King Solomon's Curse

8

If there were any further incidents in the night, Nina had been too tired to hear them. But she awoke before dawn, filled with renewed energy. Reaching Butembo was merely the overture; the expedition proper was about to begin.

Knowing they had a long journey ahead, the team had a full breakfast before assembling outside the hotel. The two minibuses awaited them, along with a well-worn Toyota pickup truck. Joining the explorers were three Congolese men. ‘Our porters,’ Fortune announced. ‘Masson Kimba, Lenard Chumbo and Cretien Wemba.’

‘Morning,’ said Eddie, shaking hands with each in turn. Kimba was broad and muscular, his smiling round face shaded by a ragged red baseball hat bearing the incongruous logo of Manchester United football club. Chumbo, in contrast, had a wiry build and prominent cheekbones, but his expression was equally cheerful. The last man, Wemba, fell unremarkably between the others’ extremes. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of knock-off designer sunglasses with reflective blue lenses. ‘Nice to meet everyone.’ He turned back to Fortune. ‘They know how to handle themselves?’

His Congolese friend — his suit from the previous day replaced by a more practical but equally stylish safari outfit — nodded. ‘They will not panic if there is trouble. You can count on that.’

Eddie stepped back as Nina and Ziff introduced themselves to the newcomers, noticing that Rivero was recording events with a professional Handicam. ‘You putting this on Facebook?’

‘I’m always shooting, man,’ Rivero replied. ‘The more footage you got, the easier things are in the edit. Besides, you never know when something’s gonna happen.’

‘Make sure you get my good side,’ Eddie joked.

Fisher shook hands with the porters, then straightened imperiously to address all the Africans. ‘Just so you all know, I’m the director, which means I’m in charge,’ he told them. ‘I call the shots. If I say something needs to be a certain way, then that’s how it gets done. I’m not really a bad guy, so if everyone does what I say, I won’t have to act like one. Okay?’

The porters exchanged looks, Wemba frowning behind his glasses — then Paris exaggeratedly bowed to the director. ‘Oh, yassa, yassa, massa. We all do what the great white man say, yassa.’ Fortune laughed.

Fisher’s cheeks flushed. ‘That’s — that’s not how I meant it. It wasn’t!’ He turned to his crew for support, only to find them trying to hide smirks. ‘Really, it wasn’t.’

Eddie nudged Rivero. ‘Did you get that?’ The cameraman nodded.

The three chuckling porters responded to an instruction from Fortune and began to load the baggage into the waiting vehicles. Rivero conspicuously refused to surrender his Sony, while Lydia hurriedly retrieved a padded bag that Eddie guessed contained her sound equipment. Just as soldiers were fiercely protective of their gear, so too were the documentary crew.

It did not take long for everything to be secured. Fortune addressed the group. ‘It will take eleven, twelve hours to reach Nakola — if we are lucky. The road is bad, so we cannot go fast, and we may be stopped along the way. If that happens, stay in your seat and let Paris and me handle it.’

‘That sounds kinda ominous,’ said Fisher.

‘Why do you think we’ve got three bags of US dollars?’ Nina said. ‘It’s not for snacks at gas stations.’

‘Huh. So we’re gonna get shaken down?’

‘Just tell ’em you’re the director and you call the shots,’ Eddie told him, grinning. Fisher huffed.

They boarded the three vehicles. Fortune started the lead bus, Paris following suit in the second and Wemba bringing the pickup to rattling life at the rear of the little convoy. ‘D’accord, tout le monde est prêt?’ Fortune asked over a walkie-talkie. Both replies were in the affirmative. ‘Okay,’ he told his passengers. ‘We are go.’

He pulled away, the other vehicles following. They waited for the security gate to open, then rolled into the streets of Butembo, heading out of the dusty town.

‘You weren’t kidding about the roads,’ Nina complained. Three hours into the journey, and any tarmac surfaces were a long way behind them. The scenery was beautiful, rippling hills dotted with increasingly dense stands of trees and bushes, but once they left the main route between Butembo and Goma far to the south to head west towards the Congo basin, hard-packed red earth was the best surface they could hope for. Unfortunately, even that was an infrequent luxury, the track mostly suspension-punishing ruts, potholes and stones. ‘I’m starting to feel seasick.’

‘Starting?’ said Fisher queasily. He had chosen to ride with Nina, Eddie and Ziff in the lead bus, his crew in the second.

‘This is the good part of the road,’ Fortune assured them cheerily.

Nina sighed. ‘Eddie, the next time I decide to head into the jungle to look for a lost city, remind me to bring a big-ass cushion.’

‘Or you could, y’know, not go at all,’ suggested her grumpy husband from the seat behind. He had endured plenty of hard rides in his military career and beyond, but now he was in his mid-forties he was realising to his annoyance that his tolerance for discomfort had lowered considerably.

