I’m honored, Chase thought ironically. They’re taking no chances with Baron Chase.
Kekka said, “So, Captain. They tell me you speak Swahili after all.”
It was too late to deny it. His voice horribly hoarse—it was so important not to seem weak now, or afraid—he croaked in Swahili, “Ali. Let me talk with you, friend.”
“I don’t like your accent,” Kekka said.
“Ali, I have something for you.”
“And I,” Kekka said, opening his trousers, “have something for you.”
Chase squeezed his eyes shut, clamped his mouth tight, and felt the spray of warm urine rove over his face and hair, while the soldiers giggled together. When at last it stopped, Chase kept his eyes closed but called, “Ali, motakaa.” Automobile. Then, hoping Kekka would know the English but none of the others would, he added, low and intense, “Money!”
A kick in the stomach knocked the wind out of him and bounced open his eyes. He stared up at Kekka’s contempt. “If you speak again, in that miserable accent,” Kekka said, “I shall have my men shit on you.”
Something something some way out some hope somewhere some way not finished not finished not finished like this. The silent Chase stared, panting like a long-distance runner.
“Put him in the car,” Kekka said, and turned away.
The soldiers picked him up, not gently, and carried him toward the armored car. To one side the Mercedes stood silent, all doors open. These fools here had run it all afternoon, crowding in for the air conditioning, until they’d used up the gasoline. Tens of thousands of dollars were in the panels of those open-sagging doors. There had to be a way to buy safety with that much. “Ali!” Chase called, not caring what he risked. “The Benz! Don’t leave the Benz!”
There was no reaction at all, not even a kick. They threw him on the metal floor in back; then eight soldiers climbed in with him, four on the bench on each side, all using his body as a footrest and a target for when they had to spit. Kekka and the driver rode up front. The car jolted forward, leaving the Mercedes behind.
“Money?”
Chase, in fear and exhaustion, had lost consciousness for some time, until he heard that English word whispered in his ear. Then he opened his eyes to the semidark of twilight, no movement, and an armored car empty except for himself and the young avid-eyed soldier leaning over him. “Where—” Chase asked, and had to clear his throat and swallow.
“They’ve gone to eat,” the soldier said in Swahili. “I made sure to be left as guard. General Kekka had one of his headaches; he required food. You know General Kekka’s headaches?”
Chase nodded. He was still trying to work saliva into his parched mouth and throat.
“Sometimes,” the soldier said, “General Kekka kills with his headaches.”
Chase waited, watching the young soldier’s eyes.
“This is Mbarara,” the soldier said, keeping his voice low, just for Chase. “Not far yet. I heard you say ‘money.’ I know what that is. Fedha.”
“That’s right,” Chase whispered. Here’s my man! he thought. Here’s my man! Here’s my man!
“In the automobile,” the soldier said, his eyes gleaming not only with cupidity but also with his own cleverness. “That’s what you meant! Money in the automobile!”
“Yes! If you—”
“How much?”
Chase thought. “You know who I am,” he whispered, not yet trusting his voice. “You know I would not run away with a little money.”
“Yes. Yes. How much?”
“Enough for two. One million British pounds, and four gold bars from Zaire.”
The soldier’s eyes bulged in his head; saliva reflected from his teeth. “We go there!” he whispered in shrill excitement. “You show me where you hide all this!”
“Yes, yes, just untie—”
But the man was gone. Rearing up as best he could, the neck rope biting into his throat, Chase stared and listened, and couldn’t understand what was happening until all at once the armored car’s engine started, the vehicle jolted backward, stopped, jolted forward, swung around in a tight U-turn, and went bouncing out some bumpy driveway to the road.
The bastard! The dirty dirty dirty bastard! As the armored car tore south, jouncing and swaying on the unrepaired road, Chase bitterly saw the soldier’s plan: he would bring Chase back to the border, torture him until he got his hands on the hidden loot in the Mercedes, then murder Chase, bribe his way across the border, and enter Rwanda a rich man.
No. No. Fighting his ropes, fighting gravity, fighting the thuds and crashes as the armored car plowed from pothole to pothole, fighting his own battered weary body, Chase squirmed to the rear of the car. With his shoulders, with his forehead, he forced himself around into a position on knees and shoulders; then, at a particularly vicious jounce, he propelled himself upward so that he knelt sitting on his haunches with his back against the tailgate.
Outside, the road swept away at a dizzying pace under the armored car. Mbarara was less than fifty miles north of the border, and the soldier was clearly trying to get there and across before the alarm went out.
Still, as the road moved up into the hills there were more and more curves, and the soldier would eventually either have to slow down or crash. Chase waited, battered by the armored car’s gyrations, his balance unsteady, and finally the armored car nosed up and turned into a sharp uphill curve. As it slowed, Chase pushed down with his legs, heaved himself up, flung himself backward. For one dreadful moment he hung there, the small of his back teetering on the tailgate, his feet stretched to their maximum, the rope grinding deep into his neck. Then the armored car once more jounced, and shrugged him off.
Strapped, swaddled, out of control, Chase fell heavily onto his head and ceased to struggle.
Jouncing. It was a dream, Chase thought, bile in his mouth. A dream of escape, nothing more. He moved his horribly aching body, and it was without ropes! And he was sitting on, propped up on, something soft, something that gave with the bumps.
His eyes flew open, staring for a dislocated instant without recognition at the nighttime road seen through a truck windshield. “AAAH!” he cried, and threw his hands forward onto the dashboard for support.
“You’re awake, poor man,” the driver said, in English.
“Stop! God, stop!”
The driver pulled off the road and stopped, and Chase fumbled open his door, fell out onto the ground, and vomited until he was down to dry heaves. Beside him, the man who’d been driving the truck knelt and consoled him, brushing his shoulder with a solacing palm. And when Chase finished, the man gave him a cloth to wipe his face. “I’m sorry I have no water for you,” he said. “But it’s not far to Mbarara.”
Mbarara! Again! Chase looked up, and saw the turned-around collar; a minister. “You saved me,” he said.
“The government doesn’t like me to be out,” the minister said, “so I visit my parishioners at night. You were set upon and robbed?”
“Yes. They took my car.”
“You are very fortunate they didn’t take your life,” the minister said, helping Chase to his feet. “In Mbarara, we can get you medical assistance. And of course police.”
“Of course. Thank you.”
Chase permitted the minister to help him back up onto the passenger seat of the small battered pickup truck. His foot hit two metal tire irons on the floor, clanking them together.
“Such a messy car,” the minister said, reaching forward. “I’ll move those.”