They continued over the rock, steadily climbing higher. A crude rope bridge had been erected by the pygmies at some point in the distant past, spanning a deep chasm between two of the larger outcrops. As he came to it, Luca hesitated for a second, staring at the old twine, weathered by the rain and sun. It had been built to accommodate people barely taller than five foot and less than half his weight. He wondered if it would support someone his size, but glancing back down the slope, it was clear there was no other option.
With Abasi just ahead of him, they worked their way along the bridge, gripping on to the sides as the structure swayed from side to side. Each thread and knot seemed to creak as Luca passed, with the bridge sagging deeper into the chasm under his weight. They clambered on, soon coming out in a wide, open area.
Here, the bushes had thinned, with only dwarf trees managing to gain any sort of purchase on the rough ground. Pools of stagnant water had collected naturally, scummed with algae, while higher up Luca could see the beginnings of a cliff rising up ahead of them. It rose about twenty metres in an almost smooth vertical stretch, like the base of a mighty pillar. At the very top it tapered off into a flat section covered in knotted vines and foliage. It had to be one of the inselbergs they had seen from the plane.
Bear and Lanso were waiting at the base of the cliff.
‘Lanso says we’ll be safe here,’ Bear said, her eyes narrowing against the sun. ‘It’s one of the village’s holy places and, at the very least, a good vantage point from which we can see them coming.’
After a moment, Luca shook his head.
‘This isn’t go to work, Bear,’ he whispered. ‘They tracked us the whole way through the night. And they didn’t just track us, they gained on us. The stream and rocks are only going to fool them for so long.’
She exhaled heavily, letting her shoulders sag against the rock.
‘There’s nowhere left for us to go,’ she said, turning to face him. ‘And I can’t keep running like this.’
He had his head tilted back, hands clenched in front of his mouth as if blowing on them for warmth. His gaze ran over every impression in the wall, and as it settled on the overhang, his right hand moved away from his body, fingers curling into position as if already touching the rock.
From this distance the route looked technical, but he knew he could work the crack running all the way up to the summit. Aside from the lack of ropes, there was the added danger of climbing ‘on site’, with no way of knowing how good the handholds were until he actually reached them. But despite all that, he knew he could make it. As a teenager, he had free climbed much harder routes in Chamonix, let alone the kind of competition pitches he had been used to before heading out to Tibet.
Bear pushed herself off the cliff.
‘You can make it,’ she whispered, following his gaze. ‘It’s perfect. They’d never find us up there.’
Luca continued staring towards the overhang.
‘Just one more climb, Luca,’ Bear breathed. ‘One more, and you can save us all.’
Luca’s eyes narrowed as he squinted into the distance. He then suddenly stepped away from the cliff.
‘The overhang,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t make it past the overhang.’
Bear reached out her hand, pressing her fingers against his shoulder. ‘You can do it, Luca. René said you were one of the best climbers in the world. So, come on, let’s do this.’
He stared out across the tops of the trees, fists clenched tight. She could see the skin had whitened along the bridge of his knuckles.
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘I’m not a climber anymore. Think of something else.’
Bear raised her arms towards the rock to either side of them. It hemmed them into a narrow gully and would mean they would have to descend all the way to the stream again if they wanted to try to work their way round to the other side of the inselberg.
‘Something else?’ she asked, the frustration causing her voice to raise. ‘If we don’t find a place to hide, they will kill us, Luca. Do you understand that? And they’ll take their time with the boys for helping us. Make no mistake about that.’
Luca stared ahead.
‘Come on, Luca!’ she screamed. ‘This is our only chance!’
She pushed his shoulder, shunting him forward a step. ‘Stop being such a coward!’
Luca suddenly grabbed the front of her vest and pulled her whole body towards him. Bear was forced up on to the tips of her toes, as he almost lifted her clear of the ground.
‘If you’re in such a hurry to get up there,’ he snarled, ‘why don’t you fucking climb it?’
