Guarding the Princess

chapter 1



The screeching monkeys in the branches above the lodge patio forced Dalilah Al Arif to lean forward in order to hear what the shorter Chinese diplomat was saying. She smiled and nodded encouragingly, not wanting to ruffle any feathers tonight—this deal that would see Zimbabwe ceding platinum-mining rights to China was unprecedented in scope. For her part, Dalilah was in the country to ensure the provision of clean-water points for the impacted villages was firmly entrenched in the deal when it was signed in Harare tomorrow. ClearWater, the New York–based nonprofit agency for which Dalilah volunteered, would handle the installations over the next five years.

She’d been working on securing ClearWater access in Zimbabwe for almost four years now, and it would be her swan song. Because when she married in nineteen months, she’d be leaving Manhattan, along with her foreign-investment consulting career and charity work, to live in Sa’ud. There she’d be expected to work at her new husband’s side as queen when Sheik Haroun Hassan took the throne from his ailing father. This had been her destiny from the day she turned five. She accepted it, but tonight, on the eve of her success, Dalilah was having trouble with the idea of letting go of the things that had come to define her, of losing her freedom.

But the marriage would forge a powerful political and economic alliance between the two oil-rich kingdoms, one in Al Na’Jar in the Sahara, the Sa’ud across the Red Sea in Arabia. It would boost her own country’s economy. It would help her brothers, one of whom was king.

It’s what her dead father had wanted.

And at least, after this deal was signed tomorrow, she’d be leaving a legacy for hundreds of villagers. It would be a tribute to the freedom she’d enjoyed, and in which she’d prospered.

Most of the serious talks with China had been conducted over the past fortnight in Harare, and now the delegates, including Dalilah, had been flown to a high-end game lodge near Victoria Falls as part of the president’s show of hospitality. His largesse stuck in her craw when she thought of the country’s starving and disenfranchised citizens, but dealing with the devil was a necessary evil if she truly wanted to help. It was like this in much of Africa, and Africa was her speciality. Having been raised in the Sahara, Dalilah understood the precious commodity that was water on this continent, and she understood the complexities of government and corruption.

As she listened to the Chinese delegate, she sipped sparkling water from a glass held in her carefully manicured hand. The evening air was warm against her bare shoulders, the sun sinking to the horizon in a blood-orange ball, colored by haze from surrounding bushfires brought on by drought. The acrid scent of smoke tinged the air, and she could hear drumming from a nearby village. It carried an undercurrent of foreboding, something primeval that lurked under the layers of feigned civility.

“The fires smell close tonight,” said a delegate from the Czech Republic as he sidled up to Dalilah and the Chinese representative. The Czech’s pores sweated the smell of metabolized booze. He mopped his forehead with a kerchief and pointed his glass of vodka out toward the treed gardens where sprinklers threw graceful arcs of water over lush lawns. A family of warthogs grazed on the grass near the river, and tiny white lights pricked their way through the dusk, marking pathways to the thatched guest cottages, each of which was decorated in different African themes. Lanterns hung in trees where the monkeys chattered.

“At least the wind is blowing away from us,” he said. “Our guide said it’ll turn tomorrow, but we should be gone before that.” He tossed back the last of his vodka, standing too close to her now. “At least we will be safe.”

“Yes,” she said. Too bad about all the villages and wildlife in the path of the fires.

“It’s incredible to think it’s so dry out there when Victoria Falls and the massive Zambezi is just a few miles away. All that water.”

“It is,” Dalilah said, swallowing her real thoughts. The Czech Republic was a cosigner with China on the deal—she had to play nice, only until tomorrow. Once this was signed, she was going to take a long hot shower and scrub the schmooze off her skin.

“A most spectacular waterfall,” the Czech said as he waved for a waiter to bring him more vodka. A man in a red fez and white button-down shirt approached quickly with his silver tray and filled the man’s glass.

The Czech raised his full glass to the darkening sky. “Here’s to Dr. Livingston for discovering the falls!” Then he tossed back the entire glass.

“The locals call the falls Mosi oa Tunya,” Dalilah responded quietly. “It means the smoke that thunders. They called it that well before Livingston ever arrived.”

