Running from the Devil

“Anything I need to know that may be useful in this mission?” Miguel’s question opened the floodgates.

“The paramilitary groups are worse than the cartels, by far.” A soldier in the front row piped up with this not-so-helpful comment.

“Worse than drug dealers? Hard to believe,” Miguel said.

“Believe it, sir. They care less about life than the drug dealers. The drug dealers want to keep their clients alive. Dead clients don’t buy drugs, after all. But the paramilitary guys don’t give a damn about civilian life because they don’t make all their money from the drug trade.”

“What’s your name and how do you know so much about the paramilitary guys?”

The soldier stood up and saluted. “Private Gabriel Kohl, and I’ve been here the longest.”

“Well, Private, then how do the guerrillas make money?”

“They siphon gas from the pipeline and sell it on the black market. Those that aren’t siphoning bomb it, and extort protection money from the local government. Those that don’t siphon or bomb, kidnap.”

“So I’ve heard. And the government pays extortion money? Why?”

“Hell, half the paramilitary guys we’re dealing with are the relatives of the governmental officials, so in many cases the government has no real incentive to shut them down.”

“Sounds just like Miami.” Miguel’s voice was dry. He handed out copies of a picture of Emma.

“This is a passenger from Flight 689. Name of Emma Caldridge.”

Kohl whistled. “Man, she’s pretty!”

Miguel frowned at Kohl.

“Uh, sorry, sir, just an observation,” Kohl said.

Miguel glanced at the picture. “She is pretty, but that’s not why I gave you the picture. She’s an extreme runner and chemist who somehow managed to send a text message from her telephone after the crash.” He handed out copies of Emma’s text message. “There are several guerrilla organizations operating in the area from where we received the message, but we have reason to believe that the group that collected the passengers was headed by one Luis Rodrigo.”

Several men groaned.

“Exactly,” Miguel said. “We need to find the passengers before Rodrigo annihilates them all. And we’ll need some way to locate the mines. I understand he’s famous for them. Kohl, do you have any idea where we might obtain a bomb-sniffing dog?”

Private Kohl thought for a moment. “The Colombian army guys have a couple of German shepherds that they use for mine clearing.”

“Take me to them. Let’s see if we can borrow them.”

Within a couple of hours, Miguel arranged to take two German shepherds, named Boris and Natasha, with them on their journey. After securing the shepherds, Miguel called Carol Stromeyer.

“Major Stromeyer, I’ve got twenty special forces men dressed for the Iraqi desert instead of the Colombian jungle. Any chance you can get the DOD to spring for the proper clothing?”

“No problem. Get me their names. I’ll look into it and get back to you.”

Three hours after that, the first search helicopters took off.

16

STROMEYER STOOD BEFORE A YOUNG RECEPTIONIST SITTING behind a mahogany desk in the Pure Chemistry lobby. The company’s success was manifested in its corporate offices. Housed in a glass building with green-tinted windows, the facility occupied half a city block. A brochure placed in the reception area boasted that Pure Chemistry contained a state-of-the-art laboratory.

Stromeyer introduced herself. After a few minutes, a large man dressed in khaki pants and a short-sleeved white shirt walked up to her. He sported a bad comb-over, a polyester tie that was askew, and a plastic pocket protector in the shirt’s breast pocket. Stromeyer couldn’t begin to imagine the thoughts Banner would have if he saw Mr. White. He smiled a grin that exposed miles of gums, and stuck his hand out.

“I’m Gerald White. Nice to meet you. I’ve got the additional information on Emma Caldridge that you need.”

Stromeyer shook his hand. “I appreciate it.”

White led her past the receptionist into a carpeted hallway lined with doors. They reached one in the back.

“Here’s my office. Would you like some coffee?” He opened the door.

Mr. White’s office bore the stamp of a professional decorator. It was the antithesis of the man himself. The square-shaped room had a bank of windows on one side with a view of a small grassy area next to the building. A sleek cherrywood desk held a laptop in a docking station, a manila folder, and nothing else. Bookshelves lined the walls. Stromeyer saw a Grey’s Anatomy along with several volumes of scientific journals. A book titled Nostradamus, the Predictions caught her eye.

“Interesting choice, Nostradamus,” she said.

White gave her a sheepish look. “He was a sort of scientist, you know. I’ve always been fascinated by him.” White grabbed the manila folder. He perched on the edge of the desk.

“I have Ms. Caldridge’s personnel file here. As you know, it’s confidential, but I can tell you some information without the need for a subpoena. Like how long she’s been employed by us, her job description, et cetera.”

“How long has she been employed here?”

“Eighteen months. She transferred here from a job at a prestigious lab in the Midwest. We were very excited to get her, because she already had quite a reputation for her knowledge of plants.”

“I’ve read an article about her in Science magazine. Something about adding artificial chromosomes to plants,” Stromeyer said.

Mr. White nodded, a look of excitement in his eyes. “Yes, that work is truly groundbreaking. The Mondrian Chemical Company is looking to license her technology.”

“Is she continuing that research here?”

Mr. White shifted, as if nervous. “Not exactly. We do cosmetic chemistry. However, some of her work complements our needs. For example, we know that vitamin C liquid acts as a powerful antioxidant, but a serum containing it degrades quickly into a useless liquid. Ms. Caldridge helped create the technology that allows the ingredient to retain its potency for consumer use.”

“Why did she leave her last job?”

“Her fiancé died. She decided to move here to be near her father. He had retired to Florida.”

“I’d heard something about the fiancé. How did he die?”

“Car accident. He was hit by a drunk driver who veered into on-coming traffic.”

“How tragic.”

White nodded. “She doesn’t talk about it much, but I bumped into some of her former colleagues at a seminar and they say she was devastated.” He handed Stromeyer a piece of paper from the folder.

“She gave her father’s name and address as her emergency contact. George Caldridge, 2370 Poinsettia Place, Miami Beach. Here’s the phone number.”

“Do you think he knows that she was on Flight 689?”

White nodded. “I imagine not the exact flight, but he knew she was headed to Bogotá. Ms. Caldridge mentioned to her secretary that she’d informed her family of her trip.”

Stromeyer couldn’t help but be shocked. What kind of father didn’t call after his daughter when he knew she was on a flight from the same American city, to the same region, on the same day, that a jet went down?

“Has he been in contact with Pure Chemistry?”

White shook his head. “Not at all. In fact, we tried to contact him, but there’s no answer, and the machine is set to take no messages.”

“Ms. Caldridge sent a text to you after the plane went down. Are you very close?”

Mr. White looked pleased. His face turned pink in the beginnings of a blush. “We are. She’s brilliant, but easy to work with. Not the usual combination in our business. A lot of scientists are eccentric, to say the least.” It was clear Mr. White had a crush on Ms. Caldridge.

Stromeyer stood up. “Could I see her office? It would give me a feel for her.”

“Of course. Most of her time here is spent in the lab, which is off-limits to visitors, but her office is right down the hall.” Stromeyer followed White, who led her two doors down the hallway. He opened the door and waved her in.

The office benefited from the same professional decoration as White’s. It, too, had windows that looked out onto the same grassy area, a bookshelf built into a wall, and a cherrywood desk that was identical to White’s. Her desk contained a notepad engraved at the top with the words From the desk of Emma Caldridge, an empty laptop docking station, and a framed photograph of Emma with her arms wrapped around the waist of a man. Stromeyer picked up the picture.

“Is this the fiancé?” she said.

White nodded. “His name was Patrick McBain.”

Both Emma and the man smiled into the camera. They looked happy and carefree. Stromeyer replaced the frame on the desk.

“Do you know if she took her laptop with her?”

White shook his head. “Doubtful. We have strict controls on how much information our scientists can cart around. We’d hate for a competitor to get their hands on some of our work, and laptops can be easily stolen. When not in use, they’re locked in a secure room.”

Stromeyer was surprised. “Is the information that valuable?”

White smiled. “The cosmetics industry is based on fast-paced innovation. Once a product is on the market, generics will re-create it within months. Next thing you know, your expensive face cream is shelved next to the drugstore’s cheaper house brand. Our clients expect to be copied once they launch, but they insist that we maintain tight security during the research-and-development phase.”

Stromeyer eyed the bookshelf. A volume entitled The Indigenous People of Colombia caught her eye. She pulled it off the shelf and showed it to White.

“Had she been to Colombia before?”

White wiped his hands on his thighs. Stromeyer thought he once again looked nervous.

“She went to the Ciudad Perdida last year.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The Lost City. Ancient ruins, like Peru’s Machu Picchu, located in the Colombian Sierra Nevada Mountains not far from the coast. The site remained hidden until the 1970s, when grave robbers discovered it. Of course the indigenous people always knew it was there. To get there requires a grueling six-day trek through jungle and paramilitary-controlled coca fields. Not too many people attempt it. Emma took the trek last year.”

“Looking for plants?”

“Yes.”

“Did she find any?”

White shook his head. “She’d hoped that the indigenous people would utilize the local plants in a new, useful way, but all they used was the coca plant.”

Stromeyer was surprised. “Really?”

White chuckled. “Really. They think it’s a sacred plant that confers strength and fertility on those who ingest it. They chew it for energy. Needless to say, we couldn’t utilize that particular plant.”

“You win some, you lose some.” Stromeyer smiled at White.

White laughed. “You’ve got that right.”

Stromeyer replaced the book and held out her hand. “Thanks for your help. I’ll drive by Mr. Caldridge’s house and check it out.”

“Of course. As I told you on the phone, Ms. Caldridge is one of my best researchers. She’s one of the few people I know who are completely unafraid of new situations. She’d fly to the most dangerous places in the world if it meant discovering something new and exciting.”

“Does Pure Chemistry have kidnap insurance for her?” The thought just popped into Stromeyer’s head.

“No. We only take out ‘kidnap’ and ‘key man’ insurance for our CEO. The rest of us are stuck flying without a net, so to speak. Perhaps her family will offer a ransom.”

“Not likely, Mr. White. They haven’t bothered to check on her.”

Mr. White looked glum. “I know. Not what I’d expect, frankly. She’s a nice woman. Seems like she’d come from a nice family.”

After leaving Pure Chemistry, Stromeyer drove over the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach. She found Poinsettia Place in a small, gated community on a strip of land flanked by water. The houses were solid brick with shingle roofs, unusual for Miami, with its emphasis on Spanish tile and Mediterranean architecture. These houses could have been in New Hampshire or Connecticut.

The Caldridge house was a ranch style with a red brick exterior and a dark shingle roof. Solid and prosperous-looking, it sat on a corner, with trimmed bushes surrounding the perimeter, red bougainvillea climbing up the side walls, and orange hibiscus and crocus plants lining a brick sidewalk.

Stromeyer rang the bell and waited. Four minutes later, she rang again. She checked her watch. Five minutes later, she rang again. Nothing. The curtains on a front picture window remained closed. Whether against the noonday sun or because the owner was gone, Stromeyer couldn’t tell. She walked around the house. Two large air-conditioning units sat on one side. Silent. This told Stromeyer everything she needed to know. As far as she could tell, these were the only air conditioners in the entire state of Florida that were switched off. Florida’s streets baked in oppressive heat, while every interior Stromeyer visited remained ice-cold. If George Caldridge’s air was turned off, he wasn’t home and wasn’t planning on being home for a while; it was as simple as that. She climbed back into her government-issued sedan and ruminated on the missing-in-action senior Caldridge all the way back to Southern Command.

She located Banner pacing in the conference room, a coffee cup in his hand. His eyes lit up when he saw her.

“Good news, I hope? I need some.”

Stromeyer sank into a swivel chair. “Emma Caldridge put her father down as her emergency contact. But he’s gone, flew the coop.”

Banner stopped pacing. “Are you sure?”

“I went to his house. The machine doesn’t accept messages, no answer at the door, and his air-conditioning is turned off.”

“Any idea where he worked? Maybe he’s on vacation.”

“He’s retired. Maybe he’s traveling, but I doubt it. Even if he was, you’d think he’d check in on his daughter when he saw the CNN footage. Unless he’s in some extremely remote area, he’s bound to have seen it.”

“Have we checked her house?”

“Not yet. Honestly, I didn’t think it would be necessary. I’ll contact the FBI, get a warrant, and head over there right away. I did get one piece of interesting information, though. Seems that last year she visited a remote area of Colombia looking for plants. She found nothing Pure Chemistry could use, but was supposedly headed back there for work purposes. It’s a little odd.”

Banner took a sip of his coffee. “I had a feeling she was a player,” he said.

