A King's ransom

“This is really scaring me.”

“Me, too,” I said, my voice fading.

The call came at midnight, the distinctive chirping of a cell phone on the end table. I nearly jackknifed in response, launching my tired body from a comfortable slumber on the couch. Alex came running from the bedroom. I flipped open the receiver, swallowed the lump in my throat, and answered.

“Hola.”

He didn’t answer right away, but I recognized the voice as soon as he began. “We’ll do this in English, but I’ll only say it once. So listen good. Understand?”

Alex sat right beside me on the couch, her ear close enough to listen.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Five-thirty tomorrow evening. Be at Cementerio Central.”

“The cemetery?”

“Don’t interrupt! Go to the grave of Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada. Bring the money and the cell phone. Wait in front of the monument. I’ll call you. Don’t be late.”

“Wait, what grave?”

“I told you I’d say it once.” The line clicked.

“Damn it! What grave!” I clutched the phone tightly, shaking it in frustration.

“Don’t worry, I got it,” said Alex.

“You sure?”

“It’s probably the largest monument in the cemetery. He’s the founder of Bogota.”

“Why would Joaquin send us there?”

“A quiet, isolated spot in the middle of a city of eight million people. If something goes wrong, he has hundreds of escape routes down surrounding side streets in every direction.”

“He could have sent us to the park.”

“He could have. But that wouldn’t have set your mind to thinking the way a cemetery does, would it?”

“No,” I said, trying to keep my mind from going there. “Definitely not.”

72

We reached the cemetery right on schedule, just a few minutes before 5:30 P.M. Our arrival was timed perfectly. We didn’t want to be standing around any longer than necessary with one and a half million dollars in a knapsack, even if we were both armed.

Alex had insisted that I carry a gun, which made good sense to me. It had taken her only a small portion of that Monday to scrounge up an Austrian-made Glock nine-millimeter pistol.

“This will stop a charging rhinoceros in its tracks,” she’d said, placing the gun in my hand. “Use it only if you intend to kill someone.”

Her warning had unleashed weeks of pent-up emotions that suddenly bubbled forth to form a conscious thought that chilled me. I’d never laid eyes on this Joaquin, but for all he’d done to my father, my mother, my family, I did indeed want him dead. Trading in human lives had to be the most despicable crime on earth.

The afternoon was overcast, the sun completely hidden. Less than a half hour of daylight remained. Trees stood leafless against a sad, gray November sky. There was a slight chill in the damp air, no breeze to stir it. Bogota’s notorious smog, the by-product of more than a million vehicles, hovered over the graves like the stench of death itself. The cemetery grounds covered a vast rectangular expanse, surrounded by a city that had grown around it. Many of the magnificent stone memorials were centuries old, discolored and decaying from the elements, the pollution, the vandals. Blaring horns and other rumblings of urban life could be heard in the distance, not loud enough to be disruptive, but enough to make me wonder if anyone here truly rested in peace.

Alex and I followed the footpath to the impressive crypt of Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada. She hadn’t overstated the size of the plot. In the rear was a crypt as large as some churches. Before it was an impressive stone marker in a courtyard setting. The entrance was flanked by two short, decorative iron posts that were linked by a single strand of black chain. It sagged in the middle, like a sad smile.

A man emerged from behind the crypt. I started, then calmed at the familiar sight of Father Balto.

“Joaquin asked me to come,” he said. “I’m supposed to go with you from here.”

“Go where?”

The question had barely left my lips when the cell phone rang. “Hello,” I answered.

“Walk a hundred meters to the statue of the Blessed Virgin. Wait there. Just you and Father Balto.”

“We have Alex with us.”

“Not Alex. If I see anyone but you and the priest at that statue, your father gets a bullet. Got it?”

He hung up, leaving no room for debate. I switched off the phone and repeated his orders, verbatim, to Alex.

“You can’t go without me,” she said.

“He said he’d kill my father if you come.”

“If I don’t come, he’ll kill your dad and take you in his place.”

“How do you know that?”

“He’s a kidnapper and a murderer. Your only hope is if I’m there.”

“I’d agree with you, if he’d told me to come alone. But I have Father Balto with me. That has to be a show of good faith.”

“Are you crazy? These people would shoot you in front of God Himself. They kidnap people from churches.”

“Can I say something?” the priest said.

“Sure.”

“I’ve dealt with Joaquin before. My only wish is to help you get your father back safely, but I’m not going anywhere if we don’t follow Joaquin’s instructions to the letter.”

Alex was about to say something when a sudden noise silenced us, a cry from somewhere beyond the statue. I listened more closely. It came again, this time more clearly.

“Nick!”

It was my father. Just the sound of his voice had my adrenaline pumping. I looked at Alex and said, “Cover us. But stay out of sight.”

I checked my gun, slung the money over my shoulder, and started toward the statue of the Blessed Virgin, just me and Father Balto.

The gag was back in his mouth, fastened tightly behind his head. A fresh cigarette burn smoldered just below his eye in the soft, sensitive skin near the tear duct. Matthew had refused to play a voluntary role in Joaquin’s scheme. He’d yielded to the command and shouted his son’s name only after the pain had become unbearable.

Joaquin peered out over the top of a huge granite marker. Matthew was even better concealed, kneeling in a half-dug grave behind a pile of fresh dirt. Joaquin’s partner, the one who’d watched Cerdo bleed to death, kept the prisoner in check at gunpoint. Only now did Matthew finally recognize him as one of the executioners who, along with Joaquin, had taken Will the Canadian for his last walk into the jungle.

The sound of approaching footsteps made Matthew cringe. He knew that his son was coming. Worse, he knew it was an ambush.

Joaquin cocked his pistol and smiled. “Way to go, fisherman. You reeled him in nicely.”

73

“That’s far enough.”I stopped just a few paces away from the statue of the Blessed Virgin. I recognized the voice as Joaquin’s, yet I resisted the impulse to turn and look behind me, fearing the consequences of any sudden movements.