Danny kept up pretenses by asking whether he had ever seen any bones in the sands nearby.
“Plenty of bones, Doctor,” answered Abul. “But all of men.”
The buildings and houses they passed were mostly black shapes barely discernible in the darkness of the night. They faded as the bus wound its way beyond the city, illusions conjured by a stage manager designed to convince an audience that Port Sudan was a real place.
The landscape, harsh and mostly barren during the day, looked surreal at night, the endless darkness punctuated by black stalks and hulking mounds, silhouettes of gray hills and mountains.
After about an hour and a half, Danny began to relax. There was almost no traffic on the road, though it was the only highway to the south from the coast. It was easy to believe they were the only people left on earth.
The area was warm, but not as warm as he’d thought it would be; the night became more pleasant as they left the moist air of the coast. The mountains and foothills of the eastern part of the country received much more rain than the desert to the west. While the fields and hillsides were hardly lush at this time of year, grass, shrubs, and trees grew in the thin but well-drained soil. Here and there farms made a stab at civilizing the land.
Danny felt his eyes start to close. He shifted often, shaking himself, trying to stay as alert as possible.
Boston had no trouble staying awake. He’d been drinking coffee practically nonstop since arriving in Africa, but it wasn’t the caffeine that made his muscles buzz. The idea of being back in action after so many years thrilled him.
As far as he was concerned, he’d spent the last few years as a mascot for the Air Force brass. He’d had plenty of responsibility, but responsibility and action were two different things. His job really didn’t call for him to do all that much. The men and women he directly supervised were mostly chiefs or senior NCOs themselves.
It had been years since he’d really done anything. The elite nature of the units he’d served in meant that even the lowest person on the totem pole not only knew his job, but did it in textbook fashion. Boston had sometimes perversely hoped that a screw-up would find his or her way to the unit; it would give him a project.
All of this might have been a tribute to his organizational and leadership skills—or maybe just colossal good luck—but in truth Boston was not comfortable with the role that had settled on him: that of father figure. He had always looked up to the chief master sergeants he’d known; even in the few cases where he didn’t respect the men, he always admired the rank. But becoming chief made him feel not so much honored and respected as simply old. He didn’t mind the kids at all, and having people jump when you said boo was easy to get used to. But there was also a kind of distance between him and the others that made him uncomfortable. He felt as if he was always on stage, a plastic role model who could not deviate from what preconceived notion the audience had. Inside, he knew he was just good old Ben “Boston” Rockland, tough kid from the streets, snake eater ready for action…not the rocking chair.
Being with Colonel Freah—several times he’d come close to calling him captain, as he’d been in the old days—made him a snake eater again. Just being called Boston felt good.
Not that Danny hadn’t changed. There was a hint of gray in the hair that curled at his temples. He’d also mellowed, slightly at least, over the years. Danny had always run him particularly hard, trying to prove that just because they were both black, he wasn’t cutting him any slack. Now they were more like old friends.
The bus’s headlamps caught a black shadow in the road as they came out of a sharp curve. There was a truck in the road.
“Shit,” muttered Boston.
Danny, who’d been dozing, jerked awake.
“Can you get around it?” Boston asked the driver.
“I don’t know,” said Abul, downshifting. He left his right foot hovering over the gas and used his left foot to slow and work the clutch.
“Somebody behind us, too,” said Boston. “This ain’t no coincidence.”
The truck’s lights came on ahead of them. It was a military vehicle. Two men with berets stepped in front of the lights, arms raised to stop them. They had M-16 rifles.
“This is the army?” said Danny.
Abul shrugged. It was impossible to know who was stopping them. The reason, though, was easy to predict—they wanted money.
“I see six,” said Boston, who was looking behind them. “I think we can make it past them.”
Danny leaned forward, trying to see beyond the truck in the road. It was blocking most but not all of the highway. There was a deep ditch to the left. They might make it past, he thought, but they might also fall into the ditch and tumble over. The road curved to the right a short distance beyond the army truck, and there was no way to see what might be there.
“What are these guys going to ask for?” Danny asked Abul.
“Money.”
“What if we shoot them?” said Boston.
“Bad, bad. They have many guns. Plus, the army will not be happy.”
“Stop the bus,” said Danny.
The driver hit the brake.
“Keep the engine running. Be ready to leave. You think you can get around the truck?”
Abul looked at the space. It might be possible, but it would be very tight. “A chance,” he said.
“If I say go, you go,” said Danny. “No argument.”
“What are we doin’, Cap?” asked Boston.
“Playing it by ear,” said Danny.
Outside, the soldiers surrounded the bus. The two men who’d held up their hands pounded on the door, yelling.
“He wants us to come out,” said Abul.
“That, we’re not doing.”
Danny slipped across the aisle and sat in the first row. Removing his pistol from his belt, he flicked off the safety and held it behind his back.
“Open the door and tell him we’re scientists,” he told Abul. “Poor scientists. We don’t have any money.”
Abul glanced at his passenger nervously. “They will just take some money and leave,” he said.
“If we let them do that, they’ll see us as easy marks,” said Danny. “They’ll hit us again and again.”
Abul disagreed. But rather than telling Danny that directly, he told him he didn’t understand what he said. “My English not good.”
“They’ll rob us again and again,” said Boston. “And then probably kill us.”
“You can’t get away from them,” said Abul. “If tonight you escape, tomorrow they will come.”
“Tomorrow will take care of itself,” said Danny.
The soldiers pounded on the door again.
“Go ahead and open it,” said Danny.
Abul put his hand on the handle and pulled it toward him. Robbery was a simple cost of business here; resisting was foolish.
“Out!” shouted the leader of the small band of soldiers. He’d been in the Sudanese army for five years. He was nineteen.
“Tell him,” said Danny.
“My passengers are scientists,” said Abul in Arabic. “Poor men.”
“We will see their papers!” yelled the leader. He pointed his M-16 at the driver. “And they will pay for our troubles.”
“They only want to see your papers,” Abul told Danny. “And a small bribe will make things right.”
“How small?” asked Danny.
Abul asked the gunman how much the inspection might cost. The soldier replied that it was impossible to say beforehand.
“There are only two men, and they are very poor,” said Abul.
The number displeased the soldier. Ordinarily a bus like this would carry at least a dozen foreigners and yield a good amount of loot. Ten U.S. dollars would feed his men for a month; a hundred would give them a new store of ammunition, which was starting to run low.
“Tell them to come out,” he told the driver.