As Luca kicked open the door, he immediately saw Bear, slumped on a low chair with one arm trailing to the floor. He rushed forward, a terrible fear growing inside him that she was dead, but as he grabbed her arm, she gave a soft moan. Gently cradling her face in his hands, Luca tried to say something but found the words choking on his lips. An incredible wave of relief and happiness washed over him and he let his forehead drop on to hers as he whispered her name over and over again.
A few seconds passed before Bear opened her eyes. Her pupils were wide from concussion, staring straight at him.
‘You came back,’ she whispered, barely able to speak, her lips were so cracked and dry.
She looked tired, so deathly tired that it was obvious she was struggling just to stay conscious. Leaning forward, she pressed the weight of her head into his hands and Luca held her close, curling his fingers into her hair.
‘I can’t believe you’re alive,’ he whispered. ‘The whole time I was running, I thought that I would never see you again.’
Bear’s face tilted to one side and he could see the tears
welling
up in the corners of her eyes. For a long while she didn’t speak, but stared into his eyes while she silently cried. Luca squeezed her to him, so that her whole body was resting against his.
‘I didn’t think anyone was coming,’ Bear managed. ‘I thought that was it.’
Luca leaned forward and kissed her. He felt her reach up and gently rest the palm of her hand on his cheek.
‘Take me away from here,’ she whispered.
‘Can you walk?’ he asked.
‘I got … hit on the head,’ she murmured, the dryness in her mouth making her voice rasp. ‘I can’t see so well.’
As she said the words, Luca saw the trail of dried blood coming down from one ear. That bastard bodyguard must have burst her eardrum. Swinging her arm over his shoulder, Luca held her tightly against him.
‘Just hold on to me. This time, we’re getting out of here.’
Emerging into the main body of the mine, they saw that the crowd had grown. All those who were able had climbed up to the top level and now over a hundred people were surrounding the rope. It swayed from side to side as the miners fought to try and climb it. A couple of men had succeeded in getting a few metres off the ground, but they were tiring fast, and now all they could do was to hang on to the rope as it jerked violently in their grip.
Bear and Luca stared at the scene, watching as the miners turned on each other in desperation. They were pulling people out of their way and stepping on the bodies of those who had already fallen.
‘My pistol,’ Bear said, suddenly realising that she had left it back in the guardhouse.
‘Try this one,’ Luca offered, pulling it from his belt and handing it across. ‘Your father gave it to me.’
‘My father? What do you mean?’
Luca could see the sudden hope in her eyes. ‘He’s outside with a load of helicopters, bombing the shit out of the LRA.’
The look of disbelief on Bear’s face slowly gave way to a faint smile.
‘I hope he kills every last one of them,’ she whispered, and raising the pistol, she suddenly fired two shots into the air. The blast echoed around the closed walls of the mine, silencing the miners.
‘
Reculez de la corde!
’ Get back from the rope! Bear ordered, but her voice was still weak and barely carried across the crowd. As they approached, her body slumped against Luca’s for support, with her one arm raised to aim the pistol.
‘
Reculez!
’ Get back! She snarled again, and the crowd shuffled back a pace.
‘Easy,’ Luca whispered. ‘All we need is their attention. I need you to translate for me. Tell them that I can show them a way out of here. That I can teach them how to climb the rope.’
Bear tried to steady herself against his shoulder, dropping the pistol to her side. She then shouted out to the crowd as best as she could. They were deathly silent as they listened to what she said. Everyone had seen how pointless it was trying to climb with bare hands. Finally, here was a solution.
‘Take off your boots,’ Luca said to Bear, crouching down on the ground.
‘What?’
‘I need your laces. Come on … quickly.’
Luca stepped up to the centre of the crowd with his hands raised so that everyone could see. He then took the first of his bootlaces and tied the two ends together in a tight knot. After doing the same for the other, he moved over to the main abseiling rope and attached the two lines, looping them back in on themselves three times each.