‘You didn’t have to come with me,’ she said pointedly. ‘You were supposed to be going back to Macy.’ She turned away to watch the landscape roll by.

Eddie sat back, glowering. Fisher glanced between the couple, then leaned closer to him. ‘Can I ask you something?’ he whispered.

‘What?’ said the Englishman.

‘Nina. So she’s always like that, then?’

‘Like what?’

‘You know. Ah… pushy. Okay, rude.’

Eddie almost told him to mind his own business, but was irked enough by Nina’s attitude to reply. ‘Yeah, she is,’ he said quietly. ‘About anything archaeological, anyway. Once she decides to go after something, that’s it. That’s all she cares about.’

He paused, about to correct himself for being unfair, but Fisher spoke first. ‘Yeah, I’d noticed. But you seem like a pretty determined guy — you’re ex-military, right?’ Eddie nodded. ‘So why do you put up with that crap?’

Eddie stared at the American. ‘Because I love her. Why do you think?’

Fisher shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Just… just making conversation, you know. No offence.’

The convoy continued along the ragged road for another thirty minutes — then Fortune sat bolt upright. ‘Eddie,’ he said in a warning tone before delivering a terse radio message to the drivers behind.

‘What is it?’ asked Ziff.

‘Think we’re about to stop,’ Eddie cautioned. Ahead, the road weaved through a narrow pass between two humped hills — where a couple of vehicles blocked the road. As they drew closer, he saw men lounging in the shade of nearby trees scramble upright.

‘Military checkpoint?’ asked Fisher hopefully.

‘Nope.’ The waiting men were armed, but none wore uniforms. ‘Militia.’ Fisher swallowed and shrank in his seat.

‘Call themselves Insekt Posse,’ said Fortune, slowing as a man stepped into the road and held up one hand, an AK in his other. ‘You can tell by the armbands.’

Eddie saw that the group all wore strips of red material around their arms. ‘They dangerous?’

‘They can be. They will probably take a bribe, though.’

‘So long as they don’t take our gear,’ said the nervous Fisher. ‘Not sure the network would pay for a documentary shot entirely on someone’s phone.’

‘If they take your cameras, they will take your phones too,’ Fortune told him. ‘But we will handle this.’

He stopped thirty feet short of the man, the two other vehicles pulling up behind. Eddie assessed the four militia members as they approached. All were barely into adulthood, the oldest at most in his early twenties, and had the macho swagger common to undisciplined young men with guns facing those without. He also saw they had red, watery eyes and almost woozy movements; they were high on something. That would slow their reactions, but he didn’t know what it would do to their tempers…

‘You got guns in here?’ he asked Fortune.

‘Yes,’ replied the African as he opened his door, ‘but you won’t need one.’ He gestured to Paris, who joined him, then they went to meet the gunmen.

‘I don’t like this,’ said Nina, watching warily as Fortune spoke in French to the oldest of the group.

‘If anyone can handle them, it’s Fortune,’ said Eddie. All the same, he wished his friend had told him where he had stashed his weapons. He deliberately avoided direct eye contact as one of the militia rounded the bus, staring menacingly at each passenger in turn. The young man was pungent with the odour of both tobacco and whatever narcotic had laced it.

To the relief of the travellers, negotiations were quickly concluded. The leader called out to the others, then came with the expedition’s bodyguards back to the lead bus. ‘They wanted everything we have as a toll,’ Fortune announced, ‘but I have bargained them down to one thousand American dollars.’

‘What!’ snapped Fisher, before hurriedly falling silent as the militia man glared at him.

‘Trust me, it is a bargain. The money?’

‘Outside pocket on the grey-and-blue backpack,’ Nina told him. Fortune found it and produced a wad of hundred-dollar bills, which he counted off into the leader’s hand. The man stuffed the money into a pocket, then said something doubtless meant to sound threatening but which came out under Fortune’s level stare as a reedy stammer. He retreated and shouted to his comrades to move their vehicles off the road.

‘How did you make a deal?’ Nina asked as Fortune returned to the driver’s seat.

He grinned, gold flashing in the sun. ‘I told them my name.’

‘That’s all?’ said Fisher, agog. ‘They backed down just because you told them who you are?’

‘Fortune’s got quite a reputation,’ Eddie said with a smile. ‘Lucky for us, he’s on our side.’

The well-dressed man laughed. ‘You might even say I am your good fortune, eh?’ He signalled to Paris, who had returned to his own bus, and the convoy set off again. The members of the Insekt Posse watched with evident hostility as they passed, but took no action against them.

Ziff sighed in relief. ‘That was close.’

