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  Robin skimmed through the brief chapters, found herself lingering over certain passages, going back to reread again and again. Miriam had called the epistle a treatise on suffering. And certainly, according to background notes, this letter had been written to early Christians undergoing fierce persecution, even martyrdom at the hands of a Roman emperor whose lust for power and violence seemed little different from a modern-day Wamba, Makuga, or Mulroney.

  Yet as Robin pored over the pages, what caught her notice was that its author referenced hope as much as suffering. Starting with the apostle’s­ very greeting: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you.”

  Not just hope. A living hope. Because that hope was made possible through a living Savior, Jesus Christ. And not just a living Savior, a living and powerful God. A little further in that same chapter, the apostle urged, “Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. . . . Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead . . . so your faith and hope are in God.”

  Robin stopped to read over and over chapter 2, verse 9. “You are a chosen people . . . belonging to God . . . who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” There it was—the light in the midst of this horribly dark night!

  Chapter 3 included a reference to Sarah, wife of Abraham, the founding father of the nation of Israel. Peter described her as putting her hope in God, not in the husband who, according to the footnotes on the page, had dumped her twice into a king’s harem to save his own skin.

  “You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear,” Robin read in verse 6. She lowered the worn volume abruptly.

  Do what is right. Robin could hope with all her heart she’d done so in this night’s choices and actions. But to not give way to fear? Robin’s throat was tight with it, her stomach churning, her hands shaking so that she had to be careful not to tear pages as she turned them.

  Robin smoothed the pages flat as she bowed her head above them. Heavenly Father, I definitely don’t deserve to be called Sarah’s daughter because I am so scared! But I pray you will give me the courage you gave Sarah to do the right thing no matter how afraid I am.

  Again there was no audible voice from heaven, but some of that earlier calm Robin had found settled over her, giving her strength of mind to keep reading and rereading. Because Miriam was right that 1 Peter addressed suffering.

  Peter’s mind-boggling command in chapter 1 to rejoice in trials was succeeded by his call in the next chapters to be willing to suffer for doing the right thing.

  “But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. . . . If you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. . . . It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. . . . Since Christ suffered . . . arm yourselves also with the same attitude.”

  Later in chapter 4 came again that mind-boggling command to rejoice: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ. . . . If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”

  Hope.

  Suffering.

  That the author could so easily juxtapose two such concepts was a paradox that still had Robin shaking her head. Until she stumbled upon the promise that made sense of it all. Over and over she read the words until they remained engraved upon her memory.

  “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.”

  Suffering and hope.

  Hope and suffering.

  Not diametrically opposed as Robin had thought all her life, but a beautiful paradox. The paradox that suffering did not after all destroy hope, but that enduring, living hope could be birthed out of the most terrible of suffering. A paradox made possible because suffering was transitory, ephemeral, the shortest of little whiles. While hope—that living hope in a living Savior—hope was forever.

  Robin found that she was brushing dampness from her cheeks as she closed the worn volume and laid it carefully back in her knapsack. She who had prided herself on self-discipline and emotional control had shed more tears since beginning this mission than in the last five years. But she no longer felt shame or weakness at her own vulnera­bility as she lifted her prayer heavenward.

  Miriam was so right! This world isn’t all there is. It’s barely a trial run for what you have waiting for us, heavenly Father. That eternal inheritance Peter talked about that will never perish, spoil, or fade. Even better, a family. Spiritual brothers and sisters like Miriam said, millions of them. But blood family too. All these years I’ve resented that you took my mother and Chris. But they’ll be waiting with Grandma and Grandpa O’Boyle and so many others. And we’ll have all eternity to make up for a few missed decades here.

  Meanwhile, for whatever time we have left on this dark planet, Yesu—Jesus—walks with us, our Light in the darkness. And if that darkness still seems so full of Wambas and Makugas and Mulroneys with their cruelty and their thirst for money and power, it is also filled with so many Miriams and Ephraims and Michaels who have emerged from the furnace of suffering as pure gold. Who are holding high the light of your love in the darkness. I want to be more like them. Maybe I never could be. But right now I ask only that you help me face this coming dawn, face Trevor Mulroney with love instead of hate. Courage instead of fear. Forgiveness instead of anger and bitterness.

  At some point Robin heard the helicopters roaring in overhead. At an even later point she heard them lift off again. Robin would not have thought sleep was possible, but when the rain that had been threatening all evening deepened from a drizzle to a downpour furious enough to shake her prison, she barely stirred. The night had grown quiet again when the locked cabin door slammed open.

  Jerking upright, Robin blinked away drowsiness and alarm as Trevor Mulroney strode through the door. His large frame crowded the small compartment. Robin did not trust the amiability of his smile.

  “On your feet, Duncan. I’ve found a use for you after all.”

  The attacking force was now racing forward. Among them he spotted battle armor, helmets, the knobby shape of night vision goggles that were worn not by militia, but by their mzungu commanders.