Shunting her away, he shouted in frustration. Then he turned back to the cliff and began stalking along its length. All the while he muttered to himself, his gaze occasionally lifting as he followed the line of the crack running up the side of the inselberg. Twenty metres away from the others, he stopped. A series of thick vines clung to the rock, reaching up into a narrow gulley that led unbroken all the way to the summit. Luca yanked back on these several times, testing their strength, before his head slowly lowered again and he continued.
Lanso and Abasi were watching him carefully. A few seconds later, they followed Luca to the same spot, talking quickly to each other. Throwing down the coils of netting, Lanso immediately began clambering up the vine, his movements quick and well-practised. His bare toes curled into each indentation of the wiry stem, while his body was so light that within just a few seconds he had pulled himself nearly five metres off the ground. He stopped, shouting down to Bear, as a smile lit up his face.
‘He says he can make it to the top,’ Bear translated. ‘He’s saying it’s no higher than some of the mapani trees near the village.’
Luca stared down at Lanso. ‘He’s sure about this?’
Bear nodded. ‘But how the hell do we get up? There’s no way that vine will support our weight.’
Drawing his survival knife from his belt, Luca crouched down, picking up Lanso’s netting in his free hand. With a few turns of his wrist, he unravelled the coils on the bare rock, steadily working his knife down the netting.
‘Cut it the same way on the other side,’ he said, motioning to Bear. She unfolded her Leatherman, cutting similar strips, while he pulled the netting’s fibres apart with sharp tugs of his hand. It had been woven tightly enough to trap an antelope running at full speed. It would be more than strong enough for them.
‘Tie them off like this,’ Luca said, knotting the ends together and offering one up to Lanso. ‘And ask him if he can climb with this tied around his waist. When he gets to the top, he is going to have to secure the line to something.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, Lanso started climbing. As he moved higher, hand over hand with his fingers curling into the vine stem, he shouted down between his legs to his brother. On the ground, Abasi had his head tilted back as a constant soundtrack played out between them. Before long, Lanso reached the end of the vine and began worming his body into the narrow gulley. He arched his back, managing to draw himself into the rock, and, using his elbows and knees, pressed his whole body against the side of the gully. Inch by inch, he worked his way higher.
Arriving at the overhang, they could see Lanso’s arm flailing across the surface of the rock, trying to find something to grip on to.
‘Careful,’ Luca breathed, as the boy stretched too far, causing his right foot to slip as his balance shifted. He jolted downwards. Only a couple of inches, but it was enough to startle him.
They could see Lanso inhale several times in quick succession, trying to steady his nerves, before he wedged his knees a little higher in the gulley. The extra height gave him enough reach and, with a final shout to his brother, he pulled himself over the rock and disappeared from view.
‘Incroyable,’ Incredible, Bear whispered.
Abasi shouted several times before gripping on to the trail of netting. As he swung himself above Bear’s head, moving higher, she could see a nasty wound on the underside o
f his thigh. Dirt had been packed into it, while a thick band of swelling surrounded each edge. But despite the obvious pain he was in, Abasi climbed fast.
‘You go now,’ Luca said, holding out the netting to Bear. She stared at him, but he didn’t return her gaze.
Bear climbed one move at a time, fighting the pain in her shoulder. Raising her right arm put pressure on the wound, sending an intense pain shooting into her neck. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself on, listening to the slow creak of the netting each time she shifted her weight. Seconds passed with just the sound of her breathing, her eyes locked on the sight of her own hands as she gripped hard on the knotted threads.
Finally drawing level with the overhang, she stared down between her legs to where she could see Luca far below. The cliff looked so much higher from this vantage point, while all around she could see the forest stretching off in every direction. Just over the summit, she could already hear the boys talking.
Bear dragged herself up on to the top of the inselberg, and stopped. She was breathless from pain and exertion and stood hunched over, with her hands resting on her knees. Tilting her head up, she could see that the inselberg ran back surprisingly far. A whole ecosystem thrived on its summit with small trees vying for place amongst the tangle of vines, while the occasional rock pool appeared in between.
