The DMZ Read online

  Carlos avoided her eyes as she obeyed his gesture to precede him, and once again, she couldn’t tell from his expression whether he recognized her. Not that it mattered now. He motioned her to a stop in front of the table, taking up guard position behind her. Julie was left standing like a defendant before a tribunal. She glanced back over her shoulder to see the guard detail leading Tim over to one side. Another guerrilla had unrolled a length of the plastic used for the walls and was sealing off the open end so that no one in the camp could see inside.

  A sudden shiver of apprehension went up Julie’s spine, but she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin as she turned to face the three men before her. Aguilera had watched her approach with hooded eyes, his narrow features as impassive as a bronze sculpture from some long-gone Andean civilization. She could pick up nothing of what was going through his mind.

  Manuel Flores too had showed only mild interest in her progress across the dirt floor. But Julie felt another chill at the grim line of Enrique’s mouth and the fury she could still feel behind his current stony expression. She hurried into speech, putting all the sincerity she could muster into her apology.

  “Look, I’m so sorry about all of this. I know we’ve caused you a lot of trouble, and I really do apologize. I guess we shouldn’t have been wandering around, but we never expected these … these people of yours to—to grab us like this. It’s all been a big mistake.”

  Her apology brought no change to the hard, unrelenting expressions in front of her, and when Julie’s pleading gaze reached her former rescuer, those long dark lashes so at odds with the almost harshly masculine planes of his face dropped to hood his gaze. Julie faltered, uncertain for the first time. But she continued speaking, directing her plea at Aguilera.

  “You … you do remember me … from the airport? I am one of the journalists from the mission. Julie Baker from Our Earth magazine. I’m on the list—just check. I asked one of the questions you answered … and I saw you in the autopsy room—remember?”

  “There has been no mistake.” Aguilera’s tone was flat and chilling. “You are no reporter, Julie Baker. You are a spy for the americanos, and for that crime we place you under arrest by the authority of the Eighth Brigade of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Are you prepared to answer for your crimes?”

  “A … a spy!” Julie’s mouth literally gaped open. Had she wandered back into that twilight zone? Sure, the raid leader had accused her of the same, but she hadn’t taken that seriously for a moment.

  “What are you talking about?” she stammered. “I’m not a spy! Okay, so I shouldn’t have left the gate. It was stupid! I just wanted to look around. And Tim, the … the blond man over there—he’s no spy either, I promise. None of this is his fault. He just followed me out.”

  Her voice had risen higher than prudent, and she took a deep breath to calm down. “Look, why would I want to spy? Why would anyone want to spy on you? There are no spies here, okay? We’re just on a humanitarian mission. Please … just let us go!”

  Comandante Aguilera might have been watching an insect battering its wings against a collector’s pin. “There is no mistake,” he repeated coldly. “We have been informed that there is a spy on this mission. We know this to be true. And we know that you must be that spy. The evidence is indisputable.”

  “Evidence?” Julie searched her memory frantically. What action of hers could they possibly have misinterpreted? “What evidence?”

  “Do you think we are fools, Julie Baker? You are an unknown in the field of journalism—we have checked. Yet you have no difficulty attaining a place for which many have competed. You speak with an intimacy of our cause and our people and our town that is not of an outsider. You meet secretly and alone with the American commander who leads forces against us. You cannot deny this; you were seen. You escape the vigilance of my guards with the ease of a professional. You make contact with my people, corrupting them to turn against their comrades.”

  Comandante Aguilera ticked off his points as though reciting a shopping list. “These things are enough in themselves. But there is also this!” He snapped his fingers, and Enrique stepped forward to lift an object to the table. Julie looked at it blankly. Her laptop.

  “The files on this computer—they are yours, are they not? Many, many files with information about our cause and about the workings of the American government as well. Files that no civilian would possess. And yet you say you are not a spy?”

