Safe Without You (21 page)

              Wish me luck Cal, I’m going to try to get us out of this and find my way back into your arms.  And ask Ramiro to say a prayer, since he seems to be on good terms with the Man upstairs.  Just don’t give up on me Cal, don’t think that I ran away because I was pissed.  Don’t ever believe that I want to be with anyone else except you.

###

             
The morning sunlight was beginning to penetrate the dense canopy formed by the tropical trees surrounding them, Amber realized, as she tried to not be disgusted by Victor’s hand on her butt.  Victor stirred next to her, awakened too by the voices filtering toward them from the direction of the river.  He sat up, and seeing that Amber was awake, put his finger to his lips to quiet her.  She nodded that she understood, and Victor stood up, drawing his side arm.  He walked the few steps to where Mariana and his other men slept, and quickly awakened them.  In an instant, the group had rifles silently aimed toward the approaching voices.

              Amber eased her hand under the hem of her shirt, ready to pull her gun to help if the voices belonged to rescuers, or to protect herself, Paco and Tomás if it came to that.  She didn’t plan to go down without a fight.  She thought of the poachers that had taken the potshot at she and Cal, and thought if FARC took them out, she probably wouldn’t shed any tears.  Her fear, though, was that it might be innocent Embera villagers, although a hunting party surely wouldn’t be so noisy.  But who else would be out there in the middle of nowhere?

              Suddenly the branches parted, and the man at the front of the group started laughing, putting his hands up in mock surrender.  “Lieutenant!” he called, “I’ll gladly be your prisoner in exchange for some beans and rice!”

              Victor laughed, and the others put down their guns as they recognized the man, and a moment later, two more soldiers appeared, pushing along two prisoners in front of them.  The captives looked gaunt, and they both had scraggly hair and beards.  Along with the dirt and blood on them, the unkempt hair made it impossible to determine the age of the men, or whether they were Latin or Anglo.  They collapsed in a heap, and Victor embraced the leader of the other group.  Victor snapped his fingers at Mariana and called for her to make food, and Amber could see something like a glint of hate flash in Mariana’s eyes.  Whatever Victor had done to Mariana when they went ‘to wash up’ must have been bad; she had hardly said a word since they returned to camp the previous day, and her contemptuous gaze now seemed focused on Victor, rather than Amber.

              Wordlessly, Mariana banged and clanged pots as if she was trying to make as much annoying racket as possible, but Victor said nothing.  He turned his attention to the two, arriving hostages.

              “Welcome!” Victor spread his arms in an expansive gesture, “I missed you so much, I had to find someone else with whom to speak English!”  He gestured delicately toward Amber, Tomás, and Paco.  “Sadly,
he’s
a Hungarian, and that one is a Panamanian.  The beautiful one, well, she is an American, but she’s seriously considering taking up the cause of the revolution.”

              Amber had no choice but to play along; she smiled sweetly at Victor.

              One of the men gave her a steely stare.  “Then don’t trouble yourself to introduce us to her.”  He spat on the ground, out of need or editorial comment, Amber wasn’t sure.

              Tomás regarded the new arrivals with a mix of fear and respect.  “How—how long have you been in the jungle?”

              The two men looked at each other and the second one answered, “Two years, two months, eleven days.”  A look of horror swept over Tomás’ face.

              Paco asked, “So what did you guys do to end up as guests of the revolutionary front?  I was just taking this guy backpacking.”  He jerked a thumb toward Tomás. 

              The first guy shrugged, “I guess our classified status has long been declassified.  We are—we
were—
US military contactors.”

              “Ironically, we were helping negotiate a release of hostages.”  The second one coughed a humorless laugh.  “Silly us.”

              Amber’s mind was racing.  Cal’s father had been a military contractor.  And he’d been taken negotiating a hostage release.  But there had been
three
men in the picture that Cal showed her.  Amber’s stomach rolled over with a sickening lurch.  She tried to call up the picture of Cal’s dad, but she had only seen it once.  These men were thinner, and even more unkempt than the men in the picture she had seen.  She had no way of knowing if one of them was Cal’s father, short of asking them their names.

