The footsteps came closer. Fisher saw a man-shaped shadow fall across the grass. In one smooth motion, Fisher stepped around the Rover’s corner post and rose up, grabbing and lifting the man’s rifle stock while sweeping the Applegate up in a tight arc. He jammed it hilt-deep into the hollow spot behind the man’s jaw and beneath his ear. The man never made a sound, dead before he hit the ground.
Fisher kept moving. He reversed the man’s rifle — a FAMAS 5.56mm — shouldered it, took three quick steps out from behind the Rover, and saw a man turning toward him. He fired twice. Both rounds punched through the man’s sternum. Even as he fell, Fisher was moving again, this time in the opposite direction, back across the rear of the Rover, where he dropped to one knee and leaned out, rifle at his shoulder. The last man was moving down the passenger side, his FAMAS coming up. Fisher fired. The bullet caught the man in the hip and spun him around. He screamed and toppled onto his side and kept rolling, trying to bring the FAMAS to bear. Fisher fired again. The bullet drilled a neat hole in the man’s forehead. His head snapped back, and he went limp.
Moving on instinct, he checked each man to ensure he was dead and for any identifying papers (there were none), then crouched down and took ten seconds to catch his breath. He looked around. No cars on the road, none visible. He thought for a moment, running scenarios in his head, then made his decision. He dropped the FAMAS in the dirt, then hurried back to the driver’s side window and dropped to his belly.
“Jimiyu, can you hear me?”
There were a few seconds of silence, the Kenyan cleared his throat and said softly, “I can hear you. Is it safe to no longer be dead?”
32
He pulled Jimiyu from the Rover and checked him over. The bullet, moving slightly backward to forward, had carved a groove in the bony tip of his shoulder, then punched cleanly through the skin of his neck between a tendon and his jugular vein. There was a lot of blood but only superficial damage. A half inch to the right, and Jimiyu would be dead.
Fisher dug the first aid kit from the Rover’s glove compartment, then dressed both his wounds and covered him with a blanket.
Next he picked up the M-14 and jogged the quarter mile to a rocky outcrop overlooking the lake. He hurled the rifle far into the water, then ran back to the Rover.
“Who were those men?” Jimiyu asked.
“The less you know, the better,” Fisher said. “They were highway bandits. They ambushed us, and we never saw them coming. When you woke up, the Rover was lying on its side, and the men were already dead. You didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, and you don’t remember anything after your window shattered. Got it?”
Jimiyu nodded. “I understand.” Then, softly: “You killed them, Sam.” There was no reproach in the Kenyan’s voice, only astonishment.
“I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“No apologies necessary, my new friend. What do we do now?”
The police were going to be involved; there was no way around it, which is why he’d chosen to not use the M-14 and to dispose of it. The better he could play the lucky victim, the easier things would go.
He hit speed dial on his satellite phone. When Grimsdottir answered, he said simply, “Napper, three, mess. Stand by.” Then he hung up and dialed Aly. She picked up on the first ring.
“My God, what happened?” she asked. “I heard shots over the phone—”
“Have you called the police?”
“No, I wanted to hear from you.”
“Good. How do you feel about not calling them?”
She hesitated. “Do you want me to not call them?”
“I’d be grateful.”
“Okay.”
Fisher thanked her, promised to be in touch, then disconnected. He cleared the phone’s call memory.
East down the road he saw a car round the bend toward them. He jogged to the shoulder and started waving his arms.
The Western District Police and an ambulance from Kendu Adventist Hospital in Kendu Bay were there in twenty minutes. As Jimiyu was loaded into the ambulance, Fisher walked the one constable through the shooting and the accident while the other covered the bodies of the Kyrgyz in green plastic tarps and searched both vehicles and jotted notes.
Fisher stopped and restarted his story a half dozen times as though confused, asked for water, to sit down, then wondered aloud if he should go to the hospital. At last, after fifteen minutes, he got the whole story out.
“And you say these men just began firing at you?” The constable spoke perfect English with the barest hint of a British accent.
Fisher said, “I didn’t even realize it until the third or fourth — or was it the fifth? — shot. I don’t know; it was a blur.”
“And this,” the constable said, waving his pencil at the three bodies. “You did this?”
“Yeah… uh, I guess. I was in the… in the army, the U.S. Army — the first Gulf War. Training, I guess. It just took over. I don’t know, it happened so fast. I don’t feel so good… Can I sit down?” The constable cupped Fisher’s elbow and guided him to a rock.
They watched as the ambulance finished loading Jimiyu aboard, then pulled away.
“Is he going to be okay?” Fisher asked.
“It appears so. So tell me again how his happened. From start to finish, if you please.”
Fisher did so, telling the same story, but not the exact same way.
“And this knife you used… it’s the one in the dirt there?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Am I in trouble? They didn’t really give me a chance. When I crawled out of the car, they were pulling up. I stumbled around the Rover, and there he was, with the gun…”
“I will forward my report to my chief, of course, but providing we find nothing contradictory here, a written statement from you and your friend should suffice. You are staying here locally?”
Fisher nodded. “In Nairobi, at a friend’s.” Fisher gave him Aly’s contact information.
“Do you wish to go to the hospital?” the constable asked.
“Uh… no, I don’t think so.”
“I will call your rental car agency and inform them of the incident. They’ll arrange another vehicle for you, I’m sure.”
“Thank you.”
“How long will you be staying in Kenya?”
“Another day or two, I guess. I’ll go to the hospital, I think, and see how Jimiyu’s doing, then… I don’t know.”
But he did know. More than ever he wanted to find out what was so important about Niles Wondrash and the Sunstar that Bolot Omurbai would send three killers halfway across the globe to keep secret.
33
Fisher steered the Toyota Highlander off the road and coasted to a stop, his tires crunching on gravel. Through his windshield was a chest-high stockade fence bearing a sun-bleached, vine-entangled sign: RAKWARA WHCP (WATER HYACINTH CONTROL PROJECT) HEADQUARTERS. Through the trees he could see a ranch-style building. Faint strains of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” mixed with the chirps and buzzes of the jungle, filtered through the trees.
He checked his GPS unit. This was, literally, the end of the road. From here, he walked. He climbed out, walked to the rear of the Highlander, and pulled out his Granite Gear pack, then started sorting through the gear he’d managed to salvage from the Range Rover.
The constables had waited with him for the arrival of the tow truck from Kusa and a replacement car from the rental agency in Kisumu. Ostensibly making conversation, Fisher had asked the constables about the area — terrain, geology, history — and gotten in return much more than he’d bargained for. Both men had grown up along the shores of Lake Victoria and knew it intimately. In fact, one of them said as boys they used to search some of the shallower caves for pirate treasure.
“Caves?” Fisher asked.
“Yes,” replied the constable. “Our word for them does not translate well.” He thought for a moment, then held up an index finger. “In Mexico, I think, they have something similar — deep ponds — like shafts — with underwater caves.”
“Cenotes,” Fisher said.
“Yes, that’s it. Cenotes.”
A lightbulb came on in Fisher’s head. The climbing gear in Wondrash’s plane… He’d assumed it was climbing gear, but in what direction? Up or down? According to the legend, Wondrash and Oziri had flown straight into Kisumu then set off for Addis Ababa a few days later.
“No mountain climbing nearby?” Fisher asked.
“Mountain climbing? No, not near the lake. Mount Kenya, perhaps, but that’s closer to Nairobi.”
So, what, Fisher thought, had Wondrash and Oziri been doing with climbing gear?