Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

B y the time Maggie and Jake left the safe house, night had smothered Bogotá in total darkness, no thanks to the clouds stalled on the high plateau. Not a single star or sliver of moonlight helped to illumine their way as they wended through the suburban neighborhood, headed toward a road busy enough for taxis to frequent. A distant bell tolled eight o’clock as they flagged one down and slipped into the back seat.

In Spanish, Jake told the driver where to go. Glancing at Maggie, he transitioned to French. “You’re very quiet. Feeling intimidated?”

Even after all these years, he could read her like a book. “Why would I be intimidated when there are four operators waiting to pick us up if there’s a problem?”

Headlights from the oncoming cars spotlighted his small smile. “That’s a good point. Any one of those guys would give his life for me?—and for you.”

His words made her think of the SEAL in the news last year who’d dived into a rough Arabian Sea going after his teammate who’d slipped and fallen in. Neither man was ever recovered.

With her thoughts turning gloomy, Maggie peered out the window, hoping to recognize more landmarks. As the driver turned onto an unfamiliar road, she questioned his decision-making. Perhaps the man knew a shortcut because this was not the way she would have gone. Or maybe he was luring them into a remote spot, thinking he had two wealthy tourists in the back seat.

She called his bluff, challenging him in Spanish. “This isn’t the way to Hacienda Royal, se?or.”

At her words, Jake jerked to attention, casting sharp looks around.

“Hacienda Royal? Ah, my mistake.” The bulky driver immediately slowed down and swung his taxi nose-end into an alleyway between two shuttered buildings. As he twisted in his seat to peer out the back window, he brandished a pistol unexpectedly.

“Give me your wallets!” His eyes glittered with malice.

Adrenaline flooded Maggie’s bloodstream. Kamal’s bodyguard had that same look in his eyes before he punched her in the face. She was only vaguely aware of Jake’s reassuring squeeze telling her he would handle this, which was well and good because she’d forgotten how to breathe.

“ Tranquilo, se?or.” Jake slowly raised both hands. “I alone carry a wallet. There is not much cash in it, but you are welcome to all of it. I’m taking it out now, slowly.” Keeping one hand in the air, he reached into the pocket on his thigh while Maggie swallowed hard, battling to bring her panic under control. “Here’s my wallet.”

Greedy for Jake’s cash, the driver held out a hand to take it.

If Maggie had blinked, she would have missed the lightning-fast jab that broke the driver’s nose. In the same instant, Jake wrested away the pistol. While the driver yelped and clapped a hand to his injury, Jake put away his wallet, then removed the magazine from the gun and dropped it at their feet. He reached across Maggie to open her door, but she was already halfway out of it, adrenaline spurring her with a cowardly urge to run.

Get a grip!

Jake caught up to her before she got five yards from the car. Together, they ran away from the alley and up the quiet street. With a glance over his shoulder, Jake flung the gun onto the roof of a building next to them, then tugged her toward a covered entryway. “Let’s lie low until he leaves.” Given no one was around, he spoke in English.

“No, let’s run to the hotel from here.” The urge to flee was so strong that Maggie couldn’t hold still. Her heart hammered, and her thigh muscles flexed. It was all she could do to slow her breathing so Jake wouldn’t notice.

“Running will tear your incision.”

“Jake, I have to run.” There. She’d exposed her vulnerability.

Even in the dark, she could see him assessing her mental state. “Only a mile or two.”

“Okay.” She bolted, counting on him to catch up to her.

Once she was flying up the side street toward the wider boulevard, her panic subsided. The predictable pumping of her legs and her deep breaths lulled her back to normalcy. They sprinted past storefronts whose doors and windows were shuttered by extendible steel gates. She recognized the name of a family-run bodega. This was familiar. This was safe. Plus, she could hear Jake right behind her.

“Lena, slow down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

She ignored him, reveling in the freedom of flying like the wind along a broad sidewalk. The mist that cloaked the city kissed her cheeks before turning into a drizzle that made her thankful for her UN raincoat. Turning the corner at Carrera 6, the familiar dome of the Museo de Oro brought further reassurance. It was all uphill from here to La Candelería district twinkling dead ahead. Jake finally overtook her, catching her elbow.

“Enough running.” He slowed her into a brisk walk.

Their heavy breathing filled the silence between them, broken by the sound of raindrops hitting their jackets and occasional cars rumbling past on the paving stones. Maggie waited for Jake to bring up her overreaction to a mere stickup by a single would-be robber.

“How’s your incision?”

That wasn’t the question she was expecting. “Um…It’s been rubbing the seam in my slacks.”

