by Peter Riva
“Ndiyo,” Mbuno said and took the lead, following the cable and taking readings off of the Southern Cross that appeared from behind clouds every now and then. Bob kept looking around them, wondering if they would see an attack if it came. Mbuno saw his agitated state and said, “They will not come now. The water is too deep, and they have food. Not us.”
Pero wondered what he could mean and then remembered the barge guard. Croc food, no traces. It could, indeed, look like Ube had killed his guards and made good his escape.
Good our escape? Long way to go. Pero kept up his single-handed sidestroke, kicking his legs in scissor fashion, breathing hard. He knew there were maybe hours to go and wondered if he had the stamina. Ube slept on, his breathing shallow but regular. Pero could feel it under his fingers as he cradled Ube’s chin.
CHAPTER 16
Kupata Kuzimu nje ya Hapa—Get the Hell out of Here
Near exhaustion, Pero inwardly rejoiced when he heard the word, “Ndovu!”
The swim had been uneventful even as it had built steadily to a climax—a climax of Pero’s physical ability to tow Ube and the impending doom of certain crocodile encounters if the elephant were not still in the shallows.
When Pero could hold the cable with one hand, Bob came next to him and said, “Hold onto my belt, I’ll pull us along the cable to shore.” They glided past the slumbering elephants in the shallows who paid them no heed. Mbuno was too tired to speak to the ndovu. He hoped they would remember him as being no threat. Elephants have a long memory.
All three men dragged themselves up the shore and to the shelter of the boulder. Ube had been tugged by his shirt collar like a sack of rice, and no one had the energy to pick him up. It was Mbuno who spoke first as he lifted the pistol and made sure it was drained of water. “We have little time to get back to the forest. They can see this place in the daytime with binoculars. Come!” It stirred them into action. Bob put Ube, with Pero’s help, back on his own shoulder and stumbled up the beach and through reed mud to where they had left the Land Rover. Pero ran ahead and opened the rear door. Mbuno got in, and Bob passed Ube to him. Pero jumped into the right-hand driver’s seat and started the diesel, astounded at the engine’s noise in the predawn quiet. He glanced around at Mbuno cradling Ube in the back and Bob getting into the front passenger seat. Seeing Mbuno’s nod, Pero started off.
Before the first rays of the sun illuminated the beach, they were well into the forest along the truck path. Pero stopped the Land Rover and said, “Bob, first-aid time, I think.”
Opening the back of the Land Rover and climbing in, Bob could see Ube’s face properly for the first time. He had been beaten, and his nose was clearly broken. Then he felt along the jaw and recognized swelling and bruising. He pronounced, “Jaw’s not broken, but I think it may be a hairline fracture.” He continued to check Ube all the way down his body, even to his feet. “There’s some bruising on his sides, possible kidney issues—we’ll know when he pisses—but the bones, ribs, legs, arms don’t appear broken.” He went back up to Ube’s head and felt his skull carefully. “Doesn’t seem to be any contusions or bumps here.”
Pero asked, “So why’s he asleep?”
Mbuno responded, “Not asleep; bad medicine.”
Bob raised Ube’s eyelids and saw the pupils were dilated. He put his head on Ube’s chest and listened to the heart and lungs. “I don’t like this, his heart is thready . . .” he felt Ube’s carotid artery with his finger. “Too damn thready. He’s been overdosed with something.”
Pero asked, “What? What do you think it is?”
Mbuno asked, “What did you say the Russian people sold?”
Bob nodded. Then, almost talking to himself, he began a narrative, repeating his training instructions. “First, it is important to assess the general conditions of the patient, airway first.” He opened Ube’s mouth and plunged his fingers in, peering down Ube’s throat using the flashlight. “Okay, that’s clear. Now temperature . . .” He put his cheek on Ube’s forehead. “Christ, he’s hot. Leave the cold, wet clothes on him. He’s hyperthermic.”
Mbuno looked at Pero, who responded, “It means he’s hot and cannot control his body temperature.”
Bob continued his survey, mumbling, “Rhabdomyolysis and hyperthermia, got to find out if he’s got rhabdomyolysis.” He felt Ube’s muscles—arms and legs. “Christ, I have no idea if he’s losing muscle tissue.”
Pero asked, “What would that mean?”
