They hiked for another two hours. Gina estimated that over the course of eight hours they’d averaged a little more than a mile an hour. That put her anywhere from eight to ten miles from the village—a search grid of close to a hundred square miles. Of course, that was assuming anyone from the village was looking for her. And after the soldiers sent a wave of warning shots at Yuli, Roberto, and Pilar, who’d followed them early on, she hardly expected them to be. Nor did she want them to be. The Tibióno were a peaceful people. There was almost no confrontation in the village, and even more seldom, physical altercation. The men were expert hunters, able to take down a boar with a bow from a hundred feet away, but they were no match for soldiers with guns.

Gina had to assume the worst.

She was on her own.

≈

They continued to push through the jungle, the soldier up front consulting a GPS every so often. After another quick stop for water and nuts, during which the lead soldier consulted with the other two about their heading, they continued. The baking heat of the jungle lessened. After living in the Amazon off and on for five years, Gina could tell what time it was just by the feel of the air, by the chirping of the birds, and by the hum of the insects. She guessed it was nearing 5:00 p.m.

They pushed through a heavy section of brush, a thick branch whipping through Gina’s brown hair, which was still in a ponytail from her run, and suddenly Gina heard voices. They grew louder, and then a camp appeared. There was a fourth and fifth soldier sitting under a bamboo lean-to, then two white men sitting around a small fire.

The two Caucasian men stood as they approached. Both appeared to be in their fifties, and both were dressed in matching khaki from head to toe. The taller man had dark hair and olive skin. He was clean shaven with lightly pockmarked cheeks and a large, but well-formed, Roman nose. The second man was portly, with tinted glasses and a comb-over of mostly gray hair. The armpits of his khaki button-down were stained with sweat. The pair didn’t so much look like drug traffickers as they did the lawyers of drug traffickers.

“Took you long enough,” said the dark-haired man.

“The village was farther than I thought,” the English-speaking soldier answered. “But we found her.”

Found her?

Had they been looking for a doctor, or had they been looking for Dr. Gina Brady specifically?

It was common knowledge among the neighboring villages, and even most of Riberalta, that there was a doctor living among the Tibióno. At least once a week, a villager from one of the other tribes—usually the Yanomina, who were in the next closest village—would come to her village seeking treatment.