Eyeing the cozy structure where she had slept with her hand on Gus’s heart, Lucy now felt his absence keenly.
She could not believe she had been brought
here
to be interrogated, of all places.
She wasn’t ready for this.
The last time an Elite Guardsman had questioned her, he’d brought her face-to-face with her mortality. Since then, she had
fought to contain her fear, to give courage back its rightful seat. And she had just been winning that battle. Now she was
back in the clutches of those who’d traumatized her in the first place. Wasn’t life ironic?
When’s it going to end for you, Luce?
Gus’s worried visage swam up from the well of her memories.
Not here. Not now.
She couldn’t do that to him. She couldn’t do it to herself.
She had no choice but to find the grain of courage still within her and hold fast to it.
“Off!” Buitre ordered, and the captain who sat behind her leapt off, tugging the length of her chain to pull her after him.
She staggered off, stumbling to find her legs weak with fear.
“Why so pale,
señorita?
” he taunted, tugging her closer. “Or is it
señora?
You had a husband until recently. Was he a spy like you?”
She flicked a glance at Buitre. Then her suspicions were founded. Gus had been dumped in the river intentionally. Only she
couldn’t begin to picture him dead. She knew he wasn’t. She could still feel him inside of her, quietly supportive.
“Spy?” she scoffed, pleased with the fearless tone of her voice. “I’m a human relations officer with the United Nations. And
you are making a very costly mistake.”
“There is no mistake,” Buitre raged, spittle flying from his mouth. “David overheard you speaking English. He saw you stealing
from my quarters.”
Lucy sighed and shook her head. “I always practice English with my husband. And I was looking for my medicine in your quarters.”
Buitre lunged at her, but with a cool smile, the captain stepped between them. “You may leave this to me, Deputy,” he promised
with frightening calm. “I know just how to make her talk.”
Lucy’s blood seemed to crystallize. She fought to keep from blanching.
“Step inside,” the captain invited her, gesturing genteelly for her to precede him.
As Lucy edged into the shadows of the building, her gaze slid helplessly to the corner where Gus had painted that vision of
them on a tropical beach enjoying their honeymoon. Her heart clutched with longing at the vision of them, and with remorse.
She’d give anything to be there now!
As Buitre looped the end of her chain over a peg on the wall, Lucy sucked in shallow breaths. This was it. Her recurring nightmare
was about to become a reality. It would likely take hours for Gus and his SEALs to rescue her. The only thing that would see
her through till then was her will to resist.
Pausing before her, arms folded across his chest, the captain stroked his chin. Light from the single window fell across his
face, illumining his thin moustache, his hooded eyes with their sparse lashes. “I will prove to you that she is lying,” he
promised Buitre.
A
T THE EDGE OF THE LANDING FIELD
, seated with his back to the kapok tree, Gus watched as the mountain’s shadow expanded, swallowing up first the cinderblock
building, then the airstrip. Thinking of Lucy and what she had to be enduring, he groaned and rocked himself.
He’d feared it would come to this. From the day they’d been given this common assignment, he’d dreaded the thought of Lucy
coming to harm on his watch. It wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d sworn himself to protect her, to bear the brunt of the danger
so she wouldn’t have to.
But somehow his best efforts had backfired, and there was nothing he could do about it, not until his teammates got here.
At any moment they would arrive, he told himself. But the seconds dragged into minutes and minutes into hours, and still his
only companion was his unforgiving conscience.
He’d told her he would be right behind her.
“I
F SHE IS A SPY
,” the Venezuelan captain continued, sliding a demoralizing look down Lucy’s body, “she will be carrying a tracking device,
in which case her government will find her if we do not act swiftly.”
Lucy’s heart thudded at the accuracy of his statement. A clammy sweat enveloped her.
“Undress her,” he commanded of Buitre, and panic streaked through her, causing black spots to swim before her eyes.
Buitre reached for her and she knocked his hands away, her thoughts racing to find a solution to her predicament. If she could
just slow the hands of time until Gus and the SEALs came for her.
“Tie her hands if she won’t cooperate,” the captain suggested, his gaze intent upon her face. She was certain he could see
her fear, smell it.
“I’ll undress myself,” she offered. “I have nothing to hide.”