17

EMMA CAUGHT UP WITH THE PASSENGERS TWO HOURS AFTER washing the herbicide off her skin. She trudged behind the line, her spear gripped in her hand and the guerrilla’s rifle over her shoulder. The path in front of her curved right. The trees were less dense than before, which allowed sun to filter between them. Grass grew knee-high in the patches of light. Emma could see the line of passengers between the breaks in the trees. Two guerrillas held up the rear. She dodged behind a tree to let them regain their lead.

A snorting, huffing sound came from the jungle, somewhere between Emma and the line of passengers. The guerrillas called a halt. The snorting sounds continued, along with rustling sounds made by whatever was in the tall grass as it moved through. The soldiers holding up the rear became agitated. They kept spinning around to look behind them. Two turned around and walked backward, their eyes scanning the jungle. The snuffling sounds intensified.

“Pigs!” one of the lagging soldiers yelled. He yelled it in Spanish, but Emma recognized the word. At least she thought she did, until she saw the others guerrillas turn to peer into the grass. The fear on their faces was unnerving.

Why in the world are they so afraid of pigs? Emma wondered. She kneeled behind the tree and watched the men.

The rat-faced guerrilla pushed back through the line of passengers. He crouched next to the path and aimed his rifle toward the snorting sounds. Emma was thirty feet away and directly in his line of fire.

Emma froze. She warred with herself. Should she move slowly away? What if he heard her? Stay behind the tree? Take the risk that he’d spot her? Or stay frozen and let him shoot, taking the risk that a stray bullet would hit her?

Before she could decide to do either, the rat-faced guerrilla fired. He sprayed the area with shot. Emma heaved herself backward as the bullets landed all around her. She dropped to the ground and curled into a ball to make herself as small a target as possible.

The guerrilla let off another round. This time, loud squeals accompanied the noise of the gunfire. Emma watched as the low-growing palms and grasses moved in waves. When the waves were twenty feet away from her, she saw the wild pigs.

They were unlike any pigs she’d ever seen before. The size and shape of small pit bulls, they were muscled and hairless. The lead pig had two large tusks that grew from his lips, like a wild boar, except these tusks stuck straight out in front of his snout. He squealed in rage and ran at her. Six others fell in behind him.

Emma grabbed her spear, pulled herself upright, and took off back down the path. She ran as fast as she dared, dodging tree branches and avoiding small ruts. The spear flashed in her peripheral vision each time it moved with the pumping action of her arms. Her feet slipped and flew out from under her. She stumbled forward and landed face-first in the mud. She could still hear the pigs running and grunting behind her.

She got up and took two steps, and on the third, pain shot through her left shin. It felt like someone had driven a nail through it. It flared with each bone-jarring step. Emma’s brain registered the injury that she recognized as a shin splint, a tiny fracture of the shinbone, while the rest of her strained to continue running. She looked back.

The lead pig gained on her. She heard its hooves scrabbling on some loose stones. It moved with a speed that Emma did not think possible in an animal that size, and it showed no signs of slowing. The other animals fanned out behind it.

Emma’s injury made outrunning the beast impossible. She would have to stand and fight. She turned to face the charging animal, gripped her spear, and prepared to attack.

The lead pig was six feet away and barreling toward her. Emma planted her feet, and when the animal came close enough, she jammed the spear into it with all the energy in her. The beast ran right onto the point. The spear vibrated on impact and penetrated straight through the pig’s body. The force of the hit made Emma stagger, and the spear’s shaft slid through her palms, scraping the skin. The spear entered at the pig’s flank and exited on the other side near the animal’s tail. The pig squealed a death squeal, twitched once, and stilled.

The other pigs were on Emma in a flash. Emma swung the spear around in an arc, with the pig still impaled on it. She clubbed the second pig with the body of the first, and whipped the stick back the other way to swipe at the third. The fourth pig’s tusks scraped her arm, but Emma managed to club it before it could sink the tusk home.

The lead pig’s corpse spun off the weapon and flew sideways. It landed four feet to the right of Emma. The other pigs turned in unison and descended on the body of their leader. They attacked it in a frenzy, snorting and stabbing at it, tearing it to pieces with their tusks. The pigs ignored Emma while they ravaged the dead animal.

Emma got up and limped her way back to the path where she had last seen the guerrilla shoot. When she found it, she kept moving. As she walked, she shook with fear. Her shaking lasted long after the noise of the maddened pigs receded in the distance.

That evening, Emma set up the tent a football-field length down the trail from the guerrilla campsite. She could smell smoke from fires and the pungent aroma of cooking meat made her mouth water. For a brief moment, she regretted leaving the dead pig behind. It would have made a decent supper. She considered going back the next morning to see if anything was left of it, when reason prevailed. By the next day it would be decaying in the heat and covered with flies. She settled into her tent, the folding knife she’d taken from the guerrilla open at her side.

18

MIGUEL, HIS PILOT, KOHL, AND BORIS HAD BEEN FLYING OVER endless stands of beautiful trees and lush green foliage for two days. The terrain conspired against them. The thick cover could hide something as big as a jet with ease. Miguel doubted that they’d find the jet at all if it had landed in the denser parts of the jungle. While in the beginning Miguel had sat in awe of the beauty laid out before him, now, after two days of flying, he watched without interest as the terrain below them flashed by. He started the search close to the coordinates for the cell phone, and expanded it a little more each day, flying in concentric circles.

Kohl and Boris the dog sat behind Miguel. Kohl held binoculars that he used to look out the window, scanning the ground. Every so often he’d reach over to give Boris a pat. For his part, Boris looked miserable. It seemed to Miguel that the dog didn’t like the noise of the rotors.

“There it is!” Kohl yelled over the noise and gestured at the ground. The pilot leaned his head to the side and then nodded.

Miguel looked down. A huge crater sat in the middle of what looked like a thin road carved into the trees.

“Looks like a huge hole,” the pilot said to Miguel.

Miguel spun his hand in a circle. “Take us back around.”

The pilot swung the helicopter around for a second pass. The jet body itself was missing, but a huge crater indicated where explosives had been detonated. Miguel tapped the pilot on the shoulder.

“Can you get closer?”

The pilot nodded and lowered the copter.

“See the long straight gouge in the earth that disappears into the crater?” Miguel said to Kohl and the pilot as he pointed to the earth.

“That’s a runway they blasted,” the pilot said.

“What’s the line on the road? Plane dragged something that created it?” Kohl said.

Miguel shook his head. “Not likely. Maybe the landing gear didn’t retract.”

“No way that runway is long enough for a jet.” The pilot yelled this information to Miguel. “My guess is she broke up on landing.”

“Take us down,” Miguel said.

“Hold on.” The pilot pulled on the collective, and the helicopter heaved to one side. Boris slid across the floor and knocked into Kohl, who threw his arms around the dog to steady him. The pilot hauled the helicopter back the other way and then spun in a circle and dropped downward. Miguel felt his stomach drop with it.

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled at the pilot while he braced himself against the wall.

“Evasive maneuvers. Below three thousand feet and we’re in sniper range. We never go straight down. Not if we want to survive the landing.”

“Yeah, boy!” Kohl yelled while the helicopter swung from side to side and spun around.

Miguel felt like he was on a Tilt-a-Whirl ride at a carnival. He hated that ride. He watched the ground approach. When the copter landed, he was the first one out.

Miguel stood on the remains of the runway and looked around. Debris was everywhere, but very little of it was recognizable. He walked around the area, kicking at broken tree limbs, pieces of luggage, mounds of dirt, bits of shoes, and sections of steel that had survived both the landing and the explosion.

Kohl and Boris searched the fringes. After a minute, Kohl burst from the trees, Boris jogging along next to him. Miguel watched him stop and vomit.

“Let me guess, you’ve found the bodies,” Miguel said.

Kohl took a deep breath before answering. “Not bodies, pieces of bodies. There are a couple of heads and a torso back there.”

“Are they burned? Or are they blasted apart?”

Kohl gave Miguel an incredulous look. “Sir, no disrespect meant, but does it matter? They’re sure enough dead, I can tell you that. I didn’t hang around long enough to analyze the manner of death.”

“Manner of death counts. Burned means that the plane caught on fire and our chances of finding survivors are few. Blasted means that they were blown apart by whatever caused this crater, and perhaps there are other survivors who avoided the explosion.”

“What about burned and blasted?” Kohl said.

“Means that God and the devil fought and the devil won. But don’t worry, God may lose a battle or two, but He always wins the war.”

“I sure hope you’re right about that,” Kohl said.

Miguel marched to the perimeter and looked at the casualties. It was a ghastly sight, and he himself had to repress an urge to retch. He kneeled, said a short prayer, and made the sign of the cross when he was done. His years as a soldier killing the enemy had not taken the conviction from him that the dead needed a prayer said for them. At least the innocent dead. The killers he wouldn’t give the time of day. He waved Kohl over.

“Burned and blasted. You have to wonder what kind of assholes kill people twice. Is once not good enough for them?” Miguel sighed. “You take Boris and search the area from here in about one hundred yards. I’ll canvass the perimeter.”

Twenty minutes later, Miguel found the crudely hacked path. That it was fresh was obvious from the still-green leaves that lay on the ground. They hadn’t had time to yellow after having been cut off. Miguel bent down to get a closer look at the dirt. The marks of shoes were so numerous that they overlapped one another. Miguel felt a little hope rise in him. If the tracks were any indication, quite a few passengers may have survived the landing.

“Kohl, get over here.”

Kohl jogged over, Boris at his heels.

Miguel showed him the path. “That’s where we start hunting. Looks like a bunch of passengers made it.”

“Why would they leave the area?” Kohl said.

“Their guerrilla welcoming committee must be moving them to a secure location.” He pointed to the jagged branches that stuck out, about shoulder height. “These cuts were made by a machete hacking at the branch. While the TSA misses a lot of contraband at airport screening, Transit Security is a lot better than that.”

“What next?” Kohl said.

“Let’s head back to camp and get the others. Tomorrow we come back and take this path.”

19

THE NEXT MORNING, MIGUEL, KOHL, AND TEN OTHER SPECIAL forces personnel swarmed over the bomb site. They’d found several bodies in the surrounding forest, but the bulk of their finds were body parts, not intact bodies. They collected them all, however. DNA would help identify the dead. Miguel led Boris the dog into the tree line. After a few minutes, he found the hidden luggage.

“What do we have here?” Miguel patted Boris on the head. He checked out the bags. The first black roller was good quality, but utilitarian. The kind of inconspicuous bag that Miguel would buy if he ever needed to travel out of uniform. He flipped over the tag.

“Mr. Sumner’s bag survived, if not the man himself,” Miguel said to Boris, who stood next to him, panting. He opened the suitcase and sifted through it. Nothing useful jumped out at him. He turned to the neighboring bag, which was covered in some sort of fancy designer logo. Miguel forgot the guy’s name. This luggage was also high quality.

“Too flashy, hey, Boris? What do you bet these are a woman’s bags?”

Boris flapped his dripping tongue once, and sat down. Miguel unzipped the bag and looked at Emma’s note on top of the clothes.

“Kohl, come over here,” Miguel said. Miguel handed him the note. “Ms. Caldridge left us another clue. And Mr. Sumner of the Air Tunnel Denial program survived the crash.”

Kohl read the note and gave a low whistle.

“Seventy alive. Excellent. You were right about that path. Do you think she’s still around?”

“My concern is that she was hiding and got caught up in the blast.” Miguel stood up and gazed around.

“I sure hope not,” Kohl said.

“Me, too. But my guess is that she’s alive. Call back to Banner and let him know that Ms. Caldridge survived after she sent the text message.” Miguel paused, thinking. “I just wish I knew what she decided to do.”

“What would you do?” Kohl said.

“I’m a trained soldier, so I don’t think what I would do applies in this case,” Miguel said.

“Didn’t you say she was some sort of extreme runner through tough terrain? Doesn’t sound like the kind of person who would fall apart at the sight of a jungle. Even one like this.” Kohl waved his hand to indicate the thick foliage. “Hell, she could run her way out of here.”

Miguel nodded slowly. “You’ve got a point. But she needs food, water, and some idea of direction, or she’ll end up running in circles.”

“Could she use the stars?” Kohl said.

“Could you? I mean, before you joined the special forces.”

Kohl’s grin was a little sheepish. “No way. The only star I could identify was the Big Dipper.”

Miguel laughed. “Don’t feel bad. I couldn’t, either. No, I think she would do something easier, more obvious. She wouldn’t have a machete, so cutting her own path is out.”

Kohl shrugged. “Then her only option is to use the trail or the road. If the road, that means she split from the passengers. The guerrillas must be cutting the trail to avoid being seen from the sky.”

Miguel nodded absentmindedly.

“How about I go up the road a bit? See if she left any more clues for us to find?” Kohl said.

