Chapter 32

 

Nick trudged back through the grass towards the spot where he’d left the fuel container, half-angry and half-amazed that the Janjaweed had the smarts to snag an antelope and plant the GPS tracker on it. He was impressed. They must have lassoed the animal.

But there was one small detail they may not have anticipated—the GPS app on the phone not only showed the current location of the transmitter, but also memorized its previous path.

When he got back to the dirt bike, he set the flashlight on the edge of the seat and pulled out the detailed map that Stanley Ketchum made of the area that Elaine had given to him. Poor bastard, Nick thought, as he looked at the yellow highlighter and notes made by the dead man’s hand. Eaten alive by crocodiles, Elaine had said. He hoped she hadn’t had to witness that up close, but from the sick look on her face when she’d told him, he thought she had.

Clicking the HISTORY button on the app and looking at the GPS trail, Nick found the exact spot where the antelope had been planted with the device—a very sharp about face. Previously, the line went due east, towards the nearest section of the Sudanese border. They had most likely kept going in that direction, thinking they’d thrown anyone who followed far off track.

Nick glanced at his watch. Almost four in the morning now—it wouldn’t be long before the sun came up. Would they continue on to Sudan in broad daylight?

He didn’t think so. If he were in their shoes, or sandals, he would find a safe place to camp out and hang around and rest until after dark tomorrow, and then continue on. If he followed the path from where the GPS took the sharp turn and continued due east, he might run across them. Without the tracking device, it was the only hope he had.

 

* * *

Nick drove the dirt-bike for only another seven kilometers, then encountered a wide plain in the savannah and found what he thought was the tribesmen’s trail.

He was no expert tracker, but by following some of the hoof prints for a while he thought they were moving quite slowly now, walking their horses rather than trotting or galloping. They were slowing down, which he reasoned meant they were indeed not planning on reaching the border before dawn.

Nick decided to hide the dirt bike in the scrub again and continue on foot. He took the fuel container with him, strapping it crudely atop the knapsack with some bungee cord. He felt like a local.

Nick moved through the grass and muddy spots slowly, watching for wild animals and snakes, the AK poised and ready to fire. It was wetter here, with swampy areas he had to bypass, as did the tribesmen—he lost the tracks a couple of times but managed to pick them up again.

After walking for over an hour, he slowed again, smelling wood smoke in the air. This was not uncommon in these parts, as virtually every village used open wood fires for cooking. But at this early hour it was unusual, he thought. Even the incessant drumming from the villages that he’d skirted had finally ceased for the night.

The tracks soon led him to a wooded area, scattered with acacia trees and patches of the tall, reed-like bamboo.

The smell of wood smoke was sharp and strong, now, and he thought he could detect the distinct smell of roasting goat, the staple meat around these parts.

But he could see no fire. They probably had pitched some tarps around it to keep it from attracting attention.

He continued to move forward very, very cautiously, the vegetation growing thicker. He kept the flashlight pointed downwards, with his palm around the end, shielding the beam

As he carefully took another step, he felt something firm press against his shin.

He stopped and slowly pulled his leg back.

A wire of some kind...no, a thin yellow rope, like the one that had been around the neck of the antelope. It was taught, running right in front of him left to right, one end angling around a tree.

An animal trap?

Nick crept along, following the rope, making as little noise as possible, watching for any sign of the camp, following it around one tree, then around another...and then it terminated in what definitely looked like some kind of trap. But upon closer inspection, he saw that it was simply a big piece of bamboo with one end split into a Y, with a stick jammed in between to spread the two ends apart, like two jaws under tension. The rope was tied to the stick that held them open.

Nick realized it was a crude but effective motion detector, with an “audio alarm.” If an animal or person tripped the rope, it would simply yank the stick out from in between the two bent pieces of bamboo and they would snap closed and make a crisp pop, plenty loud enough to wake all of the sleeping tribesmen.

When he reached the bamboo alarm device and inspected it, he found that there was another rope tied to the same little stick. It ran off in the other direction—the two ropes completely encircled their campsite.

Nick heard the unmistakable snort of a horse...and following the direction of the sound, he made out the form of several of the animals standing near another tree.

And then, snoring.

Human snoring.

 

* * *

A few minutes later, Nick left his backpack and rifle on the ground and quietly climbed up the biggest tree on the edge of the campsite, a baobab, crawling onto one of the limbs that angled up and out. This wasn’t easy to do without making any noise, especially with a pair of binoculars dangling from his neck. He also had to be mindful of snakes—black mambas, in particular, would climb trees for shelter or prey.

But he encountered none of the dangerous reptiles, only a few ants and annoying mosquitoes, and soon found himself hugging tight to the telephone pole-sized limb that afforded him a good view of the campsite. It was dawn now, the sky, partially clear in patches, beginning to glow a deep indigo, backlighting the Marrah Mountains, which were clearly visible on the horizon.

