Free Even Silence Has an End by Ingrid Betancourt Page A

closed.”
    Our impromptu driver looked at me, not knowing what to do. I hesitated for a moment, two seconds too many that would prove fatal. I’d been stopped at FARC checkpoints before. You talked to the group commander, he radioed for authorization, and you were allowed to pass. But that was during the era of the “demilitarized zone,” when peace negotiations were taking place in San Vicente. Everything had changed in the last twenty-four hours. There was a tension in the air I had never experienced before.
    “Turn around, quickly!” I ordered Adair. It was not an easy maneuver. We were stuck between the Red Cross vehicle and the embankment. He began to make the turn; the pressure on him was intense.
    “Quick, quick!” I shouted. I had already spotted the gun barrels trained in our direction. The guerrillas’ leader issued a command and yelled to us from a distance. One of his men came running over, looking menacing. We had completed three-quarters of the maneuver when he caught up with us and put his hand on the door, motioning at Adair to lower the window.
    “Stop right there! The commander wants to talk to you. Don’t make any fast moves.”
    I had not reacted fast enough. We should have turned around and retraced our path without hesitating. I was angry with myself. I looked behind me. My companions were white with fear.
    “Don’t worry,” I told them, to force myself to believe. “Everything will be all right.”
    The commander put his head through the driver’s window and looked intently at each of us, one at a time. He stopped when he got to me and asked, “Are you Ingrid Betancourt?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    It was hard to deny it with my name emblazoned all over the car.
    “Good. Follow me. Park the car on the side of the road. You’ll have to pass between the two buses.”
    He kept hold of the door, forcing us to drive slowly. It was then that I noticed a strong smell of gasoline. A man with a yellow drum in his hand was splashing the contents over the two buses. I heard the sound of an engine and turned around. The young girl on the motorcycle had, like us, stumbled into the trap. One of the guerrillas made her get down from her bike and took it from her, signaling for her to leave. She stood there, arms dangling, not knowing what to do. Her motorcycle was also doused with gasoline. She understood and hurried away toward the bridge.
    A heavyset man with copper-colored skin and a large black mustache, sweating profusely, was pacing up and down across the road, nervously fanning himself with a red handkerchief and wringing his hands until his knuckles were white. His features were distorted in anguish. He had to be the driver of the bus.
    After passing between the two buses, we momentarily lost sight of the Red Cross vehicle’s passengers, who were still held on the shoulder of the road, a gun trained on them. They did not take their eyes off us.
    The commander stopped our truck after a few yards. On his order, the man who had doused the girl’s motorcycle with gasoline left it at the base of the bus and ran toward us. Just as he was crossing the verge about ten yards away, an explosion made us all jump with fright. I saw the man hurled into the air and fall to the ground in a crumpled heap. He lay in a huge pool of blood, his shocked gaze locked on mine as he stared at me, bewildered, not understanding what had just happened to him.
    The commander was shouting, yelling abuse and cursing at the top of his voice. At that moment the wounded man began screaming in horror as he reached behind him and picked up his boot—containing the bloody flesh and exposed bone of a piece of leg that no longer belonged to him.
    “I’m going to die, I’m going to die!” he howled. The commander ordered his men to place him on the open bed of our pickup. The man was covered in blood that had spurted in every direction. Strips of dripping flesh had been blasted all over, splattering the body of our vehicle and the