Congo Dawn Page 22

  “No, I’ll try another day. Just—enjoy your dinner.” Punching an end to the phone call, Robin crawled back at last into the cot she’d vacated earlier.

  But sleep did not return so easily.

  “Hey, over here!” From the river edge, Ernie Miller waved an agitated hand. “No, you there, back off! Don’t step too close!”

  Though pink still tinged the eastern horizon, the Taraja compound already swarmed with Wamba militia. Overhead, the executive chopper made wide, lazy loops, presumably putting to use its high-tech sensory equipment. As Robin translated Ernie’s orders, she, too, was taking in muddy marks where canoes had been pulled up onto the riverbank. A maze of barefoot prints, not all the same size.

  Ernie probed one footprint with a forefinger. “I count at least half a dozen individuals. Could just be local Taraja fishermen except these prints are fresh since last night’s rain shower. And this.”

  Robin stifled a yawn as she bent to study a bloodied strip of gauze snagged by a thornbush. “That’s the same bandaging our missing boy Jacob had wrapped around his leg.”

  “I’d say we found our perimeter breach. Have one of those goons call Krueger. He’s going to want to see this.”

  But Pieter Krueger was already hurrying down through the banana palms, Michael and Ephraim with him. “Heard your call. What did you find?”

  The South African studied footprints and gauze, then turned a hard, blue scrutiny to the brown curve of the river. “So the boy is still alive. Or was last night. And had help getting away. I’d say this confirms he was Jini’s mole in that logging party. And we know now, too, how our ghost has been moving around without our chopper catching him. Though I’d have sworn no Congolese villager would be caught dead canoeing these rivers by night. Shows this Jini does understand surveillance equipment. Question is, where’s he holing up by day? We’ve combed every inch of this jungle repeatedly.”

  Snatching a hand radio from his belt, Krueger snapped into it, “Jensen, I want an immediate surveillance run of the river between here and the mine. And forget sleeping until this is over. We’ll be running night searches as well as day from now on.”

  Returning the radio to his belt, Krueger leaned down to pluck the bloodied gauze from its thornbush. “Of more interest is how Jini learned of the boy’s presence here at Taraja to begin with. Someone had to have gotten that news to him.”

  Michael and Ephraim stiffened simultaneously. The Congolese doctor stepped forward. “I know every family who has returned to live here in Taraja. None would be involved in hurting others or helping a murderer.”

  Krueger’s chiseled features hardened as he tossed the gauze strip into the river. “Yeah, well, you and I both know if this Jini didn’t have support in the villages, his force would never have survived this long. For all we know, maybe last night’s assassins and the boy are still hiding out right here in Taraja. Or maybe it was local sympathizers who carried out last night’s raid, not the ghost himself. That makes more sense than crediting this killer with courage to brave the Ituri Rainforest by night. Bottom line, at this very moment every village in this zone is being searched, every villager being questioned. You can hardly expect us to make an exception for Taraja. Especially after last night. And that includes the clinic and its personnel as well.”

  In all the upheaval, Robin had actually let this morning’s scheduled raid slip her mind. In one brief instant, she saw comprehension followed by horror, fury, resignation, then blankness on Ephraim’s dark features. Don’t look like that! It’s not what you think!

  “Now see here, Krueger, are you accusing our staff of trafficking with murderers? That we’d bother saving your patients’ lives only to kill them off? And what is this about the other villages? What gives you the right—?” Michael broke off as Ephraim laid a hand on his arm.

  “My brother, it will be all right. Let them search. We have nothing to hide. We of Taraja are all followers of Jesus Christ, committed to peace. It is to our benefit these men satisfy themselves we had nothing to do with aiding or harboring the killers of innocents.”

  Michael made no further objections. But he watched like a hawk as militia fanned out through the compound, rousting villagers from their huts, dumping out grain sacks, rummaging through piles of drying cassava root. Only Robin’s direct intervention rescued the Taraja communication equipment from being dismantled. Huddled under the thatched community shelter, Taraja residents shook their heads stoically when Jini’s photo was thrust under their noses. None admitted to hearing or seeing anything the prior night.

