Old Lovers Don't Die (29 page)

“Five minutes and then we take the left turn,” Galela said as he glanced at Mike’s GPS tracker.

The left-hand turned out to be not much more than a goat track. The old ambulance shook and bounced along the ruts. Every deep rut, it creaked or banged and sounded like many parts were about to break loose.

“Stop for a second,” Mike said.

Christian stopped, Mike opened the door and climbed up on the tray of the ambulance. A few seconds after, he heard the wooden box closing and Mike was quickly back in the cab. He handed a small submachine gun to Galela. Christian watched as he checked the safety catch before putting the gun on the floor of the cab under his feet. Mike had a rifle with a telescopic sight and a silencer. He rested his on his knee.

“Okay, Christian, let’s keep going. Ten minutes and then we need to proceed on foot.”

“How far away are we?”

“Far enough away for you not to get hurt, but close enough that your mother might never ever talk to me again. Does that answer your question, my young friend?”

Christian nodded, and he sensed from the intensity on their faces that both Mike and Galela had switched into professional mode. They were both now watching the GPS tracker intently.

“Okay, stop here. Christian, stay here with the ambulance; turn it round to face back to where we need to go, in case we need to get out of here in a hurry.”

Christian did not say anything, but he could not imagine the ambulance going anywhere in a hurry on the road that they had just come up. He realised also that plans had changed; he had hoped to at least be close enough to use his telephoto lens.

“How long do I wait for you and what happens if you don’t come back?”

“We always come back,” Galela winked at him. “We may also have had a little bit of luck; the GPS coordinates on Isabella suggest she has been taken out to the mine at Mount Golgotha, fifteen minutes from the main compound. That will be less heavily defended and easier to get her back. It also means we do not have to go past the main compound.”

Christian glanced at the screen that Mike held as Galela pointed at the track through the bush to the mine. It would avoid the major road from the mine, which ran past the main compound. Mike and Galela assembled their hardware on the side of the track while Christian tried to turn the ambulance around. Finally, with it pointed back in the direction which they had come, in his rear vision mirror he could see Mike and Galela disappearing over the first rise in the goat track. He reached under the seat grabbed the camera case and lens, stashed keys under the rear tire, then headed quickly up the road after Mike and Galela.

Christian stopped at the first rise and found that he was able to clearly see them both 800 m ahead. He watched as they diverged left off the track into the bush. He gave them five minutes and then followed, making a note of the small rock where they had turned off. The bush was dense green foliage and it wrapped itself around his legs, but having been crushed by Mike and Galela, also provided a path for him to follow. Ten minutes later however, the beaten bush path stopped. Christian looked around, there was just dense jungle on all sides, and in front of him was a large rock. A miniature Uluru, he thought, in the middle of the Congo. He found a foothold and climbed up the face. On the far side, he could see the Mike and Galela’s tracks starting again. Working his way carefully down the fifteen feet to the bottom, he turned around to look at the path when he noticed Mike crouching looking at him.

“I thought I told you to stay with the ambulance. This is not a mission for sightseers or photographers,” he said looking at Christian’s photography bag.

“Come on, Mike. You knew that I couldn’t stay there waiting for you. I am my father’s son as you said.”

“Stay behind us then; do not say anything unless we speak to you.”

Galela emerged from the bush ahead and they preceded single file in silence, stopping every fifteen minutes to check their position. An hour later without turning around, Galela indicated an immediate stop. Christian watched and followed as Mike and Galela lowered themselves to the ground before crawling to the top of the small rise in front of them. Mike pulled out pulled out the satellite-tracking screen, and Galela pinged Isabella’s mobile phone. A small dot appeared, blinking on the screen.

“Over the next ridge, due north 800 metres away.”

