Congo Dawn Page 35

  The briefcase held glass vials and packets of chemicals. A file stuffed with papers. A laptop. A cell phone. How had Joseph kept all this intact during months as a fugitive in the rainforest?

  Joseph lifted out a plastic envelope that glinted a metallic silver-white. “My employer wished me to tell him where the rhenium was to be found. But there are no street signs in the Ituri such as in London. How could I pinpoint one bend on one river? Nor did I know how many other rock outcroppings there might be. I had to come myself to mark the place where I was born. And since the war that drove me from my home was said to be over, I was not afraid, but eager to return.

  “Trevor Mulroney purchased my ticket to Bunia, provided funds for a motorcycle, a cell phone. I brought testing equipment, a canister of fuel tied to the motorcycle. The road from Bunia to Taraja was long abandoned. But old tracks were sufficient for a motorcycle to follow. Once I saw the overgrown airstrip, the burned houses, the abandoned fields, I knew I had reached Taraja. From there I knew well the exact course to my birthplace. So I arrived home to find instead of ruins my father, my family, my village. I called on the cell phone to tell Trevor Mulroney I had arrived. Then I made tests on more ore. Again, I found high concentrations of rhenium.”

  Joseph lifted aside the laptop, opened the paper file to reveal un­intelligible figures and graphs, held up a flash drive. “These papers contain all my research from the laboratory. The computer holds the new reports. This flash drive contains both. Once I finished my tests, I took my father up onto the rock outcropping to tell him my good news. But instead of excitement, he was angry and afraid. Then we saw the two helicopters. They were not like the one that flies often to the mine but like those I have seen overhead these last days.”

  Russian Mi-17 combat choppers, then. Perhaps even the same ones. Joseph went on. “I did not think at first it was Trevor Mulroney as I had not yet given directions to find the place nor results of my new testing.”

  “Cell phone triangulation,” Michael murmured. “He didn’t need directions if he had the right contacts.”

  “Perhaps. When I recognized Mulroney, I thought he’d come to celebrate with me. Instead soldiers came out of the helicopter firing their weapons. And not only Wamba’s men. Mzungu mercenaries. Do you see now why Trevor Mulroney cannot permit my people to speak of that day? Of who they saw? Why he will not rest until he finds me? Though I do not believe he has told Wamba or Makuga why he hunts me so relentlessly. Because they too are greedy and would want such treasure for themselves. As to the other things of which you accuse me—here!”

  Joseph pulled out the cell phone. “I could not stop Wamba’s force from doing terrible things in the villages. He had hundreds of men commanded by Samuel Makuga. We were only eight. But we followed his men to one village where I took video and photos until my cell phone battery died. They will prove whose hand was truly behind the atrocities of which I have been accused.

  “I have no such proof at Taraja except the word of my nephew, who saw the killers. Yes, I was there that night. But not to kill. Nor to seek release of Jacob and the others. Why should I? I was grateful when I learned they had been taken to Taraja. Since I could not then see the future, I thanked the almighty Creator I would not have their blood as well on my hands. No, it was to see Dr. Stewart that I came to Taraja.”

  Robin had thought she was past being surprised. “Michael? How did you even know he was there?”

  “You told my father. From the beginning, he had sent messages written on palm leaves and hidden in coconut shells. Dr. Stewart has told me you found one such last night. I would let him know I found a message by leaving markings known to our hunters in places where they cut wood.”

  Robin pounced on Joseph’s admission. “Not just markings, from what I understand. Did you have to get a child like Jacob involved?”

  Mud-daubed shoulders rose and fell. “He was proud to do his part. Was not his father among those killed by the soldiers? Though my father did not approve of our plan. He feared more people might get hurt. And as was his habit, he was right.”

  Joseph’s tone again held pain. “From the beginning my father wanted me to go to the authorities. He believed with such proof as I carried, I could impel justice for our people. But my father is a peaceful man who has not been outside the Ituri in long years. To what authorities could I go? Trevor Mulroney is a man of great influence even in his ruler’s own palace. In Bunia, Wamba is the authority.

