The three men nodded and began to file out of the room, with Cedric bringing up the rear. He paused in the doorway, waiting until the other two were out of earshot before he spoke.
“The goat—it means something.”
“I know, but what?”
“I will find out,” Hambani’s fixer promised. “I am a Kibangu, so I don’t know the Matsulu traditions, but there are people I can ask. If we understand the symbol, we will understand the message.”
“Thanks, Cedric. That would be a huge help.”
“And what will you do today? Do you want me to set up meetings with the local authorities?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. We have to wait for word from London.”
“And until then?”
“I need to find Warren.”
Warren loaded the last three automatic weapons into the hulking upright safe, shut the door and spun the lock to seal it.
He swiped the back of his hand across his forehead, then glanced at his watch. Five o’clock. No wonder he was starving.
“There you are.”
He cringed. He knew he shouldn’t have come back to the office. He should’ve stayed away until after dinner, until he was ready to face her. Now he had no choice.
He kept his expression carefully neutral when he turned around, fighting the flicker of ludicrous delight at the mere sight of her.
She propped a chiding hand on her hip, but her smile was playful. “I’ve been looking for you all day. Garraway wants to keep the mine functioning until we know more, but I think the boss’s hand is hovering over the shutdown button. Where’ve you been?”
He shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I had a lot to do.”
“Such as?”
“I checked all the equipment sheds for signs of tampering. There were scratches on a couple of the locks, like someone had tried to pick them, so I got one of the shift leaders to open them all. Then I consolidated all the explosives into the shed with the strongest door and the tightest lock.”
“So that’s why you look like you spent the day rolling on the ground.”
He glanced down at his clothes, realizing for the first time that his shirt and jeans were streaked with red dirt.
“And where did you find this monster? Fort Knox?” She nodded to the safe at his back.
“It was here already, just buried behind a bunch of sacks full of confidential documents waiting to be shredded. I collected all the weapons Roger had stashed around the site and locked them in here, including those in the mine tunnels. I still need to remove all the explosives stored down there. I thought they’d just need to be reorganized, but some of them are mislabeled and others may have become unstable from being kept at the wrong temperature, so I want to bring them all out and go through—”
“Are you hungry?”
“Not really,” he lied.
She tilted her head. “You’ve been skulking around the site for hours. Time to call it a day and get something to eat.”
“I’m fine.”
In two quick steps she’d reached him, hooking her thumbs through his belt loops. “Come on, Warren. Take me to dinner. Apparently there’s an old, colonial-era restaurant in Namaza that serves half-decent food. We haven’t seen any of the town outside that creepy gas station.”
He steeled himself against the temptation to tug her close, to lower his face to those soft red waves and lose himself in her scent. Instead he planted his hands on her shoulders and held her at arm’s length.
“About this morning—”
“Forget it.”
“I shouldn’t have hit him.”
“Probably not. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have it coming.”
He sighed ruefully. “I would’ve found a reason if he hadn’t.”
She studied him thoughtfully for a minute, then slowly moved his hands to her waist and pressed into him. “You’re too hard on yourself. You think your temper might’ve cost you your job with the Special Task Force, and now you’re worried you’ve lost this one, too.”
He just stared at her, at the big, unnamed emotion glittering in her eyes. She looked like she was on the verge of saying something significant—something she couldn’t take back.
Instead she smiled. “You’re not going anywhere. I promise.”
In that moment he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything. It was a raw, primal, possessive need, and it glowed in his stomach like a stubborn ember.
“Go back to the cabin and get washed up,” she instructed, stepping out of his grasp. “I’ll meet you at the car in an hour.”
He had to smile at her tone, which brooked no argument. Who knew taking orders could be so much fun?
Nicola was perched on the hood of car when he arrived, one bare leg crossed over the other. She arched an appraising brow as he approached.
“You clean up okay, Sergeant.”
“Occasionally I make an effort.” He opened her door and helped her into the high cab, then climbed in beside her.
“Cedric drew me a map.” She switched on the dome light and unfolded a piece of paper on the dash. Cedric’s instructions were spare but precise.
“We’ll find it.” He started the engine. “Namaza’s only got about five streets. How hard can it be?”
Warren regretted his arrogance as soon as they pulled away from the mine. The site’s industrial glow disappeared as they rounded the first bend, leaving him to navigate the unevenly paved, pothole-pitted road in complete darkness. He flicked on the high beams and settled in for a long drive.
Between the poor visibility and torn-up asphalt it took over an hour to make the thirty-minute trip into Namaza, but with Nicola chattering happily at his side the time passed quickly. Nonetheless he was relieved to pull up in the restaurant parking lot and cut the engine. While Nicola stood to one side he quickly shined a flashlight on all four tires to check for obvious punctures.
“I’ll check the pressure when we get back to Hambani, but everything looks okay.”
