Page 89 of Duty Preserved

The brush we were still in gave way to open grassland. White lights clustered maybe eighty meters out. Several flashlights were bobbing and crossing as the men moved around a central point. No attempt at concealment. Beyond them, a spotlight threw a hard circle of light on a shape standing in the grass. A rhino. Alive. The light held steady on her flank.

They were between us and the animal. Setting up the shot.

I signaled the column forward to Zayn and me. Everyone flat at the edge of the brush. The poachers’ own lights were killing their natural night vision. They couldn’t see past their headlamps into the dark, and they were facing the rhino anyway.

I lay still and counted. Half a dozen men or so, focused on their work. They hadn’t heard us. Didn’t have a reason to listen.

I reached back and tapped Zayn’s shoulder, then Andrew’s. The three of us pulled together, faces inches apart.

“The rhino’s behind them,” I whispered. “Nobody shoots unless you are absolutely sure you have a clear shot. And if you aren’t sure, you don’t pull that trigger.”

In the dark, I caught the outline of both heads nodding. “Roger that,” they murmured.

“They’re in the open, and we’re not. We spread out along the tree line and stay in the brush. Every man fixes his torch in the ground or props it on a branch in front of him, aimed toward the clearing, switched to white light. On my signal, everyone turns on their light and immediately shifts a few feet to the side. You are not behind your light when those men look this direction.”

“Because if they shoot, they shoot at the lights,” Andrew said.

“And nobody’s there. Zayn, when I give the signal, you shout for them to lay down their weapons and put their hands in the air.”

“And if they don’t?” Zayn asked.

“If it comes to a firefight, it’s up to you guys to return fire. My pistol and Andrew’s won’t be effective at that range. But half a dozen men against a dozen lights coming out of nowhere—the odds say they fold.”

Zayn moved off to spread the rangers along the tree line. I watched him work down the line, a hand on each man’s shoulder, his mouth close to each ear, passing the plan. Each ranger fixed his torch in the dirt or propped it against a branch, angled toward the clearing.

Andrew and I took the center. Zayn returned and set up to my left.

I squeezed Zayn’s shoulder.

Zayn’s voice cut through the dark, commanding them to drop their weapons and get on the ground. Twelve torches blazed to life across the tree line, and every ranger rolled clear of his light.

For half a second, I thought it had worked.

In the next half second, that theory was proven wrong.

Repetitive muzzle flashes strobed across the clearing as the hunters sent a hail of bullets in our direction. I barked one word—“Down!”—and dropped flat. Rounds zipped through the air above us. Brush snapped and splintered as the tree line took the worst of it.

Every ranger was on the ground. Flat and frozen. Rifles in their hands and not a single one of them firing back. These rangers had never been shot at. All of the training and all of the drills had stopped at the edge of real danger. The immediate and natural urge to self-preserve in the face of danger was not easily overcome. And honestly, I was not expecting this intense of a response. None of us were.

The rate of incoming fire began to slow. It may have been wishful thinking, but the rounds also seemed to be landing farther from us than they had at the start.

I lifted my head. Some of the torches we’d set up were still on, throwing enough light across the clearing to see what was happening. The poachers were pulling back, not running in a panic but moving in a controlled withdrawal across the open ground toward the far tree line. Covering one another. These men had done this before.

Then they were gone. The clearing was empty. The only thing left was the spotlight, still aimed at the patch of grass where the rhino had been standing.

Everyone held position. Ten minutes of lying in the dirt with my weapon up and my ears straining for any sound that didn’t belong. The only thing that came back was the bush itself. Insects. The distant bark of a baboon.

Nothing human.

“Sound off,” I said quietly. “Andrew.”

“Here.”

“Zayn.”

“Here.”

“Baraka.”