Consequently, when Nicky’s cell was opened and the terrorists crowded in with Nicky, ignoring Jessica and Angus, Jessica cried out anxiously, “What are you doing? I beg of you don’t hurt him. He’s suffered enough. Do what you have to do to me!”
It was Socorro who swung to face Jessica and shouted through the screen between them, “Shut up! There’s no way you can stop what’s going to happen.”
Jessica screamed frantically, “What is happening?” Miguel, she saw, had brought a small wooden table into Nicky’s cell while Gustavo and the fourth man had seized Nicky and were holding him so he was unable to move. Jessica cried again, “Oh, this isn’t fair! For god’s sake let him go!”
Ignoring Jessica, Socorro said to Nicky, “You’re going to have two of your fingers cut off.”
At the word “fingers,” Nicky, already frantic, screamed and struggled, but to no avail.
Socorro continued, “These men will do it, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. But it will hurt more if you struggle, so keep still!”
Ignoring the warning, mouthing incoherent words, his eyes moving wildly, Nicky fought even more desperately to free himself, to somehow pull back his hands, but did not succeed.
Jessica emitted a piercing wail. “Oh, no! Not fingers! Don’t you understand? He plays the piano! It’s his life …”
“I know.” This time it was Miguel who turned, a small smile on his face. “I heard your husband say so on television; he was answering a question. When he receives those fingers he’ll wish he hadn’t.”
On the other side of Nicky’s cell, Angus was banging his screen and shouting too. He held up his hands. “Take mine! What difference will it make? Why spoil the rest of the boy’s life?”
Miguel, this time his face working angrily, flared back. “What do two fingers of a bourgeois brat matter when every year sixty thousand Peru children die before the age of five?”
“We’re Americans!” Angus hurled at him. “We’re not to blame for that!”
“You are! The capitalist system, your system which exploits the people, is depraved, destructive. It is to blame …”
Miguel’s statistics about the deaths of children were a quote from Abimael Guzmán, Sendero Luminoso’s founder. As Miguel knew, Guzmán’s figure might be exaggerated, but without question Peru’s child malnutrition death toll was one of the highest in the world.
While the epithets flowed back and forth, it happened quickly.
The small table Gustavo had brought was moved in front of Nicky. While the boy continued to squirm and wriggle, begging and crying, pleading pitifully, Gustavo forced the boy’s right index finger on top of the table so it was there alone, the other fingers curled back against the table’s edge. Ramón had produced a sheath knife. Now, grinning, he tested the bright blade’s razor sharpness with a thumb.
Satisfied, Ramón moved forward, placed the blade against the second joint of Nicky’s exposed finger and, with a single swift movement, brought the heel of his beefy left hand down sharply against the back of the knife. With a thunk sound, a spurt of blood, and a piercing scream from Nicky, the finger was almost severed, but not quite. Ramón lifted the knife, then cut away the remaining tissue and flesh to complete the finger’s severance. Nicky’s despairing cries, now from pain, were shrill and harrowing.
Blood flooded the tabletop and was on the hands of the men holding Nicky. They ignored it and moved the boy’s little finger, also of the right hand, from the table’s edge to the top. This time the action and result were faster. With a single chop of Ramón’s knife, the finger was separated from the hand, falling clear while more blood spurted.
Socorro, who had collected the first severed finger and put it in a plastic bag, now added the second and passed the bag to Miguel. Socorro was pale, her lips compressed. She glanced briefly toward Jessica whose face was covered with her hands, her body racked by sobbing.
By now, Nicky—barely conscious, his features ashen white—had fallen back on the narrow bed, his screaming turned to agonized moans. As Miguel, Ramón and the fourth man moved out from the cell, taking the bloody table with them, Socorro told Gustavo whom she had signaled to wait, “Agarra el chico. ¡Sientalo!”
