Congo Dawn Page 21

  Then the lantern’s yellow glow touched a uniformed body sprawled on a mat. One of the AK-47s Wamba’s militia carried lay near an outflung hand. A gaping slash across the throat made obvious the cause of death. Robin’s two companions were already crowding past the dead guard into the ward. Robin froze in the doorway as Michael’s raised lantern illuminated what lay beyond.

  Michael came alongside her and spoke quietly. “You know, I grew up hunting game in this rainforest. Carried weapons as a combat medic all through Afghanistan. Qualified expert marksman with every gun I’ve picked up. Not once have I ever had cause to fire a weapon on another human being. Only twice have I really understood the impulse to kill one. When I got word of the attack on Taraja ten years ago. And tonight. If I had the people who did this in front of me right now, I’m not sure I could keep from taking out every one of them on the spot.”

  Robin understood exactly what he meant because the same fury was coursing through her own veins. The last time she’d witnessed such carnage had been in the aftermath of a Taliban attack in Afghanistan when she’d been called in to question surviving females. There, too, she’d stepped around pooled blood, averted her gaze from staring, dead eyes.

  And there, too, had been a girl child huddled shivering and blank-faced among body parts that had once been parents, uncles, cousins.

  Robin had not at first realized the ward held a survivor, its only visible occupant the Congolese female nurse Robin had met earlier. The woman was hunkered down beside an unoccupied cot in the farthest corner, a lantern on the floor beside her. Only when the nurse reached under the cot did it become evident her murmured Swahili was not directed at herself.

  The cot frame erupted into frenzied motion. An agonized mewling underneath sounded more like an injured animal than any human being. When the nurse withdrew her arm, the eruption abruptly subsided. In the lantern beam, Robin could see fresh scratches on the woman’s arm.

  Hurrying over, Robin knelt down to peer under the cot. The youngest mine explosion victim was huddled back in the corner in a fetal position. Were it not for the black glitter of wide, unseeing eyes, that earlier explosion of movement, the rapid rise and fall of a small chest, Robin might have wondered if the child was still alive, so drenched in scarlet were her clothing, limbs, even hair.

  “Rachel? Little one, don’t be afraid.” Robin made no attempt to reach under the bed as she formed the Swahili phrases carefully. “You’re safe now. Won’t you please come out?”

  Perhaps it was the sound of her own name. Some lingering connection in the small girl’s traumatized mind with this female mzungu who’d been present when she was ripped from her mother’s arms to board the helicopter. A tenuous bond Robin had forged during her brief visit the day before.

  Or maybe the child had simply exhausted her defiance.

  But slowly, as Robin continued to coax, the little girl’s expression under its mask of blood, tears, and smeared nasal mucus lost its blankness. Uncurling from her fetal position, she scooted forward, voicing at last an intelligible word. “Mama?”

  The hopeful question in that single word threatened the dry-eyed control Robin had managed to maintain since walking into this building. Reaching under the bed, she gently tugged the little girl forward. As the child emerged, the Congolese nurse with a cluck-clucking of dismay snatched up a bedsheet from an unused cot, swiftly wrapping it mummy style over the little girl’s filthy clothing.

  The child offered no further resistance, burying her face against Robin’s shoulder when Robin scooped the bundle into her arms. This time her repeated query held less hope. “Mama? Baba?”

  Fury competed with compassion for emotional supremacy as Robin carried the child into the hall. Pieter Krueger and Samuel Makuga had by now each produced a flashlight, their beams probing every cot in turn. One hand shielding the little girl’s eyes against any further glimpse of that horrific scene, Robin spoke gently in Swahili to the woolly curls butting against her chin. “Your mama isn’t here right now. But I will take you to her soon. I promise you.”

  Rounding on Michael, who still held a lantern in the doorway, she shifted into tight, furious English. “You see now why we’re here? Why this mission is so important? You said people like Ares Solutions just cause more bodies for people like you. And I know you’re going to try to blame us for this. To say it would never have happened if we hadn’t come here. But this is precisely why we have to stop this Jini, no matter what it takes. I thought that mine explosion took pure evil. But this? To murder the survivors after all they had already been through? Who could even conceive of such a thing? The man is a monster. And I for one will do anything it takes to bring him down.”

