I spread my hands apart, which due to the restraints, was only six inches and said, “More like this.”

Gunshots cracked through the air. They came from behind the huts. Most likely from where the missing soldier was keeping watch on the villagers.

Bill and two soldiers took off running, leaving just one soldier behind to watch us. He pulled his gun up, walked out from behind the wall of spears, and trained his eyes on our group.

“I bet the villagers are trying something,” I said.

“Hopefully,” Gina replied. Then she cocked her head at the lone soldier and said, “That’s Benecio. He snuck me an energy bar a few times.”

“Benecio!” Gina whisper-shouted. “¡Ven aquí!”

From the little Spanish I knew and from Gina’s tone, I guessed this translated to Come here!

Benecio took three steps forward.

I said, “Tell him I’ll double the money that Bill offered him. I’ll get him a hundred grand.”

Gina translated.

Benecio bit his lip. He was thinking it over. After a brief moment, he shook his head and said, “No.”

Gina continued to speak to him in Spanish. Meanwhile I repeatedly smashed my hands against the pole, hoping I could weaken the plastic enough to break. After thirty seconds, I could feel blood running down my forearms, dripping onto my pants.

Next, I tried to shimmy up the pole, squeezing my thighs tight and sliding my arms up, using the zip-tie around my wrists as leverage against the wood. But if I had been in a video game, my power gauge would have been blinking red. I only made it a foot off the ground before sliding back down.

The hard earth stung my tailbone, and I grimaced. Next to me, Gina was still pleading with Benecio, and I asked, “Can you climb up the pole?”

She stopped talking to Benecio midsentence and turned to me. “What?”

“The pole. Can you shimmy up it?”

She glanced upward at the eight-foot pole. “I can try.” She nodded at Benecio and asked, “What about him?”

“He’s not going to shoot you.” Killers come in all shapes and sizes, but the way Benecio held the gun to his chest, and the way he kept glancing back toward the wooden huts, praying for the others to return, made me think he wasn’t one of them. “At least, I don’t think he will.”

When Gina and I had been dating, we’d gone to one of those ninja gyms in Seattle. I’d been able to hold my own, but Gina was an all-star. If anyone could shimmy their way up the pole and pull their restraints up and over it, it was her.

Gina slid her arms up the pole, then leaned back. Using her weight, digging the zip-tie into the wood, she pulled herself six inches off the ground. She repeated the motion, once, twice, three times.

She was halfway up the pole.