Congo Dawn Read online

  Robin lingered in the shadows between tents to snap photos as steps unfolded from the fuselage and Trevor Mulroney descended from the plane. But others were already hurrying forward, including Pieter Krueger and Samuel Makuga. Just seeing Makuga after what she’d witnessed on those videos roiled Robin’s stomach. But she maneuvered near enough for several close-ups of Trevor Mulroney greeting the Ares Solutions mission chief and Congolese field commander. She’d just angled around for a single snapshot of the regi­stration number on the Gulfstream’s tail when her phone rang, its generic ringtone loud enough in the darkness to jerk every head in her direction.

  Including Trevor Mulroney’s.

  Robin fumbled to slide her digital camera discreetly into one pants pocket while sliding her cell phone out of another. Had her employer seen the camera? It doesn’t matter! He’s got zero reason to suspect you of anything! Unless you draw attention by acting like you’ve got a guilty conscience!

  And certainly Trevor Mulroney and his companions were already turning away as Robin strolled casually back toward her tent, cell phone to her ear. She ducked inside before breathing into the phone, “This is Robin Duncan.”

  “Alan Birenge here. You said there was video. I need it.”

  Robin settled herself on the cot where the iPad’s screen still glowed against the dark. “The files were too big for e-mailing.”

  “Then upload them to YouTube and send me the link. Can you do that?”

  “I’ve never done it. But I’ve put video clips on Facebook.” One of the ways she’d let Kristi share her travels. Robin checked to make sure the wireless connection had not been affected by her iPad’s tumble to the ground. No, it was still connected. “I assume YouTube is similar?”

  “Actually, if you’re accustomed to using Facebook, you can upload the clips there and send me a friend request. If I’m to make a case against Mulroney, I need that clip showing Wamba’s second in command to prove those weren’t just random insurgents. And something, anything connecting this Makuga with Trevor Mulroney.”

  “Actually, Trevor Mulroney just arrived. I got a couple shots of him speaking with Samuel Makuga.” Robin was already reconnecting her camera to her iPad. “I’ll send them right away.”

  “Good. Because I was wrong about ever being handed a story more explosive than this one. Those lab reports alone have staggering political implications. International markets will have a field day on this. As to a Fortune 500 CEO with aspirations of British knighthood being tied to war atrocities and a plot to steal billions in mineral wealth from a friendly government—that’s TNT! If I can get that final intel, this will be on every cable news channel and head-of-state desk in the industrialized world by morning. Which reminds me, I’d suggest getting yourself well away from there before this all hits the fan. What you’ve sent me confirms my own experience of how far Mulroney and Wamba both will go when anything gets in their way. I’ll do what I can to scramble a relief force over there. Meanwhile, just lay low.” He paused briefly. “Got a call coming in. You upload that last intel right away. I’ll call back to let you know I’ve got it.”

  As the line went dead, Robin lowered her phone, unease growing in her stomach. In carrying out Joseph’s request, she’d anticipated initiating some sort of official investigation, not a global news blitz. Though Trevor Mulroney currently had no reason to suspect what Robin was up to, once Joseph’s evidence hit news channels, Carl Jensen at least would guess immediately who was responsible. And it was wishful thinking that he wouldn’t mention seeing a certain female team member with the very same video clip or rhenium yield graph.

  Carl Jensen was not proud of what he’d done, but neither was he particularly ashamed. A besetting curiosity had propelled him to his current position in life and was a chief reason he’d been chosen for this assignment. The video clip he’d glimpsed on Ms. Duncan’s iPad had roused avarice if only because he’d seen nothing similar in his footage of yesterday’s dawn raid, from which the clip appeared to have originated.

  Some operative’s personal memento, undoubtedly, of this mission’s most extreme action sequence to date. And not Ms. Duncan since she hadn’t participated in the village raid. Carl could track down the operative’s identity, ask for a copy. But how much simpler to surreptitiously copy the files to his own hard drive while transferring them to Ms. Duncan’s iPad.

