"Thanks," I said, but his actions utterly confused me. Was he really going to toss us into the wild again with hopes that we could find civilization before the animals ate us alive, or worse, the bad guys came back? "What are you doing?" I asked as he pulled the Jeep into a dark cave and cut the engine.
He looked over at me and this time, he actually looked sorry for what he was about to do.
"No," I shook my head. "NO YOU DON'T," I screamed, and shook him silly with all my might. I clung to the cotton of his tee-shirt and begged him not to do this. Once he got my hands free of his tee-shirt, he frowned at me and I wept like a baby. "Please! I don't know what you are doing, or who you are, but I know that in good conscious you can't just dump us again. We have half a day's water, two pouches of food and nine bullets. We won't survive through the night. How can you live with yourself?"
He yanked me from the passenger seat against my will and hauled me behind a tree. "Charlie, I'm here for one reason and one reason only. That reason does not include rescuing some spoiled teenager and her nanny. Let someone else be the hero because I'm not botching this mission on account of two civvies."
I narrowed my eyes. He most certainly had been military at one point, and could still be. Hell, he could be the Pope for all I knew.
"I'm sorry that it has to be this way. Really I am." He sent me a cautious smile. "You know, this was a lot easier for me when I thought you were just a spoiled rich tourist."
"Is that what you thought of me?"
He shrugged, and why did I care at that particular juncture? "What's your last name?" he asked me.
"Ford," I said. "Why?"
"I'll make this up to you someday, Charlie Ford." Then he kissed me. A long, deep kiss that meant business and had my muscles clenched and ready for battle. He, unfortunately, broke away much sooner than I wanted him to, because my knee hadn't connected with his groin yet.
He lifted the kicking, screaming teenager from the backseat. "Just head west." That was all the son-of-a-bitch had to say to us.
I kicked the dirt. I flipped him the bird. I called him every lousy-stinking-no-good name in the book, and then I threw a rock at the dusty trail that he left behind. If he were that noble of a man, he would have left the Jeep with the woman and child, and he would've gone on foot.
If I weren't a noble woman, I would have shot him in the back.
"Men!" I shouted and hugged Bella. "We'll be fine."
"I know," she smirked and pulled something out of her pocket. "Will this help?"
I glanced down at a tiny remote censor and watched the little bleep get bigger and bigger as we walked toward it. Wherever he was going, we were soon to follow.
I smiled brightly at the little kleptomaniac and was genuinely happy that she was so ingenuous. She had swiped it from his bag when he was lecturing me behind the tree. She was one smart pre-teen. We laughed wickedly and held hands before she grinned again and pulled a chocolate bar from her other pocket.
"You're my idol," I said sweetly. "Take that, Jackass." I have never enjoyed chocolate more in my entire life.
***
We walked. We ran from snakes. We gagged and wheezed when we accidentally swallowed bugs, but by golly, we were getting it done. We even sang some old campfire songs and played the screenwriters game again.
This time Bella dug deep into her soul and exposed her dark side.
"Okay, so Duane…I mean Vince," she giggled wickedly,"is really the bad guy and at the end, he's about to run you over in the Jeep and I throw a rock at his head. He swerves and runs over a baby lion cub and the daddy lion eats him alive while we watch."
This girl was going to need some serious therapy when and if we get home.
"Awesome," I said, but I was really starting to think like a super spy. "Duane really is his name; he's just ashamed because it's so dorky, so he calls himself Vince. He's the head of a specialized task force that is heading up a military coup of Uganda and he's here to assassinate the Prime Minister of Morocco who is here on vacation with his family. He's afraid that I am onto him because I myself am a super spy, so he flees with the fear that I might come for him while he sleeps. The beacon on this little gadget is really a signal from Club Med and when we get there, we will feast on food, drink wine and my father will come to visit, we will talk and laugh and he will listen to all the amazing things that I've done. And then we will hug and he'll tell me he's proud of me and that he loves me." I actually started crying at that point. "And then Vince will show up and I will kick him in the balls, throw him in the pool, slap my hands together and never look back."