Through his binoculars, Nick could now make out the dark forms of the men sleeping on the ground. They were scattered around a grassy area with bits of flat rock visible in places, most of them reclined on their backs under blankets that apparently they also used as saddles for their horses—all of the tied animals were bareback.

Elaine had told him about the white-haired tribesman who had somehow known they were in possession of diamonds. Nick figured he was the one who was holding onto them now. Cattoretti had told Elaine that the man had probably been hired by Raj Malik to find the location of the diamond mine and maybe to kill Stanley Ketchum, but he wasn’t certain.

Holding on tightly to the tree branch with one arm, Nick raised the binoculars and scanned the ground, moving them from one man’s head to another. It wasn’t quite light enough to see much detail—now he wished he had some IR goggles. None of the bearded men in his field of view seemed to have grey hair. There were ten in all, at least the ones he could see. They looked utterly exhausted, sprawled out as if they’d fallen asleep the instant they had lain down, some of them snoring deeply.

Nick began to worry, afraid that the old, bearded man had gone his own way, and that the diamonds were now far out of reach. He swept the binoculars around the site again, taking in all the horses...

Then he spotted a dark blanket, off all by itself, in between the rest of the sleeping men and the horses, in the center of the small camp. When he focused the binoculars tightly on the blanket, he could see that a man was sleeping under it, on his side, facing away from Nick. A white beard was partially visible.

Nick carefully climbed back down from the tree, making sure the binoculars didn’t bang against the branches.

When he reached the ground, he accidentally stepped on the edge of the knapsack, and he heard a sickening, muffled crunch. The sat-phone. He reached into the knapsack and felt the smashed-up pieces. So much for that, but he supposed it didn’t matter.

He sat there for a moment, assessing the situation, and he decided that crude rope/motion detector system was an opportunity to cause even more confusion and chaos than he had planned.

He made two small Molotov cocktails using the beer bottles and strips of cloth torn from one of his T-shirts, which he had done in advance, knowing that it would make too much noise. He tucked them both inside the webbed bottle holders on the outside of his knapsack. He then pulled out his plastic water bottle, emptied it into the grass, and filled it with gasoline, too. Picking the rifle back up and strapping it to his chest, he began making his way slowly along the rope that encircles the camp, using one hand to hold it steady and the other to soak it with gasoline, running the spout of the water bottle along it.

He stopped every now and then to make sure the men were still asleep. He was afraid the horses might become skittish and give him away as he neared the opposite side of the campsite, where they were tied. A couple of them snorted and shifted uneasily on their legs, but they did not seem particularly disturbed by his presence.

Nick was about three quarters of the away around the circle when he saw one of the men sit up.

It was the old man with the beard.

Nick stood still, afraid to breath, as the old man turned in a slow circle, his head back, as if sniffing the air.

He’d noticed the gas fumes—Nick was sure of it.

Just as Nick reached for his lighter the man shouted something in Arabic.

Nick ducked and crawled over behind the next tree along the perimeter, struck his lighter, and held it up to the rope. The gasoline-soaked fibers instantly jumped aflame. He watched the yellow-blue flame rush down the rope and whip around the first tree, the second, and the third, making a whooshing sound that cut through the still dawn air.

Three of the men had already climbed sleepily to their feet and were staring with their mouths open, the campsite suddenly bathed in yellow, flickering light. One screamed at about the time the flame came back around and reached the spot where Nick had started.

Now all the men were on their feet, confused, yelling in Arabic, huddling together in the center of the campsite. They all held their rifles in their hands and were ready to start shooting, but were uncertain about where and what to aim at, and about what was happening in general. One fell to his knees and began bowing and kissing the ground, muttering about Allah.

It was working.

The horses were agitated, whinnying and pulling against the ropes that secured them, fear in their eyes.

Still crouched behind the tree, Nick grabbed the first Molotov cocktail from his backpack, lit the cloth, and then stepped back and hurled it into the air, in a long, high arc, so that it would appear to fall into the campsite straight down from the sky. He prayed that it would land on one of the flat rocks where it would shatter, and not the grass or on top of one of the blankets.

It looked like a meteor as it streaked downward in between the confused men. It hit the rocks and exploded with a brilliant burst of fire.

Most of the men were no longer interested in hanging around, and they dashed towards their horses. There was utter chaos as they stumbled over each other, trying to get to their horses—it was clear that they attributed what was happening to some sort of curse or supernatural phenomenon, perhaps connected with the “witch” they had encountered only hours ago with the strange symbol on her stomach and the black mamba which she had driven mad and which had tried to eat itself.

Splatter from the cocktail caught one of the men’s robes on fire, but he paid no attention, leaping onto one of the horses and galloping away. He was the first to break through the burning rope that surrounded the site. He screamed like a child as he passed through it, as if he thought he might explode himself for crossing some sort of bewitched barrier.

