INVISIBLE DUTY (INVISIBLE RECRUITS)

by Buckham, Mary

  I pressed the binoculars closer, as if manipulating them could make me see beyond the dried-brown, mud-plastered walls. What the hell was going on? Why were some in the group moving? Why was Stone's position not moving? And where the hell were Vaughn and Mandy?

  As if answering my unspoken demands, a voice broke over the headset. "Alex?" Vaughn sounded like she was in a wind tunnel. "Come in, Alex, you there?"

  "Here," I replied. "Where are you?"

  "About twenty-five minutes out. North-northwest. Finding air transport in this country is like finding a five-star hotel."

  Only Vaughn, a former debutante and daughter of an ex-Ambassador would even think in those terms.

  "What's up?" she asked, her voice borderline between demand and impatience.

  "Movement." I stared harder. Two of the Hutu men were in an argument near the front of the open-topped vehicle.

  "Stone?"

  Concern tinged Vaughn's voice. She and Stone were an item, though the relationship was supposed to be hush-hush. Co-agents involved with each other could put operations in danger if personal bias overcame the good of the team. But hell, as far as I could see Vaughn was also the only one getting any nookie-nookie. Between 24/7 training at our compound in Maryland—and back-to-back recent ops, there was zilch time for any extracurricular activity. Besides, I liked the fact that Stone made Vaughn smile.

  "Haven't seen Stone yet." I didn't mention the lack of movement on the GPS.

  "His Tarot cards warned trouble," Jaylene interjected.

  Now was not the time Vaughn needed to hear Jaylene’s dire prediction details.

  I cut in. "How fast can that bird you're in fly?"

  "Depends on how long the scotch tape holds together."

  "That bad?" I burrowed deeper into the fine dust, trying not to cough as I focused on the two men who were gesturing wildly now.

  "For the bribes I had to spend to get this crate I expected something that was gold plated and included a rocket launcher." A pause, followed by words in French, I presumed directed to the pilot. Vaughn spoke French like a native, and French and Kinyarwanda were the two official languages of the area. She spoke again. "We're talking fifteen minutes now. Should I head straight in or have us set down and wait to the north?"

  “Put down now. North,” I’d barely gotten the words out before I watched one man pull a snub-nosed revolver out of his waistband and shoot the other.

  Bang. Bang. You're dead.

  First guy not only died, he dissolved. Poof, one second looking like a human, next second an outline of ash dispersing in the breeze.

  I knew it. No wonder Interpol had been screwed every time they turned around. Uninformed humans fighting non-humans got ugly. Fast. And deadly even faster.

  "Damn, you see that?" came Jaylene's voice.

  "Copy." I bit my lower lip hard enough to taste blood. This wasn't looking good. A vamp? Possibly. I’d heard that the older ones scattered like wind-blown dust, but not dissolve. What the hell had that thing been?

  "See what?" Vaughn demanded.

  "There's trouble in paradise." I propped myself on my elbows, hoping to see something more.

  I did.

  Two other rebels raced from inside the hut. They paused by the dead man’s ash stain long enough for one of them to kick the smudge away, the other to hustle around and jump into the front seat of the Land Rover. Then the witch doctor exited, scanning the area as if he expected an ambush. Behind him another man exited. Taller, cloaked all in blue like a Tuareg tribesman from the Sahara, face and all features effectively shaded. Only his hands showed, hands so black they carried a bluish sheen.

  I hadn’t seen him enter last night. Who the hell was he?

  The moment I spied the witch doctor my ring finger began to heat up. The preternatural warning device? From this distance? Crap with a capital C.

  “Jaylene, check your ring,” I whispered, as if speaking low meant Vaughn couldn’t hear me.

  Jaylene whistled. “I thought these rings were only supposed to get activated up close and personal?”

  “They are.”

  “Then what—”

  “Whoever, or whatever that witch doctor is, he’s powerful.”

  “Enough to set off the warnings this far away?”

  “Looks like it.” I paused, then added. “Unless they’re reacting to the other man.”

