“Roger that, Sir. Looks like whatever it was, they made it through.” The operator sunk back into his seat, watching as a couple of figures emerged from the roof of the APC.
The tracker light was still active, the drone hovering miles above, dutifully beaming images of the chaos below.
“You got eyes on this, Sir?” The operator scratched his head. “Dead soldiers still crawlin’ all around the place.”
“FUBAR.” The CO’s voice squawked. He had seen enough.
“What now, Sir?” There was fear in the operator’s voice now.
Whatever was causing the dead to rise, it was already marching across the continent, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it would be a matter of time before it came knocking on his door. The line crackled with static.
“Sir?” The operator asked impatiently.
Alone in this shoebox in the middle of nowhere, watching dead people roaming the countryside on screen, he felt abandoned and envious of the drone at the same time. If things continued to deteriorate out there, he would have to make a decision soon.
‘Screw you, Eupharm, I ain’t gonna sit here until your little experiment bites me on the ass.’ It was 50 miles to Djibouti city. An hour or two, and he would find himself sitting in Ambouli Airport’s departure lounge. Where to, it didn’t matter so much as long as it was out of here. On second thought, the 1.10 pm to Istanbul sounded just about right. Six hours of sipping drinks served by attractive young things, and then it was burgers on the Bosphorus. He would simply disappear. Wait all this out, hiding somewhere in Europe. South of France, maybe. Good enough for them Hollywood celebs, good enough for me.
‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Eupharm and all you corporate shit bags.’ He crossed his arms behind his head, leaned back with a self-satisfied grin, and nodded at the large cursive font tattoo along his forearm.
‘Fortes Fortuna Juvat.’ Fortune favours the bold. Damn right. It was time to live up to the motto.
CHAPTER 24
The APC had turned off Nimule Highway and was now heading directly toward the city. Another 15 minutes, Tom estimated, and the airport would come into view.
“Headsup!” Papillon pumped the breaks, and the carrier came to a controlled stop just short of the main bridge across the White Nile.
“Is that what I think it is?” Amadou pointed at something blocking their path up ahead.
Papillon let the vehicle idle along until they were close enough to get a better look.
“Someone ran out of zip-ties...” Papillon grimaced.
Between a dried-up tree to the right and a concrete pillar on the left, a chain had been strung across the road. Tied to it was a row of corpses in torn uniforms. Writhing, twisting and tearing at their restraints, dead jaws snapped at the metal Goliath just out of reach; the creatures’ hands bound with their own leathery intestines. Tethered together, sun-dried bodies moved in sync like a can-can of mummified tissue, the metallic rattle of the chain links, and wheezing from desiccated vocal cords blending into a sorrowful score.
Tom brought up the binoculars and scanned the riverbank on the other side. Nothing but vacant lots and open ground. A lone goat ambled across a parched field of unharvested maize. Brown and dry, the long stalks lay strewn about like an abandoned game of Mikado. He turned to the right side of the bridgehead and paused. There was movement. Lots of it.
“See something?” Amadou squinted, trying to follow Tom’s view.
“Thirty of them. Maybe more.” Tom mumbled, conducting a headcount of the corpses gathered at a nearby gate set between two large shipping containers.
A Mysore Thorn hedge ran along the rest of the perimeter right up to the water’s edge, where a carpet of reeds swayed in sync with the murky current. Most of the corpses were still dressed in what once had been their Sunday best. Shredded, bloodied tuxedos mingled with muddied white dresses. A bride, still wearing her veil, led the congregation, hands pounding on metal, demanding their feast. A flower girl, one arm missing, feebly tried to compete, but was soon trampled into the ground as the wedding party threw itself against the barrier.
Tom recoiled and put down the glasses. Seeing grown men and women in the pitiful state of the virus’ aftermath was one thing, but children he would never get used to. ‘Anna.’ He didn’t even want to imagine.
