Show No Fear

by Marliss Melton

  Fear of the unknown kept her frigid. The scent of freedom tormented her. If she could just pull her chain from Goliath’s grasp, perhaps she could make a run for it. But Igor would think nothing of shooting her in the back as she fled.

  They tugged her, resisting, down a dark and twisting path. Her mind spawned visions of defilement. This is it, she thought. All at once, Goliath stopped and swung her before him. “Stand here,” he instructed, his flashlight illumining the lip of a trench. “Don’t move.”

  As the tip of his weapon gouged her ribs, her heart slammed against her breastbone. “What—what are you doing?” she breathed, glancing back. Suddenly, it was all too clear the trench was meant to be a shallow grave. Oh, no. Oh, God.

  When is it going to end, Luce?

  Not here, not now!

  “I’ve told you,” Goliath answered on a strangely gleeful note, “you have no value to us. Your country refuses negotiations. You are worthless.” He released the safety on his pistol, and the sound of a round slipping into a well-oiled breech made her legs quake. “Any last words?” he sneeringly inquired.

  Lucy’s entire life flashed through her mind, freeze-framing on moments spent with Gus—the only moments that really seemed to matter.

  With a vulgar crack, the pistol discharged, flinging her headlong into the wet pit, her senses smacked out of her, her thoughts scattered to oblivion.

  Waiting for death to claim her, she overheard the mirthless chuckles of her keepers. Second by second, she realized her heart was still pumping. Painful little gasps inflated her collapsed lungs.

  It was just a prank. She was still alive.

  Alive! Oh, thank you! Thank you, God!

  A sob of relief burst from her chest. She knew in that instant that nothing—neither starvation nor frigid temperatures nor unending incarceration, not even the cruelest violations—could prevent her from surviving.

  Somehow, some way, she would reclaim her life to wring from it every drop of pleasure still left to her.

  CHAPTER 17

  The squeak of Buitre’s screen door roused Gus from a light slumber. Snatching his head off his arm, he gazed uphill at the first sight of Buitre wandering from the camp to the tree line to relieve himself, unwitting of the fact that Navy SEALs lay waiting for him.

  Following a high-altitude, low-open insertion three nights ago, they had questioned and killed half a dozen trail scouts, only to discover that Arriba’s whereabouts was a closely guarded secret—hence the X on the map Gus had stolen. Only the highest-ranking FARC knew where it was.

  Buitre was one of them, Gus was certain. He’d convinced Luther to snatch the deputy from Cecaot-Jicobo, which was crawling with Elite Guards. Once caught, they would bear him away for questioning. Gus had a suspicion the hardened rebel was a coward at the core.

  Dark anticipation pooled in his gut. At last, at the break of dawn, after eighteen hours of endless waiting, Buitre descended through a thin mist into the jungle alone.

  With a whistle that resembled a birdcall, Harley alerted the others that action was imminent. He and Gus crept to their appointed positions near the area where the men relieved themselves.

  Buitre had no idea he was being watched. He sauntered toward a tree, unzipping his trousers as he went. He was still wetting down the bark when Gus leapt up behind him, clapped a hand over his mouth, and injected him with a tranquilizer prepared in advance by Vinny.

  Buitre struggled briefly, disturbing the loam under his feet. But then he collapsed, and Sean rounded the tree from the other side to help Gus shoulder his limp body. Together, they carried the rebel into the jungle, his fly still gaping.

  Buitre’s bleary and confused gaze rose from Gus’s boots, to the knife clasped lightly in his hands, to his hard and merciless stare, illumined by a beam of morning sunlight. With dark satisfaction, Gus watched the blood drain from the deputy’s swarthy face as he assessed his helplessness. Dangling from a tree by his wrists, he struggled in panic. His eyes widened further as four more SEALs, bristling with weapons, their faces savagely painted, stepped from the shadows.

  “There’s no escape,” Gus informed him coldly. “Today is the day you die.” A monkey screamed high overhead, echoing the fear etched on Buitre’s now-pallid face.

  “No!” he gasped, sweat beading on his forehead.

  “Your Venezuelan comrades will never find you.” They had carried him ten kilometers from Cecaot-Jicobo, covering their tracks as best they could.

