Chapter 15

 

“We really should get going, don’t you think?” Elaine asked nervously after they went back inside the garage. Stan continued to order the men around—now they were trying to find a decent tire that would fit the SUV’s wheel rim. The spare that had come with the vehicle had been shot flat by the elephant poachers who had attacked Dmitry.

“They’re almost done,” Stan said. Now the men were raising the rear end of the vehicle with a battered hand-powered lift that looked like it had been made sometime during the Industrial Revolution.

Elaine paced the floor of the garage, still keyed up from the phone conversation with Cattoretti. She was rather proud of how she’d handled him. It was the first time she ever felt like she truly held the upper hand in dealing with the powerful Italian criminal. Struggling through that difficult exchange had been like wrestling an alligator.

She realized that the location of the secret diamond mine was probably the most valuable information she’d ever possessed since she’d joined the Secret Service. This awareness, along with seeing that Janjaweed in white up on the hill, made her feel anxious to get back on the road. In the rain, anyone on horseback could probably move much faster than they could in the SUV themselves, having to follow the muddy, washed-away roads. Though it took several attempts, Stan used his sat-phone’s weak Internet connection to get a weather report for the region. The forecast was not good—intermittent light rain every day for the next week. It seemed that rainy season had settled into sub-Saharan Africa for good.

 

* * *

When they were finally back in the SUV and on the move again, Elaine felt a little better. The three of them took the same positions as they had before, with Dmitry behind the wheel and Elaine and Stan in the back seat.

Lying across the seat at an angle, Stan took on the job of navigator, using a small GPS of his own and his various expanded maps of the region. He kept the Kalashnikov in his lap. Except for a couple of quick stops to eat some snacks and use the toilet, their plan was to drive all the way to the Abéché clinic, the one that Doctor Tim managed, nonstop. Stan promised to call Raj and set up their meeting as soon as they crossed over into Chad. After they rested there and got some sleep at the clinic, they would continue on to N’Djamena.

Dmitry had said that the plan was fine with him. Doctor Tim’s clinic was about three hundred and fifty kilometers away. In this weather, the trip would take them all night, but the Russian assured them he was used to making long road trips on little sleep.

Progress on the dirt road, which had been reduced to a rutted, muddy obstacle course, was a challenge. The Zalingei area was clogged with traffic—many of the vehicles were not equipped to deal with the mud. Dmitry had trouble maneuvering the SUV around them while avoiding people and domesticated animals.

“You sure seemed to have a chummy relationship with your ‘informant,’” Stan said, out of nowhere.

Elaine tensed, but tried not to show it. “It’s complicated.”

Stan glanced down at her fancy dress. “Everything about you is complicated, isn’t it, Elaine?”

She looked out the window.

“Is Giorgio your husband?” Stan persisted.

She glanced sharply at him. “No! Why would you think that?”

Stan shrugged.

“I told you—he’s a criminal, an informant.”

“An Italian, obviously...”

“Yes.”

“Mafia?”

“No, just a criminal.”

“Look, Elaine, I think I have a right to know who the man is. If you expect me to believe that he’ll keep funding the clinics, I have to know his background. I’m prepared to give this diamond mine up, but only if I can ensure that my legacy—if you want to call it that—lives on. That’s important to me. You understand, don’t you?”

Elaine took a deep breath. “His name is Giorgio Cattoretti.”

“Giorgio Cattoretti, Giorgio Cattoretti,” Stan mumbled, rolling the name off his lips. Dmitry was now watching through the rearview. “I know the name,” Stan said, “but I can’t place it. What’s he involved in?”

“Currency counterfeiting, mainly.”

A light bulb seemed to go off in Stan’s head. He pointed at her. “That Italian who stole that intaglio press from KBA Giorgi?”

“Right.”

“Holy shit!” Stan gasped, staring at her with disbelief. “Giorgio ‘The Cat’ Cattoretti? That’s who we were just talking to on the phone?”

“Yes.” Elaine didn’t know whether to feel proud or ashamed.

Stan looked humbled by this, and a little intimidated. “Wow...you’re tight with that guy, huh?”

“Sort of.”

Stan studied her face. “I have a sneaking suspicion that Raj Malik has some connection to him. Am I right?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it, Stan.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I just don’t.”

“You don’t trust me all of a sudden? You’ve asked me to put all my faith in you, but you don’t trust me at all?”

