Running from the Devil (3 page)

Whitter shook his head. “Absolutely not. The United States does not negotiate with terrorists.”

“Actually, we already have negotiated. There’s a tacit agreement between the United States and Colombia to allow the far-right guerrilla leaders immunity from extradition to the U.S. if they agree to lay down their arms. If that’s not negotiating with them, I don’t know what is.”

Whitter bristled like a porcupine under attack. “That deal was not cut by the United States. It was cut by the president of Colombia with the guerrilla leaders.”

“And the United States didn’t argue with it.”

“It’s still not the same as negotiating with kidnappers.”

Banner put a hand in the air to silence the men. “Miguel, help me out here. Did these paramilitary groups take the Colombian president up on his offer and lay down their arms?”

“Thousands did,” Miguel said.

“Then why do you think we’re dealing with a paramilitary group in this hijacking?”

“Because the president has been negotiating only with the far-right paramilitary groups. The far-left guerrillas, the FFOC, have not been approached by the Colombian government.”

“So you think this kidnapping is a bid to force the president of Colombia to begin negotiations with the far left,” Banner said.

Miguel paused. “Perhaps. It could also be an attempt to derail the peace process entirely. The process requires that the paramilitary groups return control of the country to the government. These guys may not be too keen on giving up that kind of power.”

“Or it could be unrelated and we are drawing the wrong conclusions.” Whitter stabbed a finger at Miguel as he said this.

“That is also correct,” Miguel said.

Banner liked that Miguel conceded the point to Whitter. It showed him that the man would not proceed on assumptions blindly.

“Alternative suggestions to negotiating?” Banner said.

“Pull twenty special forces personnel off the pipeline detail and gather them for a reconnaissance mission to find the crash site. From there try to determine the location of the passengers. Track them through the jungle, if that’s what’s required.” Miguel sounded determined.

Whitter shook his head. “No. It’s a waste of resources. Why go to an area that the Colombian military has already canvassed?”

“Because I don’t believe them,” Miguel said.

The undersecretary of the air force snorted. “You think these guys are lying?”

“There are those who say that the Colombian army has been hand in glove with the paramilitary groups for years. Even Colombia’s own special forces unit in charge of rescue operations has been implicated in a massacre of the Colombian police. I don’t think we can take anything for granted in an area as rife with corruption as this one.”

“I won’t go along with this,” Whitter said. He turned to Banner. “If we go there anyway, it looks as though we don’t trust the Colombian government. This country is an ally.”

For the first time, Miguel looked aggravated. “Mr. Whitter, that’s why I suggest that we use the men already posted in the area. We save valuable time and we avoid the questions that would arise from sending a wave of new military manpower.”

So that’s why I’m here, Banner thought, to provide unofficial muscle if Miguel’s plan fails. He glanced at Miguel and kept his voice mild. “Did General Corvan approve the mission?”

“He did, pending your input. He said that no one knew better than you how to run a search-and-rescue mission in hostile territory.”

“I’m flattered.” Banner and General Corvan went back to the early days, when they had taken turns saving each other’s hide.

“Who would be in charge of the mission?” Banner asked the question, but he figured he could guess the answer.

“I am. I leave tonight,” Miguel said.

5

LUIS RODRIGO STOOD IN THE BAKING SUN ON THE SCORCHED AIRSTRIP and watched his soldiers shove the airline passengers into a small circle. One man moved too slowly, and a guerrilla hammered him with the butt of his gun. The man dropped like a stone. Rodrigo’s first lieutenant, Alvarado, came to stand next to him.

“They are stupid and slow,” Alvarado said.

“Each is worth more money than you’ll see in ten years. You tell Jorge I see him hit another without my permission and I’ll cut off the hand he used at the wrist.”

Alvarado stepped back. “They are arrogant Americans. They need to know who is in charge.”

“I am in charge. I will decide who lives and who dies.”

“We made more money with the coca. This”—Alvarado swept his arm to take in the passengers—“this does not pay the same, and the risks are large.”

“Coca is dying every day. I don’t need to remind you of this, Alvarado. You see the herbicide-dusting planes flown by the Americans. The fields are withering. In two years coca won’t pay enough to cover the plane fuel to transport it.”

