Congo Read online

  For the first time in her memory, Karen Ross wanted to cry.

  “Easy now,” Munro said quietly, lifting her hand away from the keyboard. “One thing at a time, no point in getting upset.” Ross had been pressing the keys over and over again, unaware of what she was doing.

  Munro was conscious of the deteriorating situation with both Elliot and Ross. He had seen it happen on expeditions before, particularly when scientists and technical people were involved. Scientists worked all day in laboratories where conditions could be rigorously regulated and monitored. Sooner or later, scientists came to believe that the outside world was just as controllable as their laboratories. Even though they knew better, the shock of discovering that the natural world followed its own rules and was indifferent to them represented a harsh psychic blow. Munro could read the signs.

  “But this,” Ross said, “is obviously a non-military aircraft, how can they do it?”

  Munro stared at her. In the Congolese civil war, civilian aircraft had been routinely shot down by all sides. “These things happen,” he said.

  “And the jamming? Those bastards haven’t got the capability to jam us. We’re being jammed between our transmitter and our satellite transponder. To do that requires another satellite somewhere, and—” She broke off, frowning.

  “You didn’t expect the consortium to Sit by idly,” Munro said. “The question is, can you fix it? Have you got countermeasures?”

  “Sure, I’ve got countermeasures,” Ross said. “I can encode a burst bounce, I can transmit optically on an IR carrier, I can link a ground-base cable—but there’s nothing I can put together in the next few minutes, and we need information now. Our plan is shot.”

  “One thing at a time,” Munro repeated quietly. He saw the tension in her features, and he knew she was not thinking clearly. He also knew he could not do her thinking for her; he had to get her calm again.

  In Munro’s judgment, the ERTS expedition was already finished—they could not possibly beat the consortium to the Congo site. But he had no intention of quitting; he had led expeditions long enough to know that anything could happen, so he said, “We can still make up the lost time.”

  “Make it up? How?”

  Munro said the first thing that came to mind: “We’ll take the Ragora north. Very fast river, no problem.”

  “The Ragora’s too dangerous.”

  “We’ll have to see,” Munro said, although he knew that she was right. The Ragora was much too dangerous, particularly in June. Yet he kept his voice calm, soothing, reassuring. “Shall I tell the others?” he asked finally.

  “Yes,” Ross said. In the distance, they heard another rocket explosion. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Munro moved swiftly to the rear of the Fokker and said to Kahega, “Prepare the men.”

  “Yes, boss,” Kahega said. A bottle of whiskey was passed around, and each of the men took a long swallow.

  Elliot said, “What the hell is this?”

  “The men are getting prepared,” Munro said.

  “Prepared for what?” Elliot asked.

  At that moment, Ross came back, looking grim. “From here on, we’ll continue on foot,” she said.

  Elliot looked out the window. “Where’s the airfield?”

  “There is no airfield,” Ross said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there is no airfield.”

  “Is the plane going to put down in the fields?” Elliot asked.

  “No,” Ross said. “The plane is not going to put down at all.”

  “Then how do we get down?” Elliot asked, but even as he asked the question, his stomach sank, because he knew the answer.

  “Amy will be fine,” Munro said cheerfully, cinching Elliot's straps tightly around his chest. “I gave her a shot of your Thoralen tranquilizer, and she’ll be quite calm. No problem at all, I’ll keep a good grip on her.”

  “Keep a good grip on her?” Elliot asked.

  “She’s too small to fit a harness,” Munro said. “I’ll have to carry her down.” Amy snored loudly, and drooled on Munro’s shoulder. He set Amy on the floor; she lay limply on her back, still snoring.

  “Now, then,” Munro said. “Your parafoil opens automatically. You’ll find you have lines in both hands, left and right. Pull left to go left, right to go right, and—”

  “What happens to her?” Elliot asked, pointing to Amy.

