Congo Dawn Page 31

  Bitter anger turned against herself. How had Robin let herself get so distracted these last days from her real mission here? Not succoring refugees nor even catching a killer, but carrying out that lucrative contract as team translator quickly and efficiently enough to save one little girl’s life.

  If only I could get through to Kelli! Find out just how big a loan it will take to secure Kristi’s treatment, even if I have to work off the debt for the rest of my life! Poor Kelli—she must be so frantic!

  Though the voice so like her own had sounded more composed than Robin would have expected, holding weariness, concern, but none of the hysterics to which Robin was accustomed. Maybe she was overestimating the urgency of Kristi’s situation. Maybe routine medical tests were all that had placed Kristi in the hospital.

  And yet there’d been Kelli’s plea for prayer.

  Leafy boughs of fruit trees closing in above the path had now blocked out the last glimmer of lantern and cook fire from the Taraja clearing. But Robin didn’t reach again into her knapsack for a flashlight. The equatorial night was warm, a breeze rustling through foliage redolent with the fruity sweetness of mango, guava, citrus. Now that she was some distance from the singing and drums, Robin could hear other sounds of a rainforest night as well. The chitter of a monkey troop. The flapping of fruit bats settling down for the night. The shrill whine of some insect.

  A louder rustle sent Robin’s stomach flying up into her throat. She froze midstep, ears straining against the darkness. Did that quick, hard breathing belong to an intruder, or was it her own? Maybe this trek alone on foot at night had not been such a good idea.

  Unfreezing, she completed her stride. But before she’d taken another step, she caught the snap of a dry branch or twig close at hand. Robin whirled around, Glock pistol instinctively sliding from the small of her back into her hand.

  “Whoa! Put that thing away.” From up the trail, a thin light beam played over the gun in Robin’s hand, rose to touch her face. As the beam dropped away, its bearer closed the gap between them in a few swift strides. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Cast into dark shadow above the penlight were broad shoulders, a trim male frame. Robin slipped the Glock back into its holster. “Why are you following me, Michael? What do you want?”

  “You left so quickly. I had things to say to you. Without company.” Michael twisted the flashlight, and the narrow beam winked out. “Excuse me if I turn this off. Batteries are hard to come by out here.”

  “I was managing fine without it before you showed.”

  What could Michael have to say to Robin he didn’t want Miriam or Ephraim to hear? Was he angry that she’d lingered in his home? Permitted Miriam to resurrect painful memories? I tried to stop her!

  “I left because you made it clear I’d overstayed my welcome. It’s not like I planned to crash your evening. But your sister is rather persuasive. And persistent. Kind of like her brother! Not that I didn’t appreciate her hospitality,” Robin tacked on hastily. “I’d hate for Miriam to think I didn’t enjoy myself, and I hope you’ll let her know that. I’ll admit I don’t quite get her. How she can be so loving and full of hope with what happened to her. How she can forgive the men who . . . hurt her. How she and Ephraim can bear to come back to this place where it all happened. But whether it’s all she’s been through, like Miriam says, or just the kind of person she always was, I can admit your sister is truly an incredible person.”

  “Unlike her brother, you’re saying?”

  Robin could hear a laugh in Michael’s query. He’d moved closer since switching off the flashlight. So close Robin could now feel a heat that came from his body and not the warm, humid night. Hear the gentle, unhurried sigh of air entering and leaving a broad, muscled chest. His scent filled her nostrils. A scent that combined the musk of male perspiration and a whiff of hospital antiseptic with the faintest tang of orange and cinnamon and other spices from the marmalade he’d eaten with Miriam’s scones.

  As cologne, it would hardly make a fortune. So it wasn’t really fair that its proximity should leave Robin’s own heart beating more rapidly against her breast. Her own slighter frame stiff with the effort not to step forward into his arms. She stepped back instead to introduce a space of night between herself and that fragrance.

  “You know that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry if you didn’t want Miriam to tell me her story. But I’ll admit I don’t understand—all those hours we used to talk in Afghanistan—why you felt you couldn’t even mention you had a sister! Or a brother-in-law, either. Did you think I would judge Miriam, Ephraim, their marriage?”

