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Skull of the Zipa:

Book 1 of The Haddie Green Chronicles

 

 

 by

 

Chuck Chitwood

 

 

 

 

© Chuck Chitwood, 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system - except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper - without permission in writing from the publisher.

 

 

 

Chapter 1 - TAKEN

Colombia’s El Tigre trading post is used mostly by adventurers and hikers setting out to climb the South American nation’s jungle covered mountains or to go rafting down one of the Orinoco’s myriad white water tributaries. I am not an adventure-bound outdoor sort of girl. I do love being outside and running but I’ve never in my entire life considered trekking through the tropical rainforest or braving class five rapids. And, yet, here I am trying to sleep in an uncomfortable bed thousands of miles away from home.

Only, I can’t sleep because I’m worried about finding my dad and because of the oppressive humidity. I know I need some rest but the air is so thick I can practically swallow it and the mosquito netting around my creaking bed prevents even the smallest breezes off the river from reaching me. Sweat pours down the back of my neck, so I pull my long, curly black hair up into a ponytail, dab the moisture with the sheet and try watching the small black and white television on the dresser to make myself sleepy. But the only station the old TV can pick up this far in the jungle is fuzzy and shows nothing but reruns from last year’s World Cup. 

 

The thought occurs to me to go to the bathroom and splash water on my face, but the only bathroom is at the end of the hall and shared by the whole floor. And somehow the idea of a young woman like myself walking down a dark hall to use a bathroom shared by grungy adventure seekers brings to mind all those movies that end with some overweight cop shaking his head saying things like, “How could this happen to such a good kid?”

Not that I couldn’t handle myself. I know I can. But it’s just not worth it. With my sheets drenched from sweat and the helicopter-like buzzing of mosquitoes whirling around my head, I drift into to a fitful sleep just after midnight. It’s not long before I start to dream and then my dream becomes a nightmare.

 

I am being chased by faceless men with guns and heavy black beards and I don’t know who they are. I’m running through the dense jungle but my legs feel like they’re slogging through pudding. As I try to go forward, limbs and vines pummel my face scratching my cheeks and arms. I can hear my faceless pursuers getting closer. Their footfalls get louder as they close in. Broken branches snap under their heavy, military boots that cut through the foliage effortlessly. They are shouting and yelling at each other. Somewhere in the back of my mind I know it isn’t real. I toss and turn, but no matter what I do, I can’t force myself to wake up.

 

My heart beats so hard, I’m sure it will explode. I can hear them getting closer. They’ll be on top of me in seconds. I race into the unknown not sure where I’m headed or why they are chasing me. I stumble and fall to my knees. My hands dig into the dirt as I scramble to get back up. My mouth opens to scream but there is no sound. Then just as a small groan emerges from the back of my throat, I feel thick hands wrap around my neck ready to choke the life out of me.

 

I bolt straight up in my bed, clutching the sheet to my pounding chest. I try to gulp the wet air and force it deep into my lungs, but I can’t catch my breath. Sweat pours down my face and my bed might as well be the river. My favorite Ramones T-shirt is soaked so I dig through my backpack, and find a dry white tank top and cargo khakis to put on. I lift my heavy ponytail off my neck and fan myself with a Colombian soccer magazine from the nightstand. Gazing out the window, the full moon shimmers on the majestic Orinoco and casts long shadows over the rough-hewn wood floor.

 

I stare out the window, trying to collect myself. Looking out across the silver coated landscape I ask myself, Haddie Green what in the world are you doing here? I’m two thousand miles from New Providence. This is nuts. 

 

It may be nuts but I’ve got to find my father. He’s all I have left. He’s been missing three maybe four days. I don’t know anymore. My time is all confused after the long plane trip and the bush plane ride to El Tigre. The only thing I know for sure is that I am thousands of miles away from my own bed at an outpost in the middle of a jungle in Colombia sitting by the open window trying calm myself and catch a breeze off the Orinoco River.

Now that my heart is beating at its normal resting rate all I can think is,This is hopeless. I shouldn’t even be here. It will never work. I should be at my prom tonight having a normal kid’s life. Instead, I am completely alone and my father is out there…somewhere. Falling back into my pillow, tears silently roll down the sides of my face.

 

Thoughts of Chance Baker standing on my front porch in his tuxedo and high tops holding a corsage and then seeing the note I left fills my head. ‘Family emergency. Had to leave town. I’m so sorry. Haddie.’ What else could I have said? ‘Chance, Sorry I can’t go to the prom with you but my father was kidnapped and his boss convinced me to fly to South America with him because he told me if we involved authorities they would kill my father. So, maybe we can grab a burger next week? Later, Haddie.’

What do I care? It doesn’t even matter now. I’ve already missed the prom and Chance probably hates me. Wiping away a tear I know that I’d give up a million proms if it would help me and Dr. Waters find my dad.

Dr. Waters, my dad’s boss, has a meeting lined up tomorrow with someone who is supposed to take us up the Orinoco to the last village where my dad was before he was kidnapped. I need to be at my top tomorrow but I’m so tired and worrying about the stupid prom and whether or not my father is okay isn’t doing anything for me except making me anxious. I stare through the gauzy mosquito netting and out the window at the silver sky. My need for sleep trumps the sweat and sadness I feel. My eyelids grow heavy and I drift off once more.

 

It’s not long before I’m dreaming of being chased again. But something is different from my first dream. This time a hand clamps down hard over my mouth. There is a smell of gasoline mixed with sweat and some sort of food that turns my stomach and causes me to gag. I resist the urge to throw up. I’m so groggy and yet my mind yells, Come on, Haddie. Wake up! This isn’t a dream. Wake up right now!

I can feel my teeth cutting into my lips causing blood, my blood, to spill into my mouth. I force my eyes to open completely. The horrid scent coming off the hand over my mouth causes hot bile to gurgle up my throat. In the back of my mind I hear my Uncle Ami yelling, Get up, Hadassah! This is not a test. Get up now. Throw him off balance Defend yourself.

 

With my eyes now wide, I look up at the stranger whose hand is on my mouth and I glance around the room. He is not alone but he is the one I must deal with first. I kick off my drenched sheets trying to free myself, but there are more hands grabbing at me now; pulling my legs. I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I try to kick at my assailants but I can’t move because they have me pinned against the bed. I reach for anything that I can use as a weapon.

 

I know there’s a lamp on the nightstand, so I try to grab it but my hand gets wrapped up in the mosquito netting. Someone ties a sweaty cloth around my head to blindfold me. My eyes burn as I try to peek through the material to catch a glimpse of my attackers. I reach for the lamp one more time, trying to knock it on the floor in the hope that the sound will wake up somebody, but the lamp was just out of reach.

 

Panicked groans emanate from my throat. Then another set of hands grabs my hair and pushes my head back into the pillow. My hair feels like it’s being ripped out by the roots. Tears stream down my face. The smell of gas grows stronger making it harder to breathe.

 

Then, for some unknown reason, they stop grabbing at me but do not loosen their hold on me. I squirm harder than before but the hands push me down so hard, I think my legs might break. I hear them talking in anxious voices. They’re speaking Spanish but they’re mumbling. I’m not too bad with Spanish. I’ve taken three years of it but that’s in the classroom. Right here, right now, I understand almost nothing because they’re speaking so fast. As the men whisper to one another, I count the voices. There are at least three maybe four of them.

 

The door to my room creaks open and someone new enters the room. It’s a man. I can tell from the sound of his heavy boots pounding across the wooden floor. He must be the one in charge because the others immediately stop talking.

 

With the confusing voices hushed, a moment of clarity strikes me. If they were going to kill me, they would have done it already. My clothes haven’t been ripped from my body, so they aren’t here to rape me. What could these thugs need with an eighteen-year-old girl from America? Oh no! No. No. Maybe they’re human traffickers. Maybe the leader is telling them not to damage ‘the goods’. I am not ‘the goods’!

 

My mind races as they chatter amongst themselves. The one with his gross hand on my mouth thinks they’ve got me subdued and loosens his grip. Whatever I decide to do now, I have to commit to doing it because I’ve seen enough crime shows to know that what a victim does in the first few minutes of a kidnapping is crucial. I come up with an idea. It’s probably a stupid idea, but I decide to take a chance and alert someone. Maybe if I wake up the whole trading post someone will come to my rescue.

 

I open my mouth and taste sweaty, gasoline and grime-coated flesh. I know his hand is probably crawling with germs. But at this point, I have nothing to lose. I bite down on his hand like I am tearing off a piece of tough steak, grinding and ripping the meat of his thick hand with my teeth.

 

He yanks his hand from my mouth, yelping in pain. I try to cry out for help, but the only sound that comes out is a weird guttural noise but it’s loud enough that the others scramble to cover my mouth, leaving my left arm free. That’s when opportunity presents itself. My hand shoots into the darkness grasping the lamp on the nightstand. Then with all the force I can muster, I smash it against the back of someone’s head and I hear one of my attackers collapse to the floor. The leader, the one with the heavy boots, speaks forcefully trying to get the situation under control.

I take in a deep breath hoping I’ve found my voice and I scream, “Help me! I’m being raped! Please somebody!” I thrash violently just as Uncle Ami had taught me. My legs and arms are like windmills whirling to make contact with anything. I tighten my fists and strike out with vengeance hoping I can connect a punch to a sensitive part of the body. I hit something. A back, a shoulder? I don’t know. But I won’t go down without a fight so I keep hitting.

I hear the leader shout, Stupido! Then I feel something heavy, a bat or maybe the butt of a gun, hit my head and a sudden, sharp pain shoots through my skull which may or may not be shattered. The pain is intense and radiates down my neck and back. My eyes roll up in my head. A bright light races through my brain just before everything goes dark.

 

***

 

My eyes flutter. I shake my head and wonder if what had happened was real. My head aches. I feel like I have been asleep for days. It takes a few seconds for me to realize that what I thought was just a terrible nightmare is real. I feel the blood vessels pulsating in my head, throbbing like they might explode. It’s dark and everything is blurry. And I have the weirdest sensation that I am falling, only I’m not.

 

After a few minutes, the pain in my head eases slightly, but the throbbing remains. I try to rub my skull which feels like it was cracked by the blow to my head but my wrists are tied together with rough, bristly ropes. It hurts to breathe.

 

I twist and turn to get air into my lungs but it doesn’t help. And I feel contorted and like I’m…swinging. I can also feel a painful burning that stings my ankles. That’s when I realize that my ankles are tied together, too. Every second of consciousness registers new pains and aches throughout my body. My eyes feel heavy and I drift off again.

 

When I wake back up I wonder if I have been out for seconds or days since all I see is darkness. I’m covered with bug bites. And I still feel like I’m swinging. Oh no, I’m going to be sick.

 

I try to cover my mouth but my hands are still tied together. I blink my eyes and my vision starts to come into focus. Surrounding me are tall trees, vines, and underbrush. Tiny gnats swirl around my face sticking to my arms and neck. A few tents are set up around a dwindling campfire. A dirty, green, beat up truck is parked in the distance. But something is wrong with what I see, Why is everything sort of upside down? What’s going on?

 

That’s when I realize I am the one upside down. Well, not completely upside down. In fact, as I swing there, I imagine I must look like an oddly shaped ‘J’ because my hands and feet are tied to a rope suspended from a gnarled tree branch. Somewhere in the jungles of Colombia in the middle of the night, I am dangling like a piece of meat behind the counter at Sam’s Deli on Market Street. I blink a few times to make sure I’m not dreaming. No. I am wide awake. Oh, crap! What do I do now?

 

The heavy air is moist and thick as I try to gulp it down, but hanging upside down like a human candy cane makes it difficult to breathe. To be honest, it feels like there’s a stack of bricks sitting on my chest but at least I am able to get some air into my lungs. At this point I’m happy to say that other than having a killer headache, sore muscles, and some seriously bad rope burns, I’m okay. And so long as I’m okay, I can try to think of something to help free myself.

Looking around, I know my captors must be asleep and since I’ve not been thrown in a cage and shipped off to some wacko, I know they’re not human traffickers. That can only mean one thing. These are the men who kidnapped my father. Somehow they knew I was at the El Tigre. I must have something they want. Whatever it is at least I am one step closer to my dad. 

 

I survey the landscape. No one is around. I see four tents and a truck in a clearing. I also see a fire that is dying out. Then I spot a dirt road that twists off into the jungle.

 

A noise at the edge of the clearing catches my attention. I wiggle and twist my body to spin myself around. A short, pudgy man with a stub of a cigar in his mouth pushes his way through the bushes adjusting his pants like he had just gone to the bathroom. There is no way he washed his hands. He’s got a rifle slung over his oversized camouflage jacket and matching camo-pants. He staggers and trips over a tree trunk by the fire. I notice his right hand is bandaged and it has a red spot where blood has soaked through.

Gross! Gross! Gross! He’s the man whose foul smelling hand had shoved my head into my pillow. I know I should be nervous, but hate fills every inch of my body.

 

He walks towards me, cigar in his good hand, with a gapped-tooth smile spreading across his face. From this angle, it’s impossible to tell exactly how many teeth he’s missing. He runs his unbandaged hand through his thick, greasy hair like he’s trying to fix it, only there’s no improvement. From the looks of it, his hair probably hasn’t been washed in months, maybe years. He moves within a couple of feet of me, and I spit in his general direction. It’s probably a dumb move, but it’s not like there’s a whole heck of a lot I can do at the moment.

 

Taking a puff on his cigar, the gross, snaggle-toothed henchman steps closer and raises his bandaged hand in front of my face. He strokes my cheek with it. Leaning in close me, his stubbly beard scratches my cheek. Being upside down puts me in the perfect spot to get a good whiff of his breath, which reminds me of spoiled meat left in the back of a refrigerator for months, only worse.

 

He gets close to my ear and clears his throat. “Hola Señorita. We are now alone.”

 

Chapter 2 - THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

As if having some gross, pudgy little man invade my personal space weren’t enough, I have the world’s worst headache, and I am literally turned upside. This is crazy. What am I doing here in the jungle of South America? How stupid was I to think I could find my father?

 

I should be sitting at the dinner table, filling out my housing forms for college, getting a part time summer job at the mall, or hanging out with Chance by the bay watching the sailboats drift across the water. For crying out loud, I’m eighteen. I should be with my friends at the prom I should be going with them down to the beach to watch the sunrise. Most of all, I should not be hanging upside down from a tree with a short, toothless, cigar breath evil man with drool running out the corner of his mouth caressing my cheek.

 

Ignore it, Haddie. Close your eyes. Go anywhere but here. But where? When? And then it comes to me. Three weeks ago I was having the best day of my life…

 

***

 

The state track and field finals were held at Providence High School. And I was preparing for my race. My last race. For four years I had dominated the 400-meter hurdles. I was even the first freshman at Providence to ever medal in the event. And I was preparing myself to medal once again. I was sitting next to the field house stretching out my hamstrings with my friends, Stacey and Morgan, while people filed into the stands when something totally unexpected happened.

 

Chance Baker walked up to us like he’d known us forever. Do you know how much confidence it takes for a guy to approach a group of girls? But then again, that’s Chance – confident but not cocky. He didn’t need cockiness. With a full ride to Chapel Hill to play football, he knew who he was and wasn’t worried about what other people thought of him.

 

“Hey Haddie.” I looked up at the mention of my name and saw his smile. That smile. Chance’s teeth are toothpaste commercial perfect and his wavy hair is cute the way it looks messy on purpose. And his skin was warmly sun-kissed thanks to his job as a lifeguard. I’m tan, too. Only my olive skin and dark hair isn’t what I think of as attractive because it whenever I’m at the airport or anywhere I get the nastiest of stares like I’m plotting something evil.

 

But I’m not. I can’t help my genetic code. When my mother was alive, it wasn’t so bad because she was one hundred percent Israeli and gorgeous and would tell me to be proud of my Anglo-Israeli heritage. Staring at Chance, standing there sort of Adonis-like, I can’t help but wonder what our kids would look like. When I realized I probably had that dorky deer-in-the-headlights look, I coughed to clear my already clear throat and asked, “Hey, Chance. What’s up? You staying for the meet?”

 

He cleared his throat, too. “I just wanted to come wish you good luck. You’re gonna rock it today. Nobody can touch you. Oh, and…”

 

Chance sort of nodded his head, which I took as him wanting to speak in private. I stood up, brushing grass off my legs and then put my curly black hair into a ponytail. I could feel Stacey and Morgan staring at me, trying not to giggle, and acting like they were tying their shoes so they could eavesdrop. They didn’t have to. They know I would have told them every single word he said as soon as he walked away.

 

Chance looked at the ground as we meandered toward the side of the bright orange and blue field house with a larger than life Minuteman painted on the side of the building. “Hey, I know it’s short notice, but, well you know Courtney and I broke up a couple of weeks ago and I was wondering if you’d like to go to prom? With me.” If I hadn’t been there to see it with my own two eyes, I would never have believed Chance Baker could be . . . nervous about anything. But he sure did sound nervous. “What I mean is would you like to go to prom with me, Haddie?”

 

I was, in a word, stunned. Everything around me sort of melted away. The bleachers which were full of cheering fans and parents sounded like they were mumbling and the starting gun that fired behind me sounded like a kid’s pop gun. I looked around wondering if it was some sort of joke but Chance wasn’t that kind of guy. And when I saw Courtney, the cheer captain and now his ‘ex’, with her long blonde hair, perfect skin and fake smile glaring at me like a cobra ready to strike, I knew for sure he was being serious. Not many people get under my skin. But Courtney and her cookie-cutter minions do. Courtney, though, is the worst of the lot because of her icy blue eyes. Not clear blue eyes like the sky; pale blue like the creepy kids in The Shining.

 

Oh, was she ever mad. And why was she so mad? Because the greatest guy in school, her former boyfriend, was asking me to the prom – no gimmicks or cutesy stuff, just a straightforward question and no doubt expecting my reply to be Yes.

 

I remember seriously thinking about whether or not I should jump up and down and shout abso-freakin-lutely! But, no. I decided to play it cool. Taking a deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth, as I refused to reek of desperation I said, “Sure, it sounds like it could be fun. But we need agree upfront that it’s a friend sort of thing . . . after all, I wouldn’t want to make anybody angry.” I nodded in Courtney’s direction.

 

“Courtney? Forget her. She’s always angry. But if that’s the way you want to do it. Sure. No strings. It’ll be just a couple of friends having a nice dinner and doing a little dancing.” He leaned against the field house and tilted his head.

 

Still playing it cool, I went to lean against the field house but stupid me I underestimated how close I was to the wall. “Exac—whoa!” Misjudging the distance by half a foot, I fell bumping the side of my head on the cinder block wall. Chance grabbed me, steadying me. His strong hands gripped my shoulders to keep me from falling down completely.

 

“You okay?”

 

“Yeah, just a little nervous about the race I guess. I’ll talk to you on Monday about it some more. Uh, sorry, I’ve got to bolt now or coach will ream me out.” I turned to head back to my friends, staring heavenward hoping Chance would think of my stumble as ‘cute’ instead of ‘totally klutzy’.

 

“No problem. Lots of luck, Haddie.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

I walked back to Stacey and Morgan and saw that Courtney, the cheer demon, had left the vicinity. Maybe she knew she’d totally lost any chance with Chance and she was now dateless for the prom. I couldn’t help but snicker and think, Good riddance.

 

We watched our fellow Providence High Minutemen Track Team members compete in a few events until it was Stacey’s turn. Stacey anchored the 400-meter relay. I felt bad for her because the two middle links were weak. I thought she would never have a chance at a gold medal and there was nothing she could do about it. But Morgan and I weren’t going to do anything but shout and scream for her. Going into the final hand-off of the baton, Stacey was a good twenty meters behind. Then it was like Stacey decided to kick it into overdrive because she closed the gap and came in second by only three steps. She medaled! Everyone was thrilled for the relay team because second in the whole state is nothing to sneeze at. But Morgan and I were ecstatic for Stacey because she was the one who really won that race.

 

Then it was my turn. My race. I did a group high-five with my girls before I headed to lane three. 

 

Showtime. I stretched a few more times as the freshmen boys’ team set up the hurdles on the track. I hoped the little red-haired guy in my lane knew what he’s doing. But seeing him struggle trying to carry the hurdles for my lane didn’t leave me feeling confident. Just line them up on the marks, genius.

