Ben felt Jude’s hand on his shoulder.
‘It’s time to leave,’ Jude said. ‘It’s over, Dad. Let it go.’
Ben nodded. He placed his own hand over Jude’s. He couldn’t explain the sadness that suddenly came over him at that moment. Like a lead blanket of sorrow and fatigue that made him want to curl up in a corner somewhere. He sighed and blinked the feeling away.
They headed for the wide open sky. Climbing to a thousand feet. Pointing west, into the afternoon sun. Khosa’s city lay below them like a ghost town, a column of black smoke still rising from one end, the twist of river and the mining camp beyond on the other. As they left it behind, the emerald green jungle seemed to stretch out to infinity all around, the jagged ridges of hazy mountains floating like a mirage above the horizon in the far distance.
It looked beautiful from up here. You could almost forget what went on down below. Rae and Jude went to a window and linked hands as they gazed down on the scene, seeing it for the very last time.
‘You’re going home now,’ he said to her, and tears came into her eyes, and he held her. Sizwe clutched little Juma as if he were his own son, and cried too.
They thought it was over.
Chapter 54
Brazzaville, Republic of Congo
Three hours later
Alphonse and Serge had been best buddies for nearly fifty years, and for over forty of them had religiously met up at least twice a week to knock golf balls around Brazzaville’s only course. After decades of practice neither of them was ready to enter the Africa Open anytime soon, and now that Alphonse’s knees had gone bad it was taking them longer to get around all nine holes than it used to.
Alphonse wasn’t having a good day today, and their round had dragged on extra late. The light was starting to fade, but at least that spared them from the pain of watching the balls fly into the snake-infested rough. Both men were looking forward to winding up their game and heading across to the club bar for a nice cold beer or two before each went home to their respective dinners and beds.
Serge was shuffling up to tee off on the ninth, a tricky uphill drive that needed to clear the rise ahead, when the two of them suddenly cringed and ducked as a huge roaring thunder filled the air.
At first they thought it was a violent storm descending on them, though there’d been no lightning flash. Then an enormous dark shape came swooping low out of the sky, skimming the trees, its noise and wind almost knocking the two old men flat. Their jaws dropped open in shocked amazement as it blasted overhead, so close they could almost have reached up with their clubs and scraped its great green underbelly. What the hell was an aircraft doing coming in to land on the golf course?
The roaring plane disappeared out of sight over the rise. Alphonse and Serge exchanged stupefied looks, then dropped their clubs and set off as fast as they could after it. It took poor old Alphonse a few minutes to scale the rise, though Serge wasn’t much quicker. As veteran members of the club they knew the top of the slope overlooked the fairway of the second hole, a long par five. When they finally reached the summit, gasping for breath, their eyes opened wide at the sight of the landed aircraft three hundred yards away on the second green.
By the time the club manager had been summoned and a party of puzzled staff and members had plucked up the courage to march up the fairway and investigate, all they found inside the abandoned, bullet-riddled aircraft were a pile of weapons whose ammunition had apparently been ditched overboard before landing, a mass of spent shell casings lying all over the floor, and some crates containing photographic equipment.
It was all a bit of a mystery. As was the whereabouts of the plane’s occupants, who had long since slipped away into the darkness.
‘Do you make a habit of stealing cars?’ Rae asked from the back as the crowded vehicle drove through the night.
‘It’s not a car, it’s a Land Rover,’ Ben replied.
He and Jeff had found the thirty-year-old twelve-seater station wagon parked behind what appeared to be the groundsman’s hut at the golf club, with the keys left in the ignition. It had been the easiest theft in Ben’s long and undistinguished career as a car criminal. ‘And we’re only borrowing it,’ he added.
‘Heard that one before,’ Jeff said with a grin.
