‘Not for much longer,’ I told her. ‘Our best chance of survival lies out there.’ I gave the forest a sweep of my hand.
‘Cooper and Ryder found Twenny Fo, Peanut and Fournier,’ said Cassidy. ‘You want to fill everyone in?’
‘You saw them?’ Leila asked, her eyes open wide. ‘Alive?’
‘More or less,’ I said a little cryptically. I passed on everything we saw, including the murder of Fournier, and concluded with my theory about Lockhart and LeDuc.
‘Bullshiiiit,’ said Boink, turning away.
‘So the Frog crashed us into the forest on purpose?’ Rutherford whistled softly, then added, ‘Risky bloody strategy.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Leila dismissively.
‘Believe it,’ I said.
The singer looked to Ryder for confirmation. He gave her a nod.
‘Y’know, I saw something out the window,’ said Ayesha, ‘just before we went down. A bright green light, floating over the treetops.’
‘A signal fare. Shit, that settles it,’ said Cassidy. ‘We were damn well set up.’
I shrugged. ‘If it looks like LeDuc and walks like LeDuc . . .’
‘It’s a sodding fucking Frog bastard,’ Rutherford chipped in.
‘You didn’t, by any chance, happen to mention seeing that light at the time?’ I asked Ayesha.
‘I did, but no one said anything. I thought everyone was asleep.’
Okay, so the mystery question that came through my headset before we went down – What was that? – hadn’t come from Travis, but from Ayesha. Dammit, I might have gotten to LeDuc earlier if I’d quizzed everyone harder, done my job a little better. Ayesha was sitting on the right-hand side of the chopper, behind Travis and behind LeDuc. She saw the fare, and then the aircraft banked to the right, turning toward it. Seated on LeDuc’s left, Fournier wouldn’t have had the angle to spot the signal, which meant he was as much a passenger on the Puma as everyone else. It would have been LeDuc who’d then switched tanks, dumping contaminated fuel from the sponsons into the main tanks so that the engines flamed out. It was also, therefore, LeDuc and not Fournier who faked the Mayday call that wasn’t responded to. So, LeDuc, Lockhart and the FARDC commander, Colonel Cravat. Who else was hoping to get a cut of the ransom money?
‘C’mon, people, clock’s ticking,’ said Cassidy. ‘Shake it out.’
‘Why? What are we doing?’ Leila asked.
‘We’re gonna stick our hands in the fire,’ I said.
IT WASN’T RAINING OR particularly hot, but the air was heavy with humidity. I glanced over my shoulder to check on Boink. His shirt was soaked with perspiration but he wasn’t doing too badly, all things considered. The Congo Weightloss Program was agreeing with him, and his fitness was also improving.
‘Making out okay?’ I asked him.
‘As good as you, soldier man,’ he said.
‘We need to rest,’ said Leila, walking in front of me. ‘Don’t we, Ayesha?’
Her friend and makeup artist turned and gave me a look that told me she might as well hammer a nail into her own forehead if she disagreed.
‘We took a break half an hour ago,’ I reminded the celebrity. ‘We’ve gotta keep going.’
‘Then you can keep going without me.’
‘I tell you what,’ I said. ‘You stay here and we’ll come back for your corpse in a week or two.’
‘I don’t like you, Cooper.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Leila tried to ignore me and kept walking, spritzing her face with a can of aerosolized water recovered from her makeup case.
‘We’ll take a break when we get to where we’re going,’ I said.
‘And where’s that?’
‘I’m not sure. I’ll know when I see it. And there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you.’
‘Yes?’
‘No one likes to think they can be bought cheap.’
‘What?’
‘Bribing my men could get you in a lot of trouble, especially if the person you’re trying to bribe knows that someone else you waved your money at was offered a lot more.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
She glanced around to check on whether Ryder was within earshot – she knew all right, but I didn’t push it.
‘One thing I don’t understand and I was thinking that maybe you could help me with it,’ I said.
‘No. Go make polite conversation with someone else,’ she said.
‘One minute you were desperate for us to head on in with guns blazing and rescue your ex,’ I said, ignoring her request, ‘the next, you’re ready to cut and run. How come the turnaround?’
