Blood Ransom (12 page)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 8:40 A.M.

ALONG THE CONGO RIVER

Natalie skittered backward, searching the crowded deck for the escaped monkey. Her ankle scraped against a wooden crate, but she ignored the sharp sting. The boat had dozens of places the animal could hide, from bags of maize to racks of smoked fish to wooden stalls piled high with goods for sale. And if it bit someone—

The monkey let out another shrill
oof
from atop one of the stalls and the crowd scattered.

Chad grabbed her hand, and they darted toward the railing to avoid being trampled. A child screamed. Someone slammed into Natalie’s shoulder. She pressed against the railing as the monkey swung down onto the stall in front of them, toppling over a basket of fruit. Dozens of oranges spilled across the deck. Catching the edge of a blue tarp, the monkey scampered onto the deck and picked up a piece of fruit, its attention sidetracked for the moment. Or so she thought. Turning toward Natalie, it paused and then hurled the orange straight at her.

Natalie lunged sideways, but only managed to trip over a pile of rope. Chad grasped her elbow, stopping her fall.

“You all right?” he asked.

She wiped the perspiration from the back of her neck and forced a
smile, her gaze still fixed on the monkey. “Yeah, but this is definitely not my day.”

Another orange flew across the deck, this time hitting a child in the head. Natalie’s temper soared as she skimmed the crowd for the owner. As the child sobbed behind the crumpled skirt of his mother, the monkey’s owner appeared from the middle of the crowd, holding out his hat and trying to entice the beast with a piece of fruit. Miraculously, it complied, climbing into the man’s lap. Natalie blew out a sharp breath of relief as he tied the rope around the monkey’s waist before disappearing back into the crowd.

“Why in the world would that man consider bringing a wild monkey on board this boat in the first place? Wait a minute.” She pitched Chad an orange and groaned. “What am I saying? The place is filled with crocodiles, parrots, turtles, and all sorts of smoked animals. What’s one loose monkey terrorizing a group of children?”

Chad tossed the orange into the air, then caught it again. “You’ve given me an idea.”

Natalie watched as Chad picked up three oranges and started juggling. Many of the children, who minutes ago had whimpered in fear, now squealed with excitement at the one-man show. She couldn’t help but grin at the children’s smiles. Just moments ago, the deck had been filled with panic. Now a little boy with tattered clothes and a protruding belly smiled up at Chad, laughing, while one remaining tear rolled down his chubby brown cheek.

Chad reached for a fourth orange and several of the parents gasped as he kept them spinning through the air. Like father like son; the man had a knack for making people smile, easing the children’s fears while at the same time easing hers. The applause grew when Chad, without losing a beat, threw one of the oranges to a young boy.

Natalie scanned the lively crowd, stopping at two men standing at the back of the boat, dressed in army fatigues, their gazes fixed on her. A scar edged the forehead of the tallest man, white against his dark skin as he squinted into the sun.

Nudging the man beside him, they moved on to one of the stalls. Natalie shook her head and turned back toward Chad. No. It was only her imagination chasing ghosts in her mind. No one could know they were here.

Finishing with a flourish, Chad took a bow, reached into his front pocket, and tossed a coin at the fruit vendor. He began giving out oranges to the children, who screamed with delight over the gift.

Natalie laughed when he finally managed to push his way through the crowd and join her at the railing. “I think you’ve got your own fan club. You really are full of surprises.”

“Come on. I’ve got another surprise for you.” He took her hand and started across the deck. “Besides, I’m out of oranges and have to get away from here before I get mobbed.”

They pushed their way through the busy throng and its continual movement. Vendors bartered with customers. Men drank beer while playing a traditional game of kari, with its pebbles and pitted game board, to pass the time. A pig let out a bloodcurdling scream beside them. No one even seemed to notice.

“Where’d you learn to juggle?” she asked him.

“When I worked a few months in the children’s ward back in Portland, I decided that I should add a few tricks to my bedside manner.”

“I’m sure the kids loved it.”

“I like to think it took their minds off their situation for a while.”

He stopped in front of one of the stalls where an old, toothless woman sat over piles of food wrapped neatly in green forest leaves.

Natalie frowned. “What is that?”

He adjusted the strap of the backpack he carried for her across his shoulder. “You’re telling me that you’ve lived here eighteen months and never tried
mandazis
?”