“Coca will always be profitable,” Alvarado said.

“For the cartels, yes, but not for us. We need to show the cartels that we can be profitable partners for them.”

Alvarado stared at the passengers. He pulled a cigarette out of a pack rolled in his sleeve and lit it.

Luis analyzed the hostages as he watched the plane get stripped. Most had the soft, obese, and overcivilized look of Americans. One drew Luis’s eye. He stood six feet three inches and weighed about one hundred eighty pounds. Seven inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than Luis, he had dark hair and an athlete’s body. He moved easily, sweating in the heat, his mouth set in a grim line. This man smelled like danger to Luis. He made a mental note to watch him.

Luis swept his gaze over his men. Alvarado looked hung over, Juan’s pupils were the size of quarters, and Manzillo gulped from a bottle of aguardiente and stumbled over something that only he could see. The mental state of the rest was always suspect. If they weren’t armed, they couldn’t have subdued a fly. Armed, they were ticking time bombs waiting to explode.

“How many do we have?” Luis said to Alvarado.

Alvarado shrugged. “Fifty. Maybe sixty. Is this enough for the FFOC?”

Luis counted sixty-eight. “They expected more. Especially given the risk.”

“Then they should have let us land on a longer strip. I don’t like it, Luis. The gringos won’t take this lying down.”

Luis felt his irritation rise. Alvarado was right, but lately he’d been sounding like a broken record, always negative, always warning. This job was a joint effort of the FFOC and the northern drug cartels, and the first time they’d given Luis any role in one of their operations. The FFOC provided the expertise and detailed planning needed to hijack the jet, and the drug cartel provided the planes within the country that would transport the passengers to the exchange location once they were ransomed.

Luis’s role was to deliver the hostages and any valuables to a secure location in the mountains to await ransom. The FFOC and the drug cartels considered Luis’s small group of paramilitary losers to be expendable, and so gave them the most grueling and dangerous job.

Luis knew the majority of his men were morons, long past stupid and incapable of any thought beyond their daily hit. Still, he was proud that he had been able to turn them into some semblance of a military group. The FFOC had finally responded to his repeated requests to be given a job that would prove his value as a leader. He intended to make the most of it.

“By the time the Americans find the crash site, we’ll be deep in the mountains. No gringo knows these hills like we do. It will take them months to search for them. By then, the ransoms will have been paid.”

Alvarado sucked on his cigarette, his eyes never moving from the passengers. “It would be easier if we could load them on the trucks and use the road.”

Luis let his irritation show. “That would also be easier for the Americans to find us. No trucks, Alvarado. We make a trail through the jungle to the first checkpoint. We’ll get them on trucks at that point.”

“We’ll lose at least ten more from the land mines as we march,” Alvarado said.

“We march them in front of us. Better one of them step on a paw-breaker than one of us, eh?” Luis grinned at Alvarado. “And put the fat ones in the front. I want to keep the fit ones for working.”

“And the women?”

“The women we reserve for other things.”

Alvarado laughed.

6

EMMA CAME TO SOME TIME LATER. THE TREES STILL BURNED. Heat reflected off the landing strip, creating waves that looked like transparent streamers undulating upward. She disentangled herself from the bush and moved farther up the mountain to get a better view of the landing strip.

The surviving passengers sat huddled in a circle at the beginning of the runway. Some leaned against their neighbors, while others curled forward with their heads on their knees. Emma recognized several from the plane. An older gentleman, with a full head of white hair, sat tall, despite his age. All but four had their hands tied behind their backs.

Thirty guerrillas, armed with assault rifles, guarded them. They all wore the same dirty green fatigues with lace-up boots. Some drank from canteens that they kept in holders attached to their belts, some smoked cigarettes, and others sucked on hand-rolled brown sticks that looked like joints. All were armed.

One guerrilla stood out from the others. Lean, wiry, with an unshaven, rat-thin face and crazy pinball eyes, he shouted orders and marched back and forth in front of the circle of survivors. The others jumped to obey him.

