Blood Memory (Mongol Moon), page 6
Despite the order for people to bed down by their truck, they had gathered around the fires of their social groups. The Marines huddled with the Marines, loudly joking and playing grab-ass. The National Guard guys had their own little fire, over which rotated a spit-roasted animal they had somehow found, and the embassy staff hung out with the USAID people. Frey himself was sitting on an ammunition box beside a small fire with the rest of the command group.
They were loud, too loud for a real patrol base, but the sound would help keep animals away, and it meant that they still were doing alright. Besides, Frey knew he had to balance military discipline with the practicality of leading this rabble, and was secretly thankful for the noise.
“Sir,” Gunnery Sergeant Harmon said, marching into the light of the fire out of the remnants of the dying day. “Exterior and interior guards are mounted, guard roster has been communicated, and the challenge and password disseminated.” Harmon turned to Sergeant Major Sweeney. “Some of your… soldiers… might need a refresher on the General Orders, Sergeant Major.” His dramatic pauses were a not so subtle reminder that even though the sergeant major outranked the gunnery sergeant, guard duty was the Gunny’s purview and he’d be damned if he’d let some weekend warrior get lazy on his watch—especially now. “I know they’re different between the Army and the Marine Corps, but y’all still have them.”
Lieutenant Betz, seated on an MRE box next to Frey, unfolded his long limbs and prepared to stand, ready to defend his sergeant major and his men.
Good man, thought Frey, but he reached out, and subtly put his hand on the lieutenant’s arm, which brought the young man back to his previous seated position.
“My guys will do what you tell them, Gunny,” Sergeant Major Sweeney answered.
“Yes, they will,” Harmon replied, without a trace of menace in his voice, only certainty. “Sir, your show.”
“Right,” Frey said, looking around the assembled command group. The group was bigger now; they were joined by the leader of each vehicle, who were accountable for all of their passengers. “We’re here until just sunrise, then we are heading out, so that means an hour prior, we are starting our pack up.”
He paused to let the news sink in and for any pushback. Hearing none, he continued on.
“I want to be at the border as the sun is coming up, and I want to be across that fucking strip of Congo within three hours,” he said. The profanity wasn’t unheard of from the major, but his use of it during official briefings was something new to the group. Frey hoped it got their attention and reminded them how serious and dangerous tomorrow morning could be.
From the back John smiled. Whether he loved Major Frey’s flair or was relishing the thought of an armed convoy into the Congo was anyone’s guess.
“Remember the rules tonight. Remind your people this isn’t home. This is Africa. There are things here that can and will kill you.” Major Frey let the last line hang in the air, daring the civilians to wonder if he only meant the wildlife. Satisfied that the seriousness of the situation was conveyed, he turned back to Gunnery Sergeant Harmon.
“Sir, there is one thing,” Gunnery Sergeant Harmon added, his voice tinged with an awkwardness none in the group had seen before. “Thomas Brown has been hanging around some of my Marines, and he volunteered for guard duty tonight.”
“I’m sorry, what?” the ambassador spoke up from the back.
“Yes, Mr. Ambassador. He has, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, been hanging around some of the younger Marines. He’s fifteen; some of those idiots are still teenagers too. They aren’t that different.”
Before becoming the ambassador, Marvin Brown had been a CFO at a tech company and managed a few hedge funds. To say his children had a lot in common with the Marines from Crenshaw and Ames, Iowa, was to say a Rolex and a Timex were both watches.
Ambassador Brown shot Major Frey a look, and Frey could see in the man’s eyes the true problem: Nala Brown. Alex the soldier didn’t trust a fifteen-year-old boy, especially one with Thomas Brown’s upbringing, to guard anything more important than his own shoes, but Alex the father knew the predicament the ambassador was in. He wanted his son to contribute, to grow into manhood and not live a coddled life. If nothing else, Frey respected that about the ambassador. He also imagined Ambassador Brown didn’t want to have to tell his teenage son no because of his mother.