  Standing an hour later on the clinic veranda, Robin glanced around with dismay. Banana palms and cornstalks lay broken, vegetable plots flattened by careless boots. Cooking fires spouted noxious smoke where overturned pots had spilled their contents. An Mi-17 had hovered down to remove the massacre victims.

  The last militiamen were finally retreating along the path toward the airstrip. Robin looked at Michael, standing beside her on the veranda, arms folded aggressively across his muscular chest, gaze focused on the receding uniforms.

  “I am truly sorry, Michael. I’d promised you Taraja wouldn’t be impacted by our being here. That Wamba’s men would not set foot on clinic property. You can call me a liar. But I really thought at the time I was telling the truth.”

  Michael shifted his grim scrutiny from the retreating soldiers to Robin’s upturned face. But he looked less angry than resigned. “It’s okay, Robin, really. No matter how I add this one up, I can’t make it your doing. I know you did your best to keep your promises. Some things you’ve just got to chalk up to life in the Congo. Something I’ve let myself forget in the last decade away from here.” The stern compression of his mouth curved downward. “Which doesn’t mean I won’t twist Mulroney’s arm to cough up reparations. Ephraim may be the forbearing type. Believe me, I’m not!”

  Robin glanced through the clinic door where the Congolese doctor was crouched down with his nurses, sorting smashed bottles and vials for salvageable pills and other medications. “I really like your brother-in-law. He’s quiet and kind but not a pushover. And clearly very competent at his profession. I can see why Miriam fell in love with him. And Ephraim with her.”

  Michael’s glance followed Robin’s. “Yes, it’s Congolese like Ephraim who offer hope that this country really does have a future. He’s a great guy. A man I’m proud to call my brother-in-law. But he’s not alone either. Growing up here, Miriam and I have been privileged to witness a whole new generation of Congolese who are educated visionaries, entrepreneurs, determined to lead their country forward. Maybe not as many as there should be because of violence. But then it wasn’t so long ago this place was still a brutally enslaved colony run by forced labor and the chicotte. Not so different, in fact, from Europe a few centuries back. I mean, just go to the Tower of London or other such places and see the instruments of torture and violence there. The boot. The rack. The guillotine. Peasants treated as property while aristocrats built their luxury palaces. Injustices that changed only when those who called themselves followers of Jesus Christ began putting into practice his teachings to the point where their societies were turned upside down. So who can say just where the Congo might be in another century if enough Ephraims come along to make a serious impact on Congolese society?”

  Michael broke off to slope Robin a rueful grin. “And when I get on that soapbox, I don’t know when to shut up. Sorry about the rant.”

  Something in Robin’s own chest eased at Michael’s less combative tone. Despite all the chaos surrounding them, standing here peaceably side by side felt . . . right! Countless times they’d stood just like this. Looking out over a desolate, war-shattered Afghan landscape. Exchanging easy, undemanding commentary on everything under the sun. Everything but their own personal losses and pain.

  Though not on that last day. Then Michael’s tawny eyes had blazed down at Robin. And she’d thought . . . It didn’t matter what she’d thought because her pager had gone off, a
nd nothing had ever been the same again.

  I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed just being with Michael. How much I missed him when he was gone. I made myself forget.

  Robin swung around abruptly, an action that left her only inches away from a muscular chest. She had to tilt her head back to search those lean, bronzed features, the pensive gaze fastened on her own face.

  What was he thinking?

  Was he sharing the same memory?

  “Michael . . . about five years ago—”

  An impatient beep cut her off. The camp jeep careened around the side of the clinic, Pieter Krueger behind the steering wheel, Samuel Makuga and Ernie Miller in the backseat. Something in the South African mercenary’s expression as he pulled up to the veranda had Robin quickly stepping away from Michael, heat flooding her face.

  But though Pieter Krueger’s derisive glance took in Robin’s flushed cheekbones, he addressed himself to the American doctor. “We’re out of here.”