‘I’m not cutting and running and I don’t have to explain myself to you,’ she said.
‘C’mon. Help me out.’
‘Go away.’
I wasn’t going anywhere.
When Leila realized this, she sighed heavily. ‘Look, Cooper, no one has ever tried to drag you away by the ankle to rape you, have they? Perhaps if they had, you might understand what I went through – what Ayesha and I are going through in this place.’
‘We’re all Twenny Fo and Peanut have got,’ I reminded her.
‘A ransom will get paid and they’ll come home.’
‘Not if Twenny knows his kidnapper’s identity. If Lockhart thinks he’s been made, Deryck’s as good as dead whether he pays for his freedom or not.’
‘But you keep saying there aren’t enough of you to rescue him. So what are we doing? Where are we going? You’re just tempting fate, keeping us all hanging around here. You have no right to put Ayesha and me at further risk.’
From a certain angle, she had a point, even if the angle was rooted in her own self-preservation. If we lost Twenny and Peanut’s trail, I was as sure as I could be that we would not be able to find them again – not in this rainforest. I was also as sure as I could be that no matter what happened in terms of any ransom being paid, the hostages would be killed. ‘We’ll assess the situation when we get to the other side of the hill,’ I said.
‘What do you expect to see?’
‘The other side of the hill.’
‘Like I said, Cooper, I don’t like you.’
‘Stand in line.’
She pursed her lips into a seam. ‘Look, I’m feeling faint. So can we stop for a little while? Will it help if I say please?’
I gave in and called a halt. If ten minutes of rest would buy some cooperation, it was worth it. Maybe Leila was just hungry. Our stores of python had run out and lack of food was now becoming a factor, though not a life-threatening one. My own survival training told me a person could go for a week on no food. It was a comfort issue more than anything – we were all conditioned to eating three meals a day and we’d barely snacked. My stomach was empty. Even the grumbling had echoes. Energy levels were low. Our principals leaned against trees, drank water and swatted mosquitoes while West, Rutherford, Cassidy, Ryder and I did our best to recall the lay of the land set out on LeDuc’s map – which we no longer had – in particular, our intended destination, a ridge adjacent to the hill now occupied by the FARDC.
It was a steep two-hour climb through liana, elephant grass and stinging nettles to reach the ridge’s spine. We came out from under the canopy a little after one o’clock in the afternoon, halfway up a gray basalt rock face that the forest hadn’t managed to conquer. The break in the trees provided us with a much-hoped-for unobstructed view to the FARDC encampment half a mile across the valley. Hanging threateningly overhead, massive thunderheads jostled against a clear blue sky ruled by the afternoon sun, the warmth of which sliced through the chill clinging to my skin. Leila and Ayesha sank back against the rock face, closed their eyes and turned their faces toward it.
‘Mmm, God, that’s good,’ Leila said with a moan. ‘Ayesha, honey, go get me some sunscreen from my case, will you?’
We could plainly see individuals moving around across the valley at the co
mpany HQ. Smoke from several fires curled skywards and drifted toward a thicker haze out to the west. I was right about the hill having been logged. Compared with the virgin forest, the area the HQ occupied appeared to have been stripped bare.
Swinging the pack off my shoulder, I rummaged around and pulled out the scope. I braced it against a tree trunk and adjusted the focus. Ryder stood on one side of me, while Rutherford, West and Cassidy lined up off my other shoulder and shielded their eyes from the sun with their hands.
‘Fuck me,’ said Rutherford. ‘Is that a truck down there?’
His eyes were good. I found it a second later, a deuce-and-a-half painted olive drab parked in the shadows at one end of the newly cleared scrub. The women were gone but the Mi-8 was still there.
‘And where there’s a truck, there’s a road,’ said West, the implication of the vehicle’s presence occurring to everyone in the PSO team at the same instant.
I scoured the HQ for our principals.
‘Found ’em,’ I said. Twenny and Peanut were standing by themselves in the cleared area where I’d seen them last night, behind the blue tents. They were still hooded and their hands tied behind their backs. No Chinese guy in sight, no Lockhart and no Colonel Cravat, either, but there were plenty of folks in greens going about their business. I passed the scope to Rutherford.