“We can make sure it is inside the wire—radio watch or something—and we can make it the first shift. That way, he’ll be safe and he’ll be helping. That’s if and only if you are okay with it,” Alex said, offering a lifeboat to the ambassador. “It is also unarmed.”
Relief washed across Ambassador Brown’s face. He nodded quickly in acceptance, and the entire group nodded as if to sign their names to the conspiracy.
“Will do, sir,” Gunny agreed, “and like the major said, remind your people of the rules. No one leaves the perimeter for any reason. Latrines are marked with chem lights. Interior security is static and standing, exterior is in the two-man patrols. Please remind your guys that shit is going to move out there, it is going to get loud, but only shoot as a last resort.”
Night was dangerous here. And people, even well-disciplined ones, did stupid things at night. The last thing they needed was for a nervous sentry to shoot someone coming back from the latrine in the dark.
“Sergeants of the Guard, check in with me when your shift mounts, even if I am asleep No fucking excuses tonight, people,” Gunny said, his speech coming to an emphatic conclusion as if he’d be damned if an Army officer swore more eloquently than him. “That’s all, sir.”
“Sergeant Major?” Major Frey wanted to let the senior enlisted man have the last word.
“Yes, sir, thank you,” the sergeant major said, standing up formally from his small stool, emitting a grunt as he reached his full height well short of six feet. “I want everyone in a uniform shaven before we step off. We are in the field, but that doesn’t mean we are going to turn into bums, roger?” He sat without further comment.
“Today was an easy day,” Frey stood as he closed the meeting. “Tomorrow is game day. Get some rest. Now, if no one needs me for the next hour, I’ll be with my family.”
The group gaggled behind him as he walked away. The ambassador sat wide-eyed. He was not only finally getting to see the real Africa he had lobbied so hard to be sent to, but he was about to sleep under its stars. He was looking up at them now, glowing in the night sky in a way most Americans never got to see. The stars, so plentiful far from the lights of the city and so close to the equator, spanned the sky, and the blackness of space was the outlier. They sparkled like a sea of diamonds. A long cloudlike line stretched across the tapestry of light, and the men below could see with their naked eye the nearest arm of the Milky Way.
It was enough to make a man feel insignificant, but Frey had always loved it. It reminded him that he was, and that neither the world nor the galaxy cared about him. It was a reminder that his fate was his alone to make, and his alone to master. He spotted the area his wife had set up for them, not next to the LMTV they had been riding in, but next to his gun truck. It meant he could work and see his kids sleeping at the same time.
Fuck, I don’t deserve her, he thought as he playfully toed his son before sitting his tall frame down, making sure the barrel of his slung rifle pointed away from young James.
“Could have been a hippo,” Alex teased his ten-year-old.
“No way, Dad!” James laughed, eyes wide. “That’d be amaaaaazing.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Just like your father.” She added a smile which attempted valiantly to hide the stress of the day. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, how she wore it when she couldn’t wash it to her standards. Alex knew she hated it like that, but to her at least, it was better than people seeing her hair anything other than perfect.
“Dad, do you think… if a hippo came, could we pet it?” Ella asked, giggling.
“No, hippos are mean,” James retorted. “But it’s okay, I’ve got my knife!” The young boy held up the knife Alex had given him shortly after they had landed in Africa like it was his totem of manhood. Amanda had been against it, but the knife had been Alex’s when he was a boy, given to him by his father. Alex doubted James could kill a hippo with it, but that winner’s attitude would take him far.
“But remember, we didn’t camp near the water, so there should be no hippos. But if there is one, what do we do?” Alex quizzed his kids. The same quiz question he and his brother had gotten at this age not too far from this exact spot.
“We climb a tree,” they said, deflated at the missed prospect of either fighting or hugging a hippo.
Alex caught his wife’s eyes across the firelight and smiled. He wrapped a long arm around each kid and pulled them close. She rolled her eyes again, but despite the quickly dying light, Alex could see the warm smile he had fallen in love with.