  “Your only concern,” Gus added, twirling the blade in his hands, “is whether your soul will burn in hell for all of eternity.”

  Most guerrillas had been raised Catholic and were deeply superstitious. Buitre was clearly no exception, but he clung tenaciously to bravado. “I will tell you nothing!” he asserted, hacking a wad of spit at Gus’s feet.

  Gus stood up and reached for one of Buitre’s fingers, intending to cut it off, when the deputy cried, “Wait! Wait!” He immediately began to blubber. “Have pity,” he begged.

  Gus ran the sharp edge of the blade he’d stolen over Buitre’s good cheek. “Do you recognize this?” he asked, holding it up for him to see.

  “My knife!”

  “I sharpened it for you,” he whispered, grappling with the urge to plunge it into Buitre’s belly as images of Lucy, tortured and battered, clawed at his heart.

  Tears began to gush from Buitre’s eyes. “Please don’t kill me,” he whimpered.

  “Were you the one who cut the microchip from Luna de Aguiler?” Gus asked, feeding on cold fury to keep rage from overcoming him.

  “No, no. That was Captain Vargas. I didn’t touch her. I swear it!”

  “Is she alive?” Gus continued, not knowing what he’d do if Buitre said no.

  “Yes, yes! Alive and well.”

  Relief left him faintly nauseated. “Where?” he asked, depressing the soft skin at Buitre’s jugular with the point of the blade.

  “Arriba. I will take you there, only let me live.”

  Gus stepped back, pretending to consider the offer. With a glance at Luther, who gave a subtle nod, he cut the captive free.

  Now they could make some progress.

  * * *

  DAVID WAS BUSY INSPECTING his rag-tag army when Captain Vargas strode up to him. “Where is Buitre?” he demanded, a tin of hot coffee steaming in one hand.

  David peered about the camp. Buitre’s quarters stood quiet, though normally, by this time, the generator was purring. Premonition tightened his scalp. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I saw him walk into the woods, that way, a while ago.”

  The captain’s nostrils flared as he looked where David was pointing. “Come,” he ordered. “Help me find his tracks. Ponce, Delgado, ¡vengan!” he added, and two commandos sprang up to follow them.

  Uneasiness knotted David’s insides as he led them down the hill, following Buitre’s distinctive tracks with ease. He had heard the rumors, spreading like fingers of fear from other camps: Trail scouts had been disappearing. Rojas had warned everyone to keep their eyes peeled for intruders, agents of the CIA looking for Luna de Aguiler.

  Wading cautiously into the jungle, David stopped where Buitre’s tracks ended. His gaze slid from the stain at the base of a tree to the soil trampled under their feet. “There was a brief struggle here. One man came from this side. Another from here.” He inspected the ground more carefully, pushing a frond out of his way. “Only two walked away, carrying the third,” he decided. “They went that way.” He pointed into the verdant shadows.

  Captain Vargas whipped the radio off his hip, advising the remaining Elite Guard to arm themselves.

  “You will lead us to these intruders,” he then told David.

  Reluctance strangled David’s vocal cords. Peering into the silent, murky forest, he regretted not listening to his conscience. Now the blood would surely flow on La Montaña, but the end result would not be peace.

  WITH SHADOWS THICKENING between the trees and monkeys swinging with abandon
through the treetops, the captives endured the nightly humility of being secured to the shelter. As always, Lucy’s chain was looped around a post and locked, the heavy padlock bruising her collar-bone.

  Adjusting it, she stilled, processing with astonishment what her fingers were telling her.

  The lock had fallen open. Goliath hadn’t secured it fully before turning the key!

  For a stunned moment she just lay there, too shocked to conceive what this meant. But then the implications saturated her sluggish brain and turned her mouth cotton-dry.

  She didn’t have to wait for Gus to find her if she could free herself.

  Only there was more to escaping than easing off the heavy chain. The shelter was surrounded by barbed wire. Beyond that, two armed guards performed their hourly vigil with the flashlights.

  That was it! A plan took shape in her mind—a desperate and dangerous plan that required all the strength her frail body could muster, not to mention flawless timing.

