Original subtitles

♪

[static crackling]

♪

[birds chirping]

♪

I'd been over visiting a classmate of mine

from Spanish class on a Friday morning.

And I returned to our condominium

and outside, I saw a van.

And I thought, "Oh, good,

they've come to change my satellite service."

I wanted to get CNN

because the O.J. Simpson trial was gonna be on

and I wanted to be able to watch it.

But when I went in, the guard stopped me and said,

"There's someone here to speak to you."

And as soon as I saw him,

I knew he was from the company,

and I just went up and said, "Is my husband dead?"

And he said, "No, no, no."

They told me not to tell anyone,

and then they left.

And so I called Claudia immediately and told her.

I could tell from her voice

that there was really something very, very urgent.

♪

She was sitting on the porch,

and she put out glasses of sherry,

and she said, "Drink that first."

And then she told me,

"This is going to be a long, long trial."

♪

I was actually in Egypt when I heard about it.

It didn't seem like this could possibly be real.

I thought that there must have been some mistake.

I didn't understand how this would work.

I didn't understand what that meant,

what the future held.

And I remember being very scared about that.

♪

♪

In 1992, my family set out on a new adventure,

to a place few foreigners were visiting at the time:

Cali, Colombia.

We'd lived in the Philippines for 19 years,

so we were enthusiastic about getting to see

a new part of the world.

I thought it would be great.

We'd be closer to the United States.

My children were gonna be graduating from school

and, you know, a different country.

♪

My mom had lived her whole life overseas

and had always loved it.

Adapting to new cultures was part of her DNA.

That's me, Miles.

♪

That's my brother, Tom G.

We call him Geddie now.

My brother and I loved everything about Colombia.

♪

We made friends there.

♪

And it was a very interesting lifestyle.

People were always into having fun,

and it was kind of an exciting place to be.

My dad was in his element there.

His calling was the Green Revolution,

a worldwide initiative to prevent mass starvation

in developing countries through agricultural research.

My name is Tom Hargrove, I'm from West Texas.

This is the world's largest library collection of rice.

His passion for high-yield rice

was only overshadowed by his love for travel.

Yes.

That's why he jumped at the chance

to work as a scientific journalist

for an agricultural nonprofit in Colombia.

♪

He embraced our new life in Cali wholeheartedly.

♪

My mom, on the other hand,

was worried about the drug cartels.

Now that the head of the Medellín drug cartel

is under arrest in Colombia,

a rival gang from a rival Colombian city

is trying to take over the cocaine market

in the United States:

the Cali Cartel.

A sophisticated organization that's brutally controlled

from Colombia by a small group

of wealthy and powerful individuals.

Their share of the U.S. cocaine business alone

brought in about $13 billion last year.

That's more than the profits of Exxon, Ford,

and IBM combined.

[indistinct chatter]

Living in Cali was living on the edge.

There's just no getting around it.

One day, Tom called me from work and said

that he thought that there was a dead, burned body

out in the driveway, but everybody told him

it was a mannequin.

And I said, "No, it wasn't a mannequin.

Mannequins cost money.

It had to have been a body."

♪

The undercurrent of violence was everywhere.

I mean, Time magazine would have a picture

of Rodriguez on it and Santacruz.

They were our neighbors.

♪

The boys went off to university,

and here I was an empty nester,

I guess they call us, and I felt

that the danger in Cali was escalating.

You were hearing about the FARC around you.

The news about kidnaps was increasing,

kidnaps on roads where we had gone out to restaurants

in the mountains, and I wanted to leave.

And so, I told Tom I want him to find another job,

and he had agreed that he would do it

after the summer vacation,

that he was going to look for another job.

[ringing]

♪

[ringing continues]

Running late for work,

my dad was faced with a choice.

He could turn left and take the nerve-racking drive

through suburban Cali,

or he could turn right and take the longer

but traffic-free route

through the beautiful Colombian countryside.

He turned right.

It would be the last decision he'd make for himself

for a very long time.

♪

Roadblocks were a part of life in Colombia.

The military and police set them up everywhere

as part of their ongoing war against the drug cartels

and the rebels, so my dad thought nothing of it

when he came across one in the sugarcane fields.

A teenage soldier with a Galil assault rifle

pulled him over.

A man with a ski mask waving a .45 automatic

motioned for him to get out of the car.

