by Cindy Dees
“You think?” Mia mumbled.
“I know. Have you ever heard stories about how fiercely a mother jaguar protects her cubs?”
Mia nodded.
“Well, jaguars are wimps compared to human mommies. And the way I see it, you and Emanuel are my cubs now. I bet if you asked Grandma, she’d say the same thing. God sent you not one but two fierce mama jaguars to look out for you. He must think you and your brother are pretty special. Grandma and I, we’ll do whatever it takes to keep the two of you safe.”
“You can’t be a mother. You’re a nun.”
“Ha. Try me. I’m a jaguar.” She growled and tickled the little girl until she giggled. Elise pulled Mia into her lap and gave her another big hug. She was going to keep on hugging and tickling and talking to Mia until that giggle came to her as easily as breathing.
The child drew in a wobbly breath and released it slowly. Aah, what Elise wouldn’t have given to have somebody take her in their lap and hold her close after her parents had died. It hadn’t been until Father Ambrose climbed up on that bridge beside her that she’d felt any connection to any other human being at all. He’d been her first and only reminder for a long time that human beings were capable of as much kindness and compassion as they were of cruelty.
Thank God her path had led her to this little girl within a few weeks of Garza’s death. Now, if only she could share enough love and compassion to reach past Mia’s grief and mistrust of mankind in the same way Father Ambrose had for her. She cursed the priest good-naturedly in her head. He was a sly one, he was, to send her to these children with whom she had so very much in common.
“Are we ready to head out again?” Elise asked more cheerfully than she felt. “The superhero league is waiting for our report, fellow superspies.”
Emanuel, recharged after a few minutes of rest, bounded to his feet. “Let’s go!”
Elise made everyone take a big drink of water and refilled the jug before they waded across the stream. Her legs hurt and her back was tired. But if Grandma could do this without a whimper, then so could she. As they headed out, the older woman’s gaze caught hers, and her rheumy eyes twinkled. Grandma knew full well she was shaming all of them into not complaining. She was a tough old bird, all right. Elise grinned back. They continued on, ever deeper into the jungle.
Ted ducked into the shadow of a palmetto bush and swore under his breath. Helpless rage tore through him as army soldiers streamed into the village, breaking down doors and shooting anything that moved. He couldn’t begin to stop them all. If Elise and the kids were still in Acuna, he was about to witness their grisly deaths.
He had to do something. Had to save them!
He muttered urgently, “I need infrared imaging ASAP. Any children inside any of these buildings?” He figured wherever the kids were, that would be where Elise was.
“Negative. Five adults in the fifth building on your left, but that’s it.”
Automatic weapon fire erupted from that very building just then. Make that five dead adults. Normally, he watched this sort of slaughter with cold detachment. It wasn’t that he was unaffected by death, particularly the death of innocents. But he had a job to do. And that required him maintaining the ability to think coolly and rationally in the face of violence. He’d feel bad about the dead people later.
For just a moment, he wondered how many orphans he’d created over the years. How many parents had he killed in the line of duty? He shoved the thought aside. He’d just been doing his job. That was all that mattered, right?
For a moment there, however, when he’d thought Elise might be gunned down before him, he’d nearly panicked. Only a decade’s worth of discipline, pounded into him by a hundred encounters like this one, saved him from doing something suicidally stupid. He was definitely losing the touch for this sort of stuff. A low-level hum of dismay started low in his gut. What was he supposed to do when he could no longer do this? Later. He’d think about that later. Right now he had an intensely irritating nun and her charges to track down.
His relief that Elise and the kids had apparently made it out of Acuna made him light-headed. He took a deep, steadying breath. She was okay. The kids were okay. Except he’d never even met her blasted orphans. Why was he so concerned about them, anyway? The answer came to him but tasted sour on his tongue. He cared about them because Elise cared about them. What was important to her was apparently important to him. And when had that unpleasant little development taken place?
Scowling, he snapped into his microphone, “Any idea where the inhabitants of the village have gone?”
“We picked up telemetry of some folks making their way west into the jungle. They’re probably hiding until the army and the rebels clear out.”
Abject relief flowed through him. It had to have been Elise. She’d gotten the children out to safety. Thank God. That being the case, his work here was done. He had no need to get into the middle of a firefight that didn’t involve him or his mission. “Roger, H.O.T. Watch. I’m out of here.”
“Be advised, it looks like your friend, Raoul, has just arrived. The tracking burr you put on him is working perfectly,” the H.O.T. Watch controller surprised him by announcing.
He swore under his breath. “Is he alone?” Ted bit out.
“Nope. He and three Jeep-loads of guys just rolled up on the rebel position.”
“Is that enough to take the army patrol?”
“Not with the army’s armaments. If the army figures out a major rebel leader is in range, they’ll hit Raoul and company with everything they’ve got.”
He thought back to the mortar- and shoulder-launched-rocket fire he’d been hearing. Surprised, he asked, “You mean the army hasn’t used everything they’ve got, yet?”
“Not even close. They’ve got close to fifty men, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and heavy artillery. They’ll shred the jungle and everyone in it if they cut loose.”
