Free Enemy Mine by Lindsay McKenna

background like yours. Because he is very rich, he worries for his daughter’s safety and the possibility that she could be kidnapped. My employer desires someone who, at an instant’s notice, can take his child to safety wherever they are, be it in the jungle or the city.”
    Kathy nodded, unsure of where this conversation was headed. In all the research on Garcia, no mention had ever been made of these “tests.” There was a growing coldness in the pit of her stomach. Forcing herself to remain relaxed and attentive, she said, “Of course. I’ll take the tests. I’m aware that very wealthy families in South America are at risk for kidnapping and that kidnappers try to take a child first.”
    “Exactly,” Señora Olivares murmured. She closed the file with finality. “I will ask Teres to take you to the Lima airport, where you will be flown by helicopter to my employer’s villa, near Agua Caliente. It is his favorite country home. Someone at the villa will give you theinstructions for these tests. Once you pass them, you will then meet your employer, Ms. Lincoln.”
    What was she getting into? For a moment, panic hit Kathy. And then she settled down. Focus. Focus on what was important: getting into Garcia’s villa, getting close enough that she could kidnap his child and make him suffer as her family had. Kathy compressed her lips and said with confidence, “That’s fine, señora. I’m more than ready for any tests.”
     
    M AC C OULTER WAS GETTING desperate. He’d more or less volunteered some of his rare “free time” to check in on Sophie. It tore him up daily to see what the child was going through—alone. Never had he felt so damn helpless. He couldn’t rescue her without showing his hand. And his handler didn’t have any ideas how to get Sophie out of there, either. To ease his guilty conscience, Mac dropped in often to visit her.
    He sat in the playroom with Sophie in his lap and Tiki rocking on her beloved, much-used wooden rocking horse over in the corner. For the past two weeks, Sophie had clung to him, and Mac knew that he represented safety in a world gone mad around her. The child cried herself to sleep every night, and this tore him up. During the day, Sophie was glum and refused to play with Tiki, who was thrilled her new, living “doll” had been delivered to her. Keeping Tiki otherwise busy with her hundreds of toys was the real challenge.
    Repeatedly, Garcia’s daughter would come over, pull on Sophie’s hair and scream at her to play. Mac would then get up, patiently remove Tiki’s fingers one at atime from Sophie’s long blond hair and tell her that she couldn’t do that. Oh, the temper tantrums. And Tiki, who had been raised by a series of nannies, had her reactions down pat. His ears ached from her high-pitched, endless shrieks. What Mac wanted to do and what he could do to reprimand Tiki was a real walk on the edge of a sword. Tiki was utterly spoiled. No one dared to discipline her, not even her teacher or himself. Sophie, who was grieving over the loss of her parents, had retreated deep inside herself, so no matter what Tiki did to her, she wouldn’t respond.
    Mac looked out the window. From the second-floor nursery and playroom area, he could see the helicopter landing pad, a slab of concrete colored green to match the surrounding jungle. Garcia had told him last night that a potential nanny and bodyguard had been found.
    When Señorita Adelina Martinez, the British educated Brazilian teacher, entered, he hoisted Sophie into her arms. Adelina, a fifty-year-old spinster with gray hair pulled severely into a chignon, gave him a look of surprise. Her thick glasses made her watery brown eyes seem buglike to Mac. Yet she must have the patience of Job, because she’d been hired by Garcia when Tiki was three years old. Somehow, the woman persevered with the petulant child.
    Out of desperation, and a need to get out of there, Mac decided to assert some authority. “Can you take