Under the Wire (24 page)

Tufts of tall, blade-thin grass shielded the crest of stone. It rustled in the wind like stiff satin and provided cover while they assessed the Tiger camp eighty yards below.

They'd left the jeep a half a mile back, deep in a ravine and hidden in a copse of Palu trees. Then they'd hiked to the rise. To Lily's surprise, the jeep had handled the rough off-road trek that had taken them over rock-strewn hillsides, through scrub brush and forest, and across small, meandering creek beds where the tumbling water had licked at the floorboards and sucking sand had threatened to mire them, wheel-hub deep.

Yeah. The jeep had held up well.

She, however, wasn't doing so hot. She'd counted thirty—maybe thirty-five—rebel soldiers milling around the camp. She refocused the glasses and counted again, her heart pounding as she searched for a sign of Adam.

But all she saw was soldiers and weapons and the things she'd imagined she'd find in a paramilitary camp. Transport trucks, jeeps, tents, lines for clothes, fire pits, and targets at the far end of what appeared to be a makeshift firing range. Two types of vehicles were noticeably absent. No pickup truck with or without blankets or tarps in the bed was anywhere to be seen. No beat-up van.

She didn't know what that meant. Had they brought Adam here, then left? Had they brought him here at all?

"I still count thirty or so," she whispered to Manny, who had rolled to his back and pulled the SAT phone out of one of the many compartments on his ALICE pack and was trying to reach Ethan. Manny's rifle and his heavy pack lay beside her lighter one in the tall grass.

"Watch the angle of the glass," Manny warned as he dialed. "If the sun catches it and they spot us, we're up shit creek without the proverbial paddle."

Lily cupped her palm over the top of the field glasses, shielding the lenses from the midmorning sun. "What are they doing?"

"Waiting," he said, giving up on making a connection and rolling to his belly again. His St. Christopher medal clinked softly against the rock when it fell out of his shirt. "The question is, for what?"

Gaze still riveted on the camp, Lily tracked the glasses more slowly over the area. "I don't see anything but soldiers. God. They look so young."

"That's because they are," Manny said with a stoic look, and held out his hand for the glasses. "SOP."

Standard Operating Procedure. Yes. Manny would know about that. He'd been young, too, when he'd joined the Contra movement. Young men boiling with testosterone, bloodlust, and passion made the best recruits. Some things never changed. Adam was sixteen—the same age as Manny when he'd joined the resistance against the Sandinistas. But Adam was her son. He was mentally strong. She counted on that. And he had spirit—like his father. Frankly, she didn't know if that was a good thing in this situation. She didn't want Adam doing anything foolish. Anything heroic.

"Do you see anything significant?" she asked because she had to quit thinking about what might be happening with Adam and concentrate on what she and Manny could do to find him.

Manny continued to scan the area. "I don't know. Something's not ringing true here. They seem kind of ragtag—even for rebels. And it's a big camp for less than a third of a company of soldiers. It's set up for more. Looks like the main purpose of the camp is training, but I don't see much evidence of any going on."

He lowered the glasses, frowned. "Maybe they're just here to do recon. The question is, are there more of them? And if so, where are they?"

"The question is, do they have Adam?"

Anxious and restless, Lily wondered what would happen if she walked down the hill and asked them. She'd never find out. Manny had made it clear; they were here to recon, not act, until Ethan arrived.

"I'm thinking no." Manny lifted the glasses again. "If they had hostages, they'd have a guard posted by one of those tents. Instead, they've got a heavily armed squad stationed by whatever it is that's under that tarp."

She'd wondered about the tarp. It was big enough to cover a large truck.

"Maybe provisions?" she suggested.

"In need of guards? I don't think so," he said calmly. "We'll watch. We'll wait."

"And then what?" She asked the question she hadn't wanted to ask but suddenly needed to know the answer to. "What if Adam is there? What do we do then?"

"Exactly what I said we'd do. We wait for Ethan and Darcy." He lowered the glasses. "Then we go talk to them."

"Talk? You know Tamil?"

He shook his head. "Don't have to. I know a more universal language. Money."

CHAPTER 16

Outskirts of Kandy on the road to Marassana

"What are we going to do?"

Ethan glanced in the rearview mirror, signaled a left turn, and headed back into the city.

"Haven't made up my mind yet, but I'll tell you one thing. These assholes are really starting to piss me off."

Darcy and Ethan had been trying to get out of Kandy and meet up with Manny and Lily for the past hour. It wasn't happening, though, because the white VW was back. The car had been sticking to their tail like the heat that clung to the city and beat relentlessly down on the Suburban.

"Are they getting bolder or are they just stupid?" Darcy asked as Ethan sped down the street searching for the best way to ditch these losers.

"I vote for stupid," Ethan said with disgust. "But we can't risk leading them—whoever they are—to Manny. Try to raise him on the SAT phone again, would you? Let him know we've been held up."