  Carl resisted a glance at the new intel until he’d finished his current task, tapping a foot to the hip-hop rhythm blasting through his earbuds. So long as the remaining knots of human heat signatures did not move again before morning, his coordinates would have a team of Ares Solutions operatives and their local allies in place to hit each at dawn. If, like last night’s barge fugitives, they retreated into the canopy, Carl would track them like an electronic hound after rodents and call in the Mi-17s. This was more fun than video games, if a million times more expensive.

  That his targets were flesh and blood didn’t enter Carl’s calculations. This was how he preferred his involvement with humanity. At a safe distance. Behind the clean shield of a computer screen. Not like that horrible mob attack at the Bunia airport, which his pity for a human child had sucked him into. A blunder that reinforced why mathematical calculations based on ample and accurate data were a far more reliable basis for life’s decisions than emotion.

  When he finally turned his attention to the new video, it took only a few frames to recognize this footage had not come from the recent Ares Solutions dawn raid, however similar its rainforest village backdrop. Nor were the tactics such as any private military company would authorize.

  Carl froze the final video clip on a close-up of Samuel Makuga. On a neighboring screen, he started a Google search. There were advantages to possessing a photographic memory. But the opening lines of that report Ms. Duncan claimed to have pulled from an Internet search produced no results. Nothing even similar.

  Carl stared at the screen contemplatively before removing his earbuds to replace them with a Bluetooth headset. “Uncle Howard? Carl here. Yep, everything’s on schedule. Yes, package is still working fine. You’ve received the intel reports? No, actually, that’s not why I’m calling. Is there something out here you haven’t filled me in on? Something dealing with—say, the subject of rhenium?”

  If silence was the Bluetooth’s only response, the same could not be said from behind Carl. A clang of the trailer door slamming shut was not as loud as the furious roar that followed.

  “What did you just say?”

  Robin prepared a fresh e-mail to Alan Birenge with the latest photos, then opened her Facebook account. She sent off the friend request before selecting Joseph’s two video clips to upload into a new video album. But she did not immediately click on the upload icon or send the waiting e-mail.

  I don’t have to do this now. If I hold off sending these last photos and that video clip Carl Jensen saw until I’ve put myself out of Trevor Mulroney’s reach, there won’t be enough to connect me. Or for that matter, for Alan Birenge to convince his superiors to run the story before I’m safely away. The C-130’s making another cargo run tomorrow. I could put in my resignation, fly out to Bunia, then send it from there. Or even from the air once I’ve booked a flight across the border.

  Surely Michael, Joseph, and the BBC journalist, too, would understand if they knew the risk. After all, beyond any threat to herself, Robin had to think of Kristi and Kelli, for whom Robin was the sole means of support.

  The worst was that she’d no doubt the others would agree her safety was a top priority. But that was also a coward’s way out. Nor could Robin be confident that time remained for such dawdling.

  Michael asked how I could expect him to think of his own skin if it meant abandoning Jacob out there in the rainforest. What if delaying this story places Michael and Jacob and Joseph and the others in greater danger? I have no idea what strings Alan Birenge thinks he can pull. But if he’s to have any hope of scrambling some kind of relief force before tomorrow’s assault, h
e needs this intel tonight. So how can I even factor in some hypothetical risk to my own safety?

  Despite the heat of the jungle night, Robin found she was shivering slightly as her hand remained poised above the iPad screen. Not even in a combat zone in Afghanistan could she remember feeling this alone and unsure.

  No, admit it—you’re just plain scared! In Afghanistan, Robin had never been alone. Always she’d been able to count on her fellow Marines to have her back. And behind them, if necessary, was the entire might of her nation’s formidable armed forces.

  Here Robin was entirely on her own, her enemy the very leadership in whom she’d placed her trust.

  But was she truly so alone?

  Robin abruptly brushed the screen, but to neither the Facebook upload link nor her e-mail. Instead she restored the Scripture passage that had been on the screen when her iPad had toppled from the cot.