“In cases of severe cocaine overdose, patients have rhabdomyolysis and hyperthermia. But usually the rhabdomyolysis—sorry, muscle deterioration—follows extreme physical fits and muscle spasms. The muscles break down and flood the system with, well, muscle garbage, sewage, that overload the kidneys. If he’s got that, I can’t see it. If he already had those fits, my guess is he’d be dead.” Bob looked at Mbuno. “Look, man, I really don’t know what they gave him. I am thinking cocaine, in some form.” he turned Ube’s arm over and showed Mbuno the telltale signs of where Ube had been injected. “I guess they were questioning him. But man, if I treat his . . .” he paused. “Give me my bag.” Pero reached over and grabbed the wet bag off the front seat. Bob opened it and extracted a plastic box. “Let’s hope this thing still works.” He opened the box and took out a pressure cuff, wound it around Ube’s upper arm, and pushed a green square button. The device sprang to life, pressurizing the cuff, measuring Ube’s blood pressure.
A few moments later: “Christ, one-eighty-five over one-ten. Pero, empty the damn bag and find a pink-cross plastic pill bottle with the word BP on it.” Pero searched. “Mbuno, I only have Mr. Winter’s medications with me. I have a calcium blocker called Nifedipine, and I intend to give it to Ube to reduce his high blood pressure. I don’t have it in injectable form, but we need to get it into him. I need you to help me open his mouth. I’m going to crush the pills, two of them, and put it under his tongue. That’s the fastest way into his system, I think.” Pero found the pill bottle, opened the container, and took out two pills and offered them to Bob.
Mbuno reached over and took them. “Mr. Bob, I will help.” With that, he put the pills in his mouth and chewed them, then opened Ube’s mouth, lifted Ube’s tongue with his fingers, and spat the saliva and pills under Ube’s tongue. Bob was astounded. Mbuno explained, “It is how my wife, our tribe’s doctor, feeds little babies who are sick.”
Bob said, “Okay then, now we have to keep an eye on Ube until he is no longer in danger, neither tachycardic nor hypertensive.” He pumped up the pressure cuff again, listening, ear on chest, to Ube’s heart. For a worrying few minutes, Bob kept shaking his head. Then, listening again, he said, “The heart is steadying down, I would guess ninety beats or so, no longer racing.”
Mbuno asked, “Can we move?”
Bob nodded while he inflated the cuff one more time. “The sooner we get him to the hospital, the better.” Pero took the hint and climbed over the front seat bar and dropped into the driver’s seat just as Bob called out, “Phew, one-sixty over ninety-five, pulse still thready at around eighty-five, but at least the BP is coming down. I’m going to give him a sedative—”
Pero called back as he started the Land Rover, “Hey, he’s sleeping already . . .”
“Yeah, but we need to keep his heart rate down, lower still, and the BP, too. It’ll help the kidneys as well if he’s already got rhabdomyolysis. All we’re doing here is getting him stable. He needs to get to the hospital; that’s all I am doing. Wish I could do more.”
Mbuno patted Bob’s arm. “First aid, it is a good thing. I learn very much, asante sana.” (Thank you very much.)
All Bob could think was, What an extraordinary man. He searched the medic bag for Mr. Winter’s pill bottle of Valium. He shook his head when Mbuno held out his hand. “I don’t want you falling asleep, Mbuno. One of these will knock you out if you are not used to them. I’ll put one under his tongue and let his body do the work.”
Mbuno, cradling Ube’s head in his lap
, suddenly lifted his chin and said, “Ndovu come. We must go, now.”
Pero engaged the gears and low four-wheel drive and turned east into the forest of eucalyptus trees. He began picking their way through the dense jungle just as the rain started.
CHAPTER 17
Muda Mrefu wa Kukimbia—A Long Time to Run
Pero’s estimate of ten miles on the forest road to the railroad tracks was fairly accurate. What was not very well assessed was the time it would take. The Land Rover got stuck in the rain-washed forest floor and the marshes they crossed so many times that Pero lost count. Each time he would leave the Land Rover and drag the free-spooling winch wire, slog ten yards to a large tree, and hook up the winch cable. Then back into the Land Rover, bringing clumps of mud into the cab, activating the winch, dragging the Land Rover further along in the forest and marsh. Repeat the process, again and again. Some hours they only traveled a mile.