 

I looked into the stands and spotted my father in the front row. My dad; ever the professor. He never missed a race even if he had to cancel his class, which I’m sure his students didn’t mind one bit. As a tenured archaeology professor and the author of a dozen best-selling books, the university let him do pretty much anything he wanted. Heck, he could probably cancel class all semester or show up in footy pajamas and his boss, Dr. Julian Waters, the dean of his department, wouldn’t say a thing to him. Apparently, higher education has its own rock stars, but it’s a little like being “king of the nerds” as my dad would say.

 

My dad my looked stiff in the stands but at least, he wasn’t like Stacey’s dad who was wearing a T-shirt with her picture screen-printed on it and stretched out over his ample stomach. No. My dad just sat there like a nerd in his glasses and sport jacket. His blue eyes, the only thing I inherited from him, sparkled as he looked at me. Funny, when I think of all those nasty looks people give me in the airports, I do get a thrill out of looking up at them with my big blue eyes.

 

Why do people do that? Why do they think it’s okay to judge someone just because their skin is darker, no matter what shade of dark it might be? If I was more like my mother, I’d go straight up to those people and smile just like she would have and then something like, “Is there something I can help you with? You seem interested in me. Is it my shirt? I got it at the mall. Or maybe it’s my shoes?”

 

My mom always did that sort of thing. She called it ‘Socratic Confrontation’. She approached people with questions that forced them to answer one of two ways, politely and apologetically or they would be dumbstruck and not be able to answer. In that instant, standing at the blocks staring at my dad I thought of how rough the past two years must have been for him sitting there in the stands watching me without her by his side. Both our lives changed in an instant because some idiot swerved into her lane. She’d gone out to get some ice cream for dessert and never came back. And just like that—she was gone.

 

My life was never the same again. I thought I would never be happy again. But after two years, there have been moments of happiness like winning my races because I could hear her in my head urging me forward. Of course, I felt pretty happy when Chance asked me out. And looking in my father’s blue eyes, made me happy, too. They’ve always inspired me and make me feel safe. His eyes and the memory of my mother’s never give up, never give in attitude remind me I can do anything I set my mind to.

 

I checked my laces and placed my feet in the starting blocks. My final race as a high school student lay before me. Then that weird thing happened. It always happens when I race. All the sounds, the cheers and yelling . . . all the noise dies away. Things move in slow motion. My vision narrows on the lane. I don’t notice the competitors beside me because I stopped racing against them a couple of years ago. Now, I race against myself because of something my father instilled in me.

 

Unlike my mother who was always doing triathlons and raising money for the National MS Society, my father has been more of a spectator than an athlete. But he’s incredibly smart and says things like: The race is against yourself. Focus on the goal, not on others. Do your best and everything else will fall into place. I ignored his advice for a while, but not long after my mom died and I came in second place in a qualifying heat, when I should have won the race. I decided to try things his way.

 

At the next heat, I blocked out my competition like he said. I focused on his words. Okay Haddie, this race is against myself. I have to focus on the goal, not on others. And I heard my mom’s voice telling me to never give up, never give in and . . . I won. In fact, I blew away the competition. And that was the day I started winning for me because looking around to see where my competitors were cost me valuable time. From that day on, I never looked back.

 

The starter’s pistol fired. I blazed out of the block easily five meters in front of the other seven lanes. Nobody entered my peripheral vision. The first hurdle approached and looked really small. I remembered how tall the hurdles appeared four years ago when I was a freshman. I glided over the first one. Picturing myself in my mind, I was perfect. My strong leg extended straight as a board, toe pointed. My off-leg bent exquisitely behind me. Exhaling as I landed, my vision locked on the next hurdle. One down, nine to go. Forty yards to the next one.

 

Then something happened. As I cleared the second hurdle, my left foot grazed the top of the bar. My knee buckled and I landed hard on the track. Pain shot through my knee down to my ankle but I rolled and jumped straight up. Beth from Westwood caught up to me in lane five. I felt blood trickle down my leg but I kept running. Trying to block out the noise, I looked at the third hurdle. I clipped it, too. My leg buckled again only I didn’t fall. 

 

What’s going on? I haven’t hit a hurdle in years. My heart started beating faster as the runners in lanes one and two passed me.

 

My father’s voice echoed in my head. Focus. I glanced to the sidelines and noticed Courtney and her minions laughing and pointing at my stumble. I heard their laughs and the gasps from the crowd. I tried to force them out of my head. You can do this. Just get to the next hurdle. I narrowed my gaze on the obstacle ahead of me and that’s when I noticed something wrong with the hurdle. It was…uneven. That’s weird.

 

Quickly glancing at the base of the upcoming hurdle I saw a rock wedged under the right leg of the hurdle. So, when I got to it, I jumped a little harder and a little higher to clear it. On the back straight away, I picked up speed. I looked at the base of the next hurdle and saw that it was flat and I cleared it without any issues. But the next hurdle had rock under it, too.

 

My mind raced to figure out what was going on and then I realized what was up. That little red-haired jerk sabotaged me. Anger shot through me, giving me a burst of energy. It was a good thing, too because it took every ounce of energy I had to add an extra stutter step, throwing off my stride, to regain my rhythm just so I could add two inches to every jump. But I did it.

 

Heading for the last hurdle, I was neck-and-neck with lanes one and two, but Beth was three steps in front of all of us in lane five. Lucky for me though, Beth started celebrating in her mind too soon and was running out of steam. When I saw this, I tapped into something deep inside and accelerated. I ignored the pain in my knee and dug in for the final sprint.

 

The New Providence students screamed as I broke the tape just ahead of Beth. I was wiped out, but the last thing I wanted to do was fall down flat on my back because it makes you look weak. I told myself, Do not collapse, Haddie. Do not! Be cool. Be cool.

 

I walked over to Beth to shake her hand even though she was leaning over and holding her knees as she gasped for breath. After our handshake, she fell to the ground and I stood up straight, smiling to the cheering fans in the stands even though my legs were shaky and my knee hurt badly. I just kept walking as if I were fit as a fiddle.

 

I gave a wave to my dad. He smiled, like usual. He never jumped up or shouted. He simply nodded his head. Staying in control is another lesson my father taught me. He told me, ‘Even if you feel like you’re coming apart at the seams, Haddie, you need to keep it together.’

 

After enjoying a brief celebration with Stacey and Morgan I saw the little red-haired jerk helping clear the track for the next race. I caught up with him after he walked behind the field house to stack the hurdles and spun him around by his shoulders. The other freshmen scattered.

 

I pinned him against the wall. “What did you do to my hurdles?”

 

“I didn’t do…”

 

Taking a step back, I threw a roundhouse kick just inches from his nose. My Uncle Ami would be furious at me for using my skills to intimidate someone who was not a threat but I decided it would be a valuable learning moment for the twerp. “Look, I’ve studied martial arts for eight years, punk. I know it was you. Now, tell me why you did it?”

 

He swallowed hard and looked for his friends to help him out but they scattered. “Courtney said she’d kiss me if I put rocks under your hurdles. She’s hot, you know.”

 

“Yeah, I know.” I shoved him into the side of the field house. “Trust me, kid she’d never go through with it. She’d find a way to embarrass you instead. That’s how Courtney rolls.”

 

He looked dejected. “Yeah, I kinda thought so. Hey, I’m sorry, Haddie. It was a great race. I’m glad you won.” Then he took off, giving me double thumbs up as he scurried away.

 

I heard my father’s voice and turned to see him with his arms outstretched. My father always hugged me after a race, regardless of the sweat and smell. “Great job, Haddie. You won state. Now let’s go get your knee checked out.” 

 

As we walked back towards the bleachers he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped the sweat off my face. A few years ago, this would have embarrassed me. But now I understand that it’s just his little ritual and I knew it wouldn’t last too much longer, so I decided to savor the moment.

 

My father put the cloth away then he pulled out an envelope. “I think this is for you.”

 

I rubbed my finger over the raised crimson letters of the return address: Harvard University, Office of Admissions. Only the envelope was already opened. “Uh, Dad?”

 

“Sorry, kid, I couldn’t wait. I had to see what they said.”

 

“You know that’s a federal offense.”

 

“So sue me.”

 

My hands shook as I scanned the page quickly not really comprehending the words. But I did pick up the words “track scholarship” and “academic scholarship.” I did the math in my head then jumped into my father’s arms screaming, “Full ride!”

 

“I’m so proud of you, kid.”

 

That was a great day. No. It was the best day of my life. I had scored a date to the prom with Chance Baker which was awesome, I’d just won the state championship for my division, I’d received a letter from Harvard telling me I had earned a full ride to the prestigious university, and I got to enjoy an ice cream sundae with my dad. Yes, all in all, it was an absolutely perfect day. I wish I could go back to that day.

 

But no.

 

 

Chapter 3 - MEET PABLO

 

The hazy memory of my perfect day and the state championship fades and I feel a rough hand stroking my cheek. My mind tries to grapple with my situation. Everything is wrong. But it only takes a minute to remember my perilous situation especially since I’m now face to face with the pudgy man. No, it’s more like I’m nose to nose with him which is two inches worse. Apparently, he has the first night watch. Looking at the stub of the cigar hanging out of the corner of his mouth, I imagine his last bath was months ago. Or if I am judging solely by the stench of his body and the foul smell of fish and beer on his breath, it might have been at least a year.

 

The ropes dig into my wrists. Luckily, I’m able to bring my bound hands to my face to keep his hot, moist breath off me. “Hola, Haddie Green. Santiago – he say to me you will be mine when we are finished with you.” He emitted a gruff laugh that led to a cough and other bodily noises. 

 

Gross. He’s . . . he’s Jabba the Hut’s ugly little brother.

 

Hanging there like I am makes thinking clearly almost impossible. But it doesn’t stop me from goading the smelly kin of Jabba. I twist and turn my hands trying to loosen the ropes. “Well, I cannot wait to meet this Santiago to tell him thank you. And when, pray tell, will Santiago be finished with me? I can’t tell you how excited I am to grab a cup of coffee with you; maybe we can discuss our favorite bands. Are you a Coldplay kind of guy? Or are you living Livin’ la Vida Loca here in the jungle?”

 

He squeezed my face like a vice grip. “Ha. You es divertida. You make me laugh, Haddie Green. But no one is coming for you and no one knows you are here. And when you lead Santiago to what he wants, no one will need you any more. So you will be mine. Then you can bite my hand all you want.”

 

His head moves slowly like one of those cheesy romantic movies where the first kiss takes ten minutes. His lips are cracked and chapped by the sun. Black stubble and sweat dried dirt covers his face. And with the various odors that drift off his body, I decide he and the others must have been traipsing through the jungle for days. His face gets closer to mine. And before his diseased looking lips get too close to my mouth, I gather up as much saliva as I can muster and spit in his bloodshot eyes.

 

“Estúpida chica!”

 

He smacks my face and I start to spin. Pain radiates from my cheekbone and travels to the back of my head to my neck. He stops me from spinning and I manage to spit once again at him even though I feel like I am going to pass out. I scream, “Leave me alone!”

 

Stink-face’s bandaged hand grabs my lower jaw and he waves his index finger in my face. “You see this, chica? You gonna pay for what you did to me one way or the other.”

 

I scream louder, “Leave me alone! You’re hurting me.”

 

Finally, I see movement in one of the tents. Then a sleepy kid no older than me stumbles out. He’s wearing a dirty white t-shirt and green shorts. He yawns and stretches before turning my way. Jabba junior glares at me as the young guy jogs over to us.

 

The skanky thug pulls his dirty hand off my face. “¿Pablo está usted loco? Va a tener problemas con el jefe”

 

I pay close attention to the conversation. But they’re speaking so fast it’s hard to keep up. At least I know his name. Pablo.

 

Pablo shoves the kid. “Silencioso Mauricio. ¿Ves lo que ella hizo para mi mano?” He raises his bandaged hand angrily to the kid called Mauricio like he might slap him.

 

I stifle a laugh when I realize Pablo is whining about his hand. I guess stinky Pablo didn’t like being bitten.

 

But Mauricio doesn’t even flinch at Pablo’s threat. He just shrugs his shoulders, as if he doesn’t care what Pablo does and tells him, “Okay. Pero estar en silencio. No despiertes Santiago. Recuerda lo que le pasó a Sergio.”

 

I wish I’d paid better attention in Spanish class. Geez, think Haddie. What does ‘Recuerda lo que le pasó’ mean? You have seriously got to brush up on your Spanish when you get home. Well, whatever it means, it wasn’t good for Sergio.

 

Pablo spits on the ground. “Esta chica no es la mujer de Santiago. Cuando ella le dice a Santiago lo que él quiere para saber ella es mía.”

 

I roll my eyes. Ella es mía? Oh, no Pablo. I am not yours. Nope.

 

Mauricio makes the shape of a gun with his hand and aims it between Pablo’s eyes. “Disparo Sergio entre los ojos. Un minuto, Sergio está comiendo arepas de huevo y beber chocolate caliente y luego...” He moves his thumb as if he’s shooting a gun. “Boom! No más Sergio. Ponele. Me observarla, por ti, Pablo.”

 

I might not be a UN translator but it’s not difficult to figure out that whoever the guy named Sergio was, he ticked off Santiago enough that Santiago shot and killed him. Mental note: Don’t make Santiago mad.

 

“Okay, okay.” Pablo takes the rifle off his shoulder and hands it to Mauricio as the two start to walk away. Pablo turns back towards me. “Regresaré por ti, chica. I come back for you.”

 

I. Hate. That. Man. Sure, yeah. You come back for me Pablo. Cut me down from this tree and I’ll knock you winding faster than you can say God Bless America!

 

They walk off into the darkness just out of earshot and I strain to hear what they are saying. But it’s impossible. I watch Mauricio light up a cigarette. The flame from the lighter illuminates his young face. Geez, he looks kind of like one of my friends in New Providence, except for the tattoo of a jaguar on his neck.

 

Safe from Pablo for the time being, I try to figure out what in the world this Santiago guy could possibly need me for. It’s gotta have something to do with my dad. But I don’t have anything. For Pete’s sake, I just got to South America. All I brought with me is my backpack, a couple of changes of clothes, my passport, some money, and my father’s notebook. Wait. Is that what they want? His journal? That’s got to be it. Geez, these guys might have guns but they’re idiots. They kidnapped me and left my bag in the room. How stupid is that? Maybe they think I memorized the thing. Is there a stronger word than stupid?

 

 

As I hang there, I know have to get away. And I know I am the only one who can do anything to make that happen. I take in as deep a breath as I can get and let out a blood curdling scream followed by, “Pablo stop it! You’re hurting me! No Pablo!”

 

The pudgy man races back to me and covers my mouth with his bandaged hand. “What you try to do, get me muertos? I do nothing to you.”

 

I look beyond him and see people emerge from the tents and I count six men staggering from their sleep in the darkness towards me. Is one of them Santiago?

 

Then I see the flap on tent farthest from me open slowly and a tall, dark man with a fat mustache steps out. His shoulders are square and he looks like a brick wall. He moves deliberately as if he expects the trees to bow down to him. Santiago.

 

As Santiago comes closer, I see a jagged scar that starts at the corner of his left eye and goes all the way down to his mustache. Then I notice the rest of his face is scarred with pockmarks. He must have had the worst case of acne when he went through puberty.

 

“Pablo!” He yells. “Aléjese! Brayan, obtener mi pistola.”

 

A young soldier, Brayan, jumps to attention and runs to Santiago’s tent. He returns in an instant carrying a black pistol and hands the weapon to Santiago who slides the bolt back, lodging a bullet in the chamber.

 

The others stare at Santiago. Even though I’m in a cockeyed position, I can see he inspires great fear among them. I hear Santiago’s teeth grinding beneath his dense mustache. A cold chill courses through my veins as I think, Pablo was gross, but this guy looks like evil incarnate. Maybe I should have just stayed quiet.

 

Santiago stares at me and points his gun at my head. I cringe when I hear the hammer click, locking the bullet in place. I feel the cold steel tip pressing into my temple sending another chill through my body. The pressure of the metal against the side of my head is what I think it would feel like to have a drill ready to drive into my brain. Leaning close to my ear, he whispers, “Why have you interrupted my sleep, chica?”

 

Chapter 4 - COFFEE AND TAFFETA

Santiago is a whole different sort of scary than Pablo and I can tell from the look on his face that he is totally displeased with me. My mind races trying to figure out what to do to take the target off of me. In a flash, I come up with a plan that kills me to even consider because it means I’ll have to pretend to be like . . . Courtney. I abhor girls who act all ‘girlie’ by doing things like crying at movies or when they don’t get their way with their boyfriends or their parents. However, I will admit that sometimes relying on my feminine wiles can be quite effective especially when it comes to things like getting out of speeding tickets or turning in late homework. And hopefully, it’ll work on scary gun-toting kidnappers, too.

I grit my teeth, inhale deeply, forcing my eyes to water, and through sheer will and determination force myself to cry even though it goes against my better nature and makes me white hot with anger. I feel my crocodile tears falling sideways across my face, landing along the edge of my hairline. “He tried to kiss me. I was scared he was going to hurt me. Make him stop. Please.” I blink furiously allowing more tears to roll across my face. My nose even starts to run causing little snot bubbles rise and fall as I sniffle. All in all, I know I must look like an absolute wreck.

Santiago’s face is so close to mine, I get a heavy whiff of the cigarettes he smokes. But at least it’s better than Pablo’s disgusting breath. I see his jaw clinch and his forehead wrinkle and yet I can’t tell if he’s annoyed with Pablo or me as I don’t see anything that looks like a shred of sympathy. I stare at him through my water-filled eyes and see that beneath his harshly quiet surface there was a seething rage that I sensed might explode at any second. Oh great. This might not have been a good idea. Not good at all.

Then I notice Santiago glance just slightly towards Pablo and hear him give an almost imperceptible annoyed sigh. Wait. Did I actually pull this off?

Santiago points his pistol at Mauricio and says, “Tú la ves hasta la mañana. Lo mataré si ella es perjudicado.” Leaning into my face, Santiago speaks soft and low with a rumble I can feel in my bones. “Mauricio will watch you now. Now, shut up so I can go to sleep.”

Mauricio’s eyes widen in terror as he glances at me. Then we both watch as Santiago, clutching his pistol, motions for the other men to return to their tents. Santiago slips his gun into a holster slung low on his thigh like a cowboy. As he walks away, I watch him grab Pablo’s collar. He backhands the foul breathed man across his face and then shoves him.

They’re too far away for me to hear what Santiago is saying. But based on the way Pablo is cowering around Santiago, I get the distinct impression he’s tired of Pablo causing problems. So, I might not like the whole damsel in distress thing but there are times when it works.

Mauricio clutches the gun and walks around the edge of the clearing, peering into the dark jungle as if commandos might burst through the foliage and attempt a rescue. But I doubt anybody would be able to find this camp out here in the middle of the Colombian jungle, especially since I don’t think anyone realizes I’m gone. Even if Dr. Waters were to come looking for me, I know he wouldn’t take on armed guards. No, Dr. Julian Waters does not strike me as the ‘go for broke’ in a desperate situation sort of guy.

Now I understand why my dad said he isn’t too impressed with his boss. He described Waters as stiff and impersonal. He said he was one of those professors who was better off working in an office behind a desk instead of interacting with real students. This is nuts! I wish I’d insisted on telling the police about my dad. These guys are not playing. They have guns. Even if I can escape, what am I supposed to do? Stop, Haddie. Stop it, right now. You’re exhausted. I need to focus on one thing at a time like getting some sleep.

But sleeping out here is next to impossible. The jungle is alive with activity. And aside from the fact that my legs are numb, my head is pounding, and there are mosquitos feasting on me, I have to listen to the wailing of howler monkeys and screeching of what must be giant crickets. The only way to block out the noise is to think about something that requires my complete attention. Maybe if I can figure out why they felt like kidnapping me was smart this will all start making sense.

What would dad do, Haddie? How would he get to the bottom of things? He’d tell me to start at the top. He’d tell me think back to before things got so confusing and start from there. Yes, that’s what he’d do. So I let my mind drift back to the week before prom.

***

Most girls had gotten their prom dresses months ago. Some had waited until a few weeks ago. But when Chance asked me, it was about as last minute as it could get because there was only two weeks before prom. Most people who know me would say I’m pretty calm, cool, and collected but the stress of what to do to about getting a dress stressed me out worse than I felt when I took my AP Calculus exam last year. Luckily, my dad kept me from totally freaking out by going with me to downtown New Providence to look for a dress on Saturday. Our downtown is one of those picture perfect postcard villages where tourists come to gaze at the colors of fall and in the spring to view the flower festivals. It reminds me of Bedford Falls in It’s a Wonderful Life.

