One Intrepid Seal

One thing she couldn’t see was the man himself.

Reese bolted upright and listened for the reassuring sound of him moving around outside the mosquito netting.

She heard sounds, but they weren’t the sounds she expected. Something was moving down below—a lot of somethings. And there were several grunts and other sounds she couldn’t quite place. She leaned forward and pressed her face to the netting. In the clearing below, dark shapes moved about. Some big, some smaller, but none of them human.

Her heart leaped into her throat, and she fought back a gasp.

A troop of gorillas had moved into the clearing and appeared to be setting up camp. Even from her perch high above them, Reese could tell they were big. Mothers sat preening their babies. Adolescent gorillas romped in the clearing, wrestling and tumbling.

Reese looked for the alpha male but didn’t see him. He had to be there. All troops had an alpha male, and the alpha could be extremely fierce.

Where was Diesel?

“Shh,” came a soft whisper close to her ear.

The sound was so quiet, she almost didn’t hear it. Reese turned toward Diesel on the other side of the mosquito net.

He pointed down and mouthed the words alpha male.

Reese gulped. She worried that, if the alpha male caught their scent, he could climb the tree and rip them apart. Holy hell. And she thought being caught by Congolese rebels was bad. At least they hadn’t been capable of ripping her apart with their bare hands. There would be no reasoning with a male gorilla.

Reese remained still, afraid to move and disturb the branches of the nest Diesel had built. Thankfully, they were at least twenty-five feet from the floor of the jungle. More importantly, they were twenty-five feet from the male gorilla. At the very least, they had a head start at climbing higher.