Show No Fear (30 page)
Now they could make some progress.
* * *
D
AVID WAS BUSY INSPECTING
his rag-tag army when Captain Vargas strode up to him. “Where is Buitre?” he demanded, a tin of hot coffee steaming in one
hand.
David peered about the camp. Buitre’s quarters stood quiet, though normally, by this time, the generator was purring. Premonition
tightened his scalp. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I saw him walk into the woods, that way, a while ago.”
The captain’s nostrils flared as he looked where David was pointing. “Come,” he ordered. “Help me find his tracks. Ponce,
Delgado,
¡vengan!
” he added, and two commandos sprang up to follow them.
Uneasiness knotted David’s insides as he led them down the hill, following Buitre’s distinctive tracks with ease. He had heard
the rumors, spreading like fingers of fear from other camps: Trail scouts had been disappearing. Rojas had warned everyone
to keep their eyes peeled for intruders, agents of the CIA looking for Luna de Aguiler.
Wading cautiously into the jungle, David stopped where Buitre’s tracks ended. His gaze slid from the stain at the base of
a tree to the soil trampled under their feet. “There was a brief struggle here. One man came from this side. Another from
here.” He inspected the ground more carefully, pushing a frond out of his way. “Only two walked away, carrying the third,”
he decided. “They went that way.” He pointed into the verdant shadows.
Captain Vargas whipped the radio off his hip, advising the remaining Elite Guard to arm themselves.
“You will lead us to these intruders,” he then told David.
Reluctance strangled David’s vocal cords. Peering into the silent, murky forest, he regretted not listening to his conscience.
Now the blood would surely flow on La Montaña, but the end result would not be peace.
W
ITH SHADOWS THICKENING
between the trees and monkeys swinging with abandon through the treetops, the captives endured the nightly humility of being
secured to the shelter. As always, Lucy’s chain was looped around a post and locked, the heavy padlock bruising her collar-bone.
Adjusting it, she stilled, processing with astonishment what her fingers were telling her.
The lock had fallen open. Goliath hadn’t secured it fully before turning the key!
For a stunned moment she just lay there, too shocked to conceive what this meant. But then the implications saturated her
sluggish brain and turned her mouth cotton-dry.
She didn’t have to wait for Gus to find her if she could free herself.
Only there was more to escaping than easing off the heavy chain. The shelter was surrounded by barbed wire. Beyond that, two
armed guards performed their hourly vigil with the flashlights.
That was it! A plan took shape in her mind—a desperate and dangerous plan that required all the strength her frail body could
muster, not to mention flawless timing.
Did she still possess either? Starvation and infection had weakened her considerably. But her courage was strong. Over the
course of the past few days, she had discovered she could fight fire with fire.
With her thudding heart ticking off the seconds, she eased the lock from the links and hid it beneath her. Draping the loose
chain across her neck, she coiled it in either hand and waited for Igor, the second
jefe,
to make the first nightly inspection.
An hour had never seemed so interminably long. At last, the sound of metal scraping over metal signaled the opening of the
gate.
Insects quieted as a lone guard approached the lean-to, preceded by a cone of light shining from his flashlight. It swung
in a wide arc about the shelter, then settled on the hostages in the opposite corner. Shining light into their eyes, Igor
checked their locks, then turned toward Lucy, chained on the opposite side.
Drawing a slow, tight breath, she summoned her resolve.
For Gus. For us,
she thought. Pink light shone through her closed eyelids. Unable to find her lock, Igor muttered an expletive. Through her
lashes, she watched as he went down on one knee and leaned over her.
Now!
Lunging, she looped the length of chain around his neck and yanked, cutting off his startled cry. As he fell on top of her,
she reached for the pistol holstered to his belt, praying it was loaded. She flipped him over at the same time as she shot
him, silencing his protests with a shot that went straight into his heart.
Bang!
The other hostages came awake with shouts of fright.
“
Qué es?
”
“
Díos mío!
”
The body beneath her went slack. Igor was dead.
One down, one to go.