He shot her a sharp look, and she cautioned herself. Be nice. Tomorrow it will be a done deal. But the stress of the week was taking its toll on Dalilah. Earlier in the day, after a game drive, a whirlwind visit to the falls and a lavish lunch, she’d tried to steal a few moments alone, seating herself on a bentwood bench along the high riverbank that ran along the lodge property.

The riverbed was dust-dry, apart from a few deep, lingering, brown pools, and to her delight, a family of elephants had come down on the opposite bank to drink from one of those pools.

Dalilah had watched them for almost an hour, stress easing from her neck and mind, until a crocodile broke the muddy surface and latched onto the baby elephant. The ensuing fight, the raw violence of it, had grabbed her by the throat.

As she’d been held fixated by the death struggle, this same Czech had approached her from behind, his footfalls rustling through the tough grass. He’d stood over her shoulder and made some inane comment about the spectacle unfolding in front of them as he offered her a sweating glass of gin and tonic, ice chinking in the oppressive heat.

He’d stood beside her, watching, sipping his own cocktail, cheeks flushed and eyes bright with the thrill of his own personal reality show.

And something cold and disturbing had settled into Dalilah’s chest on that riverbank this afternoon, something she couldn’t define. A sense of change coming. Something dark.

Whatever it was, her mood altered the color of the afternoon. The shadows in the trees across the bank had grown a little darker, the shapes of the leaves more prickly, The sun too harsh. The insistent, sad Qwa-waaaaee call of a gray lorie seemed even sadder. Go-a-waaaay. Go-a-waaaay.

The locals called it the go-away bird. It was one of several Botswana birds that issued an alarm call when a large predator came near, although it was difficult to tell whether the lorie was warning of a human in the area or a lion stalking out of sight in the long grasses.

“The danger is everywhere out here,” the Czech said at her shoulder. “Always a predator in the shadows, lurking, waiting to kill. You go about your business, then suddenly, it strikes.” She heard him sip his drink, ice knocking against crystal, and she couldn’t help flicking a glance over to where her two bodyguards stood, watching her discreetly from the shadows of nearby lucky bean trees.

“We’re put on this earth to eat or be eaten,” he intoned. “To kill or be killed, except with us humans, it’s not always about food or water. Sometimes it’s just for fun, or revenge. Sometimes an attack comes indirectly through commerce, greed...” He trailed off, his words slurring, his philosophical idea blurring around the edges.

Dalilah fingered the mammoth pink Argyle diamond on her ring finger as she thought of the elephant kill that afternoon, of the Czech’s ominous words. The diamond was a symbol of her call to duty, her looming future. Was she going to be confined to a life of polite talk and diplomatic function, feigning civility with the likes of this Czech boozer for the rest of her life?

As the sun slid below the escarpment the cloak of darkness was sudden and thick. Small bats flitted out from under the lodge’s thatched eaves and a fish eagle cried somewhere along the river. She could hear the rising whoops of hyenas—the sounds of the bush night shift, and violence, beginning.

The dinner gong boomed suddenly and lodge staff politely began to usher guests across the lawn toward the lapa, a fenced-off circular dining area where a huge fire crackled inside a stone circle at the center. Pulsing embers had been raked to one side. Upon them rested several three-legged African cast-iron pots, simmering with traditional game stews, one with a vegetarian selection for Dalilah.

Delegates took their seats at long tables decked with white linen, candles, polished silverware. Wine flowed, and the entertainment began—xylophones and softly throbbing skin drums, voices that sounded like the land itself. Dancers shuffled out from behind the branch fencing, stomping bare feet, nutshells and bottle caps clicking in bracelets around their ankles as they swayed and hummed to the beat. A lone voice rose above it all, a cry, in song.

Goose bumps chased over Dalilah’s skin, and she had to resist the urge to close her eyes and just drink in the sounds. Instead, she nodded politely at a representative from Bangkok who’d taken a seat at her side, instantly feeling crowded, which, she suspected, had little to do with this occasion and more to do with her future.

By the time the first song ended and the guests applauded, the night was thick as velvet, stars spattered across the vault of African sky. Nature seemed to be encroaching on the periphery of the camp, closing in with mysterious night sounds. Fatigue slammed down on Dalilah, and her mind turned to her guest suite, the cotton sheets, the hot tub. Sleep. A warm wind gusted, rustling the nyala leaves above, and Dalilah suddenly felt as if she was being watched. She glanced up into the branches, saw the glow of a tiny white owl looking down at her.

