Absently, Jalal said, “It’s beautiful.”
Though Jalal wasn’t looking, Salim nodded. “It reminds me of home.”
After a moment, Jalal asked, “The forests in Colorado are this lush?”
“The trees are different, but the mountains are the same. Whenever I stand on one and look down on the world, it takes my breath away.”
Jalal turned with a smile. “I never thought of you as the poetic type.”
Salim shrugged. “I’m in a weird mood.”
Other men shuffled in the dirt and the weeds around the vans. A few found places far enough away for private conversation but with a view of the storm over the plain far to the east.
Salim asked, “Do you ever feel like you’re a pawn?”
“A pawn? You slipped pretty quickly from poetic to trite.” Jalal smiled at Salim.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’ve felt that way my whole life,” Jalal agreed.
Nodding for emphasis, Salim said, “I thought all this would be different.”
“How so?”
“I thought maybe I’d feel like somebody. Maybe I thought I’d feel like I was doing something important, making choices, maybe even changing the world.”
Jalal laughed. “That’s what we’re doing, mate. We’re going to change the world.”
“Into what?”
That confused Jalal. “Into what? What do you mean?”
Salim looked around to make sure no one could hear what he was about to say. “What if it’s the same thing?”
“How do you mean?”
“What if we’re still powerless, invisible, disposable people, making greedy men more powerful?”
Jalal shook his head and watched the clouds grow and change. “You think too much, mate.”
One of the men in charge called to get everyone’s attention, pointed at a trailhead, and told them to get going. Everyone moved in that direction. Salim fell in line as they all headed out on foot along a trail that ran across the slope.
Chapter 37
Emmanuel Muhangi was surprised when he saw Austin stumble, then fall in his coffee field. Not being an excitable type, he squatted in front of his small house and watched for a moment, but Austin never got back up.
It wasn’t until his seven-year-old son—who recognized Austin from previous visits—asked why Austin had fallen. It was then that Emmanuel decided to get up and investigate.
After crossing his coffee field, he found Austin—not just fallen, but fainted. Emmanuel shook him but was unable to wake Austin. Upon turning Austin over, he felt his skin, which was burning hot with fever. He’d vomited on himself.
Emmanuel turned to his son and told him to quickly go back to the house and get Emmanuel’s wife. Emmanuel, wire-thin but strong from hoisting heavy bags of coffee onto his shoulders, lifted Austin in much the same fashion. He carried Austin to the shed where he and the other mzungu kids slept during their visits.
Emmanuel’s wife came in with a bucket of water and some cloths. His daughter was right behind her. They both went to work dabbing the cold water on Austin’s skin with the cloths and squeezing dribbles into his mouth.
It was obvious to Emmanuel that Austin was very sick. Sick beyond his wife’s abilities to nurse him back to health. After much discussion, Emmanuel left his wife and children with the sick young man and took off at a run down the path that led to Kapchorwa and the closest hospital.
Chapter 38
The trailhead was deceptive. It started out running on a level path across the slope of the mountain. Around a bend it turned upward and forced the group of Pakistani-trained jihadists to hike uphill through the middle of the day. By the time the troop of hikers crested a rise and started to head back down in earnest, they were sweating, thirsty, and spread over a quarter of a mile of the trail.
Salim, walking beside Jalal, could see a group of three about forty or fifty meters ahead. The pair behind was at least that far back.
“What do you think?” Jalal asked.
Salim looked around. “About?”
“This bloody hike through the mountains.”
“I’m tired.”
“No, mate.” Jalal shoved Salim playfully. “You’re so morose. Do you think they’re going to hide us up here?”
Salim thought for a moment. “They could have put us in any one of those thousand isolated houses we saw on the way out here. Why hide us on the mountain in the forest?”
“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” Jalal admitted.
“And why did we leave the buses? Why are we walking?” Salim’s doubts were overtaking him again. He looked over his shoulder to see how close the nearest followers were. “For as long as we drove this morning, I wonder if we’re crossing the border.”
“Which border?”
“I’m guessing Uganda,” replied Salim.
“Why smuggle ourselves across? We have our passports.”
“It makes no sense to me.” Salim lowered his voice. “If our passports show that we’ve entered Kenya, they’ll look suspicious if we leave Africa from another country without a stamp for entering that country.”
“Unless they’re planning an operation in Uganda.”
Salim shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense either.”
“Why not?”
“If they wanted to hit something in Uganda, why bring us?”
Jalal looked around. “Mate, I don’t know how special you think we are, but you do know what we signed up for, right?”
“They could send anybody to Uganda. It’s easy to get fighters here. I’ll bet they even have training camps in Africa.” Salim pointed to the group of three ahead of them. “Those ones are German.”
“Germans? How do you know?”
“I heard them speaking German this morning when we first stopped. I heard some other guy speaking English.”
“British or American?”
“American,” Salim said in a low voice. “I think we all hold Western passports. If that’s the case, why send us to Africa? We’d be so much more valuable to the movement if they sent us back to our countries.”
“That’s what I figured they were planning all along. To send us back.”
“Right? So why drag us through the jungle into Uganda? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Jalal looked around as though there might be some answer in the trees that wasn’t readily apparent. “No, mate. It doesn’t make any sense.”
As the troop made their way down the slope, they eventually closed ranks. They came to a dirt road where a big Isuzu farm truck was waiting for them to load themselves up before heading west once again.
Chapter 39
In the late afternoon sun, Salim leaned over the side of the truck and saw tin roofs and a widening in the dirt road up ahead. A town, a small town. The truck rolled past several men with automatic weapons standing in the bushes. More men were in a position in the trees on the opposite side of the road, looking in the direction from which they’d come. They were guarding the road against anyone coming into town. Salim looked at Jalal with a question on his face, but Jalal was bored and staring at the floor. He never even saw the men guarding the road.
Whatever was happening, they were close to finding out something. Salim was sure of that.