Unacceptable. She needed to get her professional edge back. She
had
to. Because once this assignment was over and she and Gus parted ways, she would have no one to bolster her courage, no one
to look out for her.
Lucy swallowed hard. She didn’t want to think about that day. Not because she’d miss Gus. She’d done fine these past years
without him. She’d do fine again. But what if she never shook her PTSD? What if it remained with her forever? She’d be a wash-up,
taking some quiet assignment that did nothing to promote the security of her country.
God forbid. She’d rather go out in a blaze of glory than live forever as a sputtering flame.
A woman’s tearful supplication jerked Lucy from a light sleep.
“Easy,” whispered Gus. The effects of the herbal tea must have worn off. He sounded fully awake, his body tense and coiled
for action as he peeked through an opening he’d made in the leafy wall.
“What’s going on?” she asked drowsily, shivering at the draft he’d created by moving.
A wedge of golden light danced on his brow ridge, illumining his alert gaze. “Buitre’s got three of the women tied together,”
he whispered. “It looks like he plans on taking them somewhere.”
“Now?” She came more sharply awake. “In the middle of the night?”
“That’s probably why they’re tied together. So they won’t get lost.”
Lucy squirmed higher, making her own little peephole to peer out. In the light of Buitre’s electric lantern, she discerned
three helpless, sleepy-eyed females roped together at the wrist—Petra, Maife, and Carmen. “Where’s he taking them? To another
camp?”
“I don’t know.” He sat up abruptly, reaching for his boots. “But I’m going to find out.”
She tossed off the blanket. “Not without me, you’re not.”
Before she could roll off the mat, he body-checked her. “It’s pitch-black outside,” he informed her on a whisper.
“So?” She tried to push him aside. It was like trying to move a mountain.
“So you’ll be a liability, Luce,” he argued in her ear. “I’m used to moving in the jungle. You are not. Now stay
here.
”
Why did he have to be so goddamn logical? It left her without an argument. “I thought we were partners,” she hissed, giving
him an angry shove.
He caught himself from spilling onto his backside. Rolling forward again, he reached for her. Lucy flinched, surprised when
he pulled her lips to his, and kissed her hard. “We are,” he reassured her.
Befuddled, frustrated, and only a little bit mollified, she watched him dress in his damp clothing, then slip out the back
flap of the bungalow. She strained her ears to hear him, but all she could discern were leaves ruffling under a light breeze.
Peering outside again, she saw Buitre’s lantern bob toward the trail, casting grotesque shadows on the trees. The poor females
straggled behind him. Lucy had befriended several of them. No doubt Buitre was dragging them off to service some high-ranking
FARC in a different camp.
Bastards.
The girls here already did the brunt of the work—cooking, toting, cleaning, even fighting alongside the men. Having to pleasure
them, also, seemed so grossly unfair.
Welcome to Oz, Luce. You wanted to be here, remember?
She watched until the light of Buitre’s lantern disappeared abruptly, leaving the camp pitch-black. There was no sign of Gus
at all, skulking along in his wake. Presuming he could keep up, how would he ever find his way back?
Squirming back beneath the blanket, she dropped her head on her forearm and squeezed her eyes shut.
She’d been sleeping just fine before the interruption. Now she knew she wouldn’t sleep a wink till Gus got back. Having a
partner could be downright excruciating.
T
HE JUNGLE WAS IMPOSSIBLY DARK
—so dark, in fact, that the only way for Gus to know what the terrain under his feet was like was to memorize the dips and
turns illumined by Buitre’s lantern several yards up ahead of him.
Praying he wouldn’t sprain an ankle or spear himself on one of the razor-sharp bamboo spikes hemming him in, he inched along
after them.
Without night-vision goggles, this kind of surveillance wasn’t just risky, it was virtually impossible. He tried to be quiet,
but bumbling along like a blind man made that difficult. Thankfully, a stiff breeze caused the leaves to rustle and branches
to creak, masking the sounds of his pursuit.
