One man waved the flag of Sudan as if they were here on the state’s business, and possibly they were. Another carried a flag with a white fierce horseman on a dark blue background, the symbol of the Janjaweed.
The women and children of the camp, who had been laughing and playing just a minute before, were screaming and trying to scatter out of harm’s way now.
The attack was satanic in its viciousness; it was pure evil, like the murder scenes I’d visited in Washington. Grown men slashed away at defenseless refugees or shot them down. The thatched roofs of huts were set on fire not twenty feet away from me. An elderly man was lit on fire.
Then more Janjaweed arrived, with camels, horses, and two Land Cruisers mounted with machine guns. There was nothing but killing, cutting, slashing, screaming to heaven – no other purpose to this attack.
I fought off a few of the bastards, but there wasn’t anything I could do to stop so many. I understood the way the people of this camp, of this country, understand: No one can help us.
But that night someone did. Finally, Sudanese regulars and a few UN troops arrived in jeeps and vans. The Janjaweed began to leave. They took a few women and animals with them.
Their last senseless and vengeful act: They burned down a grain shed used for storing millet.
I finally found Adanne, and she was cradling a child who had watched her mother die.
Then everything was strangely quiet except for the people’s sobbing and the low winds of the harmattan.
Chapter 89
IT WAS GETTING close to morning when I finally laid myself down in a tent with a straw mat on the floor. It had been provided to me by the Red Cross workers, and I was too tired to argue that I didn’t need a roof over my head.
The flap of the tent opened suddenly and I got up on one elbow to see who it was.
“It’s me, Alex. Adanne. May I come in?”
“Of course you can.” My heart pumped in my chest.
She stepped inside and sat down beside me on the mat.
“Terrible day,” I said in a hoarse whisper.
“It’s not always this bad,” she said. “But it can be worse. The Sudanese soldiers knew a reporter was in the camp. And an American. That’s why they came to chase away the Janjaweed. They don’t want bad press if they can possibly avoid it.”
I shook my head and started to smile. So did Adanne.
They weren’t happy smiles. I knew that what she had said was true, but it was also ridiculous and absurd.
“We’re supposed to share the tent, Alex,” Adanne finally said. “Do you mind?”
“Share a tent with you? No, I think I can handle that. I’ll do my best.”
Adanne stretched herself out on the mat. She reached out and patted my hand. Then I took her hand in mine.
“You have someone – back in America?” she asked.
“I do. Her name is Bree. She’s a detective too.”
“She’s your wife?”
“No, we’re not married. I was once. My first wife was killed. It was a long time ago, Adanne.”
“I’m sorry to ask so many questions, Alex. We should sleep now.”
Yes, we should sleep.
We held hands until we drifted off. Only that – hand-holding.
Chapter 90
THE FOLLOWING DAY, we left the camp at Kalma. Nine refugees had died during the nighttime attack; another four were still missing. If this had happened in Washington, the entire city would be in an uproar now.
Emmanuel was one of the dead, and they had cut off his head, probably because of his participation when we’d fought back earlier.
A mutual hunch took Adanne and me to the Abu Shouk camp, the next-largest settlement in the region. The reception there was more ambivalent than we’d gotten at Kalma.
A big fire the night before had made personnel scarce, and we were told to wait at the main administrative tent until we could be processed.
“Let’s go,” I said to Adanne after we’d waited nearly an hour and a half.
She had to run to catch up with me. I was already headed up a row of what looked like shelters. Abu Shouk was much more uniform and dismal than Kalma. Nearly all of the buildings were of the same mud-brick construction.
“Go where?” Adanne said when she came up even with me.
“Where the people are.”
“All right, Alex. I’ll be a detective with you today.”
Three hours later, Adanne and I had managed half a dozen almost completely unproductive conversations, with Adanne attempting to serve as translator. The residents were at first as friendly as those in Kalma, but as soon as I mentioned the Tiger, they shut down or just walked away from us. He had been here before, but that was all the people would tell us.
We finally came to an edge of the camp, where the sand plain continued on toward a range of low tan mountains in the distance, and probably bands of Janjaweed.
“Alex, we need to go back,” Adanne said. She had the tone of a person putting her foot down. “Unfortunately, this has been unproductive, don’t you think? We’re nearly dehydrated, and we don’t even know where we’re sleeping tonight. We’ll be lucky to get a ride into town” – she stopped and looked around – “if we can even find our way back to the admin tent before dark.”
The place was like an impossible maze, with rows of identical huts wherever we looked. And so many displaced people, thousands and thousands, many of them sick and dying.
I took a deep breath, fighting off the day’s frustration. “All right. Let’s go. You’re right.”
We started picking our way back and had just come around a corner, when I stopped again. I put a hand out to keep Adanne from taking another step. “Hold up. Don’t move,” I said quietly.
I had spotted a large man ducking out of one of the shelters. He was wearing what I’d call street clothes anywhere else. Here, they marked him as an outsider.
He was huge, both tall and broad, with dark trousers, a long white dashiki, and sunglasses under a heavy brow and shaved head.
I took a step back, just out of sight.
It was him. I was sure it was the same bastard I’d seen at Chantilly. The Tiger – the one I was chasing.
“Alex–”
“Shh. That’s him, Adanne.”
“Oh, my God, you’re right!”
The man gestured to someone out of sight, and then two young boys walked out of the shelter behind him. One was nobody to me. The other wore a red-and-white Houston Rockets jersey. I recognized him instantly from Sierra Leone.
Adanne gripped my arm tightly and she whispered,
“What are you going to do?”
They were walking away but were still in plain sight.
“I want you to wait five minutes and then find your way back. I’ll meet you.”
“Alex!” She opened her mouth to say more but stopped.
It was probably my eyes that told her how serious I was. Because I had realized that everything I’d been told was true. The rules I knew just didn’t apply here.
There was no taking him in – no transporting him back to Washington.
I was going to have to kill the Tiger, possibly right here in the Abu Shouk camp.
I had few qualms about it either. The Tiger was a murderer.
And I had finally caught up with him.
Chapter 91
I HUNG BACK, following the killer at a distance. It sure wasn’t hard to keep him in sight. I had no specific plan. Not yet.
Then I saw a shovel sitting unattended outside somebody’s hut. I took it and kept moving.
It was just past sunset, a time when everything looked tinted with blue, and sound carried. Maybe he heard me, because he turned around. I ducked out of sight, or at least I hoped so.