Jade

The horror of seeing that black muzzle buried in Matthias’s hair stopped my heart and sent my stomach plummeting. The sight of Mei holding her gun and Matthias, kneeling at her feet, made me spitting mad. She’d stolen into the hut, quick and silent as the lethal viper she was. I aimed my AK-47 at her heart, but she had the element of surprise in her favor.

The girls huddled in the cage’s corner, hugging each other, eyes wide with terror. I was livid with myself. I should’ve been at that door as soon as Matthias came into the hut. I should’ve never left his back unprotected. I should’ve scratched Mei’s eyes out when I had the chance and taken her out of the equation.

But my confinement had taken a toll and my exhaustion, combined with the shock of finding the girls here, had dulled my instincts for an instant. That instant could prove fatal. I couldn’t shoot Mei without risking Matthias’s life. A single shot from a 9mm at close range would scatter his luminous brain all over this freaking place.

“Get the hell away from him,” I snapped, finger on the trigger. “Take a step back and put down your weapon, now.”

“Not a chance.” Mei’s rouged lips drew back from her teeth in a defiant leer. “He’s mine, and you need to put down your gun.”

“Easy, everybody.” Matthias reassumed his work on the lock as if he didn’t have a gun to his head. “Let’s not get overly excited. You want to tell us what the hell are you doing here, Mei?”

“If you haven’t noticed,” Mei said, “I’ve got the gun, so this conversation really ought to go the other way around. I want to know what the hell you are doing here.”

“Kumbuyo kidnapped Jade and I came after her,” Matthias said with mind-blowing equanimity. “On the way out, we found this crime in progress.” He jerked his chin toward the girls. “The American people and their government do not condone human trafficking. The question is: Do you?”

Mei’s throat corded with a hard swallow. Her knuckles tightened around the gun. Her gaze shifted from Matthias, to me, to the girls and back to Matthias.

“Tell her to put her weapon down,” Mei said.

I scoffed. “Fat chance.”

“You should know,” Matthias said. “Jade doesn’t follow orders. She does her own thing.”

Mei’s glare fell on me. “If you shoot, the poachers will be on you in seconds.”

“And if you shoot,” I said, “you’re dead and done.”

“Whoa.” Matthias fanned his hand under his nose. “This place stinks.”

“Excuse me?” Both Mei and I looked at Matthias in puzzlement.

“Estrogen, I think.” He smirked as he continued to fiddle with the lock. “It stinks. Big time. Someone once told me that the stench of excess testosterone was suffocating. Whoever mentioned that hadn’t been swamped by a surge of estrogen. It’s equally overpowering.”

He was quoting me. He was telling me the same thing I’d told him that first day when I’d landed at the reserve, when he and Peter had gotten into it. Matthias was cool as ice and trying to tell me in no uncertain terms to keep cool and hang back.

The padlock clicked opened. Matthias wrestled the hasp off the hook.

“What are you doing?” Mei shifted uneasily on her feet.

“I’m freeing these girls,” Matthias said. “You’ve got a problem with that?”

“Stop it.” Mei pressed her gun even harder against Matthias’s head.

“No.” Matthias pumped the hasp. “We don’t have time for this shit. You either shoot me or not. But I don’t think you’re gonna shoot me.”

Mei snarled. “Don’t be so sure of that.”

“If you wanted to kill me, I’d be dead right now and you would’ve already raised the alarm,” Matthias said. “Instead, you came to investigate. Alone. Which tells me you’re up to something and it doesn’t entail killing me.”

Without the slightest hesitation, Matthias opened the cage door and motioned to the girls. “Come on, darlings.” He hugged each girl as they came out of the cage. “Don’t be afraid. I’m gonna get you out of here.”

Mei actually groaned. Her arm dropped. The gun hung limply by her side. I relaxed my finger on the trigger, but kept my weapon on her, just in case she changed her mind.

“Good call, Mei,” Matthias said. “You are shrewd as hell, but you’re not a murderer like Lamba and Kumbuyo are.”

She scoffed. “You don’t know any of that.”

“Yeah, I do,” Matthias said. “I’ve gotten a sense for you and I’ve got a good instinct for people. We’ve got to go now. Are you gonna give us trouble?”

“I can’t let you go.” Her knuckles paled around her gun. “You are endangering my mission.”

