by Pamela Clare
Malik was touched by her pride in him. “I think they’ve come around, but they did everything they could to talk me out of it. My dad told me he hadn’t put eighteen years into me only to have me die in some godforsaken desert somewhere. He just didn’t understand.”
“Why did you choose the army over college and law school?”
“I couldn’t stand the thought of spending more time in school or working behind a desk for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to spend my days in an office—being cooped up indoors, talking on the phone, wearing a suit and tie. Hell, no. I wanted to do something physical. I wanted to be out in the world and a part of something bigger.”
“Why not sports? Or becoming a firefighter? Or a park ranger?”
“I was sixteen when the Twin Towers fell. They turned on the TV in our classroom just after the second plane hit. I saw the first tower fall. It hit me that someone had to be willing to go after the bad guys so that everyone else could live in peace.”
Kristi’s heart melted to think of Malik as a boy, just four years older than Obi, deciding to put his life at risk for his country. “That’s more noble than my response. I was twelve. I worried that terrorists were going to attack San Francisco next.”
“It was a hell of a time to be a kid.”
“So, you joined the army and said, ‘Hey, I want to be a Ranger.’”
He laughed. “If only it were that easy. I enlisted, sailed through basic and airborne training, and then volunteered for RASP—the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program. After that, I had to complete Ranger School.”
“Is it as grueling as they say?”
“It’s pretty tough, but I was ready for it—physically fit, mentally prepared for the challenge, and hungry to prove myself.” He’d made it through and had worn his beret and gold Ranger tab with pride. “I won’t lie. Graduation was the proudest day of my life.”
“I would love to see you in your uniform. I bet you look hot.”
He liked where her mind was going. “Yeah? I’ve got it all at home.”
“How about you put it on—and I’ll take it off?”
“Angel, it’s a deal.”
His phone buzzed, made Kristi jump.
Shields.
Malik pushed a button on the console. “You’re on speaker.”
“I just wanted to let you know that one of David’s contacts came across men who were showing your picture to businesses and cab drivers around Abuja. They weren’t wearing uniforms, but they were armed. He guesses—and I concur—that they’re associated with the Sky Kings.”
Fuck.
That wasn’t the news Malik wanted to hear, but it wasn’t surprising. “Where’d they get my photo?”
“David says it was a clear shot of you at police headquarters.”
“Copy that.”
“David also said to tell you you’re a bastard for stealing the SIGs and the carbine, but under the circumstances, he’s glad you did. He’ll consider it a loan.”
Malik chuckled. “Tell him I’m grateful.”
“Your GPS trackers are working. Keep them on you. You two stay safe.”
“You, too.” He ended the call, glanced over to find Kristi watching him, her eyes shadowed by fear.
“There’s no doubt then. These bastards are after us.”
Malik took her hand. “Fuck them.”
The sun had set now, scattered headlights moving toward them in the dark, red taillights moving away, the savanna on either side of the highway cloaked in darkness.
Kristi had to focus on her breathing to keep her panic at bay, but Malik didn’t seem worried. “How do you stay so calm?”
“When someone comes into your ER all shot up, what keeps you from panicking? I’ve watched you work, remember? Samantha was hypothermic. Isaksen was hypothermic and halfway to Valhalla from blood loss. You had two people on the brink of death, and you were calm and cool.”
“It’s training. I know what I’m doing. We quickly assess a patient and treat the most serious problems first.”
“That’s how it is for me, too. This is what I’m trained to do. I triage our situation, work out the most likely scenarios, and try to reduce our risks before anything happens.”
Kristi saw where he was going with this. “There’s one important difference. If something goes wrong in the ER, I’m not the one who dies.”
He grinned, his teeth flashing white. “You’ve got me there.”
“When they abducted me, I remembered what you said about embracing your mortality and surrendering hope. I tried, but I couldn’t. I don’t know how to do that.”
Malik took her hand again. “I’d be surprised if you did. It’s not part of your job description. Your work is all about life, Kristi. You catch babies, treat sick people, help with surgeries. I take lives, but you save them. I respect the hell out of that.”
The way he said it made her feel special, as if being an RN were a big deal. Still, she had to ask. “Does it get to you? Do the people you’ve had to kill stay with you?”
“I don’t regret killing terrorists—or those men at the camp. They worked hard to earn a bullet.” He looked over at her, his face illuminated by the faint light of the GPS screen. “Mostly, it’s the buddies I lost that hurt, the men who died when I got back alive. But that’s not happening this time. We’re both going to make it home.”
The steel in his voice helped soothe the anxiety that had gnawed at her since she’d learned who and what the Sky Kings were. “Thank you, Malik.”
“For what?”
“Everything.” Her stomach growled.
“You hungry? There are some snacks in the back—chips and such. I’ve got some MREs in my duffel bag.”
“MREs?”
“Meals Ready-To-Eat. Pre-packaged army food.”
“Ew.” She could only imagine what those were like. “That sounds scary.”
That made him laugh. “You have no idea.”
She took off her seatbelt, and leaned between their two seats to dig around in the bags of supplies. “Oh, you got plantain chips. I love those.”
