Guarding the Princess(81)

Suddenly gunfire sounded in the ridge behind them. All the men in the two jeeps spun around. Amal yelled for his driver to speed up.

The drivers gunned forward, but the cliff walls grew very narrow. Jacob heard a sharp whistle. Then a flare of orange fire came arcing down from the sky. The fireball hit the bonnet of their jeep and a bottle exploded into a raging burst of flame.

Another fireball came down from the other cliff wall, hit behind them. Then more bombs, followed by gunfire. The jeep engine caught fire. Amal and his men dived out of the vehicle, seeking cover in the rocks.

Jacob bailed, leaping from the backseat. Jock followed him. Mbogo was barking orders, trying to shoot up at the cliff face from behind rocks on the canyon floor.

More Molotov cocktails rained from the sky. The second jeep exploded into flames.

One of the men caught a bullet in the neck, and fell, his gun flying from his hands. Jacob scrabbled over the sand, grabbed the automatic rifle. And from the cover of a rock he aimed at five of the men now huddled in a group behind an outcropping to avoid being shot from above—they were sitting ducks the instant they moved. Jacob squeezed the trigger, his thin, old body jerking as he raked a barrage of bullets over the men. Then he shot them all again, to be sure.

Breathing hard, he stilled. Jacob quickly did the math—there’d been eleven men in total in the posse, including the one-armed Arab and his giant sidekick. But four of the men on horses had headed south when they’d been stumped by a series of cattle grids.

He’d shot five. There were two left somewhere. Jacob’s heart hammered. Where were the others?

Suddenly a gleam caught his eye—the shiny bald pate of Mbogo climbing the cliff, using rocks as cover from whoever was above, and he was moving fast. Jacob’s gaze shifted farther up the cliff face. His pulse kicked—the woman. He saw her move, moonlight on her hair, the shape of her silhouette as she darted from one rock to another.

Mbogo had almost reached her.

An explosion rent the air as one of the jeep’s fuel tanks blew. Bitter smoke billowed through the gorge as flames roared and crackled. Jacob crept quickly through the shadows and smoke, wanting a clear line to Mbogo. He’d lost sight of the Arab who’d leaped from the vehicle without a gun.

Crouching, Jacob pressed the rifle stock to his shoulder, aimed and squeezed the trigger.

The big man’s body jerked and spasmed under a hail of bullets. Then he tumbled, thudding down like a giant rag doll between the rocks.

But before Jacob could move, he heard Jock’s low, throaty growl, and suddenly the animal was beside him, snarling. Jacob realized too late why—the Arab leaped down from a rock above him. And he felt the dagger go deep into his side.

Amal yanked the dagger out, but before he could plunge it in again, Jock lunged at the man’s throat. Amal screamed, a terrible sound, followed by sick wet tearing, growling as he struggled with one hand to fight off the dog.

Jacob put his hand to his waist. Blood was soaking through his shirt, through his fingers. He pressed his hand to the wound, tried to crawl away.

Then his world went black.

* * *

Brandt stilled. Beneath the roar of flames he detected human screams that chilled him to the bone. He listened carefully, trying to separate the sounds. He thought he could hear animal snarls, like a wild dog attack. Nausea washed over him as an image of his son’s body slammed through his mind.

Then suddenly there was silence. Deadly silence, apart from the crackle of fire. He wasn’t sure what had happened, but someone down there had killed five men of his own party in a hail of bullets, then shot another who had been climbing up toward Dalilah, just as Brandt had been about to fire on the man himself.

He put his fingers into his mouth, issued three shrill whistles. In the moonlight on the other side he saw Dalilah wave her arm up.

Relief bottomed out of his stomach. Her orders were to stay hidden until he’d scoped out the place properly—there could still be someone down there alive.

Brandt waited another few beats. Still no sound. Heart thudding, he made his way carefully down between the rocks, gun in hand.

Five bodies lay in a twisted mess at the bottom of the cliff.

Amal, however, was not among these five dead. Brandt crept along the gorge bottom, staying in shadows. Smoke was thick and acrid down here, the smell of fuel strong. Then out of the blackness between rocks, something came at him.

He spun around, gun leading, and then his heart stalled. An animal—a dog. Advancing toward him, blood on his mouth—like a ghost. A ghost from his past.

Jock.

For a nanosecond Brandt couldn’t think as past looped into present. Then he snapped back, curling his finger around the trigger as he aimed at the animal.