“Sadly, there’s little to be done to stop their suffering,” Adanne told me. “Medication is scarce, much of it stolen before it can get here. There is starvation, pneumonia, malaria. Even diarrhea can be fatal – and with the water and sanitation problems, there is no end to it.”
I saw one doctor and two volunteer nurses. That was it. The entire hospital staff for thousands of very sick people.
“This is what they call the ‘second phase’ of the crisis,” Adanne went on. “More people dying inside the camps than outside. Thousands. Every single day, Alex. I told you that it was horrifying.”
“You understated,” I said. “This is unimaginable. All these people. The children.”
I knelt down by a little girl in one of the few beds. Her eyes were clouded and looked unreal. I brushed away a buzzing cluster of black flies gathered at her ear.
“How do you say ‘God be with you’?” I asked Emmanuel.
“Allah ma’ak,” he told me.
I said it to the tiny girl, though I don’t know if she heard me.
“Allah ma’ak.”
Somewhere along the way today, I’d stepped away from a terrible, terrible murder investigation and into an unbelievable holocaust. How was this possible in our world? Thousands dying like this every day?
Adanne put a hand on my shoulder. “Alex? Are you ready to go? We should move on. You are here for the Tiger, not for this. There’s nothing you can do about this.”
I could hear in her voice that she’d seen all this before, many times probably.
“Not yet,” I said. “What needs doing around here? Anything?”
Emmanuel’s quick answer was not what I expected.
“That depends. Can either of you handle a rifle?”
Chapter 83
FOR THE NEXT few minutes, Adanne explained what should have been obvious to me – that the simple act of gathering firewood was one of the most dangerous parts of life at Kalma.
Janjaweed patrols were always present in the desert, and not far from the camp. Anyone venturing out took the risk of being raped, shot to death, or both. The wood gatherers, desperate women and their children, depended on AU escorts when they could get them; mostly, though, they were forced to take their chances alone. No firewood meant no way to feed your family.
Emmanuel secured me an older model M16, which had been retrofitted with a decent scope.
“Don’t hesitate to fire,” he told me. “Because, I promise you, the Janjaweed will not. They are skilled fighters, even while riding on horses or camels.”
“I won’t hesitate,” I promised, and I felt Adanne grab hold of my elbow, then let go.
“You’re sure about this, Alex?” she asked. “You want to get involved?”
“I’m sure.”
An hour or so later, we set out with an intrepid group of two dozen women wood gatherers.
Several had swaddled babies on their backs. One had brought a donkey with an old fork-shaped cart for carrying wood.
I needed to do this, to help in some way if I could. I knew this about myself: It was my nature. Adanne came too because, she said, “I feel responsible for you now. I brought you here, didn’t I?”
Chapter 84
YEARS OF WOOD foraging, moving farther and farther from the camp, had turned this into a long and scary walk.
I used the time to talk with as many of the women as possible. Only one, it turned out, had any information about the missing boys and possibly the Tiger.
“She says there is a hut in her sector,” Emmanuel told me.
“Three boys were sharing it. But now they are gone.”
“I thought that wasn’t unusual,” I said.
“Yes, except they left their things behind. She says a large man in fatigues was sighted in the camp. She was told he was the Tiger.”
“Did any of the missing boys have parents in the camp?” I asked.
“No parents.”
“And did anyone see the boys leave?”
“They left with the enormous man.”
After two hours of walking, we finally came to a long line of low, skeletal brush. The women spread gathering cloths on the ground and set to breaking down the brush. Adanne and I pitched in while Emmanuel kept watch for Janjaweed patrols on the horizon.
Without translation, we were mostly reduced to eye contact and gestures as we worked side by side with the gatherers. The women seemed oblivious to the scratches that appeared up and down their arms. They easily outpaced us newcomers and tried not to laugh at our clumsiness.
One young mother and I fell into a kind of unspoken communication, making faces at each other like little kids. She stuck out her blue-tattooed lip. I held up two sticks like antlers. That one got a real laugh out of her. She put her hand up to her mouth, not quite hiding a brilliant white smile.
But then the mother stopped short.
Her hand came down slowly as her eyes fixed on something in the distance.
I turned around but all I could see was a far-off dust cloud.
And then Emmanuel started shouting for everyone to run!
“Go quickly! Now! Get out of here! Go back to camp!”
Chapter 85
JANJAWEED!
I could see them now. Maybe a dozen armed killers were riding toward us on horseback.
There was a vapor, a kind of mirage that made it hard to tell the exact number. Either way, their pace didn’t leave much to the imagination. They were coming for us fast.
Two of the women, one with a child fiercely holding on to her blouse, were still unhitching the communal donkey.
“Get them out of here!” I shouted at Adanne. “You go with them. Please, Adanne.”
“Is there another weapon?” she yelled back.
“No,” Emmanuel answered. “Distance is your weapon right now. Go! For God’s sake, go! Take them back to camp.”
Emmanuel and I had to make a stand.
We took up a position behind the abandoned donkey cart. I was using it as a brace for the rifle more than as cover.
Our best hope was that we were on the ground while they would be firing from horseback.
I could see them through my scope now, eleven killers, bearded males in baggy fatigues, waving Kalashnikov rifles.
Just coming into range.
The first shots came from them.
Sand kicked up on either side of us. They rode a little wide of the mark, but still too close. They weren’t amateurs. They were already yelling threats at us, confident about the final result. Why not? They outnumbered us eleven to two.
“Now?” I finally said to Emmanuel.
“Now!” he shouted.
We fired back four shots, and two were hits. The killers slumped on their horses – like someone had dropped their puppet strings – then fell to the ground. One of them was trampled under his own horse. It looked like his neck had snapped.
Even as I pulled the trigger again, it registered with me: Everything changes now. First kill in Africa.
I heard a scream behind me, and my gut seized. One of the fleeing women had been hit, either by a stray shot or on purpose.
Not Adanne, I saw with a quick check over my shoulder.
She was keeping low, trying to get to the wounded woman, who was writhing on the ground. She’d only been shot in the arm. Only.
When I turned toward the Janjaweed again, two of the riders had stopped. They were jumping down off their horses, not to help their brothers but to get off a better shot at us.