Walt immediately turned and faced the trucks. “Kill the headlights!” he called. “Turn your lights off.” He shouted loudly, so Ernesto, in the trailing van, could hear him.
With a dreadful abruptness, the lights went out. They were plunged into darkness. Walt's mind was racing, while at the same time he was trying to think rationally: How do I get us out of this? Is there any possible way I
can
get us out of this? In the darkness he could barely see them at all, but they looked Indian—the Maya were the dominant culture in this region. Maybe he could explain who he was, what he had done in the country, for the country, and maybe they'd be sympathetic. It was a wild hare of an idea but it couldn't hurt to try—he had to do something.
“We're archaeologists,” he said, using the Mayan dialect that was most common in the region. “We aren't political. We're sympathetic to your culture. We're working at La Chimenea, the new archaeological site.”
The man who had spoken previously, who seemed to be the leader, shook his head. “Speak in Spanish,” he said curtly. He looked past Walt, to the vans. “Everybody out,” he ordered. “Everybody in front, with you.”
That was exactly what Walt had been afraid of. “They're only students. I'm the leader,” he said, trying to sound calm and unruffled. “Whatever you need, you can tell me.”
The man shook his head. “Out. Now. Everyone,” he ordered. He brandished his rifle. Even in the darkness Walt could make out that it was some kind of automatic of semiautomatic rifle. He didn't know what model—he wasn't knowledgeable about weaponry—but it was big and scary-looking.
First rule of survival: don't piss them off. “Whatever you want.”
He walked back to the lead van and explained what was going on. “They want us all outside. Leave everything in here.”
“Are they going to rape us?” one of the girls asked. She was on the verge of tears. Several of the others were, too.
He shook his head. “No.” He had thought about that, of course. But he couldn't let these kids know it. He had to keep them calm for as long as he could. “Play it cool, you guys,” he said, trying to stay calm himself. “I don't know what these men want, but getting hysterical is going to make matters worse.”
They all piled out. He went to the second van and told them the same thing. They got out and followed the others.
As they were all piling out Jocelyn grabbed his am and pulled his ear down to her mouth. “How bad is this?” she asked in a whisper.
“I don't know,” he answered. “Pretty bad.” He was fighting his own nerves. “But let's you and me try to stay cool. We have to be strong, we can't show fear, no matter how scared we feel, even though there's plenty of reason to. This could get out of hand really badly, really easily.”
The twenty Americans, plus Manuel and Ernesto, stood in front of the men on horseback. Walt's eyes were slowly getting accustomed to the low level of light. There wasn't much to see. Their abductors were wearing dark clothes, hats that covered most of their faces, and they were sitting above them on dark horses. Black on black on black, all around. Walt knew that standing there like clay pigeons wasn't going to do them any good. Being passive was the wrong signal. He had to do something, anything.
He stepped forward. “We're all here now,” he said to the leader. “What do you want from us? You want money, jewelry? Tell me what you want.” Don't say hostages, he prayed.
The leader turned and engaged a couple of the others who were next to him in conversation. These guys are awfully young, Walt thought as he strained to overhear what they were saying. Some looked like they were still in their teens, younger than his students. He knew that age was relative down here. By the time you're fourteen you're working, often you have a family of your own, you're grown up, for better or worse.
He caught fragments of their discussion. It didn't sound good.
“What're they talking about?” Jocelyn whispered in his ear. His Spanish was better than hers. He had been speaking it for decades—it was almost as natural to him as English, especially when he was in a Spanish-speaking country, like here.
“I can't make out what they're saying,” he whispered back to her. “I hope they're not talking about hostages.”
“Oh, Jesus.” She looked behind them, at the huddled, miserable group. “But how could they? There's too many of us for them to take.”
That was another fear: that they'd single out a few.
The leader turned back to them and motioned to Walt to come forward. As Walt did the man's beckoning, he noticed that they'd brought extra horses with them, which shook him up even more, because they could put hostages on those horses.
