“I hope you have not been misled, Mr. Davis, but what you are about to embark on is not, as they say, a walk in the park.”
The motorcade was speeding down the empty two-lane road. Not a single other vehicle was in sight. Given the size of the city in the near distance, the complete absence of traffic could only mean that the road had been closed off so their motorcade could travel on it unmolested. Normally this was the sort of accommodation made for visiting heads of state. Gideon took it as a measure of how important this mission must be to the Sultan.
“It has not been widely reported, but the Sultan’s government is losing ground quickly. The jihadis and their proxies control four of the nine provinces in the Sultanate.”
“The briefing book I just read said they controlled only two provinces.”
“That was last week,” General Prang said drily. “Now the insurgents are gathering on the outskirts of KM—”
“KM?”
“Kota Mohan, our capital. The city proper is secure, as are the provinces to the west of KM. How long this will last . . . no one can say.”
“So where are we going? Where exactly?”
Prang drew deeply on his pipe. Smoke filtered from his mouth as he spoke. “You look different than him. Except for the eyes.” Gideon squirmed under the general’s scrutiny. “I considered your brother a friend, you know. He is an extraordinary man. Great force of will. But there was always a darkness inside him that kept him distant from his true friends. His betrayal was painful to me, but it was not surprising.”
Gideon bristled. Whatever truth there might be to what Prang was saying, Gideon resented hearing it from a stranger. It was something he’d never admitted to anyone, not even to himself, but Gideon understood the source of his brother’s darkness better than anyone. Even though their paths had diverged, their lives had been stained by the same tragedy. Gideon didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell him that the seeds of his work as a peacemaker were sown in the anger between his parents. Although their anger would erupt into violence only occasionally, during one of those eruptions, everything had changed forever. Had the pull of that ancient ugliness finally dragged Tillman down some dark hole that he couldn’t return from? Gideon still couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
“Watch your back,” General Prang said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Tillman would never turn on me.”
“I thought the same thing,” said Prang wistfully. Clearly, he stied árly, he sll carried with him the pain of Tillman’s betrayal. Then, suddenly, he snapped his fingers, and an aide in the front seat handed the general a plastic map and red marker.
Prang spread the map on his knees. “We are traveling along National Road 7. Here. Next we will turn onto Provincial Road 91. Then we’ll cut across on a smaller rural road. At a town called Alun Jong we will turn you over to a river pilot.” The general circled a dot on the map with the red marker. “He will take you upriver. Local security has been arranged. You’ll be safe . . . at least until you get to the upper reaches of the river.”
“And then?”
“Things could get a bit spicy for a kilometer or two. Once you hit the fall line, though, you’ll reach territory controlled by your brother. His base of support is in the uplands.”
“So we’ll be going through rebel territory before we reach him.”
“Just a brief stretch.”
As General Prang spoke, their convoy turned onto a new road. There was traffic now, but it was all going in the opposite direction. Trucks piled high with personal belongings, cars stuffed with extra passengers. Alongside the road, people were walking or riding in carts pulled by water buffalo. Occasional herds of goats scattered as the convoy blasted through. Gideon recognized the look on these people’s faces, their grim determination barely covering their uncertainty and fear. It was the face of the refugee.
The Range Rover was tearing along at nearly a hundred miles an hour, the driver pressing his horn repeatedly as Prang continued. “At the headwaters of the river, you’ll have to go by foot. A guide will lead you through the mountains, to a place called Kampung Naga. That’s where you’ll find your brother.” He made another circle, then wrote the name of the town. Nothing printed on the map itself indicated the location of Kampung Naga. “Ideally you’ll both return by river. If that becomes impossible for any reason, your government has a chopper crew standing by. The contact code and frequency are on the back of your map.” He turned the map over. A seven-digit sequence was printed on the reverse. “We’ll give you a radio transmitter when we reach Alun Jong.”
Gideon frowned at the map. “Are there no roads leading to Kampung Naga? Why aren’t we going by land?”
“There is some . . . uncertainty regarding the roads right now. The river, on the other hand, is still patrolled by boats from the national police.”
“Why not go by air?”
“Because the insurgents have shoulder-fired missiles. Thanks to your brother, I might add. Not many, but some. And there are more extremist sympathizers inside our government than the Sultan will admit. All it would take is for one of them to give away your flight plan. No, the river is the safest route.”
Gideon’s success had been built on his willingness to take personal risks, to step outside the comfort zone of resort hotels and government compounds. Only by ignoring diplomatic protocols and going it alone in the Colombian jungle had Gideon been able to negotiate an agreement between the rebels and the government. Still, a voice in the back of his head was whispering that he was being sent on a fool’s errand, that he should tel foá should tl the general to turn around and take him back to the airport.
If Tillman weren’t his brother, he might have done just that. Despite their estrangement, Gideon had always told himself that he would be there for his brother no matter what. And viewed in that light, he had no choice except to see this through.
“We’ll be traveling into the backcountry now. The road may get a little rough, but my people tell me this is the safest route to Kampung Naga.”
As he spoke, the vehicles screeched off the road onto a narrow, unpaved track. They barely slowed down, though. They were well past the city limits, tearing past rice paddies and houses roofed with corrugated iron and plastic tarps. Chickens pecked at the ground, and pigs rooted here and there. Water buffalo aimed their dull eyes at the passing motorcade.
Gideon felt a pinprick of concern. “Excuse me for speaking so bluntly, General Prang. But if Tillman betrayed you, tell me why I should trust you with his safety. Or mine for that matter?”
The left corner of General Prang’s lip curled upward, an unconvincing attempt to cover his anger at Gideon’s question with a smile. “I carry the Sultan’s personal guarantee.”
“With all due respect, I don’t know the Sultan.”
“With all due respect to you, Mr. Davis, you don’t have a choice in the matter. Not if you wish to see your brother again.”
Gideon locked eyes with the general, who held his look. Sensing no duplicity, just a matter-of-fact appraisal of the situation, Gideon said, “Fair enough.”
General Prang nodded.
“We’re close. A few kilometers before we reach the river. I’m sure you have many questions. I’ll answer as many as I can before we get there.”
“I got dragged straight from a function at the UN,” Gideon said, waggling the corners of his black bow tie. “I feel just a hair overdressed. You think I might be able to change somewhere along the way?”
General Prang laughed. “I’m sure we can find something for you when we reach—”
The explosion that interrupted the general’s sentence lifted the lead car in the motorcade into the air and tossed it into a nearby rice paddy like a Tonka truck flung by an angry child. The shock wave blew the entire windshield back into the Range Rover, shattering the safety glass, which sprayed over the two men in the front seat.