by Fiona Quinn
“I don’t know her. You sound like the government coming to help could be a bad thing.”
“The police have a role to play, and that’s to capture the bad guys. The soldiers’ role is to kill the bad guys. If they are the ones who find us first, they might want to come in and save the hostages, but that’s a fine-tuned skillset. You have to be focused only on the survival of the victims. We want only those with the right mindset and the right training and experience riding to our rescue.”
“By that you mean you only want Iniquus.”
“I see how the playing field could get real crowded real quick. You know the phrase about too many cooks in the kitchen? The various countries, once it’s known there are hostages, will be working to find their scientists and get them out. It’s clever to take a group like this. There were supposed to be twenty of you. Seventeen were in the hotel. Two were from America, but the others are from all around the world. If they want the world to sit up and be shocked, they’ve got that covered. We’re going to focus on the fact that we have the best of the best coming after us right now. Panther Force and Strike Force have a perfect record for hostage safety. We’ve never lost any of our precious cargo yet. You need to keep that in the forefront of all the bad thoughts that are flooding your mind.”
“How did you know they were?”
“You’re human.”
Meg lowered her voice. “Do you think that Ahbou and Randy made it?”
Rooster had two irons in the survival fire. One was that Ahbou survived. That would tell folks that a kidnapping had happened. The second was the verification phone call that Momo was sure to make. Where he made that call was the only question. “Randy is made of steel. He’ll never give up willingly. He was underneath the boulder. He was in the safest place possible to survive the blast. He wasn’t losing any more blood. He was breathing. All of those things are good. If help got there quickly, he’s gonna be fine.” Rooster planned to blow sunshine her way until they were out of here, then they’d deal with what they had to deal with.
“There was no help to be had, Rooster. You know that.”
“When they detonated the hotel, the blast must have been massive. We were miles away when we heard it. The Maasai, the rangers, people will go and investigate, I can promise you that.”
“You didn’t say anything about Ahbou,” Meg whispered.
“It all depends on what he did next. If he stayed in the tree, he would have been thrown out of it by the blast. If he got down and was checking on Randy or he was already driving for help—”
“Driving?” Meg was choking on the word. She must be crying.
Rooster pet his thumb over her hand to soothe her. “He knows how to drive. It’s possible that the blast happened after Ahbou had gotten away. It’s also possible that Randy was in a safe position. Close your eyes.”
“Okay.”
“Put yourself up in the tree with Ahbou. What do you see?”
“The trucks driving away with us held prisoner.”
“What do you know about the hotel?”
“There are explosives.”
“As Ahbou, do you know anything about explosives?”
“No, nothing.”
“Could you do anything for the people inside?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Who could help?”
“The rangers.”
“Can you get to the rangers?”
“Yes, it’s a ten-kilometer run. I can do that very fast. Oh, and the keys are in the van. I can drive.”
“You’re in the tree, you’ve seen your friends taken, your uncle is in with the explosives. What do you do next?”
“I’d go get help. Do you think Ahbou got away in time, then?”
“When I ran that scenario through my head earlier, my thought was that as soon as the trucks went down the hill, Ahbou was scrambling down the tree and running for the van. Knowing what I know of Ahbou, I think he had a chance. Either way, we can’t help Ahbou and Randy until after we help ourselves.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Rooster
Jail
Time was passing slowly. Rooster watched the light moving from Meg’s windows over to the window above the ghost’s former cell. Rooster was trying to keep track of the rhythm of the camp as they spoke. When he heard voices passing, or footsteps, he marked it on his internal black board. From the data he’d been gathering, he thought there were about a dozen or so hostiles. That jibed with what the ghost had said in the lobby, and the kill count from their counterattacks. Something the ghost had said tickled his mind. A mole…
I need to know more about the people who are here. “Meg, tell me about your teammates.”
“Okay.” She must have been on the other side of her cell, he could hear her footsteps as she moved to their shared corner. “Let’s see. Jared Dolan was the other guy in the truck with us. He’s a music educator as well as an agronomist.”
“Why’s he with you all?”
“Sweet potatoes.”
“Meg.”
“I don’t know why we’re having this conversation. How does it help anything?”
“I just need to know what assets we have. A musical agronomist who likes sweet potatoes, not so much. A NASA engineer? He might be able to help me rig something together.”
“I’m a migrationist. Check me off your list as being helpful.”
“That’s your PhD—what were your studies before that?”
“Still not helpful. I studied zoology in undergrad, and behavioral ecology in my master’s program.”
“If we get out of here on our own, you’d know about the animals we’d encounter. You’d know if we should run for it or freeze like statues. You’re an escape asset.”
“If it makes you feel better to think that, then sure.”
“We have hours and hours and hours to kill, Meg. Go ahead and tell me your potato story.”
“African sweet potatoes are white and starchy, with very little vitamin A. African children are dying and going blind from a lack of vitamin A in their diets.”
“So switch their sweet potatoes to orange ones.” Seemed a no-brainer.
