May 2018 – Somewhere in the Antioquia Province, Colombia

It was the perfect storm. Somehow, Grace Lashield had wound up right in the middle of it. She pulled the special forces coin from her pocket, a reminder of a hellish time she had lived through more than two decades earlier. If she could live through that, then she could certainly make it through this, bad as it was.

Heavy rains combined with a disaster at the Hidroituango Dam on the Cauca River caused massive flooding downstream, displacing thousands of people, and triggering mass evacuations. Continued rains had precipitated landslides that further complicated the matter. Relief agencies worked round the clock to evacuate people, but they could only do so much. Armed groups operated in the area, only adding to the dangers.

Grace Lashield had signed on with one of the relief agencies that worked to evacuate the locals. It was a challenging and dangerous job. But, compared to the hell she experienced in the South China Sea twenty-four years ago, this was a cakewalk.

So far, none of the armed groups in the area had interfered in the evacuations. Grace suspected that they were more concerned with not becoming victims of this disaster, though the idea of mercenaries raiding relief agencies for medical supplies was hardly unheard of, making Grace happy that she herself was armed.

Placing the coin, her only reminder of Nick Gunar, back into her pocket, Grace turned her attention to helping with the evacuation. Right now, things were merely bad. Thankfully, there was a break in the rain, but a large group of displaced people living in tents with little to no security and only a bunch of volunteers to help them was bad under any circumstances. At any second, they could go from bad to worse.

Shannon Calderon was the physician in charge, and Grace had taken to aiding her as she worked to keep these people healthy and to deal with illness and injury. It was overwhelming. Grace was no doctor, but she knew basic first aid and there was always a need for volunteers, if only for another pair of hands.

The past few days had been harrowing, but with the break in the rain, today was merely bad. Shannon, however, looked positively happy.

"Win the Powerball back in the states?" Grace joked. "I hear you can win a few hundred million."

"Something better," Shannon replied. "Doctor Sam Radford."

Grace looked around and nodded. "Another doctor is always welcome, but what makes him so special?"

"He's the top trauma surgeon in the United States," Shannon explained. "Chief of staff at a prestigious hospital, and due to arrive here any minute."

Grace made a whistling sound. "How'd we rate such a bigshot?"

"Sam's done work with our agency every year for quite a while." Shannon laughed. "For a medical adrenaline junkie like him, this is heaven."

"So, you've worked with him before?"

Shannon shook her head. "This will be a first. But I know of him. We're very lucky."

As if on cue, a sand colored Toyota Land Cruiser pulled into the camp, and Shannon began walking toward it. The front passenger door opened, and a tall man stepped out carrying two duffle bags and wearing designer outdoor wear that probably cost more than most of these people made in a year.

Must be nice, Grace thought.

Sam Radford looked to be in his early fifties, and he wore his age well. She imagined he was a bit younger than old Nick Gunar. Grace absently wondered how the old Swede was doing. He had to be almost sixty by now. Was he still alive? Would she even recognize him?

Grace shook her head. Nick Gunar was the smart one. He stayed with Loki back on the island, raising her son as his own and living in a tropical paradise. Nick had put his demons to rest and found his happily ever after. Grace was still hounded by hers, and happily ever after? Only when she watched Disney movies and romcoms.

She turned her attention back to this American doctor. Sam Radford was fair skinned, blue eyed, and light haired, everything the locals were not. He was no soldier, that was for sure. Still, he carried himself like someone who had seen disaster areas and in spite of his obvious suburban wealth, he somehow did not look out of place.

American doctor. Grace laughed at her thinking of him that way, as though he was American, and she was a local. Grace Lashield was as American as Doctor Radford. She had not set foot in the land of her birth in the more than two decades since working with Nick, and her Spanish was probably better than her English by this point, but she was an American; a nice white girl from a suburban neighborhood before she joined the military in the eighties.

Enough memory lane, she thought. Doctor Radford was here, and seemed to be getting right to business, much to Shannon's delight. Grace went back to her tasks, most of which involved helping to load the many things that needed loading onto the trucks so that they could get these people away before things went from bad to worse as they inevitably would.

The wind was blowing strong, and sky looked ominous. Grace knew the signs. She redoubled her efforts with the others to get the trucks loaded before returning to the medical tent to lend whatever hand she could. As the wind kicked up and the skies began to darken, Grace's thoughts turned again to Nick Gunar. What happened to you, you old Swede?