WAR: Opposition: (WAR Book 3) (26 page)

“Oh…Oh…”

“Dammit. Are you crying?” He lifted his head and saw silver streaking down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean for you to cry.”

“N-no. It’s just…That’s one of the loveliest things anyone has said to me. Thank you.”

“Oh. All right then.” Maybe he didn’t suck too badly at this emotional stuff.

She sat back, wiped her face with the scarf she pulled from her hair, then deftly wrapped the scarf back around her head. “So, how much longer do you intend to wait here?”

He studied the jungle, but saw no sign of pursuit. “We can leave now.” He started the engine and eased forward. It didn’t take long for the relatively uncluttered jungle floor to be replaced by a tangle of roots, bushes, and rocks.

Each time the vehicle bumped over an obstacle, Seth winced as pain shot through his injured ribs. Despite Kirra’s hand gripping the stability bar, the rough movement flung her around in her seat and slammed her into the door.

“Sorry,” he grit out after a teeth-rattling stretch of ground.

“No problem. I needed a few more bruises for my collection.”

“That’s my girl.”

She shot him a startled look. Yeah, he’d surprised himself. But the words were out there now. Despite the fact that he had no right to imply they had a future, he didn’t regret saying them. They gave him one more stolen moment of normalcy before the end.

Except that he kind of wanted her to say something back. Something other than “Look out!”

“Shit.” A termite mound—the sucker must be at least eight feet tall—jutted out of the jungle floor in front of them. Seth spun the wheel to the left and drove through a bunch of bushes, narrowly missing the mound. “Thanks for the warning.”

Kirra just nodded.

Yeah, probably better not to talk. With such uneven ground, they were likely to bite off a piece of their own tongues.

But he couldn’t help wonder what Kirra was thinking over there.

T
hat’s my girl
.

Kirra stared out the windscreen at the nearly impenetrable darkness of the jungle, shocked by how badly she wanted those words to be true. She’d known by the amount of worry she’d been carrying that Seth mattered to her, but it wasn’t until she’d seen him in the crowd, watching her with pride on his face despite being held at gunpoint, that she’d acknowledged her feelings had grown far too strong for such a short acquaintance.

She sighed and glanced at his face, lit faintly by the headlamps he’d turned on after that near-miss with the termite mound. Despite the bruises and cuts, he looked strong and dangerous. Precious.

Hers.

Yet her history warned her not to trust her feelings. She’d clung to Franz because she’d seen him as a source of strength when her world was falling apart. But her emotions had clouded her judgment. Was she making a similar mistake with Seth?

He’d looked startled when he’d called her my girl. Did that mean he felt a connection to her but hadn’t intended to speak the words out loud? Or had the words slipped out so easily because they had no meaning?

More importantly, had he realized that she’d written that final song for him? She didn’t have the nerve to ask him. Admitting that she saw him as someone like her—someone broken who needed love to heal—seemed a surefire way of scaring him off. And since her heart cowered away from the idea of being separated from him again, she needed to avoid scaring him off at all costs.

The four-by-four bounced over another obstacle and Kirra’s head nearly hit the ceiling before she slammed down in her seat. She hadn’t been joking when she’d said that she’d be adding to her collection of bruises. By the time she reached the concert, she’d be lucky if they let her on stage. Tonight at the festival, the darkness and the shadows from the lantern light had hid her battered condition from the audience. But at the benefit concert she’d be performing in broad daylight, with the additional scrutiny of television cameras. Everyone would see her injuries. There’d be questions.

She didn’t mind talking about her music, but she hated answering personal questions. Particularly those that painted her as a victim.

The vehicle bumped over a fallen log and she tightened her gripped on the stability bar. Over the past few days she’d relied on Seth to keep her safe and save her life. Yet he didn’t treat her as fragile or stupid. Oddly, she felt instead as if they were true partners. He had fighting skills and jungle survival training that she didn’t have. But she had more emotional resilience than he did. Seth was still being eaten by guilt and anger over the loss of his teammates. And she suspected something else was driving him, as well. Something that caused him to sometimes shut down or get a look of utter hopelessness on his face.

She’d been there. Done that. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d come out the other side stronger. If Seth needed help finding a path out of the darkness, she was willing to guide him. Even if it meant retelling what she remembered of the attack. Because he needed to understand that everyone deserved a second chance and redemption was possible.

But first Seth had to stick around long enough to admit he needed help. Yet, the way he avoided talking about what would happen once they reached the concert made her think he intended to say good-bye and walk away.

No. She couldn’t allow that.

