Darkness: Captain Riley II (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 2)

by Fernando Gamboa

  Marcel’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets, and his fingers started to tap nervously on his knees. “Okay,” he said, staring at the bottle of gin. “Last night I was having a beer with Captain Cook. You know him?”

  “I know him.”

  “Well, there he was,” he leaned forward, lowering his voice, “when at the next table three foreign-looking guys and a young girl started to talk about Captain Riley and how he got away from the police.”

  Inadvertently, Blanchard also leaned forward out of interest. Few people knew one of the fugitives was a ship captain. “Go on,” he urged.

  “Well, it seems,” Marcel continued, “those foreigners are friends of the fugitives and came with the intention of rescuing them.”

  “Rescuing them? From what?”

  “I don’t know. Seems that Captain Riley, and the others with him, are going upriver with someone named Verhoeven. Know who I’m talking about?”

  “Of course I know,” Blanchard said with a nod, annoyed with himself for not paying attention to his first instinct that the flight of one and the disappearance of the other were related. But who would have thought that instead of crossing the river and fleeing to Brazzaville they’d taken the dead end that is the Congo River. “Did you hear where they’re going?” he asked next.

  Marcel shook his head. “No, but the foreigners knew and they were planning to go look for them and bring them back to Léopoldville. They seemed worried.”

  “Very good,” the commissar said with a nod. “Then the only thing to do is to stay alert and wait for them to come back. We’ll catch all of them when they return to Léopoldville. There’s no other way to leave the country.”

  To Blanchard’s surprise, a joking smile appeared on the snitch’s face.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I didn’t tell you the most interesting thing.”

  Blanchard raised his eyebrows. “Which is . . .”

  “How the foreigners plan to go upriver to look for their friend.”

  “How?”

  “In the patrol boat.”

  “What patrol boat?”

  Marcel’s yellow smile stretched from ear to ear. “Your patrol boat, Commissar. They’re going to steal it.”

  River Diary

  DAY FOUR

  January 29, 1942

  Mongala River

  In the middle of the night I woke up needing to pee. Keeping quiet so I didn’t wake anyone up, I went to the lower deck and walked to the starboard bow to empty my bladder.

  Just when I was finishing, I heard Hudgens’s and Verhoeven’s voices whispering on the upper deck, definitely from the bridge. They kept talking without being too careful, and I was able to catch fragments of their conversation. “It’ll be there . . . ,” Verhoeven said. “Great,” Hudgens replied, and Verhoeven said, “. . . reward.” When they finished, I went back to the second deck and walked toward my hammock, catching sight of the two as I came up the steps. It was almost comical the way they suddenly stiffened and took on a conspiratorial pose you might find in one of Hitchcock’s movies. Tired as hell and not worrying much about those strange bits of conversation, I waved to them in greeting and climbed back into the hammock, falling asleep right away.

  This morning when I woke up and remembered the scene, I asked myself what the hell they were talking about so late at night.

  Today we start heading up the Mongala River, and I immediately begin to understand why Verhoeven’s estimates are so different from mine. This Congo tributary isn’t only dozens of times longer and more convoluted than the immense calm river we’d been traveling on. It’s also much shallower, which means someone has to stay on the bow at all times and take depth readings with a stick. Despite the low draft of the Roi des Boers, the possibility of hitting a sandbank has become a constant threat and makes us slow down significantly.

  The Mongala winds through the jungle in an unpredictable series of turns that never seem to be in the right direction. First we’re going north, then south, we turn a hundred eighty degrees back north when we’re really trying to go east. It’s like sailing with a strong headwind, tacking now and then, traveling four or five miles for every one that brings you closer to your destination. But here there’s no other route, funneled by the tall jungle walls that hover over the boat from the nearby banks, making the boat small until it seems little more than a child’s toy.

  But all these stray thoughts disappear around midday, when we come across something I can only describe as Dantesque.

  Carmen, who was at the helm with Mutombo, sounded the alarm, and we all ran on deck to see what was happening.

  At first I couldn’t see anything until Jack pointed ahead toward the water. It was then I was able to make out a few small black bulges barely breaking the surface of the water, which, apparently, were floating toward us smoothly on the current. At first I thought it was a herd of hippos. But I soon realized it was something else—something didn’t fit.

  Jack muttered a string of words in Galician and crossed himself seconds before the first of the bumps passed in front of me near the port railing. My heart sank when I saw it. It was a child. The dead body of a seven- or eight-year-old child, floating facedown, pushed by the current in the opposite direction to us.

  It wasn’t the only one. There were many others. At one point we found ourselves surrounded by dozens of floating bodies, all on their way to the sea. Men, women, and children. Some of them on their backs with their mouths open in a final silent scream. The dull tap of the bodies on the wooden hull made it sound like they were asking permission to come aboard or warning us of what was to come—or maybe sending a final message to the world of the living, a good-bye to ensure their lives were not forgotten.

  We were all silent. Some vomited and others managed to stifle their gags, but while that macabre parade passed by, none of us were able to utter a single word. There was really nothing to say. We could only be witnesses of horror.

