Congo Dawn Page 19

  Ephraim looked at Robin, his expression one of determination and blazing conviction. “As a Congolese, it is my deepest prayer, whatever the cost to my people, my beloved family, my own life, that from the raging fires of war and evil, the church of our Lord Jesus Christ here in the Congo, my country itself, will be reborn in righteousness and justice. That as so many like the Stewarts from your country have been a light here in the Congo for many past generations, so the Congo with all its great potential will one day be known as a light of God’s love to the nations roundabout, and not as Africa’s ‘heart of darkness,’ as we are now sadly known around the world.”

  Tightening his grasp on his wife’s fingers, Ephraim looked down into Miriam’s face, upturned to his. “My sweet Miriam, wife of my heart and daughter of the Congo in spirit, is in full agreement. Which is why, though many told us it is foolish and dangerous, we have returned to this place. To hold high the light of Christ’s love in the darkness. To set the example that there is an alternative to violence and hate for the future of the Congolese people.”

  Miriam’s beautiful, oval face with its terrible scar. Ephraim’s broad, dark features with the proud, high nose and full mouth. So striking in their differences. So alike in the intimacy and love that shone from their eyes as they looked at each other. Robin had a sudden image of that father-son pair she’d seen trudging down the street in Bunia.

  Here was less acute destitution. But this cinder-block cube with its tin roof in the isolation of a rebel-infested war zone with only rainforest villagers for neighbors was hardly the heritage in which Miriam might have expected to raise a family had she made it stateside for college as intended. Or Ephraim either as that scarce commodity in the Congo, a trained medical doctor.

  Robin had often enough endured rustic living conditions on the ground during a field op. But for a lifetime? For her children?

  I could never be willing to do what Miriam’s done here.

  So why was the strongest emotion surging into Robin’s breast as she lowered her eyes from the intimacy of the couple’s shared gaze hot, throat-choking envy?

  Robin was glad for the distraction of her hand radio crackling. This time the querulous demand belonged to Carl Jensen. “Duncan, where are you? Mulroney’s online early. We’re going live in five.”

  “Coming!” Robin jumped to her feet. As Ephraim and Miriam rose to accompany her to the door, Robin turned back. “You know, you shouldn’t have to send a runner down to our camp when you need to contact us. Why don’t I leave you my cell phone number and my Skype ID. That way, if there’s anything you need, you can just drop me a call, and I’ll pass it on.”

  Robin had already noted a pen and a scattering of papers beside the computer monitor. Grabbing the pen, she was writing out her information when she caught sight of a familiar printed photo among the papers. “I see Michael passed on our wanted photo of Jini, the insurgent leader. Have you had any response among your residents? Does anyone recognize the picture?”

  The couple exchanged a glance. Then Ephraim reached a long arm to pick up the sheet of paper. He held the photo side by side with his own face. “Yes, Michael gave us your picture. It could be many men, including myself.”

  Now that Robin was looking at the picture so close to the Congolese doctor’s face, she saw that his statement was only a slight exaggeration. The printed photo was not close enough in appearance to be a much younger Ephraim, but perhaps a brother or cousin.

  “He has a look of this region. Not one tribe or the other, but both. Perhaps a mixed family like my own. But I know of none with the scar Michael mentioned.”

  Miriam spoke up. “It would help if we knew what year this photo was taken. If it’s a university application ID, it could be a past Taraja student. But hundreds of students went through here, and it’s been ten years. Without knowing what year, any number of students could have grown up to look like that. Certainly I don’t remember any with such a scar.”

  Replacing the printout on the desk, Ephraim said gently, “If one of our residents identifies this man to us, we will inform you immediately.”

  Their blank expressions made it futile to press further, and Robin was already late. So she offered a swift good-bye and hurried down the path. But her thoughts were not happy. In the past hour she’d come to like and respect the Taraja couple. They exuded sincerity. But like Michael, they were definitely not being forthcoming with all they knew.

  Or guessed.

