Havoc - v4 (5 page)

“Can you give me a minute,” Cali asked. “I need to powder my nose.”

“Powder your—Oh, sorry. Sure.”

He stayed at the trench while Cali meandered into the jungle. He called to her. “Don’t go out of earshot.”

“Peeing fetish,” she called back. “Like to listen, do you?”

Mercer could tell she was teasing. “Watch usually.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going any farther than decorum requires.”

After five minutes Mercer called her name.

“A minute,” she answered, her voice strained. “Jesus, what do they call Montezuma’s Revenge in this part of the world?”

Mercer kept the instant concern from his voice. “In India I’ve heard it called Hindu Tush. Egypt it’s Tut’s Curse or Pharaoh’s Fanny. I don’t think Central Africa has its own
nom de poop
.”

“Cute.” Her voice sounded a bit stronger. A minute later she emerged from the jungle. She looked none the worse for her troubles.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Fortunately when I get the, ah, Congo River Runs, it passes quickly. No pun intended.”

“Want me to carry your bag?”

Cali tightened the strap over on her shoulder. “No. I’m fine.”

The village sat atop the bluff with a commanding view of the river below. Ten or so acres of jungle had been cleared to raise crops, manioc mostly. Several near-feral dogs roamed the round huts while a pair of staked goats watched Mercer and Cali’s approach with disinterest, their bodies as scraggly as their beards. It wasn’t until they reached what passed as the village square that the first person came out to greet them, a child of about six wearing an overly large Manchester United T-shirt that fell past her knees. A woman in a print dress dashed from her rondavel and rushed the child back inside. A moment later an old woman emerged from the same hut. Her face was perfectly round and so deeply wrinkled that the only way to see her eyes was by the light reflecting off them. She leaned on a cane made of a tree root and wore a shapeless dress that completely covered her ample figure. She said something in a dialect Mercer didn’t know, an accusatory question by the tone. Her voice was a force of nature that startled birds into flight and sent one of the dogs slinking with its tail curled under its belly.

“
Pardon, madam
,” Mercer said in French. “
Parlezvous Français
?”

She stood as silent as a statue for a moment, appraising the two white people, then grunted something into the hut. The child’s mother emerged with the toddler clinging to her shoulder.

“I speak English,” the young woman said haltingly.

“Better and better.” Mercer gave her his best smile. “We’re American.”

The matron said something else to the younger woman. She lowered her child to the ground and went back into her hut. When she reemerged she carried a low stool and set it on the ground behind whom Mercer assumed was her mother, or maybe grandmother. With a groan the old woman lowered herself onto the stool. Mercer half expected the chair to collapse as the woman’s generous backside enveloped the seat.

Mercer and Cali approached a few paces and hunched down near the woman’s bare feet. She smelled of wood smoke and animal dung. In the doorways of other huts Mercer could see eyes watching them—most of them female and all of them older.

“Where are all the young people?” Cali asked.

“Gone into the jungle,” Mercer said bitterly. “I’ve seen this happen before. Other places, other wars. With Dayce on the move, everyone who can takes off, leaving those too old or infirm behind.”

“My God that’s…”

“I know.” The young mother must have stayed behind to care for her elder, though Mercer couldn’t understand why someone didn’t take her baby when they fled. He looked more carefully at the child and understood why. She had a tumor on her neck the size of an orange, an angry reddish mass that if left untreated would soon choke off her breathing. Cancer. Why would someone slow themselves down with a child who would die soon anyway?

“You are very brave to stay,” Mercer said slowly.

The woman said nothing, but her wide eyes filled with tears.

“I have a truck near the ferryboat that crosses the Chinko River. I can take you all with me to Rafai.” As quickly as the tears welled, they subsided and the woman’s stoic expression exploded with a smile. “Tell the others to prepare,” he added. “We can leave in a few minutes.”

“You are from the government?”

Mercer didn’t want to explain to her that her government had pretty much abandoned everyone north of Kivu. “Yes.”

The woman shouted out to the villagers, many of whom had stepped from their mud and thatch huts. In seconds they ducked back into their homes to collect anything of value the younger people hadn’t already taken when they ran away.

