African Ice

by Jeff Buick

  The three commandos and McNeil took the next hour to load the van outside the men’s store, then Troy Ramage followed Travis as he headed his BMW south on Washington Street. Acquiring the armaments had gone flawlessly so far, and that was worrying Travis. Past experience had taught him that Murphy’s Law was bound to surface at some point when guns were involved. Porter had the necessary communications gear, Ramage had the guns, and Dan’s cases were brimming with explosives. Each commodity had been carefully chosen for the job. Weight was the primary factor, with performance a close second. Nothing was left to chance.

  Each piece of equipment was chosen for a specific task and environment. They would be in the jungle, so weapons with a short killing range were preferable. But he knew from other sorties in heavy underbrush that the occasion would arise when a target would be a good distance off. Thus the sniper rifle. And where military was involved, there would be helicopters. Trustworthy was the last word Travis would use to describe any central African military force, and he needed a weapon to bring down a hostile chopper. That was where the surface-to-air missiles came in.

  The more he thought about it, the more he felt the missiles were crucial to the operation. If a heavily armed government gunship decided to take them out, there would be little they could do but hide and hope for the best. With surface-to-air missiles, the playing field changed dramatically. His group could take out an incoming helicopter before it came within range of its missiles or machine guns. He smiled. The man with the best toys usually wins.

  A quick five-minute drive at exactly the speed limit took him deep into Hoboken—to the docks. Twelve blocks from the men’s store Travis used to stash the mission’s armaments was Dock 39. A rusted trawler, small by ocean-going standards, was lashed to the dock. Dusk was quickly enveloping the area, and shadowy figures moved about the deck, making final preparations for departure. The scene was almost surreal. He pulled the BMW up to the gangplank, the van with the weapons immediately behind him. Two men from the ship walked down the plank to meet them. Travis greeted the first man with an outstretched hand.

  “Khanh Ng.” Travis inclined his head slightly forward, a sign of respect to the ship’s captain. “Always a pleasure, my friend.”

  “Yes, Travis,” the Vietnamese captain replied in perfect English. “A pleasure, and, as always, a bit risky.” He smiled.

  “No risks involved here. Simply a shipment of auto parts,” he said, glancing at the stack of boxes in the back of the van.

  The captain nodded. “From New York to Kinshasa.” He studied the ship’s manifest for a moment, “And we’re to deliver these auto parts to a military colonel. Sounds perfectly legitimate to me.”

  “Agreed. However, just because you’re such a respected and highly sought-after sea captain, I’d like to offer you a small incentive to ensure these parts make it to the colonel.” McNeil slipped a briefcase from the backseat of the BMW and handed it to Ng. Inside was fifty thousand dollars more than they had originally negotiated for delivering the weapons. What the hell, he thought, it was Kerrigan’s money. A bonus to the ship’s crew certainly wouldn’t hurt. The captain glanced inside the case and smiled, then snapped it shut. The excess money had not gone unnoticed.

  “Your parts will arrive, my American friend.” They shook hands as some of Khanh’s deckhands loaded the missiles on the ship. Travis motioned to his men, and they left the dock. The ship would be on the open seas en route to the Congo within the hour.

  FOUR

  Nine days had passed since the second meeting with Kerrigan and McNeil, and Samantha Carlson was ready to go. Her bags sat in the foyer of her apartment, her fridge was empty, and the New York Times would not appear on her stoop until she returned. Her buzzer sounded, and she pushed the intercom button. It was Travis. She grabbed the two bags from the floor and walked into the hallway, taking one last look at her apartment. He was waiting in the lobby.

  “You all ready, Doc?” he asked her.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied. “How about you?”

  Travis just smiled and held open the cab door. When wasn’t he ready? he thought to himself. He lived his life constantly on the edge. He had cheated death so many times that the thought of actually dying was becoming more and more foreign to him. Almost as if each escape made him stronger, more incapable of believing in his own vulnerability. He glanced over at Samantha as she leafed through the Times. She was engrossed in an article and didn’t notice his prolonged look.

