The Evening News (96 page)

The hours passed
.
Partridge bad advised the others, "What we need to know is
how much activity there is at night in Nueva Esperanza, r
oughly how long it lasts, and wh
at time everything settles down, with most lights out. I'd like a written record kept, with all times noted
.”

At Partridge's request, Minh stayed another hour alone at the observation
point and, later, Ken O'Hara relieved him
.”
Everyone get as much rest as you can
,”
Partridge ordered
.”
But we should
man the observation point and the sentry post in the clearing all the
time, which means only two people can sleep at once
.”

After discussion
it was decided they would alternate duty with sleep, using two-hour
shifts
.
Earlier,
Fernandez
had rigged hammocks with mosquito netting inside the
hut they had found on arrival. The hammocks were less than comfortable
,
but those using them were too exhausted from the day's activity to care
,
and quickly fell asleep. The idea of bringing plastic sheeting was
justified during the night when rain fell heavily and leaked through the
hut roof.
Fernandez
adroitly covered the hammocks so the sleepers were
protected. Those outside huddled in their own plastic protection as best
they could until the rain stopped half an hour later
.
Nothing specific was done about meals. Food and water were handled
individually, though they all knew the dried food must be used sparingly
.
Their water supply, brought from Lima the preceding day, had already been
consumed, and several hours earlier
Fernandez
had filled water bottles
from a jungle stream, adding sterilizing tablets. He had warned that most
local water was contaminated by chemicals used by drug processors. The
water in the bottles now tasted awful and everyone drank as little as
possible
.
By dawn next morning, Partridge had answers to his questions concerning
Neuva Esperanza at night: There was very little activity--other than the
strumming of a guitar and occasional strident voices and drunken laughter
somewhere indoors. Such activity as there was lasted for about three and
a half hours after dark. By 1:30 A.M. the entire hamlet was silent and
dark
.
What they still needed to kno
w--assuming Partridge's surmises about the guards and the prisoners' location were correct -was how often a guard change occurred, and at what times. By morning no clear picture had emerged. If there had been another guard change in the night, it escaped observation
.
Their routine continued through the day
.
Manning of the sentry post and observation point was maintained, and even
during daytime the hammocks were available to those off duty. All took
advantage of them, knowing their reserves of endurance might be needed
later
.
During the afternoon, while it was Harry Partridge's turn in a hammock
,
he contemplated what he and the others were doing . . . asking himself
with a sense of unreality: Is all this really happening? Should their
small, unofficial force be attempting a rescue? In a few hours, no more
,
they would probably have to kill or be killed themselves. Was it all
madness? Like that line from Macbeth, ". . . life's fitful fever . .
.”
He was a professional journalist, wasn't he? A TV correspondent, an
observer of wars and conflict, not a participant. Yet suddenly, by his
own decision, he had become an adventurer, a mercenary, a would-be
soldier. Did this switch in any way make sense?
Whatever the answer, there was another question: If he, Harry Partridge
,
failed to do what was needed here and now, who would?
And something else: A journalist covering wars, especially a TV
correspondent, was never far from violence, mayhem, ugly wounding, sudden
death. He or she lived those perils, shared them, sometimes suffered
them, then brought them nightly into the clean and tidy living rooms of
urban America, an environment where they were no more than images on a
screen and therefore not dangerous to those who watched
.
And yet, increasingly, those images were becoming dangerous, were moving
closer both in time and distance, and soon would be not only pictures on
a tube but harsh reality in American cities and streets where crime
already prowled. Now the violence and terrorism in the underprivileged
,
divided, war
-
torn half-world was moving nearer, ever nearer, to American
s
oil. It was inevitable and had been expected by international scholars for a long time
.
The Monroe Doctrine, once thought to be an American protection, no longer
worked; nowadays few bothered even speaking of it. The kidnapping of the
Sloane family within the United States by foreign agents had demonstrated
that international terrorism was already there. There was more, much
more, to com
e--terrorist bombings, hostage taking, shelling in the
streets. Tragically, there was no way to avoid it. Equally tragic was
that many who were not participants soon would be -like it or not
.
So at this moment, Partridge thought, his involvement and that of the
other three was not unreal. He suspected that Minh Van Canh, especially
,
saw nothing contradictory in their present situation. Minh, who had lived
through and survived a terrible, divisive war within his own country
,
would find it easier than most to accept this undertaking now
.
And, in a personal way, beyond and overshadowing all those thoughts was
Jessica. Jessica, who was probably close at hand, somewhere inside that
hut. Jessica-Gemma whose memories and personalities, in his mind, were
intertwined
.
Then . . . fatigue suddenly overwhelming him . . . he fell asleep
.
On awakening, some fifteen minutes before his own observation duty, he
dropped down from the hammock and went outside to check the general
situation
.
At the sentry post, &% previously, there had been no alarms or action
.
The observation point, however, had produced specific information and
opinions.

