“Great! Can you send them in to get me in, say, twenty hours?”
“The bad news—”
“Wait, you already gave me the bad news.”
“The other bad news is that the helicopters can be manned only by Darkview personnel. No regular army.”
“Just a private company running a private operation, huh?”
“You got it. No chance of the host nation getting their panties in a bunch over what might be viewed as unauthorized U.S. military involvement.”
“Any Darkview personnel available to run the operation?” Miguel heard the whap whap sound of a helicopter’s propellers in the distance.
“Plenty, but Banner gave me strict orders not to let any of them go. He said he wouldn’t be responsible for their deaths.”
Miguel sighed. “Can I speak to Banner? Do you think he’ll change his mind if I tell him I’m not leaving?”
“I’ll ask him. When I do, I’ll get back to you.” Stromeyer rang off.
Over the next hour the passengers straggled into the clearing. Each one cried when they saw the soldiers. A short reconnaissance revealed ten more wandering in the jungle, all still with their arms tied in front of them. It was as if they had no energy to free themselves. Twenty minutes later, eight others appeared on the path. All of them greeted Miguel and his men with a tired elation. Two women started crying in relief. The entire group acted as though the ordeal was as good as over.
Miguel didn’t have the heart to tell them that the firepower of a small army was headed their way.
38
LUIS STOOD IN THE JUNGLE AND WATCHED THE WATCHTOWER burn, pinpointing their location like a huge torch. Mathilde and a somewhat recovered Alvarado stood next to him.
“Now the Cartone cartel comes, eh?” Mathilde said.
“Time for us to go get our ace in the hole,” Luis said.
Alvarado hid his dismay at Luis’s comment. His “ace in the hole” was an asset that he’d sworn he wouldn’t use until things were dire indeed.
“That is a drastic measure, Luis. Do you think it is necessary?” Alvarado said.
“You tell me, Alvarado,” Luis said. He pointed to the sky. In the distance, just emerging from the dawn mist, flew a Blackhawk helicopter.
“The Americans,” Mathilde said.
“So soon they found us?” Alvarado was shocked. “Luis, you said they would never track us.”
Luis gave Alvarado a measured look. “Are you afraid, Alvarado?”
Mathilde eyed Alvarado.
Alvarado watched Luis finger the hilt of the knife he kept attached to his belt.
“Let’s go get your ace in the hole, Luis.”
“And when we are done, Luis, we find that gringo woman,” Mathilde said. “She must be killed, Luis. I hate her.”
“Yes, Mathilde, we will kill her and the man.”
Alvarado sucked in his breath. “Luis, think. We can’t kill her. She’s worth too much.”
“I want her dead, Luis,” Mathilde said.
Alvarado started to protest.
Luis put up a hand to quiet him. “We find the woman, get the Americans that want her to come with the money, and when they do, we ambush them and kill them all, including the woman. Is this sufficient for you, Alvarado?”
“Yes. But we kill the man, too.”
Mathilde’s eyes shifted to the side, and she said nothing. Rodrigo didn’t notice her reaction, but Alvarado did. His stomach twisted with jealousy.
“We should kill the man, too. Shouldn’t we, Mathilde?” Alvarado prodded her.
Mathilde shrugged. “It is no concern of mine.”
Alvarado lit a cigarette and watched the sky.
39
BANNER LISTENED TO MR. CALDRIDGE’S STORY FROM BEGINNING to end without interruption. Stromeyer had produced a cup of the strongest coffee he’d ever had outside of Europe and sat in a nearby chair while the story unfolded. Banner said nothing for a few minutes after Mr. Caldridge was finished. Stromeyer let him think, not speaking. It was just one of the things that made her invaluable to him—her ability to gauge what he needed at just the right time.
“Where have you been staying?” Banner said to Mr. Caldridge.
“Here and there. I took a drive up the East Coast. I was headed to Jacksonville when I heard about the plane going down.”
Banner nodded. “Why don’t you continue that way. Stay out of sight.”
“What about my daughter? What do you intend to do?”
Banner stood up to escort the man to the door. “I intend to get her out of there.”
Mr. Caldridge gave Banner a frank, assessing look. “Then I guess I can’t ask for more. You strike me as the kind of man who does what he says he will. But just remember, she’s as smart as they come and stubborn as hell. She won’t quit until she’s completed whatever she went down there to do. And she won’t let anyone control her. Those DOD men made a mistake when they messed with her.”