There was no going back now. Darkness dogged his footsteps, as impenetrable as tar. If Buitre didn’t back-track tonight with
that lantern, Gus had no idea how he’d get back, only he couldn’t leave Lucy by herself. Then again, after what he’d said
to her yesterday, maybe she’d be glad if he didn’t come back.
He shouldn’t have laid his survivor’s-guilt theory on her at a time like this. She had enough to contend with just coping
with Mike Howitz’s fate. They used to be colleagues, for Christ’s sake. But her confession had made everything so startlingly
clear to him that he’d felt compelled to share his realization.
No wonder Lucy had cut ties with him shortly after the bombing. She’d been driven by the need to honor her friends’ memories,
to avenge their deaths. Her own life, her own happiness didn’t matter, and, by association, neither did Gus’s, apparently.
Maybe if she understood her motives, she’d pace herself and live a little longer. A healthy bond with another human being
might even supply impetus to live life for herself, not just for her dead friends. He’d be the first to volunteer for that
position.
The realization of how susceptible his heart was had him stumbling over his own feet. He caught himself at the verge of falling
off the trail into what he sensed was a ravine.
Focus, damn it, before you get yourself killed!
He forcibly shut down his thoughts, concentrating to follow the lantern bobbing up ahead of him.
How far had they traveled already? It might have been several miles, or less than a mile. In the dark, he’d lost his sense
of direction.
He was just beginning to regret following Buitre when the sound of coarse laughter floated down from higher ground.
Gus crouched, his heart beating faster. Buitre’s lantern broke right, pushing through branches up a sharp incline. Calls of
welcome told him the deputy and the women were being received.
Pausing to smear mud on his face, Gus backed into the vegetation. The only safe way to move through the undergrowth was butt
first, keeping his eyes peeled for a guard on watch.
The glow of Buitre’s lantern illumined a makeshift camp consisting of hammocks strung between trees and an empty fire pit.
Gus counted ten men, including Buitre, milling around, buttering up the women, swilling some intoxicating drink out of canteens.
These were the men who’d delivered beans the other day, Gus realized, recognizing their uniforms—plain green with no other
markings whatsoever. He wondered who the hell they were.
He needed to get closer. Covering ground with excruciating care, he removed sticks before they crackled and betrayed him.
He was practically on top of the man standing guard before he even saw him.
Shit!
He froze, breaking into a cold sweat.
The watchman stood with his back to a tree, his shape blending into shadow, making him virtually invisible. The Russian assault
rifle in his arms had been adorned with leaves, so that it resembled a tree branch. The brim of his hat hid the whites of
his eyes. For a shocked moment, Gus thought he was looking at a Special Forces soldier.
He sure as hell wasn’t a teenaged rebel with a gun.
Measuring his breathing, Gus kept perfectly still. The soldier, unable to resist peeking at the action in the camp, turned
profile to watch what was going on. And the insignia on his broad-brimmed hat caught Gus’s eye.
Red shield, black star.
Jesus Christ, he had to be imagining it. These couldn’t be the Venezuelan Elite Guard, the same men U.S. Navy SEALs had trained
a year ago, the fuckers who’d mauled Lucy in the warehouse.
Gus’s scalp tightened. Gooseflesh rippled down his back. What other army bore that insignia? No one else, so far as he knew.
Plus it made perfect sense to find the Elite Guard here in the jungles of Colombia. The populists had been arming the FARC
for decades, backing the rebels in secret while denouncing them to the rest of the world.
Wait until the CIA learned who was backing the FARC now! Jesus, God, it curdled Gus’s blood to think what these soldiers could
teach the rebels—techniques taught to them by U.S. Navy SEALs. Tricks and tactics that could turn the tide of this revolution
in the FARC’s favor forever.
He had to inform the JIC as soon as possible. But crashing out of there was just as risky as getting closer. Besides, he wanted
to be sure. Having trained the Elite Guard himself, he might recognize a face.
With the man on watch distracted, Gus backed another yard closer and then another, making no more noise than a boa constrictor
slithering toward its prey.
At last, peering through the fronds of a fernlike plant, he glimpsed the orgy taking place around Buitre’s lantern. The poor
females were outnumbered three to one. Jesus. He jerked his gaze from their humiliation, appalled by what they were being
subjected to.
