No choice. Harvard had to go out into the field, after all.
“Jean-Luc, Harvard, take the 4Runner and follow Gabe’s trail to the limo driver’s house, see if he ran into car trouble or worse. Keep in constant contact with me, and if you sense trouble, don’t take any unnecessary risks. We can’t afford to lose more men. In the meantime, Marcus and I will pay a friendly visit to Jacinto Rivera’s current address, see if we can’t find any clues as to Bryson’s whereabouts.” He considered the group for a long moment, then shook his head. “Let’s do Gabe proud and not fuck this up, guys.”
Chapter Nine
They marched for miles, deep into the heart of the jungle, through thick undergrowth to the base of the mountains where the trail started a winding climb. There, the guerillas finally decide to stop for a water break.
Biting back a groan, Gabe settled onto a boulder the size of a coffee table and wiped sweat from his eyes with one arm. His bum foot and leg burned like stepping into a fire pit every time he put weight on it. Never thought he’d see the day he wanted that damn cane—but, Christ, he needed it. And admitting that, even to himself, chaffed.
He wasn’t stupid enough to turn down the water his guards offered him, even though he wanted to reject it on principle. He glugged down half the bottle and kept his eyes fastened on the trailhead, hoping to catch a glimpse of fawn-colored hair or the glint of a turquoise earring.
Where was she?
He had tried to keep Audrey in his sights, knowing the guerillas favored a divide and conquer strategy when it came to taking captives, but she quickly fell behind. The twist of trees and vines swallowed her and her guards and he hadn’t seen them since. Had they taken her somewhere else?
His phone vibrated against his ankle. Damn. Hadn’t he set it on silent mode? He willed it to stop when the spiky-haired guerilla from earlier settled on another boulder nearby. The scrawny kid laid an AK-47 across his lap, then took a buñuelo from his bag and started breaking off pieces to eat. The phone vibrated again. Gabe coughed to hide the sound, pretending his water went down the wrong pipe.
Spiky Hair looked unconvinced. “Do you have a microchip?”
At first, Gabe thought his rusty Spanish skills had led him to misunderstand, but then Spiky Hair repeated the question slowly. Yes, he’d definitely asked if Gabe had a microchip, like one came standard in all Americans. God. A bunch of sci-fi nerds were holding him hostage. Somehow, that made it all worse.
He shook his head.
“Because if you do,” Spiky Hair added, “and I find out your government is tracking you with satellites, I will kill you and take your woman.”
Gabe caught the general idea of the threat and had no doubt the little shit meant what he said. And really, given that the phone in his boot was equipped with GPS, Spiky Hair had cause to be concerned. Gabe hoped whoever just called him—Quinn, probably—remembered the feature.
“My woman, where is she?” he asked. Claiming Audrey as his didn’t scare him as much as it should have, but that might be due to the fact he had ten trigger-happy teenagers threatening them both with death and God knew what else. In the face of that, freaking out about his attraction to Audrey seemed a tad ridiculous. “Where is she?”
Spiky Hair shrugged. “Who knows?”
That succinct answer was easy enough to translate. Well, at least Spiky Hair didn’t say she was dead.
Hah, look at him. Suddenly Mr. Optimistic. Gabe rested his elbows on his knees and dragged both hands through his hair, surprised to find them shaking. Adrenaline afterburn, mixed with the long hike and his mostly empty stomach. It had nothing to do with the terror that clamped hold of his chest every time he thought of Audrey. In the jungle. Alone.
He heard her before he saw her. She emerged from the jungle, her face flushed, her tank top sticking to every dip and curve of her body. Instead of the sandals she’d had on, someone had given her a pair of too-big rubber boots like farmers wear to muck out stalls. She moved awkwardly in them, crashing through the underbrush with a gun to her back and tears streaking her cheeks.
When she spotted him, her chest heaved and relief filled her bloodshot eyes. “Gabe!”
He had the oddest urge to sprint to her, scoop her up in his arms and kiss her until both of them were gasping for air, but as pleasant a thought that was, his foot wouldn’t appreciate the running part. It now throbbed in beat with his heart and he had little doubt it was so swollen he would need to cut his boot off. So instead, he held out a hand to her. She took it in a tight grip as if she was afraid to let go and sat beside him on the boulder.
The guerillas gathered on the other side of the small clearing and watched them with a mix of fear and awe. They were so freakin’ young, all of them dirty and skinny and scarred. Gabe didn’t have to wonder how bad their childhoods must have been to force them into life with the Ejército del Pueblo de Colombia. He’d seen it all too often in his SEAL career.