Genocide of One: A Thriller (19 page)

Holding out a faint hope that Sugai would undertake it for him, Kento described what
he knew about this mystery woman, Yuri Sakai, including her looks and her age. Sure
enough, this seemed to spark Sugai’s interest. “And she wanted your father’s laptop?
Do you have any other leads?”

“Only that I think she must be a science researcher.”

“The chances are pretty slim I’ll find anything, but I’ll give it a go. If your cell
phone’s dead, how can I get in touch with you?”

“I’ll call you, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, that’s fine. Call anytime.”

“Thank you for everything,” Kento said, and hung up. He felt a little better now that
he could see what had to be done. Namely, grappling with stacks of old magazines to
find out what was in the Heisman Report.

Kento walked over to the main shopping street in Shibuya, found an Internet café,
and went in. Using the computer in one of the small private cubicles, he discovered
that the largest library specializing in magazines in Japan was located in Tokyo.
The library had seven hundred thousand magazines ranging back to the Meiji period
that one could freely read—and, best of all, the place was privately operated.

Kento estimated that by tomorrow evening he’d finally understand what this adventure
his father had handed down to him was all about. Because lying untapped in the holdings
of that library was the report he was looking for. The one that traced the extinction
of the human race.

A ferocious rain
continued to fall, so intense it felt like the dense forest would be swept away.
A veritable flood from the sky. Huge drops of rain ceaselessly pelted the tops of
the trees, and the entire forest gave off a deep rumbling sound as the trees shook
from side to side.

This unusual storm in the middle of the dry season actually was a lucky break for
Yeager and his team, for it gave them a chance to close the distance between them
and their target. When it rained the Mbuti didn’t go hunting and stayed close to their
camp. The team could search out where they were without worrying about keeping quiet
as they went or accidentally running across their prey.

The forty-member Kanga band had a permanent camp near the main road, but they moved
about among the eight hunting camps they kept deep in the jungle. Their territory
stretched some thirty-five kilometers from east to west. Yeager and the team were
getting close to the most remote camp, the one deepest in the jungle.

One kilometer from their target they stopped at a dense stand of trees, spread out
a waterproof sheet as a shelter, and changed into jungle camouflage. They put on their
full array of gear, including tactical vests bulging with extra cartridges. Then they
proceeded six hundred meters ahead and put their backpacks down in a spot in the thick
brush. This would be their rendezvous point. They inputted their present location
into their GPS devices, for going just ten meters into the jungle was far enough to
get lost.

“We’ll approach their camp from two directions, north and south,” Yeager instructed
the team. They all had on face paint, and in their dark camouflage only the whites
of their eyes shone. “Garrett and Mick will approach from the north, and Meyers and
I will come in from the south. We’ll check that Nigel Pierce is in the camp and that
there are the right number of people.”

The other three nodded, serious looks on their faces, and Yeager was satisfied. Ever
since Mick killed those two chimpanzees the atmosphere among the team had shifted.
The men no longer tried to get to know each other better, and they became a taciturn
group of men simply intent on carrying out their mission. Yeager, as team leader,
was anxious about whether there was any outward antagonism among the members, but
this fear turned out to be baseless. Professional soldiers knew that any strife among
the team would put them all in danger. Bringing emotional conflict out in the open
would increase the risk that they’d die. Yeager himself had intentionally put aside
the antipathy he felt for the cheerless Japanese man.

“Let’s run down the checklist,” Garrett said. “The UN peacekeeping force is intercepting
the insurgents’ radio transmissions. We don’t want to get caught in their surveillance
network, so the output on our field radios is limited. They only can transmit up to
two hundred meters. Keep any transmissions to an absolute minimum. The signal to return
to the rendezvous point will be five buzzes.”

Yeager added a few words about the inscrutable order they’d been given. “Finally,
there’s the living creature you’ve never seen before. If you run across this mysterious
being, remember to kill it right away and recover the body.”

The three men nodded, bemused smiles on their faces. Yeager smiled, too, unable to
keep a straight face.

The Guardian members split into two groups, each carefully walking along its appointed
route. Yeager was apprehensive about the Mbuti. For tens of thousands of years they’d
lived in the jungle, adapting to the environment. Even an experienced Special Forces
soldier was no match for them on their home turf.