He spoke rapidly to another man with an AK-47.

My dad could make out only one word: "gringo."

The group was part of the Sixth Front of the FARC,

the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,

the largest guerilla army in the Western Hemisphere.

They were conducting an operation

known in Colombia as "pesca milagrosa,"

or "miracle fishing," where they set up a trap

in hopes of catching anything of value.

That morning, it was my dad.

♪

[static crackling]

[flapping]

My brother and I dropped out of college

to go to Colombia to be with our mother.

It put us into a whole new world,

a world that we decided we would find out

everything we could about.

He was on a little road that skirts the side of the city...

We read everything we could,

we talked to everybody we could

about who the FARC were,

about the civil wars there had been in Colombia.

[gunfire]

The guerilla organizations in Colombia,

the FARC, the EPL, and the ELN,

all have their genesis in the mid-'60s.

They all had Communist tendencies.

You can trace one group to the Maoists.

You can trace another group to Stalin.

But shortly thereafter,

they convert to basically organized crime in Colombia.

They're engaged in criminal activity,

they're engaged in narcotrafficking,

bank robberies,

anything that results in generating funds

for the operation.

♪

We assumed that once the FARC realized the nature

of his humanitarian work, helping the very people

that they claimed to represent,

that they would let him go.

♪

My dad's work had gotten him out of trouble before

during the Vietnam War, when he helped spread

a revolutionary new variety of rice

in the Mekong Delta.

When he returned to Vietnam 20 years later,

former Viet Cong told him that they were watching him

during the war, but that they didn't kill him

because he had brought the new rice seeds.

We could only hope that FARC would be as sympathetic.

♪

We got our answer 29 days later

when a package arrived at my dad's company.

♪

♪

[static crackling]

♪

The proof-of-life video,

that was a new term we learned, "proof of life,"

was almost comical except that it was

actually my husband sitting there

with a gun pointed to his head.

♪

And with this video came a demand for $6 million.

It was almost surreal.

♪

It was, uh, it was overwhelming.

♪

Miles was having a very difficult time,

and I said to him, "You know, I know you can't write,

I know you're too distraught to do that...

♪

...but you can film this.

So why don't you video what's happening,

and you can prepare a little thing for your dad

so that when he comes home, he'll know what has happened."

♪

[birds chirping]

♪

I was handling extortions and kidnappings

of U.S. citizens as an agent

out of the legate office which is the FBI overseas,

and I was assigned to assist with the Hargrove incident.

My initial response

to Thomas Hargrove's kidnapping

was that it was going to be well-handled,

that there would be a negotiation,

and that, most likely, a ransom would be paid,

and that he would be released.

At that point, I thought that Tom's company

would be managing the negotiations.

♪

Oscar Tejeda, who was a Texan,

he was from El Paso, and he became my lifeline.

He helped us understand kidnapping in Colombia.

In the mid-'90s, we have about 1,800 kidnappings a year.

That number skyrocketed

between the Gaviria administration

into the Samper administration.

The last years of the Pastrana administration,

there were 3,700 kidnappings in this country,

the majority of which were Colombians.

♪

The victims of kidnappings

and the families that have suffered

are thousands in Colombia.

Kidnapping here became a cottage industry.

♪

Kidnapping in Colombia was very long and time-consuming.

The victim was not usually killed,

but they weren't taken very good care of.

And it wasn't for ideology.

It was for money.

♪

There had been a kidnapping of two New Tribes missionaries

out of the city of Villavicencio

here in Colombia.

These New Tribes missionaries

were the second group of New Tribes missionaries

to be kidnapped in Colombia,

but the New Tribes Missions had made a decision

that they were not gonna pay.

We felt really badly for the New Tribes Missions.

We knew early on that a rescue attempt

was not something that we wanted to happen.

We knew that the chances of success

would not be very likely

because hostages are typically held

deep within guerilla-controlled territory.

It's the old story, if you have control

of the high ground, you can see what's coming.

♪

We knew we had to negotiate, and we knew we had to pay,

and that was the only way we were gonna get Tom out.

♪

We didn't go back to America very much

when I was growing up.

But when I was about 12, we went back to Rotan, Texas,

my mother's hometown, to stay for about six months.

♪

My grandmother, Miss Empress, was a schoolteacher.

And the first day of school, Empress asked me

to tell the class about my life.