“Right. That would be a simple game changer. But the African people are used to this other kind of sweet potato. Nobody wanted to eat the weird orange sweet potato. Imagine if someone came to you and said purple-fleshed chicken is better for you than white-fleshed chicken. It doesn’t taste like white-fleshed chicken, it doesn’t have the same mouthfeel as white-fleshed chicken. You don’t raise these chickens the same way you raised your white chickens, but if you feed this purple chicken to your kids, they’ll be healthier.”
“Yeah, that would be weird.”
“Would you give your kids the purple chicken?”
“Probably not until I had more evidence than your say-so.”
“Who could give you this evidence so you’d believe it? Your mom, right?”
“If you mean I grew up believing purple chicken was the best chicken? Then sure. But to change my mind now? I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t eat the purple chicken.”
“We need to convince the moms, so the next generation grows up liking orange sweet potatoes. To do that, we need to educate the moms. One of the best ways for us to do that is to hire moms from that area, native speakers, and give them the resources they need to teach. That could be picture books, but mostly it’s songs and dances. The women go and they teach the other women the songs that tell their community how good for them these orange sweet potatoes are.”
“Interesting. So you’re saying the reason Jared came to help you was to develop ways to educate the villagers about healthier options.”
“He’s our propagandist.” There was a silence that followed. “What are you thinking?” Meg asked.
“Based on his physical abilities and his anxiety under pressure, if that’s all Jared has to offer, nutritional science and songs, I don’t think he’s an asset to escape and evade.”
“No.
Probably not.”
***
Meg had been quiet for a while. Rooster hoped she was sleeping again. They’d had a dinner of power bars. He thought they’d probably get food the next day, or maybe the day after. He was trying to calculate how soon Panther Force would get their feet under them and when they might be coming. That all depended on Momo. Rooster knew Momo considered himself masterful. He liked to tout his ability to do research. It was possible he’d do an online search for Rooster—but Rooster had been washed. There was nothing anywhere that was public or private about him.
That happened years ago, when he became a Delta. His friends and family all knew that he was not to be mentioned in public—especially not on social media. Not only could it put him in danger, but it would put a target on their backs as well. Given that piece of information, everyone he knew became tightlipped where he was concerned.
His red flag business had a high-dollar public face on its website. To get in and look around, you had to put in a working email and develop a password. That turned the security system on. If the contact was routed through more than two locations, like someone who was searching from the Darknet, they’d get a failed security check message. If they took the bait and tried to enter through the Internet, then spyware was installed to track the location of the computer, to record any activity that took place on the computer, and it would even record video without the light indicating it was doing so. If Momo took that route for verification, the Panther’s had a good chance of laying hands on him. But it would be time-consuming.
Rooster’s eyes was focusing better now. He could see that the snake in the corner was waking up hungry. His head rose and his tongue lashed the air, getting a feel for what might be around. If this was a rat snake, or something else benign, that was a-okay with Rooster. He’d rather a snake than a rodent.
Their guard was at the corner of Rooster’s visual field, and another one had just approached. They were speaking in conversational tones in Somali, probably thinking that language gave them cover to say whatever they wanted to whenever they wanted to.
“Where did Momo go?”
“He has been awake for two days. He said he was going to bed and the person who wakes him will be very sorry. He says the prisoners will cry themselves to sleep and will be too discouraged to give us any trouble tonight, except the big one. Momo said they will not break that one’s spirit easily. That will take months, especially with his pretty wife here. She will make him more combative for longer. But Momo has a plan for that.”
“He will move her to a different building?”
“Yes, his building. He plans to take her as his woman. But first he needs a good night’s sleep. My friend, you look upset.”
“I thought she would be for all of us. If he takes her, he will not share.”
“True. Perhaps he will change his mind after he has had his fill. Maybe he won’t like her. We will know better tomorrow.”
“What are the others doing?”
“They made a fire. You go and get something to eat. Think of me while you enjoy. I have guard duty while you dance and sing.”
Momo was going to take Meg tomorrow when he woke up. That was going to happen over his dead body. He thought again of the Panthers. They weren’t the only one’s out there who would be scrambling if Ahbou got the word out. Strike Force, the Mossad, and the CIA would all be in that loop. Fiercer, more skilled soldiers would be hard to find. They were the elite. But they wouldn’t be here by morning. The only way they could get here in time was if Momo called the Honig Consultation switchboard and Iniquus could put a pin in the map. The fact that Momo hadn’t left camp made Rooster think that, one way or the other, he had the resources necessary to connect to the bigger world. He’d used them. And help was already in the air. That was best-case scenario thinking. On the more pragmatic side, he had to get Meg out of here now.
“Meg? Are you awake?”
“Yeah, I’m just lying here, looking at the stars. I can see them through my window if I lie on my back.”
“Could you go look out the window, please, and tell me what you see?”
Rooster could hear her move to the window, the grunt of her pulling her weight up, and then her boots hitting the ground. She moved to the second window and her hang time was considerably longer.