  While I was looking over the side, I heard a splash next to the bow. Turning, I saw the scarred face of one of the crew members smiling at me, exposing a mouthful of filed-down teeth like a shark’s, as he attempted to pull one of the bodies from the water.

  I suddenly remembered that the eight natives who’d barely spoken to me since we left were cannibals.

  Without thinking I went for the Martini-Henry Verhoeven kept on the bridge, and after making sure it had a bullet in the chamber, I went to the stairs as the others looked on in confusion.

  I hadn’t gone two steps when a hand held my arm. When I turned, I saw Verhoeven. Without letting me go, he shook his head. “Leave him,” he said. Not caring what he thought, I tried to get free, but he insisted. “They’re already dead. Better they eat them than the crocodiles.”

  “Better for who?” I barked, an inch from his face.

  The Afrikaner calmly responded by motioning toward the water and saying, “Better for them.” Then he put his index finger on my chest and added, “Better for you. Better for everyone.”

  Hours later, as I finish writing this diary entry, I’m still not sure exactly what Verhoeven meant, but his tone was more of a warning than a threat. Maybe putting myself in between those cannibals and their food would have had grave consequences for everyone. I’ll never know.

  What we’ll also never know is what killed all those people. Jack thought they might have been murdered in a tribal battle, but Mutombo pointed out that there weren’t signs of a fight. No machete wounds or holes from spears or arrows. It could have been an illness, but I don’t know of any that kills a lot of people at once then throws them in the river.

  This afternoon, at about four o’clock, it started to rain. First lightly, but then it grew stronger and stronger, and it hasn’t stopped. The relentless downpour is hitting the boat’s tin roof with a constant, dull patter that sounds like the German machine guns on the foothills of Pingarrón Hill.

  Carmen has been around more today and spent almost the whole afte
rnoon chatting enthusiastically with Mutombo.

  At one point, however, while I watched them and thought about different ways of killing the guy, Carmen turned toward me and gave me a brief smile that sped up my heart rate.

  I can’t believe that at my age those little compassionate gestures from the Tangerine startle me like I’m a schoolboy. What the hell’s happening to me?

  Charlotte

  Port of Léopoldville

  With the lights off, Commissar Blanchard sat at the window on the first floor of the port storehouse and watched the pier where the Charlotte was tied up. The police named the patrol boat that in honor of the wife of the Belgian Congo’s governor-general, though Blanchard liked the popular nickname “Spitfire of the Congo” more. It fit better than the name of a devout prude who never left the house in order to avoid the sun.

  Blanchard looked over the stylized lines of the HSL Type Two. It was sixty-three feet long with three five-hundred-horsepower motors that made it fly at nearly forty knots downstream. A marvel of English engineering, it was the pride of the Léopoldville police force—and Blanchard in particular.

  Just thinking that some miscreants would try to steal it enraged him as much as if someone was planning to kidnap his wife. More, maybe, he admitted to himself.

  Someone came up to the window next to him. “Everyone’s in position and awaiting orders,” Jules informed him with his characteristic efficiency.

  “Good,” Blanchard responded, without taking his eyes from the window. “No one move until I say.”

  “They won’t, Commissar. Everyone knows what they have to do.”

  Blanchard nodded silently. Everything was going according to plan.

  Marcel’s information was useful in the end. Now they knew that that very night, the four foreigners they’d already identified—three of whom, big surprise, were crew members on Captain Riley’s ship—would try to steal the patrol boat around midnight.

  At first he considered arresting them all in their hotel, but decided in the end to lay a trap and catch them red-handed. That way there would be no doubts about their intentions, and the judge wouldn’t hesitate to put them in jail until their bones rotted. The fact that they were friends with the others who’d humiliated him days before, making him into the laughingstock of half the city, didn’t help them at all.

  “It’s already past midnight,” Jules said, looking at his watch.

  “We’ll wait here as long as it takes,” Blanchard answered. “I’m sure they’re going to come.”

  “Of course,” Jules agreed.

  The commissar’s fifteen men surrounded the boat, hiding in the shadows or in one box or another. They’d been like that since nine at night and would stay till nine in the morning if they had to.

  The pier the Charlotte was tied to was more poorly lit than usual at Blanchard’s express orders. He wanted to make it easier for the idiots to try to steal it, so only one small light lit the gangway.

  Just then, as he was reading the decal on the side of the boat, the light went off.

  Not just the one on the Charlotte, but all of them within five hundred yards. Someone had cut the general supply cable.

  “Commissar?” Jules asked with concern.

  “Easy,” Blanchard said. “No one move.”

  The commissar smiled to himself. He hadn’t counted on them being so skilled as to cut the lights, but it didn’t matter. He’d catch them either way, and the outage was proof the information was good. They’d appear any moment.

  He didn’t have to wait more than three minutes for four flashlights to appear in the darkness of the port. Thin rays of light intermittently lit several silhouettes dressed in black from head to toe with large backpacks on their backs. They came out of nowhere, carefully approaching the station like wolves stalking a sheep. But that sheep, Blanchard thought euphorically, had a good shepherd and fifteen guard dogs protecting it.

  “They’re in for a surprise,” Jules said.

  “Do you have the flare ready?” Blanchard asked his assistant.

