Page 36 of Murder Island
Silence.
Kira crouched behind a tree to watch as Horvat rounded a curve in the trail.
He rocked back as he saw his drinking buddy suspended in the air from a bent branch, his neck snapped and reddened from a wire wrapped tight below his jawline.
Horvat could see what it was. A spring trap. The kind used to snare animals. But man-sized.
He spun around, pointing his pistol into the dark jungle. He inched over and tapped Krupen’s leg. Then he bent over and vomited his entire night’s beer consumption into the bushes.
Horvat staggered back toward the lights of the compound. Along the way he fired a succession of three shots into the air. Then another three. Sounding the alarm.
Kira headed in the opposite direction, back into the deep jungle.
By the time they cut Krupen down, she would be sleeping like a baby.
CHAPTER 42
I WAS IN big trouble.
The inflatable was pitching like crazy and rain was coming down like bullets. The wind was spinning the boat and water crashed over the sides.
I’d already thrown up my seaweed supper. Now I was just hanging on for dear life.
I was out of fuel again. Not that it mattered. There was no way I could push through this storm. I just had to ride it out and hope that I was still in one piece when it ended.
Lightning split the sky in long jagged lines. For a few seconds at a time, I could see twenty-foot waves rising and falling around me. Otherwise, it was pitch-black.
The salt spray hit my coral wounds like a sandblaster, opening up the blisters again through my shirt. I crawled forward and grabbed a filthy tarp. I bunched it into a shallow pouch and let the rainwater fill it. I put the edge to my lips and took a long deep sip. The wind ripped thetarp out of my hands. Another wave hit. The right side of the boat tipped almost vertical. I grabbed for some knotted netting and felt myself falling.
Bang!
I hit the engine housing hard and blacked out.
CHAPTER 43
Democratic Republic of the Congo, 7 p.m.
KIRA SUCKED THE last drop of juice from a ripe mango and tossed the skin on the ground. A light supper. It was all her belly could handle in the heat. Time for a nap.
She climbed back up into the crook of one of her favorite trees and stuffed her backpack behind her head for a pillow. She was in deep cover, about a half mile from the mine and the human sounds that went with it. The air was filled with a chorus of cicadas and the bubbly rush from a nearby stream—her daily bath and fresh water supply.
As darkness closed in, she could hear monkeys screech and predators growl. Kira ticked off the binomial of each one in her head. It was a habit from her training. Always know what you’re up against.
Pan troglodytes… Panthera pardus… Cercopithecus pogonias…
The mental exercise was also her way of not thinking about Doc, and how much she was missing him. Aftershe’d ripped him away from his humdrum university life, they’d spent six months together. She’d trained him. Molded him. She helped him see what he was capable of, and showed him the evil that was taking over the world. She and Doc had risked their lives together, nearly died together—more than once.
At the beginning, the professor wouldn’t have survived without her. By the end, she needed him just as much. Maybe more. Kira wasn’t crazy about that feeling. She’d always hated being dependent on anybody but herself.
But she loved Doc. She couldn’t help it. If that was a weakness, she’d decided that she was willing to live with it. And she wouldn’t give up on finding him.
Ever.
Kira tipped her head back and looked up through the crazy pattern of branches and vines in the canopy above her. She felt a slight tickle on her neck.
She froze.
Now only her eyes moved, darting sideways. The tickle intensified. Her heart was pounding. A slender green snake slithered over her shoulder.