Duty and Honor

36

You have to decide, Jack,” René called from the Land Cruiser. “What’s it going to be?”

Jack turned and sprinted back to the Land Cruiser. “The lodge.”

He backed out of the ditch onto the road, then pulled ahead and turned onto the dirt road. Jack covered the ten miles to the airstrip-lodge fork in twenty minutes. Headlights off again, he turned left until he saw the edge of the runway. The Pilatus was still there, wheels chocked and windows dark.

Wherever that convoy was headed, it was either too close to justify the flight or located too far from a landing site.

Jack turned around, made his way back to the fork, and turned toward the lodge. When he reached the cobblestone entrance, Jack said, “Rostock rented out the entire lodge; there’s no staff. Anyone with a gun is fair game.”

“I understand,” said René.

“We’ll check the bungalows first.”

“I’ll follow your lead.”

Jack braked to a stop ten feet before the arch and shut off the engine. René handed him one of the AKs and a pair of magazines. Jack inserted one of them into the AK, cycled the bolt, then made sure the safety was on. They climbed out of the SUV.

With Jack in the lead, they headed through the arch. He pointed right, toward the lobby doors. René nodded and checked the doors. He shook his head. They continued on. When they reached the lawn, Jack pointed across to the line of eight bungalows, then gestured to René and mouthed, Spread right. Twenty feet apart and walking abreast, they crossed the lawn. No lights were visible in the bungalows.

Jack angled toward the one on the far left. René adjusted course to match him, his AK raised and tracking back and forth. When Jack reached the first bungalow’s walkway, René stacked up behind him and gave him an “I’m here” pat on the shoulder, and together they approached the door, then split, one on either side of the door.

Jack crouched, leaned sideways, and peeked through the window. The interior was tidy, with no signs of occupancy. He looked at René and shook his head.

They retraced their steps to the sidewalk and moved on to the next bungalow. Here, too, Jack saw nothing to indicate it had been used recently. At the third and fourth bungalows, same result.

As they approached the fifth bungalow’s walkway, Jack caught a whiff of something in the air. It was the acrid stench of overseared meat. He glanced at René, who tapped his nose, pointed at the bungalow’s front door, and mouthed, Coming from in there.

Jack stopped at the door. His check through the window revealed the bungalow’s interior was in disarray. The beds were unmade and food trays were stacked on the dresser. Beer bottles overflowed the garbage can. In the center of the room was a hard-back chair. Dangling from its front legs was what looked like duct tape.

Jack signaled to René, Going in, and got a nod in return. Jack tried the knob. The door was unlocked. They went through and quickly cleared the bungalow. Jack and René clicked on their flashlights and looked around.

On the floor beside the chair was a bloodstained white towel, and balanced on the closest corner of the dresser was a curling iron. Its chrome surface was splotched with a dark, flaky material.

“It’s charred skin,” René whispered. “Fresh.”

Ah, Christ, Jack thought. “Let’s keep moving.”

At the sidewalk they turned left and headed to the next bungalow.

Jack froze. René followed suit.

Noise.

What was it? A muffled clang, a scraping sound. It was familiar. It took Jack a few more seconds to pigeonhole the noise: a shovel in dirt.

A male voice shouted, “Beeil dich!” Hurry up.

“It’s coming from behind the bungalows,” René whispered.

Jack started running. At the last bungalow, the sidewalk turned left. Jack followed it down a tree-lined path to an oval-shaped dirt parking lot fronted by a split-rail fence. When Jack reached its edge he stopped and dropped into a crouch. The lot’s far edge was made up of overgrown bushes. There was a vehicle in the lot: a black Hilux.

Through the bushes came a flicker of light.

Jack looked at René, who nodded his readiness. They stepped over the fence, crossed the parking lot, and split up, each taking one side of the Hilux. They met at the front bumper.

“I’m done!” a man called. It was ragged and weak, but Jack recognized the voice: Effrem. “If you’re going to do it, just do it! Assholes!”

In German-accented English a voice replied, “Suit yourself. Rolf, get the gas can.”

The bushes rustled. Rolf stepped into view. Dangling from his right hand was a semiauto pistol.

“René, take him,” Jack ordered.

René lifted his AK and put three rounds into the man’s chest. Even as the man fell, Jack sprinted past him and crashed into the bushes. He burst into a small clearing lit by an LED lantern sitting on the ground. The other German stood at the head of a pit. Effrem was in it, stripped to the waist and slick with blood and dirt and sweat.

