African Adventure

All morning Sara considered this. She had watched the soldiers mark out the areas the mines would devastate and knew she was unlikely to survive if she was inside one of those areas. She could tell George everything she knew, and try to make a deal with him. But that was an unknown evil. Whereas the evil she knew... she looked over and saw Robert explaining a point to two soldiers. In the end it wasn't logic that decided her.

The march away from the camp was far more leisurely than the one that had brought her there. Even with the pack on her back, Sara had very little difficulty keeping up. They stopped once in every hour for a break to drink water and eat. At night they bedded down in the underbrush. Sara slept next to Robert with her hands tied behind her back and her feet bound together at the ankles. There was no opportunity to talk with the hostile ears of the other men about them and Robert had only harsh words for her on the few occasions they did communicate. So Sara remained silent, and hopeful.

It took them a week to reach the ambush site and then they spent another two days preparing; digging holes, carefully clearing brush, placing mines, and rehearsing their actions twice. Sara remained silent throughout and paid attention to every order she was given; Robert had become very quick to mete out a quick slap or even a punch for the slightest hesitation or mistake.

Part of the tension, she suspected, had been from the argument about her role. The soldatego of the second platoon had not liked having the plan changed and had only been dissuaded from open rebellion by the reminder that George wanted her brought back to the camp alive. It frightened Sara that the soldiers seemed to fear George more than they feared Robert, and the prospect of being dragged back to George was... terrifying.

Then they waited in silence for three more days. It was hot and Robert was in a vicious temper. He wouldn't permit them to move at all during daylight and, at night, physically punished anyone he had seen moving during the day. Sara was terrified, but she had made her decision.

Late in the evening of the third day his radio chirped and he whispered into it. Then he turned to her.

"This is it. The convoy is coming down the road," he whispered. He handed her his pistol. "Nine bullets. If anyone but me comes back here, you shoot them. Just point at their gut and squeeze the trigger gently. Count the number of times you fire. If you fire eight times and someone is still coming... well, then you put this in your mouth and pull the trigger one last time. And if God doesn't understand, you look for me when you get to hell and I'll do what I can to protect you. Don't panic when you hear the explosions and for the love of God, don't leave."

Sara tried to swallow but her throat was suddenly bone dry and then he had crawled off. She curled up in the hole and waited. She squeaked in surprise when the explosions filled the air. Then there was the sound of gunfire and a long period of silence. She peeked her head up over the edge as she heard some voices shouting in Esperanto and then tumbled to the ground as another set of explosions rocked the air. She gripped the pistol tightly in the settling darkness and listened intently. There were a few pistol pops of gunfire and then a faint noise grew into a sort of crashing sound and she recognized it as someone getting closer to her. Taking a deep breath, she popped her head up to take a look around. Against the faint glow of burning vehicles she could make out someone moving towards her. With trembling arms she lifted the pistol and aimed at the middle of the shadow. The shadow kept coming and she wondered what she should do. Her heart pounding like a trip-hammer she squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. Startled, she tried again, pulling back on the trigger as hard as she could.

"Sara?" the shadow croaked, and she felt light-headed. It was Robert's voice.

"Jes, sinjoro. Here," she whispered.

He staggered up to her and dropped to his knees. She was pointing the pistol at him, her fingers locked tightly around the grip.

"Gentle, like it was a tit," he said, "But first you have to take the safety off." He laughed and then groaned. "We've got a problem," he announced.

Sara looked carefully at him and then reached her hand out to touch his face. Her fingers came away sticky.

"You're hurt," she said in a puzzled tone.

"I got too close to the mines," he explained, "I was being too clever. But I got them all. Second platoon won't be torturing any more women. Ever," he said with satisfaction, "But we've got to get out of here. My plan was for us to walk away. Head towards Mbandaka. But that won't work. Too far. So we go with Plan B. Check my rucksack. Open it up."

Sara dug into the pack and began pulling items out. He directed her to separate the items into two piles.

"See that box? The bright yellow one."

She picked it up.

"That's a GPS system. Turn it on by pushing the red button."

Slowly he walked her through the process of determining her heading and then had her program their destination into the machine. When that was done, he told her what to put back into the pack.

"Water, food, medical supplies. Nothing else. A gun won't do you a damn bit of good and it would make them suspicious. You're just escaping from the people who kidnapped you. Stick with the truth," he advised.

"What about you?" she demanded. "Are you just going to sit here and die?"

"Die? Here? Fuck that," he said forcefully. "I think I'll walk a little way with you and die later. But be realistic, Sara. You can't carry me out. You can't even carry enough supplies for both of us. I've used you enough over the past month. Now it's your turn. Get whatever help you can from me and then discard me when I start to hold you back. So long as you refuse to quit, you'll make it."

