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  Angel shut down his stove and emptied his cup. The men crawled inside the netting and lay down on the tarp.

  “How old are your boys now?” Jerry asked.

  “They are almost grown men,” Angel replied. They were silent for a moment.

  “How is your boyfriend?” Angel asked.

  “Fuck you, Angel,” Jerry growled.

  Once Angel stopped laughing, he asked more seriously, “Why didn’t you ever take a wife? I know you are fat and ugly, but there are many women in Kinshasa who would marry you just for your money.”

  “I guess I just don’t have time,” Jerry replied. “My job kept me moving around, and I can’t talk to people about what I really do. It is just easier to be single, and I am too set in my ways to ever get married now.”

  “I like to eat too much to not be married,” Angel finally replied. “Go to sleep, Jerry.”

  “I will if you ever shut up.”

  The sun was up when Jerry opened his eyes. He sat upright and immediately regretted it. He was sore, everywhere. Angel sat near his stove, drinking strong tea and toasting bread, which he smothered in honey and peanut butter.

  Jerry crawled out to join him.

  “Do you want some?” Angel asked.

  Jerry held up one hand to indicate no.

  Angel poured him a cup of tea. “Drink this, it will help,” he insisted.

  Jerry grudgingly accepted the drink. He sat and sipped the hot liquid. To his surprise, it did help. The tea was strong and bracing. “What is in this?” he asked.

  “Ginseng, mandrake, vitamin C, all that black magic shit,” Angel replied with a grin. He threw Jerry a banana and a piece of jerky. “Eat those also,” he insisted.

  Angel quickly broke down their rude camp and packed everything away while Jerry finished his breakfast. The big guide rubbed his rifle down with an oily rag as Jerry finished the last of the tea. He stowed the stove and Jerry’s cup and shrugged his heavy pack on. Jerry picked up his shoulder bag and daypack, and the two trudged back into the jungle.

  As Jerry walked, the kinks in his abused muscles began to loosen, and he felt slightly better. Even a hardened urbanite couldn’t ignore the sights around him. The forest was alive with vivid colors, scents, and sounds. Brilliant rays of sunlight played through holes in the dense canopy overhead, and sparkled against the fat drops of condensation that clung to the glistening leaves. Monkeys and birds capered and leapt among the overhanging branches, their calls and cries filling the morning air with sound. The moist scents of all the vegetation around him overwhelmed Jerry’s senses. A rich mixture of sweet flowery perfume mixed with the rotting humus beneath his feet; the earthy mud and fresh air were alien to Jerry, who seldom left the city. He trudged along in wonder.

  The men walked over the crest of the mountains and the ground fell away before them. Jerry could only tell that he finally was going downhill, and it was easier to plod along.

  Angel stopped from time to time, kneeling down to examine tracks, or pausing to listen to some distant sound. Jerry could only follow; he did his best to keep up and not complain.

  Without warning, the men emerged from the underbrush and walked out onto a dirt road; its twin lanes heavily rutted.

  Angel paused to look around. “Ah, I have brought us too far north,” he finally exclaimed. “Gatou is back that way.” He pointed to his right towards the south.

  “How far?” Jerry asked.

  “Not far, boss.” Angel grinned. “A half-hour; we are close.”

  “Shit,” Jerry groaned.

  The field agent readjusted his bags and followed Angel down the dirt road.

  They walked in silence, except for Jerry’s occasional grunt or groan of complaint. The pair hadn’t walked far when Angel stopped suddenly. He pushed Jerry to a halt.

  The road before them was littered with abandoned belongings. Clothing, baskets, bags, and boxes lay scattered across the roadway for a hundred feet or more. Angel slowly made his way through the debris, stopping to examine something of interest. He picked up a half-full basket of dates; the rest lay scattered in the mud.

  He lifted one to his nose. “These are good,” he muttered. “This is very bad, Jerry,” he warned.

  “What happened here?” Jerry asked quietly. “Ethnic cleansing?”