  “We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts. . . . When we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. . . . While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

  Robin dropped her hand, squeezing her eyes shut in an attitude of prayer. God, if you’re listening—no, I know you’re listening! It’s just that I feel so powerless right now. If anything in my life has produced an ounce of perseverance or character, I’m not seeing it. I’ve been so angry with you for so long! I’ve yelled at you and begged you to do what I want. But what I haven’t done is trust that you know what you’re doing in my life. That whatever it is you are doing is because you love me so much.

  Right now I’m so afraid. Afraid of making the wrong choice. Afraid of what will happen to Kristi and Kelli if something happens to me. Afraid of what will happen to Michael, to Joseph and Jacob and Miriam and Ephraim and the others if I don’t act.

  And I’m so tired of being afraid. Even more tired of feeling I always have to be brave and independent and self-reliant because I’m the only one I can count on. I’m not sure I’m quite ready for what Miriam and all those verses had to say about rejoicing in suffering. But what I do choose at this moment is to place my trust in you. To trust the truth of “Yesu anipenda”—“Jesus loves me.” To trust also your love for Kristi and Kelli and . . . well, anyone else I love. You hold them in your hands. And whatever happens this day, I choose to entrust their future into your care. Give me the courage to do now what I know you’ve called me to do, whatever the consequences turn out to be for me or anyone else.

  Robin’s surrender evoked no thunderous reply from heaven, no brilliant white light. She hadn’t expected it. But neither was she prepared for the profound calm settling over her so that she was no longer afraid. A breeze had inserted itself through the dangling flap of the tent. Even as it brushed cooling fingers over Robin’s heated face, some long-frozen core deep within Robin’s heart unlocked, flooding her with such a gentle realization of love and warmth and comfort that she might have been wrapped in the embrace of her mother’s arms.

  God’s arms.

  I am not alone. Yesu anipenda, this I know.

  Opening her eyes to the waiting iPad screen, Robin hesitated no longer. A swipe on the screen brought up her e-mail, where she composed a quick note to Birenge and hit Send. Then to her Facebook page. She tapped again to upload the first video clip.

  But a moment later she stared with dismay at the notification on the screen: Access denied.

  “And just who are you speaking to?” Trevor Mulroney fumed even as shuffles and knocks outside the trailer swung him back around. He’d instinctively slammed the door in the face of Pieter Krueger and his other companions when he’d heard Carl Jensen’s incredible question. As the doorknob rattled, he reached to lock the dead bolt, calling, “Wait for me at the aircraft. Jensen and I have some communications issues to sort out.”

  The doorknob stopped rattling. Across the trailer, his reconnaissance tech’s mouth hung open, a guilty expression confirming that Mulroney’s ears had not deceived him. With two long strides across the trailer, Trevor Mulroney snatched the Bluetooth headset from Jensen’s head. By then he’d spotted the Google search on one screen, a frozen image of Samuel Makuga on another. Stabbing at a keyboard, he released the image so that the video clip began to play. “What is this? Where could you possibly have got your hands on it?”

  “Hey, y’all, what’s going on over there?”

  Mulroney had no difficulty recognizing the tinny drawl coming from the Bluetooth. “Howard Marshall? Put him on speaker now!”

  As Jensen fumbled to obey, Mulroney demanded, his fury rising, “You want to tell me, Marshall, what you’re doing discussing a certain subject with my tech here? No, let me guess. He’s your man. He’s been your eyes and ears since the beginning.”

  “Hey, you asked for a sneak preview of our latest reconnaissance package,” the Texas drawl reminded. “I had to send someone with it. Better my own nephew than an outsider.”

  “Your nephew!” Mulroney glared at the tech. “So let me guess—he’s in the family business too.”

  A snort through the speaker acknowledged that Mulroney’s gibe wasn’t referencing Marshall Corp, but the less publicized, if well-documented role that powerful clan had played for the last three generations in their nation’s intelligence networks.

  “Not officially. More of a temporary consultant. I sent Carl to handle your reconnaissance package, nothing more or less. Count the occasional intel report as a perk for the considerable investment Marshall Corp has riding on this too. Of more interest is why my nephew has raised that certain subject.”

