Pendergast signaled for his gun. He grasped the metal barrel, warm in the heat, and pulled it forward under his arm. He thumbed off the safety and flipped up the night sight--a bead of ivory--for better sighting in the grassy half- light. Nyala handed Helen her rifle.
Pendergast moved into the dense grass straight ahead, the tracker following in frozen silence, his face a mask of terror.
Pushing through the grass, placing each foot with exceeding caution on the hardpan ground, Pendergast listened intently for the peculiar cough that would signal the beginning of a rush. There would be time for only one shot: a charging lion could cover a hundred yards in as little as four seconds. He felt more secure with Helen behind him; two chances at the kill.
After ten yards, he paused and waited. The tracker came alongside, deep unhappiness written on his face. For a full two minutes, neither man moved. Pendergast listened intently but could hear only insects. The gun was slippery in his sweaty hands, and he could taste the alkali dust on his tongue. A faint breeze, seen but not felt, swayed the grass around them, making a soft clacking sound. The insect drone fell to a murmur, then died. Everything grew utterly still.
Slowly, without moving any other part of his body, Mfuni extended a single finger--again ninety degrees to his left.
Remaining absolutely still, Pendergast followed the gesture with his eyes. He peered into the dim haze of grass, trying to catch a glimpse of tawny fur or the gleam of an amber eye. Nothing.
A low cough--and then a terrible, earthshaking explosion of sound, a massive roar, came blasting at them like a freight train. Not from the left, but from straight ahead.
Pendergast spun around as a blur of ocher muscle and reddish fur exploded out of the grass, pink mouth agape, daggered with teeth; he fired one barrel with a massive
The lion had been so well hidden, and the rush so fast and close, that Helen Pendergast was unable to shoot before it was on top of her husband--and then it was too late; they were too close together to risk a shot. She leapt from her spot ten yards behind and bulled through the tall grass, yelling, trying to draw the monstrous lion's attention as she raced toward the hideous sound of muffled, wet growling. She burst onto the scene just as Mfuni sank his spear into the lion's gut; the beast--bigger than any lion should rationally be--leapt off Pendergast and swiped at the tracker, tearing away part of his leg, then bounded into the grass, the spear dragging from its belly.
Helen took careful aim at the lion's retreating back and fired, the recoil from the massive .500/.416 nitro express cartridge jolting her hard.
The shot missed. The lion was gone.
She rushed to her husband. He was still conscious. 'No,' Pendergast gasped.
She glanced at Mfuni. He was lying on his back, arterial blood squirting into the dirt from where the calf muscle of his right leg was hanging by a thread of skin.
'Oh, Jesus.' She tore off the lower half of her shirt, twisted it tight, and wrapped it above the severed artery. Groping around for a stick, she slid it under the cloth and twisted it tight to form a tourniquet.
'Jason?' she said urgently. 'Stay with me!
His face was slick with sweat, his eyes wide and trembling.
'Hold that stick. Loosen it if you start going numb.'
The tracker's eyes widened. 'Memsahib, the lion is coming back.'
'Just hold that--'
Ignoring him, she turned her attention to her husband. He lay on his back, his face gray. His shoulder was misshapen and covered with a clotted mass of blood. 'Helen,' he said hoarsely, struggling to rise. 'Get your gun.
'Aloysius--'
It was too late. With another earsplitting roar, the lion burst from the cover, sending up a whirlwind of dust and flying grass--and then he was on top of her. Helen screamed once and tried to fight him off as the lion seized her by the arm; there was a sharp crackling of bone as the lion sank his teeth in--and then the last thing Pendergast saw before he passed out was the sight of her struggling, screaming figure being dragged off into the deep grass.
4
THE WORLD CAME BACK INTO FOCUS. PENDERGAST was in one of the
He sat up with a cry to see the DC, Woking, leap out of a chair he'd been sitting in at the far side of the hut.
'Don't exert yourself,' Woking said. 'The medevac's here, everything'll be taken care of--'
Pendergast struggled up. 'My wife! Where is she?'
'Be a good lad and--'
Pendergast swung out of bed and staggered to his feet, driven by pure adrenaline. 'My
'It couldn't be helped, she was dragged off, we had a man unconscious and another bleeding to death--'
