L
ucy’s muffled cry came just in time to keep Gus from suffocating her.
“Lucy!” His hoarse, spontaneous use of her name made him even angrier.
Jesus!
He whirled her around, put his nose to hers, and ground out, in Spanish, “Don’t you ever sneak up on me like that!”
He could feel her heart hammering against his chest as fast as his own heart was racing. She shoved him with two hands, securing
her freedom. “Why the hell did you sneak out without me?” she demanded.
“Because two of us would’ve been heard. We’ll be lucky now if we’re not caught,” he answered furiously.
“Oh, yeah? So much for teamwork,” she hissed.
“You were finally sleeping. What was I supposed to do, wake you up?”
“Of course.”
Damn her, she was right. They were professionals first.
“Where’d Buitre go?” she added, peering around.
“I don’t know. He headed up the trail alone with a rifle and a lantern.”
“Did you find anything?”
“A map and a dagger,” he confirmed, patting his thigh. “Come on. We need to leave.” They’d stayed too long already. “I’ll
go first. When it’s clear I’ll give a whistle.” Without thinking, he planted a distracted kiss on her lips. “Sorry,” he muttered
as her eyes widened in surprise.
With a self-directed grimace, he let himself out, slipping from the building into a distinctly brighter environment. The jungle
quivered with birdsong and monkeys leaping through the branches. He crossed the compound casually, heading toward a clump
of trees where the men were known to relieve themselves.
The coast looked clear. Giving a low whistle, he ducked behind a bush and watched as Lucy stepped from Buitre’s hooch. At
the same moment, a rebel rounded the long lean-to under which the soldiers slept. Shit! It was David. He spotted Lucy at the
same time that she spied him. To her credit, she didn’t stiffen or flee. Setting her shoulders, she bore right down on him.
When caught red-handed, go offensive.
Lucy had acted on her father’s advice more than once over the course of her career, and it had always paid off.
“Where is Buitre?” she demanded, stalking up to David while gesturing with annoyance at the empty hooch. “The Turkish woman
has a fever, and I need the aspirin he took from my backpack. Where is it now?”
The suspicion that had creased David’s brow eased. “Your goods belong to the people now. I’m sure your aspirin was handed
over to one of our doctors, who will distribute it equitably,” he said quietly.
“Equitably?” She propped her hands on her hips and sent him a dubious smile. “You mean everyone gets the same treatment?”
“Yes,” he insisted. “We are all equals. No one person should have more than another.”
“What about the hostages,” she inquired sweetly. “Do they get aspirin, or are they not considered people?”
He opened his mouth to defend his ideals, realized she had found a flaw in them, and closed it.
Didn’t think so.
“So, there’s no aspirin here.”
“No,” he said with a shrug.
“No medication of any kind.”
“Sorry.”
She heaved a long-suffering sigh. “All right, never mind.” With that, she marched straight for the bungalow, hoping Gus had
witnessed the encounter. Maybe it would erase any lingering doubts he still had about her.
Lucy Donovan could handle even the slipperiest situations.
“Hurry up,” Lucy urged. “Show it to me,” she added, casting a glance behind them as they slipped into the forest on a potty
break. They weren’t being followed. Both the rebels and the UN team were still finishing their breakfast. Gus and Lucy had
a minute to themselves.
“Ten more yards,” he answered, holding her tightly as they scrambled down the steep, wet slope. At last he pulled her behind
a tree, withdrew a folded square of paper from his pocket, and handed it to her. While Lucy opened it, he fished the sat phone
from his boot.
She eyed the crude ink drawing with puzzlement. “These must be the names of the camps,” she determined, noting the words written
over four X’s. “
Ki-kirr-zikiz,
” she pronounced slowly. “Do you think that’s an Incan word?”
“Doubt it,” said Gus. As he powered up the sat phone and waited, his look of hopefulness faded.
“No signal,” Lucy guessed.
“No,” he corroborated.
“So if it’s not Incan, what is it?
Cecaot-Jicobo,
” she added, making a face at her poor pronunciation of a second camp.
“I think it’s an encryption,” he said shortly.
She glanced at him sharply. “Really?” she asked, intrigued. Looking back at the names, she tried to see a pattern in the strange
words but couldn’t. “I wonder if that’s the river we crossed,” she mused, noting the drawing of a waterfall.
