Joint Task Force #1: Liberia (10 page)

The SUV slowed, and then stopped to the sound of emergency brakes being set. Uncle Nathan got out and walked back along the convoy.

His uncle leaned down at the driver’s window. “Richard,” he said to the driver, patting him a couple of times on the arm as he looked around at the others inside the SUV. “Rest of you, just talked with the radioman at Kingsville. They know our situation and will try to keep in contact with us. It’s going to be hard during the daylight according to Beaucoup Charlie. Sunspot activity and all that. We should be able to regain contact tonight. Meanwhile, we keep moving. Richard, how is your gas situation?”

“They going to come out and meet us when we get closer?” the man sitting on the other side of the nice lady asked. He was heavyset; a slight paunch hid his belt. The short-sleeve shirt revealed a dark tattoo on the deep black skin. “Don’t he know how few we are and how we need some help?”

Uncle Nathan looked at the man, but didn’t say anything.

“You’re leading this bunch, aren’t ya, Nate.”

Uncle Nathan nodded. “Yeah, George, I guess I am leading this bunch. But this back road—
this trail, or whatever we are on
—none of us know. You know where it goes?”

“Nope, guess not,” George replied, leaning back.

“George, if you haven’t traveled it, you know none of the rest of us have.” Uncle Nathan sighed. “We’re all in the same boat. All I can do is keep following this trail we call a road and keep an eye on the compass. If we’re lucky, this track will keep heading east and cross the main road. If it does, then
we can jack up the speed to a blinding ten miles per hour and maybe get to Kingsville by tomorrow night.”

“And what if we reach the main road and find rebels have it?” Richard asked as he reached up with a cloth and wiped the dust and sweat from his face.

The young man in the center woke up, stretched, and leaned forward to listen to the conversation.

“Then I think we’ll have to go faster,” Nathan answered, smiling. “Gas, Richard?”

The driver looked at the gauge. “Just under half a tank, Nate.”

“Man, we ain’t gonna make it,” George said, his voice high.

“We’re going to make it, George.” Nathan patted the driver on the arm a couple of times and walked away, heading toward the third vehicle. The men in the pickup had laid their weapons in the bed of the truck and were stretching.

Jamal looked at the man Uncle Nathan called George.
What if they didn’t make it? What if he never returned to Monrovia? How would he know for sure if Mom and Dad escaped?
Jamal leaned back against the seat, his head turned upward, feeling the heat working its way down from the roof. Though the movement of the vehicle had been slow, it had at least provided some circulation of the air and kept the heat manageable.

The lady reached over and put her arm around Jamal, startling him. He jerked away, opening his eyes. Staring at him, the woman said over her shoulder to the man called George, “You quit that type of talking, sir. Even if you’re not scaring the young man here, you’re scaring me.”

Jamal saw the man open his mouth to speak, apparently think better of it, and close it. Instead, George shook his head as if the whole thing exasperated him.

Jamal looked at the attractive woman, admiring the thin lips, light complexion, and Roman nose. The caked dust did little to hide the natural beauty.

Richard spoke from the driver’s seat. “You’re right, Victoria. George, don’t be an ass—”

The huge man’s eyes narrowed. Victoria turned in her seat and touched the giant once on the arm. “We’re still alive and we’re moving toward General Thomaston and his group.
That’s all any of us can do. There’s no safety behind us and there may be no safety around us.”

“Yeah, George,” Richard added. “None of us even know when we reach Kingsville if we’ll be safe. All we know is that there are fellow Americans ahead. Brothers and sisters who we can join and offer mutual protection. To do that, we’ve got to get there. We’re all right.”

Jamal leaned back again as the woman removed her arm from the top of the seat.

“We’re all right?” George shouted. “You trying to tell me we’re all right! If we’re all right, then why in the hell did only five carloads of us make it out of town? I’ll tell you why,” the heavy man said, leaning forward, bringing his face close to the back of the driver’s neck. “Let’s be truthful,” George went on, his voice low, powerful. “The fact is, it’s going to be awful hard to make Kingsville. I think we know that by the time we near Thomaston and his band of merry men, the rebels will be between us and him.”

