Page 18 of Fear No Evil

“Thanks. It’s good to be back.”

Jake got a handshake. “Lieutenant Carrigan. Come on in. Your men are waiting for you.”

Following Whiteside into the safe house, they entered a tiled foyer that led them into the building’s large living space. Whiteside hung back as they ventured in, and four fit men sprang to their feet, eyes locked on Maggie.

“Evening, sir. Ma’am.”

Their civilian clothing in no way disguised that these were special operators‍—Navy SEALs, to be precise. Maggie was pleased to recognize two of them from when Jake had plucked her out of Venezuela.

He drew her closer. “Guys, a couple of you remember Magdalena. Lena, this is Harm, aka the Hulk.” He gestured to the bald, blue-eyed SEAL who had manned a .50-caliber sniper rifle while covering their retreat from the warehouse. “You’ve met Bambino, our resident Spider Man.” The mid-twenties SEAL of Italian descent was grinning like he had the scoop on an inside joke.

Jake nodded at the next SEAL. “And this is Zen Suzuki, our communications specialist. He’s the one obsessed with superheroes. His call sign is Daken.”

Zen sent her a bow, betraying his East Asian influence while sending Maggie a peaceful smile.

Lastly, Jake gestured to a SEAL standing with his tan arm folded across his chest, unsmiling. “And last but not least, Lieutenant Villalobos, officer in charge. We call him Lobo. So, naturally, he’s Wolverine.”

That made perfect sense to Maggie sincelobomeant “wolf” in Spanish.

As tall as Jake and intense in contrast to Zen, Lobo scarcely acknowledged her. “We’re all set up over here.” He gestured toward a laptop perched on the coffee table, where yet another, more senior SEAL could be seen on the screen jotting himself a note.

“Great.” Jake guided Maggie toward the couch that faced the laptop and pulled her down next to him, catching the eye of the man on the screen.

“Ah, Jake, good to see you there.”

“Thank you, sir. This is my colleague, Magdalena. Lena, meet Lieutenant Commander Strong, our operations officer.”

Maggie tapped her memory. Why did the mid-to-late-thirties SEAL look so familiar?

Keen gray eyes studied her. “Well, it’s all clear to me now, Jake.”

Lena shot a puzzled glance at Jake. But then the briefing got underway, and then the ops officer’s visage was replaced by the photo of a dense green mountain chain buried in mist. “You two are headed northeast of Bogotá into La Cordillera de los Cobardes in the Santander region.”

Mountain Range of the Cowards,Maggie translated. She’d heard of the area while working at the embassy. Due to its rugged landscape, the inhospitable region was home mainly to indigenous farmers but also offered refuge to drug cartels and antigovernment militias, like the ELN and the FARC.

“The Cordillera de los Cobardes is part of the highest coastal ranges in the Eastern Cordillera. The only groups who live there are rangers at the national park to the north, an indigenous tribe, and outlaws. To give you an idea, theaverageelevation is eleven thousand feet above sea level.” Strong zoomed in on the image. “But the FARC are believed to live on this fourteen-thousand-foot monstrosity right here, called El Castillo, ‘The Castle.’ You can see by how green the area is that it rains a lot, even when it’s not peak rainy season. There are no roads beyond La Esmerelda, where the FARC have arranged to meet the UN team and then escort you to one of their camps. Given the muddy terrain, transportation is done mostly on mules.”

“You can’t run in the mountains, Lena. They’re too steep.”

Maggie focused on El Castillo. The lower four-fifths of it was covered in foliage so thick she doubted there was a drone out there that could pick up thermal images of life forms under that canopy, let alone human beings. And the top was rocky and rugged and dusted with snow. If she were a rebel, she would hide there, too.

Strong continued, “We need to know where in this vast wilderness the hostages are being kept so we can get them out. We also need intel on possible infiltration and exfiltration sites. Right now, the only place we know we can land a helo is in this valley to the east.”

Strong panned toward the valley, crossing a river to get there. “Jake, you’ve got your watch with you?” The commander’s earnest face filled the screen again.

“Yes, sir.” Jake showed it to him.

“Okay. Let’s hope it ends up in the hands of the leader, General Salvador Rojas, though that’s not his real name, which no one knows. He’s called Rojas because of the red beret he wears.”

A grainy photograph of a rebel wearing a red beret filled the screen. Maggie stared at the resolute expression on the leader’s haggard face. In his mid-fifties, he looked as though he’d spent his entire life battling the powers that be.

She wrested her gaze toward Jake’s wrist. So that was why he wore the watch, even though they’d been told to leave anything of value behind. No doubt it was rigged with a GPS device like her watch back home. If Rojas ended up with it, he’d become a much easier target. Very clever.

Strong reappeared on the screen. “A word of caution. Colombia’s Counternarcotics Jungle Company, or the JUNGLA as they’re called, may try to follow you to the dissidents’ camp. Any altercation between the FARC and the JUNGLA couldendanger Barnes and Howitz’s lives, so we don’t want this happening.”

Maggie pictured her former colleagues helpless to defend themselves in a shootout.

“If you find yourself being followed by the JUNGLA, try to let us know. We can call them off if we must, but we’d rather not reveal that we have people on the ground. Jake, you’ll touch base with the JIC whenever possible. The phone in your boot seems to work.”

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