“Let me put it this way.” She looked up at him. “When you work in my field and are trying to stop a cholera epidemic, you tend to avoid food bought on the side of the road or off crowded boats with absolutely no sanitation rules.”

“I don’t know how you’ve survived living here.” He shook his head. “Come on. It’s time you lived it up a bit. I used to eat these all the time as a child, and I’m still around and kicking.”

Natalie laughed. “So what are they, exactly?”

He opened up the corner of one. “Balls of dough fried in hot oil. Add a dollop of peanut butter and voilà—you’ve got a bit of heaven.”

Heaven? Natalie squinted down her nose at the bucket of peanut butter. Looked more like a great glob of brown goo in a dirty plastic container to her.

“Come on.”

“Okay.” She hesitated at the offered snack, then took a bite. Her taste buds watered. “Mmm. This is good.”

“So you concede?”

She grabbed a second one and shot him a grin. “You could say that.”

Something clattered above the persistent roar on the boat. Natalie glanced at the guilty party, a squawking chicken that’d escaped from its cage and knocked over a row of pots. She was about to turn back to Chad when she saw them again. The same two men she’d noticed earlier. They stood a dozen yards away in the shadows of the riverboat’s two-story wheelhouse, watching her and Chad.

Natalie licked her lips. “Tell me I’m just paranoid after all that’s happened?”

“Paranoid about what?” Chad popped another bite of fried donut into his mouth as the boat shuddered beneath them.

“I think those men are following us.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “Okay, you’re being paranoid. While I’d assume the government and military use radios that work even when the cell phone towers are out, we’re talking third-world here. They don’t exactly have the resources of the CIA, so I’d think it’s highly unlikely.”

“I suppose.” She wanted to think she was wrong. That fear had taken over her instincts, making two ordinary passengers into the
enemy. But she shivered as one of the men flicked his cigarette into the water, his gaze never leaving her face. Something wasn’t right.

She shot a glance behind her, and Joseph waved as he wove his way toward them across the deck. If the men had been told to look for two Americans, she and Chad stood out like snowcapped mountains in the middle of the Sahara. How hard would it be for whoever was behind this to turn them into wanted fugitives?

Chad gripped her elbow as she turned around and looked again at the soldiers. “What’s wrong, Natalie?”

She jutted her chin at the two men just as the taller man pulled back his shirt, exposing the butt of a gun. She swallowed hard. Now she had Chad’s attention.

There was no time to react as the men surrounded them and raised their weapons.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 8:56 A.M.

NEAR THE VILLAGE OF DZAKAN

“Natalie?” The boat shuddered again, causing both Chad and Natalie to momentarily lose their balance. Natalie slammed into a wooden crate. And then Chad was pulling her behind a stack of barrels, widening the barrier between them and the thugs and the weapons they now held in plain sight.

Blood seeped from a nasty gash down her left arm.

“What happened?”

Natalie glanced at her shoulder. “I gouged it on a something, but I’m okay. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Chad took her right hand and pulled her through the crowd. Dodging goats and chickens through the overcrowded vessel suddenly seemed trivial compared to the possibility of dodging bullets. Surely only a complete idiot would fire shots with hundreds of people milling around.

He groaned, knowing their options were few. And the two men were closing in behind them. He surveyed their surroundings. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the boat had edged its way to the shore and was in the process of docking. This must be Dzakan, the one major village between Kasili and Bogama. Already a crowd waited to board the boat at the bottom of the ramp, while others stood poised
to disembark. The sight of weapons had added a layer of confusion to the chaotic scene, but that and the surge of passengers could work to their advantage.

They’d just been given their one way out.

Chad shouted to Joseph, who was maneuvering though the thick wall of people ahead of them. If they could get off, they might have a chance to lose the thugs. Pushing their way around a 4x4 jeep being transported down the river, Chad tightened his grip on Natalie’s hand. He glanced back as they pressed their way down the wooden ramp. One of the men was trapped somewhere in a sea of people, but the second had managed to jump the railing and now scurried down the edge of the ramp less than twenty feet behind them.

Chad quickened his pace, praying Natalie could keep up. He heard her labored breathing beside him as Joseph’s head bobbed ahead of them. A busy marketplace spread out fifty feet from the shore. The boy had the right idea—the market would be the best place to hide. While not as big as either Kasili or Bogama, it was crowded with dozens of small wooden stalls and packed with people.

