Rotters_Alpha Contact Read online

  Jerry shut his eyes in pain. He pulled out his phone again and dialed the number for what passed for Kinshasa’s airport. He knew a bush pilot there. This just kept getting better and better.

  Jerry looked up at Angel and covered the phone. “Do you need anything before we leave?”

  Angel shook his head and frowned. “I brought my kit; it is in the truck. My wife packed some food for us. Do you still like fish jerky?”

  The pair drove across the city to the airfield. There was only a single paved runway, but there were several made of compacted dirt. A few rusting, steel hangers occupied the side of the field near the small terminal, and a good dozen derelict passenger jets stood rotting in the tall grass opposite the hangers. Some had been seized by customs; others were abandoned by bankrupt airlines. A smattering of smaller planes dotted the airfield in various states of disrepair. Most of the still-functional planes were parked inside a chain-link fence enclosure.

  The DRC’s excuse for air service was rudimentary at best. The country’s nationalized air carriers were banned from landing in European airports due to safety concerns, and Jerry wouldn’t fly commercial in country; it was too dangerous.

  Angel stopped his truck at the guard shack. A bored guard with the ever-present African AK-47 slung over his shoulder waved them through. Jerry directed Angel to the rear of the parking area, where a small man in dirty coveralls waved to them. Angel parked his truck next to the man’s plane, a beat-up-looking Cessna of ancient vintage. Even Angel lifted a shaggy eyebrow at the plane.

  “This guy doesn’t ask any questions,” Jerry explained. “And he doesn’t talk about where he’s been either. I’ve flown with him before.”

  Angel grunted in reply as they stepped out.

  Jerry introduced their pilot, “Angel, this is Bob.” The pair shook hands; Bob’s smaller hand and wrist disappeared in Angel’s huge fist.

  “We’re fueled up and ready to go,” Bob suggested. “If you guys want to stow your gear in the back, I’ll sort it out.” He opened the Cessna’s small, rear cargo door.

  Angel pulled his kit from the truck. He carried a large board pack on a steel frame over to the plane. Lashed to it were rope, tools, a rolled-up tarp and netting, pots, pans, and enough supplies to feed five men for a week. Jerry figured that pack weighed every bit of a hundred pounds. Angel also extracted a wicked-looking machete and a huge, double- barreled rifle. The safari rifle looked like a toy in his hands.

  “Holy shit!” Bob exclaimed. “Is that an elephant gun?”

  “Yes,” Angel replied with pride. “It is an 800 Wildcat. I had it custom-made in Austria. It is one-of-a-kind, a custom model made for my grip. I paid for it in gold.” The big guide wrapped an ammunition belt around his wide waist. The brass-cased bullets were huge. He pulled out a shell and showed it to Bob. “The rounds are twelve-hundred grains. Each time I pull the trigger, it costs me ninety zaires,” he laughed. He wrapped the gun in a wool blanket and shoved it behind the seats.

  “That gun is worth more than my house,” Bob muttered.

  Jerry brought over his supplies and shoved them into the cargo compartment. He only had a small bag of clean clothes and his personal gear, some bug spray, and two bottles of scotch. He also had his Sat/PC-Array in a shoulder bag, but he hung onto it. The communications device was a satellite phone uplink connected to a laptop PC and an integral recharging array with folding solar panels and a power converter. Jerry was pretty sure it was worth more than Bob’s house, too. He couldn’t work in the field without it; the unit was his lifeline back to the real world and the Internet. It was tough as nails, and it usually got a good signal. The rain forest might make it sketchy, but Jerry figured he’d find out soon enough.

  Bob shuffled their things around until he was satisfied with the balance. He shoved everything away from Angel’s side of the plane. “You can sit here,” he suggested, pointing to the back seats. “If you fit.”

  Once everything was aboard the men climbed inside and tried to get comfortable. Angel was squeezed against the right door; he filled the entire back seat. The other two sat up front, their seats adjusted fully forward. After the third try, the Cessna’s engine roared to life, and then settled down to an uneven rumble. Jerry tried to ignore how rough the engine sounded.