  “No, I think not.” Angel prowled back and forth, examining the debris. “People died here, there is some blood, but it is strange,” he trailed off.

  Jerry looked at the ground. There were many footprints in the mud, and even he could see the congealing pools of blood. Scattered along the road were valuables; coins and a broken gold bracelet, and an unopened bottle of bourbon.

  “No Congolese would leave these things,” Angel spoke softly. “We must be very careful.”

  He led Jerry off the road and into the trees along the right side of the track. They slowly followed the roadway until it ended at the village, but still Angel remained in the trees. They crept forward the last few yards, making no noise, until they could see the village. Angel crouched down and, with hand signals, motioned for Jerry to do the same. They waited, making no movement or sound, looking through the brush at the quiet village of Gatou.

  Jerry silently mused that Gatou would never make it as a tourist attraction. It was small even by African standards. A few thatch and clapboard huts crowded around a concrete block clinic with a very rusty, metal-clad roof. The surrounding forest crowded in on all sides. The village itself seemed fine, but something was definitely amiss.

  There was something very wrong with the villagers of Gatou.

  Jerry couldn’t put his finger on it at first, but then it hit him. There was no sound, none at all. The villagers paced around the huts, and staggered drunkenly in and out of the clinic. Jerry felt Angel tense beside him. The guide thrust his head forward; he growled almost inaudibly, and planted a beefy hand on Jerry’s shoulder, holding him in place.

  Jerry wasn’t sure what his guide had seen; he strained to follow his guide’s line of sight.

  Something about the way the villagers moved seemed unnatural. Their movements weren’t fluid, they were stiff and jerky. Upon closer examination, some of them seemed to be limping or injured. Jerry jumped as he looked closer; two of the villagers were dragging themselves across the muddy ground. He instinctively began to stand, but Angel forced him back down. He made eye contact with his guide, who shook his head in the negative.

  Angel studied the village patiently. Jerry grew anxious; he poked Angel in the ribs. His guide turned to snarl at him. He held one finger to his lips. Jerry grudgingly deferred to his judgment, and settled in to wait.

  Jerry glanced at his wristwatch, and gritted his teeth impatiently. They waited for a half an hour; Angel didn’t move an inch. Finally, the big guide brought his rifle up as he inched slowly backward, pulling it smoothly around on its sling and into his hands. He eased the hammer back; Jerry could barely hear the audible double click. A palpable tension filled the air; death was near.

  Jerry cautiously followed Angel backward, trying carefully to be quiet. The guide slowly pulled back into the brush, away from the edge of the village. They crept away until they were well back into the trees, far from Gatou.

  Angel relaxed visibly, eased down the hammer, and sat his gun close to hand. The guide quickly rolled a cigarette and lit it. Jerry could tell the big man was still listening carefully to the jungle around them.

  “What the fuck was going on back there? Why didn’t we go in and help those people?” Jerry finally asked.

  “Didn’t you smell the village?” Angel asked.

  “Of course,” Jerry answered. “It stunk, everything in Africa stinks,” he sarcastically observed.

  “No,” Angel pointed out. “Death was there, I could smell it. The people were all ill. A great sickness was upon them. It was death to enter that place.”

  Jerry smacked himself in the forehead. “Damn it,” he mumbled.

  “What is it that you forgot to tell me?
” Angel asked, an aggravated look on his face.

  “There was a report of a viral outbreak in this area,” Jerry explained. “But I didn’t pay any attention to it. There are viral outbreaks all the time out here, you know that. I get a report like that at least once a month.”

  “You could have mentioned it,” Angel retorted.

  “Sorry,” Jerry replied.

  “Anything else you forgot to tell me about?” Angel asked.

  “No, not really,” the agent muttered. He mentally kicked himself in the ass. If he hadn’t been with Angel, he would have walked right into the village and caught whatever it was that was ravaging the area. They could still catch it, without even making contact with the locals.

  “Shit,” Jerry cursed.

  “What now?” Angel cursed in return.