From here, she could see all the way to the crash site on the river, while further to the east the nearest of the volcanoes dominated the horizon. Its huge flanks rose up above the canopy, reaching to a hollow point at the summit. Smoke curled up in a single column, smudging the perfect, cobalt-blue sky.
Before Bear had managed to regain her breath, Lanso had joined her at the cliff edge, pointing towards the volcano as he spoke. He talked in an almost continuous flow, his voice soft, while his eyes squinted out towards the horizon. By the time he had finished, Luca was standing on the summit, curling up the last of the netting. He had his back to them.
‘He says that all the villagers are gone,’ Bear called across to him. ‘Says that there’s no one left in any of the settlements along the river.’
Luca didn’t respond and Bear wondered if he was still bitter about the climb. Whatever happened, she had to try and keep him on side.
‘And it’s not just the Maputis that have been hit. There are other tribes as well.’
Luca turned.
‘So why are they doing it?’
‘He doesn’t know, but it’s only the men the LRA are after. You’ve already seen what they do to the women and children.’ Bear stepped closer to him. ‘Lanso said he heard the elders discussing it many times before. Everyone who went anywhere near the volcano just disappeared. Like they were swallowed up by the ground.’
‘That’s got to be the LRA base everyone’s looking for. Over by the volcano, I mean.’ Luca shook his head slowly. ‘But what the hell are they doing with everyone?’
Bear paused. There was no reason why she shouldn’t tell him her suspicions, but still she hesitated. Sharing information wasn’t something she ever felt comfortable doing. But they were in the same boat. She could see that now. Although Luca didn’t know it yet, they were looking for the same thing, if only for different reasons.
Reaching into the thigh pocket of her trousers, Bear pulled out a small Ziploc plastic bag and tossed it across to him.
‘I think it’s all about this.’
Inside was a small lump of dark grey rock. It looked like the charred remains of old volcanic lava, but as Luca brought it up to the light, he saw a blood-red streak running through its centre.
‘The LRA are kidnapping people to mine this stuff out of the ground,’ Bear continued.
‘A mine? A mine for what exactly?’
‘The locals call it fire coltan. We think it’s some kind of highly concentrated form of tantalite.’
‘Tantalite?’
Bear nodded. ‘Yeah. Tantalite is used in every single computer and mobile phone on the planet. It’s one of the few key components. That’s how they get handsets to be so small. If it weren’t for tantalite, we’d all be walking round with cell phones the size of bricks.’ Bear raised a finger, pointing at the rock Luca was holding. ‘But that stuff is different. It’s some kind of purer, more powerful form. No one’s ever seen anything like it.’
‘So that’s why you’re here?’ he asked, throwing the packet back to her in disdain.
‘Fabrice told me the Chinese have been buying this stuff in massive quantities in return for weapons. I thought I could get into Epulu and ask around without being spotted.’ She shrugged, exhaling heavily. ‘But no one guessed the LRA were already so far south.’
Luca pushed his hair back from his face, switching his gaze to the volcano. ‘Well, if that’s where everyone has been taken, there’s got to be a good chance Joshua’s there too.’
He then pulled back from the edge of the overhang, resting his hand on Lanso’s shoulder. ‘Ask him if he knows the way to the volcano. Ask him if he’s ever seen this mine.’
Bear spoke with Lanso for several minutes, the boy gesticulating towards the volcano with swift stabs of his hand.
‘He says their hunters sometimes used to shelter in tunnels running around the side of the volcano, but they didn’t like to do it much because of the smell. Aside from that, he doesn’t know …’
Bear stopped mid-sentence. There were the drums again, reverberating up the rock in a slow pounding beat. All of them instinctively lay flat and a few seconds passed before Bear slowly edged her way to the overhang.
‘Careful,’ Luca breathed.
The drums grew louder, followed soon after by shouts. Through a gap in the trees, they saw the first signs of movement, figures frantically combing the ground, shouting as they worked their way through the bush. The noise grew louder, drums spurring them on like the beat of a boat’s oars.
