Under the Wire (13 page)

Ethan lifted a shoulder, stoic as ever. "Not here to pass judgment but to find the boy."

"Judgment wasn't what I had in mind, Lieutenant," she said, addressing him by the rank he'd worn in the Special Forces when she'd met both him and Manny years ago in Peru. "The fact that you chose that particular word, though, tells me you've put Lily Campora on trial."

Ethan leaned an elbow on the counter, impatiently waiting for the paperwork. "Don't know the woman, but Manny's my friend. And from my perspective, sixteen years is more than enough time to tell a man he's got a child."

"Agreed, but from what you've told me, which is damn little," she pointed out with a leading smile, "I figure there's got to be more to the story."

Ethan grunted. "Honey, we're talking about an outline here, not a story. Until he called, I'd never heard Manny mention Lily Campora's name. Now all I know is that they met seventeen years ago in Managua, had an affair, and Manny hadn't seen her since—until yesterday."

"Like I said," Darcy replied, linking her arm with Ethan's as he accepted the keys to a Suburban and they headed for the rest of the group, "got to be a lot more. Did you notice the way he looks at her?"

Ethan reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a roll of cherry Life Savers. "Like she's a two-headed, fire-breathing dragon?" He offered Darcy the roll of candy that he was never without before taking a piece for himself.

Darcy popped the Life Saver into her mouth. "Yeah. Like that. A lot of emotion invested in those looks."

Another grunt. "All of it anger."

"Which makes me think there must be a lot of other feelings bubbling below the surface."

Ethan stopped abruptly. He frowned down at her. "This is not a matchmaking mission, love."

She nodded solemnly. "I know. It's deadly serious business. I'm just saying—"

He touched a hand to her cheek, cutting her off. "I know what you're saying. And I agree. There's a lot
more going on between those two than meets the eye. But that's for them to work out, not you."

He kissed her forehead, pressed her with a look. "Agreed?"

Okay. So he was right. "Agreed, my pragmatic romantic."

He wrapped an arm over her shoulders as they stepped out into the blinding sunshine and suffocating tropical heat. "When we get back to the States, we're setting a date. I want you to be my wife again. How's that for romantic?"

"A girl couldn't ask for more." She wound her arm around his waist, remembering a time, not so long ago, when Ethan and his brothers and Manny had rescued her from a band of terrorists in the jungles of the Philippines.

Remembering most of all that both she and Ethan had almost died in the process and that she'd been certain they'd never see their families again.

"Let's go find that boy," she said, and together she and Ethan walked across the parking lot toward the rented Suburban.

CHAPTER 9

"Okay, this is what we've got." Manny sped down the left side of the road toward the heart of the city of Colombo. He spared a brief glance at Lily. "Correct me if I'm wrong or to fill in the blanks."

Manny was behind the wheel, Lily riding shotgun, although she was certain he'd rather have her lashed to the top of the vehicle where he wouldn't have to see her. Ethan and Darcy sat in the second seat, with Dallas in the rear of the Suburban with their gear, consulting a map and listening. They understood the urgency and the necessity of finding Adam as soon as possible.

"As I told you on the phone, Adam and the dozen other students are all staying with separate families for the summer through a youth student exchange program."

"Adam's host family…" Manny paused and deferred to Lily for help with pronunciation as she handed out copies of Adam's photo.

"The Muhandiramalas," she enunciated for everyone's benefit.

"The Muhandiramalas," Manny repeated, "live in Colombo. Mr. Muhandiramala..." Again he paused and deferred to Lily.

"Amithnal," she supplied a first name.

"Amithnal," Manny continued, "is a highly influential member of the governing Sinhalese parliament."

"Which could make him a prime target of the LTTE," Ethan surmised.

Lily glanced at Ethan, as impressed by his knowledge of the political climate as she was sobered by his assumption. She'd thought that the prestige of Amithnal Muhandiramala's position and the fact that the Muhandiramalas lived in Colombo, well away from the troubled Northern Province, would ensure Adam's safety. It appeared that she'd been wrong on both counts.

"LTTE." Dallas frowned from the backseat. "The Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam, right?"

Again, Lily was impressed. Even more so when Manny added, "More commonly known as Tigers. They're big into terrorism. Threat of a renewed brutal and bloody civil war with the Sinhalese governing body here in Sri Lanka is always on the table."

"The Tamils want their own independent state," Lily explained. "Differences based in religion. Sinhalese Buddhists versus Tamil Hindus."

"Although some maintain it's simply about equality," Darcy mused aloud, giving Lily another surprise with her knowledge of the volatile situation in Sri Lanka. "The Tamils are the minority ethnic group. They want to be heard. Still, no matter how you slice it, it's the same ole same ole, though, isn't it? Two inherently peace-loving religions at war. Why does this always happen?"

"One of the most asked questions of our time," Dallas put in cynically from the backseat as they sped toward the market district. "Take a right at the next intersection."

"In any event." Manny flipped his turn signal and darted into the right lane before continuing. "Since none of the other students have been abducted or gone missing, we've got to figure that Amithnal was the target and Adam was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"And that the Tigers are most likely the major players here, figuring they can use Amithnal for political leverage," Ethan surmised.