Banner smiled. “Spoken like a father who knows his daughter.”
Mr. Caldridge nodded. “She’s special. Bring her home.”
When Mr. Caldridge was gone, Banner turned to Stromeyer.
“I have to wonder about Margate’s order to pull everyone out of Colombia, including Miguel and his troops. He knows that Caldridge and Sumner are still stuck down there, but he doesn’t seem to care.”
“It’s one way to isolate her. Gets us out of the way so he can track her down,” Stromeyer said. “And now a comment made by Caldridge’s boss keeps circling through my head. He said that the Mondrian Chemical Company was looking to license her new plant-altering technology.”
Banner finished the coffee and reached for the carafe sitting on the table. At least he thought it was a carafe. It looked like a piece of modern art.
“Wasn’t Margate a member of the Mondrian board of directors before he took his political post?” Banner said. He tried to pour the carafe, but nothing came out. “Damn, is the coffee gone? That was the best pot I’ve had in days.”
Stromeyer reached over and unscrewed the cap two turns. “You have to open it first. How is it you can pilot anything that flies, shoot every weapon invented, and kick the shit out of most men, but you can’t operate a coffee carafe?” She picked up the pot and refilled Banner’s cup. “And yes, Margate was a member of Mondrian’s board.”
“I can’t open the carafe because it’s a ridiculous design.” He took a sip of the coffee. “I don’t like the connection between Margate and Mondrian. It stinks, doesn’t it?”
Stromeyer nodded. “Yes, it does. But the real question is, what are we going to do about it?”
Banner downed the cup. “Can you keep our contract alive for a few more days? Slow the withdrawal order somehow?”
He watched Stromeyer ponder his question. “I used to date a man who’s now the undersecretary to the Office of Diplomatic Security. Its jurisdiction runs to contracted security forces in foreign nations. If the DOD pulls our contract, he could issue one of his own. I’ll call him.”
Banner frowned. “I don’t want to put you in an awkward position.”
Stromeyer grinned. “Not at all. He’s a nice man.”
Banner felt annoyed. “Fine. Just don’t let him blackmail you into anything.” He put the coffee cup down with just a little more force than was necessary. Stromeyer raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing. Amusement danced in her eyes. Which annoyed him more. He tamped down the emotion.
“I’ll get ready to head out.” He’d made it to the door, when Stromeyer called to him.
“Banner.”
He turned.
She looked grim. “Be careful down there.”
All his annoyance melted away. “I will. Thanks.”
40
EMMA RAN UNTIL SHE SAW A HUT. ITS TIN ROOF SHONE IN THE sun. The house sat at the end of a field of coca.
“Great. Another coca farmer,” she muttered. She didn’t hear the footsteps behind her until it was too late.
It was a woman, one of the indigenous peoples. She wore roughhewn clothes that appeared homemade, and she carried a cloth bag slung over her shoulder. Her brown hair flowed down her back, like a young woman’s, but her eyes held the sad, somber look of a much older person. She stared at Emma, a wary look on her face. She glanced at the gun slung over Emma’s back.
“I’m from the U.S. I need to talk to the police,” Emma said.
The woman said nothing.
Emma’s Spanish was nonexistent. When she’d moved to Miami, she had intended to take a language course, but somehow life had gotten in the way and she never found the time for it. Now she wished she had.
“Do you have any food?” She mimed eating.
The woman nodded and waved Emma toward her. She turned and headed into the jungle, following a small footpath no wider than her shoulders.
Emma followed the woman for half an hour, before she came upon a small village. Several children, also in homespun clothes, ran around in circles, barefoot in the dirt. Six huts, all in a semicircle, formed a small encampment. A fire burned merrily in the center. It was all Emma could do not to run to it and drop before it. Despite the heat of the jungle, she felt chilled to the bone. The woman watched her, a curious look on her face. Two children ran up to her, one about six and the other four. The woman seemed too young to have children that age or that many. She might have been twenty years old. The camp was devoid of men or any other women.
“Are the men out planting?” Emma said. She pretended to rake the soil.
The woman nodded.
The children stopped playing and surrounded Emma.
“Candee! Candee!” they said. They held out their hands.
Emma laughed. “The universal child’s word, eh?”
She plunged a hand in the pockets of her cargo pants. Luis and his men had taken her wallet, passport, and cell phone. They’d left the lipstick testers, two packets of gum, and a roll of mints.