♪

And, so, I started talking,

and the class started laughing.

♪

I was later told that they were laughing

because I talked like a Yankee,

and it was hilariously funny to them.

There was one boy in particular

who laughed so hard, he fell out of his desk

and his glasses flew across the room.

Well, that boy was Tommy Hargrove.

♪

We became friends despite our little rocky meeting,

and he kept in contact with me through high school.

♪

And he told me then that he would like

to lead the same kind of life I had led.

♪

I have great memories of the adventures that we had.

♪

♪

♪

[laughing]

♪

♪

You became the kidnap family,

and by that, I mean you were kidnapped yourself.

You couldn't talk to anybody.

You know, how can you go out to lunch and say,

oh, yeah, such-and-such about your kidnap.

It would be all over town.

You had to be very quiet.

You had to keep to yourself, to keep behind your walls.

It changed our life dramatically.

And we became very close and relied on our neighbors,

the Greiners from Germany,

Uli and Claudia and Dina and Peter.

♪

I always thought if I was kidnapped,

I would expect my friends to do the possible

to get me out, and so, of course,

I was always operating like I had to.

I was taking the role of the father

of the entire group, and I even called the Hargrove sons

when I came home from work, "Hi, son."

♪

By the time Tom was abducted,

we'd already formed this really close relationship.

And that was the only thing we could do,

just be on this experience together and get through it.

♪

[telephone ringing]

About the middle of November, Tom had apparently given FARC

the Greiners' telephone number because Claudia got a call

from the guerillas complaining

because Tom's company wouldn't talk to them.

♪

The company let it be known

that they were not gonna pay ransom.

♪

[crackling, creaking]

♪

They asked for $6 million.

♪

They included times and frequencies

on which to contact them via radio.

♪

We were told to basically use code names

and code words to communicate with the FARC.

It was absolutely crazy.

♪

I was very aware at that moment

that I had a decision to make,

that I was either going to have a chance

in saving my husband or let him die,

and I just--I'd known him since he was 12 years old.

Um, I wasn't gonna let him die.

♪

Take a picture...

We have the demand, we've made the decision,

and so we had to act on it.

The first question was, how were we gonna pay for it?

From the very first day,

Raford, Tom's brother in Texas,

had been a part of the entire kidnap.

We talked to him every day on the phone.

And he said, "I will take care of the finances.

You take care of the negotiations."

That took a big weight off of our back.

We were always concerned about people listening in

on our phone lines.

The Colombian government was aware of our plans

to negotiate, but corruption was rampant.

We couldn't trust anyone.

We were really scared that this information

would be shared with the FARC, the cartels,

or even common criminals,

so secrecy was really a matter of life and death.

♪

My uncle rented a secure telephone.

We had to actually obtain letters

from the state department allowing the export

of this encryption device.

♪

The next thing on our list was to find a voice,

someone to speak for us,

and it had to be someone who was native to the country.

♪

[barking, chuckling]

Miles' best friend, Robert,

was half Dutch, half Colombian.

His family had been through kidnaps.

-Say "bye." -Bye.

During that time, I was just starting college.

And by day, I was a student;

by night, I was a negotiator.

I got asked if I could get on the radio

to help them with this and, of course,

I could not reject it.

All right.

♪

Even getting the equipment was a real problem.

Uli found this guy who ran a gas station

near our place.

One of his family members had been kidnapped,

and they had purchased this big radio

and this antenna.

And after his kidnap was over, as a public service,

he would bring the radio and the antenna.

♪

Everyone was extremely nervous

because we didn't know what to expect.

We realized that we needed professional help,

and so we started searching for consultants

to help us with this process.

My background was in the police in the UK,

and I was recruited into a consultancy

that specializes in kidnap, ransom,

and other types of extortion.

David goes out to begin with,

sets up the case with the family.

Then I came out and took over for three weeks,

and I would continue with the negotiations.

David told us that even if we had the $6 million,

that it was not a good idea to offer anything

near their initial request

because if we could afford 6 million right away,

that would mean that we could probably afford 10 million

with a little bit of pressure.

In Colombia, there's an expectation

on the part of the terrorists

that they'll get somewhere between 10%

and 20% of the demand, so one would anticipate

that their expectation in this case

was that of a million dollars.

