Congo Dawn Read online

  “Easy, too much flesh on her bones. And the kid’s. They’ve been eating well enough. And I saw the kid pull up her bandage to peek around when you were digging out money. No, they’re pros hitting up foreign arrivals. A blind kid makes a good prop.” Robin shouldered the knapsack she’d abandoned to run to Carl’s rescue. Picked up the water bottle she’d let drop to the ground. “Nor does offering a temporary fix to the lucky few who can squeeze to the front of the begging line do any good in the long term. If you really want to help, you’re better off donating to an aid agency and leaving the handouts to the professionals. Though if you do want to know how to distinguish genuine poverty, just check out that pair. Who, you’ll notice, aren’t asking for a handout!”

  The mob’s retreat now offered a clear view of the market area across the road. The pair Robin had indicated were a middle-aged man and a boy not far short of puberty. The latter looked so much a younger version of his companion that they were undoubtedly father and son. Both balanced on their heads huge bundles of the gnarled, twisted sticks and twigs commonly gathered in the countryside to be sold for cook fires. They wore only ragged shorts, which emphasized protruding ribs, the knobby joints of arms and legs so thin they didn’t appear capable of supporting such a burden.

  The pair’s trudging pace had come abreast of a food stall piled high with small loaf shapes wrapped in banana leaves. Kwanga bread, shaped to imitate the French baguettes favored by the Congo’s Belgian conquerors, but actually made of boiled cassava. Even as a child, Robin had found its slightly fermented taste unpalatable. But the boy’s expression as he eyed the pile showed longing before he quickly looked away.

  The father glanced down at his son, then suddenly stopped in front of the kwanga stall. After a brief conversation with the vendor, the older man pulled a sizable offering of sticks from his bundle. The vendor exchanged a single loaf for the firewood. Stripping the cassava bread of its banana leaves, the older man broke it in two, handing one part to the boy before biting into the other.

  Robin was watching intently enough to catch the exact moment the boy glanced down to realize his father had given him most of the loaf. She didn’t need to hear their conversation to understand the subsequent pantomime. The boy offering the loaf back. The older man shaking his head. The boy’s teeth flashing white against dark features.

  The entire exchange lasted only seconds before the two walked on, balancing their burdens with practiced ease as they crammed food into their mouths. But the boy’s wide grin, the older man’s answering smile, held such love, such an intimacy of parent and child, that Robin pulled her gaze away as hastily as though she’d inadvertently invaded the privacy of another’s home.

  So much love.

  So much hate.

  Which was the real Congo?

  Hate roiled in his stomach, etched acid up his esophagus.

  The watcher turned his head slowly, cautiously. A dozen meters away and slightly below his own elevation, a pair of eyes met his, a head nodded fractionally, the only indication in a tangle of leaves and vines interweaving one tall hardwood with another that other human beings shared this treetop eyrie. Below, the laborers were now finishing their task, the largest rounds that were the felled mahogany’s trunk being rolled arduously across the clearing while the remaining chopped branches were loaded into the cart.

  But the watcher simply settled himself more comfortably along the tree bough. Hours remained before night’s dark cloak would permit the concealed onlookers to make their move. So he turned his head again cautiously to rest his chin against crossed arms. The action brought a strong whiff of human sweat and musk to his nostrils. Would his onetime colleagues ever recognize now the underfed, underclothed savage with a handcrafted bow tucked against his ribs instead of a briefcase, plotting destruction instead of ore-yield graphs?

  The ease with which he’d shed hard-won trappings of civilization had proved almost as distressing as its necessity. Feet once softened by shoes were again so calloused they did not feel the roughness of tree bark and sharp stone beneath them. How quickly he’d adapted once more to the hunter’s stealth that was every village boy’s training for manhood. To eating what he could forage from the forest around him. The weapons he carried had been used by his forefathers long before the first mzungu penetrated the rainforest canopy. Arrows dipped in toxic toad venom. A spear whose hardwood point was as deadly sharp as tempered steel.

  But if he had become once again as he was before, the boy who’d drawn his first breath in this rainforest, the same could not be said for his childhood home. The clearing below differed so completely from the lush, green panorama he’d looked across with his father what now seemed a lifetime past that only the position of that jagged, rocky knoll to his left confirmed this was indeed the place of his birth.

