Kalahari (22 page)

“How long have you been infected?”

I froze. “W-what?”

“Sarah. I’m not stupid. When you told me not to touch you last night . . . I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s true, isn’t it?” His voice was low and harsh, his brow furrowed in anger, not at me, it seemed, but at the ugly truth.

I drew a shaky hand across my forehead, briefly hiding the shame in my eyes. “It happened two days ago, when I went to get the baobab fruit the morning after we, um, kissed.” I glanced at the others. They were still sleeping, oblivious to our conversation. “There was an infected bush baby in the tree.”

Sam swore and threw the rest of the shavings at the ground. “I should have gone with you. I should have—”

“There’s nothing you could have done.”

“Why didn’t you
tell
me?”

My hand moved automatically to my silver wrist, which was still covered by my sleeve. “I wasn’t sure, until yesterday afternoon. I thought maybe . . . I don’t know. Saying it out loud makes it
real
, you know?”

His eyes burned into me, his misery cutting me deeper than my own. “We have to get you to a hospital.”

“Sam, I don’t think—”

“How far to Ghansi?”

“Two days at least, and that’s even if we hike without breaks from dawn till dark. It’s not possible. You saw how quickly Dr. Monaghan went, after it started.” I pulled up my sleeve and showed him the infected patch of skin. His face went white. “It’s too late.”

“We have to try!”

“Sam—”

“I won’t let you die!” he yelled.

His shout woke up the others, who looked at us groggily and asked what was wrong. Sam exhaled bitterly and ran a hand through his hair, his eyes squeezing shut.

“Nothing,” I said. “We should get going. There’s some
bi
root if you want it.”

While they roused themselves, I walked a short distance away, motioning Sam to follow. When we were far enough away not to be overheard, I whispered to Sam, “Don’t make this harder than it is and blame yourself. Look. You’re right. We’ll get to Ghansi and I’ll go to the hospital. They’ll figure something out.” My head spun suddenly and I stumbled. Sam’s hand shot out to steady me.

“No!” I snapped, pulling away. “Don’t touch me!”

“You’re pale,” Sam murmured. “Are you sure you can walk? I’ll carry you if I have to.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll lead the others to safety is what you’ll do. I can take care of myself. And please don’t tell them. Not yet.” I didn’t want them to look at me the way Sam was, as if I were some kind of ghost.

The others were ready to go. They huddled together, stamping their feet to keep warm, their breath frosting the air. Avani watched Sam and me suspiciously. I sighed and stepped around Sam.

“We should go. Moving out, people,” I said.

They groaned but nodded. Sam said nothing, but I could feel his concerned gaze burning at the nape of my neck.

I turned to face north, drew a deep breath, and then began to walk.

A few steps was as far as I got. Lights suddenly blasted from every direction, blinding me, and I stumbled back. The others cried out, equally disoriented. I blinked furiously, my eyes feeling scalded, trying to make out what was going on. Hazy shapes formed in front of me, like distorted reflections: a group of men in camouflaging khaki rising out of the grass, standing beside a trio of Land Rovers with their headlights on full blast. The lights centered on us, leaving me feeling almost naked, the beams so strong they seemed to hold us in place with physical force. My eyes foggily focused on the men. They all had guns, and they were pointed at us.

L
ookee, boys,” said the lead man, a tall African with a clean-shaven skull. From the French bent to his accent, I judged him to be from the northwest, perhaps Niger. “I think we found Mr. Abramo’s missing kids.”

Abramo himself was nowhere to be seen. He must have had more than one group of mercenaries scouting the Kalahari. It was a cruel trick of fate that we should walk right into this one, this close to our destination. There were half a dozen of them, big, tough-looking guys with dusty bandanas tied around their heads and necks, dressed in faded fatigues that might have been scavenged from a handful of different militias.

They cocked their guns and Miranda let out a sob. Our hands were all lifted, and I pushed mine forward as if I could stop the bullets with just my bare palms.

“Wait!” I yelled. “You really don’t want to do that! I swear, you’ll regret it!”

The men hesitated but didn’t lower their guns. My mind raced like a frantic gazelle trying to outrun a cheetah. My friends all looked at me with such desperation, such
hope
in their eyes that I felt nauseated.
Think, Sarah, come on. . . .
I snatched the first wild idea that drifted by.