  Julie felt dizzy with bewilderment. How had this man known all this—her professional standing, even her chance meeting with Colonel Thornton? Someone on that plane had to have been watching her all along, listening.

  That was what shook Julie the most. There had been a spy on that plane, all right. Their spy! But who? Someone who had been close to her, talking to her. Sondra Kharrazi? She had admitted that she’d spent time with the guerrillas, even interviewing their PR man, standing there with that smug expression. Had there been other motives for her social overtures than a desire for female companionship?

  Or had there been someone else listening? Someone who had never stepped out of the shadows around her.

  Her glance stole from Manuel Flores to Enrique’s stony expression. Of course! Comandante Aguilera’s two sidekicks had been on the plane. They must have overheard more than she would have thought possible.

  Aguilera slammed the laptop shut. Rising with a fluid motion, he strode around the table. “So—you will now tell us for which American agency you are working and who is supplying your information.” He spoke in the same dispassionate tone Julie had heard in his speech, not angry, but like a professor asking a question on an exam. “You will tell us what you have learned here and what you are looking for. And these women—you will tell us who they are and just how many others in San Ignacio have betrayed us as well.”

  Julie took an instinctive step back, but the hard, cold circle of a gun barrel in the small of her back stopped her retreat. She licked lips that were suddenly dry.

  “Look, this is crazy!” she said desperately. “Please believe me, this has all been a misunderstanding. I am not a spy! No one gave me those files. I dug it all out myself. I’m a reporter—that’s what I do! I always research a story before I get there. Check it out for yourself—all that information is out there in the public domain.”

  Despite her resolution, Julie’s voice had risen again, and she bit it off, frustrated. How did you explain the Internet to someone who lived and fought in the jungle?

  “As for the rest,” she went on more calmly, “yes, I do know a lot about this area. But that’s no big mystery. I was born here—I grew up here. Really … there’s a very simple explanation for all of this. I told you I was sorry for leaving the airport. But … well, I was curious to see what it looked like after all these years, that’s all.”

  Julie didn’t add that in fact it had taken no professional training to slip past his guards.

  “The women—they are just old neighbors. When they recognized me, they came to greet me. That’s all, I swear!”

  “Liar!” The crack of Comandante Aguilera’s voice was almost as much a shock as the blow across her face. Tears of pain sprang to Julie’s eyes. She raised a trembling hand to her mouth. It came away red. The guerrilla commander slapped her hand down. Seizing Julie’s chin in a grip that further bruised her stinging lips, he forced her eyes up to meet his.

  “Do you think us so stupid? You are not of San Ignacio. Your citizenship is American, not Colombian—do you think us foolish enough not to check? Your name, your speech … the very arrogance of your walk is of the Americans! So—you will begin to tell us the truth.”

  The pinch of his fingers kept Julie from shifting her eyes from his. They were only inches above her own as the guerrilla commander wasn’t much taller than Julie, nor with his honed-down, almost emaciated frame, much heavier. After that first furious crack of sound, his tone had become again flat and unemotional, the almond-shaped black eyes th
at told of ancestors on this soil long before the coming of the Spaniards revealing no anger. But Julie found this no comfort.

  It wasn’t that his cool, dispassionate gaze boring into hers was what Julie would ever have thought to be that of a killer. There was none of the rage and battle lust she’d seen in some of those other young eyes, or even the anger she could still feel almost physically radiating from Enrique Martinez. They were, rather, the eyes of someone to whom the killing—or not killing—of another living, breathing human being had become a matter of complete indifference. As though somewhere in Comandante Aguilera’s crusade of liberation and vengeance, of considering other persons as mere pawns to be moved around and even sacrificed as need be, he had lost his own humanity.

  Until now, Julie had not been truly frightened. Bewildered, indignant, annoyed, even outraged, yes. But she’d had full confidence that this was all a misunderstanding and would sort itself out. Now as she stared helplessly into that flat, cold, inhuman gaze, terror swept over her in sickening, dizzying waves that left her skin chill and damp. This was no story, no adventure from which she could count on walking away to book rights and a Pulitzer Prize. This was real. She, Julie Baker, could die here. And so could the others who had been dragged into this mess with her.