  “This is bad, we shouldn’t be here without protective gear,” Jerry warned. “We can’t make contact with the villagers I need to talk to. This really complicates things. Damn.” The field agent desperately racked his brain, trying to come up with a good option.

  “What do you want to do now, boss?” Angel finally asked.

  “I want to get the fuck out of here,” Jerry replied. “But now I have to check this out and find our missing loggers. This is getting way out of hand. I didn’t sign on for this shit. It’s a fucking Saturday for fuck’s sake! I should be putting in nine holes right now. Damn, now I have to make contact with the local government.”

  Jerry pulled the SPC array from his shoulder bag and opened the screen. He got a good signal and began his report.

  “Fuck.”

  Attention of Regional Supervisor - Central Africa

  Case 5-8G Additional

  No information available missing loggers at this time, investigation ongoing

  Reports of viral outbreak Haet-Mombou region confirmed

  Unable to contact locals at village of Gatou, virus at epidemic levels with no medical assistance present

  No casualty data available this time, investigation ongoing

  Proceeding to Junta, DRC. Request local support and liaison with government officials that location

  FA Foster - Gatou DRC

  Chapter 4

  11:30 a.m. Zulu

  Outside the Village of Gatou

  The Congo

  Jerry pushed the Send button and closed the screen. He stowed the unit back in its bag and slowly stood up and stretched. “How far to Junta?” he asked. “We need to let someone there know what’s going down.”

  “Not far,” Angel replied as he exhaled and paused to stub out his cigarette. “A good day’s travel on the road. Two at your pace.”

  “Awesome,” Jerry replied.

  “But we should stay off the roads, we will surely encounter the sickness there,” Angel warned.

  “Tell me about Junta,” Jerry suggested.

  “It is a real city,” Angel replied. “They have electricity and real buildings there. Some of the streets are even paved. It is on the Congo River, a trading hub, many people live there.”

  “Do they have an airport?” Jerry asked.

  Angel paused to think for a moment, “No. I think no. Boats come there often, though.”

  “We need an airfield,” Jerry insisted.

  “The regular army is there, and the government. They would have helicopters, maybe a plane nearby,” Angel explained.

  “That’s our best bet,” Jerry decided. “Let’s make for Junta.”

  “As they say, you are the boss.” The big guide shrugged.

  The men set out through the trees, paralleling the dirt road that had led them to Gatou, but this time traveling north, away from the infected village. They traveled slowly, the terrain was rough, and the tree roots and undergrowth reached out to trip and snag their feet. Jerry went down in the mud several times, cursing and flailing. His pants and boots became a sodden mess. Angel helped him up each time, sadly shaking his head. His decision to avoid the road saved them; they began to see shadowy figures moving on the track through the trees. The guide would quietly lead them deeper into the massive trees away from the road, circling around until they were clear.

  They struggled on through the rest of the day. As the shadows began to deepen, Angel brought them to a halt. He found a small clearing well away from the roadway and quickly set up their primitive camp. Jerry gratefully collapsed against a tree trunk and watched the guide go about his work, too tired to even complain.

  Angel set up his stove and brewed them tea. He handed Jerry the first cup. The hot liquid revived him somewhat, and he croaked out, “What’s for supper?”

  The guide had set the tea aside and was busily filling another pot with water to boil. He cut up the ingredients to a rough stew and tumbled them into the pot. “The last of the gazelle, small potatoes and rice, some onion,” Angel answered. “It will be ready soon.” He poured himself some tea and sat down on the edge of the tarp. “What we saw today was very bad, Jerry. I have seen things like this before. Many will die, much suffering. Will you contact someone to help the villagers?”

  “Yea, I’ll try to alert the local government and contact the Red Cross and the World Health Organization. I’m kind of surprised someone wasn’t already there,” Jerry concluded.

  “No one truly cares about Africa,” Angel complained. “No offense to you,” he added.