In ten minutes they came upon a clearing. The latitude and longitude matched the figures
given to them at the briefing at the Zeta Security headquarters. Yeager and Meyers
hid behind a large tree trunk, took out their binoculars, and scanned the hunting
tribe’s camp.

The clearing was much smaller than the mock-up village they’d practiced on. It was
about twenty meters on each side. In the middle were wooden benches, and surrounding
these were the small, semispherical huts. But through the haze of the rain there was
no sign of anyone in the camp, and half the huts were falling apart.

With Glocks, silencers attached, in hand, Yeager and Meyers made their way through
the muddy ground and slowly entered the clearing. They used hand signals, deciding
who would check which huts, and went to work.

Yeager looked into the hut at the end of the row before him. It was obvious how they’d
constructed these huts, which were about two meters in diameter. Long tree branches
had been bent in a semicircle, the ends thrust in the ground to anchor a framework,
and large leaves laid on top. A primitive construction.

As he checked one hut after another, Yeager kept an eye out for anything nonhuman.
This “living creature” he’d “never seen before” might be lurking in the corner of
a deserted hut. But all he ran across were small insects.

Once they figured out that no one was in the camp, Yeager signaled to Garrett and
Mick, still watching from the jungle, to assemble.

“There’re traces of a campfire,” Meyers reported in a low voice. “The ashes are recent.
People were here not long ago. The band must have moved on to the next camp.”

Yeager nodded. The silence around him was so deep it made him shudder. The campground
shone white in the dimness.

He and Meyers looked up at the sky. The rain that had been falling since morning had
let up, and the dark clouds had quickly dissipated. This was the first time since
entering the jungle that they had such an expansive view of the sky. It felt as if
they’d floated up from the dark depths of the ocean, their faces breaking the surface.

Garrett and Mick emerged from the shadows of the huts. “Let’s head to the next campsite,”
Yeager directed them. “Five klicks east.”

It was still only 2:00 p.m. They should arrive before dark.

The men went back to where they’d left their backpacks and set out again. The route
they took was deep into Kanga band territory. Now that the rain had stopped they had
to be cautious about making noise.

An hour later, the returning sunlight must have made the raindrops on the forest floor
start to evaporate, because a powerful odor of the jungle rose up from the ground.
The smell was a thick brew of trees and leaf mulch, the air surrounding them heavy
and oppressive.

They’d waded through several rain-swollen streams when Yeager thought he heard a person’s
voice. At first he thought he was hearing things. But when he stopped and listened
carefully he realized it wasn’t the voice of a bird or animal but a person yelling
out. Yeager quickly checked their position on the GPS. They were about a kilometer
from the Kanga band’s next camp.

Mick, taking point, noticed the voice, too, signaled for them to stop, and turned
around. Each of them silently dropped to one knee where they were, checking to front
and back, left and right. This whole time the man’s voice continued to yell out faintly.
It wasn’t a scream. They couldn’t make out the individual words, but whatever language
it was had a special kind of intonation.

The yells suddenly stopped, echoing for a short moment. The four mercenaries spent
a few minutes in place, checking out their surroundings, and when they understood
there was no threat nearby they gathered around Yeager.

“What was he yelling?” Meyers whispered. “Did anybody understand it?”

“I think it was English,” Garrett replied. “But I didn’t catch what he said.”

The men exchanged looks. The Mbuti spoke the same language as the local farmers. The
other lingua francas of this region were Swahili and French. But not English. The
worst-case scenario came to mind—that the antigovernment forces had already attacked
the Kanga band. The Ugandan and Rwandan forces that had invaded the eastern part of
the Congo used English as their common tongue.

“Was he calling for help?” Meyers asked.

“No. There was just one voice, and I didn’t hear any other screams,” Yeager said.
“I don’t think it was an attack.”

“Then who was yelling? That anthropologist? Nigel Pierce?”

Speculation would get them nowhere, so Yeager decided they should move out. “Leave
your packs here,” he said. “This will be our rendezvous point. Mick, take your grenade
launcher with you.” Yeager and Mick took the HK69 grenade launchers from their backpacks
and stuffed 40mm grenades in their pouches. They handed out five hand grenades each
to Garrett and Meyers.

They checked their equipment and fanned out again in two groups to the north and south
as they approached the camp, a kilometer away.

Yeager, who’d had reconnoitering training, soon noticed a path. The thick vegetation
had been pushed away on both sides. It must be a hunting path the Mbuti used. He checked
the ground but found no trace of any armed military force having passed by.