‘The high point of the hill. Look for the tents,’ I said.
‘Yep, there they are,’ he said and then passed the scope on.
‘What I wouldn’t give for a radio and an Apache gunship on the other end of it,’ muttered West as he adjusted the sight’s focus a little.
After Cassidy and Ryder had scanned the hill, I took the scope back and went on a more extended tour with it, hoping to pick up that road and see where it led. I found it, a pale orange ribbon of mud that curled around the back of the hill, disappearing from view. I readjusted the instrument and came across something else I wasn’t expecting to see.
‘What?’ Cassidy asked, sensing something.
‘There’s a village down there, to the west of the hill. You can just make out a couple of huts.’
Cassidy took the scope and trained it on the area. ‘Got it,’ he said. He was about to shift the view to another area when he took it back to the village. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘The fucks are setting fire to it . . .’
‘Which fucks?’ Ryder asked.
‘The fuckin’ FARDC,’ said Rutherford.
‘The fire explains the haze,’ said West.
Now that I thought about it, the air smelt vaguely of burnt trash.
‘Christ . . .’ Cassidy muttered.
‘What now?’ said Rutherford.
Grim faced, the sergeant handed him the scope. ‘Look.’
Rutherford trained it on the village. ‘Jesus, they’re hacking the poor sods to pieces.’
I took back the scope. I saw a man in civilian clothes run into view and then out of it, a soldier in pursuit with a raised machete poised for the strike. I saw another civilian – a woman – crawl out of the hut on her hands and knees. A soldier stood beside her and hit the back of her head with the flat of his blade, knocking her unconscious, or dead – I couldn’t tell which.
‘There’s movement at the HQ,’ said West.
I swung the scope back. The truck was rolling. It did a one-eighty, then stopped. A couple of men jogged toward it and one of them was Lockhart.
The passenger side door opened and Lockhart and his buddy jumped in beside the driver. The vehicle then accelerated off down the road toward the village.
I lowered the scope. ‘I’m going down there.’
‘Why?’ It was Leila. She was behind me, standing with a hand on one hip in that determined, argumentative stance of hers I first saw in the departure lounge at Kigali airport.
‘ To see if what we find there provides us with any opportunities.’
‘Then I’m going with you. And so is Ayesha; aren’t we?’ she continued.
Ayesha looked surprised.
‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Too dangerous.’
‘We all going, yo,’ said Boink, jutting his chin forward. I pictured a porch coming away from the wall.
‘Cooper, we’re going with you or I scream.’ The celebrity sucked in a breath, opened her mouth and closed her eyes.
What choice did I have?
I DROPPED BACK TO have a word with West.
‘We need food,’ I told him.
‘Sure, it’s all over the place here.’ To prove the point he snatched a large cricket off the petals of a bright red wildflower and stuffed it in his mouth.
‘I’d prefer a toasted sandwich,’ I told him.
He shook his head. ‘Fire’s a no-no here.’
Further down the hill, the rainforest provided West with options more palatable for our principals. He took Cassidy and went off to gather it and they returned with a large bunch of wild bananas on Cassidy’s shoulder.
‘We also need protein,’ said West. He dug into his pockets and produced handfuls of fat white grubs which he passed around. Leila and Ayesha screwed up their faces.
‘You can’t be serious?’ the star said.
‘No,’ said Ayesha, waving her hand at the offer as if trying to push it away.
‘It’s just food . . . I’ll admit they’re better when they’re fried but a fire’s too risky,’ West informed them.
Somehow I didn’t think it would make a difference if they were lightly sautéed in a white wine sauce.
‘What are they?’ I asked.
‘Mopane worms – off mopane trees. Critters are all over here.’
‘How d’you eat ’em?’ Rutherford inquired, sniffng the four large worms in the palm of his hand.
‘Pinch their guts out, and pull out their backbone, which is prickly, so be careful.’ He demonstrated. ‘Then you do this with them.’ He opened his mouth, popped one in and chewed slowly and deliberately.
‘I’m going to throw up,’ Leila muttered.
I followed West’s demonstration – pinched out the guts, removed the spine and ate the thing. It tasted bitter, slimy and gritty. If I’d paid money, I’d be asking for a refund. But food was food, and we had to take what was on the menu to keep up our strength. I ate half a dozen.
