Heart of the World (27 page)

I'd been lucky. Much of the floor was stone, not dirt. If I'd tumbled onto one of the flat hard stones that covered the area nearer the walls, I could have broken an arm or worse. Thoughtful of my captors to place my hammock over dirt.

The noise was a cross between a cough and a snuffle, human, not animal. All my senses, which I'd thought were operating at maximum alert, ramped up a notch. My heartbeat increased, my hearing sharpened, and I froze against the wall, turning my head cautiously side to side. I couldn't see anyone, and the noise had stopped. It wasn't repeated. Again, I could have called out, but I didn't want the other person, the other thing, to be able to site on my response. A shudder rippled across my aching shoulders.

One of the hammocks hung distinctly lower than the rest. I should have noticed it before, even in the dim, flickering light. I tried for a silent approach, but the rope between my ankles brushed against stones and earth.

At first I thought he was dead: I've never known anyone to sleep that quietly, breathe that softly, certainly not a full-grown hefty man. He slept like the dead. My thudding exit from the hammock hadn't disturbed him; my shackled approach failed to alert him.

He was in his late twenties, possibly thirty. Hard to tell because his narrow face was filthy, his beard scruffy, his angular features pinched with pain. The area around one eye was bruised and a deep scratch
scored the bridge of his nose. His mouth was partially open, and his chest expanded gently as he breathed. He wore the remnants of muddy, bloodstained military fatigues.

His right arm, below the elbow, was bandaged in clean white cloth. His left pantleg was ripped off high at the thigh, the leg roughly splinted and wrapped in strips of the same cloth. The bandages seemed recent. They were clean, for one thing. No blood had seeped through the immaculate cloth. A sharp smell hovered, not antiseptic, but green, leafy, a forest smell. I wondered if it came from the loosely thatched roof.

Eighteen inches on the other side of the wounded man's hammock stood two earthenware vessels. Terra cotta in color, they looked as old as some of the pottery I'd seen at the Gold Museum. I bent to look inside, hoping for water, wondering how I'd drink with my hands behind my back even if the thing were filled to the brim. I backed off immediately. The largest was obviously a chamber pot; it begged no further investigation. The smaller held a colorless liquid. I sniffed cautiously, wondering if I could manipulate it between my chin and my chest. No need. I'd found the reason for the man's deep slumber. The smell was heady, laced with some sort of opiate. Not at all tempting as drinking water.

As I knelt near the hammock, a sudden touch set my heart pounding. The wounded man's fingers had grasped my sleeve, and his soft, “Who're you?” was murmured in English, not Spanish, his low, raspy voice a Southern drawl.

Another American
. In DAS custody. What the hell was going on? I wondered how long he'd been playing possum.

“Who are you?” I responded more in a croak than a voice. His hold was weak; I could have shaken him off with no effort.

“Where am I?” His eyes were gray as slate, the whites threaded with red veins.

Shit. I was more than disappointed by his query; I was angry. I'd imagined he'd know exactly where we were. It seemed only right; he'd been here first.

“You American?” he managed, before his hand dropped.

“Yes. And you, what unit are you with?” I waited for his response, but he'd gone out like a light. I spoke into his ear, then held my ear to his mouth. He breathed, but he was far away.

An American, another American, wounded, and wearing combat fatigues. How long had he been here? I took another look at the makeshift splint. The poles on either side of his leg could have come from the same plant as the thin rods that made up the inner structure of the roof. I rested my fingertips on the wounded man's forehead. He was hot to the touch, feverish. He ought to be in a hospital.

The U.S. Army had a presence in Colombia, but it didn't include combat troops as far as I knew. Why would a wounded U.S. soldier be held prisoner by DAS?

The man groaned, and I almost followed suit, the ache in my shoulders adjusting to movement with sharper pain. Having my hands tied behind my back made me feel useless. I twisted them, but the rope held. I hadn't found anything sharp enough to use as a tool. I closed my eyes and considered the predicament. My arms are pretty long. I'm no gymnast, but volleyball keeps me supple. I moved from the stone-tiled section of the floor to the dirt-floored area, bent at the knee, and sat backward through the circle of my arms, jack-knifing my body and squirming till my arms were in front of me, twisting the ropes. When I got my hands free, I decided, panting, I'd rub my shoulders for a week. For now, I massaged my ego with the small victory.

