‘Rosedale? You in there?’
Cooper banged on room 16.
‘Rosedale, if you didn’t want anyone to know you were in there, perhaps next time try not leaving your cowboy boots outside.’
‘If you have to come in, the door’s open.’
Cooper walked into the motel room. Expected a plain room with drab, ugly furniture, practical yet functional. What he got was bright and cheerful, clean white wood with blinds to match.
‘It’s nice in here.’
Rosedale sat in a purple recliner, opposite the TV. ‘Yep, it sure beats the floor of the jungle.’
Cooper perched on the end of the bed, looking at the movie Rosedale was watching.
‘Is this the bit where the Sioux give Lieutenant John Dunbar his name, Dances With Wolves?’
Rosedale didn’t say anything for a moment. He paused the DVD. Turned to Cooper, coldness in his eyes. ‘What is it you want, Thomas?’
‘I want to go back to the DRC, and I want you to come with me.’
‘You crazy boy… Now, if you’ve got nothing more to say to me, close the door on the way out.’
‘I’ll leave, but only once I’ve told you what it is Templin-Wright and Bemba are doing out there.’
Rosedale tilted his head, putting an unlit cigar in his mouth. ‘I’m listening.’
Cooper threw the books from the library on the bed, which Rosedale picked up with interest.
‘The Insect Army. The War of the Insects. What is this, Thomas?’
‘Well, I knew we had to look further. Emmanuel wasn’t the problem, but I couldn’t work out what was. But it only really started to come together for me when I saw the injection marks on that woman.’
‘Like how?’
‘Bemba, Charles and Donald Parker are the main players in this whole thing. And what they’ve done is use the people’s strong spiritual belief to manipulate and defraud.’
Rosedale frowned. ‘Go on.’
‘With consumers beginning to demand conflict-free products the pressure on the American electronics companies is really on, but a lot of companies have realized how difficult it is due to the militias’ presence and the constant violence, so they’ve either continued mining conflict minerals – although as we know there’s legislation trying to stop that – or, like a lot of companies, they’ve upped and left the DRC, because unlike Nadbury Electronics, most of the other firms didn’t own every link in the chain, and therefore didn’t have a huge amount of investment.’
‘You mean as in how Nadbury Electronics owns Condor Atlantic Mines.’
‘Right. So what we have is Nadbury having spent a hell of a lot of money investing in these mines, so there’s no way they want to pull out. Plus the fact they know there are millions and millions of dollars profit to be had in that area. They also see a huge opening in the market because of the demand for ethical mining, but only if they could prove to the world they were dealing with conflict-free minerals.’
Rosedale sighed. ‘Yeah but what are you getting at?’
‘Initially the militia were their main problem. That’s what stood between them and the big profits. As we know the militia brought violence, extortion, protection taxes, interception of the minerals in transit. The list goes on. But get rid of the militia your problem goes away. Or rather, Nadbury Electronics’s problem goes away. But the question is, how do they do it?’
‘You’re not making sense, Thomas. What has this got to do with the books?’
‘Beau actually gave me the idea and showed me what I couldn’t see. But once I read these books it all fell into place. Remember what Father O’Malley said to us about the militia not even wanting to go near what was seen as possessed land?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, this is where Bemba comes in. By using Bemba and getting him to work for them, Donald Parker and Charles were able to get Bemba to use the people’s cultural beliefs to scare the militia off the land. But they had to make it look authentic. Make it look like there was another force at play. So what they did was use infected fleas to bite people and cause them to become ill. Making them think that they and their land were possessed. That’s what the porcelain pots were about.’
Rosedale sat up in his chair.
Cooper continued. ‘I think they’ve been constructing porcelain clay bombs filled with infected fleas and dropping them over the area. There are some photos in the books of the clay bombs that this Japanese General, Shirō Ishii, used to drop fleas to infect people. They’re exactly the same as the pots we saw, or what I thought were pots, in the Lemon water plant… It’s very basic, but clearly very effective.’
‘You sure?’
‘As sure as I can be. It all makes sense. They’ve been packaging the fleas inside the bomb and creating entomological warfare. That’s why the plane was flying so low. According to the books, they could drop the bombs with a basic detonator on a five second timer from an aircraft at a height of 100-300 meters and they’d explode leaving almost no trace. In order to detonate TNT, it must be confined in a casing or shell, which makes the clay bomb perfect. I think Charles and Donald are in charge of, or are part of, the making of the bombs. They both have the tell-tale yellow staining on their skin from handling TNT.’
‘You think someone like Donald Parker would get involved in the actual making of the things?’
‘Normally, I’d say, no. But this isn’t normal. No doubt they want as few as people knowing as possible. So if that means Parker has to do his share of things, then so be it. After all it was him I saw at Lemon only recently. And remember that rat we saw in the Perspex box on our first visit to Lemon water plant?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Well it was covered in fleas wasn’t it? That’s probably where they get the fleas from. They use the rats as a host.’
‘That’s a hell of a lot of rats they’d need to catch.’
‘Which is why I think they got the kids in the area to collect the rats for money. So they have a constant supply of hosts for the fleas to breed and feed off, because otherwise if the fleas don’t get enough blood it’s impossible for the fleas to survive. In the books it talks about fleas having sturdy bodies, and being pretty hardy. So the packaging of the fleas, as well as the drop from the plane, doesn’t have much of an effect on them. So once the porcelain bomb explodes, the fleas just jump out from the broken clay bombs without a problem. Obviously some will die, but they were probably the ones we saw in large clusters on the ground.’
