On Target (23 page)

Court’s voice was strong, but the nerves showed in its tone. “The Janjaweed.”

The young black man cocked his head. Waved a hand in the cabin as if swatting a fly. “Nah, man.”

Gentry turned to the driver. “Your gun. I need your gun.”

Bishara answered for the older man, who spoke no English. “We don’t have no gun, man.”

“C’mon! I know you guys
must
keep something stashed in case the Janjas come. I’m not with the UN, I won’t tell. We’re going to get hit, and I need your AK, to watch for them.”

“No gun, man. And no Janjas gonna come. We are SI.”

“Doesn’t matter today,” said Court. He thought about his options. He could get on the radio, call up front to Bianchi and have the convoy stop. Then he could tell him of the danger he just caused, have him stay off the radio, and return to Al Fashir.

No, too many variables. What if Bianchi didn’t comply? What if the NSS or the GOS army was racing from Al Fashir along this very road to catch up with them, in which case slowing to chat or turning back would only put the convoy in more danger.

No, the best thing they could do was to press on, try to get to the relative safety of the IDP camp near Dirra before the raiders appeared on a hilltop.

It was something to hope for, but it certainly didn’t mean the Gray Man was going to just sit there with his fingers crossed.

He now tried to channel the mind of the commander of a gang of armed horsemen out here in the desert. What would his plan be?

Shit. He had no idea. Gentry possessed some training in small unit tactics. But not on fucking horseback. This was new territory for him. He tried to think back to the John Wayne movies he and his brother and his father enjoyed when he was younger, just to see if any tactics came to mind.

Nope, not really. The Duke wouldn’t have been caught dead out here in Indian country without a lever-action Winchester, so those old westerns had no relevance to his current predicament.

Court stopped trying to figure out the best tactics that an attacking force would use. This was not Indians versus the cavalry. This was the Janjaweed versus an NGO. The horsemen wouldn’t be looking for high ground, for sound military terrain. Shit, they would be attacking a defenseless convoy. They could swoop down any place and any time.

From what he knew of the Janjaweed, they usually did not attack UN convoys, or any convoys, for that matter. No, the Janjaweed militia raided villages, burned huts, raped and slaughtered. Then they looted.

Looted! Yes. They would want to keep the trucks intact so that they could steal whatever was inside.

Court could picture the impending action now. They would likely just stop the trucks, get everyone out, and begin the butchery.

Back at Harvey Point, the CIA instructors tried to teach Court everything, but nobody ever taught him how to prevent a mass execution while unarmed.

His head spun back to the cargo hatch behind him. “What’s in the back?” Court asked Bishara, who was clearly alarmed by the American’s insistence that they were heading into some sort of an ambush.

“Nothing, man. No guns. Why you say the Janjas—”

“What are we hauling?” Court asked again, more insistent this time.

“Just stuff for the camp. Beds, radios, lamps, desks, shit like that for staff office and living quarters. And tools to build a new water tower. Why you say the Janjas—”

“Let’s take a look.” Court spun around in the seat and slid the small access hatch from the cab to the massive cargo compartment. There was just enough room to squeeze through, climb over luggage and bags of millet and some sort of a metal rack to make it to the top of the pile of stowed cargo. “Pass me a flashlight,” Court shouted at the young man poking his head through from the cab.

“Pass you what?” asked Bishara.

“A torch. Pass me a torch. Fucking British English,” he said under his breath.

A minute later Bishara and Court were on their hands and knees on top of the gear. It was like a tight crawl space above a ceiling. Easily one hundred fifteen degrees and pitch-black without the light. They bounced around wildly with every bump in the road. The driver must have wondered what the hell was going on, but he continued driving along in the convoy like nothing was amiss.

“Why you think Janjas are coming?” The young Darfuri finally managed to pose his question.

Court dug through boxes and bags while he spoke, throwing items over his shoulders left and right while Bishara held the light for him. Gentry explained, “The NSS is looking for the white woman. They want to kill her. Bianchi’s radio broadcast told them where we were. I figure the NSS doesn’t have a strike force out here on the road, so they’ll probably radio the Janjaweed to come get us. If they do, maybe they will just kill me and the Canadian woman, but I wouldn’t bet against them killing everybody, just to cover up the fact they are working with the NSS.”

