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

270 OUT OF CAPTIVITYKeith said, and tossed a small rock against the opposite-side wall. A fewloose stones cascaded down.“Just a routine mission,” Tom said. “Sounds like just another day atthe office.”We continued listening as the pilot reported his coordinates. Thensomething changed in the pitch of his voice and the speed of his words.He was excited about something, but trying to keep command of hisvoice.“He’s talking to somebody else now,” I said. “He’s not going back tocommand.”A few seconds later, we could hear above us what was going on. AKfir jet was approaching.“This is a whole ’nother ball game now.” Keith stood to try to scan thesky above us, but all we were able to see was a relatively small slice.“He’s guiding him in. They better get their coordinates right,” Tomsaid, an edge was in his voice because the Fantasma pilot was leadinghis Kfir into a bombing zone. We had no idea what the target wasgoing to be, but they were definitely close to us, and it only took a fewseconds’ delay or a slight miscommunication for those bombs to misstheir intended target by a quarter mile or more.We looked at the Plumber and Tom said, “You’re going to feel whatwe’re talking about in a minute.”The Plumber frowned. We liked to show him and the other guardsthat we understood what was going on in the skies better than they did.A few seconds later, we felt the impact and heard the distinctive crumpof a bomb making contact with the ground. That was followed by theexplosion.My heart was beating faster, but more in excitement than in fear.Knowing that the Colombian military pilots were nearby and doingdamage to one FARC installation or another was a reason to feelgood.