  Then, as suddenly as the heavy metal gate panels had clanged shut, they shuddered in obedience to a new command. Only this time it would not be to shut in captives, but to let in that flood of attackers.

  Rage surged where hope had been. His enemies may have sprung their trap. But they’d overlooked one thing. They were not just dealing with Joseph, the eager university student with a lab coat and a dream. They were dealing with Jini, the ghost who’d held superior forces at bay with little more than his brain and a handful of willing hands and feet.

  Rage became immediate action. “Simeon, Jobari, hold them off!”

  The automatic weapons too noisy for guerrilla warfare came off his companions’ shoulders, magazine clips slamming into place. Remaining under cover at either side of the gate, the two men thrust gun barrels through the chain links and opened fire.

  As Joseph had hoped, the advancing line froze. No one in the attack force was volunteering to be among those who would not return to base this day. Not when their enemy was already securely corralled and could not go anywhere. But it would not take long for someone to realize how little ammunition the defenders possessed.

  Whatever mechanism was permitting remote control of the gates had suspended movement with
the first gunfire. Then abruptly the panels clanged shut again. Which allowed Joseph time for the task he’d set himself. Already he had the plastic explosive out of its wrapping and was inserting a detonator with speed gained by months of practice. By then he’d located a small metal box on a gatepost.

  Slapping the plastic explosive against the box, Joseph lit the fuse. “Everyone back! Back!”

  His two companions firing automatic rifles hastily yanked their weapons free of the chain links just as a loud bang left the remote control mechanism dangling free. But at the same moment, Simeon, to Joseph’s left, dropped his weapon, crying out in pain. Almost instantaneously, a second gunshot pinged against the gatepost precisely where Joseph’s hand had been a moment earlier. No machine gun fire, this, but a sniper shot.

  Despair again battled Joseph’s rage. Even if they could hold off the assault, those mzungu warriors out there with their night vision goggles had only to pick off the defenders one by one from a safe distance. And now a long roll of thunder overhead was being drowned out by an escalating roar approaching from the direction of Taraja.

  “Joseph, their helicopters are coming!” Despite his splinted forearm, Joseph’s wounded cousin, Kavuo, had returned his small daughter to his wife and had raced forward to catch Simeon when he stumbled back. “They will be able to shoot us from the air. We must get the people under cover.”

  As Kavuo looked instinctively toward the brush kraal, Joseph shook his head. “No, that will not be defensible. Take them over there. See, where the mzungu doctor is taking Jacob. It is not big. But it will have to do.”

  The Quonset hut that served as headquarters to the foreign mine administrator was designed for the security and comfort needs of such an isolated outpost, its metallic bubble no flimsy aluminum but steel reinforced and insulated against tropical heat or bullet. “The doctor will tend to Simeon. And you, look there too for anything that will help us fight. You know what to do.”

  Yes, his men knew what to do. If only they had time. The running lights of the helicopters were now visible above the jungle canopy. No further shots had come from beyond the perimeter fence, perhaps because the milling crowd inside the gate made it difficult to separate combatant from noncombatant. But the assault force was again advancing across the muddy field, if more warily this time. Easing his assault rifle back through the chain links, Jobari opened fire, but he retreated immediately as a hail of high-powered bullets rattled chain-link fence and gate panels.

  Please, if I had just a little time! An hour, a half hour! A deafening roll of thunder rebuked Joseph’s mental cry as the foolish, useless plea it was. A simultaneous crack of lightning lit up roiling banks of cumulonimbus clouds. Against them, the insect shapes of two helicopters could now be seen skimming the treetops that separated the mine clearing from the river.

  But just when Joseph surrendered himself to despair, as though an almighty Creator truly had heard his plea and leaned down to intervene, the heavens chose that moment to open up, releasing with a whoosh the storm that had been threatening all evening.

  This was not the soft, steady rainfall of earlier that afternoon but blinding sheets of water whipped around by the wind so that visibility was instantly reduced to an arm’s length. Certainly the foreign mercenaries’ night vision goggles would be rendered useless by the storm’s fury. Already the two approaching helicopters had wisely chosen to make a precipitate landing on the far side of the muddy field, outside the perimeter fence. Angry shouts and cursing could be heard as the attacking force retreated to the shelter of tree trunk and rainforest canopy.

  For Joseph, it was all the visibility—and time—he needed. As camp residents scrambled in turn for the shelter of the Quonset hut, Joseph was already racing toward an aluminum awning where he’d earlier noted the mine’s new generator. As he ran, he shouted orders into the wind and rain.

  “Caleb, Nathaniel, search the storage shed for fuel, chemicals. Uncle Kito, Moses, find me carts, logs, brush from the kraal. Anything that can be used to create a barrier wall outside the hut.”

  Ducking under the downspout now pouring water off the aluminum awning, Joseph quickly located the device that had rigged the generator for remote control. Another explosive charge shut down the powerful security spotlights, leaving the mine encampment again in darkness except for scattered fluorescent lanterns.

