Catacombs

by John Farris

  He would be, simultaneously, the iron fist and the voice of moderation willing to harmonize with other voices of moderation in Africa, those leaders whose cooperation he knew he could count on, and who would support his ambitious project.

  It would be no secret that the Russians were deeply involved in the South African coup. He would announce, within a few weeks, that the Russians were leaving Tanzania, and would be congratulated for his courage and statesmanship. The Russians would eventually build FIREKILL, and start making some horrendous demands of their own.

  It was a calm, clear day at Chanvai. The recent eruptions of ash from Kilimanjaro, now peaceful and smokeless, had largely been carried away on easterly winds to fall on prime agricultural areas of Kenya, heavily damaging the wheat crop. The rest of the ash had been dispersed over the Indian Ocean.

  From the helicopter Kumenyere went directly to Jumbe's quarters in the main house. The louvers were nearly closed; little light came in. Jumbe didn't care for air conditioning, and his bedroom was stifling. Kumenyere found him propped up in a basket chair, eyes vacant as if he'd been dreaming before the knock on his door. He focused on his visitor.

  "Good morning, Jumbe." Kumenyere smiled at the man he had come to murder.

  "Good morning," Jumbe said spiritlessly.

  Kumenyere put one of the attaché cases on an onyx tabletop, opened it.

  "The FIREKILL stones."

  Jumbe looked at them for a long time. His lips began to quiver.

  "You should be pleased," Kumenyere said, still smiling. "It's a great day, Jumbe. The day you've lived all your life for. I understand how emotional you are. But it isn't good for you." Jumbe seemed not to be listening. Kumenyere opened his medical bag and took out a disposable hypodermic syringe, a mislabeled ampule containing a drug that would bring on a fatal heart seizure within thirty seconds. He drew some of the liquid into the syringe.

  There was another knock at the door; Kumenyere looked up, frowning.

  "I don't think we should be disturbed."

  "Come in," Jumbe said, his voice suddenly strong.

  The door was opened by the bearded General Timbaroo, who carried one of the little Ingram machine guns that were so deadly at close range and could be fired with one hand. There were some people behind him. Kumenyere stiffened at this unprecedented intrusion.

  "Bring them in," Jumbe said to General Timbaroo.

  Erika Weller entered the bedroom, followed by Raun Hardie and Matthew Jade, who was leaning on a crutch. Lastly Oliver appeared, peering first around the jamb of the door at Jumbe, who smiled a little and nodded. Oliver crept into the room and stood in one corner.

  They all wore clean clothes. They had had medical attention. They had bathed, slept, and eaten. But they still looked as if they had just been salvaged from the hands of skilled torturers.

  "Jumbe, what–" Kumenyere began, but he instinctively moved a step closer to the old man, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder. The other hand still held the almost unnoticeable syringe.

  "The Russians," Jumbe said, "are not sending missiles. I'm afraid I temporarily misled you about that, Robeson."

  "But–" He glanced at the table, where General Timbaroo was opening the second of the two attaché cases. "Don't touch that!"

  "But we'll be needing it," Jumbe continued. "As evidence at your trial for sedition, and other crimes against the government of Tanzania."

  "What do you mean, there won't be missiles? Have you forgotten who the enemy is? You stupid old fool! Amani haija il.a kwa ncha ya upanga gal"

  "FIREKILL is too dangerous a toy, even for the Russians," Jumbe said, and nodded his head at Erika. "This is Erika Weller, of the Chapman/Weller expedition."

  Despite his shock, Kumenyere was still able to smile at Erika.

  "I see. You have–a remarkable faculty for survival."

  "Fortunately," Jumbe said. "Or I might have continued on a course that would have resulted in certain catastrophe. Erika–would you explain?"

  "Henry Landreth was right about FIREKILL. It works. It can stop meteors–or nuclear warheads–by atomizing them through an enormous buildup of electromagnetic waves. The technology is relatively simple, drawing on energy that is always available in the earth. But these waves subsequently have a damaging effect on the earth's natural magnetic poles, causing them to shift. When that happens, and it happens in the blink of an eye, the earth wobbles in its rotation, slows, then resumes rotating at a somewhat different angle. The result, on the surface, is always cataclysm. Huge tidal waves, walls of water a thousand feet high, rolling halfway across continents. Enough volcanic activity to throw a pall across the sun for a century. Civilizations destroyed. Almost all of life wiped out. The Lords of the Storm knew what the results might be when their physicists constructed models of FIREKILL. They had a terrible choice to make: to be devastated from space, or risk a cataclysm of their own making. They lost their gamble."

