Amanda considered the comment. The wild dogs of the Serengeti Plain were carnivores as fierce as any lion or cheetah and quite frequently fought and won against those predators. An eerie sense of foreboding crept over her now that she realized the predicament Kiram had just described. They were surrounded, out-fooled by a pack of dogs.

  “Where is the alpha dog, Kiram?”

  “Main dog is on right, ahead of us up above on the ledge.”

  “Can you shoot that thing with any authority? I mean really aim it and hit something?”

  Kiram smiled a hardened grin, worlds removed from the innocent smile he had flashed Amanda this morning when he had scored the soccer goal. The African experience, she surmised in small moments like these, was one of too much maturity at the wrong time, feeding the wrong wolf, as the Indian myth went. In every person, there were two wolves: one was the wolf of goodness, humility, and loyalty, while the other wolf was filled with rage, resentment, hatefulness, and bitter anger. Amanda remembered telling the story to Kiram, who had asked at the end, “Which wolf wins?”

  “The one you feed,” she had said.

  Here she was asking him to feed the fighting wolf. Rather than analyze her decision, she simply wanted them to survive this austere place and its menagerie of inhospitable inhabitants.

  “I can shoot, Miss Amanda. That does not make me bad,” Kiram said, emphatically, reading her thoughts. His dark face glowed with sweat against the rising half-moon. Eyes large and white, they conveyed both compassion and ferocity. Simmering just beneath the irises, Amanda figured, were memories of wars fought as a child and visions of family members hacked to death. What would it be like to have no family to call your own, no one who loved you, she wondered? What must it have been like for Kiram and Mumbato and the others to flee men with machetes chopping everything in their paths?

  “I never said you were bad, Kiram,” Amanda replied.

  “It’s all over your face, Amanda,” Webb contributed as he kept a careful hand on a low-hanging branch of an African umbrella thorn tree.

  “I’m not that transparent, am I?” Amanda whispered. It was true, she knew. Her face expressed everything.

  “Respect me and my ability to use this weapon,” Kiram said flatly. He was no longer the carefree orphan. He was a man in the wild with charges who required his care.

  “I respect you, Kiram,” she said.

  Sounds of insects filled the air like cicadas. An occasional bark echoed down the canyon.

  “They are speaking. The dogs,” Kiram said. “We must do something now or they will attack us. Here, take this knife. It will protect you and the white boy.”

  Amanda looked at the hunter’s knife with its long, eight-inch curved blade reflecting yellow in the moonlight.

  “I don’t need this,” Amanda protested.

  “Miss Amanda, please do not argue,” Kiram emphasized.

  She handled the knife, hesitated, and said, “Okay, my thought is you shoot the alpha first. What do you recommend?”

  “The main dog is protected by two others. I can kill them, but whoever killed Dr. King and attacked our village will hear my shots.”

  Amanda nodded. “Kill the alpha, and then we will move to a defensive position until sunrise.”

  Kiram stepped carefully toward Mumbato and whispered something in Swahili.

  “What are they talking about?” Webb asked nervously. Amanda saw that he was absorbing what was happening but that he might be out of his element.

  “He’s giving Mumbato the plan. Mumbato will watch from that small rock outcropping up there,” she said, pointing above them about twenty meters. “Kiram needs to go another twenty meters or so to get a good shot in the darkness. He’s saying he needs to get close.”

  They watched Kiram and Mumbato clasp hand-to-forearm in the warrior’s grip. The two boys scaled the moderate cliff on all fours. She watched Mumbato lie down on the rock and aim in the direction from which they had traveled. The sun had been at their backs as they followed the protective cover of the dry streambed, so Amanda knew that they had been moving in an easterly direction. Kiram moved on his hands and knees in the opposite direction of Mumbato, but soon he was out of Amanda’s sight, her field of vision blocked by the rock ledge directly above.