“Where’s Abramo?” I asked, in as stern and sharp a voice as I could muster.

The Nigerien man narrowed his eyes. “I am in charge now.”

“I have information for him,” I said to him in French. “Information he’ll reward you for. You know about the Metalcium outbreak, right?” He nodded and spat, not taking his eyes off me. I drew a deep breath and, switching back to English, laid down a mighty bluff. “I know what the cure is.”

“Ha!”

“What do you have to lose? Take us to Abramo, and if I’m lying, you can do what you will. But if you hurt my friends or me now, you get nothing, and when the infection takes over, which, believe me, it will, you’ll die.”

He considered me doubtfully as he clicked his teeth together. “Tell me what it is.”

“I’m not stupid. I want to talk to Abramo.”

The Nigerien sneered. “How could a girl know what these rich scientists do not? They cannot stop this silver poison—how can you?”

“I know that Abramo lied to you. He told you the silver poison is transferred by touch, right? Well, sorry, boys, but you’ve been duped. See, it’s spread by the air, not by touch. You’re all loose ends once this is over. Abramo’s been using you to clean up this mess, knowing Metalcium would kill you for him.”

A few shifted uneasily, but not the leader. He only bared his teeth in a scowl. “Lies!”

“Are you willing to bet your life on that?” I returned. “You might be infected already. Don’t you know how it starts? With itching. Like a dog with fleas. Like a kid with lice.” I saw a few hands leave their rifles in order to scratch beneath collars and sleeves, and looks of doubt and panic began to blossom around me. “The itching goes on for days before you start turning silver,” I said. “It’s impossible not to scratch. It’s like ants biting you, like centipedes crawling up and down your—”

“Stop!” cried the Nigerien, not to me, but to his men, who were scratching furiously now.

“Man, I been itching for days!” cried one.

“Me too, brother!” added another as he clawed at his scalp. “What if he’s lying? What if we all got the poison?”

“You are idiots!” snarled the Nigerien, but I saw his fingers twitching on his rifle.

“Are you
sure
you don’t feel an itch?” I asked him. “An itch you just have to scratch?”

He swore as one of his hands flew to his neck. “Lies!”

I smiled. “Maybe. Maybe not. My friends and I went into that menagerie at the lab, the one with all the infected animals. Do we look silver to you? Are we scratching?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joey snatch his hand from his shoulder to his pocket, apparently stopping himself in midscratch. My little speech must have infected my own group with the itch as well. But they caught my hint and stayed still.

“I was taught by a Bushman,” I said quietly. “I know the secret remedies of the Kalahari. I cured us and I can cure you, if you will take us to Abramo.”

I held the Nigerien’s gaze. He fumed and bristled, but I hoped that I’d planted just enough doubt in his mind to save our lives—at least for another hour or two. Still, it was an hour more than we had now, an hour more to think of
something
.

“Take them to the trucks,” said the Nigerien at last, with a look of disgust. “And stop that scratching! Idiots!”

I allowed myself one small, relieved sigh.
Now what?

They marched us to the road, where there were three white Land Rovers parked in a line. None of us spoke, not even to one another.

We had been
so close
—just a few days’ walk from Ghansi.

How had they tracked us? There had been no sign of the helicopter, and we hadn’t lit a fire. Finding six teenagers in the dark in the middle of the Kalahari wilderness was like looking for a flea on an elephant. I decided it must have been more accidental, based on the men’s reactions to us. They had seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see them.

I was put into the first Land Rover with Avani. The group’s leader took the driver’s seat, and a short, bespectacled man sat beside him. After hearing their accents, I identified about half of them as Nigerien, including the leader, while the rest were white South Africans, like the small man in the passenger seat.

“
Hoekom doen jy dit
?” I said to the latter.

He grunted but said nothing.

“
Taisez-vous
,” returned the driver gruffly.

“What did you say?” Avani whispered.

“I asked him why he was doing this.
He
told me to shut up.” I murmured a nasty word in French, thinking he wouldn’t hear me, but he did. He whipped around faster than I could have believed possible and slapped me across the face with the butt of his pistol.

“You will be silent, little lady,” he said mildly, giving me a hard look before turning around and cranking the engine. “Or that smooth tongue of yours will get your lovely friend here shot.” He gave Avani a cruel smile.