“What do you know of the mine on the bluff overlooking the river?” She didn’t respond, so Mercer said, “The holes dug into the hill. Do you know who did it?”

She spoke to the old woman, who in turn gave a lengthy reply punctuated by a wet cough. “A white man came when my grandmother was a child.” That put the time frame right in Mercer’s mind. “He paid the men to dig many holes; then he left with crates of dirt. Some time passed and then more men came. They forced the men of our village to dig more holes and they took away even more dirt.”

“Soon after, did the people of your village get sick?” Mercer touched his neck in the same spot where the little girl had her tumor.

The young mother clutched her daughter’s hand. “That is what my grandmother says. Many children die and many are born with…” She didn’t have the words to describe the horrors of newborns deformed by the ravages of acute radiation poisoning, many of whom probably never took a breath.

Mercer turned to Cali. “I think this is where the United States mined pitchblende during World War Two.”

“I thought that came from the Congo,” Cali said quickly, then stammered, “That is the stuff used in the atomic bomb, right? I saw a special on the History Channel about the Manhattan Project a month ago. I could have sworn they said we got our uranium ore from the Congo.”

“I’m not sure,” Mercer replied. “But someone mined something from here, and judging by the woman’s age I’d guess around the Second World War. Then a short time later the villagers begin suffering what sounds like radiation poisoning. Then it’s discovered this place has the highest cancer rate in the world. The guy who did the initial medical survey probably thought the mine was irrigation canals or something and never put the pieces together. Usually pitchblende isn’t dangerous. It needs to be refined before radiation concentrations are high enough to cause illness. But not here apparently. The natural concentration of uranium 235 was high enough to cause birth defects and cancer.”

The old woman spoke to her granddaughter. She went back into her hut and returned with something in her hands. It slipped when she handed it to Mercer. He picked it up from the ground. It was a metal canteen with a waterproofed canvas cover. The olive-drab canvas was frayed and brittle but remarkably intact. The metal was still bright. It looked government-issue to Mercer. He slid the canteen out of its cover and a scrap of paper fell to the ground. Written on it were the words “Property of Chester Bowie.”

He showed it to Cali. “That’s an American name if there ever was one. I think the History Channel got it wrong.”

The daughter translated what her grandmother was saying. “The first man. He gave this to my grandfather’s father.” The old woman pulled something from around her neck, a leather thong she wore as a necklace. Hanging from it was a small copper object fastened to the leather by a tiny wire cage. “The second men, the ones who came later, gave her this.”

The old woman handed the necklace to Mercer. The pendant was a misshapen bullet. Mercer looked at the woman, confusion written on his face. She hiked up her skirt to reveal one of her thigh-sized calves. The black skin was puckered by a small scar on the outside, and when she turned her leg he saw a much nastier exit scar, the skin shiny and gray even after all these years.

“They killed many of the workers when they were finished with the digging,” the daughter translated. “They used fast guns and just a few escaped into the jungle. My grandfather’s father and all his brothers died.”

Cali looked to Mercer. “I don’t understand. The Americans killed the miners to hide what they’d done?”

“I can’t believe that,” Mercer replied even with the evidence in his hand. “I know the whole project was shrouded in secrecy, but I just can’t see Americans systematically killing innocent villagers.”

“If not us, then—”

Mercer never let Cali finish her question. It was the brief instant of silence, the absence of the omnipresent jungle sounds that launched him into action. In one swift movement he shoved her into the dirt, covering her body with his own as automatic fire erupted from behind them.

The barrage struck all three generations of women. The old woman took two slugs in her chest, the fat rippling with the impact before she fell back off her stool. Her granddaughter and great-granddaughter were stitched across the stomach and head, both dead before their bodies hit the earth.

Banshee cries and more gunfire followed as elements of Caribe Dayce’s army attacked the isolated hamlet. Mercer caught a glimpse of a teenage rebel soldier with an AK-47 nearly as long as he was tall. His young body shuddered as though he was holding a live wire when he fired the weapon into a hut.

