The rest of the crew, along with Bukolov, were discovered safe, except for a few broken bones and lacerations. Even Nick Pasternak, the pilot, was found with only an egg-sized knot behind his ear, where Kharzin had clubbed him and made his attempted escape.
In the end, with no one reported killed, the media interest in the crash quickly faded away into lottery numbers and celebrity weddings.
Life moved on.
And so did Tucker.
Two days after the events, he and Kane landed in Cape Town. Bruised, battered, and stitched up, they both needed some rest—and Tucker knew just where he would find it.
He waved Christopher toward the shaded veranda of a colonial-era mansion. The three-story, sprawling home was located in a remote corner of the Spitskop Game Preserve, far from the tourist area of the park where he and the others had originally stayed with its bell captains and its servers dressed all in house whites. This mansion had been abandoned a decade ago, boarded up and forgotten, except by the snakes and other vermin, who had to be evicted once the restoration process began.
A crew worked busily nearly around the clock. Ladders and scaffolding hid most of the slowly returning glory of the main house. New boards stood out against old. Wide swaths of lawn—composed of indigenous buffalo grass—had already been rolled out and hemmed around the home, stretching a good half acre and heavily irrigated. Cans of paint were stacked on the porch, waiting to brighten the faded beauty of the old mansion.
Farther out, the twenty-acre parcel was dotted with barns and outbuildings, marking future renovation projects.
But one pristine sign was already up at the gravel road leading here, its letters carved into the native ironwood and painted in brilliant shades of orange, white, and black. They spelled out the hopes and dreams for the Nkomo brothers:
LUXURY SAFARI TOURS
Tucker crossed the damp lawn and climbed the newly whitewashed porch steps. Overhead, wired outlet boxes marked the future site of porch fans. Kane trotted up alongside him, seeking shade and his water bowl.
“Truly, Mr. Tucker, sir,” Christopher pressed, mounting the steps as if he were climbing the gallows. “This is too large a gift.”
“I had the funds and quit calling it a gift. It’s an investment, nothing more.”
Upon completing the affair with Sigma, Tucker had noticed a sudden large uptick in his savings account held at a Cayman Island bank. The sudden largesse was not from Sigma—though that pay had been fair enough—but from Bogdan Fedoseev, the Russian industrialist whose life Tucker had saved back in Vladivostok. It seemed Fedoseev placed great stake in his own personal well-being and reflected that in the bonus he wired.
Tucker took that same message to heart and extended a similar generosity to the Nkomo brothers, who, like Tucker with Fedoseev, had helped keep him alive. From talking to Christopher during the long stretches of the journey to the Groot Karas Mountains, he knew of the brothers’ desire to purchase the mansion and the tract of land, to turn it into their own home and business.
But they were short on funds—so he corrected that problem.
“We will pay you back when we can,” Christopher promised. Tucker knew it was an oath the young man would never break. “But we must talk interest perhaps.”
“You are right. We should negotiate. I say zero percent.”
Christopher sighed, recognizing the futility of all this. “Then we will always leave the presidential suite open for you and Kane.”
Tucker craned his neck up toward the cracked joists, the apple-peel curls of old paint, the broken dormer windows. He cast Christopher a jaundiced eye.
The young man smiled in the face of his doubt. “A man must hope, must he not? One day, yes?”
“When the presidential suite is ready, you call me.”
“I will certainly do that. But, my friend, when will you be leaving us? We will miss you.”
“Considering the state of the Rover, you may not be missing me anytime soon. Otherwise, I don’t know.”
And he liked it that way.
He stared again at this old beauty rising out of the neglect. It gave him hope. He also liked the idea of having a place to lay his head among friends when needed. If not a home, then at least a way station.
Kane finished drinking, water rolling from his jowls. His gaze turned, looking toward the horizon, a wistful look in his dark eyes.
You and me both, buddy.
That was their true home.
Together.
Tucker’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and answered, guessing who was calling. “Harper, I hope this is a social call.”
“You left in a hurry. Just wanted to check on you and Kane.”
“We’re doing fine.”
“Glad to hear it. That means you might be up for some company.”
Before Tucker could respond, a black Lincoln town car pulled into the dirt driveway, coasted forward, and came to a stop in front of the house. The engine shut off.
“I assume it’s too late to object,” Tucker said.
As answer, the driver’s door popped open, and a woman in a dark blue skirt and white blouse exited. She was tall, with long legs, made longer as she stretched a bit on her toes, revealing the firm curve of her calves. She pushed a fall of blond hair from her eyes, sweeping it back to reveal a tanned face with high cheekbones.
Though he had never met the woman face-to-face, he knew her.
Ruth Harper.
He stood straighter, trying to balance the figure before him with the image formed in his mind from their many phone conversations.
This certainly was no librarian.
The only feature he got right was the pair of thick-rimmed rectangular eyeglasses perched on her nose. They gave her a studious, even sexier look.
Definitely no librarian he had ever met.
Tucker called down to her from the porch. “In some lines of work, Harper, this would be considered an ambush.”
She shrugged, looking not the least bit chagrined as she climbed the steps, carrying a small box in her palms. “I called first. In the South, a lady does not show up on a gentleman’s doorstep unannounced. It just isn’t done.”
“Why are you here?” he asked—though he could guess why, sensing the manipulation of her boss, Painter Crowe.
“First,” she said, “to tell you that Bukolov sends his regards—along with his thanks.”
“He said the last part? Doctor Bukolov?”
She laughed, a rare sound from her. “He’s a new man now that he has his own lab at Fort Detrick. I even saw him smile the other day.”
“A minor miracle. How’s he getting along?”