Congo Page 12

  “Don’t move, sir,” a voice said.

  Elliot opened his eyes and stared into a bright light shining down on him. He was still lying on his back in the aircraft; someone was bent over him.

  “Look to the right. . . now to the left. . . . Can you flex your fingers?”

  He followed the instructions. The light was taken away and he saw a black man in a white suit crouched beside him. The man touched Elliot’s head; his fingers came away red with blood. “Nothing to be alarmed about,” the man said; “it’s quite superficial.” He looked off. “How long would you estimate he was unconscious?”

  “Couple of minutes, no more,” Munro said.

  The high-pitched squeal came again. He saw Ross moving around the passenger section, wearing a shoulder pack, and holding a wand in front of her. There was another squeal. “Damn,” she said, and plucked something from the molding around the window. “That’s five. They really did a job.”

  Munro looked down at Elliot. “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “He should be put under observation for twenty-four hours,” the black man said. “Just as a precaution.”

  “Twenty-four hours!” Ross said, moving around the compartment.

  Elliot said, “Where is she?”

  “They took her,” Munro said. “They opened the rear door, inflated the pneumatic slide, and were gone before anyone realized what happened. We found this next to you.”

  Munro gave him a small glass vial with Japanese markings. The sides of the vial were scratched and scored; at one end was a rubber plunger, at the other end a broken needle.

  Elliot sat up.

  “Easy there,” the doctor said.

  “I feel fine,” Elliot said, although his head was throbbing. He turned the vial over in his hand. “There was frost on it when you found it?”

  Munro nodded. “Very cold.”

  “CO2,” Elliot said. It was a dart from a gas gun. He shook his head. “They broke the needle off in her.” He could imagine Amy’s screams of outrage. She was unaccustomed to anything but the tenderest treatment. Perhaps that was one of the shortcomings of his work with her; he had not prepared her well enough for the real world. He sniffed the vial, smelled a pungent odor. “Lobaxin. Fast-acting soporific, onset within fifteen seconds. It’s what they’d use.” Elliot was angry. Lobaxin was not often used on animals because it caused liver damage. And they had broken the needle— He got to his feet and leaned on Munro, who put his arm

  around him. The doctor protested.

  “I’m fine,” Elliot said.

  Across the room, there was another squeal, this one loud and prolonged. Ross was moving her wand over the medicine cabinet, past the bottles of pills and supplies. The sound seemed to embarrass her; quickly she moved away, shutting the cabinet.

  She crossed the passenger compartment, and a squeal was heard again. Ross removed a small black device from the underside of one seat. “Look at this. They must have brought an extra person just to plant the bugs. It’ll take hours to sterilize the plane. We can’t wait~”

  She went immediately to the computer console and began typing.

  Elliot said, “Where are they now? The consortium?”

  “The main party left from Kubala airport outside Nairobi six hours ago,” Munro said.

  “Then they didn’t take Amy with them.”

  “Of course they didn’t take her,” Ross said, sounding annoyed. “They’ve got no use for her.”

  “Have they killed her?” Elliot asked.

  “Maybe,” Munro said quietly.

  “Oh, Jesus . .

  “But I doubt it,” Munro continued. “They don’t want any publicity, and Amy’s famous—as famous in some circles as an ambassador or a head of state. She’s a talking gorilla, and there aren’t many of those. She’s been on television news, she’s had her picture in the newspapers. . . . They’d kill you before they killed her.”

  “Just so they don’t kill her,” Elliot said.

  “They won’t,” Ross said, with finality. “The consortium isn’t interested in Amy. They don’t even know why we brought her. They’re just trying to blow our timeline—but they won’t succeed.”

  Something in her tone suggested that she planned to leave Amy behind. The idea appalled Elliot. “We’ve got to get her back,” he said. “Amy is my responsibility, I can’t possibly abandon her here—”

  “Seventy-two minutes,” Ross said, pointing to the screen. “We have exactly one hour and twelve minutes before we blow the timeline.” She turned to Munro. “And we have to switch over to the second contingency.”

  “Fine,” Munro said. “I’ll get the men working on it.”

