Savage (Jack Sigler / Chess Team)

by Jeremy Robinson

  He didn’t wait for an answer. “When European explorers arrived in Africa, they found marvelous kingdoms possessing great wealth and power in the interior. These civilizations did not appear overnight, but were, like many other great civilizations throughout history, built on the foundation of previous civilizations. Tribal warfare, often driven by the demand for slaves, destroyed those kingdoms, ensuring that Africa would never be anything more than the land of the savages. Nevertheless, there are stories of great forgotten cities in the depths of the jungle.”

  Rook rolled his eyes. “You’re talking about the plot of every Tarzan story ever written.”

  “Rook,” Queen said, the tone of her voice a warning to be polite, then she turned to Mulamba. “Forgive me for being blunt, sir, but he makes a good point. Lost cities? It’s like something from an Indiana Jones movie.”

  “Where do you imagine the ideas for such stories originated?” Mulamba said. “Until the arrival of European missionaries, the native tribes of the interior had no written language. They had only oral traditions, stories handed down from one generation to the next. Stories of fantastic cities and ancient kingdoms reclaimed by the jungle.”

  “You said it yourself,” Queen countered. “There aren’t any ruins. Wouldn’t someone have found something by now?”

  “When the missionaries and explorers arrived, they brought death on a scale that we can scarcely imagine. It is believed that as many as ten million people died in the Congo alone—fifteen percent of the population—during the Belgian occupation. Who can say what was lost?” Mulamba paused, momentarily overcome with emotion. “However, to answer your question, I believe that something was found. There is a rumor that Dr. Livingstone himself found the ruins of an ancient civilization, perhaps on the edge of the Congo rain forest or somewhere in the Rift Valley, during his expedition to find the source of the Nile.”

  Rook saw where Mulamba was headed. “So Livingstone told Stanley about it. Stanley wrote it all down in his diary, but then decided to tear those pages out. Why the change of heart? And why didn’t Livingstone ever talk about it?”

  “Livingstone was quite ill at the time, possibly delirious. He died less than two years later, without ever recovering. It may be that he never intended to reveal what he had found, believing that such a discovery would lead to further exploitation of the African people. However, Stanley might have had a much different reason for destroying the record of that meeting.

  “For several years thereafter, Stanley tried in vain to organize another expedition to Africa. He might very well have intended to search for Livingstone’s lost city himself. Maybe he removed the diary pages so that no one would beat him to the prize. What is known with certainty is that Stanley abandoned his plans for another African expedition when he was approached by Leopold, who asked him to personally oversee the creation of the Congo Free State.”

  “If Stanley was coming back anyway, what would have stopped him from going after the lost city?”

  Mulamba pursed his lips again. “When the ruins of Great Zimbabwe were excavated, beginning in the late nineteenth century, the colonial government of Rhodesia insisted that the city had been built by an unknown white civilization, all evidence to the contrary. As late as the 1970s, archaeologists and museums were threatened with censure or worse if they tried to publish the truth. This was not merely a case of willful ignorance. The government believed, correctly as it happens, that the knowledge of a strong historic African civilization would embolden those who sought to break the chains of colonial domination. It is not a coincidence that the country once known as Rhodesia, named for a white man, is now called Zimbabwe.”

  Queen caught on faster than Rook. “You think that if you can find evidence of an even older African civilization, it will become a symbol for your united Africa.”

  “This is no small matter,” Mulamba said. Rook noticed that he gradually began speaking more rapidly, with greater passion. “For centuries, white Europeans, and the Arabs before them, justified every sort of atrocity—slavery, rape, wholesale slaughter—by simply saying that black Africans are savages, animals, incapable of achieving civilization on their own.”

  Rook shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, yeah, but things are different now.”

  “Are they? The developing nations of Africa are locked in an unending cycle of violence, and what does the rest of the world say? They are savages. They cannot rule themselves. The petroleum companies show up and say: ‘let us drill for your oil,’ and if the leader of the country says, ‘No, this belongs to us,’ they simply pay that man’s enemies to overthrow the government. And why not? The Africans are savages.”

  Queen held up a hand. “Look, I get it. We both do. And I agree with you. It sucks. But do you really think finding an old ruined city is going to change things overnight?”

  “I don’t expect you to understand. You are white. You are American.”

  “Hey—”

  “Until the people of Africa believe that they are capable of greatness, they will never rise above the savagery that prevents them from achieving it. And there are powerful forces working to ensure that the status quo does not change. Why do you think I was taken? They fear the day when Africa says, ‘No more. You will not take our wealth and feed us your table scraps anymore.’”

  Rook sighed. De Oppresso Liber—that was what he’d signed up for when he’d joined the Army, earned his Green Beret, and gone on to be a part of Chess Team.

  Freeing the oppressed was a hell of a lot easier when it involved nothing more complicated than shooting some maniac terrorist bent on mass extermination.

  He tilted the rearview mirror until he found Queen’s face. She was wearing her glasses, which meant that Deep Blue was also listening in, but even with the lenses in place, Rook could still read the uncertainty in her eyes.