  Travis watched the New York skyline as the cab wove through the traffic en route to the airport. Samantha smelled nice, he thought. She looked nice, too. Faded jeans, tight white T-shirt, and sneakers. Sexy like an athlete. And smart. How many attractive, well-toned women held a doctorate in the sciences? Not many. He stole a glance at her as they traveled, wondering how she would fare once they were in the Congo. She’d been there before, so at least she knew what to expect. Much better than landing in a foreign cesspool with a totally dependent client. And he’d had a few of those.

  Sam folded the newspaper and rubbed the back of her neck. She was quite aware of his presence beside her in the cab. And she felt safe with him nearby. She had little doubt that he was more than capable of protecting her under reasonable conditions. It was the unforeseen problems she worried about. No matter how good McNeil and his men were, there were only four of them. Against an entire tribe of hostiles, they stood no chance. And that possibility existed. She dropped the Times beside her on the seat as the cab pulled up to JFK.

  Ramage, Porter and Nelson were waiting at the gate when they arrived. McNeil nodded as they boarded, but kept his distance from them in line and once on the plane. Four men and a woman were too conspicuous. They settled into their business-class seats, and he pulled out a book, Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin.

  “Interesting reading,” she remarked. “Especially for someone in your line of business.”

  “Do you read much Atwood?” he asked her, and she shook her head. “The main character is an eighty-two-year-old woman,” he said, settling into reading. Samantha checked out the in-flight movie.

  New York to London was one of her favorite flights. Leaving the historical vacuum of North America for Europe always thrilled her. And often, London was merely a stopover en route to more mystical destinations, as was the case this time. They had two hours at Heathrow between the NewYork-to-London segment and the London-to-Cairo leg. From Cairo, they touched down in Khartoum, then flew directly into Kigali. All told, it would take twenty hours to reach the capital of Rwanda. She groaned as the first movie lit up the screen. She’d already seen it. As the credits floated across the screen, telling the viewer who was starring, the cameras focused on a young woman walking along a college pathway on a crisp autumn day. She was attractive, her step lively. Perhaps the image Samantha herself had projected so many years ago.

  Was it that many years since college? She mentally ticked off the time that had passed since her undergraduate work in Boston. Fifteen years since she’d walked down a similar path as a freshman, eager to learn her father’s trade. She faltered. Eager to learn or eager to please? Would she have picked geology as a career if her parents had had no influence? Was her entire life being spent just to impress her father? Christ, even after his death she sought his approval. She shook her head, admonishing herself for thinking so negatively of her innocence; youth was responsible. She vividly remembered her father’s face, glowing with pride as he stood next to her at the enrollment desk. She checked off her courses, all predetermined the evening before, then glanced up at him. He grinned back at her, his eyes moist. She knew now that her enrollment into his discipline had somehow justified his existence. An existence that she had never questioned; it had always seemed right. He had always seemed right.

  Her father had always been her hero. He was a blend of Indiana Jones and Mahatma Gandhi. Adventurous to a fault, but the most skillful negotiator she had ever witnessed. It was probably the latter trait th
at had kept him alive as long as he had been. And while he was alive, he had loved his daughter. Samuel Carlson had doted on her, showering the young girl with presents and the teenager with countless pieces of advice. He had counseled the young woman on relationships and helped her to understand men better than

  most women could ever hope to. But one common thread bound together everything he had ever given her—his time.

  Time was the most valuable commodity every person on the planet possessed, her father had told her during one of their more esoteric discussions. Do not waste a moment. He lived his life not as a hypocrite, but true to his own words. He cherished his time, never allowing anyone to waste it. Yet as she looked back, she realized he had spent a hugely disproportionate amount of time with his daughter. Had he shaped her into the woman she was today? Yes. Were his efforts in vain? No. Had she become the woman he knew she could? Yes. She smiled and felt a warm tingle run down the length of her spine. She had done him well. She let her earphones slip down around her neck, and drifted off.

