The American Mission (14 page)

“Marie, are you there? Are there any others?”

“Jean-Baptiste?” she called hopefully.

“Yes. Are there any others?” he repeated.

“There's one more over by the furnace, but I think I broke his skull.”

Jean-Baptiste did not waste a moment. He moved quickly, holding his rifle with one hand and running the flashlight back and forth across the floor with the other. Suddenly he stopped. Marie heard two quick shots. Only then did Jean-Baptiste come to her, smelling of gunpowder and killing. Without another word, he took her in his arms. Marie clung to him and began sobbing violently into his chest.

J
UNE
30, 2009
B
USU
-M
OULI

I
t's a hell of a country, ain't it? Primordial, even.” J. J. Sykes had to shout so Alex could hear him over the prop noise. Sykes nudged the controls of the de Havilland DHC-3 Otter to keep the aircraft on course as the Congo River below them began to curve north. Sykes had been in the Congo for the better part of three years, flying around central Africa for Ibis Air Cargo, a company that was almost, but not quite, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition to being a pilot, Sykes was an aspiring poet, which was why he tried to slip words such as “primordial” into his conversation. “I mean, it's like the country is a living thing,” Sykes continued when Alex failed to rise to the “primordial” bait. “It's like a single organism, with the rivers serving as veins and arteries. The jungle is like the lungs. You know what I mean.”

“I suppose I do, J.J.,” Alex replied resignedly. They had been flying for nearly two and a half hours now, and J. J. Sykes hadn't stopped talking for more than five minutes of the flight.

“I always thought of her as a woman. The Congo, I mean. Some of the other countries we fly in are male. Namibia, for example, is a strapping young lad, all rock and desert and heat. Namibia calls you out. Namibia has balls. Namibia will kill you like a man. The Congo, though, she's a sneaky, seductive bitch. She'll wait till you ain't looking and then stick a knife between your shoulder blades into your heart.”

“That's an interesting theory.” Part of Alex hoped that they would be landing soon so that he could escape the incessant yammering of J. J. Sykes. A larger part of him was so unhappy with what he had been tasked to do in Busu-Mouli that he might just as well circle the village in the single-engine Otter for the next week or so.

“It's a shame that there are so many things down there that want you dead. It looks beautiful and healthy enough from up here, but that is one wild-ass place at ground level.”

Alex just nodded. He studied the terrain below. Sykes was operating just on the edge of sanity, but Alex had to admit that he had a point, at least about the Congo's rivers. They were the country's vital arteries. The late afternoon sun reflecting off the surface of the water set the extraordinary network of rivers and lakes into sharp relief against the dark background of the jungle canopy. Occasional towns and villages lined the banks of the Congo River, but the vast majority of the land they were flying over was wilderness.

“We're coming up on the confluence of the Mongala and Congo Rivers,” Sykes reported. “Busu-Mouli should be about five miles up the Mongala on the right bank. There should be a couple of smaller villages nearby, but Busu-Mouli will be the big one.”

“Can we take a pass over the village before we land?” Alex asked.
Might as well get a good look at it before we bury it
.

“I don't see why not. Hey, this baby is equipped with external speakers. You want me to cue up ‘The Ride of the Valkyries' when we do the flyover?”

“I'm pretty sure that
Apocalypse Now
hasn't made it to the Busu-Mouli multiplex yet.”

Alex pointed toward a large building, the largest they had seen since leaving Kinshasa, right on the edge of the Mongala River. A handful of fishing boats were tied up along one side of a dock next to the building.

“What's that down there?”

“It looks like a warehouse of some kind,” Sykes answered. “But it isn't on any of the charts and I didn't see anything like it in the satellite photos our mutual friend Jonah shared with me.”

“How old were the photos?”

“Six months or so, I suppose.”

“Is that Busu-Mouli?”

“The cluster of buildings upriver from the big one should be Busu-Mouli, at least by the map. I'd say a thousand people . . . maybe two thousand maximum . . . in that village. Maybe another two or three thousand in the various villages scattered around.

“Let's go check it out.”