He muttered a phrase in Gaelic. “I’ll have a look when we get back.”

The hotel came closer, its windows bright with lights that promised warmth and safety. At last, the lecture she’d been expecting came from Jake’s lips.

“So, I could point out that what we just faced was nothing compared to what’s coming, only I imagine you’re aware of that.”

Oh, she was well aware.

“You know, you can always say you got food poisoning at the last minute.”

She rounded on him, switching to French like the professional she was. “I’m going with you, Jacques. Howitz and Barnes were my colleagues. If this had happened five years ago, it could’ve been me who was kidnapped.”

Jake caught her wrist, tightening his hold when she made to pull away. “ Je comprends .” His gaze held hers. “I do. Look, if it makes things any easier, I’m here for you, okay? I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. It’s called teamwork, and I expect the same from you.”

Well. That made her stand taller. Squelching the urge to salute him, Maggie let his words sink into her. His assurance did make things easier. At the same time, she cautioned herself, Don’t get used to the teamwork. It’s only temporary.

“ ?a a l’air bien .” Sounds good . She sent him a tiny smile, which he returned.

“Finally. Let’s get out of this rain.”

Plagued by visions of the forbidding El Castillo, it took Maggie hours to fall asleep. Her incision throbbed, even though Jake’s stitches had held, despite their run after the holdup in the taxi. On top of that, she was hyperconscious of Jake’s presence in the bed. Following her insistence that he not sleep on the floor, he had finally acquiesced, lying upside down with his feet where his head should be. Eventually, his soft snores had lulled her into losing consciousness. She awoke to him jostling her shoulder.

“Up you get, sunshine. You’ve got twenty minutes before we meet the other members of the team.”

“Twenty minutes!” Maggie threw back the covers and scooted out of bed. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Because you just fell asleep.”

Mulling over his statement, she riffled through her pack, then marched into the bathroom with one of the two outfits she was bringing into the wilderness with her: water-resistant trousers, a lightweight T-shirt, and, of course, the boots she’d bought for her birthday in May, using the gift card her stepmom gave her.

Jake tapped on the door. “ Comment est l’incision ?”

Half dressed, Maggie turned toward the mirror and eyed the angry flesh around the stitches with a twinge of concern. “ C’est bien .” What a lie. She squeezed a thick line of ointment on it and applied a fresh Band-Aid. There were only five left in her kit, but Jake had a full stash in his.

“I hope you’re telling the truth.” He said this in English, quietly, through the crack in the door.

“I am.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t forget to take your pills.”

She shook the bottle into which she’d dumped all of her pills?—Advil, penicillin, quinine, and her anxiety prescription. “I’ll be right out.” Go away! Man, if she was craving privacy now, what would it feel like when there weren’t any walls between them?

Nineteen minutes later, they were riding the elevator to the lobby to meet the others. Maggie stole a peek at Jake. In his white rain jacket, khaki-colored clothing, and boots, he looked like a model for Outdoor Living magazine.

As they stepped out of the elevator, the small group in the lobby dressed in jackets identical to theirs made it apparent they were the last to show up. Charles caught sight of them and waved them over.

“Here you are. I thought French people were always on time,” he chided in Spanish, the team’s common language.

Maggie assessed the unlikely bunch of UN peacekeepers. If these people volunteered to trek into the wilderness, then I have nothing to worry about.

Charles introduced them to the lead negotiator first. “Boris, this is the couple I work with at the Secretariat in New York, Madeleine and Jacques Cotillard, originally from Paris.”

Tall and brawny, with a large head, the German’s hand swallowed Maggie’s as he greeted her with a polite nod and serious gray-blue eyes. “Good to meet you. Y usted también , Jacques.” He turned to shake Jake’s hand.

“Un placer,” Jake responded.

Boris took over with the introductions, turning to the petite, middle-aged woman with a thick black braid. “This is Esme Simsek from Izmir, Turkey. Her Spanish is excellent.”

The woman beamed at Maggie, clearly pleased to have another woman present.

Gosh, I hope she’s tougher than she looks.

“And this is our Italian volunteer, Leo Bellini.”

Bellini boasted a five-o’clock shadow already?—or perhaps he hadn’t shaved that morning. In his early thirties like Maggie and Jake, he divided a puzzled gaze between them.

“I was just at the Secretariat last week. I thought I’d met everyone in the Department of Peace Operations.”

Uh-oh. Caught in a lie already.

Charles intervened. “Nearly everyone. These two were on vacation?—a wedding anniversary.”

“Oh.” Bellini lit up at the news, making him quite a handsome man. “Congratulations. How many years?”

