the brick casita, where he and Lucy had spent their last nights together.
Along with night-vision goggles, each man carried an MP-5-SD, silenced versions of the classic semi-automatic machine guns. Harley and Haiku, sniper and scout respectively, had rifles mounted with night-vision scopes.
In new boots that cushioned his soles and left barely discernable tracks, Gus tackled the steep terrain with singleminded determination. The protein bars he’d consumed while waiting for his gear countered his flagging energy levels. He had to get to Lucy before they broke or killed her. Anything else was unacceptable.
But what if they showed up too late? His mind refused to accept that as a possibility.
“Alpha squad, rally up.” The OIC’s whispered command cut through Gus’s ragged-edged thoughts.
The SEALs came together in a circular, protective position, dropping to their knees and raising their visors, two by two, to consult the laptop.
Lieutenant Lindstrom’s sudden frown, illumined by the soft-glowing screen, made Gus’s stomach knot. “She’s moving,” the OIC announced, swiveling the laptop so they could all take a look.
Sure enough, Lucy’s microchip was traveling in a northwesterly direction, away from Ki-kirr-zikiz, headed dead north.
No! Gus inwardly raged. “How fast are they moving?” he wanted to know.
“Almost seven klicks an hour.”
That fast? They would never catch up before dawn. The longer Lucy remained a hostage, the more traumatized she would be. “Fuck!” he raged, his temple throbbing.
Four sets of eyes jumped up to regard him with compassion and apparent willingness to fight, not just for Lucy, but in retaliation for the thousands of hostages the FARC had seized throughout the decades.
“Where could they be taking her?” the OIC wondered out loud. “None of the camps lie in that direction, at least not according to the map you uploaded.”
Gus had to swallow to find his voice. “Arriba,” he said hoarsely. “Maybe they’re taking her to Arriba. That’s where the other hostages were kept.”
With a thoughtful look, the OIC closed his laptop. “Let’s move,” he said, simply.
COLD WATER SPATTERED LUCY’S FACE, rousing her from a blissful well of unconsciousness. She sputtered and jerked awake, only to be skewered by sharp, insistent pain radiating from her lower back.
Buitre’s scarred face swam into focus as he bent over her. Her gaze flew to the only window, where golden light flooded in, letting her know that it was morning. She’d been lying on the dirt-packed floor unconscious for half the night.
And Gus hadn’t come for her.
The realization ripped through, testing her faith that he was still alive. What if he was dead or injured and alone in the jungle? Surely she would sense it if something awful had happened to him.
In the same instant, memories of the prior evening raked her tender consciousness. Inflicting agony, Captain Vargas had dug in her hip for the microchip until she’d passed out cold. She assumed he’d found it and cut it out. She couldn’t remember.
She felt desecrated, violated, numb. A glance back at the ravaged flesh on her hip made her head spin. Dried blood encrusted the material on her trousers, but at least she still wore them. That wouldn’t be the case, would it, if they had raped her?
“Get up, puta,” ordered Buitre, removing the belt that kept her wrists tightly bound. Blood surged into her freed arms and sent fire licking toward her fingertips. As he yanked her to her feet, pain knifed up one side of her back.
“Time for you to go,” Buitre informed her. “Dress quickly,” he commanded, thrusting her jacket at her.
Lucy weaved on her feet but refused to move. Gus couldn’t be dead.
“Now, puta!” Buitre roared, startling her from her shock.
With awkward fingers and hampered by the pain in her hip, she buttoned her jacket mechanically, donned her mutilated boots, and tied them.
Cool, wet air roused her briefly as Buitre pulled her through the door. Only one other rebel stood outside—David, who glanced at her quickly, then averted his eyes.
Where had Captain Vargas gone? she wondered absently.
But then a thought—both terrible and wonderful—had her tripping over her own feet. The captain might have taken her microchip to lure her rescuers into a trap. That would explain why neither Gus nor his teammates had come for her. It wasn’t that he was injured or dead. He simply had no way of knowing where she was. Oh, God. Without the microchip, she had vanished into the mountain mists, just like Howitz and Barnes before her.
CLOAKED IN A THICK MIST, with Haiku on point, the SEALs crept along the steeply ascending path with renewed stealth.