  One of these permitted Joseph to take inventory of the drums and barrels his companions were already rolling from the storage shed. Ammonia. Sulfuric acid. Casks of aluminum sulfide crystals. A wise enemy would have removed such dangerous materials. But perhaps there had not been time or room on the helicopters.

  Or perhaps they simply were not aware how much Joseph could accomplish with such a bonanza. Kavuo rushed up, brandishing a bottle of French brandy. “Will this help? I found two cases inside the mzungu overseer’s quarters. And a crate of lamp oil.”

  “It is perfect. Though we will need more glass containers if you can find them.”

  Men were now trundling handcarts with the first load of brush and logs. Braving the soaking deluge, women and older children pitched in to pile it chest high, leaving a space between barrier and Quonset hut. If they could get enough firing blinds into place, they would not be reduced to cowering inside but could mount a 360-degree defense around the base of the hut. Under shelter of the generator’s aluminum awning, two of Joseph’s own band were already funneling a mix of generator fuel and brandy into glass bottles.

  Entering the Quonset hut, Joseph found a better fortress than he’d hoped. Supply crates and bunks lined the walls, and several village men had taken the initiative to remove mattresses, propping them between bunks and walls as additional fortification against gunfire. Women were unpacking crates. Joseph’s defense force snatched up jugs of cooking oil. But canned meat, bottled water, boxes of MRE packets were passed among hungry prisoners. Dumping out jelly, Joseph confiscated its glass jar. “Bring me empty water bottles as well. We can use plastic if we do not have enough glass.”

  He’d hoped for more weapons and ammunition, even explosives used for dynamiting ore. But these at least the evacuating mine security had thought to take with them. By now Michael had unearthed the first aid supplies, and a neat white bandage wrapped Simeon’s left shoulder. Jacob lay on a bottom mattress, an IV bag suspended above him from the upper bunk, its tubing already threaded into one of his veins. To Joseph’s relief, his nephew was recovering consciousness. But moans of pain and restless tossing made this more a drawback than a gain.

  At his side, Michael was applying a tourniquet to his own arm. He raised his voice to explain above the din of rain on the metal roofing. “I’m a universal donor—type O. Find me a couple volunteers to hold him still.”

  As Joseph motioned a pair of women over from the food supply, Michael shifted from Swahili to English, ensuring private conversation. “Joseph, you must understand I’ve been a soldier. I know what you can do with all this material. But even if we might be able to hold them off temporarily, once this rain calms down and they can move freely again, sheer mathematics guarantees we’ll eventually be overrun.”

  We, he’d said, not you. An emotion that was not rage surged in Joseph. “I know these things. But we must defend ourselves. We cannot surrender now. You know Trevor Mulroney will never let us go free.”

  “We can defend ourselves. But we won’t win. I know those men out there. Not Wamba and Makuga’s troops, but the mzungu mercenaries. They know what they’re doing and they’re armed for full-out war. You’ve made it this far by attack-and-run guerrilla tactics. But there’s no way we can fend off a full frontal assault.”

  “I know that, too. Why do you think I am preparing for a siege? But I do not wish the others to know how hopeless it is. There is no reason to frighten them further before it is time.”

  “Time is all we need. Nor is this hopeless. We can’t fight these guys off. But we can delay them long enough to give my friend Alan Birenge more chance to act. Because I ref
use to believe Robin Duncan has not done what she has promised. And I know Birenge. If he thinks I’m in trouble, he won’t care who he’s got to roust out of bed to send the cavalry riding our direction. We just need to buy him all the time we can. And for that I’ve got an idea.”

  “I’m listening.”

  When the mzungu doctor finished explaining, Joseph shook his head in disbelief. “Michael, you would do this? To work, it would have to be real. The risk—”

  A gesture of tourniquet-wrapped arm cut him off. “Joseph, even when I was a soldier, I was a healer, not a killer. Those men out there—they are not all evil. Many too have families, dreams of peace. Though I cannot stop you, I will not take up arms to fight and kill them. But this—yes, this I will do gladly. For this boy. For you and for your father, who was friend to my father and grandfather. For your families, the people of the Ituri whom I also love. Maybe it won’t work. I’ll take that risk. But if my read on those mzungus Trevor Mulroney has working for him isn’t totally off the wall, it might buy us the time we need.”

  The rage was gone now. Was it hope that stirred again within?

  Not just hope, but something more powerful. Michael had ­spoken of love. Such love as had filled Joseph’s own heart when he’d begun this journey. A love that had turned with betrayal to equally fervent hate. A hate that had consumed him until its weight had grown heavier than he could bear.

  And now here was one of the mzungus against whom his heart had raged. And the love of which this man spoke was not just a word but shone in light-colored eyes so different from his own, breathed in the sincerity of every word.

  On impulse Joseph leaned in, taking care not to disturb IV tubes and tourniquet, to give the mzungu doctor an embrace such as he would have given a countryman, a family member. He shook his head again in disbelief, but a shedding of despair had brought the glimmer of a smile to his own black eyes.