Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3) (22 page)

‘Fresh,’ said Buju, examining the
remains of the berries drying on the rock. ‘But it could just be
monkeys.’

Blaze’s stony expression suggested he
wasn’t convinced. He nodded a silent order to the others to check the cave and its
surroundings. They quickly fanned out, their eyes to the ground.

No Mercy spotted a patch of displaced earth.
He kicked away the dirt to reveal the ashes of a recent fire.

‘It must be them,’ he called to
Blaze.

One of the soldiers then found the charred
skin of a snake. He held it up for the others to see.

‘They killed and ate a black
mamba!’ he exclaimed with more than a little admiration.

Dredd wandered into the cave. His bare feet
crunched on the ground. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness before he
spied the pile of leaves near the back wall.

‘They slept in here,’ he
informed Blaze.

Feeling a crawling sensation, he looked down
to see a black mass swarming up his legs. His eyes widening in horror, Dredd bolted out
of the cave.

‘
Siafu!
Siafu!
’ he screamed, stamping his feet manically to dislodge the vicious
driver ants as No Mercy and the other soldiers laughed.

‘Dance, Dredd, dance!’ taunted
one of the men.

‘Silence!’ barked Blaze,
indifferent to the boy’s suffering. Turning his back on Dredd, he demanded of the
tracker: ‘How long since the kids were here?’

Buju found a half-eaten berry, its skin
dried out but its flesh still moist. ‘Ten minutes, maybe less.’

‘And which way did they go?’

The tracker’s eyes surveyed the
undergrowth. No stems were broken or leaves bruised. No foliage flattened. No footprints
in the earth. That left only one obvious route.

‘They’re following the
stream,’ he said.

Blaze unsheathed his machete, a grin on his
lips. ‘Now the hunt really begins.’

At first ankle-deep, the water was soon at
knee-height and on occasions Connor, Amber and Henri found themselves wading up to their
waists. The rocky bed made walking difficult and, as they followed the stream downhill,
the current strengthened, threatening to sweep them away. However, without any clear
paths through the dense undergrowth, Connor had determined that the stream was the
quickest and most direct route out of the jungle.

The three of them trekked in silence, Connor
taking the lead, Henri behind and Amber at the rear. She hadn’t brought up the
subject of their kiss and neither had he, but whenever he glanced back to check on them
she’d hold his gaze a moment before resolutely looking away. Connor couldn’t
tell whether this was through shyness, flirting or regret on her part. But there were
far greater things to worry about than the consequences of a kiss.

Once they had navigated the stream down to
the edge of the jungle, they’d have to cross the open savannah, avoiding
elephants, buffalos and lions, while trying not to be spotted by rebel militia. To make
matters worse, Connor
had no map and only a
vague idea of where the lodge was located. If by some miracle they did manage to reach
it safely, they still had to hope the facility was in government hands and that the
comms were functional.

The sheer scale of the task ahead seemed
impossible. But a phrase he’d once read in a book came to mind:
Don’t
try to eat an elephant for lunch
. The bizarre saying had confused him at first.
Then his gran had explained that it meant any task the size of an elephant should be
broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks. That way it wasn’t such a
daunting prospect. Applying the same principle to their current situation, Connor needed
to focus on leading them safely through the jungle. That would be his first goal.
Anything after that could wait.

The stream widened and Henri came up by his
side.

‘I never thought a safari would be
like this,’ he said, attempting a smile that only revealed how scared he really
was.

‘Nor did I,’ admitted Connor.
‘But you’ll have some story to tell your friends back home.’

‘Are we going to make it back
home?’ he asked, the simple question striking at the heart of their
predicament.

Connor looked him squarely in the eye and,
with as much confidence as he could muster, replied, ‘It’s my job to protect
you and your sister. I promise to get you both home safely.’

Henri became thoughtful for a moment.
‘So, will you ask my sister out when we get back?’

Connor almost stumbled and fell into the
water.
‘Ermm … I think you’ve
got the wrong idea. We were just washing off the ants.’

Henri gave him a sideways look that said
whatever
, then continued: ‘She likes you. I can tell.’

Connor glanced over his shoulder. Amber was
a few metres back, concentrating on keeping her balance over the rocky streambed.

‘It would be great if you were her
boyfriend,’ enthused Henri. ‘Then we could hang out more. We could go to
football matches together –’

Connor ruffled Henri’s hair.
‘Enough of your matchmaking. Let’s escape this jungle first, eh?’

As they were negotiating round a small
waterfall, they heard a distant voice cry out, ‘
Siafu! Siafu!
’

‘Did you hear that?’ said Amber,
exchanging a fearful look with Connor.

Connor nodded. He recalled Gunner’s
words:
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle in this
life; when the sun comes up, you’d better be running
.

They started running.

Clambering over the rocks and splashing
through the shallows, they fled downstream. While it was entirely possible the voice
didn’t belong to a rebel militia, Connor wasn’t willing to take that
gamble.

