his rifle and marched through the knee-high grass to join Marquez inside the building.
Relieved that she hadn’t been overtly threatened yet, Lucy gave in to her shaky knees and sank gingerly down on the soft grass, bearing her weight on her good hip. The others followed suit, their gazes fixed on the sky for the arriving helicopter.
Where are you, Gus?
He’d warned her that if anything should happen to him, she should find water and follow it down the mountain to await rescue by the Navy SEALs. But she was already down the mountain, so now what? All she could do was to continue as a participant in the hostage exchange and hope she would be allowed to leave without incident.
But how was she supposed to leave without Gus? Partners weren’t supposed to abandon each other.
Just keep your head in the game, Luce. Keep vigilant.
She knew to expect the worst. At the same time, she had a job to finish. She had sworn to herself she would get the hostages home, one dead, one alive. Whatever happened, she was obligated to fulfill that promise.
IN THE TIME THAT IT TOOK to retrieve his jacket from the river, where it had snagged on the branch of a fallen tree, the voices calling for Gus had faded.
Throwing himself down on the muddy riverbank, he used the knife still in his pocket to shred the jacket into strips, his movements precise and calm, a result of his training.
Inwardly, his heart was screaming at him to hurry.
In seconds, he had fashioned booties to protect his feet, already bruised and bleeding from the short distance he’d walked. The sturdy canvas would offer moderate protection, at least. To keep himself camouflaged, he draped his head with the remaining material and resumed his chase, moving stealthily upriver.
They couldn’t have gotten too far ahead of him, he assured himself.
Nor did he blame Fournier for abandoning their search. The UN team’s priority today was to make certain the exchange took place the way it was supposed to. Come what may, they had to meet the helicopter at the airfield. That was the agenda.
It was Buitre’s agenda that worried Gus now. No doubt he hoped to prevent the map, or knowledge of the map, from escaping. In order to do that, he would try to kill Lucy next. Too bad the information had already been disseminated and decoded. The FARC didn’t stand a chance.
But that didn’t increase Lucy’s odds any.
With a fierce grip on the knife, Gus cut diagonally through the jungle, hacking at branches and vines to save time. Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. Thorns and spines scratched his bare arms, drawing blood. Mosquitoes swarmed him.
When he stumbled across a path lined with fresh prints, he nearly wept with relief. Now he could cover ground faster.
The booties lent him both stealth and speed. He raced down the path, confident of his ability to catch up. Already the sun was edging toward the mountain’s peak. Shadows crept like mercury up the trunks of trees. Gus ran faster, nearly plowing into the squad of rebels meandering up the trail ahead of him.
With a jolt of adrenaline, he darted off the path, hiding behind a bush, slowing his heavy breathing. Goddamn it! What were David and his squad doing coming back this way?
“But why would we kill him?” Estéban was asking. “I like Gustavo. He helped to repair our shelter.”
“He is a spy,” insisted David in a torn and emotional voice. “And so is Luna. They are both spies.”
Oh, shit, thought Gus. If the four kids caught sight of him, they apparently had orders to mow him down.
At that very instant he heard in the distance the whop, whop, whop of an approaching helicopter. The exchange was about to go down in a location not too far from his hiding place.
But until these kids moved past him, he was pinned down, forced to hold perfectly still, ignoring the mosquitoes swarming him. Goddamn it!
“THERE!” FOURNIER CRIED, pointing as a Red Cross helicopter burst into view from behind the mountain with a reverberating crescendo. The UN team members, who’d come to their feet at the first hint of its approach, waved a frantic greeting.
Lucy’s eyes stung at the heartening vision of a red cross emblazoned onto the sides of the reconditioned Huey UH-1 Iroquois. If Gus were safely with her, she would get satisfaction out of watching its tail flare, watching the grass ripple like rings on the surface of a disturbed pond as powerful