Elaine sighed. He was right. “Raj put me in a black site. Okay?”

“A black site?”

“Yes.”

Stan stared at her with disbelief. “Are you serious?”

“Unfortunately I am. He put my husband there, too.”

“But...why, for god’s sake?”

Dmitry glanced at her again through the rearview mirror, looking curious about this himself.

“Because I made a decision to let Giorgio Cattoretti go. We were about to capture him a while back, but I found out that Raj was going to send him to a black site to extract information out of him, using torture, and I figured Raj would have killed him afterwards and...” Elaine shrugged. “Well, I just couldn’t go along with it. I didn’t think Cattoretti deserved that. He’s a criminal, but hardly a terrorist. So I decided to let him go.”

Stan was silent, looking at her with awe. “That’s a pretty serious step for a federal agent to take.”

“You don’t have to tell me that, Stan. Anyway, when Cattoretti found out I’d been put in the black site, he arranged an extraction, to return the favor.”

Stan let out a cackle. “You’re kidding!”

“No.”

“Oh, man! The Cat yanked you from a black site?”

“Yeah.”

“My god...” Stan threw back his head and laughed. “Raj must be going out of his mind!”

“I’m guessing he’s pretty upset about it.”

“I’m guessing that’s an understatement. So now I get it. You’re going to put Raj away for diamond smuggling to protect yourself from him.”

“Exactly.”

“And what about your husband?”

Elaine frowned. “What about him?”

“Where is he? Did he escape from the site, too?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure where he is now.” She wanted to add, And I don’t care, but she managed to refrain from that.

“Good lord,” Stan gasped. “You’ve really gotten yourself in a fix.”

Elaine cringed at these words. Recounting it aloud made it sound even worse than it was. She didn’t need to be told how far off the rails she’d gone, especially by someone as sketchy as Stanley Ketchum.

Stan seemed to sense this and leaned his head back, looking out the window.

They rode along for a few minutes in silence.

Elaine actually felt better now, as if a load had been lifted from her shoulders. She and Stan had been lying and sparring with each other ever since they’d met, and it felt good to finally come clean. She actually felt a connection to him now, a real one.

As Elaine stared out her window into the drizzle, the hazy image of the man that she had seen at the junkyard came back to her, the old Sudanese Janjaweed sitting there perfectly still on the horse, clad in white, up on the hill in the mist, staring at her. It was creepy. There was something ephemeral and ghostly about it, like an apparition.

She glanced at Stan and said, “When I mentioned that Janjaweed who was dressed in white, I got the distinct impression you knew who I was talking about.”

“Not really,” Stan muttered.

“Stan...come on, I’ve shared all my dirty laundry with you now. You know every detail now. What’s going on with that guy? You know who he is, I know you do.”

“Oh, there’s some folk tale that goes around Darfur about a certain old Janjaweed tracker who supposedly has special powers or some such nonsense. But I’m sure it’s pure fiction—an urban legend.”

“What special powers?”

“They say he’s mehkawi.”

“What does that mean?”

“A person who has connections within the realm of the Jinn.” Stan wiggled his fingers in a mysterious gesture.

“Jinn...like genies, you mean?”

“Right.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

Looking annoyed that he even had to speak about it, Stan said, “The people in this part of the world are extremely superstitious, Elaine. The Jinn supposedly do this special guy the favor of pulling aside the ‘veil’ that shields ordinary people from knowing things that only mehkawi can see. He’s a clairvoyant, in other words. A person with a sixth sense.”

“And you don’t believe it?”

“Of course I don’t believe it! They say he has hair as white as cotton, that his eyes are infested with cataracts, that he can’t actually see anything, but that he ‘sees everything,’ blah blah blah, the usual mumbo-jumbo.” Stan paused, shaking his head. “Mehkawi,” he muttered disdainfully. “Supposedly they have such powerful ‘juju’ that in their presence, their most feared creature—the black mamba—will go completely crazy and eat its own tail.” Stan laughed. “The guy is probably just a damn good tracker, very intuitive, no magic about it, but he has the wool pulled over everybody’s eyes.”

 

* * *

When they finally reached the other side of Zalingei, Elaine had hoped their pace would pick up, but their progress was only more impeded—the road was completely washed out in places by flash flooding. They had to stop and get out to push their vehicle out of gullies—even the SUV’s four wheel drive did not help. The seasonal rains were already degenerating the road into “one endless mass of mud,” just as Stan had promised.