He gestured elegantly. “Go ahead.”
Heart pounding, Lucy stalled, removing each button of the jacket with painstaking care.
“Faster!” ordered Buitre, who watched with rabid hunger as she reluctantly dropped her jacket on the floor.
“Now the shirt,” purred the captain, enjoying the show.
She’d stripped to her underwear at the start of the journey. This was no different. At least, that was what she told herself
as she raised the T-shirt over her head, stringing it on the length of chain that ran from her neck to the peg above her head.
If the right moment presented itself, she could snatch her chain off the peg and run for the door. Only how would she flee
quickly carrying twenty extra pounds around her neck?
The captain slanted a knowing look at Buitre. “Did you not consider that the wires in her bra might transmit her location?”
he mocked.
Shocked, Buitre eyed Lucy’s black satin bra with a frown.
“Remove it,” insisted the captain. Lucy balked, drawing deep breaths to keep down the tide of fear constricting her airways.
In a quick move that revealed little more than a flash of pale skin, she shimmied out of the bra and jerked the T-shirt back
on. “Here,” she said, tossing it at the captain. “You will see there is nothing in the material but wire. I told you, I work
for the United Nations. You have me confused with someone else.” Having outsmarted him, triumph fizzed in her briefly.
“There is no mistake,” the captain assured her calmly. “Cut this open,” he said, handing her bra to Buitre. “Tell me what
you see.”
Approaching Lucy, he stabbed her with a ruthless gaze. “I remember you from the ware-house in Maiquetía,” he murmured, causing
every fine hair on her body to prickle with alarm. “You were spying then. You are still spying.”
Lucy held his gaze defiantly. “I am not who you think I am,” she retorted convincingly.
His slap came out of nowhere. One minute he was standing there looking at her. The next he was rubbing his reddened palm with
his left thumb.
Stunned by the force of the open-handed blow, Lucy stared for a moment at the floor. Then she jerked her chin up, her cheek
stinging. “Is that all you’ve got?” she taunted, welcoming the heat of rebelliousness. She could do this. As long as he just
beat her up, she would win. And Gus would be so proud, so relieved.
The captain drew himself to his full, indignant height. “No,
señorita,
” he answered through his teeth, his narrow moustache twitching, “that is only a taste of the punishment you will endure if
you are not candid with me.”
“Sir, there is nothing in this
sostén
but wire,” Buitre interrupted, sounding disgruntled.
The captain looked briefly surprised. He reconsidered Lucy, stroked his chin again, then nodded. “Tie her hands,” he said
to Buitre.
Lucy sucked in a breath. “Why?” she demanded. “I’m cooperating, aren’t I?”
“Use your belt,” suggested the captain, ignoring her question as Buitre hunted for something to tie her with.
With blood roaring in her ears, Lucy fought to keep panic from overtaking her. As Buitre approached her with his belt in hand,
she kicked out, repelling him with a heel-strike that sent him barreling backward into the captain.
“
¡Puta!
” he swore, lunging at her even as the captain stepped into his path. “Let me question her!” Buitre raged. “I swear I will
make her talk.”
Lucy welcomed the adrenaline that drove back her fear. She’d realized that once they stripped her of her clothing, anything
was bound to happen, none of which she was prepared to handle. Her body belonged to Gus alone. She would fight to within an
inch of her life to keep it that way.
“Patience,” insisted the captain, pulling a dagger from his webbed belt. “She’s a trained fighter. Beating her will accomplish
nothing. Now tie her while I hold her still,” he instructed.
No!
She sought to take the dagger from him, to secure her freedom by arming herself. Only he, too, was trained in hand-to-hand
combat. Within seconds his blade pricked her jugular. She stilled, gasping for air, as she submitted to having her wrists
bound.
Buitre cinched the belt tight, pricking a hole in the leather to keep it taut.
The captain stepped back to reconsider her. He looked at Buitre. “She was allowed to keep her own boots, yes? Remove them.
The device may be hidden in the sole.”
Good thinking,
Lucy thought, welcoming the reprieve.
Wrong boots.
With rough, impatient hands, Buitre removed her boots. She stood in her socks, docile now, praying the search would end when
her boots came up clean. Buitre turned them over. “I don’t see anything,” he muttered.
