“And the shooter in the trees? The one who is silent now?”
“He’s had plenty of opportunity to hit us, but hasn’t. I don’t think he’s a risk to us.”
The old man rose and straightened his back with a wince.
After the passengers, Miguel turned his attention to the wounded men. One had a bullet in his thigh, the other in his right arm. He pointed to the one with the injured leg.
“Did you get a look at the sniper? He must be in those trees on the far side.” Miguel couldn’t remember the soldier’s name. He was a black man, about twenty-one, from the hills of Tennessee. This was his first special forces assignment. Miguel liked him, and was glad to see he’d survived the gunfight.
The man shook his head. “I could see his muzzle fire, but not him. He’s in the trees, about even with that twisted palm.” The man pointed to a palm at the side of the path and about twenty yards away. Vines covered every branch, pulling the palm sideways. “He has a perfect view of the path, not that he needs it. Jesus! That dude could shoot, couldn’t he? Did you see that grenade go right over those guys’ heads into the copter?”
Miguel nodded. “Not a man to mess with.”
“Who is he?”
“I have no idea. Problem is, he could be a cartel junkie not happy with the guerrillas infiltrating his neighborhood, a northern paramilitary guy, also unhappy, or a member of the secret police.”
“If he’s police, why don’t he come out and introduce himself?”
Miguel shook his head. “There’s a rumor that some have contacts with the paramilitary groups. He could be moonlighting for them and may not want us to know who he is in case we meet him during his ‘day’ job.”
“Ain’t nothing easy here, is there?” the man said.
“Not a thing,” Miguel replied.
43
EMMA LOOKED AT THE SKY. “I’D SAY IT’S ABOUT FOUR O’CLOCK. Ask Maria if Rodrigo comes in the night, and does he come alone.”
Vivian nodded. “He comes only at night, and usually with his lieutenant, a man called Alvarado. They check on me, and sleep in that hut.” She pointed to a hut located dead center in the semicircle.
“Tell Maria that Rodrigo is injured, but I don’t think he is dead.”
Vivian translated.
Maria sucked in her breath. She spoke to Vivian in rapid Spanish, punctuating her words with arm gestures. Her agitation was clear.
“Maria says that if the man is not dead, then the village is in danger. The man threatened to kill all the children unless we cooperated. She asks that you find the man who injured Rodrigo and ask that he kill him.”
“I am the one who injured Rodrigo. Believe me, I was trying to kill him, but I had thirty other guerrillas to deal with, and Rodrigo managed to slip through my fingers.”
Vivian stared at Emma. “You fought thirty guerrillas?”
“Vivian, I had a gun. It wasn’t like we were in hand-to-hand combat.”
“Forgive me for saying this, but I always heard that Americans were a violent lot.”
This from a Colombian? Emma thought. She shook her head. “We can debate the relative merits of our two societies later. Tell Maria that I won’t leave the children to be injured. She should take them into the jungle while I wait for Rodrigo.”
“And when he comes?” Vivian said.
“I injured him. I’ll kill him.”
Vivian blinked.
Emma looked at Maria. “When do the village men return?”
Vivian translated and Maria spoke in rapid Spanish. She kept shaking her head.
“She says we cannot depend on them to save us. They are so afraid of Rodrigo that she doubts they would help us attack him.”
“So we’re on our own. Fine. Let’s get moving. We need to set a trap.”
“What do you have in mind?’
Emma reached the fringes of the jungle and started picking through the foliage. She found several sticks sturdy enough to do the trick. She handed four to Vivian.
“Please ask Maria for two knives. She needs to help us turn the end of these sticks into points.”
Two hours later, Vivian, Maria, and Emma stood around the pit in the center of the hut. They’d placed the sticks in the ground at the bottom, points up.
“I tell you, before now I never gave a thought to a sharp stick. Now I seem to be the queen of them,” Emma said.
“It is a classic trap, is it not?” Vivian said.
“Yes, it is. But”—Emma turned to look at the entrance to the hut—“we need to make this door open inward.” She analyzed the door frame.
Vivian looked at the deepening shadows all around them.
“Emma, I don’t think it’s possible to do this in the time we have remaining. We would need to rehang the entire door.”
Emma looked at it with a critical eye. She had to concede Vivian’s point.
“What are you trying to do?” Vivian said. “Is the trap not enough?”