Thoughts of Lucy in a similar position made his blood boil, made him sick to his stomach.
Keep it cool,
he ordered himself, focusing on the faces of the men grimacing with lust.
To his disappointment, none of them looked familiar, except perhaps the one with the thin moustache. Was that the captain
who’d taken such diligent notes in the class for officers only? It was hard to tell a full year later, harder still to ignore
the guttural cries of pain tearing from the young girl beneath him. If he’d had his semi-automatic with him, he’d be so tempted
to mow every man down.
If any one of these pricks had been in the warehouse last year, that meant they might recognize Lucy if they saw her.
Shit, shit, shit! This was exactly what he was afraid might happen. He needed to get hold of his teammates. Hopefully they’d
insist on taking Lucy off the mountain. Nothing would make Gus happier. Nothing would piss off Lucy more, but a mad Lucy was
better than a dead Lucy.
First, though, he needed to pull back before the Elite Guards laid hands on him.
One by one, the men were finding their fulfillment, further degrading the females by ejaculating on them.
“Hey, Ponce, cover for me here so I can get a turn,” called the man on watch.
“Take the bitch with the breasts like papayas,” urged his companion, crunching over to take his place.
Now was Gus’s chance to flee. As the men traded places, he reversed direction, scuttling like a crab into the dark void. He
crashed into a bush, turned, and scurried around it, slipping down the spongy ground on his butt.
“What was that?” he heard one of the men ask.
“Probably a
tigre,
” joked his companion, using the local word for jaguar. “Go on before the girl faints.”
Their voices faded at the same time that the foliage abruptly cleared, and Gus found himself on the path.
Now what?
he wondered, coming slowly to his feet.
It was so intensely dark he found it difficult to keep his balance. Sliding one foot forward, he inched into what he believed
was the right direction only to bump into a tree. He modified and tried again, eventually hitting a wall of rock.
At last, when the sounds of the camp had faded, he sat on the path and removed the sat phone from his boot, powering it on.
Faint blue light drove back the darkness. He replaced the heel and stood up, hoping for a signal.
Of course not.
Apparently the only way to ping the satellite with this piece-of-shit technology was to stand in a clearing. He’d have to
try again when he got back to camp, and the only way to get there was to use the phone as a flashlight, which would drain
the battery.
But he still had a backup battery in the other boot.
Pointing the display in front of him, he started walking.
A crash of thunder made him jump. In the next minute, rain poured down on him like water coursing through a million drain
pipes.
It was all he could do to keep the phone dry while using it to guide him back to camp.
F
OR THE HUNDREDTH TIME
, Lucy peeked outside for any sign of Gus’s return. Lightning crackled, illumining the cluster of ugly buildings and the clearing
by the trail. She realized David was manning the fifty-caliber machine gun tonight.
Crouched under a tarp, he did his best to ward off raindrops as they pelted the muddy ground around him.
What was taking Gus so long? How would he find his way back in this deluge? Worry knotted her intestines. He was probably
hunkered down somewhere, she reasoned, waiting the rain out. She forced herself to lie back down, aware that she was giving
herself a headache.
Damn it, no wonder she preferred to work alone.
Minutes later, she shot to her elbows. She hadn’t heard or felt a thing, but she sensed Gus’s approach. The leafy flap twitched,
and a dark shadow crept into the bungalow, easing under their blinds to stream water onto their cubby floor.
She could hear his teeth chattering. Shaking off the covers, she ducked under the mosquito net to help him peel off his sodden
clothing—boots, socks, jacket, T-shirt, pants, everything. She diligently hung them up as he huddled on the floor, shivering.
Then she drew him into their nest, tossing the blanket over them both as she wrapped her body around his, speeding him to
recovery.
Moment by moment, his shudders subsided but his tension did not. “Better?” she asked.
“I’m good.”
“What did you find out?”
He hesitated, notching her concern higher. “You know those guys in the pea green uniforms who brought the bags of beans the
other day?”
“Of course.”
“I found out who they are,” he told her grimly.
“Who?” Dread made her skin feel tight. She knew what he was going to say before he even said it.