There were also crackers, a jar of peanut butter, cashews, and rice cakes.
“Oh, man.” Malik moaned. “Your sweet ass is right there, right next to my face, but I have to keep my eyes on the road.”
She wiggled her butt to tease him. “Focus on your driving, soldier. When we get home, you can grope my ass all you want.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Then everything changed.
“Kristi, get down!”
On a punch of adrenaline, she slipped into the backseat and got down on the floor, her cheek pressed against his duffel bag. “What’s going on?”
“There are two white Toyota trucks full of armed men speeding up the highway behind us, gaining fast.”
Kristi’s pulse tripped. “Do you think it’s them?”
“Hard to say. Whoever they are, they’re not friendly.”
She heard the roar of an engine coming up behind them, headlights illuminating the interior of their rental. The seconds ticked by like hours, at least one truck right on their tail. Had these bastards connected them to this vehicle? Were they trying to read the license plate?
Then the roar grew louder—and passed by.
She let out the breath she’d been holding. “Did they pass us?”
“Yes, but stay down until I know what’s going on.”
The minutes crept by, then the vehicle slowed.
“It looks like traffic is stopping up ahead. I think they put up a roadblock.”
“Does that mean they traced us to that filling station?”
“I’m not going to hang around to find out. There’s an exit just ahead.”
She heard the turn signal click on, and the vehicle veered to the right, the noise of traffic falling behind them, the exit taking them slightly uphill.
“Yeah, they threw up a roadblock. I can see them about a half mile ahead. They used their trucks to block the
road, and now men with guns are searching cars.”
“What are we going to do?”
“It looks like we’re taking the scenic route to Benin.”
And Kristi knew they wouldn’t be flying home tomorrow, either.
Malik turned off the music and followed the exit into Gulu, a small town surrounded by farms. He saw a gas station and decided to risk a refueling stop. “Stay back there and keep out of sight. I’m going to top off the tank again.”
“Okay.”
He climbed out, refueled, and walked inside to pay. The young clerk was too focused on a small television to notice him. He walked back to the vehicle, thinking through their options—not a complicated process when there weren’t many.
If they stayed on the highway, they’d travel faster, but they’d also face the very real threat of roadblocks and capture. If they left the highway, they’d have a much longer trip on roads plagued by bandits and might lose access to cell service and gas stations.
But the biggest obstacle was the river.
No matter which road they took, they had to cross the Niger River to get to Benin. He remembered Shields telling them in a briefing on one mission that there weren’t many bridges crossing the river—at least not bridges capable of supporting vehicles. That was a problem.
If he were one of these fuckers, he’d use the bridges as chokepoints—a sure way to catch anyone traveling by car or bus.
He climbed behind the wheel. “Stay down for just another minute. I’m going to pull over on that side road ahead. I need to look at a map.”
“Did we lose navigation?”
“No, not yet.” He drove to a spot beneath some overhanging trees and parked. “Okay. You’re good.”
While Kristi crawled over the console into her seat, he sent a quick sitrep to Shields. Then he called up a map of Nigeria on his phone, blew it up until he found Gulu, and studied the surrounding area.
“If we bypass the roadblock and get back onto the highway, we’ll eventually cross the Kaduna River at a little town called Wuya. Then we could either continue northward to cross the Niger at Kainji or veer southwest to cross it at Jebba.”
“Which do you think is safer?”
“Neither.” He scrolled around, looking for a solution. “Bridges are natural bottlenecks—places where it’s easy to stop and screen traffic. If I were trying to catch someone, I’d use them as chokepoints.”
“Do we know for sure those guys were Sky Kings?”
“No, but we can’t take any chances.”
“Then what do we do? We can’t drive across the river. It’s too deep and wide. The SUV won’t fit in a boat, even if we had one. We can’t swim across—not unless we want to be crocodile bait. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be eaten.”
He couldn’t help himself. “But you taste so good.”
“Stop.” But she smiled.
While she opened the peanut butter and crackers, he searched for a solution, looking for smaller bridges, railway bridges, even pedestrian bridges. “There. We’ll take back roads toward the Okobi Wildlife Preserve. We’ll try to cross on the old railway bridge there. That way we won’t have to cross the Kaduna River at all.”
He typed the coordinates into the vehicle’s navigation system.
“What about trains?”
“According to the map, it’s not an active rail line.”
“Is the bridge safe?”
“It was built for freight trains, so I’m sure it can hold us—if it’s still standing.”
“Maybe we should ditch the SUV and hire a boat.”
He’d thought about that. “We could do that and rent or steal another vehicle on the other side. But I see that ending in one of two ways. Either the boat owner or witnesses sell us out, or they and their families end up dead. The fewer people we drag into our situation, the less collateral damage we leave behind.”
“Oh, God. I hadn’t thought about that.”
He started the engine, drove back through Gulu, and crossed over the highway, where traffic was backed up for a mile and the exit they’d taken was now blocked.
Kristi’s jaw dropped when she saw. “We barely got away.”