Killing Raoul would neatly solve his immediate problem of stopping the Army of Freedom from blowing up a bunch of civilian airliners. Except for the fact that some new leader would step into the power vacuum caused by Raoul’s death. Which would leave him back at square zero in making contact with the Army of Freedom leadership. And who knew what grandiose schemes the next leader would cook up in the meantime? Like it or not, he had to go save Raoul.
His gut pulled him west, toward Elise and the children. But his head told him he had to stay here. See this battle through for the sake of his primary mission. He had to get word to the rebels to bug out and not take on this army force today.
Ted sighed. “How far south do I have to go to circle around behind the Army of Freedom position so I can approach them from the rear?”
“Four hundred meters should do it.”
“Roger. Moving out.” He couldn’t believe he was about to save a bunch of rebel insurgents from the legitimate government of this country. But that was the nature of his work. Covert ops made for strange bedfellows. An image of Elise in his bed flashed through his head. He shoved aside the image hastily. Not going to happen. Ever. Get over it. Get over her. For some reason, however, his psyche wasn’t on board with that concept. Face it, he lectured himself as he crawled through the underbrush. She was hot and he wanted her, wimple or no.
His boss’s voice came up on his earbud. “You sure about bailing these guys out? You’re walking into a potential cluster storm.”
“This whole damned mission is a cluster storm,” he muttered back as he crawled on his belly into the towering wall of jungle.
Chapter 8
Elise would’ve seriously considered sobbing in relief as the jungle opened up and a small town came into sight were it not for the kids and the fact that Grandma had yet to utter a single syllable of complaint.
She observed the town carefully. At least fifty buildings clustered together. Wow. This place was a veritable metropolis after Acuna. “Do you know someone here?” she asked Grandma. “Someone we can spend the night with
?”
Grandma frowned. “This is an army town.”
Which meant there would be eyes and informants aplenty. Elise’s heart sank. What had been the point of their long trek if this place was no safer than Acuna?
“We shall put ourselves in the hands of our heavenly Father,” Grandma intoned.
Elise stifled a groan. Faith was one thing. But blind faith was just irritating. They were on their own to use their wits to save themselves. Grandma was marching resolutely toward the village, however, and Elise highly doubted she could say anything to talk the woman out of whatever she had planned. Huffing in resignation, Elise followed after the woman and the children. She’d just have to brazen out whatever disaster Grandma’s faith led them into.
It figured. The town had a Catholic church. Well, a teeny little chapel, to be more accurate. But it had four walls to go with its roof, which many churches in this part of the world did not. It looked old. Spanish in architecture. It was actually a pretty little place.
They stepped inside. Elise was startled at the sense of quiet peace pervading the space. It reminded her of Our Lady of Sacred Hope back in New York. Predictably, the chapel held rows of wooden pews and a large table covered in white cloth for an altar. A simple wooden crucifix hung on the front wall.
Grandma stopped to genuflect, and Elise followed suit behind her, trying to remember how Father Ambrose did it back home. She was so busted if the older woman asked her to recite a Mass or something like that. But thankfully, the older woman merely made her way forward, calling out for the priest.
Nobody answered.
“Does the local priest live near here?” Elise asked Grandma. Maybe she could have a private word with the man and explain who she was and why she was masquerading as a nun before he blew her cover.
“He travels from village to village.”
Elise didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that they were own their own in the chapel.
“I’m hungry,” Emanuel whined.
“Me, too,” Mia piped up.
Both children had spotted the bowl of fruit sitting on the altar and were eyeing it longingly. Elise considered it, as well. Although offerings like that weren’t specifically a Catholic ritual as far as she knew, the old customs of the Incan people had blended with Catholicism in this part of the world.
“I’m sure the Lord will not mind if we share his supper tonight,” she murmured to them. She glanced hesitantly at Grandma, who nodded in agreement.
She felt like a heel for using her fake nun status to talk them into what was probably some terrible blasphemy. But they were all ravenous after the long hike, and it wasn’t as if any of them could stroll out and buy dinner without having to answer a lot of questions. In a town this small, even Grandma would be identified quickly as an outsider.
As a sop to her guilt over stealing the offering for God, Elise added, “But first we have to say grace.”
The children subsided and waited impatiently while she mumbled through a quick prayer blessing the food and thanking heavenly Father for his bounty. Darkness fell as they dug into the mangoes, guavas, bananas and black sapote—a local sweet fruit that tasted somewhat like a pomegranate. Moonlight filtered in through the small, high windows as the night grew cool.
The children stretched out on a pew, covered with Grandma’s big shawl. They were being good sports about sleeping on the hard bench, and Elise’s admiration for the children grew a notch. They were both bright and cooperative. She had to admit that whoever’d been raising Garza’s children had done an excellent job of it so far.
Elise stationed herself by the back door to keep watch as Grandma dozed next to the kids. The town settled down to sleep, the car noises and the occasional sound of voices winding down and eventually ceasing. And that was why she jerked to full alertness at the abrupt sound of big engines—lots of them—rumbling into town a little before midnight.
