The Ares Decision

9

The town of Paarl, South Africa, and the granite domes that framed it, were just visible in the afternoon light. Grapevines radiated in every direction, the neat rows eventually disappearing into rolling hills.

Sarie van Keuren swung her Land Cruiser onto an empty rural road and squinted into the sun. She should have stopped for the night in Springbok but hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. Twenty-one hours, thirteen cups of coffee, and an embarrassingly large bag of farm-stall sausages later, home was less than a kilometer away.

She slowed and veered onto a gravel track, skidding to a stop in front of the century-old wall she’d spent two years restoring. At the press of a button, the flower-covered gate began to swing open and she eased through, stopping in front of a meticulously whitewashed Cape Dutch farmhouse.

None of her friends understood why she lived alone in what they referred to as the “hinterlands,” and sometimes she wasn’t sure either. Every six months or so she got to thinking about moving into Cape Town and leaving behind the forty-five-minute commute to the university where she worked, but when it came to actually calling an estate agent, she could never bring herself to do it.

Two of the many reasons for her reluctance came barreling around the house as she turned off the ignition. They jumped up on the car door, adding to the deep gouges their claws had made over the years and fighting to get their faces through the open window. Sarie pulled away, but she was a fraction too slow to avoid getting a wet tongue in her ear. “Halla! Ingwe! Down!”

They ignored her, barking joyously as she stuck a foot against the door and shoved it open against the weight of the two Rhodesian ridgebacks. A rack of specimen jars with ants still clinging to the stalks inside were resting on the passenger seat, and she held them over her head as she fought her way to the front door.

She set the jars next to the mail her caretaker had piled on an old sideboard and knelt, rubbing the dogs’ heads and trying to keep out of slobbering range.

“Did Mandisa feed you today?” she said in Afrikaans. “No? Okay, let’s get you two troublemakers something to eat.”

Maybe her friends were only half right, she mused as she lugged a heavy bag of dog food from the pantry. It could be that living in the country wasn’t the problem. Maybe the problem was the alone part. It was so easy for her to bury herself in work, to shut everything else out. But where would that leave her in the end?

Dembe Kaikara peered over the lip of the irrigation ditch at the gate across the road. Through the bars, he saw the woman begin unloading her truck, teetering back and forth beneath armloads of cameras, camping gear, and scientific equipment.

When he was told she was a college professor, he’d pictured a sagging old woman with gray hair and thick glasses — the stern, disapproving face of the Belgian nun who had come to his village so many years ago to teach reading and the white man’s religion.

Sarie van Keuren was none of those things. Even from this distance, he could see the well-defined muscles in her arms and the athletic grace of her movement. Her hair, like the Land Cruiser, was covered with a layer of dust, but when it was cleaned it would once again be the sun-bleached blond he found so exotic.

She would fight. He could almost feel her beneath him, trying to use the strength that she was so confident in until she finally understood that she was nothing and succumbed to his power. Maybe when she was no longer of use, she would be presented to him as a reward for his loyalty.

Kaikara retreated back into the ditch and pulled a phone from his pocket, dialing a number from memory.

“Yes.”

“She is here.”

“And the road?”

“There is no traffic and no other houses for more than a kilometer. It will be easy.”

“Nothing is easy!”

The sudden anger in the voice caused a jolt of adrenaline to course through him. “She is just a woman. I’ve never failed you before. And I never will.”

“Wait until night when she’s asleep.”

The voice was calm again, and Kaikara let out a silent, grateful breath. “I understand.”

“The code to her gate is four-three-nine-six. Do you understand?”

He pulled out a pistol and used the barrel to draw the numbers into the dirt just like the Belgian woman had taught him. “Yes, I have it.”