Kidnapped and a Daring Escape Read Online Free PDF

curt, offered without a smile. "Yes, we will share
the Jeep, and there will be a local guide." She hardly glances at him.
         Her body language and pointed reply feel like a rebuff. Maybe she’s
one of those people who are in a bad mood early in the morning, he
muses and opens the rear door of the cab for her. Her two fellow students
cram in beside her, leaving him no choice but to take the front seat. It
takes barely five minutes to reach the small airport that serves only a
handful of commercial flights and handles mainly small private aircraft.
The three students in the back murmur a few remarks that are drowned
out by the noisy motor of the old-vintage American taxi.
         The pilot of the Cessna is already waiting for them in front of the
terminal. He leads them through a side gate to the six-seater Cessna.
André has the distinct impression that Bianca is consciously avoiding
him. Tant pis , he reckons to himself, falling naturally into his mother
tongue. If that’s the way she wants to play it, I won’t let my day be
spoiled. After stowing their packs onto the far seat of the third row, the
pilot invites Bianca to take the seat next to his. André slips into the
empty place by the luggage. A few minutes later they are in the air. The
craft turns southeast, flying over the western suburbs of Popayàn,
laboring to gain height rapidly. The harsh drone of the engine renders
conversation impossible. One or the other of the student occasionally
draws the attention of the passengers to some landmark or feature in the
landscape. Paolo is busy clicking away on his big Canon camera. Some
thirty kilometers to the South, the snow on the 4,500-meter-high peak of
Volcan Sotará glitters in the low sun, while Volcan Puracé is shrouded
by a long bank of clouds. The patchily forested land rises sharply before
leveling into the gently sloping yellowish grasslands stuck like a half
bowl between these two volcanoes. André figures that the bowl is at least
twenty kilometers across. The young River Cauca has carved a bed
through its entire length. He takes two shots of Volcan Sotará, lit up by
the morning sun, with the expanse of the grasslands in the foreground.
         Within half an hour they fly over the pass that forms the watershed
between the Cauca and the Magdalena river catchments. The plane skims
over an expanse of low clouds that hides the pass, and then loses altitude
steadily, the high-pitched rumble of its engine becoming more bearable.
Soon they catch glimpses into narrow river valleys, their depth hidden in
dark shade. André is intrigued that the clouds leave the valleys free and
tend to hug the upper slopes of the ridges between them. For a few
minutes the pilot follows the course of a sizable river, calling out ‘Rio
Magdalena’. Near the confluence of the Madgalena with another river,
he circles once over a small town and the rolling green hills to its west,
shouting ‘San Agustin’, before banking away to the east. Twenty minutes
later he sets the plane smoothly down on a short grass airfield outside
Pitalito.
         After disembarking, the pilot informs them that he will return at three
thirty, that they must be back at the airfield at the latest by four, just in
case the direct route they came over is completely clouded in and he
might be forced to detour via the low pass east near La Plata, about twice
the distance. He does not want to risk flying after dark, he emphasizes.
A few minutes later, he turns the craft around and takes off alone.
         They have to wait more than a quarter of an hour before a minivan taxi
drives up. The air is still nippy, with a sharp westerly wind. André is glad
for the protection of his rain jacket. The three students are huddled
together, turning their backs on him. It seems fairly obvious that even the
two guys are following Bianca’s lead to cut him out.
         "Did you get a single room, so that Visconti can visit you at night?"
he overhears Giuglio