They’d landed on a dirt airstrip the size of a football field backed on one side by a mountain, on the other by dense foliage. Several trees and jet parts still smoldered, sending thin ribbons of gray smoke into the air. The jungle threatened to encroach on all sides. Stately trees fought with smaller palms for every inch of available space and light. Tropical vines coiled around everything upright and ran along the ground, searching for their next host. The foliage formed a living wall.

Huge potholes dotted the dirt strip, creating a hazard for the landing gear of any plane forced to use it. A deep gash ran the length of it. The end of the gash disappeared under the aft section of the jet. Sun beat down on the strip. Charred bodies, still smoking, littered the dirt around the aft section. Emma gritted her teeth to stop the nausea that rose at the sight of the dead.

The guerrillas barked orders at several male passengers as they worked to pull blackened suitcases from the remains of the cargo hold. Emma recognized one of the passengers who’d sat in the third row. About thirty, tall and slender, with thick dark hair and dressed in a polo shirt and khakis, he had spent the entire flight typing furiously on a laptop computer, stopping only to stare around the first-class cabin with a hyperalert demeanor. On the plane Emma had pegged him either as an overworked oil executive or a paranoid coke addict. She had dubbed him “Wary Man” and hadn’t thought about him again. Now soot covered his face and his polo shirt was in tatters, but he still exuded an air of silent intensity.

A surprising amount of cargo survived the plane’s ill-fated landing. Four guerrillas went to work emptying the suitcases, removing anything valuable. They took laptop computers, jewelry cases, and cameras, but left most of the contents scattered on the ground. Clothing, toiletries, shoes, and hair dryers littered the runway.

One passenger fell to his knees from heat and exhaustion. Rat Face pushed off the Jeep he leaned against and sauntered over. He barked an order in Spanish to a nearby comrade. The soldier grabbed the passenger by the arm and dragged him back to the circle, dumping him facedown in the dirt. The other passengers stayed frozen, staring at the prone man, fear on their faces.

The guerrillas pointed to another passenger sitting in the circle. They untied his hands and pushed him toward the discarded cargo. He joined the others, which Emma now dubbed the “work crew.” At one point, she watched Wary Man push a suitcase and a silver metal briefcase behind some wreckage when the guerrillas weren’t looking.

The noise of engines accompanied by a cloud of dust came from a road that ran up a hill next to the airstrip. Two flatbed pickup trucks appeared only twenty-five feet below Emma’s perch. They ground to a halt at the edge of the airstrip, the doors flew open, and three men stepped out.

The first man out of the trucks wore green twill pants and a collared shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His hair was dark and full, but his face was etched with wrinkles. Emma held her breath as he scanned the foliage in her direction. His eyes held a dead look that frightened Emma with its intensity. She shivered in the heat.

He pulled on a cigarette as he scrutinized the smoldering airplane. Two men surrounded him. These wore fatigues like the rest of the guerrillas on the airstrip, but theirs looked cleaner, and their shirts were sleeved. They dogged the smoking man’s steps while holding machine guns at the ready.

Smoking Man strolled to the back of one flatbed, lowered the hatch, and flipped open a laptop computer. Next to the computer sat two large field phones, each in its own individual bag. Both the phones and the computer had some sort of satellite uplink. The man dialed a number and chatted on the phone, stopping every few minutes to consult the computer screen.

The second phone sat in the corner of the flatbed, next to a mesh bag of apples and a liter bottle of seltzer water. Emma focused on the apples. Her mouth watered at the thought of them. Her stomach growled and her throat burned. She was so thirsty that each swallow felt painful. If she could reach the flatbed undetected, she could take both the field phone and an apple. There were so many in the bag, she doubted the man would notice one less. She would wait until dark to make her move.

Smoking Man finished with his phone call and waved Rat Face over. Smoking Man pointed to something on the computer screen before indicating the passengers huddled on the airstrip. Smoking Man, Rat Face, and the bodyguards spread out, walking through the people, looking at faces. If a passenger stared downward, the men snapped out an order. The passenger looked up.

When they reached the end of the huddled group, Smoking Man shook his head at Rat Face. He tossed his cigarette on the ground and strolled over to him. Another conference. This time there was a lot of yelling on both sides. Rat Face indicated the bodies gathered around the plane’s aft section. He walked over and kicked one of the burned corpses. He put his hands in the air and shrugged.