I was very surprised that in the past few days, I hadn't seen one airplane fly overhead; not one helicopter came looking for us. It was eerie. I wasn't privy to Africa's laws about rescuing children from the savanna and all I could think was that there was some sort of protocol that they had to follow and the bureaucratic red tape was holding them up. Either that, or we had crossed the line into the Serengeti National Wildlife Refuge and we were going to be cheetah fodder soon.
***
It was almost nightfall when we reached something that I wished we hadn't reached. I shivered and let out a breath of sheer panic. Fear rippled along my spine.
It was set up the same as the old camp, but there were only three tents and I could see only two red Jeeps. One I could only assume belonged to Vince and that made me very nervous. Perhaps he was with the bad guys all along. Either that, or the bad guys had already captured him and Bella and I were fucked.
Either way we were fucked, but I preferred to think that I hadn't played tonsil hockey with one of the bad guys.
I refused to believe any of part of what was running through my imagination. I do have a very wild one, after all. I didn't want to believe that the bad dudes had captured Vince with his super-lightning-speed moves and panther-like reflexes. Furthermore, I refused to concede. Give up and let Bella and myself die?
Sure, we could have backtracked and prayed to be rescued, but by then we would be dead, and the vultures would be pecking at our dehydrated remains.
Not a pretty picture.
I figured we had one chance and one chance only, and that was to steal a Jeep, grab a map of some sort and find civilization.
I instructed Bella to stay under a bush not too far from camp. I gave her the last of the food, told her that I loved her and that if anything happened, or if someone caught her, she should tell them who her father was and that she could get them lots of money.
It was the best I could come up with at the time.
We said a small prayer together, and then it was my time to shine. I had faith that I could do it. I still remembered everything that I learned and, although I never finished the hellacious program, I had been on many real maneuvers and I still had faith that I learned as much as I could under the tutelage of that cocksucker, Master Chief Brick.
I waited until the cover of nightfall and on my first attempt at approaching camp, I stumbled and fell into a pile of elephant dung. Elephant dung doesn't stink quite like dog crap, but it's still more than disgusting and there's a lot more of it.
I heard a small howl from the bushes to my left and hoped that a lone, hungry hyena would not foil my plan. I had no idea about how many bad guys were in camp, so I decided to take inventory before I started blasting away. After all, I had only nine bullets and one fierce-looking knife. I was almost certain that I didn't have the stomach to kill a man up close and personal so I tucked the knife into my waistband and held the gun steady in my hand.
I heard boisterous laughter from the first tent and thankfully, I heard a little hissing sound that made me glance down because that heinous looking snake had just saved my life. Not six inches in front of my left foot was a thick wire either attached to a mine, or attached to an alarm. I didn't want to find out, so I carefully moved around the snake and over the wire. It was now a challenge to crawl through the grass and keep my eyes peeled for assholes and hyenas. Thank God, they both cackled bef
ore they attacked, or I would have been a goner.
I seriously feared for Bella's life and my own. I hated that I had put us in this situation and I hated that I hadn't shot Vince when I had the chance. I really wanted him dead.
But not really.
I really didn't want anyone dead, especially not Bella and me.
Especially not Bella.
I sighed and strengthened my resolve.
I could hear three distinctly different voices in tent number one. That meant that I would have to use three bullets. I moved carefully around to tent number two and heard quiet weeping. Very quiet weeping and some mumbled prayers that didn't sound familiar, so I guessed that this tent didn't house Vince.
Now I was moving at the pace of an inchworm. The wind was howling just enough so the sound of the grass flapping together muffled my noises, but I still wasn't taking any chances and remained moving at the speed of a slug. Each step I took felt like it could be my last. At least that was what I kept reminding myself of as I swallowed hard, and tried to get comfortable with the fact that I was going to have to kill in order to survive.
