WAR: Disruption (5 page)

Emily once again opened her mouth as if to protest.

“Do I need to tie you to the tree?”

Her head rocked back in shock. “N-no.”

“Good.” Not giving her time to protest again, he walked away, removing his pistol from its holster as he moved.

Once he cleared the trees, the shadowy outlines of other houses took shape along the side of the road. But the glow of lanterns and cooking fires was missing. He didn’t hear any conversation. Didn’t scent food, even though it was dinnertime.

He counted houses. When he was near Sulaiman’s place, he walked across the narrow concrete slab that spanned the open sewage ditch running parallel to the road. On the other side, a path led between Sulaiman’s house and its neighbor. There was still no sign of other people. Max picked his way through the deep shadows between the houses, hoping that his friend was safe.

On the concrete rear patios, cooking pots hung over charcoal braziers, the coals thankfully cold. Bikes and stools lay on their sides in yards or on the dirt walkways, as if the villagers had left in a hurry. But Max didn’t see any signs of violence. He figured the villagers must have been warned that the rebels were coming and fled into the jungle. Because if the rebels had found them, there’d be corpses.

Sulaiman’s gate was ajar and the front door was open. Max moved cautiously into the yard and up the two concrete steps to the narrow porch. He pushed the door wider and swept the room beyond with his weapon.

Empty.

He carefully picked his way through the house. Toys littered the concrete floor in the kids’ room. Flies buzzed over plates of partially eaten food left on the dining table. Max touched a bowl of stew. Cold. So, they’d left a while ago.

Reassured that his friend and his family weren’t lying injured or dead in one of the four rooms, he headed outside. To be safe, he conducted a house-to-house search, pulling the night vision goggles out of his backpack once the light failed completely. It was unsettling to see the deserted yards and hear nothing, not even a stray chicken. But at least the absence of bodies meant both that the rebels hadn’t attacked and that sudden disease hadn’t swept through, killing everyone.

When he returned to Emily forty-five minutes later, he found her standing exactly where he’d left her. Her fingernails had sunk deep into the bark of the tree where he’d placed her hand. Her eyes stared fixedly into space.

Christ. She really
had
been terrified. Had she even blinked in the entire time he’d been gone?

He stopped before he got too close, not wanting to scare her. “Emily?” he called quietly. “You okay?”

She didn’t answer. He took off his night vision goggles, knowing they made him look like a freaky bug, and inched forward. “It’s okay, Emily. The village is safe. You can come in now.”

Still no answer.

“Emily!” He waved his hand in front of her face. “Snap out of it.”

She shuddered and blinked several times, then turned her head toward him. “M-Max?”

“Yeah.”

“You c-came back.”

Oh, hell. “Of course I did. I told you I would.” He reached out and pried her fingers away from the tree. Jesus, her skin was freezing.

“B-but… The rebels… Might have killed you… A-and… You have no reason to take me with you…”

Great. Now he felt like a complete asshole for leaving her. Even though it had been the right decision. “I’m not going to abandon you, okay? I promise.” He rubbed her hand with his, trying to warm her up. “I’m going to deliver you safe and sound to the embassy.”

“O-okay.” But he could tell she didn’t believe him.

“You’re doing great, Emily. Just hang on a little longer.”

She gave him a weak smile and shrugged, which only increased his sense of having failed her.

Wait. Failed her? He barely knew her. He didn’t owe her anything except the safe passage he’d promised her. He cleared his throat. “C’mon, there’s a car at the chief’s house we can borrow. We’ll pick up some supplies, as well.” He took her hand and placed it on his backpack. “Hold onto me. I’ve got night vision goggles, so I can see where we’re going.”

Once he felt her grab tightly onto the pack, he moved out.

“Are we going to spend the night here?” she asked as they walked into the village.

“No. Too dangerous.” Sulaiman wouldn’t mind if Max used his house, but the empty village would be an obvious place for Ziegler and the rebels to search.

It didn’t take long to reach the chief’s house. Underneath the corrugated metal roof of the attached carport, the grill of the old Cadillac gleamed faintly in a sideways beam of moonlight.