“And your mission is?”

“To broker the ivory between the poachers and the cartel,” I put in. “To transport Lamba’s troops into Tanzania and airlift the ivory out of the country.”

“You idiot,” Mei bit out between clenched teeth. “That’s my cover, not my mission.”

I gaped. “Your cover?”

“Wild guess over here.” Matthias grabbed his carbine and came to his feet. “Mei here is with the MSS, the Chinese Ministry of State Security, China’s foreign intelligence agency.”

Mei’s face crumpled as her jaw fell. “How did you find out?”

“Wait.” I narrowed my eyes on Matthias. “You knew this and you didn’t tell me?”

Matthias gave a non-committal shrug. “I didn’t know for sure, but it was one of the probabilities I considered in the variables, until right this moment, when Mei confirmed it.”

Mei gasped. “You played me!”

“No time for games,” Matthias said. “Get out of our way. I’ve got to get my girls out of here.”

“But…” Mei blinked the confusion out of her eyes. “Are you American intelligence?”

He stubbed the front of his boot in the dirt and gave her the old line with a straight face. “Can’t confirm or deny.”

Mei swore in Chinese, a language I didn’t speak, but it was something obscene, I was sure.

“I can’t help you with this.” She motioned toward the kids. “And I can’t let you disrupt the flow either. I’ve worked on this mission for a long time. Becoming the link between the cartel and the poachers was the only way to take the cartel down in China.”

“So, wait,” I said, my mind reeling. “Are you telling us the Chinese government doesn’t condone the illegal trade of ivory?”

“The Chinese love their ivory, that’s true,” Mei said. “But we’ve been trying to change that mindset and clamp down on the illegal trade of ivory. That’s what my life work in Africa is all about.”

Wow. It was hard to believe. It was even more difficult to think of Mei as a hero instead of a villain. In fact, I liked her a lot more in her role as a treacherous bitch. It allowed me to hate her better.

“Time to put that gun away,” Matthias said quietly.

But I wasn’t willing to let Mei off the hook so easily. “You say you’re trying to stop the illegal trade of ivory,” I said, “and yet you’re bringing Lamba’s troops to Tanzania?”

“That’s what Lamba thinks.” Mei tucked her gun in her waistband. “Instead, I’m flying a strike force to take down the cartel leadership which will be arriving covertly to take possession of the ivory.”

“If that’s the case, we have a bigger problem.” Matthias’s forehead etched into three deep lines. “There’s a chance we have a strike force coming as well. It’s possible that, once they get here, they will carpet bomb this complex. And I’ve got no way of warning them that you are here.”

This had the makings of a major clusterfuck.

“Mei, listen to me,” Matthias said. “You need to get out of here. Tell Lamba you have to meet the cartel at the airstrip to lead them back here. Then drive like hell to get into communication range and contact this number.” Matthias pulled out a pen from his backpack and rode a number on Mei’s palm. “Tell the operator you need to get a message to Rottweiler. Coordinate your strike forces with his.”

“You want the Chinese and the Americans to work together?”

“And the Tanzanians.” Matthias finished scribbling the number. “And the Kenyans. And the rest of the world. We can make a difference, if we work together.”

Mei hesitated. “I don’t know if I’m authorized to—”

“You are the lead on the ground,” Matthias said. “You’re the only one who can avoid the carnage.”

“Our countries are adversaries and competitors.”

“Not always.” Matthias held her gaze. “Not today.”

“I’ll try,” she said. “But…what about you?”

“I’ve got this,” he said. “You go.”

I recognized the way she looked at Matthias, with longing, with desire. In the end, after all the complex games these two had played, Mei’s final motivation was simple. Like me, she’d seen through Matthias. Although she’d never figured out who he really was, she liked the human being she’d discovered beneath his cover. Poor Mei. She loved him.

“Time to go,” I announced, gathering the girls. I was all for international cooperation, but sharing? Uh-uh. It was never going to happen.

“Be careful,” Mei said, extending a hand to Matthias.

“You too.” Matthias squeezed her hand in reassurance, before he let go.

Mei gave Matthias a last look and, putting on her expert game face, slipped out of the hut.