‘There may be more before we reach Nakola,’ said Fortune. ‘Insekt Posse is one of the largest militia groups supporting the LEC, but it is not the only one.’

‘Any of ’em operate out past Nakola?’ Eddie asked.

‘There is no way to know for sure, but I have heard of them hiding in the jungle in the past. Some may be there now.’

‘They use the rivers to get around?’

‘Sometimes, yes.’

‘Right.’ He sat back, thinking.

Nina turned to speak to him, but on seeing his pensive expression held her tongue. His questions to Fortune gave her the feeling that another argument was brewing, and after escaping one tense situation she had no desire to drop immediately into another.

Despite Fortune’s concerns, the rest of the journey to the small village of Nakola was completed without any further militia interference. The rough road, however, had not been so cooperative, a puncture on Paris’s minibus adding almost two hours to the predicted travel time. ‘Oh, my God,’ gasped Rivero as he clambered exhaustedly from his ride. ‘I never want to do that again!’

‘You’ll have to on the way back,’ Howie reminded him.

‘Maybe I’ll just stay here. There’s a hotel, it’s got a bar — what more do I need?’

‘I don’t think it’ll win any Michelin stars,’ said Nina. Even at night, lit only by the headlights of the three vehicles and scattered lamps, Nakola’s wretched poverty made Butembo look like Dubai.

‘It’s not bouncing around over potholes, so that’s good as far as I’m concerned,’ Eddie grunted as he collected their belongings.

‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘It’ll be great to get into a room for the night.’

Five minutes later, she had changed her mind. ‘Okay. Maybe we’ll just sleep in the bus,’ she said in disgust on seeing their squalid chamber. The bed linen not only hadn’t been changed since the previous occupant, but it seemed entirely possible that said occupant had died in their sleep and not been discovered for days.

Eddie shrugged. ‘I’ve slept in worse places.’

‘Oh yeah? Where?’

‘Well, I was in a Zimbabwean prison once. And you’ve camped in the jungle before, you know what it’s like with all the insects and stuff.’

She pointed at a thumb-width crack in one wall, through which a creeper was protruding. ‘Yeah, but it’s different when the jungle’s trying to get indoors with you!’

‘We’ll stick a groundsheet over the bed and kip in our sleeping bags. It’ll be fine.’

‘I’m not convinced,’ she said as he opened a pack. ‘And… there’s something else I’m not convinced about.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That you’re going back to Butembo tomorrow. You’re going to insist that you come all the way to Zhakana, aren’t you?’

Eddie briefly paused in his search. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because I know you? You were determined to see me this far, and after that business at the roadblock I can’t imagine you waving goodbye in the morning and letting me head upriver into a jungle where more of those assholes might be hiding out.’

He tugged out the groundsheet. ‘That pretty much covers all the arguments I was going to use, so yeah.’

Nina rubbed her temple. ‘For God’s sake, Eddie. What about Macy? Do you really want to leave our daughter with her grandparents for an extra week or more, without even seeing her in person to explain why? Let’s be honest — you don’t even especially like your dad! But you’re happy to dump Macy on him for that time?’

‘Of course I’m not bloody happy about it,’ he protested, spreading the waterproof sheet over the stained bedding. ‘But what else can I do? You heard Fortune. The militia might be in the jungle—’

‘Might be.’

‘You willing to take the chance? ’Cause I’m not, not when it’s your life on the line. And everyone else’s too. Those Insekt Posse dickheads wanted to strip us of everything at gunpoint — and who knows what else they would have done?’

Nina regarded him with disapproval. ‘You mean to me and Lydia.’

‘Yes, to you and Lydia. This isn’t some sexist thing either,’ he added, cutting off her impending objection. ‘This is what these bastards do. Rape’s as much a weapon as an AK in this part of the world. I’ve seen it — Rwanda, Sudan. And if—’ He broke off, briefly affected by a surge of emotion. ‘And if something happened to you out here and I could’ve been with you to stop it, but wasn’t…’

‘Eddie…’ she said, realising the depths of his feelings. ‘I–I know what you’re saying, and I appreciate it, you know I do. But I’m sure we’ll be okay.’

‘You might be. But I’m not. That lot at the roadblock were trying their luck. If you run into a bigger bunch in the jungle, though… that’s their territory. Fortune’s reputation won’t scare ’em off.’

‘You said yourself that Fortune and Paris should be able to handle them.’

‘Fortune’s good. But I’m better. And you know it.’ He finished covering the bed. ‘There’s a satphone in the gear, so I’ll call Dad. And we’ll talk to Macy too. I know she’ll be upset, but like I said yesterday, there are much worse things that could happen.’

‘God damn it, Eddie,’ she said, but she knew he would not change his mind. Resigned, she took out the sleeping bags to prepare for what she was sure would be an uncomfortable night in more ways than one.