Pero was reasonably confident that if any pursuers tried to discover where they went, the Land Rover would have left easy-to-follow tracks until the morning’s rain turned the forest floor to a sea of mud after the first mile. That and the elephants’ reappearance should, he felt, help cover their tracks.
Every once in a while, exhausted as he was, Pero asked for an update on Ube. Bob said Ube’s pulse was down to eighty-five and his blood pressure was still a little high at one-thirty over eighty. There was also that one continuing worry for Bob. “I still have no idea of kidney function. So let’s hurry if you can, Pero.” He went back to ministering to Ube.
Pero, on his own, forged ahead, pushing the Land Rover, knowing the world’s best off-road vehicle would, somehow, make it through. Yeah, well, it depends if I have to get out and winch the damn thing one more time . . . Then, at that moment, through the trees on a downhill slope, he spotted the railroad tracks—a sight that raised his spirits. “Hey guys, the tracks!”
Getting on was easy. Driving along the rails and over the wooden railroad ties proved no contest for the Land Rover. Yes, it was a little bumpy for the three in back, but no one was complaining. They were making progress.
Tabora and the longed-for airport and, hopefully, a waiting Cessna were perhaps an hour away when Pero saw a bright light on the rails in front of them. “I’ve got a train coming; I’ve got to drop down off the tracks, so hang on.” He spotted a less steep side on the left of the raised single-rail roadbed and bumped the Land Rover over the last rail, starting the slip and slide down the embankment. “We need to hide. There’s a thick wait-a-minute copse over there . . . I’ll drive into it. Keep your hands in.” As the Land Rover’s sides were scraped by the half-inch thorns, Pero selected a lower gear and battered the Land Rover deeper into the bushes. The rainy season had started so the bushes were all green and lush, and after a few moments, Pero was sure the Land Rover was well hidden. He cut the engine and turned toward the back. “Well, I got us here, but I doubt I can back up and out the way I came.”
At that moment, Ube stirred and started shivering, and his limbs started shaking. Bob warned, “If he starts convulsing, it’s a bad sign. We need to get him to a doctor.”
There was nothing else to say. Either way, they had no choice but to sit still and wait for the train’s passing. With the Land Rover engine off, the rumble of the freight train was palpable, shuddering the sides of the Land Rover as the train rumbled along. Pero stood on the driver’s seat, flipped open the hatch, and cautiously popped his head out the top of the cab. The locomotive was already a quarter mile past them, towing empty freight flatcars. Pero could only see one faded blue-and-white locomotive, diesel fumes belching out of the top, followed by—he counted them—ten flatcars, all empty. No caboose or guard’s van. The only signage Pero could see, beyond the typical Tanzanian livery of the locomotive, was on the sides of the beam of the flatcars. It read Siagwa-Bagir in blue lettering.
As soon as the train had passed, Pero started the engine, backed out of the bushes, and contemplated the embankment in front of him. It looked steeper from the bottom. “Hold on back there; I’ll try and keep it straight so we don’t tip over.” Pero had been driving four-wheel vehicles for decades. Other than Mbuno, there was no one more capable in the car. That and with the Land Rover’s low gear range and the car’s good tires—thanks to Tone as always—Pero thought he would make it. They slipped sideways once, but Pero corrected, and they reached the top and continued on their way.
An hour later, a little after three in the afternoon, they reached Tabora and headed for the airport. There was a guard at the airport entrance who wanted papers, driver’s licenses, and vehicle permits. Pero opened the glove compartment and handed all the documents to the guard who walked off toward a building with the words Airport Security on the side in green letters. Pero said, “I’ve got no driver’s license with me; it must be in Nairobi. You, Mbuno?” Mbuno shook his head.
Bob said, “Quick, climb back here and switch with me; I have mine.” Clumsily, the men swapped places just as the guard came out to talk with them. He looked at Bob, now in the driver’s seat, and asked for a driver’s license. Bob produced it.
The guard compared it to the vehicle’s paperwork and nodded. “Only persons allowed to drive is on this paper.” He tapped the paper again. He looked at Bob. “You are American?” Bob nodded. The guard continued, “Then keep that mzungu away from driving unless his name is on this list.”
Pero objected to the use of a slur. As they drove into the airport, Bob asked, “What’s a mzungu?”
Pero explained, “It is racial. It means European but is also a slur for white man.”
Bob shook his head. “Man, I’m really out of my depth here.” He slowed. “Any idea where the plane is?” Ube began shaking and shivering again. The three watched him until it subsided.
