As Lost as I Get (11 page)

“Ah, and you’re too much of a coward to call your mother and tell her.” He could hear the grin in Gwen’s voice.

“And I figured your fiancé was still asleep.”

“He’s probably awake by now.” Her voice softened again. “You really should talk to him, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. I will, when I get back.” He rummaged to the bottom of the pack. Extra shirts, extra cargo pants—as much as he’d wanted to buy camouflage, being mistaken for a soldier out there seemed the worst possible option—extra socks . . .

“And you’re sure everything’s all right?” Gwen pressed.

He stopped messing with his gear, tempted to tell her everything. About Zoe, about his mad mission into the jungle. If anyone would understand the overwhelming urge to take action, to try and keep someone safe, she would. He almost did. What held him back was the knowledge that she couldn’t help, and would only worry. Hell, she knew better than his mom
or Lucas exactly what he might be walking into.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just checking in. I had visions of Mom storming Langley if I didn’t answer my phone after a day or two.”

Gwen laughed. “Oh God. My money’s on your mother.”

“Mine too,” he said with a laugh of his own. “Listen. I have to go. If you talk to Mom, tell her I called. And give Lucas hell, will you? He needs someone to keep him on his toes.”

“Who’s keeping you on your toes?” she asked.

“I’m going now, Gwen,” he said, and hung up on her laughter.

All that remained was to find his transport. There were plenty of boat rentals and guides available in the port. It took some wrangling, but he convinced one of the men to rent him the boat without the guide. He had to pay extra for that part—no doubt the man thought Lee would vanish into the jungle where neither he nor the boat would ever be heard from again—but leaving a credit card number with a high enough limit to cover the cost of the boat settled things nicely. If Lee were so much as a minute late on his seventy-two hour rental, he was going to find himself the owner of a battered old motorboat.

Two hours after he got off the phone with Gwen, he was on the river steering away from Inírida. There wasn’t a lot of daylight left, but if he was lucky, he should reach one of the first villages before it got too dark. What he did after that depended on what he learned there.

Chapter Eleven

Zoe’s first hint of potential trouble came when the crowd around Tia Yana’s hut started to filter away. She heard men’s voices outside, and two men came in. She turned from where she crouched near Tia Yana’s bed and rose to her feet.

“What’s wrong with her?” the shorter and squatter of the two men demanded. Both men were wearing high quality clothing and boots—they weren’t villagers.

“Rafi.” Tia Yana tried to sit up, but Zoe eased her back down.

“She’s very sick,” Zoe said. She fought to keep the judgment out of her voice and off her face. “Who are you?”

“Rafael Garcia. This is my ranch.”

“Señor Garcia, I’m Doctor Zoe Rodriguez and this is Ana Vasquez. We’re from Médecins International. One of your men came to us downriver and asked us to come see his grandmother.” She swallowed her anger at this rich man who lived in sight of so much poverty, and profited off it. “Were you aware that Señora Crespo has been suffering with an umbilical hernia for months now, with no medical treatment?”

He shook his head.

“How often do your cattle receive veterinary care, Señor Garcia?” Zoe heard her translator struggling to keep up as she relayed the conversation to Tia Yana.

Instead of responding with anger, he almost looked ashamed. “I will pay for whatever care she needs. Just make her well.”

“We’ll do what we can.” Zoe softened, but only a little. “I’ve called our clinic, and we’re arranging for emergency helicopter transport so Ana and I can take her to the hospital in Puerto Ayacucho. The earliest they can get here is tomorrow, but I’ll stay with her until then.”

“No.” He shook his head. “A helicopter couldn’t possibly land in this mud. Let me send her with some of my men up the river. That’s safer.”

Zoe looked over at Tia Yana, then tilted her head toward the door of the hut, indicating that Garcia should follow. Once they were at the door, she spoke quietly. “Señor Garcia, a trip up the river could take days. She’s developed an infection, likely from complications from the original hernia. If the infection gets worse, and I have no reason to think it won’t, she wouldn’t survive the trip. There’s enough of a risk waiting until tomorrow, but there’s nothing we can do about that. We’ll all be out of your hair by tomorrow morning.”

“But the mud . . .” He gave up and sighed. “Fine. Tomorrow. Let me know if you need anything.” With that, he left.

“He means well,” Tia Yana said. “I worked for him for many years.”

Zoe was in no mood to hear a defense of the rich man who’d just left. She’d grown accustomed to seeing suffering and doing what she could to alleviate it. How could anyone live next to such poverty—literally next to it—and not use any of
their vast resources to help? Damn right, Señor Garcia was going to pay for Tia Yana’s care. If Zoe had her way, Tia Yana was going to have the very best the hospital could offer, the more expensive the better. “How long did you work for him?”