Jack shot the German in the side, and he stumbled and dropped to his knees. Jack shot him in the side of the head. He toppled over.

Jack called to Effrem, “Anyone else?”

“No, just the two of them.” Effrem lifted the shovel above his head and hurled it at the German’s body. He turned to Jack. “Jack, will you please get me out of here?”

They put Effrem in the Hilux, then drove it around the fence and onto the lawn, stopping before the last bungalow. After shouldering the door open, René stood watch while Jack helped Effrem inside and sat him on a bed.

René called, “I’ll have a look around for other stragglers and then get the first-aid kit.” As he left, he shut the door behind him.

Jack closed the curtains and turned on the bungalow’s overhead lights.

Effrem’s appearance momentarily paralyzed Jack.

Scattered across Effrem’s torso were at least ten cylindrical burn marks from the curling iron. The tips of his pinkie and third finger on his left hand were pulp, probably the work of a hammer, Jack guessed. Effrem’s bottom lip was split and his right eye socket was so badly bruised and swollen it looked like a smashed plum.

“Fucking hell,” Jack muttered.

“Is it bad?” Effrem said.

“Pretty bad.”

“It’s starting to hurt, Jack, really bad. For a while I was numb, but now it’s—” Effrem winced, then exhaled heavily. He cradled his shattered hand in his lap. “He didn’t ask me anything. Not one question!”

“Möller?”

“He just did it. For no reason. For fun.” Effrem’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Möller told those two to get rid of me. I thought, Well, how much can a bullet to the head hurt? And then they told me to start digging. They were going to set me on fire… bury me in that hole. Why? Why that way?”

Because Möller’s a psychopath, Jack thought but didn’t say.

Effrem was crying now, his chest heaving with sobs. Jack sat down on the bed and pulled Effrem’s head onto his shoulder. “You’re alive, Effrem. Just keep repeating that in your head: I’m alive.”

René returned with the first-aid kit and went to work on Effrem, checking him for any obvious signs of brain damage or internal hemorrhaging, then having him down four ibuprofen followed by two miniature bottles of whiskey Jack found in the dresser.

Once the battered journalist had stopped shaking, René turned his attention to Effrem’s burns and wounds. He left Effrem’s hand for last.

“Hammer?” René asked him.

“Plumber’s wrench,” Effrem replied.

Jack asked, “What’s the diagnosis?”

“The burns are superficial. As long as they’re kept clean, they’ll heal. Same with his eye and lip.”

“What about my hand?” asked Effrem. “I’m going to lose those fingers, aren’t I?”

“Only if they get infected. The tips of the bones are broken, but the blood flow is still there. You will, unfortunately, never attain your dream of being a hand model.”

Effrem smiled faintly. “Guess I’ll have to stick with journalism. Jack, I’m sorry. You said ‘Jump’ and I didn’t jump. I was worried we were going to lose Möller. I had a gut feeling that Pilatus wasn’t going to move, but Möller was. I thought if I could at least follow them for a while we’d have a direction to follow.”

“You moved the GPS tracker?” Effrem nodded and Jack said, “You’re forgiven.”

They covered him in blankets and gave him another mini-bottle of whiskey. He was asleep within minutes.

“He’s fighting shock,” René said. “He needs at least four hours of sleep before we move him. We need to get him back to Windhoek.”

“Good luck with that. He’s stubborn.”

“And you’re okay with him coming with us?”

Jack said, “Not really, but he’s earned the right to decide for himself. Even if he just wants to go along for the ride, I’m going to let him.”

René shrugged. “You’re the leader. These are some terrible men we’re dealing with, Jack. What they did to him — what they were going to do to him…”

“I know.”

“And they belong to Rostock.”

This wasn’t a question, Jack realized, but rather a statement. The only emotion he heard in René’s voice was one of cold resignation. He’d cleared the chasm, Jack knew.

Seventy-five minutes after they arrived at the lodge, the GPS tracker’s signal faded with the convoy still heading north on the Western Bypass. Jack told René, “We lost them.”

“Maybe not,” Effrem said from his bed. He reached out and turned on the nightstand lamp. “I heard Möller say something about GPS and the Hilux. Maybe its nav system was programmed so they could catch up to the main group.”

René was already on his feet. “I’ll check.” He returned to the bungalow a few minutes later. “He’s right. There’s a destination programmed into the system.”

“Where?”

“Someplace called Kavango Dam.”