  “Believe me, that wasn’t it at all.” From his quiet voice floating out of the night, Michael had made no effort to eliminate the space she’d inserted between them. “It’s just—to start talking about my family would mean telling the whole story. And it was Miriam’s story to tell. I guess at the time I thought . . . I hoped maybe someday you’d have opportunity to hear it from her. Though not like this! In any case, back then I still hadn’t come to terms with it all to be able to talk about it, even with such good friends as you and Chris.”

  Good friends. Was Michael still including Robin in that category, or had that been a slip of the tongue? As Michael broke off, Robin spoke up quickly. “Okay, I get that. And I can’t blame you. If it were my sister or parents, I don’t think I could ever forgive what those men did. What I don’t get now that I know the whole story is how you ever used to get up there in Chaplain Rogers’s place and speak so convincingly about trusting God’s love and goodness. And here I was thinking I had a lot to forgive God for!”

  Robin heard a sigh from the darkness before Michael answered quietly. “Actually, it may sound sanctimonious, but forgiving the rebels wasn’t as hard as you might think. It’s like—well, when a jaguar attacks a herd. Or a crocodile carries off a small child. You hate what happened, but there’s no point in hating the predator. It’s life in the jungle, animals acting according to their own nature and need. The rebels—they’re worse than any jungle predator precisely because they’re thinking human beings to whom God has given a will and a conscience. And of course I hate what they did, everything they represent. But still, neither Miriam nor I have ever seen what they did as anything personal against our family, if that seems odd to say, just being in the wrong time and place when the storm hit. I can even understand some of the built-up rage and despair and sense of injustice that sent them on that rampage.

  “No, I can forgive the men who assaulted my sister and killed my parents, if only because Miriam has forgiven them. As to forgiving God, I’m not sure that was ever really an issue for me. Not when I’d seen so many others suffer all my life. As you brought up earlier, it never crossed my mind that God owed it to me to exempt my own family. Truth is, it wasn’t the rebels or God I had a long, hard time forgiving. It was myself. I should have been here to protect Miriam, my parents, Taraja. Maybe they’d all still be alive and safe if I hadn’t gallivanted off thousands of kilometers away to follow my own dreams. Or so I kept telling myself.”

  Maybe it was because she knew him so well that Robin heard the depth of pain beneath the low, even words. A pain that twisted in Robin’s own heart, brought sudden dampness to her eyes, hot words to her lips.

  “Oh, Michael, how can you blame yourself? If you’d been here, you’d likely be dead too; you’ve got to know that! After all, you’d have been on that field trip with your parents and sister. And the rebel army had hundreds of armed men. Besides, you weren’t gallivanting on some . . . some frivolous vacation! You were studying to become a doctor, to help people. Miriam would be the first to say you couldn’t have done anything to change that day. That God was the one who permitted it all to happen. And you came home as soon as you could!”

  Robin cut herself off. Could that possibly have been a chuckle floating her direction? Hurt and fury erased any sympathy roused in her. Balling her fists, she struck out, blows landing against a hard chest.
“Are you—? You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?”

  “Ouch!” The smile she’d suspected was in Michael’s amused exclamation. “You’ve got quite a punch there. Hey, I’m sorry—don’t hit me again.”

  Catching Robin’s fists, he held them still and impotent against his T-shirt. “I wasn’t laughing at you, really. It’s just . . . you sound as fierce as a mama tree leopard defending her cub. You don’t have to convince me it wasn’t my fault. I know that. It may have taken time, but I’ve come to terms with it all. Just as I’ve come to terms with my best friend dying in my arms. You disappearing. Losing three months of my life in that coma. A year in rehab with them telling me I’d never walk again.

  “Not that I can claim to be some super-saint. Or that many times the grief and loss and painful memories haven’t felt more than I could handle. But Miriam’s right about that, too. God’s light shines brightest in the darkest, loneliest night. And what I’ve learned about God’s love—his mercy and compassion—these last few years, I wouldn’t trade if I could go back and undo everything that happened here. Everything that happened in Afghanistan.”

  Grief.

  Loss.

  Painful memories.

  Loneliness.