If you make an initial offer,

you've got to make it big enough

to preserve his life,

but small enough to give us room

for various moves like on a chessboard.

So we made--I think it was an initial offer

of about $41,000, which was very small.

I've never made such a small initial offer.

[beeping]

[speaking native language]

♪

The situation was very unusual.

It was almost like expecting Boy Scouts

to do a military job.

One doesn't usually go into a kidnap case

with involvement of people as young as that,

and particularly Robert.

Robert had been chosen before we arrived on the scene,

and had we been asked to advise the family

on the selection of communicator,

we would not have suggested somebody as young as he was.

♪

We had all the briefing on what was the goal

of that conversation, getting tips.

"Okay, try to say this this way.

Soft with this. Now be harsh on this."

And then, basically, breathe deep

and get ready for the negotiation.

The biggest problem at the beginning

was to get that point across,

that you're not dealing with a company.

♪

You are making a pact with the devil.

You both wanted the same thing.

They wanted to sell him and you wanted to buy him.

So you enter into a relationship.

♪

The goal was to convince the guerillas

that they had gotten as much money out of us

as they could possibly get.

If the family gave in, all you're doing

is encouraging them to demand more money.

It's important that they believe

they milked us dry.

♪

For Susan, the radio contacts were the worst part.

-Or maybe ten minutes. -Ten minutes, yeah.

Wait for some time.

♪

I couldn't keep my mouth shut, and I would jump up.

I thought I was very cool, but I wasn't,

so I was assigned to my bedroom

with all the dogs.

♪

How do you translate that to the family?

♪

But, um, always tried to talk to them,

"Okay, okay, let's get real.

Let's move this through.

Only you and I can make this thing move."

You'd feel relief that they dropped a million dollars.

From six to five million dollars,

it's still impossible.

Yeah, so I mean we've got to be really careful.

You'd get the crude reality

that there's still a long way to go.

And passive-aggressive.

[speaking foreign language]

[laughing]

I think for the first time I felt good

about everything that was happening.

We were talking to the bad guys twice a week

on a regular schedule.

As long as we were communicating,

we really felt that we were getting something done.

♪

[static crackling]

♪

♪

[thunder crashing]

What do you think?

♪

Linda is a lifelong friend of mine.

Her husband did the same thing my husband did.

She had been in Africa and in Taiwan,

in Washington, D.C., and was now living in Peru.

And she had offered to come up to be with us

-during the kidnap. -Hi.

I just felt so strongly about trying to support Susan

and her family in any way that I could

because I just thought, you know,

this could be my husband,

and Susan would be doing this for me.

But I had no idea what that would entail, of course.

You know, I brought lots of chocolate

and all my mysteries,

and was gonna take her to lunch.

I mean, this is what I thought,

you know, the situation required.

I had absolutely no idea, you know,

what it really meant to be kidnapped.

Claudia said to me, "We're going to handle this

like the British.

We're going to have a formal dinner every night.

We're going to have candles and flowers and good food.

We're going to discuss this case

and we're going to handle it with a stiff upper lip."

We took it in turns to prepare nice dinners.

One day, the Greiners will cook.

The other day, I will cook.

The other day, who knows who will cook?

-A mess! -A mess that I'm gonna eat.

♪

We had formed a group, Our Team Tom,

where we needed an area away from all the trouble,

and that's when we established our kiosko.

It was a whole other world sometimes.

We didn't have to stay in the house

seeing the radio and stuff, and we could get outside

and, well, kind of enjoy the time we had.

[laughing]

I couldn't believe the way they lived their life.

Things were still funny to them.

They could laugh.

[laughing]

♪

You can't be serious all the time.

It just doesn't work.

You'll kill yourself.

♪

It was a very long month.

It was one of the few ways that we could keep ourselves

from going insane.

[clapping]

♪

But it almost felt guilty

to know that we were physically comfortable

and my dad probably was not.

♪

I have a great sympathy

for anyone who loses a child or a husband

and they don't know where they are.

♪

If you have death, you have finality.

But not knowing is just horrible.

And that's why I think I tried not to think about him.

♪

I didn't want to think about where he was,

what he was doing,

what kind of a life he was leading.

It was really the only way I could survive it.

I had one job to do and that was to get him out,

and that's all I could do.

I just couldn't think

about what he was going through.

♪

She had the attitude that, "I will do everything

that I can do to get him out.