Fortunately, after a few minutes, the road became a little less treacherous and Dmitry was able to pick up speed.

Elaine sat back, preparing herself for a long, long ride. She was sleepy and felt her eyelids start to fall shut.

“Uh-oh,” Dmitry said.

She opened her eyes again. “What’s the matter?”

Dmitry was peering nervously in the side mirror. “I think we having company.”

“What is it?” Stan said, turning around to look out the back window, but of course it was covered with plastic now and seeing anything behind it was impossible. He leaned forward and tried to see out of Dmitry’s side mirror.

“Pickup trucks,” Dmitry said. “Two. Many men riding in back in robes, with rifles.”

“Perfect,” Stan muttered.

“They drive aggressive, coming up behind us.”

“Step on it,” Stan said.

“Shto?” Dmitry said, confused.

“Go faster,” Elaine said.

“Ah. Idiom.” The big Russian slammed his foot down on the accelerator. Now, over the drone of the SUV’s engine, Elaine could hear the roar of the pickup truck right behind, closing in. They hit several ruts and both Elaine and Stan were roughly bounced around. Elaine was already wearing her seat belt but Stan wasn’t, and she helped him put his on as he tried to sit up straighter.

“Go faster!” Stan yelled. “Don’t worry about my leg!”

Elaine watched the speedometer needle climb up past seventy kph, then eighty, then ninety. They barreled across several gullies, muddy water rocketing out sideways, which caused a few Sudanese men who were walking barefoot along the side of the rode to raise their fists and scream at them.

“Both trucks still behind,” Dmitry said, glancing at his rearview.

Elaine thought she understood Stan’s strategy—he hoped that the pickups would not be able to keep up with them blasting down such a rough road without tossing out the men riding in the truck beds, but the men all clung on tight—they were probably used to traveling at high speed on these roads.

Suddenly one of the pickups cut out around them and accelerated parallel to the SUV, pulling up alongside, the robed men clinging to the sides of the truck bed as it jostled them around—there were four in the back, and two in the front. All six of the bearded men just stared as they gradually overtook the SUV, the pickup slamming through several more water-filled gullies. Both vehicles spewed powerful jets of muddy water at each other, which splashed across the SUV’s windows, momentarily obstructing the view—the rebels in the back of the truck were soaked, but were already wet and filthy and didn’t seem to care.

“Who are they?” Elaine asked Stan.

“The SLM, the JEM, the LJM—who knows? All these rebel groups look the same.”

Elaine was scared to death.

“I told you we should have driven the jeep,” Stan snapped.

“And we told you we should have chartered a plane!” Elaine screamed back.

The rebel riding shotgun pointed his AK-47 straight at Dmitry, but made a motion for them to pull over to the side of the road.

“What I must do?” Dmitry yelled, looking in the rearview at Stan.

“Pull over,” Stan grumbled. “I’ll handle this, don’t worry.”

 

* * *

As the SUV slowed, Stan opened his knapsack and began sifting through documents. “Just be polite and respectful,” he said. “Let me do all the talking.”

But when the SUV came to a full stop, the second pickup truck banged into them from the rear.

Twice.

The first pickup was in front of them, sandwiching them in. The man who had pointed the rifle at them leaning out the window, looking back at them, yelling, motioning with the rifle.

“He wants us to follow them,” Stan said.

“What I must do?” Dmitry said.

“What do you think, we have a choice? Follow!”

The pickup truck slowly pulled forward, and the truck behind bumped the SUV’s rear end again. Dmitry reluctantly pressed the accelerator and tailed the first truck.

“I don’t like this,” Elaine said nervously, her pulse thumping in her neck.

They drove for no more than a quarter of a mile. Then the pickup truck turned right, down another muddy road, this one only wide enough to accommodate one vehicle at a time. The road wound to the left, then to the right, and back to the left—there was a cluster of decaying brick buildings, with only part of the walls standing. Junk was scattered around everywhere, broken glass, rusty tin cans, loose bricks, and miscellaneous garbage.

The pickup truck pulled around the side of the buildings and stopped. The rebels jumped out of the back, followed by the two in the cab, who moved cautiously towards the SUV, their hands on their rifles. All of them were heavily bearded and obviously Sudanese Muslims.

The man who had motioned with the gun to follow them seemed to be the leader—he was taller than most of the others, with a long nose and neatly trimmed beard. He had a thick scar angled across his forehead. As he approached, Elaine also noticed that he only had three fingers on his left hand—his little finger and ring finger were missing.