The decision to cross the border into the Republic of Congo had been made in the air as they headed west towards Kinshasa. Jeff’s suggestion, based on the fact that ROC was a comparatively more stable country than its neighbour, for what it was worth – even though the capital cities of the two countries lay just a few kilometres apart, within sight of one another across the waters of the Congo River. Nobody had argued with the choice, or with the idea of leaving the Democratic Republic of Congo behind them, never to return. Brazzaville had a US Embassy where Rae could present herself as an American citizen in distress and be flown home to her family. Jude had other plans of his own to set in action.
But first they had to find a place to hole up for the night, and get Tuesday seen to. The bullet wound to his arm was less serious than they’d first feared, but he was in pain and needed medical attention.
The hot, sultry night had fully descended by the time they found an auberge on the edge of a less rundown suburb of the city. The place was run by a woman named Mama Lumumba: four hundred pounds, sixty years old and as formidable as a lioness. They’d done what they could to clean up and divest themselves of obvious military-looking garb before knocking on her door. Nonetheless, one look at Ben and Mama had been ready to slam the door in their faces – but had melted when she saw the half-dozen ragged and hungry-looking children getting out of the Land Rover and agreed to let them have three rooms for the night.
How Ben was going to pay her was something he’d leave until morning to worry about. If they could get to a computer, they could wire some money from the heavily depleted Le Val business account to a local bank and make a cash withdrawal. Then again, this was Africa. Ben expected complications, though none as tough as the prospect of himself, Jude, Jeff, and Tuesday getting home with no passports and without entanglements with ROC officials who, inevitably, would be full of awkward questions about what four foreigners, some more battered than others, were doing in their country without ID or visas in the first place. If they twigged the fact that three of the four had British military backgrounds, the next word out their mouths would be ‘mercenary’. And that would bring a ton of trouble.
But there were more immediate concerns to address in the meantime. Their story was that they’d been involved in a car accident out in the bush. When Ben enquired about the chances of finding a doctor this time of night to treat his friend’s injured arm, Mama said there was a nice young fellow down the street who used to work at the hospital.
That nice young fellow turned out to be a seventy-something retired doctor named Paul Bakupa who lived alone and, by Congolese standards, in relative comfort in a small bungalow a short walk from the auberge. The old doctor also kept a well-equipped first-aid cabinet. For the offer of 500,000 central African francs – which sounded like a fortune but equated to only about 750 euros – he at first reluctantly agreed to clean, stitch up, and dress Tuesday’s arm and dose him with painkillers and antibiotics. While he was at it, he insisted on taking a look at Ben’s battered face, which he painfully but gently swabbed with alcohol, sticking plasters here and there before putting three stitches in Ben’s split lip.
As he finished working on Ben, Bakupa said softly, speaking French, ‘I understand I’m not intended to ask too many questions, or else you would not have offered to pay me so much money. But I have to say, my curiosity is aroused. A bullet wound is not the kind of injury one would normally associate with a car accident. However, you and your friends do not seem to me like criminals or villainous people. Thus I can only infer that you must have encountered some kind of trouble that was not of your making.’
Ben touched his lip. The stitching felt solid. Bakupa was a good surgeon, and a good man. Someon
e who could be trusted. He said, ‘Have you heard the name Jean-Pierre Khosa?’ The numbness from the local anaesthetic made talking difficult.
‘I have,’ Bakupa said, nodding sagely. ‘Some people say that animal will be president of the Democratic Republic one day. The Lord help us all if such a disaster should occur.’
Ben said, ‘Unlikely to happen. Unless they have dead men as presidents. That’s all I can tell you about the nature of the trouble that my friends and I encountered. Except to say that you’ll get none from us. I promise you that.’
A glimmer came into Paul Bakupa’s crinkly eyes. ‘I see. Then Africa has just become a better place. Say nothing more, mon jeune ami. I have heard all I need to know.’ He tapped the side of his nose, then glanced at the children. Mani seemed to have attached himself to Ben and was hanging around nearby, while Juma seemed to want to be close to Sizwe. The others were sitting quietly together in a corner. ‘What of these children?’ the doctor asked Ben with concern.
