In Her Sights (The Thousand Words Series Book 2) (23 page)

“Macy?”

A tear ran down her cheek. He reached over and wiped the tear away, leaving a dirty smudge in its place. Her hair was mussed and tangled, her face had a light sheen of dust on it, and her clothes were filthy. She looked fragile. Dev reached out and took her hands. Standing, he pulled her to her feet and into his arms.

“Americans, I am Lieutenant Mumba of the Tanzania People’s Defense Force,” one of the new soldiers announced. Dev turned slightly so he could see the man, keeping Macy in his arms. “You are safe. We will escort you down the mountain to Moshi, then fly you to Dodoma.

“Kiraka juu ya mkono wake.” Mumba motioned a soldier with a medic kit toward Dev then faced him directly. “You and I will talk while Panja sees to your wound,” Mumba addressed Dev then turned to the others. “The rest of you will have some time to gather your belongings.”

“Our guide, the porters ...” Jess faltered in his statement.

“We’ll see to their bodies. Go.”

Dev’s shot was a minor wound and quickly cleaned and dressed. Macy clung to him the entire time and didn’t speak when the lieutenant questioned them. Mumba moved away, leaving Macy and Dev quietly embraced to get statements from the others. Bryan and Brenda packed Dev and Macy’s bags. With the exception of answering Mumba’s questions, everyone was grimly silent.

The TPDF was patient, and it was nearly two hours before they started the hike back down the mountain. They walked at a funereal pace and large military tents were already set up and dinner prepared when they arrived at the next camp site. Dinner was almost as quiet as the day’s hike, only the soldiers’ unintelligible banter competed with the crinkle of plastic pouches as they ate military rations.

Shock and emotional exhaustion made even Jess acknowledge he was sleeping alone. Paige, Imogen, and Macy took one tent, with Kenny, Jess and Dev in another, leaving a third for Bryan and Brenda to have some privacy. There wasn’t debate or discussion over the matter, it was as quietly assumed as everything else. As if the morning’s drama left no words remaining to be said.

○ ○ ○

Crawling into her sleeping bag earlier than she’d been to bed in weeks, Macy lay awake staring at the ceiling of the tent. Tiny pinprick holes scattered across the canvas let in faint traces of moonlight, something she knew she’d find entrancing another time. Right now, Macy was too shaken over the day’s events to find pleasure in anything. Paige and Imogen both stirred restlessly, the thin foam padding of their mattresses muffling the sound.

Paige was near tears all day and Imogen was shell shocked. Or something like that. Macy didn’t know the right term, only that when she looked in her roommate’s eyes, she looked dead inside. No emotion, no life, just an automaton going through preprogrammed motions.

Thinking of programming automatons brought Dev to mind. He offered to pay their ransom. Macy wasn’t an idiot, she saw the way the soldiers were looking at her and her friends and had no delusions about why they weren’t being ransomed. She didn’t expect Dev to offer to pay for them; it was sweet of him. Nice. He was a genuinely nice guy. She suspected that before. His offer, without any hesitation, just proved it.

Her ex, Peter, was a nice guy. Her dad pointed it out regularly. And he was successful. A nice man who adored her, a man with a future. Dad liked Peter, and Peter liked Andy Dennison. The thing was, pleasing Macy’s father wasn’t enough for either of them to make it work. They were only going through the motions, just like Imogen was today.

Like Dev?

Macy wasn’t sure whether taking a gun from a soldier and shooting the general was something Dev planned to do or if he just reacted without thinking. She can’t imagine he planned it. It was suicidal. If he just reacted though, it meant – what? That he felt obligated to protect them? He and his friends were safe. Dev risked his life, and maybe even his friends’ lives as well, in a losing gamble to save Macy and her roommates. If the army hadn’t shown up, she was sure the last three soldiers would have killed Dev at least.

And afterward, he came to her. Before he even looked at the bloody wound on his own arm, Dev came and pulled her to her feet. He held her while she cried, not saying a word, no promises it would be okay that he couldn’t keep. He just held her.