The snap of a bullet zipping past overhead got everyone’s attention. Ping. Another hit the APC’s exterior.
“Not exactly sniper material.” Amadou moved closer to the window, looking for muzzle flashes.
“They’re not shooting at us. Yet.” Tom handed him the binoculars and turned to Papillon at the wheel.
“Maybe best if we back up a little.”
He figured they didn’t need any extra attention, be it living or dead. Papillon threw the carrier into reverse and let it idle away from the human barrier, before shutting off the engine completely. The sound of random gunshots drifted across from the other side of the river.
“Now what? We just wait?” Papillon asked nervously.
He felt uneasy about the vehicle sitting out in the open. They had narrowly escaped an RPG during the attack of the dead soldiers. Armoured or not, it was unlikely they would be lucky twice.
Tom considered their options. They could chance it further downriver. Papillon had indicated another bridge along the way but also cautioned that trying to navigate the slums of South Juba would slow them down even more, if not stall progress altogether. If the virus had made light work of the troops with all their weapons, it would have burned through the poor like a brush fire. As far as Tom was concerned, the bridge before them was their only option.
“How many rounds left for the .50cal?” He finally asked.
“A boxful, give and take a few,” Amadou replied without taking his eyes off the river.
‘A hundred rounds,’ Tom thought. It would have to do.
“Get her ready then. Topside.” He ordered, watching the commotion at the gate in the distance.
“Going to be hard picking off the bad guys at this distance.” Amadou flicked his tongue.
He was not a bad shot, but the gun was like a broadsword in a fight that would require a scalpel. At the same time, he wasn’t going to question an instruction by the man whose instincts so far had proven impeccable.
“Who said anything about shooting at the bad guys?” Tom winked.
Amadou raised an eyebrow and hesitated.
“Ever heard the saying ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?” Tom explained. “I want you to hit that gate with all you’ve got.”
A light went on in Amadou’s head, and he nodded emphatically. “Of course!”
A few seconds later, they heard the all-too-familiar click of the gun being readied. Tom turned to Gautier, Faith, and David.
“You might want to cover your ears for this one.”
He had barely finished the sentence when the first volley of tracer rounds exploded from the barrel, streaking across the river with lightning speed. Metal exploded in a shower of sparks as the bullets tore the gate to pieces. Some rounds passed straight through the wedding party, disintegrating corpses in an eruption of unmitigated violence and creating a supernova of body parts, sparks, and shrapnel.
“Don’t kill too many of them. Aim higher. Short bursts!” Tom yelled through the hatch, and after a few seconds, rounds no longer tore through the small crowd and instead honed in on what was left of the gate’s centre.
Another handful of fiery tracers and it disintegrated, giving way to the remaining dead. They could not hear the excited screeches as the creatures broke through, finally able to seek out the living hauled up inside, but the sound of rapid-fire from the camp was enough confirmation.
The .50cal’s barrage stopped and, as magazines quickly ran dry, so did the gunfire inside the compound. Pursued by whatever walking corpses were left, a number of panicked soldiers jumped from the camp’s riverside restaurant into the leaden waters of the White Nile below. C
arried away by the slow-moving current, some struggled to stay afloat, briefly splashing about before disappearing below the surface. Some dead followed, blindly focused on nothing but the drowning calls for help.
From the safety of the APC, the survivors watched them float by. Black specks in a cloudy sea of polluted water, they disappeared downriver like so many before them in a war where bodies were dumped routinely to cover the tracks of unspeakable cruelties inflicted upon the civilian population.
“Looks like the road’s clear then.” Papillon nervously played with the gear lever. He was eager to get going.
“We will wait until nightfall,” Tom replied. He disliked delaying their arrival as much as anyone else in the group, but given what they had just witnessed, moving at dark would offer some much-needed protection.
