by Anna del Mar
“And why wouldn’t he like you?” T-man scoffed against my ear. “You are all woman. You’d make an excellent lay. Sweet ass.” He squeezed my butt, dipped his nose in my hair and inhaled. “You smell good, like a mare in heat, like you need to be fucked really hard.”
I held my breath against the spicy tinge of his sweat and the smell of pot that scented his breath. His nearness made me sick to my stomach. But I wasn’t going to panic. Instead, I stomped on his foot, hard, and tried to twist out of his clutch in a bid to test his strentgh. My findings weren’t encouraging. He had a good hold of me and his body was built of marble-like muscle. He pressed his forearm around my neck and cut off my breath until polka dots began to dance before my eyes.
“Feisty zebra you got here.” He laughed his unpleasant cackle. “I’m going to enjoy breaking her in.”
“Leave her alone, Kumbuyo.” Matthias finally spoke. “Your problem is with me.”
“You know my name?” The man eased his chokehold and I could breathe again. “How?”
“Kobe Kumbuyo.” Matthias flashed a ferocious smirk. “I know who you are and where you come from. I know you work for Lamba, although I can’t figure out why you’d work for a son of a bitch like him. My advice? Get the fuck away while you can, take your goddamn poachers with you, and don’t come back.”
It was a bold warning for a man who was currently unarmed and kneeling on the ground with the muzzle of an AK-47 hovering in the vicinity of his head. Not only was I shocked, I was impressed, because the man that Matthias had just defied was no small time poacher.
The name Kobe Kumbuyo threatened to turn my leg bones into mashed potatoes. I locked my knees and tried to reason through the fear. I’d come across Kumbuyo’s foul credentials during my research. He was part of an infamous rebel group that border-hopped throughout Central Africa, trading tusks and prized animal parts to buy weapons. He worked for Francoise Lamba, the bloody leader of the Lord’s Liberation Army.
Lamba was wanted for crimes against humanity. His army raided villages, killed the men and elders, and abducted the women and children. He raped the women and turned them into slaves, which he trafficked for money. He forced boys into his so-called-army and drove them to kill their own people.
But Lamba’s reign of terror had been concentrated in Central Africa, Uganda, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Until now. The fact that Kobe Kumbuyo was here, at the very edge of the Serengeti, was very bad news for Tanzania. Wherever Kumbuyo went, Lamba followed and massacre occurred, for wildlife, sure, but also for people.
“I’m warning you,” Matthias muttered, from his place kneeling on the ground. “Get the fuck out of Pacha Ziwa.”
“Shoot him,” Kumbuyo said to Pot Belly with the casual ease of someone who’d given that exact same order a thousand times.
Matthias’s eyes turned to his would be killer. There wasn’t a trace of fear in his stare, only fierce, pure defiance and rage that tensed his coiled body. Pot Belly pressed the muzzle of his AK-47 against the base of Matthias’s skull and put his finger to the trigger. A warning screamed in my mind. Adapt, adapt, adapt!
“Don’t shoot him.” My voice startled everybody. “Those elephant herds? He’s the only one who knows where they are. Who’s going to tell you where to find the ivory if you shoot him?”
Matthias’s head snapped up. His eyes focused on me. It was as if he was seeing me for the first time. Pot Belly looked to Kumbuyo in confusion. Kumbuyo’s narrow forehead crumpled and his lips puckered in an angry pout. I don’t know what made him madder, Matthias’s defiant glare or his own lapse in logic.
Kumbuyo hesitated for a moment, then grabbed a fistful of my hair and hurled me across the small clearing, pitching me against the trunk of a nearby tree. I whirled around. When possible, I preferred to face my opponent. I found Kumbuyo’s eyes fast on me and his handgun aimed straight at my chest.
“Don’t do this, Kumbuyo,” Matthias rumbled. “If you hurt the woman you’ll have the Americans trailing your ass in no time. Lamba won’t like that much. Let’s make a deal. You let her go and I’ll take you to the herds.”
“No way,” I said. “The herds have to be protected.”
Matthias’s stare clobbered me. “How about you keep quiet for a change?”
“You’re going to tell me where the herds are,” Kumbuyo said, towering over Matthias. “You’re going to tell me right now or you’re going to hear her scream.”