              Victor kneeled down by Amber, putting an arm around her neck, his hand dangling inches from where the gun rested between her breasts.  She sucked in a breath.  He turned to look at her face, “What is it
chica
?  Is your knee hurting?”

              Amber nodded, willing to do anything to deflect his attention.  She tried to sound like someone trying to sound brave, “But—it will be okay.”  She lifted her chin to underscore her point.

              Victor kissed the top of her head, “Yes, it will be.”  He chucked her under the chin, “But you need a new name, one that doesn’t reek of your dubious past.”  He thought for a moment.  “You will be Tania.”

              “Tania?” Amber echoed.  “It’s beautiful, but why Tania?”

              “She was a great revolutionary, a protégé of Che Guevara.  You know who Che is, yes?”

              “Of course, one of the greatest revolutionaries.”

              “Not one of…
the
greatest revolutionary.  Until your government killed him in cold blood.”  Victor stood up, “Men like these two…those are the kind of men who killed Che.”  He looked down on Amber benevolently, “But we’ll rest here another day and night so that your knee gets better before we start our march.”

              “Do you think that is wise, Lieutenant?” his subordinate inquired.  “People are bound to come looking for them.”

              Victor took the pistol in his hand and hit the man across the face with it.  “Are you questioning my decision?” he bellowed.  The man, whom Victor had embraced only minutes before, cowered, “No, of course not.”

              The lieutenant waved the pistol at the rest of the group, “Anyone else have anything they want to say?”

              “I’m absolutely in favor of your decision to stay here,” Paco said. 

              The cloud over Victor passed, and he laughed, “I do like you, even if you are capitalist scum.  You’re much livelier than those two.  They have no sense of humor at all.”  He waved the gun in the direction of the two military contractors.

              Amber wondered how she could intervene to help the two men, and somehow find out if one of them was Cal’s father.

              “Maybe they would be in a better humor after a bath and a haircut?” Amber offered. 

              “You are too tenderhearted, Tania, but for you, I will grant this.”  Victor waved at two of the soldiers, “Clean up these capitalist pigs.”

              As they stood up, one of the contractors gave her a spiteful glare while the other had a softer, more appreciative expression.

              The first contractor, the ill-tempered one, turned back, “Come’on Ruston, we might as well see if we can drown some of the lice.”

              When Cal’s dad passed by Amber, she heard him whisper, “thanks.”

              When the contractors reappeared a short time later, Amber almost wished back the layer of dirt that concealed their condition.  They were covered in insect bites, scratches, and bruises, and their arms looked painfully thin for men of their height.  Their eyes were sunken, and their skin looked sallow despite their weathered tans.  Clearly the last two years, two months and eleven days had not been a picnic.

              “Tania,” Victor called, and it took Amber a moment to respond to her new
nom de guerre,
“How are your barbering skills?” 

              One of the soldiers handed her a clunky pair of scissors that looked better suited for shearing sheep than giving a human a hair cut.  Amber stared at the shears, and was seized with the desire to plunge one of the blades into Victor. 

              “Tania is injured, though, you must come to her,” Victor commanded.

              The first contractor looked at Victor, “
Tania
can go to hell.” 

              “Shut up, Wilson.” Cal’s dad said, putting himself between Victor’s anger and Wilson’s face.  He struggled to his feet, “I would gladly have Tania cut my hair.”

              “A cooperative person, I appreciate that,” Victor said.  “Please.”  He made a grand sweeping gesture, and Cal’s dad hobbled over.

              “I’m Bill,” he said, as he sat down in front of Amber.  The ground was sloped, and he was slightly lower. 

              Amber realized Cal’s dad, Bill, had his own strategies at work.  He was trying to connect with her, to keep her on the side of the hostages since she seemed to have some kind of privileged position.  Amber started snipping, slowly and carefully.  Satisfied with the proceedings, Victor directed one of the non-English speaking soldiers to keep an eye on the hostages, while Victor drew the rest of the group into a circle a short distance away.  Soon he was involved in what must have been some kind of planning session, and Paco had dealt cards to Tomás and Wilson, so no one was paying much attention to the haircut.

