Page 75 of Fear No Evil

Eyes swimming with tears, Jake slowly stood upright. This was no time to grieve what might be happening to Lena. For now, he would cling to the certainty that his teammates at the JIC had noticed their operators’ separation and would come for them. In the meantime, he would fashion something to wear on his feet and go looking for her.

Dead or alive, he would find her eventually.

Maggie lost all sense of time as she stumbled along at Charles’s side. Had it been minutes since Jake fell into the river or hours? Either way, the trees had begun to thin, and the sunlight beamed onto the ground at her feet. With a start, Maggie digested that they’d reached a valley‍—possibly the same one mentioned by Commander Strong in his briefing, since they’d crossed a river to get there.

Before her stood a bowl of open space filled with thigh-high grass and ringed with spiraling wax palms. To her left stood a cinder-block structure topped with a red-tiled roof, sporting several windows and a metal door.

Boris grew animated. “This is the building Marquez described to me! This is where the exchange will take place. The helicopter will land in this field.”

Shading her eyes, Esme peered up at the sky. “There’s no helicopter yet.”

“It will come,” Boris assured her. He turned back to Gallo. “Now what?”

Themondopointed at the shady area next to them, right at the forest’s edge. “Until the helicopter comes, you will wait here.”

Boris turned his head, reconsidering the humble building. “Where are the hostages?”

“In there.” Gallo nodded at it.

“Well, perhaps you could show them to us, so we know they’re there?”

“Hmph.” Pivoting away from Boris, Gallo ordered his men to follow him as he abandoned the peacekeepers to their own devices.

Boris regarded the shady area Gallo had pointed out. “Let’s get out of this sun.”

Joining the others in sinking onto the ground under a tree’s sheltering branches, Maggie bore her weight on her good hip while struggling to shake off the lethargy of shock so she could read the situation.

If Gallo considered her a threat, why hadn’t he tried to kill her yet? He’d made Jake’s demise look like a tragic accident. After all, he wouldn’t want UN peacekeepers telling the world that the FARC were ruthless killers. Therefore, if he intended to kill her also, he would be sneaky about it. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down.

Maybe she should leave the group now and return to the river to look for Jake‍—for Jake’s body. Charles would probably let her slip away, as his own integrity was on the line, especially with Boris, who considered him a trusted friend. And Jake had instructed her, if something were to happen to him, to find waterand follow it downstream‍—the same way his body had been swept.

On the other hand, she had a job to finish here. The Agency had sent her to Colombia to bring the hostages home‍—even though one was dead. She was obligated to see that through, wasn’t she?

Well, then, there was the answer. She wasn’t going anywhere until Jay Barnes was on his way home.

Jake was using a stick to retrieve his jacket when a voice, floating on the breeze, caused him to freeze. Someone was calling for Jacques. Lifting his jacket from the rock on which it had been caught, he hoisted it ashore. The cry came again. It sounded like David calling for him, echoed by a voice Jake didn’t recognize.

Should he answer? After all, he’d forged a bond with David. But the other man was an unknown, and armed, to boot. Gallo could have given them orders to shoot Jake on sight.

That didn’t mean Jake should let them slip away, though. Assuming they would join up with Gallo once they gave up looking for him, it would save him time locating the other peacekeepers if he followed them.

First, though, he needed to fashion some booties to protect his feet.

Tearing the jacket into bands proved easier than he’d thought it would be. The canvas wasn’t the same high quality as those worn by U.S. special operators. As he wrapped strips around his feet, he monitored the two voices calling his name. Were they getting closer or moving farther away now?

By the time Jake draped the remaining canvas over his head to camouflage his face, the voices had fallen silent. He needed tohurry. Setting off after the scouting party, he moved as quickly as the thin padding under his feet allowed.

Boris would push on with their agenda, regardless of Jacques’s fate. Jake didn’t blame him for that. The UN’s priority was to make certain the exchange took place the way it was supposed to. Come what may, they had to meet the helicopter. That was the agenda.

It was Gallo’s agenda that worried Jake now. No doubt, themondohoped to prevent the map, or knowledge of the map, from escaping. Too bad the information had already been disseminated and decrypted. But that didn’t increase Lena’s odds of survival one iota.

Wishing he had a machete to hack his way toward David, Jake pushed through vines and branches, scratching himself on thorns and disturbing a host of insects that either scattered or sought revenge. Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. Mosquitoes swarmed him.

When he stumbled across fresh tracks, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. Given the deep impressions, the search party, consisting of just two men, had lingered here a moment before giving up. Then they’d taken off due east, leaving a machete-cleared path for Jake to follow.

The booties lent him stealth but offered scant protection. Again and again, he stepped on a thorn or a pebble or a sharp branch and swallowed a cry of pain. He pushed himself through the discomfort, all too aware that shadows were beginning to creep up the trunks of the trees in front of him. It was getting later.

And then he heard it in the distance: the unmistakablewhop, whop, whopof an approaching helicopter. The exchange was about to go down not too far from here! He had to know whether Lena would get on board.