Out of Captivity Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle Chapter One Choices and Challenges February 13, 2003 Marc The predawn hours in Bogotá are about as peaceful as the day ever gets there. A chaotic city just about any other time, it is nearly deserted at that hour. Few cars are on the road, and even fewer people. The only living things around seem to be the occasional feral cats and stray dogs who wander the streets--but even most of them know they'd be better off asleep. With such light traffic, I always sailed through stoplights on my way to work--we all did. There was an unofficial but spirited drive time competition going on at the office among Keith, Tom, and the other guys. Win or lose, those morning drives were a great way to start my day. They gave me a chance to prepare myself for what was in store. Cruising through the desolate Bogotá roads on the morning of the crash, I was thinking about what I had missed the night before when Keith Stansell, our pilot Tommy Janis, and Tommy's wife, Judith, had asked me to join them for dinner. Living alone, good food wasn't always easy to come by, but for some reason, I hadn't gone with them. Now, with a slight grumble in my stomach, I was regretting that choice and realizing my meager breakfast that morning wouldn't tide me over for long. With my stomach in mind, I listed the inventory of things I'd stuffed into my backpack that morning--a fleece pullover, the expense report I needed to mail that day, and some homework for the Spanish class I was taking. On top of that was my trusty can of tuna just in case Keith didn't have my back (stomach) by bringing me one of his famous sandwiches and a Snickers bar. Mostly, though, I was thinking about how fortunate I was to be doing a job I enjoyed, working with people I liked, and anticipating the remaining twenty-two days of this twenty-eight-day rotation. I hadn't been on this job for long, but part of its appeal was that it gave me two weeks off for every four weeks of work. Those two weeks between tours in-country had a lot to do with why I'd decided to switch jobs in the first place. No matter how good the work was, nothing could beat spending time with my wife, Shane, and my kids back in the Florida Keys. I rolled down the window of my Chevy Rodeo (a re-badged Isuzu) and the cool breeze that came in was crisp and dry. I didn't mind. I needed anything to stay alert. Ever since I'd been in-country, I'd been struggling to sleep. Tom Howes told me that my response was typical of people adjusting to life at altitude. I'd gone from Florida flat to 8,200 feet high in Bogotá. My body was going to need some time to get used to it. As tired as I was, I enjoyed flying through traffic light after traffic light, the streets empty except for a couple of delivery trucks. That morning was a particularly good one, and I thought I'd be able to end a string of drive-time defeats at the hands of Keith and Tom. I wasn't in a reflective mood that morning, just riding a literal and figurative high. I had a new job that paid me well. I was working with people I had come to respect for their service to our country, but who did not take themselves too seriously. I was also getting to know a culture and a place far different from my own, and a few times a week my coworkers and I would fly over some of the most beautiful countryside I'd seen. During those flights, we were mostly looking for coca fields and drug-processing labs under the control of the principal revolutionary group in Colombia, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). The FARC had been around for nearly forty years, beginning initially as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party. Their Marxist insurgency had ebbed and flowed over the years in terms of numbers and influence, but though their ranks had dwindled of late, their tactics had solidified. Their primary means of waging and funding their "war" was through extortion, kidnapping, and drug running. By gathering intelligence on the FARC's drug connections, I was doing my part in the U.S.'s efforts to eradicate the coca crops and drug-trafficking infrastructure in Colombia. In 2002, 650 metric tons of cocaine were processed in Colombia, and the vast majority of the 494 metric tons of cocaine that made its way into the U.S. came from there. That was down more than 20 percent over 2001 figures, so whatever the joint effort between the U.S. and Colombia had been doing, it had been a success. I'd only been on the job since November of 2002, and four months into it, I was still very much in a honeymoon period. I was living in an apartment in the vibrant and historic Colombian capital. Though there were quite a few Americans in the city--embassy workers, contract workers, and other international personnel--our employer arranged for us to live in buildings that were occupied by Colombian nationals to minimize the danger to us. As Americans, we were always considered a kidnapping risk, and if anyone suspected that we were doing intelligence work on behalf of the U.S. government, our value as captives would rise. Colombia's reputation as a place where for-profit kidnapping thrived was well deserved. The number of prominent military, political, and civilian captives being held by various groups, primarily the FARC, was troubling to say the least. By 2003, the number of yearly kidnappings had declined from the more than 3,500 committed in 2000, but the number of hostages still in captivity was among the highest in the world. Out of Captivity Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle . Copyright © by Marc Gonsalves. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle by Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, Tom Howes, Gary Brozek All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
