Outbreak (20 page)

He dialled the number.

'
Oui, bonjour
,' a woman's voice answered almost immediately.

'Do you speak English?'

'Yes, sir, a little.'

'Good.' Sam spoke slowly and clearly. 'My name is Dr Sam Garner. I'm calling from England and I am a specialist in infectious diseases. You're going to have to listen to me
incredibly
carefully . . .'

CHAPTER NINETEEN

'When will you be coming home, Daddy?'

The thin child who looked up at her equally emaciated father was eight years old, with large dark eyes and tightly curled hair. She didn't want her father to leave.

'In two weeks,' he said gruffly, softening only when he saw the tears welling up in his daughter's eyes. He knelt down and took her hand. 'The men say there is work in the next village. When I come back, I will have a little money. Enough, maybe, to buy some meat for us. You must look after your mother while I am gone. Do you think you can do that for me?'

The little girl nodded bravely. Her father smiled at her, stroked the side of her head, then stood up. His wife was standing in the corner of the hut, obscured somewhat by the shadows. He nodded cursorily at her, then left.

Outside, the minibus was waiting. It was an old bus, like every vehicle the man had ever seen, with rust patches and mismatched wheels. And it was almost full. He hurried towards it, not wanting to risk missing his seat. The smiling men who had flown in from Kinshasa the previous day had told him that this was a limited opportunity for work, that if they wanted to earn some of the money that was available, they needed to sign up now and leave tomorrow. Little did anyone know that they would be back to transport another busload of workers as soon as possible.

Quietly the man took his place at the front of the bus. It was hot and smelly, and filled with men who, like him, had faces that reflected the hardship of their lives, yet now showed hope that they might be able to earn the money they so desperately needed to support their families.

That had been this morning. They'd expected to be in Udok by lunchtime, but the rains had come, holding them up. Now they trundled along slowly, all of them anxious to be at their destination.

None of them, of course, had heard the rumours. There were no televisions in this part of the world, no newspapers. Half the men in the minibus did not even know the name of the village they were going to.

And none of them knew what they were letting themselves in for . . .

The first thing Ben and Halima needed was an axe.

Halima had suggested that there might be one near the mine - the workers were forever clearing trees to make room for new excavations - but Ben wasn't keen on the idea. The rains had cleared, and although the paths and tracks were still deep with puddles, the villagers had come out from their huts. The last thing Ben wanted was for them to be seen by Suliman and his men. Not yet, at least.

'There is a man who lives near me,' Halima told him. Then she corrected herself. 'I mean, he
lived
near me. He is dead now, along with his family. But he used to cut wood. His hut is deserted, but I think we might find something there.'

The pair kept their heads down as they crossed the square, doing their best to remain inconspicuous but acutely aware of the fact that they had no time to lose. At least, Ben thought, they had one thing in their favour: the area round Halima's house always seemed to be deserted, and if the inhabitants of the hut they were heading for were dead, there would be a red cross on the door and people would be avoiding the place anyway. Sure enough, when they got there, nobody was around.

The door was locked. Ben sized it up and decided that it looked flimsy enough. 'Stand back,' he said to Halima, before stepping back a few metres and then running at it with his left shoulder. The door rattled a little, but it didn't give way, so Ben tried again. Only on the third attempt did he break in. They rushed inside.

The hut was dark and unwelcoming. A couple of old, thin mattresses that had seen much better days lay on the floor, and there was a table and two chairs. All sorts of other paraphernalia of daily life were littered around, and Ben and Halima immediately set to work trying to find what they were looking for.

It didn't take them long. A heavy-handled axe was lying on the floor, its blade covered by an old rag. It was Halima who found it, and she tried to pick it up, with difficulty. It was a very weighty thing, and even Ben didn't feel like he could carry it for too long. If only Abele were here, he thought to himself.

But Abele wasn't there, so they were going to have to make do by themselves. 'I can't carry this all the way up to the mine,' he told Halima. 'It'll just get in the way. We're going to have to hide it somewhere and pick it up later.'

They left the hut, Ben dragging the axe behind him, and headed for the road leading west.

Once they were on the outskirts of the village, Ben started looking around for a suitable hiding place. Finding somewhere to secrete the axe wasn't a problem - there were plenty of low bushes that would have concealed it - but ensuring that he could locate it again was more tricky. In the end, they found a small pile of burned-out tyres in front of a patch of scrubland, and they hid the axe there. 'When we get separated,' Ben told Halima, 'we'll meet back here, OK?'

And then they sprinted back through the village, towards the mine.

