He'd arrived too late. They'd wasted valuable manpower and blasted their way into this village for nothing.
After that blond bitch Nola had jumped him—a blow to his ego he couldn't afford to share with his men— she must have alerted everyone here. At least she hadn't taken him down.
Still her fighting skills weren't average. He recognized a warrior when he fought one. If she'd come here then she was everything he'd suspected and more. She wasn't with Padilla. She was some sort of spy or soldier.
But where was Sara?
Padilla's people hadn't been the only ones in his compound and they swore they didn't have Sara. Those old instincts of his that had kept him alive in early days insisted that his contacts in Padilla's camp were telling the truth.
Padilla didn't have her. But the U.S. government had been looking for her recently. The logical assumption? Somehow word had leaked that she was still alive.
More proof that his country needed a return to the old days when traitors weren't just shot. They were tortured as an example that Cartina's business stayed inside Cartina's borders.
Ramon lifted the half-empty coffee cup, stomping through the abandoned apartment. Two bedrooms and an empty office. Things looked normal enough. Perhaps his tip-off could have been wrong about this being a safe house belonging to the United States, but his source was rock solid.
Search deeper.
Ramon stepped into the first bedroom, a single bed, dent in the pillow small, covers askew, a food tray on the bedside table with a half-eaten meal. He sniffed. Not rancid. He touched the remains of the burrito—cold. Could mean nothing, perhaps a bad housekeeper.>A vivid handprint bruise on her cheek.
His grip tightened around the M9.
Gasping, the willowy pilot stumbled across the threshold and stopped short, eyes widening. "Colonel?"
"You're all right?"
"Yes, sir." She grabbed the back of the chair for balance, short blond hair clinging to her sweat-soaked temples. "But everyone needs to leave. Fast. Ramon Chavez is heading this way, and he's gathering troops for a last-stand attack."
Jostling in the backseat of a dusty old Humvee, Sara hugged her daughter tight against her. Keagan drove, Lucas in the front passenger seat, Nola Seabrook sitting on the other side of Lucia. There wasn't time to fear entering the real world anymore.
She was too busy watching out the back window to make sure Ramon hadn't caught up with them yet.
Apparently he'd been tracking them almost from the start. She had to pull herself together for her child. Her daughter had survived the spider bite without incident, but being yanked from her bed and a sound sleep had her clinging to her mother as she hadn't done since toddler days.
Lucas's missing pilot—Nola Seabrook—had spilled her explanation quickly, in succinct and horrifying detail. When Ramon had stumbled on her outside the compound, she'd pretended to be an escaped prisoner of Padilla's. She'd had three choices. Kill Chavez, but all his information would die with him. Or she could risk a fight to overtake him and even if she won, she would have to keep him prisoner during their trek to safety.
She'd decided her best bet lay in playing along until they reached town when she would choose her time to fight.
Problem was, just when she'd overheard his plans to gather remaining troops, Chavez had seen through her story and had attacked her. No rape, but she'd barely escaped and couldn't overtake him. She could only race to the safe house.
Everyone in the apartment would have to scatter, fast. The CIA operatives went in different directions, while Max Keagan took care of everyone else.
Sara, Lucas, Lucia and the returned pilot were going with Keagan to a nearby private airfield where he promised transportation waited for them. They would only have to fly for ten minutes since they could cross the winding river, whereas Keagan and the others would travel by boats. In actuality, Ramon's compound wasn't far from the base, but Padilla had taken out so many bridges he'd crippled land travel.
Ten silent and tense minutes later, they reached the tiny rustic airfield on the edge of the jungle. How strange to be flying with Lucas again, but in such radically different circumstances than their first date in the glider.
She stopped watching behind them—and looking into the past—long enough to assess what lay ahead. The parking lot was empty except for an abandoned truck she doubted would run and an old man lounging in a rocker on the front porch with a newspaper and a bottle of tequila. Parked to the side waited a lone, ancient plane—small, silver and rusty.
As long as it flew, she wouldn't complain. Humvee screeching to a stop less than ten feet from the aircraft, Keagan put the vehicle in Park, the engine idling. "That should get you to base if you fly low enough to stay out of Padilla's radar. I've already cleared it with the old man. He says it's ready to roll, and it's faster than the water route the rest of us are traveling. There's a chart on the front seat." He extended a hand. "Be safe."
Lucas shook his hand and clapped him on the back with the other. "You, too. And thank you."
Sara pried Lucia's vice grip from her waist so she could reach for the seat belt, her eyes still scanning. Was the old man staring at them too intently? She tensed. Was he reaching inside his shirt pocket for a gun or a simple cell phone?
She started to call out— The man tucked a cigar between his lips before striking a match.
Relax, and move. Sara unbuckled her daughter, bracing for the last leg of their journey. She threw open her door, outside noises increasing—the hum of the engine, a dog barking on the porch.
Gunfire stuttering in the distance. She couldn't get Lucia out of Cartina fast enough.