Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3) (31 page)

Then he happened to glance up.

Peering menacingly from the bough of a tree
were two glassy green orbs.

Without his night vision the leopard would
have been entirely invisible to him, a ghost in the night. But Connor could just about
discern the sleek outline of the big cat, the white tip of its tail twitching … then a
flash of its fearsome pointed canines as it opened its jaws and pounced from the
tree.

‘I’m getting nowhere,’
explained an infuriated Charley to Colonel Black in his office. ‘Connor’s
phone isn’t responding. The safari lodge is no longer answering. The Burundian
French Embassy’s closed for the weekend and their emergency number goes straight
to answerphone. When I did eventually manage to reach President Bagaza’s office in
Bujumbura, the secretary said that she’d get back to me right away, but that was
four hours ago and I still haven’t heard anything from her. What’s more,
that office is about to close too.’

‘That’s Africa for you,
Charley,’ said Colonel Black, his expression both sympathetic and grim.
‘Have you tried the hospitals?’

Charley nodded. ‘There’s only
one that answered and I spoke to some poor overworked doctor, Dr Emmanuel Ndayi …
Ndayikunda, or at least I think that’s how you pronounce it. He said he’d
check the records for me now. I’m still waiting for his call back.’

‘Don’t hold out too much
hope,’ replied the colonel, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the desk.
‘From
my experience of Africa,
“now” means some time in the next few days.’

‘So what
can
we do?’
Charley implored, her hands gripping the armrests of her chair in frustration.
‘Connor’s missed all his report-ins for the past twenty-four hours.
Something’s gone drastically wrong. I feel it in my heart.’

‘I agree. A communication black-out of
this length warrants emergency action.’ The colonel picked up the phone.
‘Let’s contact the Burundian commander-in-chief and establish if he has any
news of the situation.’

Colonel Black dialled a number that took him
straight through to the military headquarters in Burundi. After speaking with several
subordinates, he eventually worked his way up the ranks and was put through to the man
himself.

‘Major-General Tabu Baratuza
here,’ barked the commander-in-chief over the speakerphone. ‘How can I be of
assistance, Colonel? But please be quick. I was due at a formal dinner an hour
ago.’

‘My apologies for disturbing you this
evening, General. However, we’ve a legitimate cause for concern regarding the
well-being of your president and the visiting French ambassador and his
family.’

‘Go on,’ said the major-general,
the softening of his tone indicating that the colonel had captured his full
attention.

‘We have a security operative
protecting the French ambassador’s children,’ Colonel Black explained.
‘For the past twenty-four hours we’ve had no contact from him and we
can’t reach the party by any other means. This is highly
irregular. Have you had any recent communication with the
president or his guard at the Ruvubu safari lodge?’

The major-general paused a moment before
replying, clearly evaluating his own answer. ‘Yes. I received a request from the
president the other day to send some soldiers into sector eight of Ruvubu National
Park.’

‘For what reason?’

‘I’m not at liberty to divulge
such information. But this morning that request was cancelled.’

Colonel Black frowned. ‘Isn’t
that rather unusual?’

‘Not really. The president is known
for changing his mind.’

The colonel leant back in his leather chair,
a deeply pensive expression on his face. ‘Before we lost contact, our operative
mentioned rumours of the Black Mamba. I am wondering if this is somehow connected to our
operative’s lack of comms.’

The major-general cleared his throat.
‘I’ve heard those rumours too. But I can assure you that they’re just
rumours. However, Colonel, I’ll look into your concerns
now now
and
ensure someone gets back to you. Have a good evening.’

As the Burundian commander-in-chief cut the
connection, Colonel Black raised a surprised eyebrow at Charley. ‘He’ll look
into it
now now
! If we’re lucky, that means we might hear back within an
hour. Don’t hold your breath, though.’

But they only had to wait half that time
before the major-general himself called them back.

‘Colonel,
we’re getting zero response from the presidential guard or any of our soldiers
stationed there,’ he informed them. ‘Hopefully it’s just a comms
issue, but to be sure I’m dispatching a unit of troops to the park immediately.
They’ll be there at first light.’

A spine-chilling growl. A slash of razor-sharp claws. A dead weight landing on his
shoulders, knocking him to the ground. Amber pinned beneath him, screaming. Claws
raking into his back. Snarling jaws ripping apart his Go-bag. His vision filling
with a blinding fire. Then blackness …

Connor parted his eyes. The early glow of
dawn was visible on the horizon. Birds sang softly from the trees and insects hummed in
the long grass. The embers of a campfire smouldered gently, sending up a plume of hazy
grey smoke. In the middle was a flat rock upon which three plump white sausages sizzled,
browning as they cooked.

Lying prone on the ground, Connor felt as if
his back was on fire, cooking like those sausages. Then someone pressed a smooth paste
into his wounds, soothing the burning sensation. As the pain subsided, Connor sighed and
closed his eyes. But the relief was short-lived. All of a sudden he felt a sharp pinch
on his shoulder as if he’d been bitten.