  General Timbaroo was busy looking through the papers in Kumenyere's attaché case, his eyes alight. Erika cleared her throat. Jumbe breathed raspingly. Jade's crutch squeaked as he shifted his weight.

  Jumbe said, "By the way, I had another medical examination yesterday."

  Perspiration gleamed on Kumenyere's forehead. He said in a small sad voice, "I would have been a great leader. A great man."

  He clamped his left arm around Jumbe's head and placed the point of the syringe in his other hand against the carotid artery in Jumbe's neck.

  "Your heart may be sound now," he said softly, "but it will stop seconds after I inject this. General Timbaroo! Push your submachine gun across the table toward me. I want a Land-Rover, fully fueled, waiting outside the door in five minutes, a 707 ready to depart Sanya Juu in one hour. Get moving, man, and give that order!"

  "Robeson," Jumbe said, "for once consider what you're up against. Haiwezekani. Enough people have died already."

  "I don't wish to be included in that tally." He glanced at Raun. "Close the attaché case. The one with the diamonds. Hold it until I tell you what to do next."

  Raun swallowed and glanced at Jade, who nodded. General Timbaroo was at the bedroom door.

  "Speak clearly, so I can hear every word!"

  General Timbaroo spoke to a subordinate, who could then be heard running through the house. Jade relaxed on his crutch with a slight smile, apropos of nothing. A fly was buzzing around his head but he didn't make the mistake of trying to wave it off. Raun closed the attaché case, filled with diamonds that could be worth sixty million dollars to collectors who would not be particular about provenance, and stepped back slowly from the table.

  In just under five minutes a soldier came running back to the bedroom. General Timbaroo had remained by the door. The Land-Rover was ready.

  "The plane, the plane!" Kumenyere said impatiently.

  General Timbaroo queried the soldier. Yes, the airport had been contacted, the aircraft was being fueled.

  "Get up," Kumenyere said to Jumbe. The old man rose slowly, his head still at a wry angle in Kumenyere's embrace.

  "General Timbaroo, go and stand beside Miss Weller. Don't anyone in this room move until I am outside with Jumbe."

  He shifted the syringe adroitly to the other hand, aiming the point up under Jumbe's chin, and pulled the submachine gun off the table with his left hand. He looked at Raun.

  "You first. Straight outside to the Land-Rover. Don't get too far in front of me."

  When Raun had left the room, walking as deliberately and self-consciously as a bridesmaid at a wedding, Kumenyere followed, keeping a firm hold on Jumbe as they went down the hall, yelling a warning for everyone to clear out of the way.

  Jade looked at General Timbaroo.

  "Can you get me a rifle?" he said. "One with a good scope? I saw a Heckler-Koch in your arsenal yesterday, the G3SG/1. It ought to do."

  "What are you thinking about?" Erika said. "You can barely walk!"

  "But I can shoot," Jade said. "And the son of a bitch took Raun. Gen
eral, we don't want them to get too big a lead on us; it can be tough to pick Kumenyere off once he reaches the airport."

  "Hasha!" General Timbaroo said furiously, and ran from the bedroom with Jade stumping along behind him. Erika looked at Oliver, who shrugged, and they followed.

  The engine of the Land-Rover outside was running. Guards armed with Ingrams stood at discreet distances.

  "Put the case in front," Kumenyere said to Raun.

  She did so.

  "Now drive!"

  Raun looked around as Erika and Oliver appeared on the verandah. She didn't see Jade. She looked back at Kumenyere, shaking her head in dismay. Kumenyere was wild with frustration and anger.

  Jumbe smiled at her. "Do it for me," he said. "I would enjoy having your company on the way to the airport."

  Kumenyere pushed Jumbe to the Land-Rover and climbed into the cramped backseat with him. Raun got in on the right, started up with the brake on, released it too fast. Gravel sprayed from the back wheels; the Rover bucked and almost died. Kumenyere screamed at her.