  Though the child in her arms couldn’t have understood Robin’s English, the raw emotion in her tone was unmistakable in any language, and she began to struggle in Robin’s arms. “Mama, mama, mama!”

  With a swift stride, Michael was at their side, his own Swahili far more fluent than Robin’s as he ran a gentle hand over the small wrapped body. “Be still, little one. You are safe. All is well. Tell me, does this hurt?”

  At his quiet tone, the child relaxed her stiffness. Solemnly she shook her head. Dropping his hand, Michael switched to English. “She appears unharmed at least, just scared stiff, poor baby.”

  Michael’s hooded gaze as he shifted it to Robin’s face was grimly somber in the lantern light but without the accusation she’d expected. “Robin, you don’t have to defend yourself. Or your team. You think I don’t agree? Whoever killed those people in there is responsible for this, not your presence here. And however much I may wish otherwise or resent the need for a mission like yours, they do have to be stopped. For the sake of Taraja as well as every other community in the Ituri Rainforest.”

  Michael gave his head a quick shake. “But something doesn’t make any sense. This Jini you’re after may be a monster. But he’s fighting an insurgency. And a fairly successful one until now. Why would he risk coming all the way here to the very doorstep of the enemy camp just to kill a handful of survivors from his assault on the mine? Especially with an all-out search going on for him. He’d have to be stupid or insane.”

  “Not so stupid. He got away with it, didn’t he?” Pieter Krueger stepped over the dead guard and back into the corridor. “Not so insane either, it turns out.”

  “Yes, the ghost had reason enough.” Samuel Makuga emerged from the ward, Ephraim and the nurse at his heels. “The same reason we came here tonight.”

  The huge militia commander swung around to loom menacingly above Ephraim. “Where is the boy? The older one. His body is not with the others! What did you do with him?”

  Robin’s respect for Michael’s brother-in-law climbed a notch as the Congolese doctor stared at Makuga without flinching. “We removed nothing from that room. And I did not count the bodies, only checked to see if any still had life.”

  Reaching for the kerosene lantern the nurse was carrying, Ephraim stepped back into the doorway to shine its light across the ward. Then he lowered it. “You are right. There is a patient missing. The older boy named Jacob. Perhaps he escaped during the attack. Or was taken by the killers.”

  “Jacob?” Michael swung around to demand. “You’re talking the leg wound I stitched up? I suppose he could have walked out of here on his own, but the amount of blood loss, the pain—it sure wouldn’t have been easy.”

  “Either way, it settles Jini’s reason for risking this attack,” Pieter Krueger interrupted. “Makuga and I had just been informed when we heard all the commotion up here that we’d failed to interrogate one member of that logging party suspected of smuggling in the bomb. The reason being, he’d been airlifted here to Taraja. So I guess we now know who was Jini’s contact in the mine.”

  “Jacob? The boy who almost died?” Robin said incredulously. A strong image rose to her mind of unconscious young features, of her own frantic pressure on that scarlet wad of cloth, the boy’s frozen terror when she’d last seen him in
the clinic. “I can’t believe that of him. He’s so young! And he was one of the victims himself. Why would he smuggle in a bomb just to blow himself up?”

  Pieter Krueger waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t kid yourself! I’ve run into thousands of insurgents younger than that boy. Take a look at Wamba’s own militia. As to his injuries, maybe he miscalculated. Or didn’t realize what Jini was asking him to do. Let’s not be crediting the man with a concern for his own tools. Maybe the kid was even meant to die in that explosion before his role could be uncovered and tracked back to Jini.”

  “Of greater concern now is how the killers gained entrance.” Samuel Makuga had not relaxed his aggressive stance above Ephraim. His tone grew harsher. “How is it that you and your staff maintain such poor security for a medical facility? This will be reported, and there will be an investigation. But first we must determine how this happened. There is a survivor. What has she reported? If she has not spoken, she must be made to talk.”