Christian wriggled his way through the undergrowth and stinging nettles, to position himself between Mike and Galela. Beyond the ridge was a scene that seemed to belong to another planet. Hundreds, if not thousands of boys, were traversing and excavating the side of a mountain. Denuded of all forest and undergrowth, all that remained was the brown earth pockmarked with excavations. It resembled the far away pockmarked surface of the moon, other than the fact that unlike the moon, it was a reechy faecal brown colour from all the ore tailings. He watched as boys were forced to extract large bags of ore from the various excavations. Many of the boys, only eight or nine years of age, struggled to pull huge hessian sacks over the lips of the craters. Christian knew the bags must weigh at least 50 kg. Then the boys, who all looked scrawny and malnourished, also had to carry heavy primitive digging tools on their backs. He could see how they struggled to manage so much weight. When some of the bags threatened to fall back into the excavation sites, one of the armed guards would rush to and with whips, try to beat them into a greater effort. Cries of anguish constantly reverberated around the hillside. The 50 kg bags of ore out of the small mines were met by an older male who rolled the bags down the hill to a conveyor belt and waiting trucks.

Christian, as he looked through his telephoto lens, could see some of the excavations were very small, only able to only fit two very young boys. For these excavations, seven or eight-year-old boys with torches strapped to their heads were sent down the mine to dig. Christian estimated the heat in the mine shafts could be close to 45 degrees. That would possibly explain the lifeless bodies he saw being pulled up out of some of the holes. Young boys unconscious from heat stroke, ropes tied around their hands like a dead animal, were slung over men’s shoulders and taken down the mountain to a hut with a grass-thatched roof. Christian wondered whether that was a makeshift morgue.

“Can you see Isabella?” Mike whispered to Galela who had the binoculars.

“The GPS locates her down there at the bottom of the hill in that small hut with the grass-thatched roof where those lifeless young boys are being taken, but I can’t see her in there.”

“We need to make sure that she is in there and it is not just her phone that someone has taken.”

Christian took the powerful binoculars and focused on the hut. There were eight boys lying on the floor. Christian could make out intravenous fluids hanging from the wooden poles. It was not a morgue, but a treatment hut, where they were being rehydrated so that they could be returned to the mountain excavations. As he scanned the boys with the binoculars, a movement inside the hut caught his eye. He could see someone connecting intravenous lines to the new arrivals. He refocused and suddenly saw that it was Isabella. He tugged at Mike’s sleeve, and showed him what he had seen.

“We will need a diversion,” Mike said. “Ingcuka, you will probably be able to get closer to where Isabella is, if I cause a diversion.”

“Because I’m black and I will blend in better?” Galela winked at Mike.

Christian remembered their banter and camaraderie when he was rescued in South Africa. They were completely professional, working together as a lethal team, not diverted by any change in circumstances, however still able to lighten a situation with banter.

“If you can get close enough to that hut, then I will fire a phosphorous grenade to the section of the hill close to everyone. That will start a small fire and the ensuing chaos will give you five or ten minutes to get Isabella out.”

“You stay here, Christian. This time I mean it. You can photograph anything that you like but once you see that Ingcuka has Isabella, head back to the truck as fast as you can.”

Christian nodded, thinking that was one of the few times he had heard Galela’s African name. No wonder everyone just called him Galela. He would ask Mike what it meant when they got out. Christian screwed on the 500 mm telephoto lens as Galela backtracked to head down the mountain.

“Wait,” he said a little too loudly. “There is a vehicle approaching the main gate.”

Mike took the binoculars back as Christian focused on the approaching vehicle with his camera.

“Mike, it’s the Chinese woman, Kim Yao, whom I was telling you about.”

“Interesting that she is paying a visit to Kariba; she has obviously heard the rumour that Brutal Bosco has terminal cancer and might surrender to the ICC in order to get treatment in Europe. She’s now, I suspect, hedging Chinas bets.”

“If that’s the case, then they wouldn’t need to kill Kariba.”