  For one, the clearing had expanded enormously, the majestic hardwoods felled in a growing circumference around the base of the outcroppings. The fruit trees had gone first. Nor were there any longer­ thatched huts, vegetable beds, fruit orchards, banana plants, or corn patches. In their place was one vast field of churned-up reddish mud mounded with piles of gray shale that gave the appearance of some bloody, gangrenous canker eating away at the rainforest. The knoll itself was at least a third diminished as though a dinosaur’s teeth had ripped huge, scattered bites out of it.

  The devastation did not signify a lack of human denizens. At least ten dozen, maybe twice that, swarmed across the mud and over the outcropping’s corroded face. Hacked with pickaxes at boulders loosened by explosives. Hauled heavy rocks in handbaskets and wheelbarrows. Crushed stone with sledgehammers. Sifted the broken rock through screens for uniform fineness. Passed water buckets in a chain from the river.

  Nor were the toilers only male or even all adult.

  In more civilized nations, a similar mining operation would have excavators and backhoes to dig out the ore-laden rock. Conveyor belts to move it. High-powered hoses and vats to pressure wash the ore, siphoning off the lighter slurry for processing into its final lucrative product.

  And in this case a far greater treasure.

  My dream for this place!

  Anguish tightened the watcher’s throat as he remembered the innocence of that dream, his naive assurance that he was bringing prosperity and a future to the people of this place. Was it because that dream had been so innocent, his love so naively sincere, that betrayal had cut so deep, the hate burning his insides so all-consuming? He’d loved his profession. Loved his people. Delighted in the rare opportunity a Creator God had given him to join together those two loves.

  And now?

  He strove to hold on to his fury, his hate. In them was strength. But grief shook him so strongly he buried his face in his arms, willing his body to stillness lest he draw spying eyes. If he could only go back to such loving innocence. Undo the last months. Become again the trusting youth who’d climbed that knoll, thinking only to offer his father the brave new world he’d discovered.

  But his father had of course been right. All his love, his dreams, his trust in strangers—above all, in wealthy mzungu strangers—had been foolishness.

  And now he himself had become a stranger his father would never recognize, never condone, perhaps never forgive.

  The worst was that everything he’d accomplished thus far—what he did here today, all he could ever do—still would not touch his true enemy, sheltered safely, comfortably beyond any reach or real consequences. Like the watcher’s forefathers who’d also fought mzungu invaders in this rainforest, he was simply too small, too weak against such wealth, such globe-spanning might.

  But he could still fight on.

  He could hate.

  And even the sting of a small insect could prove painful.

  The watcher lifted his head, renewed fury and resolve hardening his features to stone behind the mottled camouflage of dried mud and clay. Across the clearing, the last cart of branches was being unloaded onto a pile of lumber, the rest of the laborers
now hard at work chopping the huge rounds of trunk into manageable sections. Another cart trundled away from the woodpile, but now it was mounded high with a shiny, black cargo. It headed for a noisy monster that reared its ugly, metallic head in the center of the clearing.

  The huge machine was the reason for all this devastation. An ancient steam engine, its use of charcoal instead of processed petroleum fuels had circumvented every attempt to shut down the mining operation. Cut off the road, blockade the river, and the mine could continue processing and stockpiling ore as long as said monster supplied energy to those few operational pieces that could not be done by human hands. The final crushing of gravel to dust. The pumps separating slurry from shale. The electricity for a large Quonset hut where those who ran this place spent their days in relative comfort.

  Because charcoal was created from wood. And the rainforest had plenty of that. A rough stone kiln beyond the gate that converted wood to pure, black carbon might have been a tower built to some insatiable pagan god, the smoke of its sacrifices never ceasing day or night. If left unchecked, that bloody, spreading canker below would swallow up not only his childhood home, but all this beautiful green paradise a Creator God had once crafted for man to enjoy.

  But the monster was not today’s objective.

