Page 38 of Fear No Evil

“Ne dis pas un mot,”she warned on a humiliated note.Don’t say a word.

To keep from laughing, Jake imagined what would have happened if the harmless tarantula was a fer-de-lance pit viper. As he helped her to her feet again, he swept the weeping forest. Who but fools and spies would venture out into a rainstorm? “I think this is far enough. Show me what you’ve got, but keep it dry.”

Lena found the closest tree to shelter them and pulled the map from her pocket. Putting his cheek close to hers, Jake examined the crude drawing with interest.

She pointed at two of the threeXs. “These are the names of camps, I think. Which one is ours, do you think?” She stuck faithfully to French, a true professional.

Jake pointed. “Probably this one. We’re pretty high up the mountain.”

“Cecaot-Jicobo.”She attempted to pronounce the name beneath it. The other was calledKi-kirr-zikis. “Are these indigenous words?”

“J’en doute.”I doubt it. Jake lifted his right leg and went to work, taking off his boot. Once the phone was in his hand, he powered it up, glancing around vigilantly as it emitted the beep. At last, he pulled up the antenna and prayed for a connection.

Lena watched his every move. “Still nothing?” She sounded as concerned as he felt.

“Nope.” As he lowered the antenna, disappointed, she looked back at the map.

“So, if these names aren’t indigenous, what are they?”

“Encryptions.” Another word he didn’t know in French, so he faked it.

She looked irritated that she hadn’t realized that before he did. “Can you break the code?”

Her expectant, upward glance warmed him. “Possibly, but it’ll take me a while.”

“Hmm.” She looked back at the map, pointing to what was clearly a depiction of water. “I wonder if this is the creek we crossed. If so, there’s a waterfall near the top.”

Jake peeked at the crude drawing in her hands. “There’s got to be more than one river on this mountain.”

“Why isn’t this camp named?”

He considered theXshe was pointing to, situated near the mountain’s peak. “Maybe that’s the radio station.” Giving up on a connection, he started to stow the phone back in his boot, then changed his mind. “Let me take a picture first. Hold it still for me.”

She angled the map obligingly. “But you can’t upload photos without a signal, can you?”

“No. The pictures aren’t going anywhere until we get coverage.” He snapped off a shot of the entire map, then zoomed in over eachX.

“You think your team is worried that we haven’t checked in?”

He replied with more assurance than he felt. “As long as our trackers are transmitting, they’re not worried.”

As he put the phone away, Lena folded the map. “Can we bury this now? I don’t like carrying it around.”

“You don’t have to.” He plucked it from her grasp and stuffed it inside his own pants pocket next to their passports, which he carried everywhere. “And we can’t bury it until we’re sure the JIC has the photos. In the meantime, I’ll try to break the encryption.”

“Cryptage,” she corrected.

“Oui. It can’t be that complex. It’s not like they have a lot of technology out here.”

Jake hauled on his boot and quickly tied the laces. He wasn’t going to tell Lena this and compound her stress, but even if their phone was working, it was only a matter of time before the constant moisture here interfered with the electronics, rendering it even more useless than it was already.

When a shout came out of the forest early that evening, Maggie’s first response was relief. She hadn’t joined the CIA to sit on her hands all day waiting for others to make things happen.

While Jake sat around the smoldering firepit with Boris, Bellini, and Charles, Maggie sat with Esme on the bungalow’s front platform, listening to the Turkish woman’s life story. The shout coming from the woods was a godsend.

But in response to it, Chucho, who was manning the .50-caliber machine gun, let loose with a stream of bullets that tattered the foliage. Maggie hit the ground, her adrenaline spiking.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. On the far side of the camp, bits of bark and leaves rained down like confetti. One minute, Jake was over at the firepit; the next, he was hauling Maggie off the mud and around the building, where he pinned her against the spindly post.

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