She pulled her arm out of his grasp and backed away. “I never told you, Aba, how my friends used to tease me in school.
Is your dad a terrorist
? they would ask. I defended you with every ounce of strength I had.” She shook her head slowly as a single tear rolled down her cheek. “But now I know they were right all along.”
It was too much. Haddad brought his hands to his face and wept.
Tiny splinters of cheap nylon twine dug into Cole’s wrists. They already felt raw, and he couldn’t help but wonder just how much skin remained to protect the big veins from the steady sawing motion. His arms were stretched tightly around the bulky pack behind his back, and each step down the forested path was an agony of screaming muscles and burning skin.
He strained to look over the two young rebels directly in front of him. One of them limped painfully, his lower leg now bandaged and the bleeding stopped. The bullet had gone straight through the muscle of his calf and would heal with time. The other man had a large round knot on the back of the head, evidence of his unfortunate run-in with the tree trunk. He glanced back at Cole, hatred in his young eyes. But more than just hatred—they were bloodshot and unfocused, and his whole body shivered every couple of minutes. Aftereffects of the concussion? Cole remembered the same early signs when Marna first started getting sick. Had these guys been exposed to the virus too?
Ahead of them, Innocence’s shiny bald head bobbed along steadily. Cole wished he could see his face—that would give at least some indication of just how much trouble they were really in. What had happened to Bonny? And what was Proper plotting, hopefully tracking silently behind them even now?
“You doing okay, my friend?” Cole spoke in a soft and nonthreatening voice. Time to test their captors, see what kind of communication they would be able to get away with.
A sharp jab from the rifle muzzle behind him provided a quick answer. “No talking!”
Cole caught Innocence’s quick look over the shoulder, and an almost imperceptible nod that accompanied it. He was a hard read, this man who had seen so much in life. But there seemed to be some confidence remaining in his dark eyes, and Cole took comfort in that.
A shout came from the front of the line. Something in Acholi again, but whatever it was caused the rest of the men to stop.
Men
was a generous term. Apart from the leader, none of these fighters could have been more than twenty years old. Two of them sat down right where they were, while another pushed into the thick foliage at the side of the path.
“Toilet?” The leader stood in front of Cole, sadistic smile still plastered across his face. Cole did need to go. More importantly, it would be a good opportunity to see what kind of vulnerabilities he and Innocence might be able to exploit.
“Yes.” Cole nodded.
The man pulled a long
panga
from its sheath along his leg and stepped around Cole’s back. He pulled roughly against Cole’s hands. Was that the blade scraping against his skin? The smallest misstep could prove fatal.
Focus here
.
Quiet submission.
The time for fighting would come. In seconds, he was free, and his hands dropped limply against his sides. The burning tension was gone, replaced by an achy feeling in his shoulders as the blood rushed back into the dead weights of his arms. The short man stepped over to Innocence and did the same thing.
First mistake—never free multiple captives at the same time. The rule had been drilled into Cole during the detainee operations training before his first deployment. It seemed obvious, but for these rebels who were more accustomed to dealing with traumatized village children it was probably never an issue.
Not this time around.
Minutes passed as they waited for one last man to return from his sojourn in the woods. The leader called out.
No response.
Cole looked at Innocence, but his face was a mask of indifference. Another case of untreated water or undercooked jungle rat working its magic on this teenage rebel’s intestines? Or was Proper out there, silently subduing one of the enemy?
Another man took off back down the trail, calling to his friend. Second mistake—never investigate a suspicious situation alone.
A surprised shout echoed through the forest, followed immediately by the pop of a single shot.
Proper.
Chaos broke out again for the second time in less than an hour. Cole pulled at his hands, tied again even more tightly behind his back. No way out that way. The leader was shouting over his men, motioning wildly with his hands. Three of them ran back in the direction of the gunshot, while the leader and two wounded stayed to guard Cole and Innocence.
Go now, Proper.
