Operation Willow Quest (13 page)

He held out a hand to her
and with a weary sigh, she reached out and took it. He gave her hand a small
squeeze of encouragement before turning away to pick up his machete once again.

At the next rest break, she found herself alone
with Del
while Jorge went ahead to check that there were no other nasty surprises waiting
for them.

“You seem to know this area pretty well.”

“It’s a big place; I wouldn’t say I knew it all
that
 
well.”

“Well enough, though. The US Government is
throwing cash hand over fist to the Colombian Government to try and stop the
drug cartels. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve been sent here for the odd
mission or two.” She shrugged, watching him carefully.

Del
flashed her that hard,
no-comment face she’d witnessed numerous times when she’d tried to rile him in
the past with questions about his job.

“Do they actually train you how to do that face
in some class at Marine school? Or do you just acquire the skill after a
while?”

She watched him get to his feet to look down at
her.

“Is being a nosey pain-in-the-ass something you
were trained to do—or does
that
 
just come naturally?” he shot back.

She smiled sweetly. “I’m not nosey. I’m
curious.”

“Start throwing around those kind of questions
and you’ll end up in a whole mess of trouble…again,” he warned her.

“You Yanks are so touchy.”

Jorge came back, cutting off any further
conversation and Willow
felt her spirits drop when she caught the serious expression their guide was
now wearing.

She waited until Del glanced over at her before approaching
them. “What’s wrong?”

“Jorge says there’s some kind of compound up
ahead. We’re going to have to go back and work our way around it.”

“What kind of compound?” The last compound Willow had any contact
with was the one that
Trèago
had kept her hostage in
and the memory still sent a prickle of fear through her body.

“The kind that someone builds out here in the
middle of the jungle so they don’t get found. Which is why we’re going to give
it a wide berth and go back and find another way around.”

“Wait a second.” She caught Del’s warning frown but ploughed on
regardless. “Maybe there’s something at this compound that links back to
Alistair. It’s not that far from where we came across him—it’s possible he
could have come from here.”

“Why would we be even the slightest bit
interested in that?” Del
growled.

“Because if he
is
working for
Trèago
then we have a
location to add to Terry’s documentation. This could be important. You said it
yourself, this place isn’t easily accessible. What kind of people live in
places that are so remote?”

“People who don’t want to be disturbed—which is
why we aren’t going anywhere near it.”

“Del,
this could be important.”

“It could also get us all killed. We’re not
going anywhere near it, and that’s final.”

* * * *

Willow
peered through the
lens of her camera. Zooming the long lens in on the walls of the ugly stone
compound below them, she clicked off a few shots of the armed men patrolling
inside.

They’d been lying in position for the last half
hour with nothing other than a few ape-like men carrying guns to show for the
trouble. Beside her Del
was waiting patiently—not happily, but patiently all the same. It amazed her to
watch him be able to remain so relaxed and yet alert beside her. It was an
interesting insight into his profession. She knew that they sometimes spent
hours—days, even—in reconnaissance, watching and waiting. It took an incredible
amount of patience and discipline, something of which she was learning she had
limited supplies.

“Satisfied?” Del asked in a low voice.

“No. But I guess there’s no point hanging around
here forever,” Willow
conceded despondently. Lowering her camera, she was about to pack it away when
Jorge carefully pointed out something in the distance.

“What is it?” Willow whispered, unable to see what the
guide had noticed.

“There’s something coming,” Del murmured softly, a set of binoculars
planted tightly against his face.

Willow
lifted the camera back
up and tried to zoom in on what they were looking at. Then she saw it. A procession
of jeeps was making its way over the rough terrain at a snail’s pace, toward
the compound entry.

Quickly Willow
began to shoot off a round of pictures, her trusty Nikon operating like an M16
as it clicked out the shots, barely pausing to see if she
recognised
any of the faces but eager to make sure she captured all of them.

There were eleven vehicles in total and she
continued to take photo after photo as the men left the vehicles and made their
way toward the grand entry doors of the main house inside the compound walls.

A large dark-skinned man came out of the house to
greet his guests, but judging from the number of escorting bodyguards it was a
somewhat tense gathering. There was definitely an air of uneasy alliance in the
accumulated crowd.

“Do you
recognise
any
of these guys?” Willow
asked without looking up from her camera.

Del
didn’t bother to
answer, just growled, “I hope to hell you have what you need, because we’re
outta
’ here,
now
.”
He pushed down her camera firmly. “Pack it up or leave it behind and just take
the memory card; we’re moving out.”

Having already pushed Del to what she conceded would be his
limits, she decided it would be wise not to argue, and made quick work of
packing away her gear.

They pushed on relentlessly for the remainder
of the day. There were fewer stops for shorter periods of time, and Willow was feeling the
strain.

It was a relief to finally
realise
they’d crossed the border, but the militia tended not to take borders too seriously
and there was no guarantee they’d magically fade away just because a map
indicated Willow’s group was now in another country, so they continued to
travel with pain-staking caution. The small matter of crossing into another
country illegally was another reason to be careful and something they’d prefer
not to have to explain until they were safely inside a US embassy.

When Del finally considered they were safe
enough, they
farewelled
Jorge, who slipped back into
the jungle and disappeared with a generous fold of cash that would go a long
way to support his large family. As she watched him disappear, she couldn’t
help but wonder about all the other people trapped in the same position as
Jorge, and what would become of them. The rebel activity was increasing and
violence was becoming a daily occurrence for far too many people.

