Chapter 28
Donovan
I slept through the night.
That alone was enough to sit with for a minute.
I was dressed and perched on the edge of Sarah’s bed, holding a coffee I’d gotten up and come back with.
The cabin was still dim, the first light just starting to push through the blinds.
Sarah was in the bathroom with the door half open, pulling her hair into a braid.
I’d told her about Owen two nights ago. Everything. How I couldn’t stop seeing him in these young rangers. I’d said it all out loud in the dark and waited for the ceiling to fall in, and it didn’t.
The burden was still there. It would always be there. But for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t carrying it alone.
Train to the best of your ability and then trust them.
Her words. Sitting in the space where the dread used to live, quiet and steady and not going anywhere.
“I’m at the temporary setup until noon,” Sarah said from the bathroom. “The eland’s sutures need checking, and I’ve got the dart inventory to reconcile.”
“After noon?”
“Lab work. I want to finish the tissue analysis from the second carcass. KWS asked for supplemental documentation.” She came out, the braid finished, and started lacing her boots on the chair near the window. “Staying close today. What about you?”
“Training. All day.”
“The contact drills again?”
“We add more the more they master.”
She pulled the lace tight and looked up at me.
“You slept pretty well last night, it seemed like,” she said.
“I did.”
“Good.” She finished the other boot and stood. She smiled. “That’s good.”
The smile didn’t quite hold. She caught herself and looked toward the window. I could tell she was starting to think about the poachers.
“Patrol coverage is solid,” I said as I stood up and walked to her. “All the access roads, the waterholes. We’ve got better eyes on the northeast sector than we’ve ever had.”
“I’m not worried about the patrols. I’m worried about you.”
I set the coffee down. She tilted her chin up, and I kissed her, my hand finding the back of her neck. Her palm settled flat against my chest and stayed there after I pulled back.
“Go teach,” she said.
I went.
We both started our day.
Sarah’s temporary setup sat under a canvas awning she and the rangers had rigged from salvage poles. The equipment that survived the fire was up off the ground on spare crates. She’d made it work.
The water tank stood ten meters past, BACK OFF OR BURN in white spray paint, the letters still sharp. Nobody had covered it, because it served as a reminder of the ongoing threat and a reason to train hard.
Andrew was at the training ground. He had the rangers in two groups, running full-team fire and maneuver scenarios. Before, they were bounding in pairs. Now they were bounding in teams of four. Their tactics were expanding to ensure more of them could work cohesively together at a single time.
“Set!” from one side.
A second later, “Moving!” from the other.
Four days of this and the change was everywhere. The hesitation that had defined the first session was gone. Their transitions were tighter. They dropped into positions without scanning for approval.
I fell in beside Andrew and picked up where he’d started them.
Andrew and I set objectives and fed them to Zayn and Baraka as team leaders.
Assault a position from the east. Dual-team maneuver on a fixed point.
Shift the approach when the terrain changes.
Zayn and Baraka took the objectives and directed their teams through the execution, adjusting the bounding assault based on what we gave them.
On the last repetition, Zayn called a correction on one of his own men before I could open my mouth.
The ranger’s spacing had drifted too tight, and Zayn pulled him back with a hand on his shoulder and two words.
The kid adjusted and didn’t make the mistake again.
Before, I’d have had to make that correction myself. Now, Zayn was seeing it and fixing it in real time.
We called a break. The rangers dropped their gear and found shade. Canteens came out. Nobody sat down until they’d cleared their weapons first. That discipline had become automatic. No one had to be told.
Andrew drifted over to me with his own canteen.
“Talked to Faith this morning,” he said.
“And?”
“KWS has Nasser’s name, his known associates. And everything else Jace pulled from the phone. Law enforcement is working it. The official position is that they’re building a case.”
“Building a case.” I drank from my canteen. “How long does that take?”
“Longer than either of us would like. But no new kills since we locked down the rhino habitat, though. The squeeze is holding.”
I looked across the training ground. Zayn was talking to two of the rangers, crouched in the dirt with a stick, drawing out a plan. Lines for approach, Xs for positions. The two rangers beside him were watching and nodding.