Cole sent his words out into the trees.
Melt into the forest and wait for the next opportunity.
Proper had the upper hand, the elements of surprise and stealth securely on his side. But the bond between those brothers was strong, and it was clear they had some unique associations with the LRA. Maybe too strong to allow for rational decision-making in a situation like this. Yes, he had grown up in these mountains, and he was experienced in the guerrilla warfare the environment required. But so were these rebels. Six against one—the odds were not good.
Cole looked to Innocence and raised his eyebrows.
What should we do?
The park ranger shook his head side to side. Nothing yet. Wrong move now, and they might be shot on the spot and left for the hyenas. Maybe miss out on even better chances of escape later on. It would be easier for their captors that way—simply kill them and be done with it. And nobody back at the camp would be any wiser about the lost ransom opportunity, as long as this leader could convince the others to keep their mouths shut.
More shouts erupted in the distance, muffled by the dense vegetation that marked this lower elevation along the northern slopes of Mount Karisimbi. Did they discover bodies? Cole hated the feeling of being totally ignorant of what was going on.
“Get down!” Proper’s voice, close by. Cole threw himself into the thick nettles lining the edge of the path. Now the rapid crack of the Kalashnikov.
Deliberate single shots.
A gasp, then choking, and the young fighter with the wounded leg fell beside him, blood spraying from a gaping wound in his neck.
They might just make it. Cole rolled over the dying man and kicked out at the leader, who was returning fire with his own automatic rifle. Cole connected solidly with the man’s knee, then rolled again right into his legs. The man struggled to maintain balance as he jumped and swung the weapon’s muzzle in Cole’s direction, but it was too late. He tripped over another prostrate form and fell into the nettles.
Cole flipped over on top of the rebel leader, holding him to the ground with his own body weight. He looked up just in time to see Innocence charging through the brush in the direction that his brother’s shots had come from. The park ranger was calling out in his native Lingala, but there was no response.
Thudding footsteps signaled the arrival of the other three men, and in seconds they had pulled Cole off their leader. He was pinned to the ground by two of them, the familiar cold steel of another AK-47 pressed roughly into his temple. A crashing of branches and more shouting, then Innocence was pulled back onto the trail. His whole body was bucking and spinning, his legs like writhing pythons in the hands of the two men who struggled to restrain them.
“They killed him!” Innocence choked out the words between hoarse yells, anger mixing with grief as he slowly stopped fighting. “My brother…they killed him.”
Give it to me straight, Chuck.” The president sat motionless at his desk. That desk. Anna still couldn’t believe she was really inside the Oval Office, watching the inner workings of the United States government in action. But the summer had already been full of surprises of both the personal and professional variety, and she wasn’t complaining. She followed the president’s eyes from the stack of papers he’d been paging through up to the intimidating face of the man seated across from him. “Does this outbreak honestly present any danger to our national security?”
“Not at this time, Mr. President.”
Charles Howard was fairly new to the job as national security advisor. Retired as a four-star and chairman of the Joint Chiefs the year before, Howard was the president’s closest—and some said only—confidant when it came to the nation’s defense. He’d long been a persona non grata among those responsible for shaping the president’s public image.
Too much confidence in his own moral paradigm
, was how Andrew Mills described it. Anna wasn’t sure such confidence was a bad thing, but his apparently conscious effort to avoid interacting with anyone below his elevated status on the power spectrum made it hard to like the man.
“Other than a small number of troops with the Kony task force, we have very few citizens anywhere near Goma. Those soldiers all received the smallpox vaccination prior to their deployment and should be protected if the virus is indeed related.”
Anna had to stifle the urge to jump right in and inform them about another very important American citizen who was also in the area. Wasn’t Cole’s presence reason enough to justify a full CDC mission, at the very minimum?
Wanted you all to know that Marna died yesterday.
The words from his e-mail the night before had been on repeat in her mind ever since, mixing themselves with those awful images on CNN from the dying patients in Goma.
