The Lion Killer (The Dark Continent Chronicles) (23 page)

T
he hunting camp was surrounded by jungle. A clay-colored runway bisected the camp. Tented chalets lay nestled under some mahogany trees. Colobus monkeys howled about prowling chimpanzees. During the day, the jungle hummed with the songs of exotic birds. The nights were silent except for the occasional trumpeting of a forest elephant.

Otto Bern flew to Uganda once a week to bring back supplies. Rigby and Dutchy pretended to hunt with their rich American client, Jesse Spooner. Everyday they drove illegally across the border into the Sudan. The Darfur region was so vast they seldom encountered people. When they did run into refugees, none of them had information about Arthur Turner. It was evident they needed to cover more territory, and that meant using Bern's Cessna.

A scowl crept onto Otto's face as he listened to Rigby. “My arrangement with Mr. Turner was to make one flight into the Darfur. Now you're asking me to fly reconnaissance flights over hostile territory. In the past five years, I bet I've patched a dozen bullet holes in my old bird. I'm not proud of the cargo I hauled, but I needed the money. These Sudanese are better shots than the Africans we faced in our war. I told you, this airplane's everything I own.”

“Otto, you're a worry-wart. Let's say they do shoot us down and we survive the crash. You know the bloody savages will kill us. You won't need your airplane if you're dead, old boy.” Rigby was grinning.

“Now isn't that a lovely argument. All right, I'll do it.” “Attaboy, Otto, I knew you'd come around. It's gonna be just like the old days in Rhodesia.” “That's what I'm afraid of. If you remember, we lost that war.”

“Yes, but think of all the fun we had.”

***

Africans refer to gossip as bush-news. It travels without the aid of telephones. When word got out about Helen being a doctor, she was inundated with a never-ending stream of patients. They emerged unannounced from the jungle every morning. Some of them had diseases that had been cured fifty years ago. They brought her gifts of bananas, yams, unidentified fruits and herbal weeds. They also gave her two gray parrots; one parrot spoke French and the other cursed in Swahili. She received six green parakeets and three orphaned monkeys. The monkeys had a preference for crapping on the mess table. Lynn was pressed into service as a wildlife caretaker. The camp was starting to smell like a zoo.

Rigby and Otto started making daily flights into the Darfur. Each morning, Otto marked a new section on his map. The first areas they explored were in the north near Chad. Otto circled every tented refugee camp. If the ground was flat enough, he would land.

As their excursions reached into the interior, they saw hundreds of burned villages. The chaos was abstract from a thousand meters, but from a hundred the reality was heartwrenching.

Both men were frustrated. It all changed the day they made the emergency landing. It happened fifteen minutes into the flight. Rigby pulled the headset mouthpiece to his lips. “Why are you landing? There's nothing here.”

“I'm landing because the bloody engine just quit, unless of course you have a better suggestion. Better cinch your seatbelt. This might be unpleasant.”

He setup the landing at two hundred meters. Some flat-topped acacias blocked the end of the only clear piece of ground. Otto jammed the left rudder pedal to the floor and rolled in right aileron. The old Cessna shuddered from the slip, but she fell sideways three hundred feet. He jerked her hard around and pulled in full flaps. A second after he touched down, the plane was vaulted into the air by a termite mound. He jerked back on the yoke, causing the plane to stall. They hit with a thud and he locked the brakes. The Cessna started to go over on her nose, but stopped just short of vertical and fell backwards. They sat frozen, looking straight ahead without uttering a word. The propeller had stopped two meters from an acacia tree.

“I must say Otto—your landing was brilliant. I'm curious—how far is it to the border?”

“Well, let's see. We were traveling at one hundred and sixty kilometers per hour and we were airborne for about fifteen minutes. I'd say we're about forty kilometers from the camp. I hate to remind you, but I only have one fucking leg.”

“I know you have one leg. Let's not get huffy. Maybe we can fix the problem.”

“We've just crash-landed in a country that forbids over flights. A country where killing people is a sport. And you tell me not to get huffy.”

“Look at the bright side. You did park in the shade.”

***

Helen received the call from Rigby about their emergency landing on her satellite telephone. Otto and her husband were working on the plane. If they didn't make the repair quickly, they would have to spend the night in the desert. The instructions were clear: Stay by the telephone and do nothing. If they were unsuccessful in repairing the plane, Jesse and Dutchy would have to drive into the Darfur to rescue them. They had the approximate bearing from the camp, but locating them would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

***

Otto stuck his head out from underneath his airplane's instrument panel. The desert heat had caused him to strip down to his underpants. His face was covered in black grease. “I found the problem. The throttle cable's buggered. I've got a spare cable, but its back at the camp. Bloody bad luck.”

Rigby walked over and started to inspect Otto's manmade leg. “We're not dismantling my leg. Do you have any idea how much one of these legs cost?” Rigby slung his rifle over his shoulder and picked up a water bottle. “Give me five days. If I'm not back, you'll figure something out.”

“That's it? You're gonna leave me?”

“There's no sense in us both dying. Goodbye, Otto.”

Otto extracted a small piece of stainless steel cable from the joint mechanism. He spliced the throttle cable in one hour, but the light was fading fast. Finding the camp in the dark would be difficult—landing at night would be suicidal. They decided to spend the night in the desert. Both the sun and the temperature fell quickly in the desert. Rigby and Otto huddled next to their campfire. The darkness gave birth to night sounds. The giggling of hyenas was momentarily quieted by the roars of a desert lion.

“I'd trade my own leg for some whiskey,” said Rigby.

“There's a bottle under the rear passenger seat.”

“I knew it. You forgot the throttle cable, but you remembered the booze. Bern, you're the best.”

Otto elevated his stump before speaking. “You better hope I can fly without my leg.”