  “Just what I’m trying to find out,” Mulroney responded grimly. “Jensen, you got an explanation? Where did that Makuga clip turn up? That’s not an Ares Solutions op. And why this particular Google search?”

  Curiosity had replaced guilt in the pale-blue eyes rising speculatively from keyboard and computer screens. “To be honest, I hadn’t realized till now there was anything to explain. The video clip was something our team translator brought in with a bunch of other photos. Asked me to download them from a cell phone. The Google search—well, I happened to see on Ms. Duncan’s iPad a document showing molybdenum and rhenium yields, graphs, that kind of thing. She said it was just some Internet research. Weird thing was the grade of rhenium, ranging around 3 percent. I assumed it was a typo. Except when I tried to verify that document on the Internet, I couldn’t find anything that matched.”

  Jensen shrugged. “Like I said, it didn’t seem like much. But Uncle Howard was adamant to give him a buzz if anything popped out of place. So I did.”

  Trevor Mulroney had gone completely still. But his mind was racing.­ It couldn’t be! Yet what other explanation was there? “Where is Duncan now? No, wait, I saw her outside taking a phone call. Jensen, you got some way here of tracking phone, e-mail, Internet activity? Duncan’s specifically. Say, for the last twenty-four hours.”

  “I can’t access her personal cell phone without some serious hacking. But I can pull up anything done through the Ares Solutions server.” Carl Jensen’s fingers were already typing furiously. “Here we go. She accessed Skype a couple hours back. Would have been right after she had me transfer those images. No actual calls made. Then she got into her e-mail, where she sent a couple messages. Then she spent the next hour or so surfing the Internet.”

  The reconnaissance tech looked up suddenly. “She’s back online right now! Trying to send another e-mail.”

  “Then kill it!” The sharp order came simultaneously from Trevor Mulroney and the Bluetooth speaker.

  Carl Jensen’s fingers danced. “I’ve terminated her access to the server. That last e-mail didn’t make it out, and she won’t be able to get online without reactivating her account.”

  “Good, let’s pull her in, then.” Trevor Mulroney had taken a stride toward the door when he swung back. “No, wait, let me see first what she mailed off earlier. And what
she’s been researching.”

  The first zip file held JPEGs of a rainforest village. Trevor Mulroney’s jaw tightened as he shifted through image after image. It tightened further when another file proved to hold shots of the Ares Solutions encampment itself. But it was a third zip file that left him stunned. How could documents he’d seen last on his desk in London six months ago possibly have found their way into the hands of Lt. Chris R. Duncan in the middle of the Ituri Rainforest? Only one explanation was possible, incredible as it might be.

  “What is it?” Marshall’s voice demanded from the speaker. “Do we have a problem here?”

  “Oh, we’ve got a problem, all right!” Mulroney responded. “It’s bad enough I’m seeing some extremely compromising photos of Wamba’s security ops on our behalf. But that initial report I told you about—well, I’m looking at it.”

  “And just where did that turn up?”

  “Only possibility is the original source. Which is the good news. It means we’re getting very close to accomplishing our mission here.”

  “Not close enough!” the Texas drawl snapped. “Are we going to need damage control? Do I need to call—family contacts?”

  “No!” Trevor Mulroney responded sharply. “Nothing has changed. This is my project, my mission. We have everything under control. Damage completely contained. Matter of fact, I’m expecting our snooping translator to hand us our target by morning.”

  “Good. Because understand—nothing personal, of course—that if you can’t bring these little ‘problems’ under control, I will have to reconsider my own investment in this venture.”

  As the speaker went silent, the pale-blue eyes glanced up again. “Okay, so I know Uncle Howard too well to ask what’s going on here. I gather our pretty female translator has been naughty. But I’m not spotting anything in Ms. Duncan’s browsing history to explain why she’d be suddenly throwing in with the opposition. It’s nothing but a bunch of Bible references. You think the woman’s flipped some kind of religious lid? Developed some sort of guilty conscience about our mission here? Women can be funny about combat missions, collateral damage, all that stuff.”