The Smoke Jumper (53 page)

He sat now with a towel wrapped around his waist and another over his shoulders, wondering if the operator had forgotten about the call he had placed or if all the lines to New York were still busy. The storks in the flame trees had been joined by four others now and they were all flapping and cavorting and he still couldn’t figure out what they were up to. The clock-radio on the bedside table clicked to ten past four, which meant it was ten past nine in the morning in New York and ten past seven in Montana. His mother normally slept until eight, so he’d decided first to call Harry Turney. At last the phone rang. The operator said she had New York on the line and told him to go ahead. Connor asked for Harry Turney and waited.

‘Turney.’

‘So they didn’t fire you yet.’

‘Jesus, Connor! Where the fuck have you been?’

‘Did you miss me?’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘You know, in all these years, I don’t think I ever heard you swear till now.’

‘Yeah? Well, you save it for when you need it. What the fuck have you been doing? I mean, Jesus Christ, Connor, how can you do that? If you want to go get yourself kidnapped and killed, that’s your business, but at least you might have the sense or decency to let someone know where the hell you’re doing it.’

‘Harry, I’m sorry.’

‘So you damn well should be. Have you called your mother?’

‘I’m just about to.’

‘What’s the matter with you? Get off the phone and do it now. I’ll call you back. I got about a thousand messages for you. What’s your number?’

Connor told him and hung up, smiling to himself guiltily. He called the operator to give her his mother’s number and while he waited for the call to come through dressed himself in his new shirt and pants.

His mother was a lot more forgiving. She said that she had long ago gotten used to his vanishing acts and even if it had been five times longer than any of his previous ones she hadn’t been worried. Connor didn’t believe her for a moment.

She wanted to know when he was coming home and he said soon, as soon as he could find a way of reuniting Lawrence with his brother. He asked her how she was and about the ranch and she told him she had found an eager and hardworking young fellow from Augusta who was helping out with the cattle. That aside, nothing much in her life seemed to have changed.

‘You heard about Ed, of course.’

‘What about him?’

There was a long pause and he asked again.

‘Son, Ed died. Christmas before last. I forgot how long you’ve been gone.’

Connor was stunned. She told him what had happened and what a shock it had been for everyone and Connor sat on the bed and listened in a muted daze.

‘How are Julia and Amy?’

‘Well, heck, they’re right out there where you are.’

‘What?’

‘They’re out there in Africa.’

‘In Uganda?’

‘Yeah. At least, I think it’s Uganda. Tell the truth, I get a little confused with all those different places you go to. But, yeah, she’s gone out to work with those poor kids you photographed, you know, the ones they turn into soldiers. Taken Amy with her.’

‘In Karingoa? St. Mary of the Angels?’

‘That’s the place. I had a postcard about a month ago. Her mother got herself all wrought up about Amy going, but it sounds like they’re having a real good time.’

There was a pause.

‘Connor? Are you there?’

‘Yeah.’

But he was too choked with emotion to go on speaking. In little more than a whisper he promised his mother that he would call again later and hung up.

An hour later he was pacing back and forth across Geoffrey Odong’s cubicle of an office at the newspaper. Through the open doorway he could see the tension mounting in the newsroom as the evening deadline approached. Geoffrey was leaning back in his chair behind a desk piled high with papers. For the past twenty minutes he had been on the phone to an old college friend who was now a senior officer in the northern command of the UPDF.

Connor could hear only one side of the conversation but he had already gotten the drift. At last Geoffrey hung up. He gave Connor a gloomy look and shook his head.

‘There’s no way. There are roadblocks on every route into the area. You wouldn’t even get as far as Gulu. They’re not letting anyone near the place, least of all any journalists.’

‘What’s happening in Karingoa?’

‘He said the rebel advance has been checked, but I don’t think I believe it. They’re attacking on two fronts, Makuma to the northwest and Kony’s forces to the east.’

‘How near are they to Karingoa?’

