Authors: Lisa Nicholas
“Now?” Zoe stood up, eyed her cup of tea, then picked it up and swallowed more down. Even cold, it was still caffeinated. “Yeah, okay.”
Agent Wishnevsky barely came up to Ana’s shoulder, and reminded Zoe of nothing so much as a bright-eyed eagle or falcon—some bird of prey or another. “Thanks, Ana.” The agent shut the door behind her, and sat where Zoe indicated. “How are you feeling, Zoe?”
“Better, thank you, Agent—do I call you ‘Agent’?”
“Call me Janet. We’ve got ourselves quite a mess here.” She folded her hands almost primly in her lap. “I know what happened in Oaxaca. Lee told me about it, and I saw the mission reports.”
“That’s how you knew my name.” So they could drop the “Will Freeman” pretense, at least.
“And if I’d known he was following you into the jungle, I never would have agreed to his mission.” Janet raised her shoulders in a regretful shrug. “Still, we seem to have gotten some useful intel out of it.”
“Wait, he was following me? He said—”
“I think so. He pushed me hard to take a field mission out there to go after Arcangel and his men. I suspect he also wanted to keep an eye on you.”
Zoe’s cheeks heated. He’d wanted to keep her safe again, and it might have cost him his life. She studied her hands where they rested on her desk, swallowing back the re-formed lump in her throat.
“Tell me about Santiago Vargas.” Janet’s voice was crisp and businesslike.
“I just thought he was another overbearing military man.” Zoe made a face at her tea, but finished it. “He came in here chasing a child he thought had stolen some food, and seemed to take a liking to us—to me. He helped us out several times—saved lives during the last cholera epidemic. I
went out
with him once, but then Lee said he also went by the name Arcangel . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“We think Colonel Vargas is also the head of a paramilitary organization called Autodefensas de Colombia. He’s been very careful with his double life, but you seem to have caught him out.”
Zoe laughed, not knowing how else to react. “That’s . . . great. And he knows I know. The attack on Ana and Susan?”
Janet nodded. “We think so. You and Ana know who he really is, and he’ll go to any length to make sure you’re silenced.” She let that sink in, then added, “The good news is, you’ve given us information we’ve been looking for. We believe the AC was behind the bombing in Bogotá a month or so ago—”
“I remember it. The Médecins International offices were in that building.” Zoe’s mouth felt numb, and the rest of her body was threatening to follow. “Why did they take Lee?”
“Zoe, this is going to be difficult, but I need you to tell me exactly what happened when they took him.”
Zoe clenched her hands on her desk so they wouldn’t shake. “We had—we had taken shelter the night before in an abandoned hotel.”
Don’t think about that night, Zoe, don’t
. She told Janet about Lee’s knee injury in calm, clinical terms.
“So he couldn’t run,” Janet prompted.
“When we heard the truck, he made me go hide.” Zoe kept her eyes focused on a point on the wall above Janet’s head. “The men searched for me, and called for me, but Lee made me promise not to come out.”
“Good for you for listening to him,” Janet said. “That almost certainly saved both your lives.”
Zoe’s mouth twitched into something that bore little resemblance to a smile. It wasn’t her telling this story, it was like she was watching someone else do it. “They— I guess they were trying to make me think they’d shot him—I heard a gunshot, but later I didn’t see any blood in the road.”
“No, if he were dead, they would have left his body there for you to find,” Janet said. “I think they’re still going to try and use him as leverage against you. I apologize for the personal question, but—you care about him, don’t you?”
Zoe blinked hard, and the tears she’d beaten back earlier gathered in her eyelashes. “Yeah. I can’t imagine they knew that though.”
I didn’t know that, not until it was too late
.
“Doesn’t matter.” Janet sat forward. “My people are going to do what they can to get him back safely, but we can’t do that and keep you and Ana safe here in country.”
“What are you saying?”
“We want to fly you, Ana, and Susan out of Inírida tomorrow night. Then you’ll fly from Bogotá to Washington, D.C.” Janet was watching her closely for her reaction. Zoe wished she knew what her reaction was.
“But—what about Lee?”
“With the three of you safely out of the country, we’ll be able to focus our efforts on finding him and Arcangel. As long as you’re here, I’ll need to have people protecting you.” There was something cold in her expression, something that made the skin on the back of Zoe’s neck prickle.
“What’s to stop them from following us?” Something about this felt wrong, and Zoe couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Nothing. But back home we have better resources to keep you safe until this is all over.”