‘You can also do what I do and eat the grasshoppers. They’re crunchy and taste of grass, and you have to eat a lot of them. The termites are also an option.’
Ayesha dry retched.
If it were possible for Leila to look gray, she did.
‘Oh, and I also picked up some dessert,’ said West, grabbing a long length of what at first glance appeared to be bamboo that he’d leaned against the rocks. He cut it into one-foot lengths. ‘This here is sugar cane. You chew it, and suck it.’
Leila and Ayesha took the cane but examined it with suspicion.
‘Tastes like sugar,’ he assured them. ‘Really . . .’
The banana was filling and the cane juice rich and sweet. Best of all it carried away the taste of Mopane grub. Cassidy took the lead heading down the hill. He moved fast and we all kept to his tracks. My intention had been to leave Rutherford, West and Ryder behind to provide the security for Boink, Ayesha, Leila, and Leila’s makeup case, but that’s not how it worked out.
I said to Leila, ‘Stay, go, stay, go . . . You always so decisive?’
‘I don’t like you, Cooper, because you—’
‘We’ve established that.’
‘Because, for one thing, you butt in. Look, even though I don’t like you, I do feel safe with you. And so does Ayesha.’
Ayesha glanced over her shoulder at me and produced a smile.
‘When you go off somewhere,’ Leila continued, ‘it’s like we’re all just hanging around waiting for something to go wrong.’
‘Stick with me and there’s no waiting,’ I told her.
‘That’s a reference to your former partner, isn’t it, the one you think you killed?’
It was, but I wasn’t going to give her the sati
sfaction of admitting it.
‘Duke told me that she almost died when you first met her – in a car crash, right? Did you ever think that maybe she was meant to die in that crash, that her time was up? It could be that dying in that crash was her fate but, for some unnatural reason, she avoided it, cheated death. Perhaps she died in that room on your last case because fate had to settle the score.’
I was thinking that I still had a score to settle with Ryder and his blabbermouth. Aside from that, I also wondered which nutbag guru was doing the rounds of celebrity life counseling in LA at the moment. I dropped back a little to put some forest between the two of us, and fell in behind Boink.
THE SOUND OF WOMEN and children crying reached us long before we caught sight of the village. It was the same for the smell of blood, a metallic tang carried on the breeze that stuck to the roof of the mouth and triggered the gag refex. It took a lot of blood to produce a smell like that out in the open. An hour and a half after leaving the ridge, we climbed a heavily wooded hill behind the village. It was spread out a hundred feet below us, laid out across an open cleared area, twenty-three grass and animal-skin huts arranged around a larger central hut. Half a dozen of these smaller huts – homes, I figured – were no more than smoking piles of gray and black ash.
We wrapped the shadows of the forest around us and watched, stunned. Ayesha and Leila covered their mouths with their hands as they did so.
The inhabitants of the village, around a hundred men and women, were sitting on the ground – women and children in one group, men in another. Most of the women carried babies. The men, all roughly between twenty and forty years of age, were sitting cross-legged with their hands on their heads. FARDC soldiers stood over both groups with machetes, the blades black and slick with coagulating blood. Some of the older members of the village had already been butchered, and flies clouded around crimson corpses tangled together in a separate group. People everywhere were yelling and screaming and begging for mercy, which seemed in real short supply.
The soldiers had separated a man from the group and were shouting at him. He wasn’t doing what they wanted so they started beating him with the flats of their blades. He eventually got the message – to sit up on his knees with his fingers interlocked behind his neck – and the beating stopped. Two soldiers then pulled a woman from the female group and dragged her into the center with the man. She was carrying a newborn baby, which was screaming its lungs out. The two villagers risked touching each other’s faces, both sobbing, the woman hysterically. One of the soldiers strode in and ripped the infant the woman was carrying from her arms, holding it upside down by one of its ankles. Unbelievably, he then swung it around his head twice and let go of it. The baby flew high and long, and landed with a crash in the bushes not fifteen meters down the hill from where we were hiding. Its crying ceased when it landed.
Ghost Watch Page 25