I will get him out."

She just was convinced that she could do it.

She tried every possible route.

We met with some priest who had done missionary work

in those mountains where we felt

that Tom was being held, and they sent

a priest up there to try and see

if they could contact the guerillas.

We got in touch with a former kidnap victim

to see if he could talk to the guerillas.

♪

Oftentimes, when we were looking inside a box,

she would look outside of it,

and she was able to see things differently

than we saw them.

♪

She really never gave up.

She was really very, very strong.

And personally, I learned a lot from her.

[indistinct chatter]

♪

Did it not work?

We wanted to ensure that they didn't feel

that by punishing us with the silence

that they would win.

We decided that we were gonna be tough.

We were gonna demand another proof of life.

♪

It's a rare family who have the ability

to put up with the silence

and still come back fighting.

♪

What--what...

-Seventeen. -Yeah.

Sixteen, actually, isn't it?

[static crackling]

♪

♪

We were really spending a lot of money.

And people who helped us secure more funding

are still in Colombia,

and they would be at great risk

if we discussed how we got the money

or where we got it.

So it's just gonna have to remain a mystery.

♪

On the next radio conversation,

we increased, like, two million pesos.

We really felt in our heart

that we were close, close, close

to getting Tom out.

It was exhilarating.

♪

It was shocking.

He looked terrible.

♪

His hand looked like it was broken.

And the difference between him

and the last proof of life was just amazing.

♪

I saw how my mother and Susan were so frightened

when they looked at the picture

and they looked into his eyes.

♪

I'll never forget the way his eyes looked at us

or didn't even look at us.

They were without hope.

They were just not his eyes anymore.

♪

Susan and I were very concerned

because, you know, the children were gonna do this,

and it was incredibly scary.

I mean, we thought, "God, you know,

it shouldn't just be the kids."

So, you know, we talked to David about it.

We said, you know, "We just think

there should be some adults."

And he says to me, "Yeah, well, maybe you ought to go.

You know, you're old

and you wear all that leopard stuff.

Nobody is ever gonna think you're carrying ransom money."

So I went.

♪

It was very scary.

I mean, there were police and army all over town,

and they were cracking down on all the drug dealers

and looking for money besides the fact

that they were also looking for us

because they'd been tapping Susan's phone.

♪

We wanted to make sure there were two cars

to bring the money to our house.

We had a lead car and a car that actually held the money.

I was driving the lead car, and we had the money

in the second car.

We had radio communication with the other car,

so we could always tell the guys in the other car

if there was anything suspicious on the road.

[honking]

♪

[honking]

♪

♪

The relief that I felt when they returned home

with the money was replaced with fear.

Here we were sitting in an unguarded compound

with all this money.

♪

Five and ten.

♪

We had to face a high probability

that our money delivery will be caught by police

in one of those roadblocks.

And, so, we thought about,

"How can we hide this money in the car?"

We wound up to put it into wooden pallets

so it looked like a normal Colombian delivery.

[speaking native language]

♪

♪

♪

-Shit. -Yeah.

♪

[sighs]

Okay.

♪

I was afraid that maybe somebody who came out of the restroom

could be one of those people who had gotten Tom.

I think if I would've been the mother,

I wouldn't have let me go there and pick it up.

♪

[chatter]

[birds chirping]

What's this?

♪

♪

♪

♪

[barking]

[snoring]

♪

♪

-No! -No!

[singing in Italian]

[operatic singing]

♪

Finally, the phone rang

and there was this man at the other end.

♪

He gave me the instructions

that they were supposed to pick up a message

from the bakery, La Sultana, in downtown Cali.

♪

♪

♪

♪

We went into the bathroom

and, behind the toilet, there was the envelope.

♪

I don't know why they always have to hide that stuff

in toilets, but it stank terribly.

It was so awful.

♪

[groaning]

It was a map written by hand, and it had instructions

on which turns to take, which roads to take.

I knew a little bit the area, so I told them,

"Okay, it's just an off-road, a long off-road

up in the middle of the mountains."

It was very scary because it was near a farm

that I used to go a lot with some friends.

I'm like, "Okay, never going back to that area again."

[laughing]

♪

We knew it wasn't a smart idea to send

any of the family members to drop off the money

because of the possibility of them taking

a second family member.