  He nodded to her, a gesture that said both ‘I trust you’ and ‘let’s do this.’ She nodded back, then turned to Mulamba. “I don’t know if this crazy idea of yours has a chance in hell of succeeding, but that’s your problem. Ours is keeping you safe.”

  “I always wanted to go to Belgium,” Rook said, grinning. “Actually, that’s a lie. I don’t have a clue where Belgium is.”

  22

  Near Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

  The forest seemed to fold over Bishop. He knew he had traveled only a short distance from where he had left Knight and Felice, and yet when he looked back, he saw no trace of them.

  Good, he thought. If I can’t see them, the rebels can’t either.

  He slowed his pace, treading so softly that he could no longer hear his own footfalls, and he began paying closer attention to his surroundings. The humid air hummed with activity. Insects swarmed around his head, while birds and monkeys chattered and squealed, as they capered in the tangle of branches overhead. The jungle was a living thing, indifferent to his presence, but just as capable of destroying him as the men who hunted him.

  A distant metallic sound reached his ears, and he oriented toward it, keeping the heavy M240B at the ready. Although the machine gun weighed more than forty pounds and was meant to be fired from the ground, or preferably from a stable tripod or turret mount, Bishop’s prodigious size and strength enabled him to wield the machine gun as effectively as an ordinary infantryman might shoot a rifle. Even so, it was a cumbersome weapon for moving through the labyrinth of tree boughs, and when he heard the noise again, off to his left and much closer, it took him a moment to swing his body around toward the source. That moment almost cost him dearly.

  A man stood there, forty yards away, a surprised look on his face, as if Bishop had caught him with his pants down, relieving his bladder. But the man had his Kalashnikov to his shoulder, and in the instant that Bishop’s finger tightened on the trigger of the 240, a jet of yellow flame erupted from the rifle.

  Bishop felt hot metal rake his arm, but the sensation was forgotten the moment his machine gun bucked in his hands. The gun
men slumped lifeless, a dozen 7.62 mm rounds perforating his chest, before he could get off a second shot.

  Bishop immediately swept the area, just in case the man wasn’t alone. There was no sign of any other rebels nearby, but the sound of the brief firefight would bring them running. Bishop considered setting up a hasty fighting position and waiting for them, but he discarded the idea. His goal was to draw the attackers away from Knight and Felice, not take them all on single-handedly. He moved off at an angle from the direction the gunman had been facing, listening intently for any hint of enemy presence.

  After about a hundred yards, he recalled that he’d been shot, but there was no pain now and an inspection of the area revealed a hole in his sleeve, but no injury, not even a graze. Bishop didn’t believe in luck. Sometimes things just happened, but hoping for miracles to save the day was a dangerous way for a soldier to live.

  His path brought him to the edge of the forest, and from the cover of the trees, he could see Lake Kivu stretched out across the eastern horizon. His mental GPS told him that the camp where he and Knight had found Felice was to the north, and he assumed that was where the rebel forces would be found as well. He aimed the machine gun in that general direction and squeezed off two short bursts, and then waited.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  A dark green shape appeared in the distance, moving slowly along the lakeshore. It was low and flat, barely visible above the tall grass, but Bishop had no difficulty identifying it as an armored personnel carrier, similar to the US Army’s Bradley fighting vehicle. The APC rode on parallel tracks like a tank, but it was smaller and equipped with an open gun turret instead of a heavy cannon. A lone soldier sat behind the machine gun, slowly sweeping the barrel of his weapon back and forth in the forest’s direction.

  Armored troop carriers were not usually found in the arsenal of a rag tag guerilla force and for a fleeting moment, he wondered if these were DRC Army troops, arriving to drive off the rebel attackers. That illusion evaporated when he saw a cluster of riflemen moving behind the tracked vehicle. They wore civilian attire—jeans, canvas trousers, T-shirts—not like the battle dress uniform worn by the gunner in the tracked vehicle.

  Another APC appeared right behind it. Then another.

  The army was here all right, but not to rescue them from the rebels. The two groups had joined forces to hunt down the last survivor of the scientific expedition.

  This was why Bishop didn’t believe in luck.

  He slung the M240 across his back and melted into the forest.

  23

  To Felice’s surprise, they didn’t run far. Just a few minutes after their flight began, Knight stopped in his tracks and hissed for her to join him. He pointed to the base of a tree that looked no different than any of the hundreds of others they had passed.

  “There.”

  She didn’t immediately understand what he meant, but assumed he had some kind of plan. He knelt at the base of the tree and thrust his hands into the accumulation of decaying leaf litter. She heard him give a little grunt of pain as he drew up a double armful of debris and soil, but he kept at it until he had scooped out a hollow large enough for both of them to lie in.

  “Bishop said to keep moving.”

  “I know what he said.” Knight spoke through clenched teeth, but Felice could not tell if he was in pain or merely irritated with her. Given his wounds, she thought it must be the former, but he wasn’t letting it slow him down. “Trust me. This is what I do.”

