by James Morcan
At some point the order came from the vehicle’s driver to remove Nine’s blindfold. One of Nine’s traveling companions removed it immediately.
Nine saw he was traveling in an open-top, military-style Jeep. Three armed rebels sat with him in the back and he counted two more rebels up front, including the driver. The three in the back looked at him dispassionately. He guessed they’d just as soon slit his throat as deliver him to wherever it was they were going.
The former operative glanced at his watch. It was close to midnight. That didn’t leave much time for what he had in mind.
52
Finally, the vehicle broke clear of the jungle and entered a clearing that was home to a force of a hundred or so rebels. Nine guessed they were members of Lusambo’s Mai Mai militia.
The camp had a temporary look about it. Living quarters were comprised of tents that were lined up in rows, military fashion. An assortment of armoured vehicles and light artillery pieces were parked in between the tents. Camouflage netting covered the entire encampment, keeping it hidden from any aircraft that may be looking for it.
Through the rain, half a dozen sentries could be seen patrolling the camp’s perimeter. There was no sign of the others. Nine assumed they were either sleeping or away on patrol. The camp itself was a quagmire of mud and slush.
The Jeep Nine travelled in stopped outside the biggest tent. It was in the center of the encampment. A towering, stern-faced Congolese man emerged from the tent, yawning. Two sentries standing guard outside the tent snapped to attention when they saw him.
Nine didn’t need to be told that he was looking at Captain Undo Lusambo.
The captain motioned to the rebels in the back of the Jeep to bring the visitor to him and he disappeared back inside the tent.
Twenty seconds later, and mercifully out of the rain, Nine found himself standing before Lusambo. The captain was flanked by two lieutenants. A woman was fussing around at the back of the tent, boiling water over a gas stove. Lighting in the tent was supplied courtesy of kerosene lamps, which hung from the tent poles.
“Captain Lusambo at your service,” Lusambo said in perfect French. “You will join me for tea I hope?” The captain threw a towel at his guest.
Nine was a little taken aback. “Ah, thank you, yes.” He used the towel to dry his face and hair.
Lusambo dismissed his lieutenants then sat down on one of three folding chairs that had been set up. Smiling, he motioned to Nine to sit down. “And what should I call you Mister…Williamson?”
Nine had the good grace to look embarrassed as he sat down facing the rebel leader. “Ted Williamson’s an assumed name. I am Sebastian Hannar.” Even though it went against his training, he somehow felt it proper to use his real name. It felt good to not have to lie about who he was and he hadn’t been able to do that for some time.
The two men stared at each other, each assessing his opposite. Nine was impressed by what he saw. At six foot seven, Lusambo made an imposing figure. Not even his loose-fitting camouflage fatigues could hide his strong physique, and his intelligent eyes appeared all knowing.
Lusambo was similarly impressed. He liked the look of this green-eyed white man who had risked his life to seek him out and journey to his camp in the middle of the night. The captain assumed Nine must have pressing business to attend to and looked forward to hearing what he had to say.
They were interrupted by the woman Nine had seen earlier. She held a tray supporting three mugs of tea and a plate of plain biscuits. A refined-looking, statuesque woman, she smiled lovingly at Lusambo who gave her a playful slap on the rump as he took one of the mugs from her.
“Meet Leila, my sweetheart, Mister Hannar,” Lusambo announced proudly. He used the term sweetheart loosely: Leila was his wife, though Nine had no way of knowing that.
Nine nodded at Leila as he took the other mug of tea from her. He was immediately struck by her beauty and wondered where she came from. She was quite different to the Congolese women he’d seen.
Leila smiled politely and sat down on the other side of Lusambo. It was evident she was a party to all his business dealings.
Lusambo noted Nine’s interest in his wife. “She is from South Sudan,” he said. He’d switched to English in deference to his wife for that was her second language behind Arabi. “She saved my life once and so I have devoted my life to making her happy.” He squeezed her hand and she reciprocated.