“I worked for his father first, when he was a little boy, he and his brothers and sisters. They were such a sad family, with no mother.” Tia Yana settled back into the bed with Zoe’s help. “I cooked for them, told them stories, watched them while their father was away.” She closed her eyes, looking frail and tired. “He was a good man. He would be proud of his son. Puerta del Ángel was nothing back then, just a little farm with a few cows.”

“Zoe, we’ve got company outside,” Ana said. “Word got out.”

Zoe patted Tia Yana’s hand. “You take a nap. I’m going to see if anyone else needs help, but I’ll be right outside if you need me, okay?”

Outside were several families, waiting hopefully. Ana, anticipating Zoe’s likeliest move, had set up a collapsible exam table in the driest spot she could find, and had the basics ready.

***

Lee wasn’t the only one to make a stop at the first village beyond the city. As soon as he spotted a child with a fresh cast on her arm, he knew Zoe had been there. A few friendly smiles and some careful questions later, and he knew he was little more than a day behind her team. “Did the doctors say where they were going next?” he asked one tired-looking young mother with a baby on her hip.

“One of the llaneros came looking for a doctor,” she said. “His grandmother was sick. He was from one of the big ranches down the river. A really big one.”

“Which one?” He dreaded the answer. Rafael Garcia, the man he suspected was the AC’s new backer, was the biggest rancher on the llanos.

“Something about Angels,” she said, as the baby started to fuss.

“Puerta del Ángel?” Lee asked. Maybe not. There were bound to be other ranches with “Angel” in the name, weren’t there?

“That’s the one. I heard the doctors say they were going to split up. Two of them were going to go to the ranch, the rest on up the river.”

Zoe Rodriguez was a trouble magnet. There was no other explanation. He had absolutely no doubt she was one of the two going to Puerta del Ángel. He hated being right. The girl was looking at him curiously, so he smiled. “Thank you so much. I’m glad they came this way.”

“We are too.”

It was going on toward dark, but Lee wasn’t going to stop now. He had a lantern in his supplies for just this reason.

Lee thanked the villagers who’d spoken to him, and re-boarded his small craft. Traffic still moved on the river at night, just not as much of it. He hung the lantern on a hook over the bow. It wouldn’t so much help him to see—he’d have to count
on starlight and moonlight for that—but it would make him visible to any larger, faster-moving boats. This far out from any big city, the starlight would be especially bright. As long as he didn’t founder on any roots or tree branches, he should be fine.

If he pushed hard, he should be able to make the landing for Puerta del Ángel before daybreak. From there he’d have to walk in, counting on his maps. That might take another few hours.

Hopefully he wouldn’t be too late.

***

Zoe woke to the sound of men shouting outside Tia Yana’s hut. The light was hazy and gray, just before sunrise. She’d slept in her clothes after spending half the night observing a pregnant woman with pre-eclampsia, and stumbled to her feet to see what was happening. It took a moment to realize that the voices weren’t shouting, they were chanting: a military cadence, from the sound of it. What the hell?

Approaching the village was a group of a dozen or so rough-looking men of various ages and skin tones. They weren’t in uniform, but all wore vaguely military-looking outfits, mixtures of camo and T-shirts and bush shirts. All were heavily armed. There were any number of reasons there might be heavily armed, militaristic men marching through the llanos towards a ranch house, and none of them seemed any good. The man leading the chant at the front of the group was so pale-skinned he almost looked white, his hair lighter than Zoe’s. He wore mirrored sunglasses—several of the men did—and was bare-chested.

She wasn’t the only one watching from a doorway or a window. Every house in the village had a face peeking out, watching the men pass. About halfway back was a tall man wearing a bright red shirt, with a black bandanna tied around his forehead. Her heart dropped to her gut. What the hell was he doing here? There was no mistaking him though: that was Santiago Vargas. Or else he had a twin brother.

By some twist of fate, he turned and caught her eye. His sunglasses concealed much of his expression, but the corner of his mouth twitched into a half-smile and he walked on. That couldn’t be right. He wasn’t in uniform, and what would an ENC colonel be doing out here with this ragtag group? It made no sense at all, and made her uneasy.

She faded back into the doorway, watching the men continue on. They were heading to the main house. The back of her neck was absolutely crawling and she fought the urge to grab her things and leave as fast as she could.

Tia Yana stirred behind her. Her voice was weak and querulous. Their translator had gone, so Zoe couldn’t be sure what she needed, but went to her, bringing some water. When Zoe tried to help her sit up to drink, she cried out in pain. Heat radiated from the old woman’s body, baking into Zoe’s arm. The helicopter wouldn’t be here for at least another three or four hours.

