THE COLONEL
Saskia had been told that our meeting was with a colonel in the Mexican Army. Bob and Susie parked their campervan under a tree a short distance away while Saskia and I started for the entrance to the fort-like building in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. “If you’re not out of there in an hour, then I’m coming in after you. Got that?,” promised Bob. “Me too,” chimed Susie in her beautiful Brazilian English. “And don’t trust the bastards.”
There was no doubt that we were walking into a heavily armed camp. Everyone we saw was carrying a weapon of some sort, mostly machine pistols. No one smiled. No one moved quickly. It was if we’d stepped into another dimension where time and space were out of sync.
After a surprisingly soft knock on a solid looking door, our escort showed us into a very large, windowless room. The room itself was magnificent in that bigger-than-life sort of way you expect in a Hollywood movie. All the furniture was made for a race of people much bigger than ourselves. The deep leather chairs looked inviting and cool. The matching sofa was big enough to camp on. The books were arranged perfectly in matched leather bindings and looked like they’d never been moved. We were both scared shitless.
Sitting in a leather chair facing a desk on the center of the wall to our left, a man we took to be the Colonel swiveled around and put on his dark glasses. Then, without standing, he inclined his head marginally in what we took as a rather less than enthusiastic welcome, and, with a minimal gesture of his right hand, motioned us to sit.
I knew Saskia well enough by this time to know she was uncomfortable and near to tears. Putting a protective arm around her shoulder, I started to move us both towards the sofa opposite the huge, ornately carved desk, so we could sit together. Before we moved two steps, one of the six armed soldiers firmly removed my arm and briskly guided me to an enormous leather chair in the furthest corner. Saskia, alone and shaking, was led to the center of the oversized sofa to sit on her own.
My ‘little voice’ was in serious alarm mode. There was clearly some rather nasty game-playing going on.
The Colonel was the only man we’d seen who wasn’t in a military uniform and as far as I could see, he wasn’t carrying a weapon. Once we were seated, he walked around to the front of his desk and propped himself at the edge.
He was dressed in what appeared to be an impeccably tailored Italian suit made of slightly iridescent brown silk in very subtle contrasting stripes. His dark silk tie looked as if it had just come out of same box as his crème silk shirt. And his handmade Italian shoes reflected the bright lights that flooded the entire room and made us wince. He looked like a successful pimp.
In perfectly modulated, smoothly accented English, the Colonel brought us up to date.
The Canadian authorities had formally requested the return of their citizens so the man could face criminal charges connected with the robberies. They also wanted to – and the colonel smiled at this – “question him about his friends in the separatist movement.” The Colonel stopped suddenly and casually extended his right hand in the air above his shoulder. Like a Disney automaton, the nearest guards perfunctorily fitted a cigarette into a sleek black and gold holder, and slipped it between the Colonel’s fingers while another guard offered a light with what looked like a gold Dunhill.
“The two little children are being cared for nearby. However,” he said, exhaling, “we have not yet decided what to do with this bad bad person. He is a kidnapper after all. And that is more serious than a bank robber, don’t you think?”
Not waiting for an answer, the Colonel leveled his gaze at Saskia and slowly removed his dark glasses. “Time to meet your little boy again Mrs Martin,” he said, as he returned to his seat.
A small door opened at the opposite corner and a man and woman were pushed into the room so roughly that they stumbled. The pair of them were in shocking condition and the man had clearly been beaten. I let out an involuntary gasp. The Christ-like kidnapper was handcuffed from behind and his eyes were swollen and red as if he’d hadn’t slept for days.
Saskia sat absolutely still on the sofa as what I could only assume was Stefan hesitantly entered the room, blinked uncertainly in the harsh bright light and rushed forward to hug his kidnapper’s legs. Looking up briefly towards the man with whom he’d spent the past three months, the small blond child turned shyly and stared blankly around the room. His face and little body were covered with insect bites and sores. “Is this your little boy, Mrs Martin?”
| Kidnap in Oaxaca © Robert R. Feigel 2022 – All rights reserved |
Pieces from a Puzzling Life 