I stared at the back of his head, my cheek stinging. I could taste blood in the corner of my mouth where he’d hit me. Avani stared at me with wide eyes, and I shook my head slightly, warning her to stay quiet. She shrank down into the seat, shutting her eyes like she could wish all of this away.

After making sure that Avani wasn’t looking, I pulled up my sleeve just an inch to inspect my skin. The Metalcium had crept inexorably toward my palm. I prodded it carefully. There was still feeling in the affected area, but it was like poking my skin through a layer of clothing. The sensation was dimmer, not like skin on skin.

With a shudder, I yanked my sleeve down again.

The Land Rover shook and bounced through the Kalahari, the Nigerien following the worn tracks of the road and at times making wide passes around the areas that had eroded into miniature canyons. My brain rattled in my skull from all the jerking and bumping, giving me a masterful headache. Through the pain, I tried to think of a way out of this dead-end trip. Ever since running into these thugs, I’d been pulling words and promises out of thin air. But what could I possibly say once we arrived at wherever Abramo was and it turned out I didn’t actually know anything about a cure? I could light some grass on fire and do some kind of fake healing dance, mimicking the San rituals. Maybe I could fool some of the mercenaries for a short time, but I doubted Abramo would be amused.

After about an hour of rough driving, the Nigerien turned left and drove straight into the bush. It was slow going over holes and branches and brush. I could see that we were following a set of faint tracks, evidence of the vehicles’ earlier passage. We drove like this for another hour, though we couldn’t have gone more than twenty miles at the rate we were moving.

Finally we arrived at a bush camp set in a wide, flat pan bordered with hulking
Terminalia
. There were two rows of tents set up, as well as a fire pit in the center. Avani and I were forced to sit still until the mercenaries opened the doors for us. The Nigerien had my door, and at first I sat staring straight ahead, ignoring him. He then grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged me out.

“Where is Abramo?” I asked, wrenching myself out of his grasp.

He yawned in my face, his rank breath making me gag. “The boss will be here soon. Don’t get any ideas, eh? These boys, they are very jumpy. Likely to shoot at anything, if you know what I mean.”

Indeed, Abramo’s hired men were watching us like hawks. They herded us into a group in the center of the camp, and several of them whistled and jeered at us girls in Afrikaans and Sesotho. I was glad that neither Avani nor Miranda could understand what the men were saying. I had met men like these before—often in connection to poaching rings. Many of them had grown up in the midst of violent wars, and some had been forced to kill while they were still children. Not many escaped that life.

I shivered, wishing I could hold Sam’s hand for comfort. Instead I held my own, locking my fingers together as if I could squeeze an idea out of thin air.

“What do we do now?” asked Avani.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “But if you’ve got any ideas, feel free to share.”

“Better think of something fast,” said Joey. “We’re losing Ken and Barbie.”

Avani cast a worried look at Kase and Miranda, who looked as if they’d fallen into a catatonic trance. Kase’s arms wrapped tightly around his girlfriend. Both of them stared unblinkingly at nothing, their bodies trembling and faces ashen. Joey looked angry, glaring at our captors, while Sam watched me sidelong, his mouth a thin line of tension. He didn’t even seem to notice the guns pointed at us, he was so preoccupied with my infection.

You okay?
he mouthed.

I shrugged and started to give him a wan smile, then frowned instead, my gaze refocusing beyond him, past the mercenary leaning on a termite mound smoking, and on the bush beyond.

“Sarah?”

I ignored Sam’s query and studied the grass.
Was that . . . ?

The grass rustled in the cool breeze, sweeping against the thorny acacias in rippling golden waves. I narrowed my eyes, searching, probing . . .
There.

“Kase,” I said, my voice quiet and casual. “Miranda. I need you to focus.”

They blinked and looked at me dazedly. I hoped they were tracking what was going on.

“What is it?” asked Avani worriedly.

“Trouble.”

“What now?” squeaked Joey.

I shot him a shushing look. Our voices were too low for the mercenaries to hear, and I wanted to keep it that way. We had something they didn’t—a warning—and I planned to use it to its full advantage.

“Wait for it . . . when I shout, be ready to run,” I murmured, looking back at the bush. “Any second now . . .”

The silver lion sprang from the bushes with a wild roar that resonated in my rib cage.

“GO!”