Stan lowered his window, smiling. “Nahn wuddia, nahn wuddia.” Elaine now knew that meant “we’re friendly” or something along those lines.

The man did not smile back.

Suddenly there were rifle-toting rebels scrambling everywhere around the SUV, peering inside at Elaine and Dmitry, their bearded faces pressed up close against the glass.

Stan slowly opened the door and dragged himself out, wincing. As he stood upright on his wounded leg, he had to put his hand on the SUV’s roof to steady himself. The men near him had backed away, their rifles aimed at him.

The leader just stood there, watching Stan, the expression behind his beard unreadable.

One of the men on Elaine’s side smashed the butt of his rifle against her window, which sounded like an explosion in her ear. She let out a little scream. The bulletproof glass did not crack.

“Hey,” Stan said, “there’s no need for that!”

The rebel hit Elaine’s window again, and she ducked. A small spiderweb crack appeared on the second blow.

“We’re on a special geological survey authorized by the Sudanese government,” Stan said quickly, offering the leader some papers and a passport. The man kept his distance, too far away to take it in his hand. Elaine noticed that the document was written in both English and Arabic, and had blue stamps on the bottom.

One of the rebels finally snatched the paper away and passed it to his boss.

He glanced at it, dropped it in the mud, and stepped on it with his boot.

“Akhaj!” he yelled.

The men were yanking on the door handles and trying to break the bullet-proof windows.

“Unlock all the doors!” Stan yelled at Dmitry.

He did so, and the next instant, Elaine and Dmitry were both roughly yanked out of the vehicle, dragged through the mud, and shoved up against the crumbling brick wall of whatever structure had once been there.

The leader shouted something else in Arabic. His men were already searching the interior of the SUV. One of them held up the Kalashnikov, showing it to his boss. Another, who was searching Stan’s knapsack, found Elaine’s Sig Sauer and raised it up in the air, too, so the leader could see it.

“You sell weapons to our enemies!” the leader yelled.

“We don’t sell anything to anybody,” Stan said. “We’re geologists, contracted to do government land surveys. We’re not involved in your conflict in any way. If you’d just look at our papers...” Stan pointed to the document in the mud.

“You lie,” the leader said, and he shouted something else to his men. They started feeling underneath the SUV’s bumpers and fenders. One of them kneeled and started trying to pull the inside panel off the driver’s door.

Now a couple of the men were eying Elaine lustfully, their brown eyes running up and down her body.

A rebel who was searching the interior front seat pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels out and held it up.

One of the other rebels, the youngest-looking one, smiled and grabbed it.

The leader swung his rifle out and smashed the bottle with the barrel, whiskey and glass flying everywhere.

Now one of the men started to take the panel off the left-hand rear passenger door, where Elaine thought diamonds were hidden.

“Listen to me,” Stan said, in a panic, “we’re here on a geological expedit—”

The leader whipped the Kalashnikov across Stan’s face, knocking him down in the mud.

“Stop it!” Elaine screamed.

Stan tried to push himself out of the mud with his arms, but the second in command kicked him back down with a boot to the ribs.

“What do you want?” Elaine said, unable to control her terror. Were these animals just going to kill all three of them right here?

The leader raised an eyebrow, then slowly moved towards Elaine, his expression no longer unreadable. He stopped, glancing down at her sundress. “You look like whore,” he sneered, and he reached for her breasts.

Dmitry’s hand shot out and grabbed the man’s wrist.

“Yesli vy kasayetes’ zdes’,” he said, speaking Russian in a deadpan growl, “zemlyu-tselovat’ shimpanze, ya budu zubrit’ chto Kalashnikov do sikh por v zadnitsu stvol vyddet tvoi nos!”

Elaine’s eyes widened with even more fear, staring at Dmitry. She wasn’t completely sure but it sounded like he’d said, “You touch her, you ground-kissing chimpanzee, and I will ram that Kalashnikov so far up your ass it will come out your nose.” But it wasn’t just the words that scared her—he had uttered them in a loathsome, vicious tone, one that Elaine had never heard him speak in before.

She expected the worst reprisal from the Janjaweed.

But none of the men did anything. In fact, all of them seemed to freeze at the sound of the Russian language.

“Rusia?” one said. Several of them exchanged wary, uncertain glances.

