As Lost as I Get Page 12

  The woman pointed off in the direction Zoe was going to go. “Toward the river. The other doctors were coming back for her.”

  “If you’re lying to us,” the man said, holding a knife toward her throat, “and if we don’t find her, we’ll come back. And you’ll all pay because you lied. Think carefully. Are you telling us the truth, or are you willing to watch us cut up your neighbors’ babies? Because we’ll save you for last.”

  No one spoke up.

  Zoe curled her fingers into the wood of the door frame so hard the woodgrain bit into her fingertips. They must have been watching the helicopter leave. What did they want with her? Run, her mind insisted. Run now. Don’t let them catch you.

  But if she did manage to escape, what would they do to the villagers when they didn’t find her? Would Garcia let these men just wipe them out? Rafael Garcia might not be in control as much as he’d like to be right about now. And being an American might not be as much of a shield as she’d like.

  The reality of it crashed in on her. Her hands didn’t feel like her hands, but like they belonged to someone else. It wasn’t until her lungs started to ache that she realized she’d been holding her breath. The seconds stretched and pulled before the village woman answered. Zoe knew what she should do; she just wasn’t sure she could make her body do it.

  All she could feel were remembered hands on her arms, hands that wrestled her into a car and pulled a hood over her head. But that wasn’t now; that wasn’t her anymore. She had to do this. She pushed the door open with hands she couldn’t feel, and stepped out on feet that felt encased in concrete. The last thing she did was pull the canteen out of the side of her pack.

  “Don’t hurt her. I’m here,” she said, her voice shaking. “I left, she’s right, but I forgot my canteen.” She held it up and laughed a little wildly. “Unlucky for me, huh?”

  “Get her,” the leader said, and two of the men grabbed her. Now the hands on her arms were real, and they pulled her out into the middle of the village and pushed her to her knees. The leader drew out a handgun and leveled it at her. “Very unlucky.”

  Zoe felt her bladder let go, and absurdly she thought, Those were my last dry pair of jeans. Her heart slammed in her chest for what might be the last time as she scrambled for something to say to make him stop, at least long enough that she could think. “Wait. I’m worth more alive. You—you could ransom me. Or I’ll bet— You guys need a doctor, don’t you? I could be your doctor.” She tried not to think about what she was saying, actually asking these men to take her hostage.

  The man holding the gun paused. “How much ransom?”

  Zoe took a ragged breath. “I don’t know. A lot. I work for Médecins International. They’ll pay to get me back.” They wouldn’t—they didn’t the first time.

  One of the men holding her on her knees said, “Pretty, too. She could be useful.” He touched her hair and she pulled away. Maybe she should just let them kill her after all.

  “Bitch,” the man snarled, and backhanded her across the face.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lee was behind the vast barns of the ranch when he heard a man shouting and the breaking of pottery. A frightened woman said that one of the women hadn’t gone on the chopper, but was walking to the river. She was lying. He would have seen someone walking that way.

  Still trying to listen, he eased open one of the barn doors, hoping to get closer. Three sturdy working horses were stabled there, and placidly turned to watch him enter. He crept to the far end to peek out. Then he heard Zoe’s voice. “Don’t hurt her. I’m here.” Damn it.

  So much for keeping a low profile. He watched as the men made her kneel in the dirt, his instinct and his training rising up in a violent civil war. Instinct said to pull the Glock and mow down anyone who dared to threaten Zoe. His training argued. There were dozens of men just a mile away at the house. If he charged in and started shooting, they’d swarm. Not to mention, Wishnevsky would kill him for breaking cover like that.

  The man holding the gun on Zoe was posturing. Lee read it in his stance. They’d let her go or take her hostage, but they wouldn’t kill her.

  He was almost sure.

  Just when he’d braced himself to let her go, one of the men holding her struck her across the face, and the mood on the ranch shifted to ugly.

  Well, shit. Lee sent a mental apology to his boss and made a quick plan. The horses. There was no other way they could outrun a whole group of men to the river and get the boat going without some borrowed speed.