Then I spent some time playing with the ropes, trying to untie them with my teeth. The ropes won. Still, my hands were more useful in front of me than behind, and maybe the man in army fatigues would wake soon and help me out with his one good hand. I tried to nudge him into consciousness to no avail. With a leg in that condition, he wasn't going to be able to escape. I'd have to do it for him, file a report, a protest. Somewhere.

By now, my eyes had adjusted to the dim and shadowy light. My head pounded, my tongue tasted vile, and my mouth was dry as dust, but I seemed to have no other nasty side effects from whatever substance had been injected into my leg in the Jeep. The wounded man didn't stir, so I shifted my attention back to the hut. Was anyone else hidden in the gloomy interior?

Returning to the part of the hut I'd been exploring before I heard my fellow prisoner's telltale cough, I resumed the task. Everything seemed easier with my hands in front of me. I could reach down and
touch the polished stones. I found what seemed to be an open hearth, an arrangement of stones against a lumpy wall blackened by carbon. I tried to heft one of the stones, but it was no use. Too heavy. Where were the fireplace tools, the tongs, the iron? For that matter, where were the bread and water, the Geneva conventions, the U.S. ambassador? U.S. citizens were being held against their will, fodder for a rabble-rousing article by Luisa Cabrera, if I ever got the hell out of here.

Something glinted between the stones. I got back on my knees and pried at it, a tiny ochre-colored stone inset in the mud between the flat polished stones of the hearth. Just as my fingers were about to give up, it popped loose, followed by another flatter stone, then another roundish one, all linked by thread. When I finished yanking, there were six smallish beads. A child's necklace? A bracelet of some sort? The stones were filthy, but I kept it in my hand, wishing it were a more useful article. A knife, for instance.

The door, when I finally found it, took a moment to register as a door because my imagination had painted a prison door, a cell door, barred and formidable. In fact, it was a disappointment, no more than a simple row of sticks lashed to a frame. As far as I could tell there was no lock at all. A bar of light showed at what would have been the jamb, if there had been a jamb.

I considered the prospect of the door, the likelihood of a guard, the possibility of undetected escape. My backpack was gone, my shoes as well. If I'd found anything useful as a weapon, I might have opted for feigning sleep till someone came, attacking them when they tried to rouse me. But the stones were too heavy, and I couldn't see depriving the wounded man of his splint, or lying in my hammock, ceramic chamber pot at the ready. The door was tempting; the edge of sunlight glittered like a diamond.

I hesitated before it, stock still, listening. The strange and pitiful bird called again, and I wondered why it was complaining, free as it was, able to fly. I spent another two minutes in a futile attack on the rope that tied my hands, gave up, and hooked my fingers around the edge of the door. Slid it open an inch, two inches, pressed my right eye to the gap.

Green
. Never had I seen such a profusion of greenery, such a variety of green, from lime yellow to deep blue-green, never, not on the first glowing day of short eastern seaboard spring, never, never in my life. I
was gazing at a clearing, and past the clearing, at a forest of trees that looked as old as time, draped with moss and vines, a forest primeval, but not a northern forest, not a single evergreen. In between the close cathedral of trees, low lush bushes covered the ground.
Jungle
, I thought, coffee bushes, maybe coca. Light dappled the greenery, changing the palette of greens from one moment to the next: apple to malachite, jade to olive, emerald to the tenderest chartreuse. There was a wildness to the light, a strange clarity that made the calls of birds and animals seem suddenly louder. I caught a glimpse of a huge and gaudy bird, just a glimpse as it flashed from tree to tree.

I held the thread of the small stone bracelet between my thumb and index finger, twisted the beads over the first three fingers of my right hand, fashioning them into a poor imitation of brass knuckles. Then I used the fingers of my left hand to scrabble at the door, shoving till the gap widened. Five inches, eight inches, and then hope died.

CHAPTER 23

The armed guards wore the same military fatigues
as my fellow prisoner. My first thought was that I'd fallen into some secret U.S. Army encampment, but on second thought—and closer inspection—I voted against it. These guys weren't U.S. Army. Dark-haired and deeply tanned, they were kids, most of them, skinny underfed kids in ragtag uniforms, laughing and holding semi-automatics like they'd been born with rifles in their hands. In the split second before one of them noticed the door move, they'd looked more like people playing at soldiers than soldiers.

