The tall man sweated outrage. Outrage tempered by intelligence. Enough to keep his head. He did not shout or demand. He stood with his hands at his sides and met Moochie’s gaze. The mercenary checked him out, posture loose, easy, his arms resting on the gun slung around his body. If any of those three men turned, looked too deep into the bush, they would see her. Rikki hoped Kimbareta wasn’t prone to hiccups.
“You look somewhat official,” Moochie said to the man. “Name?”
“Ekemi,” he said carefully. “I am the ranger for this region’s conservation office.”
“The park is several hours away. What are you doing down here, hiding in the bush?”
“Visiting friends,” said the man sternly, folding his arms over his chest. “And you?”
“Ditto,” Moochie replied, and reached out to snag the phone. The Ranger tried to stop him, but all he got for his trouble was the barrel of a gun pressed against his head.
“I need that,” he protested, but his voice was low, even. Controlled.
“It was nice of you to let the women use it.” Moochie dropped the satellite phone on the ground. Raised his foot and stomped hard, breaking the case. He did this, again and again, until little was left but the basic components. The Ranger watched in silence, fists clenched, a faint tremor in his jaw.
Moochie eyed him, brow raised. “You know who we are?”
“Mireille’s saviors.” The Ranger said it with some disdain, glancing sideways at the man holding the gun on him. “Corporate security force?”
“Something like that. Big money, small armies. All the shit that comes with it.” Moochie smiled tightly. “I guess you can go. If you see a white chick, short, hair like Tinkerbell—or a black dude, golden eyes—be sure to let someone know. There’s a … reward.”
“How fortunate,” replied the man, terse. “Given that you’ve obliterated my phone.”
“Morse code. Pots and pans. Sound travels.” Moochie glanced at the other mercenary and nodded. The man lowered his weapon, and pulled a pistol from the back of his pants. He handed it to Ekemi. The Ranger checked the ammunition and safety—leaving it off—then slid the gun home.
“You’ll be compensated for the phone,” Moochie said, moving away, scanning the jungle wall. He looked into the bushes where Rikki and Kimbareta were hiding. And made eye contact.
Rikki died. Moochie froze. Just long enough for her to know the game was up. But she did not move, or lift the rifle. She held her breath. Waiting. Watching Moochie stare.
Until, very slowly, he looked away. And kept on walking.
Rikki expected him to turn, but he never did. He gestured for the other man to follow, and left the Ranger. The man—Ekemi—slumped over the moment they were gone, bracing his hands on his knees. His glasses fell off. He bent, reaching for them, taking a moment while he was down there to toss around bits of phone—collecting chips and wires, tucking them in the palm of his hand. He was shaking. Muttering to himself. Behind, Amiri emerged from the undergrowth.
The shape-shifter moved without sound, gliding, muscles made of air. Deadly. Focused. Sliding right up against the Ranger’s back, while the man remained entirely oblivious. Rikki watched, breathless, unsure what she was about to witness: murder or a tap on the shoulder.
Amiri’s hand shot around the man’s head, covering his mouth. He jammed a knee between his shoulders, bending him back like a puppet. The Ranger bucked against his grip, twisting wildly, but Amiri dropped him so hard to the ground he bounced, wheezing.
Rikki scrabbled to her feet, leaves and vines dripping off her clothes and hair. She pulled Kimbareta with her. The boy was filthy, his face tear-streaked with dirt, but he did not make a sound. Not one. Kid had good instincts. Or experience in hiding.
“I have no wish to harm you,” Amiri hissed into the Ranger’s ear, but there was no need. The man no longer appeared to be listening. Or even aware he was held captive.
He stared at Rikki. He stared like he knew what he was looking at. He stopped struggling.
Amiri gave her a long look. She hefted the rifle. Kept the child behind her as she approached. The shape-shifter, very carefully, removed his hand from the man’s mouth.
“Do we know each other?” Rikki asked him, quiet.
“Doctor Regina Kinn,” said the man. “Dead woman.”