Luca slid up next to Bear, inching over the rock. There was a high-pitched call and the soldiers began to group together, beating their way through the undergrowth to a central clearing on the rock just below them. They looked dishevelled and exhausted, wearing a rag-bag mixture of clothing. Some wore military fatigues with red berets bleached pink by the sun, while others had ripped T-shirts with strings of bullets draped over old pictures of Bob Marley and wore ankle-high gumboots on their feet. One had a cream necktie knotted over his forehead, filthy brown from sweat, with the end trailing down over his narrow shoulders, and each clutched an AK-47 with an assortment of grenades and water bottles tied with bits of string around them. Most had the gangly look of children just into their teens, with young, smooth skin that gleamed with sweat.
A massive man with a shaved head and thick bulging arms stood in the middle of them. As he turned in the light, staring at each one of his patrol in turn, they could see his forehead was marked by V-shaped cutting scars running down from his hairline all the way to his eyes. They made the skin bulge out like the scales of a lizard. His skin was blacker than the others’, almost blue-black, and he stood a foot taller than them as well, with the wide, powerful shoulders typical of Dinka tribesmen. When he spoke, his voice was deep and naturally raised in a shout, with his Sudanese accent drawing out the French words.
‘What are you doing?’ he hissed. ‘Why can’t you find me those fucking muzungos?’
No one answered, each avoiding the Captain’s gaze. He moved closer to one of the soldiers, sitting with his legs splayed flat in front of him, and slammed his boot down on the boy’s shin, grinding his heel into the bone.
‘I said, what the hell are you doing? The tracks can’t just disappear!’
He moved to the other side of the circle, lumbering like a huge boar.
‘You weak Congolese bastards. You disgust me!’ he roared, turning as he spoke. ‘You will find their trail again and you will bring them to me … or when we return, you will all be put in front of him. Every last one of you.’
A few of the boys looked up, their faces blank with fatigue and desperation. They cl
ambered to their feet, shuffling forward towards the Captain, hands outstretched.
‘Good boys,’ he said, his face breaking into an ugly smile. ‘Good boys!’
Reaching into the breast pouch of his front webbing, he pulled out a thick cellophane bag and poured a small amount of grey-coloured powder on to each boy’s hand. They licked it out of their palm, hardly even wincing at the acerbic taste of the amphetamines. The patrol readied itself to leave. Now the drums started again, the noise gradually building into a frenzy as they pounded.
The soldiers had begun to peel off when the Captain suddenly shouted for them to wait. He pulled the heavy rubber earpiece of the radio set off his shoulder and wedged it to the side of his head. He nodded several times before speaking into the mic.
‘The helicopters are coming. Release the smoke.’
A canister rolled out on to the rock, billowing thick red smoke which drifted across the sky with the faint breeze. A few minutes later, the heavy thump of rotors preceded three helicopters flying only 100 feet or so above the canopy. They moved in a tight tactical formation with a Rooivalk attack helicopter high above them, keeping watch. As the Oryx buzzed overhead, continuing their course, the Rooivalk suddenly pulled away from them and looped back in a tight turn towards the red smoke. It ploughed straight through it, the downdraught from its rotors dispersing the smoke like the sweep of a paintbrush.
The Rooivalk orbited overhead, taking orders from the Captain shouting into his headset below. It then lowered its nose, turning in widening circles, with both pilots craning forward in their seats, searching the impenetrable jungle below.
‘Not good,’ Luca whispered, quickly pulling back from the edge of the overhang. They led the boys into the relative shelter of the bushes, keeping their backs low as they ran. Jumping over the smaller trees and shunting back the vines, they worked their way deeper into the centre of the inselberg.
The bushes and undergrowth started to thin, leaving bare patches of rock exposed to the sky. As they darted across one of these, they suddenly heard the Rooivalk’s engine rise up behind them, with the rear-seat gunner arming the nose-mounted 20mm cannon. The snub barrels swivelled as the helicopter bore down on the figures below.
The Secret Chamber Page 16