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

58 OUT OF CAPTIVITYto take the next turn to carry all 214 pounds of Keith up that incrediblysteep pitch to where we’d been told the airplane was waiting. Bythe time they got to the top, even the strongest of the FARC wereexhausted. They basically dumped Keith to the ground and stood withtheir hands on their knees, their chests heaving. But neither Keith norI paid much attention. Our eyes were trained on the airplane, or at leastwhat was left of it.In front of us sat the skeletal remains of a single-engine Cessna. Farfrom being a working plane, this thing had ceased to function a longtime ago. Marc had been there for some time before us, and he walkedup to me.“I know. I know. I can’t believe, it either,” he said. I didn’t have wordsto respond to him.Immediately any thoughts we had of being flown to a prisonerexchange evaporated. Looking at that plane, with small-caliber bulletholes riddling one side (clearly not what had brought it to the ground),we couldn’t help but think of our own crash and of whoever had beenaboard this plane. An overnight bag flapped in the twenty-knot wind.Empty sardine cans lay strewn around the wreckage. The FARC hadfound still sealed jars of Nescafé instant coffee and were stuffing themin their backpacks. I walked around the seared metal. The smell ofdecaying flesh was suddenly in my nostrils. I looked inside the cabin.It was empty.On this exposed ridge at what I guessed had to be well above fivethousand feet, the air was frigid. I tried to take it all in. The wreckage.Keith lying on the ground tucked into a fetal position for warmth.Marc, visibly shaken, pale and drawn and lost in his own thoughts ofwhat might have happened to this pilot and crew and what might behappening to us. I hated feeling lucky at that moment, but I did. Wewere still alive thanks to the skill of Tommy Janis, and now, like thepilot of the wreck before us, he was nowhere to be seen.