Papillon looked disappointed but quickly understood. He squeezed out of the driver’s seat and joined the other in the back. With the engine turned off, it was getting hot inside, and they opened the hatch to allow for ventilation. A pleasant breeze swept up from the water, and some dozed, while others broke open one of the remaining MREs. Papillon unbuttoned his shirt and fanned himself with a folded map he had found stashed in the cargo netting. Tom had seen the kind of tattoo before and had long been curious about how it had made its way onto the Frenchman’s chest.
“French Foreign Legion.” He pointed at the faded ink. “I didn’t know they did Peacekeeping in this part of the world.”
Papillon looked strangely embarrassed and refastened the top button. Even though Tom had been vague about his own background, it was obvious there was a lot more to him than just a few years of regular service. He had tried to skirt past the issue of his life before donning the Peacekeeper’s uniform, but now squarely in Tom’s sights, lying about it was no longer likely going to be successful.
“They don’t.” Papillon put down his half-eaten ration. “At least not here in East Africa.”
Tom remained motionless, fixing him with a piercing gaze. Papillon knew he would need to say more if he was going to get him off his back.
“I was stationed in Senegal. Bloody Senegal, of all places,” the Frenchman sighed. “I have done this for a long time. Guinée Française, Irak, Liban… I have been there. And I have always done my duty.”
He averted Tom’s eyes and poked at the bench next to him with his fork. “But something went wrong in Senegal. Something that changed everything.”
Tom nodded towards the rear hatch. He could see the big man struggling to tell his story, and the other survivors’ presence wasn’t helping. The two stepped outside and took a seat in the shade of the vehicle. Papillon looked visibly relieved.
“What happened?” Tom asked calmly.
“I have always been loyal, you know. I mean, it’s La Legion. ‘Honneur et Fidélité.’ Honour and Loyalty. There is nothing else. Or at least there was nothing else.” Papillon shifted, easing himself into the truth.
“It was July. Rainy season. We were deployed near the Mali border, looking for Jihadists from the North crossing into Senegal. We were combing villages, moving all the time. We were wet and miserable. If diarrhoea did not kill you, then Dengue fever would. Many of our men went in strong as oxen and came out looking like stick insects….” He paused in remembrance and shook his head.
“Anyway, we received a tip about one of the villages near Kénièba, sheltering a group of fighters. Our Caporal Chef, the commanding officer, he was not an easy man to serve under. 15 years of service. Légion d'honneur: Grand-croix, Chevalier, Commandeur. More citations than I can think of. A hard-ass, as you would say.”
He could see Tom understood and smiled a wry smile.
“CO was sick, much like the rest of us, running and squatting in the bush every few minutes, so by the time we reached the village, he was in the worst mood possible. We fanned out, and he volunteered me and another guy to go in for a look around. Of course we went, but all we found were a bunch of women and children, and a few old people just doing what people in the village normally do. CO got angry when we reported back. He said that the absence of young men could only mean one thing: that the village had been tipped off about our mission and that, therefore, they were all collaborators and guilty just like the terrorists we were looking for.”
There was a lot of anger in Papillon’s voice now as he allowed well-buried memories to resurface.
“He orders us to destroy the village. No, not only that. Destroy the village and kill everyone inside. ‘To set an example,’ he said.”
“What did you do?” Tom wondered out loud.
He had received similar orders in the past, but every time fate had been kind enough to intervene and spare him the impossible decision between disobedience and what would have equated to cold-blooded murder.
“I refused.” Papillon shrugged.
“Just like that?” Tom knew it couldn’t have been that easy.
“No, not just like that. We all went in, and some of the others started carrying out his orders. I stayed back. This was not warfare anymore. This was not supposed to happen. Soon, there were bodies in the street. I remember a boy. Maybe 8 years old. He was lying on his back. His eyes looked at the sky. He was still breathing. The CO looked at me as he shot him in the head. He could see that I was not going to follow his orders, so then he pointed his gun at me.”
Papillon swallowed hard. There was hoarseness to his voice now.
