Kidnapped on Safari

by Peter Riva

  Bob pushed all the girls who were in front down to the ground, while Nancy motioned them to tell their sisters to do the same. Like a wave, the mass of women descended to the floor between crates. Several crates fell over, and their flimsy tops came open, spilling dried fish. The girls looked pleadingly. Nancy offered them a piece, encouraging them in Hausa to eat, and they all grabbed pieces. Bob crawled to the doorway, opened it a crack, and sighted along the AK-47. He simply said, “Ready.” Pero knew Bob was trained for this. Medic or not, a Marine is always trained to protect. Moments later, Bob said, “Shots.” But Pero heard nothing. Bob continued, “More shots, muzzle flash, not here.” He was silent for another moment. “Men on tracks, running alongside.”

  Pero felt the train slowing. The train advanced slowly on the two men—one was limping, being helped by the other. Bob opened the door all the way and asked for help. Pero moved over and leaned out. Leaning down they scooped up Tone first, who had been limping, and then Pritchett. Both had hunting rifles slung across their backs. Pritchett said, “There’s a truck following on the tracks, making headway, I am afraid. Couldn’t stop it. Good shots when they get the angle.”

  Bob looked at Tone’s leg and asked Nancy for his medical bag. Nancy brought it over, and Bob started administering medical attention.

  Mbuno patted Tone’s arm, adding, “First aid, very good.”

  Tone looked up and said, “Bloody embarrassing, getting slow in my old age. He nicked me before I could—”

  Pritchett completed his sentence, “Shoot him dead, single shot, two hundred yards. Marvelous shot, Tone, marvelous. Pity you dropped that satellite phone in the marsh!” Pritchett was laughing, in an adrenaline high, then he spotted the girls and laughed harder. “Damn good show! Rescue central! Hello, ladies!”

  Tone was silent. His teeth were clenched as Bob treated the wound, saying, “Not too bad; he’ll live.”

  Pero was concerned about the truck following on the railroad ties. “We need to take a look at what’s following. How fast are they going?”

  “A bloody sight faster than this train, mate. They’ll catch us any moment now.”

  Pero thought fast. The train was picking up speed again, maybe doing twenty miles per hour already. He peered out the door and could see lights approaching the last flatcar. “Bob, I need a hand. Boost me up, I have to get onto the roof. Nancy, keep the girls from panicking. Tone, can I borrow your rifle?” Tone handed it to Pero who wore it, rifle strap across his chest, the rifle at his back. Bob made a cradle of his hands, and Pero was thrust up, just grabbing the top rail running down the length of the boxcar roof. He hung there for a second or two, trying to get a foothold on the slider mechanism of the door. Once his toes caught grip, he pushed up and somehow, in the moonlight, wriggled onto the galvanized metal roof.

  He took off the rifle, lay prone, and fired two quick shots at the truck, which swerved a little and dropped back, then started forward again. Pero held the top of the strap by the barrel and lowered the butt to the door entrance. He shouted over the noise of the diesel train and steel wheels screeching on the rusty rails of the seldom-used siding, “We have to deal with them before the next corner. I need Ube up here. I’ll lift.” He felt the weight on the strap and instead hauled Mbuno up.

  Mbuno smiled, “Brother, we do this together.”

  Pero asked, “Can you shoot at them while I disconnect the flatcars?” He handed Mbuno the rifle.

  “Ndiyo, I shoot; you be careful.” Mbuno assumed a shooting position on his belly.

  Pero crawled forward and spotted the vertical ladder every freight car has leading down to the coupling and the gap between cars. In the old days, the brakeman could walk along the train top, down the ladder, and apply manual brakes. The need for a walkway persisted with trains, even container trains. Pero lowered himself, taking a firm grip as the carriage swayed, almost as if it were alive and trying to buck him off. As the loco reached the next bend that would lead to the points, it slowed. Pero thought, Of course, we need to slow to a stop to reset the points. But we’ll be sitting ducks.