Now the leader was staring at Dmitry—it was clear the bearded man hadn’t understood a word.

“Da,” Dmitry said darkly, staring into the leader’s eyes. “Rusia.”

Dmitry slowly brought both his hands to his midsection, took hold of his dirty sport shirt on either side of the buttons, and he ripped it open, popping a couple of buttons and exposing his chest.

Elaine blinked, flabbergasted. There, spread across his white, flabby skin, was a huge, grisly-looking tattoo. A Maltese cross, its horizontal arms running from nipple to nipple, a gibbering skull superimposed on it. The image was shocking in its size and crudeness. The artwork was poorly crafted, the homemade, prison type.

Tattooed beneath the image were the chilling words, CHELOVEK CHELOVEKU VOLK.

Man is wolf to man.

All the rebels were staring at the ominous image, some with their mouths agape and others slightly backing away. Elaine knew that tattoos were forbidden in Islam, that mutilating the body—Allah’s creation—was not allowed. She was sure none of the men had ever seen anything like what they were looking at now, not in real life—some were mesmerized by it, others rattled. A couple of them averted their eyes, as if gazing at it might cause them to be cursed or damned. She remembered Stan saying how superstitious they were.

Now the only sound in the air was the light patter of the drizzle splashing in the puddles.

“You know what this symbol mean?” Dmitry said ominously, his hooded eyes boring into the leader’s. “It mean I am mafia. I am vor.” This was the term for a Russian gangster who had “made his bones,” Elaine knew. “My people are Tsentravnaya Bratva. My boss—Sergey Lazovsky.” Dmitry paused, a morbid look in his eyes. “If anything happen to me, you know what Sergey do to you?”

The leader did not answer, but the skin behind his beard had grown a little pale.

“He feed your wife and your children to his dog, and he make you watch.”

Several of the men exchanged disturbed glances, not understanding the English but probably recognizing the word “dog” and catching the general meaning.

His gaze still locked with the leader’s, Dmitry buttoned his shirt back up, his hooded eyes cold and steady. “We are not interested in your stupid little war,” he said, jerking his big head towards the other rebels. “We go to N’Djamena on important business!” He pointed his thick finger at the leader’s face. “But you make problems for us, you will have big war.” Dmitry spoke these last words not so much as a threat, but as if he were simply expressing the inevitable.

The leader didn’t respond, but it was obvious that he was intimidated. He bore the unmistakable expression of a person who realized he had accidentally messed with the wrong people.

Yet he did not want to lose face in front of his men.

“You must make us gift,” he said, glancing at the others.

“Gift?” Dmitry said.

Elaine prayed that Dmitry would know when to back down.

The big Russian paused a moment, glanced at Elaine, then let out a sigh. He slowly reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, as if the request for money was not altogether unreasonable, but rather petty. He pulled out a one hundred euro note. “Speaking for Sergey Lazovsky, and Tsentravnaya Bratva, we make donation to your fight.”

The leader took the banknote in his dirty, three-fingered hand, glanced down at it, then looked back at Dmitry. “As-salaam ‘alaykum.”

“Alaykum as-salaam.”

 

* * *

A few minutes later, Dmitry, Stan and Elaine were on the road again, cruising along at about forty miles per hour through the drizzle.

Since getting back inside the SUV and leaving the rebels, none of them had uttered a word.

Stan was reclined in the same place in the back seat, holding a T-shirt to his bleeding mouth, looking dismayed by what had just taken place.

Elaine felt even more confused. She had been convinced she was about to die, and then out of nowhere Dmitry had come up with—what was it? An act, or the truth?

Stan kept glancing at the back of his head and giving Elaine looks that said, “Who the hell is this guy?”

It was frankly hard for Elaine to imagine Dmitry being a member of the Russian mafia. Sergey Lazovsky and the Tsentravnaya Bratva? She had never heard either of these names before, and during the time she’d worked in the Secret Service office in Bulgaria, she’d been familiar with all of the larger Moscow-based gangs and bosses. It all sounded made-up, bits and pieces of factual information mixed with fiction. There was a rumor, for example, that Viktor Zubov fed his enemies to his Rottweiler. And the term vor did mean “made man.”

On the other hand, what did she really know about Dmitry? They had met when he had offered her a ride in his taxi at the Moscow airport. She had assumed he was an ordinary taxi driver—he had told her that many times, in fact, and made a point of telling her—“I simple taxi driver.” He had gradually earned her trust. His only mention of the Russian mafia had been when he had explained to her that he hated them because they wouldn’t let him drive up to the Arrivals taxi stand without paying them a bribe. And always complaining that every bureaucracy on the planet was just “one big mafia.”

