“If they’ve been very good on the trip...and have done everything I’ve asked them to...when we arrive in the U.S....I’ll take them all to McDonald’s.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Kerry said softly, “but they don’t know what a McDonald’s is. They couldn’t even imagine it if I tried to explain.”
“Oh.” He glanced down at the eight faces turned up to him, and his jaded heart twisted. “Well, think of an appropriate reward,” he said with feigned impatience.
After eating an unpalatable paste made of beans and rice, they began collecting their scanty provisions. When all that remained to be loaded was the children, Linc brought one of his cameras back from the truck and began snapping pictures.
“Sister Kerry, if you would—”
“Please. Just Kerry is fine.”
He nodded brusquely. He hadn’t looked at her directly since learning of her vocation. “Would you please assemble everybody for a group picture?”
“Certainly.”
In minutes, they were posed for him. The children were excited and smiling. Lisa had her thumb in her mouth. Joe refused to look into the lens and gazed broodingly into the surrounding trees. Kerry’s smile was forced.
“Okay, let’s go,” Linc said as he popped his lens cap back on. Draping the camera around his neck by its strap, he shouldered a bundle of canned food that Joe had scavenged from the nearest village the night before.
“Don’t you usually take action shots? Why did you want a posed group picture?” Kerry asked Linc as they tromped toward the truck.
“In case some of them don’t make it.”
His curt answer brought Kerry, who was carrying Lisa, to an abrupt halt on the jungle path. She turned to face Linc. “Is that a possibility?”
“Where’s your head?” At that moment, he would have been hard-pressed to specify just what had made him so angry at her. “In the clouds? There are soldiers on either side who would murder these kids in a minute just for the hell of it. For an evening’s entertainment.”
She quailed, but refused to let him see her trepidation. “You want to back out.”
Linc lowered his face close to her. “You’re damn right I do. And if you had any sense, which I’m beginning to seriously doubt, you would, too.”
“I can't.”
He cursed expansively and didn’t apologize for it this time. “Come on, we’re wasting time.”
When they reached the truck his grim expression reflected his pessimism. The nine orphans were crowded into the bed of the pickup, along with his camera gear, their meager but space-consuming supplies, and Kerry.
“I’m sorry you can’t ride in the cab,” he said, watching as she took Lisa onto her lap. “But if we’re stopped, I can pass Joe off as my aid.” He glanced down at her disquieting figure, which even her safari attire didn’t detract from. “Without that lurid dress, you don’t look much like a, uh...”
“I understand. The children will do better if I’m back here anyway. Just warn me in plenty of time if you see a patrol. I’ll pull the tarp over us.”
“It’ll be stifling under there.”
“I know.”
“If we’re stopped, the children must remain absolutely silent and still.”
“I’ve explained that to them repeatedly.”
“Good,” he said with a terse bob of his head. “You’ve got water?”
“Yes. Do you have the map?”
“I know where we’re going.” He met her eyes soberly. “I just hope to hell we get there.”
They exchanged a meaningful glance before he climbed into the cab of the truck and started the motor.
Kerry had never been more uncomfortable in her life, though she tried to put up a brave and contented front for the children. They were roughly jostled about in the bed of the truck. Its shocks were ineffectual on the washboard jungle road. At least the bouncing motion kept the gargantuan mosquitoes and other biting insects from lighting on them.