Free Zoo 2 by James Patterson

says, patting my shoulder. “We’ve got what we came for. I’ll call our pilot and tell him we’re ready to fly.”
    “Really, now,” I say skeptically. “And how are you gonna do that?”
    Kabelo looks up at me and flashes a crooked grin.
    “The white man forgets again he is carrying a cellphone?”
    Everyone laughs. Including myself. It feels good. A release.
    Even the feral woman starts to cackle.

Chapter 19
    I’m torn between two women: the most important one in my life, and quite possibly the most important one in the world.
    Getting the captured feral human onto our plane was no easy task. It took five of us—five grown men—just to carry this one petite, flexi-cuffed young woman out of the jungle and back to our waiting vehicles. Unbelievably strong, she kept kicking, thrashing, and trying to bite us the whole time.
    She also ranted in her scratchy, eerie voice. One of our guides happened to speak a few words of Tswana, the indigenous language she was using. “Someone help me!” he translated. “I am a person, not a wild animal!”
    Technically, I suppose she was correct. But I’ve worked on the HAC crisis for many years now and have faced down more deadly predators than I can count. And she is by far the most ferocious and terrifying one I’ve ever seen.
    As we finally got the woman secured into one of our SUVs, Dr. Woodruff said, “I just figured out who this pain in the ass reminds me of.” He has a wicked sarcastic streak. “Helen, my ex-wife.”
    Of course, the name stuck.
    Our convoy sped back through the mayhem of Johannesburg to the airport. We buckled “Helen” into a seat in the rearmost row of our Boeing C-40 military transport plane, her arms and legs strapped in as if she were in an electric chair. An emergency oxygen mask around her face kept her from biting or spitting.
    We got airborne as quickly as we could, and not just because time was of the essence. We all knew that what we were doing—kidnapping an innocent foreign citizen and transporting her overseas against her will—put us in a legal gray area, to say the least.
    We’d been flying for nearly thirty minutes before I remembered—in all the chaos and confusion of the past hour or so, I’d completely forgotten about my satellite phone, and the ring that alerted the pack of feral humans to our presence.
    When I finally checked it, I saw I had a new voicemail, from a blocked number.
    Hearing Chloe’s voice, my relief was indescribable—until I listened through to the end.
    Sounding remarkably calm, my wife explained how their apartment had been overrun by animals a few days ago. How she and Eli had managed to escape after her father and stepmother were killed. How they’d spent a night in a shelter from the streets but now were safe.
    “We’ll be staying with some, uh, friends for a while,” she said. “Friends of the Earth. I can’t tell you where exactly. But I also can’t wait to see you, Oz. So you can… hold me in your arms . Okay, I love you. Bye.”
    I knew immediately my wife was in trouble.
    One night, years ago, “Hold Me in Your Arms,” a painfully cheesy 1988 love song by Rick Astley, came on at a bar where Chloe and I were having one of our first official dates. We joked that being forced to listen to such an awful tune on an endless loop would be even worse than an animal attack. Since then, “hold me in your arms” has become a kind of inside joke between us, a code phrase we use anytime something is bad or corny or scary.
    Or, in this case, I could only presume, dangerous .
    My wife wouldn’t say those words unless something wasn’t right. I’m certain of it. And those “friends of the Earth” she’s staying with—who the hell are they? What is she talking about? Why “can’t” she say where she is? What is she scared of?
    All I know is, I need to find her and Eli right away and get them out of there fast.
    “Freitas!” I shout, marching up the aisle to his seat. “We’re changing