"Still no good," Darcy said after several attempts to connect. "Do you suppose they're out of range?"

"Could be. As soon as we deal with our new best friends, I'll check the unit.

"Hang on." He jerked the wheel sharp left.

The Suburban careened around the corner on two tires.

"Still with us," Darcy reported when Ethan cut another corner.

"Good." He pulled into an alley.

As he'd figured it would, the VW sped past the alley, braked with a squeal of tires, and backed up.

"Uh-oh," Darcy said when she saw the VW turn into the alley and creep toward them.

She glanced at Ethan. He was smiling as he pulled a pistol from the glove box and checked the clip. It was not a smile that would warm hearts.

"Oh. You
wanted
them to find us."

"Damn straight." He never took his eyes off the slowly approaching vehicle. "It's time to have a little come-to-Jesus meeting. At which time," he added with a dark look, "I plan to deliver the gospel according to me."

He glanced her way and offered her a Life Saver before popping one into his mouth. "Get down, babe. This might not be pretty."

"Get down? I don't think so, Lieutenant. No way am I leaving in the middle of this movie."

He was gearing up to get all protective and bossy when the car pulled up behind them and cut the motor.

"Showtime," she said, and with her heart beating in her throat, watched as another vehicle pulled into the other end of the alley and slowly rolled to a stop.

They were blocked in.

And they were outnumbered four to two.

"Now what?" Darcy watched as all four men got out of their cars and slowly approached them.

"Now we hope that that official-looking seal in the front corner of each windshield means what I think it means."

"Police," Darcy said, recognizing the symbol on the seal now that the cars were close up. "That's a good thing, right?"

"That's what we're going to find out."

Ethan reached under the seat and withdrew a handgun Darcy had heard him refer to as a Czech CZ-52. He set it on the seat beside him, slipped off the safety, and covered the gun with a map.

"Gentlemen," Ethan said in English when the four men approached them. "Is there a problem?"

Yes, as it turned out. There was. A very big problem.

Four problems to be exact. All of them semiautomatic. All of them drawn. All of them in the hands of some hard-faced men who would not, Darcy was certain, hesitate to put a bullet through the center of each of their foreheads.

"Step out of the vehicle and come with us, please." A short, swarthy Sinhalese with close-set eyes and a pocked complexion flashed a badge. "We wish you no harm. And as long as you keep your hand away from the gun you have hidden beneath the map, no harm will come to you."

"I have friends at the American embassy," Darcy said. "Friends who are aware we are here."

"I assure you, Ms. Prescott, we are well aware of your friends—in fact, they have sent us to escort you to our international crime headquarters."

Darcy cut an uncertain glance at Ethan. He shook his head.

"Then you wouldn't mind giving them a call—letting us talk to them."

To Darcy's surprise, someone produced a cell phone, then punched in a number and handed it to her.

The phone rang several times before a woman picked up. "Vice-Consul Griffin's office."

"This is Darcy Prescott. I—"

"Ms. Prescott," the woman interrupted. "Mr. Griffin's been waiting for word from you. Hold on please; I'll connect you immediately."

Ethan watched her with hooded eyes. She nodded to let him know she'd reached Griffin's office.

"Darcy?"

"What's going on, Griff?"

"Jesus, Darcy. Where are you?"

"At the moment? We're being detained in Kandy by some lovely gentlemen with shiny badges and big guns."

"It's okay. I've had them tailing you to make sure you stayed out of trouble."

"You put the tail on us? They have guns, Griff. Big ones."

"Sorry about that. I just gave the go-ahead for them to move in and detain you—guess they got a little overzealous. Look, Darcy, we've had a development on the Adam Campora situation."

She felt her heart turn over. Reached out and latched on to Ethan's hand. "What's happened?"

"We just received a video via e-mail."

She wasn't aware that she'd dug her nails into Ethan's palm. Was only aware of the difficulty breathing as Griff told her about the content of the tape that had been shot earlier today and e-mailed to the prime minister's office within the past hour.

"Oh God." She disconnected and turned to Ethan. "We've got to get ahold of Manny."

"Nothing," Ethan said after attempting to call. "I'm still getting a no-service message."

"Try Dallas."

"Already on it," he said with an urgency in his tone that matched hers as he dialed Dallas's SAT phone.

Dallas,
Darcy thought, and closed her eyes.

Based on the news Griff had just given them, Dallas had walked into the devil's kitchen with little more than a match when what he really needed was a flamethrower.

And Adam and the Muhandiramalas had less than ten hours to live if the Sinhalese government didn't turn over control of the UVA and Central Province to the Tigers by midnight.

The chances of that happening were the same as those of peace breaking out in the Middle East in the same time frame. Which meant that the odds of saving Adam's life had just narrowed to a window roughly the size of the head of a pin.