“Is this about Torres?”
“It’s about a lot of things. Mostly it’s about us taking two good shots at this if we need to.”
“That’s what we’re doing. Me and Karskie first. Then you and Neels.”
“It’s got to be me.”
“Why you?”
LB grabbed Wally’s arm to tow him away in the ravine. Neels objected. LB whirled on him.
“Fuck you. Shut up.”
When he’d dragged Wally far enough, LB dropped his voice.
“You’re the captain. You’re my oldest friend. And, yeah, you’re getting married. None of that matters right now. Listen, if we do need backup, you really think that obsessive asshole over there won’t do something nutso? I don’t know what to do with the guy. You stay with him, he respects you. If me and Karskie don’t pull it off, the two of you can get it done. Me? I’ll shoot Neels if you make me stay back with him. I swear. Five minutes in, I’ll shoot him.”
Wally worked his jaw while training his shades on the old ranger. LB tapped his own chest.
“You’ve sent me in a hundred times. I always come back, don’t I?”
Wally made a thirsty, smacking noise. He took a swallow from the canteen on his hip, then offered it to LB, who accepted.
“Give me your radio,” Wally said.
LB took a draft, returned the canteen, then gave Wally the handheld from his vest.
“The missile’s on two hundred sixty-one point one.”
Wally dialed the frequency knob.
“The code is five-four-three-one-zero. Don’t be standing there when you hit zero.”
Wally set the radio in LB’s palm.
“I want a really good wedding present.”
“I’ll stay sober at the reception.”
“Done.”
“Wally.”
“Now what?”
“How about the girl?”
“You trust her?”
LB glanced at Promise, who stood separate from Neels and the big boy. She’d crossed her hands in front of her, hanging her head as if in prayer.
“I don’t know. If she wanted to take off, she’d have done it by now. Keep an eye on her. Keep Neels off her.”
“I’ll try.”
LB and Wally rejoined the others. Karskie left his rifle with Neels; LB refused to be unarmed. Karskie mopped his brow on his bare arm. LB stepped up to him, a fist on the boy’s sloping chest.
“You good?”
Neels spoke for him.
“He’s good.”
This brought a pinched smile to Karskie’s lips.
“I suppose I’m good, then. Shall we?”
Karskie took the first steps. LB joined him.
Like an automaton, Promise fell in behind them. Neels stabbed a finger at the girl, but he aimed his surprise at Wally.
“What the fok is this?”
Wally told Promise to stay back. She shook her head.
“Juma won’t believe you. He will believe me.”
Neels lunged for her.
“You’re going nowhere, you little lafaard.”
Before LB could move, Promise dodged Neels’s grasp. She skipped around him, looking ready to box, on her toes, nimble and resurgent. She spit her words.
“Touch me again, old man.”
LB grabbed her by the back of her tunic. He tugged her off balance, away from Neels, who looked ready to slug her. Wally jumped between them. Karskie flapped his long arms, already frightened, now flustered.
LB swung Promise toward Macandezulo; she stumbled when he let her go. How could he leave her behind with Neels and that amount of hatred? If LB did wind up needing Wally, he’d need the old ranger, too, and fast. Better to separate Neels from the girl, if for no other reason than to keep him quiet.
Besides, she might be right about Juma. LB stomped close. She balled and unballed her hands, leaning as if she might charge Neels, fired up and fed up.
“Stop it.”
Promise throttled her tension back enough for LB to speak in a normal tone.
“You know we’re putting our lives in your hands. Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“My word is not worthless.”
“You’ve broken your word. Recently.”
This slapped Promise, as LB intended. More of the girl’s truculence drained away.
“I know.”
“But now you’re telling me you’ll keep it. That right?”
Promise’s eyes flexed; something behind them snapped into place, hard.
“I will. To Wophule.”
LB eased his own challenging stance.
“What did that mean? What he called you. Lafaard.”
“Coward.”
“He’s not even close. How do you say dickhead?”
“Pielkop.”
“I’ll hang onto that one. Listen to me. This is serious. Juma’s not going to be glad to see you.”