  The watcher was idly following the cart’s progress past the gate area when he saw a sentry patrolling nearby halt in midstride. The guard stooped to pick up something near the toe of his boot. The size of a loaf of kwanga bread, it was thickly coated with the red mud in which it had lain, but a glint of black was visible as the guard turned it over. A chunk of charcoal, undoubtedly, fallen from some passing cart.

  The guard had come to the same conclusion because he took a step toward the moving cart, tossing the muddy chunk onto its load. But even as he did so, the watcher’s breathing stilled. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the piece had tumbled from some other load.

  He knew too well that exact shape and heft because he himself had crafted it. There’d been five such in the palm-leaf bundle. One must have dropped out and been trampled into the mud during that earlier spill.

  No! Turn back! It’s not time yet!

  But the cart had now reached the steam engine. The watcher could only clench impotent fists as the laborers began shoveling its contents into the machine’s fuel hopper. This could spoil days, even weeks of planning.

  Or perhaps it was still possible to adjust his plans to this new turn of events. Taking out the mine’s sole source of power could even prove an advantage. So long as the rest of his arrangements went forward.

  Nothing in all his planning, his training, his experience prepared him for when it happened. The boom sent shock waves that swayed even the branch on which he lay, followed instantly by a thunder that was countless thousands of flapping wings as every feathered creature within hearing took flight. Flames and black smoke boiled up high above the jungle canopy. Then came another explosion and another.

  There was no longer reason to linger. Across the way, a head shot up, eyes met his, then withdrew abruptly into the foliage. A rustle in the canopy around him signified the retreat of his other companions. He, too, needed to make his escape before the mine’s security apparatus scrambled its inevitable response. But the watcher could not drag his eyes from the spreading inferno, close his eyes to the screams that were not only the harsh caws of fleeing birdlife.

  It should have been satisfaction that gripped his soul. Instead he felt only unadulterated horror.

  Ernie Miller, the Vietnam vet, had lingered as Robin and Carl Jensen reentered the hangar to tug shut the rear doors behind them. The guards outside offered no objection, and with prying eyes no longer able to peer inside, the crowded hangar now offered some semblance of privacy. Robin wasn’t the only team member who’d traveled prepared. All over the hangar, trail mix bars and other refreshments, bottled water, even dusty Coca-Cola and Primus bottles from the border crossing were emerging from hand luggage. An iPod blaring South African pop officially kicked off a party.

  Unsurprisingly, Carl headed to a rear corner and pulled out his laptop. Retreating to the opposite corner, Robin untwisted the top from her recovered water bottle, draining half its contents in one long gulp. She’d have given much for a restroom to change into fresh clothing from her duffel bag. Since none was available, she simply used the remaining water in her bottle to sponge face and arms again and slick back red-gold hair under her cap, tightly enough no strand would dare attempt escape.

  But her thoughts were not so easily dominated. And why was that loving glance between father and son proving harder to banish from her mind than the large woman’s screaming hate? What was it about this contract, this place, that was proving so disruptive to the protective shield Robin had so carefully erected around mind and heart over the last five years?

  Or was it just the emotional upheaval of having Michael Stewart intrude into her life again?

  Stuffing the empty plastic bottle into her knapsack, Robin dug out her cell phone. One of the few luxuries with which she’d indulged herself when she joined the private contracting world, liable to be dispatched anywhere on the planet at any time, was a global communications package that combined local cell usage with satellite coverage to permit calling home from virtually any GPS coordinate short of Antarctica. The cell phone screen read almost two hours past noon, and South Carolina was just six hours earlier, so Kelli and Kristi should be up and around.

  Robin hit 1 on her speed dial, but there was no answer. Her sister and niece could be at an early medical appointment. Or Kelli wasn’t near her cell phone. Or she just wasn’t bothering to answer. Robin left a short voice message.

  “Kelli, Kristi honey, just wanted to let you know I’m safe on the ground in Bunia, Congo. I’ll try for a Skype video call just as soon as things are settled down. Love you!”

  Exchanging the cell phone for her iPad, Robin ignored the noise to concentrate on her reading.