Leila turned to Nine. “Are you married, Mister Hannar?”
“Please call me Sebastian. Yes I am married- -”
“I’m sure Sebastian has not come all this way to discuss his home life, my dear,” Lusambo interjected.
“Well, that’s not quite true,” Nine ventured.
The Lusambos looked at their guest, surprised.
Nine proceeded to tell them why he was there. Starting with Francis’ abduction and ending with his arrival at their camp deep in the Congo jungle, he left nothing out.
When he’d finished, he opened the travel bag he’d brought with him and pulled out the confidential file on Omega’s secret medical lab upriver from the camp. He selected a stack of grizzly photos of the lab’s medical subjects – mainly African children – who had been disfigured by scientific experiments, and handed them to the couple who then studied them in silence.
Leila was clearly shocked by what she saw. Her reaction was one of a mother’s compassion for her children. She expressed her horror at what was going on at the lab and her heartfelt sympathy for Nine’s situation.
Captain Lusambo’s reaction was totally different. He’d heard thousands of sad stories over his lifetime. Nine’s story was sad, but almost everyone in Africa had a story as sad, or sadder. Lusambo just wanted to know where he and his militia fitted in to Nine’s sad story, and how well they’d be paid. So he asked exactly that.
Nine explained what he had in mind.
53
Lusambo heard him out. When Nine had finished, the captain asked: “So let me see if I have this right. You want me and my men to risk our lives to attack Carmel Corporation’s refinery upriver and rescue your son. Am I correct so far?”
Nine nodded.
The captain continued, “And will you pay us a hundred thousand Yankie dollars with another hundred thousand on top if we get your son out alive?”
Again Nine nodded.
Lusambo looked thoughtfully at Nine as he considered the proposal. He suddenly looked over his shoulder and shouted, “Arcel!”
One of the sentries Nine had seen earlier entered the tent. “Yes Captain.”
Lusambo snapped an order at the sentry in Swahili. The sentry disappeared, returning a minute later with the two lieutenants who had been there when Nine had arrived. Lusambo then conferred with his lieutenants in Swahili, not realizing that Nine was able to follow the gist of their conversation.
Nine was able to deduce that Lusambo was relating his business proposal to the men and asking for their opinion. It seemed they liked the idea of adding one to two hundred thousand American dollars to the militia’s coffers, but they didn’t like the risks involved. This is not going well. Nine’s hope began to fade when he realized Lusambo shared their opinion.
After a few minutes, the captain dismissed his lieutenants then turned to Nine.
“Let me save you the trouble,” Nine said. “Your men think it’s too risky and you agree with them.”
Lusambo assumed Nine had just deduced that from their tone of voice. He didn’t contradict his guest.
Nine asked, “Is it the money? I am open to negotiation.”
The captain shook his head. “It’s not the money. Even a million dollars wouldn’t change anything.”
Lusambo said the refinery was heavily defended by armed mercenaries hired by the Government. He went on to explain how the rebels couldn’t match the mercenaries’ superior firepower and how his men were largely limited to surprise hit-and-run raids on smaller targets. “Besides,” he said, “the refinery is not a prio
rity target for us. Even if we were able to over-run it, we could never hold onto it. The Government would send its troops in and we would be annihilated.”
“But I’m not asking you to hold onto it,” Nine said. “All I’m asking is for enough men to force our way onto the premises, find my son and get out quick. The whole thing could be over in fifteen minutes or less.”
“I’m sorry Mister Hannar.” Lusambo stood up, indicating the meeting was over. “I won’t order my men on a suicide mission. Not for any amount of money.”
Nine was beginning to feel desperate. He’d been relying on securing the support of Lusambo’s militia. He had no Plan B.
Sensing his despair, Leila touched his arm. “I am sorry, Sebastian. If my husband could help you, he would.”
Realizing he was beaten, Nine stood up and faced Lusambo. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. The captain’s mind was obviously made up.
Lusambo handed the photos back to Nine.
“No you keep them as souvenirs,” the former operative said.
