Page 10 of Jager's Prey
The aircraft rocked, and I tore my eyes away to look out the window at the darkened land outside. There wasn’t a light in sight, a glimmer of life to give some kind of hope.
I exhaled.
We landed in the middle of nowhere. We remained on board until we received word that our contact had arrived before the door was activated and we could disembark. The moment I stepped out, an uneasy feeling washed over me. Still, I shoved both arms into my backpack and descended the steps ahead of Jager. A woman stepped out of the dark to my right and my back went up. I reached for the gun I had hidden in the back of my pants, cocked it and aim.
She raised both her hands above her head.
“It’s Miriam!” Jager told me. “Calm down.”
Frowning, I disengaged the weapon while wondering why this woman thought it was a good idea to sneak up on someone in this kind of situation, in the dark.
I didn’t say anything.
The newcomer said something in Berber but I didn’t speak the language—not even a little bit.
“Azul.” Jager greeted her with a slight bow of her head.
Again, Miriam spoke and Jager nodded.
Of course, this sexy woman would have a brain that turned me on.
“We have to move.” Jager translated. “She says we don’t have a lot of time.”
Miriam spoke again and Jager frowned.
“What?” I asked.
“The information about us coming was leaked.” Jager told me as we followed Miriam through the dark, across a vast piece of land. “They have a leak they’re trying to plug but haven’t been able to.”
We squeezed through an opening in a mesh fence, half stumbled down an embankment then across a small stream. Just as we were about to climb up a small hill, someone opened fire on us.
I caught Miriam around the hips and pulled her to the ground, then rolled to my back. I was reaching for my gun when I heard Jager returned fire. The danger was on both sides, sandwiching us into a wall of booms and bullets.
It was almost as if they’d tried to circle us.
I watched for the muzzle flash from the other side, aimed and fired twice. Someone fell and I waited again.
When the night grew silent, I looked to where Miriam was lying. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly, and I knew something was wrong. Crawling quickly to her side, I tried looking down to see what the problem was. The dark made it almost impossible to see much of anything.
“Miriam?” I called in a hoarse whisper. “Are you okay?”
Then I remembered—she probably didn’t speak English.
“Um…” I thought. “Are you—hurt?”
“Er—” Miriam stopped, like she was trying to find the perfect words to give me in response. She replied in broken English. “Hit. Okay. In shoulder.”
I looked to Jager to see she wasn’t taking her eyes off the area the shots were fired from. There were two bodies lying on the ground.
“Go.” She told us. “I’ll cover you—Mack, help her.”
Though I didn’t want to leave her, this was a mission, and I didn’t have a choice. Miriam could barely move under her own steam and would require my help making it up the embankment. With my gun in hand, I wrapped Miriam’s good arm around my shoulder and helped her halfway up. Jager glanced back and began moving backward up the slope.
We were under fire again just at the edge of the hill. Quickly, I pushed Miriam the last little way to gain cover from a large truck parked on the side of the road, then turned to cover Jager so she could climb up.
I had to shoot two more dark figures before we could properly make it up to Miriam who was now looking through the windows of the truck. But the bad guys weren’t far behind. We could hear their footsteps, thundering up the other side of the embankment.
“We’re going to have to take the truck.” I told Miriam and Jager. “Someone get behind the wheel!”