  There was no time to saddle one properly. He grabbed a lead off the wall and slid a makeshift halter over the head of a bay mare. The horse tossed its head, but otherwise didn’t fuss. He climbed onto the horse and unholstered his Glock. He didn’t want to shoot. The less noise he could make the better. What were the chances the horse would spook the minute shooting started anyway? This could be a very short rescue attempt, but he had to try.

  By the time he walked the bay out of the barn and around to where he could see better what was happening, Zoe was on her hands and knees in the dirt, and one of those bastards had a gun pointed at her. This time, Lee thought he meant it.

  “Sorry,” he muttered to the horse, and kicked it forward at a run. He rode at the man threatening Zoe before anyone realized he was coming, knocking the man and his gun aside. Zoe raised her head, eyes wide with shock.

  ***

  The two remaining men drew weapons: one a pistol that looked ancient, the other a deadly-looking machete, ready to close for hand-to-hand fighting. Lee had no intention of staying still long enough to get shot. Zoe scrambled out of the way as Lee wheeled around and rode the men down. He lashed out with his leg, kicking the gun out of the one man’s hand before following it up with a kick to the face. He went down cursing. That left Machete.

  He came at Lee with his weapon raised, but instead of swinging at Lee, swung at the horse’s flank. The horse reared and screamed at the cut, and Lee tried to hang on. He fought to keep the horse from bolting as Zoe approached. Before the man could come at him again, Lee settled the horse and leveled the Glock at him. “Come on, come closer,” Lee snarled. “Go ahead.”

  The man looked at his compatriots rolling in the street moaning, and stayed back long enough for Lee to pull Zoe and her pack up onto the horse. “Hold on,” he said. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he tried to hold on to the horse tight enough for both of them. As he spun the bay, the man charged back in, swinging, one biting cut across Lee’s bicep. Before he could react, Zoe kicked out, her boot connecting with the man’s temple hard enough to drive him down.

  Lee gave the bay a kick, urging her to run hard for the river before more men could come out of the house.

  ***

  One minute she was on her knees and ready to die, the next she was swept up on horseback in what seemed like a dream. Zoe closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against Lee’s back, focusing all of her energy on not falling off the horse and spoiling their getaway. It was all she could manage. She was so tired all of a sudden, like she could sleep for a week. She wouldn’t open her eyes, in case she woke up back at Puerta del Ángel, still a captive.

  Where had Lee come from? How had he known she would get into trouble? When she turned to see him charging down on her attackers like an avenging angel on horseback, she thought she’d gone mad, that she was hallucinating in her final moments.

  She’d never been so happy to see someone she’d been avoiding in all her life.

  Leaning against him was calming, feeling his muscles working beneath his shirt as he rode, feeling his warmth. Once again, he’d managed to make her feel safe in an impossible situation.

  She might have actually dozed off, because the next thing she knew, Lee was pulling her hands from his waist and dismounting. They were at the river, but there was no sign of anywhere else to go. Did he expect her to swim?

&n
bsp; “Zoe, come on. We’re not that far ahead of them.”

  She tried to climb down, but couldn’t make her muscles work. “Damn it.”

  “Here.” He reached up and put his hands around her waist, sliding her off the horse and to the ground. “Can you stand?”

  “Yeah,” she said, horrified at herself. She was a wreck. She smelled terrible.

  Lee gave the horse a swat on the rump and it took off with an annoyed whinny.

  “It’s hurt,” Zoe said.

  “She’ll be fine. She’s headed home, and it was just a shallow cut.”

  She took a closer look at him. There was blood on his sleeve. “You’re hurt too.”

  “There’s no time for that. You can look at it later. Wait right here.” He vanished into the underbrush and a few moments later reappeared towing a motorboat. “Can you get in?”