“And the Chinese and Rwandans end up with exclusive access to some of the world’s most precious and scare resources. She may have brought a peace offering, so make sure you photograph this, Christian. We have the documents on Cindy’s phone; however, a picture is still worth a thousand words.”

“Mike, before you go, what you think those blue drums are stacked up at the airport, beneath the sentry tower?”

“I’m not sure. They could be stored fuel. See if you can see any markings with the digital binoculars.”

“The writing is Arabic on the drums so I guess we are going to be none the wiser.”

“Take a photo of one of them with that long lens of yours, Bluetooth that to my satellite pad, and we’ll see what the smart boys in Johannesberg can tell us.”

Christian took quite a few photos of the blue drums, uploaded them to Mike’s satellite pad, and then watched as the distinctive black Range Rover pulled up at the gate. The armed guard temporarily left the thatched hut and spoke to Kim through the passenger window. The guard pointed to a parking space and the Range Rover moved forward parking next to the treatment hut. Kim Yao in her distinctive bright yellow jacket climbed out of the driver’s seat, walked around, and with one of her assistants opened the doors and the boot. Six boys scrambled out, one of whom had on a T-shirt
Save the Children Orphanage.
Christian kept taking pictures as several older males escorted the boys up the hill to various excavation sites.

“The boys are obviously part of a peace offering to Kariba.”

“Undoubtedly. I wonder what else the Chinese are now offering. That Range Rover looks like a better prospect to escape in than the ambulance we came in.”

“We would have to get rid of the driver.”

“I cannot see that that will be a great problem to Ingcuka. We just need to get him out of the way.”

“She’s heading up the hill in the direction of those boys.”

“Okay.” Mike whispered into his radio to Galela, “Let’s do it. If the Range Rover is available, grab it, or if that’s too well defended, shoot out the tyres. We don’t want them following us.”

Christian lay quietly next to Mike, photographing Kim Yao as she inspected some of the excavations. Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw a message flashing on Mike’s pad. ‘In position’ was all that it said. Mike reached into his bag, pulled out a pistol, and turned towards Christian.

“In case anything happens, this is a Glock 20 pistol. It is on semiautomatic and you have fifteen rounds in the magazine. The tab on the pistol grip shows the safety is on. Turn this and the safety is off and the pistol is ready to use. Use it only if you are threatened, and whatever you do, do not tell your mother that I taught you to use this!”

“Thanks Mike. Hopefully I won’t need it, but good protection nonetheless. I definitely won’t tell her.”

Mike quickly took another gun from the sack and fired a grenade. It whistled through the air and then exploded on the hillside with a bright yellow flame and clouds of white smoke. As the fire took hold amongst the scrub on the hillside, pandemonium broke out. Boys rapidly climbed out of excavations, supervisors with whips scrambled further up the hill. Galela emerged from the bush and ran crouched over towards the hut. The armed guard had moved to the corner of the hut to observe the growing fire. Galela knocked him out with the butt of his rifle. Moments later he emerged with Isabella, and crouched over, they ran towards the Range Rover. Christian watched as they frantically tried to open the doors which were locked. Then shouts erupted from the hill. Kim had spotted them and some of the guards were firing. Galela, still holding on to Isabella, ran and disappeared into the nearby bush.

“Christian, you head back to the truck. Ingcuka has enough on his plate getting Isabella out. I’m going to make sure the tires on that Range Rover are flat.”

Christian put the Glock pistol in the camera case and headed back down into the undergrowth of the surrounding bush. The track was easy to follow and twenty minutes later, he emerged onto the track when he had left the ambulance. Before emerging from the bush, he checked to see that there was no one visible in either direction. Then emerging from the undergrowth, he hurried to where he had left the keys under the rear tire. Walking around the tray to the cab, he was about to open the door and when he sensed something moving in the bush, a little way from where he had exited. Mike could not have moved that quickly, he thought. Possibly an animal he thought, and opened the door. He was loading the camera case into the cab and was about to place it under it under the seat when he felt something prod him in the back.