‘That’s mighty considerate of you, Arlen. But I’m still not solid on what I’m supposed to be doing.’
‘Just make sure no one gets killed. Lieutenant Colonel Travis will do the rest. Like I said — milk run.’
Kigali
Thirty-two hours later — after transiting through Incirlik, Turkey, and overnighting at Ramstein, Germany — another C-17 deposited me at Kigali airport. Packed into the long sausage-shaped bag at my feet were the bare essentials: body armor and Ka-bar knife, a metal case containing an M4 carbine and a Sig Sauer side-arm, a couple of changes of combat uniform, clean underwear, socks, disposable razor, and toothbrush.
The airport consisted of a single runway, a couple of crumbling taxiways, and one terminal that looked like some kind of traditional African grass hut built in concrete and steel. I stood on the square of paved ramp, sweat blooming on my scalp from the high temperature and choking humidity, my airman battle uniform sticking to all the wrong places. The clouds suspended above the airfield were spectacular — a thousand puffy white sails set on top of each other against a royal blue sky. Looked like rain and plenty of it.
I went into the terminal and found an old lady holding the insects at bay with a flyswatter. She stamped my passport, glanced at my papers and the firearms authorizations on my orders. Then I wandered around the deserted building, looking for a soda, but there were no vending machines and the one shop was closed. I had no local currency anyway. The arrivals board was equally busy here in Sleepy Hollow, so I went back outside.
Of Kigali itself, there wasn’t much to see, at least from where I was standing. Low hills flanked the airfield, and the closest one behind the terminal was dotted with small, nondescript shanty-style homes, nothing over two storys and only a few of those. On the opposite side of the apron I could see a faded old Soviet Mi-24 Hind gunship that was missing two of its five main rotor blades. Thinking about it, the presence of the relic was the only indication that this was an airport.
It was airless. Only the insects broke the silence. I brushed the flies off my face so many times that it looked like I was waving goodbye to an invisible plane. A large insect flew an orbit around my head, recon-noitering a place to land, before touching down on my neck. I slapped at it, and the thing flew off sounding like a door buzzer with too much voltage. It was ten-forty am. If everything was running to schedule, the principals would be here in twenty minutes.
Ten minutes short of the aircraft’s scheduled arrival time, a black limousine drove onto the far side of the apron, followed by five others, plus a khaki-colored truck bringing up the rear. When the convoy got close enough, I could see little flags flapping from atop their front fenders. The line of vehicles scribed a wide arc around the ramp, eventually stopping opposite me, fifty meters away. Soldiers jumped down from the back of the truck, some of them wearing Vietnam-era fatigues but many more outfitted in what appeared to be Rwandan Army Class As. The men in the fancy uniforms were also holding shiny nickel-plated AK-47s, and they formed up in an orderly straight line to one side of the lead vehicle, then stood at ease. The guys in the greens carried more businesslike H&K MP-5 submachine guns with the blue anodizing worn off, and they fanned out around the cars. Aside from the fact that the folks in the limos were obviously important, I had no idea who they were. No doubt Travis would, but he was on the inbound plane. The front passenger door of the fourth vehicle opened and out stepped a man wearing a blue suit, blue business shirt open at the collar, and wraparound sunglasses. He walked casually toward me. When he came within ten meters, I could also see that he was wearing an earpiece, which tagged him as security.
‘Bonjour,’ he said, smiling without any kind of warmth.
I nodded. ‘Hey.’
He followed with some French I couldn’t follow, then summed it up by holding out his hand, palm up, wiggling his fingers, and saying, ‘Documents.’
I handed him my paperwork and diplomatic passport.
‘US Air Force,’ he said, reading the words off my shirt. He turned his attention to the forms, and raised his eyebrows at the firearms authorizations. Then he toed the bag at my feet and said, ‘I see this.’
I knelt, unzipped the bag, and let him take a peek. ‘This,’ he said, motioning at the locked case. Despite the Status of Forces Agreement between the US and Rwanda that okayed the weapons I was bringing in, he was clearly nervous about it. He wanted the case opened, so I opened it. There was a moment’s indecision on his face, and I knew he was considering one option that had me face down while his buddies with the submachine guns stomped me into the pavement. But he checked the documents again, looked me up and down once more, and decided that maybe I was who and what my documents said I was — friendly, legal, and not to be messed with. I could feel the sweat on my back forming rivulets.
‘Hot, isn’t it?’ I said, flicking the droplets off my forehead with a finger.
He nodded, pinched his shirt away from his body, and said, ‘Oui, monsieur. Il fait chaud ici.’ All of which I took to mean, ‘Yeah, hotter than fuck.’
He handed back my papers and said, ‘Twenny Fo et Leila,’ and with his hand mimed a plane landing.
‘Yeah,’ I repeated. ‘Twenny Fo and Leila.’
He gestured over his shoulder and said, ‘Le président.’
‘The president,’ I repeated and made a face that conveyed wonder, respect, and surprise all at once.
We stood there looking at each other.
‘Alors,’ he said finally, then turned and walked back to the car. He got in and shut the door.
An hour later, I was sitting on my bag, the engines burbling in the black cars opposite me, their air-con units putting in overtime. I burned some minutes wondering why the presidential party was hanging around waiting. I stood and scoped the airport’s open expanse. I couldn’t see any spinning radar antennae. Maybe they didn’t have phones here, either. Maybe Monsieur President was relying on the same worthless schedule I was.
The air was growing thicker, along with the humidity. The underbellies of the clouds were now dark gray and about to break open. My ABUs were sweat-logged. I should have mugged the woman with the flyswatter and stolen it when I had the chance. I’d capitulated to the insects, which were now the owners of whatever piece of me they could carry off. Where the hell were these people I had come to meet? Impatient, I walked to where I could see the end of the runway in both directions. I stood there for another ten minutes and was finally rewarded by the sight of landing lights shimmering to the west, the plane a couple of miles away on final approach.
‘At fucking last,’ I said aloud to the insects.
Five minutes later, a United Airlines 767 kissed the runway and its engines screamed in reverse. It came to a stop at the eastern end of the strip, slowly turned one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, and taxied back.
In response to its arrival, the doors of the two limos at the rear of the convoy flew open. Secret service types jumped out, then moved to the front two cars and held open the rear passenger doors. Apparently, the security was traveling in a separate vehicle from the principals’. In a PSO sense, I didn’t like what I was seeing, but I had noticed that, as a general rule, foreigners do pretty much everything wrong.
First to exit were a perfectly groomed man and a woman, the president and first lady. The protection detail bowed. Two more men climbed out of the vehicle. The heads of the security detail were on a swivel, either looking for non-existent threats or trying to make it difficult for the flies to land. The president was in his mid-forties and wore an expensive navy blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. His wife was about the same age he was, but taller. She was wearing some kind of African dress in bright reds, yellows, and greens, and a matching scarf. The two overweight men who’d been sitting with them in the lead car were also in their mid-forties. I pegged them as high-ranking bureaucrats — fat cats who looked the same no matter which government they served. Out of the fourth limo spilled four kids — two boys and two girls — ranging in age from around five to ten, dressed in what I’d call their Sunday best. A young woman in loose white and gray clothing — a nanny presumably — chased them around the car. It must have been hell for her, cooped up with those kids all this time. I waved. The kids waved back.