The Guardian (A Wounded Warrior Novel)

by Anna del Mar

  Sarah chomped at the bait. “Jade was telling us about her trip to Zanzibar.”

  “Awesome.” Matthias flashed me a quick smile. “Beach, cocktails, a little diving. We had a great time, didn’t we, babe?”

  I stared at the chocolate drink in my hand. Was I ever going to get used to being Matthias’s babe?

  “I’m a little…shocked,” Sarah said. “Last time I saw the two of you together, you were at each other’s throats like lions and hyenas.”

  Well, things hadn’t changed that much.

  “And I thought you had a rule about dating the locals.” The acid in Cara’s voice caught me by surprise.

  “Technically speaking, Jade is not employed at the reserve,” Matthias pointed out, galvanizing the woman’s attention, not to mention mine. “In any case, we want to keep our relationship under wraps for a very good, important reason.”

  Cara seemed to be out of words, Lara sat at attention, and Sarah’s face tilted like that of an inquisitive bird. “What’s that?”

  “As you probably know, I have enemies in Africa,” Matthias said. “I don’t want Jade to become a target because she’s with me. So we all need to be discreet. Does that make sense?”

  “Totally.” Lara’s spiral curls shook with the force of her nod.

  “We won’t say a word,” Cara promised.

  “Is that why there’s a ranger posted at her door?” Sarah asked.

  “Precisely.” Matthias planted a kiss on my temple. “See, babe? I told you they’d be on board.”

  He hadn’t said anything of the sort. In fact, I had no idea why he was moving in or telling the girls about us, or about the poachers. I was so confused! I took a swig of my drink, wishing it had less protein and a full liter of rum.

  The girls didn’t stay long. After Matthias entertained them with a few stories of our trip and I showed them some of my diving pictures, they made up some excuse about having to get up really early for work and made for the door. Sarah lingered at the threshold, looking up at Matthias who held the door open like the gentleman he was, towering over her petite frame.

  “If I were you,” she said, craning her neck, “I’d be real good to Jade.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Matthias came to attention and gave her a smart salute. “That’s the plan.”

  “And you.” Sarah wiggled an accusatory finger in my direction. “Give the boy a fair chance, you hear me?”

  “Yeah, sure.” As if I hadn’t already fallen completely head over heels for him.

  “Good night,” Sarah sing-sang as she whirled on her heel and disappeared into the night.

  Matthias closed the door and grinned. “Bossy little thing.”

  “She’s an admiral,” I said, “in her own, elfin, delicate way.”

  “No kidding.” Matthias plopped down on the couch next to me. “I like Lara too. She’s odd, but interesting.”

  “Brainy but completely lovable. And so sweet.” I hesitated then asked. “How come you’re not saying anything about Cara?”

  “Cara, right.” His mouth straightened. “We had a misunderstanding there when she first arrived at the station.”

  “Oh?” Cara had never mentioned anything of the sort. “What about?”

  “She stole into my tent one night,” Matthias said, somewhat reluctantly.

  “Wait.” Matthias was too much of a gentleman to add the details that my imagination filled in—a snapshot of Cara, butt naked in his cot. “She tried to seduce you?”

  He shrugged. “I asked her to leave.”

  Wow. She’d never mention she’d been interested in Matthias. Not to me.

  “The important thing, we got it straightened out,” Matthias said with finality that suggested he’d moved on eons ago and I had nothing to worry about.

  “Okay.” I tucked that little piece of information in the back of my mind. “I suck at this friendship thing. Don’t think I didn’t notice. Thanks for the assist.”

  He enfolded me in his arms and drew me into his lap. “Glad to be of service.”

  “But I don’t understand,” I said. “Why tell the girls about us when things are so complicated and you still need access to Mei? What if words gets out to Mei that you and I are together?”

  “Sometimes the best strategy is to hide in plain view,” Matthias said.

  “You mean like the elephant herds?”

  “Exactly,” Matthias said. “Better to enlist key elements to our cause than to have your friends guessing or asking questions behind our backs. I happen to think those girls care for you and we need some good people in our corner.”