“Give them to me.” Starting with the right boot, he poked at the rubber sole with his knife, pried and sliced, but found nothing.
Tossing the boots to the floor, he hooked his thumbs in his belt and frowned, while Buitre circled behind her, salivating
like a hungry dog.
“Remove the rest of her clothing,” the captain decreed at last.
Lucy’s skin seemed to shrink.
No!
“Sometimes devices are planted under the skin,” he explained, causing fear to ripple up her spine in fluttering electrical
currents.
“Like this?” Buitre asked, pointing out the cut on her hip, just above her baggy trousers.
“Where?” The captain edged around her to regard the angry slit, crusty with pus and blood.
Fear ambushed Lucy, strangling the casual explanation that she’d cut herself.
“Exactly,” purred the captain, shooting her a gloating look. “You will have to hold her down,” he said to Buitre, “while I
will cut out the device.”
I
MMERSED IN TOTAL DARKNESS
, Gus still waited, straining to hear the distinctive flutter of the Little Bird, the OH-6A light assault helicopter, over
the sonata of nocturnal insects.
He’d willed his teammates’ arrival with every beat of his heart, teeth chattering at the encroaching cold, for hours now.
What the
hell
was taking them so long?
Worry kept his muscles locked and aching. His eyeballs felt like they’d been hardboiled, he had stared at the sky so long
and so hard.
Then, at last, with his patience about to snap, a flurry erupted overhead. He leapt to his feet in relief, searching the starry
sky until he spied the silhouette of a miniature helicopter hanging a hundred feet above the field, no lights.
One, two, three, four dark figures fast-roped to the ground and scattered.
Gus hobbled into the field. With night-vision capabilities, his buddies would have spotted him already.
A shadow materialized from the darkness. Between the black knit cap and the greasepaint, Gus had trouble recognizing Harley.
“Sir, you hurt?” The blue eyes and the rumbling baritone gave him away.
“I can walk,” Gus answered.
Barely.
“This way,” said Harley, forcing him into a trot that sent shards of pain up his legs. On the far side of the field, well
away from the cinderblock building, the SEALs rallied up—Luther, Harley, Vinny, and Haiku. The other four SEALs had evidently
remained at the JIC, on call for backup.
“What happened?” asked the OIC as they crouched in a tight circle.
“The FARC have Lucy,” Gus grated, a fresh wave of fear rolling over him. “I think one of the Elite Guard recognized her from
the warehouse last year. The FARC were already suspicious. They tried dumping me in a river. I lost my boots and the sat phone,
but I’m pretty sure they consider me neutralized. We need to get to Lucy,” he finished.
Luther glanced down at the tattered remains of Gus’s booties. “Vinny, take a look at his feet.”
The soft blue beam of Vinny’s penlight cut through the inky darkness. Gus pulled off the booties and spared a cursory glance
at his ravaged soles. “I’m fine,” he insisted.
Opening his medic’s kit, Vinny set about cleaning the open lesions.
“We should’ve pulled you out,” Luther reflected.
“No. Sir, I am
not
leaving Lucy on this mountain,” Gus growled with heat. “Get me boots, gear, and firepower and I’ll be good to go,” he insisted.
At the same time, his heart sank. The request would take up to three hours to fulfill.
Lieutenant Lindstrom seemed to weigh his options. “Haiku, relay that request to the JIC,” he ordered softly.
“Size-thirteen boots,” said Gus. He ground the heels of his palms into his eye sockets.
“Rumor has it she was shot,” said Harley.
Gus snatched his hands out of his eyes. “You heard that already?”
“The UN team touched down in Bogotá just as we were leaving, delaying our departure,” the OIC explained. “We heard all kinds
of strange reports.”
Gus shook his head. “Whatever you heard was wrong.” In a tight, flat voice, he explained the Elite Guard’s duplicity, how
they’d dressed themselves in lamb’s clothing.
“That is fucking brilliant,” marveled Harley.
“We trained them,” Gus reminded him with a hard look. “That’s why they’re so good. And if the truth isn’t made known, the
Colombian army is going to take the rap for something they didn’t do.”