  “In a new plane,” Ross said. “We can’t take this one, it’s contaminated.” She was punching in call letters to the computer console, her fingers clicking on the keys. “We’ll take it straight to point M,” Ross said. “Okay?”

  “Absolutely,” Munro said.

  Elliot said, “I won’t leave Amy. If you’re going to leave her behind, you’ll have to leave me as well—” Elliot stopped.

  Printed on the screen was the message FORGET GORILLA PROCEED TO NEXT CHECKPOINT URGENT APE NOT SIGNIFICANT TIMELINE OUTCOME COMPUTER VERIFICATION REPEAT PROCEED WITHOUT AMY.

  “You can’t leave her behind,” Elliot said. “I’ll stay behind, too.”

  “Let me tell you something,” Ross said. “I never believed that Amy was important to this expedition—or you either. From the very beginning she was just a diversion. When I came to San Francisco, I was followed. You and Amy provided a diversion. You threw the consortium into a spin. It was worth it. Now it’s not worth it. We’ll leave you both behind if we have to. I couldn’t care less.”

  7. Bugs

  “WELL, GODDAMN IT,” ELLIOT BEGAN, “DO YOU mean to tell me that. . .”

  “That’s right,” Ross said coldly. “You’re expendable.” But even as she spoke, she grabbed his arm firmly and led him out of the airplane while she held her finger to her lips.

  Elliot realized that she intended to pacify him in private, Amy was his responsibility, and to hell with all the diamonds and international intrigue. Outside on the concrete runway he repeated stubbornly, “I’m not leaving without Amy.”

  “Neither am I.” Ross walked quickly across the runway toward a police helicopter.

  Elliot hurried to catch up. “What?”

  “Don’t you understand anything?” Ross said. “That airplane's not clean. It’s full of bugs, and the consortium’s listening in. I made that speech for their benefit.”

  “But who was following you in San Francisco?”

  “Nobody. They’re going to spend hours trying to figure out who was.”

  “Amy and I weren’t just a diversion?”

  “Not at all,” she said. “Look: we don’t know what happened to the last ERTS Congo team, but no matter what you or Travis or anyone else says, I think gorillas were involved. And I think that Amy will help us when we get there.”

  “As an ambassador?”

  “We need information,” Ross said. “And she knows more about gorillas than we do.”

  “But can you find her in an hour and ten minutes?”

  “Hell, no,” Ross said, checking her watch. “This won’t take more than twenty minutes.”

  “Lower! Lower!”

  Ross was shouting into her radio headset as she sat alongside the police helicopter pilot. The helicopter was circling the tower of Government House, turning and moving north, toward the Hilton.

  “This is not acceptable, madam,” the pilot said politely. “We fly below airspace limitations.”

  “You’re too damn high!” Ross said. She was looking at a box on her knees, with four compass-point digital readouts. She flicked switches quickly, while the radio crackled with angry complaints from Nairobi tower.

  “East now, due east,” she instructed, and the helicopter tilted and moved east, toward the poor outskirts of the city.

  In the ba
ck, Elliot felt his stomach twist with each banking turn on the helicopter. His head pounded and he felt awful, but he had insisted on coming. He was the only person knowledgeable enough to minister to Amy if she was in medical trouble.

  Now, sitting alongside the pilot, Ross said, “Get a reading,” and she pointed to the northeast. The helicopter thumped over crude shacks, junked automobile lots, dirt roads. “Slower now, slower. .

  The readouts glowed, the numbers shifting. Elliot saw them all go to zero, simultaneously.

  “Down!” Ross shouted, and the helicopter descended in the center of a vast garbage dump.

  The pilot remained with the helicopter; his final words were disquieting. “Where there’s garbage, there’s rats,” he said.

  “Rats don’t bother me,” Ross said, climbing out with her box in her hand.

  “Where there’s rats, there’s cobras,” the pilot said.

  “Oh,” Ross said.

  She crossed the dump with Elliot. There was a stiff breeze; papers and debris ruffled at their feet. Elliot’s head ached, and the odors arising from the dump nauseated him.