Miguel shook his head. “No! That road is probably loaded with mines. We follow the trail. The footprints all over it lead me to believe the guerrillas are herding the passengers that way.”

“But what about Ms. Caldridge? We just can’t leave her.” Kohl’s voice held a note of shock.

Miguel stood up and dusted off his hands. “She’s on her own.”

Kohl made a noise in protest, and Miguel waved him off.

“While I’m pleased that Ms. Caldridge survived, my job is to rescue all of the passengers, not just her.”

Kohl looked stricken. “But if we find her, she could tell us how much of a head start the passengers got and how far ahead she thinks they are.”

“I doubt we’d catch Ms. Caldridge, even if we wanted to,” Miguel said.

“Why?”

“She’s able to move a hell of a lot faster than we are, I can tell you that.”

“She’s got to be tired, too. She’s only human,” Kohl pointed out.

“Kohl, her brand of tired is completely different from ours. She’s conditioned to run in the heat for miles on end. What she does can only be done by a handful of people in the world. It’s like trying to chase a Formula One race car in a golf cart.”

“I hate to leave her out there.”

Miguel sighed. “I know, but we can’t spare the time looking in different directions. We need to focus our efforts in a way that is likely to find the most passengers. And who knows? Maybe she’s following the guerrillas, too. Come on, let’s move out.”

Kohl turned away, a dejected look on his face.

Within fifteen minutes, they were jogging down the trail. Boris and Natasha ran in front; Miguel, Kohl, and the rest followed. Within an hour, Miguel was drenched. His clothes clung to his body. Thirty minutes later, he reduced his pace to a brisk walk. After thirty minutes more, he was walking even slower.

Miguel called a halt. He sat on a nearby tree stump and drank from his canteen. The wet heat felt like a blanket settling on him. The minute they’d stopped walking, the mosquitoes began forming into clouds. Miguel pulled out some bug spray and sprayed his arms. The unique chemical smell floated in the air. His arms felt sticky and he smelled like a chemical processing plant.

Great, he thought. He waved Kohl over. “What happened to the odorless bug spray?”

“We never had any that I know of.”

“Now my scent can be detected a hundred yards ahead.”

Kohl laughed. “Not by the guerrillas. They all smoke like fiends. Their sense of smell shut down years ago.”

“I hope the same can be said of the cartel guys.” Miguel’s voice was dry.

“They’re worse. They smoke weed. That smell will cover anything in its path.” Miguel stood up and ran a bandanna over his face. Kohl shuffled his feet and studied the foliage all around them.

“Well, look at that,” Kohl sounded excited.

Miguel rubbed the sticky chemical deeper into his skin before glancing up to see what interested Kohl so much. That’s when he saw the large X carved into the trunk of a tree. He gave a low whistle.

“Wonderful,” he said.

“It’s her!” Kohl’s voice was filled with excitement, and way too loud.

“Kohl, pipe down.” Miguel said. He walked over to the X. Ran a finger in the grooves. He didn’t care who carved it, he was just thankful that they did. He spun around. Kohl grinned a crooked grin and batted at a cloud of mosquitoes. “Time to go,” Miguel said.

They started forward again; this time, no one jogged, except Kohl, who seemed to have a new lease on life since seeing the X. Miguel figured they had four hours of light left before the men would need to eat. Each soldier carried a pack that contained food, water, a hammock, and mosquito netting.

Boris came to a dead halt. He stopped so quickly that Miguel stumbled over him. He landed on his knees next to the dog. It was then that he saw the thin nylon wire strung across the path. It disappeared into the tree line. Miguel couldn’t see where it stopped, but he assumed it ended on a spring-loaded mine.

“Everyone stop!” Miguel yelled to the men. They froze in place. Kohl inched forward and squat down next to Miguel. He eyed the line.

“Don’t you just love that dog?”

20

THE DAY AFTER JUAN APPEARED BABBLING ABOUT EL CHUPACABRA, Luis awoke to discover that three men had deserted during the night.

“We have a very big problem,” Alvarado said.

Luis was boiling with rage. He focused on the tall man.

“It is this man who causes us trouble,” he told Alvarado.

Alvarado gave Luis an incredulous look. “Luis, forget that man, will you? How could he be the problem? He is here the entire time, while these sentries see monsters in the dark.”

Luis swung toward Alvarado and poked a finger in his chest. “Or do you believe it is El Chupacabra, too?”

Alvarado shook his head. “I think it is some sort of animal that stalks us. A real animal, not a legendary beast.”

“How do we kill it?” Luis kept his gaze on the tall man, who was kneeling next to a passenger.

Alvarado shook his head. “I do not know.”

Luis watched the tall man talk to the passenger.

“Luis, focus,” Alvarado said.

“No more sentry duty. Everyone sleeps in camp today. If the beast comes, it will have to enter the circle to attack, and when it does, we will kill it.” Luis continued to stare at the tall man, then spun on his heel and walked away.

Alvarado stayed in the rear, brooding. Luis’s single-minded determination to complete this project and show the cartels his leadership abilities worried him. Luis was a man of little complexity and great, explosive anger. While he was known for leading the small band of losers well, Alvarado did not think he was up to the task of running any type of real organization. His anger always ended up creating a disaster.

Like his unprovoked attack on the tall man, whose machete wound had become infected. It oozed yellow pus. He still managed to walk with an easy motion, but Alvarado saw how his mouth was pinched with the pain. His hair hung in greasy clumps and his eyes were bloodshot. Alvarado thought the man looked slightly mad. He expected him to die from the infection, and this meant less money for all.

The loss of the tall man wouldn’t be their only loss, by far. Three other passengers were already sick. Two diabetics had lost their insulin in the crash, and their moods were fluctuating wildly as their blood sugar rose and plunged. One passenger had broken his arm and the swelling refused to lessen. The man kept it wrapped and held it close to his body. Alvarado wasn’t sure how long the man would survive if the swelling didn’t go down. He figured all these would die before they could be ransomed.

At three o’clock in the afternoon, Luis and his entourage reached the first checkpoint on their journey. Three flatbed trucks and two jeeps, covered with leaves and tree branches for camouflage, were parked at the beginning of a crude dirt path.

“Thank God,” Alvarado said. “We can ride for a while.”

Luis waved at the soldiers. “Get everyone into the trucks.” He turned to Alvarado. “At least we move the cows faster now, eh? I was ready to kill them all just so we could get here.”

Alvarado shook his head. “Fifty miles, and only a little bit faster. This road is a mess. Then more walking.”

“Fifty miles in a vehicle. Who cares how fast? It’s still much better than fifty miles on foot,” Luis pointed out.

Alvarado nodded. “True, but this part is dangerous. The gringos can follow the road from their Harpies.” Alvarado scanned the sky above him, looking for helicopters.

Luis watched, too. He slapped Alvarado on the back. “What goes up must come down, Alvarado. I’ve yet to see a Harpy you couldn’t shoot on descent.” Alvarado looked pleased at the compliment.

“But we throw out the sick ones here. We don’t have the room to carry them all,” Luis said. “Take that diabetic man out of here and shoot him.” He pointed at the weaker of the two diabetics. “The tall man, too. His infection will kill him in the next few days, and I am tired of looking at him.”

Alvarado frowned in disapproval.

“You have a problem with this order, Alvarado?” Luis glared at his lieutenant.

Alvarado pursed his lips, then shrugged. “The diabetic man will be in a coma soon.” He said nothing to Luis about the tall man. He thought the chances of him beating the infection were slim, but he’d survived this long, a near miracle. Alvarado snapped his fingers at a group of guerrillas that lounged against a jeep. “Take those two back on the path and kill them,” he said.

21

EMMA ROUNDED A CORNER AND SKIDDED TO A HALT. A SMALL group stood on the path thirty feet ahead. Foliage obscured her view, but she caught glimpses of the men between the swaying branches.

Three guerrillas stood in a semicircle around Sumner and another passenger. The extent of Sumner’s deterioration shocked Emma. He was unshaven, with five days’ growth of beard and a long red, swollen cut on his shoulder blade that oozed a yellow substance. He was naked from the waist up, his back was covered in bug bites, and his pants hung on his frame.

The other man was not much better off. His ashen face gleamed with an unnatural sheen, and he swayed a little. Sumner reached out and clutched the man’s forearm, lending what support he could.

The guerrillas passed a joint between them in silence. The pungent marijuana aroma wafted toward Emma. Each carried a rifle slung over his shoulder by a strap, one wore ammunition belts crisscrossed over his chest, and the third held a plastic water bottle.

They ignored the two passengers while they took their time smoking. The executioners, rather than offering a last smoke to the condemned, were taking one themselves. It was as if Sumner and the other man didn’t exist. As if the guerrillas thought the men were already ghosts. Emma felt a sense of dread just watching the silent group. She found herself staring at the guerrilla with the ammunition belts as he put the joint to his lips, inhaled with closed eyes, and then took it away in a slow motion. She knew that when his joint was over, something awful was going to happen.

The smoke curled into the air in slow patterns. The two guerrillas without ammunition belts sat down on the ground to roll another. The guerrilla with the ammo stayed standing, and continued smoking. Sumner and the injured man waited, swaying in silence.

Emma slid the pack off her back. She lowered it to the ground and carefully pulled out one of the pistols and a tiny bottle of scotch. She shoved the gun into her waistband, cracked open the scotch, drank half of it, and poured the remaining alcohol over the grease-soaked rag that she still had from her encounter with the guerrilla. She placed the neck of the bottle under her foot. The top broke with a satisfying crunch, leaving a jagged tip and a wider opening. She shoved the piece of cloth in the bottle and picked up the lighter. She crept toward them, until she was only fifteen feet behind the group.

The ashen man’s eyes glazed over, and he sank into unconsciousness, falling quietly onto the thick bed of rotted leaves that covered the trail. The smoking guerrilla removed the joint from his mouth, pointed his rifle at the prone man, and blew his head off. Bits of bone and brains splattered against the thick foliage. The blast set a group of monkeys screaming in the trees.

Emma gasped in horror and fumbled with the lighter, flicking it at the soaked piece of rag. While she did, the guerrilla raised the gun and pointed it at Sumner, who stared at it with a resigned look on his face.

The rag lit. A tongue of flame whooshed upward. Emma moved into position behind the guerrilla aiming the rifle. She shoved the barrel of her gun into the back of his head.

“Don’t even think about it,” she whispered in his ear.

She felt his body freeze. The other two leaped up with almost comical speed.

“Get down!” Emma yelled at the top of her lungs and threw the flaming bottle of scotch at them. They dove back onto the ground to avoid it. Sumner jumped over and yanked the rifle from the standing guerrilla’s hands. He trained it on the others. Everyone froze, like some grotesque sculpture.

Emma grabbed the rifles away from the other two, still lying on their stomachs. She now had four guns that she didn’t know how to use, three guerrillas she didn’t know what to do with, and one man with wild, bloodshot eyes on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

And a corpse.

Emma’s hands shook as she held the pistol.

“Take off your clothes,” she said.

The guerrillas didn’t move.

“I said take off your clothes!”

This time she punctuated her statement with a kick to one man’s shoulder. He babbled at her in Spanish, clearly not understanding her.

“What in the hell am I going to do now?” Emma said, frustrated.

Sumner gave her a reddened stare before he turned to the guerrillas. He barked an order in Spanish, his voice hoarse. The men looked at him in surprise. He said the same words again, then knelt down and shoved the rifle into the face of one of the guerrillas.

Emma noted that whatever he said worked, because all three began to rip their clothes off. Sumner shot Emma a questioning look but said nothing as the pile of clothes grew.

“Keep the guns on them,” Emma said.

Sumner nodded. He still stared at her as if she was a creature from outer space. Then she remembered the mud that covered her body. She must have looked a fright.

“It’s mud. It stops the bugs from biting.”

Sumner said nothing.

Emma grabbed one man’s pants and took the pocketknife to them, cutting the pants into strips. She tied the arms and legs of each, shoved pieces of the cotton into their mouths, and wrapped another strip of cloth around to hold the gag in place. She grabbed the water bottle the guerrilla had dropped in his surprise. She held it up for Sumner to see.

“This is precious.” She shoved it in her backpack. She handed one of the T-shirts to Sumner.

“For you to wear. Your back’s a mess of mosquito bites.” Sumner took the shirt but made no move to put it on.

“Help me carry them off the path,” Emma said.

Sumner didn’t move. He continued staring at her. Emma felt her anger rise. Why didn’t he speak? Had he gone off the deep end?

“Help me carry them into the trees!” Emma made her voice sharp. “While I can’t kill them in cold blood, I would like to stop them from chasing us for long enough to get away!”