Responding, Gustavo raised Nicky to a seated position and held him while Socorro moved outside, returning with a bowl of warm soapy water she had brought when the group arrived. Taking Nicky’s right hand and holding it upright, Socorro carefully washed the raw stumps of the two severed fingers to forestall infection. The water turned bright red as she did. Then, after covering both wounds with several gauze pads, she securely bandaged the entire hand. Even through pads and bandage, bloodstains showed, though it appeared the flow of blood was slowing.
Through it all, Nicky, clearly in shock, his whole body trembling, neither helped nor hindered what was being done.
Miguel was still in the area outside the cells and Jessica, who had moved to her own cell doorway called to him tearfully. “Please let me go to my son! Please, please, please!”
Miguel shook his head. He said contemptuously, “No mother for a gutless chicken! Let the mocoso try to become a man!”
“He’s more of a man than you will ever be.” The voice was Angus’s, filled with rage and loathing; he too had moved to the doorway of his cell to face Miguel. Angus groped for the Spanish curse Nicky had taught him a week before. “You … ¡Maldito hijo de puta!”
Angus remembered what it meant: Cursed son of a whore! Nicky had repeated to Angus what his playground Cuban friends had told him: To bring a man’s mother into a Spanish curse was the gravest insult possible.
Slowly, deliberately, Miguel turned his head. He looked directly at Angus with eyes that were glacial, vicious and unforgiving. Then, his face set, his expression unchanged, he turned away.
Gustavo had emerged from Nicky’s cell in time to hear the words and observe Miguel’s reaction. Shaking his head, Gustavo said to Angus in his halting English, “Old man, you make bad mistake. He not forget.”
As the hours passed, Jessica became increasingly concerned about Nicky’s mental state. She had tried talking to him, attempting to find some way, through words, to comfort him, but with no success or even a response. Part of the time Nicky lay still, occasionally moaning. Then suddenly his body would jerk several times and sharp cries escape him, followed by a bout of trembling. Jessica was sure that severed nerves caused the movement and accompanying pain. As far as she could tell, most of the time Nicky’s eyes were open but his face was blank.
Jessica even pleaded for an answer. “Just a word, Nicky darling! Just a word! Please—say something, anything!” But there was no response. Jessica wondered if perhaps she was going mad herself. The inability to reach out, to touch and hold her son, to try to bring some solace physically, was a frustrating denial of what she craved.
For a while Jessica herself, close to hysteria, tried to empty her head of thoughts and, lying down, shed silent, bitter tears.
Then with a mental chiding … Take hold! Pull yourself together! Don’t give in! … she resumed the attempt to talk with Nicky.
Angus joined in but the result was as unproductive as before.
Food arrived and was put into their cells. Not surprisingly, Nicky took no notice. Knowing she should preserve her strength, Jessica tried to eat but found she had no appetite and pushed the food away. She had no idea how Angus fared.
Darkness came. As the night advanced, the guard changed. Vicente came on duty. Sounds from outside grew fainter and, when only the hum of insects could be heard, Socorro arrived. She was carrying the water bowl she had used before, several more gauze pads, a bandage, and a kerosene lamp she took with her into Nicky’s cell. Gently she sat Nicky upright and began to change the dressing on his hand.
Nicky seemed easier, less in pain, the jerking of his body more infrequent.
After a while Jessica called out softly, “Socorro, please …”
Immediately Socorro swung around. Putting a finger to he
r lips, she signaled Jessica to be silent. Uncertain about anything, disoriented by strain and anguish, Jessica complied.
When the bandaging was done, Socorro left Nicky’s cell but didn’t lock it. Instead, she came to Jessica’s and opened the padlock with a key. Again, the signal for silence. Then Socorro waved Jessica out from her cell and pointed to the open door of Nicky’s.
Jessica’s heart lifted.
“You must go back before daylight,” Socorro whispered. She nodded in the direction of Vicente. “He will tell you when.”
About to move toward Nicky, Jessica stopped and turned. Impulsively, irrationally, she moved to Socorro and kissed the other woman’s cheek.
Moments later, Jessica was holding Nicky, careful of his bandaged hand.
“Oh, Mom!” he said.
As best they could, they hugged each other. Soon after, Nicky fell asleep.
