Chapter 5
Gemma checked her watch. Seven a.m. and the temperature was ninety. The humidity had to be as high as it could go without the air dripping. The lack of any breeze made it worse. They broke down the shelter, shaking the tarps and carefully examining them. All with no wisecracks from Walsh.
“How are you at reading maps?” she said when the last of the gear was stowed in the packs.
“Not bad,” he said as she spread one out.
She planted a finger on the paper. “Here is our location. Here”—she traced her finger along a blue squiggle—“is the river I want to follow to this village.” Her finger came to rest on a tiny dot. “I’m sure villagers travel the river. We shouldn’t have to walk the whole way. You have a map.” She folded hers and shook it his direction. “We get separated, use it and keep moving.”
“I have no intention of getting separated from the person with the gun and big knife. I’m ready when you are.”
She smiled and handed him a bottle filled with vine water. “I think I like this new you. Keep it up.” Whatever the reason for the change, she didn’t care as long as he followed her directions.
“You think they started searching for us yet?” Walsh asked as he slipped his arms through the straps of his pack.
“Yes. First light this morning. They would’ve spent the night getting ready.”
“Which route? The old one, or the one I talked you into taking?”
Gemma shrugged into her pack. “This isn’t your fault.”
“The hell it isn’t. If I hadn’t talked you into flying back over the coast we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“I didn’t have to agree,” she said solemnly. “I could’ve said hell no and flown us straight back. I didn’t. If anyone takes the heat for this, it’s going to be me.”
“But if—”
“I don’t like playing what-if,” she interrupted. “It is what it is and we deal with it. Got it?”
He nodded. “Thanks.”
“As for your question where they’re looking,” she said and shrugged into her pack, “I reported the new flight plan to the first airport”—she used the term “airport” loosely—“I made radio contact with. I got no confirmation. I reported it to the second and received a confirmation. The conversation was in Spanish. I told you my Spanish isn’t that good.”
“I heard what you said. It sounded good to me.”
Gemma walked behind him, checking the compartments of the pack were sealed. “I have to be honest with you. Small airports are notorious for late reporting and not reporting at all.” That was one thing she learned from years of flying search-and-rescue. She decided he needed to hear it all. “I’m not counting on a rescue. I’m counting on us getting ourselves to some kind of civilization. The shortest and most difficult route is the way I’m taking us. The easiest and longest is south. And it’s potentially the most dangerous. The reason the boat abandoned the search for us so fast was because of approaching weather.”
Walsh looked out to the ocean. “The men on that boat could come searching again today.” Not a question, a statement, showing he understood the situation.
“Yep,” she said, taking a few steps and then stopping. “We have a lot of things working against us when it comes to search-and-rescue finding us. The route change being the most obvious. A plane down in the jungle.” She glanced around. “God would have trouble finding us.” Unless of course they used the emergency beacon. If they’d gone down in the jungle she’d have pushed that button in a heartbeat, but they hadn’t. They were here and their best chance of rescue was that village.
“Ready?”
Walsh lifted his pack. “Got water.” He tapped the water bottle hanging from his pack. “Food. Put on bug stuff.” He held up his hands. “Got gloves on. I’m ready as I can be.”
Today Walsh was content to let Gemma lead them through the ever-thickening jungle as he talked about growing up in Texas.
“I lived sixty miles away from where Sam and Olivia Carver did,” he said.
Gemma tensed then relaxed. If he knew she was their mother he would have said so long before. “Small world, huh?” She didn’t look back.
“Yeah. We’re sure we never met.”
“Really? How could you be so sure?”
“We compared stories,” he said, “and couldn’t find a single friend in common. Even if we’d been closer in age we wouldn’t have been friends,” Walsh went on.
“Why’s that?” Gemma stopped and used her shirt sleeve to wipe away perspiration sliding into her eyes.
“Sam was a good guy. I told you, I was a fuckup.”
A surge of satisfaction lifted the corners of her mouth into a smile. It was good to hear her son spoken of this way, even though she couldn’t claim any responsibility for it.
“You think it’s funny I was a fuckup?” Walsh used the bottom of his shirt to clear his eyes, giving her a nice view of his belly and that wicked scar on his side. Bandanas would be on her recommendation for inclusion in the packs and underwear.
“A fuckup?” She shook her head. “No. You’re too self-assured, focused.” She paused and took in a few breaths. The heat and humidity were taking a toll. “I see you as too smart for your own good. A smart-ass. An instigator.” She’d dealt with many in the Coast Guard who had the same problem. “In high school you spent a lot of time in detention. College you skipped most of your classes and got Bs and Cs with little or no effort.” He said nothing. “At least until that accident you talk about. Am I right?”
He nodded. “You a teacher?”
“No, I . . .” Careful, Gemma. “I’ve given a few workshops and supervised a fair number of people.” She shrugged. “Smart ones are bored. My solution is to challenge them physically then mentally.”
“Really? That work?”
“Sure. Give them a good workout. Burn off all the excess energy then they’re ready to sit down, listen and learn.”
“Either that or be exhausted and go to sleep on you.” He grinned and held up his water container. “Okay to get a drink?”
