by Jeremy Bates
The customers were all men. Most were sitting alone, a drink in front of them, a hand-rolled fag hanging from their lips, blue smoke drifting up their despondent faces. They all stared at Fitzgerald with dead eyes. He held each of those stares for several seconds until he was satisfied he had won each pissing contest, or at least managed a draw.
He went to the bar and ordered a beer. The barwoman set a mug filled with dark warm stout in front of him and told him it cost five hundred Congolese francs, which was the country’s highest banknote, worth about ninety US cents. He took his money clip from his pocket, letting the woman see the fold of bills. “I need to rent a boat,” he said.
“No boats here.”
He peeled an American twenty from the wad and set it on the counter. President Jackson stared up at them, somehow managing to appear intelligent and confused at the same time, as if wondering what the fuck he was doing in the Congo.
“I have no change for that,” the woman said. It came off her tongue like an insult.
“It’s yours if you can find me a boat.”
She stared hard at the money.
“So?” he said.
“Maybe I know someone who has a boat.” She disappeared into a room behind the bar. Kalemie didn’t have working landlines, and he didn’t think she had a Blackberry or iPhone back there, so she’d probably left the establishment to find her boat friend on foot.
Leaving the beer on the counter, Fitzgerald sat down at an empty table. He took his MacBook out of the small rucksack he’d brought and set it on the table. He took the Glock out and set it next to the laptop, so no one got any funny ideas. He plugged in the Wi-Fi thumb drive and logged into his security-encrypted software. What he saw on the screen pleased him. The tracker was only twenty kilometers away, moving at less than ten clicks an hour down the Lukuga River, a tributary that connected Lake Tanganyika with the headwaters of the Congo River.
He leaned back in his chair and lit a Kent, his hand unconsciously rubbing the scar along his throat. He’d received the scar while he was still a kid, serving as part of the SAS’s 22nd Regiment. The Sin Féin had been holding a meeting in Crossmaglen, a small village in Northern Ireland that bordered County Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland. Special Branch suspected the meeting was cover to smuggle a Provisional IRA bloke responsible for murders in Belfast back into the North. They wanted Fitzgerald’s unit to photograph the man and his car. It should have been simple reconnaissance work.
It wasn’t. The meeting had been a trap, a distraction to stage an ambush. Fitzgerald, who’d been hanging back as emergency cover fire, got a garrote around the throat. He bled a whole hell of a lot—enough that oxygen and glucose stopped reaching his brain and he passed out. Which was lucky for him, because the guy who’d jumped him thought he was dead and didn’t put a bullet in the back of his head. He woke up back at base with twenty-seven stitches across his throat. No one else from his unit survived.
Fitzgerald chain-smoked a couple more fags until some twenty minutes later the someone the barwoman knew showed up at the Railwaymen’s Club, pissed out of his gourd. He was wearing a pair of plaid shorts and an unbuttoned shirt, revealing his hairless chest and belly.
Fitzgerald met him at the door.
“My name is Michael,” the man said. His eyes were bloodshot, his words slurred. “Like Michael Jordan, you know?”
“You have a boat?” Fitzgerald asked.
“I have a boat. Where do you need to go?”
“Up the river.”
“The Lukuga?” The man shook his head. “There is nothing that way but trouble.”
“That’s the way I’m going.”
“You don’t understand. There are Mai-Mai rebels. They will kill a white man if they see one.”
“Guess I won’t let them see me.”
“Hey, your life, my man. I warned you. I am not your mother, yes? What are you offering?”
“Show me the boat first.”
The man named Michael shrugged and led Fitzgerald along the dusty high street. He turned down several side roads until they came to one sad house. The clapboard siding hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in decades, and what remained of the peach color was blistered and peeling. Every window was broken. To top it off, the façade was pockmarked with shrapnel from mortar bursts.
“Pretty,” Fitzgerald remarked.
“I have a generator inside,” Michael said proudly. “It is one of the few houses in town that has power.”