“Maybe that’s enough,” Andrew said. “Nasser’s a businessman. We’ve cut off his access to the product. Every day he stays in the area is a day closer to an arrest. If he’s smart, he moves on to easier ground.”
“I’d rather see him in cuffs than watch him walk away.”
“So would I. But it keeps rhinos alive and gets him off our reserve.” Andrew capped his canteen. “Grant didn’t storm Vicksburg. He cut the supply lines and starved the garrison out. Forty-seven days and the whole city surrendered without a final assault. Sometimes the squeeze is the strategy.”
It was a reasonable conclusion. The patrols had tightened the noose, the phone had given law enforcement a road map, and Nasser’s operation was bleeding time and exposure. A rational man would fold.
I drew my pistol, racked the slide back enough to confirm the round in the chamber, and reholstered it.
“Would we fold?” I asked. “In his situation. Would we cut our losses and walk away?”
Andrew didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
“Let’s get them training again.”
Andrew called them in. The rangers formed up and reset. Zayn’s group on the left, Baraka’s on the right. They stepped into position and waited for the command.
I gave it.
They moved. Pairs bounding forward, covering each other, calling positions. Baraka sprinted twenty meters and hit the dirt hard. His rifle came forward, and he was oriented toward the imaginary threat before the dust settled around him. “Set!”
Zayn was up and past him. “Moving!”
The rest of the group followed in sequence, each pair leapfrogging the last.
Before I’d opened up to Sarah, the drills had been a constant and painful reminder of Owen.
Zayn adjusting a stance became Owen adjusting a stance.
Baraka dropping into position became a twenty-two-year-old kid dropping into position.
Each correction came with the question I couldn’t silence: what if I’m wrong again?
That question was quiet now. Not dead. Quiet. Sarah hadn’t killed it. She’d just told me that I could give myself permission to set it down.
I could watch Zayn coach his own team and see Zayn. I could adjust Baraka’s spacing and think about Baraka’s spacing. The men in front of me were the men in front of me, not ghosts of the one I’d lost.
Train to the best of your ability and then trust them.
For the first time since I’d taken command of these men, I was doing it without flinching.
The cabin was black. I was lying next to Sarah when the radio went off.
A voice I recognized as one of the rangers on the night watch, speaking fast, half in English and half in Swahili. “Movement at the perimeter. Multiple positions. North side.”
I was already moving. Out of the bed, pants on, boots pulled tight. My sidearm was on the chair where I always left it. Sarah sat up behind me, the sheet falling away. She started to get up.
“Stay here,” I said. “Stay down. Away from the windows.”
“Donovan—”
“Stay in this cabin.” I turned back to her, found her face in the dark. “I’ll come back for you.”
She pulled me down by the collar and kissed me.
“Be safe,” she said.
I went out the door and into the night.
I was halfway to the rally point when the shooting started.
Heavy fire from the direction the watch had called out. It came in from multiple positions across the north side, sustained bursts that ripped through the darkness in strobing flashes. Rounds were zipping through the air and destroying brush.
I dropped low and covered the last thirty meters to the rally point at a sprint.
Andrew was already there, holding an extra rifle he had acquired from the arms closet.
He was crouched behind the concrete foundation of the generator housing.
The rangers were arriving, filing in from the bunkhouse.
Armed and moving to the positions we’d drilled.
“North side,” Andrew said. “At least four firing positions. Maybe more.”
I didn’t waste time. “This is what we trained for. Zayn, take your group with Andrew. Circle east and try to advance and flank.”
I turned to Baraka. “You’re with me. We need to establish a base of fire to cover Zayn’s team as they flank, and we need to slowly advance on their position to press them.”
Baraka was beside me, three more rangers behind him. We moved toward the north perimeter in a low crouch, using the buildings for cover. The incoming fire cracked overhead, punching into corrugated metal and splintering timber somewhere to our left.
We got behind a concrete vehicle barricade and went prone. Baraka set his rifle and oriented north. The rangers spread out beside him.
“Pick your targets. Fire at will.”
Baraka squeezed the trigger. The rifle barked, and the round tore across the clearing toward the nearest muzzle flash. The ranger beside him followed. Then the next.
I keyed the radio. “Andrew, we’re suppressing north. Move now.”
“Moving.”