by Hugo Navikov
“Nice,” Atari said.
“Shut your mouth, boy. For all I care, you can sleep out in the rain with the rest of your people,” Vermeulen said. He shook it off like he had been the one insulted and continued, “The doors will be locked for the night. It’s just too dangerous with some mystery killer monster out there to leave it open.”
“I don’t think it can work a doorknob,” I said.
“No, but the miners can. And they will no longer have access to this building.”
“What?” Ellie cried. “What if there’s another attack out there?”
Vermeulen looked a little green at the prospect. He tugged at his cuffs and said, “It is the decision of my board of directors. It’s not me—I don’t want anything bad to happen to the miners—”
“Even if they are Negroes,” Atari spat.
The company man stiffened at that. “This discussion is over. The doors will be bolted at sundown. If you are inside at that time, you may stay comfortably. If not, then you throw in your lot with the Congolese.”
“What a good German,” Gregory said, and Daan Vermeulen actually flinched. “Follow those orders no matter what, eh?”
Vermeulen turned on his heel—with ironic military precision—and stomped away into the depths of the building. He slammed a door, making his office workers jump.
“It’s noon,” I said. “Can you guys stomach eating with these people before we go off in search of the Jeep?”
“I’d rather go hungry,” Atari said, making us smile unfairly, but then he reached into his poncho and brought out some thousand-calories energy bars. “But we don’t have to.”
***
“How long can it rain like this?” Ellie yelled, as she had to do for us to hear anyone else in the still-gushing downpour.
“It’s the rainforest,” I shouted back. “The African rainforest. There’s a distinct possibility it will never stop.”
She smiled at that, and I was glad. “Wish we had Bonte and his car right now!”
“No, he’d go too fast,” Atari said loudly, his eyes glued to the infrared monitor on the specialized camera. “We only got about 20 feet visibility as it is. We could be in a ditch or run right into a tree faster than I could say stop.”
We had moved out of the Vermeulen building and made our way to the guard station, both of the men inside staying warm and dry as they waved to us in ironic pity. Assholes.
Now Atari led us to the gate, and then we apparently were out in the open area with the armored car—yes, that’s just where we were, and Atari used that to navigate with the infrared camera in the direction we hoped to hell we had left the destroyed Jeep.
“There it is!” our cameraman yelled joyfully, and we all peered in at the monitors. It was visible, as had been most of our other metal markers like gateposts and the armored car as a black, cold area in the screen mostly brightened by the warm rain. “I can’t believe it’s still there!”
“Don’t get too excited,” I said. “They probably came and stripped the M40 off it already.”
“You didn’t mention that as a possibility,” Gregory said, not exactly mad but not exactly happy, either.
I wanted to say that one would have to assume this was the case, but then I thought back to my devastating conversation with the Boss. You can’t assume that you know the truth every time. So I didn’t respond, just kept walking in our little troupe’s shuffling steps toward the Jeep on Atari’s infrared camera. As we got within ten steps, the screen changed and glowed from trees and standing water, not from the torrents of rain.
Because, as abruptly as it had begun, the deluge stopped.
The Jeep was right there, burnt and blackened and broken.
Its machine gun was gone.
Before we even had time to lament our rotten luck, three Jeeps—each with a big ol’ M40 mounted in front—surrounded us. And who hopped out of one of them but Captain Jeep himself? He spoke in French, making sure I understood every foreign word. “We knew you would come back,” he said, and grabbed Atari’s camera and dashed it against the ground. Then he went and stood right in front of Ellie. “And you didn’t think I would forget you, did you, lovely lady?”
As casually as possible, I reached for my pistols—they were more like clothing to me and I was just as likely to neglect to put them on when going outside—but cold steel touched the back of my neck and I stopped. My guns were lifted from me, and the militia soldiers checked Atari and Gregory for weapons as well. They had none, since a legitimate camera crew wouldn’t.
“Hold her arms back for me, would you, Brett Russell?”