"Ransom demands?" Darcy asked.

Manny shook his head. "None yet."

"I've spoken with Adam's student adviser three times since this all happened." Lily turned in the seat so she could see Darcy. "According to him, Adam and the Muhandiramalas' daughter, Minrada, have been helping to repair the primary school in Matara and make it operational again."

"Matara . . . Matara . . . Wait." Paper rattled in the backseat while Dallas searched for Matara on the map. "Okay. Found it. Southern tip of the island. Looks like it's about two hundred and fifty kilometers from here."

"Amithnal and Sathi, that's Mrs. Muhandiramala," Lily continued, "made plans to meet Adam and Minrada last Friday in Ratnapura. South and east," she added for Dallas's benefit when she heard the map crackle again. "It's about a halfway point between Matara and Colombo."

"Okay, there it is," Dallas said.

"The plan was for the four of them to meet up, then drive on up to the mountains and eventually to Kandy for some sightseeing and to spend a long weekend together." She glanced over her shoulder toward Dallas. "If you're looking, Kandy's due east of Colombo."

Lily had not only studied the globe when Adam had started planning this trip, she'd also ordered a Sri Lanka map and pored over it, familiarizing herself with the island. She'd wanted to know everything she could about the place her son would be spending the summer.

"Do we know if they met up in Ratnapura?"

Lily couldn't make herself respond to Darcy's question. To her surprise, Manny came to her rescue.

"No. We don't know. No one has seen any of them since they left on Friday."

With his arm propped on the door over the open window, Ethan drummed his fingers on the Suburban's roof. "When were they due back?"

"Amithnal and Sathi were expected back in Colombo on Tuesday afternoon," Lily said. "The kids were scheduled for another workday in Matara on Wednesday, so we're assuming their plan was to head back sometime on Tuesday."

"That's two days ago."

Lily didn't need Ethan's calculations. She knew exactly how many days it was. The knowledge made her heart race with worry and fear for her son.

"Were they camping or hoteling?"

"Hotel." Lily rolled down her window to catch a breeze in the stifling heat. "According to Emory— Adam's sponsor—Sathi likes her creature comforts. But we don't have the name of any specific place. Emory's made several calls but so far hasn't hit the right inn. According to the guidebook there are any number of guesthouses where they could have stayed in an area that covers several hundred square miles."

"Okay, we're talking central highlands here. Not known Tamil strongholds," Ethan reminded everyone pragmatically. "The Tiger operational bases are all supposed to be to the north and along the east coast. So maybe we're leaping to conclusions on an abduction. Maybe they had an accident or just got lost."

Manny had purchased an English version of a Colombo newspaper while they waited in the airport. He picked it up from the seat between them. A St. Christopher medal swung out of the open collar of his shirt when he twisted around to hand the paper over the front seat to Ethan.

Was it the same one, Lily wondered, that he'd worn all those years ago? She flashed on a memory of Manny levered on his elbows above her, his eyes closed, his face taut with desire as he pumped into her, the round silver medallion gently tap, tap, tapping against her breast.

"Check it out," Manny said, the gruffness of his tone snapping her back to the grim reality of the present.

"Well, hell," Ethan muttered after reading the frontpage article chronicling a foiled bomb plot in Kandy. It had "Tiger" written all over it. In addition, there had been uncharacteristic sightings of Tiger rebel squads in the Nuwara Eliya district in the mountains south of Kandy in the past few weeks.

"It wasn't known Tamil territory," Manny restated Ethan's point with a glance in the rearview mirror, "until three days ago. About the same time Adam and the Muhandiramalas disappeared."

Which pretty much cemented their original assumption. Tamil rebels, ruthless, unscrupulous, notoriously brutal, were most likely at play here. And most likely, the Muhandiramalas
had
been abducted. Possibly killed, Adam included.

Suddenly it all caught up with Lily. The worry. The fear. The helplessness of first being so far away and now being so near and unable to see or touch her son.

"Adam's not dead. He can't be dead."

She hadn't realized she'd said it out loud until she felt Darcy's hand squeeze her shoulder.

"We'll find him," Darcy assured her.

Lily closed her eyes. Nodded. More thankful than she could have imagined for the presence of this woman she'd just met. With nothing but cold indifference coming from Dallas and Ethan, and waves of brittle hostility emanating from Manny, Darcy's warmth helped shore Lily up.

Dallas glanced up from the map again. "And what's the reason the Sinhalese government isn't on top of this?"

"Let me tackle that one," Darcy said, then surprised Lily again with her on-point accurate assessment. "Because of the civil unrest between the Tigers and the Sinhalese, and because there is constant infighting between the Sri Lankan president and the prime minister, I'm thinking the government is bottlenecked over getting involved. They're probably dragging their feet on organizing a rescue mission because they're afraid intervention could result in all-out civil war and topple the precariously built cease-fire they've been coddling for the past three years."

Lily blinked at Darcy and hung on to the door handle when Manny made another sharp turn.