She set her jaw. “I’m starting to feel way too popular.”
“I know Jean-Claude,” he replied, and just like that, everything changed.
“He doing all right?” Rikki asked breathlessly, glancing over her shoulder.
“He is a good child,” Amiri replied. “No trouble.”
She looked away, back up the trail. Then, gave him another quick look. “Why did you take him?”
“Do you disagree?”
“No. It just wasn’t…practical.”
“He was there, a child. Men, coming with guns. I did not think about practicality.”
Rikki smiled. “Good.”
Good, indeed.
Amiri did not tell her that he was concerned for the child’s life in other ways. All those refugees from the camp, direct witnesses—they had been saved for a purpose. Whatever it was, it could not be good. Not if the Consortium were involved.
No one from the village had followed; Amiri was quite certain. He handed Kimbareta to Rikki after the second hour and doubled back for a short time, leaving his wrap hidden in a nest of vines before shifting shape to run the trail. He found nothing. Heard nothing that should not belong. He hardly trusted himself, though. It was only a matter of time before they were discovered. If not here, then elsewhere. The Consortium wanted Rikki too badly. And based on those photographs left in Kinsangani, there was also unfinished business with
him.
No doubt painful.
Night fell. Darkness, swollen and hot. Ekemi had a flashlight. He made them keep going. Rikki began to stumble more. Her breathing was rough, exhausted.
Finally, though, Amiri caught a shift in the breeze, new scents. The low hum of voices. “There are people ahead.”
Ekemi slowed. “There should be. But we are still some distance away.”
“He has good instincts,” Rikki said, and thankfully, the Ranger left it at that. Amiri continued to listen, though, judging and calculating. Wondering whether they could trust this man, though it seemed they had little choice. Rikki, if nothing else, seemed curious enough to take the risk. And Ekemi’s scent carried no tang of deception.
Less than a mile later, they entered a wide clearing filled with several whitewashed one-story buildings. Even without his advanced eyesight, Amiri would have been able to see them. Lanterns burned, as did open-air fires, flames contained in stone pits. People sat around the blazes, talking and laughing. Amiri heard the faint wails of Jimi Hendrix drifting on the night air.
“Groovy,” Rikki said, deadpan. “What is this? Jungle beach party?”
“Local volunteers,” Ekemi said. “They will not bother us.”
Perhaps not,
Amiri thought, but their group still suffered an uncomfortable amount of scrutiny, even though the Ranger took them on a circuitous path toward the buildings. Amiri noted several smaller, cruder structures erected on the periphery. Clothes hung on lines; pots and pans and buckets were stacked neatly on low tables set out beside curtained front doors. At one of them, Amiri heard murmuring, saw candlelight burning through a window; a man reading, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. At his side, a woman was painting her nails.
Ekemi began to walk past, then hesitated. “Do you want the child to stay with you?”
“Is there a reason he shouldn’t?” asked Rikki.
He shrugged, pushing his glasses higher on his nose. “I have no beds, but they …” He hesitated, pointing at the couple in the small structure. “University students from Kinshasa. Married, working on their thesis. They brought much of their own equipment, including cots. I am sure they could make room for one as small as him.”
Amiri hesitated. Part of him did not want to give the child up. He looked at Rikki and found the same uncertainty mirrored on her face. But Kimbareta stirred, eyes closed, sucking gently on his fist, and Amiri looked back through the window at the young man and woman, who were quiet, engaged, almost effortlessly normal.
“They are good people?” he asked, hugging the child a bit closer to his chest.
“Very,” Ekemi said. “And it would be only for tonight, until we can find something more comfortable for you all.”
Amiri shared another look with Rikki. She sighed, lifting one shoulder. A reluctant shrug.
Ekemi knocked on the door frame. The man pushed aside the curtain. He was tall and dark, his eyes quietly assessing. But when the situation was explained—heavily edited—he and his wife looked at the boy with genuine kindness, if not a little bewilderment, and Amiri began to breathe a little easier. Kimbareta hardly stirred from sleep as he was handed over.