  The action unfolded more quickly than she expected. She heard three rapid pops from what she presumed was Kiram’s AK-47, followed by howling. Quickly, she turned her head when two loud reports echoed over their heads. Mumbato’s gun, she thought. Crouching in a defensive stance, she saw a flash before her eyes and realized that one of the dogs was leaping through the air from the ledge and flying directly at her. She watched the bare teeth and ferocious sneer of the wild animal. Its savage eyes reminded her of a rabid raccoon she had seen as a young child. The dog’s moist breath blasted her face with a morbid scent that hinted of decaying teeth. She instinctively threw her hand in front of her face, and miraculously the dog missed her, going high, over her head.

  She turned, defensive and ready for a counterattack. The dog skidded on the slick rocks but was able to turn around and spin its claws against the magma outcropping. Lunging toward Amanda, the dog was airborne again, its legs outstretched.

  Amanda lifted the knife and stepped to the side, pulling the smooth edge upward as if hitting a tennis backhand. The knife sliced through the dog’s throat until it got caught on the left shoulder bone. She twisted her shoulders, like a golfer’s follow-through, and the knife came free of the dog’s neck. Amanda felt the warm blood ooze across her hands as the animal yelped and snapped. Like a bluefish released from a lure bouncing in the bottom of a boat with barefooted anglers, the wild dog continued to click its teeth, its mouth inching toward Amanda.

  Reflexively, Amanda drove the knife into the chest cavity of the dog and wrenched it sideways until she could retrieve the blade. The dog convulsed and then lay motionless.

  Kiram came running down the cliff with Mumbato in tow.

  “Quick, Amanda, the dogs are running away, but Mumbato heard a motor. We must go.”

  Amanda slid the knife across the matted fur of the dog, wiping the blade.

  “Now, we must move!” Kiram whispered emphatically.

  Amanda, still on one knee, looked at Kiram and nodded. She picked up the cooler and said, “Webb, get that backpack. Let’s go. Kiram, lead the way.”

  Carefully, they picked their way down the crevice until they found reasonably level ground across which they traveled with increasing speed through the haunting night. Amanda recalled the dog’s sneer and hadn’t had time to think about how Webb had cowered against the canyon wall during her confrontation with the predator. Webb’s demonstration in the airplane had not been an act. He was scared, Amanda thought, perhaps even a coward.

  They walked quickly for what seemed like another two hours. Amanda followed Kiram, while Mumbato was always the last in trail. Webb followed Amanda closely.

  Adrenaline surged through her body. Sweat soaked her clothes. They reached a flat spot that seemed well defended on all sides by high rocks.

  Perhaps sensing a break from the long trek, Webb excused himself, telling Amanda he needed to “use the bathroom.”

  “Good luck with that,” she said, wiping a loose tendril of honey-blond hair from her eye. Amanda knelt to rest in the small valley, the hard rock uncomfortable against her bare knee. She looked over her shoulder as Webb disappeared around the rock formation to their nine o’clock. The boys turned around to see why she had stopped. They each took a knee to rest after moving closer to her. Feeling safe, she surveyed her situation in the diminishing moonlight. Recovering from the shock of being attacked, Amanda was surprised at how quickly and thoroughly her survival instinct had kicked in.

  I killed that wild dog as if…I had done it before, Amanda thought.

  The sky cast a golden mixture of starlight and moonlight that painted a yellow hue against everything, like a weak spotlight at a Broadway show. Jessi Alexander’s “This World is Crazy” began to play in Amanda’s mind as it had so many times before during periods of distress. “If you fall, my arms are open wide; when your night is dark, I’ll light your way…”

  How appropriate, she thought. Kneeling here in the deep ravines that ambled away from the flat Serengeti toward Mount Kilimanjaro, there were times that she had been falling but had remained steady. The black night covered them like a shroud. She had to be careful. Both the backpack and the cooler carried not only the formula for Ebola and HIV cures and vaccines but also live viruses. Falling and breaking things was not an option.

  The serums were stored in crushed Styrofoam. The tubes containing actual live HIV and Ebola were sealed tightly. Of course, if they did not find a cool place to store all of it or recharge the batteries, everything would expire in the next twenty-four hours. While, unfortunately, there was plenty of the virus to be found here on the African continent, isolating HIV or Ebola was a labor-intensive process. She wondered, though, how long the vaccines and cures would last without the proper temperature.

