And his wits, he told himself. He had his smarts. He was a veteran guerrilla fighter.
A rush like thunder exploded through his chest and his brain started firing on all cylinders. It would be dark soon. Amal could have found their camp at the abandoned airstrip by now—or would soon. They were running out of time.
He thought about what he had in the jeep, in the boxes. Petrol. Motor oil. He had matches. A lighter. His brain raced. Then it hit—the man with the wooden crates of empty glass bottles at the side of the road about a klick or two back. Unless a vehicle had come down the road already and picked him up, he might still be there.
He turned to Dalilah, heart thudding a tattoo against his ribs, sweat dampening his shirt, a wild, mad exhilaration racing through his blood.
“I have an idea. Get in.”
“What—”
“Get in!” He jumped back into the driver’s seat and fired the ignition as Dalilah scrambled into her seat. Hitting the gas, he spun his wheels and did a one-eighty turn, heading back toward the main road. They thumped over the cattle grids and as he hit the road, he turned north.
The man with the bottles was still there. Brandt screeched to a stop beside him, leaped out of the vehicle.
Using rapid-fire Setswana, Brandt exchanged a hundred-dollar bill for the two crates of empty cola bottles.
Dumping them in the back of the jeep, he got back in and swung onto the road. Dusk crawled over the land as the sun slid below the distant ridge. Night was almost upon the bushveldt—the violence was about to begin.
Chapter 15
Brandt pulled off the road into a low gulley. In the dark, out of sight, they worked silently with headlamps, quickly filling the cola bottles with petrol, stripping the blanket and soaking the fabric strips in gas. They used the strips to make wicks into the bottles. The Molotov cocktails—twenty-four of them—were now stocked in the two wooden boxes, safe until they were lit. Brandt then filled the cooking pot with rifle shells, and he made sure the camping stove was in working order.
About an hour later, not far from the village, Brandt reversed Skorokoro carefully up a slope, ready for a quick getaway. Leaving the keys in the ignition and Dalilah in the passenger seat, he cupped the back of her neck. In the moonlight her eyes shimmered with liquid excitement, fear. He felt the tension in her body.
Silently, he kissed her.
Then he placed his knife in her hand, took his rifle and some spare shells, and trotted up to the lip of a ridge. If Amal was following their boot tracks from the abandoned airstrip, he and his men would pass underneath this cliff on their way to the village. It was a sheer cliff, no vehicle access up the front.
Hours ticked by. The moon and stars shifted. Night sounds filled the air.
Suddenly lights appeared in the distance. Brandt heard the purr of engines—Amal’s posse. It had to be. They were moving slowly. The vehicles stopped and a shadow moved in front of the headlights. Brandt’s pulse quickened—they had a tracker out front on foot. He had to time this just right.
Skorokoro had speed, but if the engine packed it in, they were dead.
The jeeps started to move again, coming closer. Brandt could make out horses in the silver moonlight.
He aimed his rifle, curling his finger around the trigger. Breathing in, he counted to three, then softly squeezed.
A gunshot cracked through the night.
Beetles fell silent, then rose in a wild crescendo again. Brandt fired again.
There was yelling. A horse reared, then jeeps started to move directly toward the cliff, veering away from their tracks that led to the village. It was definitely Amal and his crew.
Brandt scrambled down the slope, jumped over the door into the driver’s seat. “They’re coming.”
Firing the ignition, he raced for the road, leaving clear skid marks as he swung onto the paving and barreled south. Both were tense, silent, Dalilah gripping the door.
The moon was low, big, and stars bright—all good. Brandt was thinking several steps ahead while focusing on the road. Amal would reach the ridge, realize he had to drive around it, and be delayed. They’d also come slowly along the road, looking for tracks off it. This would give Brandt and Dalilah the window of time they needed to set up, but barely.
The game fence appeared, shimmering in the moonlight as they bombed down the road.
He glanced up into the rearview mirror. No lights in sight yet. Brandt wheeled off the paved road and Skorokoro bounced and thudded over the sets of cattle grids. He made sure he left deep tire marks pointing their way. This was where Amal would have to lose his horses—they’d be unable to cross the grids and enter the game-controlled area. Either he’d have to tether the mounts near the road and pack the horsemen into his two jeeps, or he’d instruct the men on horseback to continue down the road, looking for a way into the fence, which they would not find for another fifty kilometers or so.