Congo Dawn Read online

  However accurate her words, Robin regretted them the moment Michael’s expression changed. How could she have forgotten just whose bodies had been among those who died in that prior attack? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “You don’t need to apologize for the truth,” Michael cut her off stiffly. “You’re right. Ten years ago I failed to be here to protect my family and this community. And now I’ve failed them again dragging this mess down on top of them.”

  “Michael, you know that’s not what I was implying.” Robin halted before admitting more quietly, “And it’s not really true you’re the reason we’re here. As you told Pieter, this is the only airstrip close enough to the mine to run this op. Believe me, I wasn’t happy about it either. But our boss, Trevor Mulroney, says Wamba’s got every right to authorize our being here. Is that true?”

  Michael’s expression passed through bitterness to resignation. “I guess so, technically. The government of Bunia and the DRC has never contributed a penny or an hour of work to make this place happen. But yes, I guess the airstrip would be considered public land. In my book, belonging to the people of Taraja. But in Wamba’s book, I’ve no doubt he claims jurisdiction over this territory. So you’re right. We’ve got neither legal recourse nor muscle to force your operation off our land. We can only hope that this time there’s something of Taraja left standing when you and your hired killers get through here.”

  Robin abruptly lost her impulse to apologize. “That isn’t fair! When we were in Afghanistan, how often did we fight alongside warlords we’d never bring home for dinner? Plenty of them with past blood on their hands too. But they were our allies at the time, and we fought for them and with them because the Taliban we were fighting were even worse. As to Ares Solutions, my team is hardly a bunch of rampaging mercenaries. Our own military and embassies would be the first to acknowledge private security companies like Ares Solutions do plenty of good around this planet. And this mission isn’t just some for-hire operation to restore mining profits for a multi­national or the Congolese government. You saw those casualties we brought in. There’s a killer out there on the loose. A killer who needs to be stopped before he hurts more people, destroys more villages. I’d think you’d be happy someone was stepping up to stop him, even if it’s hired mercenaries, as you put it.”

  Robin suddenly realized the East European guard a dozen feet away was watching their exchange with patent interest. Off to her left, the Congolese contingent pitching their own sleeping quarters had paused to curiously eye the new arrival. Throwing a glance that way, Michael stepped closer. But only to grip Robin by the elbow, steering her beyond the circle of light and onto the airstrip.

  As Michael became once again only a tall, lean silhouette against the night, he lowered his voice, but not the cold forcefulness of his tone. “There’s a big difference between Afghanistan and this. In Afghanistan we were fighting for our country. We were under the oversight of our military command. So were the private security contractors who worked with us. At worst, there were rules of engagement. Accountability to the American people, the Afghan government, the international community.

  “Where’s your accountability here? Your rules of engagement? How can you even be certain who are the good guys and the bad? And believe me, the line between the two around here isn’t as clear cut as you want to think. Especially when you throw Wamba and his own band of bloodthirsty hired thugs into the mix. Are we now to the place where any enterprise with enough money can hire a private army to carry out their own little war in pursuit of their own for-profit interests? Whatever they’re paying you, Robin, it’s not worth this.”

  His hammering questions were ones Robin herself had raised earlier. But the accusing tone, her own doubts, the scene she’d witnessed earlier at the mine, roused her to angry retort. “Say what you like, but this is one mission I can believe in wholeheartedly. When we’ve taken this guy down and restored peace to this region, you can apologize. Meanwhile, just stay out of our way and let us do our jobs. And I’ll do my best to make sure we stay out of yours.”

  “Maybe. We’ll see.” Michael released Robin’s elbow but did not modify the hardness in his voice. “I’ll concede you’ve got good intentions. But I also believe you’re in way over your head. You don’t know Wamba like I do. And you can’t guarantee everyone hired on to your mission has the same good intentions. But enough said. As you point out, there’s nothing I can do to stop what you’re doing here. Which doesn’t mean I won’t be watching like a hawk. These people have suffered enough. My family has suffered enough. I wasn’t here to stop it last time. But believe me, there is nothing I won’t do to protect them this time around.”