  Did she still possess either? Starvation and infection had weakened her considerably. But her courage was strong. Over the course of the past few days, she had discovered she could fight fire with fire.

  With her thudding heart ticking off the seconds, she eased the lock from the links and hid it beneath her. Draping the loose chain across her neck, she coiled it in either hand and waited for Igor, the second jefe, to make the first nightly inspection.

  An hour had never seemed so interminably long. At last, the sound of metal scraping over metal signaled the opening of the gate.

  Insects quieted as a lone guard approached the lean-to, preceded by a cone of light shining from his flashlight. It swung in a wide arc about the shelter, then settled on the hostages in the opposite corner. Shining light into their eyes, Igor checked their locks, then turned toward Lucy, chained on the opposite side.

  Drawing a slow, tight breath, she summoned her resolve. For Gus. For us, she thought. Pink light shone through her closed eyelids. Unable to find her lock, Igor muttered an expletive. Through her lashes, she watched as he went down on one knee and leaned over her.

  Now! Lunging, she looped the length of chain around his neck and yanked, cutting off his startled cry. As he fell on top of her, she reached for the pistol holstered to his belt, praying it was loaded. She flipped him over at the same time as she shot him, silencing his protests with a shot that went straight into his heart. Bang!

  The other hostages came awake with shouts of fright.

  “Qué es?”

  “Díos mío!”

  The body beneath her went slack. Igor was dead. One down, one to go.

  Snatching up his keys, Lucy tossed them at the others. “Free yourselves,” she urged, picking up the fallen flashlight. Briefly she considered joining forces with the former Colombian soldiers. But they had been kept apart from her, the only woman they had seen in years, for a reason.

  Snapping off the light, she doused them all in darkness.

  “Jefe!” Outside the pen, Goliath came flying from the shanty where the guards slept. “Qué pasa?” As he struggled to get into the gate, Lucy eased around the corner of the lean-to and hid behind it, her heart hammering.

  Goliath had forgotten to bring a flashlight. As he bumbled into the pen, he ran headlong into the first Colombian to free himself. With a roar, he went to wrestle him down.

  And Lucy darted to the gate, ecstatic to find it ajar.

  Freedom!

  With the barbed wire behind her, she sprinted past the guards’ shanty, up the path they had trod each day to visit the natural spring. Along a dark tunnel of green, she flew as light as a feather, as fast as a doe.

  Behind her, another pistol discharged, ringing out loudly. A cry of agony reached her ears, mingled with hysterical laughter as the captives overcame their captor and took off, fleeing into the night, crashing downhill. She figured their odds of escaping the FARC were at least as good as hers.

  Wary of being followed, Lucy kept the flashlight off. She gripped the pistol hard, drawing courage from the hard metal against her slippery palm.

  The trail, subtly illumined by moonlight, rose sharply. With every arduous step, the temperature seemed to plummet.

  Delayed shock made Lucy tremble, made her legs wobble. Dear God, she’d done it! She’d escaped her captors! Now all she had to do was withstand the cold long enough to find the radio station perched somewhere at the top of this godforsaken mountain.

  “ARRIBA IS CLOSE,” Buitre panted as Gus hauled him in his wake along the dark, winding path.

  Figuring the Elite Guard had noticed Buitre’s absence by now, the SEALs hammered themselves to climb four thousand feet, staying as far ahead of trackers as possible, but they had only Buitre’s word and his fear of dying to reassure them they were headed in the right direction.

  “If we find out you’ve been lying to us, Deputy,” Harley threatened in respectable Spanish, “the lieutenant here will cut out your tongue.”

  No sooner had Harley said this than a shot rang out, not too far away. Adrenaline flooded Gus’s bloodstream. Fired at such close range, the shots sounded like mini-explosions. Now what? he wondered as they all crouched and froze, alert to imminent danger.

  “Help!” Buitre shouted unexpectedly. “Over here!”

  Gus silenced him, slamming the butt of his rifle into the man’s thick skull. He crumpled where he’d stood, still and silent as the SEALs awaited the fallout of his cry for help.

  Another shot splintered the night.