  She acceded to his wishes and lowered herself into the hole he had dug. He knelt beside her and went to work filling the hollow with the material he had removed. Felice could not fathom what it was about this particular place that had prompted him to choose it as a hiding place, but she took comfort in his assurance. She knew better than to question his expertise—her survival depended on it.

  As he piled the leaves on top of her, Felice experienced an instinctive panic at the thought of being buried alive, but the debris was no heavier than a blanket, and when he was done, there were large gaps—albeit artfully concealed—through which to breathe and see.

  “We need to stay perfectly still,” Knight said softly, almost breathing in her ear.

  “How long?”

  “Hard to say. Hours. Maybe days. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “What if I need to pee?”

  She had meant it as a joke to lighten the mood, but Knight took the question seriously. “You’ll have to hold it. The smell of urine might give us away.”

  Felice sniffed. The odor of rotting vegetation was so overpowering, she couldn’t imagine anyone being able to make the distinction, but once more she deferred to his judgment. “Wonderful.”

  “What happened to my eye?”

  The whispered question stung her like a slap. She didn’t know how to answer him.

  “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t know. Sometimes injuries like that look a lot worse than they are. Doctors can do amazing things…” Her voice trailed off. She meant what she said, but it sounded like a lie in her ears. Maybe a skilled ocular surgeon could repair the kind of damage he’d sustained, but they were a long way from anywhere with that level of medical care. She wasn’t sure how they were going to make it to Kisangani, much less whether they would ever see America again.

  Knight didn’t say anything for a long while after that, and at first Felice was grateful for the silence, but the complete lack of movement or conversation made the minutes pass with interminable slowness. Finally, she could stand it no more.

  “By the way,” she whispered, “I’m Felice. It’s Knight, right?”

  Knight grunted an affirmative, which she took as a good sign. At least he hadn’t told her to shut up.

  “And your friend is Bishop. I’m guessing those aren’t your real names.”

  “No. My real name is Shin Dae-jung.”

  “Should I call you Shin?”

  “If you want. In Korea, the surname comes first, then the given name.”

  “Maybe I’ll just stick to Knight.”

  He laughed softly, which Felice took to be an encouraging sign. “That’s probably a good idea. Honestly, I’ve been Knight for so long, I hardly even remember my real name.”

  “You took those names from chess pieces, right? You’re some kind of special military unit, and those are your callsigns?”

  “Well, I could tell you, but…you know.”

  “I know—well, knew—a guy who calls himself King. Friend of yours?”

  “Seriously? Wait…shhhh.”

  The change was so abrupt that she thought he might be joking, but given the circumstances, it was better to err on the side of caution. She immediately clammed up, sucking in a breath and holding it, lest the sound of her inhalations give their position away. Felice strained to catch some hint of noise, but the only sound she heard was the lub-dub of her own heartbeat. Eventually, the burn of carbon dioxide in her lungs forced her to resume normal breathing, but during all that time, Knight was as still as a corpse. Then, without any sort of warning, he sat up like Lazarus risen from the dead.

  “Bish!” Knight hissed the word, barely louder than a whisper. “Over here.”

  Felice sat up as well. She didn’t see the big man at first, and when she finally did, he was so far away that she wondered how Knight, with only one good eye, had seen him.

  Bishop trotted toward them, smiling. “Pick up,” he said. “They’re coming. We have to move.”

  “And go where?” Knight asked. “We’re better off digging in and letting them pass by. Then we can get back to the LZ.”

  Bishop shook his head. “There is no LZ. A mechanized infantry company is between us and the lake, and they’re sweeping this way. Then there are the rebels.”

  Up to this point, Felice had been content to stay quiet, but she found this news too unsettling. “You’re saying the Army is after us?”

  Bishop nodded. “It looks like they’re
trying to form a cordon around this section of the jungle. They’ll surround us and then close the noose. We need to get moving, break through before they can complete the circle.”

  Knight hauled himself to his feet, wincing and favoring his left arm. Felice got up as well, and realized that both men were staring at her. “What?”

  “Somebody’s going to a lot of trouble to make sure that no one from your expedition makes it back,” Bishop said. “I’m wondering what a geneticist in the backwater of Africa could do to piss off so many people.”

  “Geneticist?” Knight said with a frown. He looked at Bishop, who just shook his head as if to say later.

  Felice sensed there was something important about their aversion toward her profession, but without further explanation, she let it go. Instead, she simply said, “The explanation is a little technical.”

  “Then it will have to wait. We need to move.”

  24

  They trekked for nearly four hours, moving deeper into the forest in what Bishop hoped was a straight line. When they came upon the occasional clearing, he was able to verify that they were still moving west by the location of the sun, but under the jungle canopy, there was no way to be sure that they weren’t wandering in circles. There had been no sign of pursuit, but in the dense jungle, Bishop knew that the rebels could be anywhere.

  Knight had kept up with Bishop’s relentless pace, managing better than Felice, but he grew more listless as the day wore on. Bishop felt concerned, but there was nothing more he could do for his friend.