The rainfall had done a little to ease the humidity, but nothing to reduce the terrible heat of the day. As he ran, Ben felt his wet clothes steaming and becoming hot from the sunshine, the water boiling against his skin. He did his best to put the scorching sensation from his mind and tried to focus on the task ahead. It was a foolhardy venture, but it was the only thing they could think of.

Rather than take the main road up to the mine, Halima led them a more roundabout way that would keep them out of sight. It took them past the clearing where Ben had witnessed the dance to the ancestors a few nights previously, and through an area of forest that he would have found intimidating if he had not spent so much time in the jungle. They approached the mine from the south-east, and moved stealthily once they were away from the protection of the trees to avoid being seen by the occasional guard who was milling around with the standard AK-47. Before long, Suliman's office, with his old Land Rover still parked outside, was in sight.

The two friends caught their breath. 'Are you sure you're happy to do this?' Ben asked Halima, though the steely look of determination in her eyes told him he needn't have worried.

'Be at the meeting place as quickly as you can,' she told him, before flashing him a quick smile of encouragement. 'What is it you say?' She searched for the words. 'Break a leg?'

Ben nodded. 'Break a leg, Halima.'

And with that, the girl strode out into full view, marched towards Suliman's office and knocked firmly on the door.

Ben held his breath as he watched her jog a few metres back so as to put some distance between herself and the mine manager when he opened up. If the situation hadn't been so serious, the look on Suliman's face when he saw Halima would almost have been funny. Clearly he had never expected to see her again; clearly he thought that by now she was nothing more than a rotting or half-eaten corpse in the rainforest. He stared at her in astonishment for a few moments, allowing Halima time to turn and run, before calling out at his guards in Kikongo. Ben watched in satisfaction as his guards ran past the place where he was concealed, followed by Suliman as they chased Halima into the cover of the trees, barking instructions at her.

He just hoped Halima was fast enough to get away. She had done a great job of getting both Suliman and his guards out of his way, and now it was up to him to do his part.

The coast now clear, Ben made his move. He sprinted towards Suliman's office, and slipped inside. His eyes flickered over to the satellite phone, and he was tempted to make another attempt at calling; but that was going to have to wait. He didn't know how long he had, and it was imperative that he found the key to Suliman's battered Land Rover. Ben desperately started searching, upturning papers and opening drawers - it had to be here somewhere, but for the life of him he couldn't find it. Suddenly he smiled. He ran outside, opened the driver's door, and nodded in mute satisfaction.

The keys were still there, in the ignition.

Ben climbed in, took a deep breath, and started the engine.

He had never driven a car before. I've flown a microlight over the burning skies of Adelaide, though, he told himself. How hard can it be? He knew the principle - he just had to put it into practice.

The gearbox choked in protest as he tried to pump the vehicle into first gear. He pressed gingerly down on the accelerator, then lifted the clutch. It jumped forward, shaking Ben's body violently, then stalled.

Ben turned the key and tried again. This time he managed to get the Land Rover to move a few metres before it shuddered to a halt. He banged on the steering wheel in frustration. 'Come on!' he shouted, half to himself, half to the vehicle. Then, realizing that getting angry was not going to achieve anything, he took a deep breath to steady himself and tried again.

This time he managed to bring the clutch up slowly and without stalling. He started moving, and steered his way towards the road that led into the village, ignoring the screams of the engine that told him he was driving too fast for the low gear he was in. Ben didn't want to risk trying to change gear and stalling again - besides, he was fearful of going too quickly and having the vehicle veer out of control - so he stayed like this all the way into the village, concentrating furiously on steering the Land Rover around the huge potholes that littered his way as he bumped and jolted away from the mine.

He drew strange looks from the villagers as he headed through the central square. They knew it was Suliman's Land Rover - it was almost the only vehicle in the village, after all - and the sight of this young white boy driving it inexpertly through the streets, beeping his horn in panicked, staccato bursts whenever anybody got his way, was the most exciting thing many of them had seen for months. That Suliman would get to hear of it was inevitable, but Ben couldn't worry about that now. He had work to do.

Eventually the village and the villagers melted away as Ben approached the western outskirts of the city. In the distance, he could see the pile of rubber tyres where they had hidden the axe.

But there was no sign of Halima.

They were close behind her. Too close. As Halima ran through the trees, she could hear their voices and the crashing sound as they pounded after her. They were full-grown men with guns; she was a teenage girl. It was only a matter of time before she felt their strong hands on her - or their bullets in her shoulder blade. Her instinct was to hide, but if she did that, Ben would have to leave on his own, and she knew he needed her help. Besides, she didn't have time to find a good hiding place, and she couldn't be sure that they wouldn't find her. No, hiding wasn't an option. She had to go through with it. She had to succeed. And so, as she ran, she prayed to the ancestors that they would not catch her before she reached the rendezvous point.