  The sound of something crashing through the woods to their right had them raising their weapons in readiness. Only a human being—or several—blinded by the darkness and propelled by fear could make that much noise, Gus thought as the sound grew louder, then moved past them down the mountain.

  As the beings floundered out of hearing, the SEALs convened over Buitre’s unconscious body. “What do you think that was?” Luther asked.

  “People tryin’ to get the hell away,” drawled Teddy.

  “Away from what? Arriba?” asked Vinny.

  “What else?” Gus murmured.

  “Why didn’t they use the path?” Harley wanted to know.

  “Let’s just keep moving,” Luther decided. “Maybe we’ll find some answers.”

  All five men looked down at Buitre.

  “Would you like Vinny to bring him back?” Luther asked Gus. Vinny carried smelling salts for just that purpose.

  “No,” said Gus. “Step back,” he advised. As the men scattered, he pointed his silenced semi-automatic at Buitre’s chest and fired a round at close range, killing him instantly, painlessly. With a bitter taste in his mouth, he turned and headed up the path, leaving the body as a warning to any who might be tracking them.

  With a shared look, the others joined him.

  A hundred yards later, they arrived at what had to be Arriba. To Gus’s dismay, the hostage camp stood quiet, seemingly deserted. There was no sign of life or movement anywhere, only the sound of wire clattering in a breeze redolent with the scent of blood.

  “The hostages ran right by us,” Teddy realized, flicking a pitying glance at Gus.

  No! He refused to believe Lucy was with them.

  “There’s a body at ten o’clock,” Harley murmured.

  Holding his weapon before him, Gus scurried toward the open gate. The crackle of a radio greeted him as he pushed inside, his gaze fixed on the body clasping it.

  Seeing that the body was too large to be Lucy, he blinked with relief, released the breath he was holding, and bent to free the radio from the man’s lax grasp.

  “Jefe,” said a voice, startling him. “What’s happening? We heard shots. Have you seen strangers?”

  Ignoring the radio for the time being, Gus realized another figure lay prostrate within the shelter. Fear yanked his scalp tight as he ducked inside to investigate. A gaunt rebel lay at his feet with a bullet hole in his chest and a chain around his neck.

  Not Lucy. But she had done this!

  O
f course, he couldn’t be certain, but it was clean and professional, just the way she’d been trained to operate. He whirled around. “Lucy’s not here,” he murmured into his mouthpiece. Returning to the pen, he joined the others in studying the confusing montage of footprints.

  “Jefe!” repeated the voice on the radio. “Are you there? We are headed your way.”

  Gus handed off the radio to Luther. “The Elite Guard are right behind us,” he warned.

  “Lucy must have fled with the others,” Luther surmised.

  “No, she wasn’t with them,” Gus insisted, knowing she would never run into the wilderness—not without him beside her.

  “Then where is she?” the OIC demanded.

  Gus pointed uphill. “Remember the E & E extraction point?” he asked with growing confidence.

  “The summit,” Luther recalled, looking sharply uphill.

  “That’s where she went,” Gus answered with heart-swelling pride. “I bet if we look, we can find her tracks.”

  “Sirs, over here!” Vinny called.

  The medic knelt some distance from the fence, shining his penlight at the ground. Gus and Luther hurried over.

  The familiar impression of Lucy’s boots made Gus’s heart thud with joy. “This was Lucy,” he confirmed. They were so close now. “Sir?” he added, desperate to go after her.

  The OIC reflected for a moment. “Vinny, get on the SATCOM and tell the JIC we need a helo capable of landing at a high altitude with plenty of cargo space and a second gunship for firepower support. The Venezuelans will be right behind us. I want us off this mountain in under an hour.”

  In spite of his certainty, desperation knotted Gus’s insides. The OIC had just put a timeline on finding Lucy.

  Don’t let me down, Luce, he thought. This is my last chance to save you.

  LUCY FOUND HERSELF STANDING on a windy slope with nothing but coarse, low-lying shrubs and spiny blades of grass, all lit by a full moon.

  Following an hour of arduous climbing, she had arrived at the mountain’s alpine crest, where arctic conditions stunted the vegetation. It had been so long since she’d seen the entire sky stretched from one horizon to another that she halted with amazement, letting its vastness overwhelm her.