Tomlinson shrugged.
I slid the photograph I was holding back into the envelope. “At least now I understand why he wears the mask.”
“Fast forward. I’ll tell you when to stop,” I said.
Several short sections of the video interested me. The first was the silence that was punctuated by the bird’s calclass="underline" a hushed, two-toned whistle that was distinctive.
Pilar had returned. We listened to it several times before I turned to her. “Do you recognize the bird?”
At first, she seemed puzzled, but now her expression brightened. “Nine or ten times I’ve watched this nightmare, and I completely missed it. A quetzal bird. It’s singing in the background. Maybe it’s because I’ve forgotten how rare they are in other countries.”
To Tomlinson, I said, “The quetzal is a really beautiful green bird with a long tail. You find it in the high mountains, the cloud forests-only in Central America.”
He said, “I know, I know, I saw one once. A bird with, like, these emerald crystals for feathers. I love the way your brain is working today, Dr. Ford. A little bird could tell us something. It’s already telling us they’re still in the mountains. And it might tell us more.”
I said, “Some birds are time specific.”
“The time of the day or night when they sing, you mean?”
“Exactly. Let me check my library. While I do, find the section where the camera gets a clear shot at the lamp beside the bed. There’s a moth on the lampshade. See if you can freeze it and zoom in.”
I returned a few minutes later with my Field Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Central America, along with Daniel Janzen’s Costa Rican Natural History -an excellent primer on the flora and fauna of the region.
I read silently from both books before saying, “The male quetzal begins a round of territorial calling just before dawn. He usually calls until a couple of hours after dawn, then goes silent during the day. So there you go. It does tell us something. It suggests this video was shot in the morning. Probably very early morning, because the window blinds don’t seem to be that bright. Not much light at all.”
To Pilar, I said, “Lake was abducted late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning of last week.”
“Yes.”
“What time did they find the package outside the convent gate?”
Sounding eager, as if a bulb had just gone on in her brain, she replied, “I see where you’re going with this. It was around ten A.M. on Thursday. The same day the newspaper he was holding was published.”
“Do you have any idea what time the Latin edition of the Miami Herald arrives in Masagua City?”
“It comes on the first direct from Miami. A LACSA flight that arrives at the international airport at seven-twenty A.M. I’ve flown it enough, I should know.”
“This time of year, sunrise in Florida is around six-forty. In Central America-”
“We’re an hour earlier. We don’t use daylight savings time. But sunrise is nearly an hour later because of the volcanic peaks to the east.”
I said, “I remember it being about a forty-minute drive from the airport to downtown Masagua City. I’m talking about how long it took the kidnappers to drive from the airport to the convent, and deliver the package after shooting the video.”
She replied, “About forty-five minutes if it’s early in the morning, because the traffic’s light, yes. Sometimes an hour.”
“Your people found the package around ten, but it could have been dropped off an hour or even two hours before.”
Pilar nodded.
Looking at the screen, Tomlinson interrupted, saying, “O.K., here’s the moth.” Then he turned his blue, weary prophet’s eyes on me. “A very savvy piece of reasoning, Doc. I certainly wouldn’t have caught it. Mind if I try to nail it to the wall? To make sure I’m thinking independently and not just following your lead?”
“Go right ahead.”
“O.K. First, let me verify something before I try to distill this little gem into a couple of sentences. Pilar, am I correct in assuming that Masagua City is high enough in the cloud forest that you might hear quetzal birds?”
“We hear them often. It’s the only capital city in Central America where the bird is found.”
“Do you know of any other airports that are at an elevation high enough to find quetzals?”
“No. None.”
“Are there any other major cities at a similar elevation where the Herald is delivered early in the morning?”
Pilar said, “All the major cities in Central America get the Miami Herald, but only Masagua is high enough.”
Tomlinson was twisting a frazzled end of his hair, concentrating. “Then here’s what we know: This video was shot within a few minutes’ walking or driving distance of the international airport in Masagua. The room has to be nearby because the time window is so damn narrow. They buy the paper in or near the airport, return to the room, and start the camera going while it’s still early enough for a quetzal to be calling. Unless the bird’s behaving unusually-which birds sometimes do. Even so, it seems a reasonable conclusion.”
I said, “That’s the way I read it. I think the data’s strong enough to hold up. I think we can say with some certainty that slightly more than four days ago, Lake was being held in a building that was within a few minutes of the international airport in Masagua.”
Tomlinson added, “They also have to be in a structure near trees, don’t forget. Almost certainly tall trees. A cloud forest bird? A combination like that-all near an airport?” He sighed, pained by what we’d discovered. “Even stoned out of my gourd, if I’d had half an hour, even I coulda found him.”
Outwardly, I was calm. Inside, though, I was seething. The Masaguan feds had seen this same video on Thursday morning, shortly after the CD was delivered. If they’d realized the importance of the bird call, figured out the significance, they could have sealed off all the likely housing around the airport, sent in a hostage rescue team, and my son might be safe right now.
In any hostage situation, abductors are at their most vulnerable in the earliest stages, before they’ve had time to calm down, reassess, and reorganize.
It would have been an ideal time to hit them.
I know because I’ve become a reluctant amateur expert not only on kidnapping, but kidnappings that take place in Latin America. I’ve been forced to learn because of events in my life, and because I’ve spent so much time living near equatorial lines.
Latin America is the most dangerous place in the world when it comes to that particular crime. More than six thousand people are abducted annually. In Colombia, it’s a tax-free, $200-million-a-year business. In Mexico, there are as many as two thousand kidnappings a year, with ransom demands ranging from five thousand dollars for common citizens up into the multimillions for bankers and businessmen.
Foreign executives who work in the oil and energy industries are favorite targets. Insurance agencies such as Chubb, Fireman’s Fund, and Lloyd’s of London now offer policies that underwrite ransom payments, medical treatment, and interpreters, and even continue to pay the salaries of the missing.
Premiums are not inexpensive.
Business? Kidnapping has become an international industry.
It was in Guatemala that kidnappers started a chilling, profitable trend. They began to abduct and ransom the children of wealthy locals and foreign workers. Payoffs became bigger, negotiations easier. The practice spread through Ecuador and Venezuela, where each country suffers about two hundred kidnappings a year.
Pilar’s country, Masagua, soon followed.
I’d heard and read so much about it and become concerned enough, slightly more than a year ago, to warn Lake in an e-mail. I told him why he was an obvious, high-risk target. Of far more value-now, at least, it seemed-I’d also included advice on how best to survive an abduction. The tips had been assembled for him by a friend of mine, a hostage negotiator who works for the State Department.