Pero said, “Bob, drive down the flight line, around that hanger there. We’ll spot it; they’ll be here.” And the plane was—exactly where they expected it—outside the main terminal getting refueled. They drove up; the plane’s cabin door opened immediately and steps dropped down.
One of the pilots that Pero recognized, a big burly man, hurried down and over to the Land Rover. “Ready to leave within ten minutes.” He glanced into the Land Rover and broke out into a broad smile. “Good show! Let’s get you all on board and out of here. There have been some strange questions asked by a couple of locals—police types—why we’re here with no clients. We said we’re waiting for safari clients.”
Pero asked, “Any idea what we can do with the Land Rover?”
The pilot answered, “That’s easy. What’s not so easy is getting your friend there onto the plane without letting anyone else know.” He paused and turned toward the plane. “Hang on a moment, be right back.” He sprinted back up the stairs into the plane. A few moments later he was back with a pilot’s navigation case that he put inside the rear door of the Land Rover. “Listen, get him into those overalls, then use the case for all your things”—he spotted the pistol in Mbuno’s waistband and pointed—“including that.”
As Mbuno and Pero worked to get a nonresponsive Ube into aviation service overalls with the words Mara in red on the front and back, Pero asked, “What do you have in mind now?”
“As soon as he’s dressed, drive to the other side of the plane and put him in the starboard cargo hold along with any luggage.” He pointed to the black case. “There’s a door we’ll open just aft of the wing. Once inside, you can undo the cargo net in the cabin and pull him forward. Is he okay?” The pilot looked worried. Pero explained that someone had drugged Ube, but that he was stable. “Good. Then as soon as you put him on board, drive over there”—he pointed to a building next to the security building—“and park and honk. Honk loudly. That’ll piss ’em off. Keep their attention drawn while we button up. As soon as you drop the keys with the attendant, run and get aboard. We’ll be in the air before anyone can say anything.”
Pero asked, “You worried about something?”
The pilot r
esponded, “Yeah, we heard that someone was waiting by a phone to see if men in a Land Rover would come here. We ain’t going to wait for nobody to arrive.” Pero appreciated the double negative; it mirrored how he was feeling after more than twenty-four hours of near terror and perhaps more to come.
Less than ten minutes later, they were safely airborne on the way to Nairobi.
CHAPTER 18
Hospitali na Ubalozi, Nairobi—Hospital and Embassy, Nairobi
Their almost two-hour journey before touchdown at Wilson Airport allowed a napping Bob, Pero, and Mbuno to have a momentary sense of relief. From the air, they had radioed Tone with news that they had rescued Ube, but that he was in a bad way, perhaps having been given a drug overdose. On landing, they pulled up to the ambulance that Tone had ordered, and Ube was loaded in and driven away to the best medical facility in Nairobi, the Aga Khan University Hospital. Bob traveled with Ube to inform the doctors what he had dosed Ube with. Pero and Mbuno assured Bob they would follow momentarily.
Pero said, “We’ll wait for Tone and drive straight over. If there is any trouble at the hospital, use my name, all expenses, anything Ube needs, okay?” Bob nodded as the ambulance doors closed and the siren began.
Pero had spent time in the Aga Khan Hospital as a result of a thorn infection some years ago, and the previous year, Mbuno’s wife had been hit by a matatu bus, and Pero had had her moved there for care. Mbuno was almost a local celebrity at the hospital, especially with the nurses who all seemed to love the aging Mzee. Pero was sure Mbuno’s adopted son would get first-class treatment.
Pulling up as the ambulance sped away, Tone greeted them warmly but avoided asking questions. He knew he would learn all, in time. He offered to give them a lift, sliding the minivan door open. Inside, Pero could see that Tone still had the two askari, Teddy and Keriako, with him, waiting anxiously in the third row of seats. Tone explained they had slept at his house in Langata, the garden suburb ten miles outside of Nairobi where Karen Blixen of Out of Africa fame had her tea plantation. Seeing Mbuno’s expression of contentment, Tone explained further, “I wanted to keep an eye on them; they’ve never been to the big city.” Although Mbuno initially said nothing, Pero knew Mbuno would feel relief. Pero was aware that Mbuno felt responsible for them. As Okiek young men of familial acquaintance, Mbuno would take that family bond of responsibility seriously.