  That fear made her remember their initial success. The biggest shock to Amanda had been when their first set of positive-to-negative conversions had come in. She had experimented with Dr. King’s formula just a bit by using the village doctor’s black paste, which Kiram and Mumbato had told her had medicinal properties. Though too old and weakened from the hardships of the Serengeti, the village doctor always walked with a mahogany staff that he had carved and shaped over the years. Amanda remembered that day two years ago that the elder had turned to her and said, “This paste. Only boys, Kiram and Mumbato, know the location. When mixed with right ingredients, has cured sickness here. Very special, but secret not to be revealed.” He had pointed a long, bony finger at her face and repeated, “Nguvu Roho .”

  Amanda knew that Nguvu Roho meant powerful ghost . Powerful ghosts or not, she was going to protect the cures and the vaccines. The only problem was that she was not privy to the exact source of the black paste. Kiram and Mumbato were the only two who would go retrieve the healing nectar. Once they were out of this dilemma, she would talk to the boys, and they would go to the source together.

  As if on cue, Kiram knelt next to her and began whispering.

  “We are still being followed. Still hear motor moving toward us. We will move farther east, toward Kilimanjaro, but down into the valley.”

  “But Kiram, how close can he be? We’ve been walking for hours,” Amanda said.

  “Mumbato has good ear,” he said, pushing his hand against his right ear. Amanda knew Mumbato’s hearing was exceptional. “He hears gasoline engine slowly moving in our direction. We take you to cave. Can hide there. About an hour from here.”

  She looked at her protégé, proud that he had the leadership skills to be a point man, but fearful at how easily he slipped from budding medical student to fierce child warrior navigating the African highlands in the Great Rift Valley.

  “Okay, let’s round everyone up and get moving. We don’t have much time with the medicine,” she said.

  “Then we move now,” Kiram replied, knowing how important the project was. “We move to Mahali , private place where no one can find us.”

  They exchanged a long stare in the still night. Tall savannah grasses swayed with the gentle breeze that pushed softly across the valley floor beneath them.

  “Where’s white boy?” Kiram asked.

  Amanda thought about Webb for the first time since she had been talking with Kiram.

  “He went around the rock wall to go to the bathroom,” Amanda said. She turned and scampered down about twenty meters of steep ravine and placed her hand on the enormous rock outcropping behind which she had seen Webb disappear. Rounding the corner carefully, she saw him sitting against the rock, his hand doing something near his crotch.

  “Webb, what are you doing?”

  He immediately fumbled with his iPhone, which he dropped, as he was apparently zipping up his pants.

  “Is that an iPhone?” Amanda asked.

  “Yeah, I’m using the flashlight function so I don’t piss on a viper or anything.” He bent over and retrieved his phone.

  “Urine never hurt anything,” she said.

  Amanda looked at the face of the phone, which glowed with green and blue text.

  Webb noticed and said, “Just reading some texts from my girlfriend. You know, this is the type of situation where anything could happen.” He had a sad tone in his voice, as if warning they could be killed at any moment.

  “Well, she’s a lucky girl,” Amanda said, helping him up. “We’re moving out now. Someone’s following us, so you probably shouldn’t leave the group again.”

  Webb nodded. Amanda grabbed him by the shoulder, her face inches from his.

  “I’m serious, something can happen to you out here. We need to stick together.”

  16

  Col. Zachary Garrett stepped carefully from the MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. Through night vision goggles and satellite assistance, they had found the crashed Sherpa airplane.

  Matt and Kristyana remained on the helicopter as it lifted away, the Black Hawk’s rotors blowing rocks and dust onto Zachary as he knelt in a small crag and protectively closed his eyes. Once the noisy machine merged with the night, Zachary pulled open a small assault pack and plucked out an infrared beacon. He slipped his night vision goggles on and conducted an operations check, noting that the beacon flashed every three seconds or so. Perfect.