Sumner swung the rifle over his good shoulder, stuck the tail of the T-shirt into his waistband, and grabbed the nearest soldier by the armpits. Emma pulled on the man’s ankles, and she and Sumner carried him into the brush. When they were done, Emma stood over the corpse. She didn’t like to look at it.

“Should we move him?” she asked.

Sumner shook his head.

Emma hesitated. She didn’t want to touch the man, and she rebelled at the idea of leaving a human being sprawled on the path without any type of proper burial, but she would leave him if it meant extra time to get away. The anger she carried around with her flared, bringing with it a feeling of despair. She shoved the emotion aside. Most of the passengers on the plane were dead, this man was dead, and if she didn’t make a decision about moving him soon, another guerrilla would appear and then she’d be dead.

“Perhaps the body will reassure any tracking guerrillas that their buddies had completed their mission,” Emma said. “We’ll leave him here. Let’s get the hell out of here before someone comes.”

Sumner shrugged on the shirt. Then he nodded.

Emma shot him a glance. Perhaps he didn’t speak English? Well, she didn’t speak Spanish, so he’d have to do his best to understand her.

“I hate to go back toward the airplane, but following the rest is no longer an option. Once the others realize these guys are missing, they’re going to double back. I saw a small trail that branched off a few miles back. Let’s take that and hope for the best.”

Sumner looked at her but again said nothing.

“Come on.” She waved him forward.

He fell in behind her.

Emma thought that what they needed the most they didn’t have—a machete. She stepped gingerly over what was left of the dead man and started down the path at a slow jog.

Two hours later, shooting pains arced from her feet through her overworked calves and through her already fractured shin. Emma swore under her breath. The microscopic fracture hurt like hell, and the only way to cure it was to lay off running until it healed.

That’s not going to happen anytime soon, Emma thought. She grimaced and kept going, maintaining a grueling pace despite the stabbing pain in her legs and the load on her back. She noticed how Sumner struggled to keep up. His shoes were cut in several places and he winced with each step. He stumbled. He needed a rest, but they had at least four hours of light left, and Emma intended to use every minute of it to get some distance between them and the guerrillas. They passed a huge palm tree, and she stopped to stare at it.

“I’m a little surprised to see one of these,” she said.

Sumner stood on the path, his chest heaving. He leaned back to view the palm.

“It’s called a traveler’s palm. I didn’t think they grew wild in this part of the world.” Three more of the trees were scattered around in a semicircle, looking as if they’d been planted. “It’s pretty distinctive; see how the fronds are fan shaped and stick right up into the sky?”

Sumner nodded.

“When I tell you, put your mouth at the base,” she told him.

Emma walked to the first tree’s trunk, which was twenty inches in diameter. The fronds wrapped around it and overlapped one another at the base. Emma followed along the edge of a frond with her fingers.

“Put your mouth at the place where this frond meets the trunk.”

Sumner raised an eyebrow at her.

“Trust me. You’ll like this,” Emma said.

He kneeled and lowered his mouth to the frond.

Emma gently pulled the base of the frond from the trunk, and as she did, clear water poured from a channel between the frond and the trunk.

Sumner drank greedily.

When he was finished, he sat back on his heels. A small smile played around his lips.

“Pretty neat, huh?” Emma said.

Sumner nodded, still looking at her with a whisper of a smile.

“All traveler’s palms collect water in their base. They got the name because travelers used them to drink. Pull another frond back for me, will you?”

Sumner repeated the procedure and Emma drank from the tree. She wiped her arm across her mouth.

“Let’s go.”

Emma started out at a brisk walk, and they kept that pace until sundown. She left Sumner sitting on the trail, collecting his breath, as she walked in a semicircle to look for a place to camp.

They should have kept going, but Emma didn’t think Sumner could make it. He still hadn’t said anything, nor did she. She preferred to focus on putting one foot in front of the other at a speed that would keep her ahead of any possible pursuers. Emma retrieved Sumner after she’d set up the tent and cleared a place to sit. He sank down with a sigh.

“Food,” she said as she handed him an airline package.

He barked a soft laugh when he saw the package but wasted no time ripping it open. The rancid smell of spoiling meat wafted from the tray, but Sumner didn’t seem to notice. He ripped at the meat with gusto. While he did, Emma pulled out the first-aid kit and walked over to inspect his infected shoulder. She lit the lighter in the darkness to have a look. The cut was eight inches long and filled with yellow pus.

“What caused this?” she said, although she already knew.

“Machete,” he said in perfect, unaccented English.

“I need to lance this and pour alcohol on it as a disinfectant,” she said. He stopped eating and stared at her, his eyes gleaming in the lighter’s glow.

“Can you hold the lighter? I don’t want to start a fire that would attract them.”

His hands closed over hers in the dark. His palm felt wet and clammy. Too clammy. He was working on a fever.

Emma dropped the lighter into his palm. He tried to flick the lighter on, but his slick fingers slid off the starter twice. On the third try he managed to light it. He held the flame while she used it to heat the knife. When it cooled, she pushed the blade into the oozing blister. He groaned, but didn’t move as she used the airline napkins to soak up the infection.

“Incoming alcohol,” Emma said. She poured a small amount over the wound. He groaned again. She covered the mess with a bandage and patted his arm when she was done. She sat next to him to eat her own filet.

Emma waved at the tent. “It’s supposed to hold two, and we’ll sweat to death, but it’s a lot better than being eaten alive by mosquitoes all night. You’re welcome to join me.”

He nodded again; his eyes flashed as they caught a shaft of moonlight. Emma crossed her fingers that he hadn’t gone over the deep end, and crawled into the tent. Sumner joined her a minute later. Their bodies lay against each other from shoulder to ankle. Emma moved as far away as possible, which in that closed space meant about two inches. She lay awake a long time, sweating, with the sounds of the night pressing down on her.

22

THEY WOKE AT DAWN AND ATE A LITTLE BEFORE HEADING OUT. Two bright red circles on Sumner’s cheeks indicated that he was feverish.

“Can you walk today? You look like you have a fever,” Emma said.

“Yes,” he said.

It was the last thing he said for the next eight hours.

The only bright spot in the day was when they found a stream.

“Oh, thank God, water.” Emma’s relief was profound. “We need to stay along this stream. If there are any villages in these mountains, they will be near it, you can bet.”

They spent the rest of the day following the river. As good as finding it was finding the cattails that grew alongside. Emma collected them as they appeared.

“We can eat these. What a great day!” Sumner raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Emma used a vine to attach them to the outside of her pack. Sumner watched her without interest. That his mind was elsewhere was obvious. Emma didn’t bother to try to snap him back to the present. Perhaps his thoughts consisted of things more pleasant than their current circumstances. Far be it from her to force him back to the grim reality they faced. It seemed they were to be forever silent.

By late afternoon, Sumner’s eyes burned bright, and the two spots on his cheeks expanded to cover his face and neck. Emma continued to march him through the jungle despite his rising fever. Each hour his cheeks grew more flushed and his eyes more glazed. The only thing that kept him going seemed to be sheer determination. Emma was familiar with the type. Endurance runners have the same undivided drive to push themselves against all reason. Except Sumner had a reason, a very good one. They could hear chopping sounds.

Emma knew from her many trips to search for medicinal plants that while the jungle foliage made it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead, it also magnified, rather than dampened, sound. It was a paradox she never could figure out. The chopping sounded close, but in reality the person making the sound could be miles away. While Emma knew this intellectually, she was having a hard time accepting it. Her adrenaline surged every time a sound echoed through the forest. Her mental state was deteriorating with each hour in the jungle.

Sumner stumbled, and this time he stayed down. He rolled onto his back and waved her off.

“I need a break,” he said.

Emma squatted next to him to wait. He had lapsed into his usual silence, but she felt compelled, finally, to break it.

“Your name is Cameron Sumner, isn’t it?”

He shot her his signature wary look.

“Yes,” he said after a long minute.

“Don’t worry, I’m not psychic or anything. I saw you hide your luggage from the guerrillas. When you left I retrieved it and read your business card. Southern Hemisphere Drug Defense.”

“I saw you at the airstrip. Why were you trying to get into the truck?”

“The Smoking Man had a spare field phone. I was trying to steal it.”

Sumner shook his head. “That was an incredibly risky move.”

“Thanks for diverting their attention to the capybara. I thought I was done for when that thing shot out of the forest and the woman screamed.”

“How did you manage to avoid capture in the first place?”

“The crash catapulted me out of the plane, free of the fuel.”

“Lucky you. That was a scene from hell.”

“Where were you thrown?”

“To the rear. I landed right in the group of guerrillas.”

“You didn’t have a chance,” Emma said.

“I was a damn sight better off than most of the others. I’m alive.”

Emma couldn’t argue with that.

“I’m Emma Caldridge.”

She didn’t give the usual smile that accompanied an introduction. Under the circumstances, smiling was unnecessary.

Thirty minutes later, Sumner dragged himself to a sitting position. After a few minutes sitting, he hauled himself up to standing.

They started again. A sheen of sweat covered him. Emma warred with herself over whether she should ask him to wade into the stream to lower his temperature, or whether she should continue to drive him forward, away from any pursuers. She chose to drive him forward. When he collapsed there would be time enough to work on bringing down the fever.

The heat rose to over ninety degrees. The path alternated between oozing mud and wet leaves. Emma plunged into a spiderweb, its sticky gossamer threads clinging to her face and hair. She saw the web’s maker, lurking at the edge. It was almost three inches across, black, and hairy.

“Ugh. Sumner. A spiderweb. I hate spiders!” Emma spoke louder than she’d intended, a mistake, because noise carried far in the jungle. She clawed at the web with her fingers. Her frantic movements alerted the spider. It scuttled sideways toward her.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Emma plunged forward so fast that she tripped over a root. She jogged another couple of feet, all the while brushing at the web that clung to her arms and face, and then hauled up short just inches from another web stretched in front of her.

Sumner banged into her back. He grunted.

“Sorry,” Emma said. “We’ll have to go around this one.”

She turned and came face to chest with Sumner. She looked up, and it took all her control not to gasp. It was as if Emma was staring into a death skull. Sumner’s face was gray. Drops of perspiration dotted his forehead, and rivulets of sweat ran down the sides of his face. His eyes had sunk into his head and dark, black circles ringed them. His lips were cracked and dry, strange because the air was filled with humidity and nothing in the entire jungle was dry, and when he exhaled Emma could smell the excess ketone bodies in his breath. She recognized all the symptoms of infection, dehydration, and malnutrition. Starvation and infection were causing his liver to oxidize his body’s fatty acids, a process accelerated by the strenuous pace she had set.

“Sumner, can you continue?” Emma whispered the question. He looked at her through eyes that were glassy with fever.

He nodded. Once. And then swayed a little. He straightened slowly. Emma turned and continued on, but now at a drastically reduced pace.

An hour later, his legs gave out. Fever consumed him. Emma dropped the backpack and set up the tent. They’d gone only about an additional six miles the whole day due to the lack of a machete. At around noon gunshots had echoed through the forest a lot closer than Emma had hoped. Sumner’s collapse couldn’t have come at a worse time. Tears ran down her face, and her hands shook. Having company had felt better at first, but now she couldn’t leave him, and she suspected that the guerrillas were close.

Emma stripped his shirt off and peered at the machete wound. The skin around the slice was swollen like a balloon and a dark, angry, red color. Pus dripped out of the slash. The wound smelled sweet, putrid, and thick, like decaying flesh. It was clear to her that Sumner would die unless she could find a way to draw the infection from the wound and hold his fever down while she did.

Emma stripped Sumner’s remaining clothes off and carried them to the stream. She submerged them in the water, wrung them out, and placed them over the branches of a bush in the sun. She wanted the sun’s rays to burn off any infection that remained on the clothing. She heard a loud buzzing noise. A nearby bush seemed to vibrate with the sound. Emma took a cautious step toward it. The sound intensified. When she reached the bush, she saw the sound’s source. A dead capybara lay next to the bush. Hundreds of blowflies covered the corpse. The black mass stayed in constant motion, the flies moving and battling one another for position. New flies hovered over the body, plunging into the heaving mess and flinging themselves back into the air. Several buzzed around Emma’s head, dive-bombing close to her face.

Emma batted at the disgusting insects. She waved her hand to knock them off the capybara’s body. It was then that she saw the maggots. The tiny, flesh-colored larvae writhed on the dead corpse, creating an illusion that the animal moved.