  Bob grinned at them and said, “Here we go.” He goosed the plane through the fence and onto one of the dirt runways. Once the plane was lined-up, Bob held the brake and applied full power. The wheels made a horrible metallic grinding noise as the plane fought to advance. “No worries, just worn-out brake shoes,” Bob explained. He released the brake and the Cessna leapt forward, gathering speed. The trees at the end of the runway grew perilously close. Jerry pointed them out.

  “I see them,” Bob countered. “I fly out of here all the time.”

  Jerry clutched the Cessna’s thin seat cover with his ass cheeks. He willed the plane to fly. He didn’t think they were going to make it.

  The Cessna clawed its way into the air and barely cleared the tree-tops. Bob swung the ancient plane to the east, towards the rising sun. The pilot calmly looked over at Jerry. “See, no worries.”

  A/O Field Agent Foster

  Case 5-8G Additional.

  No Assets Haet-Mumbou Region this time.

  GCL Inc. suspected as front for Chinese espionage, in addition to illegal business activities.

  Be advised region is currently undergoing expansion of Cobalt mining operations under auspices of this company.

  Johannesburg, SA, Regional Supervisor Sharpe.

  Chapter 3

  04:33 p.m. Zulu

  Altitude 17000 Feet

  The Congo, DRC

  Jerry eventually relaxed. He desperately wished he hadn’t stowed his booze in the rear.

  Bob and Angel immediately hit it off; they had a friendly contest of tall tales and outright lies about harrowing escapes from death in the jungle below.

  Jerry could see the jungle stretched out below him like a vast green carpet, stretching from horizon to horizon. He knew the view was deceiving. The rain forest was under assault from all sides. As a CIA field agent, Jerry knew more about the Congo than most of the people who lived there. It was his business to know what was happening. The forest was disappearing, little by little, day by day, as multinational logging and mining interests slowly destroyed it, inch by inch. More of the jungle disappeared every day. A growing population and modernization helped to accelerate the process. Eventually, the rain forests of the Congo would be gone; Jerry had seen the computer models. It wouldn’t happen in his lifetime, but it would happen. As much as he disliked the jungle, it still saddened him to think of it. There were still unknown plant and animal species down there, medicines and knowledge that would disappear in countless fires and wood chippers.

  Jerry mused that all humans were idiots. They did really stupid things, like flying over the rain-forest in a really old airplane.

  The Cessna made the four-hour flight despite Jerry’s misgivings.

  Bob laid out their options as they approached the Haet-Mombou region.

  “I can land outside the jungle to the north, but you’ll have to find a ride to Gatou. It would be too far to walk. That would be perfectly safe; I can make a rough landing pretty much anywhere on the savannah. Your other option is to land at the old Guma gold mines. They had a dirt landing strip back when they were in operation. I remember where it’s at. That would put you a lot closer. The mines are in the hills southwest of the Haet-Mumbou.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” Jerry replied.

  “Well, maybe,” Bob explained. “The mines closed down years ago, and no one has been keeping the landing strip clear. It could be rough, maybe even not doable. The mines are in the jungle, so we’d be really close to the canopy, real fly by the seat of your pants shit.”

  “I see,” Jerry replied unhappily.

  “Your choice, I’m just along for the ride,” Bob chirped.

  “I don’t want to spend any
more time out here than I have to,” Jerry explained. “Take us to the mines.”

  “You’re the boss,” Bob agreed.

  Bob turned the plane to the southwest. Ten minutes later, he circled above the forest canopy and pointed down into the greenery below.

  “There it is,” he said.

  “Where?” Jerry asked. He couldn’t see anything but the canopy below him.

  “Hang on, I’ll circle back again,” Bob suggested. He turned the plane and they flew in a tight circle. Jerry craned his neck to look down.

  “There, right there!” Bob exclaimed.

  Jerry didn’t see anything, but then he realized that the landing strip was a slightly different colored green slash cut through the trees that flashed by under their wing.

  “It’s completely overgrown,” Jerry stated.

  “Naw, it’s not as bad as I thought it might be,” Bob countered. “There aren’t any big trees on it.”