  Pero jumped the gap to the first flatcar. He landed on a clear portion of the flatbed as the logs were not long enough to reach the ends. He stood just as Mbuno started firing. There was a little curve to the left, and he heard Bob open up with the AK-47. Pero could not see the truck, yet. As he climbed the logs to crawl to the other end of the first flatcar, he noticed that the flatcar had box-construction sides. With the logs fastened and chains holding the logs tight, he could walk along the side as he would on a yacht at sea, holding onto each chain, and make it to the other end faster. He squirmed down the side of the logs, gripping the nearest chain, and felt his feet make contact with the steel side. He stood and began to make his way along. Fortunately, Pero had chosen the right side of the train. As the corner started, it followed the tracks to the left, which meant he would have been exposed to the truck’s gunfire if he had been on the other side. Quickly making his way along the safer right side, he reached the coupling between the two flatcars. He could not see anything in the darkness between the cars.

  Reaching for his flashlight, Pero felt unbalanced and gripped the end chain fiercely. The train lurched, and the chain pinched his fingers. He removed his hand quickly to save his fingers, felt he was falling, and dropped the flashlight to regain hold with his other hand. Now what? he thought.

  Mbuno was firing again. Then silence.

  Pero knew how the cars were attached. He had to keep the first flatcar with the special logs and let the others go do some harm.

  Unlike American train design, which had two claws that interlocked and could be popped open, the Germans had built the Tanzanian rail cars using the classic European turnbuckle system. A hook at the end of each car had a turnbuckle attached. You looped the end of the turnbuckle over each hook and tightened the turnbuckle to pull the buffers together so the trains could not accidentally become detached. Pero’s problem was that the turnbuckle had a stop thread—it could not be completely undone. What he had to do, he realized, was loosen the turnbuckle all the way and wait for the cars to be pushed together, then lift the loosened turnbuckle off the hook. Next time the train accelerated, they would be detached.

  He was halfway through the process, holding the loosened end, waiting for the brakes to push the cars closer together, when a voice said, “Nein, halt!” Pero looked up and recognized, partially anyway, the face of the man he had met at Moyowosi airfield. The man’s face was covered with red welts from bee stings. Pero was hidden in deep shadow, and the man could not see him well. If he had, he might have simply shot Pero, realizing his connection to the events over the past few days. As it was, he hesitated. It was all the hesitation Mbuno needed. Crawling over the logs, he had seen the man approaching Pero. However, Mbuno was out of bullets, so instead he threw and hit the man with the scope off his rifle. Unbalanced with the train’s swaying, the man reached for the nearest chain, lost his footing, and slid into the gap between the cars. Desperately reaching out with both hands to grip the nearest buffer, the pistol fell and clattered away beneath the steel. Holding on, his face showed pure terror. He knew the danger he was in. Being crushed by train wheels was a gruesome death. Pero reached out. “Schnell, gib mir deine hand.” (Quick, give me your hand.)

  The man swung between the cars wildly, the train picking up speed around the corner, rocking back and forth. He reached out with a free hand, and Pero grabbed it and pulled. He was halfway out of the gap and got a foot on the buffer, but then he let go with the other hand, reached inside his jacket, and produced a pistol. Before he could aim it at Pero, Mbuno cried out a warning. But Pero had been watching the other hand, hoping the man would try and help pull himself up. Seeing him reaching, and then as the gun came out, Pero merely let go. The man panicked, reached for a handhold, dropped the gun, and his fingers missed as he fell beneath the train. The sound was sickening, like a melon being dropped on concrete.

  At that same moment, the t
rain traveled down a slight decline, brakes were applied, and the cars came crashing together. Pero reached down, thankfully remembered to disconnect the brake lines and connect them to each car’s dead-end brackets, and then quickly disconnected and lifted the link before dropping it. As the train resumed speed, he watched the gap widen. The properly disconnected brake lines would prevent the brakes from being automatically applied. The electric lines parted, spewing sparks as the flatcars separated.

  From on top of the logs, Mbuno could see clearly. He called down, “The truck is stopped.” He told Pero to come up and see. Pero put his feet into the gaps between the logs and climbed, looking over his left shoulder as the train continued around the quarter circle to rejoin the main line. The released flatcars represented hundreds of tons of inertia, and the line was slightly downhill to the truck. At first the flatcars slowed down, then reversed backwards. Had the truck turned off, it could have been saved. Instead, the truck was impacted and then pushed, turning partially sideways and then toppling over. On the detached freewheeling flatcars, Pero and Mbuno could see other figures on top, guns glinting in the moonlight. They weren’t firing, just observing their transport being destroyed and the danger of the logs coming loose and crushing them. Even with the flatcars going faster than ten miles per hour, one man jumped clear, and the others followed.

