She’d seen what they’d done to the vehicle. They could easily do the same thing to the plane.
Grant turned to Antonio. “What do you think? You know this area better than any of us. What’s the best way out of here?”
“The only other way off this island is by boat.”
Maddie knew that finding their way in the dark was going to be difficult, if not impossible. And extremely dangerous.
“How far to the port?” Grant asked.
Antonio glanced at Ana. “Without a vehicle...at night...”
“There’s a couple of Jeeps back at the camp,” Maddie said. “If we go back—”
“It’s not worth the risk going back,” Antonio said. “We got lucky one time. A second time...”
“He’s right,” Grant said.
“Then what?” Maddie asked. “We can’t go back, we can’t continue? Is that what you’re saying? And what if they come after us?”
“I don’t think it’s a question of if, but when.” Grant slid his phone into his back pocket.
Antonio knelt down and started drawing a crude map of the area with a stick. “Our options are limited without a plane. Drug traffickers use these islands for a reason. Not only because they’re fairly isolated, but our police force doesn’t own a boat, so they’re pretty much free to do what they want.”
Once Maddie had made the decision to come to Africa, she’d studied everything she could find on the tiny West African country of Guinea-Bissau. About half the size of South Carolina, it included dozens of isolated islands off its coast. Even on the mainland, there wasn’t a developed or well-maintained infrastructure, and on top of that only around 10 percent of the roads were paved. Which was the primary reason the majority of the population lived within a dozen miles of a waterway.
But, like Antonio had implied, she also knew that the lack of an easy way out wasn’t the only issue they were facing. The country—its islands in particular—had become a drug trafficker’s dream. Drugs arrived from South America and were temporarily stored in warehouses, where wholesalers turned around and quickly transported them out of the country—on speedboats along the coast, by overland routes and even by swallowers who ingested the capsules and left via commercial flights to their final destination in Europe.
“So our best way out?” Grant asked.
“We’re here,” Antonio explained, pointing to his map. “On one of the dozens of islands off the coast, and we need to get to the mainland. Our best chance is to head away from here on foot toward the sea, where we can eventually catch a boat to the mainland.”
Grant nodded and moved to pick up Ana. “We need to get going. I’ll carry her for a while.”
A hundred yards farther, Maddie heard a rustling in the woods beside them. Her heart threatened to explode. Six armed men stepped out of the darkness, and surrounded them.
* * *
Grant slowly lowered Ana to the ground and stepped in front of the armed men, hoping to keep her and Maddie out of the line of fire. Maybe his cockeyed plan to rescue her had been too risky, but no matter what happened in the next few minutes, he still didn’t regret his decision to come. Waiting for official channels to move could have easily taken weeks, even months. And more than likely, they would have killed her before that happened.
He glanced at Maddie and caught the determined tilt of her chin. Good. She was going to need every ounce of fight she could muster. Because this wasn’t over. Not yet. If he had anything to do with it, they were still going to find a way out of here.
“They’re taking us back to the camp,” Antonio said, translating for the leader who spoke one of the local dialects.
“Wait...” Grant took a step forward and nodded at Antonio. “Ask them what they want?”
As far as the intel he’d gathered, they’d never said why they’d taken Maddie in the first place. There had been no ransom demands, and, in fact, no communication at all. It had only been because of Antonio and his contacts on the island that they’d been able to discover where she was being held in the first place. But his gut told him if they stepped back into that camp a second time, the chances of them coming out alive would greatly diminish. And money was the only bargaining chip he had at the moment.
He waited while Antonio spoke with them. He knew the reasoning behind not paying ransoms. Instead of freedom, it gave terrorists both publicity and cash. And ransom payment led to future kidnapping and, in turn, additional ransom payments. But that was all theoretical and easy to defend when you weren’t the one standing in the middle of nowhere with a gun pointed at your head.
“They said you’ll have to speak with Oumar back at the camp. He’s the one in charge,” Antonio said, his jaw tensed.
A radio crackled, and one of the men started talking as they motioned them into the forested inlet. Grant picked up Ana and hurried beside Maddie as they headed back toward the camp. Prayers that he normally struggled finding the words for suddenly flowed.
We’re in over our heads, God. And I’m the one responsible to get Maddie—to get all of them—out of here alive. I’m running out of options and to be honest could use some help.
He glanced at Maddie as they followed the men deeper into the woods. Asking for help, from anyone, had always been hard for him. Maybe that had been his problem all along. With his parents. With Darren...
The voice on the other end of their captor’s radio shouted, the words distorted. Urgent. Grant glanced at Antonio, wishing they were speaking in Portuguese so he could understand what had happened.
“Rapido!” One of the men hit Grant against the back of his legs with the butt of his rifle. “Hurry!”
“What’s going on?” Grant asked.
“I don’t know,” Antonio said. “There’s been some kind of accident.”
Grant calculated their odds of escaping as they started back through the forest. White light from a flashlight created shadows among the trees. There was no way they were going to be able to overpower six armed men. They’d have to follow orders. For now.
Grant glanced at Maddie and caught the fear in her eyes. And he didn’t blame her. Every time he’d walked out to clear a minefield, a part of him had known he could be taking his last step. But she was used to preventing death as a doctor. Not facing it head-on.
Five minutes later they were back at the camp. Someone shouted. Several of the men ran toward them carrying a body across the courtyard. One of the petrol lanterns caught the face of the young boy. He couldn’t be much older than ten or eleven, ebony skin, full lips, dark eyes...
It was the eyes that stopped Grant cold.
The boy’s gaze ripped through him. He could read the pain and panic on his face, but there was something more. Something in his eyes that seared through Grant, as if the boy knew that what happened in the next few frightful moments would determine whether or not he would live or die. Because he’d seen that same look before. He’d seen it in Darren’s gaze the day he’d died.
Nightmare images he’d tried to erase flashed in front of him. While they’d known the dangers of their job, a small part of them had always held on to the belief that they were invincible. Because if they’d let themselves believe death was going to win, they’d never have stepped out into those fields.
But they’d been wrong.
One miscalculated move had killed his best friend.
Grant