Desperate Escape

Lit only by the night sky, Maddie clutched the strap of her backpack with one arm and struggled to keep up with Grant as they ran along a narrow dirt path, shielded on one side by the thick forest. She glanced back, worried about how long Antonio would be able to carry Ana. Worried about how long all of them could continue at this pace. All she could do was pray that the shadows would play to their advantage and hide them from the rebels.

Grant’s hand gripped hers as they ran. Silvery traces of moonlight encircled them, bathing the surrounding terrain in a hazy glow. How had her situation escalated to this? Until the past few days, she’d firmly believed her decision to come to Africa had been worth any inconveniences of life in a foreign country. Even if her decision to come had been partly selfish.

After four years of dating “Mr. Right,” reality had hit her, and she’d realized she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life in settling for what everyone else wanted for her. But not what was best for her. In joining a medical team working in Guinea-Bissau and escaping the American rat race, she’d hoped to find a missing part of herself in helping others.

What she’d found had been far more than she’d expected.

While her family had been convinced she was crazy for even considering the idea, it had been here, in one of the poorest countries in the world, that she’d found an unexplainable joy. And slowly, she’d begun to find that missing piece of herself. Even the tragedy and heartache she faced at the hospital every day was countered by the deep sense of community, faith and a life never taken for granted by those around her.

She kept running. The sticky night air pressed against her and her lungs. She fought for air as she listened for signs of pursuit from behind. Lightning struck in the distance. The night around them hummed with the sounds of insects and other nocturnal creatures. If someone was after them, she couldn’t hear them.

Grant held up his hand and then led her off the road and into the edges of the dark forest. “We’ll stop here for a moment. Hopefully we’ve put enough distance between us and whoever’s out there, but I need to contact my pilot. Keep your eyes out for anyone following us.”

Grant pulled out a phone from his back pocket. Maddie pressed her hand against her chest, trying to catch her breath while he held up his phone to get a better signal. Lungs still constricted, she bent down next to Ana where Antonio had laid her on the ground. The young girl groaned, but at least her fever was down slightly.

“I can’t get through,” Grant said, walking another dozen feet away from them, still holding up the phone.

Antonio knelt down beside her. “How is she?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s malaria, but I don’t have the resources to treat her properly. I can give her the rehydration drink for now, but she needs to be at a proper hospital with an IV drip and a dose of antimalarial drugs.”

For now—just like at the camp—she’d have to do with their limited resources.

Maddie looked up as Grant walked back toward them. Memories flooded through her mind. He had always been the tall, quiet hero she’d looked up to. Her brother’s best friend. The man who brought toffee for the holidays and refrigerator magnets from his travels for her mom. He’d also been the man who’d cried at Darren’s funeral and stood beside her as they laid the casket into the ground.

And now he’d come to rescue her.

“Why’d you come for me?” she asked. She caught the weight of the situation in his gaze.

He hesitated as he studied her face. “I promised your brother before he died I’d look after you.”

And six years later he’d risked his life to keep that promise?

Her heart stirred as she dropped her gaze. “What do we do now?”

“I sent a text to the pilot. All I can do now is hope it gets through. I’m worried he might be walking into a trap if they land at the airstrip right now.”

“Who is he? Your pilot friend.”

“His name’s Colton Landry. He dropped us here three hours ago. He grew up on both sides of the border. His mother’s from Michigan and his father’s French Canadian. He works as a pilot for West African Mission Aviation. They use aircraft to help provide medical care, rescue and disaster relief, as well as transport of medical and food supplies.”

“And he agreed to be a part of your crazy plan?”

He shot her a smile. “You needed to be rescued.”

Maddie looked away to search the black night for movement but saw nothing. Except for thunder rumbling in the distance, an eerie quiet greeted her. With limited options she had no idea what the next-best move was. She’d heard the planes take off and land from the small, nearby airfield and realized the strip must be a part of the drug route. Which meant Grant could be right. If someone knew they were coming, then more than likely they’d be watching the airstrip.

