Angus, who had been listening, asked, “Did you learn any dirty insults, too?”
“Sure did, Gramps.”
“Could you teach me a few? So I can use them on the people here, if I have to.”
“I’m not sure Mom would like …”
“Go ahead,” Jessica said. “I won’t mind.” Nicky’s laughter had been wonderful to hear.
“All right, Gramps. If you really want to badmouth somebody, you could say …” Nicky crossed his cell and whispered to his grandfather through their separating screen.
They had, Jessica reflected, stumbled on one more way to pass the time.
And later that day Socorro came, responding to the message.
She stood in the outer doorway, her slim, lithe body a distinctive silhouette, surveying the three cells, her nose wrinkling at the all-pervading smell.
Without waiting, Jessica spoke. “We know you’re a nurse, Socorro. It’s why you cared enough to speak up and have our hands untied, and why you gave us chocolate.”
Socorro said crossly, “Not a nurse, a nursing aide.” She came closer to the cells, her lips set tightly.
“It makes no difference, not here anyway,” Jessica said. “Now that the doctor’s going, you’ll be the one who knows about medicine.”
“You’re trying to be smart; it won’t help you. You wanted to see me. Why?”
“Because you’ve already shown you want to keep us alive and well. But unless we get out of here, into some fresh air for a while, we’ll all be desperately ill.”
“You have to stay inside. They don’t want you to be seen.”
“Why not? And who are ‘they’?”
“That is not your concern, and you have no right to ask questions.”
Jessica slammed back, “I have a mother’s right to care about my son; also about my father-in-law who is old and has been treated brutally.”
“He deserved it. He talks too much. So do you.”
Instinct told Jessica that some of Socorro’s antagonism was contrived. She attempted a compliment. “Your English is excellent. You must have lived in America a long time.”
“That is none of your …” Socorro stopped and shrugged. “Three years. I hated it. It is a filthy, corrupt country.”
Jessica said softly, “I don’t think you really believe that. I think you were treated well, and now you are having trouble hating us.”
“Think what you want,” Socorro snapped as she walked away, then in the doorway turned. “I will try to have more air let in here.” Her lips twitched in the nearest thing to a smile. “It will be healthier for the guards.”
Next day two men arrived with tools. They cut open several spaces, creating unblocked windows in the walls facing the cells. Immediately, the daytime semidarkness was replaced by light so the three captives could see each other clearly, and also the guard. As well, there was a flow of air through the building, occasionally a breeze, and while foul odors were not eliminated, they were greatly reduced.
It was a victory for Jessica and also, she thought, an indication that beneath the surface Socorro was not as hostile as she tried to appear—a vulnerability perhaps to be exploited later in some larger way.
But the light-and-air victory was minor and, as it proved, there were major agonies still to be endured. One, unknown to Jessica, was already taking shape.
12
Six days after the captives and their escorts arrived at Nueva Esperanza, Miguel received a series of written orders from Sendero Luminoso, orders originating in Ayacucho. They were delivered by a messenger traveling in a truck that took two days to cover the five hundred tortuous road miles, a journey extending over perilous mountain passes and soggy jungle trails. Several items of specialized equipment were also delivered.
The most important instruction involved making a videotape recording of the woman prisoner. A script was supplied and no deviation from its wording would be permitted. The project was to be personally supervised by Miguel.
Another instruction confirmed that Baudelio’s duties were at an end. He would accompany the messenger in the truck back to Ayacucho, from where he would fly to Lima. The truck would return to Nueva Esperanza in a few days’ time to bring more supplies and collect the completed videotape.
The news that Baudelio was going home to Lima, even though expected, displeased Miguel. For one thing, the ex-doctor knew too much. For another, he was certain to resume his alcoholic ways, and liquor and a loose tongue inevitably went together. Therefore Baudelio at large was a threat not only to the security of their small garrison but also—more importantly, as Miguel saw it—to his own safety.
In other circumstances he would have forced Baudelio to take a walk in the jungle from which only Miguel would return. But Sendero Luminoso, while ruthless in many ways, could become belligerent about an outsider killing one of its own people, for whatever reason.
What Miguel did was send confidentially with the messenger a strongly worded note pointing out the dangers of having Baudelio remain in circulation. Sendero would quickly make its own decision. Miguel had little doubt what that would be.
One thing pleased him. Among the general instructions he received was one to “keep the three hostages in good health until otherwise ordered.” The reference to “three hostages,” which Sendero’s high command would have learned of through news reports, conveyed approval of Miguel’s decision to include the old man in the kidnap, something originally not planned.
He turned his attention to the special equipment brought from Ayacucho for the video and sound recording session. It comprised a Sony Camcorder with cassettes, a tripod, photo-flood kit and a portable 110-volt generator, gasoline-powered. None of it presented a problem to Miguel, who had handled recording sessions with kidnap victims before.
He realized, though, that he would need support and certain stern measures to ensure obedience from the woman, who he suspected would be difficult. To help him he chose Gustavo and Ramón, both of whom he had observed being tough with the prisoners and who were unlikely to be squeamish, whatever punishment they were asked to inflict.
