Rogue's March (23 page)

“Mundi was an agricultural camp. No one was to be trained at Mundi with guns.”

“Let me tell you what I know about the weapons,” Reddish said. “First, they were still in cosmoline, which means they'd just been cracked from the shipping crates. Secondly, the rebels I saw didn't know how to use them. The AK-47 is maybe the most efficient weapon for its weight in the world, and these kids couldn't handle them. Funny, don't you think? They looked a little tanked up to me, like they'd been drinking
lukulu
. You know about
lukulu
, don't you? Something that gets your nerves together but not your head, not your reflexes either. People who drink the stuff do stupid things, like people fired up on dope or LSD. What was the
lukulu
for, someone's quick fix to get some untrained kids out on the streets with guns they couldn't use? What did you think?” Reddish asked, his voice gathering disapproval. “That the mobs in the streets were so fed up they'd help out too once the fighting started?”

“No,” Masakita said. “
Lukulu
? There was no
lukulu
.”

“So you don't know anything about that either.”

“You're mistaken.”

“All you know is that you were expecting hand tools—shovels and hoes—is that it?” He sat forward again. “That's bullshit, friend. You know it and I know it. Stop your lying.”

“Is it for you to say? Who are you! Judge and jury both?”

“You're goddamned right. You used those guns. You took those guns from the crates and passed them out—”

“That's not true!”

“You
used
them.”

“We tried to stop them! Nyembo was there.”

But Reddish ignored him, his shoulders thrust forward aggressively, pinpricks of lamplight dancing in quick green eyes that, unaccountably to Masakita, seemed to be smiling. “I know people like you,” he said softly. “Do you think I don't know people like you? You're not guilty, you're not innocent, you're not anything, are you? Just a homicidal little fuck-up who's always someplace else when the dying starts.”

“You know nothing about me!”

“I know everything about you, friend, even your dreams. You're not a killer, you're not a man, you're not anything. You're just a sleepwalker, aren't you? Someone who'd crucify the bush and the rice paddies to prove your point, and when it got too hot for your kettle come crawling back for justice and a good lawyer like the frightened little shit-licker you are.” He got up. “Drink your brandy, friend. You've got time. So do I. You'll need it.”

In the rear hall Reddish called the embassy, but Sarah Ogilvy hadn't yet arrived. At the kitchen sink he drank a glass of water, looking out the window toward the river, where the mist was lifting. He searched through the cabinet for the coffeepot but after he'd found it, discovered the coffee was almost gone. He smoked a cigarette until his temper had cooled, still standing at the sink, doused it under the tap, and returned to the bedroom.

“We have nothing to say to each other,” Masakita said as Reddish entered, “nothing at all.” He had lifted himself against the headboard, shoulders cushioned by pillows.

Reddish leaned back in his chair, balancing it on the two rear legs. “You're making it awfully tough,” he began again. “Let's try it from another angle. If you knew nothing about the guns, maybe someone else in the compound did.”

“Impossible.”

“Who else from the party leadership was there on Sunday?”

“No one.”

“Why'd you say impossible? You don't think someone else might have arranged for those guns?”

“I would have learned of it.”

“How?”

“My informants.”

Reddish laughed. Nothing made politicians more pathetic than the memory of their lost empires; nothing made liars of them more quickly than their recollection. “Shit, you wouldn't have known any more than I did.”

“No one with any sense would have brought guns into the compound.”

“Not even your firebrand ideologues, Dr. Bizenga, Lule?”

“No one. They know Malunga wouldn't support them, that their revolution was still years away. After the anarchy of the past seven years, they had no illusions about that.”

“Maybe they were out to nail you.”

It was Masakita's turn to laugh, his face suddenly youthful, with that trace of spontaneity which told why the party faithful had been so fond of him.

“You don't think that likely?” Reddish asked, annoyed.