  “I’ll take her. Pay attention now. If anything goes wrong, your reserve chute is here, on your chest.” He tapped a cloth bundle with a small black digital box, which read 4757. “That’s your rate-of-fall altimeter. Automatically pops your reserve chute if you hit thirty-six hundred feet and are still falling faster than two feet per second. Nothing to worry about; whole thing’s automatic.”

  Elliot was chilled, drenched in sweat. “What about landing?”

  “Nothing to it,” Munro grinned. “You’ll land automatically too. Stay loose and relax, take the shock in the legs. Equivalent of jumping off a ten-foot ledge. You’ve done it a thousand times.”

  Behind him Elliot saw the open door, bright sunlight glac­ing into the plane. The wind whipped and howled. Kahega’s men jumped in quick succession, one after another. He glanced at Ross, who was ashen, her lower lip trembling as she gripped the doorway.

  “Karen, you’re not going to go along with—”

  She jumped, disappearing into the sunlight. Munro said, “You’re next.”

  “I’ve never jumped before,” Elliot said.

  “That’s the best way. You won’t be frightened.”

  “But I am frightened.”

  “I can help you with that,” Munro said, and he pushed Elliot out of the plane.

  Munro watched him fall away, his grin instantly gone. Munro had adopted his hearty demeanor only for Elliot’s benefit. “If a man has to do something dangerous,” he said later, ‘it helps to be angry. It’s for his own protection, really. Better he should hate someone than fall apart. I wanted Elliot to hate me all the way down.”

  Munro understood the risks, The minute they left the aircraft, they also left civilization, and all the unquestioned assumptions of civilization. They were jumping not only through the air, but through time, backward into a more primitive and dangerous way of life—the eternal realities of the Congo, which had existed for centuries before them. “Those were the facts of life,” Munro said, “but I didn’t see any reason to worry the others before they jumped. My job was to get those people into the Congo, not scare them to death. There was plenty of time for that.”

  Elliot fell, scared to death.

  His stomach jumped into his throat, and he tasted bile; the wind screamed around his ears and tugged at his hair; and the air was so cold—he was instantly chilled and shivering. Below him the Barawana Forest lay spread across rolling hills. He felt no appreciation for the beauty before him, and in fact he closed his eyes, for he was plummeting at hideous speed toward the ground. But with his eyes shut he was more aware of the screaming wind.

  Too much time had passed. Obviously the parafoil (whatever the hell that was) was not going to open. His life now depended on the parachute attached to his chest. He clutched it, a small tight bundle near his churning stomach. Then he pulled his hands away: he didn’t want to interfere with its opening. He dimly remembered that people had died that way, when they interfered with the opening of their parachute.

  The screaming wind continued; his body rushed sickeningly downward. Nothing was happening. He felt the fierce wind tugging at his feet, whipping his trousers, flapping his

  shirt against his arms. Nothing was happening. It had been at least three minutes since he’d jumped from the plane. He dared not open his eyes, for fear of seeing the trees rushing up close as his body crashed downward toward them in his final seconds of conscious life.

  He was going to throw up.

  Bile dribbled from his mouth, but since he was falling head downward, the liquid ran up his chin to his neck
and then inside his shirt. It was freezing cold. His shivering was becoming uncontrollable.

  He snapped upright with a bone-twisting jolt.

  For an instant he thought he had hit the ground, and then he realized that he was still descending through the air, but more slowly. He opened his eyes and stared at pale blue sky.

  He looked down, and was shocked to see that he was still thousands of feet from the earth. Obviously he had only been falling a few seconds from the airplane above him— Looking up, he could not see the plane. Directly overhead was a giant rectangular shape, with brilliant red, white, and blue stripes: the parafoil. Finding it easier to look up than down, he studied the parafoil intently. The leading edge was curved and puffy; the rear edge thin, fluttering in the breeze. The parafoil looked very much like an airplane wing, with cords running down to his body.

  He took a deep breath and looked down. He was still very high over the landscape. There was some comfort in the slowness with which he was descending. It was really rather peaceful.

