Blue Hope: (Book 2) (Red Hope) Page 23
He tried to sit up.
No joy. Too much pain.
He tried to roll over.
Nope. More pain.
Adam reached one hand over to grab the edge of the cot. He held his breath and pulled his body, rotating so that he faced sideways. He carefully lowered his legs over the edge, which caused him to lean up. Finally, he took a deep breath. After a minute or so of sit-down calisthenics, his back felt a little better. The other men were already cleaning up the campsite and loading everything into the big dark-green cargo truck. It looked like a holdover from World War II.
Adam went to check on Jeffrey, but he wasn’t on the A-frame. He looked around. Jeffrey was sitting in the passenger seat of the truck, speaking with Victor. The two men saw Adam and summoned him over. Adam walked slowly, nursing his back.
“Mr. Adam,” Victor said excitedly. “We will be leaving shortly. Please put your cot into the back of the truck and climb in.”
Adam saw the NASA team cleaning up their cots and backpacks, then loading them into the truck. He followed their lead. In a few minutes, everybody was sitting in the back of the truck and staring aft — the rear doors had been removed.
“We’re all ready to go,” Leroy said, knocking on the window that separated the truck’s cabin from the back portion where the NASA personnel were seated.
Victor started the engine, letting the diesel growl to life. He put it in gear and they drove over the bumpy campground terrain to the equally bumpy dirt road. Off they went toward even denser jungle.
Adam’s back felt every bump and rut in the road. He grimaced every few seconds. The doctor saw him and handed him a white pill.
“It’s for your back,” the doctor assured him.
Adam washed it down with his canteen.
By the time it started to kick in, they were entering the edge of a rural village that had mix of wooden buildings and huts. Each one had a stream of smoke rising from its chimney.
“Welcome to Dunongo,” Victor said. He wheeled the truck over to a large plain building, constructed of bare wood.
Adam thought the town looked very innocuous.
A high-pitched buzzing sound came toward the truck from the front. The rear passengers couldn’t tell what it was. Leroy and Adam stepped to the back door and tried to look out and around.
A large group of young men on old motorcycles came swarming around the truck, swirling in big circles. They wore a hodgepodge of T-shirts and jeans and shorts. Most ominous were the Ak-47’s that each man had dangling from their backs. The men smiled as if they’d caught a fly in their web.
Leroy ducked back into the truck and walked to the front to speak with Victor through the small window.
“Victor, this looks bad.”
“It is bad, Mr. Leroy. Welcome to Dunongo.”
The chaos of buzzing continued non-stop. Leroy turned around and saw a Toyota pickup truck approaching. It pulled up next to their vehicle and a man wearing a white polo shirt and khaki pants got out, leaning on a cane. He looked in the back of the truck, observing the contents — both the people and the scientific equipment.
Adam waved to the man. In return, the man furled his eyebrows, and walked to the driver’s side of the car.
“Victor, Victor, Victor… I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Hello, Mr. King,” Victor said with respect. “We are just passing through.”
The man picked up his cane and banged lightly against Victor’s door. The chaotic buzzing of the motorcycles slowed down as the riders stopped to form a random sprinkling of thugs, staring at the back end of the truck, trying to see what valuable booty was hidden in back.
“You know, Victor,” Mr. King said ominously. “One of my men is still in the hospital because of you.”
Victor nodded.
“That is true, Mr. King, but he shot one of my helpers. I had no idea he was working for you… when I shot back.”
Mr. King stared at Victor and did not blink. His dominance made Victor uncomfortable.
“Ah Victor, we all make mistakes. However, his medical bills continue to rise. His family needs some compensation.”
“How much?” Victor asked, knowing that Mr.King wasn’t concerned about his employee’s wellbeing.
“I’d say one thousand would do.”
Victor nodded in agreement.
“I can do that, Mr. King.”
Victor reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.
Mr. King slammed his cane against the driver’s side mirror, knocking it off.
“American dollars, Victor. Not Angolan Kwanza.”
Victor sat up in his seat. He opened the door slightly.
“Please excuse me for a moment, Mr. King.”
Victor squeezed out of his door and walked around to the back of the truck. He climbed in.
“Who is that?” Leroy asked in a whisper.
“Gentlemen, that is Mr. King. He runs this region.”
“He’s like a governor?” Adam asked innocently.
“Sort of, except he is elected using bullets.”
Victor put his hand out in mid-air.
“To safely pass through Dunongo, you must fill my hand with one thousand American dollars.”
The group all looked at each other. They pulled out their wallets and emptied all of their cash. Victor carefully counted it.
“Six hundred dollars. Not good.”
Victor hopped down to the ground and walked back to Mr. King.
“Among all of us we have six hundred dollars. I can add in five hundred Angolan Kwanza or Congolese Francs — your choice.”
Mr. King laughed and looked around at the two dozen men sitting idly on their motorcycles.
“That will do for today, Victor,” Mr. King said with an ominous smile. “But I would like your spare tire.”
“What for? It would do you no good?”
Mr. King leaned toward Victor.
“Good point.”