“If I’d realized the road would be that hard to drive at night, I would’ve suggested sneaking food from the canteen back to the cabins.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He took her arm and led her to the door. “It takes a lot more than a few potholes to stop me.”
“That sounds like a challenge. I don’t suppose—oh.”
He looked past the door he’d held open for her and immediately understood her disappointment. Café Madeleine had an impressively preserved façade, with a series of pastel-painted arches supporting a second-story verandah, with a placard at the topping of the building announcing its construction in 1930.
The interior was a different story. What had probably been beautiful hardwood floors were scratched and scarred, the walls were papered in an ugly floral pattern that peeled as violently as if it was protesting its own existence, and the dining area consisted of a series of mismatched tables of varying sizes and qualities arranged in uneven rows.
And it was completely empty.
“Bonsoir mademoiselle et monsieur, bienvenue.” A reedy waiter with a red-striped tea towel draped ambitiously over his arm rushed to the door to greet them. He gushed in rapid-fire French, ushering them to a table and yanking out Nicola’s chair with a deep bow.
“I guess we’re staying,” he muttered, taking the seat opposite hers. The waiter handed out menus then retreated to the bar, watching them keenly from the other side of the room.
“Think of it as an investment in the local economy.” She opened the menu. “What do you think?”
He scanned the short list of entrees. “Stick to what’s probably sourced locally. With all the power cuts they get around here, you can’t trust anything frozen.
“Shrimp is out, then.”
“And the Norwegian salmon.” He’d barely glanced up and
the waiter scurried over, pad at the ready.
“Mademoiselle?”
Nicola ordered grilled chicken and two glasses of wine, and Warren pointed to what he was fairly confident was the steak. The waiter seemed inordinately pleased as he rushed off to the kitchen, and with the exclusion of the bartender idly wiping spotless glasses, they were left alone in the expansive room.
“So.” She folded her arms on the table. “Are we on a date?”
“Of course not. This is either a business meeting or foreplay. Entirely up to you.”
“Someone’s in a better mood,” she remarked.
“Well, which is it?”
“Who says it can’t be both?”
“Do you normally mix work and pleasure?”
“Never.” She smiled coyly. “Do you?”
“My work tends to be a pleasure killer.”
“How so?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Cape Town’s not a small city, and I’m its best explosives expert. I’ve had to suddenly excuse myself from a lot of romantic dinners.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Stuff happens.”
“So, in five minutes I stand up and walk out the door, leaving you to eat dinner and drive home on your own. That’s fine?”
She arched a brow. “You think I’ve never eaten alone?”
“You don’t strike me as someone who needs to.”
“Flatterer,” she teased. A few minutes later the waiter appeared with their meals, trailed by the bartender, who held two glasses of wine. They exchanged a glance and set down the plates and glasses in one smooth, synchronized motion, then retreated again to their posts.
“The truth is, when you’re a high-flying, mega-powerful mining executive—” she paused to wink at him, “—you spend a lot of time by yourself. Airports, hotels, overnight layovers in cities you don’t see an inch of. Want to know what it’s like to feel totally isolated while surrounded by hundreds of people? Be a woman at a mining conference. You don’t even need a social responsibility agenda to repel those around you. Breasts will be more than sufficient.”
The steak was surprisingly succulent and perfectly cooked, but that’s not what made his mouth water. “Rest assured, I don’t find your breasts remotely repellent.”
“I gathered as much.”
“But it’s worth it? The lonely meals in hotels and asshole commodity traders on airplanes—the job makes it all worthwhile?”
“Yeah. I think so.” Nicola lowered her fork and took a long look out the window. When she turned back, her expression had lost its playfulness. “I don’t know. Hambani is something else.”
He nodded for her to elaborate.
She sighed. “The wounds in this country are so fresh they’re practically bleeding. The atmosphere in the settlement was so hard, cynical, like they’re sick of white people rolling in and peddling hope that’s never delivered. And the mine, all those weapons—I’ve never seen anything like it. It feels like this whole place is sitting on a stack of dynamite and someone’s holding a match—we just don’t know who or why or where.”
“I can’t disagree,” he replied honestly. “But we’re not done yet. I’m not done yet. We’ll get to the bottom of this, and we’ll leave this place better than we found it.”
Her smile was evidence his words had the desired effect. If only he could believe them, too.
They finished their unexpectedly delicious entrees, split an equally tasty dessert and lingered over coffee until it was after nine o’clock. Although their waiter had been excessively helpful and friendly, Warren didn’t want him to have to make his way back to whatever remote part of town his salary afforded too late into the evening. He signaled for the bill, paid, and soon they were on their way out to the car.
As in most of the small mining towns he’d visited, by this time the streets had emptied of everyone but young men, most of whom were in the process of blowing their wages on gambling or alcohol. Five men loitered around a white pickup parked on the opposite side of the road, and he kept a careful eye on them as he opened Nicola’s door.
“Check that out.” She clucked her tongue. “That can’t be real blood, right?”
