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Hurry,Amos thought. The last thing he wanted was to engage in a firefight while trying to keep these civilians safe.
Peter remained remarkably calm. The first key he tried didn’t work. He inserted another, and the click of the lock freed Amos to breathe again. Recovering a woman, let alone one carrying a child, was a new experience for him, raising the hairs on his nape.
“Go.” He propelled her into the building ahead of him, right on the heels of the Doyles, leaving Bambino and Theo to secure the door behind them.
A long dark hallway stretched the length of the building, lit by the first suggestion of dawn that silvered the little window at the other end. With a hand on the small of Grace’s back, Amos hustled her along. The boy whimpered again. Grace whispered to him that they were safe.
That had better work,Amos thought, because the plan was to sweep them out of this building, one block north of the soldiers looking for them. Then they still had to cover six city blocks to get to the river’s edge.
He whispered over his shoulder, “Bambino, alert SWCC that we need a hot extract. We are eight in number.” Heavily camouflaged and armed to the teeth, the Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen would deliver them via a riverine boat to Colombia.
“Hooyah, Mako.” Bambino pulled out his sat phone and made the call while they were all indoors.
By the time they slipped from the school onto a quiet road, the little boy had ceased his sniveling, thank God. Their little troop hustled down a narrow street with Ben in the lead, ready to pick off anyone who intercepted them. Without warning, the boy hiccupped loudly. Twenty seconds later, he hiccupped again.
Amos envisioned soldiers coming around the corner to investigate. “Can you make him stop?”
He hadn’t meant for his voice to come out in a growl. Grace’s fulminating glare let him know the question was ridiculous, and the boy began to cry again.
“Tell him to hold his breath or something,” he amended.
“Why don’t you hold yours?”
Her sharp retort made him blink at her. He hadn’t been dressed down by a living soul since achieving the rank of senior chief. The novelty was arousing.
He tried again. “Look, we have four more blocks to go and a river crossing before we’re out of danger. The only way we’ll get there without me having to kill someone is forhimto be quiet.”
He thought that might make her understand, but she hissed back, “You be quiet, then. You’re the one scaring him.”
Just then, Ben stepped between them and handed the boy a chocolate bar.
“Thank you.” Grace accepted it eagerly and ripped back the wrapper. “Look, Mateo.”
The crying stopped. No hiccups, either. Amos could’ve kissed Ben, but the sniper was already pressing forward.
As they crossed the first intersection, Amos glimpsed the Humvee, still idling in front of the cathedral. They darted across the street, unseen.
By the time Amos could hear the Orinoco River rushing nearby, lights were starting to blink on in some of the surrounding buildings.
And then he heard it—a shout in the distance that suggested the soldiers had discovered the American’s hiding spot. Bambino and Theo began to walk backward, covering their retreat. The roar of a lone vehicle grew louder. A glance over his shoulder showed the Humvee streaking through the intersection behind him, headed toward the main port. As luck would have it, their riverine would meet them farther downriver at a dock belonging to a CIA asset.
Ben swept them through the asset’s pedestrian gate, around his quiet house, and into his backyard. Just then, Bambino sent Amos a thumbs-up, letting him know the special combatant crew was nearly there.
Nobody would have seen the boat if they weren’t searching for it. Painted dark gray with no running lights and a near-silent motor, it drew up to the dock stealthily. Grappling hooks moored it temporarily. Ben handed down the missionary’s wife and then the missionary himself into the waiting hands of a near-invisible crewman. As Amos reached for Grace’s elbow to do likewise, she backed away from the craft as if terrified of getting onto it.
“Let’s go.” He waved her closer.
She stared at the boat a moment. Then, with a visible squaring of her shoulders, she boarded the craft on her own, nearly losing her balance. The boy cried out as unseen hands grabbed and lowered them both onto a seat.
With his temples throbbing, Amos leaped into the riverine, joined immediately by his subordinates. The grapples came off the dock. Two crewmembers gave a push, and they were out in the fast-flowing Orinoco. The engines throbbed quietly, speeding them into the wide, inky river. The lights of Puerto Ayacucho grew dimmer.
With no sign of being chased, Amos heaved a sigh of relief. The worst part was over. Or was it? He eased onto a padded seat across from Grace to study her. All he could see of her was the line of her piquant nose and the glimmer of her enormous eyes. She struck him as terrified, gripping the boy in her arms like a drowning person gripping a life raft.
Her possessive grip on the boy concerned him. Amos’s orders were clear: Retrieve the recovery target, put her on a helicopter, and deliver her to the forward operating base in Curaçao, where the FBI would take charge of her. Nowhere in his orders did it say to recover a little indigenous boy, too.
Their ten-minute passage upriver necessitated silence. He would ask questions once they were safely on the other side.
At last, the riverine came to a sliding stop on a strip of beach at the edge of an old trading town on Colombia’s border. The barest hint of dawn and the glow of a bug zapper lit the row of single-story shops, each painted a different color. Casuarito boasted a medical clinic, a simple but clean hotel, and a couple of cafés. Beyond the trading town, there was nothing for miles but jungle, occupied by dangerous guerilla factions.
