Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

P inned on an ATV between Gallo and the driver, Maggie digested her circumstances. How had this happened? She’d been about to clamber onto the Red Cross helicopter, her heart ripped in two by the necessity of leaving Jake behind. Next thing she knew, a burst of gunfire erupted. She’d been hit so hard she’d blacked out. She awoke to Gallo prodding her with the toe of his boot.

Then?—horror of all horrors?—the Venezuelan capitán who’d recognized her, after all, was gripping her face and scrutinizing her features with those reddish-brown eyes she’d never forgotten. He’d nodded, identifying her as the same spy who’d been caught and left to die in the weapons depot in Maiquetía, two years earlier.

This has to be a nightmare .

But it wasn’t, not when she could feel and smell every detail of her environment. As they bumped across the bridge made of split logs, crossing the same river as before but farther downstream, she thought of Jake.

He won’t be coming to my rescue this time.

Isolation wrapped icy fingers around Maggie’s heart. A sob choked her. Jake was gone . She was being driven up the mountain she had hoped never to see again, being led to her death.

Higher and higher they fishtailed, pressing deeper into the vegetation, past the shipment of hidden weapons, past Ki-kirr-zikis , where Rojas’s tower jutted up through the canopy, past the site of the mudslide where she and Jake had realized their sat phone needed drying out?—coming, at last, to the brick casita , where she and Jake had spent their final days and nights together. It felt like he should be here, but he was gone.

As they rolled to a stop by the door and the motor cut out, the second ATV carrying the Venezuelan rolled up next to them. Capitán Vargas?—his name floated up from buried memories. Only Marquez was no longer in the vehicle with him. The driver must have dropped him off at Rebel Central to apprise General Rojas of their accomplishment.

Gallo dismounted first before tugging on the chain, forcing Maggie to step off. All the strength had leeched out of her. One look at the Venezuelan’s brutish expression and she knew: This was not going to end well. He was going to want to know who she really worked for. How did a payroll secretary working for the National Venezuelan Army suddenly become a peacekeeper working for the UN? All Maggie could do was deny they had ever met.

She’d endured mock torture during her training at The Farm. She’d been deprived of water, roughed up, screamed at, and even waterboarded. But the knowledge that her torture wasn’t real had kept her calm and in control.

She wasn’t remotely in control now, as Gallo shoved her into the dwelling. And with Jake gone, the only force left in the universe who could protect her now was God.

David’s last words to her tolled in her head. “Pray, se?ora, that he is well.” She would be praying for herself now.

Seated with his back to the same tree he’d hugged earlier, Jake remained motionless all through the rest of the afternoon until nightfall. As the sun sank in the western sky, El Castillo’s shadow fell over him before moving inexorably eastward, devouring the cinder-block building, the field of grass where the Venezuelans had hidden, crawling all the way to the line of wax palm trees on the other side, and up the face of the mountain opposite, until darkness covered everything.

Lena.

Just imagining her torment in that moment, he rocked himself and groaned. He’d been afraid something awful like this might happen. His job was to protect her. Yet, here he was far away from her, barefooted and weaponless. Only God could protect her until his Team got here. Hands gripped together, Jake pressed his forehead to his knuckles and begged for God’s mercy.

“I told you this already. My mother is Venezuelan. I’ve never lived there.”

“Liar.”

As Vargas expelled his foul breath across her cheek, Maggie turned her head as far as the metal collar around her neck permitted.

The fire Gallo had built when they first entered the casita had died to embers, their only source of illumination. In the dim light, Vargas’s face resembled that of a gargoyle.

“You were there in the warehouse in Maiquetía, you and that other white woman with the boy. You think I would forget your face, your eyes? Hmm? Who do you work for?” He repeated the question he had asked a dozen times, tugging on her hair so hard that her ponytail came undone, and her raven hair spilled over her shoulders.

Maggie ignored him, sinking deeper into herself, falling back into memories of Jake and her running through the rain, kissing at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Gallo muttered with annoyance at their lack of progress. “It’s growing late. Let’s just leave her tied up and go to sleep.”

