Chapter 13

 

By the time they had the SUV packed and ready to go, the thunder was becoming louder, and more frequent. Stan had “appropriated” some food and more water from the clinic’s pantry.

Leaning against the SUV, he took the diamonds out of his backpack and put them in a beige cloth pouch that looked homemade, with drawstrings. Then, he opened his tool box, rummaged around, and produced a slim white plastic disk about two inches in diameter. He carefully slipped the disk into a hard-to-see slit in the lining of the pouch and pushed it around until it was low on one side, and tightened the drawstrings.

“GPS tracker,” Stan said, glancing up at Elaine. “Just in case we lose this package, God forbid.” He pulled out his sat phone, pushed a few buttons, testing it, then looked at Elaine and Dmitry. “In the garage, there’s a small shovel, a couple of tarps, and a big coil of rope. Why don’t you two go get them?” He glanced at the darkening sky. “We might need them if we don’t beat the rain and get stuck.”

Elaine knew this was a clumsy attempt to get rid of them while he hid the diamonds somewhere in or on the SUV. She supposed she didn’t mind—he probably thought he had a right to keep them safely hidden until he handed them off to Raj. It was clear that he still did not quite trust her.

When she and Dmitry returned from the garage with the requested items, the pouch of diamonds had disappeared from view. They helped Stan finish loading up the SUV. For some reason Elaine thought he had hidden the diamonds inside one of the door panels, but of course she could not be sure.

Just as Elaine and Dmitry were putting the last items into the back, Stan went to say goodbye to Anneke. The woman had avoided Elaine ever since she had walked out of the garage—she was probably afraid of getting into trouble with the law, and Elaine couldn’t blame her.

Elaine shut the back door of the SUV and observed the farewell scene—Stan and Anneke were a good distance away, standing by the nurse’s tent, and neither of them noticed her watching.

Leaning on his crutch, Elaine saw Stan reach into his shorts pocket and handed Anneke something—the keys to his jeep, it looked like. He had a remorseful expression on his face, and they embraced for a few seconds. It was obvious to Elaine that this was a permanent goodbye—Stan wasn’t planning on coming back.

That was a good sign. He seemed committed to the plan and willing to let go of the diamond mine. Maybe he’d had enough and was actually glad that somebody had come along to force the dangerous smuggling operation to come to an end.

A moment later, Stan hobbled over to the SUV on his crutch, carrying his knapsack in one hand and a big blue plastic shopping bag in the other that was tied in a knot. Stan held it gingerly.

“What’s that?” Elaine said.

“The black mamba that bit that poor guy they just brought in. I’m taking it to Doctor Tim so he can check it out—he’s an expert on this species and collects samples.”

Elaine opened the rear passenger door for him, not thrilled about their unexpected “passenger,” and he slid inside the vehicle, grunting. Stan turned around and set the bag containing the dead snake in the back. Then, he slumped sideways on the seat and rested his head against the opposite open window. He looked like he was in a lot of pain. But she refused to let herself feel guilty about it—the pistol whipping he’d given her cheek was troubling now.

Elaine passed him the crutch and gently shut the door. He kept the knapsack containing all the weapons and phones on the floorboard, out of anyone’s reach but his own.

As Elaine stepped around the front of the vehicle and opened the front passenger door, Stan said, “You’re not going to sit back here with me?”

Dmitry had just slid behind the wheel, and he glanced through the rearview mirror at Stan.

“Come on, Elaine,” Stan pouted, smiling at her and patting the seat behind him. “I’m injured. I need attention.”

Elaine was surprised by how he was acting. After all she’d done to him, it seemed crazy that he still found her attractive, unless he was just trying to annoy her. She thought it was ironic—she had hoped the conversation with Luna might warm him to her again, but she sensed that hearing her talk to her two children had been much more effective.

“Come on,” Stan urged, with a playful smile. “Keep your old buddy Stanley company back here.” It was also clear that he was high on pain killers. He pointed to the huge gap in front where the windshield should have been. “It’ll be less dusty back here—all that road grit will be blowing right in your face.”

Elaine glanced at Dmitry, feeling a little uncomfortable. The big Russian put on his sunglasses and merely shrugged as if to say, “I don’t care where you sit, let’s just get the hell out of here.”

Elaine finally shut the passenger door and gave in, climbing in the back next to Stan.

He gave a satisfied chuckle and leaned toward her, as if to put his arm around her.

“Stay on your side of the car,” Elaine said, and pressed her shoulder against her door.

 

* * *

The SUV soon rolled out of the clinic entrance and onto the dirt road. Dmitry drove as aggressively as he could without Stan complaining, bouncing the vehicle hard across the ruts, tying to beat the storm to Zalingei. The interior rattled now and then—Dmitry still had quite a few bottles of Jack Daniel’s left, and they clinked together whenever there was a hard bump.

Now the sky looked positively evil, with flashes of lightning leaping through purple-yellow clouds, the wind swirling up dust, some of which came through the open windshield, along with a few insects.