  Twenty hours and thirty-two minutes later, Flight 3673 from Khartoum touched down on the steaming runway at Kigali Kanombe Airport. Sam grabbed her carry-on from the overhead bin and she and the team followed the line of people onto the runway. The heat hit her instantly, the humidity a few seconds later. She tugged at her shirt as it clung to her, then gave up. The moist equatorial air kept clothes feeling like they just came out of the washer. She walked across the asphalt into the terminal. The customs area consisted of a few worn desks manned by sleepy Rwandans. Sam retrieved her luggage from the baggage cart, and walked over to the nearest desk. The man’s eyebrows rose slightly as he looked up at her.

  “American?” he asked. She nodded. “Your passport, please,” he said in stilted English. He took the document from Samantha and slowly flipped through the pages. He stopped numerous times to check out the stamps of the countries she had visited over the past few years. On more than one occasion he nodded and pursed his lips slightly. He finished perusing the passport and pointed at her luggage. “Open them, please.”

  Samantha unzipped both of her bags and folded back the top flaps. The security men hovering behind the customs official leaned forward as he began to poke through the first bag. He found nothing of interest and continued on to the second, smaller bag. He stopped when he came to her underwear. He lifted a pair of panties from the suitcase and held them up like a trophy.

  “Cotton,” she said to him. “They breathe.”

  He smiled at her and gave the ever-growing group of men behind him a stern glance. “What is your reason for visiting Rwanda, Miss Carlson?” He replaced her underwear.

  “Gorilla research. In the Ruwenzori Mountains.”

  “The Ruwenzori Mountains are in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” he said, “not Rwanda.”

  “I’m aware of that, sir,” Sam responded quietly. “However, the less time I spend in the Congo, the better. I would much rather be in Rwanda than the Congo any day.”

  “Why is that, Miss Carlson?”

  “The Congo has a corrupt government. When I pay the expected fees to enter the country, or to travel on a road, the money does not go to the correct people. The men in charge always get the money. I resent that.”

  “Yes,” the customs official agreed. “That is very true.”

  “In Rwanda,” she continued, “your government is freely elected, and your president is a good man. He encourages free enterprise, and is rebuilding your country’s reputation and economy. And the entry tariffs are always fair.”

  “Yes. Agreed. Our rate of,” he paused, watching for her reaction, “fifteen thousand francs is very reasonable.”

  Samantha did the math in her head. With one U.S. dollar equivalent to about three hundred eighty Rwandan francs, the man wanted slightly less than forty U.S. dollars for her to breeze through customs. She nodded slowly, and reached into her suitcase. She pulled a wad of francs she had bought in the U.S. from under her clothes, and tucked fifteen thousand into a half-full cigarette package. She held it out to him.

  “American cigarettes,” she said. “If you are allowed to accept them.”

  He opened the package and slipped a cigarette out, quickly closing the pack. “Thank you, Miss Carlson.” He stamped a blank page in her passport. “Enjoy your stay in Rwanda.”

  The remainder of the team followed her lead, slipping the official the obligatory fifteen thousand francs as they passed through. Ramage was the last one to clear customs, and the official took his money, but did not stamp his passport.

  “The contents of your suitcase bother me, Mr. Ramage,” he said, fingering the stamp gingerly.

  “What bothers you?” Ramage asked, irritated at the delay.

  “I am a simple man. I own two white shirts. One I wear to work every day, and the other I wear to church on Sunday. I could not imagine owning more than two white shirts.”

  “So what’s your point?” he asked.

  “You have six white shirts in your suitcase, Mr. Ramage.”

  Troy shrugged. “So what?”

  “Perhaps you are considering selling these shirts in Kigali. And selling merchandise without a license is illegal.”

  “What the—” Ramage began, but he was cut off in mid-sentence by Samantha Carlson.

  Sam reached across the table and lifted four shirts out of the bag. She handed them to the customs agent. “Mr. Ramage brought the shirts to give as gifts,” she said. “He told me while we were in the air that he hoped he would find someone in Rwanda that would appreciate them.”