“No! I will get the truth out of her yet.” Grabbing her wrists, bound with the fiber cut from one of the hammocks, he hauled her arms over her head and strung her up on an L-bracket, still screwed into the rafter, a remnant of the cocaine processing days.

Maggie found herself on her toes. The new position made it hard to get enough air in her lungs to feed her thundering heart. Now what? As her pants slipped low over her hips, she feared they would strip her naked, and worse.

“What’s this?” Gallo lifted the hem of her T-shirt, causing her to realize with a stab of fear, that he’d discovered her festering incision.

“It’s just a cut. It’s infected.”

Vargas edged Gallo aside and prodded the wound with his filthy finger. “Does this hurt, se?ora?”

Maggie hissed in a breath at the searing pain.

He laughed maliciously and poked her again. “Tell me who you really are, and I’ll stop. Wait…” His fingers stilled over her angry flesh. “There’s something in here, under her skin.”

Gallo snickered. “It’s probably bot fly larva. They lay their eggs in human flesh.”

Even through her fear and pain, Maggie registered the seriousness of her situation. If Capitán Vargas found the tracking device…She might vanish into the vegetation never to be seen again.

“No, it’s hard, like metal or plastic?—oh, I know.”

The change in his voice and the flash of certainty in his eyes raised the fine hairs on Maggie’s forearms. No, please. Not this.

“It’s a tracking device. Watch and see.”

The tip of a blade sank into her skin. Spots swam before Maggie’s eyes as she held her scream locked inside. She needed more air! He dug deeper and the dark patches in Maggie’s vision spread until they ran together. Darkness claimed her, bringing sweet oblivion.

Standing on the doorstep, David listened to the two men inside chortling. The evil tenor of their voices struck fear into his heart. Whatever they were doing to Madeleine, it was his fault. He put a shaky hand to the latch and scrounged for the courage to interrupt.

David’s regret over sharing his suspicions with Gallo had grown into self-loathing. Padre Josué had urged him to warn the French couple what he’d done, only David had been too cowardly. When Jacques had been dumped in the river and David witnessed the Frenchwoman’s grief, he’d realized he was the one who had murdered Jacques. And now, because of David, Madeleine was being mistreated by the very leaders David had looked up to.

Give me courage, Se?or .

With that prayer, he thrust his way into the casita , drawing up short as Gallo and the Venezuelan captain spun around in surprise. The blood on Vargas’s hands sent David’s horrified gaze to the limp woman hanging from a hook by her bound wrists.

Gallo stalked toward him. “What are you doing here?”

David blurted the lie he had practiced. “I was sent by General Rojas to ensure the captive doesn’t sicken.” Glancing back at Madeleine, he was shocked to see a gaping cut on her hip, blood streaming over her low-hanging pants. What had they done to her? “The general says she is valuable and must not die like the last hostage.” He held his breath, awaiting Gallo’s reaction.

“Hmph.” Gallo sneered and looked back at his friend. “That’s Rojas for you, always milking the capitalistas for money. I guess he wants to ransom this spy. Show David here what we found beneath her skin.”

Holding up his bloody fingers, the Venezuelan approached close enough for David to see what looked like a pill doled out by modern doctors. “What is it?”

Vargas’s yellow teeth appeared in an evil smile. “A tracking device. With this, we can trick whoever comes for her and kill them all.”

The words flooded David with horror. Worse and worse.

Gallo clapped him on the back. “So, you were right, David. She is a spy.”

Did that change anything? David had left his studies at La Universidad Nacional de Colombia to fight on behalf of the indigenous poor, believing the FARC represented his people. From what he’d seen so far, that wasn’t always the case.

“If she is a spy,” he reasoned carefully, “then she is even more valuable. She can’t be left bleeding like this. Take her down, and I will tend her wounds?—as Rojas commands,” he added. How long before his lie was discovered, before he himself was punished for his deception?