While she passed him a dinner of crackers covered in peanut butter, Malik watched the rearview mirror, leaving Gulu behind them and muting the navigation system, which kept trying to get them to turn around. Farms quickly gave way to scrubland crisscrossed by dirt roads and deepening forest. He followed the roads, moving steadily southwest.
But out here, far from other sources of light, the vehicle’s headlights were like beacons. Anyone hiding on the forested hillsides would see them.
He stopped, turned off the vehicle.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s time to switch gears. I have no idea what we’ll run into out here, so I want to be ready. I’m going to move a few things around, position my firearms, and grab my night vision goggles in case I need them.”
He climbed out, got out the M4 carbine and the other SIG, along with spare magazines, which he arranged near his seat. Then he took his helmet out of his duffel bag and settled it on his head. He flipped down the NVGs and turned them on to check them.
“Whoa.”
Staring straight at him from a nearby bush was a big, fat warthog.
13
“Malik? What is it?”
“It looks like a warthog.” Malik didn’t sound afraid, but she heard a click as he checked his pistol. He wasn’t taking chances.
Kristi leaned forward and looked out the driver’s side door, but it was so dark she couldn’t see anything. “Be careful. They can be aggressive.”
A sleepy grunt.
“Hey, dude. Don’t make me turn you into bacon, okay? I’m just going to get back into the vehicle and drive away.” Malik backed into the driver’s seat, both hands gripping his pistol. “Good warthog.”
He pivoted into his seat, closed the door, and let out a breath, grinning, goggles covering his eyes. “Good thing it wasn’t a lion.”
“I’ve only seen warthogs from a distance.” She’d always thought the mothers looked cute, running through the grass with their tails sticking straight up, babies scrambling after them. “Now that we’re on the outskirts of a game preserve, we need to watch for animals, too. I don’t think there are any big cats here, though.”
She took Malik’s phone, googled. “I stand corrected. Lions. A small population of leopards. Hippos. Elephants. Remind me not to need to pee.”
He chuckled. “Just stay close to the vehicle. I’ll cover you.”
He locked the doors, started the engine, then removed his helmet and the goggles, which seemed to be fastened together.
“You look like a cyborg when you wear those.”
He handed them to her, a grin on his face. “Try them out if you want. Just don’t drop them. They cost about thirty grand.”
“Wow.” She took the helmet, settled it on her head. “It’s so heavy. I think my head is too small. It wobbles.”
Malik reached over, tightened the strap beneath her chin. “How’s that?”
“Better.”
He flipped the goggles down and turned them on.
She laughed, a new world before her eyes. “You’re green. Everything is green.”
“Why don’t you keep a watch on the sides of the road? If you see anything moving, let me know. Hitting an elephant would bring our escape to a sudden and dramatic end.”
“Got it.” Kristi found she needed to move her head back and forth, her vision limited to a circle right in front of the goggles. “This is so strange—and a little creepy.”
Malik drove slowly over rutted roads, Kristi looking out at a world that would otherwise be hidden to her. As the miles crept by, they talked about everything and nothing. What it was like to be the youngest in the family. Past girlfriends and boyfriends. Their favorite holidays growing up.
“I loved Christmas,” Malik said. “Waking up early in the morning, sneaking
out to the Christmas tree, knowing I couldn’t touch anything until my parents woke up. It was magical.”
“We celebrated so many holidays. My mom was raised Presbyterian, but my father’s influences were Buddhist and cultural more than religious. So, we celebrated Easter, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, but we also celebrated Chinese New Year, Ancestors’ Day, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn—”
A green shape moved among the trees.
“Stop!”
Malik hit the brakes. “What do you see?”
Kristi pointed. “There’s something big moving toward the… Oh, my God! Look!”
A male lion stepped out of the trees.
She flipped up the goggles to see him clearly. Huge and tawny-colored with a dark mane, he stopped to sniff and bite at a bush. Then he sprayed.
“He’s marking his territory, leaving his scent. There must be a female around.”
“Listen to you, Ms. National Geographic.”
“He doesn’t seem to care about us.” Heart thrumming with excitement, she watched as the lion walked along the edge of the road, his movements powerful and fluid, his body all muscle. “He’s coming this way.”
“Why are you whispering?” Malik whispered.
She hadn’t realized she was.
“I don’t want to scare him,” she whispered back.
Malik grinned. “Does he look scared to you?”
Only when the lion drew close to the SUV could she see how truly enormous he was, how big his head was, and those paws—like dinner plates.
“Holy shit.”
The lion glanced up at her, his amber eyes looking right into hers as he passed, the tip of one of his ears missing, a scar on his nose.
A thrill shivered through her, a primal and wild terror that made her come alive.
“Wow,” she whispered, watching the big cat disappear into the darkness.
Malik spoke in his normal voice, startling her. “That was cool.”
“He looked straight into my eyes.”
“He was checking you out, wondering what you were doing on his turf.”
“For a moment, I felt this primitive reaction. It was like my DNA recognized the lion as a threat, even though I’m safe in the car.” She flipped down the goggles again. “God, that was exciting! Did you see how big he was?”