Ana, who had taken the later shift with the pregnant woman, poked her head in. “We need to get the hell out of here.”

Zoe glared at her, tilting her head toward Tia Yana, who was resting fretfully. She walked to the door, gesturing for Ana
to go out in front of her. She didn’t miss the way Ana’s eyes strayed toward the main house, as if she expected it to go up in flames at any moment. “Do you know who those men are?” Zoe asked.

“Bad news,” Ana said. “Could be leftists, in which case Garcia’s screwed, or could be paramilitary, in which case we’re probably screwed, or they could be from one of the cartels, in which case we’re all screwed.”

“Why is Colonel Vargas with them?”

“Vargas? The guy with the supplies? Damned if I know, but that can’t be good news for anybody. You wanna stick around and find out?”

“We can’t go anywhere until the helicopter gets here,” Zoe said. “Where would you go? Even if we called the team back, they wouldn’t make it here for another day or longer.”

Ana’s shoulders slumped. “Shit. Yeah, I know.”

Zoe squeezed her arm. “Just a few more hours.”

“What about our expectant mom?”

“She needs bed rest until that baby’s born, but you know as well as I do she’s not likely to get it.” Zoe was bothered by the swelling in the woman’s legs and ankles and her dangerously high blood pressure. The only time her blood pressure had dropped during the night was when she was lying on her side. With two small children already, and a husband who was away working with the rubber industry, bed rest wouldn’t happen. She’d walked over a kilometer to get here; it was a minor miracle she hadn’t already lost the baby. Sending her home would do it for sure.

“Maybe there’s a place for her to stay here until the baby is born,” Ana said.

What would really help would be for the woman to give birth, but Zoe estimated she was only about thirty-two weeks along. She wished desperately Maria were with her; she’d know more. Even if they had any way to induce labor, no way would Zoe do it without a fetal monitor or an actual obstetrician nearby. Her own obstetrics training didn’t go beyond the basics.

There was one solution she could think off, but Ana wasn’t going to like it.

Chapter Twelve

The sunrise over the river was beautiful, but Lee had little time to appreciate it. The trip up the river at night had been slow-going. Several times he was certain he must have already passed his landing in the dark, but here it was, getting light, and he was hauling his boat in among the reeds and brush that stood along the still-flooded banks. He secured it, covered it with the dun-colored tarp he’d brought along, and tossed some fallen brush over top of it. It wouldn’t stop a determined searcher, but a casual observer would never know a boat was there.

He had a feeling he’d be coming back here in a tearing hurry. Before leaving the last village, he’d redistributed his supplies, putting extra ammo and some food into a smaller pack, which he grabbed from the boat. In addition to the Glock in its usual shoulder holster, he had a machete on his belt and a knife tucked into his right boot. Even with that, he felt naked. What he wanted more than anything was some body armor and an M-16 in his hands. Being a Marine had had its disadvantages, but at least back then he hadn’t had to hide his combatant status. Here, well . . . They were called covert operations for a reason. He had to pass as nothing more than an over-adventurous tourist off the beaten path.

The dim light breaking over the llanos made him feel exposed. There was a path where the grasses were trampled into the mud, which would doubtless lead to Puerta del Ángel. For now, he’d take his chances on the path. According to the map, the main house and the little village were about ten miles from where he was. If Zoe was still here, she’d be in the village for sure.

There was about a mile to go when the helicopter passed overhead, close enough for Lee to see the red cross painted on its underside. A medical transport flight. He crouched in the reeds and breathed a sigh of relief. About a mile back he’d found fresh footprints in the mud, a lot of them. He guessed there were anywhere from ten to fifteen men, all wearing military-style boots. He didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out who the group was or where they were headed. The medical transport meant Zoe was getting out of there. She’d have to go in with her patient. With her out of the way, he could concentrate on gathering information on Arcangel and his group.

For something as big as this deal with Garcia, would he come himself? Getting a chance to identify Arcangel would be an enormous intelligence coup. And it would justify Lee leaving Inírida and coming up river.

He waited until the chopper flew overhead once more, heading back toward Inírida, then he started jogging through the mud at a crouch.

With Zoe gone, his objective had just gotten much simpler. All he had to do was avoid the village, and get as close as he could to the main house to observe what was going on.

***

Zoe watched the helicopter take off with an immense sense of relief. Whatever was happening at the house, Garcia’s men had let their transport take off unimpeded. Had Santiago convinced them somehow, or had Garcia’s conscience gotten the best of him? She didn’t care. She’d held her breath while it was taking off, tormented by momentary visions of one of those heavily armed men blowing it out of the sky.