If he was worried about the danger his assassin posed, then she’d ask for Dev’s help. Because no matter what he said, Seth was a good man. He deserved a future.

A future with her.

Her teeth snapped together as the side of the Land Cruiser knocked against a tree. Planning for any type of future assumed that they’d make it out of the jungle without having their bones rattled apart. Which might be overly optimistic.

Now she knew how laundry felt inside the machine.

It seemed like hours later when Seth cut off the headlamps as they powered up a small rise. They emerged at the edge of the jungle with a grassy field below them.

Seth slammed on the brakes. “What the hell?”

“What’s wrong?”

He peered at the lights in the distance. “I don’t fucking believe it.” Shaking his head, he climbed out.

What had put that note of excitement into his voice? Kirra stared out the windscreen, but she could barely make him out as a thicker shadow against the darkness. It was more that she sensed his presence moving around.

When he finally returned, he opened the rear door and rummaged around in the packs.

“Seth? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything might be exactly right. I won’t know until I explore further, but I want to see if this spot is on the map.” He turned on his torch. She turned in her seat and saw that he’d spread her map over the top of his pack. He checked a setting on his watch, then drew his finger over the map. When his finger stopped, he compared the map’s coordinates to his watch. “Nope.”

He folded the map, then resumed his seat, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. “Okay, here’s the deal.” He took a deep breath that somehow conveyed anticipation. “I think we’ve found a private airfield.”

“That’s good, right?” She chewed her lip. “Or is it? How hard is it to steal a plane?”

He gave her a wicked grin. “Nothing I can’t handle.” Then his grin faded. “But I need to get closer to see if this is actually a working airstrip or one that’s been abandoned.” He laid his hand against her cheek. “With all that open space, our engine noise will carry. In case there are guards, it’s safer if I go in alone to scope out the situation.”

She tensed. The thought of being separated from him caused her heart to skip a beat and her breath to catch.

“But I’ll definitely need your help if we’re going to fly out of here.” He stared into her eyes. “I’m asking you to be patient and wait here while I reconnoiter. You should rest. If there are any MREs left, eat something. Because if the setup is as I suspect, then we’ll have to move fast.”

“Thank you for asking this time, rather than ordering,” she said. “Yes, I’ll stay here. I’m not trained to go slinking through the jungle.”

“I’ll leave the keys in the ignition. If you see something that feels off, drive away.”

Alarm shot through her. She opened her mouth to tell him not to go, but he placed a finger over her lips. “Shh. I’ll be careful. But the past couple of days have proved how quickly events can head south. I’ll be able to concentrate better on my mission if I know you can get away.”

“All right.”

He gave her a relieved smile. “Good. You mentioned that you have a watch in your pack?”

“Yes.” She rummaged in her carryall and pulled it out.

After they’d synched watches, Seth said, “If I’m not back in two hours, I want you to drive back the way we came.” He reached between the seats to pull his binoculars out of his pack.

“Seth, I live in the city. I have no idea how to drive through the jungle! After I stole the
bakkie
I escaped on a dirt lane.” She waved out the window. “Not over rough terrain.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out. Just go slowly, and follow the broken vegetation and our tire tracks. Now, I’d better leave before the sun starts to rise.”

“Be careful.” She squeezed his hand.

He gave her a cocky grin. “I don’t need to be careful,” he shot back automatically, as if he’d given that answer a thousand times. “I just need to be lucky.”

Then he slipped out the door.

The next ninety minutes were some of the longest of Kirra’s life. To while away the time, she first unpacked her carryall and redistributed the items into their original backpacks. Then she returned to her seat and started composing another song in her head.

But that didn’t stop her from checking her watch every minute or so.

At ninety minutes and ten seconds, Seth finally emerged from the darkness. Her heart soared. But before he joined her, he made a slow circuit around the vehicle, even crouching down to look underneath.

When he opened the door and slipped inside, she gripped the edge of her seat so she wouldn’t throw herself at him. Instead, she simply turned and asked, “Well?”

“The good news is that this is definitely a working airstrip.” His voice vibrated with such excitement and joy, Kirra felt a sympathetic pang in her heart.

“And the tarmac appears to be in good condition,” Seth added.

“What’s the bad news?”

“That’s also the bad news. The logo on the plane and the hangar says Brilliant Skies. It’s not one I’ve seen before, but the place is so well guarded, I suspect it belongs to Sankoh or one of his allies.”

“Figures. What’s the layout?”

“Um…” Seth glanced around.

“Hold on. I have paper in my pack.” She retrieved her notebook and pen and handed them to Seth.