I started. “How do you know—”
Captain Jeep slapped Ellie hard, right across the face. She yelped in pain but stood defiant. “Hold her arms for me, would you, Brett Russell?” he repeated through clenched yellow teeth.
This time I stepped over to Ellie and loosely held her wrists behind her. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to her.
She started a reply but was cut short as the captain kicked his thick, hard boot right into Ellie’s crotch, against her pelvis and probably her whole … area down there. She doubled over in pain, and Cappy took advantage of her position to bring a knee up to her forehead. She went straight into the mud, her eyes slightly open in her unconsciousness.
Captain Jeep said something in Swahili or Kikongo, and the men responded by tossing the redhead into the back of his vehicle. “Remember my men, Brett Russell? This is called ‘the paying back.’” He then pulled a .45 automatic out of his holster and shot Gregory through the head. The big man was dead before his body hit the ground.
He shifted to point it at Atari’s face. The younger man shut his eyes, calmly awaiting his death. (Maybe meditation worked.) There was nothing I could do to save him, either, the soldier’s gun still against my neck. I’d never be able to swing around in time to grab the gun before he pulled the trigger.
“Comment tu t'appelles?” he said to Atari as he pushed the barrel of his .45 against Atari’s right eye socket.
“W-What?”
Captain Jeep slapped Atari’s cheek and repeated his question: “Comment tu t'appelles?”
“I don’t speak Fr—”
“He wants to know your name,” I said, wondering what the Captain’s game was but also not wanting to find out.
“Atari,” the cameraman said, shaking.
“Well, Monsieur Atari,” Cappy said in English, the son of a bitch, “you live for now. Go tell your boss at the mines that we are taking what is ours very soon. No more miners come to work for him. Go!” He punctuated his sentence with the butt of his gun against Atari’s forehead, creating a gash that immediately poured blood down his face.
“Jesus, man!” Atari looked shocked in addition to physically injured.
“No Jesus for you—sors d’ici!” Cap practically screamed in our cameraman’s face. Atari scrambled to run away and out of view toward the Vermeulen camp. out of the room and out the door.
“Now, Brett Russell, you come answer some questions before I kill you, okay?” he said brightly and motioned to his men to stuff me in the back seat of another Jeep while the captain drove off in the vehicle containing an unconscious Ellie White.
Chapter 13
This was not ideal. Ellie was tied to a wooden chair next to me, easy to do when she was unconscious, and I was tied to a chair, easy to do when you had a loaded gun pressed against my temple. This all seemed a bit Saturday Republic Serial to me, but it wasn’t exciting. Just nerve-wracking. Also, my anger over Captain Jeep’s murder of Gregory the sound man was threatening to boil over and make me take some impulsive, useless actions that would do wonders for relieving stress but just about nothing to keep Ellie and me alive.
“I am General Cephu,” the man I had formerly called Captain said to me in English after he let off a little steam by punching me in the face a couple of times, breaking my nose but not my desire to kill him.
“General, huh?” I said in English, spitting bl
ood. “I should’ve figured. General Confusion, maybe, or General Failure.”
“Your idiot words mean nothing to me,” he said in English, which I expected, since I was sticking to colloquial language this asshole would almost, but not quite, understand. He puffed out his chest, literally. “You killed three of my soldiers, three men faithful to the rebellion we are inciting.”
“Listen, Princess Leia, I don’t have a dog in your fight. I don’t give two shits about your rebellion. All I know is you were set to snuff my new BFF.”
Cephu’s face scrunched; he probably thought his English was superior, just like he thought everything else about himself was superior. “What?” he said in amusing frustration.
“I said that I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about why you’re kicking people’s buckets for them, just that your sidekicks earned getting their tickets punched for putting a pea-shooter to Atari’s noggin, capisce?”
The general chambered a round and placed the muzzle of his .45 right against my kneecap. He said, “I certainly hope I can understand you this time, Mister Russell.”
