afternoon. John finally pulled into a gas station in a tiny, impoverished village as the sun began to go down. The hamlet, tucked into a valley lined with green pastures and herds of cattle and alpacas, looked like an old Western movie set with its dusty streets, rust-stained stucco cantina, and a few decrepit vintage cars parked along raised wooden sidewalks.
John opened the door and climbed out. He peeled a few bills out of his wallet and passed them to a wizened, dark-haired man who came outside to pump their gas.
“Stay in the car,” John murmured through the window in English.
She sighed. Her legs felt like prickly rubber. She was really ready to get out and stretch. But there’d been a certain tone in John’s voice, a warning that he didn’t like something about this place. She studied the one-street village out the window, trying to spot what was bothering him. Nothing moved. All was quiet-as in completely deserted. The locals were probably at home by now settling down to supper with their families.
She heard John ask the gas station attendant about the condition of the roads ahead and how far it was to the next village. But she didn’t hear the man’s mumbled answers. John climbed back in the car and made a production of stowing his wallet and settling into his seat again. As he did so, he said without moving his lips, “We have a decision to make.”
“Do tell.”
“This place is entirely controlled by whomever you’re trying to hook up with. Frankly, I don’t think it’s safe for us. We can stop here for the night, or we can move on and try to find a village that’s neutral territory.”
“Did the guy on the phone tell us to stop here?” she asked in an undertone.
John shook his head as he latched his seat belt. “Nope. He said this place was about halfway to where we were going and mentioned that it has an inn, though.”
She glanced outside. “Really?” I don’t see one.”
The gas station attendant said the pub has a couple rooms for rent.”
Melina grinned over at him. “For rent by the hour, or the night?”
He grinned back. “I hesitate to think of the state of the bed linens.”
She nodded. “We go on.”
“I can’t promise the next village will be any better,” he warned.
She shrugged. “I’m learning to enjoy not playing by the rules. Let’s do our own thing tonight.”
He grinned over at her. “I like the sound of that.”
They drove for another hour as the sun set behind them and twilight settled outside. When the hills had turned a colorless gray and the trees were black silhouettes looming over the road, John exhaled in what sounded for all the world like disgust.
“What’s up?” she asked quickly, picking up on his disquiet.
“Traveling at night in this part of the world is asking for trouble.”
That didn’t answer her question. What wasn’t he telling her? She pressed. “What kind of trouble?”
He shrugged and glanced at her. “Pick your poison. Anything from roaming wild pigs to Shining Path guerrillas.”
“The way I hear it, they’re not so different.”
John laughed. “I dunno. Those pigs are pretty smart.”
The lightness of the moment faded along with the last vestiges of twilight. She asked soberly, “So what are our options?”
“Here’s the thing. The guy in the last village lied to me. He said the next town was forty kilometers away. No more than an hour down this road. We’ve gone sixty-five kilometers, and there’s no sign of civilization anywhere near here.”
Alarmed, she blurted, “What does that mean?”
“I imagine our friend has called ahead to some sort of welcoming committee who’ll be out here looking for us before too much longer.”
Melina jolted, looking around outside, wildly.
“Easy, darlin’. We’re far from defenseless. I’ve got a few aces up my sleeve.”
Just then he gripped the steering wheel tightly and swore under his breath. She peered up ahead and made out some sort of large, irregular obstruction lying across the road. It looked like a fallen tree.
“Looks like it’s time to pull out one of those aces,” she bit out.
“Climb in the backseat,” John ordered tersely. “Hurry.”
She complied with alacrity, falling in an ungainly heap on top of something hard and sharp in his gear bags.
He continued, “In my green duffel that you’re lying on, pull out the big gun on top and a couple of pistols, and pass them up here. Then buckle yourself in back there. We’re going cross-country. It’s gonna get rough.”
He wasn’t kidding. He swerved hard to the left, off the road. They banged down and up again through some sort of ditch, and then they took off across an open field strewn with stands of trees and brush. In a matter of seconds, the Land Rover was bucking and bumping over the most god-awful terrain she could imagine. John fought the steering wheel like it was a wild bronco, muscling it forward by sheer force of will. It was an impressive display of strength.
Apparently, the field was some sort of drainage or flood zone, for it was streaked by gullies. Thankfully the gashes, varying in size from a few feet deep to large enough to swallow the entire Land Rover, were mostly dry at the moment. Mostly. Mud splashed up, covering the vehicle’s windows until Melina could barely see outside.
A crack of sound, like a truck backfiring, made her jump.
“Get down!” John yelled, flooring the accelerator.
The ride went from horrendous to epic in its discomfort. Amusement park rides had nothing over the pounding she was taking back here! She lay down in the backseat for a few moments, but got so sick so fast that she had to sit up again. She braced a hand against the ceiling to protect her head from banging into the metal roof. How John could see where he was going, she had no idea. It was pitch-black outside, and he’d turned off the headlights. A few more cracks sounded, from behind them this time. She thought she heard faint shouts, but she couldn’t be sure.
After a few minutes, the ride smoothed out some, which was to say it went back to merely terrible. A splash of water slammed the window beside her, startling her badly. However, it also washed most of the sticky mud off the window. They were running along the bed of a river-size gully, a high clay wall looming outside the window. Periodically, they crashed into pockets of standing water, some as deep as the front fenders. But the sturdy Land Rover plowed right through them.
Eventually, the vehicle slowed down. John began peering outside, obviously looking for something.
“Can I help? What are we looking for?” she asked breathlessly.
“A low spot in the bank so we can get out of here.”
Lovely. They were trapped down in this canyon? What if it ran out on them? Then what? “You’re sure no one’s following us?” she asked quickly.
“I’m fairly certain they’ve given up by now. None of them have vehicles with the suspension this one has. They’d be hard-pressed to keep up with us.”
“Thank God.”
“You can come up here if you like. The ride’s smoother than back there, over the rear axle. But you’ll have to hold the guns in your lap.”
In immense relief, she climbed back into the front seat, managing to get all tangled up in her own legs and arms and seat belts and gun straps. But eventually, she got it all sorted out. She glanced over at John and he was grinning at her.
“What?”
“Having fun yet?” he asked lightly.
“Fun? Fun! You think fleeing armed bandits is
“Nah, that’s just another day at the office. Watching you try to climb into a seat full of firearms-now that’s fun.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. And realized, suddenly, that he’d effectively broken her tension. She’d bet he hadn’t done that by accident, either. “What’s next, assuming we can get out of here?”
He shrugged. “We’ll get out eventually. It’s just a matter of how dicey the maneuver will be. After that, we’ll