‘Boy soldiers from Khosa’s army,’ Ben said. ‘Demobbed, as of today.’
‘What is to become of them?’
‘Anything’s better than where they were until now,’ Ben said. Though the truth was, he had no idea what he was going to do with six young kids.
‘God bless them, I hope they will survive,’ Bakupa said.
Chapter 55
Perhaps it was all thanks to the prospect of half a million francs, or perhaps it was also partly in celebration of the demise of the hated General Jean-Pierre Khosa – but having finished dispensing his medical services Paul Bakupa insisted that his guests remain a little longer. He provided them all with a hot meal of beans and spicy fried chicken around the small table in the kitchen, every last chilled bottle of Ngok lager in his fridge and cans of Coca-Cola for the children, as well as a badly needed shower (‘though I must warn you that the water pressure is erratic at best’). Most welcome of all for Rae, he was happy to let her use his telephone.
It was the most important and emotional phone call of her life. Jude resisted the urge to stay with her in the narrow hallway outside the kitchen as she dialled home to tell her family she was free and safe. There were a lot of tears at both ends of the line. She ended the call by promising them she’d explain everything, and that she’d go to the US Embassy in Brazzaville first thing in the morning.
‘I’m deeply in your debt,’ Ben said to Bakupa when it was time to leave. ‘I’ll bring you the money as soon as I can.’
‘It was a pleasure helping you, my friend,’ Bakupa replied, shaking his hand. Ben could have hugged the guy.
He felt like hugging Mama too, but she’d already gone to bed, leaving the front door open for them. Rae couldn’t get over it. ‘You wouldn’t do that in Chicago.’
‘We are Africans,’ Sizwe said with a sad smile. ‘You are American, you cannot understand. Most people here are so poor, we have nothing to steal. At home in Rwanda, people in my village—’ Sizwe was about to say more, but then his eyes clouded and he fell silent.
Ben touched his arm. It had been a hell of a day for Sizwe. He’d witnessed the murderer of his family going up in flames; now, with a bellyful of beer inside him, and no definite future, he was ready to sleep for a week. Ben knew exactly how he felt.
The room arrangements had been decided in advance. The six children were sharing, which for orphanage kids used to thirty to a dorm was a luxury beyond imagining. It had been agreed to let Rae have a room to herself, being the only woman, and for the men to bunk up together next door.
At least, that had been the plan. Ben’s eyebrows rose at the sight of Jude disappearing with Rae into her room. The door closed softly behind them.
‘It’s an outrage,’ Tuesday said, grinning at the look on Ben’s face. ‘It’s not proper.’
‘See, what did I tell you?’ Jeff said, chuckling. ‘They couldn’t get away fast enough. Love’s young dream, eh? Best let them be.’
‘More space for us in here,’ Tuesday said.
There were just two beds in the cramped room. Ben settled on the floor and lit one of the Tumbacos he’d taken from the plane. Sizwe sat on the floor opposite him.
‘Take a bed, Sizwe,’ Ben said.
‘I have slept on many floors in my life,’ Sizwe said.
‘Suit yourselves,’ Jeff grunted, flopping on one of the beds and turning out the light.
Tuesday recited in the darkness:
‘He’ll never meet
A joy so sweet
In all his noon of fame,
As when first he sung to woman’s ear
His soul-felt flame,
And at every close, she blush’d to hear
The one loved name!’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Jeff said.
‘Love’s young dream. That’s poetry, that is. Thomas Moore.’
‘You’re not normal, are you?’
They lapsed back into silence. Ben smoked and thought.
‘We killed a thousand men today,’ he murmured in the darkness. ‘Sweet Jesus. So many.’ He didn’t realise he was speaking his thoughts out loud until Jeff replied tersely,
‘Yeah, well, screw ’em.’
More silence. Ben went on smoking and tried not to listen out for sounds coming from the next room.