He had to try to hold his ground. “Tell me what you want,” he said to the leader again. He was fighting to keep his voice calm, but he was shaking inside. “We'll give you whatever you want. Whatever we have, you can have.”
“Your money,” the man said. “Your watches, your jewelry. Everything you have that is worth money.”
Walt sagged with relief. These weren't revolutionaries or organized kidnappers, they were highway robbers. The situation was dire, but not as bad as he had feared it would be.
He needed to find out how bold an approach he could take. “What about our passports and airplane tickets?” he asked. “We need them to get out of the country. They're of no value to you,” he added, improvising on his feet, “and if you were caught with them, the government would know it was you who robbed us.” He hoped he sounded rational, rather than trying to push too hard.
The leader thought about that. “All right,” he answered, nodding curtly. “You can keep your documents.” He looked beyond Walt. “There are other things we will take that will be of more use to us.” He pointed his flashlight toward the group. “That one, that one, and that one.”
Walt knew who he was pointing the light at even before he turned and looked behind him. None of the women were in any way appealing; they had been on the road for over twelve hours, they were soaked, sweaty, dirty. Nevertheless, the bandido leader had selected the three, aside from Diane Montrose, who were the most attractive.
This was the nightmare come to life. Walt's response came purely from his gut. “No,” he said firmly.
The leader leaned down and stared at him, not believing what he had heard. “What did you say?” he asked in a slow, menacing voice.
Walt's mouth had acted independently of his brain. But it was a good thing it had, he knew, because there was no other way he could play this. “You don't want to take them. Take me, if you have to take anyone.”
The leader looked incredulous. He pointed the barrel of his rifle straight at Walt's face. The barrel looked huge to Walt, like a cannon. Walt could feel the pulse in his neck, fluttering wildly.
“Are you crazy?” the leader asked.
“No, I'm not crazy,” Walt told him. He was fighting to keep the shakes from disabling him. “I'm valuable. They aren't. You can get a large ransom for me. My foundation will pay well for my release. No one will pay anything for them, they're only students.”
He didn't have a clue as to whether anyone would pay to have him released, or even if it would matter. These men could hold him until they were paid the ransom and then murder him anyway. But that didn't matter. He had to offer himself. He was in charge. The others were his responsibility. He couldn't let these men take the women. Whether or not they eventually killed them or exchanged them for money, they would certainly rape them. The women would be traumatized for life, possibly beyond repair. He couldn't live with that.
The leader stared at Walt for a moment from the height of his horse. Then he shook his head. “You are one crazy man,” he said, his voice expressing both disbelief and grudging admiration. “I could shoot you, right now.”
Walt braced himself. For a few seconds—he didn't know how long—everything was still, as if frozen.
The moment passed. “We will not take the women,” the bandido leader said to Walt. “Because we are not animals.” He sat tall in his saddle. “Regardless of what you think of us, we are men of honor.”
Walt was dumbfounded. “Thank you,” he replied. He started breathing easier. They were going to survive this.
“Tell your people not to hold anything back on us,” the leader admonished Walt sternly. “If we think you are hiding anything from us we will search you, and if we find out you are, we will kill whoever does it. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Walt told him. “Absolutely. No one will hold anything back. I promise that.”
He walked back to his group. They were huddled tightly together, looking miserable and scared out of their minds. “It's going to be all right,” he assured them. “They're only robbing us.”
“Only?” one of the kids had the temerity to say. He was one of the youngest—very bright, but immature.
“Yes, only,” Walt told him harshly. He wanted to kick the kid upside his head. Stupid American brat. They can travel all over the world and see the worst conditions and some of them still never get it. “Thank your lucky stars that's all they want. In Colombia last year, in a situation like this, they took twenty hostages, and after they robbed them, they murdered them.”
Everybody glared at the kid like he had rabies. The poor kid was properly chastised; he hung his head like a dog.