“That's poor Marxism, even for an American. People like Dr. Bizenga and Lule don't deal in personalities, just objective forces. I should know. They've lectured me often enough. No, we had our differences, but they weren't personal.”

“So you had no enemies in the party?”

“I don't believe so.”

“Who in the government wanted to get rid of you?”

“We know the answer to that. The army.”

“Outside the government?”

“The Belgians for one. Your embassy for another—”

“It didn't happen, friend,” Reddish interrupted dryly.

“Then that leaves us with the army.”

“Tell me about the army.”

“They exaggerated our strength in the communes, our popularity. They don't understand our weakness. They thought we were behind the student and transit strikes. They're also frightened.”

“Frightened of what? Not of your
jeunesse.
”

“Frightened by uncertainty, by the paralysis in parliament, by the President's paranoia, which made enemies of everyone.”

“What about the Russians or East Germans? The hand tools came from there. Maybe they thought the party was moving too fast, that it was too ambitious—”

“The Russians know our weakness. So do the East Germans, much better than the Western embassies.”

“You're a friend of Federov?”

“We talk occasionally. Not often.”

Reddish had asked the question to see Masakita's reaction. Now he was disappointed. “You piss around in their garden, they'll plant you in it,” he said irritably, getting up.

The light had moved into the room, the shadows from the lamp grown weaker. Trucks moved along the boulevard below.

“How many died?” Masakita asked as Reddish turned toward the window.

“A couple of hundred maybe. We don't have a body count yet.”

Masakita despised the word, the symptom of everything else that was wrong with the Americans: the dissociations of technology, of men separated by their machines from everything else.

“And you knew nothing until Nyembo called?”

“Nothing.”

“Nyembo told me you would have known, the way you knew everything else,” Masakita said, but Reddish had turned away, gazing down into the street.

“Sure, like I know how I'm going to get out of this bloody mess.” He came back from the window. “You say two trucks came on Saturday night bringing the crates from somewhere. Customs, you thought. Who was there to receive them?”

“I was there, alone in my office.”

“Were you expecting them?”

“No, I was surprised.”

“Could you identify the trucks?”

“Government trucks, I thought. The guard came from the gate and I saw them from the window.”

“Does the government supply you trucks for shipments from customs or do you just requisition them?” He sat down again. “Or don't you make the distinction between party and government business?”

“Normally, we would have rented a truck to pick up the crates. But we'd been worried about the shipment. It was overdue. The customs office knew it was overdue, so I assume the director sent them on as soon as they cleared—a courtesy.”

“Did he call you beforehand?” Reddish was puzzled. Customs didn't extend courtesies, even for diplomatic shipments.

“No, but I'd talked to him about the shipment earlier that week. So had Albert.”

“So customs knew you were expecting a shipment of hand tools.”

“Yes, everyone knew. Albert had been there twice with someone from the East German mission. They searched the warehouse, thinking they'd been misplaced. He'd made a nuisance of himself, as a matter of fact. Banda, the customs director's aide, called me to complain—”

“Banda?” Reddish broke in. It was Banda who'd called him the night before the shooting in Malunga, warning him that the army had Soviet guns.

“That's right, Banda.”

“A small man, with glasses? From the Kasai?”

“I think so, why?”

“Go ahead.”

“So Banda called and said they couldn't have Albert bringing East German diplomats in searching for merchandise. I explained that to Albert. The implements were important to him. Banda said he'd call me as soon as they came in.”

“Did he?”

“No.”

“When the crates arrived that Saturday night, did you look at the manifests?”

“No. It didn't occur to me.”

“You weren't suspicious then.”

“Suspicious? Why should I have been suspicious? The guard told me they were hand tools.”

“You are a bloody pilgrim, aren't you?” Reddish said morosely. “No wonder the faithful loved you so. Did you look into the crates that Saturday night?”

“No, they were steel-banded. I told the guards to unload them in the rear sheds.”

“What about Sunday? Did you open the crates when the second shipment came on Sunday?”