  Of course she could get in, and it wouldn’t hurt her any to wade through the water and wash off some of the smell. She forced her muscles to unlock long enough to wade in to her waist, where the boat was. She tossed her now-damp pack into the boat, then pulled herself up with some help from Lee. He climbed in after her and sat at the rear. It took him a few tries, but he got the motor fired up and steered them out onto the river.

  “Wait,” Zoe said. “We’re going the wrong way. Inírida is that way.”

  “We can’t go back that way right now, and we can’t stay on the river.” He spoke over the motor and the rush of water past the hull. “They’ll be watching for us there.”

  “What are we going to do, then? There’s no other way back.”

  “Yes there is,” he said. “We’re going to have to travel overland where we can stay hidden.”

  “But that will take—”

  “Several days, yes.” He paused. “Zoe, I’m sorry. There’s no other way. Besides, the longer we take, the more likely they are to give up looking for you in Inírida at all.”

  “I don’t even know why they want me.”

  “We can worry about ‘why’ when we’re farther ahead of them.”

  She thought ruefully of the boat that would be looking for her tomorrow morning, and even more ruefully of the helicopter that was probably already back to civilization. Wait. “I’m an idiot.” She laughed and dug through her pack. The pack was supposed to be water-resistant, but dragging it through the Rio Inírida had been too much to expect. Her belongings weren’t soaked, but the things that weren’t wrapped in plastic (like the medical supplies) were damp.

  “What is it?”

  “A satellite phone.” There it was. She pulled it out and turned it on. Or tried to. She shook it—as if that would help—and tried again. “It was working fine yesterday.”

  “That was before you threw it into the river,” Lee said gently.

  “But—” She stared at the phone in her hand like it had betrayed her. “Maybe we can dry it out?”

  “Sure.” He was humoring her, and it just made her madder. “Once we camp for the night, we’ll see what we can do.”

  The idea of throwing the phone into the river one last time was tempting, but Zoe put it back in her pack.

  “Hey,” he said. “It might not be the most comfortable, but if you want, there should be room for you to lie down if you’re tired.”

  The bottom of the boat was dirty and hard, but it was mostly flat, and that sounded like the best idea ever. She nodded and Lee handed her the tarp he’d covered the boat with. “Put that down,” he said. “It might be damp down there.”

  A few minutes later, the rumble of the motor through the bottom of the boat was lulling her to sleep.

  ***

  After about an hour, Lee steered the boat toward a patch of land on the opposite side of the river from Puerta del Ángel. He would have liked to go farther, but traveling by river left them too exposed. Anyone could be keeping track of them from the wooded banks, and that anyone might be someone with a rifle. A rifle. Damn it. He should have grabbed a rifle from one of the men who’d had Zoe, but there hadn’t been time.

  It was less nerve-racking when he’d convinced Zoe to lie down in the bottom of the boat. It was true she looked exhausted, but he wanted her out of sight as much as possible while they were on the river. He didn’t want to scare her by telling her as much. There were dark circles under her eyes while she slept, and he thought he could see finger-mark bruises starting to form on her upper arms where Arcangel’s men had grabbed her.

  It was too much like the first time he’d seen her, in Oaxaca: tired, in danger, and relying on him.

  ***

  Seeing her that first day in the market in Inírida had hurt like hell, with some of that spark dimmed by fear. She’d just been starting to get it back—even though she was angry and avoiding him, she’d been more her old self, and now this.

  When they’d ridden off from the village, the scent of her fear made him so angry he wanted to ride in the other direction and go after every man in that house responsible for making her face this again. Instead he focused that rage on getting them as far away as possible as fast as he could. And as much as he hated seeing her like this again—dirty, scared, in danger—the thought of what might have happened if he hadn’t been there . . .

  He watched Zoe sleep for a few minutes. As much as he hated to wake her, they needed to move. He leaned over and touched her calf. “Zoe.” She jerked awake. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m about to beach us. We should go on land from here on out.” She struggled to a sitting position, rubbing at her eyes with her fists like a sleepy toddler. “This looks as good as anywhere.” He beached the boat. Zoe climbed out, and he was happy to see she looked steadier on her feet than she had earlier. His arm hurt like hell where that bastard had slashed him, and he wasn’t sure if he could carry her very far. While she stood on the shore, he handed up her pack, then his, then climbed out of the boat.

