Show No Fear (22 page)

“Uncooked rice,” Gus murmured thoughtfully.

“What?”

“I can stick the phone in a bag of uncooked rice, and that should draw the moisture out.”

Should.
“But what if someone goes to cook up breakfast and finds it?” she asked, her agitation rising.

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take,” he answered with a grim look. “I promise I’ll keep an eye on it.” Putting both batteries
back in his boot, he pushed the phone deep into his pocket. “We’d better get back,” he said, sending one last glance toward
the lookout tower. The dead phone, and the lack of communication, was dampening enough to etch lines of worry on either side
of his mouth.

“Right.” Lucy, who’d wondered whether to tell him about the worsening pain in her hip, filed it away for when the mission
was over. Thank God they were heading out of the jungle soon.

“So what’s our story?” he asked, reaching for her hand. “We got turned around and headed the wrong way?”

“Sounds likely enough,” Lucy agreed, sending a final glance at Rojas’s watchtower. If she were the rebel leader, she’d be
up inside that sucker, making big plans.

CHAPTER 13
      

A
ll night long, the satellite phone lay buried in the sack of dry rice in the corner of the
casita.
Gus slept with one eye open, prepared to leap up and intervene should any one of the team members decide to measure out rice
in advance of the morning meal. If all went well, the moisture in the phone’s casing would be gone by morning.

With the first hint of daybreak brightening the house’s single window, Gus rolled out of his hammock and stealthily retrieved
it. Casting a glance at Lucy, asleep in her own hammock, he slipped outside.

Yesterday’s rain had finally moved on, leaving droplets of moisture winking like diamonds on every leaf. The jungle was drenched
in birdsong and monkey chatter, creating a joyous cacophony, through which Manuel and Estéban slept, wrapped in tarps, their
hammocks slung between trees.

Gus moved stealthily past them up the path before veering into the woods. Positioning himself beneath an opening in the trees,
he removed the battery from his right boot, inserted it into the phone, and held his breath.

As the logo jumped onto the black screen, he closed his eyes briefly. Thank God. He’d worried that his nightmare had been
a premonition of awful things to come, like one of the Elite Guardsmen recognizing Lucy on the trail. He hadn’t been able
to tell if any of them had or not. But at least he was getting a clear signal from the satellite now—a reassuring turn of
events. Here was his chance to touch base with the JIC and inquire whether Whiteside had decided to pull Lucy off the mountain.

The phone rang once before it was snatched up. “That you, Ethel?” Vinny asked in a perfect imitation of Fred.

“I need to keep this short,” Gus murmured, peering cautiously around him. “Listen, I’m about one click away from Rebel Central,
which means my coordinates should be close to one of those camps.”

“Roger that, Gus.” It was the OIC. “We suspected that yesterday when you approached the coordinates for Ki-kirr-zikiz. We
thought maybe you’d try to call in. What’s going on over there? Over.”

“Sorry, sir. The sat phone’s been out of commission. To bring you up-to-date, the lead negotiator has cut a deal with the
FARC and is currently off the mountain trying to work out the details. There may be an exchange taking place here, in the
next couple of days.”

“We’ve heard rumblings to that effect, Gus. Do you think Fournier can pull it off?”

“He’s got the experience,” Gus reasoned. “Plus the FARC are eager to ship us out of here. Commander Rojas has the Venezuelans
funneling him weapons faster than they can unload them.”

“The Predator has images of that,” the OIC corroborated.

“Any word from Whiteside on pulling Lucy out early?” Gus asked. “We crossed paths with the Elite Guard yesterday. I don’t
know if any of them recognized her, sir, but I’m not sure we should take any chances.”

“Well,” Luther countered, sounding suddenly uncomfortable. “The negotiation is this close to resolution, Gus. It might throw
a wrench into the process if Lucy were to disappear all of a sudden,” he reasoned.