She pointed at a poster on the wall of a building, in which the newly inaugurated president—a Kibangu on the victorious side of the recent civil war—smiled benevolently in a public service ad. It was in French, so Warren couldn’t make out exactly what the president was exhorting people to do, but it didn’t matter. He was far more focused on the graffiti slanting across the politician’s face.
“What’s that supposed to be? A sheep? I don’t get it.” She leaned forward, squinting at the crude markings scrawled in animal blood.
What had Cedric said that morning? About the Matsulus and the old ways? The lion, the gorilla, the jackal…
“It’s a goat.”
She turned sharply. “What?”
“Look at the horns. It’s a goat. It must be a Matsulu sign of disrespect.”
Even in the poor lighting of the parking lot he could see the color drain from her face. She was thinking the same thing he was—remembering the bared teeth, the eyeless sockets.
He glanced back at the pickup across the street. Two men had left and two others had climbed inside. The fifth stood in the open driver’s-side door, staring straight at him.
It was too dark to see the man’s eyes, but Warren didn’t need to. He knew they were green.
“Get in the car,” he urged without looking away. He reached to the small of his back, slowly withdrew the Glock but held it out of sight.
“Warren, what’s going on?”
“Get in. We’re leaving.”
Chapter Ten
“You’re sure it was him? The same guy from the settlement?”
“Positive.” Warren’s jaw was clenched so tightly that every angle stood out in stark relief. Nicola realized she was wringing her hands in her lap and wrenched them apart, shoving them under her thighs.
The road back to Hambani seemed impossibly long, as though it had tripled in distance while they had been sitting in the restaurant. Warren’s initial haste had already clunked them in and out of a couple of potholes, but when he slowed the car to be more careful her sense of claustrophobic entrapment only grew. With no streetlights and only a sliver of a moon, the world beyond the windows was so dark they might as well have been in an underwater tunnel instead of a rural road in the middle of sprawling countryside.
“But he said he has no problem with us, right? We should have nothing to fear from him.”
“He told us to leave.”
“So?”
“We’re still here.”
She sank her teeth into her lower lip. Okay, so some random guy told them to leave Latadi, and now they’d spotted him in town. That didn’t mean anything, not really. For all they knew he could be a total crackhead, spouting all kinds of nonsense at anyone who would listen.
Although he’d been at the mine, too. Was he an employee there? It would be hard to find out without his name—the HR database didn’t have a search function for eerie green eyes. Maybe he wasn’t a permanent employee with all the access that granted. He’d probably just snuck in on a borrowed ID card in a borrowed boiler suit.
Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure which was worse. That he had legitimate entry to the site, or that he was capable of evading its dense security.
“I’m sure it’s a just a coincidence. It’s not like Namaza has that many places to go out. I bet he doesn’t even remember your conversation in the settlement—he was probably drunk.”
Warren’s silence wasn’t the reassurance she’d hoped for.
“Anyway,” she persisted, “so what if he does remember us? That doesn’t necessarily mean he has some sinister plan, or that he has harmful intentions. Maybe he was trying to give you an honest warning
that he thought was for your own good. Maybe he’s not the type to hurt anyone, let alone—”
“We’re being followed.”
“What?” she squeaked, her voice suddenly taking on an unattractively high pitch that she couldn’t bring down. “By who?”
“I can’t see yet. They’re hanging back.”
She twisted in her seat. A single pair of headlights punctuated the inky black, dipping and weaving as the vehicle evaded the same potholes they’d snaked around minutes earlier.
“How do you know they’re following us? Maybe they’re—”
“Where does this road go?”
“Hambani.”
“Any turnoffs?”
“Not from this point, not after—”
“And who’s allowed access to the mine at this time of night?”
Needlessly she glanced at the clock on the dash, her heart sinking even before she registered the time. “The site’s closed to visitors. The night shift’s admitted at nine o’clock and there’s no further entry until six.”
She dropped back in her seat. “What do we do?”
“Watch. Wait. Hope they don’t do anything stupid.”
“What would you consider stupid?”
“Fucking with me.”
And with those three words her heartbeat slowed, her panic subsided. It might prove to be her most reckless judgment call, but in that instant she trusted Warren implicitly. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She was as safe in this car as in her own bed.
Emboldened, she looked out the back window, ready to sneer at the idiocy of their pursuers.
Instead she felt her arrogance wilt like a week-old bouquet. “Have they gotten closer?”
He didn’t reply, his gaze darting between the road and the rearview mirror. She leaned around the edge of her seat, daring another look. The headlights loomed bigger and nearer than before. They were gaining ground.
She wasn’t sure which happened first—Warren’s urgent shout for her to get down, or his sudden grip on her arm as he shoved her below the headrest. She was still trying to figure out the sequence when the first shot rang out, sharp and echoing, sending her heart leaping into her throat.
Short Fuse: Elite Operators, Book 2 Page 11