  Robin stepped into the communications trailer to find teammates already crowded around a video screen. The group was small since most Ares Solutions operatives were in the field. Besides Carl Jensen, there was only Pieter Krueger, Samuel Makuga, Ernie Miller, who was overseeing supply runs to the ground teams, and a Serbian who’d managed to sprain an ankle his first zip line down into the rainforest and so had been assigned base security duty.

  On the video screen, their employer did not look happy. “What do you mean you’ve finished the grid search without finding a single sign of the insurgency? Jensen, are you telling me your lauded new surveillance package is a flop? Or are we talking sheer incompetence?”

  Robin had originally pictured Carl Jensen flying around the ­jungle in the executive helicopter, spying out its inhabitants with his high-tech aerial gear. Instead the Shaggy clone never left his bank of computer screens, several of which currently displayed both real-vision and infrared images of the rainforest canopy. He shook his head now.

  “This baby’s worked flawlessly according to specs. The design company’s going to be tickled pink at the field test results. It’s counted every human sign in every village clearing right down to infants. And of course there’s scattered hits within a reasonable radius of cleared areas. Usually one or two, no more than a half dozen. Village hunters and fishers, most likely. Our own units are showing up no problem. Every twitch. Every stroll to the latrine.

  “So it’s not the equipment. But there’s definitely no human sign outside the charted villages big enough to be your insurgent band. Even if this Jini heard the chopper, guessed its purpose—you said he’s an educated man—and scattered his force, we’d still pick up a pattern of movement with that many men.” Carl cleared his throat before suggesting delicately, “Is it possible our mission parameters are the problem here? Maybe the targets had already moved beyond the perimeter coordinates before we started the search?”

  “No way!” Pieter Krueger spoke simultaneously with Trevor Mulroney’s face on the screen.

  Mulroney continued on alone. “We know what this Jini wants. It isn’t to flee the zone. He’s been after the mine from the beginning. Every attack he’s made has been within a few kilometers of there. If he was going to simply abandon his mission and flee the zone, he’d have done it long before we showed up. Sure, if he’s now figured out we’re about to lower the boom, he could try to slip his force past our bush hunt perimeter. But we’d know it if he tried unless you’ve totally screwed up.”

  Even two thousand ground troops could hardly draw an im­penetrable net around a chunk of rainforest whose radius began at the Taraja airstrip and ended at the mine, close to thirty kilometers away as a crow flew. But here, too, technology had come to the rescue in a form similar to the motion sensors guarding the Ares Solutions base camp perimeter, all part of the test package Carl Jensen had brought with him. The range of said sensors was among the design specs Carl Jensen refused to discuss. But each dropped field team was responsible for staking out a section of perimeter several kilometers long. As the bush hunt progressed over coming days, that perimeter would contract to a smaller and smaller circle around the mine, buttressed by aerial surveillance from the chopper. Any human sign approaching the sensors would show up on Carl’s screens.

  “Our perimeter line is up and running just fine,” Carl Jensen countered obstinately. “Field units have already picked up a few hunters who’ve strayed close. I’m telling you this insurgency force is nowhere in the zone. It’s not like we search one quad
rant at a time so they can slide ahead of us from one grid coordinate to another. The way we run this is a spiral starting outward and circling the entire perimeter, then working our way inward toward the mine in concentric circles. Then we do it all over again in reverse. If a force was trying to slip out of the zone, we’d be crossing its trajectory with every rotation. If they’re hiding under the canopy, we’d have found them by now. Believe me, there’s no one out there but our own men and the native villagers.”

  “I believe you.” The affirmation came from Ernie Miller. “You say this guy is a college boy? Got some outside education? So let’s say he knows about surveillance gear. Knows what those choppers mean. There is one other place a sizable insurgency group could park itself.”

  “The villages!” Pieter Krueger spoke up with dawning comprehension.

  Ernie nodded. “Jini and his men might have simply melted into a local community when he heard those Mi-17s coming in. Maybe even maintain a forward operating base there.”

  But Carl Jensen was again shaking his tousled mane. “You think I didn’t factor that in? Those villages only run a hundred to two hundred max, men, women, children. An unbalance as big as a hundred extra adult males would pop up immediately.”