  And then he noticed he wasn’t moving down; he was moving sideways. He could see the other parafoils below, Kahega and his men and Ross; he tried to count them, and thought there were six, but he had difficulty concentrating. He appeared to be moving laterally away from them.

  He tugged on the lines in his left hand, and he felt his body twist as the parafoil moved, taking him to the left.

  Not bad, he thought.

  He pulled harder on the left cords, ignoring the fact that this seemed to make him move faster. He tried to stay near the rectangles descending beneath him. He heard the scream of the wind in his ears. He looked up, hoping to see Munro, but all he could see was the stripes of his own parafoil.

  He looked back down, and was astonished to find that the ground was a great deal closer. In fact, it seemed to be rushing up to him at brutal speed. He wondered where he had got the idea that he was drifting gently downward. There was nothing gentle about his descent at all. He saw the first of the parafoils crumple gently as Kahega touched ground, then the second, and the third.

  It wouldn’t be long before he landed. He was approaching the level of the trees, but his lateral movement was very fast. He realized that his left hand was rigidly pulling on the cords. He released his grip, and his lateral movement ceased. He drifted forward.

  Two more parafoils crumpled on impact. He looked back to see Kahega and his men, already down, gathering up the cloth. They were all right; that was encouraging.

  He was sliding right into a dense clump of trees. He pulled his cords and twisted to the right, his whole body tilting. He was moving very fast now. The trees could not be avoided. He was going to smash into them. The branches seemed to reach up like fingers, grasping for him.

  He closed his eyes, and felt the branches scratching at his face and body as he crashed down, knowing that any second he was going to hit, that he was going to hit the ground and roll— He never hit.

  Everything became silent. He felt himself bobbing up and down. He opened his eyes and saw that he was swinging four feet above the ground. His parafoil had caught in the trees.

  He fumbled with his harness buckles, and fell out onto the earth. As he picked himself up, Kahega and Ross came running over to ask if he was all right.

  “I’m fine,” Elliot said, and indeed he felt extraordinarily fine, more alive than he could ever remember feeling. The next instant he fell over on rubber legs and promptly threw up.

  Kahega laughed. “Welcome to the Congo,” he said.

  Elliot wiped his chin and said, “Where is Amy?”

  A moment later Munro landed, with a bleeding ear where Amy had bitten him in terror. But Amy was not the worse for the experience, and came running on her knuckles over to Elliot, making sure that he was all right, and then signing, Amy fly no like.

  “Look out!”

  The first of the torpedo-shaped Crosslin packets smashed down, exploding like a bomb when it hit the ground, spraying equipment and straw in all directions.

  “There’s the second one!”

  Elliot dived for safety. The second bomb hit just a few yards away; he was pelted with foil containers of food and rice. Overhead, he heard the drone of the circling Fokker airplane. He got to his feet in time to see the final two Cross­lin containers crash down, and Kahega’s men running for safety, with Ross shouting, “Careful, those have the lasers!”

  It was like being in the middle of a blitz, but as swiftly as it had begun it was over. The Fokker above them flew off, and the sky was silent; the men began repacking the equipment and burying the parafoils, while Munro barked instructions in Swahili.

  Twenty minutes later, they were moving single-file through the forest, starting a two-hundred-mile trek that would lead them into the unexplored eastern reaches of the Congo, to a fabulous reward.

  If they could reach it in time.

  2. Kigani

  ONCE PAST THE INITIAL SHOCK OF HIS JUMP, ELLIOT enjoyed the walk through the Barawana Forest. Monkeys chattered in the trees, and birds called in the cool air; the Kikuyu porters were strung out behind them, smoking cigarettes and joking with one another iii an exotic tongue. Elliot found all his emotions agreeable—the sense of freedom from a crass civilization; the sense of adventure, of unexpected events that might occur at any future moment; and finally the sense of romance, of a quest for the poignant past while omnipresent danger kept sensation at a peak of intense feeling. It was in this heightened mood that he listened to the forest animals around him, viewed the play of sunlight and shadow, felt the springy ground beneath his boots, and looked over at Karen Ross, whom he found beautiful and graceful in an utterly unexpected way.

