“Here you go, Jon. An indefinite leave of absence signed by General Stapleton, plane tickets, and information on the contact who will be picking you up from the terminal in Wilmington. Also, hotel reservations, and a flash drive with the raw video footage you wanted. Oh, I almost forgot…” She hurried out the door and reappeared a moment later holding an army uniform that still had the dry cleaner’s plastic on it.
“Maggie, you are truly a force of nature.”
She smiled. “Chop-chop. Your plane awaits.”
11
Sarie van Keuren could see her father — the broad shoulders supporting his overalls, the tattered cowboy hat he’d bought on a trip to America, the pale blue eyes that seemed to see and understand everything.
He was standing in front of their barn holding a sharp-edged farm tool that she couldn’t identify. Curious, she started running toward him but couldn’t get traction. It was as if gravity had suddenly lost its power to hold her to the ground and her feet just skidded uselessly over the fertile soil.
He approached and she reached for him, but he stopped a few meters away, leaving her to stare down at her tiny hands, confused by the smooth skin unblemished by years working in the African wilderness.
He hefted the enormous blade, raising it high above his head. The sun glinted off it for a moment, and then it came down, arcing toward her neck as she raised her arms and screamed.
Sarie jerked upright in bed, unable to breathe until she recognized the room floating around her in the glow of her alarm clock. She lifted a shaking hand and wiped the sweat from her forehead, trying to will her heart to slow.
She hadn’t had the dream in years, and it had never ended like that before. He always just turned and faded away while she called out and struggled to reach him — not something it took a genius to analyze. What the hell had this been all about?
Certain that she wouldn’t be getting back to sleep anytime soon, Sarie grabbed a pair of sweatpants and padded to the kitchen for a quick tour of the refrigerator. A few gulps of orange juice that had gone off a bit helped calm her down but failed to pull her fully back to the present.
She closed her eyes, trying to blank her mind like she’d been taught, but it didn’t work. Sometimes the past refused to rest.
She remembered her father trying desperately to unlock the gun cabinet and the cruel laughter of the men who had broken into their home. She remembered being slammed to the floor so hard that she couldn’t even scream as the clothes were ripped from her young body.
Her father tried to get to her, but a thick club cracked into the back of his head, sending him careening to the floor. They’d beaten him for what seemed like hours, and when he finally went still she’d turned numb. Her mother reached out for her as they were repeatedly raped, but as it had in the dream, gravity conspired against her.
Eventually, the men had gone, stealing everything they could carry and leaving them for dead. Sarie hadn’t regained consciousness until the heat of the sun found her through the windows. She’d looked over at her parents and saw them staring back at her, the morning light reflecting off their dead eyes.
She’d wanted to die, too. To be with them in the heaven they taught her about every Sunday. But her twelve-year-old heart just wouldn’t stop beating.
She’d finally dragged herself out of the house, naked and bleeding, unable to stand because of a shattered pelvis and dislocated knee. When the farmhands coming to work spotted her, they’d sprinted through the fields, men shouting furiously and women shrieking in despair.
Their farm in Namibia had been sold shortly thereafter, and she’d been shipped to her aunt in Cape Town for a proper upbringing and education. But now even that kind, wonderful woman was gone.
As a sense of loneliness that she wasn’t usually susceptible to started to take hold, Sarie became aware of the silence. Where were the dogs? They never failed to make a noisy fuss when she got up at night.
“Halla? Ingwe?” she called, walking to the back door and pushing it open. “I’ve got some
Something moved in the darkness and she sank to her knees, arms outstretched. Sometimes a good face licking was the only answer to your problems.
The force of the impact sent her sprawling back into the house, but it wasn’t from the dogs. The outline of a man appeared in the doorway and she rolled to the side, using her momentum to carry herself toward the living room.
He dove but came up short and landed hard on the ancient wood floor, cursing as she scrambled to her feet.
The sofa was only a few meters away, and she went for it, pitching forward when the man managed to swat one of her feet. She didn’t bother to try to maintain her balance, hitting the floor and sliding forward with a hand outstretched.
The holster screwed to the bottom of the frame held one of many guns stashed throughout the house. She wouldn’t make the same mistake her father had.
Her fingers grazed the cold metal, but before she could unsnap the strap securing it, a powerful hand clamped around her ankle.
Sarie rolled immediately onto her back and kicked hard for the man’s groin. Miraculously, her bare foot connected and he released her, again cursing loudly in a tribal dialect she couldn’t place.
Her heart was hammering in her chest as she went for a tiny side table that contained an even tinier.22 pistol. Not her first choice, but still stout enough to make an impression if the bullet happened to hit you in the face.
Again, she was a fraction too slow, and this time the hand clamped around the back of her leg. A moment later, she was being lifted into the air. The ceiling fan was still running, and she clipped it with her shoulder as she sailed over the sofa, landing across an old armchair that flipped backward with the sound of cracking wood.
The man, just a ghost in the darkness of the room, was almost on her but slipped on the old floorboards, polished by more than a century of foot traffic.
Cut off from the rest of the house, Sarie sprinted toward the island that dominated her kitchen, grabbing a knife from the block on it. She spun just as he came up behind her, thrusting the knife out and feeling it penetrate flesh just before his thick forearm came across her throat and slammed the back of her head into the tile countertop. She slid to the ground, fighting to stay conscious as he stumbled backward, staring down at the knife protruding from his side. She watched as he pulled it out and gritted her teeth at the pain flaring in her head. A paring knife. In her panic, she’d grabbed the smallest thing in the block.
He rushed her, and she tried to stand but didn’t have the strength even to bring a hand up to deflect the bloody knife coming at her.
He shouted, spittle hitting her in the face as he shook her and pressed the blade to her neck.
“Why don’t you just shut up and do it,” she said, her voice sounding strangely distant.
He backed away, his rage clearly growing to the point that he was having a hard time putting together coherent thoughts. He dropped the knife and picked up a floor lamp, holding it above his head just like her father had in the dream. But instead of crushing her skull with it, he hesitated and let it fall to the ground.
A moment later she was being dragged through her front door by the hair, her hands clawing weakly at the man’s forearm.
The sight of her dead dogs lying in the driveway robbed her of what little strength she had left, and she didn’t resist when she was dragged onto the asphalt and rolled onto her stomach. Consciousness came and went with her only vaguely aware of the sound of tape being pulled from a roll and the sensation of it being wound around her wrists.
Maybe she wasn’t supposed to have survived all those years ago. Maybe fate had finally come back for her.