Zoe sat back in her chair and chewed on her lower lip. Home was so tempting. Even if they kept her in protective custody for a while, she might still be able to see her mother, maybe even Isabel and the girls. Maria could manage the clinic, if MI could send a few more doctors to replace Zoe and Susan.
“Lee would want you to be safe,” Janet said, when Zoe didn’t say anything. “He’s very fond of you.”
“What about him though? If they’re using him to get at me, what will they do if I leave? Will he be safe?”
Janet looked her right in the eyes. “Lee is one of our best agents, and a personal friend of mine. The CIA is going to do everything we can to get him back safely.”
That’s when Zoe knew she was lying. The CIA’s focus was going to be on Arcangel. Lee was on his own.
Chapter Nineteen
The smell of grilling meat filling the room wasn’t an accident. Lee’s stomach rumbled noisily. The last time he’d eaten was . . . lunch, the afternoon after he and Zoe left the Hotel de la Cascada, before he’d twisted his knee. So say maybe twenty-four hours. Maybe thirty. Surely not as many as thirty-six. Time was getting harder to track the more time he spent alone. He swallowed the saliva that gathered in his mouth and leaned his head against the wall of his cell. The food Arcangel had promised had never materialized, although one of his men did bring him a glass of water and some aspirin. Aspirin, for what might be a torn ACL. He’d taken it, but it hadn’t touched the pain. His cargo pants were tight against the leg and the wrapping binding it. He wasn’t sure he could trust it to hold his weight at this point.
One of two things was about to happen. Either Arcangel would come in and offer him food if he started talking, or they’d leave him here a little while longer to smell the food with none forthcoming. If it was the latter, they were going to get meaner, faster.
It had been a long time since he’d gone through SERE training, but some things you didn’t forget. Whatever these men wanted to know about him, they wouldn’t stop at much to get it. This wasn’t about Zoe anymore. The longer he could string them along, and hold out, the better chance he had of either being rescued or making an escape.
This was going to suck.
When the door finally opened, two large men came through, and neither of them had any food. Lee gave an inward sigh. The easy way had been too much to hope for anyway. Outwardly, he managed to look tired and scared—neither was much of a stretch. They’d let him sleep last night, but he had a feeling that was over now.
The two men hauled him to his feet, one on either side, and pulled him a few steps away from the wall. Lee used the opportunity to put some weight on his injured leg. The pain was bad, but worse was the way his knee buckled almost immediately. So he could dismiss any escape plan that involved running or even walking fast.
The door was still open, and through it came the pale blond man Zoe had described, and Lee’s heart sank. The intel he got from Janet said that Gabriel “El Mono” Nuñez started out as a runner with the Cali cartel and rose through the ranks. No doubt he was in Guainía to make sure the cartel’s money was being well-spent.
Nuñez took off his jacket and tossed it to the floor, then closed the door to the cell. He wasn’t tall, but a thick layer of muscle lined his chest and arms, straining his black T-shirt. “So, Mr. Freeman. We did some asking around about you. First you were trying to hire a guide to take you out onto the llanos, then you decided to come out alone. Why is that?”
“Stupid of me.” Lee put on a nervous smile. “Macho bullshit, thinking I could find my way by myself.”
“Yeah?” Nuñez folded his arms. “I don’t think that’s it.”
Lee dropped his eyes to the left, as if ashamed. “Okay, look. I expensed some things to the company that I shouldn’t have, and listed it as money I paid a guide.”
The punch wasn’t unexpected—Nuñez telegraphed it from his shoulder, but Lee doubled over on the impact as if it had caught him off-guard, letting his breath rush out of him. “That would make you a very bad employee,” Nuñez said. “I don’t think you’re a very bad employee. So tell me the truth.”
“I swear. I couldn’t afford a guide,” Lee panted.
“But you were able to afford weapons.” Nuñez smiled thinly.
“It’s dangerous out there,” Lee said, without a trace of irony in his voice.
“The men you attacked said you fought like a military man.” He glanced at the two men holding Lee, and they tightened their grip. Something worse than a punch to the gut was coming. “Which branch?”
Lee didn’t have to lie—Will Freeman was on record as having been a U.S. Marine—but telling a few lies about Freeman’s identity would give them something to find when they started digging. And finding out a few little lies might make them stop looking for the bigger ones. “I didn’t. I just took some classes.”
