Page 34 of Duty Preserved

“Speaking of yesterday,” Andrew said. He glanced at me over the rim of his mug. “How was the rhino thing?”

“Fine.”

“Fine, huh. He drove three hours into the bush with the woman he can’t stop watching, and it was fine.” Andrew looked at Cole. “Note the economy of language. You know this isn’t survival, evasion, and resistance to capture school? We aren’t your interrogators. You can tell us how it went.”

“She knows what she’s doing,” I said. “She darted a fifteen-hundred-kilogram black rhino from sixty yards, collected the vitals, refit the new battery on the collar, and brought it out of sedation without a hitch.”

“So you’re saying you guys had time for other activities?” Andrew said.

“Don’t,” I said.

“Okay, okay.” But his eyes were doing plenty of talking.

Cole saved me by changing the subject.

“The vet program,” he said. “You understand how it works?”

“It’s a fellowship or some kind of exchange program, right?”

“Right. The KWS fellowship director oversees the placements. American vets come here, Kenyan vets go stateside for rotations at university veterinary hospitals. Sarah, Alyson, and Daniel are the American fellows.” He watched the rangers cycle through the wall again. “Worth knowing the structure. The KWS has authority over the conservancy’s wildlife management, and the fellowship director has a direct line to their regional office. If anything escalates beyond ranger business, that’s the channel.”

I stored that. Cole didn’t drop organizational context into casual conversation unless he thought it would matter later.

“While we’re on the subject,” Cole said. He paused long enough that Andrew and I both looked at him. “Daniel Henderson.”

“What about him?” Andrew said.

“I overheard something yesterday. Him and Alyson.” Cole crossed his arms and watched the course. His voice stayed balanced. “The way he talks to her isn’t right.”

Andrew lowered his mug. I straightened off the post I’d been leaning against.

Cole Braddock didn’t do this. In the years I’d known him, I’d never heard him wade into someone else’s personal business. He handled diplomacy and logistics and the delicate politics of operating in countries where a wrong word to the wrong official could shut down a mission. He did not comment on other people’s relationships.

“What did you hear?” I asked.

“She was on her phone, posting something. He told her she embarrasses herself every time she does it. Said it like he was correcting a dog.” Cole’s jaw shifted. “She laughed it off, but I don’t think he was joking.”

The yard was loud enough with the course that nobody beyond the three of us could hear this conversation, but Cole kept his voice low anyway.

“It’s not my business,” he said. “But I don’t like it.”

Andrew and I looked at each other. Neither of us had ever heard Cole meddle in someone’s relationship quarrels.

Andrew, because he was Andrew, went straight at it.

“You got a crush, Braddock?”

Cole’s expression didn’t change. “I’m old enough to be her grandfather.” He uncrossed his arms and picked up his coffee. “I’m just saying. Something about the way he treats her doesn’t sit right. Somebody should keep an eye on it.”

He said it and moved on. Cleanly, without a thread left hanging for anyone to pull. Andrew caught my eye again. I gave him nothing. But I watched Cole walk toward the course to call the rangers in, and something about the set of his shoulders stayed with me. Cole Braddock, the most contained man I knew, had just broken his own rule about staying out of other people’s lives because a woman he barely knew was being talked to in a way he couldn’t let go of. I knew what that looked like.

“All right,” Cole said. “Bring it in.”

The rangers came off the course breathing hard and gathered in a loose semicircle in front of the clearing where we’d laid out the field-stripping station. A tarp on the ground, tools arranged, four rifles disassembled down to their component groups.

“Same drill as day two,” I said as Andrew and I joined the circle. “Full strip, full reassemble. But you’re faster now, and I want to see it.”

They paired off and got to work. The improvement was visible. Hands that had fumbled on day one moved with something approaching certainty. Parts went down in order and came back up in order, and nobody was putting a bolt in upside down anymore.