A chopper—one of many crowding the normally empty skies—passed overhead, but Grant didn’t bother to look up. With the powerful spotlight shining down on the canopy it would be impossible to see any detail. A now familiar recorded voice rose over the thump of the blades.

“David Chism. We’re dropping supply caches and maps on how to find them. Get to one and use the phone to call us. We’ll set up an extraction.”

No shooting, though. Auma’s men were playing it cool. Probably calling back to their god for instructions.

Another five minutes brought Grant to what he’d been looking for. He stopped and crouched in the darkness before toggling his throat mike.

“I’m at the edge of the clearing.”

His men would fan out to provide cover while he searched the open area through a night vision scope. Nothing. But it was hard to know if that conclusion was real or just the result of the limitations of his optics. Not that it mattered. He didn’t have anywhere to be and eventually one of the choppers would provide an unintentional assist.

It took twenty minutes, but finally a helicopter streaked overhead, dropping four pink streamers that glimmered in the spotlight. Two disappeared into the jungle, one got hung up in a tree to the west, and the last dropped right in the center of the clearing. He focused on that one, doing his best to memorize its location as the darkness once again descended.

“I’m going in,” he said, easing into the grass on his belly.

His low position would make him virtually impossible to see, but that went both ways. Every minute or so, he was forced to lift his head and make a course correction. Not ideal, but an acceptable risk. Auma’s men weren’t known for being particularly well equipped—machetes and AKs mostly. Night vision gear or thermal scopes were probably out of their reach.

Probably.

Grant finally reached the streamer and pulled it toward him until he came to what was attached: a single sheet of laminated paper.

“Got it,” he said into his throat mike. “On my way back.”

The return trip went much quicker. Locating the streamer had been a challenge but finding tree cover in this part of Uganda was like finding hay in a haystack.

He settled in a few feet from the edge of the clearing and retrieved a tiny penlight from his pocket.

“Approaching from the east.”

The voice over his earpiece was recognizable as belonging to the man he’d made his second-in-command.

“Come.”

By the time he appeared, Grant was scanning the sheet under the dim red glow of his flashlight.

“Looks like our friendly neighborhood guide has taken off.”

“Big surprise,” Grant said.

“What’ve you got?”

“Looks like fifteen caches in total. These are detailed instructions on how to find them.”