‘I ain’t listenin’ to this bullshit,’ said Leila, turning away and holding her hand palm out at me as if to defect my words.
I wondered what to do next — our options were limited and diplomacy wasn’t my strong suit. We needed our principals’ cooperation to have a chance of bringing them out in anything other than body bags.
I glanced at Cassidy. ‘You got that ring?’
He fished around in his webbing and put it in my hand.
‘Recognize this?’ I asked the diva. ‘We found it on the ground.’
‘It’s Deryck’s.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘That’s Twenny Fo’s name. I gave it him when we were…’ Her chin dented, and she looked skywards briefly in an effort to get control of herself.
I put the ring in the side pocket of her Army jacket. ‘You hold onto this for… Deryck. Give it back to him when you see him next. Now, let’s go.’
‘If we leave now, I’ll never see him, or Ayesha, or Peanut, ever again.’ Leila’s emerald eyes were glossy with tears. She sat down on the wet earth and wrapped her arms around her legs. ‘Say what you like, but I ain’t leavin’ here without them.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ I muttered, scraping the bottom of the options barrel. ‘LeDuc. Do we have sedatives in that medical kit that we can administer with a hypodermic?’
‘Oui.’
‘Then rack it up.’ I looked down at the woman. ‘Ma’am, we’re gonna have to carry you out.’
‘Not unless you gonna carry my ass too, yo,’ said Boink. He moved to stand beside the singer and crossed his massive arms in a further symbol of defance.
That was it. I had no more cards to play. The rulebook had nothing on this. I took a deep breath and let it out. ‘Okay, you win. We stay. But, just so you have all the facts, there are about a hundred and twenty soldiers down there, who seem intent on taking us captive for purposes unknown. Their people were killed on their first attempt at this, and you can be sure we won’t get a pat on the back for that. So, fortunately, with the additional weapons we’ve secured, we have enough guns to arm everyone. But our ammunition is limited. If the bad guys attack in strength we can probably hold out for ten minutes, maybe less, depending on how many of us get killed or wounded in the initial exchange, and how bad the wounds are. There’s going to be a lot of lead flying around, so perhaps ten minutes is optimistic. The electronic beacon we had is smashed, so our people in Cyangugu and LeDuc’s in Goma don’t know for sure where we’ve come down. What I’m saying is, there’ll be no last-minute rescue. Our bodies may never be found. Leila, if you happen to survive and they capture you, my suggestion is that you tell them you’re a rich and famous star who’ll pay millions for your release. Assuming they go for that, rather than using you for some other purpose — and I think you know which one I mean, which they may do anyway — when you finally get in front of those TV cameras, you can tell the world that your security team fought bravely and died so that you could keep making music videos.’
I was rambling because I was angry. In truth, I was on the verge of defaulting to my duty as the officer in charge and doing what was best for the men I was commanding, which, at the very least, was to vacate the area as soon as possible. If it meant leaving the civilians behind to accept whatever fate they were determined to meet, I didn’t see that I had much choice but to let them do exactly that.
Leila stood up. ‘I want you to know that this is not about making music, this is about not giving up on the people you love.’ She brushed the wet leaves off her butt and pulled the Army ball cap down low over her face. ‘Now, which way are we going?’
‘That way,’ I said, stunned by the sudden change of heart. Maybe my little speech had gotten through to her. I pointed in the opposite direction to the one we’d initially decided to take before we were surrounded. ‘Any movement?’ I asked West.
‘Nada,’ he replied.
‘Rutherford?’
‘Clear.’
‘Let’s do it,’ I said.
There was very little light left. Walking in this terrain in the pitch dark was also a big risk. We could stumble into an ambush or walk off a cliff. Lex Rutherford took point, with Cassidy behind him and the rest of us lined up behind them. I brought up the rear. We learned that the hill the Puma came down on was actually part of a valley that curved horseshoe-like around to the northwest on one side and southwest on the other. The walk was taking us away from Lake Kivu and Cyangugu. We picked our way through the rainforest for half an hour, by which time the thunder and lightning were only sporadic, and the small arms fire was far enough away that it sounded like corn popping in a pot with the lid on. I called a halt between a couple of vast trees that gave us cover on two sides, then kicked off the discussion we had to have. Cassidy and Ryder took the watch this time, but the space between the trees was tight, so they weren’t left out of the conversation.
‘A hundred and twenty of them. Five of us,’ I said.
‘I ain’t running,’ Boink said.
‘Who said anything about running?’ I responded.
Leila, looking at me as if she were witnessing a spectacular sunrise, said ‘So you’re not running out on Deryck and Ayesha and Peanut and the pilot?’
‘Let’s be clear. A hundred and twenty-odd to five are big odds,’ I said.
‘That all? Those fuckers are in a shitload of trouble,’ said West over his shoulder.
I’d wondered which of the SOCOM boys would turn into John Wayne.
‘I ain’t never lost a principal before,’ said Cassidy. ‘Don’t want to start now.’
John Wayne had a brother.
Ryder chewed his bottom lip.
‘On the basis of the enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ said Rutherford, ‘what about the other side — the opposition up the hill? Might they be inclined to lend us a little assistance?’
Cassidy’s eyes were black caves and his face had the luster of polished wet granite. ‘The hostages are alive… for now. But we wait, they die.’
‘LeDuc, what do you think?’ I asked.
‘Up there, on top of the hill, according to the FARDC soldier, they are Laurent Nkunda’s rebels — your allies, the CNDP. But these men are also often no better than murderers and rapists. Our source was just a private soldier. What would he know? It could be the FDLR up there — the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda. Or even the Lord’s Resistance Army, from Uganda, that kills in the name of Christ. They could also be Mai-Mai militia. Or they could be just another unit of FARDC settling an old score,’ he said, using two fingers across his blackened forehead like they were windshield wipers to flick away the water and sweat.
I had the picture of a lunatic walking up to half a dozen large bears and kicking all of them in the shins. ‘Back it up a second,’ I said. ‘Who’s this Nkunda guy? I thought our allies were part of some National Congress.’
‘Yes, the Congrès National Pour la Défénse du Peuple. Or as you English say, the National Congress for the Defense of the People. CNDP for us. NCDP pour vous — the soldiers you are training across the border in Rwanda. Laurent Nkunda was a general in FARDC, the army of the DRC, but he rebelled, took his best units, and continued to fight the remnants of his enemies, the Rwandan Hutus, who fed the 1994 Rwandan genocide and set up camp in the east of the DRC. That is what the CNDP claims, but the wider truth is that the CNDP is in the Congo to protect Rwanda’s interests here, which are also America’s interests. That is why the CNDP are your country’s allies — at least for the moment. Those were the soldiers you met at the base in Cyangugu, the ones commanded by Colonel Olivier Biruta and his second in command, Commandant Jean Claude Ntahobali.’