“You don’t know sh—”
“Linc!”
“When I tell you to do something I expect you—”
“Linc!” Kerry had shouted again. “Stop yelling at Joe. All the children are safe, but you’re frightening them.”
Linc had cursed beneath his breath as he headed for the front of the house. “Get them ready. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Luckily the truck was where he had left it the evening before, concealed by jungle vines. He slashed at them viciously, working out some, but only some, of his frustration.
“The children are hungry,” Kerry told him from behind the screened door when he bellowed from the front lawn for them to load up.
Stormily he had followed her back into the kitchen, where the orphans were gratefully eating stale bread and bananas. Kerry had helped them wash their faces and hands, which had become grimy in the cellar. None of them looked at Linc directly, sensing his mood, but he felt eight pairs of eyes frequently glancing in his direction. The ninth pair, belonging to Joe, openly defied him. Animosity simmered between the man and the adolescent boy, who hadn’t taken kindly to the blistering lecture.
Little Lisa had squirmed free of Kerry’s arms and crossed the kitchen floor bearing a dry crust of bread. Her eyes were sympathetic and imploring as she gazed up at Linc and tugged on the knee of his fatigue pants to get his attention. He looked down at her. She offered him the crust of bread
wordlessly. But her eyes, as dark and rich as chocolate syrup, spoke volumes.
Linc crouched down, took the piece of bread from her, and ate it. “Muchas gracias,” he said and cuffed her on the chin. Lisa flashed him a dazzling smile before shyly scampering back to Kerry.
It was a while before he had cleared his throat enough to say gruffly, “Let’s go.”
When all the children had been placed in the truck, he drew Kerry aside. “Call off your watchdog.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Joe. Make it clear to him that I didn’t compromise you last night. I’m afraid to turn my back on him for fear he’ll slide a knife between my ribs.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Tell him!”
“All right!”
Those had been the last words they had exchanged until now, when, with her eyes shaded from the glaring sun, she had looked up at him and spoken his name.
Apparently her nerves were just as frayed as his. She lashed back. “That’s what I’m paying you for, Mr. O’Neal. To come up with ideas. To improvise.”
“Well, maybe you should have checked out my credentials more carefully before offering me the goddamn job.”
Kerry had no argument for that, so she clamped her mouth shut and returned her stare to the rushing water.
Why did she always make him look like a snarling beast in front of the kids? They were watching him as though he were a cross between Jack the Ripper and Moses, afraid of him, but looking to him for leadership.
He blew out an exasperated breath. “Give me a minute, okay?” he said, raking his fingers through his sweat-damp hair.
The bridge was clearly indicated on the map, but apparently hadn’t been that substantial. The rising current, due to last night’s torrential rains, had been sufficient to tear it from its moorings.
The truck had rolled to a stop where the road ended in the swirling, murky water. The children had piled out and now stood on the bank, looking to him for answers he didn’t have. Joe seemed to derive a perverse satisfaction from their predicament; his lip was curled with smug derision. And quite clearly, Kerry was leaving the solution up to him. As she had pointed out, that’s what she was paying him for. He would have to earn every red cent of that fifty grand.
He gnawed on his lip as he studied the river. Then he went back to the truck, picked through the supplies in the bed of it, and returned to Kerry. “I need to talk to you.”
She stood, brushed off the seat of her pants, instructed the children not to get too close to the water, and followed him. When they had moved out of earshot, she asked, “What do we do now?”
“I have a suggestion, and please hear it out before you fly off the handle.” He fixed his golden stare on her. “Let’s load the kids up, turn around and go back the way we came. Let’s throw ourselves on the mercy of the first troops we see.”
He paused, expecting an explosion. When it didn’t happen, he pressed on. “It won’t matter which side we align ourselves with, El Presidente’s or the rebels. Whichever it is, we’ll appeal to their vanity, tell them what a humanitarian gesture it would be for them to help us. We’ll promise to propagandize their cause to the world if they’ll only help us.”