Chapter Twenty-Six

Tess.

His Iniquus sat-phone in hand, Levi failed to get a call out.

The engulfing cloud cover made connection impossible.

Tess and Levi stood hand in hand on a boulder, watching their vehicle burn. There would be nothing to salvage by way of transportation or cover.

Levi had driven them right through the flame wall. And while their woolen blankets didn’t catch fire, their tires did.

Fleeing into the rocky hills kept them from the path of the blaze, but the soil was dry and dusty here. In the deluge, they could see moving toward them from the north. Tess knew all of this would wash away and them with it.

A mudslide was just another way they could die that day.

Nowhere was safe.

When Tess turned to Levi, he had a GPS topo map open.

“We have to get down and away.” Tess pointed toward the line of rain. “When that hits here, we need to be inside some kind of shelter, or we’ll become hypothermic fast.”

“Agreed,” Levi said. “We’ve got to aim for the school.”

“They might have a bus or some other way to get the kids—and maybe us—south to safety.”

The children clung to each other as Levi pulled out his binoculars and scanned the area, comparing what he could see and the pictures on his GPS. “Okay, Tess, I have a plan. Can you weigh in?” He moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with her so she could see the map. “We have to go back down there. But it’s already burned. It might still be hot. We’ll have to carry the children. Their sandals won’t protect the bottoms of their feet.”

“What about Mojo?”

“I’ll put him on my shoulders and hold the bigger girl to my chest. Can you piggyback the smaller boy?”

Tess looked down the side of the hill to where the fire had consumed the fuel, then slid down the buffet table of dead vegetation, gluttonously eating everything in its path.

“One foot on black,” she said. “I remember that now. When they were burning the villages in northern Ghana, the only safe place was the area that had already burned.”

As Tess and Levi bowed their heads over the map, praying to the gods of direction and wise choices, they calculated that it would be a three-mile hike, and the children were already exhausted.

Levi pointed in the direction, getting his bearings, then slid his equipment into his pockets. “As Goose said the other day, ‘Time is flesh.’ We need to go now and push hard.”

“I’ll do my best to keep up.” With her hiking bag on her back and the boy’s hand trapped in hers, Tess stepped cautiously after Levi.

This trek was a lot slower than her rescue the other day when Levi held her in his arms, and they pelted down the side of the mountain. But that had been a three-man team helping with stability. Today, they didn’t have that luxury.

About halfway down, Levi shot a glance toward Tess. “You know what could make this worse?”

“Don’t give the air any ideas.”

“Black mountain rhinos,” he said with a grin despite her warning.

“That’s worse than anything else that might rear its terrified head?” She focused on Mojo. “Rhino-sour.” That word had such a strange feel in her mouth. “What would Mojo do?”

“Protect us.”

“Is that so bad?” Tess asked.

“Enrico warned me that Mojo turns berserker when he sees a rhinoceros.”

“You’re right. If we added a charging rhino and a berserker-mode Mojo into the mix, the situation would be—what did you used to call that? FUBAR? Yes, FUBAR.”

Mojo jumped onto a boulder, coat oscillating in the wind. He reached out and bit at the air. Then turned and barked at Levi.

Levi turned. “Tess,” Levi called, “your hair is floating.”

Tess knew exactly what that meant. The air was charged with electricity.

“Lightning protocol,” Levi yelled. “Get down here, Mojo.”

Levi dragged his pack off his back, shoving it under the lip of a boulder. “Tess, put your bag here. It has metal.” Mojo was by his side, and Levi unclasped his tactical K9 vest and slung it under as Tess shifted her gaze to sweep over the kids, making sure they weren’t wearing metal.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Levi said. “We need to have the least connection to the ground as possible. Spread out twenty feet apart. I know it’s hard on you kids. Fast. Fast. Balls of your feet, Tess. Crouch down, feet together, lower your head, cover your—” and before he could get the word “ears” out of his mouth, lightning zapped the air. Thunder roared immediately after. It was long and low, tracking slowly over the sky.

Tess felt the vibrations in the marrow of her bones and the fillings in her teeth.

“Stay still,” Levi yelled.

The boy stood, arms outstretched, stumbling toward his sister.

“No, get down!” Tess swung an arm through the air to catch his attention.

A second flash of lightning filled the air with the sharp, pungent odor of ozone. She waited for the thunder to shake the hillside before she turned to where Levi was checking on Mojo.

“Well, at least there aren’t rhinos,” Tess said as she stood and pointed toward a pickup truck bouncing off-road in their direction.

“Yup. I’m on it. Tess, you get the kids.” Levi buckled Mojo into his vest then grabbed his pack. “I’m going to get him to stop.” He handed Tess’s cap back, and she pulled it over her curls.