Lusambo handed the photos to Leila then ordered his lieutenants to arrange for Nine to be returned to the boat that was waiting to take him back to Kindu. Turning back to his guest, he said, “I wish you well, my friend.”
“And you,” a disconsolate Nine said. He smiled at Leila and followed the lieutenants out of the tent into the rain.
One of the lieutenants blindfolded the visitor, then he and his comrade bundled him into the back of the same vehicle that had brought him to their camp. From the opening of their tent, Lusambo and Leila watched as the vehicle drove off.
The drive back to the boat seemed to take forever. Nine was feeling even more disconsolate by the time he reached the jetty. Without the firepower the rebels could have supplied, he knew he didn’t have a hope of even finding Francis let alone rescuing him.
Nine belatedly remembered the ten thousand dollars he’d paid Lusambo’s men earlier as a down-payment for the militia’s services. He put that out of his mind immediately. It seemed unimportant now.
As he boarded the boat, he felt as though he was in a trance. His mind and body were just going through the motions.
Minutes later, sitting alone, drenched and blindfolded in the darkness of the cabin below deck, he thought of Francis and silently wept.
54
As Nine was being ferried back to Kindu, Leila lay wide awake next to her husband in their jungle tent. Images of the disfigured children in the photos Nine had left behind kept running through her mind like some horror movie.
Finally, Leila arose from the bed mat and retrieved the photos she’d left on one of the folding chairs. After lighting a kerosene lamp, she sat down and began looking through the photos again.
“What is it?” Lusambo asked from across the tent.
“Nothing, dear. You go back to sleep.”
Moments later, loud snoring told Leila that her husband had heeded her advice.
Leila cried tears of anguish as she studied the gruesome photos. The skin of one colored African boy had been turned white; the skin of a European girl had been turned black; another young African boy had the facial features of an old man and yet another had a third eye inserted in his forehead. The eye looked to be in working order though there was no way of knowing if that was the case.
Leila was about to return to bed when a photo of yet another young African boy caught her eye. She’d overlooked it earlier because it had been stuck beneath a larger photo. Leila lifted the photo up to the lamp and studied it closely. She let out a scream of recognition. “Sonny!”
Alerted by his wife’s scream, Lusambo jumped to his feet, revolver in hand. “What is it?”
At the same time, the two sentries on duty outside the tent burst in, rifles at the ready.
“Undu, it’s Sonny!” She held the photo up to her husband’s face.
Lusambo snatched the photo from her and studied it by the light of the lamp. He recognized the boy in the photo. It was Sonny, his nephew and his late sister’s only child. The boy had been abducted and his mother raped and shot when another Mai Mai militia group had raided their village two years earlier. Sonny was seven when he was taken.
“Oh, Indu! We must rescue him!” Leila implored. “We owe that much to Grace.” She referred to the woman who was Sonny’s mother and Lusambo’s older sister.
Lusambo didn’t need convincing. He’d worshipped his sister until she’d been so cruelly taken from him. Grace had served as a substitute parent after their own parents had died in a malaria outbreak, working hard to ensure there was always food on the table for herself and her kid brother. She’d even put him through school using her own hard-earned wages.
Turning to the nearest sentry, Lusambo said, “Get word to Skipper.”
The sentry knew his boss was referring to the skipper of the boat that was taking Nine back to Kindu.
“Tell him to get his passenger back here quick as possible.”
The sentry left the tent.
Lusambo addressed the remaining sentry. “I’m calling a meeting in the war tent in ten minutes. Alert the men.”
“Yes sir.” The second sentry hurried off, leaving the Lusambos alone for the moment.
Leila looked up at her husband, her eyes full of hope. “God has returned Sonny to us.” She buried her face in his chest.
“Not yet he hasn’t,” the captain said. He knew it would need a miracle to rescue his nephew, but he was prepared to die trying. He owed that much to Grace.