  Jade appeared, empty-handed, on the verandah, leaned his crutch against the house and shielded his eyes as Raun drove away in the direction of the lake.

  As the Land-Rover disappeared into a stand of trees, leaving a motionless haze of dust in the air, a Jeep came around the corner of the house with General Timbaroo driving; a van full of soldiers was just behind the Jeep. Timbaroo had the Heckler-Koch rifle with him.

  Jade hopped down the steps and piled in beside Timbaroo.

  "Is there a checkpoint on this road?" Jade shouted as they shot after the Land-Rover.

  "About five miles north, at the edge of the park!"

  "What's the terrain like?"

  "Brush and grass."

  "Dry enough to burn?"

  "Instantly." He realized what Jade was after, and reached for the microphone of the radio slung under the dashboard of the Jeep. When he had contacted the checkpoint he ordered brushfires to be started on either side of the road.

  Jade hung on to the bouncing, careening Jeep and muttered, "Fly up his nose, Raunie." He had the sniper's rifle cradled in one arm, but it would be useless to him until both vehicles came to a crawl. Then he was complicating his task by adding fire and smoke in a dry wilderness, perhaps endangering Raun and Jumbe all the more. But it was the only thing he could think of to slow the Rover down long enough to get off a shot at Kumenyere.

  In the Land-Rover Kunienyere had discarded the hypodermic syringe, which was of less value to him under the circumstances than the stubby Ingram. He had the muzzle pressed against Jumbe's side. Jumbe sat quietly, distressed by the dust and the sun beating down on the open vehicle, the rough ride.

  "Kwa nini" he said dispiritedly. "How could you use me so cruelly? After Rhodesia you were the only son I had. We built a fine hospital together. I would have done anything for you."

  "I'm a better man than you, Jumbe. And I will prove it yet."

  After that Jumbe said nothing, but sat with his eyes half closed, wincing at the jolts from the road.

  Kumenyere was aware of the smoke boiling over the road as soon as Raun was. He stood up in the Rover as she began to slow.

  "I can't see!" Raun yelled.

  He looked back and saw the Jeep and the van in pursuit, the hard glint of light off a tilted windshield. "Get off the track! Go around the fire!"

  Raun cocked the wheel hard left and drove between a couple of umbrella thorns, crackled through tall caper and toothbrush bush. A leopard tortoise, caught in the open, was crushed by the offside front wheel. They rebounded from flat rocks and found a natural tunnel paved with dung in the thick browning bush. A termite-riddled hulk of a stinkbark lying in the way exploded into sawdust as Raun drove across it. A change of wind brought the taint of smoke.

  And suddenly there were elephants, elephants everywhere, in shades from toffee brown to rusty gray, huge beasts wheeling and snorting in a double panic from the approach of fire, the roar of the Land-Rover's engine.

  "No!" Kumenyere screamed. "Stop! Get us out of here!"

  Raun hit the brakes on ground hammered hard as concrete in the drought by ponderous feet. The Rover slowed, stopped, stalled beneath trunks raised in alarm like cobras in baskets, the lethal slant of old ivory. Raun ground the starter and the engine spun, five seconds, ten, but nothing happened.

  The Rover was bumped, bumped again. There was nothing but elephant hide all around them, rage, flailing trunks, fear, dust. The windshield was shattered as Raun ducked beneath the dashboard, getting as low as she could. Kumenyere screamed, firing his machine gun to little effect. Blood sprayed down, but the Rover began to rock until it turned over on its side. Both Kumenyere and Jumbe were spilled from the backseat.

  As Jade and Timbaroo came bouncing through the brush to the clearing where the Land-Rover had stalled, two of the biggest elephants Jade had ever seen were trying to crush the Rover with their feet. It was, already, very nearly unrecognizable.

  "Jumbe!" Timbaroo cried, and he jumped out from behind the wheel, rushing fearlessly into the churning mass of elephants.

  Jade took aim from the Jeep and shot one of the elephants in the eye.

  The huge animal staggered back, almost going down on its hindquarters. It turned, lumbered trumpeting toward deeper brush, but suddenly fell. Timbaroo appeared, dragging Jumbe with him, through the smoke and haze. An elephant was on a collision course with them. Jade turned on the Jeep's siren and began firing the rifle to get the herd moving away from them.