  Even in the darkness, Michael’s forward thrust of body line, tautness of muscle, and inflexible determination of tone were reminders that this man was no helpless civilian, but a soldier, a warrior, in his own right and way.

  “You don’t need to worry,” Robin answered steadily. “Our orders are to stay well away from your medical facility and the local community. And those orders apply to Wamba’s men too. You’ll hardly know we’re here.”

  “Good. Then we understand each other.” He was turning away, walking off into the night.

  No, we don’t understand each other! All we’ve done is misunderstand! “Wait!” Robin called out.

  The crunch on gravel stopped. A dark shape turned back.

  Robin took a step forward. “I wanted to say . . . I—your sister told me . . . Well, it seems I owe you and your sister a big apology.” She held up the dark rectangle of her iPad. “I just Skyped with my older sister, Kelli, and found out some things I should have learned five years ago. She’s the one who called you. I . . . She had her own reasons. But I want you to know I never knew about the call or your letters.”

  When Michael didn’t move, Robin stepped forward again, closing the gap between them. “I’m sorry for what I said to you earlier. I should have had more faith that there was a good reason I didn’t hear from you. I should have had more faith in the person I knew you to be. And I had no right to blame you for my brother’s death, even before I knew what really happened. I know you loved him like your own brother. I should have known you’d have done everything possible to save his life. I was just so . . . so confused and . . . and angry. And when I didn’t hear from you—”

  Robin broke off, wishing she could see the expression on Michael’s face. If only he would speak. The silence dragged on so that Robin again took in the staccato of drums from the medical compound. A transistor radio playing at the militia campfire. A chorus of frogs that had taken up their night song in an overgrown field.

  Then Robin heard the long, slow sigh of air escaping from lungs beside her. Michael’s baritone above her head emerged into the night, quiet, resigned. “Apology accepted. I guess we both misjudged each other. But what’s done is done. We can’t undo the last five years. Maybe it was all for the best anyway. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  This time as Michael took a step away, there was no reason for Robin to stop him.

  Yes, there was. Or was she simply grasping at excuses?

  “I just remembered. I was asked to give you a message by an old man at the mine, one of the prisoners. Their healer, actually, the one who gave first aid to the casualties. It sounded like he knew you and your family. He asked me to tell the son of Charles Stewart—that’s you, I assume—that things aren’t as they seem. Then he quoted what I think might be a Bible verse. It didn’t really make sense. ‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, darkness light and light darkness.’ Does that sound like someone you’d know?”

  “A prisoner?” Michael had stopped, turned back. “So your well-intentioned corporate employer is using prison labor for his mine instead of offering employment to the locals? Why am I not surprised?”

  “Only until the security situation is redressed, from what I understand,” Robin defended. “Would you want them to expose local civilians to danger? Speaking of w
hich—” she pulled out the sheaf of papers she’d stuffed into her knapsack—“one other thing. We’ve been asked to pass these around the local communities, including yours. See if anyone recognizes this man.”

  Digging out a penlight from her knapsack, Robin focused its thin beam on the top computer printout. “This is the insurgent leader we’re after. The one responsible for all those casualties. Jini, they call him. The ghost. Maybe someone in your community knows him. And where to find him. Or—you grew up here. Do you recognize this picture? It’s thought he might be a local. He can be identified by a massive scar running down his left arm. Bottom line, if you want us out of here quickly, help us catch him.”

  The thin beam of light cast Michael’s shadowed features into sharp relief so that Robin caught the slightest narrowing of eyes, the tightening of a jawline, the compression of a firm mouth. But he shook his head definitively.

