Finally, Wishnevsky came back to the three of them. “We’ve got men heading toward the river to try and find Zoe,” she said.
“The men didn’t take her, did they.” Maria wasn’t asking. “She would have fought, or yelled, or something. We didn’t hear anything.”
“No, they didn’t take her,” Wishnevsky said. “I got a visit a little bit ago from one of the street kids that’s been hanging around your clinic. She had a message for me from Zoe. Apparently she wasn’t supposed to bring it to me until after midnight, but she got worried.”
Ana groaned. “She told me she wanted to say good-bye to the kids, so I sent one of them over here.”
Wishnevsky waved that away. “Did she talk to anyone different since she got back?”
“Just patients,” Susan said. “While she was working at the clinic today.”
“Could one of them have gotten her a message, do you think?”
The three women looked at one another, and finally Maria shrugged. “Possible. But our clients are usually women and children. I would have noticed if she’d talked to any strange men.”
That earned a snort from Wishnevsky. “They could have easily convinced a woman to work for them. Damn it. I knew you should have closed the clinic today.”
“What did Zoe’s message say?” Susan asked.
“She knows where our agent is, and Arcangel told her if she didn’t come back tonight, he was going to blow up your clinic.”
Ana sensed there was more, but Wishnevsky wasn’t talking.
“She went back to them?” Susan almost squeaked, and Ana squeezed her hand. “You’re going after her, right? She thought you were going to leave Will behind.”
Wishnevsky smiled thinly. “We don’t leave people behind.”
Susan gave a harsh laugh, but Ana nudged her, then said, “Is that a yes?”
“She’s a witness with valuable information. We need her.”
Put so bluntly, Ana thought she could believe her. “What about Will?”
“That’s not even his name,” Maria blurted. “Zoe told me. It’s Lee.”
“Christ.” Wishnevsky rubbed her neck. “Civilians.”
“What else did the note say?” Ana asked suddenly.
“What?”
“What else? She wouldn’t have just taken off over a bomb threat.”
“They made a few more promises,” Wishnevsky said. “I don’t want to say more until we’ve confirmed her story.” She stood. “Obviously we’re missing that flight tonight. We know where Doctor Rodriguez is going, and why. God love her, as stupid an idea as it is, I admire her guts.”
She paced the length of the living room. “Officially, I should stay out of this, maybe let the Colombians sort it out. So, unofficially, that means I don’t have a lot of resources available. Ana, can you contact Lee’s other agent, that soldier?”
“I think so,” Ana said. “I don’t know if he’ll be able to get away again.”
“Still, another military person on hand—I don’t suppose any of you have any military training?”
“I do, but it’s been a while,” Maria said, and Susan blinked at her. “I was young and foolish,” Maria told her. The idea of sweet, peaceful Maria with a gun turned Ana’s thoughts on their heads.
“I know a little,” Ana said. “I can help.”
“Ana, no.” Susan turned to her. “You can’t.”
“All right.” Wishnevsky ignored Susan’s outburst. “Ana, contact your man and see if he can join us. I might be able to come up with a plan to get everybody back safe.”
***
Zoe hadn’t felt this exhausted since she’d been a resident working twenty-four hour shifts. By the time they reached Puerta del Ángel, she was practically sleepwalking. She was too tired to feel afraid. Nothing registered when the blond man didn’t take her to the main house. He led her to a shed at the back of the house, and down a flight of stairs.
The room he opened smelled terrible, and Zoe instantly recoiled. It was a cell. He was going to put her in a cell. The fear roared back through her, chasing away her fatigue. She could hardly breathe, and any shallow breath she managed reeked of sweat and fear, urine and blood.
He dragged her through the door. She barely got a glimpse of the room before he chained her to a metal ring facing the wall, but she saw enough. Someone else was there, and her heart sank and soared at the same time. It was Lee. He was alive, but slumped in a half-seated position facing the wall opposite her. Even from behind she could see where he’d been beaten, shadows of bruises over his arms and what little she saw of his face before she was chained.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” The blond man smirked. “The boss will be happy to see you, Doctor Rodriguez.”
Then he was gone, and Lee groaned. “Zoe, no. What are you doing here?”
She tried to swallow the worst of the fear so she could speak normally. “I missed you, so I wanted to come visit.”
“Goddamn it, Zoe. You’re supposed to be safe right now.” The pain in his voice and the harshness of his breathing raised alarms in her mind. “How did they catch you?” he asked.
“Never mind me. How badly are you hurt?” Her brain helpfully supplied the possibilities: broken ribs, punctured lungs, internal bleeding. She wished she could see him. It would make this easier.
He muttered about doctors. “Well, I’ll put it this way: my knee isn’t bothering me as much anymore.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I never should have—”
“Stop that. You did exactly what I needed you to do.” He groaned again, and this time it sounded born of pain rather than frustration with her.
“Are they listening to us?”
“No,” he said. “I’ve had another visitor besides you—the owner. He’s not happy with his bargain.”
“Well, that’s a damn shame,” Zoe growled, then sighed. “I had to come.” She leaned her head against the clammy stone wall. Her hands were fastened at waist height, on a short enough chain that she couldn’t sit. “Everyone I know in Inírida was in danger otherwise.”