As the frenzied tribesmen made their mass exodus, Nick grabbed the second cocktail and lit the rag, again tossing it in a long, high arc that cleared the treetops.

But one man just stood there, alone and unfettered, his sandaled feet planted firmly in place.

And he was looking straight at Nick.

The homemade bomb landed right behind him and exploded, but he didn’t even flinch.

Still shielding himself with the tree trunk, Nick peeked around the bark and aimed the Kalashnikov at him.

“Almas!” Nick barked.

The man did not move.

“Almas!” Nick said, even louder. He appeared unarmed, Nick did not want to shoot or kill the man unless it was absolutely necessary. He didn’t have much time, either. Those Molotov explosions, and the fire, would probably attract rebels or Chadian armed forces, if there were any close by.

The old man just stood there, his robed silhouette backlit by the dying flames behind him. For reasons Nick could not explain, he thought the man was blind. And maybe deaf, too.

The one remaining horse whinnied, and Nick glanced in that direction.

In the next split second he heard the sound of something whipping through the air, end over end.

There was a heavy thump on Nick’s chest and a sharp pain accompanying it—when he looked down a knife was sticking out of the left-hand strap of his backpack.

Nick gasped and ducked back behind the tree. He quickly pulled the knife out—the blade had only penetrated about a half inch into his skin, fortunately. He realized that if it hit him just a little bit closer to his body’s centerline it might have gone right through his heart.

Nick stuck the knife into his pocket, handle first, then raised the rifle, no longer worried about hurting or killing, and also having no more doubts about the man’s vision.

He inched the gun barrel and his head slowly around the tree trunk, his finger on the trigger...

The man was gone!

Nick hadn’t heard the slightest sound, but the old man was nowhere in sight.

He crouched down low against the tree trunk, fear rearing its ugly head—what was he dealing with here, some kind of Janjaweed-Ninja?

Nick looked uneasily around the treetops, then glanced over at the area around the one horse that remained, thinking that he might be trying to make a getaway.

Then out of the corner of his eye, he caught some movement, and the air being cut again by the whipping, end over end sound. Nick instinctively ducked and another knife went flying past his head.

“Jesus,” Nick gasped, and thought: How many knives does that guy have?

And where the hell is he?

About the time Nick finished this thought, he caught another movement and saw the man dashing towards the horse so fast that it seemed like a blur.

Nick raised the rifle and pulled the trigger, trying to follow him, but the round missed. He leapt over the animal’s hindquarters, Indian style, and in a flash, cut the lead that tied the horse to the tree.

Nick aimed again and at the same second he pulled the trigger, the man flung the same knife he’d just cut the rope in a fast, underhanded manner, without even looking. Nick flinched and the bullet went wide, the knife narrowly missing his right shoulder.

The horse was already in motion, the old man’s hands around its neck, his head down. In that half second Nick realized he only had one more chance, and he raised the rifle to his cheek and fired again.

The horse shied sideways, almost hitting a low-hanging tree branch, and the man slid off, landing on his back.

Crouching for a few seconds, Nick slowly began to move towards him, keeping the rifle pointed at him, ready for another knife to be thrown.

But the old man just lay there, his chest heaving, his eyes staring up at the dawn sky.

Nick cautiously approached him. His white robe was splattered with blood—the bullet seemed to have caught him in the fleshy part of his lower left side, and had exited from the front, ripping a hole in the material. It was not a fatal wound, unless he bled to death.

As Nick crept up on him, he reached into his robe.

“Stop!” Nick shouted, and then switched to Arabic. “Tawqf!”

Beyond him, on the horizon, Nick saw headlights, far in the distance—two pairs of them.

From the robe, the man slowly pulled out what looked like a cloth pouch, and he tossed it out into the grass.

The diamonds.

Moving slowly, and keeping the rifle pointed at him, Nick stepped up to the pouch and picked it up. It was smeared with blood from the old man’s wound. He could feel the rough stones through the beige cloth.

“Tarak il,” the old man gasped.

Nick only knew a few words of Arabic, but he thought that meant “leave me.”

Nick glanced past the trees, at the approaching headlights. Two pickup trucks, traveling at high speed, moving in their direction, towards the pieces of rope and debris from the cocktails that was still burning. Rebels or the Chadian army, he thought.

He bent down over the old man, looking at the wrinkled face, and he blinked once with astonishment—the elderly tribesman did look blind. His eyes were covered with cataracts.

He opened his mouth and said, in a grave tone, “Sawf ‘aqtaluk w eayituk, mushy is Allah.”

Nick didn’t know what that meant, something about Allah, maybe a curse, but he decided it was time to leave. He quickly stuffed the package of diamonds into his pocket and took off running in the other direction, hoping to make it to the dirt-bike before the men in the pickup trucks arrived.