“I know.”
“You keep it together. Follow my lead. Nothing else. Can you do that?”
“I can.”
“We’re there to get rid of that missile. Anything else will have to wait. I know you’re pissed. But I got a mission, and nothing, not me, not you, not Wophule, comes before that. I mean it. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“And let me give you some advice. You got enough to worry about. Don’t make it worse thinking about killing somebody. It’ll take care of itself if he’s that big a creep.”
“I won’t interfere.”
“That as good as I’m going to get?”
“Yes.”
“I guess it’ll have to do. Walk.”
Promise joined Karskie, facing east along the dry creek to Macandezulo. LB left his pack behind and shouldered the rifle. He tossed Wally a thumbs-up. Neels had turned his back.
LB didn’t believe in signs, but buzzards wheeled in the blue distance. What could have died, since he’d seen no animals since crossing the border? LB had been in shit holes before, rescue missions in desert wastes and high, airless buttes; dead salt basins; and frothing oceans. But vacant, sun-warped Mozambique took a spot near the top of the list of forbidding places LB would try to avoid in the future.
He slogged on between Promise and Karskie. The girl spoke first.
“You should not have brought your weapon.”
LB answered, his eyes on the buzzards.
“I disagree.”
“I’ve seen Juma’s men. They’re bushmen. We won’t know when they are close. They may shoot first.”
Again, the girl had a point.
“Karskie.”
“What?”
“What color underwear do you have on?”
“Beg pardon?”
When Promise refused to carry the long stick, she smiled for the first time since dawn. LB couldn’t do it, either, he needed both hands ready. With a hefty sigh, Karskie accepted the added indignity.
The big boy hoisted the branch high into the hot day, his white boxer shorts attached to the end. Advancing through the ravine, Karskie waved the stick back and forth more than necessary. LB focused on the bush and hoped Juma’s men would arrive soon. Karskie muttered a series of poor jokes at his own expense, then hushed. The meager bush sizzled, and their boots kicked red puffs of dust.
LB could not have told how they snuck up on him. Beneath the buzzards and the undershorts, his attention might have waned. But the clack of a bolt sliding a round into a long barrel was unmistakable. LB sensed the crosshairs finding him. He raised his hands before the voice reached out.
“Drop your gun.”
Karskie turned his boxers in the direction of the voice, waving furiously. LB pushed the boy’s arms down.
“That’s enough. Lower it. Jesus.”
Before dropping the stick, Karskie tugged his underpants off the end. Clutching them, he lifted his own hands, oblivious and scared. Promise didn’t raise her arms but keyed in on the exact place where the poachers emerged.
Two dark men appeared behind a large rock, stepping out of the heat ripples above it. Far off, the buzzards circled behind their heads.
One man was small, burdened with an AK-47 that looked too heavy for him. The other, his dark limbs like dead branches, came with a hunting rifle up at his oleo-colored eyes, finger on the trigger. He wore a leopard-pelt poncho.
Beside LB, Promise muttered, “Thank you.”
“Who’re you thanking?”
“The old gods.”
LB had no time to consider this. The leopard-skin shooter advanced quickly, insisting with both his voice and gun that LB drop his own rifle. The little one with the AK-47 seemed to brighten as he approached, smiling at Promise.
With hands still high, LB whispered, “You know these guys?”
“Yes. The tall one, Good Luck, he will die.”
So this was the poacher who’d shot her partner.
Without lowering the hunting rifle from his cheek, the shooter stopped ten strides away. He looked to know how to use it, and his barrel did not waver from LB’s chest.
“Promise. I did not think to see you again.”
Good Luck spoke with a lisp, without front teeth.
“Tell your friend to put his gun on the ground, or I will kill him. Friend, listen to her. She knows.”
Keeping his palms facing out, LB eased down his hands.
“I’m Master Sergeant DiNardo. United States Air Force.”
“If this is true, why do you have nothing on your uniform? No flags, no patches.”
“It’s a secret that I’m here.”
“Whoever you are, I tell you a last time. Put your gun down.”