  “I changed my mind,” Jerry shouted.

  “Too late,” the pilot grunted.

  The plane dropped like a rock as Bob cut power to the engine and purposely stalled on their approach. The Cessna hopped over the tree-tops and side-slipped directly over the runway. Huge trees flashed by yards away from either wing tip as the plane settled into the runway slot. Bob set the plane down hard and hit the brakes. The worn-out brake shoes screamed in protest, and the oversized tires threw up clouds of dirt. Huge palm fronds exploded against the windscreen.

  Bob locked his hands on the yoke and applied full power to the brakes. The Cessna hopped and crabbed to a final violent stop, leaving a path of crushed and mangled vegetation behind them on the overgrown runway.

  Bob took his feet off the brake and shut down the engine.

  “Can I fly or what?” he asked with a grin. “Hell, we still had another hundred feet of runway.”

  Angel hit the back of Jerry’s seat. “You can stop screaming now.”

  The men unloaded their gear and helped Bob push the Cessna back against the far end of the runway. Angel picked up the Cessna’s tail and turned the plane around. Jerry was almost glad to be staying on the ground; he didn’t see how the old plane would ever make it back off the runway.

  Bob started the plane. He leaned out the door and yelled, “You’ve got my cell number. Good luck, you guys!” Once again, he applied the brakes and then went full throttle down the runway. The Cessna barely cleared the canopy at the far end and immediately disappeared. Bob listened to its engine until it droned away into the distance.

  Angel walked across the strip and stopped near a slag-heap. A shallow pool of water surrounded by the bones of small animals lay nearby. The guide knelt down and dipped his fingers in the water. He held them to his nose and spit in disgust.

  “Cyanide in the water,” he growled. “The miners use it to leach out the minerals, and the animals drink it.”

  The abandoned mine was an ecological disaster. Empty pits, slag-heaps, abandoned equipment, and rusting barrels of dangerous chemicals littered the site.

  Jerry looked around and sighed; he knew there were hundreds of abandoned mines just like this one scattered throughout the country, not to mention the active ones. “Yeah, this place is awesome. Which way to Gatou?”

  Angel turned until he had his bearings. He pointed to the north. “That way.”

  The guide loaded two shells into his rifle and snapped the barrel shut. “Shall we?” he inquired, tilting his shaggy head towards the forest.

  “Yea, let’s get this over with,” Jerry agreed. He picked up his small shoulder bag and followed his friend into the jungle.

  Ten feet into the undergrowth, and Jerry was extremely unhappy. The heat was like an oven on pre-heat. Sweat ran down his forehead and dripped off his nose. His cargo pants and dress shirt were soaked instantly. Mud clung to his expensive Italian boots. He always felt claustrophobic in the jungle. He could only see a few feet in any direction for all the undergrowth.

  Angel pushed through the vegetation with gleeful ease, but Jerry tripped on every root and rock. Creepers and limbs snagged his shirt or scratched his skin. The word humid didn’t do the air in the rain forest justice; juicy was more precise. Everything was wet.

  Just as annoying was all the noise. The place was loud. Birds shrieked and called, insects droned and buzzed and twittered, something that Jerry assumed was a monkey screamed nearby. Even the undergrowth rustled and snapped as they pushed through it.

  Jerry wasn’t enjoying himself at all.

  “Hey, asshole, can we get on some kind of path or something please?” Jerry shouted at Angel’s back.

  “Oh sure. Wait, I mean sorry, no,” Angel replied. “We have to bushwhack for a while, boss.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Jerry cursed, lifting his foot out of a mud hole. “How far is it to Gatou?”

  “Just over them mountains,” his guide replied, pointing ahead.

  “What mountains?” Jerry huffed.

  “Oh, you’ll see,” Angel laughed.

  The ground they were covering began to undulate, and then commenced to climb in earnest.

  Jerry began to fall behind as Angel easily outpaced him over the rough terrain.

  “Damn it, Angel, slow down!” Jerry commanded.

  Angel stopped and turned to look back at the struggling field agent. “It will be dark soon; we’d better hurry if you want to reach the village before sunset.”