“But, you were lucky somehow?” Tom asked, impatiently.
“No. I was quicker.” Papillon hung his head. “He did not expect it. When I close my eyes, I can still see the look on his face. He fell right there, next to the boy, and they both looked up into the heavens. The others didn’t see what had happened, but still, everyone knew.”
“So, you decided to disappear?” Tom anticipated what came next.
“Yes. On our way back, I took the first opportunity. Right before sunset the next day, on our way to Ballou, we passed through another town. There I saw a washing line next to a house by the road. On it, there was a UN peacekeeper’s uniform drying in the sun. I took it.”
“You deserted?” Despite the suspicions he had had since their first encounter at the lake, Tom couldn’t help sounding surprised.
“I am not proud of it, but what was I to do? The others went west, back to Dakar, and I went my own way. It is quite amazing what you can do when you are wearing a UN uniform, you know?” A sly grin crept across his face.
“I know it gets you a pilot seat in an Armoured Personnel Carrier,” Tom smiled. He knew it had taken a lot for the Frenchman to open up. “But how did you end up at Lake Albert?”
“My plan was to get as far away from my unit as possible, but whatever money I had only got me as far as Kinshasa. As strange as it may sound, I got lucky that way. I got there right when the Ebola thing really went crazy. In the chaos, it wasn’t hard to bounce from base to base. This uniform is like an all-access pass.”
Papillon straightened out his sleeves and dusted off his jacket.
“In the end, I was trying to find a way across the lake, much like you and Amadou.”
“I am sorry for what happened, but sure am glad you found us when you did.” Tom patted the big man on the back. “Although I suggest we keep all this between the two of us for now. Sometimes people have trouble adjusting perceptions, you know?”
Papillon nodded. It was not the kind of story he cared to repeat anyway.
They returned to the APC, and everyone waited for the sun to set. For the first time in days, there was nothing to do but wait. Reminiscing about what the doctor had said back at the research facility, Tom pulled out the memory stick they had salvaged.
‘A virus that attacks other viruses,’ Tom replayed the conversation in his mind and shook his head. The cure had become worse than the disease itself. Whatever information was on this drive was her legacy, and he would make sure it came to light.
The click of a metal slide being removed from a receiver divert
ed his attention. He looked on in surprise as Faith expertly field stripped one of the Glocks.
“You have done that before.”
“Once or twice, yes.” Faith looked up without missing a beat in her reassembly.
“Impressive.”
“You mean, for a woman?”
“I didn’t say that.” Tom felt sheepish. He had let bias get the better of him.
“Nobody ever does.” Faith smiled in return. She knew.
Having put the gun back in its holster, she retrieved a locket from a thin gold chain around her neck and opened it. Inside it was the faded photograph of a very serious-looking African man in his 50s.
“He’s the one who taught me.” She gently held up the locket and gazed at it in melancholic reverie.
“Your father?”
“You could say that.” She closed the pendant and held it close to her chest.
Tom was curious now. So far, she had given away little about herself and her unassuming appearance little rise to anything but the assumption that she had come from a very simple, traditional village background.
“When you are the daughter of a high ranking politician in Uganda, your interactions with the rest of society are limited.” She enjoyed seeing Tom raise his eyebrows.
She had learned early in life that there were only two ways to get by in an environment where elbows and a knack for scheming were considered primary skill sets on the path to life success. She had chosen not to run with the pack and join the ranks of those who lived off the misfortune of the poor but instead had decided to swim with the current and eventually look for an out at the right opportunity. Little had she known that this opportunity would come in the form of an uprising of the dead and at a cost that was so hard to fathom.
“The man in the picture is…was my father’s bodyguard.” Faith wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and her lips quivered for the briefest of moments. “He taught me everything I know. Everything that is worth knowing. And that there is a difference between the two.”
The Virophage Chronicles (Book 1): Dead Hemisphere Page 26