  “But do you think it’s smart for you to move in with me right now?”

  “Smart?” He shrugged. “No, but here’s the deal. I can pretend all day if you want. For the sake of the mission, I’ll keep in touch with Mei. But I’m sleeping with you every chance I get and that’s non-negotiable.”

  The warmth spread from the center of my chest to the furthest reaches of my body even before his lips brushed against mine and disconnected my nerves from my brain. His touch drew me into the moment, made me forget about the world outside my door and focused my body’s interest exclusively on him. In his arms, I was in my safe place.

  “Bed?” I whispered when we came up for air.

  “Bed, couch, chaise, shower, floor.” He smiled against my mouth. “We might try all of those tonight. But before we get to that…”

  I squeezed his hand. “Please don’t ask me not to go. Please?”

  He let out a long breath. “No, I’m not gonna ask you that. I’m gonna drive you out there tomorrow, even if it kills me. But…” he hesitated. “There’s something I want you to do for me.”

  He pulled out a small ring from of his pocket, a smooth, simple green jade band that he slid onto my ring finger right after he kissed my hand. I stared at the ring gracing my finger and then at Matthias. I was pretty sure my mouth was wide open.

  “It’s nothing as beautiful or valuable as what your parents gave you,” he said, cheeks and ears high with color. “But I’d really like it if you wear it. For me. Okay?”

  I nodded, because my throat was too tight for words. He kissed me, fingers undoing my shirt’s buttons with mindboggling dexterity. With my shirt open, he dipped his hand into the cup of my bra and enveloped my breast in the warm hold of his hand.

  “Christ.” He let out a long exhale. “I’ve been wanting to feel you all day. It was the longest day of my life.”

  I rubbed my palm along his erection. “Let’s not fight anymore.”

  “Deal.” He kissed me again. “Outside? Chaise, under the moonlight?”

  I grinned. “Seems like a good starting point.”

  Jade

  The next morning, Matthias kept his side of the bargain. As the sun came out to play on the savanna, we drove out of the station, escorted by a caravan of rangers. Zeke stayed behind, in charge of the station’s security, but Dr. Valdez and his big case of equipment rode with us in the Land Rover. We made our way through muddy tracks and swollen streams. It took us almost three hours to get to the border and meet up with Rem’s assets, a mixed group of Tanzanian troops, Kenyan Special Forces, and intelligence operatives whose names, affiliations and countries of origin I was not allowed to know.

  Matthias got out of the Land Rover and began to give instructions to his rangers. Rem’s men were strategically deployed to guarantee our safety, but Matthias didn’t want to risk any chances. It was only after he was satisfied that all the approach angles were properly monitored that he signaled the all clear for Doctor Valdez and I, before he went to huddle with Rem.

  I climbed down from the truck. My boots crunched on the red dirt. Doctor Valdez unloaded his equipment while I got a good look at the place. The scene of the slaughter stunned me. My stomach shot up to my throat and got stuck there. Bloated and desiccated under the midday sun, the mutilated bodies of hundreds of elephants, small and large, littered the grassy plains for as far as I could see. They lay wher
e they had fallen to the bullets that killed them, headless corpses sprawled next to murdered younglings who’d never had the chance to grow their precious tusks. In many cases, the brain and genitals had been poached as well.

  I gagged. I covered my mouth and tried to keep it together. I failed. The stench of death lingered in the air like a lethal miasma. My regurgitated breakfast ended up splattered at the base of a Strangled Fig.

  Matthias stalked over to me. “You okay?” he asked, rubbing my back in small, comforting circles.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I bent over my knees, breathing raggedly. “I never lose it like this. Never.”

  “It’s a lot to take in,” Matthias said. “Take your time.”

  I’d seen battlefields before, cities destroyed, soldiers and civilians killed. But this? This was violence unleashed for the sake of greed, mankind turned beast. So much death. So much gore. Even the vultures that circled above us and perched on the rotten bodies had grown fat from the carnage.

