Cross Country (17 page)

T
HE NEXT MINUTE or so seemed like they couldn't be happening. Not that night. Not any night.

It was hard to tell their number, but there must have been a couple of dozen of them. I thought I recognized one, the man I had released, the one who'd laughed at me.

These Janjaweed were on foot — they had no horses or camels. They had guns and also knives and camel whips; a couple of them wielded spears.

One man waved the flag of Sudan as if they were here on the state's business, and possibly they were. Another carried a flag with a white fierce horseman on a dark blue background, the symbol of the Janjaweed.

The women and children of the camp, who had been laughing and playing just a minute before, were screaming and trying to scatter out of harm's way now.

The attack was satanic in its viciousness; it was pure evil, like the murder scenes I'd visited in Washington. Grown men slashed away at defenseless refugees or shot them down. The thatched roofs of huts were set on fire not twenty feet away from me. An elderly man was lit on fire.

Then more Janjaweed arrived, with camels, horses, and two Land Cruisers mounted with machine guns. There was nothing but killing, cutting, slashing, screaming to heaven — no other purpose to this attack.

I fought off a few of the bastards, but there wasn't anything I could do to stop so many. I understood the way the people of this camp, of this country, understand: No one can help us.

But that night someone did. Finally, Sudanese regulars and a few UN troops arrived in jeeps and vans. The Janjaweed began to leave. They took a few women and animals with them.

Their last senseless and vengeful act: They burned down a grain shed used for storing millet.

I finally found Adanne, and she was cradling a child who had watched her mother die.

Then everything was strangely quiet except for the people's sobbing and the low winds of the harmattan.

I
T WAS GETTING close to morning when I finally laid myself down in a tent with a straw mat on the floor. It had been provided to me by the Red Cross workers, and I was too tired to argue that I didn't need a roof over my head.

"It's me, Alex. Adanne. May I come in?"

"Of course you can." My heart pumped in my chest.

She stepped inside and sat down beside me on the mat.

"Terrible day," I said in a hoarse whisper.

"It's not always this bad," she said. "But it can be worse. The Sudanese soldiers knew a reporter was in the camp. And an American. That's why they came to chase away the Janjaweed. They don't want bad press if they can possibly avoid it."

I shook my head and started to smile. So did Adanne.

They weren't happy smiles. I knew that what she had said was true, but it was also ridiculous and absurd.

"We're supposed to share the tent, Alex," Adanne finally said. "Do you mind?"

"Share a tent with you? No, I think I can handle that. I'll do my best."

Adanne stretched herself out on the mat. She reached out and patted my hand. Then I took her hand in mine.

"You have someone — back in America?" she asked.

"I do. Her name is Bree. She's a detective too."

"She's your wife?"

"No, we're not married. I was — once. My first wife was killed. It was a long time ago, Adanne."

"I'm sorry to ask so many questions, Alex. We should sleep now."

Yes, we should sleep.

We held hands until we drifted off. Only that — hand-holding.

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY, we left the camp at Kalma. Nine refugees had died during the nighttime attack; another four were still missing. If this had happened in Washington, the entire city would be in an uproar now.

A mutual hunch took Adanne and me to the Abu Shouk camp, the next-largest settlement in the region. The reception there was more ambivalent than we'd gotten at Kalma.

A big fire the night before had made personnel scarce, and we were told to wait at the main administrative tent until we could be processed.

"Let's go," I said to Adanne after we'd waited nearly an hour and a half.

She had to run to catch up with me. I was already headed up a row of what looked like shelters. Abu Shouk was much more uniform and dismal than Kalma. Nearly all of the buildings were of the same mud-brick construction.

"Go where?" Adanne said when she came up even with me.

"Where the people are."

"All right, Alex. I'll be a detective with you today."

Three hours later, Adanne and I had managed half a dozen almost completely unproductive conversations, with Adanne attempting to serve as translator. The residents were at first as friendly as those in Kalma, but as soon as I mentioned the Tiger, they shut down or just walked away from us. He had been here before, but that was all the people would tell us.

We finally came to an edge of the camp, where the sand plain continued on toward a range of low tan mountains in the distance, and probably bands of Janjaweed.

"Alex, we need to go back," Adanne said. She had the tone of a person putting her foot down. "Unfortunately, this has been unproductive, don't you think? We're nearly dehydrated, and we don't even know where we're sleeping tonight. We'll be lucky to get a ride into town" — she stopped and looked around — "if we can even find our way back to the admin tent before dark."

The place was like an impossible maze, with rows of identical huts wherever we looked. And so many displaced people, thousands and thousands, many of them sick and dying.

I took a deep breath, fighting off the day's frustration. "All right. Let's go. You're right."

We started picking our way back and had just come around a corner, when I stopped again. I put a hand out to keep Adanne from taking another step. "Hold up. Don't move," I said quietly.

I had spotted a large man ducking out of one of the shelters. He was wearing what I'd call street clothes anywhere else. Here, they marked him as an outsider.

He was huge, both tall and broad, with dark trousers, a long white dashiki, and sunglasses under a heavy brow and shaved head.

I took a step back, just out of sight.

It was him. I was sure it was the same bastard I'd seen at Chantilly. The Tiger — the one I was chasing.

"Alex—"

"Shh. That's him, Adanne."

"Oh, my God, you're right!"

The man gestured to someone out of sight, and then two young boys walked out of the shelter behind him. One was nobody to me. The other wore a red-and-white Houston Rockets jersey. I recognized him instantly from Sierra Leone.

Adanne gripped my arm tightly and she whispered,

"What are you going to do?"

They were walking away but were still in plain sight.