  “None taken,” Jerry agreed. “You’re right. Lots of people make a half-assed attempt to fix things after they’ve gone horribly wrong, but there is very little real progress. Nothing changes here but the weather, and even that is usually shitty.”

  Angel laughed half-heartedly. “Let us pray that it does not change, the rains could come at any time.”

  “Great,” Jerry agreed.

  The men ate their meal in silence, then crawled into the netting. Jerry was asleep before his eyes closed.

  When he awoke, Angel had already broken down the camp. His guide helped him to his feet, pushed a cup of tea into his hands, and folded up the other tarp. He waited patiently while Jerry finished and then retrieved his cup. The sleepy CIA agent followed him back to the road.

  “We are closer to Junta than to Gatou,” Angel stated. “We will risk traveling the road.”

  He led Jerry out of the trees and back onto the track. They walked near the edge of the trees, and Angel kept a close eye on the way ahead of them. They encountered nobody else, and made good time. Jerry did much better on the cleared track. They stopped for a quick lunch, ate the last of the bread and peanut butter, then pressed on.

  As they walked through the afternoon, the trees began to thin out on either side, and the road changed from muddy ruts to washed-out gravel, a sure sign of civilization.

  “We are close, boss,” Angel warned.

  An hour later, they walked out of the forest and stood on the banks of the Congo River.

  The scene before them was strange indeed. Junta stood on the far bank of the river, and the road they had followed ended at a single-lane bridge that spanned the water. A military checkpoint was set up on either end of the bridge, and the soldiers guarding their end became active as they spotted them emerging from the forest. Guns were brought to bear, and orders were shouted.

  Across the river, Jerry could tell that panic was sweeping the town. Car horns blared, gunshots rang out, and screams filled the air. Despite the sounds of panic, there was very little to see from where they stood, the far bank and the riverside of Junta seemed deserted. Everything seemed to be happening well away from the river, and no civilians were in sight. The docks along the city side were empty, and no boats were on the river.

  An officer on the bridge shouted to them in broken French.

  “He says to go away or we will be shot,” Angel warned.

  “We’ll see about that,” Jerry argued. He pushed past Angel and strode forward, his hands held high over his head. He paused to look back at his guide. “Are you coming or not,” the agent inquired.

  Angel followed his lead. “I’
m not giving them my gun,” he stated.

  The two men slowly advanced despite the officer’s threats.

  “They won’t shoot,” Jerry assured Angel.

  “They may, or they may not. It depends on how curious they are about you,” Angel replied.

  Jerry decided to stop a short distance away, the officer sounded desperate. “Tell him we are not sick. Tell him that I am an American, someone should know that we are coming.”

  Angel repeated Jerry’s words in French and Bantu. The soldiers seemed to relax a little, but the officer insisted they depart back the way they came. Jerry refused to leave, but he still didn’t dare lower his hands.

  “Tell him we need to speak to his commanding officer,” Jerry insisted.

  Angel barked the words at the officer in Bantu, then added something that Jerry didn’t understand. Some of the soldiers laughed. The officer angrily turned and crossed the bridge.

  “What did you tell him?” Jerry asked.

  “I told him if he didn’t go get his commander that I would come over there and kick his ass into the river,” Angel explained.

  “You sure have a way with people,” Jerry sighed. He noticed that Angel had lowered his hands; he slowly did the same.

  The officer returned with another man who stopped at the barricade and looked them over. He hopped the barrier and approached them, stopping a few feet away. The man was older, obviously an officer by the colonel’s rank upon his uniform and his brown beret. He spoke to them in clipped English, “What do you want? Identify yourselves.”

  Jerry calmly replied, “I am field agent Jerry Foster of the United States foreign service, Kinshasa regional office. This is my guide, Angel Jebo.”

  The man’s mouth turned downward in a grimace of distaste. “Your papers,” he demanded. “Hold them out so that I might see them,” he added.

  Jerry fished through his shoulder bag and produced his passport and government credentials. The officer leaned in to peer at them, but did not step closer.