Sara nodded slowly.

"Let's get going then," he said.

"In the dark?" she asked.

He gestured towards the flames that were already starting to diminish. "Someone's going to come looking for them," he said. She nodded in understanding and stood up. Robert scrabbled unsteadily to his feet and followed her slowly into the brush.

The GPS said that they traveled five kilometers that night, but Sara would have sworn it was more like twenty. When daylight managed to break through the canopy of the jungle they took another break and she got a look at Robert's wounds for the first time. The left side of his face was pocked and swollen so that he couldn't open his eye. His left arm dangled useless and there were some entry wounds on his left side. With tears running down her cheeks she had calmly washed the wounds with alcohol and bandaged them. The arm she splinted with a couple of sticks and then she gave him an antibiotic and some pills that were labeled as fever reducers. She decided, coldly, to save the painkillers for later. She was sure he would understand and, in that moment, she felt she understood him a little better too.

She hauled him to his feet and pointed the direction they were going.

"Why do you still have the pistol?" he asked. "It's useless weight. Throw it away," he ordered.

"Jes, sinjoro," she responded. But she didn't throw it away.

As they walked, he talked, telling her everything. His intention, as he put it, was to ensure that George got put into a grave and his army got put out of business. So he told her everything she needed to know to help the authorities do that. But as he faded in and out between consciousness and semi-consciousness he rambled on about all sorts of subjects, spilling his life story and every secret he had ever had. She gave him a half dose of the pain-killer around noon and fed him. At nightfall she gave him a full dose so that he could rest and then lay down next to him.

The next day Robert raged at her about wasting water and refused to drink any. So when he passed out a few hours later she poured some between his lips and then sat down to read the instructions in the first aid kit. When he woke up an hour later she had managed to put an IV into his arm and most of a bag of saline was empty.

"Why?" he asked.

Sara shrugged. "Never quit."

Seven days into the walk Sara began to wonder if they were going to make it. She hadn't had a drink in the past twenty hours and Robert was an incoherent wreck. She had run out of pain-killers two days earlier and anti-inflammatory pills nine hours after that. She was reduced to poking his swollen face with a stick to wake him up when he passed out and had used every lie she could think of to motivate him. She had told him she could see the garrison and they needed to talk to him. She had told him it was time to get on the airplane and go home; repeatedly. When those ruses failed to work she simply reminded him of his promise to get her home, and then she helped him struggle to his feet and walk a little more.

In her dazed and exhausted state the road came as a complete and utter surprise. Sonia stopped and stared at it for several minutes before its import became clear to her. Robert, following along behind, bounced off her back and simply stopped. Sara turned and began to divest Robert of every bit of military gear she could. She even threw away the pack and the gun. When everything was arranged to her satisfaction, she led him out onto the road and turned left. Twenty minutes later a truck pulled to a stop in a cloud of dust and a young man in a uniform with a Canadian flag on the sleeve got out and approached them. He had a puzzled look on his face.

"Are you okay, ma'am?" he asked.

The hospital room was quiet, and clean, and cool, and very, very white. Robert reflected that he was more comfortable than he had been in a very long time. And very deeply in trouble.

"Frankly, Mr. Taliaferro, the authorities haven't decided what to do with you. Mercenaries, particularly white mercenaries, are pretty unpopular here. You know that. On the other hand, you rescued a young woman whose father has some political clout in the US and you gave them enough information to roll up the entire operation," Lieutenant Colonel Guiterrez said.

"How many casualties?" Robert asked.

"In your 'army'? About a dozen dead. Only a few of them put up a fight."

"The good ones," Robert sighed. "And the non-combatants?"

"No casualties there, although their living conditions were pretty grim," the Colonel said.

"I don't deny it," Robert said.

"Strangely, they all speak well of you," the Colonel continued. "I think the government finds that embarrassing. They aren't above their own racism and it galls them that a white foreigner treated their people better than the local thugs."

"Where are they?" Robert pursued.

"Most of them are here," the Colonel replied. "They've set up a refugee camp for them. The hard-cases are in prison, of course, which is where I think they're going to put you once they've stalled enough for this case to fade from public view. Congolese prisons are rough," he noted, "particularly for a white mercenary."

"Miss Harman?" Robert asked.

"She flew out of Kinshasa yesterday; back to the States. She asked me to give you this note."

He handed Robert a small envelope with his name written on it.

"You're not a man I admire, Mr. Taliaferro, but getting her out alive took some doing. I think you've earned a little forgiveness. We'll be keeping an eye on this until the next crisis comes up, so I'll be back tomorrow. I imagine the Congolese will have remembered to arrest you and put a guard on your door by then." He paused and then continued. "Good luck." He walked out of the room.

