Show No Fear - By Marliss Melton Page 0,40
he’s terribly ill. Cranial malaria, I think.”
Jesus. Lucy fought to keep her reaction from showing. The distress in Jay’s voice made her chest tight, made her eyes sting. She longed to reassure him. Jay, it’s me. We’re gonna get you out of there, I swear it.
“Can Mr. Howitz speak?” Fournier inquired.
“Uh, yeah. I’ll hold the radio for him.”
“Hello? Mr. Howitz?”
An unintelligible grunt followed.
“Are you Mike Howitz?” Fournier asked as every team member strained to hear the man’s reply.
“Yes,” rasped a voice.
Lucy cocked her head, sending Gus a frown. It didn’t sound like Mike.
“Mr. Howitz, my name is Pierre Fournier. I’m with the United Nations. Can you tell me where you’re from?”
“Los Angeles,” rasped Howitz.
With hope in his gray eyes Fournier nodded encouragingly. “Can you tell me the date of your son’s birthday?”
A muffled whisper followed the question.
“Mr. Howitz?” Fournier repeated.
“Mikey,” breathed the ill man on the other end.
“Yes, when is Mikey’s birthday?” Fournier repeated.
A long pause ensued. Either the man was too ill to remember, or—“February 3rd,” he wheezed at last.
Fournier cut Lucy a frown, meant to chastise her for getting the date wrong.
No. Lucy shook her head. Mikey’s birthday was December 8th. She was certain of it.
Across from her the Argentine appeared to be meditating.
“Have any doctors tried to treat you, Mr. Howitz?” Fournier asked with grave concern.
“They gave me pills,” the man corroborated.
Lucy closed her eyes to conceal her sudden dismay. Whoever was pretending to be Mike Howitz was not a native English speaker. He’d pronounced pills as peels. That meant Mike was either too sick to talk or he was dead.
But Fournier, who spoke with an accent himself, couldn’t hear that subtlety. Carlos caught his eye and vehemently shook his head. “He is not American,” he mouthed.
“Thank you, Mr. Howitz. May I speak, again, with Mr. Barnes?”
“Basta.” growled the voice of the jefe, hostage boss. Enough. “Your time is up.”
The radio in Fournier’s hand emitted a low hiss. He lowered it to the table, swallowed hard, and looked up at the others with a sad, troubled gaze. “I’m afraid we may assume Mike Howitz is dead, or too ill to speak at all.”
Shocked and horrified, Lucy slowly lowered her eyes to the radio. Mike had been so full of life, always grinning, full of jokes, up to any challenge. Apparently, being held against his will, in a jungle rife with disease, was just too much.
She thought about his eleven-year-old son, and his beautiful wife, and her throat constricted. Life—or was it death?—was so fucking unfair, stealing away the most precious people.
Lucy lifted an accusing gaze toward the Argentine. “Did you know anything about this?” she demanded, fighting to contain her runaway emotions.
“No,” said the man tiredly. “They tell me nothing. I travel from one camp to the other bearing offers to Rojas and counteroffers to you, nothing more.”
“Where are the hostages kept? Have you heard anything?” asked Carlos, ever mindful of Lucy and Gus’s objective.
“I believe they are kept at a remote camp,” Álvarez replied, darting a quick, frightened look toward the door. Leaning in, he pitched his voice lower to add, “I’ve heard rebels whispering of a place called Arriba, up there.”
Remembering the place on the map marked with an X and nothing more, Lucy cut a glance at Gus.
“Sounds like it’s near the mountaintop,” he mused, ignoring her look.
Bellini sat forward. “How does the death of one of the hostages change our situation?” he asked in awkwardly phrased Spanish.
Fournier frowned. “It gives us the advantage, actually,” he admitted, slowly. “Clearly they were hoping to pass some other hostage off as Mr. Howitz, only we are not fools, are we?”
He focused a compassionate eye on the Argentine. “Tell Commander Rojas that because we have no proof of life for Mike Howitz, we are unable to fulfill the FARC’s demands. General Gitano will never be released in exchange for a single hostage and a dead man. If Rojas is wise, he will accept the Colombian government’s offer to release ten FARC captives of midlevel authority instead.”
Álvarez rubbed his closed eyes. “Ten guerrillas for one U.S. hostage,” he mumbled. “Sounds fair to me.”
Lucy dragged air into her pressured lungs. At this rate, negotiations would continue indefinitely. And Jay would be left suffering in the meantime, not knowing if he would be rescued or if he, like Mike, would sicken and die. “Plus the body of Mike Howitz,” Lucy suggested thickly.
“Yes,” the Frenchman concurred, sliding her a look. “We must bring him home, dead or alive.”
Mike was dead. Dead.