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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
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  63. Author’s Note

The market was good at the moment, and Lacy and I could easily sell any of the four properties for over a million dollars, but that would take time. As for liquid currency, the last time I checked, our joint account was hovering right around two hundred thousand dollars.

“I can do a quarter mil, no problem,” I said. I would find the rest of the money somehow.

“Okay,” Garret replied. “Let me make some calls. I’ll get back to you ASAP.”

We hung up.

Lacy brought me a sandwich and a juice box while I waited. Fifteen minutes later, Paul called back.

“Okay, so on the expedited-visa front, I put in a few calls, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. The companies on the internet can probably cut through the red tape faster than any government agency will. Plus, no one is looking to do me any personal favors these days. Good news and bad news, as far as the search-and-rescue team goes. Good news is I have a contact who can get the ball rolling on the private Israeli team. He just needs the go-ahead.”

“And the bad news?”

“These things don’t happen overnight. He said it will take a week to put together. And I was a little low with the estimate. Probably be closer to half a million.”

I could scrape together a quarter million, but I wasn’t sure about five hundred grand. I let out a groan and asked, “Why does it have to be an Israeli search-and-rescue team? Why don’t we hire some Bolivians?” This was code for “Can we get someone cheaper?”

“I talked to my contact about that. It’s definitely an option. But he warned me that corruption runs rampant in Bolivia. It’s the poorest nation in all of South America. He said there’s a fifty-fifty chance whoever we hire will just pocket the money. And on the off chance they do look for her and recover her, they may then try to extort even more money out of you.”

“You mean, they’d rescue her from her kidnappers, then kidnap her themselves?”

“He said it happens. He said if it were him, he wouldn’t go local.”

“What about Chile or Argentina, one of the less corrupt countries? I’m sure they could put together a team and head up to Bolivia.”

“Yeah, we can look into that.” He paused, then said, “But there might be another option.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Papagayo.”

“What?”

He let out a soft chuckle. “Papagayo means parrot. He’s an old friend of my father’s from the Marines. After getting out, Papagayo bounced around South America. My dad said that in the late ’90s and early 2000s, he helped facilitate some shady relationships between the US and some Colombian folks.”

“Cartels?”