  “The guy certainly has the look of the local Ituri tribal group. But he could be any one of a hundred I’ve met. As to the other, the ‘woe’ thing is a Bible verse my dad used to quote when he preached. So it sounds like your healer must have at least heard him preach at some point. But everyone in this region knew Dr. Charles Stewart. And my father and I both have been gone a lot of years. Certainly I can’t think of anyone I’d know who’d have reason to be in a prison work camp. Maybe the man was just trying to convince you he’s innocent and doesn’t belong in prison. That’s common enough for convicts in any country. Regardless, I’ll be happy to show these around. Maybe someone will recognize the man.”

  Michael lifted the sheaf of papers from Robin’s hand. This time Robin made no effort to deter his departure. She stared after the retreating shadow until Michael’s silhouette melted into the dark shapes of bushes and trees on the far side of the airstrip. That Dr. Michael Stewart would out-and-out lie to her, Robin could not believe. Not unless he’d changed far more than he’d accused her of changing.

  But that he hadn’t spoken the full truth just now, she had not the smallest doubt.

  Was it the picture or the old man’s message that had given Michael pause?

  And why would he conceal either from Robin?

  How quickly Taraja became a bustling city, only to empty out just as quickly.

  By sunrise the morning after the Ares Solutions team’s arrival, the next C-130 flight was touching down on the runway, this time filled with Wamba’s troops. Another plane arrived from the company’s Nairobi depot with additional supplies and weapons. Tents rose. A field kitchen began offering alternative fare to MRE packets.

  The three helicopters reappeared along with Trevor Mulroney. But by evening Mulroney had hopped a C-130 back to Nairobi’s international airport. Not unexpected. The Earth Resources CEO undoubtedly had other responsibilities than the minutiae of a jungle security op.

  Nor was he needed. The Ares Solutions team knew their job. As quickly as Congolese ground troops arrived, they were formed into units. Though Pieter Krueger was operations coordinator for the mission, Samuel Makuga had flown in from the mine to assume field command of Wamba’s own troops. Now refitted with Carl Jensen’s tech gear, the executive helicopter had begun its survey, reappearing every few hours for refueling. Satellite maps tacked all over the communications trailer walls were filling up with marked jungle communities and landing zones.

  Robin herself roamed the FOB, translating a constant round of English, French, and Swahili between Ares Solutions operatives and Congolese unit leaders. With Makuga’s arrival, Pieter Krueger no longer availed himself of her services. Clearly, Robin’s assault on his ego, not to mention his body, was not an offense the South African mercenary forgave easily.

  As she translated Ernie Miller’s angry objection to the careless storing of fuel bladders, Robin’s attention drifted across the airstrip to the break in the underbrush that marked a path to the Taraja community. How were the mine casualties doing? She’d hoped for a status report. But not a sound or human being had emerged from that green tangle since Michael had disappeared back into it. Nor had Robin’s own responsibilities eased long enough to walk a kilometer or so, round trip, up to the clinic.

  Glancing around at the base camp, Robin tried to imagine the scene from a villager’s perspective. The growing swarm of hard-faced, armed Congolese troops. The tent city now swallowing up abandoned fields and burned houses. The periodic roar of a C-130 swooping in over the treetops. The circling down of choppers, their underbellies misshapen with the unmistakable outlines of rocket missiles and machine gun turrets.

  I’d hide too. I’d be terrified to find myself alone with Wamba’s goons, and they’re on my side!

  The Ugandan hires arrived on the second morning. One more irony of the region’s political games was that elite troops blooded in one country’s nasty civil war might be contracted as peacekeepers or mercenaries for another’s. The Ugandans deplaning from the C-130 actually belonged to the same units currently supplying ground troops to the Bunia UN post.

  What mattered was that they came from a former British colony where Swahili was the trade language but English the language of officialdom. Their arrival provided enough liaisons between the Ares Solutions operatives and their Congolese subordinates to alleviate Robin’s own duties. Especially since the Ugandan arrival signaled the beginning of the perimeter deployment. Congolese units crammed into the Mi-17s, each headed by an Ares Solutions operative and a handful of Ugandans, then lifted off for one of the landing zones now marked out on the satellite maps.