They drank whiskey and reminisced about Rhodesia. “Otto, did I tell you I ran into Ian Rhodes? He tried to arrest Spooner on some cocked-up charge. You know, I always suspected Rhodes was a spy.”

“I never told this to anybody, but Rhodes was snooping around when we did the incursion into Mozambique. He wanted to know the exact coordinates of the drop zone.”

“Christ, Otto, you should have told someone. Willie Piet was killed.”

“Rhodes was my superior officer. One week later, I stepped on a landmine. For me, the war was over.”

“Willie had a wife and two kids. Someday,I'll set it straight with Rhodes,” said Rigby, yawning.

“How long has Mugabe got?” When Otto didn't get an answer, he realized Rigby had passed out. He used his good leg to push a log into the fire and pulled the blanket up under his chin.

***

Rigby was jolted out of a deep sleep by something jabbing him in the ribs. He grabbed the butt end of a fighting stick and sat up. “Wake-up,
sleeping beauty, we've got company.”

Four naked Dinka men stood over them. One was holding Rigby's rifle. “I didn't think this was supposed to happen to a Selous Scout. I mean, getting your weapon pinched.”

“Shut up, Otto.” Rigby directed his question to the man holding his rifle.

“
Utenpenda kunywas nini
?”

“What did you say?”

“I asked him if he wanted something to drink.”

“But we don't have anything to drink.”

“It's the first thing that popped into my head.”

Otto did the same thing he did every morning; he reached for his artificial leg. When he pulled the plastic leg out from underneath the blanket, the Dinka men jumped back. They looked afraid. The man with Rigby's rifle put it on the ground and stepped back.

“It's nothing to be frightened of,” Otto snickered. He hopped towards them on his good leg. After retreating, one man stepped forward and reluctantly touched the plastic limb. He turned and said something to the other men. Otto strapped on his prosthetic leg with the intention of giving them a demonstration, but without the cable, the foot swung around causing him to lose his balance and fall. He cursed the leg and realigned the foot. After a few steps he fell again. “Well anyway, you get the idea.” He tossed the broken leg into the backseat of his airplane.

One man pointed to the airplane and said something to the others. All four of them laughed.

“What was that all about?” asked Otto.

“I suspect he said something about your buggered leg and your airplane being made by the same company. Anyway, whatever he said, they seem amused, which is promising.”

The men offered them curdled milk, a Dinka delicacy. They accepted it without reservation. It proved to be a fine remedy for their hangovers. After the men helped them turn the airplane around, Rigby asked one of them if he had heard of a white man living with the Dinkas. He said he knew of only one white man. He was living in a refugee camp not far from there.

“We've been looking to hell and gone, and he's been right here under our noses. I'd like to land and see if it's Turner.”

“Oh no, you don't. I'm flying nonstop back to our camp. Why, you'd have to be an imbecile to land a tail-dragger with one leg. I'm not sure the splice will hold. No sir, you're not talking me into this, so you can forget it.”

***

“I can't believe I'm doing this,” Otto yelled, preparing to land. Even without his leg, the landing was silky smooth. He spun the Cessna around and back-taxied up to the tents. Rigby uncoupled his seatbelt and leaned over to make sure Otto could hear him over the engine noise.

“Better keep the engine running until I find out what's going on.” Otto gave him a thumbsup response.

Dozens of naked children ran out to meet Rigby as he exited the aircraft. He gave Otto the cut throat signal to shutdown the engine.

The tents were filled with sick and wounded Africans. The sound was a depressing cacophony of children moaning and hacking. The Italian nurse explained that the camp had been attacked twice by Arab militias in the last three weeks. The relief pilots were refusing to fly in supplies for fear they would be shot down. She was forced to reduce the daily food rations. When Rigby mentioned Arthur Turner, her eyes lit up. She told them Turner had gone off on a rescue mission to save a Dinka boy. As recently as one week ago, refugees coming from the east had crossed paths with Arthur.

Croxford stuck his head under a tent flap. There was a small girl lying naked on a blanket. She was frail and lifeless. The sound of her breathing was shallow and uneven. Flies had collected in the child's eyes and around her mouth. The air in the tent was fouled by the smell of human waste. The girl stared up at Rigby, but she was too weak to speak.

“Why is this little girl alone?” Rigby asked the nurse.

“She's dying. We isolate them when they're near death.”

“What's wrong with her?” Otto asked.

“Sleeping sickness. I injected her with the drug we normally use, but she had an allergic reaction. Don't look so shocked. We see children die everyday.”

“What's the name of the drug you gave her?” Rigby asked, dragging the nurse outside to get better reception on his satellite telephone.

“Suramin. Why do you ask?”

“My wife's a doctor.” It seemed like an eternity before he heard Helen's voice. She had another drug used to treat sleeping sickness. He wrapped the girl up in the blanket and ran to the airplane. Otto hobbled after him. Within minutes, they were flying back to the hunting camp.

***

As soon as the propeller stopped, the camp workers rushed out and carried the little girl into a tent. Helen hooked her up to an intravenous dip laced with Eflorithine. When she finished examining the girl, she pulled her husband aside.

“You missed it last night—all hell broke loose. Apparently, Lynn and Jesse haven't been straight with us. Even now,I'm not sure I know the whole truth. At this point, they're not speaking to each other. Let's take a walk.” She stuck her arm through his elbow and guided him behind one of the tents. Helen told him about Jesse Spooner making secretive satellite telephone calls to the States. Lynn had listened in on one of his conversations. According to Lynn, Jesse's purpose from day one was to arrest Arthur Turner for illegal arms trafficking. The story about using Arthur as a witness against Nelson Chang was a fabrication. When Lynn accused Jesse of using her, things got ugly.