Chapter 19

 

Elaine was having the wildest, disjointed dream.

It was crazy.

She and Nick had been called to the American Embassy in Paris, to receive a service award, only it was a trick and Raj Malik had sent them to a black site and they’d been tortured. Then Giorgio Cattoretti had rescued her, and she’d come to Chad to try and find some kind of secret diamond mine—Raj was smuggling diamonds into Europe, and if she could catch him and have him arrested everything would be okay...

It was all so absurd...

“Janyet,” a voice said.

“Janyet!”

The warm, wet palm of someone’s hand was gently tapping her face.

Elaine opened her eyes.

Dmitry was looking down at her, water dripping off his nose. Rain was pouring down everywhere. There was a Kalashnikov strapped to his shoulders.

She suddenly remembered everything, and gasped, sitting upright. She glanced down looking at both her arms, then pulled up her dress—there were red blotches all over her skin from where the leeches had attached themselves.

“I take them away,” Dmitry said, nodding down to the mud. There was a sickening little pile of the black bloodsuckers being pounded by the rain.

Elaine shuddered, feeling nauseated.

Dmitry helped her to her feet. “We must get jeep!” he said, pointing.

The SUV had drifted a little way down the river and had caught in the mud, at an angle facing the bank. It was also leaning to one side, the water now only covering half the tires on the raised side.

It looked hopelessly stuck.

“But how can we get it out?”

“Rope,” he said. He slipped the rifle from around his shoulders and handed it to her. “You must watch for Janjaweed.” He motioned across the river. “And krokodili.”

Crocodiles, Elaine thought, with a shudder, as she took the gun in her hands. The grisly image of Stan being ripped apart by the reptiles flickered in her mind. With bile rising in her throat, she shoved the memory away—she felt dangerously on the verge of hysteria again.

As Dmitry waded out into the water, Elaine wiped the rain and tears from her eyes. She scanned the river and the opposite bank. She saw no sign of Janjaweed anywhere, and there was nothing she could see on the raindrop-dancing surface of the river but passing tree branches, sticks, and leaves.

With water up to his waist, Dmitry opened the SUV rear door.

“Be careful,” Elaine yelled, afraid he would be dragged downriver. But he was able to reach the coil of rope, along with one of the handguns, without actually climbing inside the half-floating vehicle.

He waded around to the front and secured the rope somewhere under the bumper, then waded back out of the river and tossed her the remainder of the coil.

She strapped the rifle to her shoulders and they both started pulling on the rope, in unison, slipping and sliding in the mud, both of them sinking in it up to their ankles. The front of the SUV began to twist a little in their direction, and then the current pushed the rear end around.

“Pull more hard!” Dmitry yelled through the rain.

Elaine grunted, wrapping the rope around and around her hands, and let out a yell as they both gave it all they had.

It wouldn’t budge.

“This will never work,” she said, dropping the rope.

Dmitry pulled both his feet from the mud, his shoes making sucking sounds as he stepped towards her. “You must find stick, like for broom, but thick and strong.” He then picked up the rope end and stepped over to the nearest tree on the riverbank and drew it around the trunk. He carried it back through the mud back towards the SUV.

There were no decent-sized sticks along the edge of the bank, just lots of leaves and twigs, but a few were floating in the river. Brandishing the rifle, Elaine carefully waded back into the water until she was knee-deep in it, trying not to think about the leeches and keeping her eyes fixed on the river, watching for crocodiles. She glanced over to the far side bank, hoping the Janjaweed did not show up. She spotted a large stick that was slowly floating towards her along the edge of the river and grabbed hold of it and got the hell out of the water as fast as she could.

By then Dmitry was attaching the free end of the rope to the SUV, taking out all the slack between it and the tree trunk. Now the rope simply made a tight loop from the front of the SUV to the tree trunk and back. She didn’t see how that would help.

She and Dmitry both climbed back up the bank, Elaine dragging the heavy stick with her. Dmitry took hold of it and inserted it in between the two ropes at a point about halfway between the SUV and the tree trunk.

He began twisting the stick around and around.

The rope began to tighten.

Now Elaine understood.

As the rope twisted tighter and tighter, it began to look like a hair braid, and then knots began to form in it.

The rope was shortening.

The SUV’s rear end swung around a little more.

“It’s working!” Elaine cried.

“Stay back,” Dmitry warned, as the rope twisted even tighter. “If rope breaks, can whip you, very dangerous.”

Elaine moved a bit further away, watching the SUV as it was slowly dragged forward by the makeshift winch. Now the front end was pointing directly at Dmitry and she could see it inching its way out of the water, the front wheels now looking like they might get traction on the bank.

“Get inside jeep and try to start,” Dmitry said. “But stay away from rope!”

Elaine waded into the water again, slipping on the muddy bank, no longer thinking about the leeches and keeping a wide birth from the rope. Now the waterline on the SUV was a few inches lower than the bottom of the doors.

She yanked the front passenger door open and climbed inside, her feet splashing in the water in the floorboards—it was flooded on both sides.

She didn’t think the engine would start.

