I made my way to the road and waited for Rutherford. The forest was silent but for one horribly familiar sound.
‘Do you hear that?’ I asked him.
‘Hear what?’ He shook his head. ‘Wait…’ he said, changing his mind.
The sound was drifting in and out.
‘Jesus — more fucking trucks,’ Rutherford muttered.
They were a little way off, maybe just starting to climb the hill on the far side of the crest. I turned and ran down the road, the Brit beside me. Life was starting to get complicated. FARDC was chasing us, not Francis’s people. But they were going to become collateral damage in the crossfire. We were going to have to part company with them for their own safety.
‘We have to ditch the vehicle,’ I said as I ran. ‘They’re going to keep following it. Can Francis be moved?’
‘If we make him a stretcher.’
‘Where’s the turnoff to the river?’
‘Patrice said there was a fork in the road near the bottom of this hill.’
‘Who’s Patrice?’
‘Francis’s old lady.’
We ran through the bend and saw our truck stopped, West and Cassidy standing beside it, keeping watch.
‘Get our principals ready to leave,’ I told Rutherford. ‘We’re going our separate ways at that fork in the road.’
I ran to Cassidy and West, signaling frantically at them to get back in the truck, but they weren’t urgent enough about it so I ran past them to the driver’s side and jumped in behind the wheel. I had the thing in gear and rolling before Cassidy and West had both feet on the running board.
‘What’s going on?’ Cassidy demanded as he climbed in through the passenger door, West behind him.
‘There’s more company on the way — change of plan,’ I said.
The truck was heavy with all the people on board, the acceleration sluggish and the engine more reluctant than I remembered.
‘Watch for a fork in the road,’ I said.
We rounded a corner and the strip of mud beneath our wheels divided in two, just like Patrice said it would, the fork heading off to the right disappearing almost completely into thick bush. I stamped on the brakes and heard muffled screams coming from the cargo area behind us.
‘C’mon,’ I said to Cassidy and West, the brakes protesting with a loud moan. ‘We’re outta here.’
I grabbed the ammo container on the floorboards by its handle, hauled it out and jogged with it across my chest to the back of the truck. I arrived at the tailgate in time to hear Leila say, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ The infant in her lap began screaming. ‘Now see what you’ve done? I just got her off to sleep.’
We had no time for this. ‘You want the kid to live, right?’ I called out to her.
She stared at me, her eyes hot and defiant but her body language nervous.
‘Boink, pick her up and carry her,’ I told him.
The big man looked at me and then at Twenny.
‘Yo!’ I yelled at him. ‘Now!’
He took a step toward her
‘There’s no need for that,’ she said, handing the baby to its mother and getting to her feet.
The truck was full of uncertain people.
‘Rutherford, explain to Francis’s old lady that everyone has to get off the truck immediately. Tell them to stick to the forest and stay away from the road. See if you can find out where that Médecins Sans Fron-tières outfit is.’
‘Patrice told me that already: it’s an hour’s walk from here.’
‘And the river?’
‘About an hour and a half in the opposite direction. You still want that driver?’
‘No,’ I said.
I watched Ayesha help Ryder to his feet. He nearly passed out and slumped heavily against her before pulling himself up. Twenny came up to me as our Congolese passengers began to get the idea that this bus was going on without them.
‘I’ve heard both sides of the story, Cooper — Leila’s and Boink’s,’ he said. ‘I think I had things round the wrong way, you feel me? Anyway, Boink set me straight. Anythin’ choo need, choo lemme know…’
‘Then help me get everyone off this truck, and manage Leila,’ I told him. A little cooperation from the stars of the show would make a nice change.
Patrice and Rutherford began calling out in French. I caught the gist and started repeating it, saying, ‘Allez! Allez!’ and sweeping my arms toward the tailgate to emphasize the point.
The message sank in. People were starting to move. I went over to Rutherford and helped him lift Francis to the back of the truck.
‘Cassidy!’ I called out, seeing him standing watch with West. The sergeant trotted over.
‘Give Rutherford a hand getting Francis into the trees. Keep everyone off the road. Patrice — that’s Francis’s wife — she knows what’s going on. They’re going to need a field stretcher.’
‘Roger that. What are you gonna do?’
‘Ditch the truck. You take the right-hand trail — that’ll get you to the river. I’ll rendezvous with you there. Our African friends are headed elsewhere. We need to move it.’
‘Roger that, boss,’ he said and went off to hustle while I kneeled beside Francis.
‘Mercy bowcoop, Francis,’ I said, his face sweating beads of pain.
‘You have the worst accent in the whole of the Congo,’ he croaked. ‘It is I who thanks you. My people owe you their lives.’
‘I was going to say the same thing to you. Good luck.’
‘And to you,’ he said, finding my hand and squeezing it weakly. ‘Get to the Zaire.’
I gave Cassidy and Rutherford a nod and they lifted him off the back of the truck as Patrice rushed in, threw her arms around me and squeezed until I coughed. The woman was a cage fighter in drag.
‘Merci, merci,’ she said and kissed me wetly on the cheek before hurrying off to tend to her husband while he was being carried behind the tree line.
The rainforest quickly swallowed everyone and I found myself alone on the road, the Dong idling noisily behind me and the sound of approaching vehicles getting louder by the second. I ran to the driver’s door, jumped in and selected first from the snarling gearbox. The vehicle charged forward, far more willing in the acceleration department without all the weight on board. The road was almost completely overgrown. I was considering slowing down but changed my mind about that when a bullet shattered the rear-view mirror on my door and slivers of glass speared into my neck and cheek. The Dong burst through a wreath of liana obscuring the view forward. I had no idea where the road was going, so I took a guess and kept the wheels pointing straight ahead. I could hear small arms fire being shot off behind me. I was thinking how not much of it was finding its target when a single round punched through the passenger seat beside me and buried itself in the dashboard.
I was driving way too fast for the conditions. An RPG round exploded somewhere unseen but close and I swerved and cut a path through the trees. The road found me before I located it, and the tires slithered around on the muddy strip, hunting for traction. And then, suddenly, there was a log lying diagonally across my path, big and immovable. Swinging the wheel violently, I still struck the massive obstacle a glancing blow that smashed my face down into the steering wheel. The log bounced the truck into the forest and it began to crash through the scrub again, but beyond my control this time, rumbling down a steep hill with increasing speed. And then the world tilted on its side as the earth fell away and the truck tipped and I hung onto the steering wheel with plants and liana and mud swelling into the cabin, coming through the windshield area and welling up through the passenger window below my feet.
And then everything stopped moving.
I wasn’t unconscious — just stunned. The crash and the resulting detour had happened so fast, I needed a moment to catch up with it. Jesus, my face hurt, my eyes watering with the pain.