Kidnapped and a Daring Escape by Gian Bordin Read Free Book Online Page A

cries in Italian: "Please, don’t shoot."
         The man holding the gun rips the door open and pulls her roughly
from the vehicle. She almost falls over, but his iron grip on her arm holds
her upright. He shoves her roughly into the side of the Toyota, shouting
in Spanish: "Stand still."
         For the first time she consciously looks at him. He wears military
fatigues. Only dark brown eyes and a cruel mouth menace through the
holes in the balaclava. He is just a fraction taller than her, but makes up
his relative shortness by the raw strength of his solid body. The beating
of her heart feels painful. Her whole body is shaking.
         Another guy is pushing his machine gun into André’s back, marching
him up the road. André has his hands raised above his head. He too is
shoved against the Toyota. The driver of their Jeep is still at the wheel,
kept in check by a third disguised man.
         While one man has his gun trained on them, the squat fellow expertly
pats down André. She only sees it in her peripheral vision, not daring to
turn her head.
         "Remove your coat."
         André does and the man searches through the pockets. From one
outside pocket he retrieves a camera, from the other a gadget she
recognizes as a IPhone.
         "What’s this?" he asks, inspecting its front and back. "A cell phone?"
         "No, an French/Spanish dictionary," André answers.
         Why does he lie? she wonders.
         The man slips it into his ample pant pockets. One inside pocket
contains a passport. It is red and has the white Swiss cross in the upper
right-hand corner. So André didn’t lie about that, crosses her mind
fleetingly. His captor’s eyes light up. He briefly leafs through the thin
notebook he finds in the other inside pocket. It is about half-full of tiny
writing. A small silver pen is stuck in its spine. He throws the empty
jacket into the backseat of the Toyota. Next he reaches for the back
pocket of André’s pants. From one side he pulls out a wallet, which he
rifles through, from the other a Swiss army knife. He briefly searches the
front pockets of the pants. There seems to be nothing of interest in them.
         "Remove your money belt," he orders.
         "I don’t wear a money belt," André replies.
         "Show! Open your pants!"
         André pulls up his shirt, partially undoes the leather belt so that he can
pull down his pants a hand-width, and reveals hairy skin below his belly
button.
         Their captor looks disappointed. Before André can do up his belt, the
man reaches for his left wrist and removes the watch, quickly inspects it,
and mutters: "Not worth much."
         He turns to her. She closes her eyes, dreading what is to come, finding
it suddenly hard to breathe. Although there is really no need — she only
wears a cotton shirt — he pats down the side of her chest, giving her
breast a slight squeeze and then rubs down the right of her tight-fitting
pant legs, both outside and inside.
         She hears André exclaim: " Hombre , show the señorita some respect."
She opens her eyes, just as the man punches André hard on the side of the
face, bellowing at the same time: "Shut up. Nobody asks you."
         André hardly reacts, eyeing his assailant defiantly. The side of his face
slowly colors blue. Renewed fright assails her. Please André, don’t make
them angry, she prays silently.
           His rebuke though seems to have the desired effect. Rather than also
do her left leg, the man orders her to empty her pant pockets. She only
has some Kleenex paper towels in one. He makes her remove her
earrings, her engagement ring and her gold watch, but leaves the silver
chain and cross pendant she has around the neck.
         " Señorita, your money belt," he demands.
         She lowers the zipper of her pants, revealing the top of her black
thong, unclips the cloth bag and passes it to him, zipping herself up
quickly.