  “What are we going to do with that?” she asked.

  He shoved the boat back into the current with a tinge of regret. “That. The river will take it. Maybe someone else can use it.” He shouldered his pack and watched her do the same. “Come on. Let’s find somewhere quiet and figure out what our next step should be.”

  “Yeah, the first thing I’m going to do is take a look at your arm.” She gave him a stern look.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and smiled. She smiled back, and it made her look like herself again, if only while she smiled. He headed inland to get them past the worst of the flooding, and looked back to see that she was following him.

  ***

  Ana closed her eyes as the helicopter swooped into the air and over the llanos, doing her best to keep the nausea at bay. Living somewhere as remote as Inírida, flying was a fact of life if you ever wanted to go anywhere the river couldn’t take you, but God, did she hate helicopters. She’d rather fly in the tiniest, most ramshackle two-seater airplane than in the most luxurious helicopter.

  Someone touched her hand and Ana opened her eyes to find the pregnant woman smiling anxiously at her. She smiled in return and shook her head to indicate that she was fine. The noise from the rotors was too loud for normal conversation.

  She shouldn’t have left Zoe behind. Whatever was going on at Puerta del Ángel, no outsider had any business being there. Before she could worry any more, the pilot glanced back and motioned for her to come closer. “I called your clinic,” he shouted over the noise. “Doctor Carpenter said she’d arranged for your transportation back to Inírida and she’d meet you at the airport.”

  Ana was embarrassed at how relieved that made her feel. Part of what made Susan a good doctor was her ability to make people feel at ease—and it worked on Ana too. Whatever the two of them had, Ana didn’t fool herself that it would last beyond Susan’s stint in Colombia, but she could lean on it for now.

  Within an hour, the helicopter was landing on the helipa
d at the hospital in Puerto Ayacucho. Stretchers and staff waited for the two patients, and Ana was caught up in transferring information and getting her patients settled. Tia Yana was whisked off to surgery prep, and Ana followed.

  Zoe’s instincts had been right. The surgeon confirmed that if they’d waited any longer, Tia Yana’s infection would have made her too weak for surgery.

  Tia Yana wasn’t Ana’s biggest worry anymore. There was nothing else she could do for the two patients—both would be in the hospital several more days. With Zoe gone, the clinic needed Ana back. Before long she was on a short flight back to Inírida.

  Susan was waiting for her at the airport as promised. “Sounds like you and Zoe did the right thing, heading off course.”

  “Sue, we have to call Bogotá. Zoe’s in trouble out there.”

  “Oh Lord.” Susan smiled. “Who did she piss off this time? Can we call that soldier who’s got the hots for her? He could go get her.”

  “Sue.” Ana pulled her away from any potential listeners. “You don’t understand. Something bad is happening out there on the llanos, and Zoe’s in the middle of it. There were men with guns, a lot of them, and they weren’t military.”

  “You mean like rebels?” Susan never had gotten a good grasp of the politics of the area, but Ana didn’t have time to explain it now.

  “Like that, yes.” Close enough. “We have to get her out of there.”

  “Zoe’s still got the sat phone, right?” Susan asked, and Ana nodded. “Well, let’s try that first.” Once they were out of the airport, the first thing Susan did was try the sat phone.

  “No answer. I’m going to call Christiane.”

  While she was caught up in that, Ana tried to flag down a cab to take them to the clinic. The back of her neck prickled, and she looked up to see a pair of men watching them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lee wanted to do an inventory of their supplies before it got dark, so they stopped in the middle of the afternoon to regroup. The ground was getting drier with each hour that passed as they climbed higher. With the tarp stretched out under a tree, they sat down and emptied their packs. Zoe had perked up, either from her short nap or just from putting distance between her and the men who wanted to kill her.