“Careful. Enamel is hot, stays hot,” he said as he handed her the mug.
The tea was dark and sweet and tasted like nectar.
He opened a plastic baggie and offered it out to her. “Biltong?
She regarded the dark twists of dried meat in the bag.
“Kudu,” he said. “It’s like jerky, except better. Spiced and salty—salt will help with the sweat loss.”
“I know what it is. Thanks, but no.”
“Dalilah—”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Suit yourself.” He repackaged the biltong, not taking anything for himself.
“It’s not because it’s meat,” she said. “I’m just not hungry.”
He shrugged. He was busy fiddling with the camera, inspecting the zoom.
“Looks expensive,” she said as she sipped her tea.
“Poor tourists from Germany had their bags all packed for a morning game drive.” He stuffed the camera into the pack. “They wouldn’t have gone anywhere in that rain, though.”
“Is that an attempt to assuage your guilt for stealing their stuff?”
“I was just doing my job.”
“Even if it means robbing others in order to collect your paycheck at the end of the day?” She took another sip of tea. “I guess that’s the definition of mercenary.”
He resecured the sleeping bag to the bottom of the pack, which was looking rather big and heavy now. “You can’t push my buttons, Dalilah.”
“I’m sure I can.”
He shot her a challenging glance. “You sure you want to risk it?”
She laughed.
“Glad the tea is making you feel perkier. Save that energy—you’re going to need it.”
Dalilah finished her tea and watched him move. She loved the powerful shape of his legs, the way his back muscles rolled under his damp shirt, his efficiency of movement despite his bulk. Dalilah thought of his words again.
When I do choose to make a promise, that’s everything in my book.
Again the urge rose in her to explain herself to him, but she tamped it down this time.
Just survive this, survive him, and all will go back to feeling normal. You have to do this for your father, your country, your family...
Brandt poured the rest of the whiskey from the large bottle into a silver hip flask that he’d taken from the side pocket of his safari shorts. She thought of his drinking, his issues with his past. Her brother.
“Why’d you quit the Force du Sable?” she said suddenly.
He paused, then continued pouring.
“I didn’t say I worked for the FDS.”
“You said you were an ex-merc and that you worked with my brother. He was with the FDS until he took over the military in Al Na’Jar, and he’s still allied with the private army.”
He grunted.
“So, why did you quit?”
“The thing about being a merc,” he said, screwing the cap onto the flask, “for me, anyway, is you’ve got to believe in the jobs you take. You have to know why you’re prepared to kill someone for cash. When you’re a soldier fighting for your country, you still get paid, but you get orders that technically you can’t refuse. It kind of absolves a soldier from the personal responsibility of murder. I didn’t have that absolution, and there came a day when the monetary reward no longer justified the act of killing. What used to be easy no longer was.”
She stared at him.
“So you stopped believing, and you quit.”
“Something like that.”
“Was it a particular incident that provoked this?” A woman.
He cut free the rest of the rope that laced the jeep canopy to the bull bars and began coiling it.
“There’s always one job that does you in,” he said, tying the coil of rope to the bottom of the pack with the kettle. “You think cops, soldiers, become inured to violence? They don’t. That’s for fiction and TV. What really happens is they keep pushing it all down until something snaps.” He held out his hand out for the mug. “You ready to roll?”
She flicked the dregs of her tea into the bush, got to her feet, came up to him.
“What was it, Brandt—what happened? Was it that woman you mentioned, the one you said died because of you? The one who burned you with a broken promise?”
“Like I said, Dalilah, my past is not your business. And your future is not mine.”
Her lips tightened. He took the cup from her and stuffed it into the pack, closing the flap and buckling it tight.
“Yet you believe in this mission?”
He held her eyes a long, simmering moment. And she could feel his conflict, feel a lot of things.
“Like I said, I owe your brother. And I never renege on a promise.” He turned and hefted the pack onto his shoulders. “Even if it’s a bitter pill to swallow. Next time, the sheik owes me.”