But before he did, he leaned down again to repeat his message into Marcozza’s chubby ear as he lay hunched over the table dying a slow, mean death.
“Justice is blind.”
Part One. A JOB TO DIE FOR
Chapter 1
THE WORDS I will never be able to forget were “Hold on tight, because this is going to be one hairy ride.” In point of fact, those words not only described the next several minutes, but the next several days of my life.
I had been lying fast asleep under nothing but the high, bright stars of an African night sky with only a frayed, moth-eaten mat separating me from some of the poorest dirt on the planet when suddenly my eyes popped open and my heart immediately skipped a beat. Make that a couple of beats.
Holy shit! Is that what I think it is?
Gunfire?
The answer to my question came the very next second as Dr. Alan Cole raced over to me in the darkness and grabbed my arm, shaking me hard. We’d been sleeping outside because our pup tents were like saunas.
“Wake up, Nick. Get up! Now!” he said. “We’re being attacked. I’m serious, man.”
I shot straight up and turned to him as the sound of more gunfire echoed in the air. Pop! Pop! Pop!
It was getting closer. Whoever was shooting – they were getting closer. And moving quickly.
“Janjaweed – that’s who it is, right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Alan. “I was afraid this could happen. Word got around that we’re here.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Follow me,” he said with a wave of his flashlight. “Quickly, Nick. Keep moving.”
I grabbed my pillow – otherwise known as my knapsack. From the corner of my eye I spotted one of my notepads over by the stack of crates that had been functioning as my desk. I took one step toward it when Alan grabbed my arm again, this time to hold me back.
“There’s no time, Nick. We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” he warned. “Otherwise, we’re both dead. And that’s after they torture us.”
Well, when you put it like that…
Lickety-split, I fell in line behind Alan as we raced past the few shanties of plywood and corrugated metal that were used as operating rooms at this makeshift hospital on the outskirts of the Zalingei district of Sudan. It dawned on me how in control the doctor seemed, even now. He wasn’t screaming or shouting.
Meanwhile, that’s all I wanted to do.
For crying out loud, Nick, what’s with you and the death wish? Did you really have to take this assignment? You knew this part of Darfur was still too dangerous for journalists! Even Courtney said so when she offered you the assignment.
But that was the whole point of the article I was writing – the reason I knew I had to be here and see it with my own eyes. This part of Darfur was still too dangerous for doctors as well. Obviously. But that didn’t stop Dr. Alan Cole from coming here, did it? No. The acclaimed thoracic surgeon had left his wife and two beautiful kids back in Maryland to be here for four months with the Humanitarian Relief Corps to save the lives of Sudanese civilians who would otherwise suffer and die without medical care.
Now I was relying on Alan Cole to save my life, too.
Pop! Pop-pop-pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop-pop!
I kept running behind him and the hazy glow of his flashlight, ignoring the sting against my bare feet as I stepped on the sharp rocks and spiny twigs that littered the ground.
Up ahead I could see some movement: the two female Sudanese nurses who worked full-time in the hospital. One was starting up a rickety old Jeep that Alan had pointed out to me when I’d first arrived days earlier.
He’d called it the “getaway car.” I thought he was joking.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Think again, Nick.
“Get in!” Alan told me as we reached the Jeep. The nurse in the driver’s seat jumped out to let him take over the wheel.
As I practically hurled myself into the shotgun seat I waited for the two nurses to climb in the back. They didn’t.
Instead they both whispered the same thing to us. “Salaam alaikum.”
I’d already learned what that meant. Peace be with you. But I was confused. “Aren’t they coming with us?” I asked Alan.
“No,” he said, jerking the creaky gearshift out of park. “The Janjaweed don’t want them. They want us. Americans. Foreigners. We’re interfering here.”
With that, he quickly thanked the nurses, telling the two he hoped to see them soon. “Wa alaikum salaam,” he added. And peace upon you.
Then Alan hit the gas like a sledgehammer, plastering me against the back of my seat.
“Hold on tight,” he told me over the rattle and roar of the engine, “because this is going to be one hairy ride.”
A BLAST OF the hot desert air nearly burned my face as we hit the road, or at least what passed for the road in this god-forsaken part of the world. There was no pavement, only a beaten track of dirt that was now flying off our tires as we fishtailed back and forth with Alan doing his damnedest to avoid the occasional citrus tree that had managed to survive the wretched heat and droughtlike conditions here.
Did I mention we had our headlights off? Welcome to the Ray Charles Grand Prix.
“How we doing?” Alan shouted at the top of his voice. “Do they see us? Can you see them?”
He and I were a mere foot apart from each other, but we still had to shout to be heard. I swear, a fighter jet breaking the sound barrier was quieter than this Jeep’s engine.
“See us? How can they not hear us?” I shouted back. “I don’t see anybody yet.”
I’d done a good bit of homework on the Janjaweed before arriving from the States. They were the proxy militia of the Arab Muslims in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, and had long been fighting and killing the African Muslims in the countryside over, among other things, land allocation. The bloodshed had been relentless and mainly one-sided. Hence, the genocide we keep hearing about.
But reading articles and a few books on the Janjaweed from the comfort of my couch in Manhattan was one thing. This was entirely another affair.
I turned to look over my shoulder, the cloud of dirt and dust flying in our wake making it hard to see anything. That’s when I felt the air split open around me as a bullet whizzed by my ear. Jesus Christ, that was close.
“Faster, Alan!” I said. “We’ve got to go faster! You can go faster, can’t you?”
Alan gave me a quick nod, his eyes squinting as he struggled to see through the darkness and flying dirt.
As for me, I contemplated my premature death at thirty-three by counting the unchecked boxes on my life’s to-do list. Winning a Pulitzer. Learning how to play the saxophone. Driving an Enzo Ferrari along the Pacific Coast Highway.
Oh yeah, and finally having the balls to tell a certain woman back home that I loved her more than I had previously cared to admit – even to myself.
What could I say that one of my half-dozen favorite authors, John Steinbeck, hadn’t already figured out? Something about the best-laid plans of mice and men often going awry?
But hold on!
Speaking of plans, the doctor at the wheel apparently had one of his own. “We need something heavy!” declared Alan.
Heavy? “Like what?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. Check in the back – the cargo area,” he said, handing me his flashlight. “And stay low! I don’t want losing you on my conscience.”
“No, I don’t want that either, Alan!”
Like an added exclamation point, a bullet ricocheted off the metal roll bar. Ping!
“Make that real low!” Alan added.
I grabbed the thick rubber handle of the flashlight, quickly snaking my way into the cramped quarters of the backseat. Peering into the cargo area I spotted nothing but a few empty water bottles bouncing around like jumping beans.