The recording session, Miguel decided, would take place the following morning.
As soon as there was sufficient daylight, Jessica was busy at work.
Soon after she, Angus and Nicky had recovered consciousness in Peru, all three discovered that at some point almost the entire contents of their pockets had been removed, including any money they had had. A handbag Jessica had been carrying at Larchmont, not surprisingly, had disappeared. Among the few things left were some paper clips, a comb of Jessica’s, and a small notebook in Angus’s back pants pocket, which apparently was overlooked. Also, in the lining of Nicky’s jacket was a ballpoint pen which had fallen through a hole in a pocket and had not been found.
At Jessica’s urging, the notebook and pen were carefully hidden and used only if the guard on duty was one of those known to be more easygoing than the martinets like Ramón.
Yesterday Jessica had borrowed the notebook from Angus, and Nicky’s ballpoint pen. Although the screens between the prisoners’ cages prevented them from passing anything to each other, Vicente, while on guard duty, obligingly collected the objects and handed them to her.
What Jessica intended was to make drawings of the people she had encountered while strong memories of them still remained. While not an accomplished artist, she was a competent amateur and was sure the faces in her drawings would be recognizable if eventually she was able to use them for identifying those involved in the kidnap and this aftermath.
The first drawing, which she had begun the preceding day and was still working on, was of the tall, balding, authoritative man whom Jessica had become aware of as consciousness returned to her in the first darkened hut. Although not totally alert at the time, she did remember her desperately mouthed plea, “Help! … please help … tell someone …” A subsequent impression, sharp and clear, was of the man in question reacting, looking startled, but afterward
doing nothing, as was now apparent.
Who was he? Why was he there? Since he was present, he had to be involved. Jessica believed that the man was American. Whether he was or wasn’t, she hoped that one day her drawing would help track him down.
When she had finished, Jessica had sketched a recognizable likeness of the Learjet pilot, Captain Denis Underhill.
The sound of footsteps outside caused her to fold the drawing hastily and conceal it in her brassiere, the first place she thought of. The notebook and pen she thrust beneath the thin mattress of her bed.
Almost at once, Miguel, Gustavo and Ramón appeared. All three were carrying equipment which Jessica recognized instantly. “Oh, no!” she called out to Miguel. “Don’t waste your time setting that up. We will not help you by making any recording.”
Miguel ignored her. Taking his time, he installed the Camcorder on its tripod and arranged the photoflood lights which he plugged into an extension cable. The cable ran out of doors where the sound of a generator starting up could be heard. Moments later the area in front of the three cells was brightly lit, the lights focused on an empty chair which the Camcorder faced.
Still unhurriedly, Miguel walked forward to Jessica’s cage. His voice was cold and hard. “You will do precisely what I tell you, when I tell you, bitch.” He held out three handwritten pages. “This is what you will say—exactly that and no more, with not one word changed.”
Jessica took the pages, read them quickly, then tore them into pieces which she threw outward through the bamboo bars. “I told you I wouldn’t do it, and I won’t.”
Miguel did not react but looked toward Gustavo who was waiting nearby. Miguel nodded. “Get the boy.”
Despite her determination a moment earlier, a shiver of apprehension ran through Jessica.
While she watched, Gustavo opened the padlock securing Nicky’s cage. Going inside, he seized Nicky by a shoulder and one arm; then, twisting the arm, propelled him outside until both were in front of Jessica’s cell. Nicky, though plainly frightened, said nothing.
Becoming frantic, and now sweating, Jessica demanded of the men, “What are you going to do?”
No one answered.
Instead, Ramón brought from the other side of the building the chair usually occupied by the armed guard. Gustavo pushed Nicky into the chair where the two men tied him with rope. Before securing his arms, Gustavo loosened Nicky’s shirt, exposing his small chest. Ramón, meanwhile, was lighting a cigarette.
Jessica, with a sense of what was coming, cried out to Miguel, “Wait! Perhaps I was hasty. Please wait! We can talk!”
Miguel did not answer. Stooping to the floor, he picked up several pieces of the paper which Jessica had thrown. “Those were three pages,” he said. “Fortunately I thought you might do something foolish so I gave you a copy. But three is the figure you have set us, just the same.”
He signaled to Ramón, holding up three fingers. “Quémelo bien … tres veces.”
Ramón inhaled, bringing the tip of the cigarette in his mouth to a glowing red. Then deliberately, with a single swift movement, he removed the cigarette and pressed the burning end against Nicky’s chest. For the briefest moment the boy was so surprised that no sound escaped him. Then as he felt the burning, searing agony, he screamed.
Jessica was screaming too—wildly, incoherently, tearfully pleading for the torture to cease, assuring Miguel she would do whatever he wanted. “Anything! Anything! I don’t care! Just tell me what it is! But stop! Oh, stop!”
From the third cell, Angus was banging his hands against the screen of his cage and shouting too. His words intermingled with the other din, though a few could be heard. “You filthy bastards! Cowards! You’re animals, not men!”