There was something bothering Elaine and she had to bring it up. She looked over at Stan and said, “I want to talk to you about the Janjaweed attack this morning.”

“What about it?”

“I saw three of them, Stan, not two. Which means one of them is still out there somewhere.”

“What?” Stan shook his head. “No, there were only two.”

“You’re wrong. The third one was at the top of the cliff, on horseback. He didn’t seem to be armed, but I’m almost sure he was with them.”

“What did he look like?”

“Just like the other two, only his robe and headscarf were white. All white. And he had a long white beard.”

Stan shook his head again, but Elaine thought she detected a split second of doubt. “No way. The Janjaweed never wear white robes. And they’re never unarmed. It must have just been some random goat herder who happened to hear the shooting and came to see what was going on.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why?” Stan said, becoming annoyed.

Elaine pointed through the broken-out windshield at the hood—the dried blood was still visible on there, a little pool of it accumulated in the dent. “If there were only two of them, then who dropped the...?” Her voice trailed off—she didn’t want to say “the head.” It was just too grisly.

“One of the men dropped it from the top of the cliff, then galloped down, probably the one that came at us from behind.”

“Maybe...”

“There’s no ‘maybe’ about it. You’re just spooked.” Stan eyed her suspiciously. “You know what I really think?”

“What?”

“All this stuff about the Janjaweed is a convenient diversion on your part.”

“I don’t follow.”

“When are you going to call this mysterious informant of yours?”

“I told you, it’s better if we wait—”

“If you think I’m going to go all the way to N’Djamena with you while I take your word about this, forget it! I want to hear this ‘informant’ commit to funding the clinics. On speakerphone. Now.” Stan pulled out the sat-phone and thrust it at her.

Elaine looked down at the device, once again groping for excuses—the idea of Stanley Ketchum sitting there listening while she talked openly to Giorgio Cattoretti was unnerving, to say the least. There was no telling what The Cat might say or do when confronted with such an unexpected change in their plans. He was not going to like the idea of funding the clinics. He would have to be sold on the idea.

Elaine said, “The phone signal might not be solid enough.” At least this much was true. Sat-phone signals could penetrate through a relatively thin material like canvas—they usually needed steady, line-of-sight contact with orbiting satellites to work properly. The metal of an automobile roof was usually too thick.

“We can connect it to the external antenna,” Stan said, pointing up into the front seat. “There’s a jack right there on the dashboard.”

Elaine cut her eyes towards Dmitry and looked back at Stan, to indicate that they shouldn’t make the phone call in the Russian’s presence.

Stan wasn’t buying it—she had already told him it was okay to talk in front of Dmitry.

“Look” Elaine said, “I’ll make the call as soon as we get to Zalingei, okay? You have my word. We can do it while they’re replacing the windshield.”

 

* * *

After a few more minutes they reached the outskirts of the Zalingei, with grass huts and dilapidated shacks appearing on either side of the road. Men, women and children, along with a few chickens, goats and camels were all in a mad scramble to avoid the oncoming storm.

The SUV’s hood began to thump from the sound of the first few huge raindrops that impacted it. There was a blinding flash of lightning followed by a peal of thunder that rattled the insides of Elaine’s chest.

“Get the tarp,” Stan said, and Elaine turned around and grabbed the piece of canvas out of the back and passed it up to Dmitry.

In the next instant they drove headlong into a wall of torrential rain that was even more intense than yesterday’s. It came down so hard and relentlessly that Dmitry had to stop because he couldn’t see a thing in front of him. He madly stuffed the canvas up into the hole where the windshield used to be, with Elaine tearing off pieces of duct tape from the roll handing them to him as he sloppily tried to fix it in place.

“Just get us to the garage!” Stan yelled, having to shout over the roar of the rain. “Take the first left after that blue shack there! See it?”

“Da, I see.” Dmitry left just enough space in his area of the windshield hole to see through and forged ahead, the SUV bouncing along the gully-infested road. All the windows were up tightly now, but Elaine’s lap and legs had already gotten soaked from water blowing in.

Thirty seconds later, they approached a cluster of shacks, which, through the driving rain, looked like a haphazardly arranged row of makeshift auto garages. The dumpy facility was located on the outskirts of the village, on the side of a hill. There was runoff washing through the muddy parking lot which was rapidly swelling into a creek.

The SUV gave a sickening lurch downwards as Dmitry drove through the rushing water. For a second Elaine thought the SUV would get stuck.

Stan rolled down his window and leaned his head out and arm out, waving at a robed Sudanese man inside one of the larger, empty garages who was watching them. Stan had told Elaine that he knew all the mechanics who worked here. The man squinted and then smiled and started waving back, motioning for them to drive into the garage where he was standing.

Dmitry pulled in and suddenly the roar of the rain on the SUV’s roof stopped. At that very second, hail started coming down, almost as if on cue. Elaine could see it out through the opposite garage door. The roof of the place was made of corrugated metal and the sound of the balls of ice striking it was deafening, even inside the SUV.

“Bozhe moi,” Dmitry muttered again, and shut off the engine. “We have no such storms in Moscow.”