Bodyguard: Ambush (Book 3) (33 page)

Astounded at her expert hunting skills,
Connor and Amber followed speechless in her wake. Zuzu’s pace was steady yet
relentless. She seemed neither to need rest nor to drink water, and, despite the
disorientating nature of the landscape, always appeared to know exactly where she was
headed, following trails and tracks invisible to their eyes.

Having heard Zuzu’s story, Connor felt
a little reassured about their guide but still questioned her motive for helping them.
If her family was that desperate, surely she’d be
tempted to sell Amber and him to the rebels at the first
opportunity. He resolved to keep a careful eye on her.

After two hours’ solid trekking
beneath the sweltering sun, he and Amber were beginning to flag. Just as he was about to
ask Zuzu to stop, she pointed to a craggy peak in the distance, atop which perched a
lone acacia tree: Dead Man’s Hill.

Too late to turn back now
, thought
Connor, steeling himself for the climb ahead.

At the base of the hill, Zuzu halted for a
water break and took a measured sip from her gourd. Severely dehydrated from their long
trek, Connor and Amber sat down on a rock and drained their remaining supply in one hit.
Connor held out the upturned bottle to Zuzu to indicate it was empty. She smiled, said
something to him and pointed up the slope.

‘There’s a freshwater spring
halfway,’ interpreted Amber.

Guessing they might be hungry too, their
guide strolled over to a clump of palm trees. With the accuracy of a sharpshooter, she
slung a rock up into its branches and knocked down three round red fruit. The shiny
outer skin was as hard as a nut, but Zuzu showed them how to crack it open with a stick.
Connor was taken aback at the flavour: the light brown flesh inside tasted just like
dried ginger cake.

‘It’s as if she’s walking
round her very own supermarket!’ remarked Amber, tucking into the unexpected
treat.

Re-energized, Connor
got back to his feet, ready to tackle the hill. However, Zuzu remained squatting on her
haunches, picking at her fruit. ‘Aren’t you coming?’ he asked.

Zuzu shook her head, her eyes glancing
fearfully up at the peak as she replied in French.

Amber translated, ‘She says
she’ll wait here until we return with Henri, then guide us back to the
lodge.’

Connor stared at Amber. ‘We
can’t go on without her,’ he said firmly. ‘We’ve no idea
what’s on the other side or where your brother might be.’ And, although he
didn’t say it, he had no intention of letting their guide out of his sight.

‘But she’s adamant she
won’t go,’ replied Amber.

‘Then we’re not going either. If
we have to make a quick getaway, we’ll need Zuzu’s local
knowledge.’

‘But …’ Amber stopped.
Connor’s stern expression told her there’d be no negotiation on the
point.

Kneeling down beside Zuzu, she spoke rapidly
in French, her tone shifting from gentle cajoling to obvious pleading. Zuzu was
distinctly reluctant, repeatedly mentioning
les spectres
and
le
léopard
. The conviction of her objections was making Connor ever more uneasy at
the prospect of scaling Dead Man’s Hill. Eventually, though, Zuzu caved in to
Amber’s pleas and nodded. As she rose to her feet and picked up her bow and arrow,
Amber glanced over her shoulder at Connor with a triumphant yet strained smile.

‘How did you persuade her?’ he
asked.

‘I told her that you’re a mighty
warrior in your land and have the power to protect us from all evil.’

‘No pressure
then,’ said Connor.

‘I also offered her the pick of my
clothes and jewellery when we return to the lodge,’ Amber admitted.

Connor did a double-take. ‘She’s
taking us up the hill for a
dress
?’

Amber nodded. ‘That sarong and shawl
are the only clothes she owns. Zuzu thought it more than a fair trade.’

Zuzu led them through the scrub and up a
winding animal trail. She climbed the rocky slope as surefooted as a mountain goat,
making Connor feel distinctly unfit and ungainly by comparison. Even Amber was
struggling despite her climbing skills. Zuzu kept looking furtively around, but nothing
hostile materialized. The ascent was hot, tiring work and Connor was glad for the spring
halfway up, where they could replenish their water bottle and cool down.

By the time they neared the peak, the sun
had passed its zenith. The ancient acacia tree cast a dark shadow that looked like a
twisted and tortured man upon the bare sunbleached rock. As they approached, Zuzu slowed
and became even more guarded in her tread. Clearly nervous, she indicated for them both
to keep low and stay silent. Hiding behind a boulder, the three of them cautiously
peered over the edge.

Connor was astounded at what he saw.

They had a bird’s-eye view over the
hidden valley. Protected by its steep sides and fed by a number of springs, a thick
blanket of trees and plants had flourished in the natural haven. The lush foliage
cascaded down like a green
curtain to a
broad glistening river below, which snaked its way towards a drop-off to feed the Ruvubu
River in the distance. It was as if they were staring into a lost world, except for the
fact that the landscape was being torn apart and the river had been dammed. At the
bottom of the valley, bare-chested workers toiled with picks and shovels, ripping up the
soil and clearing away the vegetation. Others were sifting through piles of dirt or
panning the muddied waters with rusting metal sieves. Dotted around this scene of
devastation like an army of soldier ants were boys toting AK47s.

Zuzu sorrowfully shook her head at the
sight. ‘
On dirait qu’ils mangent de la terre.
’

Connor looked to Amber.

‘She says, it looks like they’re
eating the earth.’

‘What are they digging for?’ he
asked.

‘
Des diamants
,’ Zuzu
replied under her breath.

Amber sighed in dismay. ‘All that
destruction for a diamond ring!’

‘
C’est le Black
Mamba!
’ hissed Zuzu, ducking down.

