Page 351 of The Black Trilogy

“When has anything Emmy’s said or done ever been straightforward?” Mack muttered from beside Luke.

“Are you sure she didn’t say why she was staying?” Nate asked.

“No indication at all.”

“Could someone have threatened her to say that?” one of the Colombians asked.

Alex’s thick Russian accent came through. “That is an absurd suggestion. There is nothing Emmy does that Emmy does not want to do.”

“Okay, okay, man. It was just an idea.”

Luke imagined the guy shrinking away as the man-mountain that was Alex turned on him. Poor chap.

“I saw her after the helicopter took off,” Carmen said. “She was running across the courtyard, shooting at the man who was shooting at you. She was on her own then.”

“What on earth possessed her to stay?” Nate voiced what everyone was thinking.

Radio silence.

Since nobody had an answer, they concentrated their efforts on getting the team prepared to go back and find out instead. As they loaded fresh magazines and re-stocked the first aid kit, the speculation began. Had Emmy spotted Diego? Did she get a lead on Carlos?

There was only one way to find out, and with Nick and Nate pushing things along, the team of four was ready to go in less than fifteen minutes.

If the pilot pushed the Huey to its top speed of a hundred and thirty-five miles an hour, the journey would take just shy of an hour. That was a long wait at the best of times, but with Emmy’s life on the line, it became unbearable. Mack paced up and down the room, unable to sit still until Luke eventually pulled her onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around her waist, trying to keep her calm.

“Look, I haven’t known Emmy for as long as you, but even in that short time, she’s got herself out of more scrapes than most people have in a lifetime. She had, what, two people shooting at her? Compared to the Syria thing, that’s a walk in the park.”

“I know that logically. I do. But it’s hard to stay calm when she’s my friend and she’s missing.”

“Nick’s on his way to pick her up. She asked him to meet her there. Whatever she was doing, she didn’t plan on it taking long. And at least we know roughly where she is this time. Not like in Syria where she could have been anywhere in two countries and then turned up in a completely different one.”

“I suppose. How long until Nick’s team gets there?” Mack asked, even though she already knew the answer.

Luke replied anyway, looking at the clock on the screen. “Fifteen minutes.”

As there wasn’t much else he could do, he put the kettle on and made cups of tea, the British response to everything. He set them on the desk where they sat untouched while he and Mack waited for communication from the pick-up point.

When they finally heard Nick’s voice come through their earpieces, it wasn’t the news they hoped for.

“Well, we’re here, but there’s no sign of Emmy.”

“She might not have got through the jungle yet,” Nate said. “Is it safe to wait?”

“It’s quiet as a grave around here.” A pause. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”

“For heaven’s sake, Emmy, get your behind in gear,” Nate ranted, even though she had no way of hearing him.

Mack resumed her attempts to wear a hole through the carpet as Luke watched the numbers on the clock tick past. Ten minutes, then twenty.

The tension was obviously getting to Nick too. “How do people feel about us going back to the Ramos compound and looking for her there?”

“What if she’s already on her way to the pick-up point?” Nate asked, quite rightly.

“Yeah, I know, it’s a stupid idea. But it’s hard sitting here doing nothing when there’s a chance she’s bleeding to death a few miles away. What about loading up the other chopper and sending that over instead?”

“That’s the next step. Although we’re three men down now.”

“Three?”

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