Page 25

They rumbled past farmland and a small number of houses, some modern, some traditional circular thatched homes. Dust churned up behind them, a definite marker if anyone was following behind. Rowena peered at the map about an inch away from her nose, straining through the darkness for landmarks.

“The road curves to the right up ahead. Yes. Here.” Her finger traced the map the way they’d traced his skin last night, and he had to jerk the wheel back into position as he lost his concentration for a fraction of a second.

Focus, dumbass .

“There’s a left turning up ahead, but if you miss it the first time, there’s another turning just beyond it, like a fork.” She looked at his face. “It’s more of a farm track than road by the looks of it.”

Didn’t matter. “How close are we to the river?”

“Less than a kilometer away, and this track gets us within a hundred meters.”

He nodded and concentrated on the road ahead. Suddenly, headlights cut through the darkness behind them and Rowena glanced over her shoulder with big fearful eyes.

Shit. Fuck.

He hated being right.

“When we get to wherever this track ends and we can’t drive any further, we jump out and run as fast as we can to the river.

I’ll take the backpack. Don’t wait. You run and then swim as hard as you can.

I’ll catch up. The other side is Mozambique, and when we get there, we need to hide ourselves in the trees.

If we get separated for any reason, head northeast and ask someone to drive you to the US Embassy in Maputo.

Ask them to hide you, and tell them you’ll pay them a thousand US dollars if they do so.

The embassy can pay them for you. Give the ambassador my name—only the ambassador—and tell him everything that’s happened.

” He grinned manically. “You can leave out the sex if you want, but bottom line, tell him everything, and tell him Kurt Montana said to take care of you. I’ll pay him back. ”

“I can pay him back, but we won’t be separated.”

“Row.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You might have to.”

She closed her mouth.

“Promise me.”

“No.”

“Row.”

“No!”

“ Rowena ,” he warned. “I might need to peel off to create a diversion. I can’t be worried about you walking straight back to them if I do that. I’ll meet you at the embassy if not before.”

She didn’t answer.

Headlights were getting closer.

Fuck fuck fuck.

“Rowena… please .” He wasn’t used to begging. He was used to people obeying orders.

“Fine.” She tugged a few pages out of the map book and rolled them up. Stuffed them into her giant purse.

He gunned it. Driving along a dirt road, then a walking path, busting through a gate on the track that led down to the edge of the Gairezi itself.

“Go right.” She pointed. “The river is wider and probably slower there.”

It was the wet season. Kurt didn’t let his worry show, but he was scared the water might be too fast for her to swim across safely.

“Are there crocs?” Fear rang out in her voice.

“No crocs.” It was insanely dangerous to even think about swimming with crocs or hippos. He’d take his chances with humans—but this time it was fifty-fifty as to which might be worse.

He turned off the headlights as they rumbled across a muddy field. A faint tinge of pink skimmed the top of the mountainside on the Mozambique side of the border. The sun was starting to rise in the east.

They could do this. If the guys behind them didn’t have guns. If the river wasn’t too high. If they got lucky.

He had no doubt whoever was chasing them were ruthless killers. He needed to get the information he had to the Joint Terrorism Task Force that had been put together to find Hurek. But right now, protecting Rowena was his number-one priority.

He reached a line of trees and stopped the car. Rowena leaped out and ran toward the river like he’d told her. He grabbed the backpack and a bag of food and water. Closed the top securely as he raced after her to the edge of the Gairezi.

The headlights had almost caught up with them.

Rowena waited for him at the edge, and he ran in, dragging her with him as he aimed upstream.

“Can you swim?” A little late to ask.

“Yes, but not particularly well.”

They were in a wide meander, and he wanted to give her as much chance as possible to cross before it narrowed again to a series of rapids.

He heard voices shouting above the noise of the water.

Chasing them. He took her arm and urged her into the cold water.

Deeper and deeper. She held her bag up trying to keep it dry.

The water hit his thighs, his balls. The current tugged at his clothes, his limbs.

He heard her gasp.

Unstable rocks beneath his feet made him stumble. “Go. Strike out hard for the other bank. You need to get out of the main flow, then you’ll be fine. Put everything into it and then hide in the trees. I’ll find you .”

“Okay. ”

“You’ve got this, Rowena. You’ve fucking got this. I’m right behind you.”

The sound of gunshots rang through the night, and a sharp pain bit into his shoulder.

Sonofabitch.

Rowena cried out in fear at the sound of a gun being fired.

She flung herself into the deeper water.

The current took her, her limbs heavy from her waterlogged clothing.