“Perfect,” she whispered. “You guys are coming with me.” She rooted around for a stiff leaf and a stick. She found both a few feet from the capybara corpse. She scraped the stick across the body, using the leaf to catch the maggots that fell off. The flies buzzed at her angrily, hitting her in the face as she worked. Her hands were full, so she resorted to shaking her head, making her hair flick at the angry insects in an attempt to keep them at bay. Sweat ran down her face and into her eyes. A horsefly bit her on the arm and she yelped at the sharp, pointed sting. She gagged at the smell that rose in a gaseous cloud from the animal, the same smell attracting the flies and maggots that she viewed as worth more than their weight in gold. When the leaf was full of maggots she bent the edges together to form a pocket, grabbed the wet clothes, and jogged back to Sumner.

He hadn’t moved since she left him, but his face had taken on an even darker red hue. Emma rolled him over gently. She took the first-aid kit from her backpack and unrolled the gauze bandage. She carefully opened her leaf over the machete wound. She knocked the maggots onto the wound, taking care to gently push them deep into the seeping slash. They attached almost immediately, sucking onto the inflamed flesh. She made sure that the youngest, smallest ones were the ones she inserted. She carefully wrapped the writhing mass in the gauze, loose enough to let air in, but tight enough to hold the wriggling worms against the cut. She knelt back to get a look at her work. The gauze undulated, but the maggots stayed in place.

She made a small fire, burning the neem-seed pods that she’d collected when she’d gathered the leaves. They smoldered, creating an antiseptic-smelling smoke that repelled the mosquitoes. Emma now viewed them as a secondary problem. Mosquitoes carried dengue fever and malaria, two diseases that posed the biggest risk to humans in the jungle, but Emma felt they created the most damage with their bites that itched like crazy.

Sumner tossed and turned and mumbled in his delirium. Emma found herself getting desperate again. She didn’t want to be left in the jungle alone, and she didn’t want to watch another human being die.

She laid the wet clothes over him, focusing on his forehead and the area around the wound. When she was done she sat next to him and stared at the fire. She stayed that way for hours, watching the flames lick upward. Thinking about Patrick. God hadn’t spared him, and it looked as though He wouldn’t spare Sumner, either. She wondered if she would be next to die, or if He would allow her to complete the important thing she’d come to Colombia to do. She needed to set right the tremendous wrong she had done. She didn’t want to die before she did.

The flame colors mesmerized her. The dancing shadows created by the light lent an eerie feeling to the night. She dozed, sitting up.

Emma jerked awake when she heard Sumner start to moan. He began thrashing on the ground. She leaped up to stop his violent movements, which threatened to dislodge the maggots. Even feverish, Sumner surprised her with his strength. She tried to pin his arms to the ground to stop him from flipping over onto his bad shoulder. He pushed himself off his stomach with his arms. He looked around wildly, then lowered himself back down and rolled over onto his back.

“Sumner, stop. You’re running a terrible fever from the machete cut.”

Sumner gazed at her, glassy-eyed.

“Where are they?” His voice was a whisper.

“I don’t know. Near, I think.” Emma found herself whispering back.

Sumner closed his eyes. He opened them again. “My shoulder burns.”

“It’s horribly infected. I’m treating it.”

“We need to keep moving.” Sumner sat up. The clothes fell off his chest onto the ground. He looked down at them, as if he didn’t understand what they were.

Emma placed her hands on his chest. “Lie down. On your stomach or the side opposite your shoulder.”

He put a hand on her face. “Thank you for saving me back there.”

“Lie down,” Emma repeated, keeping her voice soft. “I’ll take watch while you sleep.” Sumner lay back down. Within minutes he slept again. This time Emma dragged him into the tent.

The morning came too soon for Emma. She’d slept next to Sumner. A shaft of sunlight shot through a slit in the tent door and bored straight into her eyes.

She awoke with a groan. Every muscle ached. Her mouth felt woolly, and her lids were crusted with sleep. She scrubbed her fists into her eyes and focused on Sumner. He was awake, lying on his back, his head turned to stare at her.

“Good morning.” His voice was reedy thin.

“How long have you been awake?” Emma moved next to him and checked his forehead for heat. He was much cooler than the night before.

Sumner tried to shrug. He inhaled sharply. “My shoulder feels like it’s being stabbed with a million little knives.”

“The infection nearly killed you. I’m treating it.”

Sumner raised his eyebrows. “How?”

Emma hesitated.

Sumner’s gaze sharpened. “How?”

“Maggots. They’ll suck out the infection, eat the dead skin, leave the healthy skin alone.”

Sumner stared at her. He shifted slightly. “Did you say maggots?”

Emma nodded.

Sumner blanched. “I’m afraid to look.”

Emma smiled. “It’s covered by a bandage. You won’t see them.”

Sumner took a deep breath and turned his head. Emma watched him take in the gauze, which still undulated from the writhing bodies. He groaned.

“Ah, God, that’s disgusting,” he said.

“But it must be working. Your fever is much better.”

“It hurts.”

“That’s perplexing. I’m not sure why it would hurt. Maggots don’t bite, they only attach and suck. Perhaps the wound rests across a bundle of nerves.”

“How long?”

“Forty-eight hours. But trust me, they’re all that is between you and a massive, systemic infection. If they do their job, you should be infection-free soon.”

Sumner closed his eyes. “I do trust you.” In a few minutes, he was asleep again.

23

THREE HOURS AFTER HIS MEN LEFT TO KILL THE TALL MAN AND the diabetic passenger, Luis knew something had gone wrong. The three he’d sent were his best men, reliable in a way none of the other losers on his team could ever be.

He waved over Alvarado. “The men have not returned and it’s almost noon. You go in and find them. The tall man has done something!”

Alvarado’s reaction was quick. “Me? No! I have to watch sixty prisoners and thirty guerrillas, all without one brain between them. The tall man is dead by now, Luis. The men will return soon.”

Luis advanced on Alvarado. “I said go. What are you afraid of—El Chupacabra?”

“You know I am not. But who will watch these men when I am gone?”

Luis pounded his chest. “I will.”

Alvarado glared at Luis. “Fine. I will go. Just make sure that Manzillo doesn’t hear about me having to track more missing men. Last thing I need is more deserters.”

An hour later, Alvarado found the diabetic man’s corpse and a pile of discarded clothes. Thirty minutes after that, he found the naked, bound men in the forest.

He kicked each one in the head. They groaned through their gags. Alvarado yanked the piece of rag out of the nearest one’s mouth.

“Tell me what happened. And spare me from the El Chupacabra bullshit.”

“We were attacked—” The man’s explanation was cut short by Alvarado’s boot hitting him yet again.

“Not by El Chupacabra. Alvarado, wait!” Alvarado had wound up for another kick. “It was a woman. English speaking. She had a gun and ambushed us.”

“Was she United States Army?”

The man nodded. “She may have been. She was covered in mud and issued orders in English. The man translated to Spanish.”

“Where is the tall man?”

“He left with her.”

Alvarado stood over the naked man, breathing heavily, while a feeling of dread flowed into the pit of his stomach. He’d had a bad premonition about this job from the start, and now the unraveling had begun. He didn’t want to tell Luis that the tall man he obsessed over had escaped. Luis was perfectly capable of killing the messenger.

He untied the men and threw their clothes at them. “You fools will tell Rodrigo that you were incapable of killing an unarmed man and a woman. I’m not taking the fall for this.”

The men climbed to their feet. They stood there, eyeing one another.

“Let’s go. Rodrigo is waiting.” Alvarado turned around to return to the camp.

The lead man, without a shirt and dressed in pants that sported one leg ripped off to the thigh, grabbed a stick and swung it, hard, at Alvarado’s head. It hit with a loud, thudding sound. Alvarado dropped like a stone.

“Jorge, why did you do that?” The second guerrilla, this one lucky enough to be fully dressed, bent down to check for Alvarado’s pulse.

“You want to tell Rodrigo you failed? He’ll kill you in the last two seconds of the story. I’m not that stupid. I’m leaving here. Alvarado will be fine. When he comes to, he can talk to his buddy Rodrigo. Perhaps he’ll survive the conversation.”

“And where will you go, eh? That trail leads to the airplane, which by now will be crawling with American soldiers.”

Jorge wagged a finger in the air. “I will take the cutoff to the second encampment. From there I go to Cali, where I have friends.” He jogged off down the trail. After ten seconds, the other two followed. They knew that Rodrigo was not an option.

24

SUMNER’S FEVER BROKE AT DAWN THE NEXT DAY. HE SLEPT peacefully for the first time in eight hours. Emma dragged herself out of the tent to make her way to the stream. She was dizzy with sleep deprivation and hunger. She rinsed Sumner’s clothes in the stream and laid them on the space-age sheet in the sun to dry.

She filled the empty water bottle and laid it on the sheet as well. She’d once read in a scientific journal that the sun could kill all the bacteria in water if the water was in a clear container, placed in full light, and left for three hours. The writer had suggested the technique be taught to inhabitants of third-world countries. Emma had never dreamed she’d be using it for her own drinking supply. She rose to head back to the tent when a silver flash caught her eye. She made her way to it.

It was a discarded hubcap, half buried in the silt on the side of the stream. She pounced on it, pulling it out of the dirt. After a quick rinse in the water, it looked as good as new, albeit with a little rust on the edges. Emma scouted around for medium-size stones. She flipped the hubcap over and used it as a tray to hold the stones.

The heat sucked all the energy from her body. Emma’s own clothes were soaked through with sweat. She couldn’t remember what it felt like to be cool and dry. She grabbed a palm leaf, stripped, and waded into the stream. She used the leaf to rub the worst of the dirt and sweat from her skin. She used a stick from the neem tree to brush her teeth, pulled her clothes back on, and jogged to camp. She put the stones from the hubcap into the banked fire she’d made the night before and crawled into the tent to sleep.

Emma woke in the afternoon. Sumner was on his side, his face resting on his arm, looking at her. For the first time it seemed as though he was present, back from the remote place he’d inhabited in the clearing and the delirium from last night.

“How are you feeling?” Emma said.

“Thirsty.” His voice was a whisper, and reedy thin.

She reached out of the tent and retrieved the last of the water. “Drink it all. I have a new supply soaking in the sun.”

He emptied the plate and handed it back to her.

“Are the maggots still on me?”

Emma cut a glance at the bandage. It bulged, not from the slice, but from the maggots, which had grown to twice their size in the last hours. The bigger ones were working their way out of the gauze, probing through the webbed cotton with their heads. Emma did her best to act nonchalant.

“Still there,” she said in as cheery a voice as she could muster under the circumstances.

Sumner glanced at the bandage at the precise moment that a plump, fully grown maggot pushed its head through the cotton and wriggled free. It dropped off his shoulder onto the tent floor.

“Just when I thought it couldn’t get any more revolting,” he said. Emma chuckled as she picked up the maggot and tossed it out of the tent.

“They’re making a run for it. Once they’re big enough to work their way out, they’ll fight to reach the surface, in this case through the bandage. When they drop to the ground they’ll search for a good hiding place, where they’ll move into the next stage of development. Eventually they’ll emerge as fully grown blowflies.”

“And the cut?” Sumner said.

“They’ll take the infection with them. It’s the pus that they ate that makes them so plump.” Emma ignored Sumner’s groan of disgust. “If we keep it clean with the alcohol, you should be okay. Can I have a look?”

He nodded and rolled onto his stomach. Emma inched the bandage up a bit. She could see pink skin under the nearest maggot. She replaced the gauze and patted Sumner’s arm.

“Looks good.”

Sumner gave her a bemused glance. “I’ve never met a woman who would willingly touch maggots.”

“I was a tomboy growing up. I loved bugs. I used to collect the discarded shells of cicadas. They looked just like the live bugs: wings, legs, eyes, you name it. I kept them in a box. My favorite I named Fred.”

Sumner smiled a small smile. “Your pet was a dead cicada named Fred?”

Emma nodded. “Fred was great. He was the only shell I ever found that even had the membrane that covered his eyes left over.”

“I can see how that would win over a girl,” Sumner said.

Emma laughed.

Sumner turned serious. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Afternoon, I guess.”

“How long have we been here?”

“Two days. You were sleeping, and I needed some rest, too.”

“We need to move.” Sumner struggled to rise. He pulled himself upon his arms, then dropped back down on the tent floor.

“Sumner, you should rest. You nearly died. I’m going to make an astringent tea that will help you fight infection.”

She flipped over the hubcap, filled it with water, and fished out the stones from the fire. Once they were added she hunkered down to wait. Within twenty minutes the water was steaming. She added cattails. After a few minutes she fished them out and placed them on her backpack to cool. Then she placed several neem leaves in the water and let them steep. She poured the resulting tea into the airline tray.

“Sumner, sit up a minute.”

Sumner struggled to sit, never opening his eyes. Emma braced his back. She put the airline tray to his lips.