‘It’s called a prussic,’ Luca explained over his shoulder. ‘We use it in crevasse rescue all the time. The knot slides up the rope, but jams if you put weight on it.’
Making one of the loops longer than the other, he placed the toe of his boot inside.
‘You use one of the prussics for your foot and the other attaches to your harness. That way, you can use your legs to step up and climb the rope.’
‘But none of these men have harnesses,’ Bear objected.
‘Yeah, but they can just tie it on to a belt or another line around their waist. That’s all it takes. And tell them that when they reach the top, they’ve got to sit tight and wait for a rescue. It’s a war zone out there, but they’ll be safe as long as they stay on the summit.’
As Luca finished, there was an excited murmur amongst the crowd, with those who had laces already reaching for them. Others had already left to go in search of rope. Quickly looping the spare harness around Bear’s legs, Luca walked her up to the line and attached the prussics.
‘You got the strength for this?’ he asked, brushing away a strand of hair from her eyes.
‘I’ll make it. Anything to get out of here.’
Luca helped her fit her right boot into the loop. At first, Bear’s movements were laborious and slow, the prussic knots jamming each time she pushed down on her foot. But soon, she was making real progress, with her hands and feet moving in unison. By the time Luca had got ready, she was already thirty metres above their heads, and gaining.
Luca followed, his movements fluid and well practised, and in what seemed like just a few seconds, he was already at the same height. A cheer went up from the crowd as they watched them move up the rope together and soon disappear into the shadows of the mine.
Far below, the miners had already begun to follow.
THERE WAS MOVEMENT
between the trees. Silhouettes glided from one trunk to the next, no more than blurred outlines in the darkness. The LRA was amassing just beyond the edge of the volcano, and for nearly half an hour Jean-Luc had been watching their numbers steadily increase. He could see only glimpses, but knew that there were hundreds of them out there, silently waiting in the shadows.
The gunner, Louis, shifted his position slightly, pressing the wooden butt of the machine gun tight into his shoulder and taking in the slack on the trigger. Sweat ran freely down his face. Five metres further on from him, the pilot, Thierry, had stacked six magazines of 5.56mm ammunition on the rocks to one side of his M4 carbine. He was staring down the night sight of his rifle, switching from one movement to the next amongst the trees.
‘I want short, controlled bursts,’ Jean-Luc whispered. ‘Don’t use your grenades too early.’
He knew both men were veterans and wouldn’t fire wildly
into
the night, but he also knew how his men locked on to the sound of his voice before an attack. It gave them something to focus on, grounding them against the rising panic and helping them keep control.
Jean-Luc looked back towards the helicopter. It was tucked far enough into the side of the volcano to be out of the LRA’s direct line of fire, but if they broke out the W-89 mortars, they wouldn’t stand a chance of escape. Their only hope was that Mordecai had taken all the main field weaponry with him on the march to Kinshasa.
From somewhere deep in the forest, they heard the low beat of drums. It was slow at first, methodical and unhurried, but soon the tempo built. Others joined, the beats becoming one, blurring into a frenzied crescendo of noise and motion. Then came the smoke. From the edge of the trees, smoke grenades were tossed out into the no-man’s-land between them and the LRA, and soon thick acrid clouds drifted up into the air. It formed an impenetrable wall, masking the beginnings of the counter-attack and closing the distance between them.
‘Steady,’ Jean-Luc whispered. ‘Put each man down. One by one.’
He stared at the nearest of the grenades as it lay on the rock thirty feet below him. Smoke belched out in a continuous flow, flooding the entire area in a surreal, blood-red glow. A shrill scream went up as suddenly a wave of LRA soldiers charged. They sprinted through the smoke in a rough line with their heads thrown back and their mouths open wide. They clambered over the first of the rocks with their AK-47s
blazing
. Most were firing on full automatic with the bullets ricocheting wildly off the rocks far above Jean-Luc’s head, while others were simply running, their faces contorted by their screams.