  Most of the elephants swung away from the threat of fire and the surging siren. But one, a matron with a shattered tusk, stayed behind.

  Jade saw Robeson Kumenyere moving, in a crouch, through the haze toward General Timbaroo and Jumbe. They had their backs to him. Kumenyere raised the submachine gun. Jade realized he had abandoned hope of getting away, his vision of life had receded to a narrow focus. All he cared about was killing Jumbe before he was killed himself.

  Jade swung the muzzle of the Heckler-Koch toward Kumenyère and pulled the trigger. The magazine was empty. He yelled. Timbaroo heard him but reacted too slowly to protect himself. A rip of bullets across his back sent him sprawling and Jumbe, on hands and knees, was motionless, an easy target.

  The female elephant loomed up behind Kumenyere and sent him flying, separated from his weapon, with a swing of her trunk. As he lay on his back in the dirt trying to lift his head, she swayed up to him and reached down with a certain delicacy, lifted him, held him dangling a few feet above the ground. Kumenyere screamed and struggled in her embrace.

  She lifted one forefoot and began slowly to swing it from side to side, building momentum. Then with a quick dip of her trunk she lowered Kumenyere and sliced him across the middle with toenails sharp enough to separate a clump of coarse grass from its roots.

  The lower half of his body sagged down in a long stretch that almost touched his toes to the ground. Everything fell out of him in a gush of blood like water from an uncapped hydrant. His spine, along with the tough fibrous cord, held him together momentarily. Then she gave a little upward jerk with her trunk and the spine was severed. She threw the head and torso aside and moved off with a blast that sounded to Jade like sweet revenge. The matriarch had singled out Kumenyere, he was sure of that; it hadn't been a random attack. But he would never know why, and he had other things to think about.

  Soldiers were arriving in droves. He got out of the Jeep and hobbled to the place where Timbaroo had fallen. He was badly wounded but conscious; he might live. Smoke was getting thick, the crackle of fire was closer. Jade grabbed one of the soldiers and pulled him toward the nearly demolished Land-Rover. Raun was upside down inside, cut and terrified. They pried her carefully out of the wreckage. More soldiers came running to lend a hand. A combi arrived and Raun and Jade were helped into it

  She was too stunned to speak. They were driven back to Chanvai. Jade declined Erika's offer of help and put Raun to bed himself. He sat with her the rest of th
e afternoon and gave her whiskey. He drank a lot of the whiskey himself, and kept an eye on her, and touched her when he thought she needed touching.

  Jumbe came around dusk. He had a drink with Jade, and shook his hand. He said they were welcome to stay at Chanvai as long as they liked. If Jade wanted anything from the government or the people of Tanzania, he had only to ask. Jade had never seen a sadder face.

  Jade left Raun sleeping and visited Lem, who was in an air-conditioned bungalow, flat on his back, still heavily sedated. Two nurses attended him. Both knees required surgery, for which he was to be flown back to the States. Jade fed him, although Lem wasn't very hungry, and told him how Robeson Kumenyere had finished. Jade had a few more drinks and turned off a few more lights in his head.

  About seven thirty Erika was summoned to the conference room at Chanvai.

  For a few minutes she was alone. There was a fire on the hearth; it provided all of the light in the room. Erika sat in a zebra-skin chair beneath the flag of Tanzania, her somber eyes fixed on the flames, the play of light across the glistening onyx table. She didn't look around when she heard the sounds of Jumbe's sandals on the concrete floor.

  He stopped near her, and held out a sheet of paper. Erika scarcely glanced at it.

  "What's this?"

  "It seems that Tiernan Clarke lied to you, in order to more easily enlist your aid in reaching the Catacombs. There were survivors at Ivututu. Dr. Poincarré did heroic work on behalf of all the victims. This is a list of those we have flown to the hosp–"

  Erika lunged from the chair and snatched at the flimsy paper, scanned the eleven names with eyes that quickly scalded.

  "Chips–" she moaned.

  Jumbe shook his head. "I'm sorry. According to Dr. Poincarré, he died on the evening of May seventeenth."

  Erika let the paper fall from her fingers; it drifted in the draft from the fire and came to rest under the table. She stared in bitter anger at the hunched old man.