‘Jesus, Thomas. How come nobody noticed?’
‘Like who? Who is it that cares? And the Lemon water plant is a perfect cover. They stay seemingly transparent, even doing educational tours. Plus, they’re also involved in the community. So the whole place is something of an example for positive and social community projects.’
Rosedale was very interested by now. ‘So maybe it was fleas Zola was talking about when she said people thought the witchcraft was coming from the skies. Perhaps there was a cloud of fleas.’
‘I’m with you on that one.’
‘But, wait a minute. If you think it was the militia they wanted off the land, why are the locals involved with it all?’
‘This is a guess, okay, but I think the plan with the fleas probably worked so well with the militia, they started to use it to manipulate the locals off their land. After all, the whole area for miles and miles is prime mining land, worth millions, maybe billions of dollars in mineral reserves… It all started to make sense to me when I went to see a friend of mine who works at Washington University. She helped me check the mining licenses.’
‘And?’
‘And, Condor Atlantic Mines, owned as we know by Nadbury Electronics, applied for and was granted mining research permits, as well as mining licenses, for that same large area of land which the locals were afraid of.’
‘Which happens to be the land Bemba got them to sign over in these so called exchanges.’
Cooper nodded. ‘They’ve got it all locked down.’
‘But Thomas, one thing I don’t understand is, how come Bemba and Charles didn’t get ill if they were around the fleas?’
‘When I spoke to Eddie about the fleas he said not only does it depend on your immune system, there’s a possibility that the disease the fleas are carrying is easily cured by basic antibiotics in the early stages. So if they ever had it, or showed any signs of getting it, they could just easily administer antibiotics on themselves. After that they’d be resistant to it. It’s only when you allow the disease to the next stages there’s no going back.’
‘So perhaps whatever this disease is, it’s the lack of knowledge which is the biggest danger.’
‘Totally. A lot of the diseases in areas like the eastern part of the DRC, where there’s poverty and lack of resources, wouldn’t ever be a problem if the people had access to medicine and proper healthcare.’
‘And I guess because they haven’t got proper medical services there, what they’ve done is put all their trust in Bemba.’
‘Right. Bemba’s telling them that they’re possessed, rather than the truth which is they’re just ill. And he’s done it by manipulating his position and status within the communities. I’m guessing he told people they were possessed, and so was the land, but for a price he would help rid them of the witchcraft, and knowing that as long as the disease hadn’t progressed too much, the likelihood of the antibiotics working was pretty high. That’s what I think the injection marks were on the woman’s arm. The antibiotics. But I can’t be a hundred percent sure. With people desperate to get well, and rid themselves of the Kindoki, they were willing to give an exchange to the spirit world via Bemba.’
‘And Bemba insisted the exchange was their land.’
‘Yeah, and even if, like Zola’s grandson, it was too late for the antibiotics to work, it didn’t matter to Bemba because in line with local beliefs, just trying to heal a person demands an exchange. And Bemba was the perfect person because I think not only was he violent and sadistic and power hungry, which we learnt he was from Bill Travis, I think he probably has some real belief in Kindoki himself. So the combination of his psychopathic ways along with his spiritual belief system equates to one hell of a twisted and dangerous mix.’
Rosedale lit his cigar. ‘And Emmanuel?’
‘What I think happened with Emmanuel is he found out something, and so did this Dr. Foster guy. They apparently visited the water treatment plant together before he flew home. I’m not sure why but it’s obvious they both knew something. Emmanuel disappears, I suspect murdered, but all in the name of witchcraft. And if anyone did question or investigate, maybe like Emmanuel did, Bemba would turn the community against them, pronouncing them a witch. The sense of fear is huge, both from the spirit world and Bemba, who totally abused their beliefs and knew exactly how to.’
Rosedale said. ‘What about this Dr. Foster?’
‘Well they’re saying he probably committed suicide, but I very much doubt that. I think it’s got something to do with what he found out.’
‘So you think he was murdered?’
‘That’s what my hunch is telling me. According to his secretary, Karen, he went to speak to Donald Parker at Nadbury. Maybe the guy realized Dr. Foster knew too much.’
‘So he killed him and made it look like suicide.’
‘Got it in one… So what do you reckon? It all makes sense, doesn’t it? Can you see how it all fits into place?’
‘Couple of questions, Thomas. You think the rats were diseased already?’
‘Who knows? But all you need is one diseased rat, take the blood from it and inject it into a healthy rat. The process is effective but simple. But if they’ve been injecting the rats with the disease, or the rats were diseased already, the outcome is the same.’
‘And the plane? What’s your take on that?’
‘I think it was registered to Emmanuel, not the Lemon water plant or Condor Atlantic Mines, to distance themselves completely from anything. And then like I say he probably found something out which he didn’t like. Then they got rid of him, like they got rid of a lot of people.’
Rosedale gave Cooper a wry smile. ‘Jesus, next time I think I’m just going to stick to Granger’s orders. Just bring back the goddamn plane.’
‘Look, I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but we’ve got to do something, Rosedale. I’ve found out that there’s a connecting flight to Kigali tomorrow evening.’
Rosedale fell silent. He walked over to the small fridge in the corner, breaking open a bottle of beer. ‘Is that everything?’
‘Yeah, I think I covered everything. Can’t think of anything else.’
Sitting down, Rosedale un-paused the movie. ‘Well, if that’s everything, then close the door on the way out. I’m just getting to the good bit.’