Dmitry was glancing at Elaine and Stan now through the rearview mirror, as if he knew the two of them were patiently waiting for an explanation.

He finally started laughing. First it was a small chuckle and then it grew into a big, loud belly laugh. Keeping his eye on the road, he leaned over and opened the glove compartment.

For one uncertain second Elaine wondered if he was about to pull out a pistol that neither Stan nor she knew about.

But it was something much smaller and benign.

A pen.

He passed it back to Elaine, still chuckling.

It was a fine-point black marker, with permanent ink.

Elaine and Stan glanced at each other.

“You drew that on your chest yourself?” Elaine said.

“Da.” He chuckled, looking back at the road. “First day I arrive in Chad. I very nervous, could not sleep. So I stay up all night drawing Russian mafia tattoo on myself. All people in Russia know such tattoos from television.” He shrugged. “I thought it being very useful if I get in trouble.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stan said, looking impressed. “Well done, man!”

“Tattoo not very good,” Dmitry said, glancing down at his chest. “Real much better.”

“I wasn’t talking about the tattoo,” Stan said. “That was the most convincing performance I’ve seen in a long time! If you were an actor, you would get an Oscar for that, my friend.”

Dmitry gave a modest shrug. “My life very borink. I watching many American gangster film.”

 

* * *

As they drove on towards the Chadian border, the drizzle continued. The road, if you could call it that, became worse.

Elaine could not quite get her mind off Dmitry’s “performance” with the rebels—it stuck with her, in a haunting kind of way, along with the grisly-looking tattoo he had flashed at them. Although she had laughed along with Stan when Dmitry had given them his explanation, she was not totally convinced that he was telling the truth. Had he really just drawn the tattoo on himself with the permanent marker? Or might it be authentic?

She did not have time to dwell on this—the SUV soon began getting mired down in the mud again, the gullies so deep and full of rainwater that it often became stuck. Either Elaine or Dmitry, or both of them, had to get out and push. Stan remained perfectly clean and dry, reclined in the back seat, of course. Due to his injured leg, he was excused from “mud duty.”

The lower half of Elaine’s pretty floral sundress was soon stained a dingy brown, even though she tied it at knee level to try to keep it from getting dirty. She’d donned the stylish mid-calf boots Cattoretti had bought her, and almost laughed when she imagined what he would say if he saw her now. In her wet, disheveled state, the boots and dress made her look like a dirt-poor hillbilly. She wanted to throttle Stan when, after she’d gotten out to push three times, he suddenly remembered that he had brought along two green camouflaged ponchos that she and Dmitry could wear to at least protect themselves from the rain.

The ponchos didn’t help much. At least Elaine’s face and hair and arms stayed clean—she leaned her head back and let the steadily falling rain wash most of the mud off of herself before she climbed back inside each time.

In a few cases they had to recruit outside help to get the SUV unstuck, and in turn, Dmitry and/or Elaine had to help other travelers push their own vehicles—cars, trucks and vans—that were either stuck in front of them or behind them. None of the Sudanese travelers spoke a word of English and they had to communicate in sign language.

Elaine took it in stride—the ordinary African people were smiling and friendly and seemed to enjoy helping the pretty young blonde-haired Nasara and her friends get their car unstuck. At least there were no rebels or Janjaweed around.

 

* * *

After it grew completely dark, the road that led to Chad became even worse. Elaine was on edge every time she had to climb out of the SUV to push, afraid that another leopard or some other wild animal might spring at her. But Stan assured her that all the traffic along the road frightened off any “big cats” and that their encounter with the gazelle-chasing leopard had only been a freak occurrence. Elaine had her doubts. It seemed to her that in this untamed part of Africa, anything could happen.

After Elaine climbed back into the SUV for what must have been the fifteenth time, she saw Stan studying the map.

She wiped the rainwater off her face with a towel. “Where are we?”

Stan pointed at the map. Elaine leaned over and looked at the spot he indicated, and at the GPS.

“We’ve only come seventy kilometers from Zalengei!” she said, astonished. She had been sure they were at least halfway to Abéché by now. The dire driving conditions were slowing them down far more than she had thought. “Are you sure we should try to make it all the way to Doctor Tim’s without stopping?”