  “Fuck,” Jaylene breathed and I couldn’t have agreed more. “Who’s the new guy?”

  “Don’t know.” But I was going to find out. I glanced at the GPS unit again. Stone's position inside still didn't move.

  "Come on, Stone." I shook the instrument as if that was going to help. Nothing. This so wasn’t unfolding according to plan A, B or C. "I'll give you to the count of three to get out here."

  But no Stone emerged. Instead five men clambered aboard the Land Rover and revved the engine. From this distance the witch doctor and the new guy both looked human. Heck, they probably looked human up close, which is what made these predators so dangerous.

  When the newest villain lasered his gaze in my direction I felt it. Power. A ball of sticky, dark-energy slamming against me. What was he?

  “Kelly, you hear me?” I spoke into the commset, each word pulled from my mouth like slow, thick taffy.

  “I’m here.” Kelly was headquartered in Kigali, seventy-four miles from Akagera Park—the nearest city with access to the outside world, coordinating the mission, so for once I hadn’t been worried about her. Everyone else—yes.

  Her ability to turn invisible seemed like it’d be a great asset, but like me, she’d never had any training in it so she tended to wink out when she got stressed or scared. Then for every minute she was invisible, she’d lose her ability to see for twice the amount of time when she popped back into sight. Talk about leaving you vulnerable and blind-sided, another pun intended. But it was good to hear her voice.

  “Need intel. New unsub. Not human.” Like an asthmatic I could barely think, much less speak.

  “What—”

  Then the stranger turned away and I almost staggered with relief. “Kel, guy’s not human. Able to throw a power search for 200 yards. Gotta know what he is to take him down.”

  I raised high enough to snap an image with a digital camera with a sat phone hookup just small enough to fit in my utility belt and transmit images. I sent the snaps off to Kelly. At least that connection worked.

  “Got it. On it,” came Kelly’s immediate reply. From her location she could access a compiled database of known preternaturals and non-humans. Unfortunately the information was as sketchy and vague as my options were to stop these guys if they left. Fraulein Fassbinder back at the agency headquarters was our walking-talking grimoire of all beings non-human, but even she spent a lot of time telling us her intel was lacking. I’d read fairy tales with more information, but then I’d also been raised in a family with four shifter brothers and a father who was both shifter and shaman. I was lucky that way.

  As if conjured from my thoughts the vehicle started moving. They were leaving. Where were Stone and Gahutu and the other Hutus?

  I scrambled to my knees. The Land Rover and its six passengers faced north, their backs to my location. The heat from the still-smoldering fires obscured any thermal images inside the building. No way to tell if anyone was alive and waiting inside, or dead and cold.

  "What now?" Jaylene’s voice deepened in intensity. She was east of the road and closer to the compound than I was.

  "Update? Now," Vaughn demanded.

  Damn and triple damn.

  I scanned the area. Nothing. Not even a bike to chase down these bastards and stop them. Two of us were needed to take a building. That’s what Stone had taught us. Always two. So what now? Go or stay?

  Too bad Jaylene’s psychic abilities didn’t include the ability to see through mud walls.

  First lesson Stone tried to drill into us recruits was that most choices on a mission were suck and suckier. This was a perfect exa
mple.

  Only—

  "Jaylene, check out the hut. See if anyone's stirring. Move in low and slow, as close as possible without exposing yourself. Do not breach until I join you or Mandy and Vaughn arrive. Got that?"

  “Got it.”

  “No telling what's happening in there.” I mumbled, not liking what was coming down.

  I rose, adrenaline pumping through my system. The Land Rover was already bucking over the pockmarked road, which made for slow going, but once it reached the main road ahead it could disappear into the brachysteria bush and acacia trees. They'd be impossible to spot from the air and could vanish in any direction.

  That gave me only moments to stop them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  "What’re you doing?" Jaylene had spotted me scrambling and running in a mad dash down the hill toward the river, kicking up red-dust devils. "Bad guys are headed the other way."

  Like I didn't know that. But I could no more chase them on foot than wave a magic wand and make them disappear. Now that’d be an ability the group could use.