Emma shook her head. “There is no way he will just step into that hole. Someone has to wait until he gets close and then push him into it. That means that someone must be hidden inside. If the door swung inward, you could hide behind it.”
Vivian gave a worried look around the clearing. “Emma, I think you worry too much. You have the rifle. You will shoot him as he steps into camp.” She snapped her fingers. “Poof! End of problem.”
Emma gnawed on a hangnail. “I only have four rounds and I’m an awful shot. You say you are worse, and Maria refuses to touch a gun. This is a backup plan if the shooting goes south.”
Vivian patted Emma on the back. “Then it will not go south, eh? Because I tell you, if you do not get him, I will. Even if I have to rip him apart with my bare hands.”
Emma rolled her shoulders, where an ache was forming. “Maria told the children to hide? Did she tell them what to do if we all end up dead?”
“We will not end up dead, Emma.” Vivian sounded determined.
Maria said something to Vivian, who laughed grimly.
“Maria says that if I do not kill him, and you do not kill him, she will ask God to kill him.”
Vivian and Emma looked at each other.
“She’s going to end up in heaven, and we’re going…” Emma didn’t want to finish the sentence.
“To hell,” Vivian said.
“Bad place to be. He’ll be there,” Emma said.
“But I’ll be with you, and together we will be his worst nightmare.”
Emma laughed for the first time in days. After a few seconds, Vivian joined her.
Their laughter ended when Alvarado stepped into the camp. He stopped cold when he saw Vivian, Maria, and Emma. His paralysis didn’t last for long. He pulled his gun off his shoulder. Emma’s gun sat in the center of the village, next to the fire pit. There was no way she could reach it in time to save them.
“Run!” Vivian shrieked the word. Emma spun backward to head to the woods. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Vivian and Maria dodge into the prison hut. Alvarado sprinted straight for the hut. He charged into it at full speed. Emma heard a howl, cut short.
44
MIGUEL RAN, LEADING THE SMALL GROUP IN THE SPRINT OF their lives. He heard the report of the still-firing helicopters and the occasional explosion of a grenade.
Miguel held the soldier with the injured leg over his shoulder. The man groaned.
“Shit, Major, that hurts like a bitch,” he said.
Miguel ignored him. His goal was to save the man’s life, not necessarily his leg. The man moaned as his injured leg bobbed against Miguel with each step. The soldier felt like a lead weight on Miguel’s back. The group spread out according to their ability to continue the pace on the slick path.
When Miguel had first ordered the passengers to run, the old man had said, “Is running required?” When told that it was, he had sighed.
Now Miguel was surprised to see that the old man was not the slowest by far. He outpaced one much younger man and two women.
They ran quietly, most too exhausted to even grumble about being driven to and fro on the path. By eight o’clock, the sun had burned off the mist and the heat had risen to over eighty degrees.
Kohl carried Drake, another soldier, and jogged next to one named Washington, who had jerry-rigged a splint for his leg that allowed him to move with enough speed to keep up. They turned a corner in the path.
“Well, look at that.” Kohl pointed. A can of Coke, dented and rusted, sat on the dirt. He pulled his leg back to kick it.
“Stop!” Miguel said.
Kohl froze, his toe mere inches from the can.
A man stepped out of the jungle, twenty feet in front of Kohl. In one hand he carried an AK-47 with an attached grenade launcher, and the other was wrapped around Boris’s collar. Miguel raised his rifle, but the old man reached over and placed a hand on his arm.
“Don’t shoot, it’s Señor Sumner!”
Sumner looked at Kohl, still poised over the can. “I recommend you listen to your commander over there and avoid moving that can.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the trigger for a pressure-sensitive land mine.”
A passenger gasped and several moved away from the can.
“How do you know?” Kohl said.
“I devised it.”
“Works for me,” Kohl said. He lowered his foot and stepped carefully away. He hefted Drake higher on his shoulder. “I’m Private Gabriel Kohl. Why the can as a trigger?”
“You ever walk by a can you didn’t want to kick?”
Kohl looked sheepish. “I guess not.” Then he brightened. “Hey, Boris. You okay, boy?”
Boris wagged his tail.
Sumner watched Boris and raised an eyebrow at Kohl. “You know this dog?”
“He’s a land-mine-sniffing dog we borrowed from the Colombian military.”