“And how are you doing?” Alex asked her.
Amanda sighed. “Well, you are going to need to buy me some sashimi and a hot stone massage when we get back if you make me ride in that truck another day,” she said, her eyes twinkling. Then her face darkened as the realization set in—even if they made it home, sashimi and hot stone massages were likely a thing of the past.
“Maybe we’ll add a sushi chef to our warband,” Alex suggested. Both Ella and James leaned back against him as he added another stick to the flames. Fires in Africa needed to be constantly tended. Large and thick wood was scarce and fires, a source of security in the night, died quickly.
Amanda gazed into the flames, watching its comforting familiarity as the fire licked the branches and shrubs that fueled it. “How is he doing?” she quietly asked her husband.
“Fine.” Alex reached into his pocket and felt the cold metal within. He ran his thumb across its face, feeling its familiar texture. Looking back at his wife, he could see she was lost in a memory. Fire could do that. Its dancing, flickering flames could be a portal to the past, to memories of times that had been.
“What are you thinking about?” Alex asked.
“That last Christmas at your parents’ place in Manhattan Beach. The last time we were all together, like normal people,” she said, her eyes never leaving the dancing yellow glow.
“Well, relatively normal anyway.”
He could see the reflection flicker in his wife’s eyes, knowing that particular world, and most of the people in it, were likely gone forever.
“How is Sergeant Black doing?” Frey said quietly, not wanting to disturb his kids as they drifted off to sleep.
“You have that kid so scared, I think he took his eyes off of us for like three seconds total the entire day,” Amanda told her husband. Sergeant Black had been the one thing he had allowed himself. The one privilege of rank he had taken. He had stationed the experienced and physically imposing Marine in the back of the same LMTV as his family. No one had said anything about it. They had all understood both that the father and husband wanted someone capable to watch his family, and the major would be a better leader with one less thing to worry about.
“Well, don’t let James stab him,” Alex joked, rubbing the shaggy brown hair on his son’s head that matched his own. The boy’s head rested on Alex’s lap comfortably as he drifted further into sleep.
“Madame Ambassador has not let up at all. Sergeant Black told me the Marine you have guarding the Browns says she’s constantly yelling at them about everything.”
Alex chuckled. Stress often magnified people’s true nature, the good and the bad. He felt keenly sorry for the people who were riding with the ambassador’s wife.
“And who…” Amanda hesitated, “fired those shots as we left the embassy?”
“The gunner of the first vehicle. Kid named Jackson.” Alex hoped his matter-of-fact tone would make the incident seem routine, like she had nothing to worry about.
“Did he kill someone?” she asked without a hint of judgment.
Alex then realized Amanda couldn’t have seen the incident from the back of the covered LMTV. That must have made the entire situation more terrifying.
“Yes. He did. You okay?” Alex asked his wife.
“I’m fine. Just make sure you check on him when you do your rounds, he’s so young,” Amanda said, looking into the fire, searching its yellow flames for that familiar comfort again.
Alex smiled at his wife. “I don’t deserve you,” he said, standing slowly, knowing she was right.
“No, you don’t.” She reached out and touched her husband’s hand for a moment before he walked off into the night.
Barely wading in the Kafue River, never deep enough that they couldn’t take flight should something dangerous approach, a flock of black-winged stilts watched the strange featherless creatures pile in their vehicles at the base of Shiloh Mountain. In between frantic bouts of picking at the mud banks of the river, they looked up at the interlopers who had come roaring into their habitat the night before.
The white-bodied birds eyed the humans. Their experience with the nearby copper mine had rarely been positive, and despite the differing coloring of this group, they were undoubtedly people.
As the group finished piling into their vehicles, the first rays of sunlight were coming up over the river and causing the murky water to sparkle a brilliant shade of white. The reflection would be the only time of the day the birds would be hidden from the food below, and they didn’t want to miss it, but the people bore watching.
A tall American, the last to get into his vehicle, held up his hand, making a symbol that resembled the horns of the buffalo herd the stilts knew was nearby.
