Still, she shielded Yuri by stepping in front of him as she waited for the oncoming party to reach them.
“I’m telling you,” Hawker said, “we should get out of here.”
“It’ll be all right,” she replied. “I’m almost sure of it.”
McCarter stood by expectantly. He turned on a flashlight and waved.
The train of torches changed direction, heading straight for them.
“There must be a town around here,” McCarter said. “If we’re looking for another Mayan ruin, the locals might know about it. There are hundreds of structures hidden in the jungle, most never seen by outsiders. This could be a stroke of good luck.”
The torches grew closer, winding down a slight hill, until several men came through the brush and trained a series of powerful flashlights on the NRI group. The glare blinded Danielle and she put a hand up.
“Nos puede ayudar usted, por favor?” she said. Can you help us, please?
The lights continued to shine in her eyes.
“Necesitamos ayuda,” she said. We need help.
A rough voice answered her. “Ponga los manos,” the man said. Put up your hands.
And then she heard a sound that needed no translation: the pumping of a shotgun and the racking of the slides on several other guns.
Danielle raised her hands, trying hard not to look in Hawker’s direction.
In a minute they were surrounded by a group of eight men, several of whom had weapons. They were led by an older, shorter man with a full beard and mustache who carried a flashlight and a pistol.
While one of the men searched the plane, another took her backpack and McCarter’s. A third man patted them down and confiscated a black handgun from Hawker.
The man with the beard walked around them, making a wide, slow circle. He seemed to be studying them, at the moment focusing on Yuri. Finally he put his pistol away.
“What are you doing here, señorita?”
That, Danielle thought, she could not explain without sounding crazy.
“We crashed here,” she said. “My husband was trying to fly us over to Puerto Vallarta. But he forgot to check winds or to fill the tanks before we took off.”
The man came closer, looking into her face and then at her hands. “If he is your husband, then where is your ring?”
Before she could answer, he added. “And if you had not circled overhead for an hour, you could have easily made it to the coast. So I think maybe you have a different story to tell. No?”
Danielle felt a sense of fury at getting caught in the lie. It was a stupid lie, easy to see through. She wondered why she’d even thought it would work.
Hawker leaned over to her. “I told you we should have run.”
“Now is really not the time,” she said.
“I’m just pointing it out.”
“Point it out later,” she shot back.
The bearded man turned to the others. “Hmm … maybe they are married after all.”
The men laughed. And the leader stepped over to McCarter. He shone the light in McCarter’s face, studying him for a long time.
“Could you please lower the light?” McCarter said. “It’s hurting my eyes.”
The man turned the beam away, aiming it at Hawker’s face in a similar manner. Hawker squinted into the light as if it were some kind of challenge. He said nothing.
The man who’d gone to search the plane popped out of the cabin. “Nada aquí,” he said. Nothing here.
Another man had been going through their backpacks. He handed the satellite phone and the spherical, glasslike stone to the bearded man.
As it passed in front of them, Yuri tried to pull free from Danielle; he wanted to touch it. She held him back, but the bearded man had seen his reaction.
“Is this your child?” he asked.
“He’s adopted,” she said. “And he has special needs, so if you don’t mind …”
The bearded man handed the stone back to the underling who’d found it. Yuri tracked it as it went, relaxing only when it had been placed in the sand-filled, lead-lined container.
“So many lies,” their captor said. “I think you might need to see a priest.”
He turned and began marching back toward the forest.
“Bring them,” he said.
CHAPTER 48
Led by the armed group and their bearded leader, Hawker, Danielle, McCarter, and Yuri hiked through the tropical foliage. The trees and ferns and brush had a junglelike feel to it, but more sparse and reduced in scale because of the altitude. As they neared the end of the two-mile hike the terrain became flatter and the foliage was replaced by tilled land, fields, and pastures.
Beyond the fields lay a small town made up of whitewashed stucco buildings. Children played in the unpaved streets while livestock, mostly chickens and goats, moved about in various gated yards.
It was not what Danielle had expected. Certainly it didn’t look like a hideout of some criminal gang. But they remained under armed guard, and as their captors walked them blatantly down the main street, activity in the town around them came to an abrupt halt. Onlookers gawked in their direction.
The man with the beard walked ahead of them and waved to a handsome woman of about thirty, dressed in plain, simple clothes. She came to greet him and, after a brief conversation, looked at Danielle and then Yuri, who walked beside her.
Danielle guessed what was about to occur and held Yuri’s hand tightly.
“Do not worry,” the bearded man said. “Maria will take care of him while we talk.”
The woman led Yuri to a small adobe house.
Danielle turned her gaze forward, ready to argue with the man, but he had stepped through a gate in front of a mission-style church. Writing beside the doorway dedicated the church to San Ignacio, the founder of the Jesuit order and the patron saint of Catholic soldiers.
They were forced inside and the doors closed behind them. Once the bearded man had genuflected and crossed himself with holy water, he pulled off his poncho, hung it on a peg, and turned to face them.
He wore a black cassock and the white collar of a Catholic priest. “Welcome to San Ignacio,” he said. “I’m Father Domingo.”
“You’re a priest,” Danielle said.
“Sí,” he said. “I’m sensing you feel differently about the lies you told now.”
He seemed amused with himself, but Danielle didn’t share the feeling. “Has the church taken on a new role that I’m unaware of? Beginning with kidnapping people at gunpoint?”
Beside her McCarter stumbled. Hawker moved to support him and then led him to a bench that sat against the church wall. Father Domingo watched Hawker sharply.
“Don’t worry,” Hawker said. “I’ve got enough going against me already.”
Father Domingo turned back to Danielle. “My actions are necessary to protect the citizens of this town.”
Danielle could feel her anger beginning to burn. Of all people to deny them help, a member of the clergy seemed to be the least appropriate. “I asked you to help us. Did that seem like a threat to you?”
“We did not exactly act the Good Samaritan,” he said. “But there are reasons for this.”
“And what might those be?”
“Drug smugglers.”
“Which we are not,” she explained.
“Yes,” he said. “It seems to be the case, but we needed to be sure. Several years ago, some men came here with money, trying to buy our silence, while they cut down trees for a dirt runway and took over good lands to grow their drugs.
“As soon as they were entrenched, the kind talk and the money ceased and they became tyrants. But the spirit of the people here is strong. We decided to run them off but it was not easy. Threats were made; some people were harmed,” he said, catching the look in her eye. “Blood was spilled on both sides. We vowed to never let them come back; it is always easier to keep the predator out than to deal with it once you’ve let it through the gate.”