‘He says about twenty miles. My guess is that they’re nearer. He said many people have already left. He claims that the situation is under control but it sounds to me as if the government has greatly underestimated the rebels’ strength.’

Connor turned and stared out of the window at the street below. A truck had overturned and spilled its load of green bananas and all the blocked cars and taxis and buses were blaring their horns. A woman sheathed in vivid yellow was weaving gracefully through the chaos, carrying a vast wrapped bundle on her head and leading a small child by the hand. The last of the sun bathed them in a golden glow and cast their shadows long over all they passed.

‘Geoffrey, I have to get to them.’

‘There is no way. In any case, they may have already been evacuated.’

‘If I know Sister Emily, they’ll be the last to leave.’

Connor turned to face him.

‘Do you know someone who would fly me up there?’

‘Don’t be crazy.’

‘Do you?’

31

T
hree times now the Government soldiers had come to advise them to leave and every time Sister Emily had refused. To flee from the devil, she told them, only helped him flourish; St. Mary of the Angels had stood firm against Makuma’s threats and thieving raids upon the town for more than a decade and she wasn’t about to yield to him now.

At first the calm and confidence that she displayed had been infectious. She told both children and staff that there was nothing to fear; that the shell fire that they could hear at night was from the government forces bombarding the rebel positions and driving them back; that it had happened before and would no doubt happen again. If things got bad, she said, they could all pile into Gertrude, the doubledecker bus, and be away in minutes. Everyone seemed reassured, even inspired.

Yet as the days went by and the boom of the guns grew nightly nearer, it became apparent that this was more than another ‘thieving raid.’ On the road beyond the convent gates the trickle of refugees was swelling to a steady flood. From dawn to dusk they filed by, the twice displaced and dispossessed, the ragged and the wretched, watching with blank eyes while UPDF trucks packed with soldiers thundered past the other way, heading north toward the battle front.

Several times Julia had found children at the windows watching all this and though she did her best to allay any worries they voiced, she had secretly begun to share them. It wasn’t for herself that she worried but for Amy, who had at first seemed blithely unconcerned. With her great gift for guilt, Julia had now managed to rekindle all those early anxieties about bringing the child here in the first place. Her mother had been right. Perhaps they should go before it was too late. Ever alert to Julia’s moods, Amy seemed to sense this change in her and now she too was showing symptoms of anxiety. She was quieter, always checking where Julia was; and she began to sleep poorly, cuddling close and asking often if the shell fire sounded closer.

Last night, after the soldiers’ third visit and all the children had gone to bed, Sister Emily asked Julia, Françoise and Peter Pringle to convene in her office and, after pouring each of them a cup of the Queen of England’s favorite tea, announced quietly that they should consider themselves free to leave.

‘I still refuse to believe there is any cause for concern. The lieutenant assured me that the rebels are being pushed back and yet still he says we should flee. I asked him why and he said because he could not guarantee our safety. I told him only Our Lord Jesus can do that.’

She wagged a finger and narrowed her eyes.

‘I suspect the real reason is that they want to use this place as a barracks. It was the same two years ago. They created panic and many people left.’ She shrugged and smiled. ‘Then . . . they came back.’

She took a sip of tea.

‘Makuma is like a frightened dog who barks ferociously. You run away, he chases you. You stand still, it’s he who runs away. But, Julia, if you are concerned about Amy, then you should go. George can drive you both down to Gulu and from there you can go on to Kampala. We would all understand. ’ She turned to Peter Pringle and Françoise.

‘The same goes for both of you. We would miss you, of course, but we can manage.’

There was a short silence. Pringle cleared his throat.

‘Well, I can only speak for myself,’ he said. ‘But as long as you and the children are here, I’m not going anywhere.’

His little declaration made Julia feel ashamed. That night, for the first time in a week, there was no sound of shell fire. Amy slept without stirring and Julia lay scolding herself for being weak and foolish. How could she, even for one moment, consider abandoning everyone? Wasn’t that what she had done all those years ago with Skye? Once was enough.