Soon a hand from every vehicle joined the tall American’s, repeating the same buffalo sign down the line. When the last hand went up from the iron beasts, all eight of the loud engines roared to life simultaneously.
The birds panicked. Flying off into the sky, both from fear and the very real understanding that they were safer in the air than on the ground they shared with countless predators.
Somewhere below them, a small, furry hyrax crawled out of its hole next to the murky water. The round-eared rodent, which resembled a rabbit-sized groundhog, wiggled its nose in the air, smelling the still morning for predators. Satisfied, it climbed out of its hole, joining the parade of animals watching the humans and their roaring vehicles.
The last American climbed into his vehicle, and they drove away from Shiloh Mountain and the Kafue River. The stilts circled the water, watching the small line of Americans cross the grasslands away from the base of the mountain.
The hyrax, for its part, sniffed around for a morning meal, but instead met a long, tan puff adder that had used the distraction of the roaring engines to sneak up on the defenseless creature. The rodent tried to run, but the snake was too fast, closing the last few feet in an instant. One whiplash lunge was all it took, and the adder’s powerful bite closed in on the hyrax’s neck, killing it before the venom even left the viper’s fangs.
And ever so slowly, delicately under the quiet African sun, the stilts returned to earth.
Day 2
The Congo Pedicle Road, Dabia Tala, Congo
Planned Route: Murundi to Mbala, Zambia
1,164 Miles to Rwanda
They had crossed the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo right on schedule. Unlike most inland borders in Africa, a city sat astride the Zambia-Congo border at one of the few places you could cross it in a vehicle bigger than a motorbike.
Amidst the roar of the engines, Frey thought about the history of not only this road, but of the entirety of Africa. The road had a name: the Congo Pedicle Road, and it ran directly across this strip of the Congo, connecting Zambia back to itself. The sliver of the Congo was about fifty miles across and jutted into Zambia like a child’s hand into a jar of cookies.
It had been created in the 19th Century as a bargain between the Belgians and the British to settle the borders of Belgian-controlled Katanga Province in the Congo. Another imaginary line drawn over the ground across a foreign land. Over the years, necessity, as well as profit, had improved the Pedicle Road to be one of the best maintained in the country. Mostly as a result of trucks from Zambian copper mines to the west reaching the industrialized centers in the north and east.
No roads connected the Pedicle to the larger city of Lubumbashi to the north and by proxy the rest of the dark depths of the Congo. For all intents and purposes, the Congo Pedicle was one of the most remote places in the entire world.
They had barely seen another human since they had passed through the border city of Mokambo. To call Mokambo a city was a stretch. Everything, from its crumbling and dilapidated architecture to the red dirt side roads, screamed third world. It looked like a picture of an abandoned rust belt town a hundred years after the last autoworker had left. Except in Africa, there was no greener pasture to escape to and people still inhabited the ruins. It was a place that either would collapse entirely or thrive with the new world that was coming its way. It had survived the departure of the Belgian colonists and the resulting decades of civil war in the Congo. Maybe it would survive this too. It certainly couldn’t fall much further, Frey thought as they drove. Save for the cars and what passed for buildings, they were only a few decades of civilization from straw huts.
This strip of the Congo, with its road often pockmarked by craters, holes, and wildlife, was at least mostly paved. In this new world without great powers, Frey wondered how long Zambia would allow it to remain part of the Congo.
About halfway through, the optimism of the pavement gave way to the red dirt of the Congo. They were forced to slow to a crawl to avoid the massive water-soaked craters that the seasonal rains had dug into the road. The convoy had strung out into a longer line, each driver wanting to avoid the mud spray from the vehicle in front of them. The gunners too had covered their machine guns and were sitting in the vehicles with the rest of the crew. Under the best of conditions, sitting in a vehicle which absorbed shocks as poorly as the HMMWV did was painful. To attempt it standing in an armored turret was inviting injury. Speed and surprise was their best weapon here. Anything that slowed them was a threat.