Not only had she had to convince Ana to let the pregnant woman take Zoe’s spot on the flight, but she’d also had to convince Tia Yana that she would be all right without Zoe. The latter had been the hard part. She’d promised Tia Yana that she would be with her, but the pregnant woman needed a doctor more urgently than Zoe needed to keep her promise.

“I’m not leaving you out here alone,” Ana had said. “We’ll send them both and stay together.”

The wind from the chopper blades buffeted them, blowing Zoe’s curls into her face. “The hospital will need someone who can give them medical histories. One of us has to go.”

“Then you go,” Ana said. “I can find my way home if I have to.”

Zoe gripped her arm. “Ana, I can find my way back to the river, It’s not that hard. Tell me the truth. What do you think would cause more trouble for those men: harming an American citizen, or harming a Colombian?”

“I don’t think they’re the type who would
care
.”

“Ana.”

The helicopter pilot leaned back from his seat and shouted, “We need to go soon, before the storm starts.”

“All right. Your government would be more upset than mine would,” Ana admitted.

“Do you think they know that?”

“I think they count on it,” Ana said contemptuously. “It’s how they have so much control.”

“Then go. I’m not sticking around either, so don’t worry.”

Finally Ana had climbed on board, and then they were gone. Zoe went back into Tia Yana’s hut and straightened it up a bit, repacking the medical supplies. She’d gone through enough of them, and enough of the food they’d brought, that she was able to consolidate things, getting rid of the bulky crate. She picked up her newly heavy pack and strapped it on.

There was a crash outside, followed by shouts of protest. She crept toward the door and peeked out. Three of the armed men stood outside of the huts, smashed clay jugs at their feet. “Tell us where the American is,” one of them said to the terrified woman in front of them.

“She left,” she said. “The nurse went in the helicopter. She took Tia Yana with them. The American left right after, on foot.”

She was lying; she had to know Zoe hadn’t left yet. Why would she lie?

“Which way did she go?”

The woman pointed off in the direction Zoe was going to go. “Toward the river. The other doctors were coming back for her.”

“If you’re lying to us,” the man said, holding a knife toward her throat, “and if we don’t find her, we’ll come back.
And you’ll all pay because you lied. Think carefully. Are you telling us the truth, or are you willing to watch us cut up your neighbors’ babies? Because we’ll save you for last.”

No one spoke up.

Zoe curled her fingers into the wood of the door frame so hard the woodgrain bit into her fingertips. They must have been watching the helicopter leave. What did they want with her?
Run
, her mind insisted.
Run now. Don’t let them catch you
.

But if she did manage to escape, what would they do to the villagers when they didn’t find her? Would Garcia let these men just wipe them out? Rafael Garcia might not be in control as much as he’d like to be right about now. And being an American might not be as much of a shield as she’d like.

The reality of it crashed in on her. Her hands didn’t feel like her hands, but like they belonged to someone else. It wasn’t until her lungs started to ache that she realized she’d been holding her breath. The seconds stretched and pulled before the village woman answered. Zoe knew what she should do; she just wasn’t sure she could make her body do it.

All she could feel were remembered hands on her arms, hands that wrestled her into a car and pulled a hood over her head. But that wasn’t now; that wasn’t her anymore. She had to do this. She pushed the door open with hands she couldn’t feel, and stepped out on feet that felt encased in concrete. The last thing she did was pull the canteen out of the side of her pack.

“Don’t hurt her. I’m here,” she said, her voice shaking. “I left, she’s right, but I forgot my canteen.” She held it up and laughed a little wildly. “Unlucky for me, huh?”

“Get her,” the leader said, and two of the men grabbed her. Now the hands on her arms were real, and they pulled her out into the middle of the village and pushed her to her knees. The leader drew out a handgun and leveled it at her. “Very unlucky.”

Zoe felt her bladder let go, and absurdly she thought,
Those were my last dry pair of jeans
. Her heart slammed in her chest for what might be the last time as she scrambled for something to say to make him stop, at least long enough that she could
think
. “Wait. I’m worth more alive. You—you could ransom me. Or I’ll bet— You guys need a doctor, don’t you? I could be your doctor.” She tried not to think about what she was saying, actually
asking
these men to take her hostage.

The man holding the gun paused. “How much ransom?”

Zoe took a ragged breath. “I don’t know. A lot. I work for Médecins International. They’ll pay to get me back.” They wouldn’t—they didn’t the first time.

One of the men holding her on her knees said, “Pretty, too. She could be useful.” He touched her hair and she pulled away. Maybe she should just let them kill her after all.

“Bitch,” the man snarled, and backhanded her across the face.