  As the loco, with Madar at the helm, finished navigating the corner and dieseled away the last mile to the main line, Pero could just see the men walking back to the truck. The truck was still spewing sparks as the weighty flatcars pushed it relentlessly. There goes a perfectly good Unimog.

  CHAPTER 28

  Futa Reli Kabla—Clear Rail Ahead

  Pero was waiting for the train to stop at the points before returning below. Seeing the man fall was too much of a warning. He told Mbuno to wait until they stopped. Mbuno said he thought so, too, adding, “I do not like falling.”

  As the train came to a stop, Pero and Mbuno got off and fast-walked up to the locomotive. Madar stuck his head out the window, looking at Pero six feet below. “Ready? The down-track light is still green, although the man here is worried it might go red soon. I know it won’t. Still, we’re running late. Can you switch the point lever?”

  Mbuno said he would handle it and trotted off. Pero asked if Madar needed any help with the engineer. Pero saw Madar stick his head back in and another face appear in its place, barely visible in the moonlight. “I am a good citizen. I am happy to help,” the engineer said, with a somewhat concerned look on his face.

  Madar reappeared, and he, too, appeared worried. “The engineer thinks that they have missed the schedule and that the line might go red for him past Uvinza. He says it happens when they take too long to load the logs.”

  “What does that mean for us?” Pero saw Madar’s head disappear.

  When he came back, he said, “A six-hour delay in a siding at Uvinza.”

  Pero thought. “That’s too damn long. How much time can he make up, now that we’re lighter?” The head disappeared again.

  “He says he’ll do his best, but some of the track is not so good, and he’s afraid we’ll jump the rails if he goes too fast.” Pero agreed it was the best they could do and, seeing Mbuno trotting back and waving them on, told Madar to get rolling. Pero jumped onto the locomotive ladder and pulled Mbuno up after him. Madar opened the small door to the cab, and the two men came inside as the locomotive gained speed over the points, going slowly, pulling the log cars behind, clear of the points.

  “Lazima mabadiliko ya pointi.”

  Madar translated, “He wants the points changed back.”

  “Siwezi kwenda mpaka pointi ni nyuma. Ni si salama.”

  Madar said, “He cannot go unless the points are back. It is not safe, he says. He is right, the next train carries thousands of passengers. Mbuno?”

  “Ndiyo.” Mbuno opened the door and hopped off the ladder. The train came to a halt shortly after, and Pero looked out the window as Mbuno ran to regain the ladder rung. Then Pero saw the lights at the mill. All the sodium lights were on, and he could see lights along the tracks behind them as well. Mbuno, hanging onto the ladder as the train began to make headway, turned his head and followed Pero’s line of sight. “We must hurry.” He climbed in and shut the door. Madar had heard Pero and told the train driver. They watched, in the nighttime vision, the red-lit interior of the car as the driver pushed the throttle fully forward. Without the extra weight of the lost flatcars, the diesel accelerated rapidly.

  Pero looked down out the side and could not see anything other than the dim reflection of the loco headlights. Moonlight or not, there was no other definition in the blackness. What he wanted to know, but had not been able to see on their way to the mill, was whether there was a service road next to the rails. “Madar, ask him if there is a road next to the tracks here.”

  When asked the engineer nodded and replied, “Ndiyo. Macho yake. Baadaye hakuna.” (Yes. Here, yes. Later, no.)

  Pero tried out his broken Swahili. “Wakati hakuna? Ni kiasi gani baadaye?” (When is no? How much later?)

  “Baada ya Usinge. Kisha inarudi baada ya Nguruka.” (After Usinge. Then it comes back after Nguruka.)

  Pero did a quick mental calculation based on the maps they had studied. “Okay, that means for the next ten or more miles, there is a road next to us they can use. Then no road, and then there’s another road alongside after Nguruka.” Madar looked pleased. “Don’t be so happy, Commissioner. I saw lights back there; they may have gotten past the flatcars and may be coming on strong. And here’s another problem. Nguruka is at the bottom of Moyowosi Reserve, and we know they are logging there. If I were them, I’d barricade the rails. We have too much evidence here against them.”