She gave the mints to the kids.
They shrieked in happiness and ran off.
The woman didn’t smile.
Such sadness, Emma thought.
“Do you have any food I can eat?” She crossed her fingers. She was once again starving.
The woman nodded. She disappeared into a hut, then reappeared with what looked like some type of meat and rice. Emma sat cross-legged before the fire and tasted the meat.
“Pollo?” she said to the woman.
The woman nodded, with just a hint of a smile at Emma’s attempt at Spanish.
Emma wolfed the food. The woman watched her with consternation. When Emma was done, the woman took the plate and scrubbed it clean with some sand from a wooden tub.
She returned to stand before Emma. The children came back, too, jostling one another as they gathered around the woman.
“Gracias,” Emma said. “I know food must be scarce and you shared yours with me.”
The woman nodded, but it was clear she understood only the one word Emma said in Spanish.
Emma wished there was a way she could properly thank the young woman.
“Wait. I have something I know you’ll like.” She reached into her cargo pants pocket and pulled out one of the lipstick tubes.
The woman’s gaze locked on the tube.
Emma held it before her. “Lipstick. From one of the best cosmetic companies in the world.” She swiveled the tube and the red color emerged.
The woman sucked in her breath. Her eyes widened.
“I developed the red. Do you like it?”
The woman just stared at the lipstick.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Emma said.
Emma handed it to the woman. “It’s yours. Try it. You will be one of the first women in the whole world to wear the color. I designed it to last all day, and it won’t dry out your lips.”
The woman looked at Emma in awe. She seemed almost afraid to touch the tube.
“Here.” Emma moved the tube closer to the woman. “It’s yours. Gracias por pollo.” She knew she’d murdered the sentence in Spanish, but the words did the trick. The woman reached and took the tube from her.
She ran over to a bucket that held some water. She stared into it, using the water as a mirror. She applied the lipstick and turned to Emma.
“Oooh,” the children said in unison.
Emma sucked in her breath. The color looked perfect. It complemented the woman’s coloring and made her appear more youthful, even happier somehow.
“You make my color look beautiful. Gracias.” Emma whispered the words.
The woman broke into a shy smile. “Gracias,” she said.
Emma nodded. “I must go now. I don’t want to be here when the men return.”
The woman looked somber again. She waved Emma to the door of a nearby hut. Emma had noticed the hut when she first entered the camp, mostly due to its difference from the others. It was set off from the main circle of buildings. There were no windows, and instead of a cloth covering an opening, this hut had a real wooden door, bolted into the frame, with a bar that hung across it.
As Emma walked over to the hut, she noticed that the children all had fallen silent. Their eyes were huge in their heads, and for the first time Emma felt they were looking at her in fear. Emma didn’t want to open the door. Yet she felt compelled to see what was inside. She lifted the wooden bar. The door swung outward. It creaked on rusty hinges. The noise was loud and grating in the quiet clearing.
The inside was so dark that it took Emma a minute to adjust to what she was seeing. Only tiny shafts of light glowed through the occasional crack in the boards. The floor was dirt. Larger stones ringed the sides. The center of the floor contained a deep hole, so deep that she couldn’t see into it.
Emma glanced back at the young woman. The woman wasn’t looking at her, she was staring at the hole. Emma didn’t think it was possible for the woman to look any sadder than when she had first met her, but she did. Her eyes were dark pools of despair.
Emma took two steps into the hut and stared into the hole.
It was nearly ten feet deep and three feet wide. At the very bottom was a person. It looked to be a woman. Long hair tangled around her body. Her arms were like sticks. Her bones were clearly visible under skin so thin it seemed translucent. Heavy leg irons were wrapped around her ankles. She was lying on her side with her knees drawn to her chest in a fetal position. Her eyes were closed.
“Oh God, no,” Emma said.
The prisoner opened her eyes and looked at Emma.
Emma felt her head swim. Tears came so quickly that it left her feeling light-headed. She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm.
“Can you speak English?” she said.
“I can.” The woman’s voice was reed thin and soft. She spoke English with only a slight French accent.
“How long have you been here?” Emma said.
“I think two years.”
Emma knelt at the side of the hole. “Can you walk?”
The woman nodded. “They lower a ladder every day and I walk to the jungle to go to the bathroom.”
Emma looked around. She saw the ladder lying on the far side of the hut.