I tried to swallow. Eight rifles pointed accusing barrels at my chest. My stone-beaded knuckles didn't seem like an adequate response.

One of the men barked an order, detached himself from the group, and hurried to the door, pushing it open the rest of the way, so we stood face to face. I thought he might shove me inside or hit me with the barrel of his gun. I had my mouth open, ready to demand the American ambassador, right here, right now.

“You wish to speak to El Martillo?” he said in Spanish.

I peered closely at his face. Wearing a gray suit, he'd been one of the “DAS” agents who'd kidnapped me. When he saw recognition dawn in my eyes, he broke into a tentative grin, then a wide smile.

“Water?” My request came out in a frog croak.

The water arrived in a pottery bowl shaped like a gourd, and tasted clean and cold as ice, the best water I'd ever tasted. When I'd drunk my
fill, the phony DAS guard motioned to a second guard, and together, they led me past a stand of lush foliage into another clearing.

Invisible insects chirped and hummed. A musical ripple resolved into a rushing stream. A woman kneeling on the bank washed clothes the old-fashioned way, beating them resolutely against a rock. She glanced up with the blankest of expressions, as if a woman bound hand and foot and escorted by armed guards were something so ordinary as to be part of the landscape. I decided there wasn't much point in asking her for help. Instead, I asked the DAS guard whether the soldier in my tent had been examined by a doctor.

“You saw him?” His high-pitched voice grew tense. “You spoke with him?”

“He was asleep.”

The man's alarm receded slightly. He shared a meaningful glance with the other guard, who shrugged, but said nothing. The DAS guard urged me along the bumpy path. After a minute or two, he dropped back and started telling his fellow guard a raunchy, meandering tale about a barroom drunk.

Not all the other people I saw toted rifles, but the majority did. As a former cop, I'm familiar with street weapons: Taurus handguns, Cobra pistols, your basic Saturday-night specials. I never served in the military, but an old sergeant pal of mine kept a personal museum of exotic arms discovered on Boston streets, so I knew I was looking at Russian AK-47s, Israeli Tavor 21s, and German-made Rugers. There were women other than the laundress, but they wore fatigues and carried rifles like the men. I saw no sign of children, no sign of Paolina, no sign of civilization, unless you consider advanced weaponry civilized. The rope that bound my legs was a waste of time, hampering my steps for nothing. Where would I run when I had no idea where I was? My bare feet stumbled over roots and stones.

Even if I'd had a cell phone in hand, I got the feeling I wasn't anyplace I could dial 911 to ask for help. The land sloped gently downhill, but above—well, above went on for miles, miles of greenery and craggy rock. I thought I caught a glimpse of a far-off snowcapped peak, insubstantial, shrouded in mist, like a vision in a dream.

We marched through variegated greenery over paths and terraces of stone to a sort of camp, a bivouac, maybe a way station to a larger village.
Arching trees spread leafy protective branches overhead. I counted two rectangular structures with thatched roofs, surrounded by nine gumdrop-shaped huts. I sniffed the air for the scent of ether, or any of the other chemicals involved in processing coca leaves, got the tang of greenery, the smell of cooking, and the scent of humans who didn't wash often. I tried to gauge the number of inhabitants, but there was no way to estimate accurately.

Probably the same as the number of banana-clipped assault rifles. Each of my guards cradled one in his arms. I studied the man to my right. His uniform might be ragged, but he carried plenty of killing tools. In addition to the rifle, he had a holstered Beretta and a wicked-looking knife strapped to his leg. He wore the weapons casually, as though he'd stopped feeling their weight years ago.

My shoulders ached, but I squared them and marched on. The air felt good. I was alive. I'd set out to find Roldan, and here I was, being led to the very object of my desire. It might not be exactly how I'd imagined the moment of success, but I was, according to at least one armed man, on my way to see El Martillo. The sound of the stream receded as the path led further into the trees. We passed small areas that had been cleared and planted. Gardening and growing crops and selling coke, all in a day's work.