Dad was a real trooper. Although as we went from shop to shop, I knew from the look on his face he felt out of his element. And I felt a pang of sadness because this was one of those times I really wished I had my mom. But I wasn’t about to say anything. After searching through every dress rack at the trendy stores and having my dad reject every dress for lack of armor plating to keep Chance ‘at bay’ I thought I would wind up wearing a dress right out of the 80’s because those were the only ones my dad showed any interest in. To be honest, I think my dad was too busy studying to go to his high school prom because his ideas of a fancy high school dance seemed to be based off of movies like Footloose or Pretty in Pink. But at least he was trying and I loved him for that. He might not have had a designer’s eye but he did spring for Frappuccinos as we strolled down Main Street and chatted.

“So next week is the big day, huh kid?”

“Only if I can find a dress. Then I need to get my hair cut.”

The idea of me cutting my hair stopped him in his tracks. “Oh, please don’t do that. Your hair is so beautiful.”

“Dad, it’s so long and wiry. I can’t do anything with it and…” It was about that time that I saw Courtney and two of her cheerleader minions pull into a parking space along Main Street in her little red convertible. Without even realizing I’d done it, I rolled my eyes at the sight. That car. I remember how she drove it to school on her sixteenth birthday. It had a big red bow on the windshield and all her little followers and the grease monkey gear heads drooled like Pavlov’s dogs.

Yes, Courtney was a snob and wasn’t shy about letting people know it but she never had a hair out of place, not even after driving with the top down on her car. “Look at her hair, dad. Courtney’s hair is long, blonde, and perfect. I just want something…easier; manageable. My hair is such a mess. It’s all wiry and crazy.”

He glanced across the street. “I wouldn’t say her hair is perfect. It’s nice but she looks like every other teenager under the sun. You’re unique; one of a kind. And your hair is just like your mother’s. She always struggled with it. But whether it was wild and crazy or fixed for a night out, it and she was always beautiful.”

I elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re my dad. You have to say that stuff.”

“Actually, I don’t. There are plenty of dads that are stingy with compliments.” I knew he meant well but he switched into his professor voice and my mind went into sleep mode. “You know me, Haddie, I try not to use superfluous words. I mean everything I say. Keep in mind the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.’”

“How could I forget it, Dad? You wrote it on a Post-it and put it on my bathroom mirror.” We crossed the street to the Style Shoppe, one of those places with an extra “pe” on the end to make it sound quaint in an attempt to ensnare tourists.

“Knowing wise words and living wisely are two very different things and quite mutually exclusive.”

I rolled my eyes again. “English, please.”

“I’m just saying you can’t just memorize famous quotes, you have to absorb them into your DNA and walk them out every day. You may have memorized Mrs. Roosevelt’s words, but you’re not living her life.”

“Did good ole Eleanor have to deal with witchy cheerleaders?”

He smiled. “I’ll need to do a little research into the primary source material to find that out.”

When we walked into the Style Shoppe, Courtney and her clones were gazing at themselves in the mirror after trying on the shortest skirts and highest heels. They laughed and giggled like they were trying to prove how much fun they were having. I put my head down, walked to a corner of the store, and found some dresses on the clearance rack.

I felt my father’s hand gently but firmly grasp my elbow. “I think the prettiest dresses are on the center rack over here. Let’s ask to have a look at those.” He nodded to the plus-size woman behind the counter wearing a pair of glasses on the edge of her nose. “Good morning, Marguerite. How are you?”

Marguerite grinned. “Dr. Green, so good to see you again. I haven’t seen you at the Chamber of Commerce lunches lately.”

“Yeah, I’ll try to make it next month if I get back from South America in time.”

Marguerite placed her hands on her cheeks and whispered, “Are there ancient treasures hidden deep in the jungle? Will you get to wear the hat I gave you? It would make you look so daring and bold like an action hero.”

“You know that’s just in the movies.” He smiled and brushed off the comment. “I’m just doing a little research at a museum in Bogotá. I’m meeting with one of my former students who’s a professor at the university down there. There’s something he’s been looking into for me. He thinks he may have some valuable information to help me find an artifact that’s been lost for years. But, you know I hate to be rude, Marguerite, but we aren’t here to talk about me. This visit is for Haddie. She needs an elegant dress for the prom.”

Marguerite looked at me grinned. “Of course, of course.” She patted my shoulder. “You know Haddie, I just love your father’s stories he regales us with a chamber luncheons. He’s just so adventurous and hunky, too.”

Hunky? My dad? She must be smoking something serious.

She motioned for dad and me to sit down on the fuzzy pink couch in the middle of the store then called out to her assistant. “Amber, if you’re not doing anything would you go get the new dresses out of the back, please.”

Amber, a young college dropout with a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder and a ring of some sort in her nose, was helping Courtney and her friends. I giggled inwardly when I saw the angry look on Courtney’s face when Amber walked away. I leaned and whispered into my father’s ear, “What are you doing, Mr. Hunky?”

“Shhh.” He put a finger to his lips. Suddenly, I realized every eye in the store was on my father, since he was the only man in the place. Then my dad raised his voice ever so slightly and said, “Marguerite, did you know my dear Hadassah got into Harvard?”

“Really? Wow, that’s terrific.” Placing her hand on my shoulder, she grinned from ear to ear. “You simply must come back when we get our new fall line in and let me get you ready for college, dear. They dress all preppy at those Ivy League schools. Plaid skirts, cardigans, penny loafers. Oh, it will be wonderful.”

“Thanks, but I’m not going to Harvard in the 1950s.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I felt a bad. But Marguerite just chuckled.

“Oh my, you have the wit of your father.” Marguerite placed her glasses on the tip of her nose as Amber made her way to the pink couch with an armload of dresses.

Dad continued, “You know what else?” His voice lowered as if sharing gossip or scandal. “Her date for the prom is none other than Chance Baker.”

Marguerite gushed. “The quarterback? Oh my, how wonderful.”

“So, we are looking for a special dress for Hadassah, Marguerite. Not a little cocktail dress you can pick up at the mall.”

Marguerite agreed and fussed with Amber sending her to the stock room three or four times. My father, ever the professor and never one to let a few minutes get away from him, opened his leather satchel and started reading his notes. Papers spilled out of an old notebook covered with coffee stains. I glanced the papers he was studying while Marguerite and Amber brought me dress after dress.

“What’re you studying now?”

“These are copies of ship’s manifests. Somewhere in these lists is a missing relic is mentioned.”

I tried to look interested but my dad could tell he was losing my attention. “You know, Haddie, most people, like Marguerite, think archaeology is always like an Indiana Jones movie, but most of the time, I’m in a library looking at old records, government documents, or ancient letters trying to find out what happened to some item. Trying to connect a sentence or maybe just a single word I find in a journal to old bank records can take hours or days. And most of the time I find nothing and have to start from square one again. But when I do make that connection it’s electrifying. It’s like being given the key to a treasure chest.”

Here we go again. The Indiana Jones thing. Just smile and nod. I can’t imagine him with a whip and fedora running through a jungle somewhere. Now my mom she could pull off a fedora with ease. But Dad is a bookworm. His office has always been filled with stacks of books with sticky notes attached to the pages. There are files stacked in varying heights around his desk. And photos of ancient treasures are pinned to corkboards on his wall. Every inch of his office screams bookworm.

I bought him a tablet for Father’s Day last year and showed him how to load all of his pictures and important files but what did he do with it? He loaded it with hundreds of blues tracks by musicians with weird names like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. I asked him why he didn’t want to use the table to help him and he said he liked getting his hands dirty, feeling the paper, and smelling the aroma of old books. Personally, I think modern technology scares him or maybe it goes against some archeologist code or something.

As an archaeologist, my father’s specialty is locating lost treasures. Wherever the ‘clues’ led him, is where he goes. He loves his job. In fact, I think he loves it almost as much as he loved my mom. If it hadn’t been for his work, he would have never been in the library where he met her when she was with her friends talking about what life was like growing up in Israel and how different it was in America as an exchange student. I think I heard that story at least a thousand times and he would always end it by saying my mom was his ‘best find ever.’

I was barely paying attention to what he said. But whenever he said something like Nazi or stolen or artifact, I’d go ‘mmmm’ or ‘uh-huh’. To be honest my attention was actually on Marguerite and Amber and the dresses they thought I should try on. Most of the time I’d nod ‘no’ to their suggestions without even trying on the dress.

But then my dad said something that caught my attention. “I hate to say it, Haddie but I don’t think we’ll make it back to Israel this summer.”

“What?” I stared at him. Going back to my mother’s homeland was something we always did. And since my mother had died, it made me feel closer to her somehow. I couldn’t imagine not going. “Why not?”

“Haven’t you been listening? There’s a lead in South America I have to track down before I can even think of going back to Israel. One of my former students stumbled across something dealing with two relics in the Museo del Oro in Bogotá . It’s a theory I’ve been working on for a while but I think the third relic in the set which had long been rumored to be lost or destroy was actually hidden by the Nazis in Colombia during the war.”

“Oh. So, let me guess we can’t go to Israel because if you find this third relic it’ll make a map leading to a lost treasure? Kind of like the old ‘follow the map to point ‘X’ then put a ruby in an ancient staff at the break of dawn and it’ll open a hidden passageway?’” I grinned knowing my dad hated any reference to Hollywood-style archeology. But it was fun to bug him.

He gave me his you’re being ridiculous face. “No. Honestly Haddie. Why do you always say things like that? It’s just important. Besides, we’ve been to Israel every summer for the last ten years. I’m sure your Uncle Ami will understand.”

“But…” When my father married my mother and she left Israel to live in the United States with him, he promised to take her back to her homeland as often as possible. Then, when I came along, it became more important to him. And after Mom died, our visits to Israel became more important to me.

Mom was from old city of Jaffa outside Tel Aviv. And when she was alive, we would stay with her Uncle Ami, whose name looks like a stylish way to spell Amy only it’s pronounced Ah-me, while my father would go off and dig at different sites. Sometimes she and I would take some time to travel in Europe – just the two of us - while Dad was busy. But my best memories are when my mom and I would do thing like buy scarves and shoes on Shenkin Street or sun bathe at the Dead Sea. And then there was Uncle Ami who would teach me the Israeli martial art form called Krav Maga at his studio just like he taught my mother when she was young.

“Haddie, it’s not a definite that we won’t get to Israel. If I find the information I need in the museum, my friend, Javier Quesada, can take me up the Orinoco River and I think I can track down a couple of leads based on some ship manifests I’ve been studying to find the relic.” He shook the papers he held. “It’s a longshot but I believe it wound up in a village in the highlands far away from the coast where the U-boats would’ve been hidden from view. If I’m right I shouldn’t be gone too long and maybe we can spend the rest of the summer at Ami’s place in Jaffa.”

I was about to reply but Amber stepped in front of me carrying a long sapphire blue dress that jumped out at me.

My father smiled as Marguerite handed me the dress and said that the hottest young actresses wore this designer at the Oscars. “Go on, dear, try it on. I’m sure it will look amazing.”

I took the dress and made my way to the dressing room, passing by Courtney and her cookie-cutter friends. I could feel her minion following behind me and spied them getting into a stall next to me. Then, just as I stepped into the dress I heard them talking. I knew she probably sent them in just to upset me. It worked.

“She is such a freak.”

“She’s like a giant and what’s with that hair?”

“Yeah, it’s like Medusa or something.”

“I know, right? Don’t look her in the eyes whatever you do.”

I sighed. At least they paid attention during the Greek mythology unit. I felt horrible when I stepped out of the dressing room. My head was down. My shoulders were slumped. And I stood there feeling utterly dejected as I looked at my dad. My father pushed his papers back in his bag and smiled broadly. I didn’t smile back.

He stood up. “Marguerite, something is missing. I think this dress needs some shiny high heels. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The owner scurried around, “Yes, indeed, very few women are tall enough to pull off this elegant length.” She added in a slightly louder voice, “Most girls do that faux club girl look with the micro-mini-dresses, because true elegance is difficult to pull off at such a young age.” She handed me a pair of silver shoes.

I stepped cautiously into the shoes the way Cinderella stepped into her glass slipper. Perfect. Just like Cinderella. Either Marguerite had been dressing people a long time because she never even asked for my shoe size or she was a fairy godmother. I noticed the women in the shop, the older ones, looking at me with smiles.

Marguerite sighed. “Oh, my! I think you are probably the only girl who can do that gown justice! It fits like it was made for you.”

There was an audible gasp of frustration from Courtney and the mini-Courtneys. After which they threw their noses in the air and stomped out of the place like two year olds. I glanced in a mirror and smiled. Yeah, I guess I do look sorta awesome.

And with that, I let their comments fade from my mind. I couldn’t believe I had let them get in my head. When it comes to people like Courtney, my head tells me their opinions don’t matter. But my heart doesn’t always get the message. Only at that exact moment, I didn’t care.

“Hadassah, you are just as beautiful and strong as your mother.” Dad reached for his wallet and pulled out a credit card. “We’ll take the dress and the shoes. Anything else? Oh, wait. There should be a purse or something that goes with it, right?”

“It’s called a clutch, Dad.” Seriously? For a professor there were a lot of things my father didn’t have a clue about. Of course, maybe most dads don’t know what clutches are.

“Okay,” Dad turned and said in his I am so cool voice, “Marguerite, clutch me, please.”

The plump woman giggled. “Dr. Green, what would the Chamber of Commerce think?”

Oh, good grief. With my dress, shoes, and an adorable clutch, I just knew prom was going to be awesome. We thanked Marguerite and Amber for all their help and left the Style Shoppe. As we got in the car I said, “About your trip to South America. I guess I’m good with it. But if I don’t get my falafel, you’re flying me to Israel for fall break.”

“Ha! You’re eighteen now. You’re on your own, kid.”

Chapter 5 - MORE COFFEE

 

What I wouldn’t give right now to be enjoying a falafel and some rich coffee. The howler monkeys have stopped their incessant screaming. It must be time for them to sleep. With everything so quiet around me, I can feel my heart rate return to normal. I’ve got a couple of hours to try and get some rest before the sun comes up. I think Mauricio is just as tired as I am because I can see him yawn as he sits by the fire with the rifle on the ground by his feet.

 

I watch him peel a small, green banana and my stomach growls at the sight of food. I am so hungry. Dinner was just a small bowl of murky-colored soup called sancocho made with plantains, potatoes, and other vegetables stewed for hours with some meat, which I think might have been goat. But that was hours ago… or maybe days ago. I don’t know.

 

I need to eat. Then I smell something. Something familiar. Coffee.

 

I can see Mauricio making coffee in a small pot on the fire and I can practically taste the stuff. If my mouth wasn’t so dry, I’m sure I’d be salivating but I haven’t had anything to drink in hours. I need to eat and I’d love some coffee.

 

Just as the thought enters my head, I can hear my father in the background. Haddie, you NEED liquid. You WANT something to eat. What’s more important? The dad in my head is right. Maybe I can convince Mauricio to give me some of his beautiful, rich, pure 100% Colombian coffee.

 

I call out to him hoping to catch his attention. “Excuse me.” But he’s so busy inhaling the aroma of the fresh coffee he doesn’t hear me. I call out a bit louder. “Hey, Mauricio.”

 

He gets up and walks toward me with the coffee in his hand, totally forgetting that he left the rifle by the fire. The smell of coffee wafts in my direction with each step as he gets closer. “¿Qué?”

 

Spanish, of course. Okay, let’s see if I can remember my basic Spanish. I guess it won’t hurt to throw in a little damsel in distress, too. Good grief. I cannot believe I’m going to do this… again. I bat my eyes. “¿Hablas Inglés?”

 

He smiles. “Sí. Un poco.”

At least he’s a polite kidnapper. But when I get my hands on that rifle, he’s dead. “Maurico,” I smile and look up at him like one of those sappy girls in a rom-com. “I’m hungry. Can I have some food? Or some coffee?” I pull my bound hands up to my face like I’m praying. He stares at me. His Un poco is mucho un poco. Think, Haddie, think. What’s the word? Comer. Eat. Yes. Beber. Drink. “Uh… ¿Poco que comer y beber, por favor?” My Spanish is so rusty, I know I must sound like an idiot. I don’t care. I’m too hungry to care.

 

But I can see from the look in his eyes he understands. I watch him make his way to the truck where he starts to rummage around—making entirely too much noise. I can only assume he found what he was looking for because the noise stops and I see him walking back towards me. In his hands he’s carrying some bread and a mango.

 

He hands me the piece of bread and I cram it into my mouth. Oh my gosh. It’s a little stale and tough to chew, but I don’t care. It tastes good. He stares at me gobbling down a few bites and then pulls a knife from the sheath on his waistband. He begins peeling the mango and I stop eating the bread. Not because I want to but because I don’t know when I’ll get anything else to eat. And with his attention focused on the mango, I take the opportunity to take what’s left of the bread and hide it under my shirt so when he’s gone I can put it in one of my many pockets of my cargo pants.

 

Mauricio holds a piece of mango he’s sliced between his knife and thumb then puts it so close to my face the blade touches my skin. I try to stay as still as possible so I don’t lose an eye or wind up with a jagged scar down the side of my face like Santiago’s.

 

As soon as the fruit hits my tongue, I cannot believe how fabulous it tastes. But best of all, the sweet juices coat my throat which is even drier thanks to the bread I just ate. The mango is so juicy, it’s almost too juicy to swallow given that I am not exactly in a position where it’s easy to swallow. I start coughing.

 

On instinct, I reach for my throat and Mauricio also reacts by grabbing my shoulders then sort of lifts me upright so I won’t choke to death. In that moment, I feel the rope around my wrist loosen a tad and I realize I might have a way to get a hand free. “Más, por favor.”

 

“Ok. Sí. Sí” Mauricio slices a large piece of the mango. “Ok. Puede apoyarse en mí.”

 

“What? ¿Qué?”

 

“Uh.” I can see Mauricio searching for words in English. “I put you on shoulder.”

 

“Oh! Sí!” He hands me slice of mango and lifts me so I’m sitting fairly upright on his shoulder. With his head positioned so he can’t see me, I eat the mango, loudly, while pulling my hand almost completely free from the rope. When I’m done, he lowers me and I see him put the knife back in its sheath. Only he doesn’t snap the thing closed and I see another opportunity. I stare at the unsecured knife at his waist.

 

Mauricio eats the last of the fruit and then throws the pit into the jungle causing it to crash through leaves and land with a thud as he walks back to the fire. I cringe expecting someone to come tearing out of one of the tents. But no one does. And that’s when it dawns on me, I don’t have to be I don’t have to be super quiet to escape. I just need to plan a quick escape.

 

I pull my right hand completely out of the restraint, stretch out my arm, and splay my fingers. I rub my thighs, hard, trying to force the blood to my numb limbs because I know if I hit the ground and have to make a run for it, my legs have to be ready to move. I reach up with both hands, and pull myself up to a full sitting position so I can work on the knot around my legs. But it’s tied too well. I know I need Mauricio’s knife.

 

My mind races for a moment until I come up with something that might work. I look at Mauricio and can tell he’s dozing off because of the way his head bobs around.I wiggle back down so he won’t notice. “Psssst. Mauricio. Hey!”

 

His head snaps to attention. “¿Y ahora qué? What?”

 

“Café, por favor?” I motion to the pot of dark liquid and put my hands to my mouth like I’m drinking as I bat my eyes again. Thanks for the sparkling blue eyes, Dad.

 

Mauricio glances around as if I just asked him to shoplift or break out into song then picks up the pot with the coffee in it. He pours some coffee into the same cup he used earlier. Oh joy, I wonder what germs or mouth disease this guy is carrying.

 

I glance down at the knife on his belt as he hands me the cup. I struggle to take a sip. It’s not easy to put a drink at an angle. I manage to get some in my mouth and it’s so good. I don’t even care that there are a few grounds in the liquid. It’s warm and soothing. Such a shame I’m going to have to waste it but plan requires sacrifice: the tasty coffee.

 

Knowing he won’t let me chock to death because if that were to happen he’d have to explain what happened to Santiago, I start coughing. The rope starts to swing back and forth. Mauricio jumps beneath me and lifts me up to his shoulders. Perfect.

 

Keeping my eye on the knife, I cough more and drop the coffee cup knowing it will distract him. With his attention focused down and his arms holding me up, I reach down and clutch the hilt of the knife handle. Then with no hesitation, I pull the knife straight up and hide it between my legs as I slip my hand back into the wide loop of rope at my wrists. With the knife exactly where I want it, I stop coughing.