  “So I chose instead to fight with the help of those who escaped with me, using the very skills I learned working for Trevor Mulroney to disrupt his operations. I thought if I could free the hostages so I need no longer fear what Mulroney might do to them, then I could take my proof to others who would gladly seize his prize, if only for themselves. But though I have been able to stop Mulroney from profiting by his treachery, I have not yet succeeded in liberating his prisoners. A stalemate, but one I fear in the end I must lose, for Trevor Mulroney has time and resources that I do not.

  “After the terrible events with the steam engine, I was losing hope. I wondered even if I should surrender myself to plead Mulroney’s mercy on the others. Then you came to the mine. Yes, I saw you. There are few women with hair the color of a rising sun. I saw you speaking to my father, helping to care for the boy Jacob. The next day I received a message that a Stewart had returned to Taraja. Not the grandfather or father who had befriended our people, but a son who was also now a doctor. My brother Simeon remembered this son from visits to our village, from his own studies at Taraja.”

  Joseph’s gesture indicated one of his two flanking sentries. “My father’s message said that if this new Dr. Stewart cared for the Ituri people enough to return here, then like his father and grandfather he must be a man of justice who could discern evil from good, darkness from light. And being also a mzungu, who better to advocate our plight among those with power to intervene on our behalf. Perhaps even among the United Nations force in Bunia.

  “And so because I too remembered Stewarts who were my ­teachers at Taraja, who were kind to me, true followers of the almighty Creator, I came. At night because we had seen the helicopters and knew such aircraft carried spying eyes. Though I believed we had walked into a trap when we saw the soldiers’ encampment below Taraja. Even more so when we witnessed a unit of Wamba’s militia entering the clinic where we had hoped to find Dr. Stewart.”

  “Wait!” Robin interrupted. “You’re saying Wamba’s militia killed those people? But that would mean . . .” She felt newly sick as it hit home just what it meant. She’d wondered how Samuel Makuga had known so quickly of the incident at the clinic. Especially once it became apparent his two guards had been surprised before they could have gotten off an SOS. It wasn’t hard to imagine Makuga’s drugged-up recruits as killers. But that they would slit their own soldiers’ throats to add credence that Jini was the killer was beyond evil. Besides, Robin had witnessed Makuga’s stunned fury. The frenzied search he’d instigated.

  But no, both fury and search could have been over Jacob’s escape, not to find the killers. And it had been Makuga who was so insistent the patients not be permitted to speak to their caretakers. It all made horrible, obvious sense now.

  And what about Pieter Krueger, who’d accompanied Makuga that night? Could he or any other on the Ares Solutions team have known any of this?

  The rebel leader dropped his head bull-like against his chest. “If only I’d surrendered that first day instead of running away, perhaps I alone would be dead today. Perhaps that would have been the best outcome, even if it meant triumph for Trevor Mulroney. Instead, my aunt, my cousin, my youngest nephew . . .”

  Anguish twisted Joseph’s features. “So much blood on my hands! My father was right. Meeting violence with violence has resolved nothing. Even if he had lived, I could never have hoped for his forgiveness. As the almighty Creator would himself turn his face from me. So all that remains is to bring justice for those who have died. For those who still live. The
n it will not matter what becomes of me.”

  Joseph raised his scarred arm and pressed it across his face. But not before Robin glimpsed tears in his huge, bloodshot eyes. With that glimpse an image shifted irrevocably in her mind. She no longer saw the man crouched on his haunches before her as a ruthless killer she’d been assigned to hunt down, his very half-naked, mud-daubed appearance emblematic of cold-blooded, vicious savagery. Instead she saw a youth barely into adulthood as lost and grief-stricken and despairing as the Robin who’d cried out her own heartache to an almighty Creator not so long past on the airstrip.

  Yes, and a very angry youth too. But how might Robin have reacted were Kristi and Kelli behind high chain-link fences? Would she have made wiser choices? Have shown as much courage?

  Michael interjected roughly, “Joseph, you cannot take all the blame for what’s happened. Perhaps surrendering would have saved lives. Or perhaps you would have thrown your own life away along with theirs. Hasn’t the death of helpless wounded made clear how far your enemy will go? As to forgiveness, you must believe me: if your father were here, he would forgive you. He did forgive you. Robin here can testify he died thinking of you, his last request that we aid you.”

