Guaviare Jungle, Colombia

October 16

Fetch spent most of her first days in the new camp familiarizing herself with the layout, security, the hierarchy of the guerrillas assigned there, and especially with the condition of the hostages targeted for extraction, all of whom had been in captivity more than a year.

She was familiar with hardship, having been stationed in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and many other war zones, and had managed to keep her sanity to survive in the most brutal terrains and circumstances. But she had never become used to seeing civilians and soldiers suffer and did everything possible to prevent it. Giving up was never an alternative. An organization that didn’t take no for an answer assigned her missions. Not having signed up or volunteered for this life, she had to do what she was trained to or run. And the latter wasn’t an alternative. Not because she feared the consequences, but because she truly felt the world needed her. Unlike most of the operatives, Fetch was a full-time ETF. She didn’t have a professional life outside the organization because her specialty required long-term, deep-cover missions.

Fetch was a born soldier and would sacrifice everything to protect and serve. She didn’t do it for country, for she, like all the other ops, didn’t pledge her allegiance to any flag, religion, or political party. She was trained to protect or eliminate whoever posed a threat to humanity. But she knew, like every soldier, that the day would come when she had seen too much suffering to be able to categorize and consign her emotions tidily.

She had nightmares too often about mutilated and tortured bodies. Visions of mother and child, still clutching each other after death, haunted her. It was the only time she saw peace etched in their faces, the kind of peace Sam was deprived of. Her body, or what was left of it, would always be lost in that ghost town. If Sam had never loved her, maybe Sam would be alive.

She’d sworn to herself to defend and save as many as she could, but never get emotionally involved. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary in order to survive and succeed. After Sam’s death, her oath and convictions were stronger than ever before. If she was to rescue these innocent people, stuck in this merciless jungle, she would have to close herself off to their present pain and focus on securing their future.

The captive she’d been transferred to treat—one of the Australian humanitarian workers—was deteriorating rapidly. Thirty-one-year-old Kylee Robinson had been living under wretched conditions for almost two years, and Fetch could see her struggle to get through every hour of every day. Most of the time, Kylee sat on a flat stone beside her hut, rocking back and forth like an autistic child. She’d lost so much weight she barely resembled the photo Fetch had studied, taken before her abduction. Her hair was a matted mess that could have housed birds, and her clothes were filthy and threadbare. But Kylee’s foot was the gravest concern. She’d developed a serious infection from a cut, and the whole foot and ankle were swollen and purple.

If they didn’t get her to a hospital soon Kylee would lose her leg, at the very least, to gangrene. But the rebels would never agree. All Fetch could do was give the Aussie broad-spectrum antibiotics and keep the wound clean.

Though she had to have been in excruciating pain, Kylee never flinched when Fetch had debrided the cut a few days ago, shortly after her arrival at the camp. Nor had Kylee reacted when the bandages were changed yesterday. She was giving up. Her eyes were lifeless, and though others said the girl used to talk to herself—probably for comfort—she had now gone eerily silent. It didn’t help that she was housed apart from the other hostages. The aid worker who’d been kidnapped with her, a fifty-three-year-old man named Willy White, was being held in a hut on the other side of the camp, near the Italians.

From her cot in a nearby tent, Fetch watched Kylee rock back and forth, vowing to sneak half of her meal into the woman’s hut again tonight. She’d done so the night before, and to her surprise, the Aussie had eaten it. She’d continue to feed her as long as she could; she just had to make sure neither the guerrillas nor Kylee ever saw her doing it.

Fetch got up and grabbed the dirty pile of clothes from beside her cot. It was laundry day and she desperately needed a clean T-shirt.

From outside, the voice of the chief, Diego Barriga, beckoned her. “Oye, Medica.”

She peeled back the tent flap and poked her head out. The chief, four guerrillas, and a woman she didn’t recognize were standing in front of Barriga’s tent. The woman, in profile, had to be a new hostage; she was obviously not a rebel. Her long, dark brown hair had been fashionably cut in layers in a salon. Her clothes—a navy pantsuit and beige silk blouse—were filthy and torn but expensive-looking. And she wore rubber boots obviously much too large for her.

Fetch grabbed her khaki ball cap, the intense daylight still too painful on her eyes, and headed toward the group. One of the men suddenly grabbed the woman’s hair and pulled her head sharply back.

“Get your hands off me,” the hostage yelled as she tried to break free.

Fetch could tell by the fight in the Brit that she hadn’t been a captive long. Just as she reached the group, another rebel—short and fat and unfamiliar—grabbed the woman and backhanded her across the face. The hostage lost her balance and was about to fall when Fetch caught her from behind. The woman struggled to get away, but Fetch, a head taller and with the strength to match most men there, contained her with minimum effort.

“Let go,” the Brit screamed.

