Page 6 of Black and Brown

Matthew became too overwhelmed to speak.

He jumped when grenades exploded in another area of the compound, sending it crumbling to the ground and the hostages racing toward what remained of the front gates.

While he’d been focused on the man with the stealth of a cheetah, concealed by a black hood that covered half his face, Matthew had lost track of the other one.

He reappeared, running, shooting, and fighting all at the same time.

The killers crossed paths with each other and swapped weapons with a swift, synchronized motion, never breaking stride.

Matthew couldn’t believe what he was seeing as one of the cheetahs threw a series of knives into one of the rebel’s backs so quickly that if he had blinked, he would’ve missed it.

One navigated through the labyrinth of passages, firing rounds in the last of the rooms before he hurried to the middle of the dust-filled compound to wave the last of the hostages outside.

Matthew cut his eyes to the right and saw the other running so fast he scaled a fifteen-foot wall in five steps before leaping and catching the ledge with one hand.

He propelled his lean body onto the top and ran full speed along the narrow edge, as if he’d trained for years on the balance beam, then tossed grenades over the side wall onto piled crates stamped USMC.

And as if that wasn’t odd enough, the man jumped down, rolled several feet, then skidded to a halt at his partner’s side, all before the explosions went off.

It was an action-packed performance Matthew had only seen in a Hollywood blockbuster.

Were these men mercenaries or black ops?

When the compound was mostly rubble, one of the hooded men disappeared behind a low wall made of stacked mud bricks.

He re-emerged from a section billowing with smoke, dragging a man by his hair before he threw him to the ground.

The hell?

The man was kicked in the back before he scrambled to his knees.

“This is Dembe Ngoimgo, leader of the Karabo Ani-Marekani. His radical group is against all US presence in his village in South Africa.”

“Holding for kill order,” the voice over the radio almost sounded computerized, but Matthew knew it belonged to a human.

The thudding of his heart felt like a jackhammer pounding against his rib cage.

“Your parents’ facility isn’t the only one Ani-Marekani targeted that day, Dr. Adams. And the man on his knees is the one who orchestrated the raids.”

Mirage

Matthew glared hard at the man who had his father and sweet mother killed.

Had his dad gotten to hold her during her final moments? Had they gotten to look into each other’s eyes and promise to search for the other in the next lifetime?

Or, God forbid, had they been on opposite sides of the hospital and died alone under burning rubble?

Matthew tasted bile. Emotion blocked his airway.

“I’ll allow you to make the kill order, Dr. Adams.”

What?

“He dies right here, right now, at your command. Or we deliver him to the US Embassy to be given a fair trial.”

Time seemed to stand still while he grappled with the enormity of the choice before him, the decision pressing down on his soul like the weight of a ten-ton boulder.

Could he do it? He was eight thousand miles away, holding the fate of another man’s life on the tip of his tongue.