Robert nodded once and slowly opened the envelope.

Sinjoro,

Thank you for saving my life. Behind the toilet in the ladies room on the first floor, off the lobby.

Robert thought about the message for a minute and then he carefully removed the IV from his arm and walked to the doorway. Looking out into the hallway he saw no evidence of a guard. So he walked out into the hall and towards the exit at the end of the hallway. A nurse grabbed him by the arm and he smiled at her.

"Où est la salle de bains?" he inquired.

She nodded, pointed and then went back to the business at hand. Robert walked right past the door to the bathroom and down the stairs towards the first floor...

The sun was setting behind the mountains and the few clouds over the water were a lurid pink. Robert set his beer down on the table and considered the work that needed to be done the next day. He heard the footsteps and saw the long shadow well before she spoke.

"Hello Robert," Sara said.

Robert picked up his beer and took another drink.

"Hello Sara," he said. "I wondered who came in on that seaplane. Have you come to kill me?"

"I don't know," she responded, "I've got a gun and a plan, though."

"Safety off?" he asked.

She laughed, "Yes, safety off. I took some lessons. I'm reasonably sure I could hit you at this distance."

"Would you like to sit down?" he said.

"Yes. I think I would. But I'll sit over here where the sun won't be in my eyes.'

He inclined his head. "You did take some lessons."

"Lots. I've been a very busy girl," she stated.

"Not a girl, Sara. Not any more. How have you been?"

"I've been well," she answered, "It's taken me a while to get that way, but I think I'm doing okay. When I first got back I tried to go on; just pick up where I left off. I couldn't think of anything else to do so I went back to school."

"Three weeks?" he inquired.

"Four. No more. I wanted to kill someone, any of those brainless self-absorbed idiots would have done nicely. I couldn't concentrate. Couldn't focus. Couldn't sleep. So I volunteered at a charity; feeding the starving in Africa. That was worse. I started to drink to sleep and I got horrible nightmares, so I bought a bottle of sleeping pills. I stood outside the store with that bottle for an hour, just staring at it. Then I tossed it into the trash and called daddy and asked him to book me a therapist. He was so relieved he cried."

"Did the therapy help?" Robert asked.

"No. At least, not this therapist. This was therapist number one. He babbled for hours about Stockholm-Syndrome and Stress Relationships and the healing power of religion and forgiveness. I bagged him after three months. Therapist number two didn't try to explain anything. He just asked questions. Sometimes those sessions lasted for hours. And then I spent days trying to answer the questions he posed. Six months later I thought 'I'm cured' and went out on a date. It was a disaster. So it was back to therapy. And then I thought that I would try something unconventional. I dated a dominant. Absolute disaster. He was completely hung up on beating me into submission. I kept giggling because he tried so hard to be fearsome; in a nice safe house in the suburbs. At least I felt something during sex. Not much, but something. I knew I was on the right track.

"I got discriminating about who I dated, and that helped. I also started martial arts training, self-defense shooting, that sort of thing. I love the smell of gunpowder. I still think that's a little sick, given my history with gunpowder. It was good for physically exhausting me, but it wasn't getting Africa out of my head; quite the opposite, really. So I went on a bender. I don't remember some of it, but what I do remember is embarrassing. I checked myself into a mental health facility.

"Therapist number three was a woman. She specialized in dealing with rape victims. To be honest, I think she got off on the stories, but she had a great deal of insight. She helped me realize what I wanted without, in any way, guiding me towards an ending that she had pre-determined. It was nice. She didn't try to cure me or make me normal, she just helped me think about what I wanted. And she helped me really reconcile with my father."

"How is your daddy?" Robert asked.

"He's the one that found you; the investigators he hired, anyway. He sends his regards and says that if you ever hurt me emotionally again he'll hire lots of people to hunt you down and kill you slowly," Sara replied.

"I think I like your father," Robert said.

"You would. You're alike in some ways. That subject was good for several expensive sessions with the therapists. He was so glad to see me alive again that he treated me like a china doll for a year. He was on eggshells every time he was around me. He wanted to help and didn't know how and the doctors kept telling him that he had to wait until I asked for help. He was pathetically helpful when I was in therapy. He even insisted that I invite one of my dates home for dinner. The asshole, I think it was asshole number four, kept referring to me as his darling little whore. Finally daddy had enough; he stood up and announced he was too small and too old to kick his ass, so he was going to get his shotgun and shoot him.

"We had a long talk after that. It was very funny to compare your behavior with their behavior. Aside from the legal crimes: kidnapping, murder, torture, and so on, you came out well ahead of them. You beat me, but never for fun. You never degraded me. You never considered raping me your God-given right."

Robert laughed. "You make me sound almost like a nice person, Sara. