Circle of Wagons: The Gospel of Madness (Book 4 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series))

by Georg Bruckmann

  In most of them, Toni, who had a good eye for it, saw signs of alcoholism or drug abuse. Four of them also carried the traces of recent brawls on their faces. In short, those were the ones he needed.

  They were surrounded by a brood of dissatisfaction and frustration, just as his fallen angels in Rome had stunk of their own piss and shit. They would become his tools. Hungry, frustrated and young and stupid enough to take risks to make a difference. Just what he needed to fulfill his deal with Don Vascotto. But how would he contact them? It was just a small village. The anonymity of a city, as it had been so well suited to him in Rome, was not present here.

  This problem almost resolved itself when the housekeeper, whom Toni had not yet desecrated at the time, pointed out to him and Herod after the sermon that it was an unwritten ritual, after the service had ended, to talk to individual members of the congregation who had expressed a desire to do so and to help them with fatherly advice.

  Toni was amazed at how many of them spoke at least broken English. In retrospect, he thought he should have realized that. The colonial era had left its mark. Then the whites had left and left the population alone in the chaos they had caused. This circumstance now met him. Not on this day, not after this service. But Toni made sure it would be him who preached the next sermon. And he would not speak of Jesus, Judas and the thirty silver coins.

  He would focus on the self-righteous, vengeful God of the Old Testament. He would talk about anger and rage, about punishment and sin, and he would talk about the world, about the economic conditions and the injustices that were the order of the day here. He'd make them angry. He would use flat metaphors, metaphors they couldn't possibly misunderstand. That's how he'd reach the young men. They worked to the absolute exhaustion for a starvation wage. Of course they knew that they were exploited by the white man's companies, that they were used, just as their parents and wives in the fields used the cattle to pull the ploughs through the ground. For a week or two he would stir up their dissatisfaction, and then, in the individual conversations and also in the evenings when one met on the market place, he would make allusions.

  Slowly and gently, but eventually he'd get them. He would tell them that he had the power and the possibilities to help them improve their situation, for their families and for themselves. He'd have to prove it, but that wouldn't be a problem. It was part of Herod's work to travel regularly to the city and to report on their work to the small administration of the Order of Merciful Brothers of the South.

  These were also the occasions when Toni could communicate with Vascotto. It would be easy to get rid of Herod and find a public phone. He would ask Vascotto to send him some money to throw around. Compared to the sums he would have needed in Rome for a similar undertaking, this was only pocket money and would not attract attention anywhere. Vascotto was already paying for a small room in a shabby dosshouse, which Toni used more or less as a mailbox, and which he hadn't even seen before. He only knew that the operator and concierge was called Eposito, and that Vascotto had him in his hand because his daughter lived in Rome and walked the street for him.

  When Toni remembered all this, he realized that there was a problem. How much of the true reasons for Toni's being here was General Aksulu Mobanta aware of? The man had made it clear that Toni's kidnapping was not about blackmailing ransom. No, the general wanted detailed information, and that in turn meant that he already needed more general information. He knew Toni was dirty. Consequently, he would be dissatisfied if Toni did not mention any of this in his writings. And if the General was unhappy, the torture would begin again. So what should Toni write? Of course, he could write the truth. But what if his confessions somehow found their way to the public? Or even the way to his superiors? Then he could forget the big plan, couldn't he? No! He then would still be able to claim to have invented everything and to have invented it only under fear of death and drug influence. Or is it? Would he get away with this?

  He felt anger rising, anger that he was stuck here and that his plans were being delayed. Suddenly he had to think again of Antoine, who did his best on other fronts to push the big agenda forward. Then Toni had to laugh again like a madman.

  He understood something.

  The fact that he cared about the future in a situation like the one he was in at the time - that fact meant that deep down inside he was rock-solidly assuming he would get it out of here alive. Suddenly he felt better, and suddenly his brain started to work as he was used to.

  He would leave Vascotto out of his reports. He would put it in a way so that he would look like an idealist who had really wanted to improve the situation in the village and who had resorted to dubious means.

  But wait, no, what if the general's people already knew about Vascotto? The thought dampened Toni's euphoria again. He had to realize that it was impossible for him to predict what would be best or exactly how to proceed.

  Again, he flew over Antoine's letters they had fetched from the hotel room. While he was doing it, he let his mind wander. They had certainly read the letters, there was no doubt about it. So they knew... what?

  On the one hand, they believed they had a gay catholic priest in their hands. And secondly, that he was planning something. They also knew Antoine's incognito. Or at least they knew that he existed and that he was a member of the Swiss Guard. Fortunately, Antoine had remained very vague in the letters and had written only in very unspecific words about his progress in infiltration. The focus of his letters had clearly been on pathetic, canine vows of allegiance and erotic, love-inspired rustling. Yeah, this was his puppy. Yet Toni was proud of him. Despite his flaws, Antoine was unscrupulous and an excellent intriguer. Not for a moment did Toni doubt that he would succeed. Only Toni wouldn't be able to take advantage of that if he died down here. He had no illusions. If he did not satisfy the general, they would cut him into strips piece by piece and then feed him to their watchdogs. And the way there would be ... No, do not stir up your own fears! Other men would have broken long ago or died of horror. Not you. You're better. Find the right measure. Give them something that they can believe and that does you as little harm as possible.

  Toni began to write. When he was finished, he left the book under the hatch, withdrew into a corner and slept.

  Again daylight fell through the cracks in the ceiling, and the generator was still silent. Tony's stomach growled. It was just like the last time he was awake. Fresh food wrapped in the usual filthy rags. The pages he had written on were missing, and there was a bottle of water.

  Toni would have given a lot to know exactly how much time had passed since his abduction. How long has he been here? He estimated that it was three or four days, but it also could have been much longer. Today, for the first time since they knocked off the little finger of his left hand, he managed to walk upright over to the area under the hatch. His wounds still hurt, but the pain wasn't quite so hot anymore and he wasn't quite so exhausted and paralyzed. When he looked up, he saw a glistening bright, irregular rectangle of light that tormented his eyes. In this light - after he had done it once, he avoided looking directly into it - he examined his injuries again and then wound the bandages tightly over them again. They all healed amazingly well. Only the bite of the dog worried him. The flesh was swollen and inflamed. He hadn't gotten a fever yet, but if he was to be without antibiotics for a long time, that's exactly what would happen.

  Maybe it was too early now, but sooner or later he had to find a way to communicate with his kidnappers. Unfortunately, until now he had only had a chance when they came for him to torture him. He remembered again the expression on their faces. Not a trace of pity. Pleasure and conscience in their truest meaning. The thought remained in Toni's mind. True conscience in all of them except their captain. In his eyes, the same pleasure in Toni's suffering had lit up as in the eyes of all others, but not only. He was accountable to the general, and that had been seen, and that was the only reason Toni was still alive. And the others? Were they under the influence of
a drug? They might. Or maybe they were just like that. The expression "cradle of mankind", Africa - also this thought was anchored in Toni. Were they the way humans were originally meant to be? But nonsense, that would presuppose that there was someone who had invented the human being.

  God.

  I should be careful. They're making me completely stupid down here.

  No one was allowed to change his being, because he was his own god. His ego-god. In his present state, he better not think any further about this subject. Rather, he should honor his gratifying healing process and continue to drive it forward. He would do it like the days before, if there really was a dayspan between now and his last waking phase. He would eat up everything they had given him, and then he would continue writing. He'd give them something more interesting today. He would tell them about the strike of the gold miners and how he had met the American ambassador.

  He and Herod had been in Maritao for about six weeks now. Toni had developed a certain routine in settling down in the city, and since Herod was totally absorbed in his teaching and missionary work, Toni had soon secured a monopoly on all errands that allowed him to spend time outside the village. They didn't talk very much to each other anymore. Herod was blown away by the children and the disciplined way in which they absorbed the knowledge he so vainly secreted. Their parents must have told them really well that learning was important. Such calm, discipline and ambition was impossible in European classrooms.

  The brats there were just too spoiled.

  Toni, on the other hand, simply could not do anything with children, with incomplete versions of humans, of whom Toni did not even think much in their fully developed form. So it happened that he was concerned with the more practical matters. The well of the village threatened to dry up and Toni devised a rescue-project that enabled him to spend a lot of time with the young men. On the one hand the current well should be dug further, on the other hand a new one should be dug away from the village, just to have an alternative. Toni of course kept to himself for the time being that this was not intended for the water supply of Maritao, but for the cultivation of drugs. They didn't even know that they would soon be his little coca farmers. He told them that the place was ideal and that he would get material for a water line from the new well to the village in the city once the well had been dug. This way Toni was busy creating the necessary infrastructure to satisfy the Mafia boss in Rome. Vascotto was of the opinion that the massacre that his men had carried out at Toni's instigation among the members of the lodge placed Toni in his debt. In fact, Toni had heard that many of Vascotto's henchmen suffered from a kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Toni could already imagine that this circumstance was damaging Vascotto's organization. Of course, the man had never admitted this right in front Toni and it hadn't been like he had asked Toni for anything. No. The Africa-thing had been a business proposition that Toni had accepted because it suited his cause. For one thing, there was the money. One could never have enough of this tool, and the time might come when Toni would need Vascotto's small private army again. So Toni had handed over his own little drug ring in trust to Vascotto and was now in Africa to set up a new business here.

  In addition to working on the two wells, Toni had made plans to build two warehouses away from the village in the middle of the jungle, and he was also thinking about cutting a path to a nearby river in the forest. Somehow the stuff had to be brought to Europe. A boat might have been more inconspicuous than a runway or helicopter landing field.

  But he would still talk about this with Vascotto, who had much more experience in this area. During this time, Toni's main focus was therefore on the two wells and on firing the discontent of the young men of the village, who worked on his projects after their day-jobs. Of course, he needed manpower and guards and scouts to protect his business and that eventually, he hoped, he could run on his own. He did not intend to stay on this continent for the rest of his life and grow coke for the Don. Basically, he wanted to leave now, but he knew that the work he invested here would pay off for him in many ways. He didn't even feel bad about it. His room was cool, relatively cool at least, and when he got bored at night, he summoned Imani, the housekeeper. Toni didn't know if Herod or anyone else in the village noticed anything about it, but he didn't believe it.

  Already in the interest of her own good reputation she complied with all his wishes and to be on the safe side he always gagged her very carefully when he made use of her. At least that's how it's been since he first took her.

  A true believer, he thought contemptuously - well, it had not needed much threats with hellfire. That, and that he had threatened to sell her in the city to a brothel, should she not bend to his will after he had taken her by force the first time. It worked very much like the homeless, drunks, hustlers and junkies in Rome. It worked in the same way with the young men. A mixture of heart-learned communist theories and Old Testament phrases about justice.

  The mining company would consist of Philistines who had to be driven out. That was the only righteous thing to be done. The wrath of God should come upon them and punish them - at least as long as they did not pay decent wages and for the medical bills of their workers and their families. He repackaged it all again and again and recited it with a delusional fanaticism that would have left anyone else exhausted and burnt out after such a sermon.

  Not him, though.

  Of course Toni knew only too well that the strike, which he encouraged the young men of the village to go on, would not have the desired effect. Not a single one of his pretended demands would be met. He didn't want them to. He wanted them all fired. He would then leave them for a week or two to despair and drink, and then enter the scene with a new concept - drug cultivation. He would tell them that the drugs were meant for the decadent West, for the very people who had been exploiting their land for centuries, and that this circumstance was also an expression of God's justice, and that the money earned would lead to an improvement of living conditions for the whole village and perhaps for other villages as well.

  Of course, he'd have to be careful. Even in the small village there were people who were not quite so gullible. But Toni was confident that the young niggers would keep their quiet. Finally, the opportunity for prosperity would be within their grasp. Finally they could do something for their own progress instead of just picking up the white crumbs from the dirt.

  Vascotto had already become impatient. On one of his trips to the city, Toni had talked to him on the phone and told him through the crackling line that he was thinking long-term and that he had no intention of working with any African professional criminals. To do this, he first would have to dismantle existing structures. Heads would inevitably have rolled, and that in turn would have endangered his camouflage. It was an essential part of Toni's great plan that under no circumstances should he be associated with any of these businesses. His reputation had to remain impeccable. He had been a model pupil on the outside, an orphan with a difficult fate, who worked hard and by his special lot had found his way to God. That's how he had been in the seminary. So one had experienced him at his consecration, at his laughable entry into the Order of the Merciful Brothers. And that's how it should be and how it should stay.

  Toni's thoughts returned to the current situation. Yes, the strike. At some point he had driven them far enough, by his sermons and a multitude of exhausting private conversations while working on the wells. But things had turned out differently than he had thought.

  A stupid mistake, as he now admitted. Of course, the young men from Toni's village were not the only ones working in the gigantic mine. There were countless more from countless other small villages around. That was in addition to those who had to live in the suburbs of the city. What Toni preached to his people, they carried on to the other workers, and so a tiny flame still did not become a real firestorm, but a considerable smoldering fire. Toni had expected his men to be fired without further ado. However, for their part, they had convinced so many othe
r exploited people of his alleged ideas that the mining company could not afford to do so without suffering significant losses in their company's productivity. It was almost half the workforce that had gone on strike, swinging signs in front of administrative buildings and barracks, singing Christian songs and demonstrating for more pay and better working conditions. It dragged on for almost three weeks. The press became aware of the story. First the national, then the international.

  It couldn't have been worse for Toni. In the first days in which this development began to emerge, he was several times on the verge of simply killing naive Herod, who in the meantime had also found interest in the matter, simply because he got on his nerves with his semi-intelligent gossip. Imani also had to suffer much more from Toni these days. But then he thought of something better. Drug trafficking was just part of his larger plan, just a means to an end. Perhaps he could use this misery, this stupid failure, for himself in other ways.

  He began to give interviews to the local press, publicly campaigned for the country's weak and exploited, and railed against postcolonial hierarchies. One of these interviews even made it into the European press. Some magazines even reported about him for several pages, and then the matter was forgotten on the other side of the world. Vascotto must have read the article, too, because on her next phone call he was pretty upset and it took Toni some effort to calm him down. But here, in Merkanto, Toni became really popular during the strike, and his name reached the upper classes, as he soon discovered.

  On his next visit to the city, after he had been accused of vanity by the superior of his order, he was approached by a white man. He told him to stay in town tonight. The American ambassador wanted to see him. The carrier of the message, Toni assumed he was a bodyguard in civilian clothes, left no doubt that this invitation was mandatory. But Toni had been curious and amazed anyway. Did a whole new possibility emerge here?