“You got everything?” he asked lamely.
“I think so,” Zoe answered, sliding her phone into her back pocket and shouldering her backpack.
“Well . . . all right, then,” he said, sticking out his hand.
But instead of taking his hand, Zoe stepped in and wrapped her arms around him.
“Thank you,” she said.
Caught off guard by the embrace, all Hayes could think to do was give her a friendly pat on the back followed by, “Yeah, sure . . . no problem . . .”
He was wondering if he should walk her out but was saved from the decision by the arrival of three black Land Rovers.
The convoy pulled up to the front door and before the lead vehicle had come to a complete stop, a serious-looking man in a desert-tan plate carrier hopped out of the second SUV and bounded into the hotel.
“Oh, I forgot l’addition—the bill,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Zoe, let’s go,” the man at the door snapped.
“Better get going,” Hayes said.
She turned to leave, but only made it a few steps before spinning on her heel and hurrying back.
The sudden about-face caught Hayes off guard and he was about to ask if everything was okay, but before the words could form, Zoe pushed herself up on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
“Wh-what was that for?” Hayes stammered.
“For being a good man,” she said.
“Zoe, we have to go now!” the man at the door barked, and then she was gone, her shoes click-clacking on the floor as she scurried across the lobby and out the door.
Good luck, kid, he thought as the man marched her to the SUV.
Hayes paid the bill and grabbed his bag and was thinking of using some of Mallory’s cash to get a room for the night when he heard the waitress’s voice behind him.
“Excuse me, but the mademoiselle, she left this on the table.”
Shit, her insulin.
Hayes snatched the case from her hand with a hurried “thank you” and shot across the lobby. He was halfway to the door when the lead Land Rover pulled away and, knowing he wasn’t going to make it in time, he shouted at the doorman, “Stop that truck!”
“Quoi?” the puzzled doorman asked.
“The truck—le camion—stop the fucking truck!”
But by the time the man figured out what he wanted it was too late.
“Good job, Stevie Wonder,” Hayes spat before shouldering past the doorman and blasting out into the porte cochère in time to see the convoy already halfway around the circular drive.
He hurtled the hedges and ran across the lawn, angling for the trail Land Rover ten yards away. Hayes ran straight at the driver’s-side door, screaming at the top of his lungs and frantically waving the case over his head, desperate to get the man’s attention.
He wasn’t sure if the driver simply hadn’t seen him or if he had orders not to stop. Whichever the case, the man never checked up and by the time Hayes made it to the drive all that was left of the Land Rover was a cloud of dust.
It was barely twenty yards from the front of the hotel to his current location, but the heat plus the prawns and rice he’d stuffed down his throat at lunch left him feeling sluggish. He slowed his pace, breathing heavily through his mouth.
Hayes knew that if he was running Zoe’s protective detail, he would have made sure that each truck had extra insulin just in case something happened.
You willing to bet her life on that? the voice asked.
Hell, no, he thought.
Hayes shoved the case into his back pocket and forced himself into a loping run, angling for the line of shrubs that separated the hotel property from the road. He ran hard, legs pumping like pistons as he charged across the grass and dodged around the knot of spectators who’d gathered at the edge of the sand volleyball courts.
By the time he made it up the gentle incline and stopped before the hedges he was soaked in sweat and the skin around his hip was raw from the sandpaper rub of the Beretta’s grip. But the physical discomforts vanished when he made it to his destination.
From the inside of the Pathfinder there’d been nothing daunting about the decorative shrubs that marked the edge of the hotel’s property, but the view from the ground was a different story. What he’d thought were decorative shrubs were actually more akin to the hedgerows the allies had faced in Normandy—too tall to jump over and too thick to plow through.
Just great, he thought.
Hayes dropped into a crouch and scanned the bottom of the brush. He found what he was looking for a few yards to his left: a rectangular break at the bottom of the bush wide enough to accommodate a man of his size.
With no time to waste, Hayes threw himself flat and began low-crawling beneath the bush. It was easy going for the first few inches, but then the space started to narrow, and the only way Hayes could continue was by keeping his arms pressed tight against his sides.
Hampered by the tight confines, and with only his feet to propel him, Hayes was in no position to defend himself from the swarm of mosquitoes attracted to his body heat. All he could do was curse ineffectually while they bit his face and darted in and out of his mouth.
He twisted and turned his upper body, drilling through the undergrowth, the volume of his curses growing with each branch that raked his skin. The sidewalk was less than a yard to his front and Hayes knew by the slowing of the foot traffic that the pedestrians could hear him, but he was beyond giving a shit.
With a final push of his legs he wormed free of the bushes and climbed to his feet, ignoring the open-mouthed stares of the pedestrians on their way to the beach. He patted his back pocket, and after making sure he still had the case, was brushing the leaves and dirt out of his hair. He turned to his left and started down the walk, toward the intersection half a block away.
From his position on the south side of the street his view was limited by the row of budget hotels and a large white triangular building at the corner, but he had a clear view of the traffic running east and west and was almost in position when the convoy made the turn onto Route d’Azuretti, engines howling as the drivers stomped on the gas.
Hayes shot a glance over his shoulder and wasn’t surprised to see a man in a floral shirt standing at the crosswalk, the toe of his sandaled foot tapping on the concrete as he waited for a break in traffic. It was perfectly normal behavior for Europe or the States. But this was Africa, where there was no such thing as a “licensed driver” and traffic laws were treated more like suggestions than rules. Hayes had spent enough time on the continent to know that waiting for a break in traffic before crossing the street could take hours.