A King's Ransom (25 page)

Ten minutes passed quickly. JoaquAn called them back to shore. Matthew swam as close in as possible, then rose and ran to his clothes on the rocks. Jan was right behind him. The warm waters had turned his pasty pallor pink, and the air felt very cold. Ten meters to their left, the Japanese couple helped each other to shore. The woman covered herself quickly, still enduring the weight of JoaquAn's stare.

Leave the old clothes, shouted JoaquAn.

They stopped dressing. One of the other guerrillas came forward and gave each of them clean trousers and a warm shirt. The Japanese bowed and thanked him profusely. Even Jan muttered a reluctant Gracias. Matthew just took the clothes, in no mood to thank a murdering kidnapper for the necessities of life.

They dressed quickly, and Matthew was happy to leave his smelly garments behind. He hated to indulge himself in false hopes, but one thought consumed him: Could this mean they're letting us go?

Instantly, thoughts of Cathy flooded his mind. He wondered how his wife was handling the pregnancy, if she was showing yet, if she'd started decorating the baby's room. He wondered if she'd received any of the late-night messages he'd tried to convey through nothing more than mind power. He had no idea if telepathy worked, but it was all he had, and he concentrated very hard when he told her that he loved her every night. He thought of Nick and Lindsey, too, but that was risky. He'd made mistakes with his children, and the memories weren't always pleasant. A guerrilla camp in the mountains was no place for regrets, not for a man who knew that he might never even see his family again, let alone make things right.

Matthew was buttoning his new shirt, then froze. In all the excitement over new clothes, he hadn't noticed the dozen new guerrillas who'd descended upon them. Matthew didn't recognize any of them as being from JoaquAn's group, though they were all just as young and dressed similarly in fatigues, bandannas, and a variety of hats. It was a goofy thought, but Matthew was suddenly reminded of the Friday's restaurant chain in the States, where all the waiters wore the same uniforms but showed their individuality through hat selection. These new guys could have been FARC, but the dragon insignia was conspicuously absent.

I think they're ELN, said Jan.

Over dinner one night, Emilio had told Matthew about the National Liberation Army, or ELN, Colombia's other major Marxist guerrilla organization, second in strength to FARC and equally prolific at the kidnapping trade. Crossing the canyon by cable had evidently taken the prisoners into the ELN's territory.

What do they want? asked Matthew in a voice just loud enough for Jan to hear him.

Us.

Matthew finished buttoning his shirt, watching the guerrillas closely. JoaquAn was talking intensely with one of the ELN, a short guy with a thick black mustache He and JoaquAn were the only two guerrillas in the entire group who looked to be over the age of twenty. They spoke back and forth for several minutes, and then finally JoaquAn brought him and two other ELN guerrillas down toward the prisoners.

The ELN guy strutted past Matthew, then Jan, then the Japanese. He stopped before each of them, glanced up and down, then moved to the next, as if he were General Patton inspecting his troops. When he'd finished, he and JoaquAn walked to one side and continued their discussion.

JoaquAn's selling us, said Jan. That's why he gave us all a bath and cleaned us up.

The thought of being spiffed up like a used car before trade-in infuriated Matthew. He tried to sell me once before. To FARC.

You better hope the ELN gives him his price. If he gets the idea that you're unsalable, that's not a good thing.

I don't need that kind of trouble.

We're already in trouble. I've said it all along: We're too many for JoaquAn to handle. If ELN won't give him his price, he'll have to get rid of at least one of us.

Maybe he'll turn one of the women loose.

Dream on, fisherman. It's going to be either you or me. And he isn't going to sell us off too cheap, and he isn't turning anyone loose.

From a distance Matthew watched JoaquAn more closely. The discussion with the ELN leader was well out of earshot, but they were standing in the open, and JoaquAn was waving his arms with emotion. It was clear from the expression on his face that the negotiations weren't going his way.

Finally JoaquAn shouted something in anger and stormed away.

AVamos! he told his men.