I took it Cephu wasn’t in a funnin’ mood. I cleared my throat and said, “I killed your men because they were going to kill my friend and then possibly me. I would have killed you, too, if you weren’t in a position where you could hurt the girl before I got you. I am not interested in your rebellion.”
He took the gun off my knee, and I let out a nervous breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. “You work for Vermeulen.”
“I do not. I am here with the television show Cryptids Alive!”
“Then why does Vermeulen Mining give you food and shelter? They do not make television programs.” Cephu seemed to think he had the upper hand not only physically, but also logically, maybe morally. “I am told you are not a television man, that you are here instead to infiltrate my militia.”
Despite my tan from being outside a lot, I was still blindingly light-skinned compared to the almost purple blackness of the general’s skin. “That sounds … difficult.”
Cephu laughed, and I smiled with him for protective reasons. “Here is what I want: you will leave Tshikapa tomorrow and never come back, you and what’s left of the television crew. We have Vermeulen right exactly where we want them, and an American spy working for them isn’t going to ruin that.”
“General Amusement—”
“Cephu!”
“Gesundheit. Anyway, I accede to your demands. I will leave here along with Ellie”—I nodded at the slowly waking woman—“and Atari and the sound man you killed. We’ll pack into planes at get out of here.”
“I am not making jokes here, Mister Russell.”
“Neither am I. We are out of here … based on one condition: You answer a question for me.”
“Wass … wass goin on?” Ellie murmured as she opened her eyes and straightened her neck and back to sit up. She saw me tied up and Cephu with his semi-automatic pistol and said, “Aw, shit.”
Cephu threw his head back and laughed. “She understands the trouble you are in, Mister Russell. She is not making demands.” He called out to two of his compatriots who must have been standing just outside the doorway. “Dany, Salomon, what do you think of this beautiful white lady?”
They spoke in Swahili to Cephu, then the general to them. Sickening smiles adorned all of their faces as they leered at Ellie, who now looked more nervous than pissed off.
“She didn’t do anything, General. Let her go.”
He whacked me across the forehead with the butt of his gun, just as he had done with Atari. And just like Atari, blood streamed down my face. “You make so many demands, American. You make demands and I give you choices.”
“Choices?” I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Yes, indeed, sir. Dany and Salomon are very good soldiers who deserve some of the spoils of war,” he said, again looking over at Ellie tied to her chair. “But whether they get them, that is up to you, Mister Russell.”
“What’s my choice? You kill her first or you kill me first?”
Cephu translated to his two henchmen, and they all laughed. Such a great time everyone was having! “No, no, no. You live for now. Your choice is about Miss White—would you like me to kill her right now, or allow Dany and Salomon their reward and let them rape her. Then, after that, I kill her.”
All the color drained from Ellie’s face. I could see her hands trying to work the knot, but she wasn’t going to be able to untie it. I had been Special Forces and I couldn’t untie a knot tied in a rope of that thickness without being able to see what I was doing. I know, because I had been trying since they bound me to my chair.
I know I could execute a Black Widow kind of move, doing a front flip and crashing the chair against the floor to splinter into a thousand pieces, then jump and bring my arms in front of me, where I could then subdue the militia general and his soldiers, untie my hands and then Ellie’s and make a run for it.
However.
Chair legs might break off with such a superhero maneuver, but it was unlikely a real wooden chair of any solidity would explode into shards and allow me freedom. Also unlike in the movies, three armed men would be unlikely to just stand there and gawk as I beat each of them to a pulp with my bound hands, etc., etc. They had powerful guns and they would use them on me at point-blank range, killing me. And then they would rape and kill my sweet, charming, ball-busting Ellie White.
My? I meant the. The Ellie White, not my Ellie White. LOL, as the kids like to say.
“What is your choice, Mister Spy?”
Ellie looked absolutely petrified now, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. Still, I had to use the only ploy I could, which was stalling the soldiers until I could think of a better ploy. So I said, “I won’t make a choice until you answer my question.”