  Michael inclined his head fractionally. “So you found nothing, just like I told you.”

  The South African’s shrug offered no apology. “Doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find. Only that it’s not to be found within the perimeter of your community. Personally, I never expected our adversary to make things that easy for us. But I’m sure you understand we had a protocol to follow.”

  Only now did Krueger address himself to Robin. “If you’re heading back to base, Duncan, the trolley leaves now. Mulroney’s called another teleconference ASAP.”

  Michael disappeared into the clinic as Robin climbed into the front passenger seat. The interruption was just as well since Robin had no idea what she’d wanted to say.

  In a few hours, the footpath down to the airstrip had become a well-defined vehicle track. The jeep jolted back into base camp to find all three helicopters settled to the ground. Crowded into the communications trailer were more of Robin’s Ares Solutions teammates than she’d seen in camp since their bush hunt mission had started. Ernie’s Green Beret buddy, Frank, was addressing Trevor Mulroney’s face on a screen when the new arrivals entered.

  “Insurgents are definitely not in the villages. At least not in any numbers. We hit at dawn as planned. All twelve villages, complete surprise. Searches turned up hunting bows and spears, but no real weapons or ammo. Nor the excess of fighting-age men we’d be seeing if they were harboring an insurgency. No one admitted to recognizing this Jini fellow. Nor did we find anyone with the scar you described. And believe me, we checked everyone, male and female, in case the perp was hiding behind a pagne.”

  “You didn’t check everyone.” The screen Carl Jensen was tapping seemed less an aerial shot of the Ituri Rainforest than an image one might expect through a pair of night vision goggles. In its center was a cluster of yellow-orange blotches. Additional blotches scattered out randomly.

  “We’ve been rotating sweeps around each village since this morning’s attack. That center cluster is the conjoined heat signature of rounded-up villagers and our own forces. But you can see here a dozen other signatures fanned out within a half-kilometer circumference of the village. This one’s your takedown, Frank. Since you confirmed your unit was all inside the village clearing, those signatures are definitely not our men. And check this shot taken of the same village a couple hours later.”

  The second image showed a similar pattern of heat signatures but scattered more distantly from the center. “Every village shows the same pattern. These have to be locals escaping the attack. Not huge numbers. But rounding them all up under triple-canopy jungle is going to be as easy as chasing down individual ants from a smashed anthill.”

  “Then you’d better get started,” Trevor Mulroney responded sarcastically from his screen. “I didn’t call you together here for excuses but to hear results. Krueger, is this what Ares Solutions calls competence? You assured me this team could do the job.”

  “Boss, you know better than anyone here there’s no such thing as a perfect surprise attack.” Pieter Krueger moved into view of Mulroney’s video cam. “There’s always the early riser out taking a leak. Kids scrambling under a bush while we’re rounding up the parents. Besides, we don’t need to chase them down. There’s only three directions they can head. Back to their homes, in which case they’ll run into Wamba’s militia we’ve quartered in each village for prisoner control. Or out of the zone, in which case they’ll run into our perimeter line. Or if they head deeper into the zone, we’ll round them up as we draw in our bush hunt net.”

  The South African stabbed Carl’s satellite image with his fore­finger. “If anything, these images confirm Jini and his men were never in the villages. Notice our escapees are all individuals, not a group signature anywhere. And let’s not forget our ghost and his pals were out of bed last night. Did you scan that waterway like I asked, Jensen?”

  “Of course I did.” A new image Carl pulled up looked to be an aerial map. “As you can see here, the river flowing behind the Taraja compound does dump into the stream that flows past the mine. Which means a straight shot by canoe from where we last pegged this Jini to the back door of the clinic. It would take some doing to paddle it in a night. But with a full moon like we’ve got right now, if someone knew the river well, I suppose it’s possible.

