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

Politics and Pawns379romantic and pragmatic stuff, but in a marriage, there’s always goingto be that mix. I knew she’d understand, and in some ways, she’d knowthe letter wasn’t a fake. I’d been changed by my captivity, but those essentialtraits that made me a pilot and someone who liked to dot all theis and cross all the ts remained.After the proof of life, camp returned to normal during the fall of2007. Enrique wasn’t happy that we’d ignored his request to tell theworld we didn’t want a military rescue, but he didn’t tighten the screwsany further. In fact, a few times he even allowed us to be out of chains toplay volleyball. We stayed tuned to the radio and kept up on all the otherdevelopments. Chávez had the French government on his side becauseof Ingrid’s dual citizenship. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was doingwhat he could to encourage negotiations. Meanwhile the FARC hadannounced a unilateral hostage release as a sign of goodwill.From what we could tell, there seemed to be a whole lot of talking,flying, and visiting, but no real progress. Chávez had promisedthe much-anticipated proof of life to the French government before hisvisit to France, but when he arrived, he wasn’t able to produce it. Wehad no idea why the FARC were holding on to it, and our frustrationwith the pace of things increased. We also began to see evidence thatChávez’s motives were self-serving and two-faced. In radio addresses,he would praise the FARC’s founder Marulanda and hail him as a greatrevolutionary, while we saw him as what he really was—the leader of aterrorist organization.It seemed as if every day that fall, the news in Colombia was relatedto the hostages and the FARC. We had other reasons to be hopeful.U.S. presidential campaigns were in full swing. With Senators HilaryClinton and Barak Obama in the lead on one side, and Senator JohnMcCain rallying on the other, we figured that either way our chanceslooked good. Liberals were more likely to be sympathetic to our causeand Senator McCain, having been a POW himself, would be willing