  As Makuga’s fierce glare swiveled around to Robin’s burden, Robin took an automatic step back. Oh no, you don’t!

  But Ephraim was already speaking up in his quiet, level tone. “We have tried to get the child to tell us what happened. Evidently she managed to hide so they did not know of her presence. But she could only say that it was dark and that she heard men’s voices and screams. What else could she say that we do not already know? She is not of age to count killers or describe them. We know they killed with a knife or machete, so it would seem they possessed no guns. Or perhaps they simply wished to make no noise.”

  “And the boy Jacob? That he escaped, yet did not alert the killers of this child’s presence is suspicious. She must be made to tell what she knows of him.”

  As the militia commander started in her direction, Robin retreated another step back. But Michael had already moved into the middle of the hall to block him.

  “You are not going to interrogate this child. As her physician, I will testify she is too traumatized to be questioned further. As to any security lapse, you’ve got a lot of nerve casting blame on the Taraja staff. This may be an unarmed civilian facility, but a sizable inventory of pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies are kept stored here, for which reason doors and windows are secured at all times, the front door bolted from the inside by the night nurse after dark. I made the rounds tonight myself.

  “Any door opened would have to be from the inside. And if you’re trying to point a finger at this kid Jacob, he’d have to get past your own guards to let in the killers. Speaking of which, weren’t there two of them when we locked up tonight? So maybe you’re pointing a finger at the wrong enemy. Maybe your missing guard was the one who let in the killers. Or was the killer. Makes a lot more sense than this invisible Jini of yours. Guess we’d better check our drug inventory. But if you think you’re going to make trouble for our staff here, you’ve got a fight on your hands. And that goes for you, too, Krueger.”

  The militia commander took a swift, furious step toward the American doctor. Robin saw the corresponding tautening of muscle under Michael’s clothing, saw again that abrupt shift she’d witnessed before from unassuming civilian to dangerous warrior. She tensed.

  “That’s enough! Makuga, back down!” At Pieter Krueger’s sharp order, Samuel Makuga retreated with a growl. “Interrogating a preschooler is hardly a useful exercise. As to your staff, Stewart, be assured we’ve no intentions of dragging the authorities into this. Right, Makuga?”

  As the militia commander shrugged in grudging acquiescence, Michael relaxed fractionally.

  “Besides, Stewart is right on one thing. Where is the other guard?” Pieter Krueger was already striding toward the rear door. The play of his flashlight beam revealed that its bolt was slid to an unlocked position. The South African mercenary switched off the flashlight before easing the door open a wide crack. He listened intently for a moment, then slipped out through the crack. A moment later, his sharp exclamation drew the others to the open door.

  Pieter had turned his flashlight back on. Revealed in its beam was another sprawled figure. “All’s clear as far as I can see. The killers must be long gone by now. But here’s your missing guard, Makuga. More knife work. And here’s how our killers got in.”

  As Pieter kicked at a small, thin cylinder still smoldering beside the body, Robin recognized the scent of marijuana. “Your boy must have stepped out for a smoke, Makuga. Either the killers simply seized the opportunity, or they’ve been watching long enough to learn his bad habits. Didn’t I warn you to cut back on the controlled substances abuse until this mission is over?”

  The militia commander was unapologetic. “Then it would not be this Jini whose rebellion we would face. At least it is now clear who is responsible for tonight’s attack. The boy Jacob must have known enough to be dangerous to this Jini if he were to be interrogated. Perhaps even where he is hiding.”

  “So did they come here to kill the boy or rescue him?” Michael demanded. “And why kill the other survivors? They weren’t in any condition to resist.”

  “They could have raised the alarm. If it weren’t for the child, we would not have known of this until morning,” Pieter Krueger said flatly. “Makuga makes a good point. If this boy was involved in tonight’s attack, he at least knew the girl was there. Which leaves three basic options. Either the killers meant to take this Jacob out, but he managed somehow to make his own escape. Or the killers took him along, willingly or unwillingly, and he chose to protect the girl. Or he’s dead somewhere, and we just haven’t turned up the body. Either way, there’s nothing much we can do until daylight. Meanwhile, let’s get this body indoors before it starts drawing animals.”