Jamal turned his head and watched the man. He jumped when George jerked his thumb at him. “And you, boy, might as well get used to the fact that none of us may make it out of this hellhole.” George’s head twisted from person to person as he continued. “If we’d been smart, we’d’ve listened to Thomaston when he asked us to move to Kingsville and help them build his dream out of the jungle. But no, we hadda believe that bullshit about living in the capital. We had to listen to our State Department geniuses who told us how much influence we could have if we just lived in Monrovia.” The man pulled his M-16 up from between his legs and pointed it out the window. “Don’t worry. I’m just shifting the weight a little.” The man paused for a moment.

“There may be others,” the woman said.

“Woman, they’re all dead but us. They are dead, dead, dead, and the only reason we ain’t dead is those assholes were having so much fun killing the others that it gave the rest of us a chance to escape.”

The woman reached over and touched George’s arm. “That may be true. Is it Mr. George?” she asked.

“Just George. I don’t use my last name.”

“Well, George, that may be true, but sometimes we must
face our fears and put our concerns aside until we have time to worry about them. If we make it, then it’ll be because of people like you who help us through this jungle.”

George opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but instead he looked down at her arm and stared at it until she moved her hand. “And who in the hell are you?” he asked. “I ain’t seen you around before. And don’t patronize me, woman. Just because I say it like it is, doesn’t mean I’m gonna run off into this jungle and leave you, the brat, or anyone else to those fanatics. I may bitch, but don’t confuse my bitching with being afraid.”

The man leaned back against the seat, his face turned toward the open window. Branches from a nearby bush trapped against the side of the SUV freed themselves, swinging through the window across George’s face. Big George reached up and pushed the broad leaves outside and away from the vehicle. “This ain’t gonna be a good day,” George muttered, just loud enough for those inside the SUV to hear. He spit out the window a couple of times, clearing plant trash from his lips.

Silent minutes passed before Nathan worked his way back up the convoy, past their SUV.

“We have to keep going, Richard,” Nathan said as he walked by, leaning inside the window. “Just keep going. We’ll refuel later when we reach a more open area.”

“Nathan, this is farther than we came three months ago.”

Jamal’s uncle straightened, his chest even with the open driver’s window. Jamal couldn’t see Uncle Nathan’s head above the window, but he heard his reply. “I know. Back then, Richard, we were just seeing where the road led.”

“I think we both knew we would need a way out if something happened in Monrovia.”

Nathan patted the arm again. “Yes, I think we did. We just never said it. Now, we’re committed to what is becoming more of a foot trail than a road.”

“It’s an old logging road,” George said sharply, his head stuck partially out the window. “I’ve also heard it’s an old diamond mining road. It could be either, but I know that we’ve been using it to identify woods with export value. Just never
used it to haul them out because it wasn’t wide enough. Wish I had come farther down it.”

“So do I,” Uncle Nathan said. “So do I. Either way, we know we’re heading in the right direction and those ahead of us know we’re coming. It is the best we can do.”

Jamal watched as Uncle Nathan faced the huge man. What if this man reached out and grabbed his uncle Nathan? Jamal looked at his gun. He wondered if he would be able to shoot—

A scream pierced the jungle noise, startling everyone. Even Uncle Nathan whirled with his M-16 pointed toward the jungle.

“Relax,” Victoria said. “That’s just the red colobus—a long-tailed monkey. Lots of animals out here, and that won’t be the first we hear or see. This rain forest is also the home of the bongo antelope, and when we cross the Cestos River, which should be ahead of us, we may be lucky enough to see a pigmy hippopotamus.”

“I can hardly wait,” George said, shaking his head.

Uncle Nathan’s face appeared in the back window. His eyebrows bunched. “Hi, you’re new, aren’t you?”

“Victoria Pearl,” the woman replied, reaching forward to shake Nathan’s hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Pearl. Didn’t realize we had a conservationist along with us.”

“Probably explains why we’ve hit it off so well,” George said roughly.

“Jamal, how you doing, my favorite nephew?” Uncle Nathan asked, diverting the conversation.

“I’m fine, Uncle Nathan.”

Nathan smiled and winked at him. “Your sister Selma is doing great. She’s in the Land Rover with Miss Jenny. You and everyone here are going to be okay.”

“Right,” mumbled George sarcastically.