“That explains a lot. He’s saved my hide three times in the past few hours.”
Sumner sauntered over to Miguel and stuck out his hand.
“Cameron Sumner, Air Tunnel Denial program.”
“Major Miguel Gonzalez, special operations.”
Sumner waved a hand at the Coke-can mine. “How’d you clock it?”
“I’ve seen the technique used during an operation in Lebanon.”
Kohl stepped up to Sumner. “Is Ms. Caldridge with you? Is she okay?”
Sumner went still. “How do you know about her?”
“We…”
Miguel waved at Kohl to silence him. He saw the emotion that rippled over Sumner’s face at the mere mention of Ms. Caldridge. He didn’t want Kohl’s enthusiasm for her to rub Sumner the wrong way. The last thing he needed was a man as skilled as Sumner pissed off.
“She sent a text message after the flight went down. Then we found another note hidden in her suitcase, and the passengers told us what happened at the watchtower.”
Sumner seemed to accept this explanation. “I don’t know where she is. After we burned the watchtower, helicopters came. I used the grenade launcher while she ran.”
“Was she okay?” Kohl said.
Sumner gave Kohl a measured look. “She was angry. Very angry.”
“How angry?” Miguel said.
“Rodrigo escaped. Instead of getting the hell out the area for her own safety, she insisted on burning down his checkpoint.”
“Do you blame her?” Kohl said.
“I don’t blame her, but I tried to talk her out of it. She has no time to waste on revenge if she wants to survive this mess. And if she gets her wish and has an opportunity to kill him in cold blood, it will haunt her the rest of her life.”
“Maybe not. Maybe it will free her. I mean, maybe it will be…what’s the word?” Kohl said.
“Cathartic?” Miguel supplied.
Kohl snapped his fingers. “Yeah, that.”
“It won’t,” Sumner said.
“How do you know?” Kohl said.
“Because I’ve done it.”
45
“WERE YOU THE ONE SNIPING AT THE HELICOPTERS?” MIGUEL pointed at Sumner’s rifle with the attached grenade launcher.
“I was.”
“That was some shootin’, mister.” Washington piped up from his seat at the edge of the path.
“Thank you.”
“How many were left when you were done?” Miguel eyed the sky, as if he thought the copters would suddenly reappear.
“Two, but there’ll be more. Those were Cartone cartel guys, along with some guerrillas. Those groups never get along, but here they were actually cooperating. Do you have any idea why?”
“Do you know anything about this area?”
Sumner nodded. “We’re fairly close to the pipeline now. Once we get within five miles of it, this jungle is going to be swarming with guerrillas of every shape and size. Their soldiers are good, but they’re high on drugs most of the time, so don’t expect anything like rational behavior. What about the special forces there? Are they still guarding the pipeline?”
Miguel shook his head. “Not likely. Last I heard the Colombian government asked them to leave.”
“Asked them to leave? Why?”
“When your plane was hijacked, the U.S. suspended aid to Colombia unless the Colombian president agreed to extradition.”
Sumner got an enlightened look on his face. “So that explains the fighting. The Cartone cartel and the paramilitary groups hope to put an end to the crisis and restore their sweet deal with the Colombian president?”
Miguel nodded. “Something like that. The FFOC and Rodrigo’s group are fighting back.”
“And we’re stuck in the middle,” Sumner said.
“Hopefully not for long. I expect some more rescue helicopters in three hours.”
The group marched forward. Boris loped between Sumner and Miguel. Sumner spelled the passenger and carried the injured soldier. Miguel carried Drake.
“This guy’s leg looks bad,” Sumner said.
“He’s not the worst. Drake here is. He hasn’t woken up at all.” In the distance came the drone of helicopters.
Miguel looked at his watch. “Shit, we’re late.” He stepped onto the path and waved the flagging passengers forward. “Let’s go. That’s our ride!”
Washington hobbled forward. “We gotta run. I am not missing that train.”
A Blackhawk extraction helicopter appeared above the path. Miguel’s phone crackled to life.
“Major Gonzalez?” The man spoke in a thick southern accent.
“I’m here. Come on down and pick up these civilians.”
“There’s a clearing one hundred yards north on the path. We’ll put down there. But you better make it quick. There are three enemy copters behind us, and they’re all headed this way. These guys are better armed than most military bases.”