the beginning of his military career. The three of them were all tight friends. Been through tough times, and looking back he knew it’d made them stronger.
Even when he’d left the military they’d kept in touch. Or rather, Levi and Maddie had kept in touch with him. But he hadn’t appreciated it. After the accident he wanted to be allowed to hide away from the world, so he could be consumed by his own grief. His own loss. His own guilt. But they hadn’t let him. Not even for a moment.
The job they were now in, that had been Maddie’s idea, when she and Levi’s commissions in the Navy had come to an end. They’d both joined Onyx, an aviation and marine asset recovery company, specializing in tracking down high value commercial and private boats and planes for banks, leasing companies and, on occasion, the US government. Stolen, involved in a crime, or left with payments outstanding, it was their job as investigators to find them and bring them back. From wherever. However. And from whoever.
He had known Dax Granger, the owner of the firm, even before the others had, and being an experienced pilot as well as having a SEAL background, he’d been ideal for the job. It had taken a while for Maddie to persuade him to leave fixing up his ranch in Colorado, which never seemed to get fixed, and five years ago he had succumbed to the pressure. Joined the firm. Got his investigator license, thinking it was all a bit of a joke.
But quickly he’d learnt there was nothing funny about it at all. The first job he’d investigated had been to track down a Learjet 60XR, the purchaser not having kept up with the repayments. It was a beautifully crafted plane. But what he’d found inside had been at odds with both the plane and the quiet splendour of the Tahitian island he’d traced it to. Inside were the bodies of three women. Raped and killed. The owner of the plane? Whereabouts unknown.
The local police closed the case before it had really opened. But the vision of the women had sat inside his head, and much to Levi’s and Maddie’s dismay and protestations and objections, he’d tracked down the women’s families to let them know what’d happened to their mothers, sisters, daughters. Because to him it was the not knowing which killed you.
The job paid well. But it wasn’t about the money. Not for him. Especially not at the beginning. For the first year of working for Onyx he’d found himself most interested in the investigations which took him to Africa. And he knew why. And eventually everyone else did too… It had given him the permission. The reason. The opportunity to keep looking. To keep searching for her.
God knows he wasn’t good at remembering the past. Or maybe it was more a case of not wanting to. Too many shadows. Too many memories hiding round corners, things not even a loaded gun could protect him from. So he kept on pushing forward. Not stopping. Not caring, but always hoping and wanting and needing to know he’d been right all those years ago when he’d believed she was still alive. Somewhere in this beautiful, dark yet dangerous sprawling mistress called Africa.
But then things had changed. He’d stopped looking for her. Not because he’d wanted to, but because it’d been the right thing to do. Or that’s what they’d told him. That’s what his therapist had told him. And he’d made promises. Vows. And he’d kept to them. Until now. Because now was different.
The days he’d spent in the hole in Mai Edaga, that was stupid. A mistake. Nobody’s fault but his own. He knew that. The rule was if you had no papers, or if international relations with the country were volatile, just find the plane and fly it the hell out without being seen.
Eritrea had ticked both boxes. No papers, and no international relations with America to speak of. But instead of leaving when he should have done, for the first time since he’d made the promise to stop looking, just over four years ago, he’d taken the opportunity. Broken his promises and headed south, hoping to speak to a tribe of the Rashaida, a nomadic Arabic-speaking people, living predominantly in scattered areas of western Eritrea, wanting to know if they knew anything. Seen anything. Heard anything… about her.
But he’d been spotted by authorities. Accused of being a political spy and thrown into the detention center with no access to anything even slightly resembling an American consul. But then taking such stupid risks came with consequences. Danger. He of all people knew that. And at times he thought he lived for that. It was one of the few things which made him feel.
He also knew that was part of his problem.
Although he hadn’t known how and when, he knew Maddie and Levi would track him down and come. As they’d always done in the past. And he owed them. Both of them. But especially Maddie, for more reasons than one.
Abruptly. Cutting through the silence of his thoughts, Maddie spoke, in the high-pitched tone which made it impossible for him to ignore no matter how much he tried. ‘You know what I don’t understand is why you want to go that little bit further? What are you trying to prove? You wanna see if it breaks? Well it does, Tom. It has. We all do eventually and you of all people should know that.’
Opening his eyes. Slowly. Cooper looked at her. Sighed real heavy. ‘Listen, I made a mistake, deciding to travel through Eritrea. Don’t make this about us, Maddie.’
Maddie shook her head. Her look of disappointment hitting him like an ice cold shower.
‘Don’t do that Tom. Don’t try to get me to back off. You’re right, I am making it about us because it is about us. About you. More to the point it’s about her… You know what Tom. Forget it. Just forget the whole goddamn thing.’
Eight miles outside Buziba, Sud-Kivu
Democratic Republic of Congo
It was only the sound of the heavy rain which hid the screams. The blood flowed from the palm leaf roofed hut into the red dirt track like a tributary feeding into a river. Inside only an oil light flickered, barely disturbing the darkness. The carcass of a rotted goat writhed and wriggled as maggots fed and moved inside it. The sickly sweet smell of putrefying mounds of blood-covered feathers filled the air.
The villagers sat on the floor, dressed in vibrantly colored cloths with batik print and bold patterns – a stark contrast to the bleak. Taut. Tense atmosphere.
Papa Bemba nodded. Stood on the home made dais next to his folding wooden altar. His face disfigured, mutilated by his own hands. Scarred raised flesh filling the sockets where his eyes should be. It had been the souls of the undead, the spirits of those greater, who’d directed him to gouge out his own eyes. A gift bestowed on him to drive out the evil, allowing him to be the conveyer of all that is pure, and to rid those amongst them of the sorcery within. The darkness of blindness had given him the power along with the vision of the possessed. For now he saw better. Clearer.
His fingers expertly guided him along the body of the naked man lying on the altar. He stopped. Thoughtful for a moment as he felt a lump on the man’s neck, before his furrowed swollen hands moved on, down to the area where his liver lay.
It was there. The evil. The Kindoki spirit. The force of wrong which had taken over this man’s being. Making him defiant. Making him question.
And then Papa Bemba cried out. Flamboyancy lacing his tone as he pressed down on the man’s ribs, rubbing his skin with berries.
‘I have found it. It rises. Pushes out towards the living to harm those gathered. To harm those with child. To harm those who seek a better life. Let us deliver your brother, Emmanuel Mutombo.’