She’d seen what they’d done to the vehicle. They could easily do the same thing to the plane.

Grant turned to Antonio. “What do you think? You know this area better than any of us. What’s the best way out of here?”

“The only other way off this island is by boat.”

Maddie knew that finding their way in the dark was going to be difficult, if not impossible. And extremely dangerous.

“How far to the port?” Grant asked.

Antonio glanced at Ana. “Without a vehicle...at night...”

“There’s a couple of Jeeps back at the camp,” Maddie said. “If we go back—”

“It’s not worth the risk going back,” Antonio said. “We got lucky one time. A second time...”

“He’s right,” Grant said.

“Then what?” Maddie asked. “We can’t go back, we can’t continue? Is that what you’re saying? And what if they come after us?”

“I don’t think it’s a question of if, but when.” Grant slid his phone into his back pocket.

Antonio knelt down and started drawing a crude map of the area with a stick. “Our options are limited without a plane. Drug traffickers use these islands for a reason. Not only because they’re fairly isolated, but our police force doesn’t own a boat, so they’re pretty much free to do what they want.”

Once Maddie had made the decision to come to Africa, she’d studied everything she could find on the tiny West African country of Guinea-Bissau. About half the size of South Carolina, it included dozens of isolated islands off its coast. Even on the mainland, there wasn’t a developed or well-maintained infrastructure, and on top of that only around 10 percent of the roads were paved. Which was the primary reason the majority of the population lived within a dozen miles of a waterway.

But, like Antonio had implied, she also knew that the lack of an easy way out wasn’t the only issue they were facing. The country—its islands in particular—had become a drug trafficker’s dream. Drugs arrived from South America and were temporarily stored in warehouses, where wholesalers turned around and quickly transported them out of the country—on speedboats along the coast, by overland routes and even by swallowers who ingested the capsules and left via commercial flights to their final destination in Europe.

“So our best way out?” Grant asked.

“We’re here,” Antonio explained, pointing to his map. “On one of the dozens of islands off the coast, and we need to get to the mainland. Our best chance is to head away from here on foot toward the sea, where we can eventually catch a boat to the mainland.”

Grant nodded and moved to pick up Ana. “We need to get going. I’ll carry her for a while.”

A hundred yards farther, Maddie heard a rustling in the woods beside them. Her heart threatened to explode. Six armed men stepped out of the darkness, and surrounded them.

* * *

Grant slowly lowered Ana to the ground and stepped in front of the armed men, hoping to keep her and Maddie out of the line of fire. Maybe his cockeyed plan to rescue her had been too risky, but no matter what happened in the next few minutes, he still didn’t regret his decision to come. Waiting for official channels to move could have easily taken weeks, even months. And more than likely, they would have killed her before that happened.

He glanced at Maddie and caught the determined tilt of her chin. Good. She was going to need every ounce of fight she could muster. Because this wasn’t over. Not yet. If he had anything to do with it, they were still going to find a way out of here.

“They’re taking us back to the camp,” Antonio said, translating for the leader who spoke one of the local dialects.

“Wait...” Grant took a step forward and nodded at Antonio. “Ask them what they want?”

As far as the intel he’d gathered, they’d never said why they’d taken Maddie in the first place. There had been no ransom demands, and, in fact, no communication at all. It had only been because of Antonio and his contacts on the island that they’d been able to discover where she was being held in the first place. But his gut told him if they stepped back into that camp a second time, the chances of them coming out alive would greatly diminish. And money was the only bargaining chip he had at the moment.

He waited while Antonio spoke with them. He knew the reasoning behind not paying ransoms. Instead of freedom, it gave terrorists both publicity and cash. And ransom payment led to future kidnapping and, in turn, additional ransom payments. But that was all theoretical and easy to defend when you weren’t the one standing in the middle of nowhere with a gun pointed at your head.

“They said you’ll have to speak with Oumar back at the camp. He’s the one in charge,” Antonio said, his jaw tensed.