              “My name’s Amber,” and then Amber leaned into Bill’s ear whispering, “I’m a friend of your son, Cal.”

              At the mention of Cal, Bill jerked so quickly that Amber almost stuck him with the clumsy scissors.  “You know Cal?  How is he?” he whispered back.

              “He’s fine…he’s…close.  They knocked me out before they grabbed me, so I’m not sure how far we traveled up river, but I don’t think it’s more than twenty miles.  You know you’re in Panama, right?”

              “Panama?  We’re in Panama?  What’s Cal doing in Panama?”

              “Working for the DEA.”

              “Do you work for the DEA too?”

              “No, but I know that Cal took this assignment to be closer to you.”

              Bill’s voice choked a little, “His mother must be going crazy.”

              “Your wife doesn’t know that Cal works for the DEA.”  Amber patted Bill’s shoulder, reassuring him, and then used the sound of the scissors to mask her voice as she continued.  “Tomás and Paco, they don’t know either, and I don’t think it’s a good idea for Tomás to know because he’s the kind that could intentionally or unintentionally blow my cover if he gets scared.  He thinks Cal’s flying drugs and money around for a Columbian cartel doing business with FARC—which he is, but he’s doing it as part of a DEA undercover operation.  I don’t have time to explain everything now, but my cozying up to Victor—that’s an act—to help keep us safe.  You should also know I have a loaded revolver in a bra holster that these idiots haven’t found.”

              Bill’s body shook a little with a suppressed chuckle.  “Glad to see my son knows how to find a practical girl as well as a pretty one.”  His voice grew serious again, “But you said Cal is close?”

              “Yeah, with another DEA agent, I suspect they will be coming up river, looking for me…I’ve been helping them…with a sting.”  That was stretching the truth a little, Amber thought, but she didn’t want to get into all the particulars at the moment.  “You’ll be a big, big, bonus.”

              “But just two guys?  There are seven of them, and another fifty probably two or three days away.  I—I don’t want anything to happen to Cal.  It would kill his mother.”

              “That’s why I’m sucking up…and playing the hurt knee card…to keep us close to the river, and to delay Victor joining up with any more of his troops.  Cal is smart, I imagine he’ll have back-up.”

              “This—this is the first time I’ve had any hope in a long time.”  Bill wiped at his eye.  “I’ll get Wilson to get off your back.”

              “No, I mean, you can tell him I’m on your side, but Victor will get suspicious if he’s suddenly nice to me.”

              “Good point.”  He twisted his head back to look at Amber and smiled, “Could you take a little more off the top?”

              Despite his ragged condition, when Bill smiled, Amber could see Cal in his face.  On one hand it made her heartsick: that Bill was in such terrible shape, and that they both were separated from Cal.  On the other hand, though, she could see the same determination and inner strength that fueled Cal.  The fact that Bill had survived all this time was a testament to the fact that he had not given up, and Amber was painfully conscious of the fact that there had originally been
three
hostages when Bill was taken. 

              The snick-snick sound of the scissors was somehow comforting, Amber thought, a sound from normal, civilized life out there in the jungle in the middle of the calls of the howler monkeys, and macaws, and capybaras, the buzzing of the insects, the perennial dripping of water.  And when she was finished, Bill looked immensely better, rid of his matted hair.  Now, it was so short, you could see his scalp.  He turned around, and Amber did her best trimming his beard close to his face.

              Bill ran his hand over his freshly shorn head, calling to Wilson, “Man, you can’t believe how much better it feels to be rid of all that mess.”

              “If he doesn’t want me to do it, maybe he’ll let you,” Amber started to hand the scissors to Bill. 

              Victor caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, and stood up explosively, yelling at her.  “Tania!  Don’t ever give something that can be used as a weapon to one of these capitalist thugs!  They can’t be trusted!”  In a few quick strides, Victor reached Amber, jerking the scissors away from her with one hand, and slapping her with his opposite hand.  It wasn’t nearly as hard as when he slapped Mariana the day before, but definitely designed to be instructive—and memorable.