Maggie waited for Jake to answer.

“Twelve.” He said it with gentle affection while taking in Maggie’s response. “More than a decade now.”

Her heartbeat stammered. He’d given her the promise ring twelve years ago. Forcing a loving smile while tears pricked her eyes, she replied, “?Cómo pasa el tiempo!” How time flies!

Would this day never end?

Maggie caught Jake sneaking a peek at his watch. “Quelle heure est-il?” What time is it?

“Almost three.”

They’d been sitting in the back of this stuffy little van for over an hour, going nowhere. The journey to La Esmerelda was supposed to take only four hours in total, the first two of which took them northeast away from Bogotá and along the ridge of increasingly rugged mountains toward La Cordillera de los Cobardes. Maggie inwardly sneered. How apt that the FARC would hide themselves in a wilderness area called “The Cowards.”

When their rented van slowed to a stop behind a line of cars, Boris Mayer muttered something in German, then got up to query the driver in Spanish. “What’s happening?”

Maggie overheard the driver tell him there’d been a rockslide at the mouth of the tunnel.

Peering past the cars in front of them, she spotted Colombia’s equivalent of the National Guard working to clear large chunks of granite that had tumbled onto the road from the promontory looming up ahead. The tunnel beyond the pile of granite was the only way to get to La Esmerelda.

Huffing out a frustrated breath, she sat back in her seat. “Je dois aller aux toilettes.” I have to use the bathroom . They’d kept strictly to French between the two of them, a language none of the participants spoke fluently, though they doubtless understood quite a bit, especially Bellini.

“I told you not to drink that whole carton.”

Jake was referring to the carton of coconut milk she’d bought at the hotel before their departure. Maggie had figured it was just a two-hour ride from Bogotá to Barbosa, the town on the other side of the tunnel, where Boris had said they would stop for lunch.

“Not to mention it’s a laxatif .”

“Hush.” He was teasing her now, reminding her of all the times he’d made her laugh back in Paris.

“I saw a paper cup rolling around up front. You could pee in that.”

“Stop!” But she couldn’t keep from giggling.

Jake produced a little notepad and a pen taken from their hotel room. “Let’s play Kill the Man by His Neck.”

It took her a second to realize he meant Hangman. Not even she knew that word in French. “Sure.” She shrugged, eager for a distraction.

For the next twenty minutes, she tried to guess what the thirteen-letter word could be. All she had so far were vowels, and her man was about to hang. “I need a clue.”

“It’s a place we’ve been together.”

She shot him a warning look. Did he have to bring up the past? But her mind was already sifting through the place names: Versailles, Montmartre, Chantilly…“It’s Fontainebleau, where Charles is from.” A loud blare cut into her momentary victory, causing her to jump like a startled deer.

Jake put a hand on her knee. Peering out the front of the van, Maggie spotted the cause of the noise. “The road’s been cleared, Dieu merci .” Thank God.

Jake put away his pen and paper. They started moving, only to stop after a short distance. Maggie whimpered.

Jake articulated what she was seeing. “Looks like they’re checking IDs.”

Maggie groaned. The cup Jake had mentioned earlier was becoming a viable option.

Boris stood with a tight-lipped expression. “Everyone, hand me your passports.” The FARC had assured them they were safe to bring along and wouldn’t be confiscated.

As Jake surrendered both their passports?—he’d insisted on carrying hers?—Maggie shared a grim look with Charles. A group of UN peacekeepers, regardless of how small, was going to be noticed. How long before word of their travels reached the JUNGLA, who chafed to discover where the FARC hid themselves?

Ten minutes later, a national guardsman stood at the van’s door reviewing their passports. Maggie watched Boris gnaw the inside of his lip. She overheard the guardsman ask, “You’re all with the UN?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you headed?”

“To Puerto Limón,” Boris lied. “We’re a medical team. There’s been an outbreak of diphtheria.”

Nice one, Boris, but this isn’t the way to Puerto Limón.

It wasn’t until Boris returned their passports to them and the van started moving again that Maggie realized every muscle in her body had tensed up. She forced herself to relax as the van lurched forward, eager to make up for lost time.

But then they surged into a narrow, unlit tunnel, and she went rigid again. Deepening her discomfort, Jake pinned her against the seat with an arm across her shoulders, as there weren’t any seat belts. Dying in a head-on collision inside a dark tunnel wasn’t how Maggie saw her life ending.

But they didn’t die. The tunnel spit them out on the north side of the mountain. Almost immediately, they turned off onto a tight ramp that swung them down into a valley. Gazing out the window, Maggie’s eyes widened.