For the first time in the flight, Sykes stopped talking. He lifted the nose of the Otter to bleed off airspeed and lose some altitude. For all of his quirks, Sykes was a smooth and accomplished pilot. He flew low and slow over Busu-Mouli, giving Alex a chance to survey the town and the landscape. The town had a clear main street, a wide avenue of red earth lined with a hodgepodge collection of buildings. A few side streets radiated off the main drag. There were quite a number of people in the streets. Most were looking up at the plane, shielding their eyes from the sun for a better look.

“J.J., can you bring us in a loop around the hills to the north of town.” Alex wanted to check out the site that Consolidated had identified as the source of copper ore.

“No problem. We've got plenty of gas for the round trip.”

The countryside was stunningly beautiful. Carpets of thick jungle mixed with a patchwork of farm fields. The Congo was still the wildest
country in Africa, maybe the wildest country in the world. But underneath the Congo's fragile green shell there was a wealth of riches that greedy men would be unable to ignore for much longer. Civil war or no, Alex knew, the outside world was coming after the Congo's mineral wealth.

From his bird's-eye vantage point, Alex saw a wide, well-tended track that led from the unexplained warehouse on the river's edge up into the hills. As Sykes gently rolled the Otter around the first hill, Alex saw that the path disappeared under what looked like a broad swath of camouflage netting. Alex pointed it out to Sykes.

“Can you get me any closer to that?”

“I can try. But the winds will get tricky if we get too close to the cliff.”

“Don't do anything crazy. But see how close you can get us without one of those ‘unscheduled landings.'”

“Man, you shoulda seen some of the shit we used to pull back in the 'Nam with Air America.”

Sykes put the Otter into a sharp banking turn and flew parallel to the jungle track that led up from the warehouse. At the closest point, the wingtip was no more than ten feet from the camouflage net. Alex couldn't make out what was underneath. Whatever it was, however, it seemed that it must be important to someone who was unhappy with the interest they were demonstrating in the site.

“Holy shit, that's ground fire.” Sykes immediately rolled the Otter away from the cliff and kept low to the ground as he slipped the plane back toward the river.

“To be fair, they did just catch us sneaking a peek through the bedroom windows. Let's go knock on the front door and see if that improves the mood. Can you set us down in the river and pull up to the dock by the warehouse?”

“You sure you want to do it that way? This Otter is unarmed, but I got some other planes back at the field that pack a bit more of a punch.”

“I'm sure. Let's do it this way. You catch more flies with honey.”

“You'll catch even more with a corpse.”

“Let's try not to test that out.”

Sykes brought the Otter down gently on the wide Mongala River and pulled alongside the dock opposite the fishing boats. He cut the power to the prop, but left the engine running as he hopped out to tether the aircraft. Sykes was leaving open the possibility that they were going to have to leave in a hurry. By the time Alex scrambled across the pilot's seat and out onto the dock, there was a welcoming committee waiting for them. Five men wearing civilian clothes but carrying military-grade firearms stood between them and the shore. Alex stepped forward. He did not want to appear either weak or uncertain in approaching this conversation. He stopped quickly, however, when the men pointed the muzzles at his chest.

“You are trespassing in Busu-Mouli,” a tall man at the front of the group said in French. “You are not welcome here. Get back in your plane and we will allow you to leave unharmed.”

“Please let me explain why we're here. My name is Alex Baines. I am with the American Embassy in Kinshasa. I have some information that I would like to talk over with the headman of Busu-Mouli. If that's you, let's talk. If not, I'd welcome an opportunity to meet with the Chief.”

“You have thirty seconds to get back inside your airplane.” All five guns seemed to zero in on a spot in the middle of Alex's chest.

“Let's come back with something with a chain gun attached,” said Sykes in an exaggerated stage whisper.

Alex was stumped. He didn't want to go back empty-handed, but he would be damned if he was going to get himself killed defending the interests of a publicly traded mining company. Before either party was forced to back down, a woman came sauntering down the path that led from the dock to the warehouse. Alex could tell even before she was close enough to see her face clearly that it was Marie Tsiolo. She was wearing green cotton pants with a trendy alligator belt and a yellow top.
Back at Manamakimba's camp, Marie had worn her braided hair pulled back into a ponytail. Now it hung loose down to her shoulders. She looked good. She was also in no hurry. She called something to the men with guns in a language that Alex could not understand but that he assumed was Luba. She took her time descending the hill and surveyed the scene carefully before speaking. Despite Alex's role in helping to secure her release from captivity, she looked at him without even a hint of welcome.