Bishara nodded, understanding the ramifications of the words of this high-strung American. “What can I do?”

“You and I are going to have to work as a team here. We work together, and we can get ourselves and some of these others out of this. You understand?”

The kid nodded.

“The driver, Rasid. Do you trust him?”

Bishara shrugged. “I am from Zaghawa tribe, he is a Masalit. But he is a good man. I will tell him to do what you say.” Then Bishara asked, “What we gonna do?”

“First, we’re gonna pray I’m wrong.”

Young Bishara shook his head. “The Darfuri pray all the time. But the Janjas still come and kill us.”

Court continued digging furiously through the cargo below him. Already he had pulled a cigarette lighter and a mechanical alarm clock from the scrum of cardboard boxes. He clutched a roll of heavy plastic trash bags in his hand and held it up in Bishara’s flashlight’s beam. Then he dug down deeper, past stacks of sacks of flour and small drums of cooking oil. He heaved a woven basket of clothes out of his way and reached up to the SI loader, took the light himself, shined it down on a heavy wooden crate on the floor of the cargo compartment. He pried the lid off to find an array of welding equipment, an acetylene and oxygen rig, a welder’s helmet, iron joints, a torch.

Court looked up at Bishara at the top of the cargo. He said, “If they come, then we fight.”

“American, I know the Janjaweed; they destroyed my village, they raped my two sisters, killed one, let the other live, but she crazy now after what they did. They killed my father, too. Only my mother and I left, and she at the camp at Dirra. If the Janjaweed come, nothing we can do. They have guns, camels, horses. If they come, we are all gonna die.”

Court shook his head. “We can do this. These Janjaweed are killers, but they are cowards. They don’t come to fight; they come to slaughter. We make it tough for them, bloody some noses, kill a couple of them even, and they will break and run. They aren’t looking for a battle, believe me. These guys kill women and children for fun. We can do this.”

“It doesn’t matter if they’re not real soldiers, they have guns! We don’t have
anything
to stop them with.”

“Yes, we do.”

“What do we have?”

“We have me.”

The kid’s eyes grew wide. “You crazy, man,” he said, a little smile growing on his face.

Smiling at a time like this meant Bishara was a bit crazy himself. Court could tell immediately that he’d be able to work with this kid.

“What’s in the other trucks?”

“Uhhhh, the first truck has food, mostly. Stuff for the workers, not flour for the IDP. Also parts to repair the well—”

“Forget it. What’s in the truck in front of us?”

“That’s got the canvas rolls in it, plus water, the generators, six small generators for the camp. Also there is like a pump thing for the well.”

The oversized tactical portion of Gentry’s brain spun almost too quickly for the rest of his mind to keep up. “No good. Okay, the truck in the back?”

“Uhhh,” Bishara thought for a minute. “Tools, hand tools, wood and nails and lumber to build a new latrine. Oh, and gas for the generators.”

Court shined the light up on the young Fur tribesman. “Gas?”

“Yeah.”

The Gray Man’s head cocked. “How much gas we talking about?”

Bianchi was surprised to see the men blocking the road ahead. At least a dozen in strength, some sat high on large dapple-gray horses, others even higher on massive tan or chocolate camels. Their rifles hung low off their chests or by their sides, turbans of different colors piled high on their heads, covering their faces as well as their hair. Most wore sunglasses, some wore mismatched camouflage battle dress. A couple had military style boots, but most just wore sandals. There were long trench coats on a few of the men, while others were nearly bare-chested save for their tactical vests full of rifle magazines.

These were the Janjaweed. The term comes from the Arabic words for
evil
and
horse
. They were the
evil horsemen
. Black Arab tribesmen, originally culled from the best Arab horsemen of the Sudan: cattle ranchers or camel ranchers. Now, any Arab villager with a horse or a camel or, occasionally, with a pickup truck, could become a member of the government-sponsored militias who had been wreaking havoc against the non-Muslim population of western Sudan for the past eight years, killing hundreds of thousands, displacing millions, and raping and maiming and terrorizing untold numbers.

