The DMZ Page 36

  Like the first camp, this was not a clearing but a spot in the jungle where the size of the hardwoods allowed ample open area around their base to set up shelters. There was no stream nearby, but the water table was so close to the surface that past campers had simply dug a hole deep enough to hold an oil drum with the bottom knocked out. Seepage kept the drum filled to the brim, and the water was surprisingly clear, whatever microscopic creepy-crawlies might be swimming around in it.

  Julie now knew the routine of setting up camp, and as soon as her caleta was ready, she crawled into it, awakening only briefly when Marcela carried over a soup of rice, lentils, and a lapa that Jaime had shot along the trail. She was asleep again before Marcela removed the bowl, and didn’t awake until morning.

  * * *

  The watchers had followed along to the new site as well. This was easy, for the outsiders continued to be too noisy to pay attention to the small sounds and drifting shadows of the forest.

  As the watchers trailed behind, their unease grew. Each new camp of the outsiders was moving them closer to the great evil in the forest. Was this deliberate? By now they had realized the girl was not free in this camp as she had been at the airport. There was some debate as to what they should do. But while their woodcraft was much greater than that of these intruders, their weapons were far less powerful.

  Uneasy and afraid, they settled down again to wait and watch.

  * * *

  Colonel Jeff Thornton eyed the sat-phone, willing it to ring as he dropped his final report into his outbox. Drat it! Where is the guy?

  Finally acknowledging that willpower alone would not be enough, he slammed his desk drawer shut and strode for the door. The eradication personnel were throwing a barbecue tonight in celebration of a sizable reduction in the zone’s coca acreage, the technical difficulties with the Black Hawk’s GAU19 Gatling mini-gun having finally been ironed out. With that powerful combat machine riding shotgun, the Turbo Thrushes hadn’t been targeted by enemy fire in more than a week. As commander of the U.S. contingent, Colonel Thornton would be expected to make an appearance.

  He nodded to the soldier on duty outside his office. “I’ll be locking up now.”

  His hand was still on his keys when he heard the phone ring. With two strides he was back across the office, snatching up the receiver.

  “Thornton?” The supercilious drawl wasn’t the one he’d hoped for.

  “Crawford,” he acknowledged curtly. “What gives?”

  “That’s precisely what I was about to inquire of you,” the SouthCom commander’s executive officer returned. “Do you realize it’s going on three weeks now since the San Ignacio report, and we don’t know a thing more than we did then? The president is demanding answers. And what he demands, he expects to get!”

  Colonel Thornton felt his jaw tightening at the patronizing tone. “He can’t get what doesn’t exist. Do you think if we had hard data—or anything at all—we’d just be sitting around here? We’ve called in every intel chip we have, every informer, every connection. No one has heard the smallest rumor of trouble. You tell General Johnson—and the president—that we need some serious resources down here if we’re supposed to come up with the kind of answers they want.”

  “What about your asset in the zone? Surely by now he must have something! What’s he been doing in there all this time?”

  “Good question!” Colonel Thornton glanced over to make sure the office door had swung shut behind him. However close the working relationship between the U.S. force and their Colombian colleagues, this kind of intel wasn’t something they shared. “I haven’t heard a peep from our operative in the DMZ in over two weeks. Granted, in this kind of operation, regular communication isn’t always possible.”

  The door had appeared shut. But from Colonel Thornton’s angle, there was no way to see that the sentry’s combat knife had caught it before it clicked into its frame, leaving a crack just big enough for the guard to overhear the San José end of the conversation. Nor would the commander have been overly concerned, despite his careful adherence to procedure. Of all segments of Colombian society, the military were the most ardent supporters of U.S. objectives because in spite of American assertions of noninvolvement, they were helping to whittle down the Colombian military’s enemies. Besides, those Colombian recruits out there didn’t speak English.

  Colonel Thornton would have been less complacent had he seen the sentry’s ear pressed close to the crack in the door. Jaime Ramirez was not part of the first Colombian family to be divided by politics, with one son in the armed forces and another with the guerrillas or the paramilitaries. When he had finished his mandatory service, an older brother, a brigade commander with the FARC, had suggested he could be of use if he remained in the military. Even more so, if he could get close to the Americans who had invaded their country.

  To that end, Jaime had not only studied English, but he’d been one of the first to volunteer for the new counter-narcotics battalion. This wasn’t the first time he had stood with his ear to a crack, listening to the americanos. But the gringos were careful, and he had learned little worth passing on to his brother beyond the vague rumor that the Americans had human assets in the zone.

  Until now.

  “In one of the guerrilla camps, that was my last report…. Yes, with the plane that went to San Ignacio…. This operative is the best we have…. No, we haven’t heard a word since the UN mission returned.” The American officer was pacing back and forth behind his desk, and Ramirez couldn’t catch all he said. Nor did he understand all he heard, but he had caught enough.