Snatching up his keys, Lucy tossed them at the others. “Free yourselves,” she urged, picking up the fallen flashlight. Briefly
she considered joining forces with the former Colombian soldiers. But they had been kept apart from her, the only woman they
had seen in years, for a reason.
Snapping off the light, she doused them all in darkness.
“
Jefe!
” Outside the pen, Goliath came flying from the shanty where the guards slept. “
Qué pasa?
” As he struggled to get into the gate, Lucy eased around the corner of the lean-to and hid behind it, her heart hammering.
Goliath had forgotten to bring a flashlight. As he bumbled into the pen, he ran headlong into the first Colombian to free
himself. With a roar, he went to wrestle him down.
And Lucy darted to the gate, ecstatic to find it ajar.
Freedom!
With the barbed wire behind her, she sprinted past the guards’ shanty, up the path they had trod each day to visit the natural
spring. Along a dark tunnel of green, she flew as light as a feather, as fast as a doe.
Behind her, another pistol discharged, ringing out loudly. A cry of agony reached her ears, mingled with hysterical laughter
as the captives overcame their captor and took off, fleeing into the night, crashing downhill. She figured their odds of escaping
the FARC were at least as good as hers.
Wary of being followed, Lucy kept the flashlight off. She gripped the pistol hard, drawing courage from the hard metal against
her slippery palm.
The trail, subtly illumined by moonlight, rose sharply. With every arduous step, the temperature seemed to plummet.
Delayed shock made Lucy tremble, made her legs wobble. Dear God, she’d done it! She’d escaped her captors! Now all she had
to do was withstand the cold long enough to find the radio station perched somewhere at the top of this godforsaken mountain.
“A
RRIBA IS CLOSE
,” Buitre panted as Gus hauled him in his wake along the dark, winding path.
Figuring the Elite Guard had noticed Buitre’s absence by now, the SEALs hammered themselves to climb four thousand feet, staying
as far ahead of trackers as possible, but they had only Buitre’s word and his fear of dying to reassure them they were headed
in the right direction.
“If we find out you’ve been lying to us, Deputy,” Harley threatened in respectable Spanish, “the lieutenant here will cut
out your tongue.”
No sooner had Harley said this than a shot rang out, not too far away. Adrenaline flooded Gus’s bloodstream. Fired at such
close range, the shots sounded like mini-explosions.
Now what?
he wondered as they all crouched and froze, alert to imminent danger.
“Help!” Buitre shouted unexpectedly. “Over here!”
Gus silenced him, slamming the butt of his rifle into the man’s thick skull. He crumpled where he’d stood, still and silent
as the SEALs awaited the fallout of his cry for help.
Another shot splintered the night.
The sound of something crashing through the woods to their right had them raising their weapons in readiness. Only a human
being—or several—blinded by the darkness and propelled by fear could make that much noise, Gus thought as the sound grew louder,
then moved past them down the mountain.
As the beings floundered out of hearing, the SEALs convened over Buitre’s unconscious body. “What do you think that was?”
Luther asked.
“People tryin’ to get the hell away,” drawled Teddy.
“Away from what? Arriba?” asked Vinny.
“What else?” Gus murmured.
“Why didn’t they use the path?” Harley wanted to know.
“Let’s just keep moving,” Luther decided. “Maybe we’ll find some answers.”
All five men looked down at Buitre.
“Would you like Vinny to bring him back?” Luther asked Gus. Vinny carried smelling salts for just that purpose.
“No,” said Gus. “Step back,” he advised. As the men scattered, he pointed his silenced semi-automatic at Buitre’s chest and
fired a round at close range, killing him instantly, painlessly. With a bitter taste in his mouth, he turned and headed up
the path, leaving the body as a warning to any who might be tracking them.
With a shared look, the others joined him.
A hundred yards later, they arrived at what had to be Arriba. To Gus’s dismay, the hostage camp stood quiet, seemingly deserted.
There was no sign of life or movement anywhere, only the sound of wire clattering in a breeze redolent with the scent of blood.