Looking for the source of the attack, he saw
a young black girl with rounded cheeks and bright eyes kneeling
beside him. He also spotted four raw bloody lines across his
left shoulder, scored by the claws of the leopard, one gouge particularly deep. The girl
applied more red-brown paste to this cut, then held a wriggling driver ant between her
fingertips and brought the insect near to the wound.

‘No!’ he croaked, but was too
late to stop her.

The driver ant’s pincers bit either
side of his cut, closing the wound. As soon as its jaws had clamped on to his skin, the
girl ripped the ant’s body off, leaving the head behind. Too stunned and too weak
to protest, Connor watched as she methodically stitched together his injury with live
driver ants. Soon he had a neat row of ant heads, like black sequins, across his
shoulder.

‘Who are you?’ he groaned when
she’d finished.

‘Her name’s Zuzu,’ replied
Amber on the girl’s behalf. ‘She’s from a nearby Batwa
tribe.’

Connor turned his aching head the other way.
Amber was sitting on a rock, picking at the dry white flesh of a baobab fruit and
chewing contentedly. ‘You saved my life yet again,’ she said.

‘Did I?’

Amber smiled. ‘Don’t you
remember?’

Connor shook his head. For him the whole
experience of the leopard attack was a fragmented series of flashing nightmares.

‘All I heard was this terrifying
roar,’ she explained. ‘I couldn’t see a thing. But you wrapped
yourself round me, shielding me from the leopard. You wouldn’t let go, even though
the leopard was ripping
you
to shreds.’ Amber
shook her head in disbelief at his courageous act.
‘Now I know what you mean by body cover!’

She winked at him and took a sip from the
water bottle stolen from the poacher’s camp.

Connor tried to sit up, but pain flared
across his back.

‘Is it bad?’ he asked, imagining
his skin flayed and the flesh stripped to the bone.

Amber glanced at his wounds and grimaced.
Then she asked Zuzu, ‘
Est-ce qu’il va s’en sortir?
’

The girl replied in French and Amber
translated, ‘Zuzu says they have a saying in their tribe:
From every wound
there is a scar. And every scar tells a story. A story that says, “I
survived
.
”
So I think that means you’ll live.’

Amber held up the tattered remains of his
Go-bag. ‘But I’m afraid your backpack isn’t leopard proof.’

She then showed him his bloodstained shirt.
Four claw marks were ripped across one shoulder, but the rest of the fabric was
undamaged. ‘What saved you was your shirt! I’ve no idea how, but it’s
a miracle your back wasn’t torn apart.’

‘The shirt’s stab-proof,’
Connor explained, groaning as Zuzu helped him into a sitting position.
‘Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop you from being beaten to a pulp. But how on
earth did we escape the leopard?’

Amber directed her gaze to Zuzu.
‘That’s thanks to our new friend here. Zuzu was camped nearby. She heard my
screaming and came running. She chased off the leopard with a flaming branch from her
fire.’

Zuzu rattled off some more words as she
lightly rubbed
the oil from a split
aloe-vera stem on to Connor’s bruises and scrapes, delivering instant relief.
Connor looked to Amber for a translation.

‘She says we’re extremely lucky
to have survived the attack. That particular leopard’s known among her tribe as
the Spotted Devil. It’s a man-eater!’

As Amber told him this, there was an
incongruous smile on her face.

‘What are you looking so happy
about?’ asked Connor, perplexed by her upbeat mood. ‘We could have been
killed!’

Her smile widened. ‘Henri’s
alive!’

Any pain Connor had been feeling was washed
aside by a wave of elation. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d
given Henri up for dead.

‘How do you know this? Where is
he?’ Connor asked hurriedly.

‘Zuzu saw a group of rebel soldiers
taking a white boy with red hair towards Dead Man’s Hill,’ Amber explained
as she passed him the water bottle. ‘It can only be my brother.’

‘We should have known that rebel was
lying to us!’ muttered Connor, shaking his head bitterly at the man’s
callous deceit. Taking a swig from the water bottle, he knocked back another antibiotic
and a couple more painkillers. ‘We have to reach the lodge as soon as possible and
–’

‘No,’ cut in Amber.
‘We’re going to Dead Man’s Hill.’

Connor blinked, stunned at her unexpected
announcement. ‘But we don’t even know where that is from here.’

‘Zuzu does. She says it’s that
way,’ responded Amber, pointing north across the plain. ‘And she’ll
guide us there.’

The bush girl nodded emphatically as she
finished tending to his back.

‘But
that’s the opposite direction to the lodge,’ said Connor. ‘Besides,
what are you planning to do when we get there?’

‘Rescue my brother, of
course.’

Connor stared open-mouthed at Amber,
wondering if she’d lost her grip on reality. ‘Look, we’re tired,
hungry and hurting. We’re in no state to launch a rescue mission. More to the
point, those rebels won’t let us simply stroll into their camp and take your
brother from under their noses. Not without a fight.’

‘I know that,’ snapped Amber,
glaring at him for even suggesting she was so naive. ‘But if we don’t try to
rescue him now, we might never find him again … alive, at least.’