Gallo scowled, muttering something David was happy not to hear. It was clear these men had planned to inflict more punishment on the woman.

The mondo thrust a knife at him. “Here. You cut her down. She’s your problem now. Tomorrow, we take her to Arriba to join our other hostages.”

Accepting the knife, David digested this dismaying news. He’d only been to Arriba and to the radio station once, prompted by curiosity to see how far Padre Josué had to walk beyond the waterfall to reach his destination. The Americans were gone from there, but the three JUNGLA hostages whom the UN leader had expected to be released, likely still remained there, starving and sickening. How would David keep Madeleine from being chained there alongside them? He didn’t have that kind of influence.

One moment at a time said a voice in his head. For now, David’s priority was to comfort the woman whose misery he had thoughtlessly instigated.

Shrouded in the dark of night, Jake sat with his back to the same tree, unable to close his eyes even for a second without being tormented by visions of what Lena had to be suffering.

He had prayed for her protection until his chest felt like it was turned inside out. Keeping his ears pricked, he listened for the distinctive flutter of the MH-6M Little Bird light assault helicopter likely coming to support him, but all he could hear was the sonata of nocturnal insects and, once, in the distance, the distinctive roar of a jaguar. Was it the same one who’d looked him in the eye?

With every beat of his heart, Jake willed his teammates’ arrival. What was taking them so long?

Worry kept his muscles locked and aching. After staring so long into the night sky hunting for the Little Bird’s shape against the charcoal clouds, his eyes ached. Just when despair was about to claim him, a flurry erupted overhead. Relief broke over him like a sunrise, and he jumped to his feet, only to stumble as his battered soles protested.

The silhouette of the blacked-out mini helicopter, with special operators perched on its running boards, descended from the sky and nestled almost silently onto the same field that had hidden the Venezuelan Army hours earlier.

With a fervent word of thanksgiving, Jake hobbled toward the helo as his teammates, wearing helmets with their night-vision goggles lowered to look for him, slipped off the running boards and started in his direction. Behind them, the helo lifted off again, leaving to await further orders.

As the first man approached him, he raised his NVGs, revealing bright-blue eyes and a face covered in black greasepaint. “Sir, you hurt?” Harm grabbed Jake’s arm, looking him up and down.

“No, but I lost my boots.”

“Can you walk?”

“Barely.”

“This way.” Harm forced him into a trot that sent shards of pain up his legs.

In the cover of the trees, well away from the cinder-block building, the SEALs all came together?—Harm, Lobo, Bambino, and Zen.

As they crouched in a tight circle, Lobo took charge. “Fill us in, Jake.”

“The FARC have Lena.” Fear turned his voice to sandpaper. “One of the Venezuelans came across our path and recognized her from the warehouse in Maiquetía”?—he nodded toward Bambino and Harm?—“where we extracted her a couple of years back. But the FARC were already suspicious. They had us walk across a rope bridge that came apart while I was still crossing it. I lost my boots and the sat phone in the river, but at least they think I’m neutralized. We need to get to Lena before they kill her, too.”

Lobo dropped his gaze to regard the tattered remnants of Jake’s booties. “Bambino, take a look at his feet.”

As the soft blue beam of the medic’s penlight shone in the inky darkness, Jake sank onto the ground to show his soles to the medic. “I’m fine. All I need is boots.”

Given the sudden silence, Lobo hadn’t considered that possibility. Bambino snapped open the kit he carried, then set about cleansing Jake’s lacerated soles. It was all Jake could do not to betray his discomfort as Bambino poured a burning liquid over his soles.

Lobo scowled at Jake’s feet. “You need to be medevacked.”

“No.” Jake had known those words were coming. “I’m Lena’s partner, and I’m not leaving her here. Just get me some new boots and gear, and I’ll be good to go.” Hearing desperation in his voice, he snapped his mouth shut.

“We heard she was shot at.” Harm’s deep voice could not have sounded more gently apologetic. “Maybe dead.”