The general laughed most heartily once again, and Dany and Salomon followed suit even though they had no idea what I had just said. “Do you really think you’re getting out of here alive? Her, you, the fat boy, any of you?”
“Doesn’t matter. Just answer me one question.”
“All right, James Bonds, ask your question.”
There are bluffs and then there are seat-of-your pants, I-hope-to-God-I-sound-even slightly-convincing, shot-in-the-dark uneducated guesses. What I did was completely and utterly the latter. I straightened in my chair, thrust out my chin a little bit, giving Cephu a little show of incredibly confident body language, and said: “What are your men doing in the jungle in the middle of the night to make that Kasai Rex attack the miners?”
The generals’ face turned from smug and smarmy to open-mouthed shock in less than one second. Then he laughed, maybe out of surprise, maybe out of genuine amusement. “How in the ancestor’s holy names do you know this?” he said when he could talk again, then explained to his two soldiers. Their mouths dropped open then, too, and they didn’t recover their composure by laughing.
I couldn’t believe I had nailed it on the head, but then, who else could it have been?
“I am going to tell you, Mister Russell. Maybe you believe it, maybe you don’t. But I tell you the truth because who cares? You will be dead soon, after you finish watching us rape and kill your girlfriend.”
“Hey! What happened to me making the choice?”
Cephu guffawed again. “We were going to do it anyway. So do you want to hear the truth or should my boys just begin?”
Stall, stall, stall. And I had to think, for God’s sake.
The general couldn’t keep his hilarity to himself, so he shared his evil comment to Dany and Salomon, making them laugh for real. The one I thought was Dany leaned into Cephu and said something which even in Swahili sounded filthy as hell, and both men laughed again.
“What’s Tweedledum got to say?” I asked, trying not to care, but needing to know for my own sanity. I had absolutely nothing to even make these criminals pause, and I think my stalling by talking was falling to the law of decreasing returns.
“Salo
mon says she is the whitest woman he had ever seen, but he’s going to burn her to black with his fiery uume. That means his penis.”
“Yeah, I figured,” I said, but “burning” made me think of the cheroot in my front pocket and the book of matches in my back pocket. “S-So tell me this big secret, already.” It was hard to keep control of my breath and not look like I was squirming around suspiciously as I lifted the book out. All I had to do was drop it and we were both dead, with Ellie wishing she were dead before they actually killed her.
I didn’t drop it.
“Okay, I break the suspense now. What are we doing in the dark jungle to make the monster kill the mine people? We steal her egg, stupid man. We steal it and run away before she can catch us.”
Despite her predicament, Ellie perked up. “There are eggs? That means there’s more than one! She must have a mate! And the eggs—maybe they’re not the first! Brett, there could be a whole extended family of Kasai Rex in that jungle!”
Salomon—no, Dany—stepped forward and slapped her hard across the face. Tears came to her eyes and she shut up, but there was no mistaking that the cryptid hunter was still excited.
“You steal the monster’s eggs?” I said, not getting it. “Why does that make the Kasai Rex kill the miners?”
“Ha! I can tell you have never had a child.”
My eye twitched. It suddenly became much easier to fish out one of the matches, which I could strike against the wood of the chair as soon as General Cephu looked away.
But that was not going to happen yet. “The mother, she can smell that people like us—what do you Americans call us?”
“Black people.”
“That is not it!” he said, and laughed again. “We both know what it is. She can smell that niggers have taken her precious baby, and she comes running for it. We leave it as far into the tents as can and then run like the devil himself.”
“How did you even know there was a Kasai Rex in that jungle? It’s never even been mapped out! Scientists don’t even know about it!”
“Never mind that, Mister Spy. We leave the eggs by the tents and then Mother comes to find it, totally in rage and killing anything she sees until she finds it again and takes it back to the nest. It kills the dumb miners again and again and still they won’t refuse to work for Vermeulen. Still they won’t join us! What stupid and ridiculous people they are!”
