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calling you captain by now."
     
    Ethan was well aware that in his position Hayden knew exactly where Ethan had been and what he'd been doing in the jungles at the base of the Andes along Rio Napo where it intersected with Rio Marafion before both flowed into the mother Amazon. Just like Hayden knew the physical toll the work took on Ethan's body. And psyche.
     
    "I am well," Ethan assured him. "And the new title starts in a couple months."
     
    Hayden considered him a moment longer, then nodded. "Glad to hear it. And how are your parents and your brothers and sister? Have you had contact with them of late?"
     
    "Actually, I spent an hour on the phone with Mom and Dad earlier today."
     
    Out of the jungle for the first time in three months, he'd taken advantage of the opportunity to call home and reassure his always concerned mom that he was fine. That was after he'd showered until the hot water had been long gone and the stench of too many weeks without it had been washed away.
     
    "You know Dad retired."
     
    "From the West Palm PD?"
     
    Ethan nodded.
     
    Hayden's snort relayed his surprise. "Can't imagine Wes Garrett content with retirement."
     
    "You know him well." Wes and Al had been in Ranger Bat together at Fort Benning. Served in 'Nam together. When their service was over, Al had turned to politics while Wes had gone back home and joined the West Palm Beach Police Department. A line of duty injury had finally forced him into early retirement last year.
     
    "It lasted all of three months," Ethan told him. "Dad's since started his own business. Corporate and plant security, self-defense training. A little bodyguard work."
     
    "And knowing your father, he sees it as a legacy to pass on to you boys."
     
    "Don't forget Eve," Ethan warned. Nolan's twin sister could hold her own with the three of them. And they all—Dallas, Nolan, and Ethan—had the scars to prove it.
     
    Hayden chuckled. "How can something so pretty and little be such a spitfire? She still planning on Secret Service as a career?"
     
    "She is, yes. Speaking of pretty," Ethan said, taking advantage of the opening to get to his most pressing issue, "do you know her?" He nodded toward the redhead, who was very charmingly mingling with the savvy of one who was well suited to these stuffy events.
     
    The ambassador followed his gaze. "Darcy? She's with the vice consul's office."
     
    "Introduce me."
     
    Hayden cocked a brow and Ethan felt a twinge of regret for a reputation he'd earned along the way as being a bit of a player.
     
    "I'll warn you right now, Lieutenant, Darcy Prescott won't be anyone's flavor of the month."
     
    "How about you introduce me anyway? Sir," he added with a smile, and walked with Hayden across the room.
     
    The fact was, Ethan didn't have a month in mind. While it shocked the hell out of him, one look and he'd been thinking forever.
     
    And after one night with Darcy Prescott in his bed, he wasn't sure forever would be enough.
     
     
    JOLO   ISLAND
    PRESENT
     
    There was luck. Then there was dumb luck.
     
    Without a boatload of both, Darcy knew she was a dead woman. It was just a matter of time. Today, tomorrow. Soon.
     
    She made herself as small and as quiet as possible. And she prayed that the twenty or so men gathered in small clusters around a nighttime campfire would forget that less than an hour ago they had lined up to rape her.
     
    Rape. And probably worse.
     
    Sweat, over and above that caused by the cloying jungle heat, rolled down her back. Nausea curled in her belly and rose like bile as she thought back to the ugly scene.
     
    Thank God for Ben. Or maybe she should think of him by his Islamic name now: Rahimulla. Until tonight, though, he'd always been Ben to her. Ben Max Reyes Ayala. A gangly young man of barely nineteen. A young man who loved his mother and Snickers candy bars. A young and troubled man, apparently, who had gone over to the dark side of Islam: jihad extremism.
     
    And yet he