  “Unless the actual men of the village are no longer showing up in your head count,” Ernie argued. “From what we’ve been told, it wouldn’t be the first time Jini’s force wiped out a village population.”

  “So what’s your suggestion, Miller?” Trevor Mulroney demanded from the screen.

  “We had a saying back in ’Nam. Wasn’t original with us. Came from Ho Chi Minh himself or one of the other Commie warlords. ‘Drain the sea, and the fish will die.’ The villages are the sea.”

  “You mean, clear out the villages so the insurgency has no place to hide or find aid.” Trevor Mulroney was already nodding. “We practiced a similar philosophy during Rhodesia’s Bush War.”

  “We did something similar in Angola, remember?” Pieter Krueger spoke up. “Except that turned out one major screwup. Too many got away from the first assault to warn other villages. And the rebels.”

  “Because I wasn’t in charge of that mission,” Ernie responded calmly. “Like I told you back then, the only way to do this is to hit every target simultaneously. There’s only a dozen villages within our current perimeter. So we’re talking a dozen AS operatives and a dozen ground units. We’ve already got them in place, locked and loaded on our bush hunt perimeter. Every jungle resident makes sure they’re back inside their own village perimeter by nightfall because they’ve no way to see after dark, not even stars or moon under that canopy, and lots of nasties that can see in the dark are on the prowl. So if we hit just before dawn, every legitimate civilian will be buttoned up in their beds. Once we’ve secured the civilian population, we count everyone left standing a combatant and go after them full force—napalm, Agent Orange, whatever present-day scorched-earth equivalent you choose.”

  “Except Wamba’s militia are as leery at moving around in the dark as the villagers,” Pieter Krueger objected. “We’ve got night vision goggles­ for our own operatives. But not enough for the ground troops, even if they knew how to use them.”

  “So we move the teams into place before dark,” Ernie retorted. “They’ll just have to hole up on-site for the night. That shouldn’t be a problem. If there’s one thing Wamba’s troops are good at, it’s sneaking around.”

  “I like it,” Trevor Mulroney spoke up from the screen. “Krueger, I want those teams in place by dark. Jensen, I want a complete fresh aerial sweep of our zone by then. A repeat of Angola is not an option. Earth Resources lost an entire diamond concession to the rebels there.”

  Robin’s companions clearly had more joint history than she’d realized. Robin herself was having to bite back dismay. When had the security operation she’d signed on for spiraled into a full war that could involve such terms as napalm and scorched earth? Would Robin have to be the one to ask an obvious question again?

  But Carl was already speaking, sunburned features as troubled as when Robin had explained the facts of charitable handouts. “I’m not so happy about this. Even if Jini’s force has taken over a village, it seems a little hard on other villages just going about daily life to attack them all. Especially since Wamba’s goons hardly look the type to respect the difference. Shouldn’t we be doing some ground reconnaissance? Figure out which village Jini’s holing up in rather than attacking all of them?”

  Carl’s remarks drew a ferocious scowl from Makuga. Trevor Mulroney frowned, but he answered civilly enough. “Obviously ensuring the safety of a civilian population is a priority. But our timetable doesn’t permit an extensive intel op. Bottom line, as Ernie pointed out, Jini’s forces have already burned out numerous villages in the immediate vicinity. So it’s a reasonable conclusion any villages left undisturbed are at minimum guilty of collaboration with the insurgents. Such communities can expect to be searched, even interrogated, within the rules of engagement. Rules of engagement being the operational term here. Wamba’s men will be under direct supervision of Ares Solutions operatives, and if there’s one thing Wamba has drilled well into his followers, it’s the ugly consequences of disobeying an order. Right, Makuga? More importantly, if this works, we could finish the mission in one blow. Which makes it worth any minimal risk or fallout.”

  When Carl made no further objection, the Earth Resources CEO spoke again. “One last issue. Makuga, I’m told your interrogation of the logging party produced no usable intel concerning Jini’s most recent attack on the mine.”