“What's going on, Jean-Baptiste?” she said in French to the tall man who had been doing the speaking for the group. “Is this what Busu-Mouli hospitality has come to in my time away? We should at least ask Mr. Baines what he's doing here.”

“You know him?” Jean-Baptiste looked away from Alex and focused on Marie. His gun didn't move.

“Yes. He helped negotiate the release of the mining party from Manamakimba.”

“So?”

“So I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I would prefer that you not shoot him without first finding out why he is here.”

“You know why he is here and so do I. He's after our copper.”

“Maybe so. I suppose you could try to beat the truth out of him. On the other hand, we could just ask him.” Marie reached out one hand and pushed the barrel of Jean-Baptiste's gun down toward the ground. He didn't resist. As the weapon dropped, his men disengaged their muzzles from Alex's midsection. There was a palpable easing of tension. Jean-Baptiste shot Alex a look that was at least as devastating as the bullet in the chamber.

“So, how about it, Mr. Baines,” Marie said, turning from Jean-Baptiste and taking a hard look at Alex. “What brings you to our humble village?”

“There are some things that are happening that you should know about, Ms. Tsiolo. Whether they're good or bad, I'm not in a position to
say. But they are important and there will be choices to make. There are some options . . . possibilities that I would like to discuss with your headman or the village council.”

“You mean my father, Chief Tsiolo.”

“I suppose I do.”
Damn. Keeler hadn't told him that part, and it certainly had not been in her file.

“Well then. Let me take you to him.”

Alex grabbed his briefcase out of the plane and followed Marie up a steep path that led toward the town he had surveyed from the air. It was a dirt track, but it was both well built and well maintained. Logs set into the ground at regular intervals formed a rough stairway. Marie said nothing as they hiked up the hill. She seemed more aloof than she had been during the long negotiation with Manamakimba.

“You look well, Marie.” Alex used her first name, hoping that it would help break through the crust of ice that seemed to lie between them. “Have you been in touch with Dr. Wheeler? I understand that he's out of the hospital and back in the States.”

“I heard the same thing, but I haven't spoken to Steve myself,” Marie said in her lightly accented English. “In fact, I haven't been in touch with anyone from Consolidated Mining since our captivity. Have you?”

This last sentence came out as much an accusation as a question, but Alex elected to take it at face value. He lengthened his stride slightly so that he could catch up to Marie and walk alongside her.

“Arlene Zimmerman sent me a letter from Johannesburg. She asked for a transfer. Can't say that I blame her. Charlotte is out of the business altogether. Arlene told me that she was joining some sort of Silicon Valley start-up. Mike Tanner, I understand, is taking a job in the oil fields in Alberta. And Sven is already back in the field with Consolidated. Arlene said that he was looking for rubidium in the south, somewhere near Bukama. The only one Arlene didn't know anything about was you. The Consolidated people in Kinshasa told me you resigned. Have you moved back here permanently?”

“I never truly left. This is my home. I went away for school and for a little work experience on top of that, but I never gave up my place in my father's house.”

“I can see that. I left home at seventeen, but my mother still keeps my old bedroom pretty much as I left it, right down to the basketball trophies and the algebra books. My daughter's sleeping in it right now.”

“How old is your girl?”

“Anah's nine. I adopted her in Sudan a couple of years ago. She's spending the summer with my family in America, but she'll be here in Kinshasa in time to start school in September. I hope you get a chance to meet her. I think that she would like you.”

“I'm afraid there aren't very many mementos from my childhood in my room. We didn't have very much.”

“And now?”

“Things are better now. My father is a good leader. It's been hard for everyone, of course, since the wars began.” Marie had used the plural and Alex supposed that was fair. The ten-year-old civil war was so complex that it was like a dozen wars laid on top of one another.

“You all seem pretty capable of defending yourselves,” Alex observed.