Looking as if he’d just come from fighting a fire, he slouched in the seat, turned outward at an angle with one foot resting on the jeep’s running board and a long-barreled SIG 551 assault rifle resting in his hands.

His manner brought to mind that of a weary soldier daydreaming, but behind the dark sunglasses, his eyes were moving constantly, flicking from one section of the trees to the next, scanning up and down the dusty, reddish road.

He didn’t see anything to alarm him, hadn’t seen anything on the entire drive. And that bothered him. He’d expected at least one more wave of resistance.

He turned to the driver and asked in an American accent, “How far to the village?”

The African driver kept his eyes forward, a tense determination never leaving his body. “A mile or two,” he said. “We will be there soon enough, my friend. I promise you, the Hawk does not need to fight anymore today.”

The man, whom the others called Hawker, turned away from the driver and stared down the curving road. They’d been through hell to get this far and some instinct deep inside told him the work might not be done.

He glanced backward over his shoulder at the small convoy following them. Two hundred yards behind, a group of trucks filled with medical supplies, grains for planting, and sacks of rice traveled in single file. Accompanying the trucks were a pair of vans filled with doctors.

They were brave men and women who’d come here, beyond the reach of their governments, beyond the reach of the UN, in a valiant effort to treat the maimed and the wounded of Congo’s endless civil war.

He admired them. They abhorred fighting enough to risk their lives trying to stem its carnage in some small way. And yet they were conflicted now, having seen it up close for the past few days, not as observers or angels of mercy, but as prisoners and victims and combatants.

Hawker could feel the change in them. They looked at him differently now, avoiding eye contact or any real conversation. Perhaps he and his men were part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

To be honest, he didn’t care what they thought. In a few minutes, a village that had been under siege for years would be seeing food and medicine and a break from the constant predation of the strong against the weak.

The jeep rounded a long, sweeping curve and the village came into view directly ahead of them. It was nothing more than a ramshackle collection of corrugated tin and, in places, mud-walled adobe buildings.

At the center of the village, the dirt road turned a circle. A simple wooden church stood off to one side, its steeple and walls bearing the scars of bullet holes below a white painted cross. In front of it stood the town’s most prized possession, a solar-powered pump that drew clean water from a thousand feet below.

He’d expected people to be gathered around it, but the fields and the village appeared empty, and all was quiet as Hawker and his compatriots rolled in.

Hawker’s jeep rounded the circle at the center of town and slowed to a stop.

With the engine idling and the vehicle’s nose pointed toward the safety of the dirt road, Hawker and the two men with him watched for any sign of movement. He brought a walkie-talkie to his mouth.

“Hold the convoy,” he said quietly.

A double click told him the message had been received. He placed the radio down.

The smell of a cooking fire lingered in the air, but there was no noise or movement. Hawker turned to the driver. “I thought you said someone would be here to meet us.”

The man looked around nervously. “My brother is here,” he said. “Somewhere.”

Across the plaza, the door to the church cracked open.

“Cut the engine,” Hawker said.

As the rumbling of the exhaust died away, the door opened farther. A moment later two men stepped out: one dressed in the garb of an Anglican priest, the other in a loose gray shirt and black pants.

“Devera,” the driver shouted as he jumped from the jeep.

The man in the gray shirt smiled broadly. “Brother,” he said. They reached out and clasped in a strong hug.

“Did you bring the doctors?” Devera said. “Some of the people have been wounded in the fighting.”

“We brought them,” the driver told his brother excitedly.

Hawker clicked the radio. “It’s clear,” he said. “Come on in.”

Moments later, the trucks entered the town accompanied by additional armed jeeps and the two vans with red crosses painted on them.

Devera and the priest watched the vehicles pulling in.

“We were told that Jumbuto had stopped you,” Devera said. “Most of the people fled, fearing a reprisal.”

Jumbuto was the local warlord. And he had stopped them, ambushing the convoy after promising free passage. His men had killed two of the drivers and one of the guards and had then kidnapped the doctors, hoping to ransom them to their relatively wealthy families back in Europe and America.

Hawker and his people had gone after them, something Jumbuto had never expected. Forty-eight hours later, the warlord was dead, his garish compound burning in the hills. The few of his men who had survived were running for their lives.

It had been a bloody, horrible battle. Thirty men had been killed, four of them Hawker’s people. Three others were badly wounded, but the siege had been broken.

“He did cross us,” the driver said, “like the snake he’s always been. But he won’t do it again. I tell you we killed him,” he said excitedly. “I saw it with my own eyes.”

Devera looked thrilled, the priest less so. “You see, Father, I told you about this one.” He pointed to Hawker. “I told you he would get through.”

Laughing heartily, Devera grabbed Hawker in a huge bear hug, shaking him.

Hawker accepted the man’s gratitude, but he didn’t smile. He knew there were no simple solutions to the problems of such a village. There would be new oppressors to deal with before too long.

The priest seemed to know this as well. And though a sense of relief had appeared on his face, he did not smile, either. “We can only hope the next devil will not be worse than the last.”

“Oh, you’re too glum, Father,” Devera said, still reveling in his joy. “God has sent us deliverance.”

“God’s deliverance does not come with bullets and blood,” the priest replied.

Hawker gazed at the priest. Burn marks covered his hands and a scar from some terrible blade cut across his forehead and disappeared up into his hairline, but the man’s eyes seemed devoid of malice. Even after all he must have seen, his face offered kindness and peace.

For a moment Hawker felt he should say something, explain himself perhaps, or at least his actions, but he couldn’t find any words and instead nodded silently and then began to walk away.

Behind him the unloading got under way, and as Devera had expected, the proper rejoicing began.

CHAPTER 5

Three days after Hawker’s arrival, the African village was filled with life, like a garden after a long-awaited rain. With seed now available, the overgrown fields were being plowed and planted. Children were playing among the doctors as they administered vaccines, treated infections, and removed bullets or shrapnel from a surprising number of men and women.

To Hawker, the liveliness of the village was both a blessing and a curse. If another warlord set his sights on this place, the people who now laughed and danced would find a new subjugation more painful than having never being freed in the first place.

Weary with this knowledge, he found himself alone in the church, sitting in a simple wooden pew, one row from the front. He wasn’t praying or reading or meditating. He was just sitting there, bathed in the darkness and the silence.

A former pilot, Hawker had once been a member of the CIA, but after disobeying a direct order, he’d spent the past decade on the run, living as a pariah. He was a mercenary now, running weapons, fighting, flying.