“He’s been through a lot,” Rikki said to them in French, her fingers finding Amiri’s wrist. “Be careful with him.”
“Of course,” said the woman, smiling, rocking the boy with a sway like water. She turned away and disappeared behind the gauze of a mosquito net. Rikki continued to stare after the vanished child. Brow furrowed. Still concerned. He understood exactly how she felt.
Ekemi wished the other man goodnight, and led them away to one of the white buildings, the largest, set off-center on the edge of the clearing. It was squat, with a metal roof. Painted beside the door, on the building itself, was a small sign:
ICCN: L’INSTITUT CONGOLAIS POUR LA CONSERVATION DE LA NATURE.
“Congo’s wildlife service,” Ekemi said, unlocking the door. “This is our first outpost in this particular region. Forgive the humble circumstances.”
Humble, indeed,
thought Amiri, a moment later. The room they entered was hot, stuffy, and almost completely empty except for two chairs and one table, which held a kerosene lantern and several file folders. A narrow gun cabinet had been nailed to the whitewashed walls. At opposite ends were two more doors. The air smelled like sweat and fresh paint.
Ekemi took a book of matches from his pocket and lit the lamp. “We are lucky to have funding for guns, let alone this roof over our heads.”
Rikki made a humming sound, turning in a full circle. “Must make your job more difficult.”
He shrugged. “It could be worse. We are not like Virunga. Their pressures are much greater. More rebels, more skirmishes. Over a hundred rangers dead in ten years. All for the gorillas, the hippos, those damn ivory tusks.”
“Mysteries, dying,” Amiri murmured to himself. Rikki gave him a curious look. Ekemi did not seem to hear. He had already gone through one of the other doors.
Rikki followed him. “Tell me how you know Jean-Claude.”
“We are old friends from Kinshasa,” he called back, his flashlight beam bouncing through the darkness. Amiri heard a rattling sound. “Both of us liked the idea of being big men in uniform, but I had the education and Jean-Claude did not. So. Conservation. Soldier. We are both moderately happy with our lives.”
Ekemi returned, his arms full of water bottles and small tins, which he dumped on the table. Amiri saw peanuts, beef jerky, and a variety of other things he was not entirely keen on consuming. What he really needed was a good hot cup of tea. And a nice rare steak.
He sighed. “How did you recognize Rikki?”
The Ranger smiled, cracking open some peanuts. He handed the tin to Rikki. “Jean-Claude sent me a picture several years ago. You had longer hair then.”
“I had to cut it.”
Rikki’s voice was flat, empty. Amiri bumped her elbow. Reassurance. She leaned into him. Ekemi did not miss the gesture, but his gaze flicked away and he cleared his throat, passing out water.
“Jean-Claude phoned last night. His old UN contacts informed him of the kidnapping attempt. Said, too, that the camp you had been working at had been razed to the ground by rebel forces. When he did not hear from you, he became concerned. Asked that I… keep an ear out. Listen for news.”
“You called me a dead woman.”
“That is what Jean-Claude was told. No survivors.” Ekemi folded his arms over his chest, eyeing them both. “But you would not be running as you have, not unless there is more to the story.”
“Much more,” Rikki said. “You should ask Jean-Claude. He tried to warn me.”
“Then he did more for you than me. Something has scared him.”
“Not easy to do,” Rikki said.
Amiri wondered if he should feel a bit jealous of this man, Jean-Claude, who seemed to be so concerned with Rikki’s life. Trying to imagine someone else holding her heart made a worm twist in his gut, a rather ugly one, and he decided that, yes, it was quite appropriate to feel a modicum of jealousy.
“Do you have another phone?” he asked. “It is urgent.”
Ekemi shook his head. “That phone the mercenary destroyed was our only. I took it with me everywhere, simply because it was so precious. But…you are not entirely out of luck. There is a Catholic mission, some twenty miles east. They have a radio. Weak transmission, but it could get a message out.”
