Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

214 OUT OF CAPTIVITYback over toward our living quarters, where Marc was nowhere to beseen.“This is not good,” Keith said under his breath.“I’m sure he’s okay,” I replied as much to reassure Keith as myself.“The guards have scrambled around the perimeter, but they aren’tgoing out beyond the yard.”“You’re right, but the sooner he gets back in here, the easier it willbe for me to breathe.”A few minutes went by and Marc was still nowhere to be found. Wepaced around the hooch, anxiety on the tips of our tongues. We didn’thear any shots or yelling, but we also had no idea where Marc could be.We walked over to the bathroom building, careful to see that no onewas watching. We didn’t want to draw attention to the spot where weexpected to see Marc.“We should move back out of here,” Keith said after a few moreminutes with no sign of Marc. I could hear the tension in his voice. Iknew that the longer Marc was gone, the more time the guards had toassemble and get more organized. We could hear their voices in thedistance, but to that point, we’d not heard them walking on the perimeterpathway. We stood near the hooch.When Marc finally appeared around the corner of the bathroom, hestrolled over as casually as he could. The front of his clothes were dirtstainedand a layer of sweat lined his face. But he was back in onepiece.Marc had made it all the way to the tree line, roughly thirty yardsbeyond the fence, before realizing the helos were not a part of any rescueeffort. He’d escaped, but his timing couldn’t have been worse. Heknew that he needed to get back inside the camp quickly. Immediatelyhe fell to the ground and Marine-crawled back to the fence, but it wasthere that he ran into a problem. The escape plan had been designed toexit not to reenter. When he was on the inside, he pushed the fence outaway from the camp, creating enough space to get under it. Now that