  “Who do you work for?” Aguilera demanded. Julie could feel the garlic and onion of his last meal hot on her face. “How have you made contact with your accomplices in the zone? How far does your spy net go?”

  Julie shook her head hopelessly, a futile gesture against the steel grip of his hand. Here was when every American hero showed his—her—mettle, defying the foe with backbone and courage. But if there was a shred of courage inside her, she couldn’t find it. A hard, almost painful sensation pressed somewhere in her bladder area, and all the jokes of being scared enough to wet your pants were no longer funny.

  “I … I told you the truth. I don’t work for anyone but my magazine. And the women—they’re just old friends of my parents. Please!” She was pleading now. “They had nothing to do with all this. Please don’t hurt them. Please—just let them go!”

  Slap!

  A sob broke from Julie before she could suppress it. Her hand rose to her jaw as the commander released her. From a corner of her eye, she saw Enrique Martinez take a quick stride forward, his brown eyes blazing copper with fury. Was he going to strike her too? Instinctively, she cowered, even as she hated herself for displaying her fear to the whole world. Where was her big, blond knight-protector in all of this? Couldn’t he at least be raising an objection here?

  A frantic glance showed her there was little Tim McAdams could do to help her. Not backed into a corner with two muzzles thrust into his stomach. Julie cringed as Aguilera raised his hand again, and she was horrified to hear an actual whimper escape her throat.

  “Señor! What the woman is saying, it is true!”

  The comandante stopped in mid-blow, hand upraised. Julie felt the gun muzzle leave her back. Stepping forward, her young guard snapped to attention.

  “Señor, this woman—Julia Baker.” He gave her name its Spanish pronunciation as had Doña Nina. “It is true as she said that she lived in San Ignacio. It was many years ago. Before your time. I myself was just a boy when she left, but I too recognized her, though I could not be sure until she spoke now. Her father was the gringo doctor who built the clinic and the church. They died in the cholera epidemic, and the daughter never returned to San Ignacio. And the women …”

  The boy hesitated as though he himself felt trepidation. “Señor, it is true too that these women were friends of her parents. They are not spies—I know them well. They are only campesinos without education or cleverness for American plots.”

  “Do not underestimate the campesino mind,” Comandante Aguilera answered coldly. “It is on the shoulders of the rural peasant that our revolution has risen.” His hand dropped to his side, and he stepped back from Julie.

  Julie was almost sobbing with relief. Then this really was Gabriela’s little brother, Carlos, who had tagged at the older teens’ heels during her vacations from boarding school. Now surely these men would believe her and release them.

  But when the guerrilla commander spoke, it wasn’t the release she had hoped.

  “Because the woman lived in San Ignacio does not mean she is not an American spy. On the contrary, who better to choose?” Aguilera’s black gaze contemplated Julie for a moment. “Still, we have heard enough until we have spoken with the other women. Now I will interrogate the man.”

  Striding back to the table, he reached underneath to lift out what Julie recognized to be Tim McAdams’s briefcase. As he snapped open its latches, the three men guarding Tim prodded him forward. He threw Julie a sympathetic glance as he reached her side but had the good sense not to try to speak.

  Seating himself again, Comandante Aguilera waved a hand toward Julie. “Carlos, Enrique, you will take this Julie Baker and watch her closely until I summon her again. Victor …”—he shifted his gaze to the raid leader who had captured Tim and Julie—“you and your men will go and bring to me the women of San Ignacio.”

  Tim’s guards immediately dropped their weapons and turned to go. Stepping forward to Julie’s side, Carlos beckoned for her to accompany him.