Slowly Dalilah turned her attention to the armed and silent bodyguards lining the six-foot-high branch fence, watching. The security detail had been provided by the president to watch over the delegates. Her own men stood behind her at a comfortable distance. Yet the chill of foreboding deepened and she shivered.

* * *

Brandt Stryker checked the name attached to a small plate on the bungalow door—Dalilah Al Arif, delegate, ClearWater. He knew about the nonprofit that helped bring fresh water and farming aid to impoverished communities in Africa. They did good work. He hadn’t known the Saharan princess was involved with that work. He knew very little about her other than she was a high-maintenance, high-society player with looks to kill.

The lock was easy enough to pick. Brandt edged open the bungalow door. Inside, the air conditioner hummed, cooling the air. White cotton sheets on the canopy bed had been turned down; a foil-wrapped chocolate nestled on the pillow alongside a miniature bottle of cream liqueur made from the fruit of the African marula tree.

The princess’s cell phone lay atop the covers. It was buzzing.

Brandt went over to the bed, the soles of his boots squeaking slightly on highly polished stone. The buzzing stopped. He picked the phone up. Eight unanswered calls, probably from her brother, Omair, trying to alert Dalilah, let her know that he was coming for her.

Irritated, Brandt tossed her phone back onto the covers. Now the job of convincing her to come peaceably would fall to him.

Using the barrel of his rifle, he edged the muslin drapes aside slightly and peered out the window. Down the pathway, under the branches of huge nyala trees, firelight winked through gaps in the branch fencing surrounding a lapa. He could hear drumming, singing, ululating. The dinner would go on for a while yet, he suspected.

His plan was go down to the lapa and identify his target from the shadows. Once he had confirmation Dalilah was among the guests, he’d head back to this bungalow as festivities began to wrap up, and wait for her here.

He opened her closet. Cocktail dresses in exotic and gauzy fabrics hung in a rainbow of colors. He trailed the muzzle of his gun through sequins, sparkles, shimmering scarves. At the bottom of the closet was a high-end luggage set and five pairs of sandals with ridiculous heels. The princess’s saving grace was a lone pair of sturdy hiking boots, a pair of khaki pants, two T-shirts, a long-sleeved button-down shirt and a sun hat. He tossed those onto the bed. His intention was to gear her up properly before he took her out into the night.

Brandt opened one of her drawers, looking for thick socks—once she returned to the bungalow he didn’t want to waste a second getting her changed and out of here. He stalled suddenly at the sight of a black bra and small pile of G-strings—mere scraps of silk. And he couldn’t help touching them, the fabric snagging on the rough pads of his fingers. He hadn’t seen, or felt, really expensive feminine underwear in years, and the silky sensation of it stirred something in him, a deep rustling of memories. An unspecified longing.

Then he cursed sharply, slamming the drawer shut.

He’d had his fill of women, of deceit. He liked things the way he had them now. He lived solo in the bush for weeks on end, and when his piloting jobs did take him to Gaborone, he found sex. No fuss, no foreplay, no commitment, just pleasure straight up. Until recently he hadn’t felt bad about it either—but lately, even the mindless sex had left him feeling hollow, unsatisfied, uneasy.

He found the princess’s purse, checked the passport picture in her wallet. His heart beat a little faster at the sight of her thick hair, her dark, almond eyes, her exotic features. Her looks alone pushed his buttons. He needed to get this job done fast—this was not a woman he wanted to linger around. She reminded him too much of someone else, of a past he’d worked for ten years to forget, but still couldn’t quite shake.

Brandt’s mind went to the phone call and the man who had coerced him into this mission—Sheik Omair Al Arif.

“I won’t do it,” Brandt had informed Dalilah’s brother. “I’m done kidnapping damsels in distress—you know what happened last time.”

“Which is why you’re going to do this for me now, Stryker, please—you owe me. My sister’s life is in danger and you’re the only guy in a position to get her out quickly. You’ll be in and out in seventy-two hours. Fly her over the border into Botswana, take her to your place out in the bush, let me know she’s safe, and I’ll send someone out there to bring her home.”

“You really trust me?”

“You sober?”

“For the moment.”