“Yeah.” She looked around. “There are plenty of vines.”
Walsh drank his fill then grabbed a vine. “We could make like Tarzan.” He ran, leaped, and swung out of control, letting loose with a really awful Tarzan yell.
“Sure.” Gemma shook her head. Boys will be boys. “You going to be the one that gets exhausted and goes to sleep on me?” He took the hint and abandoned the vines. “I’m going to move us more inland. The undergrowth is getting thicker by the yard, a good indicator we’re getting close to the river. If we cut to it diagonally,” she said and motioned with her hand in the direction they’d be going, “we’ll avoid some swamp and mangroves. We can stop soon for a break, and to eat. You ready to move again?”
Walsh nodded. “Sure am, survivor lady.”
“That accident. Did your friend’s death really straighten you out or did you get tired of being a jerk?” Gemma said as she began the push through the thickening undergrowth. When she didn’t hear him crashing behind, she turned. He was still, a hand on a vine looking like he’d won the million-a-year-for-life lottery.
“Both.” He caught up and pushed past her. “I could have died with him that night. The doctors treating me said I should have died. They had no explanation why I didn’t. That day changed my life, in a lot of ways. Some I’m only now beginning to appreciate.”
His tone of voice caused her to stop.
He shot her a look over his shoulder. “Am I going the right direction?”
“Yeah.” She had the strangest feeling there was a subtext to what he was saying. Trying to tell her something without saying it. “Wait up. I should lead.”
“You said I’m an instigator,” he said as she passed him. “I wasn’t. Charlie was. He was the local bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks. All the girls wanted to date him. Got into minor scrapes that he always managed to talk his way out of. I followed him around because he
didn’t ask me to be better. Expected nothing of me.”
Gemma stopped, as much to get her breath as to look at him. It felt like that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy peeks behind the curtain and sees the real man. Was he giving her a glimpse behind his façade?
“That night we’d been drinking. A lot. Charlie died on impact and was thrown from the car. I . . .”
She held up a hand in a stop gesture. “Nice try, Sherlock. No matter how much you tell me about your accident I’m not sharing any more about mine.” From the defeated look on his face, she’d nailed it. “How about we have a change of subject? Tell me why you come to Ecuador. A plastic surgeon like you could go anywhere,” she said, moving again.
“Reconstructive surgeon.”
She halted. A humongous spiderweb blocked her path. The remains of a small bird, or maybe it was a bat, hung in the delicate strands guarded by the resident spider, which had a body bigger than her fist.
“That’s creepy,” Walsh said over her shoulder and with a hand on her hip.
“Yeah.” She shuddered, moved out of his reach and looked for a way to skirt the web. “What’s the difference between plastic surgeon and reconstructive surgeon?” She kicked and stomped a path around the tree.
“A lot. PS is cosmetic. Reconstructive is repair work after traumatic accidents and to correct birth defects.”
A harmless green snake made its way over the branch she was about to shove out of her way. She gave way to it, grateful to be motionless except for deep breaths to flood her lungs with oxygen.
“My mother’s ancestors are Colombian.”
“Yeah? Why not Colombia?” She began moving again.
“Too dangerous. There are thousands of Colombians here in Ecuador taking refuge from the government, rebels, and the cartels.” He sucked in several breaths. “The village we were at yesterday started out as a Colombian refugee camp. Locals mixed in. The government looks the other way and calls it Ecuadorian.”
“The government and medical community don’t feel you’re stepping on their toes?” she said, noticing the ground under her boots getting spongy.
“We brokered a deal with the government before we started coming. We don’t ask them for anything. They do the same with us . . . Money comes from doctors and private donors. No U.S. interference either . . . Staff volunteer their time. Guardian Air provides services at cost.”
His clipped sentences and pauses between them told her he was having as much trouble breathing as she was.
“Villagers in remote areas can’t get to hospitals or are afraid . . . Medical facilities don’t have funds to go to them . . . We fly in, set up field surgeries, do what we can to help local doctors . . . This trip I’m only doing follow-ups . . . and making friends.” He tugged at her pack. “We friends yet?”
She waited to answer until she could keep the smile from her voice. “Jury’s still out.”
They moved on in silence for a long while. The farther inland they moved, the less breeze they had. Soon the air became as still and dense as the jungle itself. A quick check of her watch said air temp was a hundred and six. With no wind, the flying insects moved in and dive-bombed searching for a breach in the repellant force field. Some of the suckers were large enough to carry sidearms and wear boots. If the repellent ran out, she’d have to use her Ruger to keep them from taking their quart of blood. “We find an . . . open area . . . and we stop.”
Walsh said nothing, unless you wanted to consider his huffing and puffing. A few minutes later she stepped into an area big enough for them to spread out a cover and rest. She freed the Ka-Bar knife from its webbing. The Ka-Bar wasn’t made to use as a machete but it did well enough to hack a space they could move around in. She retrieved the tarp she’d put in the top of Walsh’s pack and flipped it open. Together they dropped, exhausted.
“I thought.” He sucked in several breaths. “I was in good shape.”