They followed a side passageway overgrown with weeds to a small backyard. In the middle of it, amidst waist-high grass and an assortment of junk, was a sixteen-foot wooden skiff resting upside down on its gunwales. Fitzgerald inspected the hull and found no holes or cracks. She would float. “There’s no motor,” he said.
“You never said you needed a motor.”
“I’m not going on a fecking joy paddle.”
“I can get you a motor, but it will be expensive.”
“I also want two jerry cans of fuel.”
“Good petrol is difficult to find.”
“You have a generator. I’m sure you know where to find some.”
“It will also be expensive.”
“I’ll give you one hundred American now, one hundred when I return the boat.”
“Two hundred now, two hundred when you return the boat.”
Fitzgerald knew that was more cash than this guy saw in a year. Still, he said, “Two hundred now. Another hundred when I return.”
“You have a deal, my white friend,” Michael said immediately. “Meet me under the bridge where the Boulevard Lumumba crosses the Lukuga River in two hours.”
“One hour.”
“Yes, fine, one hour.”
The drunk named Michael was twenty minutes late. He arrived with two young, muscular men. The three of them carried the skiff between the them, two at the stern, one at the bow. As they lugged it down the bank to the shoreline, Fitzgerald saw two rusty jerry cans sitting on the floor between the front and middle bench seats. A green 1950s-looking motor was mounted on the transom. “Johnson” was written in yellow letters across the power head. Below that: “Sea Horse 25.” He flicked his Kent away and walked over.
Michael smiled at him. “There’s your boat, your motor, and your petrol,” he announced triumphantly.
“Does the motor run?”
“It runs.”
Fitzgerald handed over two crisp one hundred dollar notes. Michael accepted the money, then seemed to consider something. “Thank you,” he said. “But unfortunately this is not going to be enough. That is a good motor. I had to cash in several favors to get it. The petrol was more expensive than I thought. Also very good, very clean.”
Fitzgerald said nothing.
“I want more money. It is only fair.”
“How much more money?”
“Another two hundred up front.”
“Four hundred dollars?”
“You will not find another boat in Kalemie. I can guarantee that.”
“We had a deal.”
“This is business.” He shrugged. “I have to survive too, yes?”
Fitzgerald had expected something like this. He slipped the silenced Glock from the holster under his jacket and fired two rounds into the thief’s chest.
Michael collapsed, an expression of surprise on his face.
“You don’t have to worry about surviving anymore,” Fitzgerald said as he bent over and plucked the two notes from the dead man’s fingers. He folded them into fours and tossed them at the other two young men, who had ducked into defensive crouches, like they were either going to run or attack. “For the boat and the motor and the gas,” he told them. “That was the deal.”
With big smiles on their faces, the men each grabbed a bill for themselves and hurried back up the bank together.
Life in the Congo was cheap.
Friends were even cheaper.
Fitzgerald was sitting in the jump seat of the skiff, his hand on th
e tiller, speeding down the eerily quiet Lukuga River. He eased up on the throttle and came to a full stop. He flipped open his MacBook and took another reading of the tracker’s location. It had stopped moving fifteen minutes ago, less than seven kilometers away. Given that it was still bright out, still another two or three hours of sunlight left, he wondered why AQ had stopped so soon. Had they reached their final destination? Because if that was the case, he would be on them by nightfall—
The skiff’s stern bucked suddenly and powerfully from beneath, launching him into the air. He crashed into the muddy-brown water, breaking back through the surface with a gasp. He glanced quickly around, and something inside him shifted, something queasy. Not more than a dozen meters away, two tiny ears and two bulging frog-like eyes were visible above the rippled water.
A hippo.
Fitzgerald had seen several herds of the mammoth suckers bathing together, usually just beyond a bend in the river, where the water had pooled and was still. In each case he had heard the deep grunting-snorts before seeing the animals, and he had given them a safe berth. Bulls were fiercely territorial and would run off other males, crocs, and even small boats that passed too close.
But this one had come from nowhere.