  "See to Stone and Gahutu," I panted, already gaining on my objective, a group of adult and juvenile ostriches pecking in the dirt and stubble looking pretty tame and malleable, except for the fact some of these things stood almost nine feet tall. Somewhere a small part of my mind wondered what they called ostrich groupings. Gaggles? Flocks? Feathered fiends?

  The larger part of me registered that I was grasping at distractions. This was crazy. How the hell was I going to stop six armed men, one an unknown ‘other’, with a single weapon? And a questionable plan at best? And what the hell had happened to Stone?

  "I'm on the ground," Jaylene's voice broke through to me.

  "Good. Be careful." Then I blanked out Jaylene, focusing instead on the large, white and black winged beasts within touching distance in front of me.

  When I’d been about twelve I’d attended a rodeo with my dad and brothers where there’d been an exhibition of ostrich riders and wranglers. They were so exotic and cool I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. Bulls and horses I could see any day, but an ostrich rider? Who knew they even existed, much less could be ridden? My dad had taken me around for a ride on one of them afterwards. It’d been rough but so much fun I didn’t mind being thrown after a few minutes. And that had been the longest time anyone untrained had stayed on one that day. Could it work here?

  "Here, piggy, piggy, piggy." The words weren't right, but the tone worked on my family's pig farm. Anything to calm the closest wary-eyed bird before me.

  "What are you—" Jaylene shouted through the headset. "You're not. You are so not."

  I ignored her. If there was any other option I'd grab it in a heartbeat, but except for a herd of zebra, which didn't have the skeletal structure to carry a human, nothing else was obvious. Besides, I’d seen the Coyotes, a female trick-riding troupe doing rodeo exhibitions on ostriches, why not me?

  Too bad I could think of a dozen reasons why this plan sucked and only one why it had to work. Stop the bad guys.

  “Alex, you there?” Kelly’s voice washed over me.

  “Yeah,” I whispered, trying to appear non-threatening to the closest male ostrich. At least I thought it was male. “Got something?”

  “Possibly.”

  Not the answer I wanted, but I’d take what I could get. “Spill, Kel. Short on time here.”

  “Okay, Yoruba guy spent some time among the Dan people. Liberia.”

  “Point Kelly?” Come on birdie, play nice.

  “Right. The Dan people have the Duna, a sorcerer of the seventh house of Bori spirits.”

  “In English, Kel.”

  “Sorcerer who can shift into a hyena crossed with a monkey-like creature. Extremely dangerous. Can project hallucinations over distance to its victims to control.”

  Jaylene broke in on the conversation. “Can he kill her from a distance?”

  “Don’t know,” came Kelly’s quiet response.

  Great. Just great. On the other hand, I’d been touted as a powerful so there was always the unknown X factor that could make life chancy. I was the living proof of that. “How do I kill him? It?”

  “Can’t be killed in its human form. But bullets can take it down in his hyena form.”

  I knew this mission was a cluster-fuck. “So I need to make him change into a hyena?”

  “Yeah.” There was a pause before Kelly continued. “Make it angry?”

  “Piss it off?”

  “That’s what the intel says.”

  Probably compiled by some idiot behind a desk somewhere.

  “And the other guy?”

  “Haven’t found anything on him yet. Still looking.”

  Great. Danger and Unknown. This wasn’t looking good.

  “Oh and Alex?”

  “What?”

  “Be careful.”

  "Oh, sweet Goddess above," I breathed, reaching the nearest ostrich, bigger close up than across the undulating ground. The birds were clumped together, jostling each other but not panicked. Yet. As long as they remained in a group it’d be easier to cull one out. Like horses in a corral, only with wings and very long necks. "Here piggy, piggy, birdie. Got ya."

  With a lunge I grabbed one’s neck to pull it toward me then grasped its abbreviated wings like a desperate lover, swung my leg high and fast beneath both wings and clawed my way into a semi-sitting position. Not graceful, but I was on.

  From what I remembered the mounting was the easiest part. The riding, and more especially the staying on, were trickier.

