The man—his man—pointed to the tree line. “There could be a battleship twenty feet away in there and we’d walk right by it. Do you have some kind of intel that we don’t know about? Because, if so, I’d like to hear it. I’d like to hear that our plan isn’t to wander around a hundred square miles of jungle hoping to bump into three scientists everyone knows are dead.”

“We’ve all received the same briefing,” Grant said.

“Then we are officially the most expendable sons of bitches on the planet.”

“Were you ordered to take this mission?” Grant said.

“No. I—”

“Then stow it.”

They fell silent for a few seconds, likely all lost in the same thoughts. Finally, another of his men nodded toward their guide. “What do we know about him?”

This one wasn’t as fiery as the other. His tone was calm, and he had eyes that seemed to take in everything they passed over. Grant had a good intuition for men, and this was one who could be counted on. He’d remember that if—when—this thing blew up in their faces.

“Not much.”

“He looks like he’d slit his own mother’s throat for eight bucks.”

Grant had come to roughly the same conclusion. He assumed that the intelligence side of this op—if that was indeed the correct word to use—had discovered that reputable tour companies tended not to operate in the same areas that Gideon Auma did. And that had left them scraping the bottom of the barrel for an asshole who probably spent more time guiding poaching expeditions than photographic ones.

“We’ll let him take point,” Grant said. “That way we can keep an eye on him.”

That didn’t seem to make anyone feel better.

“I have something else to say,” his thoughtful man said. “Permission to speak freely?”

“Go ahead.”

“Being expendable doesn’t bother me. I knew I was expendable the day I walked into the recruiting office. But this is different. I feel like we’ve been set up to fail and now we’re being led to slaughter. Nicholas Ward got his panties wadded up about losing his people and he promised some politician a bunch of campaign donations if he sent a rescue mission. And that politician said ‘Sure, why not? We’ll send a few dumbasses to Africa to put on a show. And when they’re all dead, you can send over a check.’ ”

“Your point?” Grant said.

His man thought about the question for a moment, either not registering that it was rhetorical or choosing to ignore the fact.

“If I’m gonna die out here, I don’t want to die a chump. When I go down, I at least want you assholes to know I did it with my eyes open.”