There was a guard at the gate to the villa.
“Good evening, brother,” Marie said, as they approached the elderly man sitting impassively on a small stool. He looked them over carefully, but his expression betrayed neither interest nor concern at their presence.
“Good evening,” he offered grudgingly.
“We are here to see President Ilunga,” Marie said, and Alex saw the guard’s expression shift slightly at her use of the title earned but never claimed.
“It is late, madame. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“It is most urgent. I assure you that he will want to see us.”
The guard was now staring at Alex, who recognized him as one of the men who had been learning how to read when he had visited with Father Antoine. Alex took off his sunglasses.
“You recognize me, don’t you?” he asked. “I remember you as well. You know that I am a friend to both Antoine and Ilunga.”
“You have friends,” the elderly man replied, “and enemies too, it would appear.”
“You’ve seen the posters?”
“We all have. Mr. Ilunga said you might return and that you should be admitted. He is still awake. I’d suggest you try the kitchen. The President likes to eat late.”
The gate was opened, and Alex and Marie stepped in off the street.
• • •
As the guard had suggested, they found Albert Ilunga in the kitchen eating a sandwich. The kitchen was simple but clean and spacious enough to feed the center’s sizable resident population. There were two oversize refrigerators and a six-burner stove. The man who might have been President sat alone on a bar stool alongside a wooden countertop peninsula. He was wearing jeans and a faded blue work shirt. A single light fixture hanging over the counter illuminated the room.
Ilunga did not seem surprised to see them.
“Hello, Alex,” he said, wiping mustard from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. He stood up. “You are most welcome. I’m sorry about Antoine. I know he was a close friend.”
“To both of us,” Alex replied.
“Are you going to introduce me to your charming companion?”
“Albert Ilunga, Allow me to present Marie Tsiolo, Principal Chief of the village of Busu-Mouli.”
Ilunga kissed her hand. “Enchanté.”
“Mr. President,” Marie said simply.
“So you were one of my supporters, it would seem.”
“I still am. It should be you in the presidential palace, not Silwamba. If it were so, then my village would be safe.”
“What is happening to your village?” Ilunga motioned to them to take a seat, and the three of them sat on bar stools around the countertop. He listened attentively as Marie told him about Consolidated Mining’s plan to plunder her valley.
There was a brief silence as Ilunga weighed the implications of her story. “Yours is not the first such report I have heard about the nature of this company and its connections with the government. This is a very serious problem. We will discuss it further. But first, can I offer you something to eat?”
Alex realized that he was famished. Ilunga made them each an overstuffed sandwich with thick slices of ham and Swiss cheese. Pickled radishes and cold beer completed the meal.
“I’ve seen some not terribly flattering pictures of you around town,” Ilunga said to Alex. “You’ve made quite the impression in the short time that you’ve been back in this country. I congratulate you.”
“Yeah. I suppose I’ve made more of a splash than I had planned.”
“You can judge a man by his enemies. By that measure, you are doing quite well.”
Ilunga finished his sandwich and took a swig from his beer.
“So I don’t suppose that you’ve come all this way just to tell me the story of your village,” he said, raising one eyebrow and offering Marie a slight smile. When he smiled, the lines on his face smoothed and he looked years younger.
“No,” Marie agreed. “We have come to ask for your help.”
“My help? I can offer you shelter and a sandwich, but what else do you think I can do to help you?”
“You can take what belongs to you by right and become president of this country,” Marie said.
Ilunga shook his head ruefully. “That was a long time ago—”
“Nonsense. It was six years ago. Everyone remembers what happened. I came back from South Africa to work for your election. I believed in you. It’s not too late to reclaim what was lost . . . what was taken.”
“Thank you for what you did. The Freedom Party was a great movement. But we underestimated both the strength and the ruthless character of our opponents. That mistake cost me three years in prison. Now I do this. I help the veterans of our wars. For now, this is the best way I can help my country.”
“You can help your country,” Marie insisted, “by getting rid of Silwamba.”
“Someday I may get back into politics, but that day, I’m afraid, is not today.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too soon. We are not ready.”
“Really?” Alex asked. “Then what’s with the armory in the basement?”
Ilunga seemed somewhat embarrassed.
“I have a small collection of firearms downstairs . . . for contingencies,” he explained to Marie with a shrug.
“How small?”
“Not so small, perhaps.”
“What are the guns for, Albert, if not to support your political movement?” Alex asked.
“I lost the presidency to a man who could command guns, who could put armed men loyal only to him onto the streets. I had nothing similar. I will not let that happen again. Next time . . . when the time comes . . . I will be ready.” Ilunga fished a pack of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket and offered it first to Alex and Marie. When they declined, he lit a cigarette and turned over the bottle cap from his beer to use as an ashtray.