Crud. That sounded almost like a convoy of some kind. What if the army had come looking for them? This was the closest town to Acuna and the logical place for them to have come. She glanced around the tiny chapel in panic. There was nowhere to hide. And she knew better than anyone how much the army respected the sanctity of the church. They’d barge right in here and slaughter her and the Garza children without a second thought. If only there were some sort of hidey-hole—
Father Ambrose told her once that most Catholic churches in olden times had a cellar of some kind. They’d been used over the centuries to hide all kinds of refugees, be they escaping slaves or the children of hated government strongmen. Was there any chance this little church was no exception? It did look fairly old and the decorations had a distinct Spanish flair.
What had Father Ambrose said? The cellars were usually near or under the altar section of the church, as this was the most holy and sacred portion of any church. She raced forward.
Grandma’s eyes opened.
“The army’s coming,” Elise bit out. “We must hide.” She lifted the linen tablecloth that draped to the floor to look for a trapdoor. But it was too dark for her to see a thing. She fell to her knees, running her hands over the floor desperately. There. A long, thin crack running perpendicular to the floorboards. The joints in the wood should be staggered, but weren’t.
The sound of engines was audible inside the chapel now. Grandma woke the children, shushing them as they murmured sleepily.
Elise pried at the crack in the wood with her fingernails, but to no avail. It had to be some sort of trapdoor, but she had no idea how to open it. Which made sense. If it was a secret hiding place, it wouldn’t open easily.
Grandma and the children knelt beside her.
“Get under the altar cloth,” Elise whispered.
Shouting voices drifted in through the windows, and terror lined the children’s faces in the faint moonlight. They were trapped, and all four of them knew it. They crawled under the table, but it would only provide a moment’s additional protection.
“There’s a trapdoor, but I can’t open it,” she breathed to Grandma.
Grandma whispered back, “Look for a hidden switch.” The older woman joined her in frantically searching the floor with her hands.
Oh, God. Those were voices on the porch steps.
Mia pointed at the under side of the altar table. “What’s that?”
Elise looked up. A small lever of some kind protruded faintly from the underside of the table nestled next to one of the table legs. Elise pushed it. Nothing. She wedged a finger under it and gave it a tug. A faint clicking noise sounded below them.
She scrabbled backward fast, moving her weight off what turned out to be the trapdoor. Her rear end stuck out from under the table toward the crucifix as she yanked the trapdoor up with strength born of panic. It opened upward on silent hinges.
The chapel door squeaked open. A man shouted orders to someone outside as the children headed down the narrow wooden steps. Grandma turned awkwardly, climbing down into the cellar with maddening slowness. Several men joined the first one, noisily moving into the chapel. Flashlight beams glowed through the altar cloth as they searched the rows of pews. Elise scooted forward, flinging her feet down into the hole. She found a step with her feet and grabbed the trapdoor, pulling it down over her head frantically as she crouched on the step. Boots stomped into sight in the thin space visible beyond the altar cloth and a man spoke, no more than three feet away, as she eased the door fully closed.
It was stuffy and dusty and Elise jammed a hand over her nose as she felt a sneeze coming on. She held on to the door handle with her other hand and prayed the soldiers wouldn’t find the latch Mia had spotted. And if they did spot it, maybe she could hold the door down and not give away their hiding spot.
She held her breath as she heard the altar cloth being ripped away. Dear God, if You exist, and if You actually answer prayers, please don’t let those soldiers spot the trapdoor.
Ted crouched beside his Jeep on the outskirts of the town H.O.T.
Watch had seen the refugees of Acuna headed for earlier. Colombian Army trucks were crisscrossing the place, turning people out of their homes and searching every building from top to bottom. Surely Elise and those two kids of hers weren’t the object of such a determined search. But a sick feeling in his gut said they were. Who were those children?
If they were, indeed, Valdiron Garza’s kids as Elise had all but admitted, why would the government be coming after them so hard? Although, a person had only to look at their father’s deeds to deduce the answer to that one. Garza might have worked for the Colombian government, but even his own bosses had been terrified of him. Now that he was gone, everyone—within the government and without—was out to wipe away anything that had to do with him or his memory. Kind of like when Stalin died in Russia or Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Ted was getting damned tired of being one step behind the army all the time like this. He hated having to sit here, helpless, and wait out the search. There was nothing for him to do but pray Elise and the kids weren’t discovered or weren’t here at all. When he caught up with her, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight again for a good long time.
The search took over an hour, but he saw no commotions to indicate the army had found whoever they were looking for. They buzzed like angry bees as they headed for their vehicles and cleared out. The townspeople went back into their homes, and the night settled into silence once more.
Now, where would he go if he were a fake nun with two small children in tow? She didn’t know anyone in town and she dared not stay at a hotel. Had she broken into a business and hidden there? Except the army had searched the stores in town. Thoroughly, if the shouts and complaints of the shopkeepers were any indication.
“Talk to me about this town,” he muttered to the long-suffering duty controller at H.O.T. Watch.