“They have a fire going a little distance from the second building. I count ten there. It looks like they might have a bucket of honey beer. They’re passing it around.”
“Could you pass me the belt, please?”
He listened as she unbuckled and slid it from the loops without a single question. He reached out his hand and she pressed it into his fingers. “Thank you.” Rooster listened to the guard’s boots move to the far end of the corridor, then the scratch of wooden legs against cement. It was probably safe to do this. He popped the key out of the back and quickly released the handcuff. He rubbed his wrist and flicked his fingers to restore feeling to them. Then he staged the cuff so he could slip his hand back in if the guard made his rounds. He moved very slowly. He didn’t want to excite the snake who had just found its way onto his ankle.
Rooster used the nails on his thumb and forefinger to slide into the edge and pop the flashlight from its cylinder. Miniscule in size, it was nonetheless high lumen with a head that could be twisted to broaden the range of the light or bring it down to a pinpoint.
Oh shit.
Rooster’s heart picked up the pace. He could feel perspiration covering his face and chest. He worked hard to get his reaction under control. “My next question is animal related,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“Good, that’s my solid ground. What do you need to know?”
“I was just thinking about the movie Kill Bill. Did you ever see it?”
“Um. No. I’m mostly in the bush, so I’m behind on my media consumption.”
“There’s a snake in the movie—a black mamba. What do you know about that?”
“That’s a weird thing to think about.”
“Just keeping myself entertained reviewing movies in my mind. That’s the one I’m thinking about right now. The mamba?”
“Oh, that’s a highly poisonous snake. Deadly. It used to have a hundred percent kill rate with humans, but they can often save the victims if they can get them to the hospital on time.”
“Interesting,” Rooster said as the snake moved up his leg, lifting its head and darting out its forked tongue to taste the vibrations in the air. Rooster moved the flashlight to the side and the snake followed it with his head. While it was distracted, Rooster extended his other hand down his leg and out to the side and froze.
“It’s one of the longest and fastest snakes in East Africa. It’s been clocked at over five meters per second, which is faster than most people can run.”
Rooster was silent. He became a statue. He pulled his aura in to lay against his skin. He became part of the scenery, like he did when the enemy was passing by. Any move. Any move at all would pull the enemy’s eyes to you and put a bullet in your head. His eyes were mere slits, so he wouldn’t need to blink. He quieted into the meditative stillness he’d practiced daily since he began his career. Everything about him calmed, like a bear in hibernation.
When he didn’t say anything, Meg kept dishing up facts. “They’re kind of a pewter colored. And the inside of their mouth is black, like their tongue.”
Black tongue, pewter body, check.
“It has round eyes and the front of the mouth is squared off, then extends outward in a slight angle.”
Geometric head, round eyes, check.
The snake had now made its way up past Rooster’s knee, onto his thigh. It stopped again to sample the air. Rooster slowly brought the light around to shine in its eyes and with a hand as quick as lightning, he grabbed the head on either side. The snake’s body struggled. It opened its mouth wide. Two bright fangs dripping with venom glowed against the black backdrop of its mouth. Rooster moved so that even the drops of venom co
uldn’t land on him, with their potential to be absorbed into his skin and enter his system.
“Call the guard, Meg,” Rooster whispered urgently.
“What?”
“Use a seductive voice. Tell him you’re hungry and you’d be willing to trade for food.”
“What?” Before an explanation was necessary. Meg was calling out.
Rooster moved to put his left hand into the handcuff. Beads of sweat ran down his back and his hand shook. He was holding death. If he did this right, it would be the guard who would die. If he did it wrong, the snake might bite either him or Meg. Another possibility would be that the snake didn’t take out the guard. Then there would be retribution.
The guard came down the corridor. Rooster could tell by the man’s newfound swagger that he thought good things were coming his way.
“Come and let me whisper to you,” Meg said in Kiswahili, though the guy probably didn’t understand a word she was saying. Her tone told him everything he needed to know. “I think we can be good for each other. I bet you have something I want.”
The man moved far away from Rooster on the edge of their hall.
“Meg, you don’t want to do this. It’s not worth it,” Rooster pleaded, playing his part.
“I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten in two days,” she returned, as if she was incensed that Rooster would interfere. She really was very good at this acting stuff. The guard was parallel to her now. Rooster slipped his hand from the cuff. The snake was whipping itself into a frenzy, trying to get free. Rooster’s hands became slippery with sweat. He was afraid his grip would slide, and the snake would turn its head and bite him.
“Come here. Let me whisper to you. Let’s make a bargain, huh?”
The man moved to Meg’s bars and reached his hands through.
Rooster used his free hand to grab the snake’s tail. “Meg, jump back,” he said in English. It was his command voice that blocked the part of the brain that wanted to think things over and went right to the part that wanted to survive. He trusted Meg did what he said as he said it. Rooster flicked the snake’s tail and released the head. The snake landed on the tango’s shoulder. He jerked around to swat at the unknown weight. The snake lashed out and bit down hard into the bad guy’s neck.