  “I’m not used to all this walking around. I hate this fucking outdoors shit,” the agent huffed.

  Angel chuckled grimly. “You got a world of pain comin’ your way before we get done, boss.”

  “That’s what they made scotch for, asshole,” Jerry shot back, but he knew his guide was right. He was out of shape, and now he was going to pay for it.

  The sun began to set before the pair made another two miles. Angel began to look around for a camp site. He finally found what he was looking for: a small clearing on high ground that was moderately dry. He dropped his pack and began to unload his gear. Jerry plopped to the ground and collapsed against a tree, panting and complaining loudly about his back and legs. He immediately fished out one of his bottles and took a long pull.

  “Fuck, I wish I had some ice,” he groaned.

  Angel spread out two tarps; one on the ground, the other stretched out between the tree branches overhead. He strung mosquito netting over both.

  “No ice for one hundred, maybe one hundred fifty kilometers,” he uttered.

  “Don’t remind me, asshole,” Jerry grunted in reply. He could tell that his discomfort was a great source of amusement for the native. “You find all of this funny, don’t you?”

  “What are you meaning?” Angel asked innocently.

  “You know what I mean,” Jerry responded. “Me floundering around out here in the forest.”

  Angel set up a small alcohol stove and lit it. He put on a pot of water to boil. “This trip was your idea, I thought you wanted to go camping,” Angel rumbled, trying not to laugh.

  Jerry slapped at a bug that was noisily circling his head. “I hate the jungle, you know that,” he stated. He sprayed himself liberally with the bug spray he had brought along.

  Angel wrinkled his nose and began to drop tea leaves into the pot. He stirred the water with a twig as it began to boil. “It will do you good to be out in the world, away from the evil cities and the works of men,” Angel intoned.

  “I like the evil cities. I like civilization,” Jerry retorted. “I like a clean bed to sleep in, and showers and clean clothes. This isn’t natural,” he concluded.

  Angel looked at him for a moment before he realized his friend was serious, then he laughed, “Man was born in this jungle, it is where our ancestors came from. You are an educated man, you know this, Jerry.” He laughed again.

  “That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Jerry replied. He took a long pull on the bottle. “Thank the good Lord for the Scottish, and their finest invention.”

  Angel strode over a
nd took the bottle. He took a slug of the fiery liquid, grimaced and swallowed it. “It tastes like ass, just like I remember,” he announced.

  Jerry snatched the bottle back. “It’s an acquired taste,” he replied testily. “And a waste for someone who doesn’t appreciate it to drink it.”

  Angel retreated to his side of the camp. He poured himself a strong cup of steaming tea and produced a pouch from the voluminous pockets of his tattered work shirt. He rolled a cigarette, and lit it from the stove. The harshly sweet scent of marijuana filled the clearing. Angel extended his arm towards Jerry. “Kef?” he asked.

  “You know I can’t smoke that shit,” the agent replied.

  “That’s why I offered to share,” Angel replied as he exhaled. Angel broke out jerky made from a gazelle he had killed, and bread one of his wives had prepared for the trip. He handed some to Jerry, who found them not bad. Of course, he was starving after the days’ exertions.

  The darkness of night came on quickly, but it was still very warm. Jerry attempted to clean his boots and removed his tie.

  “That is a good idea, boss,” Angel observed.

  “What, the tie?” Jerry inquired.

  “Yes, if you left that on, a Congolese might strangle you with it in your sleep. It is just asking for trouble,” Angel warned.

  Jerry looked around uneasily. “They would strangle me with my tie?” he asked.

  “No, I am joking,” Angel answered. “They would just spear you or shoot you.” He laughed mightily.

  “That’s not funny, you know they killed an agent in Kikwic last year,” Jerry snapped.

  “Well, he wasn’t smart enough to hire a good guide, was he?” Angel laughed. The big man had a point. Jerry would have been terrified to be here in the jungle without Angel, but with him around, he felt perfectly safe.

  “How much further to Gatou?” Jerry asked.

  “We are almost over the mountains,” Angel replied. “We will get there tomorrow if you can walk that far.”