 

Mauricio makes his way back to his spot by the fire and mumbles the entire time. I know he’s annoyed. He grabs the rifle and puts it beside him. It takes a while but eventually Mauricio fold his arms and bows his head. It isn’t long before I know Mauricio is asleep and I can finally relax a moment. Now I just have to wait for a chance to get away.

 

Chapter 6 -MOM

 

Hanging there, the only thing I can do is plan and wait; wait until Mauricio falls into a deep sleep. There have been a few times when I thought he was actually sleeping. But then he snorts and wakes with a start. After which, he looks around nervously but he never looks back at me. I think it’s because he’s more afraid Santiago will catch him sleeping on the job than worrying about whether or not someone will try to rescue me.

 

His fear works to my advantage because it gives me a chance to get a bit more comfortable, survey my surroundings, and plan my escape. Right now all I have is my free hand, a knife, and focus. And both my father and Uncle Ami would say that focus is the best of the three.

 

I scan the area where the tents are hoping to see a map, a SAT phone, a flashlight, or evidence of my father. Sure, I could just cut the rope and bolt out into the heavily wooded jungle. But I know my mom would tell me that sometimes the easiest way to anything winds up being the costliest way.

 

My mom’s words come back to me, Competitive running is not just about being the fastest, it’s about patience. Size up your competition and wait for the perfect moment to make your move. In this case my competition isn’t just Santiago and his men. It’s also the jungle. Before I got to Colombia, I perused a travel book about the Orinoco and I knew running blindly through the jungle was foolish. It’s filled with things like jaguars, boa constrictors, crocodiles, piranha, and the list goes on. No, running into the jungle is not an option.

 

If my mom were here she’d tell me to wait. ‘Wait for the perfect moment, Haddie. And then know exactly how it is that you’ll make your move.’

 

Thinking of my mom inspires me much like she had inspired my love for running. In a way, I was running before I could walk. When I was a baby, my mom trained for triathlons and would take me on runs with her, pushing me in one of those sporty strollers. Years later when we started running together, I would run as hard as I could and my energy would be depleted in ten minutes.

 

That’s when she taught me about patience, about pacing myself, and about watching for an opening. She was an amazing athlete. So, I’ll do what she would do if she were in this situation. I’ll bide my time. I’ll wait for Mauricio to enter a deep sleep. I’ll clear my mind. I’ll focus on something that inspires me. My mom.

 

Thoughts of the last run I had with my mom before her car wreck two years ago pop into my head.

***

 

We ran step for step along the cobblestone streets of Old Providence, the restored colonial village with a view of the bay. Her long legs covered ground at a rapid pace. She never slowed down for me. I, on the other hand, was expected to lengthen my stride to keep up with her. The crisp autumn morning caused our breath to be visible as we ran. Orange and red leaves covered the cobblestones of the touristy part of town leading to the downtown shopping district of New Providence.

 

Mom was crazy about running. She would even wake me early in the morning when my friends spent the night to go running. And when I was done, I’d come in - covered in sweat, while my friends were still snoozing in their cozy sleeping bags.

 

On our last run, I remember seeing her glance at her yellow sport watch. “That mile was just under five minutes. Great job!”

 

“Yeah, great. Maybe my heart attack will happen faster. You know, get it over with quickly.”

 

She smiled and her dark, almond shaped eyes twinkled. Mom had her curly jet-black hair pulled back in a ponytail. I don’t know how she managed to look both athletic and yet elegant… even as sweat rolled down the side of her face. “You know Haddie, when I was in the army I did ten miles every day at 5:00am. If we lived in Israel, you would join up in two years instead of running off to Harvard and playing sorority queen.”

 

I wiped my forehead with my sleeve. “I am hardly the sorority type. And Harvard’s a long way away. I doubt I’ll even make it. I’ll probably just go to King’s University and take dad’s archaeology classes.”

 

“Really? He makes you read something like a thousand pages. You know what he says, ‘Archaeology is 90% research and 10% boring digging through dirt.’”

 

I laughed. “That’s not exactly…”

 

“I know. I added the ‘boring’ part.” She took a swig from her water bottle. “Give me rock climbing or rafting any day. I remember when I was a little girl, my father would take me white-water rafting at the head of the Jordan River. Lush trees, crystal clear water, bougainvillea everywhere. It was amazing.”

 

“Maybe we can do that next summer when we go back to Israel.” We turned a corner to head back towards our house. “Can we take the short way home?”

 

“No way, like the song says Take the Long Way Home.” Mom started humming a song from one of her adult contemporary radio stations. Why does everybody who grew up in the 80s think that is the only decade that had good music?

 

“Can we at least stop for a bagel? I’m starving and we’re right here at Ye Olde Bagel Shoppe.”

 

“You know, just adding the words ‘ye olde’ and putting an extra ‘pe’ at the end of the word doesn’t automatically make it old.” Mom laughed and then said, “Okay, fine. Bagels and coffee and then four more miles.”

 

We ordered cinnamon raisin bagels and two coffees. The shopping district was just starting to come alive with the morning bustle. The bookstore opened. Bicycle riders started pouring through downtown before the streets were jammed with tourists gazing at the trees and looking for bargains.

 

“Mom, why can’t we take the short way home? It’s just a mile and half through the park. We can do the full run next time.”

 

“Haddie, there are no shortcuts in life. When you take one, you rob yourself of a lesson.” She took a swig of coffee. “Plus we’re not guaranteed a next time.”

 

“I think I’ve learned the running lesson pretty well.”

 

She took another drink of coffee and winked. “Apparently not, if you want to take a short cut.”

 

“No, just a break for one day, please.”

 

“Something else you’ll learn is that my people… no our people never get a break. More is expected from you and no breaks will be given to you. You must work twice as hard as everybody else. Plus, remember what Uncle Ami always says, ‘You never know when you’ll have to run for your life.’”

 

Finishing off my bagel, I almost laughed, “That’s a little over-dramatic don’t you think. ‘…run for your life?’ From who, crazy tourists? Stuck up zombie cheerleaders? Besides, I’m American. I’m only half-Jew. Dad’s Anglo side counts, too.”

 

“Yes, yes. Now finish your coffee.” She drank my coffee and patted my hand. “Besides you never know when you’ll be chased by zombie cheerleaders.”

 

“I’ve already been attacked by one named Courtney.”

 

“See. There you go. No shortcuts for you.”

 

She bolted up, pushed her chair in, and darted out the door. I gulped down the last bit of my coffee and chased after her. My legs felt like jelly. It took all my energy just to catch up. Breathing hard, I finally caught up to her as we took the long way around Oak Park instead of cutting through the middle of it.

 

“Complaining, negotiating, asking for special consideration earned you what?”

 

“Noth…” I gasped for air. “…ing.”

 

“And now you’ve worn yourself out playing catch up.”

 

“You—are—so—mean.”

 

“No. I—am—so—awesome!” She threw her hands in the air and skipped around like that old Rocky movie my dad watches some times, the one with the old dude who mumbles all his words. “I am Hannah Engler Green! Hear me roar!”

 

“Mom! People are looking at you.” I lowered my head.

 

“I don’t care. Let them look. I’m fabulous.” She waved at a couple of landscapers planting new shrubs along the edge of the street. “Good morning. Looks awesome.” She gave the guys a thumb’s up.

 

“You’re cracked, Mom.” I shook my head.

 

“Your turn. Scream you name at the top of your lungs. It feels good.”

 

We left the park and headed north in front of King’s University. Its historic library sat at the far end of the oak tree lined quad and a few lacrosse fanatics were already on the lawn.

 

I rolled my eyes. “Fine.” I called out. “I’m Haddie Green.”

 

My mom put her hand up to her ear. “What’s that? Did somebody say something? I couldn’t quite make it out.”

 

I screamed, “I’m Haddie Green.”

 

A lacrosse guy called back, “Yo, hey, Haddie. I’m Brad. Call me later, Dude.”

 

“She’s too young for you… dude!” Mom replied. Turning to me, she said, “Now do it again.”

 

“Come on, Mom.”

 

“Do it.” She jabbed an elbow in my shoulder.

 

“Fine.” I waved a hand and yelled a little louder. “I’m Haddie Green everyone.”

 

“That is not your full name.” Mom said, “Own it.”

 

I took a deep breath and belted out, “I’m Hadassah Ruth Green! Hear me roar!”

 

All the lacrosse guys cheered. Mom and I busted out laughing. I know it’s stupid, but I must say it felt good to scream my name aloud.

 

I felt alive around my mom. She cooked spicy meals. She made my dad take ballroom dancing lessons. She made you feel like you could achieve any dream and conquer any obstacle. She was perfect at everything. I wish I could be just like her. Confident. Controlled.

 

I didn’t realize that morning would be the last run I would ever take with my mother. And since then, I have jogged almost every morning. There’s something about slicing through the cool morning air that makes me feel close to her.

***

 

I wish my mom was here. I bet she could get out of these ropes in a flash. But she isn’t. It’s just me. And I know what she’d tell me. No shortcuts, Haddie.

 

No, running into the jungle like a scared rabbit is not an option. I’m not a scared rabbit. I am a jaguar. And I will go into the jungle… stealthily… like a jaguar. I take a deep breath and scream inwardly, I can do this because I am Hadassah Ruth Green. It’s time to roar! Wait? Do jaguars roar?

 

 

As the fire dies down, Mauricio’s chin falls to his chest and he doesn’t move. I hear my mother’s voice in my head, Make sure before you make your move. You can only make it once. So I will wait and make sure I’m ready before I do anything.

 

Chapter 7 - ESCAPE

 

I stare at Mauricio and count to a thousand, slowly. Then I do it again, until I know he must be sound asleep. With his chin firmly planted on his chest, I know now is the best time to run. No one has stirred in the tents for a couple of hours. And the night is starting to melt into early morning which will give me just enough light to help me. My moves must be quick and deliberate, but most of all - quiet.

 

Then it dawns on me. I’m not wearing shoes. Wonderful. They tore me out of bed in the middle of the night. All I have are the clothes on my back. If I have to go barefoot I will, but I’d really rather not. Scanning the campsite, I look for something to I can put on my feet; a pair of boots would be great. But if I can’t find any shoes, I’d settle for a long sleeve shirt to put on before stepping foot in the jungle.

 

Movies make escapes look easy. Grab a machine gun and bust through the bad guys’ camp. Too bad this isn’t an action movie. I have to escape using my wits; not bullets.

 

I think of the things I need. I need to find some shoes. No, first I need to cut myself free from the rope and hope my landing on the ground doesn’t wake up anybody. Then, I need to figure out where I am so I know what direction to run. I don’t want to die wandering around the jungle. Hopefully, I’ll come across a pair of boots but if I don’t find them, I can still do this. A tidal wave of nerves washes over me and for an instant, I consider maybe I’d be better off staying with my captors.

 

But no. I can’t. My hands start to shake half from fear and half from anticipation. I have to get a hold of myself. The last thing I want to do is drop the knife I lifted off Mauricio. Think. Focus. Taking a deep breath, I carefully get the knife then place it in my mouth and bite down like a vise. I cannot risk dropping that knife.

 

I work my way into a comfortable position and work my left hand free from the nylon rope wrapped around it. My wrists are raw from and they sting. But at least they are free. I take the rope that had bound my wrists and loop it around the rope above me and then around my waist. It should work like a slip knot so when I cut myself free, I can slow down my fall and not make a huge thud sound dropping onto the ground. At least that’s my plan.

 

Getting my feet free won’t be anywhere near as easy as my hands considering I’ll need to use the knife to cut myself free but when I lean towards my feet, I tilt backwards. Somehow, I have to find the strength to do what is probably going to be the world’s most difficult ‘sit up’ to reach my ankles and slice through the taut rope without injuring myself or worse… dropping the knife. I take a deep breath then reach using every muscle in my abdomen to pull my torso up high enough that I can grip the rope around my ankles and hold myself upright as I slice at the rope. It’s harder than I thought it would be because the rope is densely woven. Awesome, of course they’d use mountain climbing rope, Haddie. It resists cutting. But I know if I can work my way through a few of the fibers, the rope will weaken.

 

As I saw away at the rope I take a few glances around the camp. I’m still the only one awake. I start to sweat from all the effort and my arms ache. Can’t stop. Don’t stop. Finally, I slice through a few fibers. Then a few more. The rope starts to unravel and I know that the remaining fibers won’t be able to support my weight. I put the knife to the rope one last time and saw like mad. I know I’m going to fall at any second and prepare myself.

 

Then, even though I’m expecting it, I flinch, drop the knife and grab the rope tightly as I feel the weight of my legs falling downward. The force of the fall and my death grip on the rope as I slip leaves a painful rope burn on the palm of my hands. But at least I’m upright. And it’s only a few feet between me and the ground.

 

All I need to do no is untie the rope around my waist and fall to the ground and not to twist my ankle when I land. One… I grab the rope. Two… I hold my breath. Three… I let go and fall to the ground, safely. I grab the knife and cut loose a long strand of the rope to keep with me in case I need it.

 

Map. I need a map. But after a few steps, I change my priorities. Shoes. I need shoes. Tiptoeing to the closest tent, I kneel down, take a deep breath, and lift the flap. Two men are in a deep sleep are inside but I see what I need. Jackpot! I spot some boots and a heavy army style camo-shirt within an arm’s length. I lift the shoes off the ground as silent as a mouse and grab the shirt.

 

Now that I’ve got something to cover my feet and to cover my arms, I’ll have a better chance. I run behind an old truck off to the side of the encampment and shove my feet into the smell boots. Being tall pays off because even thought the shoes were large they were wearable. The shirt has the smell of sweat, but it’s heavy and has lots of pockets. I rummage through them and take inventory of the contents: one pack of cigarettes, a lighter, a small flashlight, a few wadded up pesos, and an energy bar.

 

I turn on the flashlight and look inside the truck. No keys. I didn’t think they would be that stupid but it didn’t hurt to check. I shine the light through the window of the cab and see a toolbox, some papers on the dash, and—Bingo!—a map and a SAT phone.

 

I lift up on the handle to open the door and a terrible creaking noise stabs the quiet air. Metal scraping metal. Crap! Just open the door and get the stuff, Haddie.

 

With the door opened wide enough for me to reach in, I am able to grab the map. The SAT phone, however, requires a little more stretching and twisting of my body which wasn’t easy because I ache from head to toe but I keep stretching. Eventually, my fingertips are able to touch the phone. I slither inside the cab a few inches more so I can grab the thing which is as heavy as a brick. YES!

Then I hear something; twigs snapping. I duck down as low as I can and my heart sinks. I wait a few seconds, afraid to even breathe because in my head, the sound of my breathing was louder than a howler monkey. Is it Mauricio?

 

Lifting my head slowly, I peer over the dashboard. Mauricio is still sacked out. The fire is dead, and there’s no movement in the camp at all.

 

I take a moment to asses things. Aside from the fact that I’m in pain, I’m hungry, I don’t know where I am or where I’m going, and that once I get somewhere I might not be able to go any farther because my money and my passport are, I think… I hope back at the trading post Dr. Waters is worried about me. Only he’s probably still asleep. But once he realizes I’m missing, I’m sure someone will come looking for me. I just need to get as far from here and as close to there as I can.

 

Of course once Santiago and his men realize I’m gone, they’re going to come looking for me, too. And this truck can go faster over the terrain than I can. So, I reach inside the cab once again and turn on the interior light. Hopefully the battery will die out in an hour or two like when my mom left the hatchback open.

 

Now all I need to do is put as much distance between me and these guys as possible. I look down the one lane dirt road that led to the camp and prepare to run the most important race of my life. But before I take off, I hear something. The sound of water suddenly catches my attention. Is that rain? No. I hold out my hand. There’s no rain falling. Am I near a stream? No, it doesn’t sound like a stream. It’s more like someone taking their time to turn off a faucet

 

In an instant I realize what the sound is. Someone has gotten up and gone into the woods to take a leak! Gross. As soon as I make the mental connection, I see a pudgy little man walking right towards me. Pablo!

 

He doesn’t look shocked at all to see me standing there free from my ropes. My heart starts to pound but I stand there; motionless as a statute. In that instant I know deep in my bones this must be what it feels like to be one of those gazelles in a nature show that’s been spotted by the lion. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t even reach for a gun. Instead, he scratches his hairy belly and takes a step towards me. Pablo.

 

A smile spreads across his unshaven face. He lifts his bandaged hand in front of me which obviously still hurts based on the grimace of pain that crosses his face. Glancing around to make sure we were alone, he turns his attention back to me. “Hola, chica. This is the moment I have been waiting for.”

 

Chapter 8 - PROM

 

Have you ever had one of those moments where you feel like everything… except for your brain…slows down to a snail’s pace? You see a dangerous situation and you have to make a decision that has the ability to save you or end you. Like driving down a dark, winding road and suddenly seeing a deer in the headlights of your car. The poor thing is terrified and doesn’t move. If you do nothing … you will hit the deer and you might die. If you swerve to miss the deer… you might wreck and die. But if you swerve just enough to miss the deer and don’t overcorrect the swerve… both you and Bambi live.

 

As soon as my eyes land on Pablo, I feel like I’m stuck in the time trapped between the car and the deer. A myriad of thoughts dart through my head. Run. Kick him in the crotch. Scream. Whatever I choose, I have to commit to it. But in the split second before I make a decision as to what to do, I think of my father.

 

He’s all I have left. And I’m all he has left. He’s just an archaeologist. I’m just an eighteen year old high school senior. He’s supposed to be investigating a lead that’ll take him to some artifact. And I’m supposed to be deciding what to do with my crazy hair so I can go to prom with Chance Baker and not look totally stupid. But my father was kidnapped while looking for the artifact. And I’ve been kidnapped while looking for him.

 

Dad wouldn’t be missing if he weren’t looking for that artifact. The artifact must be valuable. Very valuable if it’s led to two people being kidnapped and ... possibly even killed for. For the life of me, I can’t remember what it is he’s looking for. I’m pretty sure he told me. Think Haddie, think. What is it that he’s looking for?

 

It’s three days before prom. I’m standing in the kitchen…

***

 

I came home after a six mile run. I had just a little bit of time to get inside, shower and change before I was supposed to meet Stacey and Morgan downtown to get our hair ‘done’ at the salon so we can see if it’s how we want it for prom on Saturday. After my run I did what I typically do. I walked around outside cooling down while drying my tears. I wondered how long I would cry on these morning runs by myself. Two years had elapsed but it felt like my mom died just yesterday. I doubt that the hole in my heart made after she died can ever be filled. I think dad knows I sometimes cry on these runs, but he never says anything and he won’t unless I bring it up. That’s just how he is.

 

I opened the backdoor expecting to see Dad sitting at the breakfast table sipping on his coffee reading over his books and papers. But this morning was different. Dad’s little brown notebook lay open surrounded by other ancient books. Only he wasn’t around. I picked up his cup of coffee. Cold. That’s weird.

 

I heard a rustling sound come from dad’s study. When I found him he was surrounded by papers strewn about the floor and he was on his knees peering at yellowed maps. I saw him furiously scribbling notes on a legal pad while mumbling.

 

“Uh, Dad. Everything alright?”

 

He looked up at me. “What? Oh, this? Yes, everything is fine. I feel like I’m really on to something!”

 

“Great. Well, I have to go shower now. I’m supposed to go get my hair done. You know. It’s like a practice run for the prom.”

 

“I can’t believe it. How could I be so stupid?” He looked up at me. “That’s this Saturday, right? Wow! Where did the years go? It doesn’t seem that long ago that you standing on my toes in the living room and we were dancing. You remember dancing to Keb Mo?”

 

I sat down carefully, not sure which papers were vital. “Yeah. Mom videotaped us while you spun me around. I forgot about that. That seems like forever ago.”

 

“Maybe to you. It was just a blink to me. One day, we bring you home from the hospital and then you’re crawling. You go from riding a bike to a car and soon you’ll be gone.”

 

“Dad, why are you being so sappy?”

 

“Well, the prom is kind of a milestone. Soon you’ll be off on you own. And, well, I just wish I could be here to talk to this boy when he picks you up. I hate that I have fly out to Colombia tonight. But…” He pushed his glasses into place. “I have a few rules. You can stay out until 1 AM. You may not bring him back to this empty house. And remember, Haddie, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only minutes to lose it.”

 

“Dad, I’m eighteen. You have to stop worrying. But I promise, nothing will happen. You just have to trust me. And besides, I’ll be five hundred miles away at Harvard in a few months. What if I bring a boy back to my room while I’m there?