  The bowed head lifted slightly. Black eyes flickered toward Robin.

  She nodded. “Michael’s right. Your father asked us to help you. To save you.”

  “As to the almighty Creator, believe me that there is nothing you can do, nowhere you can go beyond his ability and willingness to forgive.”

  Michael’s quiet conviction further lifted Joseph’s head. “You truly believe it is possible?”

  “I know it is. I would stake my life on it. I have staked my life on it.”

  Robin squeezed eyelids tight when she saw the blaze of hope dawning in black eyes. And this—the man you’ve just shown yourself to be, Dr. Michael Stewart—is why, wherever I go from here, whatever happens this day, I will love you until the day I die!

  Michael was now rising to his feet. “In any case, the blood of those who died, even in that unintended explosion, is on the hands of Mulroney and Wamba and Makuga, not yours. Nor is it your decision or theirs when it is another person’s time to step into eternity. Their Creator holds each person’s life and death in his hands. But to make a stand against evil is always the right decision, whatever the ­consequences. To surrender will only embolden evil. The only way to truly end this bloodshed is to stop Mulroney and his cohorts once and for all.”

  Michael slung a repacked medical bag to his shoulder. “So can you move now, Joseph? Has that painkiller kicked in?”

  Slamming shut the briefcase, Joseph probed gingerly at his bandages. Michael had not engineered this hiatus just to tell Joseph’s story, Robin realized suddenly, but to give him time to tend the rebel leader’s wounds. “It will do. We have lost too many hours already.”

  As the young man rose, a companion hefted Joseph’s briefcase while another scooped up the lantern. Robin scrambled to her own feet. “Wait! Where are you going? What are you planning to do? Michael, you can’t possibly be thinking you can somehow take on Mulroney yourself!”

  Though Michael swung immediately toward Robin, it was Joseph who spoke up. “We must hurry because it was not my own needs for which we sought Dr. Stewart this night. This wound—” the rebel leader touched his bandage—“would have sent me falling to my death had not the boy Jacob pulled me to safety. He carried me to hiding among the treetops. Applied leaves and mud to stop the bleeding. Tended me until I recovered thought. But in the effort, his own injuries were torn open again. He has lost much blood. And another companion who remains to care for Jacob was also shot by your ­fighters. He will live but cannot travel far until the bullet is removed.”

  So these were the very men who’d been hiding in the sunken barge. Ernie Miller’s report bolstered Joseph’s story. But it also jogged a sudden unpleasant reminder in Robin’s thoughts. “Michael, you can’t go out there now! You don’t know—”

  Michael didn’t know because it was an Ares Solutions operational secret. For one long moment, duty and training warred against urgency in Robin before she burst out, “Wamba’s men and the Ares Solutions team will be closing in around the mine at dawn. Anyone left inside their perimeter—well, let’s just say Makuga’s threat yesterday was not entirely a bluff!”

  “So what are you suggesting? That I leave a boy to bleed out inside a kill zone to protect my own skin? If you’re really so concerned, maybe you should do something to call off your pals.” Michael’s tone hardened as he adjusted the medical bag’s strap over his shoulder. “Question is, what are you planning to do, Robin Duncan? You’re the one with a decision here. You know the truth now. If your loyalty still lies with your mission and your contract after everything you’ve heard, you’ve forfeited any right to know where we’re going or what we’re planning!”

  “So what then?” Robin held up her bound hands. “You’re just going to leave me here like this?”

  Michael’s mouth tilted downward at a panicked note in her voice. “No, but if you don’t mind—or even if you do—I think I’ll borrow these. I’m not quite as good in the dark as this bunch.”

  Plucking the night vision goggles from her head, he looked at Joseph. “I’d like to make sure Ms. Duncan here is returned to a place of safety. Can you spare someone to lead her back to Taraja?”

  “Of course. Nathaniel will return her safely. But I had hoped she too would be willing to help us.” As Joseph signaled to the youth who’d guided Michael, he held out a palm to Robin. In it lay the cell phone and flash drive.