  The militia commander hunched massive shoulders. “That is true. And we were not gentle, so I am satisfied none of them had advance knowledge of the attack or contact with the insurgents.”

  “Hmm, I could have sworn that’s how they got the bomb in. If Jini’s liaison wasn’t in the logging party, we’re going to have to rethink things. Well, carry on.”

  The image on the screen reached out a hand as though to sever the video connection. Robin reacted quickly, stepping into view of the camera. “Mr. Mulroney, there is one more thing. The Taraja clinic. They’ve been caring for the mine explosion victims and—well, they’re running short of medical supplies.”

  Mulroney’s hand dropped. “So they want reimbursement. That’s reasonable enough. And expedient to keep our neighbors happy. Have them make out a list of what they want. We’ll fly it in on the next cargo run. No need to be skimpy either. We may need their services ourselves at some point.”

  His equable response encouraged Robin to continue. “They’re also asking for reimbursement for a medivac flight. They’ll be evacuating the worst cases to Bunia tomorrow.”

  But at this the Earth Resources CEO stiffened. “A medivac flight. Who authorized that? Where’s Makuga?”

  Makuga’s scowl was back. But it was Pieter Krueger who spoke up. “Ah, yes, I should have mentioned that, boss. It was the American surgeon Michael Stewart who arranged the medivac. I let him know it was not permissible without Wamba’s authorization. He was . . . difficult. We can prevent their aircraft from landing. But Stewart has made it abundantly clear that if we don’t permit the medivac, his organization will scream to the media.”

  “And Wamba will scream if prisoners do not follow his orders,” Samuel Makuga rumbled.

  Robin bristled. Would the militia commander bring up her own interference? But Mulroney was already reaching again for the screen. “I’ll handle Wamba. We’ve got enough problems without ticking off an international organization as powerful and vocal as Doctors Without Borders. Krueger, Makuga, this is your mess. If you can’t figure out a way to keep everyone happy without my spoon-feeding you, I’ll replace you with someone who can.”

  Before either man could respond, the screen winked out.

  Incompetents! Maybe he should advance his flight back to the Ituri to handle the rest of this mission in person.

  Except that Mulroney’s appearance here at Earth Resources’ London h
eadquarters was vital if the remaining professional and personal plates he juggled were not to fall crashing to the floor. Nor did he want to rouse speculation as to why a Fortune 500 CEO should involve himself so intimately in a backwoods security op.

  And in truth his subordinates were not incompetents. If not the best of the best, they were as good a team as he could have put together at such short notice. More significantly, enough of them were long-term comrades-in-arms to ensure mutual self-interest if not loyalty. Including Samuel Makuga, who’d been Wamba’s liaison for some extremely profitable mutual dealings in coltan mines back when that Congolese warlord had still been a rebel commander. Mines sadly transferred to government control under the peace treaty.

  No, despite the setback at the mine, Mulroney’s plans were still progressing on a reasonable schedule. There was no rational reason for a mad dash back to the Ituri. If he could only banish the uneasy feeling that Murphy of the infamous Murphy’s Law was still lurking in the shadows of the rainforest, just biding his time to strike again.

  A feeling that didn’t keep Mulroney from enjoying the adulation and five-star meal of an intimate banquet he’d arranged with certain Parliament bigwigs whose whisper in Her Majesty’s ear could just about guarantee that knighthood. Trevor Mulroney had scarcely stepped off the elevator into his Chelsea penthouse before his phone rang.

  He checked the ID first. Howard Marshall. Then the time. Almost midnight. Meaning 7 p.m. in Washington, DC. “Yes?”

  “Mulroney. Was hoping I’d catch you still up. Just got out of a meeting that should interest you. Hypothetically, of course, but certain parties have expressed interest in what you have to offer. They don’t know the source, only that I can guarantee delivery. But they are in full agreement that preventing China, India, or other bidders less friendly to my country from taking possession of this bonanza is now a matter of urgent national security. That being the case, I’m authorized to inform you discreetly that if you need the intervention of our assets in Kinshasa or Bunia, you’ve only to ask.”