Jake turned his head to look at him. “You heard that already?”

“The UN team touched down in Bogotá just as we were leaving, delaying our departure. We heard all kinds of strange reports.”

Jake shook his head. “Whatever you heard was wrong.” He briefly summarized the FARC and Venezuelan’s clever duplicity, how they’d dressed themselves like the JUNGLA in order to sway public opinion against the Jungle Company and garner sympathy for the FARC. “We need to set the record straight. But first we’re going to rescue Lena.”

Lobo heaved a thoughtful sigh. While his preference to evacuate Jake was obvious, he couldn’t dismiss his peer’s wishes out of hand. “Zen, get on the radio and have the Little Bird deliver boots and gear for Jake, ASAP.”

“Size thirteen,” Jake inserted.

“Yes, sir.”

As Zen pulled the high-powered sat phone from his vest and raised the antenna, Lobo shrugged the pack off his back and produced a rugged laptop. While it booted up, Harm thrust an energy bar at Jake. “Here, have some caffeine, sir.”

“Thanks.” Keeping one eye on Lobo’s laptop, Jake wolfed down the snack, marveling that anything could taste so good. With a few keystrokes, Lobo brought up a 3D topographical graph of El Castillo. Realizing the blue dot halfway up its east side showed Lena’s location, Jake’s stomach lurched. He swallowed his food through a constricting throat.

Lobo worked the screen, homing in on her location and reading the results. “According to GPS, she’s approximately seven klicks from here, due northwest, at an altitude of four thousand feet?—looks like the same location you were both at for days.

“The casita? ” Picturing Lena there without him made his chest hurt.

“Yeah. As soon as your boots and gear get here, we’ll go after her. Depending on the situation, maybe we can ambush her captors and extract her on a SPIE rig.”

The Special Patrol Insertion/Extraction rig could be lowered by a larger helicopter than the Little Bird. The rig went straight through the forest canopy to lift people out as a group, each of them clipped to a sturdy D-shaped ring.

Lobo made rescuing Lena sound like a walk in the park, which it wouldn’t be. Still, compared to what she had to be enduring, the SEALs had the easier job, no question.

Just keep her alive, Father. Please keep her alive.

Am I dead?

Roused by the closing of the door, Maggie willed away the sluggishness that weighed her down like a heavy blanket. Her eyes opened to a familiar ceiling, patinaed by the first suggestion of sunrise shining through the four screened windows. She was lying in her hammock in the casita . Dare she hope the awful memories spurring her heart into a gallop were all a dream?

As she pushed onto one elbow, hoping to see Jake’s hammock next to hers, metal bit into her neck and pain lanced her hip. So, not a dream. Gallo had shackled her with Jay Barnes’s chains, and Vargas had used his filthy knife to pry the microchip from her flesh.

Sinking back into her hammock, Maggie willed unconsciousness to claim her. But the silence in the casita suggested she’d been left alone. Would Gallo and Vargas really leave her here? Wait, someone else had joined them last night. Ah yes, her unlikely savior, David.

She remembered rising to consciousness as he sawed away at the hamak fibers keeping her strung up and helpless. He’d been standing on a chair, and when the bindings gave way, they’d both nearly hit the floor as he struggled to catch her.

After that, he’d helped her into a hammock where she’d floated in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware that he was tending the gaping wound left by Vargas. Behind him, she could hear the Venezuelan and Gallo making plans as they boiled rice and beans for their supper.

When she’d roused to awareness later, David had vanished. Feigning sleep, she’d watched Gallo and Vargas eat, petrified that they would attack her without David there.

But then he’d returned, whispering, “ Tranquila, se?ora.” He’d laid cool, wet leaves on her hip, then brewed her a tea and urged her to drink it. The pain had lessened immediately, and she’d grown sleepy. All the while, David stood over her, speaking a mix of his mother’s indigenous tongue and Spanish. It took her a while to recognize that he was praying.