There was a regular change of an armed person-presumably a guard-at the same location as on the night before
,
suggesting that prisoners were indeed housed in the building that stood apart from others. It seemed probable that a
guard change was supposed to occur every four hours, but
the timing was not exact. A changeover was sometimes as
much as twenty minutes late and the imprecision, Partridge
believed, showed a casualness on the guards' part, confirming the message conveyed by Jessica: Security here is sometimes lax.
Since morning, what appeared to be food in containers had been delivered twice by women entering what was presumed to be the prisoners' building. The same woman who delivered food made two separate journeys out with pails which she emptied into the bush.
Within the hamlet, only at the suspected building did any guard or sentry post exist.
While members of the guard force were armed with automatic rifles, they did not seem to be soldiers or to operate as a trained unit.
During the day, all comings and goings to and from Nueva Esperanza were by boat. No road vehicle was seen. The engines on boats did not appear to require keys; therefore it would be easy to steal a boat if that line of escape was taken. On the other hand, there were plenty of other boats with which a stolen boat could be pursued. Ken O'Hara, who was familiar with boats, identified the best ones.
A unanimous view among the observers, though it was only an opinion, was that the people being observed were almost totally relaxed, which seemed to indicate that an aggressive incursion from outside was not expected
.”
If one was
,”
Fern
a
ndez pointed out, "they would have patrols out, including up here, looking for people like us
.”

At dusk, Partridge called the other three together and informed them
,
"We've watched long enough. We go down tonight
.”

He told
Fernandez
, "You'll guide us from here. I want to arrive at that hut
at 2
a
.m. Everyone must be silent all the way. If we need to communicate
,
whisper
.”

Minh asked, "Is there an order of battle, Harry
?
”

"Yes
,”
Partridge answered
.”
I'll go close up, look in to see what I can
,
then enter first. I'd like you right behind me, Minh, covering my back
.
Fernandez
will hang behind, watch the other houses for anyone appearing
,
but join us if we need help
.”

Fernandez
nodded
.
Partridge turned to O'Hara, "Ken, you'll go directly to the jetty. I've
decided we'll leave by boat. We don't know what kind of condition Jessica
and Nicholas are in, and they may not be up to the journey we had coming
here
.”

"Got it
!”

O'Hara said
.”
I assume you want me to grab a boat
.”

“
Yes and, if you can, disable some of the others, but remember-no noise
!”

"There'll be noise when we start the motor
.”

"No
,”
Partridge said
.”
We'll have to row away, and when we get to
midstream let the current take us. Fortunately it's going in the right
direction. Only when we're out of hearing will we start the engine
.”

Even as he spoke, Partridge knew he was assuming everything would go
well. If not, they would improvise as best they could, which included
using weapons
.
Remembering the planned 8 A.m. rendezvous with AeroLibertad's Cheyenne
II,
Fernandez
inquired, "Have you decided which airstrip we'll try
for-Sion or the other
?
”

"I'll make that choice in the boat, depending how everything else goes
and how much time we have
.”

What was necessary now, Partridge concluded, was to check weapons
,
discard unneeded equipment and make sure they could travel as light and
as fast as possible
.
A mixture of excitement and apprehension gripped them all.

Back in Lima on Saturday morning, after watch
ing the AeroLibertad Cheyenne II
depart, Rita Abrams had been taken completely by surprise on two counts
.
First, she had not expected an on-the-scene appearance by
Crawford Sloane. A message awaiting her at CBA's Entel Peru booth announced that Sloane would be in Lima by early morning, in fact could have arrived already. She promptly called Cesar's Hotel where, according to the message, he would be staying. Crawf had not yet checked in, and she left word advising him where she was and requesting that he phone
.
Second, and even more surprising, was the faxed letter from Les
Chippingham, sent the previous evening to Harry Partridge. The
instruction on the letter to place it in an envelope marked "Personal
”
had clearly not been noticed by the busy Entel fax operator and it
arrived along with other mail, open so that anyone could read it. Rita
did, and was incredulous
.
Harry had been fired, dismissed by CBA! "Effective immediately
,”
the
letter said, and he was to leave Peru "preferably
”
on
Saturday-today!-"definitely
”
no later than Sunday. If a commercial flight
to the U.S. was not available, he was authorized to charter. Big deal!
The more Rita
thought about it, the more ridiculous and outrageous it
was, especially now. Could Crawf's arrival in Lima, she wondered, have
anything to do with it? She was sure it did, and waited impatiently to
hear from Sloane, all the while her anger over the abominable treatment
of Harry intensifying
.
Meanwhile, there was no way she could communicate the letter's contents
to Partridge since he was already in the jungle, on his way to Nueva
Esperanza.