We stopped and LeDuc called out a phrase in French that we’d agreed on previously to use in this eventuality: ‘Nous sommes Améric-ains. Nous sommes avec vous. Nous portons le drapeau blanc’, which, loosely translated, meant, ‘We’re Americans — white flag. We surrender.’
Cassidy cut the fexcuffs off and handed Marcel one of the Nazarians with an empty magazine. He then showed him that the safety on his own weapon was in the off position, in case the African should decide to make a run for it. Marcel nodded understanding, his forehead slick with sweat and dark, wet patches under his armpits.
At that moment, a four-man squad — or, more correctly, three men and a baby of no more than ten years of age — raced down the hill toward us. They were nervous as hell and carrying semi-automatic rifles. Those of us with weapons put them slowly on the ground in front of us and we all put our hands up.
‘Nous sommes Américains, Américains.’ LeDuc and I took turns saying it. I noticed that the Africans had their fingers resting on triggers, and had no doubt that their safeties were off. I hoped none of them was prone to sneezing. Two more soldiers strode down between the trees, one of them with his hand resting on the side-arm belted to his hip. He snapped orders at the detail, which then stepped back but kept their weapons trained on us.
‘Nous sommes Américains. Nous sommes avec vous. Nous portons le drapeau blanc,’ LeDuc repeated.
‘Mais vous êtês Français?’ the man asked LeDuc.
‘Oui, je suis Français,’ LeDuc answered. ‘MONUC.’
An exchange between the two men followed as the African inspected Leila and Ayesha. He seemed to like what he saw. He then moved up and down the line, not so happy to see the US Army and the USAF.
The kid from the squad, accompanied by someone probably not much older than him, stepped forward, picked up our weapons and ejected the magazines before placing them back on the ground. Junior snatched the backpack from Ryder and stuffed the mags into it.
‘He accepts that we are not their enemy,’ LeDuc told us, ‘but he is still nervous. He is only a junior lieutenant and I think he is not sure what he should do.’
The officer nodded as LeDuc spoke, as if he understood English, but he plainly didn’t. He approached me and said, ‘Vous êtes Américain, hein? Ou en êtes-vous en Amérique?’
‘What did he say?’ I asked LeDuc.
‘He asked whereabouts in America you come from.’
‘Tell him Shitsville, New Jersey.’
Whether the lieutenant understood or not, he nodded, moved up the line and stopped at Marcel. ‘Parlez-vous Français?’ he asked, looking the man up and down.
Sweat leaked from every pore on Marcel’s body. He shook his head, maybe a little too vehemently. ‘N-no, no speak French,’ he managed to get past his lips.
The lieutenant nodded and something caught his attention on the ground, sticking out from under Cassidy’s boot. He bent down, tapped Cassidy’s leg to get him to shift his weight, then picked the object up. Jesus — the fexcuffs removed from Marcel’s wrists. He twirled them in front of his eyes and looked at Cassidy and then at Marcel. Did he understand their signifcance? The lieutenant’s squad passed a couple of quiet, nervous comments between themselves.
The officer didn’t say anything, but kept looking at the cuffs and then back at us.
‘Nous sommes amis,’ LeDuc reassured him — we’re friends.
‘Oui… oui,’ the officer said, puzzled by something. But then he seemed to come to some agreement with himself and said, ‘Amis.’ Friends. He motioned to the kid to pass him the pack containing the magazines. He opened it, pulled one of them out, inspected it briefly and then tossed it back in. From the hollow sound it made, I knew it was the empty one, the mag from Marcel’s weapon. He extracted another mag from the bag and gave it the once-over, dropped it back in, frowned and zipped up the bag. I didn’t like any of this.
‘Les armes de Chine,’ he said, motioning at the guns at our feet.
He’d observed that we had some Chinese weapons — that much French I could take a stab at understanding.
‘Oui,’ LeDuc spoke up. ‘Nous avons pris vos adversaires.’
‘Avez-vous les tuer?’
‘Oui.’
‘What was that about?’ I asked LeDuc, his exchange with the officer having lost me pretty much out of the starting gate.
‘I told him that we killed his enemies and took their weapons.’
The lieutenant and his unit seemed to have relaxed somewhat, their beaming smiles being a big clue. Apparently, we’d done the right thing here at least.
‘Tell him that we are survivors from a helicopter crash and that several of our party have been captured by his enemies,’ I said.
LeDuc told him and the man nodded, taking it in.
He walked past Leila and Ayesha and grinned like an idiot as he looked them up and down. I had no doubt about what was on his mind. Two minutes alone with Leila and I knew he’d change it.
‘Can you tell this clown to stop leering at me?’ said Leila, flicking her eyes at me.
‘LeDuc, tell the officer the women in our company have HIV,’ I told him.
‘What?’ Leila spat.
‘I’m just giving him a good reason to stop thinking about what he’s thinking about.’
LeDuc passed on the news about the unfortunate condition of our women and the officer shook his head, saddened, and took a couple of paces back, as if Leila and Ayesha were contagious.
‘See?’ I said. ‘Worked.’
Leila’s eyes flashed dangerously, like some kind of poisonous sea creature changing color.
The lieutenant moved on to Boink, and looked him over like he couldn’t quite believe humans grew that big. And, mostly, he was right.
‘Wass this motherfucker want?’ Twenny’s lieutenant asked.
‘Don’t know,’ said West calmly. ‘Just smile and be cool, Gigantor.’
The African said something to Boink.
‘Wad he say?’ Boink asked.
LeDuc informed him. ‘He said you must be very rich to be as big as you are.’
‘Motherfuck,’ Boink muttered.
The officer said something in rapid-fire French to his patrol, and then addressed LeDuc.
‘He wants us to follow him,’ said the Frenchman.
‘Do we know for sure which outfit these men belong to?’ I asked.
‘Oui. They are NCDP — your allies.’
‘All right!’ said Ryder. ‘Friends and allies.’
‘The jury’s still out on both points,’ I reminded him, doing an impression of a smile, my face still a little swollen.
The unit part-led, part-escorted us diagonally up the hill, toward the extremity of their lines, LeDuc chatting to the officer as we climbed. Once on the crest, we turned roughly northwest and followed the ridgeline, the sound of small arms fire getting closer and crackling like squeezed bubble wrap. Eventually, we came across soldiers guarding the flanks of the rebel’s line. The men stopped what they were doing and stared at us, many standing as we walked by. Some gave Leila and Ayesha predatorial grins.
‘So what’s the verdict?’ Rutherford asked. ‘Are they friendly?’
‘Have they shot us?’ LeDuc answered. ‘We are lucky they are not Mai-Mai or Ugandan renegades.’
‘If you say so,’ I told him, not convinced.
In attitude, age, numbers and disposition, these men seemed identical to the FARDC force opposing them. The only differences I could see were in the uniforms they wore — superseded US Army jungle pattern BDUs. They carried mostly M16s and some AK-47s. I saw a couple of M16s propped against a log and went close enough to see that both had their numbers intact, which told me that they were meant to have them. Friends and allies.