“We can make it,” Stan said.

Without warning, Dmitry slammed on the brakes.

Elaine was thrown against her shoulder harness, and Stan banged into the back of Dmitry’s seat.

The vehicle skidded to a halt sideways in a puddle.

Ahead of them, a huge bus was stuck in the mud with several stalled trucks and cars behind it. The bus was one of the “hybrid” models you saw in this part of the world, constructed from an eighteen wheel truck cab and trailer. Luggage was piled so high on the roof, in a veritable mountain, that it looked like the whole vehicle might topple over due to the displaced center of gravity. All the passengers had gotten out and were trying to push the behemoth forward, the driver spinning the wheels and throwing mud everywhere and on everybody.

“We’ll never get past that thing,” Stan muttered. He looked back at the map. “Dmitry, if you can turn around, there’s a small road about five hundred meters behind us. We can follow it all the way to the Chadian border.”

Elaine eyed the map—she wasn’t keen on this idea. “The road might be even worse, though.”

“No, not on that route. I’ve taken it a few times in rainy weather—it covers higher, dryer ground. Even though the total distance to Abéché is longer, we’ll make better time, overall.” He pointed at the dashed border on the map. “We can cross into Chad up in this area, it’s even safer, more remote than where I usually cross.”

“I think we should just stay on this road,” Elaine said nervously.

“Why?”

“Because there’s less chance of encountering any kind of trouble along it.” She meant the rebels and the Janjaweed, of course.

“That’s true, but the main road will have at least one police checkpoint,” Stan said, “and those are always risky.”

“Didn’t you say the police were too lazy to set up checkpoints in the rain?”

“Many checkpoints,” Stan said. “Anyway, it’s not your decision.” He did not have to motion to the rifle under his lap to tell her who was in charge.

Elaine looked at Dmitry, hoping for support—he had turned around and was watching and listening.

“What do you think?” she asked him.

“What he thinks doesn’t matter,” Stan snapped. He motioned aggressively to the Russian. “Do what I tell you, if you want to get back to N’Djamena in one piece! Your mafia trick was clever but it might not work the second time around.”

 

* * *

After the decision had been made and they altered their route, Elaine had to admit that Stan was right. Once they backtracked to the smaller road and drove north on it for a few kilometers, they were soon making steady progress, with Dmitry rarely having to slow down. There was almost no other traffic, and what few mud traps they encountered Dmitry easily maneuvered around.

Still, Elaine didn’t like leaving the main road—it just seemed more risky to her.

“Looks like we can all relax a little now,” Stan said casually, making himself more comfortable. He reached under Dmitry’s seat and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

Just as he started to twist off the cap, Elaine grabbed his forearm. “No.”

He let out a little laugh. “‘No’?”

“Stan, please.”

“You’re not in a position to tell me what to do, Elaine.”

“I’m not going to sit here and keep my mouth shut while you mix alcohol and pain killers.”

“What difference does it make?”

“You know what difference it makes,” she said, nodding out the window, into the darkness. “Who knows what else we might run into?”

Stan yanked his arm free and took a defiant swig. “You worry too much.” He started to take a second, then glanced at her face again, noting her withering gaze, then capped the bottle and shoved it back under the seat, grumbling to himself. “My god, you’re worse than a nagging wife.”

Elaine didn’t care what he called her as long as he didn’t drink anymore.

She took off the poncho, and Stan rolled it up it to make a pillow and leaned his head back against the window.

Elaine suddenly felt cold. The bottom of her sundress was still damp, and so was her hair. Dmitry was running the defroster with slightly warm air to keep the windshield from fogging up.

“Can you turn a little heat on the floor, too?” she asked Dmitry.

He flipped a switch on the dash.

Stan extended his arm and said, “Lean over this way, I’ll keep you warm.”

“I’m fine, Stan.”

“You need rest,” he said sympathetically. “If you lean back and close your eyes, you can catch a little sleep.”

She just sat there, and he finally pulled his arm away and said, “Suit yourself.”

Elaine felt awkward.

After a moment, Stan said, “I really am writing a book, you know.”

“That’s great,” Elaine said.

“About how diamonds are formed, a new theory. When it’s done, I’m going to submit it as my Ph.D. thesis and become an Earth Sciences professor.” He gave a resigned sigh. “Yes,” he said, still looking out the window. “This is all meant to be—it’s time to move on.”