  He walked carefully about fifty meters from his touchdown point and snapped the lightweight signaling device onto a small sage bush. The piece of plastic didn’t weigh more than a couple of ounces, the battery being the heaviest component. He flipped the on switch and saw it was flashing. Lifting his goggles away from his eyes, he saw nothing. Only someone wearing night vision equipment could detect the infrared pulse.

  Returning to the uneven terrain near the stream and the crash site, he scanned through an open gap in the trees. He could make out the fuselage of the aircraft, but that was all. There was no activity near the crash site. Perhaps everyone had survived.

  He heard the slightest fluttering of silk and then the soft footfall of two paratroopers landing fifty meters from him and close to the guiding beacon, a paratrooper’s lighthouse. Through his goggles, he watched as Van Dreeves and Hobart, his two most trusted operatives, pulled in their parachutes while simultaneously charging their weapons and adjusting their night vision goggles.

  Zachary sent them one infrared blip from his goggles. Hobart or Van Dreeves returned his near recognition signal with two quick infrared bursts. Soon they linked up at Zachary’s position.

  “Any word?” Hobart asked.

  “Plane’s over there. It crashed. No sign of life.”

  They moved quietly through the tall grass and followed the low ground to the streambed. Wading across the pooling water, they soon were stepping up the small bank where the Sherpa had come to rest.

  With Zachary in the lead, Hobart and Van Dreeves fanned out to both sides, looking to the periphery and rear for any danger. As they approached the airplane, Zachary felt his heart pounding in his chest, driven by the fear that he might find his daughter dead in the wreckage.

  Through his night vision goggles, he could see no signs of life anywhere. Not even a stray predator looking for carrion. That was a good sign, as dead bodies would have attracted scavengers. The tall African acacia trees on either side of the stream bowed slightly with the breeze as he reached toward the open door of the fuselage. The silver moon cast a weak pallor upon the scene as if it were a secondary stage and the main event was occurring elsewhere.

  As the three operators approached the aircraft, they stopped. Hobart and Van Dreeves were silent, understanding that the colonel was contemplating the potential loss of his daughter.

  “Okay,” Zachary said. “Let’s check this out.”

  Hobart entered the port side of the cargo compartment while Van Dreeves moved carefully to the starboard side. Zach entered through the passenger seat in the cockpit.

  “Nothing in the cargo hold,” Van Dreeves called out.

  “This side, either,” Hobart said.

  “Cockpit’s clear, but there’s a lot of blood on the pilot’s side. Any blood back there?”

  “Got some in the right rear,” Van Dreeves said. “Seems pooled in one place.”

  Zachary stepped down from the cockpit and joined Van Dreeves, who was shining a white lens flashlight on a two-foot-square section of the flooring. The circle of light also made evident some scattered gauze and strips of cloth.

  “Someone was doing first aid,” Zachary said.

  “Check this shit out,” Hobart remarked. He had joined his two teammates on the starboard side. They were violating their own rules in that no one was securing the team, but Zach felt the fight was elsewhere, and so they were all looking inward toward the aircraft.

  Zachary lifted his head when he heard a branch break on the far side of the stream.

  “What you got, Hobes?” Zach asked.

  “Watch.” Hobart shined his white lens flashlight along the exterior of the rear of the fuselage. “Look inside.”

  “I’ll be damned. They were shot down,” Zach said, noticing the white rays of light poking through the skin of the aircraft like lasers.

  “Roger that.”

  “Van Dreeves, you and Hobes go secure about ten meters out in either direction. I’ll finish the site exploitation. You guys tell me which way you think they went, because either someone came and got them or they walked out on their own,” Zach said.

  Both men moved as Zach used his flashlight to more closely inspect the fuselage. He found some picked-over ammunition and a couple of broken AK-47s. He wasn’t sure what to make of that other than the pilot may have been running guns on the side and the crash had opened the container. He leaned through the space between the two cockpit seats and saw beneath the oval of light large black stains that suggested to him that someone had died, most likely the pilot. Certain that Amanda had not been flying the plane, his hope gained traction.