Amal Ghaffar.
The man laid eyes on Dalilah, pointed and yelled.
All attention seemed to turn to the princess, who was crawling under a table.
Brandt swung himself up over the low rock wall and, using tables for cover, ran toward her in a crouch. He ducked under the tablecloth. She was kneeling beside a prone man, pressing her hand tightly against his neck, her eyes wild with terror as the man’s blood pulsed thick through her fingers. Even in danger, she was trying to help.
She glanced up, saw Brandt, and a raw kind of rage twisted through her features as she reached for a fallen carving knife. Brandt raised his finger to his lips, shook his head. But her fist curled around the knife even as she pressed her other hand to the man’s neck.
Brandt crawled closer. “Leave him,” he whispered harshly. “He’s gone.”
Her gaze shot to the fallen man’s face and a shudder ran through her body. There was another volley of shots, screams, orders being barked in Arabic. Someone started to pull the table away. Bodyguards returned fire. A fresh burst of adrenaline kicked through Brandt’s blood.
No time to waste. He grabbed her arm, but she lashed at him with the carving knife, almost slicing across his biceps.
“Dalilah! Listen—”
Shock flashed through her face at the sound of her name, but she lunged at him anyway, this time the blade coming right for his heart. Jesus. Brandt rolled sideways, twisting her arm sharply back until the knife dropped from her fist and her cheek was forced flat against the ground. He hooked his arm around her neck. Squeezing tight, he held her head in position with his other hand until he felt her go suddenly limp. Then quickly he dragged her across the rough paving and rolled her over the low wall. Her body thudded softly onto grass on the other side.
But as Brandt began to scramble after her, a man in a balaclava dived at him. Brandt swung round, unsheathing his panga, and sliced the man clean across the throat. He saw the gaping maw of red and black where the neck had been, the white of spinal column. Hot blood gushed onto him as the man’s body slumped forward into his arms. Bile rose in Brandt’s throat and for a moment he was unable to move.
A fresh volley of gunfire shocked him back. Brandt pushed the man off, clambered over the wall and bent to pick up Dalilah. Slinging her limp body over his shoulders, he ducked into the shadows, disappearing into a night black and thick with the smell of fresh death and smoke.
As he ran, thunder rumbled again along the distant horizon, a little louder now.
Mosi oa Tunya, he thought—the smoke that thunders. He repeated the mantra in his head as he ran through the bush, his burden heavy across his shoulders. He’d killed a man. He’d broken his vow of ten years.
She’d made him do it.
The princess reminded him of a woman from his darkest past, and now she was hurtling him right back into the terrible black nightmare of it all. Nausea roiled. With it came rage.
Mosi oa Tunya. Mosi oa Tunya. Mosi oa Tunya.
But it was not enough to keep his demons at bay. Not enough to stop her assailants from coming after them.
And it was not enough to stop the storm he could now smell in the air. Thunder growled again over the Zimbabwe plains and a hot wind began to gust in a new direction. The fires would turn, too, now. He realized suddenly his GPS and sat phone were missing from his hip. Must’ve lost them in the tussle. No time to worry about it now. His only goal right now was to reach his Cessna, get up into the air and over the border before the weather—or Ghaffar—hit.
Something told Brandt he was not going to make it.
Chapter 2
First there was only blackness, pain. Then as consciousness filtered back, Dalilah realized her head was hanging down, hair swinging, blood filling her cheeks, her body rhythmically bumping against something...
She was being carried over a man’s shoulders.
A twig sliced across her brow as her abductor began to descend a steep hill, stones clattering ahead of him. She tried to pull her vision into focus. It was night—dark, apart from moon and starlight. She could see the ground below, parts of her abductor’s body. His legs, boots. He was wearing safari shorts, thick socks, a machete at his hip.
Panic struck like a hatchet as memory slammed into her—the attack at the lodge. Men in hoods. Shooting, blood, screams. Barked Arabic commands. The delegate lying under the table, blood spurting from a gunshot wound in his neck. She realized with horror her fingers were still sticky with the man’s blood.
Leave him. He’s gone—the fierce whisper of her attacker, his ice-blue eyes drilling into hers. Eyes so pale and luminous against his darkly tanned face it had frightened her. She’d tried to stab him with a carving knife, but he’d grabbed her around the neck, and her world had gone black.