Amid the cacophony, Lawrence maneuvered undetected alongside the poacher with the AK-47, who was firing high-velocity 7.62 mm rounds at Cobus. Lawrence lifted his FN-FAL assault rifle. He would have only one shot before his position was known.

Suddenly, the poacher spotted him. He turned his rifle onto Lawrence. A shot rang out. The poacher dropped to the ground, clutching his throat, which Lawrence’s bullet had torn in half.

His position compromised, Lawrence darted for his next cover position.

Simon had been hiding in the thick bush when the leader of the crew collapsed beside him, writhing as he bled out from the gaping wound in his neck. As the rivulets of blood snaked through the grass toward Simon, he spotted the AK-47, lying in the dirt two meters away.

He poked his head up, searching for the reapers who had just felled his colleague. He didn’t know where the reapers were, but they were out there, and soon they would come for him.

Before they entered Kruger that morning, the leader had warned Simon that the rangers made a sport of executing poachers in cold blood rather than arresting them. With that warning in mind, the boy scuttled across the dirt like a lizard and reached for the AK-47.

Across the field, Basani sighted the teenage boy. He was young, and she rightly suspected that he was just one of the many local kids the poachers recruited to carry their provisions. If they took him alive, he would have to serve the mandatory twelve-year sentence, but there was still hope for this one. Please don’t, she thought to herself as she held her finger on the trigger. Don’t make me kill you, child.

The second he touched the rifle, the kid was thrown back as if it were an exposed power line. He rolled onto his back and touched his chest, then lay still.

“One left,” Basani called to Cobus as she watched the boy fall, anguished that he had forced her hand.

“Cover me,” Cobus said. He turned to her for confirmation. As she nodded, pink mist burst from her back when a bullet the size of a finger blew through her torso.

Cobus rushed to her. He tried to apply pressure to the wound as she hyperventilated. The fear in her eyes was palpable. Seeing the scope of her injury, Cobus knew at once that he could do nothing for her. The closest medical help was at least twenty minutes out, and there would be nothing they could do either. Death would come any second now.

“It’s okay. I’m here.” Basani looked up at Cobus in silent understanding. Then she stopped breathing, and her body relaxed in his hands.

Cobus held her and kissed her on the forehead as an avalanche of rage gained momentum within him, finally pouring out in a primal roar.