If there was evil in the world, and who could say there was not, then the Janjaweed were evil.

But Mario Bianchi was unafraid. He knew these men.

This particular franchise of evil was on his payroll.

The Italian was annoyed at facing yet another delay but absolutely not concerned. He’d made arrangements with the commanders of these men, arrangements that allowed him to travel this desert track unmolested. Occasionally he would be stopped by some band or another of the Arab tribesmen. They were not impolite; they just ordered him out of the cab of his truck while the African men working for him were wrestled more violently from the vehicles. But Mario Bianchi knew he merely had to speak with the commander leading the party, deferentially drop some names, even offer up his satellite phone if the Janjaweed underling was unaware of the arrangement in place and wanted to check with his superiors directly for confirmation.

And that was always the end of it.

Bianchi ordered his driver to stop. He looked to the Canadian woman, whose eyes were wide and fixed on the men in the dust ahead. “No problem. I know the leader of these gentlemen. There is nothing to worry about.” He brushed his hand across her cheek and smiled.

“Hey, Bishara?” Court yelled out from back in the truck bed. He held a wooden and iron hand tool; he’d been nailing a frame of pine four-by-four posts together with the hammer end of the device. The opposite side of the instrument was a sharp hatchet, and there was the hook of a crowbar on the side. “Why are we stopping?”

“Men in the road!” Bishara yelled back. Court could barely hear him. He had burrowed like a mole into the gear and luggage, and his hearing and mobility were affected by the sacks and suitcases and pallets of water bottles and large rolls of tarpaulin above him. Sweat from his hairline had run into his ears and eyes. Even taking a deep breath was a challenge in the dark, claustrophobic confines in the back of the truck. Bishara had been back with him helping for a while, but two men kicking and pushing and digging through the cargo proved to be more hindrance than help. After burying one another with their own movements one time too many, Gentry sent the young man back up front to the cab with instructions for the driver. Court had then tried to use the flashlight and the hammer at the same time while he worked, but he finally gave up. Slinging a hammer in pitch-blackness had caused him to bang his thumb and forearm four times in five minutes, but not having to screw with the light at the same time sped up his work rate, even though it was hell on his extremities.

After a long delay, Bishara responded. “It’s the Janjaweed!”

“Shit,” Gentry said to himself. He stopped hammering, grabbed his flashlight, and began crawling back to the top of the cargo. One more thing he had to do. He only understood the theory of this project, had never built anything like this before. Doing it on the fly, in low light, had been a nightmare. There were many things that could go wrong, so many, in fact, that the only way he knew how to combat the majority of them was by erring so far on the opposite end of the spectrum that his project really only had one major danger at this point. He wasn’t worried about whether it would work or not; rather, he was worried that it might just work too damn well.

Court was afraid of his project’s very real, and very literal, potential for overkill.

Acetylene and oxygen, the two components necessary for a welding torch, are extraordinarily combustible when placed in the correct mixture and contained in a confined space. Court had stood the two large tanks up, filled six forty-gallon contractor bags with this mixture, tied the bags tightly like balloons, and then placed them on top of the cargo, taking up the vast majority of the empty space above the truck’s load. He used the alarm clock, the cigarette lighter, and a healthy supply of strapping tape to fashion a timed detonator for the bags. He’d tested it twice, before filling the bags, of course, and found the moving hammer of the clock could activate the striker of the lighter and create a flame of burning butane.

He wanted to make a large bang, with much noise and flash, but not a great deal of shrapnel, lest he kill himself, Ellen Walsh, and the rest of the Speranza Internazionale convoy. No, he wanted only a diversion, an oversized flash-bang grenade. To achieve this effect he’d placed the bags at the top of the load, hoping the roof of the truck would blast off but all the cargo inside would not be propelled out at hundreds of miles an hour. He also did not want the truck’s massive gas tank to ignite, which would create a bomb that could easily kill everyone. He really had no idea if his truck-sized concussion device would have the desired effect—there were dozens of variables at play—but he’d also had no other options that he could see.