The hippo jointed open its cavernous pink mouth and roared, revealing four tusks protruding from the lower jaw, each more than a foot in length.
Fitzgerald knew his life depended on what he did within the next few seconds. The fight or flight hormone kicked in, and for the first time he could remember, he was going to flight. He splashed toward the skiff. The water and sucking mud beneath his feet made it feel as if he were dragging a train of cinderblocks behind him.
The hippo charged, half swimming, half running along the bottom.
Bloody thing was fast.
Fitzgerald hiked himself over the gunwale just as the hippo struck, coming from beneath again. The impact shot the stern into the air almost vertically. He gripped the transom with both hands, his feet dangling in the air. The hull crashed back to the water with jarring force, slamming the breath from his chest and throwing up curtains of spray along each side of the boat.
Wheezing, he lunged for the motor, pulled the selector into start—
The hippo heaved its massive bulk over the stern, roaring again, as loud as a lion, so close Fitzgerald could smell its foul, rotten breath. He stared into the beast’s black, piggy eyes. Then he yanked the start cord. The engine kicked over. The growling propeller made a heavy, chainsaw-like buzz, as if it were sinking into a tub filled with lard. Bits and pieces of bloody flesh burst from the water like confetti. There was a loud, jarring noise as the propeller blades hit bone. The motor wanted to shoot back up, but Fitzgerald kept it pressed down, like the lid on a blender, the blades chewing, shredding.
The hippo made a bass-like bellow before vomiting a liter of blood. Fitzgerald snatched the Glock from its holster, pressed the barrel into the hippo’s left eye, and fired four point-blank shots. The hippo’s head jerked upward, the snout slamming Fitzgerald’s hand and batting the pistol away into the water. It made a final attack, trying to bite off Fitzgerald’s head and shoulders. He moved back just in time and its gaping maw closed on air. Finally, it slipped back into the water, which had turned a diffused pink all around the boat. If the animal wasn’t dead, it would be soon enough.
“Bleeding right!” Fitzgerald barked.
He shoved the gear selector into forward, cranked the throttle, and got the hell out of there. Despite what felt like one or two bruised ribs, he let out a whooping, raspy laugh. Then he straightened to see over the hydroplaning bow, the wind blowing in his face, feeling free, alive.
Seven kilometers to go
CHAPTER 24
At roughly the same time as the hippopotamus was attacking Damien Fitzgerald upriver, Scarlett and the others were taken from the ship’s cabin to the stern deck, where their blindfolds and restraints were removed (Scarlett had Thunder tug her blindfold back down over her eyes when the riverboat stopped earlier that afternoon). They all rubbed their wrists and looked around, suspicious at being allowed to see.
What did Jahja have planned for them now?
The riverboat was moored snugly against a steep, marshy bank. Jahja was on deck with them, along with the three gunmen dressed in jungle camouflage. One was the effeminate guy who’d given her the creepy rape-stare the day before. The other two were short and squat, one sporting a mustache, the other a full beard. They all carried large rucksacks.
Creep, Mustache, and Beard. Good enough names as any, she thought.
Creep set off down the gangplank first.
“You’re next,” Jahja told Scarlett.
“Where are we going?” she demanded.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you explain to us what’s happening.”
Something on the good side of Jahja’s face, the smooth side, twitched. “Do not test me, Miss Cox,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet. “I will make you regret it one hundred times over. You do not know what I am capable of. You do not want to find out.”
Scarlett stood her ground for another two or three seconds, but she knew she had lost that standoff. She might be able to see now, which made her feel more in control, but Jahja still held all the cards. She went down the gangplank. The tide was high, and she had to wade through knee-deep water before reaching the bank. She struggled up it, digging her hands into the mud and grabbing at plants. An African fish eagle watched her pathetic progress from its perch on the low branch of a riverside tree, probably thinking she was one hell of an uncoordinated monkey.