7
At CBA News the systematic search of classified advertising placed in local newspapers over the past three months was about to be abandoned.
When the search had begun a little more than two weeks earlier, it seemed important to locate what had been the kidnappers’ United States headquarters. At the time it was hoped that even if the kidnap victims were not found, at least some clue might have been left behind as to where they had been taken.
However, now that the Sloane family members were known to be in Peru, though only Sendero Luminoso knew exactly where, the search for the earlier base seemed less important.
Particularly from a TV news point of view, a discovery and pictures of the scene would still be of interest. But as to its being helpful in any important way, the likelihood grew less as days went by.
Still, the effort had not been a failure. Jonathan Mony’s search of local papers had produced the Spanish language weekly Semana, containing information which led directly to the undertaker Alberto Godoy. Questioning of Godoy revealed his sale of caskets to, and positive identification of, the terrorist Ulises Rodríguez. And later still, pressure on Godoy provided clues leading to the American-Amazonas Bank, the apparent murder of the UN diplomat José Antonio Salaverry and his mistress, Helga Efferen, plus their connection with Peru.
Those developments alone, it was generally agreed, had made the advertising search project worthwhile.
But would further searching be likely to produce anything more?
Don Kettering, now heading the CBA News special kidnap task force, didn’t think so. Nor did the task force senior producer, Norman Jaeger. Even Teddy Cooper, who originated the search idea and had supervised it closely from the beginning, had trouble finding reasons to continue.
The matter came up at a task force meeting on Tuesday morning.
It was now four days since Friday’s disclosure of all that was known to CBA News about the kidnap, its perpetrators and the victims’ presence in Peru, plus the later news on Friday evening which included the videotape of Jessica Sloane along with Sendero Luminoso’s demands.
In the meantime there had been the upsetting revelation of Theodore Elliott’s indiscretion, resulting in worldwide knowledge of a CBA decision intended to be kept confidential until—at the earliest—the following Thursday. It was notable that no one at CBA News criticized the Baltimore Star, realizing that the Star’s reporter and editors had done what any other news organization would in such circumstances, probably including CBA.
Theodore Elliott had neither explained nor apologized for what had occurred.
In Peru, Harry Partridge, Minh Van Canh and the sound man, Ken O’Hara, had been joined on Saturday by Rita Abrams and the videotape editor, Bob Watson. Their first combined report was transmitted by satellite from Lima on Monday and led CBA’s National Evening News that night.
Partridge’s editorial theme had been the drastically deteriorating situation in Peru—economically and in terms of law and order. Sound bites from the Peruvian radio man, Sergio Hurtado, and Manuel León Seminario, owner-editor of Escena, made those points, supplemented by pictures of an angry mob from the barridas looting a food store and defying police.
In the words of Hurtado, “This was a democratic land full of promise, but we are now on the same grievous voyage of self-destruction as Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Argentina.”
And Seminario had posed the unanswerable question. “What is it in us Latin Americans that makes us chronically incapable of stable government?” He continued, “We are such a sorry contrast to our prudente neighbors in the north. While Canada and the U.S. achieve an enlightened concord on free trade, making their nations sturdy and stable for generations to come, we in the south still polarize and slaughter.”
In an attempt to balance the report, Rita—at Partridge’s suggestion—tried to arrange a recorded interview with President Castañeda. It was refused. Instead, a second-line government minister, Eduardo Loayza, was made available and had taken a placebo line. The problems of Peru were temporary, he claimed through an interpreter. The country’s bankrupt economy would be turned around. The power of Sendero Luminoso was diminishing, not growing. And the American prisoners of Sendero would be found and released soon by Peru’s military or police.
Loayza’s remarks were included in Monday’s evening news report, but the man and his message were—as Rita expressed it—“like fly piss in the wind.”
Communication between the CBA Lima contingent and CBA New York was frequent, with Partridge and Rita being filled in on stateside developments, including the videotape of Jessica, Sendero’s demands and the Elliott snafu. The last left Partridge incredulous and angry that the clandestine approach he was attempting should have been so crudely undermined. Nonetheless, he resolved to continue the tactics he had begun.