“Did he threaten the clinic?”
“Yeah. And you. And other people.” Zoe closed her eyes and wanted to sink into the sound of his voice. Even here, even with him exhausted and hurt, he made her feel safer.
“I really wish you hadn’t done this.”
She laughed, although tears threatened and her legs trembled. “Right now, so do I. But I talked to Janet,” she said. “She knows everything.”
“Janet—is she still in Bogotá? She contacted you?”
“No, she came to Inírida looking for you. It’ll be all right.”
“No, it won’t. She can’t do anything for either of us.”
“I think she will though,” Zoe said. “She was awfully determined to keep me safe. They need me.”
She heard the sound of his chains rattling and him cursing. “Damn it, Zoe. That was reckless as hell. These men have been trying to get me to talk, and I’ve been able to resist everything they’ve thrown at me, but their next step is going to be to threaten you, and I— I won’t be able to resist that.” He didn’t sound angry, he sounded resigned, and that made her chest tighten and constrict.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.” It wouldn’t come to that. She had to believe that. The CIA had to come get them, or lose all their proof of Arcangel’s identity. A fierce desire to see Lee, to look him in the face, burned through her.
“Zoe, turn around.”
She did, as much as she could, and found Lee doing the same, although she could see the effort was costing him. Still, she could see his face, covered in days’ worth of stubble and dirt, dried blood showing on an old cut over his eyebrow. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“You might be right,” he said. “But you might
not be. We have to assume we’re on our own. I got us out before. Do you trust me to do it again?”
Trust me. The words that had followed her into nightmares the last two years, the words that could bring her out of nightmares now.
“You know that I do.” She did, but she still hoped he wouldn’t need to try and save them.
He smiled and almost looked like himself again. “Good. Do what they tell you. Tell them what they want to hear if you have to.” He craned his neck until their eyes met. “Just stay alive. I’ll do the rest.”
There was so much she wanted to say, words that crowded and piled up behind her closed lips needing to spill out, but she wouldn’t say them here. Not out loud. Instead she gave him the best smile she could manage and hoped he could see it in her eyes. “I trust you.”
He nodded, and she thought he got the message. “All right,” he said. “Tell me what Janet told you.”
Damn. Time to find out if her plan was as solid as she thought it was. Zoe started talking.
Chapter Twenty-one
They almost ran out of time. As soon as Lee finished finalizing the plan, the door rattled and opened. The blond man was bookended by two of the same seedy-looking men Zoe had seen marching through the village. Was it only a few days ago? It seemed forever.
The blond—Zoe assumed he must be the second-in-command—unshackled her and didn’t bind her again, but she wound up between the two other men as they left the room. It took all her willpower not to look back, but Lee had warned her they couldn’t show any signs of protectiveness or concern for each other.
It was sunny and hot outside as they led her to the house, the air already heavy with the afternoon’s promised rain shower. They went in through a side door into an enormous kitchen, almost big enough for a restaurant. Had Tia Yana ever cooked in this kitchen, or had she been fired before then? The house was predictably lovely, with tall ceilings, cool tile floors, and splashes of warm color everywhere Zoe looked. The beauty didn’t soothe her; instead she compared it to the dirt floors and leaky ceilings of the village not even a mile from here, where the people who worked to create this sort of wealth lived. She hated—just a little—the sort of people who could live like this.
“Zoe, I see you got my message.” Santiago’s voice echoed warmly from a cozy sitting room, and he came to retrieve her from the guards, taking her by both hands. As if she were there for tea. Zoe had expected she’d be terrified, but talking to Lee, coming up with a plan, had given her a new reserve of strength to draw from. And seeing Lee there, bound and beaten, had given her a new source of anger that burned in her gut.
“How could I refuse?” she said, managing a tight smile.
“You couldn’t,” Santiago said, with no trace of irony or shame. “Come, sit down. Your poor wrists. I’m so sorry we gave you such poor hospitality when you arrived. You must be starving.” He turned to the men. “Go, find that damned cook and put her to work.”
“I’m fine, really,” Zoe lied. “I’m just tired.”
“You don’t have to lie to me.” He sat her down on the sofa and sat next to her, not letting go of her hands. She wanted to pull away, but she had her instructions from Lee. Play nice.
“Well, I am a little hungry,” she admitted. When she smiled again, the lie came a little easier.
“See, was that so difficult?” He was acting as if they were back in her office in Inírida, flirting with her as he offered to buy her lunch. Her stomach did a lazy rolling flip, thinking of the men who’d nearly killed Ana and Susan, on his orders. “You have an advantage over me, Zoe,” he said. “You managed to find out a secret I’ve been keeping for a very long time.” Before she could say anything, he went on. “But now you’re here, and I think my secret is safe with you here, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t tell anyone I saw you,” Zoe said. “I mean, I still don’t quite understand what’s happening. I’m just here to take care of sick people. This is none of my business.”
One of the men arrived with a tray of breakfast and, despite everything, it smelled incredible. At least they weren’t planning to starve her. Zoe took some of the eggs and potatoes and tried not to think of it as her last meal.