‘Go! Go!’ he urged, knowing they
had to put significant distance between themselves and their pursuers if they were to
have any chance of escaping capture.

But the water was slowing their progress.
And tiring them too. Henri tripped and fell face first into the stream. Connor
dragged him to standing, pushing him ahead
and alongside his sister. As the jungle thinned out and the waterway broadened, they
took to the bank and headed across firm ground. Despite the spiny bushes clawing at
their clothes, they were able to quicken their pace. But Connor realized they’d
now be leaving clear tracks for the gunmen to follow.

Behind, they heard another shout. Closer
this time.

Henri’s breathing was tight and ragged
and he was struggling to keep up. When they finally reached the edge of the jungle, he
was wheezing so badly that Connor thought he might collapse. Henri fumbled for his
inhaler and took two desperate puffs.

‘He can’t keep this up much
longer,’ panted Amber, leaning her brother against a tree to rest.

Looking out across the broad expanse of the
savannah, Connor knew they had no hope of outrunning the gunmen. Certainly not with
Henri’s asthma. Ahead of them were miles of rolling hills and high grasses,
interspersed with clumps of acacia trees, tangles of thorn bushes and solitary baobabs
rising up like sentinels from the red earth. In this terrain they’d be easy prey
for any predator – particularly a group of well-armed militia.

‘Perhaps we should just
surrender?’ Amber suggested. ‘I mean, why would they want to hurt us? Three
kids. We’re not a threat to anyone.’

‘The ambush we witnessed made us a
threat,’ replied Connor. He glanced down at his father’s knife and instantly
dismissed any notion of making a stand against the gunmen.

Yet while they
couldn’t run, they could hide.

‘The baobab,’ said Connor,
pointing to one of the immense trees that dominated the savannah.

‘What about it?’ asked
Amber.

‘People rarely look up,’
explained Connor.

Immediately comprehending his plan, Amber
urged Henri to his feet. Rushing over to the nearest baobab, a ten-metre-tall gnarled
specimen, Amber volunteered to climb the trunk first. The bark was knotty and offered
lots of handholds, and her bouldering skills enabled her to pick out the fastest route.
She ascended the trunk with the ease of a monkey. Once in the refuge of the lower
boughs, several metres above the ground, she hung herself over the edge.

‘Your turn, Henri,’ she said,
beckoning him to join her.

Her brother took one look and shook his
head. ‘I … can’t … do it,’ he gasped. ‘I’m too …
tired.’

‘Of course you can. With our
help,’ said Connor, cupping his hands to give him a boost. ‘Now hurry, they
can’t be far off.’

Snatching a last puff from his inhaler,
Henri took hold of a groove in the bark and, with immense effort, began to haul himself
up. While Amber guided her brother with the climb, Connor encouraged him from below.
Exhausted and wheezing, Henri slowly inched his way up the trunk. Connor willed him to
go faster, fully expecting to see the gunmen bearing down on them at any moment. But the
treeline remained clear … for the time being at least. What he did spot, however, caused
him to turn and sprint back to the jungle.

‘Where are
you going?’ Amber cried after him as she pulled her brother up the last metre.

Connor didn’t have time to explain. At
the jungle edge, he used his knife to cut a leafy branch from a low-hanging tree. Then,
retracing his steps to the baobab, he swept the dirt behind, obliterating all trace of
their tracks. When he reached the base of the baobab, he flung the branch as far as he
could, before launching himself at the tree trunk. Clawing his way up, he was almost to
the top when his foot slipped off a knot in the bark. He felt himself falling.

‘I’ve got you!’ said
Amber, her hand clamping on to his wrist.

With gritted teeth and her muscles
straining, she dragged him into the refuge of the boughs just as the gunmen burst from
the jungle.

Peering from their hiding-place, Connor was
stunned to see the small lithe figure of Buju guiding the rebel soldiers on to the
savannah. The tracker had seemed such a gentle and kind-hearted man. Now it was evident
that his quiet nature had been serving a duplicitous purpose. It also explained why the
tracker had stopped the convoy in the middle of the riverbed. And why he had suddenly
disappeared when the attack commenced. Buju was the one who’d betrayed the
president, his entourage and the Barbier family.

The tracker was the traitor.

Connor watched as Buju quickly spotted the
hewn branch on the tree, then knelt to examine the freshly swept earth – its colour ever
so slightly different from the surrounding soil. With a sinking feeling in his gut,
Connor realized they never had a chance in hell of eluding such a skilled tracker. His
only surprise was they’d not been found sooner.

Five soldiers – three men and two boys, all
armed with rifles – stood beside Buju as he studied the ground. Connor recognized one of
the boy soldiers by the black bandana on
his
head. He’d been the one firing with wild abandon into their Land Rover when
they’d been forced to turn back at the trench. The other boy, in an oversized
camo-jacket and red beret, toted a brand-new AK47 – and by the way he carried the weapon
it looked like he knew how to use it.