Mr. King summoned the two nearest motorcycle riders to him. He pointed them to the spare tire mounted on the side of Victor’s truck. The two thugs approached it, pulling machetes from their backpacks. They stabbed and hacked at the spare tire. It sent jets of air out in every direction, the noise faded quickly.
Victor closed his eyes, angry at the loss of his tire, but happy that the machetes weren’t used to slice him or his clients to pieces.
Mr. King yelled out to the unseen passengers in the back of the truck.
“Gentlemen, welcome to my wonderful town of Dunongo. May I ask where you are going?”
Victor tried to answer, but Mr. King covered his mouth.
“I’m talking to your friends,” Mr. King said to Victor.
From inside the truck, a reluctant voice rang out.
“We’re heading to the area known as Zhuvango Falls. It’s upstream of Inga Falls by about forty miles.”
Mr. King looked down to think.
“Forty miles, ha. You Americans and your crazy miles. I think you mean sixty kilometers.”
“That’s about right, sir,” Leroy replied.
Mr. King walked to the back of the truck and looked inside.
“Zhuvango Falls eh? It has been years since we had visitors there. You must be going to see the firefly show?”
The Americans all nodded in unison, not having any idea what he was talking about.
“You’re in for a treat, gentlemen. The fireflies there create a whole new night sky. A blanket of moving stars.”
Mr. King stared at the scientific equipment and computer cases in the back of the truck.
“That’s a lot of equipment to study fireflies.”
“We’re biologists,” Adam said with his most convincing serious face.
Mr. King nodded up and down, acting as if he believed them. He knocked his cane on the floor of the truck.
“All right. All right. Gentlemen, have a safe trip.”
Mr. King walked back to the Toyota pickup truck and sat down in t
he passenger seat. Victor stepped back into his own truck and slowly drove out of Dunongo, pausing to let the motorcycle riders get out of the way.
When Mr. King saw that the truck had left the edge of the village, he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a large walkie-talkie with a long flexible antenna.
“Hey, Rowell, we have a group of men in a dark green truck heading toward your camp. Should be there by nightfall. Do what you want with them.”
CHAPTER 57
Tonga Trench: Over the target
Pacific Ocean
Alexis and Captain Nadino leaned on the railing overlooking the launch deck. Below them was the high-tech submarine sitting in a cage, carefully mounted to the ship. A dozen men swarmed around it.
“We are over the target area, Alexis.”
She smiled at the captain.
“Is this where we drop anchor?”
“Yes, if only we had a twenty-five thousand foot long anchor,” the captain replied with a laugh. “We use lateral stabilizers to keep us in position. They work pretty good unless the waves get too high. Right now we’ve still got some chop to deal with, but it should calm down.
“Soon?” Alexis asked.
The captain pointed to the submarine.
“Very soon. Within hours. We will find your treasure.”
CHAPTER 58
End of the road
Africa
The truck struggled to maneuver around the deep ruts in the road. The road itself was starting to vanish, intermingled with the dense jungle — unusual rainfall over the past few years had caused this region to become overgrown with foliage. They were literally at the end of the road.
Victor leaned back to speak to his passengers.
“Gentlemen, we have reached the end of the road. We will have to pack in our gear from here.”
Victor maneuvered the truck off the road to a place in the shade of a tree. The ground around them showed signs of a previous campsite.
“Excellent,” Victor said. “This will be a good place to camp for tonight. Tomorrow we will hike to the gorge and waterfall. Should be there before lunchtime.”
“There’s still plenty of light out,” Adam said. “Shouldn’t we hike in a little bit, to get a head start?”
“No, enjoy the sunlight. We will rest here,” Victor answered.
The NASA crew unpacked their tents and other camping essentials. Two of Victor’s men gathered dead wood for a fire and set about lighting one up. Victor’s men were unusual because they didn’t speak and Adam wasn’t quite sure what they were there for aside from starting fires. Victor called them Lieutenant and Sergeant, but Adam doubted they had any military background.
Leroy noticed an old abandoned shipping container about thirty feet from the campfire.
“Hey Victor, what do you think that was for?” Leroy asked.
“Let us go have a look.”
The two men trudged through the dense vegetation to the old shipping container. It was rusty, but it was obvious that it had been painted blue at one point in time. It had TRANSANG written on the side between rust spots.
Victor walked to the end and lifted the locking handle, pulling open a door. It groaned open as if it hadn’t been moved in years. It was empty except for a few chunks of white solid objects. Victor reached down and picked one up. He felt it between his fingers.
“Ivory,” Victor declared. “This must have been a campsite for poachers long ago. They probably stored their prizes in this container.”
The two men roamed back to the campsite where a raging fire was boiling water for coffee.
“Leroy, why don’t you go help Adam and Jeffrey set up their cots,” Victor suggested.
Jeffrey really couldn’t do anything. He was still in a lot of pain, even though Dr. Rolatu was giving him fentanyl. There’s no way they could’ve left him in Dunongo.
Victor walked back to the fire where the NASA crew had gathered.
“Gentlemen, we still have some daylight left. Feel free to relax and get to sleep early. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
The men poured cups of coffee and sat on their cots, enjoying the sunset.