  “Anyway, we just ran a full scan of the waterway. Not a canoe in sight. No surprise with all the local fishermen buttoned down in their villages. And the only settlement along that particular stretch is the mine itself. If your perps took this route, they must have beached themselves before daylight. But we ran reconnaissance to five kilo­meters back on either side of this river. No human signature anywhere.”

  Carl tapped a spot on the winding brown snake representing the waterway. “We did pick up something on our motion sensors right along here. A cluster of somethings. I thought we might have found our perps. But when we ran a visual sweep, it turned out smack in the middle of an empty river.”

  The image Carl pulled up on a neighboring screen showed brown water glinting bright enough under sunlight to reflect trees and vegetation along the bank but visibly empty of canoes or swimmers. “Unless this Jini’s a fish as well as a ghost and can breathe underwater, I’m assuming we picked up a pack of hippos or crocs.”

  From Robin’s side, Ernie stepped forward to study the screen more closely. As he did so, his buddy, Frank, spoke up. “The big question here isn’t where a handful of perps in a canoe might hide themselves. But where is this full-blown insurgency we’re supposed to be fighting? Is it possible Wamba came up with this insurgency just to explain away his own failure in controlling rebellious locals? That maybe our ghost doesn’t really exist? After all, who’s actually seen this Jini or his scar?”

  “Those burned-out villages speak to a sizable insurgency,” an Australian operative argued. “Besides, if not an insurgency, then what? I suppose there’s nothing really in the sabotage of mine and convoys to date that couldn’t have been carried out by a much smaller, determined band of anarchists. But then you’d be talking a compelling personal motive, or why the risk? I mean, it’s not like they can walk off with a mountain of molybdenum to sell.”

  “Maybe it is personal,” Frank retorted. “If last night’s assault team traveled all the way to Taraja just to break out this Jacob kid, maybe it never was about the mine but about the workers. Has anyone checked on who the prisoners are? Could this be as simple as an op to break out some local equivalent of a drug lord or mafia boss Wamba’s got locked up there?”

  “Enough!” Trevor Mulroney interrupted forcefully from the screen. “This is a moot discussion. I can assure you with 100 percent certainty this Jini is real. He’s out there. Catching him—not his followers, few or many—is your chief mission. Your only mission. As to his motives, that is irrelevant. If you want those hefty combat zone bonuses you’ve contracted, you’ll find him for me—yesterday, if not sooner.”

  “And I think I may just have an idea where he’s holed up.” As Ernie’s drawl broke in
to the discussion, every eye swiveled to where his calloused forefinger traced the image of a tranquil, empty stretch of jungle river. “Can anyone tell me what this shadow is?”

  Even studying the image, Robin could make out only a ripple across the water, a hint of shadow she’d assumed came from the trees reflected in the water.

  “A sandbar, maybe? Who knows? Who cares?” Carl Jensen answered defensively. “My equipment is calibrated to spot human beings under triple-canopy rainforest, not to map riverbeds.”

  “Not a sandbar. I grew up in a Louisiana bayou. I know a sandbar when I see one. That’s a boat down there. Didn’t you say that barge went down about here?”

  Now it was Pieter Krueger who moved closer to study the screen. “Yes, it did. I suppose that could be the barge. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “A lot, actually,” Ernie said. “What Jensen said earlier about breathing underwater gave me the idea. You mentioned detecting motion here but no human signature. So can this gear detect an accurate human signature underwater?”

  Carl shook his head. “A composite human signature is differentiated from other mammals based on body temperature, weight, shape. All of which are distorted by water. Are you suggesting our crocs might actually be human? But we didn’t just fly by. I had the chopper spend some time doing a visual search. You’d need scuba gear to stay down that long.”

  “Stay with me,” Ernie said. “See that line? What’s under there is on a slant. Maybe resting on an actual sandbar. You can’t see because the water’s so muddy. But that ripple says this end’s barely under the surface. And a barge cargo hold’s got to be airtight.”

  Robin got where he was going even as Trevor Mulroney spoke up from his screen. “You’re suggesting an air bubble down there. Even if that’s possible, it’s a little far-fetched that it could still be there months after that barge went down.”