“Drink,” she said.

He drank. He jerked his head back when he tasted the bitter liquid.

“What is this?” His voice was still hoarse.

“Antiseptic tea made from the leaves of the neem tree. It’s an amazing tree. The oil from it is like tea-tree oil.”

“Tastes like engine oil.”

“It will help bring down the fever.” Emma mentally crossed her fingers. She hoped her crude tea would help. Generally she would have waited to dry the leaves before steeping them.

Sumner lowered his head to the tent floor and closed his eyes. Within minutes he was sleeping again.

Three hours later, Emma ate a cattail and stared at the last food carton. The final filet. Sumner sat against a tree, munching on his own cattail and two baby carrots, which was the sum total of his lunch and dinner.

“You’re El Chupacabra,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The sentries kept running back into the camp with various wounds and babbling that they’d been attacked by ‘El Chupacabra.’”

“What is an El Chupacabra?” Emma could barely pronounce the word.

“A mythical being that is routinely sighted in Mexico, Texas, and South America, but is never caught. Kind of like the Big Foot sightings. El Chupacabra has green skin, is scaly, and its long claws and teeth can rip livestock apart. It sucks the blood from its prey.”

Emma shook with laughter. “Oh my God, that sentry I speared thought I was a green beast with scales?”

“Don’t laugh. When you burst out of the trees covered in mud and shrieking, you even had me thinking that you were a beast.”

“I don’t know who was more frightened, him or me.”

“They are drug addicts and ignorant peasants. I imagine in the dark, and through a hashish-induced haze, you could be mistaken for a beast.”

“And here I thought he was racing back to the camp to tell everyone that a passenger had escaped. I expected a posse to come after me every minute.”

“No, but I’ll bet the posse is coming now. The guerrilla leader told his soldiers to take me out and kill me on the trail. He wants me dead, and he won’t rest until I am.”

“Is that the skinny one? I call him Rat Face.”

Sumner snorted. “Good name. His actual name is Luis Rodrigo.”

“Do you two know each other?”

“Not before the crash, no. But in my job I had to learn the names and techniques of most of the better-known paramilitary organizations in Colombia. Rodrigo’s was mentioned as a particularly vicious, loose affiliation of maniacs. From what I saw, the reputation is deserved.”

Emma fought against the depression that was settling over her.

“I left the clothes drying in the sun. I’ll go get them.”

She left the tent and headed to the stream. On her way, she passed some jimsonweed, a common plant that grows in abundance in the jungle. The trumpet-shaped white flowers made the bush look beautiful against the green leaves. Emma ignored the flowers, however, and collected the spiny seedpods. She shoved several into her cargo pants pockets.

The clothes had dried, thanks to the hot sun and the added reflective abilities of the silver sheet. Emma held them to her cheek, relishing the dry warmth. She grabbed everything and turned back. She heard the sound of engines somewhere close. She jogged up a small rise and looked down.

A Range Rover sat at the side of the road that ran along the trail. Two men stepped out. They wore cargo pants tucked into steel-toed boots. The first man wore a shirt with the words LOUISIANA STATE on it. The second man sauntered to the back of the Rover, flung open the hatch. Two bloodhounds jumped down. They ran in circles, happy to be released. One relieved himself on the Range Rover’s tire. The men slung packs over their backs and added assault weapons on their shoulders.

“Hotter than a bitch here, ain’t it?” the second man said.

The first shrugged. “Like Louisiana. Used to it. Got the scent?” His voice carried to Emma. He spoke with a drawl that wasn’t quite southern.

The second man nodded. He reached back into the Range Rover and retrieved a piece of white cotton with a name embroidered in blue stitching on the pocket. He balled it in his fist and shoved it under the dogs’ noses. Emma recognized the cotton.

It was her lab coat.

She shot back on the trail, running for all she was worth. When she got to the camp, Sumner was standing in the clearing, stark naked, holding a rifle. He looked like a feral man. He put a finger to his lips and waved at the trail behind them. Emma listened. Between the scratching of insects and the twittering of the birds came a chopping sound.

“Jesus, they’re close.”

Sumner nodded.

“But they’re not our worst problem.” The sound of barking dogs drifted toward them. Sumner frowned.

“What the hell is that?”

“They’re bloodhounds, and they’re after me.”

Sumner raised an eyebrow. “Care to fill me in?”

Emma shoved the clean clothes at him. “I was headed to Colombia to accomplish a specific goal. Somebody must want to stop me. I don’t want to say more. The less you know, the better for you if they catch us.”

Sumner took the clothes and dressed in silence. He paused for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to speak. The baying hounds echoed through the jungle. He shook his head.

“I’ve got a maniac after me, and you have bloodhounds after you. We’re quite a pair. Let’s get out of here,” he said.

They collapsed the tent. Emma slung it onto her back. They hit the trail. Emma ran like she’d never run before. Sumner stayed with her, moving with surprising agility for someone so newly recovered. The hounds bayed behind them. Emma now knew what a fox felt like when it was hunted. The baying was loud, insistent, magnified by the jungle’s echo. The howls ignited an age-old, primitive fear in her. The hairs on the back of her neck rose.

They ran until the night came. The baying quieted only once. Emma supposed the dogs were given a break. Sumner was drenched in sweat and stumbling after two hours. Emma braced him with her shoulder when it appeared he’d collapse.

Sumner’s fever returned that evening. He lay in the tent, barely moving.

“You pushed too hard, too soon,” Emma said. “We’ll stay put tomorrow so you can rest.”

“We can’t. They’ll be upon us by midday.” Sumner’s voice was a whisper.

“We’ll have to risk it.”

“No risk is worth them catching us. They’ll tear us to shreds.”

Emma didn’t reply. There was nothing to say.

25

BANNER KNEW THE DAY WAS SHOT WHEN HE HAD A CALL FROM Whitter at eight o’clock sharp. Whitter’s message was succinct. He expected to see Banner at 0830 hours in the war room. There was news.

Banner walked into a room filled with DOD personnel, various aides and interns of congressmen assigned to the endless committees that sprouted like weeds in Congress, and the secretary of defense, Carl Margate.

Banner considered Margate to be one of that breed of men who love all things military, but who never joined any military branch. They were the men who debated the Battle of Waterloo, who questioned the decisions of generals like MacArthur, but who did it from the safe distance of their leather chairs in their paneled libraries under the roofs of their quiet and restful mansions.

Margate was all these things, but took it one better, because not only did he imagine himself a brilliant strategist, but he hadn’t a shred of human decency. To him the soldiers enlisted to protect the country meant nothing more than the plastic toy soldiers he used to plot moves and countermoves. He didn’t care how many died as long as his political and personal agenda was met.

Banner took one look at Margate and he just knew that the man was going to lay a bomb on him. When everyone got seated, the secretary opened his mouth, and the explosion issued forth.

“We conveyed to the Colombian president that unless the passengers are freed in the next twenty-four hours, the United States will suspend aid to Colombia and demand the immediate extradition of all drug and paramilitary leaders suspected in the manufacture and import of cocaine into America.”

Banner glanced at Whitter. Whitter’s expression didn’t change, but Banner had spent quite a bit of time with him in these past few days, and he could tell that Whitter was shocked. Whitter’s face rarely froze.

No one spoke. The interns scribbled furiously on their pads of paper.

Banner was no expert on Colombian matters, but he knew that the one thing the paramilitary and cartel leaders feared most was extradition to the United States. Once they were extradited, their fortunes would be confiscated and they would be tried for their crimes in a country where their influence and ability to ensure a favorable outcome were gone. Convictions and life sentences would follow. They would enter a United States prison on their feet, and leave it in a coffin.

Margate’s ultimatum, if carried out, would put the Colombian president between a rock and a hard place. If he agreed to extradition, the paramilitary groups would once again pick up their arms; and if he did not, the United States would cut off $1 billion in aid to his country. Since no one in the room saw fit to speak their mind on the issue, Banner decided to throw in his objection.

“Secretary Margate, just why do you think such an ultimatum will help this situation?” He asked the question in a mild voice.

Everyone in the room shifted in their seats.

“We’re trying to bring pressure on the government down there to clean house. What that man is doing is offering sweet deals to murderers, kidnappers, and thieves.”

“A deal that this administration turned a blind eye to until just now.”

“Well, now we don’t like it. Why should we send aid to a country that kidnaps our citizens?”

As a general proposition, Banner agreed with Margate. But as a military strategist, he believed that the ultimatum, like all ultimatums, would backfire. He struggled to find a way to convey his opinion without alienating the other man.

“I don’t see the value in punishing the Colombian president by cutting off his aid. He is no more responsible for this reprehensible act than you are for the gangbangers in every city in this country who kill with impunity.”

“That he is devastated by the turn of events is obvious,” Whitter said. “We just learned that he called a prayer meeting over the incident. He and his staff said the rosary and prayed to Our Lady of Chinquinquira, a Virgin Mary figure.” Margate looked at Whitter as if he’d grown three heads.

“That will get the job done.” Margate’s voice was loaded with sarcasm.

“Pull all five hundred of those special forces men off the pipeline detail and put them on the hunt for the passengers. Without them, we will need divine intervention to pull off this rescue,” Banner said.

Margate slammed his hand on the tabletop. Now Banner knew where Whitter had learned the mannerism. He considered it a piece of dramatic theater, nothing more. The interns and Whitter jumped. Banner and the other officers didn’t react.

“We take those men off the pipeline and the paramilitary groups will blow it to kingdom come just for spite.”

“Maybe. But what makes you think they won’t bomb it once they hear about the extradition demand?”

“I agree that they will bomb it. And that pipeline supplies a big portion of the gas that the average American citizen demands for his SUV. That’s why the special forces stay where they are and we cut off aid if nothing gets done.”

“Your ultimatum makes my military plan that much harder. Why would the Colombian president help us in our search once his aid is gone? That aid goes directly to support his army. And the threat of extradition will kill the disarmament deal and send the paramilitary groups on a rampage. The threat is a foolish move that can only hurt our relationship with Colombia, while putting the passengers at greater risk.”

Margate frowned. “You’ve heard my decision.”

Banner saw the futility in arguing further. “I’ll put my objections to the current approach in writing and send it through the proper channels.”

Margate narrowed his eyes. “I’d prefer it if we would simply ‘agree to disagree.’”

Banner shook his head. “It’s not that simple. I believe strongly that pressuring the Colombian president at this time is the absolute worst thing you can do. I will not have my name attached to the decision.”

“If I remove you from any position of authority regarding the mission, then you won’t have to issue your memo, will you?” Banner had expected this threat from Margate.

“Be my guest, but the media is bound to notice such a move. They’ll question me as to the cause, and I’d be forced to say that my plan for saving the passengers and yours didn’t match. Then you could explain why you thought yours was better, and we can let the talking heads on CNN, NBC, and Fox, your personal favorite, decide who had the better plan. Frankly, I think an internal memo is much less damaging than that, don’t you?”

Banner heard everyone in the room inhale and hold. It was if they had sucked all the air out of the space. Whitter’s face was ashen. The navy commander across the table from Banner had a twinkle in his eye, relishing the moment.

Margate pushed away from the desk and stood up. “Write your memo, but my decision stands. We deliver the message to the Colombian government. You have twenty-four hours to bring this matter to a successful conclusion, Major Banner.”

Margate marched out of the room, followed by two shaking interns.

“Jesus, Banner.” Whitter took a huge gulp of water. “Why did you take him on?”

Banner was furious. “His administration’s tenure is over in two years, but I intend to keep my company going long after that. I’d lose all credibility if I approved such a half-assed plan. Besides, I’ve stood opposite an enemy at ten feet with an assault rifle pointed at my heart. You think a politician in an ill-fitting suit is going to worry me?”

“I’ll bet his suit was expensive,” Whitter said.

“All the money in the world doesn’t buy class, Mr. Whitter.”

“Don’t I know it,” Whitter said.

26

EMMA SAT IN THE TENT FOR THE DAILY DOWNPOUR. SHE HOPED the rains helped dilute her scent on the trail. She hadn’t heard the baying for half a day. She kept her own rifle close. The time might come when she’d meet the men and dogs face-to-face. She’d have to fire first.

Sumner lay next to her, breathing softly. While he was weak, he wasn’t feverish. Although he still didn’t say much, he never withdrew as far as he had in the beginning, when Emma thought he’d looked a little deranged. His maggot guests had all left for greener pastures. Emma had cleaned out the slice, which was pink and healthy, and replaced the gauze.

“Thank God” was all Sumner said when she was finished.

“Now all we need are some leeches. They will hold the wound together so the skin will heal without a scar,” Emma said.

Sumner turned white. “Oh, God, no.”