Better than nothing. “I can go tonight if you give me instructions.”
Rikki stiffened. Ekemi looked incredulous. “Tonight? In the dark? Sir, I do not know what your profession is, but that is suicide. The Congo has no mercy.”
“Neither do I,” Amiri replied. “I know what I am doing. I can be there by morning.” Sooner, in all probability. He might even be able to return here by dawn, if all went well.
The problem was leaving Rikki behind. No place was safe for her. He wondered if she would ever be safe, with the knowledge in her head. Or whatever else the Consortium might desire from her.
A chilling thought. He glanced at Rikki, and she shot him a look like chewing glass. As much as he wanted to be alone with her, he was suddenly quite glad they were not.
She tore her gaze from him. “No disrespect intended, Ekemi, but why are you helping us? It’s dangerous. People are dying left and right.”
The Ranger leaned against the table, searching her face. Smiling, ever so faintly. “You ask that question of a man who would sacrifice his life for a gorilla? Come now, Doctor Kinn. A woman in need is far more appealing than a hairy primate, no matter how much I love them.”
Rikki snorted, drinking from her water bottle. Ekemi’s own smile widened, but only for a moment. He looked at Amiri, and something brittle crept into his gaze. His lips slanted into a grimace. “There is a bad spell going on. Deep in the forest. Things are happening that no one can explain, but those men who came for you today at Mireille’s camp are part of it.”
“Explain.”
Ekemi popped a handful of peanuts into his mouth. “This park is so new it hardly has a name. Less than six months old, on the books, recognized by the ICCN. But it is huge. Vast. A gift from the government to its people, I was told.”
“But it bothers you,” Rikki said. “Something stinks.”
“It should not,” Ekemi replied. “I should be delighted. But though Zaire is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, little has changed, especially in the way of politics. So, while there are rumors of gorillas and other critical species in these forests, the recent concession of land remains…too good to be believed. And there is far
too
much corruption in the current government to believe in
much.”
Something hard settled in Amiri’s gut. “You think the government has made an arrangement.”
“A man could build an empire in this jungle and no one would know it. Men make themselves God and Country, and all it takes is money and charisma and guns.”
“Those men in Mireille’s camp,” Rikki said. “Have you seen them before?”
“Others just like them. They stop here occasionally, ostensibly to see how we are doing. Foreign mercenaries, mostly, though some militias have come this way. Passing through. I have been given instructions to let them do just that, and not to follow as they move deeper into the jungle.” He smiled bitterly. “This makes me a conservationist in name only, but I am outnumbered and outgunned, and there is no one to hear my concerns.”
“So, what you are saying,” Amiri replied carefully, “is that these men are established, somewhere in this jungle.”
“Established and safe, with helicopters coming and going at all hours.”
“What a terrible way to keep a secret,” Rikki muttered. “How do the other people here feel about all this?”
“They know little of the politics. All they care is that this is a new park, with little competition for research spots. Almost all the people here are graduate students, like the couple who are caring for the child you brought.” He shrugged, chewing a peanut. “Blind to everything but the wildlife. Some may be leaving soon, though. The forest has begun to … unnerve them. They claim to have seen strange creatures.
Bouda,
specifically.”
“Bouda?”
Rikki echoed.
“Shape-shifters,” Amiri said, voice flat. “Members of a tribe that have been attributed with having the power to transform into hyenas. More of a western African myth than central, I would say.”
“Nonetheless. The students tell me they have seen animals who walk on two feet. Golden glowing eyes.” Ekemi gave Amiri a long searching look. “To be honest, when I first saw you, I wondered. I have never met a man with eyes such as yours.”
“Superstitious,” Amiri said, but he thought of what the children had told him, back at the village, and the hairs rose on his neck like little claws. He felt Rikki watching him.
Ekemi pushed away from the table. “I have sleeping bags you can use. I would offer you my own bed if I had one.”