When the payments needed to be made,

obviously it needs to be made by someone

of the utmost confidence, who is trustworthy,

that you know will take this money, make the payment,

and who isn't gonna abscond with the money themselves

and then come up with some stories.

Oscar found a drop man for a sum of money

who would go to the mountains and take the ransom,

and Uli had found an old car

and someone who was willing to drive.

It's always best to have two people,

each who have their specific role,

especially when they don't know one another.

You can now pretty much trust that it's difficult for them

to collaborate and come up with some plan

about how we can steal the money and keep it for ourselves.

♪

The moment the two cars left

was a big very moment for all of us.

We were standing there and seeing how the two cars

and all the money just drove out of our compound,

and we just hoped that the right people

would get the money and that we would get Tom back.

[gate rattling]

♪

♪

And here's...

♪

Of course, we begin to think the worst,

that perhaps we paid for a dead person,

that we paid the wrong people,

or that what Oscar and the Davids

had warned us about, a double,

where they take the money and say, "Thanks for that,

but we want more."

♪

That was very hard for everybody to hear,

but it was the voice of reason based on prior experience,

hoping--quite honestly, hoping--

that my negative assessment was incorrect.

♪

[dog barking]

[clock ticking]

♪

♪

Okay, um...

♪

♪

That night, I couldn't sleep, and I started thinking

about what Tom looked like in his picture

and that he was up there by himself.

♪

I thought that we had raised our children,

they were adults, we'd raised them well,

and they could survive without us,

but Tom needed somebody to come and help him.

So, very early in the morning, I got up and packed my bag.

♪

I like to read, so I took my Bible,

which I'd never read, and a book on astronomy.

I thought that would keep me busy.

I don't know, it was just ridiculous items.

♪

And I wrote a letter,

and I woke up Linda and gave her the message,

and then I got in the car to leave.

♪

The next thing I know is,

Geddie is downstairs going, "Mom, Mom,"

trying to get me to be reasonable.

I kept on telling her that it didn't make sense

what she was saying and what she was attempting to do.

It was something that was absolutely crazy,

that it wouldn't have any net positive effect.

About this time, Geddie brought me out a piece of cheesecake

with a cherry filling top, and I ate that,

and that kind of calmed me down a little bit.

[laughing]

♪

About a month after we made the payment,

we were having dinner in the kiosko,

I think it was maybe a Sunday night, I'm not sure,

and Oscar called, and he told me

it was a melancholy day

and told me to go in and turn on the TV, which I did,

and Miles and I sat there in absolute horror.

♪

The hostages from the New Tribes Mission

were killed at point-blank range

by the guerrillas during a rescue attempt.

♪

To hear about these people that we don't know very well

but we've met some of their family members,

that was an extremely depressing day.

♪

I went and recovered the bodies of the two missionaries.

Yes, I did.

♪

It was--it was just devastating.

They had been kidnapped for a year and a half,

and now they were dead.

It was a moment we decided that we had to do something now.

We had to make another effort.

♪

My mother was the one who really decided

to do something against the advice

of the professionals.

We pleaded for the guerrillas to release my father.

We thought that this might help pull

at their--whatever human side that they had.

I think that was a brilliant move.

Not one I would have thought of, not one I would have encouraged,

and they got an almost immediate response.

[plastic crinkling]

♪

Once we received the double,

we felt that it was, in many ways, a good thing

because the alternative was that something had happened to him.

We decided that, this time, we were just gonna try

to turn this thing around as quickly as possible.

One thing we decided was that

we were gonna move around the living room

so that the room became sort of a war room.

♪

They put maps on the walls, they put the radios out.

Now there was just no doubt in anyone's mind

of what that room was.

♪

Oh, God!

[laughter]

[laughter]

But I found the morale of the Hargrove family was good.

They knew where they stood.

They didn't like where they stood,

but the previous week, we didn't even know

where we stood or whether we were standing or sitting.

After about a month,

the guerrillas agreed to a sum to be paid

for the second time for Tom's release,

and we went into the payment mode again.

♪

♪

[horses whinnying]

[dog barking]

♪

We don't know what logistical problem they were having

with the proof of life, but it was scary for us.

[static]

We were interested in getting the payment made

as soon as possible, but all of a sudden,

nothing was happening.

The kidnappers weren't responding to us.

We didn't get the sense that--

it wasn't that they didn't want to talk to us.