“A harsher man than I would have killed you already,” Santiago said. Zoe forced herself to swallow, willing her stomach not to slam shut. “But I have an unfortunate soft spot for beautiful women. And, as you noted to my men, we’re in need of a doctor.”
“So you’re not going to kill me, but you’re not going to let me go.”
“You’ve seen too much.” He looked genuinely sorry as he said it, in a way that sent chills down Zoe’s spine. Double life or no, he was exactly the same man she’d known in Inírida, which made her wonder what terrible things he might have done as a colonel.
She put down her plate, appetite having fled. She chewed on her lower lip as if he’d made an offer and she was considering it. “I’ll stay—willingly—but I have a few conditions. And I didn’t come here without making some arrangements.” She remembered what Lee told her to say.
Santiago raised his eyebrows. “Tell me. I might agree.” He flashed a smile. “You have a way of making me agreeable somehow.”
She trusted Lee, and if he said he’d get them both out, then he would. She wasn’t really signing her entire future away to this man and his illegal army—she had to keep reminding herself of that. She just had to stall. And get Lee unshackled. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I want you to let Will Freeman go.”
“Ahh, but Mr. Freeman has seen too much as well. You can’t expect—”
“He’s terrified of you,” Zoe said. “Whatever your men did to him—I don’t want to know—they broke him. He just wants to go home.”
“And if I say no?” Santiago’s smile had faded—he no longer looked quite so friendly.
“If he doesn’t make it home safe in the next forty-eight hours, several journalists in Bogotá are going to find out your secret.” She went on, although Santiago’s face was darkening. She was pissing him off, which Lee warned her would happen. “If anything happens to my clinic, my friends, or any other clinic or person connected with Médecins International, those same journalists are going to hear about you.”
“You are not in control here.” Santiago grabbed her by the wrist. “I could decide to kill you.”
“You could,” Zoe agreed, hoping her face didn’t betray her fear. “But I have someone expecting to hear from me every forty-eight hours. Until I’m safely home. If I miss one check-in—well, you know the story by now.”
“You Americans.” His lip curled and he let go of her wrist, wiping his hand against his leg as if disgusted. “You think you have all the answers, eh? You come in here and try to tell our government what to do, our military. You tell us how to fix all of our problems and then punish us when we don’t follow your rules.”
“I’m not my government,” Zoe protested. “I’m willing to help you, I just want to keep my friends and family safe.”
“You don’t trust me, eh?” His eyes softened the smallest bit, and one corner of his lips twitched upward. “I can let your Mr. Freeman go, but I understand my men were rough on him. No guarantees he’ll make it back to Inírida safely. I don’t want to keep my end of the bargain only for him to die on the trip.”
Was he that badly injured? Zoe wished again she’d been able to examine him. Then she saw her chance. “Let me examine him. Treat his injuries. If I think you’re right, I won’t hold you to the bargain where he’s concerned.”
He looked at her appraisingly, like he was trying to see the trick.
She gave him her best smile. “Do you not trust me either?”
“Damn this weakness of mine,” Santiago grumbled, but then smiled at her. “No tricks, or else I’ll kill him and take my chances with the journalists. Did you bring any equipment with you?”
“In my knapsack. Y
our blond friend took it.”
Santiago stood and offered his hand. As they left the room, he told the guard, “Make sure Doctor Rodriguez’s things are brought to the shed.”
***
Lee tried to rest while he could. Getting comfortable was out of the question, but he’d been chained for so long now some of the discomfort had started to fade into the background, the way people stop noticing the pressure of their clothes against their skin. Rafael had come with more water again right before they brought Zoe in, and it did wonders for his mental clarity. The second round of questioning had been bad, but not as bad as he’d feared. Arcangel’s men either didn’t really believe he had any information that he was hiding and were amusing themselves, or they just weren’t very good at interrogation. The darker part of his mind suggested they already knew who he really was, and were just waiting for him to break.
Sending Zoe in to demand his release was a long shot at best. So when the door opened and he heard Zoe’s voice, he was surprised. He was even more surprised when one of Arcangel’s men came over and unfastened him from the wall.
Lee bit back a cry of pain as blood started to return to his arms and legs, pins and needles stabbing his extremities. Rough hands grabbed him by the arms and pulled him into a chair.
“Careful,” Zoe said. “Don’t hurt him any worse.”
“By all means, no. We want Mr. Freeman to have a safe trip home.” Arcangel. The bastard sounded amused.
“Zoe, what are you doing?” Lee didn’t have to feign confusion. Her coming back here wasn’t part of the plan. Zoe opened her medical kit and started taking out supplies. Then she started a head-to-toe examination of him that he recognized from his days in the Marines, checking him for all possible signs of trauma, including internal injuries. He could’ve told her he had at least two sprung ribs and more bruises than he wanted to think about, but Will Freeman wouldn’t necessarily know that even if Lee Wheeler did. Besides, after being short-chained to a wall for over a day, having anyone touch him with care was a luxury. That it was Zoe touching him made it a luxury he couldn’t refuse.
As Lost as I Get Page 20