I heard three more male voices in tent number three. Two were of the same South African accent, similar to the men on the plane, and the third one was just grunting and groaning and not much else. This tent, I figured was where they held Vince because, after all, he was a man of few words and I had heard those grunts before. The man liked to grunt. Right then I thought he was grunting because they were torturing him and that meant that I needed two more bullets and I had better not miss.
This was where I needed to start. Once I freed Vince, he could help with the rest of the killing, but right then, I had to hang my head low, take a few deep breaths and when I narrowed my eyes on the back of the tent and saw two tall figures, I waited a split second longer. When I saw a flicker of a lighter and a shadow of a gun pointed toward the ground, I squeezed off a shot and prayed to a higher power. I heard cussing, a thud and then with lightning speed I moved around the tent, waited for bad guy number two to emerge and when he did, I took him out with one precise shot to the head.
It was dark and I didn't see much blood, which was a good thing. Another good thing was that none of the other men from tent number one came running out. I think what happened was that I had just interrupted an execution. I entered the tent and dragged the second dead asshole in with me. I slumped down into the dirt and wiped my forehead dry of sweat.
Vince, hog-tied in the dirt, was face down with a bandana around his eyes.
Won't he be surprised to see me? And damned if I didn't feel energized. I just saved a life and to my surprise, I was delighted that it was Vince's life that I saved.
I guess I liked him more than I thought.
Before letting him know who I was, I grabbed both bad guys' guns, tucked one into my waistband and then ripped the bandana off Vince's bruised and battered face. One eye was completely swollen shut and he looked bad, really bad.
"Jesus Christ," he groaned and tried to sit up. His right ankle had been badly broken and looked as if it was hanging on by a thread. It was horrifying. "Charlie? What the fuck?"
I know it was dark and all, but I swear to all things holy that a single tear rolled down his battered cheek. The entire left side of his face looked like hamburger.
"Shhhh," I demanded and I was enjoying being the one who was calling the shots. Vince was in no way going to be able to run from the tent, and I doubt that I could have carried him. He wasn't a big man by any means, probably four inches taller than me and both our bodies were rippled with muscle, but he was a man and all, so he out-weighed me by at least forty pounds. "Here." I wasn't about to gloat at this point, but I handed him two guns and helped him out of the ropes that bound his hands together. "How many more are there?"
He held up one hand.
There were five more bad guys, but I had a lot more firepower.
"They're going to wonder why Simon and Turk haven't returned to the main tent. We have to get out of here," Vince said through clenched teeth. I knew he was in horrendous pain, and I was proud of myself for not passing out. The elephant shit that I rubbed under my nose was working like a charm.
He grabbed my arm, as I was about to poke my head from the tent. "This way," he said and pointed at the back of the tent.
He had a point.
I pulled the knife from my waistband and quickly cut the thick fabric enough for us to get out. I needed to get Vince into one of those Jeeps or we didn't stand a chance.
I heard footsteps and someone calling for Turk just as I pulled my leg from the tent. All hell was about to break loose, I could feel it in my bones, but I persevered. More shouting resounded around camp. I got Vince safely tucked behind a tree.
"Don't worry about me, just go. The keys are in the Jeep," he demanded.
Yeah, like I was about to do that. I would never leave a team member behind and like it or not, I thought Vince was a good guy.
In the moonlight, I glared into his one good eye and tucked the knife back into my waistband before rolling a couple times in the tall grass and then stopping on the other side of the tent.
Did I happen to mention that I received highest marks in marksmanship? Well I did.
I took out two more South Africans with two more bullets and then remembered that I no longer had to make my ammo count.
Both men fell dramatically and lifelessly to the ground. Someone flipped on a bright light that caught me by surprise, but I jumped back behind the tent and emptied my magazine at the remaining two bad guys who were stupid enough to step into the light.
