Then a shot rang out, accompanied by a high-pitch shriek. Far to the back of the herd, a baby elephant explored a long wound along its flank with its trunk. Another shot forced the baby to step away from its mother. The entire herd vocalized their distress.
Davidson.
Maybe they couldn't hurt the bull elephant, but clearly the little one was not nearly as invulnerable to gunfire. For now, the sniper had only grazed the little guy. Brandt was loathe to do anything more, but that really was up to the elephants. Brandt was sorry for trespassing, but work was work.
The bull searched the trees, finding Davidson perched in the basket made up of the canopy's intertwining branches. Was the animal intelligent enough to know its choices? Could it see past its rage to the danger of its offspring?
Apparently not, as it turned back toward the SUV, its enormous ribs heaving, drawing in breath for a final attack.
"Don't worry," Lopez said. "I am totally getting this on film."
Brandt shoved the corporal toward his door. "On my mark."
Before he could give the order, several gunmen burst from the brush. In a panic at the site of an entire herd of elephants, they sprayed the animals with bullets. Talli had been correct. The gunfire barely scratched the adults. But now they had a new focus to vent their anger upon.
The herd charged in unison, stampeding toward the gunmen. The bull took one last look at the SUV, then turned as quickly as a two-ton elephant could and charged after the herd.
"Classic, man!" Lopez yelled, turning his digital camera back to himself. "Can't wait until you're old enough to get chased by elephants, RJ."
Brandt wasn't so sure Maria was going to be quite as up for "take your son to work" day.
Lopez lowered the camera and revved the engine, getting them the hell away from the cliff as Davidson scrambled down from the tree. He waved the SUV over, then leaped onto the roof then squeezed this lean frame through the damaged window frame.
Once settled, Davidson turned to the rest. "Does it seem like that was way too easy?"
Brandt couldn't agree more. That wasn't an escape. That was a release back to nature. It should have been impossible, but the Disciples must have had the frequency for his intra-dental tracker.
"All right," Brandt said with a grunt. This was not going to be pleasant. "Who is up for removing my tooth?"
When no one replied, Lopez's hand shot up. "Not me, but I'll film it!"
Great.
"What's wrong?" Bunny demanded.
Emily held up a hand as she listened on the phone. Prenner stood over the technician at the keyboard, his stiff body language asking the same thing.
Still, static filled the screen. It had been like that for nearly ten minutes. Davidson had been ready to take out Brandt's two remaining escorts and then poof. The feed was gone.
"The feed was overwritten," the technician finally announced.
"We've been hacked?" Prenner demanded.
That couldn't be, could it? They were in the Pentagon. They should be hack-proof, right?
"No," the tech reassured them. "Someone within this building overrode my commands and turned the feed off from the satellite itself."
"Who would do that?" Bunny asked.
Emily hung up the phone. "That is something my boss would like to know."
"It is something everyone wants to know," Prenner shot back.
"Yes," Bunny agreed. "However, that isn't going to help Brandt and the rest in real time. What are we doing to help them right now?"
Prenner shrugged. He actually shrugged. "Like I said earlier, they are on their own."
"On their own?" Bunny couldn't keep the exasperation from her voice.
"The men went AWOL."
"To save a decorated hero!"
Prenner pulled up to his full height. "Black ops men know the risk."
Bunny was about to launch into the tirade to end all tirades when Emily stepped between them.
"Now, now," she cooed. "I've asked the Brits for a spot of help."
Bunny's mood brightened. "Vanderwalt?" she asked. He had been super helpful during the whole Jordan debacle. And his crooked smile was kind of sexy.
Emily nodded. "We should have a feed on the area within the hour, and they have some 'aid' workers even closer than I do."
Bunny sank into her chair, not realizing tears were at the edge of her eyelids. She wasn't built for this. She always read the last page of a book so that she didn't have to stress about the characters the whole time. And if the heroes didn't win in the end? She just didn't read the book.
Her CIA handler squeezed her shoulder. "It is going to be over forty-five minutes before we can even get a glimpse of the area. Why don't you go lay down?"
Wiping the tears away, Bunny shook her head. "No. I want to be here. I have to be here."
"Very well," Emily stated. "Then I think it is best we all get some food-some real food-in our bellies." She turned to Prenner. "Is the Moulin Rogues still in the Pentagon Row?"
The technician shook his head. "Nope. Closed down last summer, but Panda Express is just around the corner and has a drive-through."
"Well then, Panda Express it is." Emily turned to Prenner. "I'll write our order down."
"What the hell?" Prenner countered. "I'm not your dinner bitch."
Emily cocked her head in that really cute way. "Really? Because I am pretty sure that the department that has a big fat mole that ruined a black ops mission, putting all of our assets in the region in danger, gets to go get the food." She looked to Bunny. "Right?"
Bunny might just have a new hero. "Right."
"It's a rule." Emily turned back to Prenner. "Maybe not written, but a rule nonetheless."
To Bunny's surprise, Prenner sighed. "Give me the list," he said, "and I'll get a private to do it."
Bunny could taste the egg rolls now. Although, even the best soy sauce wasn't going to make the next forty-five minutes go by any faster. She could only prey the men were safe until then.
Safe. Not dead. Safe.
Maybe if she repeated that frequently enough, she could make it come true.