The only thing that could make Mozambique worse was being weaponless. LB hesitated too long. Good Luck stuck out his tongue.
Promise moved in front of LB, making a beeline to the shooter. She stopped with her breast inches from his muzzle.
“Juma will bury you with your head between your legs if I tell him so. This American has come to see the missile. Take us to Juma. Now.”
Behind the hunting rifle, the poacher’s smile was black. The animal skin over his shoulders and his fanged grin gave him the look of a big, wicked cat.
“Juma will not know you were here if I bury you, Promise. And your secret Americans.”
“Not an American.” Karskie waggled his underwear to get attention. “South African. Thank you.”
Neither Promise nor the hunting rifle gave way. Good Luck appeared to despise Promise as much as she loathed him. Next to them, the little one, not much more than a child, seemed unable to lift his Kalashnikov to enter the fray on either side. This was no stalemate. It was about to get worse.
LB waved his own hands.
“Okay, okay. Here, look.”
He shed the strap of the ranger R-1 from around his neck to set the gun down. Good Luck sent the small one to snatch it up. The boy did this, blinking relieved eyes up at LB. He struggled to haul the gun away.
The shooter lowered his hunting rifle, satisfied.
“I’ve never met an American.”
“Well?”
“You look fat. Who is this?”
Karskie spoke for himself. “Donald Karskie, SANParks.”
“Are you here for the missile, too?”
“Yes.”
“Lower your hands. Are those underpants?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Yes.”
“Put them on or throw them away. You look foolish.”
Karskie snorted. “I suppose a leopard skin is the rage in your village.”
The lanky shooter gaped, flaring his red gums first at LB, then Promise, looking for someone to tell the big boy to shut up and do as he was told. LB poked Karskie.
“One of us is going to shoot you. Do it.”
Karskie made Promise turn her back before dropping his pants. LB looked away, too. Good Luck’s little helper covered his mouth to giggle politely.
When Karskie was dressed again, the shooter instructed the little one to search the three of them. Karskie dwarfed the boy while his pockets were being patted. Promise let herself be touched. The boy seemed in awe of LB, who barely felt the boy’s touch on his legs.
When he was finished, Good Luck turned them east. The little one almost dragged the two rifles through the dust. Promise spoke to him gently and followed, then Karskie and LB, who walked the ravine unarmed and unidentified, a murderer at his back. On the way to Macandezulo, he saw the buzzards, gone from the sky, had clustered in a gloomy, leafless tree.
Several times the poacher Good Luck barked at Karskie to be quiet. The big boy talked to calm himself, and when he could not he seemed out of kilter. LB worried that Karskie would trip himself and fall, then Good Luck would simply plug him and leave him. Promise slowed to walk beside the big boy, even laying a hand on his back. LB imagined her doing this for an animal, consoling it; she seemed a natural empath. Killing a rhino with a machete didn’t fit this girl.
The little poacher looked to be the epitome of African poverty, a thin and willing boy, probably smart. He wore threadbare clothes, with plastic sandals under cracked, calloused heels. Unlike the shooter who marched them at gunpoint, this boy seemed caught up, snared into poaching and guns, with few choices to escape his poverty. This didn’t make him innocent, only sad and ordinary. Promise called him Hard Life.
The short distance to the village remained lifeless; other than the buzzards, nothing stirred in the bush. The land looked like a bone picked clean, pale and brittle. To live here, to have anything on your back, in your belly, or over your head, you’d need to scrabble every day. You could wind up like Good Luck, kill for money, wear an animal’s skin, and hate. Or like Hard Life, and serve.
LB looked for ways to keep his silent tension from mounting on the walk to Macandezulo. Typically, waiting in copters or Humvees before jumps, rescues, even combat, he and the rest of his GA team slept or listened to headphones. They marshaled themselves. But with Good Luck’s gun at his back, jittery Karskie relying on him, Promise so unpredictable, and a bleak landscape, LB had little to distract himself. He envisioned how annoying Neels was being to Wally right now. That helped a little.