“Then I really don’t see why we should invest any more resources in the investigation.” President Rogers set the papers down. “Let the French take care of it, if they’re so concerned about that unlucky aid hospital. Isn’t that one of their former colonies?”
“Belgian, sir.”
“Okay, then the Belgians can send a team, save the world this time around. Or what about the WHO? Isn’t this kind of thing exactly why we keep those millions of dollars flowing to Geneva year after year? We have too much going on to worry about one more headline-grabbing virus in Africa.”
“I agree. Between the Lebanese conflict, this hurricane, and Sunday’s big event, you have more than enough going on for one week.”
Mills stepped forward from where he and Anna were standing along the wall. “Since I’m apparently the only one concerned about headlines in this office, can I propose a compromise?”
The national security advisor turned his chair just slightly in their direction, a scowl on his face. “Always with the compromises, Andrew.”
The president looked more interested. “Let’s hear him out at least.”
“Don’t worry, this is the best kind—one that doesn’t require any funding or effort on either of your parts.”
The scowl on Howard’s face softened.
“We’re going to get questions about the outbreak at the press briefing later today, whether we want them or not. Scary diseases are exciting. A hell of a lot more exciting than our ongoing support to this dubious Israeli involvement in Lebanon, and maybe tied with coverage of your plodding response to the waterlogged southeastern United States.”
“And your point is?” The national security advisor looked at his watch.
“Let me focus on what we’re already doing to respond. It may not be much, but it’s better than ignoring the story completely.”
The president looked surprised. “That implies that we’re doing something? I was under the impression that no one could even get into Goma.”
“That’s true,” Mills said. “But it was a USAID-funded scientist who made the initial identification of monkeypox in the dead gorillas. And we have an infectious disease doc with the CDC flying back to Atlanta right now with samples for further analysis. So it’s not like we’re just sitting on our hands doing nothing.”
“This is why I keep you around, Andrew.” The hint of a smile crept into the corners of President Rogers’ mouth. “Go ahead and play up those stories this afternoon if you think it will help.”
“Your administration has a wide reach, sir. You know as well as I do that we’ve got to take credit whenever credit is due.”
Anna couldn’t stand it any longer. She didn’t realize her boss knew about Cole at all. Did he honestly not make the connection between their last names? She raised her hand just slightly, then changed her mind. No reason the bigwigs needed to be involved in this.
Too late.
“I think our lovely little intern from Wyoming has something to say?” The president’s words startled Anna. Had he really been watching her that closely? Flattering, and a little creepy. The unwelcome image of another White House intern doing the unspeakable in this same room flashed in front of her eyes. She wanted to melt into the creamy paint on the wall behind her.
“Thank you, Mr. President, but it’s something I can tell Mr. Mills offline.” The words came out much more smoothly than she was expecting, but this didn’t seem to have any effect on the look of disbelief that was still plastered across the national security advisor’s face.
“No, I’m curious now,” the president said. “It must have been important if you thought it worth sharing in this context. Please, go ahead.”
Anna took a few steps forward. Deep breath. “Well, it’s just that the USAID-funded scientist that Mr. Mills mentioned is my brother.” She paused, trying to gauge the response of these men to her decidedly insignificant revelation. The president’s cocked head and furrowed brow were enough encouragement to go on. “His name is Cole McBride, and he’s a veterinarian studying emerging infectious diseases in central Africa. He’s also in the military, so I just thought maybe we could do a little bit more to make sure he’s safe and support the investigation?”
“What do you mean, in the military?” The president directed this question to her boss, standing beside her. She didn’t dare to look at his face.
“Mr. President, this is news to me too. Sounds like we may need to track down a few more details on this thing.”
“He’s on active duty,” Anna said. “But this is some sort of academic break for him to get a PhD.”
“Do you know where he is now?” She could see the concern in the president’s eyes. His kids were about the same ages as her own siblings. “Is he in any danger?”