  Karen Ross did not look back at him.

  As she walked, she twisted knobs on one of her black electronic boxes, trying to establish a signal. A second electronic box hung from a shoulder strap, and since she did not turn to look at him, he had time to notice that there was already a dark stain of sweat at her shoulder, and ‘another running down the back of her shirt. Her dark blonde hair was damp, clinging unattractively to the back of her head. And he noticed that her trousers were wrinkled, streaked with dirt from the fall. She still did not look back.

  “Enjoy the forest,” Munro advised him. “This is the last time you’ll feel cool and dry for quite a while.”

  Elliot agreed that the forest was pleasant.

  “Yes, very pleasant.” Munro nodded, with an odd expression on his face.

  The Barawana Forest was not virginal. From time to time, they passed cleared fields and other signs of human habitation, although they never saw farmers. When Elliot mentioned that fact, Munro just shook his head. As they moved deeper into the forest Munro turned self-absorbed, unwilling to talk. Yet he showed an interest in the fauna, frequently pausing to listen intently to bird cries before signaling the expedition to continue on.

  During these pauses, Elliot would look back down the line of porters with loads balanced on their heads, and feel acutely his kinship with Livingstone and Stanley and the other explorers who had ventured through Africa a century before. And in this, his romantic associations were accurate. Central African life was little changed since Stanley explored the Congo in the 1870s, and neither was the basic nature of expeditions to that region. Serious exploration was still carried out on foot; porters were still necessary; expenses were still daunting—and so were the dangers.

  By midday, Elliot’s boots had begun to hurt his feet, and he found that he was exceedingly tired. Apparently the porters were tired too, because they had fallen silent, no longer smoking cigarettes and shouting jokes to one another up and down the line. The expedition proceeded in silence until Elliot asked Munro if they were going to stop for lunch.

  “No,” Munro said.

  “Good,” Karen Ross said, glancing at her watch.

  Shortly after one o’clock, they heard the thumping of helicopters. The reaction of Munro and the porters was immediate—they dived under a stand of large trees and w
aited, looking upwards. Moments later, two large green helicopters passed overhead; Elliot clearly read white stenciling: “FZA.”

  Munro squinted at the departing craft. They were American-made Hueys; he had not been able to see the armament. “It’s the army,” he said. “They’re looking for Ki­gani.”

  An hour later, they arrived at a clearing where manioc was being grown. A crude wooden farmhouse stood in the center, with pale smoke issuing from a chimney and laundry on a wash line flapping in the gentle breeze. But they saw no inhabitants.

  The expedition had circled around previous farm clearings, but this time Munro raised his hand to call for a halt. The porters dropped their loads and sat in the grass, not speaking.

  The atmosphere was tense, although Elliot could not understand why. Munro squatted with Kahega at the edge of the clearing, watching the farmhouse and the surrounding fields. After twenty minutes, when there was still no sign of movement, Ross, who was crouched near Munro, became impatient. “I don’t see why we are—”

  Munro clapped his hand over her mouth. He pointed to the clearing, and mouthed one word: Kigani.

  Ross’s eyes went wide. Munro took his hand away.

  They all stared at the farmhouse. Still there was no sign of life. Ross made a circular movement with her arm, suggesting that they circle around the clearing and move on. Munro shook his head, and pointed to the ground, indicating that she should sit. Munro looked questioningly at Elliot, and pointed to Amy, who foraged in the tall grass off to one side. He seemed to be concerned that Amy would make noise. Elliot signed to Amy to be quiet, but it was not necessary. Amy had sensed the general tension, and glanced warily from time to time toward the farmhouse.

  Nothing happened for several more minutes; they listened to the buzz of the cicadas in the hot midday sun, and they waited. They watched the laundry flutter in the breeze.