He had become uneasy about his situation the minute he’d noticed there were armored vehicles in the convoy, a feeling that rapidly turned to anxiousness when their chemical fog was released to shroud the trail, and the security teams aboard the enhanced 4×4s had begun fighting off his men. It was not their impressive firepower alone that opened a fissure in his confidence—as a former Cameroonian military officer, he’d learned that no amount of planning could prepare one for every aspect of an engagement, that there were always gaps in what was known about an adversary. What mystified him was that the capabilities they’d demonstrated were in such total conflict with everything he’d been told about them. To have gotten incomplete information was something he could accept. But it made no sense that sources he had always found reliable could so wholly and startlingly misinform him, not unless . . .

The headman’s features stiffened, his fierce brown eyes riveted on the enkindled tree where he had placed his sniper. The helicopter would soon appear over its broken, blazing remnants, and when it did, his opposition would be able to scour the ground for him and his men.

There was no time left for further supposition, not now. He would find another opportunity to throw himself open to them.

Trembling with anger, he raised his handset to his lips and called a retreat.

As the copter came flying in overhead, Nimec pressed the TRANSMIT button of his Rover’s ground-to-air.

“Pilot, this is CSO, you read me?” he said.

“Roger, sir.”

“We’ve got a mess here. Fatalities. Several wounded, three seriously. They need immediate medevac. There’s a burn vic, don’t know how long he’ll last without treatment.”

“Goddamn. The pack of wolves that did this is on the move, I see them heading toward some off-road vehicles—”

“Let ’em go.” His eyes on the dash display, Nimec was watching his microwave video feed from the chopper’s aerial surveillance pods. “We can’t chase them and get these people out at the same time.”

“Yes, sir. Hang on, we’re coming down. Over.”

Nimec cut the radio, exhausted, holding a cotton pad from a first-aid kit to his forehead. It was soaked red.

“Man,” DeMarco said beside him. “I feel like I’ve been clubbed by a giant.”

Nimec snorted. He reclined against his backrest in silence.

They sat waiting for the helicopter to land. Stretched out behind them in some cargo space cleared by their Rover’s packed-together occupants, Loren released a long, low, wavering moan.

It made the fine hairs on Nimec’s neck and arms bristle.