  In response he raised the cumbersome flare gun in his right hand.

  “We’ll wait till they go aboard,” the Commissar added. “So there’s no doubt about their intentions.”

  As he spoke, the four flashlights neared the patrol boat’s gangway and suddenly went off.

  “Oh,” Jules murmured.

  They were blind now, but Blanchard stayed calm. They’d have to start the electrical system and warm up the motor before putting it in gear, something that would take more than ten minutes in those conditions. So he could still give them a couple minutes to get onboard. Then they’d pounce on them.

  He could already imagine their scared faces when he caught them in the act. He should have brought the camera, he thought, amused.

  Everything was dark and completely silent on the pier. None of the flashlights lit up again, nor could he hear any sound, in or out of the boat.

  A minute passed, then another, and one more.

  That didn’t make sense.

  “What are they doing?” Jules asked.

  “Hell if I know,” Blanchard said, suddenly disturbed.

  “They couldn’t have . . . ,” Jules asked, afraid, “cut the moorings before starting the engine?”

  “That’d be stupid,” the Commissar responded. “The current would take them over Livingstone Falls in a manner of minutes.”

  “But, if they really are stupid?” Jules suggested.

  Suddenly, Blanchard’s whole elaborate plan was turned upside down simply because they may not be as smart as he imagined.

  He turned to Jules, trying to keep the fear from his voice. “Give the signal,” he said simply.

  The assistant stuck the signal gun out the window and pulled the trigger, and a red flare lit up the sky over the Port of Léopoldville.

  To the Commissar’s relief, the Charlotte was still tied to the pier, rocking languidly with the river current, insulated from all the hustle and bustle that suddenly surrounded it.

  Seconds after the flare, fifteen men swarmed the boat, weapons raised, waiting for Blanchard to arrive.

  When he came out of the storehouse, walking quickly with Jules right behind him, the policemen were already exchanging looks with each other, wondering where the thieves were.

  When he got up to the gangway, Blanchard saw the four flashlights at his feet. He tapped one of them with his foot and looked around, a circle of light from his men’s flashlights surrounding the pier.

  Uneasy, he looked at his assistant, who answered before the question was asked. “We have the pier surrounded,” he said.

  Blanchard turned around, looking for a hole in the net, until he got to the dark waters of the river. “Maybe not a rat, but a duck?”

  He was ready to share his suspicions with Jules when on the other side of the river, off the boat’s port side, a motor started with a roar, and a strong beam of light cut through the night like an arrow.

  A moment later a launch appeared behind the pier and, revving full blast, quickly gained speed heading east, upriver.

  “It’s them!” Jules shouted, pointing at the light moving away from them. “They’re escaping!”

  “Bullshit!” Blanchard burst out. He took his assistant by the shoulders and shouted in his face. “Bring me the captain and mechanic of the Charlotte. I want them here in five minutes.”

  “Yes, sir!” Jules answered, turning and running toward the car hidden behind the storehouse.

  Then Blanchard addressed his men and started to point at them one by one until he got to ten. “Take the patrol cars and follow them on land,” he said. “Don’t let them land on this bank, got it?”

  The ten men all answered with a “Yes, sir” and left immediately.

  Only then did Blanchard turn and look at the river and the light traveling away. It’d been a long time since he’d felt the excitement of chasing criminals.

  It was times like this that made it worth being commissar in
a place like Léopoldville.

  “Run, run,” he murmured. “Make the hunt more interesting.”

  Inevitably it took more than five minutes for the captain and mechanic of the Charlotte to get to the boat, but to Blanchard’s satisfaction, less than twenty minutes after he gave the order, they were skimming the river water at thirty-five knots, cutting the little waves with the sharp bow like a shark.

  Captain Lambert had been reluctant to move at that speed in the dead of night against the current. Despite all the powerful lights that shined on the water in front of the bow, they could end up heading straight for a big floating tree that they may not be able to avoid. Even the armored Charlotte couldn’t withstand a giant piece of wood that weighed several tons hitting its bow at thirty-five knots an hour.

  “Commissar!” the captain shouted again from the small wheelhouse, raising his voice over the din of the motor. “This is suicide! We have to slow down!”

  “Don’t think about it!” Blanchard said from behind the 20 mm machine gun on the fore deck. Then he pointed toward the light from the fugitive launch and added, “If they can, we can!”

  Captain Lambert shook his head in disapproval, convinced it was a mistake, but he kept the speed constant and the wheel steady.

  Minute by minute, knot by knot, the distance between the two boats shrank dramatically. The fugitives kept their course and speed without fail. Maybe if they’d headed for Brazzaville in the first place, on the opposite bank of the river, they would have had a chance to escape. But they’d stubbornly headed east as if they intended to go around Bamu Island. Bad choice. Their launch was surprisingly fast, but it couldn’t compete at all with the 1,500 horsepower of the Charlotte. Now it was only a matter of time until they caught up and boarded them.

  When the distance between the two boats was under a hundred yards, Blanchard ordered several warning shots fired from the bow machine gun. First in the air, and when there was no response, at the rear of the motorboat. But the launch didn’t stop or change course.