“Stay that way and I trust you. You’ll be well compensated.”

“Look, I don’t want your money, Sheik.” But truth was, Brandt did. He needed cash. He’d sunk everything into his farm, and to make ends meet he was forced to fly tourists out to game lodges across Botswana. A solid injection of capital would enable him to turn down the piloting work and stick to his land.

And he knew Omair would pay handsomely.

“Do this for me, Stryker, and next time I’ll owe you. Anything you want.”

Brandt laughed and hung up.

But he wasn’t laughing now. It was a restiveness he felt, a sixth sense of something bad closing in. Brandt had learned to trust that sense.

Quietly he left the bungalow and moved down through the shadows toward the lapa.

The fencing along one side of the dining area was open to a low rock wall that dropped down into a grove of trees. Brandt crouched among the smooth roots of those trees, gun in hand as he scanned the group. He saw her instantly. Princess Dalilah Al Arif. An exotic bird in cocktail gold among a group of mostly middle-aged men gone soft around the center and flushed with booze.

She turned her pretty, dark head to listen attentively to a squat, lantern-jawed man at her side. In her left hand she held a drink and a diamond as big as a plum caught the firelight. If that was an engagement ring, where was her fiancé in shining armor now? Brandt wondered.

The firelight caught her face as she turned in his direction—dusky skin, smooth, her eyes like black shining pools made even darker and bigger with eyeliner. She gave the poor schmuck beside her a full-wattage princess smile.

The man held his drink up in a mock toast and Dalilah tossed back her mane of curls and laughed, showing the long column of her throat, the low cut of her gold cocktail gown, the outline of breasts that were small and firm looking. And as she crossed her legs, the slit in her gown fell open, exposing taut thighs, slender ankles, ridiculously high stiletto sandals in gold to match her dress.

She was a glimmering flame among these dull male moths bumping fruitlessly, and dangerously, against her fire. A tease, engaged to another man.

Brandt disliked—and distrusted—her immediately.

He studied the security detail behind her—two men, likely her own. His attention shifted to the Zimbabwe soldiers lining the fence.

He’d seen those same men sharing dark beer and a joint when he’d cased the lodge and outbuildings earlier. Their eyes now gleamed yellow in the firelight, skin shining, postures showing boredom. They wouldn’t be sharp. Even so, he had no intention of engaging these goons. They were most likely trained to shoot and kill on sight, no questions asked.

Shifting on his haunches to ease the stiffness of old injuries, Brandt moved his attention back to his target. She was still laughing, seductive. A temptress. The way Carla had been. He wondered why the men couldn’t see the calculated precision, the tightly scripted choreography of her movements. Bitterness filled his mouth. He’d been one of those blind men once. It wouldn’t happen again.

The food plates came and went. Drink flowed. Chatter grew loud. Stiffness cramped his limbs. Brandt cursed softly to himself—this could go on all night. Very slowly he reached into the side pocket in his cargo shorts and slipped out a silver hip flask. Cautiously, he unscrewed the cap, took a deep swig, relishing the hot burn of scotch blossoming through his chest as he settled in for the long haul, his back pressed against the smooth bark of the tree. And he told himself—seventy-two hours more, and his hands would be washed clean. His debt to Omair finally paid.

The music, the drumming, grew louder, faces more flushed, voices raucous. Vervet monkeys began to mimic the humans from the branches above, swooping in closer, hanging by their tails and using their long arms to steal food. And somewhere out in the veldt Brandt heard the first soft rumblings of thunder. Surprise rippled through him—this hadn’t been in the forecast. With his surprise came tension. A spring thunderstorm could bring early rain, flash floods, lightning and more fire.

He wanted to be up in the air and over Botswana airspace before any weather hit.

After-dinner liqueurs were now being poured. His patience grew thinner. He took another swig from his flask, pooling whiskey in his mouth, but before he could swallow, Brandt sensed something.

He held dead still, listening.

A crunch of flinty stone. The crack of dry twig. A softer warning chitter passing through the monkeys above.

All instincts sharp as razors, muscles primed, he concentrated on the ambient sounds under the bacchanalian clatter in the lapa.

Another slight shuffle. Then a birdlike call, soft.

Human.

Slowly he swallowed his mouthful of booze, his mind sharp and clear as morning. He rose. And he could sense them approaching, surrounding. Hunters. Experienced.

