“For several years thereafter, Stanley tried in vain to organize another expedition to Africa. He might very well have intended to search for Livingstone’s lost city himself. Maybe he removed the diary pages so that no one would beat him to the prize. What is known with certainty is that Stanley abandoned his plans for another African expedition when he was approached by Leopold, who asked him to personally oversee the creation of the Congo Free State.”
“If Stanley was coming back anyway, what would have stopped him from going after the lost city?”
Mulamba pursed his lips again. “When the ruins of Great Zimbabwe were excavated, beginning in the late nineteenth century, the colonial government of Rhodesia insisted that the city had been built by an unknown white civilization, all evidence to the contrary. As late as the 1970s, archaeologists and museums were threatened with censure or worse if they tried to publish the truth. This was not merely a case of willful ignorance. The government believed, correctly as it happens, that the knowledge of a strong historic African civilization would embolden those who sought to break the chains of colonial domination. It is not a coincidence that the country once known as Rhodesia, named for a white man, is now called Zimbabwe.”
Queen caught on faster than Rook. “You think that if you can find evidence of an even older African civilization, it will become a symbol for your united Africa.”
“This is no small matter,” Mulamba said. Rook noticed that he gradually began speaking more rapidly, with greater passion. “For centuries, white Europeans, and the Arabs before them, justified every sort of atrocity — slavery, rape, wholesale slaughter — by simply saying that black Africans are savages, animals, incapable of achieving civilization on their own.”
Rook shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, yeah, but things are different now.”
“Are they? The developing nations of Africa are locked in an unending cycle of violence, and what does the rest of the world say? They are savages. They cannot rule themselves. The petroleum companies show up and say: ‘let us drill for your oil,’ and if the leader of the country says, ‘No, this belongs to us,’ they simply pay that man’s enemies to overthrow the government. And why not? The Africans are savages.”
Queen held up a hand. “Look, I get it. We both do. And I agree with you. It sucks. But do you really think finding an old ruined city is going to change things overnight?”
“I don’t expect you to understand. You are white. You are American.”
“Hey—”
“Until the people of Africa believe that they are capable of greatness, they will never rise above the savagery that prevents them from achieving it. And there are powerful forces working to ensure that the status quo does not change. Why do you think I was taken? They fear the day when Africa says, ‘No more. You will not take our wealth and feed us your table scraps anymore.’”
Rook sighed. De Oppresso Liber—that was what he’d signed up for when he’d joined the Army, earned his Green Beret, and gone on to be a part of Chess Team.
Freeing the oppressed was a hell of a lot easier when it involved nothing more complicated than shooting some maniac terrorist bent on mass extermination.
He tilted the rearview mirror until he found Queen’s face. She was wearing her glasses, which meant that Deep Blue was also listening in, but even with the lenses in place, Rook could still read the uncertainty in her eyes.
He nodded to her, a gesture that said both ‘I trust you’ and ‘let’s do this.’ She nodded back, then turned to Mulamba. “I don’t know if this crazy idea of yours has a chance in hell of succeeding, but that’s your problem. Ours is keeping you safe.”
“I always wanted to go to Belgium,” Rook said, grinning. “Actually, that’s a lie. I don’t have a clue where Belgium is.”
22
The forest seemed to fold over Bishop. He knew he had traveled only a short distance from where he had left Knight and Felice, and yet when he looked back, he saw no trace of them.
Good, he thought. If I can’t see them, the rebels can’t either.
He slowed his pace, treading so softly that he could no longer hear his own footfalls, and he began paying closer attention to his surroundings. The humid air hummed with activity. Insects swarmed around his head, while birds and monkeys chattered and squealed, as they capered in the tangle of branches overhead. The jungle was a living thing, indifferent to his presence, but just as capable of destroying him as the men who hunted him.
A distant metallic sound reached his ears, and he oriented toward it, keeping the heavy M240B at the ready. Although the machine gun weighed more than forty pounds and was meant to be fired from the ground, or preferably from a stable tripod or turret mount, Bishop’s prodigious size and strength enabled him to wield the machine gun as effectively as an ordinary infantryman might shoot a rifle. Even so, it was a cumbersome weapon for moving through the labyrinth of tree boughs, and when he heard the noise again, off to his left and much closer, it took him a moment to swing his body around toward the source. That moment almost cost him dearly.
A man stood there, forty yards away, a surprised look on his face, as if Bishop had caught him with his pants down, relieving his bladder. But the man had his Kalashnikov to his shoulder, and in the instant that Bishop’s finger tightened on the trigger of the 240, a jet of yellow flame erupted from the rifle.
Bishop felt hot metal rake his arm, but the sensation was forgotten the moment his machine gun bucked in his hands. The gunmen slumped lifeless, a dozen 7.62 mm rounds perforating his chest, before he could get off a second shot.
Bishop immediately swept the area, just in case the man wasn’t alone. There was no sign of any other rebels nearby, but the sound of the brief firefight would bring them running. Bishop considered setting up a hasty fighting position and waiting for them, but he discarded the idea. His goal was to draw the attackers away from Knight and Felice, not take them all on single-handedly. He moved off at an angle from the direction the gunman had been facing, listening intently for any hint of enemy presence.
After about a hundred yards, he recalled that he’d been shot, but there was no pain now and an inspection of the area revealed a hole in his sleeve, but no injury, not even a graze. Bishop didn’t believe in luck. Sometimes things just happened, but hoping for miracles to save the day was a dangerous way for a soldier to live.
His path brought him to the edge of the forest, and from the cover of the trees, he could see Lake Kivu stretched out across the eastern horizon. His mental GPS told him that the camp where he and Knight had found Felice was to the north, and he assumed that was where the rebel forces would be found as well. He aimed the machine gun in that general direction and squeezed off two short bursts, and then waited.
He didn’t have to wait long.
A dark green shape appeared in the distance, moving slowly along the lakeshore. It was low and flat, barely visible above the tall grass, but Bishop had no difficulty identifying it as an armored personnel carrier, similar to the US Army’s Bradley fighting vehicle. The APC rode on parallel tracks like a tank, but it was smaller and equipped with an open gun turret instead of a heavy cannon. A lone soldier sat behind the machine gun, slowly sweeping the barrel of his weapon back and forth in the forest’s direction.
Armored troop carriers were not usually found in the arsenal of a rag tag guerilla force and for a fleeting moment, he wondered if these were DRC Army troops, arriving to drive off the rebel attackers. That illusion evaporated when he saw a cluster of riflemen moving behind the tracked vehicle. They wore civilian attire — jeans, canvas trousers, T-shirts — not like the battle dress uniform worn by the gunner in the tracked vehicle.