Matthias started. “If you hurt her—”
Kumbuyo struck Matthias’s face with the back of his hand, a hard blow that twisted Matthias’s head on his neck and sent him teetering to the ground. I gasped and started to go to him, but Kumbuyo’s gun cased me again, persuading me that moving would be a really bad idea.
Matthias caught himself with one arm, straightened on his knees, and wiped the blood trickling from his nose. He stared at the crimson blotch on his hand and smiled, a flash of fangs. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his head and fixed his glare back on Kumbuyo.
“The elephant herds?” Kumbuyo said.
Matthias gave him nothing. I had to give the guy credit. He had the balls of a bull.
And then Kumbuyo cocked his gun and aimed it at Matthias’s head.
Keep adapting. I had to do something.
“Excuse me?” I curled my index at Kumbuyo. “May I have a word with you, in private, please?”
Kumbuyo’s stare shifted to me. “Now what?”
“I might know a few things that may interest you.”
Kumbuyo’s eyebrows raised on his forehead. “And what would that be?”
“About the elephants?”
Matthias’s voice came in a low growl. “She doesn’t know shit.”
“I do too.” I tried to sound convincing.
“She just got here,” Matthias said. “Fresh off the plane.”
“I know some things,” I said defensively. “And I’ll share, If you give me what I want.”
Kumbuyo chuckled. “Do you think you’re in position to negotiate with me?”
“Allow me to explain,” I said, thinking on my feet, grappling to come up with something that might sound plausible without giving up my true identity, because that would only complicate a bad scenario and make it worse. “I’m here on assignment. I’m a photojournalist. In the States. I came here to get the story behind the story. I’m interested in talking to people like you, people who are in the forefront of Africa’s civil wars, freedom fighters like you.”
“Is that so?” The man flashed a contemptous grin that confirmed my ruse wasn’t working. “You must think I’m an idiot if you think I’d fall for that one.” Kumbuyo eyed Matthias. “You were about to talk elephants?”
“No, I wasn’t.” Matthias flashed his insolent smirk.
He was trying to mess with Kumbuyo’s mind. Anger often led to mistakes and mistakes offered opportunities. But Kumbuyo was a seasoned fighter, and he had his own mind games to play. He sneered at Matthias and kept his gun on me.
“I suppose you need to be persuaded.” Kumbuyo turned to me. “Take off your shirt.”
My stomach hit the ground. “Excuse me?”
Kumbuyo barked. “Do what I say.”
“Um…” I hesitated. “I’m not very good at that.”
Kumbuyo pulled the trigger.
The shot rang loud in my ears. The impact rattled my knees. Was I hit? I glanced down at myself, heart hammering in my throat. No blood. No pain. I looked to one side, where the moonlight illuminated the tree bark, chipped by a bullet, not three inches from my head. I took a breath and then another. I was alive and so was Matthias, whose face echoed the moon’s pale light. Kumbuyo had proven he was beyond dangerous. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill us.
“Next time I’ll punch a hole in the middle of your pretty forehead,” he said. “I won’t ask again: Take. Off. Your. Shirt.”
My brain was in full gear. I was dealing for our lives. Matthias’s jaw clenched so tight that a muscle
twitched on his face. One of the poachers who was working on the giraffe came to investigate when he heard the shot and lingered at the clearing. Now there was another armed thug flanking Matthias. Crap. It was time to adapt some more, to the extreme if necessary.
“All righty.” I swallowed a huge gulp of fear and tinkered with my buttons. If my delay and distract tactics were going to work, I needed to convert my weaknesses into strengths and play up whatever assets I had available, which were not many at the moment.
I steadied my voice and let out a little huff. “How about a new trade? You don’t have to be such as asshole, you know.”
Kumbuyo’s eyes narrowed. “What did you call me?”
“An asshole,” I said, matter of factly. “The asshole is that part of your anatomy from where you—”
“I know what it is!” He snapped. “You don’t call me names, woman!”
“Oh, come on.” I batted my eyelashes like a shameless flirt, my fingers progressing slowly down my buttons. “You don’t have to be all mean and grumpy all the time.”