After a half hour Yeager heard chickens up ahead and people’s voices. The Mbuti. Their
voices sounded relaxed and peaceful. At least they weren’t under threat of attack.

Yeager came to the edge of the camp, picked an old tree nearby, and began to climb
it, trying to keep as quiet as he could. Meyers stayed below, standing guard.

Holding on to a branch about three meters off the ground, Yeager looked out from behind
the trunk and trained his binoculars on the clearing up ahead. And for the first time
in his life he saw Pygmies.

Even from far off he could tell how small they were. From a Western perspective they
looked like a group of grade-school children. They were muscular, but for some reason
many of them had swollen abdomens. Their skin color was relatively pale, probably
the result of living in the jungle, where little sunlight penetrated the foliage.
The men had on well-worn shorts, and the women wore cloths of many colors wrapped
around them. Some of the women were naked from the waist up, but their pendulous breasts
hung straight down, and there was nothing erotic about it. In fact, the whole tableau
was like a picture of human beings stripped to their essence. If you took away their
minimal clothes and the pots and knives they used for cooking, it was the same primitive
existence they’d been living for tens of thousands of years. They might be far from
civilization, yet when he looked carefully at the faces of the young and old, males
and females, before him, Yeager could make out all the same expressions you’d find
in modern man—some innocent and tranquil, others intelligent, silly, or thoughtful.

It was still some time before sunset, but the sunlight shining down on the clearing
was already being blocked by the trees. This tract of land would soon be covered in
darkness. Yeager began collecting all the intel he would need for their operation.

The camp had eleven dwellings, each a few meters apart, arranged in a U shape. Yeager
was observing the camp from one side, so he didn’t know how many people might be hidden
behind the huts in front of him. But this blind spot would be covered by Mick and
Garrett, who were on the opposite side of the camp.

Most of the adult males occupied the central part of the clearing, a kind of meeting
place, by the look of it. There were fifteen of them. They were sitting on wooden
benches, smoking cigarettes and chatting. Women were outside their huts, getting dinner
ready. Starting up cooking fires, seated on the ground, assembling a meal out of some
kind of fruit that resembled a potato. From where Yeager was he could count five women.
There were children as well. Five boys had rolled a vinelike plant into a ball and
were playing soccer with it. And there were six girls, some decorating their hair
with flowers, some looking after the smaller children, others helping their mothers
with cooking.

Yeager continued to observe the people he would be killing, trying hard to detect
any trace of illness. If he could make sure they were infected with this lethal virus
he could dispel his guilty conscience. Putting bullets in their heads would be that
much easier if it were a mercy killing, saving them from an even more horrific death.
But they all looked perfectly healthy.

In the narrow field of vision through his binoculars, an odd-looking person suddenly
appeared, a middle-aged white man, tall and thin. A scraggly beard covered the lower
half of his face. This had to be Nigel Pierce. Pierce had emerged from the hut at
the very end, and he was dressed as the Mbuti were, in a worn-out T-shirt and shorts.
Next to them, Pierce indeed looked like a giant.

It was clear now that this was the Kanga band camp. None of them showed any symptoms,
so the virus must still be in its incubation period. Yeager brushed aside the pressure
that had been bearing down on him and began considering whether they should carry
out the attack that night. Wiping out every single one of them meant annihilating
a virus that could destroy the human race. When Yeager saw the scrawny dog romping
around at Pierce’s feet, he knew he’d have to get rid of it first so it didn’t raise
the alarm.

Pierce stood up and looked out at the jungle. Thinking he’d be noticed more if he
made a move to hide, Yeager kept stock-still.

Pierce leaned back, filled his lungs with air, and suddenly yelled out in English.
“Listen carefully! I know you can hear me! I know you’re nearby!”

Below him, Meyers, startled by the shouts in English, turned and stared, wide-eyed,
in the direction of the camp.

The timbre and inflection of the voice were the same as the one they’d heard a while
ago. But who could this anthropologist be yelling at? Yeager swept the camp with his
eyes, but the Pygmies were going about their business, unconcerned.

“I’m talking to you! Jonathan Yeager, Warren Garrett, Scott Meyers, and Mikihiko Kashiwabara.
The four operatives in Operation Guardian!”

Garrett’s voice crackled through Yeager’s radio. “Gang two here. Our operation’s been
compromised.”