I then took a moment to calm my nerves, rein in my adrenaline and crawl back over to Vince to grab another gun.
My heart stopped dead in my chest when I saw him slumped over behind the tree. For what seemed like the longest minute of my life, I crawled toward him, praying to God that he wasn't dead. As soon as I was close enough for him to smell me his eyes popped open wide and he raised a gun to my head.
"Shit," I gasped and grabbed the gun from him. "Five, right?" I wanted to make sure.
After all, they had busted up his ankle something fierce and had beaten him senseless. Perhaps he thought he held up ten fingers thanks to the double vision that he most likely had. I took a couple of deep whiffs through my nose to clear my sinuses and took in the aroma of the crap under my nose. "You okay?"
He groaned.
"Charlie?" He grabbed my wrist. "Why are you still here? Go. Get out of here."
I shrugged out of his grasp and that wasn't difficult to do because he had just passed out again.
I crawled around the third tent, stopped and listened for any noises. There were none. It was eerily quiet so I remained out of sight and took cover under the trees around the back of the tents. I continued until I got to the second tent, where I had previously heard the quiet prayers. I peered inside and saw another man, wrapped in nylon cords, clearly battered, tortured and hung up to dry. Another white male was lying at his feet, his hands also wrapped in nylon cords only that man wasn't battered.
I steadied my gun at this man on the floor.
"Oh thank God," he said and rolled over and held up his bound hands. "We have to get out of here. There are more of them." He sounded American, but the only thing wrong with his face was a bloody nose.
If I had a downfall, it would be that I couldn't read people very well. I wouldn't be a good spy. I don't know when people are lying to me and I tend to trust what people tell me. But my gut told me that this guy wasn't being completely honest with me.
Then again, I wasn't about to put a bullet in his brain just because I was unsure.
"Please, hurry." I needed help.
I didn't speak; I just stood there pointing my gun at his head. He was clearly unarmed and still holding his hands out for me to cut him free.
"You're American, right?" He goaded me on and attempted to stand up. He was too clean. That I noticed right away. The dirt on his pants and shirt looked rubbed
on and not soiled in. I know laundry pretty well and that was new dirt.
"Sit," I commanded and then carefully groped for a pulse on the tied up African man. He had a pulse, so I instructed whitey to untie his hands and help him down.
He did what I asked without question and then held up his hands again. He hadn't tried anything yet and it still freaked me out that more assholes would be arriving momentarily, so I moved two steps toward him. I heard the high pitch of a bullet whiz by my head and his forehead exploded in a shower of blood.
I did lose consciousness at that point.
***
When my eyes fluttered open, I tried to focus, then rolled over and hurled into the grass. When I got a hold of my bodily functions, I looked over at Vince, propped up against a bench, holding his gun in one hand and my gun in the other.
I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to say. I suspected that he was about to say enough for the both of us because he had that look in his eye, the only one that was properly functioning, and he looked pissed.
"That's why chicks should stay home and raise babies."
I had heard that line so many damn times in my life that one more time really didn't bother me all that much.
"Is that all?" I stood up with dignity and grabbed my gun from his grasp. "Don't you want to tell me that we're weaker, we're emotionally unstable and we can't follow orders?"
"You're definitely weaker. You are unstable and I told you to get the fuck out of here an hour ago."
"Fuck you, sir." I saluted him with defiance and bent down to see how badly he was hurt. He probably misconstrued my nurturing and therefore chalked up one more reason why women should stay home and raise babies.
"What branch?" he whispered into my ear when I checked the gash on the back of his skull.
"Army." I not so gently let his head fall back against the hard wood. "I think you'll live." I stood up and went to the unconscious man on the floor. "I need to get Bella." I looked over my shoulder at Vince. "Do you think it is safe here for the time being? We need food and water and…" I stopped because his gaze dropped below my waist. My khaki colored capris were covered in blood.