  “Not far now,” Ross said, watching the box. She was excited, glancing at her watch.

  “Here?”

  She bent over and picked through the trash, her hand making circles, digging deeper in frustration, elbow-deep in the trash.

  Finally she came up with a necklace—a necklace she had given Amy when they first boarded the airplane in San Francisco. She turned it over, examining the plastic name tag on it, which Elliot noticed was unusually thick. There were fresh scratches on the back.

  “Hell,” Ross said. “Sixteen minutes shot.” And she hurried back to the waiting helicopter.

  Elliot fell into step beside her. “But how can you find her if they got rid of her necklace bug?”

  “Nobody,” Ross said, “plants only one bug. This was just a decoy, they were supposed to find it.” She pointed to the scratches on the back. “But they’re clever, they reset the frequencies.”

  “Maybe they got rid of the second bug, too,” Elliot said.

  “They didn’t,” Ross said. The helicopter lifted off, a thundering whirr of blades, and the paper and trash of the dump swirled in circles beneath them. She pressed her mouthpiece to her lips and said to the pilot, “Take me to the largest scrap metal source in Nairobi.”

  Within nine minutes, they had picked up another very weak signal, located within an automobile junkyard. The helicopter landed in the street outside, drawing dozens of shouting children. Ross went with Elliot into the junkyard, moving past the rusting hulks of cars and trucks.

  “You’re sure she’s here?” Elliot said.

  “No question. They have to surround her with metal, it’s the only thing they can do.”

  “Why?”

  “Shielding.” She picked her way around the broken cars, pausing frequently to refer to her electronic box.

  Then Elliot heard a grunt.

  It came from inside an ancient rust-red Mercedes bus. Elliot climbed through the shattered doors, the rubber gaskets crumbling in his hands, into the interior. He found Amy on her back, tied with adhesive tape. She was groggy, but complained loudly when he tore the tape off her hair.

  He located the broken needle in her right chest and plucked it out with forceps, Amy shrieked, then hugged him. He heard the far-off whine of a police siren.

  “It’s all right, Amy, it’s all right,” he said. He set her down and examined her more carefully. She seemed to be okay.

  And then he said, “Where’s the second bug?”

  Ross grinned. “She swallowed it.”

  Now that Amy was safe, Elliot felt a wave of anger. “You made her swallow it? An electronic bug? Don’t you realize that she is a very delicate animal and her health is extremely precarious—”

  “Don’t get worked up,” Ross said. “Remember the vitamins I gave you? You swallowed one, too.” She glanced at her watch. “Thirty-two minutes,” she said. “Not bad at all. We have forty minutes before we have to leave Nairobi.”

  8. Present Point

  MUNRO SAT IN THE 747, PUNCHING KEYS ON THE computer. He watched as the lines crisscrossed over the maps, ticking out datalines, timelines, information lock coordinates.

  The computer ran through possible expedition routines quickly, testing a new one every ten seconds. After each data fit, outcomes were printed—cost, logistical difficulties, supply problems, total elapsed times from Houston, from Present Point (Nairobi), where they were now.

  Looking for a solution.

  It wasn’t like the old days, Munro thought. Even five years ago, expeditions were still run on guesswork and luck. But now every expedition employed real-time computer planning; Munro had long since been forced to learn BASIC and TW/GESHUND and other major interactive languages. Nobody did it by the seat of the pants anymore. The business had changed.

  Munro had decided to join the ERTS expedition precisely because of those changes. Certainly he hadn’t joined because of Karen Ross, who was stubborn and inexperienced. But ERTS had the most elaborate working database, and the most sophisticated planning programs. In the long run, he expected those programs to make the crucial difference. And he liked a smaller team; once the consortium was in the field, their working party of thirty was going to prove unwieldy.

  But he had to find a faster timeline to get them in. Munro pressed the buttons, watching the data flash up. He set trajectories, intersections, junctions. Then, with a practiced eye, he began to eliminate alternatives. He closed out pathways, shut down airfields, eliminated truck routes, avoided river crossings.