A radio crackled, and one of the men started talking as they motioned them into the forested inlet. Grant picked up Ana and hurried beside Maddie as they headed back toward the camp. Prayers that he normally struggled finding the words for suddenly flowed.

We’re in over our heads, God. And I’m the one responsible to get Maddie—to get all of them—out of here alive. I’m running out of options and to be honest could use some help.

He glanced at Maddie as they followed the men deeper into the woods. Asking for help, from anyone, had always been hard for him. Maybe that had been his problem all along. With his parents. With Darren...

The voice on the other end of their captor’s radio shouted, the words distorted. Urgent. Grant glanced at Antonio, wishing they were speaking in Portuguese so he could understand what had happened.

“Rapido!” One of the men hit Grant against the back of his legs with the butt of his rifle. “Hurry!”

“What’s going on?” Grant asked.

“I don’t know,” Antonio said. “There’s been some kind of accident.”

Grant calculated their odds of escaping as they started back through the forest. White light from a flashlight created shadows among the trees. There was no way they were going to be able to overpower six armed men. They’d have to follow orders. For now.

Grant glanced at Maddie and caught the fear in her eyes. And he didn’t blame her. Every time he’d walked out to clear a minefield, a part of him had known he could be taking his last step. But she was used to preventing death as a doctor. Not facing it head-on.

Five minutes later they were back at the camp. Someone shouted. Several of the men ran toward them carrying a body across the courtyard. One of the petrol lanterns caught the face of the young boy. He couldn’t be much older than ten or eleven, ebony skin, full lips, dark eyes...

It was the eyes that stopped Grant cold.

The boy’s gaze ripped through him. He could read the pain and panic on his face, but there was something more. Something in his eyes that seared through Grant, as if the boy knew that what happened in the next few frightful moments would determine whether or not he would live or die. Because he’d seen that same look before. He’d seen it in Darren’s gaze the day he’d died.

Nightmare images he’d tried to erase flashed in front of him. While they’d known the dangers of their job, a small part of them had always held on to the belief that they were invincible. Because if they’d let themselves believe death was going to win, they’d never have stepped out into those fields.

But they’d been wrong.

One miscalculated move had killed his best friend.

Grant set Ana down on a mat as the men laid the boy on a table and shouted at Maddie. He forced himself to take a second look, because the boy’s haunted countenance wasn’t the only thing that had left his heart racing. Blood soaked through a cloth wrapped around his thigh. The boy’s leg—from his knee down—was gone.

He was in Afghanistan again. He could still see the flashes of an explosion, hear Darren’s screams. His best friend had become one of the statistics. Sixty million mines were still left unexploded in seventy countries...sixty-five people maimed or killed every day...

He forced his mind to focus on what was going on.

“Get me some more light,” Maddie shouted as she started cutting off the clothing around the wound.

“What can I do?” Grant asked.

“We need to get the wound cleaned and covered. There’s clean, boiled water, covered in pots behind you.” Her hands shook as she turned to one of the men. “I’ll do everything I can to save your son, but I want you to promise to let us go once I get him stabilized.”

“You’re in no position to bargain, because I’m the only one keeping you alive right now,” he said, holding her gaze. “So if my son dies...you will all die.”

THREE

Grant held up one of the lanterns in order to give Maddie the light she needed to work. He avoided the boy’s panicked gaze, trying unsuccessfully to distance himself emotionally from the situation. His emergency training had taught him the basics of what to do, but the clinical instructions were never the same as experiencing them firsthand.

Especially when it was personal.

“What’s his name?” Maddie asked the older man in Portuguese.

“Jose.”

“Jose... I’m going to do everything I can to help you, but I need you to stay strong. I need you to say with me.”

Memories flashed. With Darren, he and his teammates had done everything they could to save his life. But by the time the helicopter had arrived to evacuate them, too much time had passed. Darren had gone into shock, and it had been too late to save him.

“You need to get him to a hospital.” Maddie addressed the father while she worked to control the bleeding with direct pressure. “I can try to stabilize him—for now—but he’ll die out here in the bush without proper medical treatment.”

The older man’s fingers gripped edge of the table where his son lay. “I warned you, and I meant it. If my son dies... I will kill you.”

“You’re not listening to me.” Maddie added another layer of fabric around the wound. “I don’t have the antibiotics, let alone the tools to do vascular repairs. And if he makes it, he’ll need outpatient and occupational therapy to regain as much function as possible. I can’t do any of that here. You’ve got a plane... It’s your only way to save his life.”

“Oumar...” A woman ran up to where they were working and let out a loud wail when she saw the boy. “Oumar, no...they told me what happened. What have you done to our boy?” She turned to the older man and started beating his chest. “You let this happen to him.”

He grabbed her hands, ordering her to stop. “I haven’t done anything. He knows better than to go play in the woods.”

“You’re his mother?” Maddie asked.

“Yes.” The woman pulled away from her husband and grabbed the hand of her son, her dark eyes filled with panic.

“He needs to go to a hospital where they have the equipment to treat him. He will die if he stays here.”

“Please, Oumar. You must do what she says. She is a doctor.”

He stepped away from the table and spat something into the radio before turning back to Maddie. “Then you’re coming with me—”

“No.” Maddie clenched her jaw. “I’m staying here.”

Grant caught the flash of fire in her gaze despite the marked fatigue in her eyes, and knew exactly what she was thinking. Their best chance to stay alive was to stay together.

“No?” The older man aimed his weapon at Maddie. “No? If you don’t go with me, then I don’t need you anymore. Any of you.”

“Wait.” Grant grasped Maddie’s wrist and stepped in front her. “That’s where you’re wrong. You have a camp full of sick men, which means you still need her here. Antonio and I have medical training. We can help as well.”

The man shook his head. “If I leave her here, you’ll help her escape again.”

“Oumar, please.” Jose’s mother grabbed his arm, pleading with him. “There is no time for fighting. Jose will die while you stand here arguing. And your men as well. They’re right. You need them here.”

Grant felt his lungs expand. He held his breath as they waited for the old man’s response. The tension felt as thick as the humidity. His fingers closed tighter around Maddie’s wrist until he could feel her heart’s rapid pulse. He knew she was scared, but he hadn’t flown halfway around the world to fail, nor did he have any intention of breaking his promise to her brother. One way or another, they were going to get her out of here.

“Fine.” The old man dropped his hands to his sides, the situation defused for the moment. “I’ll leave you here—all of you—alive for now. But I will deal with you when I return.”

He watched as the older man began shouting orders to the other men. A makeshift gurney was rigged, and orders were sent to the pilot. Grant turned around to face Maddie, slipping his hand down her wrist until their fingers touched. With his other hand, he reached out and wiped her damp cheek with his thumb.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

“For now.” She looked up at him, eyes wide open. “But this epidemic is going to be under control soon. And after that...they won’t need us.”

He pulled her a few inches closer. “We’re going to get out of here.”

She nodded, clearly wanting to believe his words as much as he did. “I owe you one. More than one, actually.” A smile briefly crossed her lips before she pulled away from him and started washing down the table with disinfectant. “If nothing else, you bought us some time.”

He worked beside her to clean up, impressed with the way she’d gained control over the situation. She asked one of the women to make a diluted mixture of cooked cereal and water for the cholera patients she’d been treating, while several of the men headed into the forest with Jose. He realized he’d misjudged her strength. There was no doubt her parents loved her. They spoke of how smart and accomplished she was, but they’d been against her coming here. Believed she was wasting her God-given talents and wouldn’t be able to handle the work.

But they’d been wrong.

He’d seen the courage in her eyes. The boldness it had taken to stand up to her captors. Maybe it was true that difficulties brought out hidden strengths in a person, but there was more about Maddie Gilbert than met the eye—something that part of him wanted to stick around and discover even after all of this was over.

But that was something he couldn’t afford to do.