 

“Well, until you’re there, you’re under my roof and…”

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, your house –your rules. I know.” I picked up one of the pictures scattered on the floor. It was a bunch of little gold men rowing a raft that was carrying a taller golden man, who looked like a king. “What is all this stuff? I thought you specialized in finding Middle Eastern treasures stolen by the Nazis during World War II?”

 

Dad’s latest book was called God’s Gold, and traced the Nazis’ hunt for temple treasures when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70AD. His stories captivated me even if our dinners sometimes felt a little bit like a history lecture. “I don’t remember you ever talking about looking for a little gold king and his men in boats.”

 

Dad smiled. “True. This is not Middle Eastern. What it is, kid, is the Golden Man, or El Dorado.”

 

“El Dorado? I thought that was a legend about a city made of gold that nobody could ever find. At least that’s what they told us in World History. I remember watching an animated movie about it after the unit and everything.”

 

He bounced up and pulled a book from his shelf, “That’s the mistake most people make. It’s a good story. But the truth is El Dorado was a person not a place. The Tairona Indians in Colombia had a king or Zipa that they called El Dorado, the Golden Man. Once a year, the priests would take off the king’s clothes and then they covered his whole body with finely ground gold dust.”

 

“Ew, gross. TMI, Dad, TMI.”

 

“Come now, Haddie. This is their history. There’s nothing gross or TMI about it. They would sail out into the middle of a lake and he would jump in the water. While the water washed off all the gold, the tribe members would throw precious gold jewels and masks into the lake to gain the goodwill of their gods. When the king climbed back on the raft with all the gold washed off, it was believed that the gods had accepted their offerings and they would live in peace for another year.” He closed the book and smiled.

 

“Okay, that’s a neat story. But, seriously, aren’t you mainly a Nazi treasure hunter or something?”

 

He walked around his study. “I don’t actually hunt for treasure. I simply try to locate where the Nazis hid the treasures they stole. You know, Haddie, the biggest victims of Nazi thefts were the Jews who had thousands of precious works of art confiscated or flat out stolen when they were herded to the concentration camps. Gold, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, Renoirs, Van Goghs, You name it. If it was valuable, the Nazis took it. But just like today, anything that valuable leaves a paper trail like on a ship’s manifest, tax rolls, and personal letters or diaries.”

 

“Dad, I’m pretty sure the El Dorado story, no matter if it’s about a city or a naked, gold coated king, is a lot older than the Nazis.” I looked at the golden man on the raft in the picture again. “And El Dorado is a long way from Europe. Is El Dorado why we’re not going to Israel this summer?”

 

“Yes, Haddie, it is. But just like you and I know of El Dorado the city or the man, so did the Nazis. Wait here a second…”

 

Dad ran to the kitchen, grabbed his little brown notebook, and returned to his office. “I guess, in a way, I am doing some Nazi treasure hunting because I think the Nazis were also looking for El Dorado. They never found it but I think I might know where it is. However, in order to know for sure, I have to go look for myself. I hate that I’ll miss your prom but honestly, this should be a short little trip. Easy-peasy…” He snapped his fingers three times like he was trying to be cool and sassy.

 

“Dad, I hate to say it but you and ‘cool’ don’t go together so well.”

 

He gave me a little punch to my shoulder. “Anyway, all I’m going to do is fly down and meet with one of my old students, Dr. Javier Quesada. He’s a professor at Los Andes University now. And he’s the one who found the lead for me. I’m just going to check it out then come back home and we’ll get to spend most of the summer back in Israel.”

 

“Whatever. So what exactly are you looking for?”

 

He opened his little brown notebook. The well-worn leather cover was scratched and had coffee stains on it. He pointed at a sketch he drew. “Well, El Dorado and his tribe had so much gold, they used it for everything. One of the things they used it for was to coat the skulls of sacrificial victims.”

 

“Gross! Human sacrifice?”

 

“Yes, usually conquered enemies or rival chiefs. But during the time when the conquistadors invaded South America, three tribes formed an alliance to fight back against the conquistadors. They not only pushed them out, but they also captured three of their leaders. In their minds, the victory was a sign from the gods. And whenever they felt that the gods showed them mercy, the natives would offer tribute to them for their actions.”

 

“What sort of tribute are you talking about?”

 

His voice switched from excitement and storyteller in boring lecture mode. It didn’t take much to do it. “Every culture thinks that their gods have created them special, unique on the earth. It isn’t reasonable that all these tribes, all these cultures, and all of these myths are unique and true. They are all so similar that they must be describing the same god or the gods are just a construct people on earth make up to prove they are special. The way I see it, there’s too much death and sadness for it to be true. Look at what the Tairona gods made their own people do, if they were real.”

 

My dad is a man of science and tended to avoid anything this spiritual. “So the gods asked for human sacrifices? Didn’t all religions have sacrifices of some sort?”

 

“Yes, but some religions have painless, humane methods of sacrifice.

 

“Humane methods of sacrifice? Right. So, you’re saying killed the three guys humanely?”

 

“Yes and no. They didn’t just kill them. It was brutal. And when they were done, they chopped off their heads, cut off the tops, dug out their brains and then poured molten gold in them so they could use them as ceremonial drinking cups.”

 

“Gross! Gross! Gross!” I shook my head. “I think I’m going to barf.”

 

“I know. It’s disturbing to think that the human heart is capable of such unimaginable evil. I can’t understand how any god can look down on this and let it happen.” My dad looked up from his folders and stared into my eyes. “But the human heart is also capable of the greatest love and beauty. Maybe there’s something there, but I can’t say I understand it.”

 

“Maybe that’s the point, Dad. Science can’t explain all things. Love. Laughter. Lady Gaga’s whole career.”

 

“Who?”

 

“No one. So you’re looking for these skull cups?”

 

“No. I’m only looking for one of them. We know there were three conquistadors executed. And two of the golden skulls are in a museum in Colombia. But the third is lost to history. Or so we thought up until a couple of days ago.”

 

He kept talking as he put a rubber band around his notebook to keep all the loose papers from falling out. “Sir Walter Raleigh’s son, Watt, wrote about a third skull in his diary from his 1617 expedition up the Orinoco River. The expedition was a disaster and only a few pages of his diary survived. But the pages that did survive are valuable and I think they might lead to the third skull.”

 

I then watched my dad do something I have never seen him do this before; he reached up under his desk drawer, pulled down some sort of panel and hid the notebook under a false bottom. Wow, my dad has a secret hiding place. He might not be Indiana Jones but for the first time, my dad was totally cool.

 

He pushed the drawer closed and smiled. “Can’t be too careful with such valuable information.”

 

“Are you afraid Nazis are going to come to New Providence and steal your notebook, Dad?”

 

He didn’t answer. “I think that the third golden skull is only the first part of what they were looking for.” He started straightening papers on his desk and filing things away. “Say, don’t you have an appointment to get your practice run for your hair done?”

 

“Shoot! I’m late.” I jumped up and gave dad a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be back in a few hours. I’ll grab lunch with Stacey and Morgan after we get our hair done.”

 

“Have fun.” As I left the room my father called out to me, “Hey, could you drop me at the airport on your way downtown? I don’t like to leave the car parked in the lot there.”

 

“Sure, Dad. Anything for you.” I raced upstairs to call Stacey to let her know I would be late.

 

With dad on his way to South America and my hair all ‘planned’ I spent most of Friday, ignoring my teachers and instead day dreamed during class. My mind was planning for the prom. What do I say? How much should I eat? Should we learn a dance so we can break out into a tiny flash mob during the prom? Don’t be stupid, Haddie, that would take days to coordinate.

 

When Saturday finally came, I went on my morning run and when I was done, I didn’t even remember actually running because I was so excited. But somehow, I wound up at my house all sweaty. So I’m pretty sure I actually did go on my run.

 

I showered and made my way to meet Stacey and Morgan. I waited for them to finish getting their spray tans and was oddly happy I looked naturally tan. Then we went through hair teasing and curling (for me I had to have my hair straightened with a flat iron), eyebrow plucking, and other forms of benign torture. After which we wrapped up our morning of beauty by chowing down on Chinese food at the Golden Panda because Morgan said we should eat a lot of food now, so we didn’t look like pigs at dinner later with our dates. It was a dumb premise and yet it made perfect sense. Besides, I ran five to six hours every morning, so I can pretty much eat whatever I want and I was starving.

 

The last item on the list was getting mani/pedis at the mall while sipping on mocha Frappuccinos. I considered pointing out that our coffees probably had more calories than our lunch did. But, ignorance is bliss. We must have looked like freaks walking through the mall to go back to my car.

 

There I was in khaki cargo pants, pink flip-flops, and my favorite Ramones T-shirt with my hair all done up and wearing make-up like a movie star stepping on the red carpet. Fingernails and toenails bright pink. And to top it all off, my new blinged out earrings dangling from my ears. Lots of people smiled and said, “Have fun tonight.” What can I say? Prom night is a pretty big deal in tiny New Providence.

 

After dropping off Stacey and Morgan at their houses, I pulled in the driveway and noticed the front door was slightly ajar. But I was pretty sure I had closed it and locked it, too.

 

I looked around the neighborhood. People were jogging, walking their dogs, and washing their cars. Nothing out of the ordinary, and yet I had that electric tingle that runs up the back your neck when something bad is about to happen. Uncle Ami calls it my sixth sense and told me to always listen to it.

 

I walked slowly up to the door and looked in the windows. Everything was in place. Maybe I did forget to shut the door. No… I would never do that. I pushed the door open a little more and a thought crossed my mind. What are you going to do? What if it’s a burglar or something? You don’t even have a weapon. Then I remembered what Uncle Ami taught me: SPAT – Scan, Patience, Assess, Think.

 

I felt like my heart would explode. So I took a deep breath and tried to lower my heart rate just like before a big race. Then for a second I thought that maybe Dad had come back. But why? To take pictures of me for prom? I doubt it. Besides I didn’t hear the news on the TV. And there wasn’t any jazz music playing in the background. My dad always had ‘noise’ on when he was at home.

 

I stepped inside. The living room appeared normal. No one had stolen the television. I turned left and looked through the glass French doors into Dad’s study. What in the world? It was a mess. Sure, Dad had stacks of files, but they were somewhat neat. I took out my cell phone, pressed 9-1-1, and held my finger on the ‘send’ button. Of course, I suppose I should have pressed ‘send’ before I came in the house.

 

I moved into the kitchen and everything looked normal. So far the only indication that anything was wrong was the mess in Dad’s office. Then when I saw that the office had been ransacked. And I really should have pressed ‘send’ after I heard a loud thud come from my dad’s bedroom like a dresser drawer being slammed shut. But I didn’t.

 

Instead, I grabbed a butcher knife out of the big wooden block on our black granite countertop. All of my training had been controlled sparing in a gym. I never had needed to grab a knife and I wasn’t really sure I’d be able to use it if I had to.

 

Then I heard footsteps coming towards the kitchen. Whoever was in my house was headed straight for me. Yes, I should have pressed ‘send’ a long time ago but instead, I slipped the phone in my pocket and gripped the knife with both hands. Uncle Ami’s words jumbled in my mind. Assess. No. Scan. Prepare. Plan. No. Shoot!

 

The footsteps stopped briefly. I threw together a plan in my head. I raised the long knife, ready to bring it down with both hands in one swift decisive plunge. Then after I did that I would grab my phone, press ‘send’ and then run for safety. In theory it wasn’t a bad plan and I’m a pretty fast sprinter.

 

But then, a long shadow fell across the kitchen floor. In that instant, I froze. Suddenly in front of me was a man who was not my father. Why didn’t I press ‘send’ when I could have?

 

Chapter 9 - EXPLOIT WEAKNESS

 

Standing there with Pablo between me and my escape, I wish I had just grabbed the SAT phone and run into the jungle to call for help. Only I didn’t. Just like I didn’t press ‘send’ when I should have. But I can’t dwell on that now. Great. What now? I’ve only got about thirty minutes to get as far away as possible before the sun rises and everyone wakes up.

 

I stare at the man in front of me wearing green shorts and no shirt exposing is pudgy stomach with matted hair on his head and chest. I swear I’m pretty sure some of his dinner is plastered to his face with dried drool. Somehow I have to get past this knuckle-dragging caveman and run all out on sore legs at least two maybe even three miles of rough terrain, if I’m lucky, to safety. I hope. I hear Uncle Ami in my head… Remember SPAT Scan, Patience, Access, Think.

 

Scan.

 

I look and see Mauricio is still sleeping. There is no movement from the other tents.

 

Pablo takes a step towards me and smiles. Seriously? Why is he smiling? A good soldier would have immediately called out, ‘The prisoner is escaping!’ And then I’d be surrounded with rifles pointed at me. But Pablo, apparently, is not a good soldier. If he were a kid, he’d be Santiago’s problem child. He also should be mad I escaped my ropes. But he looks entirely too happy to be so close to me with both my feet on the ground and… alone. Ewww.

 

He touches my left cheek with his bandaged right hand. I can smell the pungent scent of his morning breath mixed with stale beer. Gross. It’s clear to me Pablo wants the other guys to stay asleep as much as I do, but for far different reasons.

 

I tighten my grip on the SAT phone. It’s heavy like a brick and I don’t think he realizes I have it.

 

Patience.

 

I know I need to work on patience. I wouldn’t be here if I’d been patient. But I don’t know what else I could have done. My father was missing. I had to get to Colombia. There wasn’t time for patience. If I get out of this and I find dad, he’ll probably kill me for maxing out my ‘emergency only’ credit card.

 

Assess.

 

Okay, Haddie. Focus. Uncle Ami always stressed to me how our brains can calculate thousands of variables in a few seconds. And if I just focus and clear my mind, my brain can sort out any situation just as fast.

 

I can easily out run him. But if I run, he’ll wake everyone up. If they follow me I don’t know where I’m going so I’ll never be able to outpace them. Or I could go with the damsel in distress option again. It worked earlier and it wouldn’t be much of a stretch. He’s so repulsive. His sweaty, hairy stomach is touching me. I could tell Santiago that Pablo cut me down. Yeah, that’s it.

 

I push Pablo away keeping the SAT phone behind me; out of his field of vision. I narrow my eyes and stare down at him as he’s a bit shorter than I am. “Leave me alone or I’ll scream.”

 

“Ha. You scream, chica, and you be back in that tree and I still gonna get you. Go on, scream.”

 

“You touch me and you’ll have to deal with Santiago. And I know you’re scared of him.”

 

“Santiago? Santiago wants to be paid for the job. His boss say to take your papá and then when your papá tells where the gold skull is, everybody is happy and we let him go. But your papa did not tell where the gold skull is, so we not get paid. Then Santiago says we take you and make your papá tell or you get hurt. Simple. But I do no think the skull is real. Is legend. So, I be happy with just you.” He smiles broadly at me.

 

Pablo’s missing four teeth. Yuck. “So, if you don’t have my father, what did you do with him? Where is he?”

 

Pablo shrugged and rubbed his scratchy beard against my right cheek. “He is no here. I do not know where Santiago takes him. Santiago, he make the deals. No me. I just get paid. Now you shut up.”

 

Think.

 

He moves his face closer to mine scratching my cheek until his dried cracked lips are touching mine. I start to gag, but force myself to let this squatty little perv kiss me. He tilts his head to the left and closes his eyes like he’s in some old black and white movie.

 

Moron.

 

Now’s my chance. My only chance. I raise the SAT phone quickly and bring the metal case down with lightning speed on his left temple.

 

Pablo crumbles to the ground with a grunt. Before he can get up I kick him between his legs. The steel-tipped boots I’m wearing make a powerful impact. He doubles over and tries to scream, but he’s not fast enough. I bring the SAT phone down again on the back of his head and he falls to the ground with a dull thud. I check to see if he’s breathing, but I could really care less. Hearing low gurgling breaths, I spit on him and wipe my mouth. I’m free.

 

I take off running down the dirt road. There’s only one way to go on this lonely path snaking through the trees. I know I need to hurry but I need to pace myself and pay attention to the terrain. It’s not quite dawn yet and I’m basically running blind. One misstep and could easily twist an ankle on a tree root or one of the many ruts in the road. I could get caught up in the vines hanging down all over the place. The small flashlight barely shows the road ten feet ahead of me.

 

After about a mile, my knees start to feel weak. I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m anxious. And I exerted so much energy getting away from Pablo, I feel woozy.

 

I want to stop and catch my breath or maybe throw up. I know that distance is the most important thing. But they have a truck. They could be here in two minutes. No matter how far I run they can catch me.

 

My stride shortens. My body feels like it’s shutting down. Hot tears roll down my cheeks. No sobs, no crying, just tears.

 

Then from somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear my mother speaking to me. No shortcuts. Within a stride, I’m walking. No shortcuts. Her voice is louder. I stop and reach over, grabbing my knees to catch my breath. No shortcuts, Hadassah.

 

I think about what my mom would say about Pablo. She wouldn’t congratulate me on kicking a kidnapper’s butt or getting myself out of hanging upside down in a tree. She would hand me a cup of coffee and say with barely a smile, “So, was he a good kisser?” Then she would burst out loud laughing.

 

Laughing bubbles up from somewhere deep inside me. I whisper, “No shortcuts.” As rays of sun start break through the jungle’s canopy. “No shortcuts.” I take off down the road faster this time. I am filled with confidence. “No shortcuts.”

 

Chapter 10 - NO CHANCE

 

I’ve wondered over the last three days while I was on the plane, or hanging upside down, or now while running at a feverish pace through the Colombian jungle what Chance must think. No phone call informed him why his date stood him up for prom, just a cryptic note on the door. ‘Family emergency, I’ve got to go out of town. Call you from the plane to explain. I’m so sorry! Haddie.’

 

He probably ended up in Courtney’s arms after they were announced prom king and queen. If I hadn’t dropped my phone in the kitchen, at least I could have called him. Stupid Dr. Waters refused to let me use his on the plane. He gave me some lame excuse about the school phone could only be used for official school business. Dad was right about him. He’s lucky he’s even alive. If I’d been just a tad bit quicker he wouldn’t be. And I would’ve been justified in taking him out. After all, I was alone, he broke into my house. He came towards me first.

 

The day of prom, I stood in my kitchen wondering where my father was and holding a butcher knife as a tall man walked towards me and I charged at him. Lucky for him, he quickly side stepped the blade headed straight to his chest. If I’d been wearing regular shoes, instead of flip-flops to protect my pedicure, I’d have tried again. But my foot caught the bottom of the doorframe leading to the dining room. I fell to the ground and the knife flew out of my hands clanging on the hardwood floors. What’s more, my phone slid under the china cabinet. I scrambled for the knife but stopped when I heard a familiar voice.

 

“Haddie? Are you alright?” I turned quickly towards the voice and saw that it belonged to my dad’s boss, Dr. Julian Waters, Dean of Something or Other.

 

“I’m fine.” I stood up. There was no doubt I was relieved but I was also frustrated. “What are you doing in my house?”

 

Dr. Waters, a thin man with dark bags under his eyes, paced back and forth. “I… I came here hoping I… I would find your father.”

 

“What? He’s in Colombia. I’m sure you must have known that.”

 

“Well, yes. Of course I did… do… look, Haddie.” Waters struggled to think of what to say. He looked genuinely concerned and I thought the guy my pass out or something because he had broken out into a sweat. “I don’t want to worry you… but…”

 

I’ve never liked it when people say they don’t want to worry me because whatever it is they tell me always worries me. “What is it?”

 

“Like I said, I came here hoping I’d find your father. But when I got here, the door was wide opened and I came in. That’s when I saw someone had ransacked your house and I knew it was true.”

 

“What was true?”

 

“Haddie, I got a call early today saying your father had been kidnapped and that if we wanted to see him alive, I had to find some map your father had. At first, I thought it was a joke so I tried calling your father’s cell. But he didn’t answer.”

 

“Kidnapped? What do you mean kidnapped?”

 

Dr. Waters straightened his red power tie. “Kidnapped. As in ‘taken by force and held captive until a ransom is paid.’

 

“Yes, Dr. Waters, I know what kidnapped means. I meant ‘could you please explain the situation further?’ So…” I’ve always loathed people who speak down to me but it wasn’t the time to get angry.

 

“As I was saying, the man on the phone said something about finding a map your father was working with or if I had knowledge of its whereabouts. Oh, I’m so sorry Haddie, maybe you ought to sit down?” He pulled out one of the dining room chairs for me.

 

“I’m fine, Dr. Waters. Just please tell me what you know.”

 

“These men found out about something he was working on; something incredibly valuable. They took him and told me they would trade him for it.”

 

“Have you called the cops?”

 

“No, no, no. I… we can’t. They told me if we involve the cops they would kill him. Apparently they grabbed him not long after he stepped off the plane in Colombia.”

