‘How many rounds you bring with you?’
‘Got two left,’ he said, patting the rucksack on the seat beside him.
‘Up ahead,’ said Cassidy, ending the chitchat. He gestured at a roughly cleared area on the side of a gently sloping hill that was dotted with a hundred or so blue UN tents. ‘That where we’re going?’
Through the rain I could see maybe forty people in the camp gathered in a circle, preoccupied by what was going on in the center. Many of the folks gathered around were dancing and cheering — celebrating. It seemed an odd thing to be doing, given the circumstances we’d just come from. A number of people saw us approaching and word of our arrival spread quickly through the group. The dancers on the periphery stopped performing a jig, and ran away from the party like they’d been caught doing something they oughtn’t.
‘Do they think we’re FARDC?’ Cassidy wondered aloud.
Maybe. We were in a FARDC truck — stood to reason.
The crowd melted away but for several individuals at the core. It was hard to see through the rain exactly what was going on. A man kicked something on the ground and slipped over with the follow-through. His buddies, who’d seen us by now, hurriedly picked him up and half dragged him away as they all ran off like muggers caught mid-assault, checking behind them to see if we were giving chase.
‘Where to now?’ Cassidy yelled through the wind and the rain, and I gestured straight ahead. We came to a stop another thirty meters further on. I opened the door, climbed down onto the mud and jogged over to the area where the crowd had gathered. There was something on the ground and it wasn’t a soccer ball. In fact, there were quite a few objects and a lot of blood. It looked like a big patch of roadkill.
‘Jesus Christ,’ West muttered, standing beside me and looking down at the human remains scattered around. The crowd had literally torn some guards — three, from the leg count — limb from limb. The pieces, except for an arm here and a leg there, were still wearing most of their uniforms. A white-hot anger had been vented on these men. The people here had endured first-hand the cruelty of the FARDC and this was a little payback. Looking down at the mess on the ground, I felt nothing for the victims and realized that probably wasn’t a good sign. And right about then, I realized how much the Congo was getting under my skin.
I turned and scanned the blue tents. Some people here and there were staring at us. They knew we were different from their captors, but past experience informed them that we were more than likely not going to be any better than the devil they knew, which, understandably, made them wary.
‘We can’t take all these people with us,’ said Cassidy, walking over to me. ‘There’s well over a hundred.’
‘We made a promise to Francis. We’re taking the people from his village.’
‘And how many is that?’
‘Don’t know,’ I said. ‘Give me a moment.’
I ran to the truck, where Rutherford was leaning way out the back to see what was going on, holding onto the tarpaulin framework for support.
‘How’s Francis?’ I said as I approached.
‘Hanging in there.’
‘And everyone else?’
The Brit jumped down to meet me and, from the way he glanced back over his shoulder, he was doing so to put a little discreet space between himself and our principals.
‘You’re going to have problems with Leila down the track,’ he said.
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘She’s telling Twenny that we could have gotten him out a week ago, but that you wouldn’t agree to it.’
I took my own advice and breathed deep. Then I jogged the few steps to the rear of the truck and pulled myself up into the back of the vehicle. I was immediately struck by the stink of human sweat and a funk I’ve always associated with fear. Peanut rushed toward me and again threw his arms around my waist. I gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and sat him back down next to Twenny, who refused eye contact and stared at the floor, his dirt-ingrained face lined with tear tracks.
‘You see what you’ve done to him?’ Leila hissed, her eyes narrow and ferce, back to her old self. She was seated beside Twenny, perched on top of a couple of sandbags, one arm over his shoulder. She glared up at me like any moment she was going to spit venom at my face.
I looked at Ryder, who was sitting with Ayesha, his head back against the tarpaulin, legs drawn up and an M16 between them. The guy was clearly exhausted.
Boink stood in Twenny’s corner. No eye contact from him, either.
I didn’t respond to Leila. The fact that Twenny Fo was alive and no longer chained to a boiler with a hood over his head was all the defense I needed. Some people reacted irrationally to the stress of combat and maybe that was Leila’s excuse. Or maybe conflict was the way she exercised control. Or maybe she was just a bitch.
Twenny and I needed to talk, but it would have to wait. I was hoping he’d be my star witness in the trial that’d put Lockhart in Leavenworth for the rest of his life.
Francis groaned. I thrust Leila and her bullshit out of my mind for the time being. The African’s eyes were shut and his head, soaked with rain and sweat, lolled from side to side. He was fighting a losing battle against the pain. I felt his forehead, his temperature soaring.
‘Where’s the morphine?’ I asked Rutherford.
He shook his head. ‘Got none.’
‘Antibiotics?’
‘The kit’s empty,’ he said. ‘Blame LeDuc.’
In other words, the deadbeat had ransacked it before he split. I checked Francis’s wound. It had stopped bleeding but the skin surrounding the length of wood embedded in the muscle was already livid with infection. We had to get this guy to a hospital. And if we hurried, maybe all he’d lose was his leg. I’d been hoping that we could move him to the open end of the truck, stand him up and have him call his people over. But that wasn’t going to happen. And I realized I didn’t even know the name of his damn village.
‘Francis,’ I asked him. ‘Your village — what’s it called?’
He rolled his eyes around and sweated at me.
‘Francis, can you hear me? What’s the name of your village?’
There was a moment of lucidity and he mumbled something. I took fistfuls of his shirt and lifted him a little off the truck floor to bring him closer. The guy screamed and the wound in his leg leaked some blood. Not smart, Cooper. I lowered him gently back onto the floor and he started babbling.
Rutherford came in closer. After a few seconds he said, ‘I think he’s saying he lives in a place called Bayutu.’
‘Try and confirm it.’
‘Bayutu? Habitez-vous là?’ Rutherford asked him and Francis gave a good impression of a nod.
‘See if you can get his full name,’ I said, checking the view outside beyond the truck. I was getting edgy. Even taking their losses into account, there had to be more than a hundred FARDC troops in the area and most of them would be looking to even the score.
‘Francis, quel est ton nom de famille?’ said Rutherford.
‘Nbekee… Nbekee…’
‘Francis Nbekee?’ Rutherford asked.
‘Oui, oui, oui, oui…’
‘Okay,’ I said, standing up. We had something we could work with.
‘Where you going now?’ Leila demanded to know.
I ignored her and as I jumped down I heard her say, ‘Come back here!’
‘We still clear?’ I called out to West, leaving Leila and her inner cow behind.
He motioned toward the camp. More people had wandered to the edge of the settlement closest to the truck. Several men waved machetes at us in warning.