He snarled, a soul-freezing sound. “What?”
“You.” I said a little prayer in my head and stuck to my plan. “You’re not a bad looking guy. In fact, you’re kind of attractive when you smile, which by the way, is not nearly often enough. If I’d met you at a bar in, say, Arusha, and you would’ve bought me a drink or something, I may have let you take me upstairs, if you get my meaning.”
Kumbuyo’s eyes widened.
Matthias rumbled. “Jade…”
“I’m not ashamed to admit it,” I said over Matthias’s voice. “You’re an attractive fellow. You’re big and strong and brawny. I’m a sucker for brawny. And I do love big.” I let out a flirty chuckle. “You give me an interview? I’ll make you a very happy guy.”
I let my gaze roam over his body, lingering over the bulge rising between his legs. I batted my eyelashes some more, pouted a bit and, having captured Kumbuyo’s complete attention, chose that moment to part my shirt. His knuckles tightened around his gun but his arm fell to his side, along with his gun. He stared at me, lips slacked, eyes centered on my body.
I was a shock-and-awe kind of girl and a true believer in the tactical element of surprise. So I slid my arms out of my sleeves, dropped my shirt on the ground, and reached behind my back. Following one crazy feat with another, I unhooked my bra and tossed it aside, as casually as if I were taking off my sunglasses.
And then I was naked from the waist up, bared to the elements and exposed to the feral stares aiming at me, proving that I could shock the shit out of anyone, including my wildest self.
4
Matthias
The clearing went deadly silent. Time froze and in an instant that lasted forever, my brain grappled with the vision before me. Jade stood half-naked with her hands on her hips, confident and defiant, as if she’d just stepped out of a glossy centerfold. Her body shimmered under the moon’s silver light and her skin rippled with goosebumps reacting to the cool breeze.
Her attack consisted of baring a pair of gorgeous breasts, small, round and perfect. They were topped by exhuberant nipples that belonged between my lips. I could’ve stared at her all night, but the yank in my groin brought me back to my shitty reality. Jesus Christ. I was on my knees with a gun to my head and yet my dick wanted to run the show.
Head in the game, soldier. Timing was the difference between life and death. The only advantage I had was that my opponents had also been thoroughly routed. Kumbuyo’s attention was glued to Jade’s body. Flanking me, Kumbuyo’s men also gawked at her, lust-filled eyes bugging out of their skulls.
Jade met Kumbuyo’s stare straight on. “I didn’t travel all the way across the world not to get my interview,” she said in her haughtiest tone yet. “So how about it?”
She was playing with fire, taunting the savages ogling at her, me included. I could feel the sexual violence in the clearing spiking by the second. My pulse raced. This woman was gonna get herself killed and not quickly. I wanted to throttle her and kiss her at once, to chew her out and fuck her at the same time.
But her ruse was working. Hell, it was more than working, she must have burned several minutes off the clock. Never underestimate the power of the female sex to distract, divert and confuse.
The tangos standing behind me broke the spell, begging Kumbuyo to let them have her, whinning like a pair of hyenas. If I clenched any harder, my jaw was gonna break. I wanted to tear out the eyes of every motherfucker in the clearing for staring at Jade like that. Hell, I wanted to rip off Kumbuyo’s head for thinking the cruel, filthy things his leer betrayed.
“She’s mine.” Kumbuyo handed Pot Belly his AK-47 and holstered his weapon. “You can have her, after I’m done with her.”
As if there was gonna be any Jade left if Kumbuyo went at her. As if I was gonna let him hurt her. As if he was gonna live long if he touched her.
The rage boiled in my veins and surged through my body. I gritted my teeth. The professional warrior in me showed some restraint, standing by to maximize my strike’s impact. But it was Jade’s subtle glance that held me in place. Her green eyes sparkled with a warning. Hold back. It wasn’t easy. I really wanted to kill the bastards.
More so when Kumbuyo’s arm coiled around her waist and his hand landed on her breast and squeezed in a way meant to cause her pain for his own pleasure. A growl rumbled at the bottom of my throat. He was a bully, a walking bag of shit, a coward who hurt women and traded sexual slaves for a living, a beast whose cruelty had ripped a bleeding wound on the soul of Africa.