Chad and Natalie followed Joseph as the boy wound his way down narrow dirt paths deep into the heart of the market, past fish vendors, vegetable sellers, and piles of used car parts. The stench from the trash pit along the edge of the market filled his nostrils, but his only concern was for Natalie.

They finally stopped to catch their breath behind a merchant selling shoes, hopeful they’d lost their pursuers. Natalie let go of his hand and grasped her shoulder below the wound. Blood smeared down her arm and across her left hand.

He had her sit on a stump, then examined the wound. For now he needed to concentrate on stopping the bleeding. He’d clean it properly once they found somewhere safe to stop. He glanced at the six-inch ruffle at the bottom of her skirt. He was going to have to make do with what they had. “Do you mind? We’ve got to stop the bleeding.”

She shook her head, and he bent down to rip off the piece along the seam.

Natalie eyed the backpack he’d set behind him. “Do you think those guys are after the photos?”

“That and a guarantee we don’t leak anything before the election.” He ripped the center of the strip with his teeth, then tore it into a thinner band, saving the other piece in his back pocket in case he needed it later. It should be enough to stop the bleeding. “They’re not getting us or the photos.”

Natalie flinched as he wrapped the wound. “But this isn’t just about Stephen and Patrick anymore. If they can find us in the middle of nowhere so quickly, that means their communications are beyond normal civilian communication of this country.”

Chad tied off the ends, not liking the obvious conclusion. “Which points to some kind of government involvement.”

“And which also means we’ve got to find another way to the capital before they find us again.”

Joseph stood hunched over, the palms of his hands resting against his thighs. “We could hire a small boat and try to outrun them.”

Chad nodded. “That’s a good option.”

And from the looks of things at the moment, their only option.

The boat Joseph hired was nothing more than a hollowed-out log, barely three feet wide. With the imposing walls of the jungle on either side of the rapidly moving water, their two pilots paddled the pirogue in unison down the Congo. Gurgles and yowls echoed from the massive trees looming along the banks of the river. Chad glanced back. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t been followed.

For the first time, he was able to focus his attention on Natalie. The bruise on her head had turned a bright blue, and the purple makeshift bandage on her arm was caked with dried blood. “How are you feeling?”

“Happy to be alive.” She shot him a weak smile. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I had no idea—”

He pressed his finger against her lips. “If you remember correctly, I volunteered.”

“Then you obviously didn’t know what you were getting into.”

“Neither of us did.” He shrugged. “Look at it this way. We’re all alive.”

“True.”

“And we have the photos.”

She nodded.

“Then let’s just count our blessings.” He eyed the covered wound again. “Do you have a first-aid kit in your bag?”

She grabbed the bag from the floor of the boat, unzipped it, then pulled out a smaller, clear bag. Perfect. It contained latex gloves, disinfectant, bandages, and a few other miscellaneous supplies he could use.

Gingerly, he tugged off the bandage, then poured on some antiseptic. “We could almost set up our own roving clinic between this and the pirogue.”

She winced at his touch. “Sorry, but I’ve had enough of boats for a long time.”

“Does it hurt bad?”

“Burns like it’s on fire.”

He tossed her a packet of painkillers from the bag. “Why don’t you take these as well? It will at least help to ease the pain.”

She swallowed the pills with a swig of water and turned back to him. “What if Patrick has something to do with this. He’s the only person I know of that has both the connections and the resources.”

“From what you’ve said, I guess I thought of him as more of a nuisance than a viable threat.” He put on a layer of antibiotic cream. “Of course, maybe I’m wrong. Someone obviously doesn’t want us getting to the capital with these photos.”

Natalie shook her head. “But even if he is involved, I can’t see him trying to kidnap us.”

Chad ripped off a piece of adhesive to secure the gauze in place. “People aren’t always what they appear to be on the outside.”

He looked up at the clouds. The sky roiled in the distance, darkening by the minute. Great. The last thing they needed now was to get caught in a storm. Boat accidents along the Congo were frequent, particularly when the vessels were overloaded with passengers on the swollen river.

He closed his eyes for a moment and listened to the rhythmic sounds of the water lapping against the side of the pirogue, thankful that for now, they were safe.