over from Rockman as their runner.
“I’m sitting in for a bit,” she told Dean. “I’m looking at you right now on the infrared feed from the Global Hawk. Going back to optical. You have a nice, easy walk around the perimeter of those Aztec ruins to the outpost. There are two soldiers down the road, but we think you can get around them easily.”
“Incas,” said Dean, correcting her. “The Aztecs were further north. How’s Lia doing?”
“Lia’s all right,” said Chafetz.
There was a defensiveness to her voice, the tone a kid might use if he was being questioned about breaking curfew.
“What happened to her?” said Dean.
“Charlie—”
“What happened to her?”
“She’s OK.”
“Let me talk to Telach.”
“It’s under control, Charlie.”
“If it were, Rockman would be talking to me.”
Telach broke in. “What’s wrong, Charlie?”
“Where’s Lia?”
“Her helicopter crashed about eighty miles north of La Oroya. She was rescued by some soldiers there, but now they’ve been ambushed by local guerrillas.”
“Where is she now?”
“We have it under control.”
“I want the whole story,” insisted Dean, stopping.
“That is the whole story, Charlie. We have a team standing by to assist.”
“Standing by where? Is this the team in Ecuador?”
“Charlie, I really don’t have time to explain this to you. Please let us handle it.”
He slapped the communications unit off in a fit of anger.
“Charlie?” said Karr.
Dean pointed at his ear. Karr turned off his communications set.
“Lia’s in trouble,” Dean told him.
“Where is she?”
“North of La Oroya. She has no backup.”
“We have the paras in Ecuador,” said Karr. “And there’s all sorts of Delta people arriving in Lima.”
“Ecuador’s a couple of hundred miles away, more. They’re situated for a mission near Iquitos. She’s down near La Oroya. One of us should be there backing her up.”
Karr ambled over toward him. “You’re not going to leave, are you?”
“I am going to leave.”
“How are you going to get there?”
“I’ll rent that airplane.”
“You don’t even know where you’re going.”
“Telach said the helicopter crashed eighty miles north of La Oroya. It’ll be in the same valley we took north with Fashona. I’ll look for it.”
“Come on, Charlie. Let the Art Room take care of it.”
“This is just a sneak and peak. You can handle it by yourself.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I have to go, Tommy.”
Karr stared at him for a long moment before frowning and shaking his head. “I really don’t think you should do this.”
“Come with me.”
“Aw, come on; I can’t do that.”
“We let her get raped in Korea, Tommy. We should have been there.”
Karr frowned but didn’t answer. As Dean started to step around him, Karr grabbed his shoulder. It was a strong, tight grip, and Dean worried that he would have to fight Karr to get by.
“I don’t think you should go,” said Karr. “But if you have to, all right. Just remember the Art Room is going to know right away.”
Dean nodded.
“Take the boat. Hire the geezer with the plane,” said Karr. “I’ll catch up when I can.”
73
The guerrillas took Lia over the face of a cliff about fifty yards from the trail, then almost straight down a chimney in the rocks where metal ladders had been anchored into the stone. She’d managed to conceal her pistol but had to give up the briefcase with her laptop and the replacement voter cards; it dangled precariously from the shoulder of one of the guerrillas as they descended to a ledge along the rocks. Every so often Rockman would say something he thought was encouraging; Lia would grunt in response. There were eight guerrillas, all armed with AK-47s.
She’d be able to get away eventually. It was just a matter of patience.
Unfortunately, patience was not one of her virtues.
Roughly three hours after her capture, they reached a hamlet about a half mile from the valley the helicopter had been flying along when it crashed. One of the guerrillas whistled loudly, apparently alerting a sentry, who responded with a similarly shrill call. The procession stopped for a moment to allow the group’s commander to pass to the front. He led the way off the trail through a small copse of trees and underbrush. Lia tried to memorize the surroundings, realizing that the footpath ahead must be booby-trapped. She saw ax cuts low on the trunks of the trees — obviously guides, but they’d be difficult to spot in the dark.
The group emerged at the end of a semicircle of eight small paste-gray houses built of some sort of masonry material or maybe even mud. They fronted an overgrown cobblestone street. There were ruins on the other side of the road, all overgrown by vegetation. Lia could tell from the lack of trees in the distance that the path extended down the mountainside.
The guerrillas led her to one of the houses with a large satellite dish in the side yard.
“You watch TV?” she said aloud, giving the Art Room a readily identifiable, landmark. “Satellite TV?”
“Television can be useful,” said the guerrilla leader, who’d stopped at the threshold of the house.
“You get pointers from reruns of
“You have a good sense of humor for a UN employee,” said the man.
“And you speak English pretty well for a Peruvian Indian.”
“I studied at Cambridge. And I am not a member of the native tribes. Please, come inside.”
The interior was dark and dank. A small table filled almost half of the front room; six chairs were crowded around it, and another half dozen were pushed against the walls. There were two doorways to other rooms at the right. Blankets hung across them instead of doors.
“Did you shoot down the helicopter?” Lia asked.
“That was an accident,” said the man. “The army was conducting operations against us, and we believed your aircraft was a military one. Only after the weapon was fired was the mistake recognized. We were on our way to help.”
“I’ ll bet.”
“The army patrol that found you killed my men before they could rescue you. Our intentions were peaceful.”
“Rescue or kidnap?”
“You aren’t a prisoner. Our war is against the army. Not the people.”
“So I can leave?”