"I want you to wait five minutes and then find your way back. I'll meet you."

"Alex!" She opened her mouth to say more but stopped.

It was probably my eyes that told her how serious I was. Because I had realized that everything I'd been told was true. The rules I knew just didn't apply here.

There was no taking him in — no transporting him back to Washington.

I was going to have to kill the Tiger, possibly right here in the Abu Shouk camp.

I had few qualms about it either. The Tiger was a murderer.

And I had finally caught up with him.

I
HUNG BACK, following the killer at a distance. It sure wasn't hard to keep him in sight. I had no specific plan. Not yet.

It was just past sunset, a time when everything looked tinted with blue, and sound carried. Maybe he heard me, because he turned around. I ducked out of sight, or at least I hoped so.

The huts along the footpath were packed in tightly. I wedged myself into a foot-wide gap between two of them. The walls on either side were crude mud-brick. They grated on my arms as I tried to push my way through and get the Tiger back in sight.

I had made it about halfway, when one of his young thugs stepped out into the alley.

He didn't move. He just shouted something in Yoruban.

When I looked over my shoulder, Houston Rockets was at the other end of the alley. I could see the white of his grin but not his eyes in the dim half-light.

"It's him," he called out in a high-pitched voice, almost a giggle. "The American cop!"

Something slammed hard into the wall inside the hut. The entire hut buckled, and large chunks of dried mud fell into the alley.

"Again!" Houston Rockets yelled.

I realized what was happening — they meant to crush me in the narrow passageway.

The whole wall exploded then. Bricks and debris and dirt poured down on my head and shoulders.

I waded forward, took a hard swing, and struck the nearest punk with my shovel.

And then — I found myself face-to-face with the Tiger.

"N
OW YOU WILL die," he said to me matter-of-factly, as if the deed were a foregone conclusion.

He looked incredibly calm, his eyes barely registering emotion as he reached forward and grabbed me by the arm and throat. My only thought was to hold on to the shovel, and to swing it if I got the chance.

He threw me back down the alley as easily as if I were a child. No, a child's doll. I landed hard on splintering wood and plaster. Something sharp sliced into my back.

I registered Houston Rockets blocking the other escape route. There was nowhere for me to run.

The Tiger came charging at me. So I swung the shovel as hard as I could, going for the bastard's knees.

The shovel head connected — not a home run, but maybe a double. The Tiger buckled, but he didn't go down. Unbelievable. I'd hit him in the kneecaps and there he stood, glowering at me.

"That's all you have?" he said.

It was as though he didn't feel anything at all. So I raised the shovel again and struck his left arm. He must have been hurt, but he didn't show it, his face revealing no more emotion than a wall of slate.

"Now — my turn," he said. "Can you take a punch?"

Suddenly a floodlight hit my eyes. There were voices behind it. Who was there?

"Ne bouge pas!"

I heard footsteps scuffing on the dirt and the metallic rustle of guns. Suddenly, green-helmeted AU soldiers were in the alley with us, three of them.

"Laisse la tomber!" one of the soldiers yelled.

It took a second to realize I was just as much a suspect here as the Tiger. Or, worse — maybe I was the only suspect.

I dropped the shovel and didn't wait for any more questions. "This man is wanted in the United States and Nigeria for murder. I'm a policeman."

"Tais-toi!" One of the soldiers said and put his rifle right in my face. Jesus! The last thing I wanted was to have my nose broken again.

"Listen to me! Ecoutez-moi!" This was a Senegalese platoon, and my French wasn't the greatest. The scene was getting more insane and out of control by the second. "He's got two accomplices. Deux garcons, vous comprenez? They are all murderers!"

That last remark got me a punch in the gut. I doubled over, trying to catch my breath while the Tiger just stood there, mute, uttering not a word of protest.

Perfectly calm. Smarter than I was.

And in control? I wondered.

T
HEY BROUGHT US both out of the alley at gunpoint and made us kneel in the dirt. A crowd had gathered, maybe a couple hundred people already.

"Alex? Alex?" I heard Adanne's voice, and nothing could have sounded more welcome to me.

Then I saw her push through the crowd to the front. Her eyes went wide when she spotted the Tiger kneeling a few feet away from me. He saw her too.

"Let me through! I'm with the
Guardian
." She took an ID out of her pocket, but a soldier shoved her back.

She called out to me again, and she kept yelling, risking her own safety. "Alex! Tell them that the
Guardian
is doing your story! Tell them the
Guardian
is here. I will write their story."

But then my ears took in something else — the high-pitched whine of a vehicle traveling in reverse!

Was that right? Was I hearing it correctly? Who was coming now?

The crowd on one side started to stir, from the rear at first. Then people were scattering wildly, screaming or cursing.

Everything was turning to chaos, even worse than it had been.

I could see a black pickup truck now, backing toward us at high speed. It weaved recklessly along the very narrow street, taking out several shade canopies as it came. There were gunshots too, possibly coming from the truck.

The AU team scrambled back first. Then the truck stopped twenty yards away.

Houston Rockets was in the back, shielding himself with a young girl. She was maybe twelve or thirteen. He had one arm around her throat. His other hand — held high over his head — was holding a grenade for everyone to see.

The Tiger wasted no time. He jumped up and ran for the truck. The passenger door opened for him and he disappeared inside.

I saw his huge hand come out and slap the roof hard.

As the pickup raced away, the young girl was thrown from the back. Thank God for that anyway.

But as we watched in shock, she clawed the air with both arms and hit the ground with her head. Then she exploded!

Houston Rockets must have shoved the grenade into the girl's clothing. They had no reason to kill her. The murder was just for show — or maybe for my eyes.

Or Adanne's?