Rude.
Nick walked in, trailing the smell of wet earth and diesel. His shirt was wrinkled. Copper-brown stubble roughened his jaw, and the scars across his hand stood out pale against his skin. He was speaking into the radio at his shoulder, his voice low enough to make my better judgment lose interest in the morning’s agenda.
“—clearance on the eastern drainage. I want Daniel on the salt lick and Elias holding at the gate. No one moves until I’ve seen the tracks myself.”
At the edge of the reception desk, Nick stopped long enough to take in the neat stacks of guest names, flight numbers, and transfer notes.
His gaze moved to me without surprise, only a flicker of something tired, approving, and far too intimate for a lobby full of stranded guests.
The morning had left marks on him: mud at his hem, rain in his hair, that hard, focused stillness he wore when stopping was not an option.
“Update?” Sarah asked, her voice tight.
Nick looked at the lobby, his eyes cataloging every guest before returning to Sarah. He didn't lower his voice, but he narrowed the field of it. “Tracks confirmed near the old salt lick,” Nick said. “These aren’t local opportunists, Sarah. The signs point to an organized cell. Heavy weapons are possible. Night vision too. They’re here for the rhino horn, and if they’re cornered, they’ll trade fire to get out.”
Sarah’s face tightened.
“We found signs of human movement in the dry riverbed below it,” he continued. “No breach into the lodge area, but the western tents stay closed. I’m not moving vehicles until I know who was using that route.”
“What can I tell them?” Sarah gestured toward the guests.
Nick looked past her to the lobby, where conversations had thinned into watchful silence. Too many people pretending not to listen.
“Route assessment. Anti-poaching involvement. No confirmed threat inside the lodge area.”
“That sounds like someone hiding the expensive part,” I said.
Nick’s gaze shifted to me.
Not the look of a ranger checking on a guest. The look of a man deciding whether he respected the argument enough to hate it.
Nick leaned his weight against the desk, his hand inches from mine. “You want me to tell people who paid ten thousand a night for a giraffe experience that there are men with rifles in the bush?”
The question should have belonged to the crisis. Unfortunately, his hand was close enough to make my pulse disagree.
“I think they should know Mara Khaya takes their safety seriously enough to call in the professionals,” I said. “Uncertainty is the enemy, Nick. Not the truth.”
He held my stare for half a second.
Then he pushed away from the desk.
“Fine,” he said. “Then I’ll tell them.”
Sarah blinked. “You?”
“They need the reality. Not the panic version.”
He crossed to the center of the lobby.
The room quieted before he spoke. Nick had that effect when he stopped moving. Even Graham lowered his phone.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Nick said, his voice carrying without rising. “I’m going to be very clear, because vague information creates bad decisions.”
A few guests shifted. Someone near the coffee service stopped stirring their cup.
“We have confirmed signs of unauthorized human movement west of the main road, near one of our animal mineral sites and the dry riverbed below it. Our anti-poaching unit is involved. Law enforcement has been notified.”
Graham’s hand tightened around his phone. “Are we talking about armed men?”