The guerrillas rounded up the prisoners. Without another word to the ELN, they headed back into the jungle, single file down the same path that had brought them there. No one talked, except JoaquAn, who was cursing FARC and the ELN for their greediness. He was fuming, and as they continued down the overgrown path, it made everyone edgy, even the other guerrillas.

The path was becoming treacherous. The footing was unsure, and a misty rain made the rocks even more slippery than on the way up. The warm waters of the pond had actually made Matthew's legs rubbery, and after a full day of marching, fatigue was taking its toll. He forced himself to concentrate, especially on this narrow stretch of path along the cliff with the deep ravine below. For some reason going down was proving to be more difficult than climbing up. The grade seemed steeper on the descent, and if you focused on the river two hundred feet below, vertigo could easily overtake you. The group proceeded one at a time. Three guerrillas went first to show the prisoners the proper technique. They didn't walk straight down the path but took half steps sideways with their backs to the cliff and their chests toward the mountainside. Two hands were on the face of the mountain at all times.

Next it was Matthew's turn.

Despite the danger and his need to focus, he couldn't clear his mind of a terrible sinking sensation. He remembered what Emilio had told him after the FARC deal had fallen through. The worst place for a kidnap victim to be was with a rogue criminal like JoaquAn. The survival rate was better with an established Marxist group that had the resources to hold prisoners for longer periods of time.

A scream pierced the jungle, the desperate cry of a dying man.

It was hard to tell where it had come from - Matthew could have sworn it was below him. Confused, he hurried ahead to the base of the narrow pass. He looked back and saw Jan, the Swede, and he was immediately concerned. The order of descent had been Matthew, the Japanese man, and then Jan.

Behind Jan was Nisho, the Japanese woman. She was hysterical. One of the guerrillas grabbed her and carried her down the rest of the way. Two other guerrillas were at the cliff's edge. Matthew hurried over and looked down into the ravine.

The Japanese man lay dead, facedown, his body smashed on the rocks near the river a hundred feet below. The wife was screaming inconsolably. Grief was what Matthew thought at first, but she was swinging wildly and cursing in Japanese, seemingly more angry than anguished. One guerrilla wasn't enough to control her. Two others finally came over to subdue her.

JoaquAn was last on the scene, having doubled back from his lead position. A?QuE pasA3? What happened?

Jan answered quickly, AEl americano le empujA3!

Nisho was still screaming wildly, and Matthew wasn't sure if he'd heard Jan quite right. I pushed him? he said, incredulous.

Two guerrillas grabbed him. No, no! said Matthew.

SA, sA, said Jan. AMatthew le empujA3!

Matthew locked eyes with the Swede. In a flash, that earlier nervous talk of JoaquAn's having more prisoners than he could handle came back to Matthew, and he realized what Jan had done: Some prisoners needed to be eliminated, and Jan had made sure that he wouldn't be one of them.

The crying widow was fighting to break free of the guerrillas' grasp, trying to crawl on her hands and knees to the cliff's edge to see or perhaps join her fallen husband. The guerrillas restrained her to the point of exhaustion, but the wailing continued.

JoaquAn had fire in his eyes as he walked up to Matthew and, without warning, delivered a monstrous sucker punch to the solar plexus. Matthew doubled over, sucking air, but the guerrillas held him up, forcing him to stand on his own two feet.

He's lying, said Matthew, barely able to speak.

You're lying, said JoaquAn. He grabbed Matthew by the hair and yanked him straight up to the standing position. And don't think you won't pay for this.

He unleashed another blow to the same spot. Matthew went down onto his knees, gasping for air. Another guerrilla kicked him from behind, an army boot directly into his left kidney, which sent him sprawling face first into the dirt.

Matthew coiled into the fetal position to fend off any further blows. He could hardly breathe, and the dizziness was making it almost impossible to see. Mustering all his remaining strength, he managed to turn his sights on the Swede, but his fellow captive just looked away. Jan had been saying it for days, though Matthew hadn't wanted to believe him. Now he knew it was true.

They were becoming their own Pitcairn Island. It was every man for himself.

