The Devil’s Kingdom

Chapter 55

Perhaps it was all thanks to the prospect of half a million francs, or perhaps it was also partly in celebration of the demise of the hated General Jean-Pierre Khosa — but having finished dispensing his medical services Paul Bakupa insisted that his guests remain a little longer. He provided them all with a hot meal of beans and spicy fried chicken around the small table in the kitchen, every last chilled bottle of Ngok lager in his fridge and cans of Coca-Cola for the children, as well as a badly needed shower (‘though I must warn you that the water pressure is erratic at best’). Most welcome of all for Rae, he was happy to let her use his telephone.

It was the most important and emotional phone call of her life. Jude resisted the urge to stay with her in the narrow hallway outside the kitchen as she dialled home to tell her family she was free and safe. There were a lot of tears at both ends of the line. She ended the call by promising them she’d explain everything, and that she’d go to the US Embassy in Brazzaville first thing in the morning.

‘I’m deeply in your debt,’ Ben said to Bakupa when it was time to leave. ‘I’ll bring you the money as soon as I can.’

‘It was a pleasure helping you, my friend,’ Bakupa replied, shaking his hand. Ben could have hugged the guy.

He felt like hugging Mama too, but she’d already gone to bed, leaving the front door open for them. Rae couldn’t get over it. ‘You wouldn’t do that in Chicago.’

‘We are Africans,’ Sizwe said with a sad smile. ‘You are American, you cannot understand. Most people here are so poor, we have nothing to steal. At home in Rwanda, people in my village—’ Sizwe was about to say more, but then his eyes clouded and he fell silent.

Ben touched his arm. It had been a hell of a day for Sizwe. He’d witnessed the murderer of his family going up in flames; now, with a bellyful of beer inside him, and no definite future, he was ready to sleep for a week. Ben knew exactly how he felt.

The room arrangements had been decided in advance. The six children were sharing, which for orphanage kids used to thirty to a dorm was a luxury beyond imagining. It had been agreed to let Rae have a room to herself, being the only woman, and for the men to bunk up together next door.

At least, that had been the plan. Ben’s eyebrows rose at the sight of Jude disappearing with Rae into her room. The door closed softly behind them.

‘It’s an outrage,’ Tuesday said, grinning at the look on Ben’s face. ‘It’s not proper.’

‘See, what did I tell you?’ Jeff said, chuckling. ‘They couldn’t get away fast enough. Love’s young dream, eh? Best let them be.’

‘More space for us in here,’ Tuesday said.

There were just two beds in the cramped room. Ben settled on the floor and lit one of the Tumbacos he’d taken from the plane. Sizwe sat on the floor opposite him.

‘Take a bed, Sizwe,’ Ben said.

‘I have slept on many floors in my life,’ Sizwe said.

‘Suit yourselves,’ Jeff grunted, flopping on one of the beds and turning out the light.

Tuesday recited in the darkness:

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Jeff said.

‘Love’s young dream. That’s poetry, that is. Thomas Moore.’

‘You’re not normal, are you?’

They lapsed back into silence. Ben smoked and thought.

‘We killed a thousand men today,’ he murmured in the darkness. ‘Sweet Jesus. So many.’ He didn’t realise he was speaking his thoughts out loud until Jeff replied tersely,

‘Yeah, well, screw ’em.’

More silence. Ben went on smoking and tried not to listen out for sounds coming from the next room.

‘I miss my family,’ Sizwe whispered.

Nobody spoke after that.

Whatever the others assumed must be happening in the next room, they were wrong.

Jude and Rae sat for a long time on the edge of the narrow bed, talking in low voices. The only light was from a weak, flickering bulb on the nightstand, and with the sash window open for some air there were moths the size of kestrels soon fluttering about them.

‘You’ll be going home tomorrow,’ Jude said to her. He tried to sound happy about it, but that wasn’t easy.

‘I guess,’ she replied. She’d been subdued since the phone call to her family.

‘That’s wonderful.’

Rae nodded, though she didn’t look happy. ‘Yes, it is. But I’ll be walking into a nightmare the moment I step off the plane. FBI, CIA, and who knows who else, all waiting to talk to me. Having to go through the whole thing with what happened to Craig, over and over again. This is bound to blow up into some kind of major international shit storm, and I’ll be caught up right in the middle of it. And the worst thing is, there’s not a shred of solid proof to incriminate Craig’s killers. The bastards will get away with it, like always.’

‘Khosa’s dead,’ Jude said. ‘I don’t call that getting away with it.’

‘Maybe. But what about all the others? Khosa wasn’t working alone, you know that as well as I do.’

‘I know,’ Jude said, thinking of César Masango. He shifted uncomfortably and changed the subject. ‘But you’ll be back with your family, that’s what matters most.’

‘To tell you the truth, part of me is kind of dreading that as well,’ she admitted. ‘I’m worried about what they’re going to say to me. You know, once we get past all the emotional stuff. I know they must have paid Khosa’s cronies a lot of money in ransom for my release. I hate to even think how much, and all lost. I don’t know if I can handle that.’

He touched her hand. ‘You’re worth it.’

‘Wait till I tell them about you, though,’ she said, turning to him and forcing a smile. ‘You’ll be their hero for life.’

‘The white knight in shining armour,’ he said jokingly, and they both laughed softly. ‘Maybe I’ll get to meet them one day,’ he ventured, then was worried he’d said too much.

She paused a beat. ‘You’d come to Chicago?’

‘I’ve nowhere much else to go,’ he said. ‘I had some plans, but that’s all done with now. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ After a silence, he said, ‘What you told me, about the coltan…’

‘What about it?’

‘It made me think about all the things the public don’t know about. I mean, how would people feel if they knew there were components inside their mobile phones and tablets that came from a slave mine in Africa where workers are being tortured and murdered every day?’

‘If they care,’ she said. Reaching into her pocket, she took out the SD card containing the valuable images she and Munro had taken of the mines and the city, and gazed at it. ‘Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it,’ she sighed. ‘Does anyone back home really give a crap? Africa might as well be another planet.’

He looked at her. ‘They do care. And they will. We’ll make them listen.’

‘What are you saying? That you want to get involved?’

Jude shrugged. ‘Maybe. Yeah. I think I would.’

‘You think you would?’

‘I definitely would. But mostly, I’d just like to see you. Spend some more time.’ As he said it, he could feel his face flushing.

‘In Chicago?’

‘Problem is, I can’t afford a plane ticket,’ he confessed.

Rae smiled, the smile coming easily now. ‘If that’s all that’s holding you back, it shouldn’t be too hard to fix.’

‘Tell me about the place,’ he said.

They whispered late into the night, sitting close together on the bed, knees touching, reaching out affectionately to one another every so often as they talked, relaxed and happy in each other’s company. Whatever the others assumed the two of them were getting up to in there alone in Rae’s little room, they had the wrong idea.

But much later, in the depths of the night, when everyone else was asleep and total stillness had fallen over the auberge, things turned out so they were right after all.