  The poor bird squawked in protest as my thighs straddled its round mound of a body, my hands grasping where stubby feathered wings attached. If I didn't break my neck it'd be a miracle.

  "Alex, get the hell off that—" Jaylene shouted.

  Too late.

  I gripped tighter with my knees, my blood thrumming, adrenaline blasting through me. Good thing? I was on. The bad news? No saddle. No bridle. How did one steer these things?

  I rattled my memory for details. As a novice kid riding all I’d done was glue myself to the wings. I didn’t care where I was going, as I was in a corral with handlers nearby to help if needed. Now?

  Now I didn’t have a clue.

  Think Noziak, think. I watched the head in front of me swing back and forth like a snake several feet high, only this one had a lethal beak and was trying its hardest to twist and peck at me.

  That was it. The neck! I offered a quick prayer to Saint Jude, the patron saint of bad situations and reached for the neck, planning to use it like a joystick.

  "Alex? Alex, check in," Vaughn's voice squawked louder than the ostrich's cries.

  "She's busy," Jaylene answered.

  "Doing what?"

  "Riding an ostrich."

  "Riding a what?"

  "Let's go," I exhaled to the bird trembling beneath me. Guess I wasn’t the only one petrified. Angling the swan-like neck to the left earned the desired result. The bird pattered in that direction. Neck down, the bird moved forward.

  Piece of cake.

  Not.

  The dust from the Land Rover mushroomed in the distance at a right angle. If I headed straight ahead I should be able to cut if off. Good. My feathered friend and I could do straight.

  I hoped.

  I kneed the avian. It worked on the pigs my brothers and I played with when our risk-factor was much higher than our brain-power, and dad wasn’t around. The action seemed to do the trick.

  With a flurry of higher squawks, scattering the other birds, my ride took off on a bouncing, bone-jarring jog.

  Then it picked up speed.

  "Oh, Gawd," I hollered, then swallowed. It was too late for oaths.

  Instead I focused on cutting off the fast-disappearing vehicle and not the ground flying past. Kelly’s words echoed with each thud of ostrich leg to earth.

  Watch out. Watch out. Watch out.

  The bird's gait picked up momentum. Each jolt had me kneeing it tighter, telegra
phing a message to move faster. But there was no other way to make sure I stayed on.

  Just as we were gaining ground, I remembered one more warning about Rwanda. Rwanda and its uncultivated fields.

  Land mines.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Oh, damn it all," Jaylene shouted into the commset. She must have reached the hut. If she went in alone there was going to be hell to pay. First with Stone, and then with me, who should have been guarding her back.

  "Report," Vaughn's voice broke through. "Report!"

  "Hurry, Vaughn."

  I grabbed my bird tighter. Wasn't a darn thing I could do about the hut, or Stone, or the team. My immediate objective—stop the guys in the Land Rover.

  That’s why I was there. I could do physical. Impossible maybe, but definitely physical.

  But how?

  Just then one of the men in the rear of the vehicle spotted me. And raised his gun. A second guy hanging off the side joined him.

  The dirt around me kicked up puffs of dust.

  Between my erratic transport, and their precarious positions, suspended in the back of a bouncing rig, their shots went wild. For now. And they didn’t look happy about it either as their frowns deepened and they started using two hands to steady their weapons.

  But I was gaining ground.

  My father's instructions on gopher hunting came back to haunt me. Now I was the gopher. A large-sized one. Even a blind man could hit the broadside of a barn if he was close enough.

  Watch out. Watch out. Watch out.

  The bird didn't seem too keen on getting shot at either. Each bam, bam, bam had the two-legged beast veering like a drunken sailor on shore leave. My risky hold was getting iffier by the second. Reaching for my Glock with one hand took an act of blind faith that I wouldn’t go flying off the bird.

  But I snagged it.

  I was close enough now to hear the shouts of the men in the vehicle as they picked up speed. Bad news for my own aim.

  Time for the old point and shoot method. And a good dose of luck.

  I aimed for the men in the rig as the best targets, praying like hell the sound of my gun didn't send my bobbing ride into a tizzy. I dug my knees in tighter just in case.