“They're taking everything that has any financial value,” Walt informed his charges. “They're letting us keep our plane tickets and passports, which is more than I expected. If the worst of this is that we have to fly home without money or watches or cameras or whatever,” he said, “we can consider ourselves lucky, damn lucky. The one thing I must impress upon you is this:
do not hold out.
Nothing. Not a penny, not your grandmother's wedding ring that's been a family heirloom for a hundred years. If they think we're holding anything back they'll be on us like bears on honey, and then we'll be in much worse trouble than we are now.”
Two of their abductors climbed down from their horses. They had large plastic trash bags to receive the booty. Walt led the procession, handing over his valuables—his wallet and his watch. With a sigh, he removed his wedding ring and gave it to one of the young bandits.
Jocelyn, following behind him, did the same. She held on to her wedding ring for a moment, her eyes tearing up as she handed it over. Then she stepped back, and gripped her husband's hand.
One by one, the volunteers stepped forward and emptied their pockets and packs. They were quiet, nervously eyeballing the bandidos, who watched them carefully, making sure nothing was left behind, each volunteer stepping back after stripping off their valuables.
While the volunteers were handing over their personal belongings, Manuel and Ernesto were methodically bringing the duffel bags and large cases from atop and inside the vans and laying them on the ground. Two more of the bandidos got down from their horses and began opening the bags, rifling through them and taking out whatever their hands fell on, from toothpaste and razors to women's soiled undergarments. The young highwaymen, giggling like schoolgirls, held up a pair of bras to their chests.
Walt watched this cavorting with both dread and almost a comic sense of revulsion—it was as if they were kids playing a game, except it was a deadly game, because it was real.
The leader barked at his troops to cut the crap. They slopped messing around and went back to going through the duffel bags. Most of what they pulled out was discarded and thrown onto the muddy ground. Jewelry, money, cameras, computers, other valuable items went into the trash bags. Manuel and Ernesto kept going back and forth to the vans, bringing up more bags, as well as cases and trunks that held supplies and equipment.
Flashes of lightning lit up the sky, followed by louder and louder thunderclaps. The storm was coming closer. Walt glanced up as another bolt came down. He barely counted to four-Mississippi before he heard the thunder.
He observed that the bandido leader was also looking up with a worried expression on his face.
Jocelyn, standing behind Walt, tugged at his hand. “You can't let them open your big case,” she whispered urgently into his ear.
He glanced at the pile of bags yet to be opened. About a dozen bags and cases, including his large equipment trunk, which was firmly secured with a padlock, were still back on the vans.
“I can't stop them from doing whatever they want,” he whispered back, turning away so that the bandidos couldn't see them talking to each other. “You heard what he told us. We try to screw these people around, we're going to get killed.”
“If they open that trunk, you'll lose all your work,” she warned him.
His computer was inside the trunk. If it was taken, a year's worth of work would be lost.
“I know,” he answered, keeping his voice low. “But I don't have a choice.”
“And you have those pieces from La Chimenea in there,” she added ominously. “What do you think is going to happen when they find them?”
Walt was taking some artifacts out of the country. Legally, aboveboard. The government had given him permission to remove them temporarily, for study purposes. He would bring them back with him the next time he returned. This procedure had become common practice since the United Nations protocol on stolen antiquities had been established in 1983, which forbade the permanent removal of antiquities from the country of origin. These guidelines allowed precious information to be studied under advanced scientific conditions, while assuring the host countries that the antiquities would be returned.
“I have the papers from the government.” He patted the pocket of his pants. “Right here, with my passport.”
Even as he spoke, he could see the precariousness of his situation. Jocelyn articulated his fear for him.
“Yeah, right,” she hissed into his ear. “Like they're going to take the time to read some papers. That's if they can even read. They're going to think you're stealing from the site, and they're going to freak. You can't let them open that box, Walt.”
He groaned to himself. She was right—he had to keep their captors from opening that case. But how in God's name was he going to stop them?