Emma chuckled. “Relax, I’m kidding.”

“Remind me to get you for that when I’m feeling better.” He slipped back into sleep.

The rain pounded so hard on the roof that Emma thought she’d go mad with the noise. Even though Sumner was next to her, they couldn’t hold a conversation during these storms, the hammering rain was so loud. Within minutes the ground turned to mud, creating deep rivulets that would grow to a flash flood. Emma tried to anticipate the showers, but more often than not they caught her by surprise.

This storm produced a deluge, and she and Sumner had taken care to set the tent up on a plateau jutting from the slope. Two trees formed a living wall that provided cover from above and broke up the rushing water from the side.

Lightning cracked above them, and thunder boomed seconds later. Water flowed around the tent, turning the ground underneath them soft. Emma felt the water saturate the tent’s nylon floor. She and Sumner had pulled leaves off a palm to stack in a makeshift base that they’d hoped would keep the tent’s floor dry, but it hadn’t worked. Water was everywhere, and the palms, and then the tent floor, became soaked within ten minutes. After half an hour, the rain trickled to a drizzle.

Emma toyed with one of the rifles and listened to the water patter on the tent. Her stomach growled. The remaining tray of airline food was so rancid that she’d tossed it. They’d eaten only cattails and some berries that they’d found on a bush. Their need to stay on the move and the driving rain killed any chance they might have had to hunt for more food. Emma resigned herself to being hungry.

She picked up the rifle to test its heft. It was heavy. The right side had letters in a strange language etched next to a sliding switch. Two poles attached underneath opened to create a bipod. When not in use, they retracted to lie flat against the gun’s stock. She opened the bipod and balanced the gun on the ground. She lay down on her stomach and pretended to sight a target through the mesh opening on the tent.

“The safety’s on,” Sumner said.

Emma jumped. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”

He shrugged but didn’t move from his prone position next to her. “Better than before, but weak as hell.”

“You know about guns?” Emma said.

“I do.”

“What are these markings? They look like letters, but I can’t figure out the language.” She tilted the gun toward him so that he could see the letters.

“Hebrew. That gun’s a Galil assault rifle. Israeli made. The toggle switch is the safety and the fire selector. When you move the switch down, it’s in autofire; down farther still and you’re in single fire.”

Emma tried the switch. It was surprisingly difficult to move. There was an audible click when she did.

“Noisy,” she said.

“Yes. Not a stealth gun. You don’t want to switch modes when hidden in the bushes with an enemy standing over you. But these guys aren’t what I would call finesse shooters anyway.”

“How did an Israeli assault rifle end up in Colombia?”

“Israeli army unloaded them when they adopted the M-16. South America is a huge dumping ground for old technology.”

Emma slid the safety back on and reached for another rifle.

“What about this one?”

Sumner moved his head to look at the next rifle.

“Kalashnikov AK-47. Russian made. The tank of weapons. Thing will shoot after being dragged in the mud or hauled through water. Same basic function as the Galil.”

Emma hefted the gun to her shoulder. “Heavy.”

“Actually, it’s considered a medium-weight weapon.”

“What’s this gun attached to the bottom?” She showed Sumner the underside of the rifle. A small pistol with a wide mouth was hooked to the bottom of the gun, in firing position. The pistol had its own trigger.

“That’s a grenade launcher.”

Emma looked at Sumner. “These people aren’t kidding, are they?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Emma analyzed the AK-47. “How do I want to shoot it? Single shot or automatic?”

“Can you shoot?”

“Not at all. I found the pistols in the debris from the crash. I only brought them along for effect.”

“They’re mine. I was supposed to give a report and then teach target shooting.”

“Did you know the jet would be hijacked?”

Sumner shook his head. “No. There was some online chatter to the effect that terrorist action would occur, but we assumed that they were talking about London. I only got worried when I saw the copilot arrive. Something about him seemed shifty, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

Emma put the AK-47 to her shoulder and pretended to sight the far side of the tent.

“If you can’t hit a target, your best bet is auto, but be prepared for the gun to buck like crazy on the recoil. You want to cover the area with shot and hope that one lands. Unless I’m in the area you’re spraying. Then I request that you switch to single shot and do your best to target only the bad guys.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

“How did you know about the traveler’s palm and the water?”

“I’m a chemist for a laboratory that invents skin products for the cosmetic market. I’m constantly scouring the world for plants that may have an antiaging or antioxidant effect. I learned about the traveler’s palm during an excursion to the British West Indies.”

“Have you discovered the plant that will reverse aging?”

Emma laughed. “Not yet.” She wagged a finger at him. “But don’t kid yourself. The chemist who unlocks the secret to skin renewal will make billions.”

“Any plants that are contenders?”

Emma nodded. “We’re working with a few now. Licorice reduces brown spots and evens out skin tone, feverfew has some benefit, but it’s allergenic to many, so it’s not ideal, and there are always the classics, like rose water.”

“My mother uses something outrageously expensive. Sea kelp or some such thing.”

“Crème de la Mer. Very pricey.”

Emma nestled the gun back against her cheek, pictured herself targeting Rodrigo, then pulled away. Her stomach turned. Sumner noticed her discomfort.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Rodrigo won’t stop until he finds us, you know that,” she said.

“I know. That reptilian brain of his will not forget an insult.”

“I look forward to killing him,” Emma said. She thought of Patrick. “God kills the good ones and leaves the bad,” she added.

Sumner raised an eyebrow.

Emma felt the need to clarify. “I’ve been in a running argument with God for the past year.”

“Arguing with a force more powerful than you is always a mistake.”

“Now you tell me.” Emma gave him a small smile.

“I always thought that death was the ultimate equal-opportunity experience.”

“Well, then, Rodrigo is about to get his opportunity.”

Sumner shifted but remained quiet.

“Go ahead, say what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking that it’s one thing to kill in self-defense, but it’s an entirely different thing to kill in cold blood. Snipers have to be trained, because such killing doesn’t come naturally to most people. If you get into such a situation, I think you’ll be surprised at how hard it is.”

“Have you killed in cold blood?”

“Yes,” he said.

Emma wasn’t surprised. His preternatural calm led her to believe that he could do whatever he deemed to be just, should the need arise. She had no doubt that it would be just, though. He wouldn’t kill for bloodlust.

“Was it awful?”

Sumner took a deep breath. “It was necessary.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “I don’t recommend it, though.” He sighed. “I’m tired again. Wake me when the rain is over.” Emma continued to play with the guns while Sumner slipped back into a fitful sleep.

The next day they walked into a small village. Four huts stood in a semicircle, a fire pit in the middle. About ten women loitered there. One rotated the carcass of a pig on a spit over a fire, her lank hair pulled back into a ponytail. Two more argued in the doorway of one of the huts while four or five others stood in the remaining doorways watching the bickering. They wore pea-green army fatigues and sweat-stained gray T-shirts.

The entire crew spun around to look at Emma and Sumner as they stepped into the camp. The smell of the pig on the spit set Emma’s mouth watering. They’d found some more berries this morning, but that was all. She was light-headed with hunger.

The village women fell silent and stared at the newcomers. They exuded hostility and curiosity in equal measure. One of the women barked a name, and a tall, dark-haired Amazon emerged from the nearest hut. Her long shining hair swung as she walked. She wore the same fatigues as the other women, but on her they looked like haute couture. A gun hung in a shoulder holster, its butt under her armpit. She sauntered up to Emma and Sumner, casually removing the gun as she did.

Emma heard two clicks as Sumner pulled the safety on the rifle.

Semi, Emma thought. He stood a few steps behind her, and when he raised the rifle the tip of the weapon entered her peripheral vision.

“You are a long way from home,” the woman said in English, directing her comment to Sumner.

Predictably, he said nothing.

“We are lost,” Emma said. Her voice cracked on the word lost.

The two bickering women snickered.

“You are from the jet, no?” the tall woman said.

Emma didn’t reply.

“Then you are a very long way from home.” The woman stretched her mouth into a cobra’s smile and waved toward the huts. “Come, please. Make yourself comfortable. Our home is your home.”

The women tittered again.

“My name is Mathilde.” She pointed to Sumner’s rifle. “But that must be put down now. You wouldn’t hurt a woman, would you?” Mathilde smiled at him from under her lashes.

Emma could have told her not to waste her time flirting with Sumner. Her beauty wouldn’t sway him in the least. Sumner stood still, a grim look in his eye. The rifle didn’t move.

“I said put the gun down, señor.” Now Mathilde sounded testy.

Sumner didn’t budge.

Mathilde moved toward him, and he responded by stepping into her. Now the rifle tip hovered only four feet away and remained aimed at her chest. Mathilde’s slash smile fled. She turned to Emma.

“Is he a moron, your lover?”

This comment set the bickering women to laughing out loud.

“He is unbalanced,” Emma said. “I found him in the forest, eating the arm of a dead guerrilla.”

Emma watched in satisfaction as the women stopped laughing, fear in their eyes. The woman turning the pig froze, a look of horror in hers. Two other women in the circle crossed themselves. Even Mathilde seemed to hold her breath.

“Perhaps he was your lover?” Emma said.

The smell of charred flesh wafted through the air. Emma waved at the woman working the spit. “The pig is burning, señora.”

The woman jerked out of her stunned state and resumed turning the spit. Emma strolled up to Mathilde and didn’t stop. She got within one foot before the other woman stepped back. Emma counted the retreat as a psychological victory.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Emma said. “I think I will accept it. I will need a phone or radio to call the American embassy in Bogotá. I need to radio for help.”

“We will never help you,” Mathilde said.

“It’s not for me. You see, my crazy friend here chopped the arms off all of the guerrillas he could find, and he left them there to die. They need help quickly, or they will bleed to death.”

A woman to the far right of Emma squeaked. Mathilde waved a hand in the air for silence. Her eyes narrowed.

“Perhaps you take us to these freedom fighters, and we will see to their wounds.”

“Of course. Please remove all of your guns and ammunition first and place them in a pile. We wouldn’t want the rifles to discharge by mistake.” Emma smiled her own snake-oil smile. She heard the chopping sound of a helicopter’s rotors, somewhere in the distance, growing louder. She wanted to scan the sky, to see if friend or foe approached, but she didn’t think it wise to take her eyes off Mathilde.

“Put down our guns? Never,” Mathilde said.

It appeared they were at a standoff.

Sumner settled it. He pointed the rifle at Mathilde’s feet and pulled the trigger. The sound exploded in Emma’s ears. Dirt flew up at Mathilde’s face. The bullet left a crater in the ground, two inches from her toes, and ricocheted into the forest. Mathilde jumped, but recovered so fast that it was impossible not to feel a grudging respect for her. When the dust settled, Emma looked around. The woman at the spit was gone, and the bickering women emerged from a hut with guns drawn.

Then all hell broke loose.

The huff huff of the helicopter overhead grew louder. Mathilde glanced up and blanched. The tops of the trees bent with the force of the propellers, and dust kicked up all around them. The helicopter came into view, looking like a large spider. It hovered over the clearing, engaged its guns, and blew away the hut and the bickering women with it.

“Down!” Sumner yelled.

Emma threw herself to the ground as the bullets strafed the clearing. They drew a dotted line in the dirt, and the explosions rang in her ears. She ate dust as she screamed into the dirt. Sumner pulled her up by her hair and dragged her to the trees just as the helicopter made a turn and aimed for them. The machine-gun blasts rattled again and Emma heard a woman howl.

They ran toward the tree line near the pig on the spit. Sumner never let go of her hair. He propelled her forward by pushing his fist against her skull. The helicopter swooped past and turned again toward them.

It made another pass, the bullets ripping up the dust and hammering into the bodies already there. It hovered in one place for a moment, then began to swing its tail from side to side, spraying bullets the entire time. It shot past Sumner and Emma before turning and facing them.

Sumner changed direction so fast that Emma felt he would pull her hair out of her head. They turned and ran perpendicular to the helicopter. As they did, Emma saw the man sitting in the open door toss something out.

Sumner pushed her the final steps into the trees. He didn’t follow her. Instead he turned to aim at the helicopter. Emma heard its guns begin their staccato noise and looked back to see the bullets crack into the dirt in a line toward Sumner. Emma watched as he raised the rifle to shoot, taking care to aim even as the bullets ran toward him.

He fired the grenade launcher.

The helicopter exploded, spewing metal shards everywhere. A fireball rose into the air, and pieces of burning helicopter landed in the clearing. The copter flung itself sideways as one of its propellers broke off. It flew to the side, all the while losing speed. After sixty seconds, it turned, runners up, and then dropped like a stone. It landed in the forest and exploded on impact. A second explosion released another fireball into the air, and the tops of the trees went up in flames.