Ramón watched and listened, a slight smile around his lips. Then he returned the cigarette to his mouth, drawing his breath in hard several times to reignite the glow. When it was again strong and red, he quashed the cigarette once more against another part of Nicky’s chest. Nicky’s screams intensified while, for the third time, Ramón drew on the cigarette and repeated the process. By this time, a smell of burning flesh accompanied the boy’s screams and desperate sobbing.
Miguel remained coolly impassive, outwardly indifferent to it all.
After the third burn he waited until some of the noise had subsided, then informed Jessica, “You will sit in front of the camera and speak when I signal you. I have written on cards what you are to say. It is the same as you read and the cards will be held up. You will follow them exactly. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” Jessica said dully, “it’s understood.”
Hearing her voice, choked and dry, Miguel told Gustavo, “Give her some water.”
Jessica protested, “I don’t … It’s Nicky who needs attention—something for those burns. Socorro will know …”
“Shut up!” Miguel snarled. “If you give any more trouble, the boy will suffer again. He will stay as he is. You will obey!” He glared at Nicky, who was whimpering. “You shut up too!” Miguel turned his head. “Ramón, keep the hot poker ready!”
Ramón nodded. “Sí, jefe.” He inhaled until his cigarette was again a glowing red.
Jessica closed her eyes. Her own obstinacy, she thought, had brought them to this. Maybe one day Nicky would forgive her. To protect him now, she would concentrate on what had to be done, completing it without a mistake. But even then, a sudden thought occurred.
At home in Larchmont, the night before the kidnap when Jessica and Crawf were talking, Crawf had described signals which a hostage making a video recording could transmit surreptitiously. The point was that someone back home would know of the signals and be able to recognize them. Crawf had had the notion that someday he might be kidnapped and make such a recording. But now it was Jessica instead—something neither of them had dreamed of—and she struggled to remember the signals, knowing Crawf would see this tape … What were they?
The conversation at Larchmont was coming back … her memory had always been good … Crawf had said, “Licking my lips with my tongue would mean, ‘I am doing this against my will. Do not believe anything I am saying.’… Scratching or touching my right earlobe—‘My captors are well organized and strongly armed.’ … Left earlobe—‘Security here is sometimes lax. An attack from outside might succeed.’”… There were other signals, Crawf had said, though he hadn’t described them. So the three—or rather two, since she could only use one of the earlobe messages—would have to do.
Jessica’s cell was opened by Gustavo who motioned her to move outside.
Her impulse when she emerged was to run to Nicky, but Miguel’s face was glowering and Ramón, also watching, had lighted a new cigarette. Jessica stopped, her eyes meeting Nicky’s, and she knew he understood. Guided by Gustavo, she sat in the chair facing the photofloods and Camcorder. Obediently, she sipped water that he gave her.
The message she would speak was written in large letters on two cards which Gustavo now held up. Miguel had moved to the Camcorder and was squinting into an eyepiece. He ordered, “When I drop my hand, begin.”
The signal came and Jessica spoke, trying to keep her voice even.
“We have all been treated well and fairly. Now that the reason we were taken has been explained to us, we understand why it was necessary. We also have been told how easy it will be for our American friends to ensure our safe return home. To have us released …”
“Stop!”
Miguel’s face was red, his features working angrily.
“Bitch! You are reading like you would a laundry list—without expression, trying to be clever, making it sound unbelieving, as if being forced …”
“I am being forced!” It was a flash of spirit which, an instant later, Jessica regretted.
Miguel signaled to Ramón who applied his hot cigarette to Nicky’s chest, prompting another scream.
Jessica, almost out of her mind, was on her feet, pleading. “No! No more! I’ll do it better! … The way you want!
… I promise!”
To her relief this time, there was no second burn. Miguel put a fresh cassette into the Camcorder and waved Jessica back into the chair. Once more Gustavo gave her water. Moments later she began again.
Steeling herself, she did her best to make the opening phrases sound convincing, then continued, “To have us released, you must simply follow—quickly and exactly—the instructions which accompany this recording …”
Immediately after the word “recording,” Jessica moistened her lips with her tongue. She knew she was taking a risk, for herself and Nicky too, but believed the action would seem natural and pass unnoticed. The absence of objection proved her right and she had now confirmed to Crawf and others that the words she was speaking were not her own. Despite all else that had happened, she felt a thrill of satisfaction as she continued reading from the cards Gustavo held.
“… but be sure of this: If you do not obey those instructions, you will not see any of us, ever again. We beg of you, do not let that happen …”
What were the instructions—the price of their release which the kidnappers were asking? Jessica could only wonder, by now knowing better than to ask. Meanwhile, only a little time remained, and how about her other message? A choice must be made … left earlobe or right … Which?
It was true the people here were armed and perhaps well organized, but security was lax at times, and often at night their guards fell asleep; sometimes one or the other could be heard snoring … Making her decision, Jessica reached up and casually scratched her left earlobe. It was done! No one had noticed! She continued with the closing words.
“We will be waiting, counting on you, desperately hoping you will make the right decision and …”