Show No Fear - By Marliss Melton Page 0,27

you’re talking about,” she muttered, turning away from his astute gaze. What was he implying—that she’d been emotionally damaged by the bombing, too? Hell, no. The CIA’s psych staff would have caught that years ago.

To her relief, he dropped the subject and concentrated on getting dressed.

Lacing her boots up tightly, Lucy left their cubby without a backward glance.

God, she was hungry!

“Luna!” Hours later, Gus found her squatting in the drizzle behind the bungalow trying to coax one of the fat chickens out from under the building.

“What?” Their midday meal of rice and panela had scarcely taken the edge off her hunger. Low blood sugar made her cranky. He was better off leaving her alone. “Here, chickie.” She made kissing sounds that caused the bird to cock its head. She had to know if it was hiding an egg under its fluffed-up feathers.

Between Gus’s suggestion that she was running from something and the Venezuelan slang word that had popped out of her mouth earlier, she was feeling like a failure. And failure in any way, shape, or form was not an option.

Gus pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” he urged. “We’ll find you something to eat in the jungle.”

How could he tell she was ravenous? “We can’t just leave, can we?” She cast an anxious glance toward the camp.

“Fournier’s napping, and Buitre’s busy,” Gus reasoned.

It was anti-American hour on the radio. The deputy sat in his quarters with the radio blaring out of his window so the younger rebels could listen to a ranting Cuban speak of matters few of them understood. “I want to call the JIC,” he added in her ear. “Come on. Let’s go.”

She responded at once to the call for action. With her fingers linked in his, she let him lead her into a steeply descending forest. Vegetation swallowed them. The patter of light rain drummed the canopy, drowning out the radio. Within minutes it felt like they were miles from the camp, when they couldn’t be more than a hundred feet away.

“Are you sure you can find your way back?” she asked, disguising her rising anxiety.

“I’ve been marking our path,” he assured her. “Like this,” he said, bending a low-lying branch as they passed it. “Every time you go into the woods I want you to do the same thing,” he urged.

Lucy cast her gaze upward into the spiraling trees. She could feel dozens of pairs of eyes on them, monkeys, no doubt, hunkered in the branches overhead, subdued by the rain.

Putting his back to a tree, Gus reached for his left boot. With a twist and a click, he opened the hidden compartment and pulled out the sat phone. Lucy kept a sharp lookout as he dialed the JIC.

“You should tell me the number,” she whispered, “in case something happens to you.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he insisted ultra seriously. “I put them on speed dial, number seven.”

Lucky number seven, she thought as a droplet of water coursed down her spine, giving rise to a shudder. Her stomach rumbled. Where out here was he going to find any food?

His soft swearword had her glancing at him sharply. He was scowling up at the leafy dome overhead. “This is a dead zone,” he explained, putting the phone away. “Come on.” He led her deeper into the forest.

Some distance later, he stopped and tried the phone again.

“Anything?” she asked, her stomach churning.

“Nada,” he retorted. “Maybe the canopy is too thick for the sound waves to penetrate.”

“That’s not good,” said Lucy.

“No, it’s not,” he agreed as he grimly put the phone away. “Let’s find something for your hip.” He drew her toward a thick vine dangling from an immense height and plucked a leaf off it. Tearing it in half, he squeezed a clear liquid from it. “Rub this on your incision,” he said, handing it to her.

He watched as she lifted her jacket and tugged her T-shirt from her pants.

“What is this?” she asked, smearing the leaf’s juice over her incision, only to suck in a sharp breath.

“Wild grape. It has antiseptic properties.”

“No shit,” she breathed, wincing as it stung the open wound.

“Memorize the shape of the leaf,” he said, snapping off another for her inspection. “See how distinctive it is? It grows all over the place. Do this every time you take a potty break, and the wound should heal.”

“Got it,” she said, growing annoyed with his detailed instructions. Her stomach growled again. “Can we find something to eat now?” she pleaded.

He swept a