  The churn in my belly never went away, but I pulled it together. Matthias and Dr. Valdez set up a makeshift workshop on the back of the Land Rover. They selected a few tusks from the ones Rem and some of his men unloaded from a battered old truck. The mechanical hiss of battery-powered tools rumbled throughout the plains as they installed their tiny tracking devices. If everything worked as it should, the devices would ping on average four times a day and transmit a signal that Matthias, Rem and his team would be monitoring 24/7.

  I decided to let the camera do most the talking. I shot film as I usually did, on my own, with my small camera mounted on a monopod, a kind of a selfie stick that allowed me to be included in the frame while I narrated my observations. I also shot stills and took notes to include in the edited version. The trickiest part came when I shot the pile of confiscated ivory that would serve as bait to the poachers. The ivory mount was set among the carnage, almost two stories tall, a monument to atrocity. I worked my camera angles very carefully even though they had to look like they were shot quickly and on the go.

  “Shoot those hills in the distance,” Rem instructed me as if he was my producer. “They’ll be recognizable to Kumbuyo and the others.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “And don’t forget to shoot the road in the background,” Rem added. “It should give them another clue.”

  “Got it.”

  “But make sure you don’t get any of my men in your shots,” Rem said. “That would be bad. Very bad.”

  “Rem?” I met his gaze. “I got this. Okay? I know what I’m doing.”

  “Okay, yeah, I’m sorry,” Rem mumbled. “It’s just that…this is really important.”

  “Trust me,” I said. “I know.”

  The work was grueling. The sun beat down on us. The mood of the men around me was grim and uptight. When I was finally done, I was physically and emotionally exhausted, but I was also confident I could produce several compelling segments.

  We rode back to the station in silence. As we rattled over the roads, I began to see the story in my head. Speed was of the essence now and I’d given Hannah heads up that something big was coming her way.

  As soon as we arrived at the station, I went straight to my bungalow and edited my footage through the night. Everybody at the station knew we’d gone out to the field today, to help with Dr. Valdez’s research, they believed. But Sarah, Lara and Cara were incredibly bright. They knew we were up to something.

  So I wasn’t surprised when Sarah stopped by with some food she’d stolen from the dinner buffet. She brought enough to feed both Matthias and I. She didn’t ask any questions and I was happy for that. Lara came a little later and quietly deposited a printed pile of statistics on my desk, the latest information on elephant conservation in Africa. Cara knocked on the door and thrust a Sauvignon Blanc into Matthias’s hands.

  “A girl’s got to have a little pick-me-up at the end of a long day,” she said before she left.

  I sipped on the wine and worked on my segments, sticking to my usual style, which had been described as Antony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown meets Nature plus a hefty load of attitude. I was determined to get this right.

  Matthias sat with me, taking a couple of catnaps through the long hours. I worked best alone, but truth be told, Matthias made himself useful, sifting through hundreds of as of yet uncatalogued pictures to come up with the best and most meaningful shots. I kind of liked working with him.

  Early the next morning, we met with Ari, Zeke, and Rem, who had arrived late last night to preview the segments. To protect his cover, Rem kept up his act as Matthias’s expat playboy friend, stopping by for a little wildlife viewing and dazzling everyone at the station with his roguish charm. Beyond the scene, Rem was back and forth on his cell, barking orders, at who, I had no idea. He looked tired and on edge.

  I presented my little audience with three segments. We previewed them several times to ensure they revealed only what we wanted the poachers to know. As soon as I got approval, I marched over to the main lodge, attached the segments to an email and sent them off to Hannah. It was done. The plan had been put in motion.

  Matthias

  Three hours after Jade sent her clips to her agent, the first segment had gone viral and several big time outlets had picked it up and shared it with their viewers. Rem, Jade, Zeke and I huddled around the laptop on my desk, monitoring comments and reactions around the world.