  Robin’s heart was pounding so hard her chest hurt. Was it only the loss of his parents, of his best friend who’d also been Robin’s brother, the pain of his sister, his own injuries of which Michael spoke? Or did his quiet words hint at what Robin had once thought, hoped, dreamed, passionately trusted to be reality?

  For years Robin had sought to suppress the vivid memory that now succeeded in thrusting itself to the surface of her mind. A painful memory only because at the time it had been anything but.

  It was, in fact, the last memory of unadulterated, unbounded joy Robin could recall.

  She’d been standing just like this, face-to-face with Michael, hands resting open on his broad, hard torso. But it hadn’t been some jungle trail. The trek up to Afghanistan’s high Band-e Amir lake region had been permitted because the Taliban had been quiet recently, the presence of off-duty Marine units a test for opening up to tourists the beautiful Himalayan valley with mineral-rich waters responsible for the famed aquamarine tint of its lakes and ponds.

  By then friendship had grown to a far deeper understanding. Robin had known it couldn’t last forever. She was committed to at least one more tour of duty. Michael would soon be transferred out for his medical studies. But that afternoon it was enough to be together. As the sun dropped below the ridge, the mountain pool’s crystal-clear aquamarine had deepened to a translucent sapphire that below the surface darkened almost to violet.

  “Just the color of your eyes,” Michael had told Robin with a rare, warm smile.

  Robin had teasingly batted her eyelashes in response. She could still remember his abrupt sucking in of breath. The sudden erasure of distance between them so that she’d had to tilt her head back to see his tawny eyes, now aglow with strong emotion. His camouflaged arms around her were so tight she could hardly breathe, his heartbeat pounding against hers even through their fatigues.

  “Robin, I wasn’t going to tell you until we got back to base. But you should know my transfer papers came through for medical school. No date yet. But it could be any day. I know you’ve another year here at least. But—you must know how I feel about you. I can’t leave without asking. Without hoping—”

  That was when Robin’s radio crackled. She’d wanted desperately to ignore it. Michael was the good soldier who’d stepped away, nodded toward the radio, and waited courteously for Robin to respond. The caller was her brother’s platoon leader. Could Robin take the place of their sick female translator? A last-minute raid on a suspected Taliban compound. Her brother had assured him she’d be willing to help.

  A moment later another Marine had bellowed from the campsite they’d just finished pitching beside the lake. Weekend leave was canceled, choppers flying in to retrieve all available units for the raid. Robin never got to hear what it was Michael had wanted to ask. What he hoped.

  Instead all hands scrambled to repack the camping gear. Michael and another medic remained behind to drive the Hummers back while the Marine contingent climbed aboard two Black Hawks hovering down. The next and last time Robin had seen Michael before setting foot in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was when he’d lifted her brother aboard that medivac helicopter shortly after dawn the next morning.

  What did that Band-e Amir lake memory hold for Michael, if anything at all? Disgust? Relief that he’d never voiced those words on his lips? Though his musings just now indicated at least some regret.

  I loved him so much. I was so sure he loved me. That it was only a matter of time and patience before things worked out for us to be together. I’d even have given up the Marines for Michael. Then I lost both Michael and the Marines. And ruined everything by blaming Michael for Chris’s death, waiting for him to come after me like some stereotypical romance novel instead of going after him.

  No, it wasn’t quite true she’d ruined everything. What had Miriam said to Robin on their first encounter? You couldn’t destroy Michael if you tried. . . . He’s become a stronger, better person for it.

  And Miriam was only too evidently right. Both Michael and his sister had emerged from their own night of suffering as stronger, better human beings with such faith and conviction in God’s love and purpose for this universe as Robin could only envy.

  And Robin?

  Am I so different from those rebels, from Governor Wamba or Jini, using the darkness as an excuse to turn from the light, wallowing in my own self-pity and self-absorption? Maybe Michael is a better person for these last five years. But I sure am not! So maybe God was just doing Michael a favor in permitting all the confusion and taking me out of Michael’s life.

  One step forward would have bridged the gap of five years, placed Robin back into those strong arms. Instead Robin took a long step back to say coolly, “Well, I’m glad life has worked out for you after all. And for your sister. Is that all you followed me down here to talk about? Or was there something else?”