“Let me tell you something of my home,” Marie implored. “There are nearly four thousand people in my valley who look to me for security and prosperity. I can give them prosperity. Our soil is rich and there is copper in our hills. Security, however, is beyond me. I have done what I can, but if I cannot break the hammerlock that Consolidated Mining has on this government, my people will never be safe. Only you are in a position to do this.”
“It’s not that simple,” Ilunga protested.
“Isn’t it?”
“We are not yet strong enough. I do not have the resources I need. For now, this is my work. I can do more good here with these men than I can in prison . . . or dead. Over time, perhaps, we will grow strong enough to challenge the established order.”
“Hardly the most courageous position that you’ve adopted, Mr. President. I had expected more from you.”
Alex had been sipping his beer and observing the exchange between Marie and Ilunga. Now he decided to step in before it got out of hand. Ilunga was still their best hope for finding a way to put pressure on Silwamba, Consolidated Mining, and the U.S. Embassy.
“Albert, there is more going on that Marie hasn’t yet told you about. It is bigger than the mining company and it threatens the future not only of this country but this continent.” It was clear that Alex had captured Ilunga’s interest. As he explained what he knew about the Africa Working Group and the hold this shadowy organization had on U.S. Africa policy, Ilunga seemed to grow both sadder and more thoughtful. When Alex finished, his resistance to the idea of taking up the political banner again seemed weaker, but not yet dead.
“Politics is not cheap in the Congo,” he observed. “I have some sponsors who support the work of this institution, but not nearly enough funds to mount a credible challenge to Silwamba.”
“When we met the last time,” Alex said, “you told me that God would provide when the time came to take on Silwamba.”
“Yes. I still believe this.”
“Well, He sometimes moves in mysterious ways.”
Alex pulled the leather bag of diamonds from his pocket and dumped the stones on the countertop. Even uncut and unpolished, they caught the light and glowed with a warm internal fire.
“That should just about cover the costs.”
Ilunga, his eyes wide, did not argue.
“So what would you propose we do?” he asked. “The next round of so-called elections is more than two years away. And that will likely be just another farcical rerun of Silwamba’s ‘referendum’ on his rule. He won’t allow anyone to stand against him on a level field.”
“You don’t need to run against him,” Marie replied. “You’ve already been elected. Silwamba is a usurper with no legitimacy. What we need to do is to persuade the public and the world to recognize the victory that you’ve already won.”
“Can that work?”
“It’s been done before,” Alex said. “Student demonstrators in Serbia brought down the Milošević regime. Something similar happened in the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. I think it’s a pretty good place for us to start.”
“Take the initiative,” Marie implored. “Get the regime responding to you.”
Ilunga picked up one of the larger diamonds and held it up to the lights hanging over the counter. It was the size and shape of a cherry. Small rainbows appeared on the countertop as the crystal refracted the light from the lamp. He took a drag on his cigarette. The blue-gray smoke did nothing to dim the brilliance of the stone.
“Very well,” he said finally. “Let’s get to work.”
Although her face remained impassive, Marie squeezed Alex’s leg tightly under the counter.
From behind them, a new voice asked, “Can I get a glass of water?” This voice was immediately familiar to Alex, even though he had heard it speak no more than a dozen sentences. He turned to find Jean-Pierre standing at the threshold to the kitchen wearing a pair of pajamas at least three sizes too large with a pattern of blue and red elephants.
The former child soldier squealed with joy when he saw Alex, and ran to hug him.
“I have been working to find homes for Antoine’s former charges,” Ilunga explained. Some are staying here with me, including young Jean-Pierre. He speaks quite well these days, you know.”
“Is everything okay now?” the boy asked.
“Not yet, Jean-Pierre,” Alex replied. “But it will be.”
30
AUGUST 6, 2009
KINSHASA
The morning sun woke Marie before the alarm sounded. She stretched languidly and propped herself up on one elbow to look at Alex still sleeping soundly next to her. They had been sharing a small room on the second floor of Ilunga’s house. There was barely enough room for a double bed and a nightstand. Still, the time she had there with Alex was a wonderful luxury. He was a patient and tender lover, but Marie was wary of the strong feelings she was developing for him. He was the first white man she had slept with. Color was not an issue for either of them, but neither was blind to the obstacles to a long-term commitment.
She ran her hand across his chest. He stirred. Reaching up to take hold of her hand, he pulled it to his mouth and kissed her palm lightly. A little electric thrill shot through Marie’s spine. She did not know how long they had together, but they had today.
As she thought ahead to what they had to do that day, Marie frowned slightly. This would be the first serious test of Ilunga’s political strength and Marie was nervous that it would fall flat.
Alex must have sensed her anxiety. “Don’t worry,” he said, pulling himself up into a sitting position on the bed. “It’s going to go great today. I’m just sorry that I won’t be there to see it.”
Although Marie had many of the campaign’s foot soldiers distributing pro-Ilunga literature pull double duty by also taking down the “wanted” posters with Alex’s picture on them, it was still not safe for him to be near a large crowd in broad daylight. This left Marie in charge of organizing Ilunga’s campaign and she had risen to the challenge. She had cut her teeth on byzantine tribal politics. Still, she was nervous about the day and grateful for Alex’s support. She forced herself to smile.
