corner where Gus had painted that vision of them on a tropical beach enjoying their honeymoon. Her heart clutched with longing at the vision of them, and with remorse. She’d give anything to be there now!
As Buitre looped the end of her chain over a peg on the wall, Lucy sucked in shallow breaths. This was it. Her recurring nightmare was about to become a reality. It would likely take hours for Gus and his SEALs to rescue her. The only thing that would see her through till then was her will to resist.
Pausing before her, arms folded across his chest, the captain stroked his chin. Light from the single window fell across his face, illumining his thin moustache, his hooded eyes with their sparse lashes. “I will prove to you that she is lying,” he promised Buitre.
AT THE EDGE OF THE LANDING FIELD, seated with his back to the kapok tree, Gus watched as the mountain’s shadow expanded, swallowing up first the cinderblock building, then the airstrip. Thinking of Lucy and what she had to be enduring, he groaned and rocked himself.
He’d feared it would come to this. From the day they’d been given this common assignment, he’d dreaded the thought of Lucy coming to harm on his watch. It wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d sworn himself to protect her, to bear the brunt of the danger so she wouldn’t have to.
But somehow his best efforts had backfired, and there was nothing he could do about it, not until his teammates got here.
At any moment they would arrive, he told himself. But the seconds dragged into minutes and minutes into hours, and still his only companion was his unforgiving conscience.
He’d told her he would be right behind her.
“IF SHE IS A SPY,” the Venezuelan captain continued, sliding a demoralizing look down Lucy’s body, “she will be carrying a tracking device, in which case her government will find her if we do not act swiftly.”
Lucy’s heart thudded at the accuracy of his statement. A clammy sweat enveloped her.
“Undress her,” he commanded of Buitre, and panic streaked through her, causing black spots to swim before her eyes.
Buitre reached for her and she knocked his hands away, her thoughts racing to find a solution to her predicament. If she could just slow the hands of time until Gus and the SEALs came for her.
“Tie her hands if she won’t cooperate,” the captain suggested, his gaze intent upon her face. She was certain he could see her fear, smell it.
“I’ll undress myself,” she offered. “I have nothing to hide.”
He gestured elegantly. “Go ahead.”
Heart pounding, Lucy stalled, removing each button of the jacket with painstaking care.
“Faster!” ordered Buitre, who watched with rabid hunger as she reluctantly dropped her jacket on the floor.
“Now the shirt,” purred the captain, enjoying the show.
She’d stripped to her underwear at the start of the journey. This was no different. At least, that was what she told herself as she raised the T-shirt over her head, stringing it on the length of chain that ran from her neck to the peg above her head.
If the right moment presented itself, she could snatch her chain off the peg and run for the door. Only how would she flee quickly carrying twenty extra pounds around her neck?
The captain slanted a knowing look at Buitre. “Did you not consider that the wires in her bra might transmit her location?” he mocked.
Shocked, Buitre eyed Lucy’s black satin bra with a frown.
“Remove it,” insisted the captain. Lucy balked, drawing deep breaths to keep down the tide of fear constricting her airways.
In a quick move that revealed little more than a flash of pale skin, she shimmied out of the bra and jerked the T-shirt back on. “Here,” she said, tossing it at the captain. “You will see there is nothing in the material but wire. I told you, I work for the United Nations. You have me confused with someone else.” Having outsmarted him, triumph fizzed in her briefly.
“There is no mistake,” the captain assured her calmly. “Cut this open,” he said, handing her bra to Buitre. “Tell me what you see.”
Approaching Lucy, he stabbed her with a ruthless gaze. “I remember you from the ware-house in Maiquetía,” he murmured, causing every fine hair on her body to prickle with alarm. “You were spying then. You are still spying.”
Lucy held his gaze defiantly. “I am not who you think I am,” she retorted convincingly.
His slap came out of nowhere. One minute he was standing there