Macy watched through watery eyes as the medic cut away Dev’s shirt and disinfected the wound. He flinched, but he didn’t let go of her. It
had
to hurt, yet Dev didn’t make a sound.

A sentry passed outside the tent, making Macy’s stomach clench in fear. She forced herself to relax, squeezing her eyes closed and concentrating. They were safe. Lieutenant Mumba said so. They were on their way home, with a military escort. The revolutionaries, or whatever the hell they were, were dead and gone and wouldn’t come after them again.

The problem was, Macy didn’t really feel safe. One army took another’s prize. Great, they were pawns in some power struggle. Would General Marza’s men come after them again to try to get their prisoners back? Or for revenge? Dev killed the general. Was he their leader, or following orders from higher up? Macy suspected he was their leader. Did it end with him or was there a second in command? And how did the new head honcho feel about Dev?

Without quite knowing what she was doing, Macy climbed out of her sleeping bag and slipped on her boots, not bothering to tie them.

“Where are you going?” Paige whispered, tears still in her voice. Macy should stay, be there for Paige even if Imogen was too far gone to notice. She couldn’t.

“I need to talk to Dev. Soldiers are walking around, don’t worry. Hopefully I won’t be long.”

“Yeah,” Paige didn’t hide her doubt. Normally Macy would call her on it, but she needed to see Dev. She didn’t even realize that was her goal until she said it, but it was true regardless.

Leaving the tent, Macy waved to a surprised guard and walked to the tent the boys shared. Opening the door, Macy discovered it was too dark to make out which of the three forms was Dev.

“Macy?”

His voice came from her left and a small rectangle of light from Dev’s cell phone lit up. Letting the door swing shut, she made her way to him in the dim light. Dev leaned on his uninjured shoulder, propping himself up to see her better. She kicked off her boots and unzipped his sleeping bag. Dev was in shorts and a T-shirt, while she had sweats on over her camisole. She pulled off her sweatshirt and slid off her pants. With only her camisole and underwear on now, Macy climbed into the sleeping bag beside Dev.

“Um –”

“Don’t start,” Macy ordered. It was a snug fit and she couldn’t zip the bag up again.

“Fine. Climb over, trade me sides.”

Dev turned off his phone and shifted underneath her as she climbed over him. She didn’t really expect him to let her stay, let alone be a gentleman about it and shield her from the draft.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Dev sounded amused. He was propped up on his other elbow, putting strain on his gunshot wound.

“Is that hurting?” Macy eyed the bandage around his arm.

“It’s not too bad, just a graze really. I took a couple Tylenol earlier and I’ll live. Don’t tell me you walked over here and climbed into bed with me to ask me that.”

“No. I just –” She stopped, not knowing exactly why she was there or how to explain it. Dev waited for a moment, but she just shook her head.

“Imogen still a zombie?”

Macy nodded.

“Paige still freaked out?”

She nodded again.

“And she’s not going to miss you?”

“I need to be here.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Kenny?” Dev called back over his shoulder. “Paige could use a strong male presence. Take tissues.”

“Yeah.” Kenny’s resigned voice crossed the tent and Macy heard him get up. He tossed his sleeping bag on Dev before leaving the tent.

“Stay,” Macy whispered when Dev sat up to grab the second bag. He looked at her, then turned his attention to Kenny’s bag. Unzipping it all the way, he opened it and spread it as a blanket on top of them. He kicked the zipper of his own bag open down to the feet to give them more room.

Lying down beside Macy again, Dev looked at her curiously. They didn’t have this kind of relationship, he probably wondered what she was doing here.

“I was thinking about what happened,” she began, unsure of how to articulate her thoughts.

“It’s been on my mind all day.”

“You risked your life. Everyone’s life.”

“Yeah, it was stupid. I didn’t think, I just reacted.”

“Would you do it again?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “You know what they were going to do.”

“Yes.” They were quiet for a moment. “I feel safer with you.”