She turned to him, breaking the silence that had fallen between them as they continued working. “You were there when Darren died.”

It was a statement rather than a question, but one he’d never spoken of with her. After the funeral, he’d answered her parents’ questions about that day, knowing if Maddie ever needed those same answers from him he’d be there to tell her.

“Yes,” he nodded. “I was there.”

“Did tonight remind you of that day?”

She might not have been there that night, but she had to be facing some of the same haunting images of losing her brother he was.

“Yes. It was...almost as if I was there again, during those final moments.”

A place he dreamed about at night. A place he longed to escape.

She scrubbed at an invisible mark on the table. “Two weeks after I arrived here, I had to treat my first land mine victim. All I could see was Darren.”

“Somehow we didn’t think it could happen to us. We were out to save the world. Invincible. Always wishing we could ignore the fact that all it took was one wrong step...”

She stopped to look up at him, allowing the light from the lantern to catch the yellow-copper colors in her eyes. The soft curve of her lashes. “Thank you,” she said.

Grant fought to push away the unexpected draw. “I haven’t got you out of here yet. I told your mom I planned to have you back by Christmas, and I’m going to do everything in my power to keep my promise.”

“It’s hard to believe Christmas is in a couple weeks.” A look of sadness registered on her face. “But I’m not just thanking you for today. I’m talking about your being there the night Darren died. And for coming to rescue me. You didn’t have to come.”

He touched her arm briefly before pulling away. “Yes, I did. I owe Darren.”

He might not have been able to save his friend, but he was going to save Maddie.

“Is that why you came to rescue me?” She asked. “Because of Darren’s death?”

His face must have betrayed his thoughts for her to ask such a pointed question.

“No...I...” He didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t want to answer. Because she was right. He’d come to play hero and make up for not saving Darren. Which meant he hadn’t come for noble purposes. Not really. He’d come to ease his own conscience.

Her gaze shifted back to the table and, as if reading his thoughts, she said, “I know what it’s like to do something good for the wrong reasons.”

“What do you mean?”

“I came here, in a way, because of Darren, too. I was looking for what he found with his career. I hoped that somehow helping others would help me find that missing part of myself.”

“And did you?”

She shrugged at the question. “It depends on the day, I suppose. I came here convinced I’d save the world. Instead I’ve had to realize I can’t fix everyone. People are going to die, and I can’t stop it.”

Like Darren.

“But then,” she continued, “there are times where I think I’m making a difference in one person’s life and somehow...that’s enough.”

“Darren was always so proud of you.” Grant dropped the rag he’d been using into the bucket of soapy water they’d been using to clean up. “He talked about you all the time. His little sister studying to become a doctor.”

Her smile lit up her face this time. “I like to think he would have been proud of my coming here as well. My parents weren’t too happy about my decision, though. I was supposed to marry Ben, join some swanky family practice and spend the rest of my life working nine-to-five and having their grandbabies. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, it wasn’t enough for me.”

He watched her wash her hands and then motion to one of the women to get more boiled water while she grabbed bags of salt and sugar for the rehydration mix.

“Can you hand me those cups?” she asked him. “With no Google available out here, thankfully I have the measurements memorized.”

He watched her work, jumping in to assist when she asked. He couldn’t help but see the irony in the fact that her skills as a doctor had saved her. And yet as soon as the epidemic was controlled, there was a good chance they would kill her.

“I guess this wasn’t what you imagined when you signed up with Doctors International,” he said.

“Being kidnapped? Not exactly.” She let out a soft laugh as she started mixing up the drink for her patients. “Though the past few months haven’t been without challenges, either. Most of the time, I’ve been working up north, in a small rural hospital. Every day, I see the same thing over and over in the maternity ward. It’s stifling inside. There are rusty ceiling fans, but no electricity. In the US, one in just over two thousand women will die giving birth. Here, it’s one in less than twenty. Most don’t even consider going to a clinic. And even if they do, most—especially those in the rural areas—can’t make it to the hospital.”