I suppose I should’ve been beside myself with worry but I was surprisingly calm. “You’ve got to be kidding me. My dad was kidnapped in Colombia? And just to be clear, they told you that if we give them whatever it is they’re looking for, they’ll just let him go?”

 

“Yes. Exactly.” He smiled like I’d just hit the jackpot or something. “I’ve heard about groups in South America that kidnap Americans. Most of the time they want money but since they only want a map, it must be very valuable. When I called my office and had them check your father’s itinerary, I found out he was supposed to meet Dr. Javier Quesada at a restaurant in Bogotá, but I contacted Javier just an hour or so ago and he said your father never showed up. It’s like they had somebody there waiting for him who knew his itinerary.”

 

“Dr. Waters,” I was trying to process what he was telling me but it all sounded so off the wall I couldn’t quite grasp hold of it. Why would anyone want my father? Okay, so he is known for finding treasure. “Okay. So he was kidnapped for ransom so why can’t we call the police or the FBI or the CIA or whoever you call when things like this happen?”

 

“Haddie, we can’t call the police. They told me no police at all or they’ll” he gulped, “kill him. That’s how they do these things.” He rubbed his hands together. “I can only guess he didn’t have the map with him and they had someone here search for it. When they couldn’t find it, they called me. That’s why I came over. I’ve looked but I can’t find anything that looks like a map. Do you know what map they’re talking about?”

 

“No. I haven’t got a clue.”

 

Dr. Waters furrowed his brow. “This is terrible. I don’t know what to do. Even if I can figure out what the map is, the kidnappers might not even be able to read it because he uses that silly code of his. Wait.” Waters stopped speaking as if he was deep in thought. “Haddie, do you think it’s not really a map? Your father is always scribbling things down that look like nothing to me. What if the map is one of his scribbles; somewhere in this room? Maybe in a notebook or something?”

 

“I guess. It’s possible.”

 

He sat down and rubbed his forehead. “Haddie, I know this is going to sound crazy but if we can find this map or whatever it is, would you be willing to come with me to Colombia?”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“I’ve seen the little coded notes from you on his office wall at the university. You understand your father’s gibberish shorthand. If I can find whatever it is you can interpret his writing before we ever arrive in Colombia. If it’s not here maybe it’s in your father’s hotel room or something. But even if it’s there, I wouldn’t be able read it to know if I’ve found it.”

 

In a weird way, his reasoning sounded logical. But the idea of traveling to South America with my father’s boss to rescue my father from kidnappers was just about the dumbest thing I had ever heard. “You’re kidding, right? I’m in high school. Tonight’s my prom. What am I going to do in South America? Run through the jungle like I know what I’m doing?”

 

“Haddie, this is serious. Something your father found, whether he knows it or not, was valuable enough to get him kidnapped. We have to find it because if they have him it means whatever it is they want was not with him when he was taken. So, it’s either somewhere in Colombia or… it’s here.”

 

Here? That’s when it hit me. The secret compartment under my father’s desk. “Wait, wait, wait. I think I might be able to help.”

 

I raced to my father’s study with Waters following close behind. Papers littered the floor. Books ripped off the shelves lay strewn haphazardly on the floor. And the drawers of my dad’s desk had all been yanked out and tossed aside. But the hidden compartment had not been opened. I put down my phone, reached under the drawer, and felt around for the little lever. “My dad isn’t one who usually keeps secrets but I saw him put something in here the other day.” I pushed the button and the hidden compartment popped open. I reached in and pulled out his battered leather notebook covered in coffee stains – the one my dad was reading when we bought my prom dress which happened to be lying across my bed waiting to be put on.

 

I shook the book triumphantly. “This has got to be it.” I held it tight with both hands. “It’s the only thing he’s ever hidden.” As I looked at his notebook, the story of El Dorado, the Golden Man, popped into my head. Suddenly the idea that my dad might be in real danger struck me like a ton of bricks because I knew my dad believed that somewhere, maybe in the jungles of Colombia, there was a valuable artifact that people would kill to get their hands on.

 

Waters looked visibly relieved. “Fabulous work, Haddie. Let me see it.”

 

I clutched the notebook to my chest and let out a heavy sigh not believing what I was about to say. “No, Dr. Waters. You’re right. I think I should go with you. This is my dad’s work. And if you’re right about his notes, you need me to figure them out.”

 

Waters smiled and sighed with relief. “Excellent. There’s a flight leaving in three hours. If we leave… now we’ll have time to go through security and get on board. How quickly can you be ready to go?”

 

“Give me ten minutes.” My passport and international inoculations were current since we go overseas every summer, so I ran upstairs and crammed my passport, wallet, extra cash, and a couple of changes of clothes into my backpack. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I got a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. Chance. I’m going to miss my senior prom with the greatest guy in school. I can’t just go without telling him something.

 

I wanted to call him, but time was of the essence so I wrote a quick note and taped it on the front door figuring I’d try to call from the plane. I took my hair down and let it flow over my shoulders. Pulling my pink jogging shoes on as I hopped out of my room, I ran downstairs and checked my father’s study one more time. As I left the room, I grabbed a picture from his desk. It was the three of us, Mom, Dad, and me in front of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney World. That was the summer before my world crashed down around me. I couldn’t let anything happen to my dad. He was all I had left.

 

It wasn’t until were racing through the lazy Saturday traffic that I realized my phone was on my dad’s desk. I begged Dr. Waters for his cell phone. But he said he wanted to keep the line open in case the kidnappers called. When we arrived at the airport, he slid the credit card the university gave the faculty to secure valuable items at auctions, through the parking gate machine to allow us access to ‘close-in parking’. He smiled at me and said, “I’d better keep the receipt. Although, I suppose explaining two tickets to Colombia and whatever else bills I incur might cause more of a fuss with the Board than paying an exorbitant amount to park fifty yards closer. But it doesn’t matter. Your father is far too valuable to squabble over money.”

 

I guess Dr. Waters likes my dad and respects the work he does. And he said if anyone could find a treasure it was my father. After all, he did write a couple of books on discovering treasures through research. His most popular book is Hitler and the Lost Ark: The Nazi’s Search for Ancient Treasures. If any treasure was halfway famous or had mystical powers, Hitler wanted it in his collection.

 

Another one of his books, Rightful Owners, actually won a prize of some sort. Dad spent years tracking down art and treasures stolen from the Jews as the Nazis rounded them up during World War II. The Nazi leaders kept track of everything including not only the number of people rounded up and killed in each city but also an inventory of valuables and where they were stored. Using these documents, Dad recovered millions of dollars in art and jewels and returned it to the descendants and survivors of concentration camps. Three years ago during our summer in Israel, the government even gave him an award called the Friend of Israel and made him an honorary citizen.

 

Once we were parked I grabbed my bag and we made our way to the ticket counter. “So what happens when we get to Colombia?”

 

“We’re supposed to fly to Cuidad Bolivar Airport. From there, we hire a riverboat guide to take us up the Orinoco to a trading post called the El Tigre just below the falls. Then we wait for them to contact us.

 

I gripped my passport as Waters worked at the ticket kiosk. “Have you done something like this before, Dr. Waters?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I don’t know. You sound pretty casual about all this. Have you had to deal with something like this before?”

 

“No, I’m just following their instructions and hoping we get him back safely. Get there, go to the trading post, and await further instruction.” He gave me a reassuring smile, slid his card through the kiosk reader, and we headed to the counter to pick up our boarding pass.

 

After a couple of hours we were sitting on the runway waiting to take off. Then out of the blue, Waters hands me his phone to call Chance.

Yes! I dialed furiously. One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Come on, pick up.

 

“Hello? Hello?”

 

“Chance, hey it’s me. I’m really sorry about tonight…”

 

“I can’t hear you. You still there? Hello?”

 

“Chance, it’s me, Haddie…”

 

I yelled into the phone as if raising my volume was going to make him magically hear me. Suddenly, there was an unpleasant tap on my shoulder. “Ma’am, you need to turn that off now. We’re getting ready to take off.”

 

I turned on the sad puppy dog eyes I used on my father when I was little. “I will.” Once more, I yelled into the phone, “Chance, Chance. Please…”The flight attendant stared at me intently and folded her arms across her chest. “Fine.” I handed the phone back to Waters knowing my one shot to talk to Chance had just slipped through my hands.

 

After we were in the airborne and headed towards the Southern Hemisphere, I tried to imagine what would happen next. I had no idea that in just a couple of days I would be running for my life through the jungle.

 

 

Chapter 11 - THE GETAWAY… ALMOST

 

The red mud is slick and the ruts in the twisting, curvy mountain road present a difficult enough challenge. But running in someone else’s shoes… combat boots, nonetheless, that are a size too big slows me down. Every step is a challenge. I’ve never tripped and nearly turned my ankle so much in my life. Dodging creeping vines hanging out of the trees and jumping mud puddles and climbing over rocks slows me down even more. I was running downhill which normally would be great, but on this road it increased the danger of my slipping, tripping, or tumbling over the edge.

 

The sun is rising on my left, so I know I’m traveling north. Right? Directions don’t change in the Southern Hemisphere do they? Of course they don’t Haddie. Don’t be silly. The sun rises in the east no matter where you are on earth. The air is so hot and moist it clogs my throat and makes it feel like I’m running in a sauna. I’m pouring sweat. My clothes are drenched. My hair is crazy frizzy. Good grief.

 

Now I can feel electric jolts of pain from lactic acid buildup in my thighs. Most people would’ve stopped by now. But I’ve been trained to recognize when my muscles start to be deprived of oxygen and try to use strategies to manage the pain. I slow my stride. I try to force my lungs to expand so I can take in more air but this humidity makes it difficult.

 

I stop and move off the mud road behind the tallest tree I’ve ever seen. Leaning up against the verdant moss, I rub my quads trying to rest them and fight the lactic acid. I can’t stop for long. I listen for any sign of my kidnappers but all I hear is the jungle coming alive.

 

Birds screech awake. Small furry animals jump from limb to limb. And a blue and yellow macaw just landed on a limb not far from me. I think he’s mad at me for invading his space because his screeching crow sounds like he’s yelling at me. “Sorry, bird. Really.”

 

After a couple of minutes of massaging my quads and calves, I take off again and look back to see if they’re coming after me. But the road is so curvy I can’t see more than ten feet in any direction so they could be just a stone’s throw away from me. What’s more, I know being out here on the road where I can easily be seen is dangerous.

 

I step off the road and go maybe three feet into the jungle but I can’t go too far off the road because I have to follow it knowing it has to lead somewhere. Only it won’t be easy since I don’t have a machete to cut my way through. I have to expend more energy pushing aside the leaves and bushes trying my best not get too far from the path and to pay attention to everything around me.

 

I am so tired and minutes that feel like hours pass as I trudge forward trying to keep track of all the sounds around me. The decline has been steady until I feel a major shift in the angle of the ground beneath my feet. I can barely keep myself upright. Thankfully, my foot lands on a broad, flat rock so I can stop.

 

Then for some reason, I don’t know, maybe it’s the sixth sense Uncle Ami is always talking about but I get the strangest feeling there’s great danger ahead of me. So I pause.

 

I carefully push through the foliage and stop again in terror. Terror because of what is… or rather is not in front of me. I’m standing on the edge of a cliff with a drop that must be at least a hundred feet straight down to a river below. I start to backpedal away from the edge grabbing limbs and vines to keep myself from falling. Small rocks and pebbles tumble over the edge to the river rapids below.

 

When I finally steady myself, I look out over the opening and see a giant waterfall that feeds the river below. And I also see a rickety wooden bridge that crosses the river. That’s where the road must lead. At least I know I’m still going in the right direction. I’ve got to keep moving. But I’m so thirsty and my muscles don’t want to help me. I need water. I have a power bar and some bread but no water. I can go for days without food but I won’t last a day without water.

 

The water in the river below looks dangerously tempting. No. No. No. I’ve seen all sorts of movies where people find running water and start lapping it up like a dog because it’s supposed to be cleaner and safer. But I’ve traveled enough to know that water outside the United States is sketchy at best and jungle waters might be teeming with parasites that eat you from the inside out. Stupid movies.

 

Racing down the road brings another thought into my head, Why is it that running through the jungle looks really cool in the movies? They never show the pain of lactic acid build up or dehydration or slip-sliding on muddy roads. Stupid, stupid movies. I’d like to see someone really running through a jungle in a movie, just once. They get breaks, and water, and have stunt doubles. Stop complaining, Haddie. No shortcuts.

 

With the rising of the sun the gnats have come out in full force. They must have some innate radar that draws them to human sweat. They swarm all over me; tiny buzzing, irritating monsters in my ears, up my nose, and in my eyes. I must have looked like an idiot swatting at the air with my hands while I ran down the road.

 

I close my mouth to keep them from making their way in and down my throat. The crazy thing is I probably need to be swallowing them down like candy because they’re loaded with protein. They can’t be that bad. After all, the locals offered us hormigas culonas last night at dinner at the trading post. When a little old lady placed a bowl of roasted black things in front of my face, I only asked what they were after I had popped a couple in my mouth because, stupid me, I thought they were big and looked like roasted peanuts. They weren’t.

 

Dr. Waters leaned over and told me I was eating - ants. Fortunately, they were fairly bland and crunchy. I tried imagining I was eating sunflower seeds or something.

 

Right about now, I’d love to be eating some hormigas culonas instead of gnats. I try pulling the front of my shirt over my mouth and nose, but it only throws my balance off and slows me down. So, instead of fighting a losing battle, I kick in the afterburners and run as fast as I can thinking I might be able to outrun the infernal flying little terrors.

 

The only thing I’ve heard so far is the sound of creatures in the jungle, my feet landing on the ground, and my breathing. But that all changes when I hear a cracking sound. What was that? Then I hear a succession of the same sounding short bursts through the jungle.

 

Gunfire? I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. After all my kidnappers must know by now that I’m gone. Pablo has to have gotten up and told someone. Unless he’s too ashamed to admit he was overpowered by a girl.

 

If that is gunfire and they are looking for me, I know I’ve managed to put five miles between me and the camp. They’ll be in their vehicles and that means I probably have fifteen or twenty minutes before they catch up to me.

 

I’ve lost sight of the waterfall but when I reach a place where the narrow dirt road turns back on itself because the mountain is so steep I stop and take a quick inventory of the situation. I can’t stay on the road. It might be easier but doing so will only waste time and put me a little ways further down the mountain. Besides, if they’re on the road when I happen to cross that one spot, they might see me and then all this running will have been wasted.

 

My options are limited. Stay on the road or get off the road. If I stay just out of sight so I can keep up with the road, I can put more distance between me and the kidnappers. No shortcuts.

 

Leaves crackle under my feet as I step off the road again. Small spindly branches with tiny thorns catch on my pants legs and I find myself having to grab the thorny things to keep from sliding. Jumping over fallen tree trunks and rocks reminds me of hurdles; I just have to make sure to plant each landing carefully, so I don’t twist an ankle. I can hear an engine roar and fade away somewhere up the mountain

 

The curves will slow them down, hopefully enough for me to keep working my way down. I have to keep going down even though it’s dangerous and tiring. If I fall out here, I might never get up.

 

As I move further down the mountain, the canopy and the humidity get thicker. But at least, I was running in the shade. I know there are all sorts of things out here that can kill me that are not human but I can’t think about that right now. Snakes, spiders, jaguars. I could die all sorts of terrible deaths.

 

I continue downward and push aside some huge banana leaves causing me to stop for just a minute to ponder grabbing some of the green things. But I’m not stupid. The bananas are far from ripe and could make me sick. However, if I can find some mangos or papayas, they can give my body some much needed liquid. After all, it doesn’t have to be water. Fruit is juicy and loaded with sugar – instant energy. I can use fruit.

 

I scan the trees as I move forward and downward. I would kill for a mango smoothie from Ye Olde Bagel Shoppe right now. After searching for a few minutes, I finally find one. And thankfully the greenish red fruit is low enough for me to jump and grab one.

 

Catching sight of my fingernails as I dig into the thing makes me sad. My beautiful manicure is totally ruined now. Sinking my teeth into the mango, the juices fill my mouth. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a mango this good in my life. The flavors explode in my mouth as the juices ran down my chin. The liquid feels so good on my throat and the sugar jolt is just enough to help me pick up my pace through the underbrush. As I chew on the mango, trying to keep hold of it in one hand as I grab for branches and whatnot to keep from falling, I spot a patch of red dirt ahead of me through the trees. The road, far down the mountain is ahead of me. I know I’ve got to be getting closer to the bottom and the river.

 

In my excitement, I take another bite of the mango and suddenly I feel my feet fly out from under me. No. It’s more like the ground has disappeared under my feet.

 

I start rolling down a steep sloop, dropping at least eight feet. My mango flies out of my hand as limbs and branches slap at me. The little, thorny green branches scratch my face. I reach out to grab a limb but it breaks in my hand. I can’t stop sliding. Panic sets in as I grasp the passing limbs.

 

Even though I’m falling and everything is a blur, I see a bigger drop off ahead of me. I’m not slowing down. Digging my fingers into the dirt, I try to slow myself, but rocks and limbs just scrape my hands. I roll over on my back and dig my boot heels into the ground. The rubber heels grip the soil and send me spinning head over heels over the edge of a drop off. My body leaves the ground as I fall through the air not knowing how far I will fall or what I will crash into.

 

It’s just like one of my races, everything seems to slow down, outside noises fade away, and my vision narrows. The edge of the cliff is visible above me. I can see the rocks and vines that spill over the drop where I flew off the earth. Green leaves of all hues circle in the air around me. Then, just like that, all I can see is a small circle of blue sky above me as everything else turns black like spilled ink seeping over a white page. I lose consciousness.

 

 

 

Chapter 12 - UNCLE AMI

 

Lying in a pile leaves on the jungle floor; I find myself somewhere between that fuzzy state of conscious and unconscious. My English teacher, Mrs. Groves told us that Edgar Allan Poe called that the ‘hypnogogic state.’ It’s when a person isn’t sure if they are awake or asleep, alive or dead. But since I’m thinking or at the least, dreaming, that must mean I’m alive, right?

 

My thoughts drift back to my first memories of going to Israel when I was ten years old. My father’s career hadn’t taken off yet. He still struggled to make ends meet, but he promised my mother we would spend the summer in Israel visiting her family. I think he maxed out all the credit cards to take us. The memory of flying into Tel Aviv is fresh in my mind…

 

Hundreds of people were in a giant holding room shoving each other as security checked our passports and asked questions. “Are you here for business or pleasure?” I guess that’s the first step in finding terrorists but I’m not sure how they can figure out who the terrorists are with those questions. Finally, we made it through and got our luggage.

 

Waiting for us was a little man with white hair, dark skin, black eyebrows, and Gucci glasses. When he saw us, the biggest smile spread across his face. My mom ran and hugged him as he lifted her off the ground and spun her around.

 

We walked outside to the parking lot and then an unusual thing happened. The man’s right hand grabbed my mom’s wrist and spun her arm behind her back. He wrapped his arm around her throat. I was terrified. But my dad put his hand on my shoulder and whispered not to worry. “They’re just playing around.”

 

I knew my mom was an athlete, but I had never seen this before. As quickly as he grabbed her around the throat, my mother stomped backwards on one of his feet and shot an arm up in the air breaking the chokehold around her throat. She slammed her elbow down on his head, squatted down, and spun around. The whole time she locked her hand onto one of his thumbs bending it backwards and spun his arm around behind him and grabbing his throat.

 

“Good girl.” He said. “You still remember your moves.”

 

She let go of him and they both started laughing. I held my doll and stood there and started to cry. Their play fighting exploded quickly and violently and then it was over. I never knew my mom had that kind of powerful force in her. She ran over to me and wrapped her arms around me.

 

“It’s okay Haddie. We’re just playing. Don’t cry.” She stroked my long curly hair. “This is Uncle Ami. He’s really gentle, but he started teaching me martial arts when I was your age. This is just a little game we play. It’s just pretend, sweetheart.”

 

The pleasant smile returned to his face. And with his big smile Uncle Ami appeared incapable of violence. He looked sort of like a kindly old grandfather. But the sudden explosion of force terrified me. He reached out his hand. “So this is beautiful Hadassah? I have looked forward to meeting you.”

 

I was too scared to shake his hand and slid behind my mother’s skirt, but mustered the courage to spout back at him, “My name’s Haddie, not Hadassah.”

 

He stooped down and touched my hair, “Ah yes, little myrtle, but Haddie is a nickname for Hadassah. You are named for one of the greatest queens in all of history. And I see that you have as much fire and sass as your mother and she combined.” He stood and walked to the car. “Let’s go eat.”