Fetch wanted to. She understood the woman’s fear, but as long as she kept her constrained the others wouldn’t hit her again. “Stop fighting me, and I’ll let you go,” she said calmly, her English heavily accented. She smiled at Barriga as though she was enjoying the woman’s struggle.

“Okay. Fine,” the woman said. “Your death grip has stopped my circulation.” She relaxed and stood motionless in Fetch’s arms, and Fetch loosed her grip.

Probably too exhausted from the trip to fight any longer, Fetch thought. “Who is she?” she asked Barriga in Spanish.

As though she understood, the hostage turned to face her for the first time and opened her mouth to answer. But she gaped at Fetch for several long seconds before speaking. “You’re a woman.”

Fetch stared back at her. Even through all the mud, the woman was stunningly beautiful. And familiar. “What?” she mumbled, as realization and recognition sunk in.

Surprise still clear on her face, the hostage said, “I’m Zoe Anderson-Howe.”

Zoe, spoiled brat and tabloid queen, Anderson-Howe. Fetch wasn’t sure who looked more shocked.

Barriga broke the silence. “The medica will look at your feet. After that, we will take pictures.”

“Pictures?” Zoe repeated.

“Proof of life,” Fetch explained. “Your family demanded proof that you are alive. We need to give them that if we are to get the money.”

The surprise on Zoe’s face turned to horror. “My father hasn’t paid yet?”

“Maybe your father doesn’t love you,” the short rebel who had hit her replied, then laughed.

Zoe lunged forward to hit him, but Fetch held her back. “At least I know who my father is,” she screamed.

Fetch had to break this up right now. The rebel looked like he might hurt Zoe for the affront, and she was sure Barriga wouldn’t stop him. Insulting someone’s family was reason enough for murder in some parts of the world, and Colombia was one of them.

Fetch dragged the struggling Brit away as another soldier held back the short rebel. “If you want to stay alive long enough to get out of here, you have to learn to keep your mouth shut,” she told Zoe when they were out of earshot.

“And how exactly will they get the ransom with me dead?” Zoe asked. “They need me.”

Fetch tightened her grip and whirled Zoe around to face her. “But they can make you wish you were dead.” She glared at the woman for several seconds so the words would sink in. Then she released her and turned toward her tent. “Let’s go look at your feet.”

Zoe followed dutifully, but her almost cavalier response made it clear she still wasn’t getting the message. “I don’t break that easily.”

Being brave and optimistic under these circumstances was imperative for a hostage’s survival and sanity, but this woman was bordering on foolish pride and ignorance. Two very dangerous qualities when at the mercy of mostly uneducated, trigger-happy soldiers. She stopped abruptly and Zoe collided with her. After turning slowly to face her, Fetch roughly grabbed her shoulders. “Do not for a second think they won’t kill you.” Her tone was ominous. “If you do anything to risk their safety, or become more of a problem than you’re worth, they will end your existence without a second thought.”

Fetch searched Zoe’s face for signs of fear, but found none. “It happens all the time,” she added casually.

Zoe heard the warning, but for whatever reason she couldn’t explain, the words and the tone didn’t jibe with the plea in the woman’s dark eyes. This rebel also sounded like she herself was not the immediate threat, that it was the others Zoe needed to look out for. Was this a new intimidation tactic? “Get your hands off me,” she replied.

“Did you hear what I just said?” the soldier asked, shaking her roughly.

Zoe rolled her eyes, determined to show the rebel she would not be cowed. “I’m sure you can make my life a living hell. You’ve all been doing an exemplary job so far, but I’m worth too much to you alive. So spare me the scary movie.” She pulled free of the woman’s grip. “Now, can we clean me up for the money shot?”

Surprisingly the female rebel didn’t react at all to her words. Her attention had shifted and was fixed on something off to their right. Zoe turned to follow her gaze and realized they had an audience. The camp’s chief, flanked by two subordinates, was observing them. “God, you’re all voyeuristic freaks,” she said to herself, positive no one had heard. Zoe pushed the woman away and walked past her.

She’d almost reached the tent they’d been headed for when a blow at the back of her knee landed her face-down in the mud. Again. She cried out as pain shot through her elbows.

“You move when I tell you to,” the woman said sharply.

Zoe was so surprised she froze. Why had she done that? Just a moment ago, this rebel’s threats had clearly contained subtle signs of concern. Her tone had been beseeching, not menacing. Were they all deranged?

“Get up,” her guardian said.

But Zoe stayed where she was, splayed in the mud. She was so angry, if she moved right now, she’d do something irrational. Something that would have her be tied up like a dog again. She was too tired and hungry to risk going without food and a warm place to sleep for another night.

The female soldier stood over her. “Get up,” she repeated, more forcefully.

Zoe mentally ran through a catalogue of ways the soldier could go fuck herself while she slowly got to her feet.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 755