He laughed. “We have the local military surrounding the camp and patrolling. Not to mention the rebels, or whoever they were, probably don’t even know what happened yet. Even if they did, they’d have to plan a response.”

“Will they come after you?”

Dev shook his head. “Doubtful. They weren’t looking for us specifically. They were just after American tourists they could ransom. When they found our passports they probably called all the names in to someone to look up who we were. Must have thought they hit the jackpot.”

“So if you weren’t a successful rock band, or weren’t there, they would have ransomed us?”

“Probably. I think Marza figured he was going to get enough for the four of us, five with Bren, that he could afford to keep you three; take home a prize
and
money. It doesn’t matter, no one survived. It wasn’t that they weren’t prepared, we just lucked out. Lieutenant Mumba was tracking them, and caught up to us at a very convenient time. And without witnesses. I suspect that’s why we’re going all the way back to Dodoma. If they want to just get us to safety, Moshi’s fine. Ditto if they just want to get us out of the country; there’s an airport in Moshi. Mumba doesn’t have to fly us to the capital if he just wants to make sure we’re safe. I think the government, at some level, is going to convince us to keep quiet.”

Convince them to keep quiet? Macy didn’t like the sound of that. Convince them how? Threaten them? Torture them? She felt her body shaking, but couldn’t stop it. Dev lay back and his arms encircled her, pulling her close.

“Macy, it’ll be fine. We can’t just disappear, it’ll raise public speculation. Rock band hikes Kilimanjaro and disappears without a trace? It’s not good for tourism. Not when there are easier ways. It’s not realistic that we all wandered off a cliff, this mountain’s too tame.

“Someone will present a reasonable argument why none of this should come to light and we’ll agree. The official story will be something like a member of the expedition was injured and we had to turn back. Altitude sickness maybe. It’s possible we’ll admit to the guide being injured or killed. There’ll be a cover-up, a mildly interesting blurb in the press maybe, but nothing worth repeating.”

“You were shot,” Macy pointed out.

“That would be more than mildly interesting and worth repeating. It would get the wrong attention if it leaked I was shot. Officially, I wasn’t. I fell or something. Don’t worry about it, just go along with whatever we agree on and stick to it. It only takes one snooping reporter to blow a good story.”

“So an experienced guide walked off a cliff? Sure, no one’s going to notice that. Oh, and he took the porters with him.”

“Nothing that dramatic, but anyone who knew Raul would assume he died trying to save an idiot tourist. You’ve met Jess, it’s believable. No one will question the porters. They’ll pay off the families. What I’m saying is: whatever they come up with, just go with it.”

“Did Mumba tell you this?”

“No. Kenny and I talked on the hike. Tanzania’s been pretty stable, but we overheard the soldiers talking and at least some of the general’s men came from Malawi. It’s a poor country with a lot of problems. Around here, people do what they have to sometimes. I knew it before we came, but we’re on the other side of the country from the Malawian border, so I didn’t think about it.

“President What’s-His-Name in Dodoma won’t want it known militant Malawians crossed the border and width of his country. Plus they almost kidnapped tourists for ransom and recreation. They really won’t want that bit getting out, it sets a whole different set of radical save-the-world groups on edge. This whole thing will make him look weak and he can’t afford that. Policy is set by overthrowing governments on this continent. It’s a centuries-old tradition and he can’t afford to give anyone an excuse.”

“So they’ll hush it up, and we’ll let them.”

“Yes, Macy, we will. If we fuss, either we really will disappear or the U.S. government will be called in. I’d like to think the latter, but I can’t be completely certain.”

“That would make the President appear weak too though, wouldn’t it?” Macy asked.

“I’m not sure what the relationship is between the U.S. and Tanzania. Maybe. On the other hand, the U.S. wouldn’t want the incident known either for the same reasons. If it becomes public, they may have to get involved. The U.S. really doesn’t need to have its fingers in any more war zones.”

“You said they couldn’t make us disappear.”