Panic swept through her. Her bag was soaked, and she thought of the photograph inside, ruined.

Thank goodness her uncle’s old watch was waterproof.

“Push hard, Row.”

Kurt was behind her, and his words launched her muscles out of paralysis.

She struck out and kicked forcefully, dragged along by the current but also making gradual progress.

Her clothes and boots and bag felt like they were made of grasping fingers, but she kept swimming forward, inch by inch.

The river wasn’t that wide compared to the Severn beside her home, but it was the rainy season and full and strong and full of large rocks that could easily crack a bone.

Her bag caught on a boulder and almost pulled her under.

She swallowed a mouthful of water and spluttered, reminding her of how it had felt to almost choke to death last night.

Drowning would feel the same. She struggled with the strap and had to duck under water and wrench it over her head and let it go.

Her notebooks. The photo. Her mobile phone.

Her contraception pills. Her passport . Treasures, memories, junk. Gone. Swept away by the mighty Gairezi.

She blinked to clear her vision and plowed on. She couldn’t see that well, but she knew where she was supposed to be headed.

She banged into a boulder and inhaled sharply.

Fought on. She’d never taken the power of water for granted.

She’d witnessed too many floods in her hometown not to respect the unstoppable force of nature.

She used her technically terrible front crawl and dug deep to find the strength to drag herself toward the other side.

Kurt gave her a sideways shove, helping her escape the grip of one particular vigorous stream. She was suddenly out of the main torrent and being pulled less aggressively.

The thought hit her. If she could cross this river, what would stop these men from following them?

“Swim, dammit, swim.”

When her foot hit the bottom, she staggered upright. The noise of more gunshots speared her with terror and made her crouch.

“Go. Quick. Get into the trees.”

“What if they follow us?”

“They will.” His voice deepened to a low growl. “Get into the trees, run, and hide. Don’t come out until I tell you. Otherwise, don’t come out at all. Do what I told you to do earlier.”

She went down hard on one knee and a bullet whizzed through the air close enough she could feel the air move.

The spit in her mouth dried up. She jerked upright and started to run, feet slippery in the gravel and silt.

She zigzagged her way up the short beach on the other side.

Headed into the deep shadows of the forest, Kurt behind her, shielding her with his own body she realized.

Tears formed, but she blinked them away. The idea of anything happening to this man was unbearable. She concentrated on doing what he’d asked so he didn’t have to worry about her as well as the bastards who chased them.

She reached back and squeezed his hand and then streaked ahead. She hoped that wouldn’t be the last time she saw him alive. The idea made something swell inside her like a balloon against her sternum. It was too much to contemplate. Too much to comprehend.

She forced it out of her mind.

He was a professional. So was she, although she wasn’t sure how being a librarian was going to be helpful at this point. But she wouldn’t let him down. They’d get out of this alive.

It was still on the dark side of dawn, and she was on the leeward side of a mountain beneath a thick canopy of trees.

She led with her arms, but her eyes gradually adjusted, and she was able to make out a faint game trail ahead.

She followed it, trying to be quiet, knowing she would leave tracks because of the mud, but it couldn’t be helped.

The land started to rise, the incline increasing.

She slipped repeatedly and could hear men shouting at one another as they forded the river. Coming after them. Hunting them.

Her heart pounded, and her chest heaved with exertion and fear. She forced herself to draw her breath in slower, deeper.

To hide, she’d need to be silent.

To be silent, she needed to stop bellowing like a winded horse.

She scanned her surroundings and spotted an even narrower path off to the left.

It was less muddy there. She ran along it a short distance and then backtracked walking backwards in her own footsteps.

At the main trail she made a leap onto a grassy mound beside a large tree.

She hugged that tree and swung herself around to the other side of the trunk.

The smell of ferns and bracken rose through the air.

Gingerly, she tried to stay out of the dirt and step on small tufts of grass.

She picked her way carefully through the forest, her breath deepening even as her fear mounted.

Where was Kurt? What did he plan to do?

She headed up the slope again, another fifty feet and then turned back to the left, paralleling the original direction she’d taken.

The noises indicated the men were across the river now. Getting closer. She spotted a fallen log which would make a good hiding place and almost headed there.

She paused.

It was surely the first place they’d look…

Her gaze traveled up into the trees above her head.

Another gunshot sounded so loud it made her blood freeze.

If she wanted to survive, she needed to hide.

And she really wanted to survive. She wished Kurt was here with her.

The thought of him out there, fighting these guys alone was terrifying.

She swallowed the knot that strangled her throat. Then she began to climb.