They entered the outskirts of the village. Good Luck shouted “Juma!” just as LB became aware of the first structures. The gray scrub obscured the remnants of a few abandoned hovels that had caved in to the elements. Broken window glass glinted, tin roofs canted awkwardly, pastel walls rotted. The dirt of the bush gave way to a dirt street. At the far end, the rusty hulk of a pickup truck sprouted a mounted machine gun from its back. The muted tapping of a generator made the only reply to Good Luck’s call.
LB fingered the radio tucked in his vest. He might be in range now. He could try to blow the Hellfire. Somewhere in the ruins of Macandezulo, the blast would be terrific. In the street, LB would win a tussle with Good Luck; the little poacher boy was no threat. Juma would go to hell, or not. LB, Karskie, and Promise could scoot out of the village, back down the ravine to Neels and Wally, then over the border to the Kruger and safety. Mission accomplished.
Just punch in five numbers. Five-four-three-one-zero. Done.
LB’s first sight of Macandezulo attested to what Neels had said. Everybody with Juma was a criminal. The village was wrecked, filthy, overgrown, fit for nothing but a hideout. Who’d live here if he or she wasn’t part of Juma’s operation? LB thought back to the water hole, the slow-eyed majesty of the rhino. This village was home to the sons of bitches who would kill it.
Five numbers, then run. Why not? To save who?
LB slowed to shorten the distance to Good Luck behind him. The toothless poacher gave him a shove, urging him along the seedy road. Twenty years of risking his own life had brought LB to hot Mozambique and Macandezulo to do it again. He stopped walking, inviting another push from Good Luck. For the first time in uniform, ever, LB was unsure for what, or for whom, he was putting himself at risk.
He didn’t know if the disheveled and shoeless white man walking tow
ard him from one of the huts was an answer.
LB left his fingers on the radio.
Chapter 29
The sun finally drove Allyn indoors. One of the women wanted to follow, but he waved her off. He left behind the gun Juma had given him and went to his paltry mattress in the shade for a nap.
He did not drift off in the sweltering afternoon. A new kind of loneliness settled on him like a blanket, adding to the heat, stealing his rest. The hours to midnight seemed too many, like the years he had left in his life, to do what with? He believed this was the first time since her death a month ago that he missed more than Eva’s presence, missed her company. Her conversation, often insipid or natively wise, never featured Allyn, his business or worries, money or influence, but always her own inanities, her bridge club and gardening, a trip she wanted, a piece of art, a new friend, a fresh slight from an old friend. Allyn listened and did not, was concerned and was not, loved and did not. Though she was shallow in his life, she had breadth, she touched a great amount of his time. Now he’d been left by himself, with only time for company. He missed sharing time with his wife, cutting it into portions, bearing it more easily.
At the call for Juma in the street, he jumped up from the mattress. Allyn did not think to straighten himself up, nothing else in Macandezulo was. Untucked and barefoot, he stepped from the hut into the dirt road.
Two of Juma’s armed men escorted three remarkable people into the village. Juma had warned of this, someone would come for the missile. But these didn’t look like assassins, not at all. The first was a large, loosely knit young man in hiking clothes, who glanced about in plain fright at the rubble of the poachers’ village. The second was a wiry black woman who wore the green khakis of a Kruger ranger. She barely registered Macandezulo or Allyn’s approach, she seemed somehow beyond her surroundings. The third was another white man but in military camouflage and boots, a formidable tank of a fellow kitted out in a web vest, unarmed but with his hand on a radio.
Allyn let them come to him. The little poacher in front smiled as he passed. The tall one in the rear was the same evil-looking chap with a long rifle who’d been in the back of the pickup when Juma came to collect Allyn from the chopper ride out of Jo’burg. The man wore a leopard pelt that lent fierceness to his gap-toothed mouth and red, peeking tongue. He gave no order for his hostages to stop walking. On her own, the ranger girl paused in front of Allyn. The two whites halted with her. The tall poacher seemed unsure of Allyn’s authority, knowing only that Allyn was closely aligned with Juma. So he stood by.
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