We got the sense that there was something

that was preventing them from doing so.

[engines rumbling, tires screeching]

♪

[chatter]

There's a big push to identify

the Cali Cartel members.

There's all kinds of operations to locate and arrest.

So, all of the city of Cali is basically under siege

by Colombian National Police,

by operatives of the U.S. government,

but not so much dedicated to helping Tom Hargrove

get released.

♪

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

[static]

♪

In the last several months,

we've had more major drug dealers arrested

than in any previous similar time in our history, I believe,

and we're on the verge of breaking this Cali Cartel.

[shouting, honking]

It's really frightening to be in this country

that was just going to pieces.

♪

Uh, okay.

♪

[doors closing]

♪

Yeah.

♪

It was just too much too fast to absorb.

We weren't ready for this kind of thing to happen.

What are we going to do?

Are we going to accept these letters

as a proof of life?

That was taking a big, big risk.

♪

I tended to believe what they said was true,

and if we were ever gonna have a chance, it was then.

♪

Someone had to make the decision,

and I realized it was me.

♪

This time around, one of the conditions

that we negotiated was that the drop team

would drop off the money in one location

and that a second team would pick up my father

at a different location shortly afterwards.

♪

Yeah.

[indistinct chatter]

What?

[indistinct chatter]

Thank you very much.

[groaning]

[indistinct chatter]

♪

We were still a little bit hopeful

that this would actually happen,

and we sent out someone to pick him up.

♪

He came back to our house

and, uh, Tom never showed up,

and he was as upset as any of us were.

It was a very emotional time.

♪

We were so hopeful and really, at the bottom of our hearts,

convinced that this was the right decision

that we had taken of the second payment,

but there we were,

and we didn't really have another contingency plan.

♪

We'd been duped again,

and now things were just so desperate.

[thunder crashing]

♪

[cat meows]

[laughing]

[power saw whirring]

[dog barking]

He's here!

[dog barking]

He's here!

Mr. Hargrove is here!

Tom is here, Tom's here, Tom's here.

[sobbing]

Yeah, he wants to know about the news.

[dog barking]

[barking]

Can't believe it.

♪

We had this sense of something else,

that something bigger had happened.

This relief that something had been taken off of our backs.

[laughing]

And the world felt lighter,

and it just felt...

like a much better place all of a sudden.

[laughter]

Huh?

I got on the phone and called Oscar,

and I said, "Tom was released," and he started crying.

And I handed Tom the phone and said, "It's Oscar.

You've gotta talk to him and tell him you're okay."

Probably the phone call that I received

on August the 22nd of 1995

from a gentleman I'd never met before,

Thomas Hargrove, saying that, "I don't know who you are,

but Susan says I have to call you,"

was probably the most fulfilling

of my 20-some-odd years in law enforcement.

♪

I think Robert Clerx, I think he as much as anyone

was responsible for the--

well, the smooth running of the case.

It might not have seemed too smooth at times,

but it was smooth.

Tom wasn't mutilated, Tom wasn't murdered,

and we only paid about five percent.

That, my friend, is pretty smooth.

Well, you can see your cheekbones in that photograph...

I know that it's supposed to be a Hollywood ending

with the music, and this was wonderful.

You smell like a campfire!

The way I'd survived this whole thing

was never listening to anyone or reading anything

about what they did to the prisoners.

Anytime anybody who had been a prisoner and been kidnapped

tried to talk to me about it, I just wouldn't listen.

I was really dreading

Tom telling me what had happened to him.

[laughter]

♪

I think as a team, we...we pulled it off.

And that night should have been just absolutely glorious.

♪

But it had a great deal of sadness with it.

♪

By that point, we were so worn out

that, uh, it was almost too much.

♪

At least for me.

♪

And I think we were very sad

because we knew that that was the end of our group.

[shouting, laughing]

Is that unbelievable or what?

I wish I had that on...

[laughter]

♪

♪ Happy birthday, dear Dina

[laughter]

♪

We'd had a mission, and we'd accomplished it.

And I think, many times, people who have a mission

feel that way at the end of it.

We had formed a platoon to rescue Tom, and we had.

So there was great satisfaction in that, but it was very sad.

I knew we would be leaving Colombia

and leaving our friends.

♪

No kidding.

[airplane whirring]

♪

♪