Once everyone made it to high ground, they set off in single file: Creep, Scarlett, Thunder, Sal, Miranda, Joanna, Jahja, Mustache, and Beard. The forest was a snarl of secondary jungle. Creep whacked at the vegetation with a machete every now and then, but the action seemed to be more for show or boredom rather than any real purpose. They were following some sort of path made either by wildlife or humans, and the passage was relatively easygoing.
The entire time questions burned in the back of Scarlett’s mind. Where were they going? What could possibly be out here in the middle of the jungle? Some kind of terrorist paradise? Something along the lines of the hidden civilization in King Solomon’s Mines? Only in place of Kaukauna warriors were suicide bombers, and in place of stone statues of pagan gods were statues carved into the likeness of bin Laden?
Sure, why not? she thought, teetering on mental and physical exhaustion. Why the hell not?
About ten minutes in they came across a python skin. It was dry and tubular and bunched at a crevice between two rocks, which the snake had apparently used to catch the skin on so it could slither out of its old coat. Next to the husk was a pile of brown and chalky-white feces, laced with bits of bone and fur. Scarlett shivered at the sight and turned away. She hated snakes.
Sal and Miranda and Joanna had gone pale. Only Thunder seemed nonplussed. This wasn’t so surprising since he was likely used to seeing such things back home in Australia. Jahja and the gunmen, for their part, looked indifferent, probably because they carried automatic weapons, which were more than a match for any size snake, anywhere.
“Would have made a good feed,” Thunder mumbled under his breath.
“I heard it tastes like chicken,” Scarlett whispered back.
“More like pheasant—with a lot of bones.”
“So you see,” Jahja said with a smug smile, “we may be your captors, but this land is your prison. It is very dangerous. You would not survive one day on your own.”
Scarlett knew he was right. She pictured herself waking up in the middle of the night to find the python that had left that skin behind curled around her, squeezing ever so tighter each time she took a breath until the pressure became so intense she could no longer draw any more air into her lungs. But perhaps even before that happened, her head would already be inside its unhinged jaws…
They pressed forward
again, for which Scarlett was grateful. The farther they put between them and the snakeskin, the better. She concentrated on her footsteps. One-two, one-two, on and on. Jesus, she was hot and thirsty. She glanced every now and then at the military canteen hanging over Creep’s shoulder. She guessed he had a few bottles of water in his rucksack too. She was thinking about asking him for some, knowing he would likely ignore her request, but thinking about asking anyway, when they came upon a quick-moving river.
“Thank God,” she said. She turned to Thunder—not Sal, she realized, but Thunder—and asked him if it would be safe to drink from.
“It’s flowing, so it should be right,” he told her. “Unless there’s a rotting animal carcass in it upstream.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Jahja overheard them and said, “Yes, everyone, drink if you are thirsty. But do not over drink. You may become sick. This is not a place where you want to be sick.”
“Reckon he was a personal trainer before he hung up the whistle for the machine gun?” Thunder said to Scarlett softly.
She surprised herself by laughing out loud.
Jahja frowned. “Do I amuse you, Miss Cox?”
Ignoring him, Scarlett forded the river behind Creep, who was gripping his rifle in both hands above his head. Halfway across, she stopped and scooped water into her mouth with her hands. After she’d quenched her thirst, she dunked herself under to cool off—and lost her footing. The swift current immediately took advantage of her weightlessness and whisked her downriver. She opened her mouth to cry out and water filled her lungs. She thrashed and clawed at the mossy stones on the riverbed, trying to get a handhold, but her efforts were in vain—
Someone grabbed her wrist and yanked her back above the surface. She coughed out a huge mouthful of water and kept coughing until her throat stung and her stomach cramped up. She blinked the water and tears from her eyes and looked around. Thunder was next to her, his arm around her shoulder. He was dripping wet and panting hard, apparently having dived in to swim after her. She looked upriver. Jahja and Sal and the others were still on the left bank. Mustache and Beard had their AK-47s trained on her and Thunder. Creep, she noticed, was on the far bank, his gun aimed as well. Small black monkeys were screeching and thrashing the branches overhead, as if amused by the show she’d put on.