“You can’t make that assumption. There’s water all over this mountain,” Gus refuted, angling the phone in the chance of getting
a signal.
“How come this camp’s not named?” she wondered, pointing to an X near the top of the mountain.
“I don’t know,” said Gus, giving up on getting a signal. “Maybe that’s the radio station.” He accessed the phone’s internal
camera. “Hold the map against the trunk so I can get some clear shots.”
“How can we upload pictures without a signal?” she asked, holding the map against the tree.
“We can’t. The pictures won’t go anywhere till we can get coverage.”
“Do you think they’re worried that we haven’t checked in?” she asked as he snapped off several close-ups.
She
was getting anxious. Their assignment wasn’t exactly going according to plan.
“As long as they have us on radar and we’re moving around, they won’t worry,” he assured her, stepping back. “Fold that up
for me, will you?” he asked, bending to put the phone away.
“When are you going to shred it?” she asked, folding it the way he had.
“Not until I know the JIC got the pictures. I may have to break the code myself.”
Remembering how incredibly smart he was, Lucy gave him a nudge. “You can do it,” she said with confidence.
“Thanks,” he said, quirking her a smile as he struck the heel of his boot, shutting it. “We’d better get back before we’re
missed.”
When a shout came out of the jungle hours later, Lucy’s first reaction was relief. She hadn’t agreed to this assignment just
to sit around and wait for something to happen. The morning had been a lesson in boredom. At last, there came a distraction.
But the rebels responded with alarm. The youth manning the machine gun let loose a stream of bullets that sent leaves and
bark flying. Lucy hit the dirt, just in case.
Buitre flew at the youth, shaking his fists in the air and roaring for him to stop.
One minute Gus was playing cards with Carlos and Bellini in the shade of the orange tree. The next he was hauling Lucy off
the ground and pulling her behind the brick hooch, where he pinned her between the wall and his bigger body.
A taut quiet fell over the camp. Even the chickens seemed to listen. As Gus peered cautiously around the corner, Lucy eyed
the pulse in his powerful neck. Having a partner wasn’t all that bad, she reflected. This defensive positioning wasn’t necessary
in her opinion, but it was fun dodging bullets together.
“Who is it?” she asked, reading puzzlement in his golden-brown eyes.
“I don’t know.” He loosened his grip so she could see what he was looking at.
A band of men in solid green fatigues led four mules into the clearing.
“I hope that’s food,” said Lucy, eying the sacks on their backs.
“Check out their uniforms,” urged Gus. “Those aren’t FARC.”
“Then who are they?”
“I don’t know. ELN, maybe?” Colombia’s National Liberation Army was a notorious rebel faction, smaller than the FARC but equally
ruthless.
They watched as Buitre waved his own soldiers over to take the sacks and carry them to the kitchen lean-to that housed the
cooking utensils.
“Why doesn’t he just bring the mules over?” Lucy asked.
“Good question. Maybe he doesn’t want us rubbing elbows with those guys. Let’s see what happens when we wander closer,” he
proposed, grabbing her hand.
Together they walked toward the newcomers.
They hadn’t made it past the fire pit when David stepped into their path. “Stay back,” he warned as he lowered a sack marked
“
Frijoles Negros
” onto the growing pile inside the lean-to. Black beans.
“Perhaps we can help,” Gus inquired. “I can carry two at once.”
Rebels ran back and forth, huffing and puffing under their fifty-pound sacks.
But David just shook his head. “No,” he insisted. “Stay over here.”
“Who are they?” Lucy called as David turned away. “Are they ELN?”
With a resolute set to his shoulders, the youth ignored her and plodded back to the mules.
In minutes, the foodstuffs were all unloaded and the little entourage turned and melted into the forest, leaving Gus and Lucy
with more questions than answers.
That afternoon, Comandante Marquez returned with the Argentine.
As with the previous day, the UN team and the FARC’s representative sequestered themselves in Buitre’s quarters, where the
droning generator muffled their conversation.
Occupying the same seats, they looked expectantly at the Argentine, who seemed to have aged overnight. He’d grown a prickly-looking
moustache. Beads of sweat glimmered on his brow.
“Rojas’s camp is a three-hour hike,” he explained, wiping his brow with his sleeve.