  Another hour passed before Trevor Mulroney strode into the hangar. “Okay, boys, party’s over. I do hope you haven’t made yourselves too comfortable, because thanks to the kind intervention of our good friend Wamba—” Mulroney’s mention of the Bunia governor dripped irony—“we’re back on track again. With one slight change in plans. I had the administrator of our molybdenite processing facility here in Bunia cancel your reservations for tonight at one of Bunia’s finer and only hotels. Unfortunately, to avoid any further—shall we say, mis­understandings?—the C-130 will not stop here in Bunia but will be flying directly to our forward operating base for unloading. Which means we need to be there to receive it. And since local air control has not been informed of the C-130’s course change, I’d like to be out of here when they find out we’ve—uh, misinterpreted the scope of our instructions.”

  A few groans greeted the news that a comfortable bed, shower, and hot food were not on the immediate horizon. But expressions were philosophical. These men were soldiers, and part of that vocation was adapting to new variables at a moment’s notice. Tacitly understood was the priority of placing the C-130’s indispensable and expensive mission cargo beyond reach before a certain Bunia authority figure laid greedy eyes and sticky fingers on it.

  “Our own ride should be here any minute. Willem, Marius, you ready to roll?”

  Since these two were the Afrikaner helicopter pilots, Robin could guess just what their “ride” would be. But the Earth Resources CEO elaborated. “Kinshasa is being really sticky right now about freelance aircraft with military applications crossing their borders. Something about all those neighbors who’ve been supplying hardware to the various rebel factions. So we weren’t able to bring in any of Ares Solutions’ own birds. But the local military base here has a couple Mi-17s Wamba’s been willing to let us contract.”

  The Russian-built Mi-17, a duo-prop transport and assault helicopter, was the workhorse of Third World conflicts, the Soviets having sold them by the ton to governments from Afghanistan to the Congo when t
he collapse of their empire left them short of spending cash.

  “We will also have access for the duration to Earth Resources’ own local executive helicopter. The choppers are on their way now over from Wamba’s base. Which leaves a few minutes for a quick strategy meeting. Krueger, you want to show us that map?”

  Bringing out the map Robin had earlier seen him showing Michael Stewart, the South African pushed aside duffel bags and food wrappers to spread it across a makeshift table. As the Ares Solutions team crowded in, Mulroney stabbed at the map with a forefinger. “Okay, this is where we are here in Bunia. This is the Ituri Rainforest. And here’s our ultimate objective.”

  The spread-out map was no tourist guide, but a full-color, high-resolution satellite image. A dark-green mass marked where the plateau on which Bunia sat gave way to rainforest canopy, broken only sporadically by small clearings and the occasional snakelike meandering of streams. If there were trails or roads, they couldn’t be made out through the thick foliage. But where Trevor Mulroney’s forefinger tapped, a cluster of brownish-gray mounds rose above the canopy.

  “If you’ve done your homework, you know these hills are an anomaly in the Ituri Rainforest no one’s ever cared about until a few months back, when they were discovered to be solid lumps of molybdenite. Earth Resources snagged the concession. Unfortunately, some of the locals haven’t been too happy about it, because the mine has come under attack practically since day one. Since enabling foreign investment is in everyone’s best interests, Governor Wamba sent in a sizable contingent of his own troops. They were able to secure the mine well enough. But the insurgents simply melted back into the bush and turned their attention to keeping the processed ore from getting out. Other than by air, there’s only two means of transport from the mine. A single road here—”

  Mulroney’s pen traced an invisible line across the mass of dark green, then pointed out a coiling snake.

  “—or by barge when rainy season makes this river deep enough for passage. To date, there have been two major attempts to move stockpiled ore. The first was by barge. This hit an underground snag that had been booby-trapped with explosives. The barge was sunk, and in fact until it can be removed, the river route is impassable. The second attempt was a convoy protected by Wamba’s troops. There was no frontal attack, just a tree fall across the road. But when the convoy stopped to clear away the tree, its removal triggered explosions along a quarter-kilometer section of road, taking out twelve trucks filled with ore. The worst was that investigation proved the explosives involved were stolen from one of our supply convoys. In all, at least a hundred tons of molybdenum ore were lost in each attack. Not to mention that without considerable reconstruction, which is hard to do under constant attack, the road is now useless as well.