Sumner watched the treetops burn for a second before he bent to help Emma. She stood up, and her legs wobbled with fear. She turned on him.

“They were saving us! Why did you shoot them down?” Emma could feel the cords in her neck as she raged.

Sumner shook his head. “They weren’t saving us, they were killing them.” He waved at the clearing. Emma looked around, still unable to believe what had happened. The women were all dead, lying in their own blood. Mathilde was not among them.

“That was a drug runners’ copter,” Sumner said. “The guerrillas must be nearby.”

“How can you be sure that wasn’t the military sent to find the jet?” Emma still shook with her anger at the missed opportunity to get out of this jungle hellhole.

“Caldridge, they shot at us.”

“Because they thought we were part of the camp. You can’t be sure that they weren’t the good guys.”

“I’m sure,” Sumner said, a grim note in his voice. “They left a calling card.” He waved at the thing thrown from the helicopter. At first Emma thought it was a bomb that hadn’t exploded. She moved toward it to get a closer look.

It was a human head.

Emma stared at the thing in horror. “Oh my God.” Her voice was a whisper.

“Let’s get out of here.” Sumner reached down to grab Emma’s arm. She jerked out of his grip and stalked to the spit. She shook with an all-encompassing anger. Anger at Sumner, anger at the killers in the helicopter, even anger at the women who lay dead all around them. She took the pig off the fire and placed it on a piece of wood.

“Come help me cut this thing up,” she said. “This may be the last food we see for a while.”

She ignored the dead women all around her as she opened a bag that sat next to the spit. She pulled out carving knives and tongs, as well as several dishes. Sumner made an impatient sound and strode over to her. He grabbed the bag, turned it over, and dumped its entire contents into the dirt. He picked the pig up and shoved it in, whole. He threw the knives in, stood up, slung the bag over his shoulder, and pointed to the jungle.

“I liked you better when you had a fever,” Emma snapped at him.

Sumner headed back into the forest.

Emma followed, still simmering with anger and frustration. It didn’t take long for the second helicopter to arrive. This one sank below the tree line and shot along the stream. Sumner and Emma ran into the growth along the banks, crouched behind a bush, and watched as the helicopter flew by. Emma stared hard at its sides. It didn’t bear any markings. A man in jeans and a black polo shirt sat in an open door with a rifle in his hands. Another sat in the passenger side and scanned the area with binoculars. They shot past Emma and Sumner’s hiding spot and disappeared around a corner. Emma slid the backpack and tent off her shoulders and let them drop to the ground. She rubbed at her sore shoulders.

“Just give me a minute. This thing is heavy,” she said.

Sumner just stood next to her, waiting.

Emma pulled the pack back up. “Let’s go.”

Sumner took it away from her.

“How’s your wound?” she asked. “The strap will rest right along it and might inflame it again. Frankly, I can’t afford to have you fall back into a fever.”

“And yet that’s when you like me so well,” Sumner shot back.

He slung the backpack over his shoulder; she hauled the bag with the pig onto her back, and they continued downstream.

27

THEIR PROGRESS WAS RIDICULOUSLY SLOW. IT WAS OVER EIGHTY degrees and the humidity made it feel as though they were walking through fog. The banks of the stream consisted mainly of mud, and it sucked at their shoes. Every so often Emma would see a snake slither past. One was black with orange bands in a geometric pattern. None of the wildlife seemed inclined to attack them, but she kept her distance nonetheless.

Clouds of bugs hovered in the air. Emma and Sumner waved at them with their hands, but there were too many. They flew into Emma’s eyes and ears and clung to the edges of her lips. One crawled up her nose and she snorted like crazy to get it out.

“God, that’s disgusting,” she said.

Sumner looked at her and nodded as he smacked at the black buzzing veil of bugs.

They pitched camp. This time they built a fire and warmed the pig. Sumner shaved pieces off the side and handed them to Emma. She pulled out the small bottle of red wine from the pack.

Sumner burst into laughter.

“You’re like Mary Poppins. Always pulling something good out of that bag.” A smile creased his face and real delight shone in his eyes. Emma was stunned by the reaction, but recovered enough to grin back at him.

“Fresh meat deserves a fine wine.” She held the bottle out like a sommelier at the Ritz. “Sir. Bolla, Valpolicella, vintage yesterday. Our finest offering.” She twisted off the screw top and took a sip, rolled it around in her mouth, and swallowed. “Excellent.” She gave it to Sumner and he swallowed his own large gulp. They ripped into the pork.

“God, this is great.” The pork fell apart in Emma’s mouth and tasted like heaven. Sumner nodded and carved some more for her.

They ate in silence. Sumner retreated into himself and his private thoughts. It was as if the burst of laughter had never occurred. After eating, Emma shoved a small steel bowl she’d pilfered back at Mathilde’s checkpoint into her backpack and used it as a pillow. She stared at Sumner, thinking about his shot at the helicopter.

“Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

“My father.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“Minnesota. Guns came with the territory.”

“What do you do for the Southern Hemisphere Drug Defense?”

“I monitor unidentified planes flying under radar in and out of Miami.”

“Ah. So that explains your extensive knowledge of the habits of drug runners and your excellent Spanish.”

Sumner shrugged and stayed silent.

“How many languages do you speak?” she said.

“Four.”

Emma was impressed. “I speak two. Well, three, really. English, German, and Latin. As a scientist, Latin is the language I probably use the most, which is odd because it’s a dead language. Is German one of the four you speak?”

Sumner nodded. She wanted to press him for more personal information but decided that further interrogation wasn’t necessary. Besides, his one-syllable answers made for slow going. They had plenty of time to get acquainted, and the mosquitoes were out and eating her alive.

“I’m headed to the tent. I’ve had enough of bugs for one day,” she said.

Sumner nodded again and continued to eat the pork. Emma scrambled into the tent, smashing two mosquitoes that had found their way in behind her. She rolled onto her side, but rather than sleep she found herself waiting for Sumner to join her. There was something reassuring about his quiet presence. She liked that he rarely spoke unless it was required, and that he hadn’t been swayed by Mathilde’s beauty into relaxing his caution. Emma had dealt with intense people before. Many of her ultramarathon friends had the same quiet intensity, and she herself could not be described as a social butterfly, far from it.

She also liked that he seemed at ease with the isolation. In Emma’s experience, few people were so content with themselves as to spend long periods of time alone, and the ones who were tended to be damaged in some way. She had the feeling that this man might be one of the few who could handle both isolation and society with aplomb.

Sumner pushed aside the netting door and crawled into the tent, taking care not to touch her. Emma pretended to sleep while he arranged himself against the far wall. He lay down on his side, facing her. The nights were so dark that Emma couldn’t see anything, least of all Sumner’s face, but she had the distinct impression that he was awake and staring in her direction. She stayed still, and after fifteen minutes more, she heard him sigh. She fell asleep.

28

EMMA CALDRIDGE LIVED IN A CONDOMINIUM COMPLEX IN THE South Pointe area of Miami Beach. The complex occupied an entire block on Second Avenue. Close enough to walk to the beach, but far enough to allow for some peace. Stromeyer stood in front of Emma’s door while she watched Miriam Steinberg, the chairman of Emma’s condo association, put a key into the lock. Mrs. Steinberg wore cotton sweatpants with a matching cotton top and spangled flip-flops, and carried a huge straw tote bag as a purse.

“I don’t know what to think, what with you coming with a warrant and all,” Mrs. Steinberg said. Stromeyer sought to put her at ease.

“It’s nothing to be alarmed about. I’m in charge of looking into the victims’ lives in order to get background on them. You needn’t worry.” Mrs. Steinberg shook her head.

“The poor girl. Such a tragedy.” The door swung open. “There. Just close it behind you. It’ll lock. I’ll come by later and throw the dead bolt.”

Stromeyer stepped into a small living room lined with windows. Sunlight streamed in through open curtains. The room was decorated in browns and greens with a mixture of modern furniture pieces and a few antiques thrown in to break up the minimalism. Tall palm plants in large planters occupied the corners, near sliding French doors that opened onto a small terrace. A flat-screen television sat on a modern wood credenza. Next to it was a Bose Wave stereo. To the right of the living room was a narrow hallway with two doors. To the left, in an L shape, was a small dining area, and farther left, behind the wall that held the television, was a small, square kitchen.

The kitchen was spotless. Stromeyer walked to the dishwasher. The display read CLEAN. As if Emma had started it before she left.

Stromeyer chided herself for calling Ms. Caldridge Emma, even in her mind. The more she learned about the woman, the more she wanted her to be a victim in this disaster, not a player, as Banner had called her, but Stromeyer needed to keep her objectivity. What she wanted and what was real might not match.

A telephone mounted on the wall docked in an answering-machine base. The machine blinked the number three in a pulsing LED display. Stromeyer pushed the message button. The machine whirred, and a woman’s voice poured out of the speaker.

“Emma, it’s Cindy, please call me. I heard about the crash and we’re all worried about you here.” Cindy was Caldridge’s secretary at Pure Chemistry. The second message was Cindy again, sounding even more worried. On the third, Stromeyer hit pay dirt. A man’s voice poured out of the machine.

“Honey, I know you said not to call, but I’m worried. Please send me a message that you’re all right.”

Stromeyer grabbed the receiver. A button allowed the owner to scroll through the caller identification list for the phone. The phone numbers of the last ten calls were there, neatly recorded, except the last. The last read PRIVATE CALLER.

“Damn,” Stromeyer said. She heard a key in the lock. She placed the phone into the dock without making a sound and moved to the corner of the kitchen. She peered around the wall at the front door. It swung open, and a man stepped into the living room. He hesitated a moment before turning to close the front door with a quiet push. Tall, tan, with silver hair cropped close to his head, he looked to be about sixty-five. He wore tailored khakis and a yellow polo shirt. He moved toward the kitchen, giving Stromeyer a full view of his face. It was George Caldridge. The resemblance to his daughter was unmistakable. Stromeyer stepped out of the kitchen.

“You must be George Caldridge,” she said.

The man gave a violent start. He pulled a small gun out of his pocket and pointed it at her.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

The gun surprised the hell out of Stromeyer. It was as unexpected as his visit. It was also obvious that Mr. Caldridge didn’t know how to use a gun. Stromeyer put up a hand to calm the man.

“I’m Major Carol Stromeyer. I work with a company in conjunction with the Department of Defense. I’m here investigating the hijacking of Flight 689. Please put the gun down.”

The gun stayed pointed at her. George Caldridge gave her a grim look.

“Haven’t you people done enough?” he said.

Now Stromeyer was confused. “What in the world are you talking about?”

Mr. Caldridge waved Stromeyer out of the kitchen. “Come out of there.”

She did, moving slowly, keeping her hands in sight so he could see that she wasn’t armed.

“You know what I mean. First you try to confiscate my daughter’s research, then you threaten her with treason should she not cooperate with your plan. She’s a scientist, not a traitor. She came upon the formula completely by accident, and you and your people knew it.”

“Mr. Caldridge, I swear to you, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I work for Darkview, a security consultant firm contracted by the DOD. No one has informed me about any of this. What formula?”

Mr. Caldridge stared at Stromeyer hard for a moment. He sighed and lowered the gun.

“I don’t know what formula. Emma wouldn’t tell me. All she said was that she’d discovered something by accident. She said someone claiming to be from the DOD got wind of her discovery and wanted her to license the formula to them. When she refused, they started harassing her. Threatening to charge her with treason. Tapping her phone.”

“Did she give you a name?”

He shook his head. “No. She told me she had a plan that would end the harassment, though. She warned me to leave Florida for a while. She said she’d call when it was all clear. I knew that she’d intended to fly to Colombia. When I heard that the plane went down…” Mr. Caldridge’s voice cracked. Tears filled his eyes. He shook his head.

Stromeyer put her hands down. “Mr. Caldridge, she’s still alive, as far as we know. When the plane first went down she sent a text message to her boss at Pure Chemistry. And since then our search-and-rescue team found her luggage with yet another note from her tucked inside.”

Relief flowed over Mr. Caldridge’s face. “Oh, thank God. I’d heard about the toll-free number to call for information about the passengers, but I was afraid to turn on my cell. Emma insisted that I keep it off until she returned. She said they could use the signal to track it. She was afraid they’d use me to pressure her.”

Stromeyer had to agree with Emma. If whoever was harassing her had engineered the hijacking, then they were not afraid to employ any method to achieve their aims. Now Emma’s text message to her boss made sense. She had been afraid to send something to her father for fear of its being tracked.

Stromeyer waved at Mr. Caldridge. “You’d better come with me.”

“Where?” Mr. Caldridge’s voice was loaded with mistrust.