The Lioness(88)

“An African Bay of Pigs,” Muema had called the attempted insurrection, and then explained to Benjamin what he had meant.

“In Tanganyika there are, what, a hundred tribes?” Charlie had asked the guide. It was a rhetorical question; he knew the answer.

“Closer to one hundred and twenty.”

The hunter nodded. “And here in Kenya, there’s another forty. But, somehow, you’ve all been spared the madness of Rwanda and the Congo,” said Charlie.

“Why is that?” Benjamin asked.

Charlie was smoking a cigarette and stared for a moment at the black and white cylinder of ash at the tip, before tapping it into a standing ashtray. “Damned if I know. Might be as simple as the fact most everyone in Tanganyika speaks Swahili. So, you have that in common. But there’s probably more to it. A lot more. Look at Ireland. The Catholics and the Protestants speak, more or less, the same language and read the same Bible, and still can’t go very long without a pretty nasty brawl.”

“As long as the Russians and Americans leave us alone, Tanganyika will be fine and Kenya will be fine,” Muema said.

“Oh, they won’t leave us alone,” Charlie told him. “If the Americans are willing to go to the other side of the world to fuck around in Vietnam—and it seems that they are—and the Russians were willing to risk blowing up the planet over Cuba, I wouldn’t suppose Africa is safe. They won’t send whole armies. At least I don’t think so. That’s the good news. They’ll send more advisers and more spies and more captains of industry. But the Congo or Kenya? Any place that has natural resources? This continent is like a wounded gazelle with hyenas on one side and jackals on the other.”

Muema tossed the newspaper onto a high wooden table made of black wood with elephants carved into the edging. He smiled at Charlie and said to Benjamin, “I’m glad our work depends on zebras and wildebeest—a different kind of natural resource from coffee or gold.”

“Or uranium,” said Charlie.

“Right. Or uranium.”

“Tell me something, Muema,” Charlie asked.

Muema raised an eyebrow, waiting.

“Do you believe the stories of slave labor and illegal mining in the Congo?”

“I do. In the rebel provinces? Absolutely.”

Charlie nodded. “Me too.”

Two more of the safari’s guests were coming down the stairs, sisters from Chicago whose family had something to do with beef. Their husbands were already outside on the street photographing the hotel facade for posterity.

Charlie sighed. “I’ve dealt with Russians and I’ve dealt with Americans,” he went on. “I will admit to God and camp cook alike with the same candor: they all scare me a hell of a lot more than pissed-off rhinos and ornery lions.”

“Why?” Benjamin asked. The two older men stared at him. Was the answer really so obvious that he should have known it?

“The rhinos know we’re a threat, and the lions have learned we can be very risky prey,” Muema said, with that lovely professorial lilt to this voice. “But to the Russians and Americans? We’re just pawns on the chess board. Harmless and expendable.”



* * *



.?.?.

One of the Russians worked his way through the hostages, up the center of the cargo bed of the rumbling lorry, and pounded on the roof of the cab. He barked something at the driver, and the truck squealed to a stop, kicking up dust and sending the hostages spilling into each other. The driver jumped out with a rifle and hopped into the back with his two comrades as the jeeps closed ground and then abruptly came to a halt too. They were, Benjamin guessed, no more than twenty-five meters away.

For a full minute, nobody moved and nobody said a word. The sun was blistering.

Eventually, a jeep door opened, and instantly one of the Russians unleashed a short volley of gunfire that punched holes in the metal and shattered the glass window. But whoever was inside was undaunted. He had a bullhorn and yelled from inside the vehicle that they needed to drop their weapons and surrender. The driver poked one of the young porters with the tip of his gun and ordered him to stand. Reluctantly, he did, the fear evident in the way his eyes were darting around him, and the Russian prodded him to the rear of the cargo bed so the men in the jeeps could see him.

“We have eleven more just like him!” the one who was in charge yelled back at the jeeps. Then, his own rifle slung over his shoulder, he took his pistol and shot the porter in the side of the head, pushing the body over the lorry’s rear gate and onto the ground before the dead man’s legs could collapse at the knees. “Back off now, or we’ll kill another!” he shouted.

Benjamin wiped the sweat off his forehead. He was shaking, but it was rage, not fear. He hadn’t known the porter before this safari, but they were roughly the same age. He’d grown up in Kenya and gotten the job with Charlie Patton because his grandfather and Juma were friends, and because he had astonishing eyesight. He was hoping to train someday to be a guide, too: to point out the tiniest of birds in the whistling thorns and the cheetah sitting in wait in the far distance.

When the jeeps remained where they were, when there was no sign of withdrawal, the Russian pointed at Muema. “Bring me the guide.”

When Muema refused to stand, the guard grabbed him by the front of his shirt with his left hand, pulling him forward, and pressed the tip of the rifle against his chest. “Get up!”