  Enrique didn’t move immediately. “But Comandante,” he said, “we know nothing of who this man is or even if he speaks our language enough to understand you.” He swept a measuring eye over Tim’s large frame. “He is big enough to be dangerous. Do you not wish me to stay—to interpret, if it is necessary?”

  The glare Comandante Aguilera turned on his interpreter was as icy as the one Julie had received. “You rise above yourself, Enrique. Do you think that Manuel and myself are incapable of handling one gringo without you? We were fighting men like this one before you had yet crawled to your mother’s arms!”

  In agreement, Manuel Flores unslung his assault rifle. Cradling it in his gnarled hands with the ease of long practice, he stepped with a smug smile to Tim’s side.

  “Actually, I do speak your language,” Tim put in peaceably. “What would you like to know?”

  Julie stared at Tim in disbelief. He sounded as calm and unruffled as always, and towering as he did over the seated commander and the short, stocky guerrilla PR man, who was now his only guard, he gave no impression of being on trial. Julie, only too conscious of the tears and terror that had been shaken out of her, felt almost angry. Doesn’t he even realize how much trouble we’re in?

  “Then it is settled!” The comandante snapped his fingers again, and Enrique and Carlos closed in on Julie to escort her out, the glare Enrique turned on Julie making it clear he blamed her for his eviction from his superior’s side.

  Back in the sleeping hut, Julie flung herself down on her cot, ignoring the two men as they took up guard position in the entrance. If she could just talk to Carlos, ask him some questions. How had the merry little boy she’d known ended up here?

  But she didn’t dare ask under Enrique’s unrelenting glare. If a plane wing came at me now, he’d probably let it slice me to bits, Julie thought.

  She rolled over, burying her head in her arms. Now that the terror of the interrogation was receding, Julie felt like writhing with shame. Like most people, she’d always imagined that, handed a life-and-death situation, she would rise to the occasion and acquit herself well. Yet how quickly Comandante Aguilera had reduced her to a whimpering, cringing, broken creature.

  Some spy you’d have made! The first slap in the face, and you’d have been spilling your guts. Julie felt hot tears wet her arms.

  O God! What are You doing to me? I thought it had to be some real sick humor of Yours to bring me back to San Ignacio. But this?

  Whether her prayers were doing any good, Julie had no idea. She’d lost too many people in her life to believe God handed out happy endings for the asking. A lot of decent people had lost their lives in guerrilla captivity—even other missionaries like her parents—many at the han
ds of these very terrorists. Why should she expect any less?

  O God, at least let the women go! Doña Nina, Doña Carmen—and Tim McAdams too. I couldn’t bear it if my stupidity got someone else hurt. Please, God!

  “Hey, Julie?”

  Julie recognized the heavy sag in the springs even before the deep, melodious question.

  “Still thinking on that story?”

  Tim scooted out of the way as Julie rolled over. The narrow bed threatened to tip over, so he hastily removed himself to the next cot. His blue eyes were bright as he looked down at her, and he looked as little touched by the interrogation that had shaken her to the core as he had been by their jungle march. But then, that guerrilla commander would never dare slap this large man as he had Julie. It wasn’t fair.

  “No!” she said flatly. “I wasn’t thinking about my story. Actually, I was thinking more along your lines. You’re the missionary. So maybe you can tell me what divine purpose there’s supposed to be in all of this.” Her gesture took in the sleeping hut and the camp beyond. “Or maybe there is no purpose. Maybe God is just letting the two of us reap the natural consequences of our own stupidity in stepping out of bounds. After all, you’ve got to admit, a good part of the mess we see in this world is just people reaping the consequences of their own stupid actions—not some lighting bolt from God.”

  Tim’s blue eyes darkened immediately into grave sympathy. “I really don’t know just what to say to that, Julie. I’m sure God has His reasons for all of this. We just need to trust Him and be patient. Everything will work itself out, you’ll see.”

  “Patient!” Julie rolled abruptly to a sitting position. “That’s easy for you to say. I don’t see you being smacked around or … or being accused of being a spy!”