“I’ll check if the car runs. Why don’t you see if they have any food that we can eat on the go?” People in this region cooked most of their meals, so there probably wouldn’t be much that they could eat raw. “Just enough to get us through tomorrow, when we should reach the capital.” Max slipped off his rucksack and placed it by the back door of the car. “Here, take the night vision goggles. I can see pretty well in the dark.” He passed her the goggles and showed her how to adjust them to her smaller head.

After removing her own pack, Emily gave him a nod. She peeked into the storeroom, then cautiously stepped inside.

Max found the keys to the Caddy hanging on a peg inside the side door of the chief’s house. The engine started right up and he grinned. Finally, a lucky break. The tank was even three-quarters full. He poured in enough gas to top it off, then grabbed a couple of full jerry cans from the carport just in case they were on the road long enough to need to refuel. As he placed the last one in the trunk, he heard the rumble of a vehicle on the road.

He slammed the trunk closed and ran for the storeroom. “Company’s coming,” he called softly. “We’ve got to go.”

Emily shoved a box of supplies into his arms and picked up a bulging nylon sack of the type that the locals used to haul everything from groceries to clothes. They ran to the Cadillac and shoved everything into the back seat.

He’d just reached for the door handle when two rebels holding AK-47’s stepped out from the trees behind the house. They froze in surprise when they noticed Max and Emily. Emily gasped. The rebels yelled a warning and raised their rifles.

Max pulled his pistol and shot them each in the chest. Twice.

Emily screamed.

“Get in the car!” He jumped behind the wheel. When Emily didn’t open her door, he looked over and saw that she was staring in shock at the dead rebels.

Cursing, he reached across the console and pushed open her door. “Emily. Get in the damn car. Now. Before the rest of the rebels arrive.”

She shook her head slightly, as if waking from a trance. Glanced warily at him. “T-they’re dead. You k-killed them.”

“What the hell did you expect? They’re rebels. They were going to shoot us. Get in the car or I’m leaving you here.”

“B-but—” She took a step back. “Y-you didn’t even think about it. Y-you just shot them.”

Christ. “Yes. It’s us or them.” What was her problem? He’d seen a threat and eliminated it. “I saved your life. If you want to stay alive, get in the fucking car.”

With one more frightened glance at the bodies, Emily slid into the passenger seat.

Max slammed his foot on the accelerator and drove out the back of the village.

With a squeak of protest, Emily lunged for her swinging door and pulled it shut.

He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw headlights turn toward the village.

“Give me the goggles.” He held out his hand.

With a small sob, Emily yanked the night vision goggles off her head and slapped them into his palm. He fitted them in place one handed. Ah, much better. Now he could see the worn earth where the villagers walked to the fields.

Keeping the Cadillac’s headlights off, he turned right. A patch of waist-high cassava plants flanked them on the left, while on their right the houses shielded them from detection by anyone on the road.

 
Emily sat tensely in the passenger seat, her breathing choppy again. “Easy, Em. We’re going to be okay. Just take deep breaths.”

“I—” Her panicked breathing was loud enough to hear over the grumble of the Caddy’s engine. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. Took several deep, shuddering breaths before snapping, “Maybe you’re used to seeing people die. For all I know, you kill people every day. But I don’t. I’m sorry, but I’m not okay with watching anyone get gunned down in front of me.” She shook her head and added, “It’s not normal.”

“Normal?” Spotting the main road up ahead, he turned left before reaching it, staying within the tall mix of grasses and bushes that ran alongside the road. “Emily, for this part of the world, that
was
normal.” By her definition, his life hadn’t been normal since the day he’d joined the Marines. “You should be glad I handled it the way I did, or you’d be lying dead back there.”

She flinched and scooted closer to the door.

Great. Now he’d scared her.

“Listen, I’m not a threat to you, okay? I promised that I’d keep you safe. That’s what I’m doing, whether you approve or not.”

She didn’t answer, but at least her panicked breathing quieted. He could live with that.

After several minutes, the road cut sharply across the jungle in front of him. Since the bend would hide them from any pursuers, Max eased the Cadillac onto the road, turned south, and increased their speed.

“Are we safe now?” Emily asked a few minutes later.