The thoughts lingered as they pushed on in
silence, but she tried her best to concentrate on the remainder of their
journey—they’d come too far to be thrown in some damp, dark, prison cell now.

A shudder went through her
at the thought. She could stand many things if she had to, but she had serious
doubts as to whether she could survive being locked in away in a prison again.
That was a nightmare still all too fresh in her mind.

They broke from the cover of the jungle and the
landscape changed once more as they came back into
civilisation
,
blending in as backpacking tourists. Del
found a cheap place to stop where she could change and shower. A good meal in
their stomachs would also go a long way to improving their dispositions, which
had been tinkering on the side of anti-social for the last few miles they’d travelled.

* * * *

The water wasn’t hot, but it did flow over her
head and she lathered her precious bar of soap vigorously over her filthy skin,
enjoying the sensation of simply being clean once more. She donned her last
remaining set of clean clothes and stuffed the dirty ones inside her pack,
happy to be seeing the last of them for a while.

Del
managed to scrounge a
drink for them and she accepted the can of cola,
savouring
its familiar taste. She felt like she’d been gone from
civilisation
for months instead of days. With a full belly and her tired, sore feet wiggling
free of their cumbersome boots, she was content to sit at the small table in a
run-down motel room and do nothing but breathe.

Willow
finished her drink and
her gaze fell on their grubby backpacks on the floor. She summoned up some
energy to move across the room. Unzipping her laptop, Willow set it up in front of her on the small
table, thankful to finally have access to a power source once more. She sent a
quick glance towards Del and saw he was still on the phone arranging their
transport, since they still had to make it from Panama back to the US somehow.

He crossed the room a few moments later and
closed the laptop, ignoring her outraged protests.

“We’re meeting with an official tomorrow
morning,” he announced, rubbing his face as he sat down across from her.

“I still don’t understand why we can’t go to
the American Embassy here.”

“I’d feel better if I were back on home ground
before we had to explain all of this. We can hardly go walking through Customs
without raising speculation and—knowing
Trèago
—alerting
the wrong kind of people to our presence. Besides, you can’t just walk into the
embassy declaring you’ve got information on drug lords from Colombia—they’re
going to think you’re some kind of a nutcase,” he told her dryly. “I’ve made
contact with a guy I know in LA, and he’s going to liaise with the Embassy
before we get there. So here’s the plan and what you have to say.”

“Now I know how you got the way you are,” she
muttered after going through the plan a fourth time.

“You’ll thank me if it keeps you out of prison.
Now, where’s your camera?”

“Why?” Willow’s
gaze shot to his in alarm.

“Because we have to hand over those pictures
you took earlier.”

“I’ll make some copies to give to them.”

“Willow,
they’re not going to want any copies floating around about this. It’s sensitive
information.”

“They’re my photos.”

His half-hearted chuckle only managed to
inflame her outrage even more.

“I agreed to hand over photos—they can have
copies. Leaving me with
nothing
was not part of the deal.”

“The deal was we checked out the compound to
see if it linked anything to Sinclair’s evidence. What’s in those photos has
vital information for our intelligence agencies.”

Willow
sat back in her chair
and regarded Del
thoughtfully for a few minutes. So, the meeting at the compound
had been
something big. Del obviously knew more
than he was letting on here. “I need to hold on to them for a bit longer,” she
said, holding his blue eyes, now tinged with a steely edge.

“We agreed to hand over
all
the evidence,” he reminded her firmly.

“And we will, I just need to make a copy of
them.”

“No.” he said, leaning back and folding his
arms across his chest in that unmovable, irritating way she was beginning to loath.

“Look, I agreed to leave with you because I
could see it was getting a little…dangerous,” she retorted, ignoring his
incredulous snort, “but I’m not giving up this story.”

“This isn’t a game! The Government won’t let
you do a story about this.” When he saw her jaw clench and eyes flare at that,
Dell closed his eyes and took a calming breath. “Look, there could be an
undercover operation going on back there—men could be risking their lives.
There’s no way you can release a story with these photos and risk blowing apart
some big operation they’ve probably had running for months. You could go to
jail, Willow.
Do you understand?”

“We’ll give them the damn information! But
Terry wanted me to write this story—I’m not going to let them sit on evidence
that
he risked his life
gathering. You know as well as I do that this
whole file could conveniently go missing if there’s something in there the
government doesn’t want publicly known. I
know
that it happens. It’s up
to me to
make sure
 
they follow
through and act on this. My story will make sure they do. I won’t be chased off
this story.”

She saw his indecision waver slightly and
pushed on. “Come on, Del,
I gave my word. Don’t make me break a promise. The guy was murdered for this
stuff, doesn’t that count for anything? What if it’d been you in his
shoes—wouldn’t you want me to make sure it wasn’t all for nothing?”

Slowly he leaned toward her, holding her gaze
steadily. “When are you going to stop avenging all your ghosts, Willow?” His low,
gravelly voice sounded even rougher than usual.

Willow
felt as though he’d
slapped her and her head snapped away from his probing gaze instinctively.
Pushing back her chair, she crossed the room, rubbing her arms as an
unexplained chill crept its icy fingers across her skin.