“The hostages ran right by us,” Teddy realized, flicking a pitying glance at Gus.
No!
He refused to believe Lucy was with them.
“There’s a body at ten o’clock,” Harley murmured.
Holding his weapon before him, Gus scurried toward the open gate. The crackle of a radio greeted him as he pushed inside,
his gaze fixed on the body clasping it.
Seeing that the body was too large to be Lucy, he blinked with relief, released the breath he was holding, and bent to free
the radio from the man’s lax grasp.
“
Jefe,
” said a voice, startling him. “What’s happening? We heard shots. Have you seen strangers?”
Ignoring the radio for the time being, Gus realized another figure lay prostrate within the shelter. Fear yanked his scalp
tight as he ducked inside to investigate. A gaunt rebel lay at his feet with a bullet hole in his chest and a chain around
his neck.
Not Lucy. But she had done this!
Of course, he couldn’t be certain, but it was clean and professional, just the way she’d been trained to operate. He whirled
around. “Lucy’s not here,” he murmured into his mouthpiece. Returning to the pen, he joined the others in studying the confusing
montage of footprints.
“
Jefe!
” repeated the voice on the radio. “Are you there? We are headed your way.”
Gus handed off the radio to Luther. “The Elite Guard are right behind us,” he warned.
“Lucy must have fled with the others,” Luther surmised.
“No, she wasn’t with them,” Gus insisted, knowing she would never run into the wilderness—not without him beside her.
“Then where is she?” the OIC demanded.
Gus pointed uphill. “Remember the E & E extraction point?” he asked with growing confidence.
“The summit,” Luther recalled, looking sharply uphill.
“That’s where she went,” Gus answered with heart-swelling pride. “I bet if we look, we can find her tracks.”
“Sirs, over here!” Vinny called.
The medic knelt some distance from the fence, shining his penlight at the ground. Gus and Luther hurried over.
The familiar impression of Lucy’s boots made Gus’s heart thud with joy. “This was Lucy,” he confirmed. They were so close
now. “Sir?” he added, desperate to go after her.
The OIC reflected for a moment. “Vinny, get on the SATCOM and tell the JIC we need a helo capable of landing at a high altitude
with plenty of cargo space and a second gunship for firepower support. The Venezuelans will be right behind us. I want us
off this mountain in under an hour.”
In spite of his certainty, desperation knotted Gus’s insides. The OIC had just put a timeline on finding Lucy.
Don’t let me down, Luce,
he thought.
This is my last chance to save you.
L
UCY FOUND HERSELF STANDING
on a windy slope with nothing but coarse, low-lying shrubs and spiny blades of grass, all lit by a full moon.
Following an hour of arduous climbing, she had arrived at the mountain’s alpine crest, where arctic conditions stunted the
vegetation. It had been so long since she’d seen the entire sky stretched from one horizon to another that she halted with
amazement, letting its vastness overwhelm her.
I’m free!
she marveled, dazzled by the brightness of the stars.
The sight of her breath crystallizing in the air jolted her into action.
If she didn’t find the radio station tonight, she would freeze to death. Setting her sights on the mountain’s luminous twin
peaks, she climbed over thatch and thorny briars, searching for the elusive station.
A glint of a solar panel drew her gaze to a radio antenna raking the night sky. Beneath the antenna, she made out a door,
built into the face of walled cave. She stumbled toward it, conscious of an insidious weakness invading her limbs.
Not much longer,
she assured herself. A pale line of light shone beneath the door, beckoning her with the promise of warmth and relief from
the numbing wind. She prayed the SEALs’ intel was accurate and that the station was minimally protected.
Checking the chamber in the pistol, she realized she had only three bullets left. Without the gun, she was as weak as a kitten
and equally defenseless.
Putting her ear to the door, she willed her ragged breaths to subside, blew a warm breath on her frigid fingers, and listened.
The muted tones of meringue music struck a discordant note. Someone coughed. Stretching a hand to the sturdy latch, she was
relieved to find it unlocked.
On the count of three,
she told herself, clenching her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.
One.
Two.
Three!