“Thank you,” she’d whispered. He’d quite literally saved her from degradation and more torture. But death was still coming. There was only so long the slightly built squad leader could defend her against his murderous superiors.

The light in the windows told Maggie it was morning. Gallo and Vargas had just left?—that must have been what woke her. Where would they be going this early? To speak with Rojas?

No. A chill washed over her?—oh, she knew where. Armed with her tracking device, they were going to lure her rescuers into a trap. Hadn’t she heard them planning such a strategy the night before?

Alarm made Maggie’s heart pound, which caused her wound to throb. Jake’s SEALs, who were doubtless on their way, would track her down by her microchip and fall squarely into an ambush. In the meantime, she would have to save herself, to flee from this place before the villains returned.

Braced for pain, Maggie sat up cautiously. The chain attached to the collar that gouged her chin gave a musical jingle before pulling taut and halting her movements. The end of it was padlocked to the metal ring that held up the end of her hammock. She wasn’t going anywhere.

A dark lump on the ground drew her attention as it unfurled. “Se?ora!” It was David, shaking off the blanket in which he was wrapped and clambering to his feet. “How…how do you feel?”

All she could do was stare at him. How do I feel? Jake was gone. And for the foreseeable future, she was now a captive of the FARC.

Her gaze slid to David’s ancient AK-47, still lying on the floor at his feet. She licked her dry lips. “Do you have the key to unlock me?” Her voice was hoarse from screaming when Vargas took his knife to her hip.

David’s rounded eyes communicated pity. “No, se?ora. I’m sorry. Gallo has the key.”

Her gaze fell to the rifle lying at his feet. “You could shoot the padlock with your weapon.”

He shook his head with lament. “My rifle doesn’t fire, se?ora. It’s only for show.”

Maggie just blinked at the bitter irony of a rebel’s weapon not firing.

“Do not be afraid. I will protect you.” He ruined the assertion by swallowing hard.

Maggie squelched the unkind urge to laugh. How could this young man possibly protect her, apart from keeping her well? “Where did Gallo and Vargas go?”

David hesitated. “I really don’t know, se?ora.”

He was an awful liar. She could tell by his tone alone those two were out setting a trap for her rescue party. An overwhelming lethargy had her sinking back into her hammock.

With Gallo and Vargas in possession of her tracking device, Jake’s teammates would never think to look for her here. The only thing they might recover was Jake’s body, downriver somewhere. Loss sucked her into despair’s muddy undertow.

Oh, Jake . I’d give anything to see you again.

By the time Jake’s boots and gear arrived, the sun was beginning to rise, brightening the sky from black to pewter. They’d waited for three agonizing hours, toward the end of which Lena’s tracker began to move, suggesting she was being relocated. As her altitude climbed, Lobo suggested what Jake didn’t want to accept: the FARC’s newest captive was being taken to Arriba .

Soon, the SEALs might know exactly where the third camp lay.

It was not the Little Bird helicopter that brought Jake’s gear but a Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk that thundered into the valley at dawn. Lobo had made a quick and smart decision. Instead of chasing Lena all the way up the mountain by foot, which would have taken the better part of a day and added the risk of running into more FARC, they would fly up the mountain to within five kilometers of her location and drop in via a SPIE rig.

That was how Jake found himself dangling in the air over the clouds that ringed the upper half of El Castillo. Hovering in the thick white veil, the Sikorsky lowered them through the clouds, through a canopy of evergreens, totally unlike the trees that grew at lower elevations. The chilly mist dampened Jake’s camo-blackened face as he and his teammates brushed through fragrant boughs, then touched down, one by one, onto a carpet of pine needles, where they detached themselves from the rig. Branches stirred over their heads as the SPIE rig was raised, returning to the helo hovering high above them.

Jake looked around, disoriented. He’d never been this far up the mountain. Was this where Arriba lay? The stunted, moss-covered trees looked nothing like the El Castillo he was acquainted with. He felt like he’d dropped into a Lord of the Rings movie. Moss grew up the sides of the gnarled and twisted trees. The mist kept him from seeing more than fifty feet in any direction.