I was gonna take him out.
I almost lunged then. I was wired to act, but Jade’s gaze was on me again, serene and in control, even though the son of a bitch was handling her roughly and she looked resigned and fragile in his clutches. Not yet, her eyes instructed as she perched her hand on his shoulder.
I fisted my hands and clenched until I tasted blood. I tried, I swear, but the minute he unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock, I was done. Jade peeled her eyes at me and in a barely perceptible movement, lifted a finger from Kumbuyo’s shoulder. One…two…
I exploded.
Jade
I dug my fingers in Kumbuyo’s flesh, used his shoulder for leverage, and brough up my knee, fast and hard between his legs. My kneecap struck, smashing his exposed dick against his groin. At the same time, I thrust up my fist and punched my knuckles against his throat. I followed with a left hook to the face. I think I heard his nose crack.
My self-defense instructors had always said that I was a mean fighter. More so when I was angry. And I was fuming, furious at this bastard who murdered animals and humans for a living. Anger was the emotion that called the fighter in me. Matthias wasn’t going to die tonight and neither was I. I hadn’t survived the projects, juvi and Afghanistan for nothing, and I wasn’t going to be raped by this butcher in the middle of nowhere.
The horror of millions of women on this continent who’d been abused, raped and killed roared in my veins. I channeled the horror into rage. Too many of us had been victimized, oppressed, and enslaved by beasts like these. Too many of us hadn’t survived to fight back.
It was a testament to Kumbuyo’s strength that he still staggered on his feet after I landed another punch to his jaw. He groped for his sidearm, but I booted the gun out of his hand with a roundhouse kick that should’ve broken his fingers. I landed another kick, this one aimed at his liver. He went down. He tried to get up but couldn’t. Instead, he stumbled into the bush, crawling away from the clearing, away from me.
I scrambled after him, trying to find a weapon on the go, any weapon. But the gun had landed in the bushes and I couldn’t find it. Behind me, another fight was taking place. Right on cue, Matthias had gone for Pot Belly and his crony, who were now both disarmed and in the process of being dispatched into oblivion with the expedience that only a top-of-the-line operator could inflict on a pair of habitual killers. My mind took instant note that Matthias was a
mean fighter too.
I grabbed my shirt, jammed my arms in my sleeves and snatched one of the AK-47s off the ground. I went after Kumbuyo, dashing through the brush, until I had him in my sight again. I lifted the AK-47 and had Kumbuyo in my crosshairs when the bullets started plinking around me. Crap. I hit the dirt. Alerted by the fighting, Kumbuyo’s poachers were advancing, muzzles flashing as they fired.
I elbowed myself back to the clearing and scrambled behind a pile of rocks. I checked the AK-47’s magazine, turned the selector into the middle position for automatic, aligned the sight and tapped the trigger, firing bursts of two or three bullets at a time, moving in opposite directions between bursts. I shot at shadows, spraying a steady cover of fire to keep the attackers at bay. Where the hell were those rangers Matthias had promised?
Behind me, Matthias cursed with a mouth that would make a marine blush. I craned my neck and saw him on the ground, struggling, but not with the two poachers sprawling nearby, who were out for the count. Instead, Matthias wrestled with something while shooting at the same time. For a moment, I didn’t understand what I saw. Matthias held his foot in his hands.
His foot? I froze. How was it possible? He wasn’t bleeding and he looked more irate than wounded, but he was indeed clutching his foot and between fire lulls, he was trying to somehow put it back on.
I’d seen men and women try to do the same thing after getting blown up by an IED. And there it was, the flashback that hit me, a gruesome snapshot of body parts and bloody tissue that rattled my composure.
I snapped out of it, clutched my rifle, and ran to Matthias at a crouch, dodging bullets as I went. I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him away from the line of fire. He was heavy and my muscles strained with the effort, but I got him some cover behind a nearby cluster of trees.
“We need a tourniquet.” My mind was on automatic. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“No need.” He fiddled with his foot under his cargos until somehow, it clicked in place. “There we go. Cheap motherfucker.” His face snapped up and his gaze found my eyes. “Wasn’t planning on being out on the field today. Don’t tell anyone, will you?”