  The official smiled again. “How thoughtful, Mr. Ramage. I’m sure I can find someone who can benefit from these shirts.” He tucked them under his desk and stamped Troy’s passport. They filed from the relative comfort of the inadequate air conditioning in the terminal out the front door and into the blazing African sun.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Troy turned to Sam.

  “Keeping you out of a Rwandan jail,” she replied tersely. “If you think any of this looks bad,” she waved her arm at the squalid slums that bordered the airport, “you should see the inside of the prison. It makes this quite palatable.”

  “She’s right, Troy,” Travis said as he scanned the line of cars and taxis for their contact. “They don’t need a reason to throw you in jail here. You do what’s necessary to keep them happy.” He cocked his head slightly to the right. “Those are probably our guys.”

  About a hundred feet from the doors, two Land Rovers were parked against the curb, their motors idling. One man leaned on the tailgate, and when Travis caught his eye, he nodded. The group turned and walked down the crowded sidewalk toward the waiting vehicles. As they approached, the man smiled and asked, “Travis McNeil?”

  “That’s me.” He extended his hand and the man shook it. “And you are?”

  “Philip Acundo,” he said. “Personal aide to Colonel Mugumba. We are to accompany you to Goma.”

  McNeil ran his eyes over the man, evaluating what he saw. The man’s skin was typical for the region, very black and stretched tautly over his facial bone structure. No wrinkles. His eyes were deep hazel, the whites in striking contrast to the darkness of his skin. His teeth were white, but in need of orthodontic work. Still, when he smiled, he looked pleasant enough. McNeil’s eyes paused at the area near Acundo’s armpit. A slight bulge. The man was armed.

  Acundo motioned to the four-wheel-drive vehicles. “Please, let’s get loaded up and drive into the city.”

  The group split into two, Travis and Samantha traveling in Acundo’s vehicle, and the remaining three members of the team in the other truck. The four Congolese soldiers, all dressed in civvies, split into two per truck. The drive into the heart of Kigali was slow, but hardly boring.

  The roads were partially paved, but long overdue for maintenance. Potholes peppered the road and jarred the riders whenever the driver hit one. Both sides of the road were lined with shanties, pieced together with discarded boards and cove
red with corrugated metal. Scores of natives, dressed mostly in motley clothes, watched suspiciously as the two-vehicle procession motored slowly into the city center. Remnants of the long-past Belgian influence still showed through in places. French signs were as prevalent as English, and the architecture reminiscent of a European culture was now replaced with African influence.

  The foliage was thick and tropical. Umbrella and banana trees punctuated the white buildings, and low broad-leafed plants thrived everywhere. Hibiscus, lianas and ferns grew wild, wherever a patch of dirt allowed. Raw sewage, open to the tropical air, fed and watered the shrubbery. Samantha watched the passing spectacle with vivid recollection.

  Four years had not changed Rwanda’s only city. People still moved about the grimy streets and narrow alleys, eking out a subsistence on whatever they could lay their hands on. Many suffered from diseases unfamiliar to the western world. Signs of AIDS were everywhere—hollow cheeks, sunken eyes devoid of life, and people stricken with viral pneumonia. In such a temperate climate, good health should be easy. But it wasn’t.

  The United Nations deemed the AIDS epidemic to be out of control in numerous Central African countries, Rwanda and the Congo included. They adjusted the mortality rates accordingly, and the life expectancy had dropped in Rwanda to less than forty years. Contraceptives were almost unknown, birth control a bad joke, and abstinence totally unheard of. Sex was killing these people now, just as the horrific infighting in 1994 had decimated the Tutsi population. 1994.

  A year that would live in infamy in Rwanda. Modern-day genocide while the civilized world watched. She had seen the aftermath much more clearly four years ago. The hatred still embodied in the Tutsi people as they strove to live alongside the Hutus, who had randomly killed over 800,000 of their brethren. And the fear in the Hutus. The massive refugee movement had been just returning from the Congo as she worked on her doctorate in geology. Two worlds so far apart, she thought. The other was her life in New York, with the penthouse and money in her bank accounts. Anything she wanted was available, providing she had the cash. But not here.