While the Lusambos were thanking God for giving them a sign the boy was still alive, in a nearby tent the camp’s radio operator was talking to the boat’s skipper via radio-telephone. “Yes you heard correct,” the operator said. “The captain wants you to bring the white man back to camp. Over.”
#
The boat had been chugging upriver for the best part of an hour. In that time, Nine had resigned himself to having to find another way to rescue Francis. His mentor’s words kept coming back to him. For every problem there’s always a solution. But try as he may, he couldn’t think of one for this particular problem.
The first he knew something was up was when the boat suddenly turned around. Thirty seconds was all it took the boat to complete the turn. Now, aided by the current, it was speeding back downriver.
“What’s going on?” he asked. Still blindfolded, he couldn’t see a thing. “What’s going on?” he shouted, louder this time.
Nine sensed a presence at the top of the ladder leading down into the cabin. Then a gruff African voice said, “Skipper says he has been ordered to return you to camp.”
The former operative wondered if he was hearing things. “Say again.”
“We are taking you back to camp.”
Those words were music to Nine’s ears and he inwardly rejoiced.
55
For Isabelle and Seventeen, two days had passed without incident since they’d checked in to the exclusive Papenoo River Valley Lodge in Tahiti’s rugged interior. The lodge, which overlooked the river, gave them the privacy they required. And their enforced association had brought about a change in their relationship, too.
The change had been subtle at first. Monosyllabic responses had given way to full sentences and these in turn had evolved into full blown discussions. Their first discussion was more of an argument. It happened on their first night at the lodge and concerned the little matter of Seventeen terminating Isabelle’s parents in France five years earlier.
Though Nine had explained that Seventeen had been under the influence of MK-Ultra mind-control at the time and to this day had no recollection of the incident, Isabelle hadn’t been able to forgive Seventeen. Nor had she forgotten how Nine’s sister had mistreated her when she’d interned her in the CIA detention center after killing her parents.
As for Seventeen, she was still getting over the shock of learning of her past actions. Hearing that she’d killed innocent people had hit her like a bombshell, and she was grappling with learn
ing how to live with herself. She never expected Isabelle’s forgiveness.
It was Isabelle who had raised the delicate topic, asking her minder if she ever had flashbacks to her days as an Omega operative. Seventeen had advised her she did as, to the best of her knowledge, she had only occasionally been in a mind-controlled state. Isabelle had responded sarcastically, suggesting that was very convenient.
The argument that followed had been brief but vigorous. Seventeen had taken issue with the sarcasm and Isabelle had vented the anger she’d built up over the years since the loss of her parents.
Though painful at the time, the argument had cleared the air. It ended in tears with both women consoling each other.
Since then, they were rapidly become inseparable, and not only because they were forced to spend just about every minute of every day in each other’s company. A true friendship was starting to blossom.
Isabelle recognized some of Nine’s traits in her sister-in-law. Like her brother, Seventeen was compassionate and caring, and she had hidden depths that she only revealed to those she trusted.
The Frenchwoman also couldn’t forget that Seventeen had put her life on the line to do Nine’s bidding and come to Tahiti to protect her from the same people who had taken Francis. Isabelle knew enough about Omega to know they wouldn’t hesitate to kill Seventeen if they thought she was preventing them from achieving their aims – whatever those aims were.
Now, as the pair enjoyed a drink beneath the shade of tropical almond trees in the private courtyard of their unit, they discussed the people who were always in their thoughts: Nine and Francis. And as always, Isabelle became emotional when she talked about them.
“I just know something is wrong,” the Frenchwoman said, fondling the ruby that dangled from the end of her necklace. “Sebastian could be dead!” Isabelle began sobbing. “Perhaps Francis is dead, too!”
“I’m sure nothing’s wrong,” Seventeen countered. She put a comforting arm around Isabelle. “I’ll drive into town tomorrow to check my emails. There may be some good news.” Her sister-in-law seemed encouraged by that. Seventeen added, “And if anyone can rescue Francis, Sebastian can.” Her choice of words had a calming effect on Isabelle.