Connor followed her line of sight and
spotted a large man in army fatigues. Even from a distance, the infamous warlord struck
an imposing figure. Barrel-chested and with bulging muscles, General Pascal towered over
his fellow rebel soldiers, even Blaze who Connor easily recognized from the flash of his
mirrored sunglasses. So his hunch had been right: the Armée Nationale de la Liberté had
ambushed the president and his entourage.

By the look of deep-set fear on Zuzu’s
face, Connor’s
suspicions about her
trustworthiness were allayed. She seemed only too aware of the rebel leader’s
reputation as a cold-blooded murderer of women and children.

‘
C’est trop dangereux
ici!
’ she was saying, pulling at Amber’s arm to leave.

Amber shook her head. ‘
Non!
D’abord nous devons trouver Henri.
’

Scanning the rebel camp, Connor began to
search for her brother among the groups of bone-tired, mud-smeared workers. If Blaze was
here, there was a strong chance Henri would be too.

‘There he is!’ he gasped,
pointing past a sad collection of tarpaulin shelters to a waif-like boy staggering
across the rocky riverbed. Henri’s red hair and pale skin made him easily
identifiable among the other enslaved workers as he struggled to carry a heavy bucket of
earth. After stumbling a few more metres, he dropped the bucket, hunching over, clearly
fighting for breath.

‘He needs his inhaler,’ cried
Amber, her fingers clutching at the medicine in her pocket.

Then they watched in horror as the boy
soldier with the red beret – No Mercy, as Blaze had called him – strode over and raised
a bamboo cane high above Henri’s head. Henri cowered at the threat, picking up the
bucket and tottering a few more paces before collapsing again.

‘He could
die
if they force
him to go on,’ said Amber, her face paling in shock at the state of her
brother.

As No Mercy began to beat Henri with the
cane, she let out a stifled cry and rose from behind their hiding-place.

‘No!’
hissed Connor, grabbing her arm and pulling her back down. He pointed to a rebel soldier
standing guard on an outcrop of rock further down the slope. ‘We wait until
dark.’

Connor peered through the undergrowth at the
rebels’ camp. In the pale light of a waning moon, he spotted several guards
patrolling the perimeter, their weapons slung lazily over their shoulders. The rest of
General Pascal’s soldiers were gathered round glaringly bright kerosene lamps,
drinking, smoking and playing cards. A row of canvas tents formed the centre of the camp
from which hardcore rap music blared out of a ghetto-blaster, the heavy beat pulsating
through the valley. Further downstream, fires dotted the ravaged banks of the river
where clusters of enslaved workers lay exhausted beneath ragged tarpaulin shelters.

That was where Henri would most likely be.
If he was still alive.

The hours to dusk had been the longest
Connor had ever experienced in his lifetime. The image of Henri being beaten and forced
to work while fighting for breath had played over and over in his mind. But he knew that
striding into the rebels’ camp in broad daylight would have been tantamount to
signing their own death warrants. So they’d descended part-way back down the
hillside to bide their
time, Zuzu cooking
the dik-dik straight on the embers of an open fire for an early dinner while Amber sat
silent, her knees clasped to her chest.

As soon as the sun had dropped below the
horizon, the three of them returned to the hilltop, then worked their way down into the
hidden valley. Zuzu had been careful to avoid any rebel lookouts, a task made easier as
the light rapidly faded. But this also meant the jungle trails were now pitch-black,
making the route treacherous under foot, and Connor doubted they’d have reached
the bottom of the valley without Zuzu to guide them.

‘Can you see Henri?’ whispered
Amber, who crouched next to Connor in the darkness, Zuzu on his other side.

Connor shook his head. ‘Stay here.
I’ll find him.’

‘Don’t forget this,’ said
Amber, passing him the inhaler. As he took it from her, she gave his hand an anxious
squeeze.

‘Don’t worry,’ he assured
her. ‘I’ll get him back, I promise.’

As he was rising, Zuzu tapped him on the
shoulder and signed for him to wait. Scooping up some mud, she smeared his face and arms
until his skin was all but blackened. ‘
Camouflage
,’ she
whispered.

‘Good thinking,’ he replied.

Connor waited for a guard to go by, then
crept from the cover of the bushes and into the rebels’ camp. His heart raced as
he clambered down the riverbank. With nothing to hide him but the moonlit darkness and
his improvised camouflage, Connor felt very exposed and prayed he
wouldn’t be spotted. The riverbed was a patchwork of
puddles and pits, loose gravel and thick mud. His boots sank into the soft ground,
slowing his progress, and he was still negotiating his way across when a boy soldier
suddenly appeared on the opposite bank. Connor dropped into a shallow pit, flattening
himself in the dirt as the boy approached. The rebel stopped only a couple of metres
from where Connor was hiding.

Had the boy seen him?

Connor pressed himself further into the
earth, his heart in his mouth as he waited for the alarm to be raised or a gun to be put
to his head. A still-glowing cigarette butt landed by Connor’s face, ashes
spurting into his eyes. Connor tried not to cough as acrid smoke wafted up his nostrils.
Blinking away the ash, he glanced up, half-expecting to see the boy’s face leering
down at him, but all he could hear was the splash of water as the soldier relieved
himself before heading back along the bank to rejoin his companions.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Connor crawled
out of the pit. Crouching low, he darted up the bank and over to a pile of earth near
the workers’ encampment. It was truly a hell on earth. The flickering fires
illuminated the haggard faces of men and children, half-dead from exhaustion and hunger,
their eyes sunken and their cheeks hollow. The smell of stale sweat from days of hard
labour was thick in the air, along with the stench of urine and faeces from the nearby
bushes.