CHAPTER 7.
Undisclosed Location 9:47 p.m. (CAT) Rebecca awoke facedown on a cool earthen floor. She felt like she'd fallen out of a plane, through a rain forest, then squeezed by a python.
Oh, wait, she had.
A little worried about where she had ended up, Rebecca was loath to open her eyes. The Disciples were in the area and had already snatched Brandt. Had they found her too? Would she be staring at a room filled with torture instruments?
Squeezing her eyes shut against the horror wouldn't make it go away. At the least she needed to get her bearings.
Cracking her eyelids open, Rebecca found a typical African hut. The curved walls were made of braided vines. Although, these had some adornment. Scattered throughout the walls were brightly colored strands. The contrast created a random yet beautiful pattern.
Tied to these walls were a line of gourds, primitive storage vessels. The roof above was made of wide green fronds. Unlike the round huts of the African planes, tribes in the moist Congo region could not use dried thatch. Otherwise, they'd have mildewed walls within days.
No, the rain forest tribes had adopted nature's own waterproofing, using the waxy plants of the forest to construct their homes. Which would have all been great fodder for a scientific paper on aboriginal African hut building. Unfortunately, she was not on an academic assignment.
Rising up on one elbow, her eyes explored more of the hut.
There was a small central fire pit that spit sparks at a chunk of meat being grilled on a skewer. Her fingers felt the soft ground beneath her until she realized it wasn't ground at all. It was a loosely woven rug of moss.
Again, ingenious use of natural resources, but not exactly information she could use to formulate her escape.
Soft footsteps carried from outside the hut. Rebecca lay back down, closing her eyes.
"Jambo," a sweet voice called out.
So Rebecca hadn't been hallucinating. She opened her eyes to find the same little girl sitting on her haunches next to her. The girl opened her small hand to reveal half a dozen burgundy berries. Strangely, they smelled of rose petals.
"Kola," the girl urged.
Tentatively, Rebecca took one from her palm. The girl urged her to bring it to her mouth. However, when Rebecca bit down, she found it wasn't a berry. Instead, it was brightly colored nut. A nut with a rather tough exterior.
The little girl giggled, shaking her head as she sat down cross-legged. Tucking her skirt over her knees, she used the orange fabric as a bowl. Picking out a seed, the girl used her fingernail to crack open the burgundy exterior to reveal a smooth white shell. This, too, she opened. Inside the shell were four small seeds.
Rebecca accepted one from the girl, sniffing at it. This seed certainly didn't smell like roses. Actually, it smelled like her face wash. But the girl pantomimed that Rebecca should put the seed in her mouth.
With that bright smile, how could Rebecca refuse?
Popping the seed into her mouth, she realized that not only did the seed smell like her face wash, it tasted like her face wash, with a bit of astringent mixed in for good measure. But the girl, even though wincing herself at the bitter taste, kept chewing, giving Rebecca the universal thumbs-up. So Rebecca kept chewing. And the bitter became sweet.
It was weird. The more she chewed, the sweeter it got. Plus, the pounding in her head receded and she felt stronger. Rebecca looked down at the seeds with more appreciation.
The kola nut. The basis for the original cola soft drinks. That was caffeine racing through her veins. Usually, she tried to avoid stimulants of any kind, but after the day she'd had? Rebecca grabbed the other two seeds and started chewing.
A grunt came from the other side of the hut. Rebecca cringed as the tall man with skin the color of night stood to his full height. That one milky eye staring straight ahead.
Instead of moving toward her, though, he moved to the spit, rotating the meat above the fire. Again, Rebecca normally tried to stay away from charbroiled game meat, but she couldn't help it as her mouth started to water.
The little girl pointed to a coiled carcass.
The python.
Rebecca's stomach turned as she realized the meat on the spick was the snake that had tried to eat her. In the jungle, the real jungle, it truly was eat or be eaten.
And damn if Rebecca wasn't really, really hungry.
Brandt's jaw throbbed as the SUV's engine smoked. Lopez cut the engine.
"I think we've ridden this pony as far as she is going to go," the corporal admitted.
He couldn't disagree with Lopez. It was just that Brandt had been hoping for a few more minutes of sitting. Not hiking. Not climbing up a huge-ass mountain. As always, fate didn't seem to give a crap what he wanted.
As Talli opened the passenger door, Brandt asked, "What is our extraction point?"
When no one answered him, let alone looked at him, he knew something was wrong. Really wrong.
"We do have an extraction plan?"
Lopez snorted as he climbed out of the vehicle. "Well, yeah, duh, we had a plan."
"Had?" Brandt asked, touching his swollen cheek, then regretting it. Davidson might be a phenomenal sniper. A dentist, not so much.
Lopez glanced to Talli, who looked to Davidson. Okay, this must be bad if they wanted Davidson to deliver the news.
"Yeah, um..." the younger man said, digging his toe into the moist rain forest soil. "We kind of have to make a detour."
Brandt's eyelids narrowed. "Detour?"
"And..." Davidson said, then licked his damaged lips. "We're not quite sure where."
This was going to take an extremely long time if Brandt incredulously repeated the last asinine statement the men made.
"Out with it."
"Well, you've probably noticed that we don't have Rebecca," Davidson said.