‘How about you, Duke?’ Rutherford asked.
‘I’ll be okay.’
‘Shitting bricks too, then, eh?’
A brief, tight smile animated Duke’s lips.
‘How’s Cassidy and West. They all set?’ I asked Rutherford.
‘Bit of a climb carrying that kit between the three of us but, other than that, no probs.’
‘You see that chopper lift off?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Don’t suppose you saw who was on it?’
‘I was already on the move by then. Why?’
Ryder laid it out for him.
‘I get the picture,’ Rutherford said, chewing the side of his cheek. ‘Doesn’t change much for us, though, does it? There’s no time to go get a roll call on who’s still in camp.’
‘We read it the same way,’ I told him.
‘So what’s the timetable this end?’
I briefed him on the plan for the coming morning. It was straightforward and only took a couple of minutes. ‘Questions?’ I asked. There weren’t any, not even about the news that Leila and Ayesha would be hunkered down in the Alamo. ‘So that leaves two things left to do — say our prayers and get some sack time. I want the last watch; do a last-minute walk around before we hit it.’
I got down out of the truck to look for Francis — I hadn’t seen him for a while — and found him curled up under the front wheels of the second Dong. I woke him and outlined the morning’s activities and told him to go sleep in the truck with everyone else.
Ryder relieved Boink, who urinated long and loud in the bush before heaving himself up into our sleeping quarters. With all the palm fronds laid down on the load tray as bedding, the interior smelled like the Puma after it came through the tree canopy like a five-ton food processor. That smell of chopped foliage conjured in my mind pictures of Shaquand and Lieutenant Colonel Blair Travis, who were now sleeping like they were before they were born.
I climbed up behind Boink. Leila and Ayesha were spooning, the rain hitting the tarpaulin covering, and the frogs around us getting horny in the rain, their personal lubricant. Francis had laid himself out directly behind the cab, flat on his back, with his hands behind his head. Boink settled in beside Ayesha, which left the space behind Leila for me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take it but didn’t have a lot of alternatives. I lay down on my side on the bed of fronds and turned away from the women. I had been lying like that for about a minute when an arm draped itself over my body armor and Leila pulled herself toward me, her body curling into mine.
‘I hate you, Cooper,’ she whispered, her voice dreamy with sleep.
Attack
A familiar beep from my Seiko woke me at one-thirty am. ‘Vin?’ It was Ryder.
‘I’m awake,’ I said, searching my surroundings with my senses. Leila was no longer spooning. I propped myself up on one hand for a few seconds to get my bearings, then moved down on my butt bones to the back of the truck, where I could see Ryder’s shape illuminated by moonlight. The rain had stopped. The air was cool and smelled of banana. Even the ever-present mosquitoes appeared to be on a break. I felt refreshed after the best sleep I ’d had in a week.
‘All quiet?’ I asked him.
‘Nothing’s stirring, not even a frog.’
He was right. ‘When did they knock it off?’
‘Just before the rain stopped. I thought it was significant, like an early warning sign of visitors approaching, but…’
‘Maybe the orgy just ran its course,’ I suggested as I hopped down beside him.
Behind us, Boink stopped snoring momentarily to call out some gibberish in his sleep.
I looked over the sleeping bodies and conducted a subconscious body count. We were one short.
‘Where’s Rutherford?’ I asked.
‘In the cab, stretched out on the full-width seat.’
I wished I’d thought of that.
‘How much time have I got for a little shut-eye?’ Ryder asked.
‘Around two and a half hours.’
‘Well then,’ he said, laying his rifle on the floor of the truck and then hauling himself up with a grunt, ‘nighty-night.’
I strolled away from the trucks to take in the evening and realized that I was casting a shadow. The moon was full, almost directly overhead, and it blazed away like an LED, the effect quite eerie. Just our luck. A clear night sky and a goddamn searchlight hanging right in the middle of it. I prayed for rain. I wondered how West and Cassidy were doing, whether they had been able to sleep.
The one hundred and eighty minutes of my watch dragged by. The night was still and breathless with just the occasional distant clucking of some unknown animal to punctuate it. I went into the Alamo, counted and recounted the magazines; fddled with the barricade and watched the minutes tick past, one by one. I went for a stroll and collected bananas for breakfast and also came across a stand of sugar cane and cut a couple of lengths. That job done, I nosed around till I found an ant nest and reapplied the mosquito repellent, as the insects had finished their break.
With nothing else to do, I walked in slow circles around the trucks and wondered about Lockhart and his treachery, and about LeDuc and his perfdy. I wondered whether Twenny and Peanut were still alive in the FARDC’s camp, and made a deal with the universe that if they were still there when we arrived, I’d eat less meat and more vegetables. I wondered whether Lockhart intended cutting the PLA guy in on any ransom monies that might come his way. I wondered whether Biruta, Makenga and Lissouba might enjoy being tied into a sack with a couple of those cat-sized scorpions. I wondered whether my team would make it back to Rwanda in one piece, complete with the same number of principals we’d departed Cyangugu with. I wondered whether Masters, wherever she was, blamed me as much as I blamed myself for her death. In fact, I was surprised at just how much wondering could be achieved in a hundred and eighty minutes. And then, with the familiar note sounding from my Seiko, time was up. I woke Rutherford, Ryder and Francis at exactly 0401.
Handing out bananas and cane, I suggested that they gear up while they ate. Ten minutes later, they returned, webbing stuffed with spare mags and grenades. They took over the watch while I went into the Alamo and likewise raided the stores. When we were all set, I had Ryder wake our principals.
A couple of minutes later, they wearily vacated their sleeping quarters. I handed Boink a backpack full of our staple diet.
‘Breakfast,’ I whispered. ‘Eat more than you need and see if you can’t get the girls to do the same. This might be the only food you’ll get for the rest of the day.’
‘Yo,’ he replied.
I could’ve also said that this might be the last meal they had period, given that they were so all-fired keen to ride with us into the valley of death.
Boink hesitated, then said, ‘What’s my job today, soldier man?’
Francis interrupted. ‘We must go. It will soon be light.’
I looked at my Seiko and pinched the illumination function. Just past 0432. The schedule wasn’t running away from us quite yet.
‘Two minutes,’ I told him, then said to Boink, ‘Walk with me.’ I led him away from the trucks. ‘Today, for one day only, consider yourself a personal security officer.’
‘What I have t’ do?’
‘Follow a bunch of rules.’
‘And?’
‘Chew on a bullet for Leila and Ayesha if you have to.’
‘Oh…’ He had to think about it.
‘You have to stay with them at all times. On no account let them leave the truck. Use force if you have to, but set your phaser to stun.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Never mind.’
I handed him two spare mags for his Nazarian. ‘Use single shot only. Conserve your ammo — no full auto. Fire when you have a target, and don’t hesitate to pull the trigger.’