Mercer’s first instinct was to save as many people as he could from the onslaught. But with only a single pistol, he knew he didn’t have a prayer, so he opted for his second choice and that was to save himself and Cali. The truck was a mile away and it would take the rebels at least ten minutes to satisfy their bloodlust. They had a chance if no one saw them.

He rolled off Cali, grabbed her knapsack, and started to slither toward the old woman’s hut. He felt Cali respond to the tug and follow him. The hut’s mud walls hid them from the rebels but otherwise offered no practical protection. Once inside, he got to his feet, locked eyes with Cali in the dim light to make sure she was okay, then kicked out the back of the hut. A thin strip of vegetation ran along the crest of the bluff before it dropped to the river. He considered making a dash for the water but there was no cover on the sloping bank. They’d be cut down long before they reached the water, and even if they made it, the river offered no cover. They were trapped between the army of Caribe Dayce and the Scilla. He led Cali into the hedge, not knowing when he’d drawn his pistol but not surprised it was in his hand, a round chambered, the safety off. He’d also given Cali her pack to free both of his hands.

The attack had originated from farther upstream, so Mercer pressed Cali ahead of him. If they were caught from behind he would take the first rounds and hoped his sacrifice would see her clear. They stayed low and Mercer kept a hand on her back to steady her pace. Quick movement would catch the eye of even the least trained soldier.

A gush of smoke overwhelmed them as the rebels put a hut to the torch. Someone within screamed as the thatched roof ignited as though it was soaked in gasoline. The scream was ended abruptly when the roof collapsed in an explosion of sparks. There seemed to be no break in the gunfire. As soon as one weapon went silent, another rebel found a target and opened up.

Mercer didn’t dare look at the carnage behind him as he and Cali threaded their way through the thin tangle of trees and ferns. He’d seen it before. He’d been orphaned by such an attack not five hundred miles from here. His hand on Cali’s back was as much to steady her as it was for himself.

Fifty yards from the edge of the village the strip of jungle ran out. Mercer and Cali paused, keeping low in the shadows of a tree. Mercer finally looked back. Smoke billowed from several huts, and indistinct figures moved through the haze, some firing weapons, others dropping. No one seemed to be looking in their direction. Dayce had assumed his attack would overwhelm the village so quickly that there was no need to station sentries on the perimeter.

The mine was another hundred yards away. The trenches would provide cover, and beyond it the jungle grew thick and impenetrable. Mercer surveyed the ground, picking his route through the barren land, while another part of his brain dealt with the adrenaline overload that was flooding his system. Next to him Cali seemed to be faring better. Her eyes were wide, her body loose and ready.

“We’ll make it,” she whispered, adjusting her pack so it rode high on her shoulders.

“I know.” He forced confidence into his voice.

They struck out, commando crawling across the damp ground, and had made half the distance when Mercer saw a pair of rebels cross the dike separating the mine from the edge of the bluff. Dayce
had
sent pickets. The rebels were coming at a jog, anxious to join in the slaughter. They would spot the two prone Americans in a matter of seconds.

Mercer was an expert with the Beretta but he had no chance at this range. There was no cover nearby, nothing to hide them. He had no choice and brought the pistol to bear. His mouth had gone stone dry. He watched them come, two boys with bandoliers crossing their thin chests, sandals made of truck tires on their feet, their AKs battered but serviceable. They were thirty yards off when one finally spotted Mercer and Cali lying on the ground. His mouth opened in a surprised O. His partner saw the duo an instant later and his face went savage. He shifted his weapon to fire.

Mercer had his sight picture and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked. The first rebel went down. The next shot was hurried and Mercer was positive the round went high, but the second rebel dropped his AK-47, clutching his shoulder, and began to wail as he collapsed.

Cali and Mercer were up on their feet before the youth had fully fallen. They ran stride for stride, accelerating like sprinters out of the blocks, eating distance with each pace. The distinctive crack of the pistol had created an eerie lull in the gunfire behind them. It lasted just long enough for Mercer and Cali to cover another thirty yards before rebels began firing in their direction.