Guarding the Princess(22)

“The border!” Amal said to Mbogo. “They’re heading for Botswana!” He turned abruptly and barked at his men. “Saddle up the horses! Get the jeeps fueled! Take whatever supplies we need from the lodge. We start moving within the hour!”

* * *

The air was growing thick with smoke. Brandt wiped rain from his eyes and quickly positioned the jack under the front bumper of the jeep where he’d dug out sand. Dalilah stood at his shoulder, rifle in her good hand as she nervously watched the advancing fire. He began jacking fast. Rain hammered down relentlessly, pocking the sand. Across the riverbed on the Botswana side, brown water was beginning to flow faster and deeper.

“Get some of that driftwood,” he barked at Dalilah, jerking his chin to a pile of bone-white branches in the center of the river. Brandt hated asking her. She had to be in serious pain, but she was right about one thing—they’d get out of here faster if they worked as a team. And she’d shocked him with her ability, her resilience. Instead of being the whining, pampered hindrance he’d expected, Princess was a trouper, and he could use her.

The flip side was that if the Tsholo did come down in a flash flood, as he’d seen happen before at the beginning of the wet season, they’d both be swept to their deaths.

I’d rather face a flash flood than be raped by Amal’s men and have my head cut off...

She was right about that. It would be better for her to die with him than be left alone at the mercy of Amal and his men. Determination fired into Brandt at the thought of what that jackal and his band of rabid dogs might do to Dalilah, and he held on to that, pumping the jack fiercely, shirt plastered to his back. He’d tear those bastards apart limb from limb before he allowed them to lay one hand on her.

The image of another woman slammed suddenly into his mind—her throat slit. Her body brutalized. And for a nanosecond Brandt was blinded. He froze, hearing Carla’s screams in the wind.

No. Not now. That was the past. History did not have to repeat itself. And it wouldn’t—not if he stayed focused, if he refused to allow himself to get too emotionally vested, or distracted.

He bit deeper into his determination as he continued to work. Thunder boomed above, the sound rolling into the kloofs and hills. He could hear the crackling of fire in branches now. Smoke burned the back of his throat and his eyes watered.

Finally the jeep chassis began to lift from the sand.

Dalilah returned with a bundle of dry wood under her right arm. She dropped the driftwood to the sand at his feet, exhausted, hair sticking to her cheeks as she bent over to cough and catch her breath. Compassion speared through Brandt. He quickly started packing the wood under the front wheel then he lowered the jeep, removed the jack and tossed it into the backseat. He hopped into the driver’s seat and fired the ignition. Slowly, he pressed down on the gas. The front wheel turned, whined, almost edging up onto the wood, but the vehicle fell back into the ruts

“Dalilah, can you push? We need something extra so the wheel can find purchase on the wood.”

Shoving wet hair back from her face, she went round to the rear of the vehicle. Again, he carefully pressed down on the accelerator. The wheels whined as Dalilah leaned into the rear, using her good arm.

“Easy, easy,” Brandt whispered as he felt the jeep beginning to move. “Please, baby, come on, come on, you can do it.” The headlights panned ahead, illuminating the white river sand. Brandt had no idea whether the rain was packing it hard, or turning it into quicksand—soft and dangerous. Even if they did get the jeep unstuck, they still might not make it across all the way now. But it was the rising pools on the far side that really worried him. Then there was the steep wall of a bank. He glanced at the dashboard clock—3:23 a.m. If this didn’t work—if they couldn’t get this jeep over the Tsholo border and into Botswana within the next fifteen minutes, he was going to abort the attempt, take what he could from the jeep and hightail it out on foot. But that would lower their odds of survival on the other side tenfold.

Suddenly, the front tire bit. Brandt’s heart lurched as the jeep kicked forward. Dalilah fell with a smack to the sand as the vehicle shot out from under her. She let out a cry of pain as she hit the sand, then scrambled to her feet and ran after the jeep. Brandt could not apply the brakes now. They’d sink. So he kept going, slow, steady as he leaned over and flung open the passenger door.

“Run, Dalilah! Jump in!”

She leaped in, scrambling up onto the seat as he increased gas, steady, steady, until with relief he felt the sand turning solid beneath the tires. Behind them on the Zimbabwe side from which they’d come, the riverine fringe was now completely ablaze. Even if they wanted to return, they couldn’t. There was only one way, and that way was forward.