  Madar gripped Pero’s arm, his fingers digging in. “What evidence?” Madar’s eyes darted to a case standing against the back wall of the cab.

  “We’re towing a boxcar full of kidnapped Boko Haram girls . . .”

  Madar seemed disappointed, “Yes, that is evidence, but not against Zanzi-Agroforestry and Stephan Nyerere . . .”

  Pero continued, “And we have the cocaine-paste-filled logs as cargo.” Mbuno nodded and moved to the left-hand window to watch for trouble.

  “How do you know? Are you sure they are the ones?” Madar gestured toward the rear of the train.

  “The last logs were loaded carefully and without the local employees. The Boko Haram soldiers carefully loaded all six logs. That cannot be a coincidence.” Then, as an afterthought, he said, “Oh, and the guy we killed when he dropped beneath the train? He was white as me, and he spoke German.” Madar was soaking it all in. “Now,” Pero asked, “May I borrow your phone.”

  “No, I need it first.” And with that Madar extended the antenna, pointed it out the right-side window behind the driver, and dialed. He spoke quickly and in a language Pero and Mbuno did not understand but assumed to be Urdu, the language of the Singh ancestors. When he disconnected, he handed the phone to Pero. “Virgi and Amar are ready and most grateful. Loyal officers of the People’s Defense Force will be airborne within minutes. We have had them on standby. They will surround and capture the mill. Amar wants us to proceed to Kigoma port depot where the Tanzanian Naval Command will declare martial law from eight tomorrow morning. They will secure the cargo.”

  Pero had an uneasy feeling. “You do not mention the girls.”

  “They are not in Tanzania; they never were in Tanzania.”

  Mbuno heard and spun quickly from the window. He said forcefully, “Wasichana ni hapa. Wao si kupotea.” (The girls are here. They will not be lost.)

  Madar was shocked that Mbuno did not understand what he meant. “Hapana, hapana, Mbuno. Mimi maana sisi lazima si kuruhusu vyombo vya habari kusikia wao ni hapa. Wanapaswa kuondoka kwa usalama, lakini ni lazima kuondoka.” (No, no, Mbuno. I meant we must not allow the press to hear they are here. They must leave safely, but they must leave.)

  Mbuno was silent, then he looked at Pero
and said, “He is right. It is bad the girls are here. They make Tanzania bad.”

  Pero put his hand on Mbuno’s shoulder and said, “That’s why I planned a safe place, my brother. The girls need to go to the Oasis at Loiyangalani, away from any prying eyes. Until they are ready.” Then he looked at Madar. “But you know the truth will come out, don’t you?”

  Madar nodded, “Yes, but later, when we have made sure this attempted coup is stopped.”

  Then the impact of the girls’ plight really hit Pero. “Madar, you knew, didn’t you? The girls were not here by accident or as a prize of Boko Haram terrorists. Someone planned that they would be discovered, maybe already dead or in a mass grave, in Tanzania . . .”

  Madar looked ashamed. “Yes, then Stephan Nyerere could claim the security of the country was corrupt and that only he, the grandson of our founder, could restore order. This is the real threat to our nation. The gold and drugs are a police matter, my concern. They give Stephan Nyerere money power, yes, but not the means to become a dictator.”

  “It’s a Reichstag event, is that what you are saying?” Pero said. Mbuno asked what he meant, and Pero quickly explained, “In Germany, Hitler, to come to power, needed a terrorist event to show the government was weak. So his agents burned the capital building to the ground, claiming it was caused by the terrorists of the day. Hitler soon took power as the law-and-order leader.” Madar was nodding his agreement. Pero was dismayed. “And if we had failed? If we had gotten into a firefight at the mill?”

  “I did not think they would. They would not want that to happen on Zanzi-Agroforestry property since the Minister is a director.”

  “But now?”

  “Yes, now we are a target, giving them what they need. We are escorting fugitive girls—maybe we are working with Boko Haram. It would be unfortunate to get caught now.”