As he rallied up with his peers, Jake could tell the air was thin by how fast his heart was beating. They all crouched around Lobo, pausing to catch a collective breath while their OIC consulted his laptop.

“We’re five klicks away, but she’s not moving anymore.”

Foreboding skittered over Jake’s scalp. That didn’t mean she was dead, he assured himself.

Lobo pointed out the direction they should take. “Let’s go.”

Half an hour later, they came across a trail with fresh tracks on it. Jake tried to tell if the imprints in the dirt looked like Lena’s.

Harm held up two fingers. Lena and one captor, then. Or two captors carrying Lena between them.

Lobo checked his laptop a second time. With a start, Jake realized they were practically on top of her location. Raking the eerie, misty surroundings, he tried sensing her proximity. The hairs on his nape prickled.

Lobo shut his laptop and signaled for them to separate and surround their target. Each man set off on his own, just fifty yards or so from his teammates. Forming a loose net, they would close in from all sides.

Jake cradled his M4 assault rifle, ready to flick off the safety at a moment’s notice as he waded stealthily uphill. His new boots weren’t just blessedly padded, protecting his feet, but they were designed not to leave discernible tracks.

As he climbed the steep, spongy grade, he queried his uneasiness. This forest was too quiet. Surely, howler monkeys lived at this altitude, but if they were here, they were mute. Even the birds were silent. A rumble of thunder portended rain. Maybe it was the weather keeping the animals listless.

What did it mean that Lena wasn’t moving anymore? Either she was dead, or she was chained up in a hovel nearby, unable to move. Another possibility popped into his head, causing him to halt abruptly. He depressed the button on his inter-team radio, then spoke into it quietly, with the sense that someone could hear him.

“Lobo. What if she’s not here? What if we’re just following her tracker?”

Given Lobo’s silence, he didn’t like that suggestion. Obviously, if they were following her tracker, then this was a trap.

Jake’s scalp tightened. Movement in his peripheral vision had him jerking his rifle in that direction. Shadows shifted within the mist. The silhouette of a deer had him releasing his held breath. “There’s a small herd of deer at my three o’clock.”

Four does and a fawn picked their way through the forest right where Lena was supposed to be.

The explosion that shattered the quiet knocked Jake to his knees. Stunned, it took him a second to realize what had just happened.

One of the deer had stepped on a mine. The memory of Gallo training the younger rebels how to bury explosives flashed through his head. This whole area was probably riddled with mines. This was a trap!

Dirt and lichen were still raining down on Jake when Lobo issued the order to retreat. Pushing to his feet, Jake wasted a moment trying to find his tracks. His high-tech boots were suddenly a liability.

There . The impression of his boot on a carpet of moss sent him in the right direction. He wouldn’t blow up if he followed his own tracks.

Gunfire rent the air without warning.

Jake spun behind the closest tree. Bark sprayed his helmet as a bullet came within inches of striking him. The shot had been fired from higher ground.

Chief Harmony was the first to respond, retaliating with his .50-caliber sniper rifle, laying down enough heat for Jake to push off the tree and race downhill.

“Fall back.” Lobo’s ultra-calm order was echoed by the BOOM! of a hand grenade detonating feet from where Jake had just stood. Its blast propelled him so swiftly downhill, he grabbed at branches to slow his descent. Half-leaping, half-sliding behind the next big tree, Jake returned fire at the muzzle flare brightening the mist uphill. Now it was Harm’s turn to fall back.

Moving with surprising grace for a muscular man, the bald chief bounded past him. In that same instant, Jake’s rifle jammed. Not now!

With Harm left vulnerable, Jake gritted his teeth, set the safety, and shoved the charging handle forward. Working a finger into the front edge of the bolt, he forced it rearward. As the problematic round fell free, he thumbed off the safety and proceeded to fire. But a bullet cracked through the air before he got a shot off, flinging Harm to the ground.

