Chapter 56

CHAPTER 56

Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1 a.m.

FOR THE FIFTH night in a row, Kira hid in the jungle canopy while a fresh set of terrified mine workers moved through the thick foliage below. They carried flaming torches, as if they were looking for a monster.

In an odd way, Kira felt validated. A monster was what she had become.

As the men started to move close to where she was hiding, she pulled a thin plastic packet from her pocket and wrapped her legs tight around a sturdy branch. She drew her arm back, then whipped the packet toward a tree trunk about twenty feet down. The packet splattered on the rough bark, leaving thick red juice dripping down. Like blood. The man closest to the tree jumped back in horror and started shouting to the others.

An hour earlier, Kira had watched these same men being pushed into the jungle at gunpoint, like the other teams before them. She had no intention of hurting them, but she didn't mind scaring them out of their skulls. She knew the fear would spread back to Gurney and his minions. And fear had a way of eroding everything—order, discipline, loyalty. It made people careless and weak. It took the fight out of them.

After the searchers passed beneath her, Kira grabbed a rope and rappelled down from her perch. She deliberately stopped ten feet from the ground and dropped the rest of the way, landing hard on a pile of sticks and leaves. Immediately, she heard more shouts from the searchers. The torches turned around and started moving in her direction.

The chase was on. Again.

Kira waited a few seconds before heading through the foliage along a narrow animal trail. Her heart was pounding. Her night vision was crisp. She felt alive and confident, totally in her element.

At school, Kira had been at the top of her class in concealment and evasion. By the time she was sixteen, she had practiced hundreds of getaways, on foot, in cars, on motorcycles, across all types of terrain, against some of the most skilled and deadly trackers in the world—her instructors.

Compared to those terrifying lessons, this was child's play.

Kira pushed branches aside and paced herself, never getting too far ahead of the pack. She wanted to keep it interesting—give the men at least some hope of actually bringing down the shetani .

Kira actually felt a deep sympathy for her pursuers. She knew that just one generation back, men like these would have been formidable hunters, capable of tracking prey through the jungle for days at a time. Now they hunted for rocks in a sweltering pit. They were brave and strong, but hardly a threat. She anticipated their every move.

Kira took a winding route, keeping the men clear of her deadly traps. If they got too close to her position, she paused to let out a loud screech that froze them for a few seconds, letting her gain a few more steps.

As she rounded another bend in the trail, Kira stopped short. It had rained hard the night before. The trail was now blocked by a huge wallow of mud. And mud would leave tracks. That would make things a little too easy.

Kira grabbed a vine at the base of an afrormosia tree and pulled herself up into the branches. She braced herself against the trunk and watched the torches weaving through the jungle toward her. She let the men close in again, then grabbed the vine to swing across the giant mud pit to another tree.

In her rush, she didn't pause to test the vine's strength.

Rookie mistake.

At the high point of her swing, twenty feet up, the vine snapped with a sound like a pistol shot. The ground came up in a blur. Kira landed hard on her belly. It knocked the breath out of her, and she felt a sharp stabbing pain in her side. She bit her lip to stifle a groan. For a few seconds, it hurt too much to move.

Kira heard shouts. She rolled over and looked up. The torches were converging. She could see the light reflecting off the wet leaves near her head. The men must have heard the sound of her fall. They were headed right for her, just yards away. And she was practically in the open.

Kira flexed her limbs and wrists. No breaks. She ran her fingers down her side and winced as she touched a spot on her upper torso. Seventh rib, right side. Probably cracked.

She looked up. The torches were almost on top of her.

She shrugged off the pain and stumbled into the underbrush. As she looked back, she tripped over a fat surface root. A flash of torchlight hit her—just for a second, before she disappeared again.

She heard a shout from the man in the lead. "Shaba!"

Kira knew the word. She ran her fingers over her head. Damnit! Her camo cap was gone, knocked off in the fall. The man must have seen her hair.

Her curly, reddish-brown hair.

Shaba was a common word for her pursuers. It was Swahili for copper.

Kira realized that she now had a new name.