Victor was speaking with one of his men and suddenly turned his head toward the dense wall of jungle behind the campsite — the dusk shadows had already made the edge of the jungle ominous. Adam noticed the sudden quietness from Victor and his men. When the NASA guys looked over, Victor was slowly pulling his pistol out of his holster. He leaned over and disappeared into the jungle.
The NASA guys looked around with confusion. They weren’t armed.
“Should we do anything?” Leroy asked with a whisper.
Roger and Roger shrugged their shoulders.
“Just sit tight,” Adam said.
From the jungle, they heard some voices talking. Then a commotion and then silence. Footsteps were coming back toward them through the jungle, but it was more than one person. A group of five men emerged from the forest with one holding a gun to Victor’s head. Victor’s face was bloody and bruised. The strange men all wore green hunting vests except for the man with the gun — he wore a red vest.
“Hello, my friends!” yelled the man holding the gun. “Please do not make any sudden moves. I don’t want to kill all of you.”
When the group of approaching men arrived at the campfire, they grabbed the NASA scientists and forced them to stand up, maneuvering them into a straight line — like a police lineup in the jungle. They stood Victor at the end of the line. Victor’s two helpers were put on the opposite side of him.
The man with the gun wore his red vest over a khaki shirt and khaki pants with pockets everywhere. He pulled a cigar out of a pocket on his vest and leaned down to light it with the flames of the campfire. He took a puff and then stood back up. He saw that Jeffrey was still laying down, so he directed his green-vested men to attend to him.
When the thugs tried to pick up Jeffrey, he moaned loudly.
“What is wrong with him?” the man in the red vest asked.
“He is injured,” Dr. Rolatu said.
“Well, he’s no good to you,” the red-vest man replied. He pointed his pistol at Jeffrey and fired several times.
Victor and the NASA crew all gasped in horror. Victor’s helpers didn’t flinch though — their eyes narrowed in controlled rage.
The red-vest man shrugged his shoulders and looked back up at the group.
“I hear you are going to Zhuvango Falls. You will like the fireflies. It’s like a blanket of stars.”
Victor clenched his teeth and said, “We’ve heard.”
The men were still in shock over poor Jeffrey.
“Now I understand that one of you is quite famous.”
The NASA crew instinctively looked at Adam.
The red-vest man laughed.
“My goodness, you made that too easy.” He summoned his thugs to grab Adam and take him off to the shipping container. They walked across the dense grass. The thugs opened the door and shoved Adam into the cavernous metal box.
The red-vest man cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled toward Adam, “That is where we keep our prizes. You are our prize tonight!”
He laughed heartily.
Adam saw the dim sunlight peeking through the opening of the shipping container, but it soon vanished as the doors slammed shut. He heard the handle lock in place.
Adam stood in complete blackness. The sound of his own breath was echoing in the container.
Calm down, calm down, Adam thought.
He put his hands out in front of him and carefully walked over to the wall — he put his ear on the metal to hear what was happening.
The red-vest man was talking again. He was getting agitated and screaming in French. Victor was talking back in a mixture of French and English. The green-vested men got angrier. A burst of yelling and screaming scared Adam even more.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Cracka! Cracka! Cracka!
Adam flinched as he heard rifle sh
ots, followed by the sound of somebody screaming in pain.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Suddenly, laser-like beams of sunlight appeared across the end of the shipping container, accompanied by the sound of bullets slamming into the steel walls. Sparks lit up that end of the container.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
More scared voices yelled in French and a mix of English. Adam thought he heard the NASA guys screaming, too.
The yelling got louder and he heard footsteps. Somebody was hiding behind the container.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three more sunbeams pierced the container, this time halfway down – much closer to Adam. A bullet ricocheted inside the container, bouncing all around Adam. He instinctively covered his head.
“Dammit!” he yelled, jumping deeper into the container, covering his ears to protect them from the overwhelming roar of hammering-on-metal noise.
A new sound started up with fully-automatic machine gun fire, relentlessly hammering against the shipping container.
Ratt-tatt-tatt-tatt-tatt-tatt-tatt…
Sheets of sunlight tore through the shipping container, perforating it from front to back. Adam finally backed into the deepest wall in the container. He couldn’t go anywhere else.
The gunshots pounded on the container, sparks flying everywhere.
Adam dropped to the ground to make himself as flat as possible.
He heard the thud of a body fall to the ground behind the container.
The gunshots stopped. All was quiet except for some French being spoken. Footsteps ran around the outside of the container, following the edge. Adam saw the moving shadow blocking off the hundreds of sunbeam holes.
Adam heard the sound of the door opening. He held perfectly still. Suddenly, the container filled with a mixture of light — some from the sunset and some from the flickering campfire.
The silhouette of a man stood at the end of the container.
“Are you still alive?” a voice yelled.
“Yes,” Adam said reluctantly.
“Come on out then. We have some bodies to bury.”
Adam walked toward the front of the container, his shoes kicking bullets and scraps of metal from the deluge. His ears were ringing from the intense gunshot noise.