Page 85 of Duty Preserved

I kept that to myself, because finding relief that a butchered rhino meant a clear-cut enemy still wouldn’t sit clean with most.

“The patient hunter,” I said.

Andrew nodded and finished the line. “Gets his prey.”

Chapter 23

Donovan

Three days of nothing, and the rangers were running the obstacle course like they’d invented it.

I stood at the tree line with my arms folded and watched them move. The same course they’d built with their own hands at the start of the program, back when half of them couldn’t lash a rope brace without it slipping and the other half couldn’t figure out which end of the plank went down first. A month ago, this had been a circus. A rifle reassembled with a part backward, and Baraka arguing with anyone who’d listen and even a few who wouldn’t.

Now they ran it as a unit, each man knowing where the next one was without looking. They hit the wall together and came off the other side in formation.

At the low-crawl lane, Jomo dropped to his belly and started pulling himself through. The clubfoot dragged behind him the way it always did, costing him time he couldn’t afford. Baraka was already past the net and on his feet. He stopped, turned back, and dropped to a knee at the far end of the lane. He didn’t reach in or haul Jomo through. He just held the edge of the net up so the kid could clear it without catching his bad ankle on the pegs.

Jomo came out and got to his feet. They moved on to the next station without a word between them. Baraka had waved him off at the night exercise a few weeks ago, dismissed him in front of the others. Now he was clearing a path without making a production of it, and Jomo was taking the assist without it costing him anything.

I made a mental note of that progress.

Underneath the admiration was a frustration I couldn’t let go of. The tightened patrols had produced nothing—extra eyes on every waterhole in the northeast sector, overlapping coverage, extended shifts, the whole roster pulled tight, and not a sign. The trail from the first carcass had gone cold into the settlement paths. The KWS report had gone up the chain and produced exactly zero actionable responses. Every morning, I checked in with the outposts and every morning got the same answer.

Baraka jogged past after his run and pulled up beside a few of the others cooling down. He unclipped his canteen and took a long drink, then said what the rest of them had been thinking.

“Three days and no sign. It was one time. One local who got lucky and went to ground.”

A couple of the others nodded.

“You’re still chewing on the carcass.” Andrew appeared beside me with his own canteen and the expression he wore when he was about to say something I didn’t want to hear. “You know who you remind me of right now? McClellan.”

“Don’t.”

“George B. McClellan. Sat outside Richmond in 1862 with the largest army the union had ever assembled. Had twice the men Lee did. Convinced himself he was outnumbered and spent months drilling his troops instead of fighting. Lincoln finally wrote him a letter asking if he wasn’t planning to use the army, could he borrow it for a while.”

“That’s not what’s happening here.”

“Isn’t it? We geared up for something that never came. The rangers are running drills because there’s nothing better we can aim them at.” He capped his canteen. “I’m just saying. Sometimes the enemy doesn’t show.”

The joke half landed, because he was right and I knew it. A cold trail didn’t get warmer with time. Reasonable men had concluded that a single dead rhino and a set of tracks headed toward the settlements added up to exactly what Zayn had suggested in the first place. A local who got hold of a serious rifle and figured out what a horn was worth.

But I couldn’t put it down. Something about the first rhino site still sat wrong in my chest. The passage of time without incident wasn’t healing it either.

The rangers cycled through the island crossing while I tried to name what was bothering me. I couldn’t. Not in a way that would hold up in a briefing.

Sarah’s voice carried across the clearing before I saw her.

“Donovan.”

She was coming from the direction of the vet facility, her field kit over one shoulder and a radio in her hand. Her pace alone told me something was wrong before she opened her mouth.

“A patrol just called it in. Second rhino. Horn gone.”

The course went quiet. Baraka lowered his canteen. Andrew straightened beside me.

“Where?”

“Northeast, out past the kopjes where the bachelor herd ranges. Fifteen kilometers from the nearest outpost, at least.” She shifted the kit on her shoulder. “The patrol found it thirty minutes ago. They’re holding position.”