  A silence from the darkness dragged on so that Robin could hear the singers and dancers up at the Taraja compound shift to a new song. When Michael did speak, his voice was just as detached. “Actually, I didn’t come down here to talk to you about any of that. Sorry to have wasted so much of your time. But you did ask me to let you know if I found out something pertinent to your ­mission.”

  Robin’s interest revived. “Then you did find something out! I wondered when I heard you on Skype. And saw Ephraim with that printout.”

  “Yes, I did find something. More than I expected, in fact. I’ll be honest, if I hadn’t given my word, I’m not sure I’d tell you. I’d rather not tell you. I’m not sure it couldn’t be dangerous. For you. For Taraja. Especially if you run straight to your superiors with it. But since you’ve made clear you’ll have a posse on Taraja’s doorstep tomorrow if I don’t speak—well, I asked you earlier to trust me. I guess I’m going to have to trust you now to do the right thing with this info.”

  Robin stiffened. “What is it you’re saying? Just spit it out!”

  “I’m getting to it. When we arrived back here this afternoon, I contacted a journalist friend in Bunia. A stringer for the BBC. He did some digging for me. That Skype call was him getting back to me. Here’s the first thing. The Bunia prison system has no record of who that old man actually was. But more than that, there’s no record of any prison inmates being transferred within this past year from Bunia to a mining labor camp, here in the Ituri or anywhere else.”

  “So you’re saying Samuel Makuga was lying when he told us the mine workforce came from the Bunia prison system?” Robin demanded. “What are you insinuating? That Trevor Mulroney can afford an Ares Solutions op, but he’s too strapped for cash to pay the pittance locals make here to work his mine, so he kidnaps innocent civilians instead? Maybe your journalist friend just didn’t look in the right
file.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything.” Michael’s tone hardened to match Robin’s curtness. “I am only reporting what I was able to find out. And since my journalist friend has a Congolese wife whose cousin is superintendent of prisons in Bunia, believe me, his intel is accurate. But that’s not all. The bigger issue here is that I’ve got a good idea now just who your healer really was. And his son—your insurgent.”

  Shock squeezed the air from Robin’s lungs. “You told me you hadn’t recognized that old man, the healer! Then you lied to me?”

  “I didn’t lie. I wasn’t sure when I saw him. Or the others. After all, it’s been ten years since I lived here. Far longer since I was out in those villages. Those rock outcroppings spread for miles. It never occurred to me that strip mine could be the same area where I’d climbed them as a kid. The Congolese like to joke that all white men look alike. Well, I thought I was just seeing similarities when a couple mine workers looked so much like students who’d attended the Taraja school. Or when one of the older women looked the spitting image of Mama Wambura, who used to feed Miriam and me cassava porridge after we climbed those outcroppings. Or even that your healer bore some resemblance to the village leader who argued with my father about his pet verse. But once my journalist pal let me know those workers out at the mine had not come from Bunia, I had Ephraim show that picture of Jini around to some recent arrivals from the village closest to where the mine now is.”

  As Robin herself had done not an hour earlier. And every refugee there had denied recognizing that photo. Sarcastically she demanded, “So your refugees up there lied to me too?”

  “Not at all. No one admitted to recognizing your rebel leader. It was Ephraim who told me that he and Miriam both had seen a resemblance to a young student who’d just begun studying here at Taraja when the massacre happened. A boy named Joseph. So named because he was the petted late-born son of a large family who knew their Bible stories well. Funny thing is, I’d noted such a resemblance too. Not to this boy, but to a much earlier Taraja student. Simeon was quite a bit older than myself but similar in age to that picture last time I saw him before he left Taraja and returned to his village. So it turns out this Joseph was Simeon’s youngest brother, which accounts for the resemblance. Of course neither had any such scar as you described, and I’d been told the entire family and village was wiped out in the massacres. Which is why I didn’t bother mentioning it to you. Besides, Ephraim and Miriam both say this Joseph was one of the brightest students Taraja ever had. A bookworm, not a brawler. Not the type who’d ever hurt anyone, much less ever become a rebel leader. So like me, Ephraim assumed he was only seeing things when he noticed a resemblance.