Gus had to admit that was true. Still, recalling the conjecturing look on the Venezuelans’ faces, he couldn’t shake the nagging
fear that Lucy’s encounter with them in the warehouse last year would bite them in the ass. “Yes, sir,” he murmured.

“So proceed as you are, Gus, and good luck. We’ll be monitoring things on this end. Anything else?”

“No, sir, that’s it.”

“Hope to see you soon, over.”

“Thank you, sir. Out.”

With another peek around the tree, Gus stowed the phone in his boot before turning to water the tree.

Still weighted with foreboding, he hurried back to camp, relieved to find Manuel and Estéban just stirring. Carlos and Bellini
met him at the door as they headed for the trees. Inside the
casita,
S¸ukruye knelt by the fireplace, pouring rice into a tin bowl. But Lucy was still in her hammock, apparently lethargic after
a restless night’s sleep. He crossed the room to gaze down at her. “Morning,” he said, noting with a touch of alarm that she
seemed more pale than usual.

“Hi,” she said shortly, rubbing crust from the corners of her eyes.

“Tough night?”

She refused to answer, rolling stiffly to a sitting position. She’d pleased him by asking to share a hammock with him last
night. They’d tried, only to end up hitting the dirtpacked floor when they both tumbled out. Lucy had then moved to her own
hammock, where she obviously hadn’t fared much better. The thought that she might have missed him broke over him like a warm
morning sunrise.

Just then S¸ukruye left the
casita
to fetch water for the rice. They had the place to themselves. He sought the courage to voice the question that had been
building in him lately.

“Did you check the phone?” she asked before he had the chance to speak.

“Um, yeah. It works again. I just called in and brought the guys up-to-date.”

“Good,” she said, a hint of color returning to her face.

Gus swallowed hard. It was now or never. “You know, when all this is behind us…”

She looked up at him sharply, suspending his suggestion. “What?” she prompted impatiently.

Maybe she wasn’t in the right mood for him to suggest a date. She seemed a little irritable. “Nothing. It’ll wait,” he decided.

With her hip throbbing painfully, her eyes burning from lack of sleep, and her stomach rumbling for the meal of rice that
wouldn’t be ready for another half hour, Lucy’s patience was too thin for her to tolerate guessing games.

“Just tell me,” she insisted, feeling crabby and angry at herself. Damn it, she couldn’t even sleep without the comfort of
Gus’s arms around her. What happened to being completely self-reliant?

He sent a nervous glance at the door. “Well, I was thinking, when this was over, we could maybe see each other, socially,”
he suggested with watchful wariness.

He sounded like the shy college sophomore who’d asked her out when she was just a freshman. Even as her heart took wing, Lucy’s
stomach sank like it was weighted with concrete. She stared at him, speechless. They were in a war zone, living on borrowed
time if the Elite Guard outed her, and he was trying to ask her out on a date? If they both lived through this op, the chances
of them staying on the same continent for the next assignment were slim to none. How the hell was romance supposed to fit
into that picture?

At her continued silence, Gus shifted uncomfortably. “You still like pizza, right?” he continued bravely. “I know this new
pizza place near Tyson’s Corner—”

She put a hand up, suspending his persuasions. “Stop,” she begged. “That’s enough. Just…don’t say any more.”

Jamming his hands into his pockets, he frowned down at her. “You’re the one who insisted I spit it out,” he added, his eyes
dark with disappointment.

“My fault,” she accepted. “And don’t look at me like that. It’s nothing personal, okay? People like us don’t do relationships,
Gus. I can’t even keep a houseplant alive.”

Rolling out of the hammock, she pushed abruptly past him, afraid he’d see the confusion in her eyes and pounce on it. Her
knees felt strangely weak as she headed toward the door to jam her feet into her boots. A part of her longed to turn back,
to hurl herself into his arms and say, “Yes, I want to date you!” But the smarter half prevailed. Squaring her shoulders,
she marched out of the
casita
without a backward glance, nearly knocking down S¸ukruye, who was on her way in.

“Careful!” the woman cautioned as Lucy bumped her bucket of water.

