And suddenly something moved in the bush close to where West was crouched and the men began firing into the shadows wrapped around the sergeant’s position. Their rifles spat death in the darkness, the Africans shouting over the rapid sound of their own gunfire cracking away on full auto. They sprayed away till their chambers came up empty. And then a pig broke cover and squealed in agony and fright as it ran down the path on its two front legs, its back bloody and broken, dragging its limp body behind. West leaped from a different set of shadows and jumped on the first shooter, taking him down like he was prey. My target stood his ground but shook like he’d spent the night in the freezer. I rushed him and kicked his legs out from under him so that he fell heavily onto his back, where he lay still with his eyes closed but mouth open.
‘Yours is still breathing,’ said West panting, standing over the African at his feet. The man’s neck had an odd kink in it.
I checked the pulse on my guy. He had one. I felt the back of his head. His hair was soaked with sweat and gritty with dirt and leaves, but there was no blood, no broken skin, no depression in the back of his skull. He’d hit his head on a gnarled tree root growing up through the compacted mud. ‘Out cold,’ I concluded. I checked him for ammo. Again, just the one mag. I knew what West would want me to do with him. ‘He’s going to be out for a while. We can do everything we need to do before he comes back.’
‘You the man, sir.’
I could tell he didn’t agree with the man’s decision.
We dragged both men off the path deep into the rainforest and covered them with palm leaves.
‘Look,’ said West, holding a bag made from recycled plastic sheeting tied around the African’s neck with a shoelace.
Mine had one too, though his was made of cotton cloth tied with sinew.
‘Superstitious bastards,’ West observed.
‘Yeah,’ I said, sucking in air, the adrenalin only just starting to ebb away.
‘Two to go.’
‘Where’d the pig come from?’ I asked.
‘Dunno. It was just there — turned up out of nowhere. I moved my foot and gave it a scare. Our shooters here were jumpy as hell.’
West was damn lucky and we both knew it. The broken back could just as easily have been his.
A familiar low whistle came from the direction of the path.
‘You expecting company?’ I asked West.
‘Nope.’
I looked hard but couldn’t see anyone. Then a familiar shape bobbed up and signaled, ‘on me.’ I couldn’t see a face in the dark but knew it was Cassidy. West and I, staying low and quiet, made our way over to him.
‘How many you accounted for?’ Cassidy asked, keeping his voice low.
‘Three,’ West replied.
‘I found two in the banana trees.’
‘Where are they now?’ I whispered.
‘Meeting their maker, whoever that is around here.’
‘Then that’s everyone accounted for,’ said West.
‘Five scouts?’
I nodded. ‘This Lissouba guy has been around. He staggered them. We didn’t expect to see you.’
‘The forest is the place to ambush the main force, where the trail splits. We hit them, fall back, hit them again. We can’t let them advance to the plantation. Once they reach those trees and the more open ground, with their numbers they’ll spread out and flank us. Boss, how much time we got, you reckon?’
‘It took us three hours to recon the area, travel time included,’ I said.
‘Then let’s give them the same amount of time,’ said Cassidy. ‘We can do a lot in three hours, especially with the stuff you told us about in the barn.’
‘Getting nervous doesn’t mean they’ll come out and fight,’ observed West. ‘Going on past experience, they seem to wait till dawn before they work up to it.’
‘I hope you’re wrong,’ said Cassidy, ‘’cause if you’re right, we might as well show those motherfuckers our jug’lars. We can only handle their numbers on our terms.’
That gave me a thought. ‘Come and get me two hours and forty-five minutes from now — I don’t want to be walking into any of your handiwork.’
‘Where you headed?’ West asked me.
‘Back to the knoll.’
‘Mind telling me what you’re going to do?’ Cassidy asked, checking his watch.
‘Poke Lissouba in the eye,’ I said. ‘See if I can’t provoke a reaction.’
Exactly two hours and forty-four minutes later — three hours after the first of the scouts appeared — I was looking over the edge of the wall toward the riverbank below. All was quiet, except for my constant companions, the mosquitoes. There were fires down there. A temporary shift in the air brought the smells of cooking up to my swollen nose and saliva filled my mouth the way seawater foods a torpedo tube. I spat onto the ground. I had company with me on the ledge: namely, the last scout Lissouba had sent up, the man West had killed with a knife throw. I had him standing on the edge of the limestone wall, balanced on a single leg. Rigor mortis had set in. I had him on one leg because its partner was bent out at an odd angle and locked in place by the rigor.
I took another look over the edge. A shift in the air took away the cooking smells and replaced them with the aroma of Tailend beside me. I switched to breathing through my mouth. The guy stank. Not his fault — death doesn’t wash — and at least the smell made him easy to find in the almost complete darkness. Once I found him, I brushed the ants off him, dragged him from the elephant grass to this spot and hoisted him to his feet. Correction, foot. The corpse’s arms were locked straight out some distance from the side of his torso. Come to think of it, given his body position, there was a pretty fair swan dive coming up. With a bit of luck, the body would land on someone important, maybe even Lissouba himself, and then the heart would go out of the Africans and everyone would just go on home. Wishful thinking.
‘Sorry for what I’m about to do, pal,’ I whispered. ‘But thanks for helping us out.’
I gave the corpse a shove in the back and over the edge he went, disappearing quickly into the void below. A moment later I heard Cassidy’s familiar dry whistle. He came and stood beside me and looked down.
‘That your poke in the eye?’ he asked. ‘Doing something like that — I wouldn’t have thought a guy like you would have it in you.’
‘What’s a guy like me?’
‘The righteous kind.’
Technically speaking, what I’d just done — desecrating the dead — would have had consequences if witnessed by unsympathetic eyes. The book said it was okay to maim and kill, but once dead, we were expected to leave the corpse in peace and not disturb the flies. But the Congo was like an acid bath that burned through civility. The only rule that seemed to count here was kill or be killed, the original law of the jungle.
‘Don’t worry me none, Cooper.’ Cassidy sucked something from between his teeth. ‘When in Rome, right?’
‘They do this kind of thing there too?’
I heard him grunt.
‘Where are our principals?’ I asked.
‘Where you left them. Nice and cozy, surrounded by bamboo, thorn bush and elephant grass. Boink has overwatch and we’ve armed Twenny for backup to release our guys.’
That meant we had a strike force of five: Cassidy, Rutherford, West, Ryder and me. The thick night air suddenly came alive with shouts and cries carried up to us from the darkness below. Gunshots barked among them. The rainfall was heavy in these parts, but a body coming down through the trees was just a touch heavier than usual. The folks below were mad. We needed them mad enough to make a very bad mistake.