Chapter 34

The Miami-Dade County courthouse was practically ancient by Miami standards, an imposing stone tower and distinctive bump on the city's modern skyline. My first visit had been on a field trip in middle school, though it wasn't the massive fluted columns or tiered granite steps that had impressed me so much I'd decided to become a lawyer. It was the unbridled energy, the almost perpetual state of confusion.

On Tuesday morning it was abuzz with the usual chaos. From every direction swarms of people converged on the main entrance, squeezed through the metal detectors, and then raced across the lobby for a spot on a slow-moving elevator that would eventually land them before one of twenty-three judges on fifteen floors. It was a nonstop stream of lawyers and litigants, witnesses and jurors, court employees and members of the media. Thrown into the mix were the venerable retirees who had nothing better to do than pack a liverwurst sandwich into a paper sack and head over to Flagler Street to enjoy the real-life version of The People's Court. They were like unofficial court historians, capable of rattling off stories about the giants in Miami's trial bar the way baseball fans knew the legends of the sport. For them, trial was theater, at times the theater of the absurd, and the longest-running show around was right here in this old building. A few could even wax nostalgic about the old days when the courthouse also served as the stockade, well before my time. Criminal cases were no longer heard here. These days the docket was strictly civil.

Civil. That wasn't exactly the word that came to mind as I braced for the sight of Duncan Fitz as opposing counsel.

The hearing was scheduled for 9:00 A. M. before Judge Korvan, roughly sixteen hours after I'd been served with the papers. I was well aware of the old adage that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, and I'd considered asking the judge to postpone the hearing. But searching for a lawyer and then bringing him up to speed on the facts would only have delayed matters. My father needed someone to get before a judge and plead the family's case as quickly as possible, and I knew the case better than anyone. At least for round one, I was on my own.

I was the last to arrive at Judge Korvan's chambers. Duncan Fitz and his New York partner, Maggie Johans, were seated on the battered plaid couch in the waiting room. They probably would have shaken my hand if I'd offered it, the hypocrites.

Maggie wasn't a trial lawyer, so I assumed she was here not in her capacity as Cool Cash partner but as an officer of Quality Insurance. She'd brought down a pair of sharp litigators from the New York office to assist Duncan, a man and a woman I'd never met. Unlike my peers in the Miami office, they'd have no personal reservations about filleting me like a flounder. No one had bothered with introductions, but I knew from their engraved leather trial bags that they were seasoned litigators. Trial bags were badges of honor at my firm, the more beat up and battle-scarred, the better. Litigators at Cool Cash took their image seriously. Unlike corporate lawyers, health-care lawyers, antitrust lawyers, and so on, lawyers who specialized in litigation were never called litigation lawyers. They were litigators, a term that connoted more fighting than lawyering and that, quite appropriately, even sounded a little like gladiator. When business dealings went sour, nobody ever threatened to call in the real estate department. If lawyers were sharks - a joke I heard far too often, being the son of a fisherman - then litigators were the great whites.

The judge will see you now, announced her secretary.

The hearing would be held in chambers, rather than the main courtroom, which wasn't unusual when a judge intended to hear only argument from counsel with no live testimony from witnesses. There was no stone-faced bailiff, no high mahogany bench from which the judge presided. The intimacy of a proceeding in chambers, however, did not mean informality. The judge wore the same black robe and the lawyers were just as respectful as in open court. Her carved antique desk was at the far end of the chambers, positioned so that the judge's back was to the window. A table extended from the front of her desk to create a T-shaped seating arrangement. The lawyers sat on opposite sides of the table, the plaintiff to the judge's left, the defendant to the right. The court reporter was off to the side, near the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

Good morning, Judge Korvan said in an amicable tone. She reminded me a little of my grandmother before the Alzheimer's, except that the smile seemed less genuine. Judge Theresa Korvan was a twenty-year veteran on the bench, who'd seen it all and had a reputation for smiling pleasantly no matter what she was doing, whether bidding you good morning or citing you for contempt.