Mallacht air! Jake spewed rounds to make up for his lapse. A gargle of agony up on the ridge assured him he’d hit a target, but with Harm on the ground, dragging himself to safety, it hardly felt satisfying.

Jake toggled his mic. “One tango down. Harm’s been hit. Bambino, get over here.”

“On my way.”

The gunfire from the ridge above abated. Keeping a sharp eye out, Jake prayed the firefight was over. Even so, he laid up a wall of fire to cover Bambino’s approach. The young medic tucked in next to Harm to assess the chief’s wound.

Distracted by Harm’s injury, Jake kept his eyes peeled, but the ridge, still veiled in mist, remained quiet. He could hear Bambino tearing into his medic kit and overheard Harm’s growl of frustration. The sound of someone moving up on the ridge marshaled all of Jake’s attention. Through the veil of mist, he thought he saw a figure drift away.

In the next instant, Lobo slid in next to him, still breathing hard. “What happened?”

“My rifle jammed. Harm took a bullet.”

“Where are the shooters?”

“Not sure. I think one is down and the other might be flanking us. I saw him head that way.” Jake pointed.

Lobo patted his shoulder. “Keep watch.” Tabbing his mic, Lobo ordered Zen to follow him as they went after the squirter.

Jake scanned the impenetrable mist, ready for an ambush. Would one shooter be dumb enough to take on a squad of special operators? Or would he just hurl a grenade at them and be done with it?

Overhearing Harm’s groan of discomfort, guilt burrowed into Jake. The chief had married Emma not too long ago, adopting her three young sons. To think Harm could’ve been killed all because Jake’s rifle had jammed. Stuff like that happened. It wasn’t like Harm was going to blame him, but why now, when finding Lena was the top priority? They didn’t need this!

Twenty minutes later, Lobo reappeared, as stealthy as the wolf he was named for. “There’s a dead tango on the ridge, Venezuelan by the name of Vargas if he’s wearing his own uniform.”

Satisfaction took the edge off Jake’s frustration. Now, there was one less threat to Lena. Lobo checked on Harm, then returned and crouched next to Jake. The apology in his jungle- green eyes made Jake fear the worst. “Harm’s losing blood fast. I’m calling for hot extraction.”

In other words, they were leaving ASAP.

The blood drained from Jake’s head to his pounding heart. “ No. I’m not leaving Lena alone out here. Go without me. I’ll be fine. I’ll be your eyes and ears on the ground.”

Compassion softened Lobo’s hard features. He pitched his voice lower. “Look, I get it. She’s your partner, and your job is to protect her. But the FARC and the Venezuelans know we’re here now, which puts us in a defensive posture. We’re not going to find Lena that way, not without her tracking device.”

Jake couldn’t accept the words coming out of Lobo’s mouth. “I’m not leaving her alone.” He spoke through his closed jaw.

His peer regarded him with rising frustration. “We’re a team, Jake. We don’t operate this way.”

Jake’s eyes burned as he held Lobo’s stare. “She’s my partner. She and I are a team on this assignment. I’m. Not. Leaving. Her. Here.”

Lobo’s mouth firmed. “You know I’ll take the blame for your decision.”

“Then tell Commander Strong I went AWOL. I don’t care.” His future in the Teams wouldn’t matter anyway, not if Lena vanished from his life. She was the reason he was a SEAL and a SOG in the first place.

With a shake of his head, Lobo seemed to accept Jake’s decision. “Fine. But we’re not leaving you without our SERE kits and whatever arms and food we can spare. You could be stuck here a long time.” He pushed away from the tree, leaving Jake to his thoughts.

A sense of calm stole over him, even as he kept a sharp eye out for the remaining tango. He didn’t have to leave El Castillo. With supplies and weapons, he’d be fine out here. Hadn’t he emerged from survival training in the jungles of Panama with mere cuts and bruises? It wasn’t himself he was worried about. Lena was the one truly in peril here . God have mercy on her.