The little township was beginning to stir as Anastasia and Ado helped Celine stagger inland from the river through the dilapidated white-walled buildings that lined the main street. Behind them, the town spread out into more traditional round, mud-walled dwellings, better suited to the climate and situation. Families were at their early-morning chores, fetching water, stoking fires, preparing food. The road the three women were following was metalled through the township, but it became little more than a red mud track in the distance. However, it curved away into the jungle and ran right the way down to Granville Harbour. Ten miles north of the city, in fact, it opened out again to became, suddenly and unexpectedly, an eight-lane highway even larger than the one they had travelled last night into Citematadi. There was a gas station here, whose diesel powered Nellie as well as local trucks, and whose petrol fired up generators, occasional four-by-fours, battered saloons and ubiquitous motorcycles. There was a post office and sometimes mail came and went. It had an old-fashioned exchange. Sometimes the phones worked. There had once been reliable landlines but they were long gone. Now communication from the post office relied — as was stated on the big poster in its window — on Benincom. There was a cellphone mast standing tall behind the post office on the edge of the jungle. And where there was communication, there was commerce: palm oil going down from local groves; bananas, plantains, dates, kola nuts, coconuts, okra on occasion — more than subsistence crops, grown on local smallholdings and gathered from the jungle. Up from the city came fish, meat and domestic utensils. There was a hardware store. There was a food shop. There was a bank, which opened occasionally.
And there was a clinic. It was just about the last of the square, white-painted, flat-roofed buildings in town. It was air-conditioned, blessedly quiet. The sister on reception took one look at Celine and called for the doctor. The doctor took one look at her and called for a bed. ‘I’ll fill in the necessary paperwork,’ said Anastasia. ‘You find the nearest phone, laptop or two-way radio.’
By the time Anastasia had filled out the paperwork — several sheets of it — Ado was back. ‘The post office says everything’s gone down,’ she reported. ‘Seems like bad luck. Benincom cellphones were working fine until earlier this morning. Then it all went down. Probably something to do with the mast. That’s it. No one has a laptop with Internet access either — that piggybacked on the Benincom signal apparently. The people at the post office think there might be someone with a satellite phone, but they don’t know who. Nor does anyone at the garage. Or at the hardware shop.’
‘That’s it then,’ said Anastasia. ‘Looks like Nellie and plan B.’
The doctor arrived then and picked up the paperwork, frowning. Anastasia read the name ‘Dr Chukwu’ on the pocket of his white coat. ‘I have cleaned the bullet wound,’ he said, ‘and bandaged it properly. Given her antibiotics and painkillers. She is sleeping now. Please explain how she came to be wounded.’
As Anastasia told her story, Dr Chukwu reached into his pocket and pulled out a bulky Benincom cellphone. Switched it on, frowned again. ‘No signal,’ he said. ‘But this must be reported to the authorities at the earliest possible opportunity!’
‘That’s our plan,’ said Anastasia.
‘Why, Malebo itself could be at risk! The Army of Christ the Infant is notorious!’
‘It doesn’t normally attack towns,’ countered Anastasia. ‘But you’re right. Is there a mayor, a chief, someone local in charge? Someone we could warn before we go downstream for help?’
‘There is Mr Obada. He runs the hardware store. He’s the man to tell.’
‘Right. We’ll do that on our way out, then. But Celine will be safe here?’
‘As safe as we can make her,’ said Dr Chukwu.
On their way back to the Nellie, Anastasia and Ado went into the hardware store and told their story to Mr Obada. Malebo’s mayor frowned. ‘I will call a council meeting,’ he decided. ‘Warn everyone. Set up armed defences as soon as possible. You are going for help, you say?’
‘In the Nellie. It might take a day or two…’
‘The Nellie? But where is Captain Christophe?’
‘I wish I could tell you,’ said Anastasia sadly.
The man who had watched Anastasia washing and drying herself in naked splendour was called Odem. Esan knew him well but had no idea he was here — any more than Odem knew the boy was aboard the boat. Anastasia herself might have recognized him as one of the phalanx of older men who had stood around General Moses Nlong when he ate Sister Faith’s heart. For he was a captain in the Army of Christ the Infant and one of the general’s most trusted officers.
Odem watched the women now, still from the fringes of the jungle, hidden with the little squad he had brought through the delta downriver with him; moving, he had thought, at almost incredible speed along the north bank through the all but trackless jungle. Especially as they had brought with them a pair of four-by-fours and a pair of Toyota ‘Technical’ trucks with machine guns and rocket launchers on the back of them. And yet three women — scarcely more than children — had beaten him to his goal. It was incredible. It might be enough to change the game — make him depart from the detail of his orders — a very dangerous thing to do. So Captain Odem sat and thoughtfully surveyed his target. Unsuspected still — in spite of the fact that they had already disabled the Benincom cellphone mast and cut the town off from the outside world.
Odem sucked his teeth in thought and indecision. His orders were specific and clear. They had not included the Nellie. But the general had not known about the Nellie. What would his orders have been if he had realized that the boat and the escaped women would be here? Odem’s indecision was acute. His hesitation crucial. The women climbed aboard the boat, slipped the mooring and were beyond his reach almost before he knew it. That taught the soldier the dangers of hesitation if nothing else. He gestured, silently. The little squad he had brought with him detached themselves from the invisibility of the undergrowth and followed him to the clinic.
It took only a moment for the six men and one terrified woman to break into the white-painted building. They were experts at this kind of thing. Dr Chukwu and his staff never stood a chance of resisting. They didn’t even get the chance to raise the alarm. Captain Odem surveyed the terrified medical team as they stood under the guns of his men. ‘You will come with us,’ he said shortly. ‘You will bring all the medicines and equipment you can carry. This woman is a nun with some medical training. Her name is Sister Hope. She will advise on what you will need to bring and ensure that you bring the best. Hurry! There is little time. I am sure you don’t want to find yourselves in the middle of a firefight or a hostage negotiation.’