Page 78 of Fear No Evil

Movement within the building caught his eye. A rifle muzzle was now poking through a shattered pane. Jake’s blood turned to ice water. Even before the crack reached his ears, he sensed Lena was the target.

Tat-tat!She crumpled where she fell.

Jake gave a hoarse shout. With his heart in his throat, he watched Charles leap out of the helicopter to retrieve her.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!The weapon that had fired on Lena discharged again, spewing rounds thatthunkedinto the side of the metal bird. Struck by a bullet, Charles reeled and dropped. The helo began to rise. Charles crawled toward a running board and latched onto it. He then reached back for Lena, but with the bird rising, his grip on her slack arm slipped. It was all Charles could do to cling to the helicopter as it made its ponderous ascent.

Jake kept his eyes on Lena. Was she dead?God forbid.

He stared, desperate for a sign of life from her as the Huey continued to rise. A glance upward showed Boris and the two guards hauling Charles off the running board into safety.

To keep from racing to Lena’s aid, Jake gripped the tree trunk with all his might. He would certainly get shot. The only way to help her was to stay hidden‍—and to pray.

Please don’t let her die, Father.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. His job as a SOG was to keep Lena safe, but then Gallo had pulled a fast one. No doubt Gallo was the one who’d shot her, too.

Through eyes that swam with tears, Jake tore his gaze off her long enough to note that the Red Cross transport was beyond the range of fire now. Its shadow streaked across the bright-green valley before banking south to fly along the Eastern Cordillera, headed to Bogotá.

Within the Huey, Charles scooted to the middle of the grooved floor and gasped his thanks. He met Boris’s somber gaze. “We have to go back for her!”

Hunkered next to him, the German’s jaw hardened. He looked Charles over. “Where were you hit?”

Charles rubbed the spot still smarting on his thigh, but he wasn’t bleeding. There was no sign that a bullet had penetrated his flesh. He ran a hand over his other leg but found himself unharmed. “Were those rubber bullets?”

They had to be, in which case, maybe Magdalena Ellis wasn’t dead. “Boris, she might still be alive. We have to go back for her.”

“No.” Anger burned in Boris’s gray-blue eyes. “You played me for a fool, Charles. Madeleine and Jacques were never one of us. But you already knew that.”

Charles cast an uncomfortable glance at the others, relieved to find them too far away to hear Boris’s quiet accusation.

“For your sake, I will say nothing,” the German added, “for I have long considered you my friend. But I will not put my people in jeopardy to return for two imposters. They are CIA, are they not?”

Charles set his teeth, refusing to answer.

“Let the CIA get them out.” With those words, Boris left Charles sitting on the floor and went to join the others on the Huey’s bench.

Swallowing convulsively, Charles remained on the floor, too spent to help the guards slide shut the still-open door. Lit by the setting sun,El Castillohad never looked so immense and formidable with its upper half buried in clouds.

Abandoning a fellow operative to fend for herself turned Charles’s stomach, making him want to retch. The FARC had singled out the French couple for a reason. He was lucky they hadn’t targeted him, too. The SEAL lieutenant might be dead already. And Magdalena, even if she hadn’t been shot by a real bullet, would wish she were dead soon enough.

The strange and sudden quiet that fell over the field penetrated Jake’s disbelief. He’d been staring at Lena’s still form, trying to process that she might be dead and fighting every instinct in his body telling him to run to her side.

Wait a minute. Why weren’t the JUNGLA firing anymore?

Tearing his attention from Lena, he studied the soldiers in the field with puzzlement. They had lowered their weapons and were beginning to stand up. Why weren’t the FARC in the building taking advantage and shooting them all? Why wasn’tanyoneshooting?

The door of the beleaguered building flew open, and under Jake’s astonished stare, the FARC poured out of it, pumping their weapons andcheeringin victory. Only David and his friends hung back, not participating in the revelry.

Jake’s jaw dropped as the JUNGLA countered with a cheer of their own, firing their rifles into the sky. Unable to reconcile what he was seeing, Jake focused again on Lena, who remained sprawled between the two parties. Bile crept up his throat as she continued to be ignored. No one made any attempt to staunch the blood that had to be spilling from her.

When Gallo sauntered up to her, nudging her with a toe, Jake could read the sneer on his face across the distance betweenthem. Fury exploded in Jake. If he were armed, he would have cheerfully killed the man.

But then Lena stirred. She stirred!

Swallowing his cry of wonder, Jake watched Gallo nudge her again, clearly commanding her to rise.

How could she? She’d taken a hit square to the chest.