  We were crammed in my office, one of the few spaces outside the main lodge that had Internet access, a weathered safari tent staked on a wooden platform that doubled as my sleeping quarters. I’d put my rangers on high alert and Rem was getting live reports from his people in the field. We were all wondering if Kumbuyo would go for it and if so, when.

  The best news so far, was that we’d gotten a lot of local and international press. Through Hannah, Jade had received several requests for interviews. It went against my grain to have Jade doing interviews right now. It went against her grain too. She didn’t want to make the story about her. But the extra-publicity was bound to help with the mission and the interviews would heighten the segments’ profiles. So Jade agreed, I flexed, and Hannah scheduled three global networks to come out first thing tomorrow morning.

  Rem hung up his cell. “My operatives are telling me they think the ivory stores are being scouted as we speak.”

  I looked up from the computer. “How?”

  “They’re tracking what they believe is a drone.”

  “Do poachers have drones?” Jade asked from her perch, sitting sideways at the edge of my desk.

  “The well-funded ones do,” I said, wrenching my mind away from the distraction of her long legs, dangling so close to me. “How are we looking to the drone?”

  “Like a bunch of lazy baboons, I hope.” Rem’s cell rang at the same time that a low-flying aircraft buzzed over the camp on the way to the landing field.

  “Who’s that?” I stalked to the entrance, snatched aside the tent flap and scoured the sky, trying to identify the airplane. “Zeke, are we expecting a delivery today?”

  “Not that I know of,” Zeke said. “Let me find out who that is.” He stepped out on the deck and radioed the rangers posted at the airfield.

  I didn’t want any unauthorized arrivals or departures at the station right now. I needed everything and everybody buttoned down tight. With my limited manpower, I was joggling a lot of security priorities, the mission, the reserve, the station, Jade… Christ. I rubbed the back of my knotted neck. I couldn’t allow any harm to come to Jade.

  I made my way back to the desk, put my arms around Jade’s waist and, hugging her back to my front, planted a kiss on her shoulder. She gave me a distracted peck on the cheek, but her eyes were narrowed on Rem, who paced the little tent, spitting out angry yeses and noes. “Got it,” he said right before he hung up.

  I took in Rem’s clashing eyebrows and the lines deepening in his forehead. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’ve got t
rouble.” Rem’s tone made my gut clench. “Get your stuff. You are on your way to the embassy at Dar es Salaam, pronto.”

  “The embassy?” Jade looked from me to Rem, alarmed gaze full of questions.

  “No way,” I said, shaking my head “I’m not going anywhere. We just went live with our plan.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that.” Rem took off his baseball cap and tossed it on the table, lips distorted as if in disgust. “But you’ve got to leave. Right away. Those are your orders and you will comply.”

  I skewered Rem with my glare. “You’re fucking nuts if you think I’m bailing now.”

  “You don’t have an option.”

  “What’s the deal?” Jade asked.

  “Who just called you?” I demanded.

  “One of my informants with the Tanzanian police,” Rem said. “It’s Peter Drake. They found him dead in Arusha last night. The police are on the way. They think you killed him.”

  25

  Jade

  I stared from Matthias to Rem to Zeke, who stood by the entrance, listening to both the conversation taking place in the tent and the chatter coming over the radio. My head spun. I was unable to comprehend what Rem had just said. A lump blocked my throat. Peter Drake was dead? The police were on the way?

  “This is crazy.” My knees buckled and I had to brace myself on the table. “Why do the police think Matthias killed Peter Drake?”

  “Oh, that’s easy.” Rem shot a surly glance at Matthias. “Apparently, everybody in Tanzania knows that our boy here was looking for Drake. Matthias himself showed up in Arusha to interrogate Drake’s roommates. They mentioned that Drake came back from his last trip to the reserve beat up. Something about a broken arm?” He glared some more at Matthias. “According to them, when Matthias showed up at their door, he threatened all kinds of bodily violence against Drake.”

  I spun on Matthias. “You did what?”

  Matthias lifted a shoulder. “I flew in and out of Arusha on the morning after the fight. My people couldn’t find Drake. I thought I might have better luck.”