Nathan’s face disappeared. “Richard, we’ll go another hour. Should reach the Cestos River by then, if the obstacles in front of us don’t grow any worse. We’ll stop out of sight of the river; take a short break. Top off the gas tanks and give everyone a chance to hit the bushes before the sun sets. Then we’ll decide whether to ford it tonight or wait until morning. Either
way, we’re going to be in Kingsville in the next twenty-four hours.”

“Sounds like a plan, but I think most of us would like to take a quick pee break now,” Richard said. “Me, for one.”

Uncle Nathan looked both ways. “No place to go, Richard. Let’s move up until we find a place where people can step away from the vehicles.”

Nathan inched his way toward the lead vehicle.

“We’ll do fine,” Victoria said. “We haven’t seen a soul on this road. Most likely, those rebels don’t even know we’re here.”

“What you smoking, woman? And they ain’t rebels. They’re fucking terrorists. And of course we ain’t seen anything on this road. That’s because you can’t see anything on this road. What are those things sticking through the windows? They’re bushes. Hello!” George slapped his palm against his forehead. “That’s why we haven’t seen anything, woman.”

“You know, Mr. George, if you really try hard, you may turn out to be quite the conversationalist.”

“I ain’t no conservationist. I already told ya that.”

“Take it easy, George,” Richard said. “She said conversationalist,” he drawled out.

The young man in the center turned in his seat. “I’ve seen you fight, Mr. George. It was in the—”

“Yeah, we’ve seen him fight,” Richard interrupted. “But I don’t think we’ve seen him do it sober.”

“Man, I’m gonna rip your lips right off—”

“You two leave Mr. George alone,” Victoria said. “He’s as concerned for his safety as we are for ours.”

George stared at Victoria for a few seconds, his face twisted in anger, before turning away to stare into the wall of vegetation that blocked his vision. Jamal shivered involuntarily. The man was scary. Jamal looked forward. Uncle Nathan slid into the backseat behind the driver of the lead SUV. The high screams of monkeys skittering overhead among the limbs and vines of the rain forest drowned out the idling engine sounds.

Jamal lifted his buttocks one at a time, freeing his sweat-soaked pants from the seat. He glanced behind, hoping to see Selma in the Land Rover. Mom told him he was responsible for his sister, and he wasn’t going to lose her. He reminded
himself to keep Selma near until they found Mom and Dad. He faced forward. The woman named Victoria was staring at him. Jamal forced himself to smile. There was tiredness around her eyes that failed to match her smile.

She reached forward and awkwardly shook Jamal’s hand. “I’m Victoria Pearl. I work for the World Wildlife Fund,” she said. Jamal realized she was speaking to everyone in the vehicle, not just him. “I’ve been here about two weeks, visiting friends in Monrovia. And what’s your name?”

“Jamal,” he replied softly as she released his hand. His voice sounded raspy, dry. He cleared it several times. The older man riding shotgun and who had yet to say a word reached over the back of the front seat and handed him a bottle of water.

“Here, boy.”

Jamal drank deeply. The soothing feel of the warm water flowed down his throat. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was. With the water came the tinge of hunger. His last meal had been lunch yesterday.

“Friends ahead?” George asked, talking to himself. “I just hope he’s right.”

Jamal fell back against the seat as the SUV jerked forward. Without turning his head, he glanced at the woman called Victoria. She had turned her attention to George. Jamal looked out the window. Tumbled thoughts of Mom and Dad, mixed with what Uncle Nathan had said, sailed around his mind like a disjointed Ferris wheel.

“Mr. George, we’ll make it,” Victoria said softly, her voice shaking slightly. “Unfortunately, you’re probably right about what happened to our friends in Monrovia and why we were able to escape. Those are things we know are true, but hate to—”

“Woman, of course I know I’m right. They are dead, dead, dead.”

“Mr. George. Can we do each other a favor, okay?”

“A favor?”

“Yes, a favor. If you will call me Victoria instead of ‘woman,’ I will call you George instead of ‘asshole,’ ” she said, her voice level with the same tone.

Jamal grinned for the first time since the attack on his house
last night. The look on the man’s face was spectacular. His eyebrows rose almost to the top of his head, causing his eyes to appear as large, round white eggs. Jamal bit his lower lip to keep from laughing.

“Well, I guess—” he mumbled.