Chapter 62

CHAPTER 62

Democratic Republic of the Congo, 6 a.m.

KIRA WOKE UP sore and miserable in the crook of a sapele tree. She was about forty feet off the ground. Her sling hammock had sagged during the night and her butt was bumping on the branch below.

She slowly eased herself out of her sleeping position, taking care not to knock her bruised rib. All around her, touracos and parrots were chirping and cawing. Looking down, she saw a sleek green lizard making its way across the clearing, tongue flicking, taking its sweet time.

Things were slow in the jungle. And Kira was getting frustrated.

Not a single mercenary had ventured out of the compound at night in the past week. The unit's grimy bar had been shut down. At the end of the day, the men walked straight from guard duty at the mine back to their tents. They traveled in squads of four, diamond formation, rifles ready. They'd even found a few of Kira's more obvious traps and disarmed them.

Even the searches seemed to be losing steam. Every few nights, the miners were sent out again with their torches. But Kira made sure they never saw her. She wasn't about to make that mistake again. She just watched silently from above, like some nocturnal goddess.

Shaba the Silent.

Kira poured a palmful of water from a small pouch and splashed it on her face, rinsing off the salty night sweat. She put the pouch to her lips and took a small sip. As she tucked the pouch away, she heard rumbling in the distance.

She whipped her head around to face the direction of the noise.

Heavy machinery. Falling branches.

Kira pulled out her spotting scope and looked toward the mine. At first, all she could see were waving treetops. Then, through the foliage and rising mist, she saw a line of massive bulldozers. They were moving through the jungle, toppling and crushing everything in their way.

For a second, she thought they might be clearing ground for an expansion of the mine. But they were moving in the wrong direction for that. They were headed straight into the jungle. Straight toward her.

Of course. They were getting smarter now—expanding their perimeter to deny her cover.

As the lead bulldozer crashed through another stand of trees, Kira could see Gurney himself leaning outside the cab, like he was leading a calvary charge. She focused her scope on the battered path behind his machine.

Shit. He had reinforcements.

A fresh squad of mercenaries was following the bulldozers on foot. The newcomers were hard to miss. They were all huge, and loaded with equipment. Three white guys. One Black guy. And one guy who could pass for The Rock.

Kira climbed higher into the cover of the leaves and held perfectly still. The machines were getting closer. She could feel the vibration of their treads through the trunk. She looked around for another tree to jump to, but she knew she couldn't make a move right now without being spotted—and probably shot.

She heard Gurney shout from below, "Stop! That's far enough!"

The bulldozers halted in their tracks. The idling engines sounded like menacing growls.

Kira saw the new men—the five giants—walk out in front of the bulldozers. Now she could see that they were wearing tanks on their backs and holding long steel tubes.

Flamethrowers!

"Light it up!" Gurney shouted at the top of his lungs.

The giants pressed their triggers in unison. Bright yellow flames shot out of the ends of the tubes, creating a sheet of fire about twenty yards wide. Even the wet underbrush was no match for the blast. In seconds, the jungle was on fire. The men advanced, apparently unfazed by the heat and the blazing foliage around them. They fired another blast, longer than the first.

Flames were now climbing the base of Kira's tree. She could smell the fuel and the smoke and the singed bark below her. And she could feel the heat rising.

The back of Kira's throat started to burn. She gritted her teeth and stifled a cough. She wrapped up her gear and slung her small pack over her shoulder. The smoke was thicker now, acrid and stinging. Kira doused a headband with water and wrapped it around her mouth. Her eyes stung from the fumes and her vision blurred.

She held her breath. Waited for the smoke to envelop her. Felt for the rope she had planned to use to rappel down. Now it was her fire escape. She grabbed with both hands and pushed off with her feet, swinging from the flaming tree to one fifteen feet away. As she grabbed a new branch with her legs, she felt a stab of pain from her rib. She winced through it and held on.

She was invisible now. A thick haze of smoke hid her from the ground below. When the flamethrowers sputtered out, she could hear the crackle of flames and the sap popping in trees. The leaves and fronds around her waved in crazy patterns as the fire created its own wind.

Kira's rope was useless now, one end still tied to the branch of the burning tree. So she made the next move with her arms alone, swinging back and forth like a pendulum on a branch until her momentum was enough to propel her to another foothold. Then another. And another. Until she was a few yards ahead of the blaze. When she looked back, she could see the jungle being turned into a wasteland.

Her lungs burned. Her side throbbed. Her head ached. She was in a situation that was all too familiar to her.

On the run.

As she gathered her strength for another swing through the canopy, she heard Gurney's voice again, this time crackling through a megaphone.

"Try hiding now, you copper-topped bitch!"