotiated. Fortunately from what I’ve read, the kidnappers
usually treat women reasonably well, as long as they do what they’re
told. If the kidnappers belong to FARC, they won’t rape you. It’s against
their code of conduct."

    
They might rape her? Renewed fright grips her. She has not even
thought of that. "You think that they are from FARC?"

    
"I don’t know. I hope so because I may have a better chance with
FARC guerrillas. I may convince them to let me write a friendly and
supportive newspaper article about them. In fact, my true reason for
being in Columbia is to get an interview with one of their leaders."

    
So that’s why he wants to stay away from the security police, and
tourist is just a front, she reflects. Maybe he knew more than he let on
when he begged me not to go across the river. But how could I take him
seriously when he played the silly tourist? And if he knew something bad
was going to happen why did he come along? … Why couldn’t he have
been more open? Claiming he had a premonition! It fuels the simmering
anger she felt against him ever since Franco’s unjust accusation last
night. Desperation, and fright swamp her mind once more. She breaks
into sobs.

    
"Courage, Bianca, courage. You’re not alone."

    
"I hurt all over."

    
"Let’s try to roll over so that we can lie on the other side for a while.
I’ll hold the blanket up with my legs to give you space."

    
When she thinks that they have entered a straight section of road, she
twists around, and a few seconds later André does the same.

    
"Hook a leg over mine. It will prevent you sliding away from me."

    
She does. It helps. His handcuffed hands press into her stomach. They
remain silent for a while. The vehicle is still going uphill. Judging by the
increasingly painful pumps suffered, the road has become even rougher.
Some sections are so steep that she slides down, her legs wedged against
the back door. After a while, they switch back to their original position.
They repeat this several times. It temporarily relieves the pain.

* * *

Bianca has turned silent. André has no doubt left that she is the target of
the kidnap plot he overheard and that by some rather improbably twist of
fate he has become caught up in it. But if this is the case, their chances
of getting out of this unscathed are slim. Didn’t ‘
le richard
’ make the
ominous suggestion that the kidnappers do away with their victim one
way or another? It raises his apprehension. He also realizes that any
attempt of escape risks getting shot. The burst of machine gun fire that
sent pebbles flying around his feet and made him abort his attempt to flee
was proof enough that these guys mean business, particularly their leader
he nicknamed ‘
la bête
’— ‘the animal’, after having been punched in the
face.

    
The kidnapping was expertly planned and executed. In fact, their Jeep
must have been under surveillance already in San Agustin. He vaguely
remembers seeing a gray Toyota drive away when they came out of the
restaurant after their quick lunch. He recalls that it was the excessive
mud splatters that made it conspicuous.

    
But what disturbs him deeply is the growing suspicions about who is
behind the kidnapping. Only a few people knew about the flight, and
even fewer knew which archaeological sites Bianca planned to see and
the timing, nor would anybody outside the tour group know that she came
from a wealthy background. The voice of ‘
le richard
’, the instigator of
the plot he overheard in the Alcazar, sounded middle-aged, definitely not
like that of a twenty-year-old fellow student, nor did the silhouette he
briefly glimpsed while the man left the alcove and his manner of moving
point to a young man. His stance was far too staid and controlled. So that
leaves only one person as the candidate for ‘
le richard
’, the person who
instructed Bianca in detail what statues she must see and in what order,
and that person is Professor Visconti, her fiancé. It isn’t difficult to
imagine a motive. Most likely it’s greed, coupled with financial
difficulties that the dowry negotiated with her wealthy father would not
cure, but a high ransom will and more, even if he has to share part of the
likely four-million-euro ransom with the kidnappers.

    
But he’s not going to add to Bianca’s distress by voicing these
suspicions. He doubts she would believe him and it would only fuel her
animosity against him. Nor is it really relevant to their current plight. He
will direct all his efforts into getting them out of this alive. He is not
going to simply wait for their captors to dispose of him with a bullet to
his head. He has no illusions that, once they realize no ransom money for
him will come forth, this is what awaits him.