Slinging her pack into place, Tess grabbed the boy’s hand.

The girl—who was older—sprang out ahead, following Levi as he sprinted down the hillside.

Tess moved as fast as she could. The boy’s short legs were a hindrance. Finally, Tess dragged her hand up until he was dangling near her hip, and he intuitively wrapped his legs around her and clung to her neck.

The rain began with a few drips and drizzles, followed by a normal rain shower.

Her baseball cap offered Tess a bit of protection, but the rain was coming in sideways. By the time she reached the bottom of the hill and was tracing after Levi and Mojo, it was pelting her so hard that she was having trouble seeing.

Levi stood in the path of the pickup.

The guy came right up to Levi, making Tess shriek as he barely stopped in time.

The man’s eyelids were peeled back, showing the whites of his eyes, panicking.

Tess thought that the driver Hadn’t seen Levi signaling through the curtain of rain.

After slamming his hands onto the guy's hood, Levi rounded to the driver’s side. “I need you to take us to the school.”

“I cannot. No.” He pointed across the blackened stretch. “I've got to get to my mother.”

“Look, man. I've got two small children here. We need to get them back to the school.”

As the rain beat against the sooty earth, baked to a clay-like hardness, Tess called, “We're not going to make it without a vehicle.”

Levi was obviously not playing around.

And the driver, too, was single-minded in his focus.

Their back and forth was taking up precious time.

"Move over, guy," Levi commanded.

“No.” He moved his hand to the gear to shift into drive.

Levi unlocked the door, popped it open, and dragged the guy out of the cab. “Look, man, I'm gonna give you your truck back. I just need to get these kids to safety.”

As Levi tossed the driver into the back of his pickup, Levi yelled, “Get in. Let’s go!”

While Tess loaded Mojo into the front, Levi grabbed the children with their wool blanket shields and popped them in next to the driver in the back. Tess climbed in the back as well.

Following his GPS, Levi raced for the school, squealing to a halt at the front door.

A middle-aged woman was standing in the doorframe, wringing her hands.

As they unloaded, the man got back under his steering wheel.

Tess yelled at him. “Don’t go north. Do not go north.

He stared at her for a moment, considering her words. A decision made, he slammed the gear into drive and jetted off, heading north.

All Tess could think was that he had family there, and he was trying to save them.

Tess and the children scrambled inside the school. It was a relief to be inside of a structure, away from the stinging rain.

The first thing that Levi and she did was check their phones. Tess had a bar and Levi had none.

Tess dialed Gwen. Her priority was to get an expert opinion on what might happen next.

From the topo map, Tess knew that they were too low-lying for this to be a safe location.

As Gwen came on the line, Levi was asking the teacher about a vehicle, there was none.

“It’s raining that hard there?” Tess yelled into the phone so that she could be heard above the deluge.

“Who is that?” Levi asked.

“Gwen.”

He reached for Tess’s phone. “Gwen, is anyone there from Iniquus? Reaper or Goose?”

Levi turned to Tess and repeated, “They left with Enrico earlier. They were up at the Etosha kennels. Gwen warned them.”

It would have been nice if they could come with a vehicle, but Tess knew it wasn’t practical, nor was it wise.

“Gwen, write this down,” Levi said. “I need you to call this number.” He reeled out an eight-hundred number then added, “You need to say this word for word: Code Red. Code Red Code Red. Yes, you say the code three times. Next, ‘incoming message from Levi Elliot, Cerberus Team Charlie.’ Yes, Charlie. Elliot E-l-l-i-o-t.” He looked aggravated but kept his voice even. “Give them these coordinates.” Levi lifted the GPS unit and again reeled off a string of numbers. “Read the number back to me … That’s correct. Keep writing. This is our situation: Thirteen children, three adults, including a teacher, Tess, and me, and we have Mojo.”

Thirteen children? How had he gotten hold of that information so fast?

“Tell Iniquus about the storm you’re seeing. We’ll stay inside as long as we can. When the school floods … Yes, it will flood. We’re in a low-lying area. Listen, Gwen, I need you to write this down for me. ‘When the school floods, we’ll take the children to the roof.’” He paused. “I understand that. That’s why I’m giving you this information. I need the people at that phone number to send help … I don’t know, Gwen. I have no idea what help they can send. But that’s their job, so we’ll just let them figure it out. Call them now. Do it now.”

The teacher had come over and put her hands on Tess’s arms. “It’s not safe here?”

Tess split her attention between Levi’s phone call and the teacher as she explained why this area, along with the school, was so dangerous.

“Then how?” the teacher asked, “how do we keep the children safe?”