  Striding around to the front of his desk, Colonel Thornton noticed that the door was still slightly ajar and kicked it into its frame. “Yes, Crawford, of course we’ve tried to make contact. But in a covert op like this, it’s ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’—as you’d know if you spent a little more time away from your desk. Our man is under strict orders not to compromise his cover for anything less than critical…. Yes, we know where he is, and we’re assuming he’s alive and kicking until we hear otherwise. Either way, it’s time we stopped betting our entire hand on one card. If the president’s concerns are justified—and we would be fools to ignore the slightest chance that they are—we need to rethink our whole strategy in here…. No, I want to speak to General Johnson myself…. Just give him my message and let him make that call.”

  The sentry watched the American commander leave his office, his narrow mouth grim with anger or concern as he strode away, though it was hard to read these gringos’ expressions.

  The American’s departure was his release from duty, and minutes later Jaime was back at his barracks. The palm-sized phone he unearthed from a slit in his mattress was enough to earn him a court martial if it were discovered. A toilet stall gave him privacy.

  “The americanos have a spy in the zone…. Yes, I heard it myself…. With the plane that went to San Ignacio…. They have not heard from the spy in two weeks…. They think perhaps in one of the jungle camps.”

  The guerrillas were efficient, though they lacked the technology of the Americans. Within the hour, Taqi Nouri was listening with mouth thinned in anger to a recap of the sentry’s message. Severing the connection, he turned a cold eye on his companion.

  “So—a new delay presents itself. It would seem we were once again mistaken about the American spy.”

  His companion glanced up from the lunar calendar spread out on a table. A symbol circled there matched the moon that couldn’t be seen through the jungle canopy overhead. “We have little time for delay. In less than a week, conditions will at last be ripe to strike.”

  “Then it must be resolved with dispatch.” Taqi Nouri permitted himself a relaxing of the lips that few would have termed a smile. “Though I do not foresee any difficulty. There is nothing this spy can do to impede us now.”

  * * *

  It was the third afternoon in the new camp, now a virtual replica of the old except for the lack of bath
ing, which had been reduced to sponging off with a gourd of water. Julie was stretched out on her stomach, outlining an article she’d probably never write on the social predilections of the Colombian guerrilla, when she saw Alberto head over toward her caleta from the radio hut. Hastily, she sat up.

  Alberto squatted down outside the caleta. “We have just heard on the radio why the militares came the other day. They were looking for you. It seems that a very big, fat gringo has come to Bogotá from the United States to organize a search. He must have great influence and money, because the militares are looking as they do for few others. He has even hired civilian planes with … with …” He snapped his fingers. “I do not know the names, but they have equipment to listen for radio talk and search for camps in the jungle. Comandante Aguilera says we may have to move you again. And we may not speak on the radio anymore.”

  Getting back to his feet, Alberto gave Julie an odd look. “I had come to believe your story, Señorita Julia. But there are those who now say you must be a spy if this man, who is not even a relation, should spend so much money and effort to find you. For we have learned it is true that you are not rich.”

  Uncle Norm, Julie thought with despair as he walked away. As she had feared, he had left his job and home and, as he had done for her parents, come storming down to Bogotá and the American embassy to mount a rescue attempt. She might have known he would be one to reject at face value that paramilitary story. Julie could see him clearly in her mind’s eye, bellowing his demands to the top level of the State Department, his bull dog jowls set obstinately, small eyes squinting in a glare calculated to cow even the ambassador himself.

  But for all his force of will, Norm Hutchens was a sick man, and this was just the kind of thing that could trigger the heart attack of which his doctor had warned. And now he was spending his own savings hiring private planes and surveillance equipment and bribing—though he wouldn’t put it that way—the Colombian military to search for Julie. They did not send out search helicopters for the average kidnap victim, not unless someone paid the expense.

  Oh, Uncle Norm, don’t you know it’s a waste of money? Like looking for a needle in a haystack. Her guardian wasn’t a poor man, but neither could he afford this kind of financial outlay. Still, it was just like Norm Hutchens to insist on doing something, however futile, instead of sitting around and waiting for events to take their course. If something happens to him, I’ll never forgive myself.

  A wave of helpless fury swept over Julie then caught up Carlos, on duty again and openly watching her reaction, his young face so placid and unconcerned that Julie wanted to shake him. Rounding on him, she demanded angrily, “How can you do this, Carlos? How can you … just torture people like this—kidnapping them and holding them until their families are crazy with worry? Making them spend every centavo they own just in the hope they might someday get their loved ones back!”

  Carlos looked totally uncomprehending. “But how can you say that, Señorita Julia? We don’t torture people. You have seen that. And the kidnapping—it is not like that at all.”

  He hunkered down on his heels to face her directly, his newly adult voice taking on an earnestness that only emphasized how young he was. “You must understand that it is not really even kidnapping. We call it a retencion … a temporary retaining for the purpose of benefiting society. We do not target the poor—only the rich who have built their wealth on the suffering of the Colombian campesino. Is it not only just, if they have so much and others have so little, that they should give up part of it to those in need? And if they must also give up some time out of their lives, is this not a reasonable price?”

  He sounded as though he were reciting a well-rehearsed school lesson, and Julie asked skeptically, “Are those your own ideas, Carlos, or someone else’s?”