  Both dead guards were carried into the ward with the other victims. Once the rear door was closed and bolted, Pieter Krueger brushed one hand against the other. “That’s it then. Makuga, let’s hope the rest of your men aren’t stoned out of their gourds on khat and weed because I want every warm body left in camp ready to roll for a full manhunt at first light.”

  “Speaking of which, I’d better cancel that medivac flight,” Michael put in heavily. “We certainly won’t be needing it now.”

  Robin was still holding the little girl tight in her arms. “What about this one? We can’t just leave her here. And I promised she’d see her mama again soon.” The image of frantic cries and pleading arms being pushed back from the Mi-17 rose sharply to Robin’s mind. “The poor woman must be worried sick about her by now.”

  Michael and Ephraim exchanged glances. It was the Congolese doctor who spoke up. “We had thought to release the child if a family member could be found to care for her. Her injury does not necessitate further hospital care, only supervision so that the stitches do not get infected.”

  “That should be easy enough for the mine healer.” Robin looked toward Pieter Krueger. “I’m assuming it won’t be any problem to arrange a ride-along on a chopper flight out to the mine?”

  The South African shrugged. “You talked Mulroney into one mercy mission. I’m sure you can do it again. Meanwhile, we’re done here until we’ve got some daylight. And if you think you’re hauling that back to base with us, think again! The kid isn’t our responsibility. So just put her down, and let’s be out of here.”

  Glancing down, Robin could understand the South African’s tone of disgust. The bedsheet enveloping her charge had not prevented dark-red blotches from seeping through, staining her own clothing. As though sensing revulsion in Pieter Krueger’s glare, the little girl was beginning to whimper again against Robin’s neck.

  A fierce protectiveness surged up in Robin. In another world, another life, this could be a four-year-old redhead named Kristi Duncan, and it was simply not in Robin to walk away from her need. Instead of releasing the child, she tightened her arms. Pieter Krueger spun around, annoyance tightening his mouth. Samuel Makuga looked amused.

  “I’ll take her.” The soft voice interrupting belonged to Michael’s sister, Miriam. Stepping f
rom the veranda into the clinic, she hurried down the hall, the night nurse tight on her heels. “Malaika came to call me. Told me there was a child up here in need of a bath, meal, and place to sleep.”

  As Miriam reached her, Robin could see Michael’s sister was blinking drowsily, sleep marks creasing one cheek. But her smile was warm as she reached for the child in Robin’s arms. “What is your name, little one?”

  The girl raised her head immediately at Miriam’s gentle, soothing Swahili. In the merest whisper, she admitted, “Rachel.”

  “Rachel. A beautiful name.” Miriam turned her smile to Robin. “She can stay with our three until you make arrangements to reunite her with her family. One more won’t make any difference to our circus.”

  It was the perfect solution, of course. And certainly Pieter Krueger was right that an Ares Solutions forward operating base was even less a place for a child than an empty clinic ward. So why did Robin’s arms feel suddenly bereft as without protest little Rachel allowed Miriam to lift her into her own arms?

  It was almost 3 a.m. by the time the jeep was back in camp, barely enough time to burrow into her army cot before dawn rousted her again. But Robin found herself reaching instead for her cell phone. When it rang through, her sister picked up. She sounded surprised.

  “Robin, is that you? I wasn’t expecting a call.”

  “Yes, I know it’s getting late there. I was just hoping to say good night to Kristi.” In the background, Robin could hear music, voices. Adult voices. “Is she still awake?”

  There was a pause, the nearby murmur of a deeper, masculine voice. Then Kelli’s voice returned. “Actually, I’m not home at the moment. I’m out having dinner. With Kristi’s pediatrician, in fact. You remember Dr. Brian Peters. He wanted to discuss her care. Kristi’s with a sitter. You could call the house, though I’m sure she’s asleep by now.”

  Her sister’s tone was calm, even cheerful, so whatever this pediatrician had to discuss couldn’t be too alarming.