“Sorry,” she muttered, fleeing the building. Hurrying past the others, she pushed blindly into the blur of vegetation, remembering
at the last second to mark her trail by bending branches.

Gus’s suggestion, coming on the heels of a poor night’s sleep, had thrown her thoughts into turmoil.

Hell, she had nothing against casual dating. She’d been known to dazzle the opposite sex from time to time. But there would
be nothing casual about seeing Gus socially, as he’d put it. This adventure in the thicket made it glaringly obvious that
they felt comfortable together as boyfriend and girlfriend. If she dated him again, she’d become as wrapped up in him as when
she was younger. She’d be picking and choosing her assignments so she could see him, distracted from her primary objective.

Worse than that, she wouldn’t be self-reliant ever again. She would
need
him to feel complete, just as she had in college. It had taken years to stop missing him.

Oh, no. She’d taken this assignment to find her courage so she could be strong again. She wasn’t going to cash all that in
just to grow weak in other ways.

It was best if she didn’t see Gus at all.

The thought stripped her of all happiness, making her realize how far gone she already was.
Hey, at least we work for the same people,
she comforted herself.
We’re bound to run into each other.

Upset with herself for even needing consolation, she snatched a vine out of the way, upsetting the monkey that was clinging
to it. Then she whirled around, hunting for a soft-looking leaf to wipe with on the carpet of spongy decay.

God, what she wouldn’t give for a real roll of toilet paper!

Ten minutes later, Gus seemed to have forgotten both his proposition and her flat-out rejection. He sent her a long, thoughtful
look as she reentered the
casita,
but then he was right back to playing her courteous and attentive husband. The fact that he’d accepted the situation so easily
did nothing to improve her mood.

For once it wasn’t raining, but blood-seeking mosquitoes kept the UN team members indoors, where they lolled in their hammocks
sharing reflections and personal memories.

“What’s the first thing you intend to do when you return to civilization?” Carlos asked, prompting fantasies in Lucy’s mind
of a warm bath and a full-body massage.

“Open a bottle of my best pinot grigio,” said Bellini, who owned a vineyard.

“Get a pedicure,” said S¸ukruye, glancing wryly at her battered feet.

“Take my wife on a honeymoon,” said Gus.

Everyone looked at him in surprise, including Lucy, who quickly swallowed down her startled, “What?” He’d gone from suggesting
a date this morning to planning a full-fledged honeymoon? Talk about a fast courtship.

“You haven’t had a honeymoon?” Bellini exclaimed in dismay.

“No, no, Luna was too busy working to take time off,” said Gus with a doleful shrug.

“That’s right,” Carlos agreed, backing Gus’s allegations. “I told her to take a vacation after the wedding, but she refused.”

Bellini beetled his eyebrows at Lucy. “For shame!” he cried, causing Lucy’s face to heat. “Love is a rare gift. You must make
the most of those magical first months. Where will you take her, Gustavo?” he demanded.

Lucy arched an eyebrow at Gus.
Hurry up. Think fast.

Gus shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere warm. A five-star hotel on a sandy white beach?”

A vision of them sprawled on deck chairs sipping mai tais sent a wave of yearning through Lucy.

“What do you say to that, Luna?” Carlos prompted, his dark eyes dancing with secret mirth. “Will you take your honeymoon or
not?”

“Of course,” she said, sending Gus a deceptively warm and loving smile. She then lay back in her hammock, her smile fading
as she seethed inwardly.

That was a low blow, she thought, instilling in her yearnings for things that couldn’t be. Marriage to Gus. A honeymoon. Did
he seriously think she could luxuriate at a seaside resort while bad guys plotted ways to strike the innocent?

And yet…once envisioned, the image refused to go away.

Damn him for putting it in her head in the first place. Just because he was her partner on this assignment didn’t mean he
was her partner for life.

She wouldn’t need him to watch her back much longer. Hell, when this assignment was over, she could use mirrors for that.