While most men aspired to leave a legacy, he’d been trained to leave nothing. ‘Through stealth, our strength’—the Recce motto, drilled in by the brutal selection process and reinforced through endless training. Whether during his service with the South African National Defense Force or his later work as a private contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, he wielded invisibility as a shield.
Besides, Ruan already had a legacy of sorts. Following his work in Afghanistan, a seemingly inconsequential job in the summer of 2011 set his life on an unlikely course to minor celebrity status and the modest wealth that had come with it.
Owing to his familiarity with the region, he’d been hired to work security for an American reality show on location in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. After only two weeks on the job, the producer confronted him, complaining that nobody had seen him in days.
Ruan explained he preferred to deal with threats before they came close enough to cause harm. He pulled out a map to show the irate producer the perimeter he had established, and where he’d already intercepted two big game hunting parties wandering too close to the set. More alarmingly, he’d documented the movements of a group of poachers to the northwest, and identified the choke point where he intended to dispatch them if they got too close.
The producer was horrified; not out of concern for the poachers, but by the implications of a murder investigation, and the associated trouble with local authorities. Though Ruan assured him the park wardens wouldn’t ask questions about a few dead poachers, he ultimately agreed to a less extreme deterrent to any threat they might pose. The producer, satisfied Ruan should keep his job, listened with rapt interest for hours while he described his experiences as a soldier and security contractor.
A few months after production wrapped, the producer reached out to pitch a show called ‘Survival Stories with Ron Van Zeal.’ Each episode would feature him re-enacting a real-life survival situation while offering commentary on the actions leading to the protagonist’s success or failure. It had proved popular enough with a niche cable audience to keep him on the air for five seasons of ten episodes each.
By the end, they struggled to find good stories, and his personal life had fallen into crisis. After the mess that followed, he needed to disappear again for good, and Anton Kamaras had given him the opportunity to do just that—in his own personal paradise.
Though he could vanish with ease, his gear posed a different problem. The metals, plastics, composites, and other advanced materials would linger for centuries. He’d cached it nearby under a few inches of soil in two hardened plastic cases located with precise reference to prominent landmarks—per instruction.
Ruan unearthed the containers to assess the utility of his remaining supplies for the upcoming encounter. The M24 sniper rifle, though oiled and clean, was useless. He’d long since run out of ammunition, but hadn’t managed to overcome the compulsion to keep it in working condition, useless or not.
The flare gun and two remaining flares went into his ruck, as did a pair of flashbangs and a handful of nylon ties. The Ka-Bar combat knife and P226 sidearm, loaded with its last seven rounds, would stay on him for easy access. He briefly considered a small, stainless steel cylinder, judging its weight before adding it to the supplies in his pack.
The last item, a self-illuminating tritium compass given to him by his wife before the start of the final season of Survival Stories, occupied a special place. He flipped open the cover and read the words engraved beside the sight wire.
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May you always find your way home to me. Love, Lenora.
He snorted and shook his head, snapping it closed as he slipped it into his left breast pocket.
Along with his dried rations and a couple of liters of fresh water, his load was easily manageable, and far less than he would have taken on a training mission into the South African bush. The readily available clean water on the island meant he never had to carry more than his thermos.
Satisfied with his kit, Ruan replaced the sealed containers and concealed them under a layer of dirt.
***
He started out at dawn the next day, taking a route two kilometers inland, running parallel to the shore. The indirect approach kept him concealed in the dense trees and bypassed the challenging terrain of the broad inlets cutting in from the coastline. After four hours at a moderate pace, he broke from the trail and headed for Pearl Harbor, where his guests were lurking.
Caution wasn’t a concern until he got closer to making contact, as the island had no dangerous predators or poisonous snakes. Only the terrain posed a significant threat. Invaders aside, the most likely way to die on O’ahu was falling from a cliff or drowning in rough seas. His path free of either, he pushed on, pausing only to hydrate.
By late afternoon, he’d made it within two kilometers of Pearl and adjusted to a slower, stealthier approach. Although unlikely, an incursion might already be underway, and the last thing he wanted was to stumble upon the intruders accidentally. In a decade on the island, he’d never been spotted—at least not by anyone who’d lived to tell about it—and he had no intention of breaking his streak.
The final, deliberate advance through the shoreline shrubs and tall grass took more than an hour—a test of patience in what would likely be a days-long effort of repeatedly probing the shore and retreating into the jungle until he found the hidden campsite. He took out his binoculars and scanned the water’s edge.
To his surprise, it took only a few moments to locate his targets. They’d left their canoes exposed on a beach on the south side of Ford Island, where a sizeable campfire emitted a wispy line of smoke low into the sky—as if they wanted to be found.
Diligently preparing to salt and dry their catch, the four men had made themselves apparent. He could swim over in the middle of the night and slit their throats without them ever waking. But if his instincts were right, and they were here as a provocation, it meant he was missing something. They hadn’t come all this way just to sacrifice themselves.
Ruan maintained his vigil for hours as the men cleaned and prepared their catch. They cut the fish into pieces and laid everything out on stones around the fire before sprinkling it with a generous layer of salt. He used the same technique himself to save the tedious chore of daily fishing.
The sun had nearly set by the time they finished, and they shifted their attention to preparing their meal. On a flat rock amid the low embers, they roasted some taro and several of the larger fresh fish they’d kept aside from the catch. A lot of food for the small party gathered around the fire. As they ate, they separated portions of the meal and wrapped them in banana leaf packets. Ruan counted eight in total.
One of the men gathered them in a crude satchel slung over his shoulder before heading northward, away from the campsite. He stayed close enough to the shore for Ruan to follow his movements. As sunlight faded, the moon and stars betrayed the dark figure picking his way through the trees. Every two or three hundred meters, he’d pop out near the shoreline grasses and stoop down for a moment before heading back into the cover of denser vegetation.
“Clever bastards.”
He had to concede the brilliance of their plan. The fishermen hadn’t just been running recon; they’d been advertising their presence and establishing a pattern over several weeks to make sure they had his attention.
Whether through direct experience or the accounts of the survivors, these new visitors understood if they went inland, they would never be seen alive again. The four men sitting around the fire were bait. Hidden among the grasses and trees along the shore, much like Ruan himself, eight warriors waited to spring their trap.
They had probably arrived in the early morning hours under cover of darkness, hoping to assess the nature of the threat and survive in sufficient numbers to return home with intelligence. Ruan smiled to himself. Doomed from the start, their plan contained a fatal flaw. It required them to be stealthier and more patient than a Recce.