 

I had always hated my name. Teachers calling the roll could never pronounce it. Other kids would make fun of it. “Hadassah” was turned into “hairdresser” or “bananadassah.” Zombie cheerleader Courtney was the first one to incorporate cuss words into making fun of my name. Even the shortened version of my name, Haddie, led to me being called fattie or battie. In that instant Uncle Ami had changed my life and endeared himself into my heart. He told me I was named for a great queen and my mom could kick major butt.

 

The drive through Tel Aviv with its tall towers was nothing like I expected. I imagined the whole place to be camels and sand dunes, but it had everything: Burger King, Toys-R-Us, even Starbucks. After traveling thirty minutes or so, we arrived in Jaffa, a suburb of Tel Aviv, which Uncle Ami described as one of the oldest cities in the world. He would say that this city was here before the great flood. The Mediterranean Sea spread out in front of us in azure blue and green. Palm trees swayed in the breeze. A promenade with falafel stands and juice shacks hugged the beach. A bicycle path with lots of activity snaked between the road and the promenade. As we rode to Ami’s house, he pointed out the place where Perseus supposedly rescued Andromeda by using the head of Medusa.

 

We drove past the wishing bridge and Kedumim Square. We stopped at Abulafia Bakery to buy some fresh bread for dinner. Finally, we arrived at Ami’s house, which sat right on the beach. A limestone building on the outside, he had decorated the inside with pillows, curtains, and drapes of deep blues and purple. I went and sat under an umbrella on the outside deck looking over the Mediterranean. I could not believe that I would spend every summer at the beach. That was so cool.

 

Uncle Ami came to sit down beside me and pointed at a building across the street that looked like a gym. The sign announced the Krav Maga International Academy. “We’ll start training at seven in the morning.”

 

He patted my head and walked back inside to fix dinner. “Training? What are you talking about? This is summer break. So no offense, but I’m not doing anything.”

 

He laughed. “We will see about that, little myrtle.” I followed him in stomping all the way. He smiled at my mom and then looked back at me, “It was one of your founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, who said, ‘Do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of.’”

 

Uncle Ami always did things like that, quoting people or lines from old books. If ever I sassed or complained, he quoted some dead person. Mom reassured me that she had to do it when she was my age. I didn’t come to Israel to practice some strange Israeli martial arts called Krav Maga every morning, go for a jog, and then spend the rest of the day at the beach while dad was off digging in the dirt somewhere. I was mad for a while, but realized it was a fight I was going to lose. Anyway, it was just a couple of hours a day.

 

Dinner that night was incredible. We had things I’d never even heard of before much less tasted: tabouli, shwarma, and latkes. The spicy smells filled the house. I ate so much I thought I would be sick. That night we walked along the beach and found a place that sold ice cream. We sat in the sand and watched the boats drift along the Mediterranean.

 

The next morning I arrived at the gym, which didn’t open to the public for another hour. The room was larger than it appeared from outside. I walked to the center of the large blue mat. A large flag with blue and white stripes with a blue star in the middle hung on one wall and an American flag hung on another wall. Military uniforms and medals mounted behind glass hung on the back wall. Uncle Ami stood in the middle of the blue mat wearing what looked like black pajama pants and a T-shirt that pulled tight against his little potbelly stomach.

 

As I walked up, he said, “Hit me in the stomach.”

 

Weird, I thought to myself, but whatever. I balled up my fist and swung at his stomach. Suddenly, he knocked my hand away and using his right foot swept my legs out from underneath me. I landed hard on the mat.

 

“First lesson, stay on your feet. Always stay on your feet.” He took two steps back. “Stand up.”

 

“Why’d you do that? You told me to hit you in the stomach.”

 

“Yes, but I didn’t say I would let you. Now stand up and hit me in the stomach.”

 

I stood up and brushed myself off. “No, thanks. I don’t want to take karate anyway.”

 

“Not karate… Krav Maga. And it is not an option for you, like your mother. You need it to survive. You never know when they will come for you. Now hit me in the stomach.”

 

Uncle Ami always seemed scared of they but he had no idea who they were. I asked a million times and he would just say that they could be anybody, any time. He must be mental, but mom told me to obey and be nice and she would make it up to me. She had to do it when she was little. When she joined the army at eighteen, she was ready. She was the first female to win the Krav Maga tournament in her rookie class of the Israeli Defense Force.

 

I ran in fast and swung my arm at his stomach. He blocked my punch with a forearm, but when he went to sweep my leg out from under me, I jumped up. I landed, swung wildly with my other arm hitting his side, and backed up before he could knock me down.

 

He smiled. “Very good. You are still on your feet. On your feet, you are still in control. If you fall down or trip, you are vulnerable. It looks like you’re a natural just like your mother. Although I don’t remember your mom having quite the smart mouth.”

 

I didn’t answer. I gritted my teeth more determined to hit him this time. He was still talking to me and straightening his shirt when my mind flashed back to my mom’s little move in the airport parking lot. As he turned to face me, I pretended to swing my arm, but stomped down on his foot as hard as I could. I must have hit a toe just right. When he reached down, I rammed my shoulder into him. He leaned back to keep his balance. I launched my fist into his stomach as fast as I could.

 

“I didn’t promise to wait for you to get ready.” I smiled at him.

 

Obviously stunned I hit him so quickly, he smiled and stuck out his hand.

 

“Great job, Hadassah.”

 

“Thanks, Ami.”

 

I reached out to shake his hand but instead of politely taking it, he pulled me to the ground and pinned my arm up behind my back. “And I never said I wouldn’t hit you back.”

***

 

In the dark, my head swam. That first summer in Israel faded from my thoughts and before I knew it, I was fourteen again. My mom and I were eating breakfast and drinking coffee watching fishermen packing their nets to head out to sea like they had done for thousands of years. Many of the men still fished the way their ancestors had. Dad was on his way to Egypt for two weeks. He was taking a team of archaeology students on a dig to uncover a stash of goods Nazi General Erwin Rommel hid when the Nazis were in North Africa. So I sat with my mom, staring at my plate. The hardest thing to get used to about Israel was the spicy breakfast. Pickled vegetables, spicy dips, garlic flavored fish turned my stomach early in the morning. Finally, mom gave in and got us some Cocoa Puffs.

 

As we sipped our coffee, I finally asked what I had been scared to for four years now. “Mom, what’s Ami’s story? He looks like a funny little grandfather but when we go to the academy, it’s like he’s a cute little demon. He paces with his hands in his pockets. Suddenly, he explodes in attacks and expects me to defend myself. One day, he waited right outside the bathroom door and grabbed me around the neck. He’s a little freaky at times.”

 

Mom smiled. “We all go through Ami’s training techniques. You always have to be prepared. If some guy attacks you in a mall parking lot or if some punk tries something at a party, he won’t be nice enough to give you time to get ready to fight back.”

 

“We? What do you mean ‘we’? You don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

 

“I mean we, us, soldiers. Ami has trained a lot of the Israeli army in Krav Maga.” She looked at her watch. It was almost time for me to go. “He fought in two wars back in the 60’s and 70’s. He’s quite a hero in Israel. He is passionate about teaching Israelis to defend themselves, because Jews have been persecuted for many years.”

 

I finished breakfast and washed my dishes. “Yeah, but I live in America. And technically, I’m only half Jew. Who’s going to attack me?”

 

“That’s funny. Try that out on Ami and see what he says. Have a good workout.”

 

I grabbed my bag and ran across the street. As the sleepy town of Jaffa gradually stirred, tourists started riding their bikes or renting umbrellas and staking their claim of sand on the beach. The door to the academy pulled open easily enough but the all lights were out. I dropped my bag by the door and called out for Uncle Ami. No response.

 

I walked through the lobby onto the mat in the middle of the room. Pushing against the wall, I started stretching, pushing back on one foot and then the next to work out my quads. Suddenly, two hands grabbed me from behind slamming my face into the mat that hung on the wall. One of Uncle Ami’s surprises. They were something I had started to expect like in those Pink Panther movies my dad loves where Inspector Clouseau has instructed, Kato, to attack him suddenly and out of the blue to help keep him on his toes. Only it always ends badly for Clouseau.

 

I tried every trick I could think of. My foot stomped but could not connect with Ami’s feet. My elbows swung trying to connect with his temple, but I couldn’t turn enough. I tried dropping down into base formation like I was doing squats throwing him off balance, but I was pinned up against the wall. If he had been a real attacker, I would be dead or probably thrown into the trunk of some creep’s car.

 

Rage boiled up again, I refused to give up. I jumped up leaning into my attacker. Placing both feet firmly on the wall, I pushed backwards with full force sending both of us hitting the floor. His grip broke and I tried to scramble away. Yanking me by my foot, he sat on top of me and grabbed my throat.

 

“You’re dead now, my little myrtle.” Uncle Ami smiled. “I like the push off the wall. I didn’t teach you that. Good improvisation.”

 

“Yeah? Well, it didn’t work.” I sat up.

 

“Right, you made two mistakes. What are they?”

 

I hung my head and caught my breath. Suddenly, his teaching came back to me without having to think about it. “Rule number one, stay on your feet. Rule number two, attack don’t hesitate.”

 

“Pushing us both to the floor was a good idea, but you should have attacked me on the floor instead of trying to scramble out of here. Don’t run away immediately. Incapacitate your attacker so they can’t run after you. Then there’s rule number three…”

 

“Rule three? What’s that?” My breathing started to return to normal. “Rule number three is SPAT.”

 

“What, you want me to spit?”

 

“No spit. SPAT. Scan. Patience. Assess. Think. You have to learn to SPAT in two or three seconds. Scan your surroundings. People. Weapons. The lights were out. You should have kept your bag. It could be a weapon. Patience. You moved too quickly into a wide-open area. You should have stayed close to the exit. Assess your attacker and his position. When you’re up against a wall or if someone pins you to a car in a parking lot, you don’t have room to drop into base formation. Think attack. My attack immobilized you, but I was using both hands, therefore, I couldn’t be holding a weapon.”

 

“SPAT. Got it.” I went to get a drink of water from the fountain. “Uncle Ami, why, exactly, are you so gung ho about teaching me to beat the snot of people?”

 

“I taught your mother and look at her. Successful. Beautiful. Confident. Self-sufficient. You have to be able to defend yourself in today’s world.”

 

“But I don’t live in Israel. I live in New Providence. Nobody’s shooting at us. Sometimes I have to shove a tourist to get a seat at Ye Olde Bagel Shoppe, but I’ve never had to take anyone down for trying to get the last cinnamon raisin bagel. Besides, I’m only half-Jewish. Nobody is going to persecute me in New Providence. The people there aren’t like that.”

 

“Sit down, Hadassah.” We sat cross-legged on the sparring mat. “Do you know why I call you ‘my little myrtle’?

 

I shook my head. “Hadassah means ‘myrtle’. So, I guess that’s why. But you’re probably going to tell me I’m wrong.”

 

He laughed. “The myrtle tree is the national tree of Israel. Hadassah is the Hebrew name for Queen Esther. She didn’t think she would be persecuted either, but when the evil Persian viceroy plotted to kill all the Jews, Esther had to make a choice. Her bravery saved every Jew exiled in Persia.”

 

“But Ami I’m only half-Jewish. And besides it’s not really a race.”

 

“To the Jews, it is. Yes, technically, you are half Jewish, but in Judaism, the faith itself is passed down through the mother’s line. Therefore, you are all Jew, my dear. You need to embrace your heritage and your faith. God gave you all these gifts and talents for a reason and it’s not for giggling at the mall or batting your eyes at boys. I can only hope that you will never be directly persecuted. But there are those who will do it. And there will come a day where you will have to take a stand for something and you might find yourself all alone when you do. You need to be strong enough to stand tall.”

 

I thought about Courtney and her blonde bimbo brigade who cut me during tryouts for cheerleading and basketball. They constantly mocked my hair. I thought about how small I felt at school and how powerful I fell here at the Krav Maga academy.

 

Uncle Ami stood and walked over to grab a towel off one of the benches. “Maybe we should take break today and you can go ahead to the beach or grab a fruit smoothie at Fresh Juices Café on Shenkin Street.” He strolled to the lobby.

 

I thought for a second. I needed to find out who I was. I was tired of being scared, insecure. I stood up. “No. What are you, an old man? Scared of a little girl? Bring it on.”

 

“There are some awfully cute sailboarders out there. One of my students runs the rental stand. You may like him.”

 

“You’re just chicken.” I laughed and held up my fists.

 

“As you wish my little myrtle. No more mercy.”

 

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

 

We started sparring again.

 

Chapter 13 - KRAV MAGA

 

Am I still dreaming? I am and I need to wake up. I need to keep running, but my mind is still black floating through clouds of memory.

 

The summer I turned sixteen flashes through my mind. It was the last summer I spent with my mom in Israel before her car accident. Every morning, my mom and I would run down the Mediterranean coast through the old city of Jaffa. Past the red and white striped lighthouse, we raced over the promenade into the old city by the clock tower built in 1906. Vendors were already setting up their colorful tents in the flea market, selling vibrant scarves and keffiyehs, hand-made jewelry, and religious icons. When we reached the top of the hill through the narrow cobblestone streets, we stopped at a little coffee shop called the Napoleon Café. The little fat dictator installed canons here in 1799. From this high point, all of Tel Aviv’s towers could be seen up the coast. The date palm trees waved in the air.

 

And I was happy. I can’t remember a time in my life when I had been happier. Everything about life seemed so perfect.

 

My mom bragged about my newfound confidence. After six years of Krav Maga training and making the track team as a freshman, I was really starting to rock. Courtney Even seemed to leave me alone for a time, but that would not last long. Mom and I talked about college, boys, and leaving home…

 

***

 

 

“Haddie, I know we push you sometimes. But I want you to know, it’s for your best.” She sipped her coffee. “Life can be hard and it’s scary out there on your own.”

 

“I can imagine.” Unsure where she was headed, I figured agreeing was the best bet.

 

“No, I mean it. When I came to college in America all alone and I didn’t know anyone. I lived in New York City and there was one evening when a mugger tried to attack me. It was after I left an outdoor café in Little Italy. I’d enjoyed a nice late lunch with some of my new friends and he came at me. Needless to say, he had no clue what he was walking into. Two years of Israeli Defense Forces and ten years of training with Uncle Ami, I hammered him with my knees and elbows until he ran away screaming. He even dropped a purse he had stolen from someone else. I found a wallet inside and returned it to the lady the next day in person. She was impressed.”

 

“Wow. Impressive.”

 

She patted my hand. “I’m not trying to impress you. If all you do is watch television and talk on the phone, you’re prepared for nothing in life. If you train your mind, your body, and your will power, you can overcome most anything. And you never know when those hurdle skills racing skills of yours will come in handy.” She glanced down at her watch. “Oh no, you’re going to be late for training with Ami.”

 

We raced through the streets as the narrow roads started to get crammed with tourist buses. It only took about ten minutes to get back to the Krav Maga International Academy. I darted across the street from the house, dodging cars on their way to work. I opened the door to the academy and everything was quiet.

 

I prepared my mind for the sudden attack, thinking that Uncle Ami was planning to ambush me. I made sure to keep my bag with me. What Uncle Ami had told me a few years earlier had stuck with me, ‘You should have kept your bag. It could be a weapon’ After six summers, did Ami really think he could still fool me?

 

But something didn’t feel right. Something felt off. And Uncle Ami taught me to trust myself when that feeling washes over me; my sixth sense. He said most people ignore it. But it’s an innate red-alert instinct in all living things. It’s sort of like how the hair on a dog’s back will stand up and they’ll take a slow step back when they sense danger is present. Or how a cat will suddenly crouch and its tail begins to twitch… like it’s waiting for something it can feel is nearby. Of course, we’re not cats or dogs but we all get that hair on the back of our neck tingle even if it’s only for a split second, when something isn’t right.

 

SPAT, Haddie. SPAT. Scanning the gym, I noticed legs dressed in black pajamas jutting out from under the punching bags lining the wall. Ami? I raced over and bent down. Uncle Ami lay motionless. I thought he had a heart attack or something. I started shaking him and calling his name, but no response.

 

Suddenly, a black gloved hand grabbed my mouth as another one wrapped around my stomach. My heart raced. The hands tried to shove me down to my knees. And in an instant, all the things Ami taught me kicked in. I knew both his hands were occupied holding me which meant he didn’t have a weapon.

 

Rule One: Stay on my feet. I dropped into a squatting position to one knee and resist the force bearing down on me.

 

Rule Two: Attack, don’t hesitate. I thrust my right arm skyward breaking his grip. The swift move wedged his hand off my mouth. I could have tried to run away but then I remembered Ami saying, you should have attacked me instead of trying to scramble out of here. Don’t run away immediately. Incapacitate your attacker so they can’t run after you. My left foot made a crunching sound against his kneecap. At the same time, my right elbow crashed against his jaw rapidly as I spun around. The attacker was stunned for a split second by the swift barrage of violence.

 

Uncle Ami always told me Counter-attack rapidly and frequently. Don’t give your opponent time to think. I swept at his wounded knee again with my right leg as I turned to face my attacker, but he took a step back. I think he was trying to make sense out of the fact that a little girl who should’ve been easy to overpower had overpowered him.

 

He reached behind and pulled out a black knife, sharp on one side and jagged on the other. He came at me and I used my weapon; my bag. I let the strap of my bag fall from my shoulder and it caught on his arm. I spun around and flipped the bag around with me. His arm was suddenly tangled up in the strap. I yanked as hard as I could and the knife went flying out of his reach.

 

My attacker glanced towards his knife. I knew he couldn’t decide if he should attack me or if he should go for the knife. His slight hesitation tipped the scales my favor. I sent a flurry of violent knees between his legs and into his stomach. He doubled over in pain and tried to grab me, but I grabbed him instead and locked his arm under shoulder. As he bent over, I sent my knee to his nose and heard the popping and cracking of cartilage.

 

The attacker muttered something in Hebrew, but I couldn’t understand him. I didn’t know if he was cursing me or begging me to stop. He was disoriented, I could’ve run away. Only he could have run after me.

 

I grabbed a five-pound weight from a weight rack right near me. He didn’t have time to prepare himself for the impact of the weight against his head. He fell to the ground.

 

I waited with the dumbbell poised to strike again just in case he wasn’t really out cold. He was. I ripped the mask off his head. When I realized who had attacked Ami and me I was stunned. It was the cute guy from the sail boat rental place. Why would he hurt Uncle Ami? Then from somewhere behind me, I heard someone clapping.

 

“Excellent.” I turned to see Ami. “You have passed the test.”

 

I glanced at the poor, unconscious college boy on the ground lying on the mat with a trickle of blood running from his nose. Then I turned back to Ami. I couldn’t believe this was some stupid lesson.

 

“Hadassah he’s okay. That was only a five pounder. Probably gave him a mild concussion. That’s all. You did very well.”

 

I pushed him away. “You scared the snot out of me. I thought you were dead.”

 

“And yet, you didn’t lose focus. Well, done.”

 

I grabbed my once perfectly good fifty-dollar gym bag that was now useless because it had been sliced open. I took a drink of water. “What would have happened if… oh, I don’t know… he killed me? Or if I had killed him.” Outrage washed over me.

 

“Ehud would not have hurt you. He is one of my top students. You know, he is in the army. He only works across the street on his days off. And I was watching. I would have stopped you if I thought you were really going to hurt him.”

 

“How nice of you, Uncle Ami.”

 

Thankfully, Ehud sat up and shook off my attack. He was wobbly but he didn’t seem mad. In fact, he congratulated me on a good fight and excused himself to clean up.

 

“So do I get a black belt now?” I grinned knowing how Ami hated the comparison to traditional martial arts.

 

“Hadassah, this isn’t a little martial arts studio where six years olds get trophies for fighting the air. This is real self-defense. Krav Maga is not pretty or noble like jujitsu that has a lot of artistic body movement. This is down and dirty street fighting using whatever you can and you passed a big test – a superior, stronger opponent. My little myrtle, you get to live. That is your black belt.”

 

“Still, there should be belts.” I turned away and smiled.

 

“A belt is for holding up your pants and the holster for a Desert Eagle 10 millimeter pistol.”

 

“Oh, Ami, don’t get so upset. I don’t understand you. You’re so sweet but so violent. What gives?”

 

“America makes you soft. You think life is nothing but going to the mall or to a coffee shop. Sadly, peace does not beget peace. Defeating evil begets peace.”

