Chasing the White Lion James Hannibal (essential reading TXT) 📖

his people don’t see him. Can you handle that?”

The kid was halfway out the door by the time he answered. “Yes, sir.”

A one-shouldered shrug lifted the barrel of the major’s M4 carbine. “Sorry, Nyx. Price of fame and all that.”

Ever since her first intersection with Ruiz, stopping the launch of hypersonic missiles from a secret base in the Black Sea, Talia’s legend in the Special Forces community had grown. Most of the stories had no basis in truth. The men had dubbed her Nyx after the Greek goddess of night—strangely, the mother of the ferryman who’d brought her team into the club. The sudden realization of this connection made Talia blanch.

Jafet tried to roll over.

Talia placed a heel between his shoulder blades to keep him still. “What’s to become of our friend here?”

“He’s wanted in several nations for a host of crimes, including murder. Once it gets out that we have him, there’ll be a massive food fight. Nice of you to spare his life, Nyx. But if the Russians or Egyptians get ahold of him, he’s toast.”

“Their call. How about we wait awhile, though? Keep him on ice for a bit.”

“Oh. We will.” Ruiz rested a boot on Jafet’s rear end and leaned in, earning a pained grunt. “Dude had his hand in all the wrong cookie jars. We’ve got weeks of intelligence to pull from his twisted little mind.”

On the monitor behind him, a pair of soldiers dragged an unconscious Aku across the outer dock. Talia nodded to direct Ruiz’s gaze. “What about the Kongaran?”

“We’ll drop him on his boat between the dummy containers, like the drunk bum he is. His men will never see us, and Aku will never remember the last hour. Tell your buddy Tyler I took care of the rest. My man in the Royal Thai Rangers is at his disposal.”

“Will do.” She shook his hand and turned to go. “Thanks for everything.”

“Anytime, Nyx. Godspeed on the next phase of your op.”

CHAPTER

FIFTY-

SIX

MAE SURIN JUNGLE HIGHLANDS

MAE HONG SON PROVINCE, THAILAND

THEFORESTCANOPYFILTERED the gray light of dawn, turning everything a shade of green, including Po. The refugee walked a few paces ahead of Finn and Ewan, following the blood trail. Half an hour after sunrise, he stopped, raised a fist, and said something in Thai.

“He found another wire pen.” Ewan bent to his knees for a breather and offered Finn a hit from an old-school canteen. “Water?”

Finn wiggled the CamelBak drinking tube hanging at his shoulder. “I’m fine. Came prepared.”

“Right. I forgot. Commando.”

“Thief.”

“Whatever.”

The new holding pen looked much like the last two they’d found. Spent bandages and junk food wrappers were strewn about. Po took on a sad expression and raised a small sandal with yellow straps, hanging from his pinky.

Somewhere a little girl—no more than eight, by the size of the sandal—slogged through the jungle with one bare foot, driven by her captors.

Finn’s hand went to his weapon. “Look for the blood trail. We need to keep moving.”

“There is no trail.” Ewan swept a slow path back and forth through the tangled brush beyond the pen’s gate. “Whoever was wounded stopped bleeding after this stop.” He straightened as Finn came over to him. “Perhaps that’s a good sign.”

“Or perhaps not.” Finn lowered his voice when he said it. He had not forgotten that one of the missing children was Po’s son. And the Thai man understood at least some English.

But without the blood trail, how could they continue the search?

They gave it a shot. Using a terrain map, Finn connected the dots from pen to pen. The line curved, but the kidnappers had driven the children generally south. The three took a heading and marched on.

An hour later, the jungle looked exactly the same.

“Water break.” Finn nodded at Ewan’s canteen. “Drink. You need the hydration.”

“You too.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.” As he unhooked the CamelBak tube and set it between his lips, Finn turned in a slow circle, taking in the endless green. But the green wasn’t endless. At least, it wasn’t unchanging. One sector seemed lighter. He checked the compass clipped to his belt. “Ewan. Look southwest. Tell me what you see.”

The Compassion man followed his gaze. After a moment, he nodded. Both men said what they were thinking at the same time.

“A road.”

They marched two hundred meters more and stepped out from the trees onto gravel and red dirt.

“Big truck came through here,” Finn said, kneeling to draw a finger across a muddy tire track. “A few days ago, maybe. I don’t know. Two sets of tires on the rear axle, though—a dually. A sheepherder who dated my mom drove the same type.”

Po looked Finn right in the eye and rattled off a few sentences.

“He says big trucks don’t use this road. Too dangerous and totally unnecessary. There’s a better road to the east that joins all the villages in the region.”

Finn gave the refugee a shrug, addressing him directly. “Makes sense for our kidnappers. They’d want to steer clear of prying eyes.”

They kept looking, and a few paces up the road, Po found footprints. Lots of them. He’d found the place the kidnappers loaded up the children. “But the tire tracks look the same in both directions,” Ewan said. “Finn, can you tell which way they went?”

He wished he could say yes, but he’d never learned proper tracking skills. The frustration of his inadequacy made him a little cranky. “I told you. I’m not a commando. I’m—”

“A thief. We get it.” Ewan seemed to let Finn’s anger flow right past him. He got down on his knees in the grass beside the road and bowed his head.

“What are you doing?”

“Praying. Hush.”

Finn turned to Po. The refugee got down and bowed his head as well.

The thief huffed, shaking his head. “Great. You two gents have at it. In the meantime, I’ll try to do something useful.” He walked the road.

Fifty meters or more along the northwest track, something silver flashed in the sun. Finn snatched it up and jogged back to