“It’s going to be fine,” Alex repeated.
“God, I hope so.”
The campaign to unseat President Silwamba had started online. Some of the more advanced computer programmers in the Freedom Coalition had already been working on a website promoting Ilunga as the real winner of the last election and the best hope for political reform in the Congo. The message was clear: Silwamba was illegitimate. Albert Ilunga was the duly elected President of the Congo.
At first Ilunga had been skeptical of this approach. He had wanted to march to the presidential palace and plant his flag. What good was the Internet, he asked, when less than five percent of the population outside of the capital had access to a computer? Marie and Alex had persuaded him that this was not a normal political campaign. They were targeting the Kinshasa elite and international public opinion. Their goal was to get Silwamba’s own supporters to turn against him. If an election was like a boxing match with two heavyweights slugging it out in the center of the ring, Ilunga’s political movement had to be more like jujitsu. They had to get Silwamba off balance and let the weight of his position ultimately drag him down.
It had been nearly a week since Ilunga had agreed to challenge Silwamba. Encouragingly, there were already some signs that their campaign was gaining traction. The initial trickle of visitors to the website had not grown to a torrent, but at least it was a steady stream. Marie had reached out to a number of women’s groups, including the Wives of Wounded Veterans. Ilunga, meanwhile, had put the word out through the Brotherhood of the Circle that the time for change had come. The secret society was not large, but many of its members were in positions of influence and nearly all were eager to see the back of Silwamba.
They had not yet had any public events, however. Today Ilunga would lead a march from the villa to the ironically named Freedom Square in front of the presidential palace. The turnout would be a key test of his political strength. The website and flyers called on Ilunga’s supporters to gather in front of the villa at ten in the morning for the march. Marie had told Albert that they were hoping for five hundred people to show up. Privately, she thought they would be lucky to get half that.
Silwamba’s naked power grab in the aftermath of the election had sucked much of the energy out of the Congo’s nascent democracy movement. Marie was less than certain that they would be able to revive the coalition that had come so close to propelling a man she considered honest and decent into the presidency.
That is why she found herself holding her breath when she and Ilunga stepped out the front door of the center at ten-fifteen. The bullhorn in her hand was heavy and it would make her feel ridiculous if there were only a handful of people waiting for them on the street. Standing in the small garden between the house and the front gate, Ilunga took hold of Marie’s upper arm and turned her to face him.
“No matter what happens today, Marie, know that you have done well. This is just one piece of a larger effort. It is important. But if our supporters are not yet ready, it is not the end. I assure you.”
Marie nodded. “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Ilunga opened the gate and they stepped out onto the street. The crowd of supporters waiting for him to appear roared its approval. Blinking back tears, Marie surveyed the scene in front of her. There were at least two thousand people in the street, many waving light blue and gold Congolese flags or handmade placards in various languages that read ILUNGA IS PRESIDENT. Ilunga took the bullhorn from Marie and held it up to his mouth.
He made it only a few syllables into “My fellow citizens,” however, before the roar of a fired-up and adulatory crowd drowned him out. There would be a time for speeches, they seeme
d to say, but this was a time for rejoicing.
When they had quieted some, Ilunga spoke for ten minutes. Few in the audience could hear what he said, but no one seemed to care.
• • •
While Marie had been working on building up Ilunga, Alex had focused his energies on finding a way to take down Consolidated Mining. He needed two things: information and evidence. So while Marie was leading a march to the front door of the presidential palace, Alex sat down with Ilunga’s in-house computer guru, Giles Mbaka, to plot a more circumspect trip through the back door at Consolidated Mining.
Giles was the senior computer instructor at the Coalition. He was also a hacker of considerable skill, who did his work on a beautiful, high-end PowerBook that had “fallen off the back of a truck.” Giles did not look the part. His nose had been broken and badly set at least once, and his build was more like that of a professional wrestler than a computer geek. He had big, beefy hands that moved with surprising grace across the keyboard. Most unsettling, however, was that Giles had only one ear. The left side of his head was a mass of scar tissue where the ear should have been. Giles kept his hair cut short, as if to draw attention to his disfigurement. All of Ilunga’s inner circle had complicated and often violent pasts. Giles was evidently no exception. For whatever reason, Giles and Alex had clicked almost immediately, and the hacker had taken on the project of proving Alex’s innocence as a personal charge.
When Alex walked into his classroom, Ilunga’s webmaster was wearing a dark blue Hawaiian shirt opened halfway to his navel and his trademark orange-tinted sunglasses. The left earpiece balanced somewhat precariously on a nub of puckered scar tissue. The glasses, he insisted, helped ease the eyestrain from hours in front of a monitor. Alex was pretty certain, however, that Giles wore them because he thought they looked cool.
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