Crouching next to the door, Matthias watched her go. I knelt next to him and took in the center clearing. The fight was over. Kumbuyo’s opponent lay dead on the dirt, his neck bent at an impossible angle. Kumbuyo, Lamba and the others huddled in a tight group. The rest of the poachers lingered about the fires.

“Priority one,” Matthias said, “get the girls out of danger.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“Someone has to call the shots for this to work.”

“I’m assuming you mean you.”

“Only because I’m better prepared than you are for this mission,” he said. “I can deal with the contingencies, if you let me.”

“I’ll let you,” I said, chest tight, voice hoarse. “But only because you’re making sense.”

His eyes lingered on my face. “Might be a hard one.”

“I can do hard.”

“I know.” He planted a sudden kiss on my mouth. “Lead the way, marine.”

Under the cover of dark, I took point, followed by Adisa, Kanoni, and Tari. Matthias brought up the rear, carrying an old blanket he’d swiped from the cage and a rickety stool under one arm. The place was crawling with thugs. The true miracle was that the five of us made it to the palisade without raising the alarm.

Matthias placed the stool in the darkest, most isolated part of the palisade and found cover behind a pile of wood. He propped up his weapon and set up watch as I mounted the stool, hurled the old blanket over the sharpened logs, and motioned for Tari to go over the fence.

She was long legged, lithe and strong. With a push from me, she made it without a problem. But when Adisa tried to boost Kanoni over the palisade, the young girl got her leg snagged by a splinter. She let out a little cry. I cringed. The pot smoking guard must have heard the noise, because he turned around. Drawing on his red-tipped joint, he peered into the darkness.

I said a little prayer, looking up at the rushing clouds obscuring the moon. But the man was cautious. He detached himself from the group and ambled back to investigate. He flicked the stub of his joint to the ground and stepped on it, then ducked as he went into the hut.

“Go, go, go,” I mouthed to Adisa, signaling for her to hurry, keeping my eye on the hut, tightening my grip on my weapon.

My heart outpaced the seconds as I waited, eyes scanning the hut. Ninety seconds later, the guard dashed out, came to a running stop, and looked around, eyes wide with alarm. The moon came out from behind the clouds. There was no place to hide. We were shit out of luck.

The man spotted Adisa and Kanoni on the stool. He spun his weapon around and aimed at them. Matthias and I fired at the same time. Plink, plink, plink. The man dropped to the ground, but the noise caught his friends’ attentions. A shout of alarm rippled through the poacher’s camp. All hell broke loose.

I lay a cover for Adisa and Kanoni, picking out my targets carefully. I didn’t have a lot of ammo. By the time I ran out of bullets, Kanoni was over the palisade, but Adisa wasn’t. Relying on Matthias’s cover, I ditched the useless weapon, clasped my hands together and gave Adisa a boost. The whole thing felt as if it was happening in slow motion.

“Go,” Matthias barked, laying a steady cover for me. “That’s an order, marine.”

I leaped on the stool and wrapped my fingers over the edge. The blanket kept the splinters from tearing into my hands. I swung my leg up and hooked my knee over the palisade. Plink. Shouts. Plink, plink. More bullets. Plunk. Pain, violent and hot, burned through my thigh. Holy shit. I gritted my teeth and landed hard on the dirt.

Matthias slid next to me and tucked my arm under his shoulder. “Come on.” He kept the attackers at bay, firing a layer of protective fire as he dragged me behind the stack of firewood.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, breathing raggedly, peeking over the rim of the stack, keeping track of the thugs who were regrouping out of sight.

“I’m fine.” I lied.

“You need to get the hell out of here.”

My eyes met his. “You?”

“Remember our deal,” he said. “Don’t wait for me. Head south. Those are you orders.”

I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulling him to me, kissed him hard on the mouth. “You stay alive, you hear me? Promise me. Stay alive. And then come find me.”

“You got it,” Matthias muttered, smirking furiously against my mouth. “When I come looking, you better be there.”

“Deal.”

“Off you go,” Matthias helped me to my feet. “One, two, three.”

With a powerful boost, he pushed me up on the palisade. I grabbed the edges and pulled. His shoulder came under my foot. He stood right beneath me, shooting while he offered his body for leverage.

I had to fight an urge to drop down and face the poacher’s onslaught by his side. It was what I wanted to do, what my nature and instincts drove me to do. But the girls. We had agreed they were the priority. Matthias had said he could deal with contingencies. I had to trust him.