She woke in the morning with a new resolve.

But it lasted only a few hours. At sunset the shelling started up again, louder and nearer than ever. And there was a new accompaniment now, a thudding sound that Peter Pringle said was mortar fire. As they were sitting down for supper in the tent, a white Land Rover came roaring around the side of the building. It skidded to a dusty halt outside the kitchen compound and two people, a man and a woman, climbed quickly out. Julia recognized them. They were Danish aid workers, a young married couple who sometimes came here to eat, but it was all too apparent that they hadn’t come now for their supper.

They reached the staff table and Sister Emily and all of them stood and gathered around. The man was breathing heavily and trying with little success to conceal his alarm. The children had all gone silent and sat watching from their tables.

In a low voice he told them that Makuma had broken through and that the government forces were retreating in disarray before him. The rebels were less than ten miles away and moving steadily toward the northern outskirts of the town, looting and burning all before them.

 

The man sat with his bare elbows on the table either side of his beer, his bushy blond mustache propped on his cupped fists and his pale blue eyes fixed unblinking on Connor. His forearms were massive and sunburned and on the left one, above the heavy gold Rolex, was a tattooed crest of an open-winged eagle which Connor figured must be the emblem of some elite military corps. His neck was thicker than his bristled head and a thatch of blond chest hair sprouted from the collar of his dark green sports shirt.

It had taken Geoffrey just three phone calls to find the kind of person Connor needed but beyond that he didn’t want to be involved. Johannes Kriel ran a small aviation company and was rumored to be involved in smuggling, gunrunning and many darker deeds beside. Connor was told to go to the Parkside Inn next to the old taxi park and find a table out on the balcony. Kriel would join him there.

When he did, the man neither said hello nor offered his hand. In a clipped South African accent he told the waiter to bring him a Nile Special and then he sat down and told Connor to go ahead and say what he wanted. He listened without any hint of what he might be thinking. But his condescending smile now, as Connor finished, told it all.

‘Did anyone tell you there’s a war going on up there?’

‘Just get me as near as you safely can.’

‘Safely? Makuma’s got fucking heat-seeking ground-to-air missiles.’

‘You know that?’

‘I know that.’

He took a drink of his beer.

‘When were you thinking of doing this?’

‘Right now.’

‘Tonight? You think I’m going to land in the bush in the middle of the fucking night?’

‘You wouldn’t have to land.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll jump. Can you find me a parachute?’

Kriel narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you fucking me around?’ ‘I’m serious. Can you?’

‘Maybe.’ He grinned. ‘Whether it’ll open is another matter.’

‘I’ll give you two thousand dollars.’

The man laughed and looked away and took another drink. From below the balcony came a boom and thump of rap music so loud that the air vibrated. It was coming from a white car that had pulled up at the curb. The driver had his arm dangling from the window, slapping the door with his hand in rhythm.

‘For ten I might think about it.’

They settled on six, although the deal almost fell apart when Connor explained that he didn’t have the money to hand and would have to call his bank in New York to get it wired to Kriel’s account.

He had a black Range Rover parked outside with a driver waiting, and they climbed in and headed out of the city. They drove south and then west for about half an hour with barely another word spoken until the suburbs dwindled to scrub and they came at last to a small private airstrip. It was heavily fenced and there were armed guards at the gate who touched their caps and let the vehicle pass as soon as they saw Kriel’s face.

There was a small office with a flickering fluorescent strip and a private colony of mosquitoes. Kriel asked for the name of his bank and dialed the number to make sure it was the real thing. Then he handed Connor the phone and wrote down his own bank details and loomed over him listening with great attention while Connor arranged for the transfer.

When it was done he left Connor to the mosquitoes and went around to the storeroom at the back of the building to dig out the parachute and while he was gone Connor called Geoffrey who again tried to talk him out of it.