“Thanks.” He made an X on the narrow end nearest to him. “We’re here.” He scribbled something vaguely resembling trees and grass along the edges of the paper, then drew a large rectangle. “The property is protected by a chain-link fence. Between the fence and the jungle is a wide swathe of Guinea grass tall enough to hide a larger vehicle than this one.”

He drew a medium rectangle. “This is the airstrip.” He enclosed the airstrip in a three-sided rectangle, with the open end facing two smaller shapes that Kirra assumed were buildings. “The perimeter of the airstrip is marked by a strip of dirt roughly twelve feet wide. They must have sprayed the soil with a growth inhibitor, because there’s not a single plant in that area.”

“Is the fence alarmed? Or electrified?”

“No. I saw a bat hit the fence then fly away.”

“We’re a bit bigger than a bat.”

He winked at her. “You better believe it.”

She rolled her eyes, although she was secretly delighted to see this playful side of him.

“All joking aside,” Seth said. “It’s unlikely that they alarmed or even electrified the fence, because of the electricity required. Plus, there’d be a lot of false alarms.”

“They’re running on generators?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded. “Okay. So a physical barrier in the form of a fence. What else?”

“The dirt perimeter is dotted with solar-powered motion detectors placed every hundred feet.” He drew a series of small o’s.

“What’s the range of the motion detectors?”

“They’re an older, inexpensive model, so I estimate fifty feet. That’s enough to alert them to any human or animal intruders that somehow make it past the fence. The sensors aren’t as reliable as ones hooked into a steady power source.”

“We should still assume they’re at full functionality,” Kirra said.

“Exactly.” Seth drew a smaller rectangle at the near left edge of the airstrip. “This is the fuel shed. It’s enclosed on three sides only, is made of corrugated metal, and contains four drums of aviation fuel. There’s one armed guard with an AK-47 at the front.” At the far end of the airfield, Seth drew another rectangle, its short end pointing toward the tarmac. “The hangar is here, with two armed guards at the door facing the airfield.”

“No one at the back?”

“No.”

“They’re relying too much on their sensors,” Kirra commented.

Seth nodded.

“Any security cameras?”

“Yeah, but they aren’t synched properly.” Seth said it with such smug satisfaction that Kirra chuckled.

“You bypassed their security, didn’t you?”

“Of course.” He winked at her. “It’s not my first time stealing a plane.”

For a second Kirra caught a glimpse of sadness, or maybe wistfulness, in his expression before it disappeared. “Hmm. You should have told me I was in the company of a fellow thief.”

He raised his brows. “I didn’t think you wanted to be reminded of that.”

She shrugged, then stuck her nose in the air and affected an exaggerated upper crust accent. “Extenuating circumstances require bending of the rules.”

Seth snorted. “That’s one way of looking at it.” But the gleam in his eyes took the bite out of his words. “Yeah, I used a few tools from my pack and some materials from the jungle. The fence is easy enough to climb. I redirected the sensors, then waited until the cameras were pointed away from each other before I slipped inside the hangar.”

“Nice. What did you see?”

“A sweet, six-passenger Cessna 206 just begging for my touch.”

She wondered if he knew that he’d stroked the diagram as he said that. Would he stroke a woman like that? Or did planes—and helicopters—hold the top spot in his heart? That last thought almost brought a frown to her face, but she smoothed out her expression at the last minute.

Seth pulled a set of keys from his pocket and tossed them into the air before catching them with a grin.

“You stole the keys to the plane?” She whistled. “You would have fit right in with our gang.”

“Nah. I prefer to get my adrenaline rush in the skies.” He winked at her, then picked up the pen. “This is an office building.” He drew a rectangle perpendicular to the hangar on its right side. “This is a dirt and shell parking lot.” He shaded in the space in the angle between the two buildings. “Both the office and the hangar have access doors to the parking lot, here and here.”

“Any guards?”

Seth shook his head. “But the office has a window that looks onto the parking lot.”

“Not as secure as having a guard,” Kirra noted.

“Exactly.” He drew a line coming in from the top right corner of the drawing. “This is the access road. One Jeep and one Land Rover were in the parking lot.”

“How many men inside the office?” Kirra asked.

“Two. When I was observing the front of the office, one of the guards opened the office door and called out to the guards by the hangar. Those men glanced around, then one of them shook his head.”

“You think they were being asked if they’d seen us?”

“Yeah. Sankoh has to know that a plane would be our ideal ride out of here. On the other hand, he has no reason to think that I know about this location. Still…” Seth shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.”

“I agree. So. We have three guards outside, but all on the airfield side, not at the back. All with AK-47s.”

“Yeah.”