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One of the crewmen spoke up. “Welcome to Colombia.”
“Thank you so much.” Peter Doyle helped his wife to stand. Bambino and Theo leaped out to assist the occupants in clambering ashore.
Grace Garrett turned her back on Amos and eagerly accepted Theo’s help, all the while keeping a hold of the child. The boy had fallen asleep during their river crossing.
As a group, they tramped up the sand toward the buildings. Peter Doyle turned his head, spotted Amos, and drew his wife over to speak with him. “Amanda and I will stay here. Where is it you’re taking Grace?”
He made no mention of the boy, Amos noted. “We have a helicopter waiting in the field behind the medical building.”
As if on cue, unseen rotors of their transport helo began to spool, filling the night air with a chopping sound that grew faster and sent gusts of air in their direction. There was no more putting it off. “Whose child is that?” He gestured to the boy.
Grace wheeled to face him. “He’s my son,” she answered on a ferocious note. “He comes with me.”
Amos looked to the Doyles for confirmation. Their pitying expressions said it all.
“Grace has been working to adopt Mateo,” the missionary explained. “His dossier is due to arrive any day, at which point his adoption will be complete.”
Amos weighed his options. He could take both Grace and the boy to the U.S. forward operating base in Curaçao, but then he’d end up bringing the boy back with him when he returned to finish his job in Colombia, and who would care for him then? The personnel in Curaçao weren’t about to let an undocumented child fly to the continental U.S., not without paperwork proving he was adopted. He turned to Doyle. “Come and see us off at the landing zone.”
Doyle gave a slight nod and grimaced. “Yes, of course.”
Amos could only hope the man understood what he was really asking.
CHAPTER3
The landing zone beside the hospital was a clearing hacked out of the Amazon jungle by the Colombian special forces and burned weekly to keep Mother Nature from reclaiming it. The spooling twin rotors of a Chinook helicopter stirred up a breeze that smelled of mud and rotting fruit. The sky had brightened to a pewter hue. There was no more putting off what Amos dreaded doing.
He laid a gentle hand on Grace’s free shoulder. The sleeping boy’s head rested on the other. “Give the boy to Mr. Doyle, Ms. Garrett. He can’t come with you. You have to know this.”
Even in the gloomy light, he could see her blanch. “I willnotleave without him.”
Amos tried again. “My orders are to bring you home, andyou alone.”
“I’m not leaving, then. I’ll stay in Casuarito with the Doyles until it’s safe to go back.”
Amos glowered. “It willneverbe safe for you to go back.”
“But I have to.” Panic strained her voice. “The adoption papers could arrive in Puerto Ayacucho any day. I have to get them.”
Amanda Doyle stepped closer. “Peter and I will watch Mateo for you, Grace. And once it’s safe to go back, we will check the post office every day.”
“No.” Shaking her head vigorously, Grace backed away from Amos.
He sent Bambino and Theo a surreptitious signal to block her path.
Leveraging his good relationship with Grace, Peter Doyle pursued her. “It’s okay, Grace. Give Mateo to us. We’ll protect him.”
Rather than relinquish the sleeping boy, Grace twisted away. She ran straight into Bambino and Theo, who grabbed her simultaneously. As she struggled with them, Doyle intervened, wresting the small child from her arms. Mateo came awake with a shriek.
“No!” Grace’s cry raked Amos’s heart. He knew all too well what she was feeling. As Peter wheeled away with the protesting child, Theo hoisted Grace off her feet and toted her toward the Chinook’s loading rear ramp. Its rotors spooled faster, drowning out the boy’s cries.
With a bad taste in his mouth, Amos nodded his gratitude to the missionary and followed Theo. To his amazement, Grace wriggled like a cat in the black man’s burly embrace and managed to free herself. In the next instant, she was running toward Mateo, who stretched both arms toward her, his mouth agape, tears winking in the dim light.
Amos charged after her, managing to hook an arm around her waist. He lifted Grace off the ground, against his chest, in a hold no amount of twisting or kicking could compromise. His awareness of her curves was overshadowed by her scream of raw pain. It awakened memories of his own loss, scarcely diminished after just five-and-a-half years.
Like a lioness, she fought him, knocking askew his helmet, raking his face with her nails. The heels of her hiking boots pummeled his shins as she writhed in his grasp. It took all of Amos’s determination to carry her up the loading ramp into the thundering Chinook. Following orders wasn’t always pleasant. Theo raised the ramp behind them while Ben sat behind the M15 machine gun and opened the side hatch.
Still holding her against him, Amos dropped onto the bench that lined the wall. With most of her weight on his left thigh, she continued to fight for her freedom. It surprised Amos the amount of energy required to restrain her. The helicopter rose, racing the sunrise as it bore them up, up into the brightening sky. The lush terrain rolled beneath them like a dark ocean while Ben guarded their ascent.