 

“But Ami, I keep telling you no one is going to attack me, especially like Ehud did, at my school. When you fight, you get expelled. It’s called zero tolerance.”

 

“I understand. But you must also understand that not all battles are physical. It takes mental agility to be victorious in a physical battle. Trust in who you are and who God made you to be. Look at any evil regime, they all look alike, dress alike, and parrot the same language. Think of the Hitler Youth or… or at the Stormtroopers in Star Wars. They are all clones. It takes mental strength to be yourself and to not doubt your Creator in moments of crisis. A disciplined body leads to a disciplined mind.”

 

Ami helped me to my feet. And then Ehud, who’d been listening, walked over to officially introduce himself. Then the weirdest thing happened. He asked me out. I just kicked his butt and he asked me out on a date. How bizarre. After he left, Ami assured me that he was a good guy and usually unbeatable.

 

“He admires your strength.” Then as an after-thought, Ami added. “All good men admire a woman’s strength. Only bad or insecure men fear a woman’s strength.”

 

“Really? In America, the girls I’m around like to play dumb and giggle a lot.”

 

“You mother faced the same thing in college. Do you know what she told me when she flew home for the school’s winter break?”

 

“What?” I asked trying to picture my mom as an eighteen-year-old college student.

 

“She said she met a guy who spent a lot of time in the library and he was the only guy who wasn’t afraid of her. Other guys would look at her but kept their distance. However, your father came up to her and started asking questions about Israel.”

 

As we practiced some more moves, Uncle Ami told me the story. “In truth, your father wasn’t even hitting on her. Apparently, someone told him she was from Israel and he wanted to talk to her about her country. After a while, her friends left, but they stayed and talked. When the library closed, they went to a coffee shop and talked for hours. After that, they bumped into each other several times a week in the library and would sit together.”

 

Ami chuckled. “It wasn’t romantic like in the movies. They became good friends first which is the key to a successful relationship.” He rubbed his chin. “But your mother says he was romantic. He even sneaked into the astronomy building one night and had a romantic dinner set up for her on the roof under the stars. They danced under the stars until a security guard came to check the building. Your father hadn’t planned on that. They could’ve gotten in a lot of trouble but your mother helped him scale down the outside of the building using the drainage spout. And then she said they took off running. I don’t think your father had ever been quite that adventurous before. Your mother said he changed that evening. He realized he loved your mother and he loved the thought of blending his studies with adventure.”

 

“So that’s why he decided to go into archaeology? Because of my mom?”

 

“Exactly.”

 

 

Chapter 14 - OIL SANDS

 

“Ouch.” I blink a few times as I wake from having been knocked unconscious after my fall. I have no idea how long I’ve been out. It could have been five minutes, it could have been twenty.

 

I glance up at the cliff where I fell. It wasn’t as huge a drop as it felt when I was falling. It might have been fifteen to twenty feet. And luckily, I landed in some soft, cushy, soup-like sand. All in all, I’m pretty lucky.

 

If it hadn’t been for the sand, I might be dead. But as it is, I don’t think I broke anything. In fact, I don’t think I even sprained anything which is a good thing. Unfortunately, the springy sand pit is quicksand. And that is a bad thing. Seriously? This is like a bad adventure movie where the good guy gets stuck in quicksand.

 

Only in the movies, whatever the good guy is ‘stuck’ in… it’s definitely not what quick sand actually looks like. This mushy muck is sticky and dark brown. Quite frankly, it reminds me of brownie mix my mom used to make and then she let me lick the bowl.

 

But this isn’t brownie mix and I’m sinking. It’s a good thing I didn’t thrash around before I blacked out or I’d probably be dead. I guess I landed sort of feet first so I’d only sunk up to my waist. I tried to lift my legs like I was walking against waves at the beach. But instead of rising up, it felt like the sand was trying to swallow me. Dumb move.

 

“Stay still, Haddie. It’s just like in movies. I hope.” I lift my arms and slowly start moving forward when I notice an oily smell. I reach down and pick up some of the black sand working it between my fingers. It’s soft and oily. I read about this stuff in science class years ago. Oil sand. The jungle equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits.

 

“Well, Haddie, on the one hand, I probably won’t drown. At least not quickly. It’ll probably be a slow painful death that I will get to savor.” I look up into the thick foliage just to the side and see what I’m fairly certain is a python. “Then again, on the other hand, I’m stuck out in the open and I might look tasty to Mr. Snake. In which case, I’ll just have the life slow squeezed out of me.”

I’m totally spent. I’m hungry. I’m sore. And my hands hurt to make a fist. Worst of all I can see what I know is the road off to my left. And if I can see it, my kidnappers will easily see me. I close my eyes and let myself have a little cry. But after a few minutes of being pitiful I wipe my tears away with my oil sand hands. “Stop being a baby. You’re not dead yet.”

 

I look around see all sorts of branches and vines dangling close by, but they’re just out of reach. There’s a tree limb not too far away but I don’t want to disturb the snake who has yet to set his sights on me.

 

I look just to my right and see a large white heron sitting perched on a branch. It looks at me like I’m stupid and squawks as if to say, ‘Hey, what’re you doing in the quicksand genius?’ “Yeah, yeah. Stop staring at me. You’re lucky I can’t throw a rock at you because I would.” Wait. I do have something to throw! The rope. I have in my pocket.

 

I slowly reach my hands into the brown muck and can feel myself being sucked down. I carefully reach into the pocket with the rope because I don’t want to get sucked under getting the one thing I think will actually help me. Once I have the rope and my arms above the muck, I give it plenty of slack. I take a deep breath and toss it up hoping it’ll go over the branch so I can try to pull myself up.

 

Only I miss the limb and the rope lands with a thud on the oil sand. What’s more, my motion caused me to sink a couple inches deeper down. I reel in the rope as slowly as possible so I can try again. If know I only have a few attempts to snag the branch. If I keep missing, I won’t have to worry about the kidnappers because I’ll sink like a T-Rex and probably won’t be found for centuries.

 

As I prepare to toss the rope a second time, I hear the rumble of a truck heading down the mountain. Great. Now I have to work as fast as possible without sinking completely. Think, Haddie, think. If I just toss it up again and again, it’s only going to fall again and again. I need weight to get it over the limb.

 

Taking inventory of everything I have access to, I realize the only thing small enough and yet heavy enough to use is the knife I grabbed. If I had the SAT phone, I would use it. But I don’t know where it landed. For all I know it’s somewhere in the muck. I tie the rope securely to the knife and throw it upwards again. I watch as the knife bounces off the limb and falls down towards me. Now I’m not only about chest deep in the oil sand but I barely avoid stabbing myself with the knife. If I toss it again, I might kill myself by either sinking below the muck or by stabbing myself.

 

I’m frazzled and fatigued and fearful. Most of all I’m annoyed with myself. The force I’m exerting to get out of this stuff is taking every ounce of strength I have. And hearing the sound of the truck getting closer isn’t helping.

 

I have to do this now. I lean back, cock my arm, throw as hard as I can, and I say a little ‘Please, please, God, let this work’ prayer. And it works! The knife flies over the branch and comes fall down the other side. If I could jump up and down, I would. But I can’t.

 

With the rope finally in place, I untie the knife and put it between my teeth which is not as easy as television makes it look. Mental note: You’ve got to start scripting your own life Haddie. Life is NOT like television. I wrap my hands around the rope and pull with all my might. The limb strains and bends. I feel myself moving only I barely go anywhere because of the suction. I struggle again and manage to pull my legs out of the gunk and find myself somewhat perched on the top of the oil sand trying not to sink back down.

 

I hear shouting in Spanish above me, near the cliff where I fell. They are so close. I have to get out of the quicksand. Even though my hands are killing me, I wrap the rope around them tight and start swinging my hips back and forth like I’m going to do a long jump. If I can build up enough momentum and jump, I might make it over the oil sand. The branch bounces up and down, but thankfully it hasn’t yet reached its breaking point.

 

One, two, three. Wait. Before I go leaping towards the tree I realize I’ll be going deeper into the jungle which could be even more dangerous than letting Santiago and his men find me. It’s too dangerous. There are too many unknowns. My safest option is to stick close to the road and be ready to fight if I need to.

 

It’s a risky move but I shift my weight and start swinging towards the cliff from where I fell. I’ve only got one shot to catch hold of one of leafy, rooty vines sticking out from the cliff and make my way up and over the edge. One, two, three. Go! I push off, through the muck, and lunge at the cliff face grabbing at the foliage. Thankfully, I’m able to grab a strong root and pull myself free of the oil sand.

 

It takes a lot of doing but I work my way up the wall and pull myself back to where I went flying over the edge. Luckily the undergrowth is thick here so I can hide and take a moment to catch my breath and secure the rope knowing I might need it again. I look out from the dense greenery to see where my kidnappers are. I spot the truck. But no one is near it and they left it running like the idiots who dash into a convenience store to buy a soda and leave their car running.

 

I think of my options. If I can only see a few men so I have to assume the rest are in the jungle looking for me. And thanks to the dark, oily sludge on me I blend into the terrain. If I can make it to the truck, it might be an easy getaway. I might even get down to the next turn before they notice. But if they should see me before I reach the truck, I can race back to the cliff and hurl myself away from the oil sand below. Sure, I could land and hurt my ankle but I think I can do it. If I do that then some of them are probably dumb enough to follow me over the cliff but they won’t know there’s quicksand below them. All my options have risks but knowing what to expect is an advantage for me.

 

SPAT. Scan. I see men heading into the jungle off to the right. There are four men on the left. Straight ahead of me I see Mauricio and he’s now sporting a black eye. Santiago must have worked him over pretty good for falling asleep and letting me escape.

 

Patience. I can’t just run to the truck. I need to distract Mauricio without attracting the others.

 

Assess. All I have is myself, the knife, the rope, a protein bar, and… the jungle. To get away, I know I need everything except the jungle.

 

Think. I’ll use the jungle to help me. I make my way behind a huge moss covered tree, duck down, pick up a stick, and toss it a couple of feet away from me to the right. It catches Mauricio’s attention; making him curious. He stops holds his rifle close and approaches the area where the sound came from. If I weren’t so worried about getting away, I’d probably giggle and say ‘Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits’. Instead, I slip back behind the tree.

 

Mauricio takes a few steps towards the sound but turns to head back to his post. No. No. No. I need you over here. I grab a rock and toss it close to me. What am I thinking? There are men with guns combing the jungle looking for me and I here I am egging one of them on. I brace myself behind the tree waiting for Mauricio to come closer.

 

Chapter 15 - WATERFALL

 

Branches and leaves crackle under Mauricio’s feet. He moves slowly, methodically looking for the source of the noise. The closer he gets to me the more I realize that this might be a really stupid plan. I should have just swung over the oil sand and took off running. Maybe I could have outrun them. Then again, I had no idea where I would’ve run to. Don’t second guess yourself, Haddie. Stay committed to your plan. No shortcuts. This is the best option. I have to make some sort of stand, slow them down, and stun them to give me more time to get away.

 

The barrel of the rifle comes around the tree followed by Mauricio’s head. I know the edge of the cliff is only about five or six feet behind me. I raise my hands slowly to grab the rifle. As Mauricio catches sight of me, I can tell right away he’s surprised. He hesitates. His brief pause is all I need to strike.

 

Like Uncle Ami said attack fast, attack first, and do not hesitate. I grab the barrel of the rifle and pull it towards me. Mauricio is knocked off balance. For some reason, he isn’t calling for help. Maybe he wants to catch me himself to get into Santiago’s good graces. Or maybe he’s just stupid like Pablo.

 

My feet planted firmly, I swing the rifle around tucking it under my arm. I punch him in the face, dead on, a couple of times. Which upsets him and he lunges for me. He grabs my shoulders only he can’t really get hold of me because of my oily skin.

 

My knee slams into his stomach three times in rapid succession. He swings wildly, hitting me in the side of the face, but he had to let go of the rifle completely to do it. With the rifle securely in my hands, I use it to smack him in the head with the butt. He staggers and stumbles toward the edge of the cliff holding his head. I give a quick kick to his backside and Mauricio tumbles over the edge of the cliff.

 

He lets out a scream just before he lands on the oil sands below. Now’s my chance. I try racing towards the truck but I only make it about twenty feet up when I see the others moving towards the source of the scream. I duck down behind a fallen tree.

 

The truck is no longer an option. And they’re closing in fast. Great. At least I have a rifle. I kneel down low and lean against a tree behind a banana tree. Wait. I have a rifle! I take aim at the truck. Gunfire is bound to stop them in their tracks until they figure out where it came from. And if I can blow out a tire, they’ll have to chase me on foot.

 

I aim. I fire. Bam! Bam! Bam! Gunfire erupts through the jungle and echoes throughout the side of the mountain. A couple of shots hit the truck but nowhere near the tires. I see Santiago. He orders one of his men to get to the truck and move it.

 

I turn and shoot again. I am not a good shot. This is so much harder than on television. One of the guys races towards the truck. I pop off a couple more rounds. There’s loud pop, like a giant balloon being burst followed by the sound of a swoosh of air. YES! I finally hit the stupid tire. It’s a good thing, too. Because the rifle clicks and I realize I’m out of bullets. I toss the rifle as far away from myself as possible. When it lands, someone shoots in the direction of the gun.

 

All I can do now is run. So I take off… back towards the cliff. The silliest thought pops into my head. I think I’m going to insist that Uncle Ami teaches me how to shoot. Yes. Weapons training is a must this summer. I take a quick glance and see Pablo and another guy chasing after me. For a pudgy guy, Pablo moved pretty well and since he’s wearing boots that fit, he actually starts to gain on me.

 

But I know something Pablo doesn’t know. The cliff is directly ahead of me and before Pablo gets his hand on me, I hurl myself forward hoping I remember how to properly do the long jump. How hard can it be? It’s just like I’m jumping over a hurdle, sort of. A really, really wide hurdle with nothing below me except quicksand, moist ground, and people trying to catch me.

 

As I fly through the air, I hear Pablo screaming as he tumbles over the cliff. He might be a little faster than I’d expected but he’s not quite quick enough to stop on a dime. Even though I prepared myself to land, the ground came a lot faster than I thought it would and I only missed landing in the quicksand by about six inches but I landed safely. Although I’m sure my knees are going to hurt like mad later. I take off with a glance over my shoulder and see Pablo lying face first in the brown sludge. I spot Santiago and a couple of his men standing on the edge of the cliff. He is not pleased and starts shooting his pistol in my direction.

 

I duck my head and take off through the jungle which is where I really didn’t want to be but now I’m here and I have to deal with it. The others start firing into the jungle after me and I just keep running and can feel I’m running downward which is far easier than running uphill. You’d have thought they were in a heated battle because of the way the sound echoed through the valley. But I don’t think they’re actually shooting at me. After all, what good would I be to them dead? No, I think they’re firing blindly into the jungle to scare me. But it won’t work. And the more bullets they lose to the jungle, the sooner they’ll run out of ammunition.

 

Within a minute or two I’m too deep into the jungle for them to see or even hear me. The gunfire dies down to a single popping sound. I hear Santiago screaming, yelling out orders. They’re going to have a hard time getting to me now without their truck. As I run I think of the look on Pablo’s face when he realized he was stuck in the quicksand. And I start to laugh as I run through the trees down a steep vertical descent.

 

But after a few seconds of weird giddy laughter, I start to cry. I very nearly died… more than once in the last five minutes. Even if they weren’t shooting at me, I could’ve been shot. I could’ve missed on that jump. I could’ve landed in the oil sand or broken my leg or neck. That was without a doubt the single most stupid, dangerous thing I’ve ever done. Ever. The only thing that comforts me is knowing that deep down Uncle Ami would be proud of me. He had been with me the whole time, watching over me; making sure I was okay.

 

When I was little and would fall off my bike my dad would say, “Calm down, Haddie. You’re fine. Dry it up, kiddo. There’s too much to do today to waste it on tears.” Dad was right. There IS too much to do today to waste time crying. It’s time to run with purpose. Just like when I race, it’s time for me to narrow my focus and let the world fade away. The road is visible through the woods. My tears stop flowing. I see the destination before me. The shouting of my kidnappers fade with the increasing distance I put between them and me. They have a flat tire and two comrades trapped.

 

By the time my foot falls onto the red dirt road, I’m exhausted. I’ve been running since daybreak. I can’t place the sun in the sky because of the think canopy covering the road. I guess it has to be around noon because what little shadow I do catch of myself running is nearly under my feet, so the sun has to be directly overhead. But maybe since I’m running downhill that trick doesn’t work. Whatever. Sweat rolls down my body but I can’t stop now.

 

My feet pound steadily on the red dirt as I pace myself and make my way down the slanted road that weaves back and forth. Before long the only thing I can hear is the screeching of exotic birds and monkeys. Their wild sounds help me get my second wind. I stop pacing myself and run all out.

 

I turn a corner and am awestruck at the sight of a large waterfall that had carved the mountain canyon into the shape of a U. The road continues on the other side of the mountain with a rocky basalt cliff face on one side and a drop-off to the river below on the other. The bridge I’d spotted early into my getaway spanned the canyon over the river. It would make a romantic spot for a picture, if I was with someone special and wasn’t running for my life from a band of Colombian kidnappers. I cut to right and head off the main road and onto a less traveled road towards the bridge.

 

I hear the roar of a truck’s engine. Through the trees, I can see it getting ready to round the corner onto the straight leg of the U where I was. Seriously? Are they part of some Colombian jungle racing pit crew? Who changes a tire that fast? Or have I been running that long?

 

My wandering mind is startled back to reality when I hear gunfire. Not again. Before I realize it, I’ve made it to a rickety wooden bridge held up by ropes and metal cables. I have nowhere to go but across the bridge and I have to tell myself to not even think about how high up I am. Unfortunately, I don’t realize until I make it to the center of the bridge, that there is nowhere to go on the other side of the bridge. There used to be a road there but it’s totally overgrown and unlike the jungle, it’ll be difficult to run through it. You have got to be kidding me! Can this day get any worse? I look out across the expanse and see that the main road eventually links up to a different, sturdier looking bridge. Seriously?

 

With the truck barreling down on me I have to make a decision. Keep running to the other side of the bridge that goes nowhere where I’ll for sure be trapped. Or… I peer over the edge of the bridge. The waterfall at my back spills down the mountain; the rocks below it are razor sharp. The river is rushing. And the drop alone has to be somewhere close to seventy five to a hundred feet straight down.

 

Standing there like in the middle of the bridge a deer trapped in headlights, I watch the truck skid to a stop close to the edge of cliff. Rocks tumble over to the rushing waters below. I see the door open and Santiago steps out. He grabs a rifle from someone in the back bed of the truck. I stare at him for a moment as he raises the rifle’s site to his eye. Even though he’s far away from me, I can feel his black eyes locking on my eyes. He won’t really shoot me. He needs me.

 

Glancing up to the sky, I whisper a prayer. And I hope that for once my dad was wrong about this one thing. I prayed that there was a Creator and that he cared about me at this exact moment. I climbed onto the side rail of the wooden bridge. The railing sways beneath me and I glance at Santiago. He’s still aiming the gun at me but he’s not shot at me yet. He will not shoot me. I’m valuable to him.

 

Seeing the churning white foam rushing into the river below, I know I’ll have jump as far away from them as possible to clear the churning water. If I don’t, the force of the water will just keep me under.

 

This is it. Without hesitating, I jump and try to leap as far as I can downriver. And in the nick of time, too. Because I can hear what I am sure is the sound of gunfire over the roar of the falls as I plummet to the river below. He shot at me. I can’t believe he shot at me!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Skull of the Zipa – Book 1 in the Haddie Green Chronicles is Chuck Chitwood’s second novel with his first being a contemporary ‘Christian adult thriller written in the style of John Grisham using the backdrop of the story of Job. The Trial of Job written in 2000 and which has sold thousands of copies in the United States and abroad.

 

After a nearly fifteen year hiatus to focus on his family and his career, Chuck has decided to jump back into the writing arena. This time he has decided to focus his attention on creating a series for young adults filled with action and adventure that revolves a modern protagonist who is a positive role model for young adults in a time when there are fewer and fewer confident, strong, and determined characters for young adults to emulate.

 

If you would like to contact Chuck please feel free! He’d love to hear your comments. haddiegreenchronicles@gmail.com

 

Impressum

Texte: Chuck Chitwood
Bildmaterialien: by Lauren McDade (Rights given to Chuck Chitwood)
Lektorat: L. Avery Brown
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 02.03.2015

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To Abigail, Chase and Zachary - You are my greatest adventures.