Clicking the safety off his rifle, he felt for the hilt of the panga sheathed at his hip—a blade that widened and curved upward toward the tip, the weapon of choice during the Rwandan genocide—a common tool of African violence.

Then on the far side of the lapa, a crack of gunshot.

It echoed through hot, black air. Then followed an almost imperceptible moment of dead stillness as everything quieted and the lapa became a freeze-frame—shadows against flame as liqueur-addled minds tried to compute what was happening.

Another shot, and a yell. Then it erupted—men in black balaclavas wielding AK-47s, knives and machetes stormed the lapa. Bodyguards returned fire as guests screamed, diving for the ground, crawling under tables and through upturned chairs and over broken glass.

Brandt held back, quickly computing. The attackers numbered upward of a dozen, and they were mowing down everyone in their wake, blood flowing freely. But one man among them stood slightly apart from the others. He seemed to be searching for something, controlling the team. As the man turned, Brandt saw he had only one arm.

Amal Ghaffar.

The man laid eyes on Dalilah, pointed and yelled.

All attention seemed to turn to the princess, who was crawling under a table.

Brandt swung himself up over the low rock wall and, using tables for cover, ran toward her in a crouch. He ducked under the tablecloth. She was kneeling beside a prone man, pressing her hand tightly against his neck, her eyes wild with terror as the man’s blood pulsed thick through her fingers. Even in danger, she was trying to help.

She glanced up, saw Brandt, and a raw kind of rage twisted through her features as she reached for a fallen carving knife. Brandt raised his finger to his lips, shook his head. But her fist curled around the knife even as she pressed her other hand to the man’s neck.

Brandt crawled closer. “Leave him,” he whispered harshly. “He’s gone.”

Her gaze shot to the fallen man’s face and a shudder ran through her body. There was another volley of shots, screams, orders being barked in Arabic. Someone started to pull the table away. Bodyguards returned fire. A fresh burst of adrenaline kicked through Brandt’s blood.

No time to waste. He grabbed her arm, but she lashed at him with the carving knife, almost slicing across his biceps.

“Dalilah! Listen—”

Shock flashed through her face at the sound of her name, but she lunged at him anyway, this time the blade coming right for his heart. Jesus. Brandt rolled sideways, twisting her arm sharply back until the knife dropped from her fist and her cheek was forced flat against the ground. He hooked his arm around her neck. Squeezing tight, he held her head in position with his other hand until he felt her go suddenly limp. Then quickly he dragged her across the rough paving and rolled her over the low wall. Her body thudded softly onto grass on the other side.

But as Brandt began to scramble after her, a man in a balaclava dived at him. Brandt swung round, unsheathing his panga, and sliced the man clean across the throat. He saw the gaping maw of red and black where the neck had been, the white of spinal column. Hot blood gushed onto him as the man’s body slumped forward into his arms. Bile rose in Brandt’s throat and for a moment he was unable to move.

A fresh volley of gunfire shocked him back. Brandt pushed the man off, clambered over the wall and bent to pick up Dalilah. Slinging her limp body over his shoulders, he ducked into the shadows, disappearing into a night black and thick with the smell of fresh death and smoke.

As he ran, thunder rumbled again along the distant horizon, a little louder now.

Mosi oa Tunya, he thought—the smoke that thunders. He repeated the mantra in his head as he ran through the bush, his burden heavy across his shoulders. He’d killed a man. He’d broken his vow of ten years.

She’d made him do it.

The princess reminded him of a woman from his darkest past, and now she was hurtling him right back into the terrible black nightmare of it all. Nausea roiled. With it came rage.

Mosi oa Tunya. Mosi oa Tunya. Mosi oa Tunya.

But it was not enough to keep his demons at bay. Not enough to stop her assailants from coming after them.

And it was not enough to stop the storm he could now smell in the air. Thunder growled again over the Zimbabwe plains and a hot wind began to gust in a new direction. The fires would turn, too, now. He realized suddenly his GPS and sat phone were missing from his hip. Must’ve lost them in the tussle. No time to worry about it now. His only goal right now was to reach his Cessna, get up into the air and over the border before the weather—or Ghaffar—hit.

Something told Brandt he was not going to make it.