It took all my willpower, but I pushed off his shoulder, leaped and tumbled to the other side of the fence, landing with a grunt of pain. The girls were waiting for me.

“Run!” I whispered. “Fast.”

My wounded leg didn’t want to move, but I forced it to work. The burn tore through my body, setting my nerves on fire. Blood, warm and liquid, soaked my pants. Freaking great. As if the last forty-eight hadn’t sucked badly enough, now I had a bullet in my damn thigh. The pain was so intense I feared the bullet had nicked the bone.

We were only a few yards away when the explosion shook the ground. It came from the same exact place against the palisade where Matthias had setup his cover. I turned to watch a cloud of smoke and sparks billowing toward the sky. The first explosion was followed by others. My mind couldn’t even begin to comprehend what had just happened. Had Matthias set off those explosions? From afar, they looked like big blasts. Hand grenades? IEDs?

The camp was on fire. Huge flames leaped over the palisade and reached for the stars. Matthias. Was he even alive?

My breath came in painful gasps. I refused to consider the possibility that he was dead. I had to fight the need to go back for him. He’d asked me to trust him and I would. He just had to be alive, because if he wasn’t, then I was done.

Several vehicles shot out of the compound right before an even more violent explosion went off. The odds of us outrunning them seemed low. Instead, I led the girls into the watery marsh edging the encampment. Using the elephants’ strategy of hiding in plain view, we lay among a shallow bed of reeds and waited, watching as the men split up to search for us.

The girls and I pressed ourselves against the ground. While we waited, I grabbed my camera strap from my backpack, wrapped it around the top of my thigh, and improvised a tourniquet on my leg. I could feel the bullet, throbbing deep inside my thigh. I was still losing blood, but hopefully, I’d managed to slow the flow.

I concentrated on pulling off the escape and getting the girls to safety. If those enraged men caught up with us, the girls were going to be torn apart. They weren’t important to Lamba and I had no real way of protecting them. Never mind what Kumbuyo would do to me if he ever laid hands on me again. I shuddered.

I hated that I had no weapon to defend the girls. All I had was the rusted machete. We waited some more, listening to the sounds of battle still raging in the compound, until the search parties moved out farther. It was only then that the girls and I got going, a slow, cautious march over the dark plains.

The girls had been cowed in the cage, but out here, they were free and fierce and they seemed to know the terrain. We headed due south in a route perpendicular to that of the moon. The girls took turns helping Kanoni, and I took heart knowing they had a chance to see their friends back at the orphanage.

But it was rough going for me. Every step was agony. Pick up the pace, marine, I could hear my OCS instructor yelling at me. Are you made of sugar and spice? I was beginning to hallucinate. Jesus, Jade. Now it was Matthias shouting, running right next to my squad at oh-dark-hundred. Why the hell did you have to get shot?

I pushed myself to go as far and fast as possible. A few hours later, we were still going. Twice we had to duck when vehicles roared through the night. They came close, but each time we hugged the ground and hid among the acacias.

After a while, I had to stop. The last of my energy just drained out of me. I was shivering and probably suffering from shock resulting from blood loss. The pain radiated down my leg and up my spine, an absolute misery. I limped, dragging my leg and slowing down our progress. If these girls were going to remain free, they had to get to safety before the sun rose.

“Adisa,” I panted, coming to a sudden stop. “You go. Okay? Take the others. Find a ranger. You know what a ranger is?”

“Ranger.” She nodded. “Pacha Ziwa.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Go to Pacha Ziwa. Take this.” I unclasped one of my elephant earrings and pressed it into her hand. “Give it to the rangers. Tell them to give it to Zeke. He’ll know what to do.” My knees gave way and I dropped to the ground. “Go now. Go fast.”

Adisa and the girls seemed reluctant to leave me behind, but after a quick huddle, they dragged me over to a tree. In the darkness, they urged me to climb up. Sure. It made sense and I tried, but I was done, out of gas and fainting in between attempts. In the end, I collapsed against the tree trunk and insisted they go.

I watched them leave until they got lost in the darkness. Then it was just me, soaked in my own blood, sitting beneath a tree somewhere in the African savanna, with all of the Serengeti’s apex predators feeding in the night.