It was probably because the initiative within CBA had passed from New York to Lima that at Tuesday’s task force meeting so much attention was paid to the relatively minor matter of the classified advertising search.
“I brought it up,” Norm Jaeger told Les Chippingham, who had joined the meeting late, “because you were worried about the cost, which is still substantial, though we can stop it any time.”
“Touché!” Chippingham acknowledged. “But the rest of you were proven right, so let’s make a decision on the merits.” What he did not say was that the National Evening News ratings were now so extraordinarily high that being over budget had ceased to alarm him. If Margot Lloyd-Mason made a fuss, he would simply point to the fact that under no other news president had the broadcast audience been as large.
Chippingham asked Teddy Cooper, “What’s your feeling, Teddy, about dropping that advertising search?”
From across the conference-room table, the young English researcher grinned. “Smashin’ idea as it turned out, eh?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“Still could be something comin’ out—like turning over cards still hopin’ for an ace, then finding one. Not as likely, though. If we drop it, I’ll hafta come up with another brilliant notion.”
“Which he quite likely will,” Norm Jaeger commented—a view one hundred and eighty degrees removed from his original assessment of the pushy Teddy Cooper.
In the end it was decided to terminate the advertising search the following day.
Then, three hours later, as if fate had kittenishly decided to intervene, a breakthrough in the search occurred—the kind hoped for from the beginning.
At 2 P.M. in the task force conference room, Teddy Cooper took a phone call from Jonathan Mony.
Mony, by now, had slipped into a supervisory role and for the past few days had been overseeing all the temporary researchers. An assumption was growing that when Mony’s present work concluded, a permanent niche would be offered him in the News Division. On the phone he sounded breathless and excited.
“I think we found it. Can you, and maybe Mr. Kettering, come out?”
“Found what, and where are you?”
“The place the kidnappers used, I’m almost sure. And I
’m at Hackensack, New Jersey. There was an ad in the Record—that’s the local paper—and we followed through.”
“Hold it!” Cooper said. Don Kettering and Norman Jaeger had just walked in together. Cooper removed the phone from his ear and waved it. “It’s Jonathan. He thinks he found Snatchers City.”
A speakerphone was on a desk nearby. Jaeger pressed a button and the speaker came alive.
“Okay, Jonathan,” Kettering said. “Tell us what you have.”
Mony’s amplified voice answered, “There was a classified ad in the Record. Seemed to fit what we were looking for. Shall I read it?”
“Go ahead.”
The trio in the conference room heard a rustling of paper as Mony continued his report.
The advertisement, they learned, had appeared on August 10—a month and four days before the Sloane kidnap, which put it within the estimated time frame of the pre-kidnap surveillance.
HACKENSACK—SALE OR LEASE
Large traditional house in 3 acres, 6 bed, servant quarters, suit multi-family or convert to nursing home, etc. Fireplaces, oil heat, air cond. Spacious outbuildings good for vehicles, workshops, stables. Secluded location, privacy. Attractive price or lease. Terms allow for some repairs needed.
PRANDUS & PAIGE
Brokers/Developers
One of the young women researchers discovered the ad, buried among many others—the Record had one of the largest real estate advertising sections in the region. On reading it, she had contacted Jonathan Mony who was in the area and now carried a CBA paging device. He had joined her at the newspaper’s business office from where Mony phoned the real estate brokers, Prandus & Paige.
Initially he had not been optimistic. During the preceding two weeks there had been many such alerts. But after quick excitements and follow-throughs including visits to “possible” premises, all had proven worthless. The likelihood that this latest scrutiny would be different did not seem great.
In this case, as with most others, on learning that CBA was making the inquiry, the brokers were cooperative and supplied an address. What was different was some added information: First, that almost at once after the ad appeared, a one-year lease had been taken on the property with full payment in advance. Second: A recent check revealed the house and buildings to be deserted, the lessees apparently having left.