As one, Jean-Luc and his men opened up. They fired in bursts of two rounds, taking down one man, then the next, in quick succession. It was relentless, each man shifting his elbows on the hard rock as he brought his line of fire on to the next soldier. The whole battle became a series of movements, with one soldier reaching up to his neck as a bullet passed straight through his throat while another doubled over as a bullet tore through his insides, the exit wound pulling out a great chunk of flesh by his liver. Everywhere, the macabre silhouette of wounded human figures danced and twisted, backlit by the blood-red smoke.
The carnage continued, with the steady double-tap shots of the mercenaries rising above the wild burst of the LRA guns. As the last few soldiers clambered forward, Louis fired a long, raking burst with the GPMG, swinging the barrel right across the entire field. The bullets cut through every living thing, dropping those still standing and severing the limbs of those already lying on the ground.
A confusion of bodies was left, with few killed outright. Most had their hands clasped over their injuries, screaming in pain.
‘Reload,’ Jean-Luc shouted, ejecting the magazine on his G3 rifle and smoothly clipping in another. He stared down at the wounded lying on the ground and saw they were barely more than teenagers. The LRA commanders
were
obviously throwing their most inexperienced troops at them first, saving the hardened fighters until last.
The drum started again and another scream went up as the next wave of LRA attacked. They ran with the same blood-curdling shouts, the same desperate abandon. There was no fear or hesitation, no pause or respite. It was as if each of them had somehow missed the slaughter of their comrades, just seconds before.
The three mercenaries worked swiftly, shifting between targets and squeezing off round after round. The barrels of their rifles smoked in an unbroken stream, while around them hundreds of bullet casings lay spread out on the rocks, the metal still warm to the touch. To the right, a group of four LRA soldiers had made it nearly two- thirds of the way up the slope. They were ducking and weaving between what little natural cover there was. And they were making ground. Thierry levelled the sights of his rifle on to them and fired, but the sweat was dripping into his eyes, making it hard for him to see. He managed to take down only one man. Three of them still remained, getting closer by the second.
Jean-Luc swung round so that he was half resting on his back and fired the 40mm grenade launcher tucked under the barrel of his rifle. It went off with a deep, rolling boom, blowing the men apart in a fine shower of blood.
Just as they were reloading, another wave burst through the smoke. These LRA soldiers were more experienced and attacked in proper military style, with one man advancing as another crouched down, giving covering fire. They jumped
over
their fallen comrades, gaining ground and coming within range of their grenades.
Explosions went off in clusters all around them. Those that remained were close now, only a few metres further down the slope, almost upon them. Jean-Luc quickly raised himself up, dragging the barrel of his rifle from right to left on full automatic and mowing the men down at waist-height. To his right, he could hear the sound of Thierry’s M4 firing, but just beside him Louis had gone silent.
As the last of the LRA soldiers finally fell to the ground, Jean-Luc turned towards his men. Louis’s head was resting flat against the rock with his gun tilted into the air. Jean-Luc could see that a lump of shrapnel had staved in the top part of the gunner’s head.
‘
Désolé, mon ami
,’ Sorry, my friend, Jean-Luc whispered, as he turned back towards the forest. Above the wash of red smoke, he could see one of his Oryx helicopters circling. It had been firing in constant bursts, cutting the main body of the LRA army in half and preventing those deeper in the forest from reaching Jean-Luc and his men. As the Oryx banked round for another pass, a rocket was fired from the ground. This time it found its mark and the tailfin of the Oryx disintegrated in a blast of fire and metal.
They watched as the helicopter lurched to one side and the cabin began to swing round on its own axis. Without the stabilising rear rotor, it whipped in a circle, faster and faster, while the machine fell from the sky. As a distant cheer rose up, Jean-Luc watched it crash into the tops of the trees before finally disappearing from view.