Lucy slid a glance at Gus while wondering which camp on the map was three hours from this one.
“I have brought proof of life,” Álvarez declared, withdrawing two wrinkled letters from his jacket and handing them to Fournier.
Bellini jumped up to snap on the tarnished brass lamp, which he positioned nearer to the table, and the Frenchman began examining
the evidence.
“These appear to be authentic,” he murmured with a frown, “but we will decide as a group.” He passed one letter to his right,
the other to his left.
When the letter from Jay Barnes fell into Lucy’s hands, a dark, somber emotion smothered her. Given the water splotches and
the smeared ink, it was obvious Jay had been suffering when he wrote it. It was addressed mainly to his bride, whom Lucy had
met several times at embassy socials.
Jay’s distress at being kept from her, deprived of human liberties, and cut off from civilization summoned oppressive feelings.
Disguising her distress, she pointed out to Gus the phrases that offered references to time, and Gus nodded.
Barnes was hoping to be released by Independence Day, ten months and eight days from the day he was kidnapped.
When the second letter made its rounds, Lucy leaned on Gus’s arm, struggling to decipher the poorly written message. The difference
in Mike and Jay’s tones was striking. Mike was less coherent, his letter an outpouring of grief and depression. He mentioned
an illness, but he made no reference to time other than to lament having missed his son’s ninth birthday.
“When was his son’s birthday?” Gus asked, looking around. “Does anybody know?”
“December 8th,” said Lucy, earning surprised glances. “I did my homework,” she defended herself with a shrug.
“The date on this letter is May 15th,” Gus noted.
“Would he still be dwelling on that six months later?” S¸ukruye asked.
“Can I see the letter?” Taking it from Gus, Lucy angled it toward the light. “Someone else wrote this date,” she declared,
handing the letter back to Fournier. “They didn’t even use the same pen.”
Fournier frowned at the letter. “It looks the same to me,” he said, passing it to the others.
“I agree,” said S¸ ukruye.
“No, I think Luna’s right,” Carlos countered, looking up from the date. “The ink is different.”
“I agree with Carlos and Luna,” said Bellini. “Both the ink and the writing are different.”
Fournier looked at Gus for his response. “What do you think?”
Gus slid the letter back to him. “My opinion doesn’t matter. If there’s any question, then the letter doesn’t qualify as proof
of life.”
Fournier heaved a long sigh and nodded. “You’re right.” He turned to the Argentine. “I’m sorry, but we cannot accept this
letter as proof of life for Mike Howitz.”
The slim, dapper man seemed to shrink into his chair. Lucy felt sorry for him. As a pawn for the FARC, he was as much a hostage
as Mike and Jay, despite the respect with which the rebels treated him.
“If we could only see them for ourselves,” Carlos muttered, giving a push toward Lucy and Gus’s objective.
“The FARC leaders would never allow it,” said Fournier with certainty. “Would they?” he asked the Argentine.
The man shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not even I may see them.”
“What if we heard their voices?” Gus suggested.
All eyes focused with surprise on him.
“Buitre owns a shortwave radio,” he continued, nodding toward the radio presently perched on the windowsill. “There’s bound
to be another one somewhere. We wouldn’t have to see the hostages to determine who they are. Their accents would identify
them.”
Even better, thought Lucy, America’s premier spy plane, the Predator, could snatch the radio waves out of the air and maybe
pinpoint where they came from. Gus’s suggestion was nothing short of brilliant, providing the FARC took him up on it.
Fournier shot a look at the Argentine. “What do you think?”
The middleman gave a weary shrug. “All I can do is ask,” he replied. “Rojas told me to remind you of the FARC’s demands. Commander
Alfonso Gitano must be surrendered by the United States and delivered to La Montaña. Only then will the hostages be freed.”
“We will not discuss any terms until we are certain the hostages are alive,” Fournier quietly reminded him.
Álvarez ducked his head. “I understand,” he answered.
“Then we’re done for now,” said Fournier, dismissing everyone. With heavy hearts, they pushed back their chairs, resigned
to the soul-numbing task of waiting.
As they exited the building, the scent of simmering beans drew them toward the fire pit. Álvarez shared a word with Marquez,
who gestured to the cauldron hanging over the pit. “First we eat,” he declared.