All there was to see in any direction was lush, lumpy greenery, no civilization in sight, except for a sign stating Barbosa was just two kilometers away. She heaved a sigh, relieved she’d soon get to use a bathroom. A short time later, the brakes on their van squealed, and they stopped for lunch.

Seated at an outdoor eatery under a thatched roof in the small roadside town, the team enjoyed a meal of chicken, rice, and fried plantains.

“Eat well,” Boris urged. “We have no way of knowing whether the FARC can afford to feed us.”

While Jake slipped into the small restroom to place a call to the JIC, Maggie caught sight of a military Jeep wending its way down the only main street. As the occupants of the vehicle stared at the group in white jackets, Maggie’s antenna for trouble twitched. Was the National Guard checking out their story? They’d better not inform the JUNGLA.

Yet, by the time the team piled back into the van to continue their journey, the Jeep had vanished.

The van slogged on, taking them back to the highway at the top of the Eastern Cordillera and pressing north. An hour later, they took an exit that put them on a steep, winding road that narrowed every hundred meters until branches and fronds brushed the windows. The road’s surface went from asphalt to gravel to a muddy trail riddled with potholes that filled with water as the leaden clouds overhead buckled suddenly.

Windshield wipers beat a frenzied tempo but never succeeded in clearing the fogged glass up front. The music on the radio crackled and faded into static before the driver turned it off.

A somber silence descended over the peacekeepers. Maggie dragged air into her tight lungs. Were the others thinking what she was thinking: They’d come this far; now there was no going back?

Staring out the fogged window next to her, all she could see were lush hills covered with coca fields and banana groves. A swollen brown river ran parallel to the road for a while, then veered away. With every hundred meters, their isolation deepened, and Maggie’s anxiety rose.

Jake nudged her suddenly, then pointed out the opposite window. “Look.”

Following his cue, she recognized the distinct shape of El Castillo from Commander Strong’s briefing. Seeing it in person, she swallowed down a surge of fear. Lushly green at its lower elevations, it stood with its twin peaks buried in rain clouds.

Somewhere on its massive surface, Mike and Jay were chained up, miserable and despairing of rescue. If they were ever going to make it home to their families, Maggie and Jake needed to find out exactly where they were so the SEALs could rescue them.

It was dusk by the time they arrived at La Esmerelda, their four-hour drive having turned into eight. The little pueblo consisted of just three main buildings, one of which was a single-story, clapboard ranchita advertised as an inn. Isolation wrapped around Maggie as she watched their van drive away. But the indigenous hosts greeted the team warmly, fed them bread and goat cheese for supper, and then led them to private bedrooms that were little more than closets with straw mattresses on bed frames.

“Sleep well,” Boris instructed the group. “We awaken at dawn tomorrow.” The FARC were supposed to come fetch them.

Lying on the crackling double bed, Maggie found herself shivering in the oversized T-shirt she had brought to sleep in despite the warmth of the wool blanket covering her. No way was she letting Jake sleep upside down so they’d fit in the bed. She needed him to hold her?—just to keep her warm, of course.

The door groaned inward, and Jake ducked under the lintel, his head still damp from rinsing in the communal shower. At the sight of her huddled in the bed with the blanket drawn to her chin, his mouth firmed. He whipped off his glasses, set them by the bed, and bent low, murmuring in French, “You can’t fight fire with fire, Lena.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re trying to scare off your fear. It doesn’t work that way.”

“I am not afraid.” Yet she’d taken a whole antianxiety pill instead of a half to make sure she slept.

Jake muttered something in Gaelic as he reached for the string dangling from the naked lightbulb. “Make room.”

Her senses clambered for his presence. Once he squeezed in next to her, she would be okay. His shoulders took up an inordinate amount of space, forcing her up against the wall. But then, wordlessly, he slipped an arm around her and pulled her against him. His chest became her pillow. Her stiff body seemed to melt with relief against his solid frame, causing a memory to float up of that warm spring day in Paris when they’d napped like this in the Tuileries Garden.

“Comfortable enough?”

“Mmm.” She clung to the memory while absorbing his warmth the way she’d soaked up the sun that day. If only they were still in Paris, still young and in love. Instead, they were heading into the wilderness to deal with hardened guerrillas who justified kidnapping and murder to further their ideals. A fresh wave of fear made her stiffen.

“Relax, Lena. I’m right here. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

She snorted at the macho assertion while, at the same time, hoping it was true.

Not twenty minutes later, he had lapsed into sleep, given his breathing. Eventually, the steady rise and fall of his chest lulled her into doing likewise.