are welcome to all of it.” Keeping one hand in the air, he grubbed in his pocket with the other while Lucy swallowed convulsively, battling to bring her panic under control.
Greedy for Gus’s cash, the driver held out a hand to take it. If Lucy had blinked, she would have missed what happened next. Under the guise of handing over his wallet, Gus broke the driver’s nose and snatched his gun away. With a scream, the driver doubled over, blood gushing through his fingers. Removing the clip from the man’s pistol, Gus dropped it on the floor of the car. He reached across Lucy to open her door, but she was already halfway out of it, adrenaline rocketing through her system, accompanied by the cowardly urge to run like hell.
Get a grip! she scolded herself as Gus grabbed her elbow and hustled her along the crumbling sidewalk. With a glance over his shoulder, he tossed the gun over a high wall.
“Damn it,” he said, sounding only slightly irritated, “now we’ll definitely be late.”
“Not if we run,” she urged, sounding shaken. What was wrong with her? A little show of hostility and she was falling apart. But the violence had been so startling, bringing back memories of being on the receiving end. Her heart was hammering. She was breathing too fast. She couldn’t afford for Gus to notice, either, or he’d find a way to leave her behind.
“Running will tear your incision,” he argued.
“We can’t be late,” she insisted. “Come on!” She urged him into a quick trot, and, almost immediately, her agitation subsided. Fueled by adrenaline, she flew along the sidewalk, scarcely hampered by the boots she would wear into the jungle.
Beside her, Gus easily kept pace as they raced in silence, down dark, deserted sidewalks, past storefronts whose doors and windows were barred by gates of steel. A light drizzle began to fall, dampening their clothing. At last, the lights of the hotel twinkled up ahead of them.
One block from the hotel, they slowed to a walk, catching their breath before pushing into the lobby through the revolving front doors.
Four middle-aged adults rose from the plush seats as they entered, flushed and damp. The silver-haired gentleman with patrician features glanced at his watch.
Carlos stepped forward to pull them over. “You’re late,” he scolded, tempering his impatience with concern. “I was beginning to worry.”
“Our mistake,” Lucy apologized, mindful of keeping Gus’s Spanish to a minimum. “We took the TransMilieno and got off at the wrong stop,” she added, smiling cautiously at the others.
“Well, you’re here now,” said Carlos. “Everyone, this is Luna de Aguiler and Gustavo, her husband. Luna works in my office in New York. Her husband is a human-rights officer also stationed in New York. Luna, Gustavo, this is Pierre Fournier, our lead negotiator.”
“A pleasure,” Fournier asserted, shaking Gus’s hand first. He held Lucy’s hand for an extra-long moment. “I was in New York last year. I don’t remember you,” he said, sounding puzzled.
Lucy’s skin seemed to shrink. “I must have been out of the office,” she agreed.
Carlos introduced Bellini next, an effusive Italian who bestowed three kisses on Lucy’s cheek and apologized—ironically—to Gus for his wretched Spanish.
S¸ ukruye Kemal, a Turkish woman in her midfifties, had worked for the Turkish Red Cross for twenty years before transferring to the UN. She was small and dark, with a compassionate gaze, and Lucy hoped the woman was tougher than she looked, or the rigors of the jungle would cripple her.
“Come,” said Fournier, gesturing to the hotel’s restaurant. “Let us dine in style tonight. Who knows when we may enjoy fine food again?”
Hours later, Lucy stood under a scalding shower, paralyzed by anxiety. Fournier had stared at her hard all evening. Visions of La Montaña loomed like a dark cloud in her mind. And her cowardly reaction to the taxi mugging filled her with self-doubt. What if her PTSD was here to stay?
She couldn’t let Gus see her like this.
And yet Gus was part of the problem. He was the one who continuously fed her fear, implying that she was somehow on a quest to destroy herself. And then there was her shattering awareness of him. She would have to share a bed with him and, at the same time, maintain her professional edge, which was being called into question anyway.
Fed up with her anxiety and the realization that she was dawdling, Lucy shut off the shower and got out. Coiling her damp hair in a towel, she exited the