“No. I told the guards to store them in the rear sheds with the others.”

“Who opened them?”

“I don't know. Albert came, looked at the crates, and went off to rent the truck from the Portuguese mechanic to take them to Mundi that afternoon. When he returned, someone had opened the crates. That was when he brought me the pistol and shells.”

“Ordnance and ammo in the same boxes?” Reddish interrupted suspiciously.

“Yes, I think so. That's not right?”

“That's a bullshit scenario too, but go ahead.”

“I don't understand.”

“You don't ship live ammo with weapons. Go on.”

“We ran back to the sheds and saw more crates being smashed open, more guns dragged out. It was a madhouse.”

“Dragged out? What did they think, that the guns were for them?”

“I don't know what they thought. No one was doing any thinking. There was no time for that. The
jeunesse
had been badly abused by the army during the student riots. Two dozen were in the hospital. Three were killed. Eight disappeared, taken away in army trucks during the rioting—beaten up, clubbed, thrown into the trucks, driven to the military prison, and never heard from again. We'd heard rumors after that that some of the
jeunesse
had armed themselves—revolvers or pistols, I don't know—so that they'd be ready the next time. We searched the barracks and the back sheds but found nothing. Then we searched those entering the compound. But we never found any guns and thought it was just a rumor.”

“When was this?”

“Two or three weeks ago, maybe longer.”

Reddish remembered the Belgian pistol he'd seen the rebel fire toward the paras that night in Malunga.

“So it's possible they thought the guns were for them?” he asked.

“I don't know what they thought. As I said, nothing made sense at the time. The more crates they opened, the more guns they found. We tried to explain that they were hand tools for Mundi, but that only made it worse.”

“How many
jeunesse
were there at the time?”

“Twenty or thirty. The worst, the poorest-disciplined, assigned to the Sunday work detail. They attacked us with clubs and machetes when we tried to stop them.”

“So you were beaten up, cut open. Where were the others?”

“At the soccer game, most of them. They were just returning as the army appeared at the front gate. Someone had told them. That's when the first shots were fired.”

“What time was that?”

“A little after five o'clock.”

“Five o'clock,” Reddish repeated with a cryptic smile. “Five o'clock. At five o'clock the rebels were just returning from the stadium, the guns and ammo were there, like presents under the tree, and the paras show up too, like Santa on the roof. Everything like clockwork, is that it? Only it never snows on Christmas, friend, never—not in this goddamned town.” He got to his feet. “You make it tough. You make it awfully tough.”

“You don't believe it then.”

“Let's just say I'm not convinced, not yet. You said something else—that eight party members had disappeared, vanished. Did you go to the President?”

“I went to the President, yes. He refused to discuss it. He said that I had been misinformed.”

“Told you to lump it, did he? Take your licks with everyone else. What'd you expect? He's scared of the army too. Do you think the army knew what you didn't—that if the
jeunesse
got guns, there would be fighting between them?”

“I don't know.”

“You'd better think about it then. The army's looking for you. They're looking for you right now.”

“What about the President?”

“What President? Name your own. That's the whole bloody problem. It's all over. Didn't you hear it?” There was a radio in the living room, and Reddish thought Masakita might have picked up one of the broadcasts during the night or the previous day.

“I've heard nothing. What happened?”

The government had fallen, the announcement made at ten o'clock the previous night. A group of army officers calling themselves the National Revolutionary Council had assumed power, arrested the President and his cabinet, and declared martial law. Political parties had once again been banned and the parliament dissolved. The radio bulletin reported that the council had seized power to prevent a radical takeover supported by foreign-supplied arms. The old regime, paralyzed by inefficiency, corruption, and tribalism, had proven incapable of dealing with the threat. But the identity of the council hadn't yet been divulged; its leadership and numbers were unknown as it moved to consolidate power, smash the remaining pockets of resistance, and round up potential troublemakers.