  “Ms. Duncan, my father’s message declared you were a friend to Michael Stewart. I had hoped once you learned the truth, you would be a friend to us. Since Dr. Stewart must come with us, I had thought you instead could ensure this information reaches the right ears and eyes outside the Ituri. It is time the truth was released.”

  Caught off guard, Robin stared at Joseph’s palm as though it contained deadly venom. Seeing her consternation, Michael spoke up harshly. “No one’s asking you to breach your conscience here, Robin. Just take those to Miriam or Ephraim and ask them to get that intel to my BBC pal in Bunia. For any friendship we’ve ever had, will you do that much? I’d do it myself once I tend to Jacob, but . . .”

  But you’re not sure you’ll have the opportunity! The realization was a stab to Robin’s heart even as she snatched the two items from the rebel leader’s palm. “I never said I wouldn’t. What kind of person do you think I am?” Robin addressed Joseph. “I don’t know what I can do about tomorrow’s assault. But I’ll take a look at this. If it’s what you say, I will make sure it reaches Michael’s BBC friend, if I have to take it there myself.”

  With a nod, Joseph took the bow and arrows from Nathaniel’s grip and slipped forward into the night. As his two companions followed, the fluorescent lantern blinked out, leaving only the small flashlight Nathaniel still carried to leaven the pitch-black of an underground cavern—or a jungle floor at night.

  Michael lingered. “Thank you, Robin. I knew I could count on you. Here’s the name and Skype address of my BBC pal, in case Miriam can’t find it at hand.”

  Scribbling swiftly with a pen and notepaper taken from his medical bag, Michael lifted flash drive and cell phone from Robin’s bound hands, tucking the items and note into her knapsack before handing the bag to Nathaniel. As the guide shouldered it, Michael went on quietly. “Look, you’ve made clear you’re a big girl and make your own decisions. So I’m not trying to tell you what to do so long as you keep your word to get that intel into the right hands. But if you do believe Joseph, I hope it’s crossed your mind that letting Mulroney know you’re now in on the truth might not be the wise thing.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Robin answered steadily.

  Michael’s mouth quirked. “Yeah, I know. Just those protective instincts kicking in. Speaking of which, would you mind keeping one eye out for Miriam and Ephraim until I get back?”

 
; Robin nodded. “You know I will. Nothing is going to come back on your family because of this. On that I’ll stake my own life.”

  Michael stepped closer to Robin. So close another inch forward would have been an embrace. Looking deep into Robin’s upraised eyes, he answered quietly, “Yes, I know you will. As I know just what kind of person you are, maybe better than you know yourself. Watch your back, Robin Duncan. Until we meet again.”

  Nathaniel had stepped away, the penlight probing the brush. In the dark, a hand passed over Robin’s hair, her face. Was that the lightest brush of warm, firm lips across her cheek? Then Michael tugged night vision goggles into place, swung around.

  An instant later, even his footsteps had disappeared as though they’d never been.

  Trevor Mulroney did not consider himself a greedy man.

  Desperate, yes.

  “Are you all idiots down there, incapable of running an op without me standing over you?” he snapped into his satphone. “Whose call was it to blow up that barge, anyway? If this was your doing, Krueger—”

  “It was no one. An unforeseeable accident. Or maybe Jini wired it to blow when we got too close. We’re still not sure what set it off.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s your job to foresee things,” Mulroney cut into his mission overseer’s defensive protests. “Consider yourself relieved of operational command as soon as I get there.”

  The barge’s loss was the final straw that had Trevor Mulroney canceling nightclub reservations with a Swedish model to charter the Gulfstream jet in which he’d just flown from London to Nairobi. A charter paid for by one more juggling of corporate credit cards. The first hundred tons of molybdenum ore had been irretrievably scattered across rainforest canopy when Jini’s insurgency blew up the road. But Mulroney had counted on raising the sunken barge cargo the moment Jini’s capture brought peace. If not enough rhenium to pay off this entire operation, it would be ample to stave off creditors until the mine was producing again. The measly twenty tons that would be returning with Trevor Mulroney in this same jet’s cargo hold would not keep Earth Resources afloat till the end of the week.