Wizard arrived at Zoe’s side, staying low. “There are four of them and they have a technical parked at the side of the building.”
A technical was the name of a truck common in Africa, a large pickup with a machine gun mounted on its open rear tray.
Wizard said, “Their uniforms are old. Probably ex–Army soldiers that the government couldn’t afford to pay, now a rape gang.”
In the wasteland that Rwanda now was, rape gangs prowled—human predators looking for women and children in isolated farmhouses and villages. They were known to terrorize whole towns, sometimes for a week at a time.
Zoe pursed her lips, then said: “You take the kids and wait by the back door. Get ready to make a run for that technical.”
“The technical?”
“Yes.” Zoe stood, her eyes fixed and focused. “We need a new car anyway.”
Several minutes later, the leader of the rape gang rounded the front corner of the church.
Skinny but muscled, he was dressed in ragged Army fatigues with his shirt open at the front. His helmet, however, was not standard military—it was a vivid sky-blue helmet with “UN” written in large white letters on it; a gruesome prize that was highly regarded by the thugs of Rwanda: at some time, this man had killed a UN peacekeeper.
The lead rapist crept onto the wooden porch of the church, gripping a machete in his fist—
“Looking for something?”
He spun, to see Zoe standing in the front doorway of the derelict church.
At first, the man was stunned at what he saw: a woman, a white woman. Then his eyes narrowed with evil intent. He called to his comrades in Kinyarwanda.
The other three came running from their truck and when they saw Zoe, they formed a loose ring around her.
Zoe tapped her foot on the floorboard—the signal for Wizard and the kids to leave via the back door—and then stepped forward, into the middle of the ring of rapists.
What happened next happened very fast.
The leader of the gang lunged at Zoe—just as Zoe, moving with lightning speed, punched him hard in the throat.
The leader dropped to his knees, gagging, at which point, the other three attacked—but in a flurry of moves, Zoe kicked one in the midsection, snapping his ribs, broke another’s nose with a vicious elbow, and hit another, baseball-bat style, with the second man’s machete, square in the groin. He screamed wildly as he fell.
It was all over in seconds, and when it was done, the four Rwandans lay writhing on the ground beneath the standing figure of Zoe.
“You got off lightly,” she said as the technical skidded to a halt nearby, now driven by Wizard with the kids in the back.
She took the gang’s machetes and their leader’s Army shirt—plus his UN helmet—then she leaped aboard the technical and it roared away into the dawn.
LATER THAT MORNING,Zoe and the others sped into the province of Cyangugu in their stolen technical.
Zoe drove, now wearing the Army shirt she had taken from the rape gang leader, while beside her, Wizard sat tall wearing the UN helmet, giving them the appearance of a senior UN official being driven around the country by his female driver.
The carcasses of militia jeeps lay beside the road, their wheels and tires long since stripped. A distressing number of one-armed women cooked outside their homes. Children splashed in open sewers. Local men lay passed out on doorsteps, drunk before noon.
One such fellow, Zoe noticed, had a dirty cell phone clipped to his belt.
The untraceable phone was quickly acquired and as they neared the town of Kamembe, Lily tried Jack’s cell phone number. Putting the call on speakerphone, the others listened, too.
The phone rang once…
Click.
“Hello…?” It sounded like Jack.
“Daddy!” Lily exclaimed.
“No, this is not your daddy, Lily. But it’s a pleasure to meet you at long last. I’m your grandfather, Jonathan West Sr. and I regret to inform you that I killed your daddy two days ago. Thank you for calling, though. Now my people can triangulate your position.”
Lily jammed down on the END CALL button, her face white with shock.
Zoe exchanged a look with Wizard. “They killed Jack…”
She grabbed the phone from Lily and tried Pooh Bear’s and Stretch’s numbers, but both calls went straight to voice mail—for whatever reason, their phones were off.
“Jonathan West Sr….” Wizard breathed. “The Wolf. Good God, he’ sin charge. And now he knows where we are…which means he’ll figure out we’re going after the Neetha.”
Zoe looked away, her mind buzzing.