‘I miss my family,’ Sizwe whispered.
Nobody spoke after that.
Whatever the others assumed must be happening in the next room, they were wrong.
Jude and Rae sat for a long time on the edge of the narrow bed, talking in low voices. The only light was from a weak, flickering bulb on the nightstand, and with the sash window open for some air there were moths the size of kestrels soon fluttering about them.
‘You’ll be going home tomorrow,’ Jude said to her. He tried to sound happy about it, but that wasn’t easy.
‘I guess,’ she replied. She’d been subdued since the phone call to her family.
‘That’s wonderful.’
Rae nodded, though she didn’t look happy. ‘Yes, it is. But I’ll be walking into a nightmare the moment I step off the plane. FBI, CIA, and who knows who else, all waiting to talk to me. Having to go through the whole thing with what happened to Craig, over and over again. This is bound to blow up into some kind of major international shit storm, and I’ll be caught up right in the middle of it. And the worst thing is, there’s not a shred of solid proof to incriminate Craig’s killers. The bastards will get away with it, like always.’
‘Khosa’s dead,’ Jude said. ‘I don’t call that getting away with it.’
‘Maybe. But what about all the others? Khosa wasn’t working alone, you know that as well as I do.’
‘I know,’ Jude said, thinking of César Masango. He shifted uncomfortably and changed the subject. ‘But you’ll be back with your family, that’s what matters most.’
‘To tell you the truth, part of me is kind of dreading that as well,’ she admitted. ‘I’m worried about what they’re going to say to me. You know, once we get past all the emotional stuff. I know they must have paid Khosa’s cronies a lot of money in ransom for my release. I hate to even think how much, and all lost. I don’t know if I can handle that.’
He touched her hand. ‘You’re worth it.’
‘Wait till I tell them about you, though,’ she said, turning to him and forcing a smile. ‘You’ll be their hero for life.’
‘The white knight in shining armour,’ he said jokingly, and they both laughed softly. ‘Maybe I’ll get to meet them one day,’ he ventured, then was worried he’d said too much.
She paused a beat. ‘You’d come to Chicago?’
‘I’ve nowhere much else to go,’ he said. ‘I had some plans, but that’s all done with now. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ After a silence, he said, ‘What you told me, about the coltan …’
‘What about it?’
‘It made me think about all the things the public don’t know about. I mean, how would people feel if they knew t
here were components inside their mobile phones and tablets that came from a slave mine in Africa where workers are being tortured and murdered every day?’
‘If they care,’ she said. Reaching into her pocket, she took out the SD card containing the valuable images she and Munro had taken of the mines and the city, and gazed at it. ‘Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it,’ she sighed. ‘Does anyone back home really give a crap? Africa might as well be another planet.’
He looked at her. ‘They do care. And they will. We’ll make them listen.’
‘What are you saying? That you want to get involved?’
Jude shrugged. ‘Maybe. Yeah. I think I would.’
‘You think you would?’
‘I definitely would. But mostly, I’d just like to see you. Spend some more time.’ As he said it, he could feel his face flushing.
‘In Chicago?’
‘Problem is, I can’t afford a plane ticket,’ he confessed.
Rae smiled, the smile coming easily now. ‘If that’s all that’s holding you back, it shouldn’t be too hard to fix.’
‘Tell me about the place,’ he said.
They whispered late into the night, sitting close together on the bed, knees touching, reaching out affectionately to one another every so often as they talked, relaxed and happy in each other’s company. Whatever the others assumed the two of them were getting up to in there alone in Rae’s little room, they had the wrong idea.
But much later, in the depths of the night, when everyone else was asleep and total stillness had fallen over the auberge, things turned out so they were right after all.
Chapter 56
‘I told you before what I had in mind.’
‘I didn’t think you were serious.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s such a ridiculous idea.’
‘Then what else can I do?’
‘We’ve been here before, Jude. When you took the damn thing, didn’t you have a better plan than this for getting shot of it?’