“Portuñol is a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese,” Andy explained. Although most of his later studies focused on the Inca Empire, in his undergraduate years Andy had taken a broad spectrum of anthropology courses, and he was well versed in all things South American.

“You don’t say,” Buxton said, nodding his head.

“It’s a simplified version of the two languages.”

“Pidgin?”

Pidgin is any simplified communication between two groups.

“More or less.”

Buxton was getting ready to ask a follow-up question, when the soft thwack of a propeller filled the heavy air.

Buxton turned around and gazed at the approaching helicopter. “Looks like our ride is here.”

≈

There were no seats on the helicopter, and Andy was sitting on the cold metal floor next to a large stack of Mountain House freeze-dried meals. Across from Andy, squished between stacks of water and a bunch of high-tech audio equipment, were Libby, Bernita, and Buxton. Farah was sitting to Andy’s right, her leg touching his. Andy would have relished the contact with the beautiful Egyptian were he not in the midst of a total meltdown.

“. . . thirty-two . . . sixty-four . . . one hundred and twenty-eight . . . two hundred and fifty-six . . . five hundred and twelve . . . one thousand and twenty-four . . .”

“What are you doing?”

Andy opened his eyes and turned his head slightly. Farah Karim was glaring at him, her mocha-brown eyes narrowed over her perfectly shaped nose.

“What are you mumbling?” she yelled over the roar of the rotor. Her words carried a slight Arabic throatiness.

“Oh, um, I’m multiplying by two,” Andy shouted back. He was going to leave it at that, but for some reason, probably the panic attack, he confided, “It helps to, um, to calm me down . . . when I’m, um, freaking out.”

“You don’t look like you’re freaking out.”

“Oh, well, I guess I hide it—” Andy realized she was messing with him. With his knees pulled up to his chest and mumbling incoherently under his breath, he most certainly looked as though he was freaking out.

“Do you have any other tricks?” Farah asked.

“Tricks?”

“You know, to calm you down.”

“Multiplying takes my mind off things. Sometimes I’ll drive around.”

“Drive around?”

“Yeah, I’ll drive through the town where I grew up.” Andy tapped on his head a few times. “In my head.”

It was something his therapist told him to try. He would get behind the wheel of the car he drove growing up—an aging green Jeep Cherokee—and he would drive the streets of Rapid City.

Farah leaned back from him an inch. “That’s weird.”

Andy didn’t know what to say, but it didn’t matter, because the helicopter banked hard to the right. Three of the freeze-dried pouches fell and smacked Andy on the head, but he hardly felt them as his heart rate jumped into the triple digits.

“Where do you go?”

Andy turned.

Farah asked, “Where do you go in your car?”