This time the punch hit him in the solar plexus, and he didn’t have to fake having the breath knocked out of him. When he doubled over, he forced a quick yawn with his eyes open, so when Nuñez’s men hauled him up, his eyes were wet.
“We know you’re lying to us,” Nuñez said. “If you tell us the truth, you’ll save yourself more tears.” When Lee didn’t answer, he said to the men, “Chain him.” The men turned him to face the wall and made him sit in front of one of the steel rings. They produced a short length of chain—too short—confirming his suspicions about things getting worse. The chain ran through the ring and attached to his feet and hands, too short to let him lower either, keeping him balanced on his ass. Before long, his shoulders would be screaming, and he didn’t want to think about how his bad knee would respond.
“Spend some time thinking about the next thing you tell us, Mr. Freeman,” Nuñez said, after his men had Lee fastened. “You’ll have lots of time to think.”
***
Amazing what a few hours of sleep in her own bed could do. Everything seemed almost normal to Zoe: sitting and drinking coffee at the kitchen table, sunlight coming through the windows. Soreness and bug bites aside, it could be any other morning.
Except for the stone sitting in the middle of her chest. How could she just go home and leave Lee behind? Maybe at first it had been about transference or whatever psychobabble bullshit she wanted to hide behind, but after spending three days with him, surviving together, laughing together, it was beyond that now. She cared about him. Maybe it was even love. Either way, the thought of never seeing him again . . .
The CIA was prepared to write him off as collateral damage, and she was the only civilian who knew it.
“Are those Americans still outside, watching the house?” Maria asked as she entered, then she saw Zoe wiping away tears. “Hey, hey, niña, what’s this?” She sat next to Zoe, handing her a box of tissues and putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Morning.” Zoe sniffled. “I’m sorry, I’m okay.”
“Of course you’re not okay,” Maria said. “With what you’ve been through, no one would be okay. Come here.” She tugged at Zoe’s shoulder until Zoe leaned over and let Maria put her arms around her.
“They’re going to let Lee die.” Zoe gave in to the luxury of crying on a willing shoulder. “He saved my life over and over and they’re not going to do anything.”
“Breathe.” Maria stroked her hair. “Start from the beginning. Who is Lee?”
Shit
. She’d finally slipped up. What did it matter now? “Will Freeman. That’s not his real name.”
“I thought there might be more to the story than you told us.”
“A lot more.” Zoe took a deep breath and sat up, wiping her eyes. She started to tell the story of everything that happened in Oaxaca.
***
“Zoe, oh my God,” Maria said when she’d finished.
Normally the two of them spoke English to each other, but Zoe lapsed into Spanish, as if she were talking to her mother. “I still don’t know why the government decided I needed to be rescued when so many others weren’t, but he got me out of there, and got me home.” She didn’t mention the way she’d curled up in Lee’s arms on the helicopter, that he’d cradled her close and soothed her while she’d clung to him for comfort and sobbed like a child.
“Then what happened?” Maria held on to her hand.
“I went home to my mama for a little while, then started working again, but MI wouldn’t let me go back in the field at first. Inírida is my first real assignment since then.”
“You didn’t see Lee again?”
“He visited me in the hospital, but then, not until I saw him in the market here, and he told me he was undercover as Will Freeman.” She rubbed at her eyes, drying tears she’d forgotten were there. “I guess—I guess he followed me and Ana out onto the llanos. He had a mission, but he made us part of it.” Should she tell Maria the rest of it, about Ana, about Santiago? The less she knew, the safer she would be, wouldn’t she?
“What happened when he found you?”
“He rescued me.” Zoe took a deep breath and smelled the river water and insect repellent and her own fear, the smell of that day. “He . . . rode in on horseback and snatched me up.”
Maria smiled. “That’s very dashing.”
“It was.” Zoe smiled in return, but it faded quickly. “He was bringing me back to Inírida through the jungle instead of down the river, but the men he was looking for found us instead. They took him.”
“Why not you?”
“He made me hide.”
“Good.” Maria’s face was set in grim lines, the corners of her mouth drawn down. “Those men—it’s better they have
him than you.”
Zoe remembered the way the men in the village had eyed her, and shivered.
“But now,” Maria said, brushing Zoe’s hair back from her face, “his people aren’t going to go after him?”
“Agent Wishnevsky says they will, but she’s lying to me.” Panic tried to take over again. “She says we have to leave the country. Me and Susan and Ana, that we’re not safe here. We can’t. The clinic, and you—what if they come after you once we’re gone?”