  Carlos shrugged, then grabbed at his AK-47 as it threatened to slide from his lap. “They come from our leaders. See, here is what one of them has written. I have been studying it.”

  Hauling out a handful of the pamphlets Julie had seen the guerrillas reading around camp, he selected one and spread it out. “See? Right there he says it.”

  Julie read the paragraph he indicated halfway down the column of print.

  We utilize the term “retention” to refer more precisely to the content of our actions. We differentiate them from kidnappings because that is the term used to refer to the actions of delinquents whose only objective is personal enrichment. In our case, we temporarily deprive people of their freedom for political reasons in the context of a revolutionary war and class conflict….

  “You see?” Carlos said as she read. “It is only justice. It is these people who oppress the poor. Should they not pay? After all, they are treated well, and as soon as they pay, they are released to their families. You are a foreigner, Señorita Julia, though you grew up in our country, and so you do not understand. But the people of Colombia—they understand.”

  Yeah, and a rose by any other name…

  Julie couldn’t deny Carlos was telling the truth as far as he understood it. Kidnapping was a way of life in Colombia in a way no one else in the world could understand. People here paid for kidnapping insurance the way those in other countries paid for health insurance. And if you did get kidnapped, the whole process was bound by rules that both sides knew well. The guerrillas treated their captives with relative decency—Julie herself could testify to that. They took only those they considered wealthy. Even the kidnapped missionaries were understandable, as the rural Colombian considered all Americans to be rolling in cash.

  And once the ransom was paid, the hostages were quickly released, not only to demonstrate good will, but to encourage prompt payment of ransom by their next victims. The guerrillas were even good about leaving the family alone in the future, considering they’d paid their debt to society—though that didn’t guarantee protection from the next guerrilla faction to come along.

  So if you played by the rules, you went home—and promptly moved to Miami if you could afford it.

  It had become so commonplace that it was even a point of pride in some circles to have gone through the process somewhere in the extended family and survived. And only too many, even among the social classes most often targeted, seemed to accept their country’s bizarre cultural anomaly as somehow inevitable and even, to some extent, deserved.

  Until something went wrong. The blowing up of a ranch-owner’s wife whose ransom didn’t arrive before the time bomb wired to her chest detonated. The death of a kidnapped child too frail for the rigors of extended captivity. It took such an atrocity, it seemed, to shake the Colombian people from their apathy to public outrage.

  “What about the ones who don’t pay up—or can’t? What about the ones who never do go home? Who … who die—or disappear forever?” Looking the young guerrilla directly in the eye, Julie added, “What about me, Carlos? We were friends—your sister was one of the best friends I ever had. Could you really shoot me in the back if I made a run for it right now? Could you really shoot anyone down in cold blood?”

  She had shaken him, Julie saw. The troubled look was back on his young face, dissolving its hard lines into confusion and distress. His eyes dropped to his hands, clasped tightly around the stock of his AK-47, and he rubbed a thumb over the polished barrel before he admitted in a low voice. “I … I do not know, Señorita Julia. You must not even think of trying because I … I do not wish to make that choice. I … I think about it often. I even dream about it—and sometimes I am afraid I would not be brave enough to shoot. When I think of the men who destroyed my family—how they died … the blood … their faces—then I think it would be easy to pull the trigger. I want to kill. I thirst to kill!”

  His eyes rose to Julie’s, and they were the eyes of a child, hurt and bewildered. “But other times I remember the things Don Ricardo taught us—of a God who loves us and who calls us to forgive, not to kill. And … and my own father, who was a man of God like Don Ricardo—he did not even curse
the paramilitares when they shot him. I know he would not wish that I avenge his death in this way. And I wish there could be an end to this—to the killing. But it is not so easy to walk away from the guerrillas.”

  Carlos’s head shot up as heavy footsteps approached the caleta. It was Victor, just passing by from the radio hut toward the water barrel, but he paused to look thoughtfully from Carlos to Julie, and under his expressionless gaze, the boy’s face flushed, then hardened. As he strode on, Carlos snatched the pamphlet from Julie’s hands.

  “Enough! You are confusing me. I have made my choice. The guerrillas will bring peace to our country as the government never has. And if there must be some injustice as a price, then so it must be. There is no other way.”

  He sprang to his feet. Julie didn’t try to pursue the conversation. Crawling back into her caleta, she stretched out on her thin mattress. She could understand where Victor and Jaime and even Rafael were coming from. She’d grown up, as they had, with a firsthand view of the inequalities of Colombian society, the poverty and misery of the rural campesino, the wealth sewed up into the hands of the few. If a small segment of society kept all its resources locked up in their greedy clutches, wasn’t there justice in taking some of it and giving it to those in need?

  And if the ransom money actually went to the guerrillas’ cause rather than to the suffering masses, didn’t they consider themselves to be fighting on behalf of those poor? How did you explain to these people whose lives and families were so fractured that kidnapping—what it did to a person, a family, the pain and anguish of lives ripped apart from each other, the loss of personal freedom, the uncertainty and worry and fear by those waiting on the outside—was far more wrong than a simple redistribution of wealth?