“You are, Doc. If you weren’t, your body would be on the ground a mile back.” She shrugged out of her pack and smeared repellent around the edge of the tarp. The cloth was treated, but better safe than sorry. They lay on their backs, knees bent, using the packs as pillows, looking into the canopy reaching a hundred feet above them. Now that they weren’t crashing around, birds became vocal and animals made their own sounds scurrying through the leaves.
“It really is beautiful,” she said.
“Yeah. It would be even more beautiful with electricity, running water, a storm-proof cabin, room service . . .”
“Okay. Okay.” She laughed, rolled on her side, and pitched a protein bar on his chest. “Room service.”
Walsh yawned. “Almost too tired to eat.”
“We’ll stop earlier this afternoon,” she said though her own yawn. “Build something to get us off the ground.”
“Hmm.”
“Hey.” She shook him. “Don’t go to sleep. Eat, drink.” She forced her body to a sitting position when all she wanted to do was lay there. “Can’t stay here too long. We’re burning daylight.”
He levered himself up on an elbow. “John Wayne in . . .” He snapped his fingers. “The Cowboys. Only movie Big John died in.”
“Movie buff or John Wayne groupie?” She knew it was from a movie, but what movie and who said it she didn’t have a clue.
“Neither. My dad thought the Duke walked on water and had every movie he made. Only time we spent time together not fighting was watching his movies.”
She found it disconcerting to hear someone say they wanted to spend time with a parent. She’d wanted to stay as far away as possible from hers. She went to her feet.
“What are you doing?” Walsh asked and made to stand. She stepped back to give him space and her heel caught on a root. His outstretched arms were too late to save her and she crashed back against a tree, sliding down to the damp spongy ground, immediately feeling the wet soak through her pants.
“You hurt?” Walsh squatted in front of her, taking her hands. She shook her head. He pushed to his feet, bringing her up with him. “Turn around and let me see if you’re scraped anywhere.”
“I’m fine except for a soggy ass.” She swiped at her backside and pushed by him.
He laid a firm hand on her arm. “Stop.” His soft order was cradled in concern and Gemma did exactly as he said. He came closer. “Don’t move.”
“What is it?”
“Bullet ants.”
Oh, gawd. Bullets had the most painful bite of any insects. Ben moved around her as she slowed her breathing and relaxed. The ants were not aggressive unless threatened. She wasn’t going to give them any reason to feel that way.
“There aren’t a lot,” he said quietly.
“Define a lot.”
“Maybe twenty.” He left her side to dig in her pack.
“What—are—you—doing? Get—them—off—me. Twenty stings—could put me—in a stupor.”
“Getting your meds. If you get bitten the faster it gets administered the safer you are.”
Ben rummaged in the underbrush, coming up with a branch that he broke down to a foot long.
“Please . . . Hurry.”
“I am. I won’t let them . . .” He coaxed the inch-long ants exploring her quivering arm onto the stick, depositing them on the tree she fell against, where she could see hundreds more.
“Get. Ones on neck. Don’t want them in hair.” Her body quaked. Her skin shrunk and crawled over her muscles as the stick brushed agonizingly slowly over the back of her neck, then shoulder. Ben crouched, running a hand down her leg searching. “Be careful. Don’t—want you to get stung.”
“Can you spread your legs?”
She wiggled her feet slowly, spreading her legs. Ben carefully navigated her inseam. Up one leg and down the other. “Are they gone?”
“I’m looking. Can you feel them anyplace?”
“Yes. Every. Where.”
Ben rose, took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “I don’t see any more.” His
voice was soft, reassuring. “I’m going to run my hands over you again. Make sure none are in the folds of your clothes.”
He began with her boots and worked his way up, hands gliding up and then between her legs in a professional detached way. Like being frisked by a cop. Ben stood at her back, sweeping his hands over her backside, slowly up then down her sides. His touch was growing less professional and detached. With each stroke he conveyed what he wanted as clearly as if he were using words. The jungle heat was nothing compared to her escalating body heat. A hand trailed across her waist as he moved to stand in front of her. His hands rested on her hips and instinctively her body responded, pressing into his grasp and conveying what she wanted. Their eyes met as his hands cruised across her breasts. His touch transformed her quaking fear to trembling anticipation.
“They’re gone,” he said. His thumb tracked the line of her jaw.
“Hair,” she said weakly.
“Okay.” His long fingers combed through her knotted jungle do. His arm circled her, his hand applied gentle pressure to her back, drawing her closer. She relaxed against him. Their bodies shifted, searching for that perfect alignment.
She began to quantify. What she did next was going to have consequences no matter if she said yes or no. Yes meant letting him kiss her and kissing back. In minutes they could be on that tarp having sex . . . her pulse ramped up. On the downside . . . For crap’s sake. This wasn’t a forever relationship. It was I want to feel good for a while sex. She couldn’t think of a single reason to say no. If fact, the thought of saying no was unbearable. She was weary of fending him off and fighting her attraction to him. Fuck it! One time getting crazy. Who was it going to hurt? They were in the middle of the damn jungle, no one around. When they got back, he’d go his way and she would go hers.
Under Fire: The Admiral Page 5