Sliding the transmission into neutral, she grabbed hold of the ignition key and switched it forward, her boot on the accelerator.

The engine turned over, weakly, but did not catch.

She flipped the switch off, waited a few seconds, and tried again.

“Step on it!” Dmitry said, using Stan’s idiom.

Elaine pushed the pedal to the floor. The engine turned slower this time, as if under great strain. She turned the key off again.

“Please start,” Elaine whispered, closing her eyes. She waited five more seconds then gave it one more try.

The engine turned over even more slowly now...then coughed a few times.

And finally caught.

“Thank god,” she muttered, letting it idle for a few seconds. She could see Dmitry smiling at her through the rain, giving her a thumbs-up sign while holding on tightly to the stick. He signaled for her to try to drive up the bank.

She engaged the transmission, made sure the four wheel drive was set, turned on the windshield wipers so she could see where she was going, and pressed the accelerator.

Dmitry gripped the tree branch with both hands for leverage and leaned back, pulling on the coiled-up rope.

The SUV slowly began to move up the bank, the tires kicking up jets of mud and water.

 

* * *

A moment later, Elaine slid into the SUV passenger seat and Dmitry climbed inside, tossing the rope into the back seat. He hesitated and he looked down, lowering both his feet into the water that filled the floorboard. He guided the jeep up the tree root-riddled upper bank and into the long grass on higher ground, bringing the vehicle to a stop again.

Elaine turned and glanced over her shoulder into the back seat. There were wet wrappers from the energy bars that Stan had eaten, his knapsack half-floating in the muddy water in the floorboard.

Elaine began to sob, salty tears coursing down her cheeks. Dmitry sat there in silence, the engine idling monotonously.

She could hardly believe that Stan was gone. She hadn’t realized how close she’d gotten to him. They had spent less than a week together, but under such intense circumstances, it felt like months. She had truly cared for him. Not romantically, but as a friend, and as a fellow human being who cared about something larger than himself.

“He was good man,” Dmitry said, as if he understood what Elaine was thinking.

“Yes, h-h-he was,” she said, choking on the words. She had another sobbing fit, was crying uncontrollably. She was aware that she was nearing her emotional limit, on the verge of a breakdown, but there was nothing she could do about it except to try and hold on.

Dmitry reached into his trouser pocket, pulled out the wet pouch of diamonds, and handed it to her.

“You must call Luna,” he said urgently.

Elaine wiped her eyes again, gazing down at the pouch.

Blood diamonds, she thought. That’s exactly what these are. She felt almost as superstitious as the Africans now, as if the pink diamonds themselves had somehow caused all this hardship and death. She told herself it was nonsense.

“You must call Luna,” Dmitry repeated, trying to pull her out of her shocked state. He picked Stan’s sat-phone up and held it out to her. It was still connected to the dashboard and was wet, covered with water droplets.

“Do you think it will even work?” she said dejectedly.

Dmitry reached into the back seat, retrieved the towel she had been using to dry herself, and wiped the water off both sides of the phone. When he turned it on, the blue display flickered to life.

He offered it to her again.

With cold, shaking hands, Elaine took it and punched Luna’s cell number.

As soon as she heard her friend’s deep voice, she wanted to burst into tears again. Somehow she managed to maintain control and was able to relate what had happened to Stan.

She expected Luna to say “Oh my god” or something to that effect, but her words were only met with a stunned silence.

“I just want this nightmare to end, Luna!” Elaine blurted, and started crying again.

“You have been through hell, Elaine,” Luna said sympathetically. “I’m sorry about Stan. I honestly don’t know how you’ve managed to hold it together as well as you have. But you’re almost there.”

Elaine was too upset to speak.

“We can finish this, baby-doll. All three of us, working together, if we keep our cool.”

“How?” Elaine demanded, her grief now morphing into a blind rage. “Stanley Ketchum is dead!”

“You can deliver the diamonds to Raj yourself.”

“How? He knows me! What do you think, I can just walk into the hotel and—”

“He doesn’t know Dmitry.” Luna paused and said patiently, “Elaine, I know it’s hard, but please try to maintain control, try to think rationally. Dmitry can pretend to be some friend of Stan’s, someone who lives in N’Djamena who Stan trusts. Such a person might not even know what’s in the package he’s delivering, right? He can say that Stan asked him to do it—Stan was in a car accident or something like that.”

“But that would make Raj suspicious. A Russian, suddenly delivering the monthly supply of diamonds instead of Stan?” She remembered that Stan had said that Raj left a message for him at the front desk about when to meet. “But maybe he could leave the package for Raj at the hotel, at the front desk, just before Raj arrives.”

“Yes! Now you’re thinking again, baby-doll. I think that would work.” Luna paused. “Did Stan call Raj and set up the meeting?”

“Yes, I heard both ends of the conversation. Tomorrow morning in N’Djamena, ten-thirty at The Mobutu Plaza, same hotel where I stayed. He uses the alias Vinod Patel.”

“Perfect. What about Cattoretti and funding the clinics—did you call him yet?”

“He agreed,” Elaine said. “Stan and I called him together.”