She wiggled her butt to tease him. “Focus on your driving, soldier. When we get home, you can grope my ass all you want.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Then everything changed.
“Kristi, get down!”
On a punch of adrenaline, she slipped into the backseat and got down on the floor, her cheek pressed against his duffel bag. “What’s going on?”
“There are two white Toyota trucks full of armed men speeding up the highway behind us, gaining fast.”
Kristi’s pulse tripped. “Do you think it’s them?”
“Hard to say. Whoever they are, they’re not friendly.”
She heard the roar of an engine coming up behind them, headlights illuminating the interior of their rental. The seconds ticked by like hours, at least one truck right on their tail. Had these bastards connected them to this vehicle? Were they trying to read the license plate?
Then the roar grew louder—and passed by.
She let out the breath she’d been holding. “Did they pass us?”
“Yes, but stay down until I know what’s going on.”
The minutes crept by, then the vehicle slowed.
“It looks like traffic is stopping up ahead. I think they put up a roadblock.”
“Does that mean they traced us to that filling station?”
“I’m not going to hang around to find out. There’s an exit just ahead.”
She heard the turn signal click on, and the vehicle veered to the right, the noise of traffic falling behind them, the exit taking them slightly uphill.
“Yeah, they threw up a roadblock. I can see them about a half mile ahead. They used their trucks to block the road, and now men with guns are searching cars.”
“What are we going to do?”
“It looks like we’re taking the scenic route to Benin.”
And Kristi knew they wouldn’t be flying home tomorrow, either.
* * *
Malik turnedoff the music and followed the exit into Gulu, a small town surrounded by farms. He saw a gas station and decided to risk a refueling stop. “Stay back there and keep out of sight. I’m going to top off the tank again.”
“Okay.”
He climbed out, refueled, and walked inside to pay. The young clerk was too focused on a small television to notice him. He walked back to the vehicle, thinking through their options—not a complicated process when there weren’t many.
If they stayed on the highway, they’d travel faster, but they’d also face the very real threat of roadblocks and capture. If they left the highway, they’d have a much longer trip on roads plagued by bandits and might lose access to cell service and gas stations.
But the biggest obstacle was the river.
No matter which road they took, they had to cross the Niger River to get to Benin. He remembered Shields telling them in a briefing on one mission that there weren’t many bridges crossing the river—at least not bridges capable of supporting vehicles. That was a problem.
If he were one of these fuckers, he’d use the bridges as chokepoints—a sure way to catch anyone traveling by car or bus.
He climbed behind the wheel. “Stay down for just another minute. I’m going to pull over on that side road ahead. I need to look at a map.”