“Shh. Shh, querida. We’ll make do without you if we have to.”
The words came out before Zoe could stop them. “I think I love him and it’s too late. I’ll never see him again.” The tears started flowing once more, and Zoe gave in to them, letting Maria pull her back to her shoulder.
***
Lee no longer had any sense of time. It might have been a few hours since Nuñez and his men short-chained him to the wall, or might have been as many as twelve. All of his awareness wanted to narrow in on just one thing: pain. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t ache, sting, or burn. His shoulders and knee were the worst, pulled and stretched by the awkward position the chains forced him into. His hands, in a small, worrisome blessing, were slowly going numb from pulling against the manacles.
His stomach had long stopped growling. When the smell of food wafted into the room now, it made him feel queasy. The worst part about the stress position he was in was that it made sleep impossible. If he dozed off, he quickly jerked awake from the increased pain as his body sagged.
He had to get some clear-headedness back if he had any hope of evading their questions when they returned. The thought of escape was laughable now. The damage to his knee was probably worse than before.
“Everyone breaks eventually,” one of his SERE instructors had been fond of saying. “Everyone. If the worst happens, sometimes the best you can hope for is that they get tired of waiting for you to break.”
And kill you
, he’d left unspoken but clear.
His shoulders spasmed and he barely kept from yelping, sitting up to try and ease some of the tension. The stress on his leg—and knee—intensified, but his shoulders started to relax. Being comfortable was out of the question. Just trying to keep the pain to a minimum was a constant, exhausting balancing act.
Zoe’s face came to mind, the sweet curve of her smile and the deep gray of her eyes. If he gave up, he’d never see her again, never touch her again. As soon as he cracked under their interrogation, they’d kill him. He had no doubt of that.
No. His training was stronger than that. He brought Zoe back and focused on the sound of her laughter. God, she was so beautiful. He had to make it out of this, if only so he could tell her so again.
The door behind him opened and he tensed. Lee heard the sound of just one pair of footsteps, slow and hesitant.
The man who appeared next to him was older than anyone who’d come in before, squat, and with a droopy moustache
streaked with gray, as was his thinning hair. He carried a bottle of water—was this the new plan to torture him? When the man opened the bottle with a crack of the seal, Lee could
smell
the water, and his parched body wanted to lean toward it.
“Here, drink,” the man said in accented English. When Lee refused at first, he took a drink himself, then re-offered it.
Forcing himself to take tiny sips was one of the hardest things Lee had ever done. As soon as the blessed moisture touched his lips, he wanted to gulp the entire bottle, expecting the man to take it away at any second and start questioning him. Trickles of water moved down his throat and he imagined that the first swallows never even made it to his belly, soaked up by his cells on the way down. Finally he made himself stop, and sat back.
“I couldn’t risk bringing you food,” the man said. “I am sorry.” He glanced toward the door, and Lee realized just how nervous the man was.
“Water’s good.” He hardly recognized his own voice in the raspy croak he made. “You’re not one of them.” It wasn’t a question.
“This is my home,” the man said. The ranch owner. Lee searched his memory for the name. Gomez. Rafael Garcia Gomez.
Lee glanced around the stone cell. “Fire your decorator.”
Gomez didn’t even smile. “I will do what I can for you, but I am not in control here anymore.” He never was, not from the moment the AC got involved, but Lee didn’t tell him as much.
“Thank you,” was what he did say.
“These men, I thought they would keep my family safe,” Gomez said. Water or no water, Lee wasn’t in the mood to offer him absolution.
When Lee didn’t respond, Gomez offered him the water bottle once more, and Lee took a few more cautious swallows.
“I must go before I am missed,” Gomez said, and rose to his feet. Lee heard his knees pop. “I think they will come for you soon. I heard them talking.”
“Thanks,” Lee said again, then added, “Be careful.” He wasn’t prepared to count Gomez among his assets yet, but it was a promising start.
***
By mid-morning Zoe was going stir crazy. Agent Wishnevsky had wanted them to close the clinic, but Zoe, Susan, and Ana all united against the idea. In just a few hours, Maria would be left on her own, short two doctors and one nurse, and it would be days before MI could find replacements. After Maria left for the clinic, there was only so much resting and crying Zoe could do before she wanted to pull her hair out with boredom. She showered, fixed her hair—oh God was it nice to be able to actually do something with it again—and got dressed.