  The computer kept coming back with reduced times, but from Present Point (Nairobi) the total elapsed times were always too long. The best projection beat the consortium by thirty-seven minutes—which was nothing to rely on. He frowned, and smoked a cigar. Perhaps if he crossed the Liko River at Mugana.

  He punched the buttons.

  It didn’t help. Crossing the Liko was slower. He tried trek­king through the Goroba Valley, even though it was probably too hazardous to execute.

  PROPOSED ROUTING EXCESSIVELY HAZARDOUS

  “Great minds think alike,” Munro said, smoking his cigar. But it started him wondering: were there other, unorthodox approaches they had overlooked? And then he had an idea.

  The others wouldn’t like it, but it might work. .

  Munro called the logistics equipment list. Yes, they were equipped for it. He punched in the routing, smiling as he saw the line streak straight across Africa, within a few miles of their destination. He called for outcomes.

  PROPOSED ROUTING UNACCEPTABLE.

  He pressed the override button, got the data outcomes anyway. It was just as he thought—they could beat the consortium by a full forty hours. Nearly two full days!

  The computer went back to the previous statement:

  PROPOSED ROUTING UNACCEPTABLE / ALTITUDE FACTORS / HAZARDS TO PERSONNEL EXCESSIVE / PROBABILITY SUCCESS UNDER LIMITS /

  Munro didn’t think that was true. He thought they could pull it off, especially if the weather was good. The altitude wouldn’t be a problem, and the ground although rough would be reasonably yielding.

  In fact, the more Munro thought about it, the more certain he was that it would work.

  9. Departure

  THE LITTLE FOKKER S-144 PROP PLANE WAS PULLED up alongside the giant 747 cargo jet, like an infant nursing at its mother’s breast. Two cargo ramps were in constant motion as men transferred equipment from the larger plane to the smaller one. Returning to the airfield, Ross explained to hot that they would be taking the smaller plane, since the 747 had to be debugged, and since it was “too large” for their needs now.

  “But the jet must be faster,” Elliot said.

  “Not necessarily,” Ross said, but she did not explain further.

  In any case, things were now happening very fast, and Elliot had other concerns. He helped Amy aboard the Fok­ker, and checked her thoroughly. She seemed
to be bruised all over her body—at least she complained that everything hurt when he touched her—but she had no broken bones, and she was in good spirits.

  Several black men were loading equipment into the airplane, laughing and slapping each other on the back, having a fine time. Amy was intrigued with the men, demanding to know What joke ? But they ignored her, concentrating on the work at hand. And she was still groggy from her medication. Soon she fell asleep.

  Ross supervised the loading, and Elliot moved toward the rear of the plane, where she was talking with a jolly black man, whom she introduced as Kahega.

  “Ah,” Kahega said, shaking Elliot’s hand. “Dr. Elliot. Dr. Ross and Dr. Elliot, two doctors, very excellent.”

  Elliot was not sure why it was excellent.

  Kahega laughed infectiously. “Very good cover,” he announced. “Not like the old days with Captain Munro. Now two doctors—a medical mission, yes? Very excellent. Where are the ‘medical supplies’?” He cocked an eyebrow.

  “We have no medical supplies.” Ross sighed.

  “Oh, very excellent, Doctor, I like your manner,” Kahega said. “You are American, yes? We take what, M-16s? Very good rifle, M-16. I prefer it myself.”

  “Kahega thinks we are running guns,” Ross said. “He just can’t believe we aren’t.”

  Kahega was laughing. “You are with Captain Munro!” he said, as if this explained everything. And then he went off to see about the other workmen.

  “You sure we aren’t running guns?” Elliot asked when they were alone.

  “We’re after something more valuable than guns,” Ross said. She was repacking the equipment, working quickly. Elliot asked if he could help, but she shook her head. “I’ve got to do this myself. We have to get it down to forty pounds per person.”

  “Forty pounds? For everything?”

  “That’s what the computer projection allows. Munro’s brought in Kahega and seven other Kikuya assistants. With the three of us, that makes eleven people all together, plus Amy—she gets her full forty pounds. But it means a total of four hundred eighty pounds.” Ross continued to weigh packs and parcels of food.