Max glanced in the rearview mirror. No sign of other vehicles. “Yeah—” A Jeep rounded the bend behind them. “Shit. No.” It wouldn’t take long before the other vehicle’s headlights caught the Caddy.

He saw the muzzle flashes as someone in the Jeep opened fire.

“Max!”

“I know.” In a normal race on a flat, smooth surface, the Cadillac would leave the Jeep far behind. But the potholes and ruts in the dirt road gave the Jeep the advantage. Max searched his memory for someplace they could pull off and ditch the Caddy. Dammit, he couldn’t remember. He’d only spent one night at Sulaiman’s house before moving on. That had been months ago. And while he always mapped emergency exit routes wherever he was, he couldn’t recall the lay of the land in this direction. He thought there were only a handful of villages along this route before a side road intersected. But that was miles away.

The rebels fired off a long volley of shots.

Emily screamed, then slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”

He shook his head, then rubbed his ear. Damn, but the woman had a pair of lungs on her. “Don’t panic. They’re too far away to be dangerous. The idiots are just wasting ammunition.”

They reached a patch of smooth, hard-packed dirt and Max stomped hard on the accelerator. The needle inched up on the speedometer and the rebels dropped farther behind. By the time they hit the next spot of rough road, the rebels had disappeared from view. “Keep your eyes open for another village.”

She threw a startled glance at him from wide eyes. “What? Why?”

“They’ve seen this vehicle. We need to swap it for something different.” He kept an eye on the rearview mirror and saw the headlights of their pursuers appear about a mile behind.

“Scratch that. Help me find a place where we can get off the road and hide until they pass by.”

“But… Won’t they see our tire tracks? Or our dust?”

“We’re not kicking up that much dust. And the road’s surface is too hard to show our tire tracks. Plus, it’s dark. We just need to find a place to pull off where we won’t leave an obvious trail of flattened grass.”

“I… Okay.”

A few minutes later, she pointed to a dirt trail heading into the tall Guinea grass along the right side of the road. Max drove along the trail until it met the edge of the jungle, then continued inside the edge of the jungle for several minutes, before finally parking behind a cluster of banana trees. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He hopped out and walked quickly back to the road to reduce the signs of their passage. He waited just out of sight until he saw the rebel Jeep roar past, then he returned to the vehicle

“Are we safe
now
?” Emily asked after he’d closed his door.

He shrugged. “The rebels have passed. We’ll wait half an hour to give them time to get far ahead of us and to make sure there’s not another truck coming. Then we’ll drive along the edge of the road until we find another village. Hopefully they’ll have a vehicle we can exchange for the Cadillac. We’ll drive to the capital, I’ll take you to the embassy, and you’ll be on your way home before you know it. In the meantime, you should grab something to eat and drink. Sleep a bit. I’ll keep watch.”

She gave him a dubious look, but he stared her down. He was used to going without rest. Besides, with the pain he was in, he doubted he had any chance of sleeping.

Finally, she shrugged. She undid her seatbelt and eased into the back seat. “Okay, what can I get you to eat?”

“I don’t care. Anything.” His mind wasn’t on food, although he knew he needed the fuel.

Taking Emily to the embassy was the opposite of what he’d had planned. He’d expected to be able to find someone at Sulaiman’s village to take her the rest of the way while he healed. The clock in his head was ticking down the days until Dietrich’s big deal. Before he’d been captured the deal had been scheduled to take place in about sixteen days. He’d spent one day of that time chasing down leads. Then he’d been captured. Escaped on the third day. That left twelve days until the deal. It had taken him one day to reach the point where the tro-tro had picked him up last night. As of today, he had roughly ten days to figure out where the deal was going to be and find a way to stop it. Assuming the initial timing had been correct.

Shit. He didn’t have
time
to play white knight.

He closed his eyes and gave a deep sigh. Like he had any choice. He couldn’t leave Emily to make her own way to the capital. With the rebels on patrol and Ziegler acting more aggressively than usual, Max would have to take her all the way to the embassy gates.

And hope that no one on duty had been warned about him.

“WHAT DO YOU mean, you lost track of Maximilian?” Such incompetence belonged to the rebels, which is why Dietrich had not given them sole responsibility for finding Max. “I expected better of you, Herr Ziegler.”