  By midafternoon, the base camp was virtually empty again except for a few units guarding the camp perimeter and supply depots. As Robin watched the final Mi-17 deployment lift off, Pieter Krueger strode over. “You there, Duncan. We’re going to need some hand labor now that Wamba’s men are gone. I need that field next to the fuel bladders cleared off for chopper landing so we can keep the airstrip free. If you’ve nothing better to do, trot on up to the clinic and see if your doctor pal, Stewart, can scare us up some locals with machetes.”

  For once, the South African’s brusque order couldn’t have co­incided better with Robin’s own wishes. Stopping by her tent, Robin put on the cumbersome Kevlar vest that protocol required she wear under her khaki shirt any time she left base camp, then slid her Glock 19 handgun into a back holster. But she left behind the M4 assault rifle she’d been issued as well as her cap, tugging her red-gold hair loose from its tight knot before heading across the airstrip. She’d approach the Taraja residents as a civilian, not an armed combatant.

  Once far enough up the path that fruit trees hid the airstrip, Robin found the Taraja community less abandoned than she’d encountered it on her first trip. Adults and children had emerged from the scattered huts to chop at weeds and turn over soil in the vegetable gardens. Two women in bright pagnes stood in the shade of a mango tree, taking turns raising a heavy wooden pestle to drop into a hollowed-out mortar as tall as their waists. Grinding corn or cassava flour for the day’s meal. Out on the river Robin glimpsed a canoe with fishermen.

  Nor at this close range was there silence. The Taraja residents were singing as they worked. Softly, cautiously, but in a glorious rumble of harmony that swept Robin back to her childhood because the Swahili words and melody were among the first she’d learned in the Kenyan churches she’d attended.

  “Yesu, nuru ya ulimwengu.”

  “Jesus, Light of the World.”

  Impatiently, Robin dismissed the jolt that once-familiar melody sent through her. It’s a mission compound. What do you expect?

  The cinder-block mission house was a logical starting place to fulfill Pieter Krueger’s commission. But Robin headed instead farther up the path to the clinic. Its veranda was now empty of patients, the clinic door closed. But when Robin knocked, a female voice called out in Swahili, “We are closed for the day. The docteur is not here. Come back in the morning unless someone is badly hurt.”

  “Jambo!” Robin called the Swahili greeting through the door, then switch
ed to French. “Forgive me for disturbing you. But I am with the security mission below. I’m here to check on the patients we flew in the other day.”

  The door opened. The young woman in the white lab coat whom Robin had seen on her first visit stepped out onto the veranda. “Bonjour. Come in. The doctor is not here now, but you may speak to the nurse in charge. She is with the new patients now.”

  Inside, the clinic was as starkly austere as it was spotlessly clean. A single long corridor ran from front to back, its floor smooth concrete, a row of doors on either side. An open door to the left revealed glass cabinets filled with medical supplies and a metal examining table. It currently held no patients but a pile of old cotton sheets. A pair of scissors lay on top of the heap. To the right, another open door revealed two rows of army cots, all filled, in an airy, whitewashed room. Large screen windows offered both light and breeze.

  Robin didn’t need to ask where her own charges could be found. She’d already spotted the armed guard standing outside a door at the far end of the corridor. The young woman had stepped into the examining room. Picking up the scissors, she began snipping a sheet into strips. Making bandages?

  Robin headed up the corridor, passing a second patient ward before reaching the guard. Beyond him, the door stood open into a ward identical to the other two. On one cot, Robin spotted the boy with the severed artery. The small girl, her arm now cradled in a sling, sat cross-legged on the next cot, crying softly.

  Closer still was the second guard Makuga had assigned to the mine casualties. While the first guard faced out into the corridor, the second was watching like a hawk an older woman in a lab coat who was dressing the young woman’s terrible burns with gauze bandages.

  If the guard recognized Robin from their mutual flight on the Mi-17, he gave no indication. This time Robin chose Swahili. “If you’ll permit me to pass, I’d like to speak with the wounded we brought here, to ensure for myself they have all they need.”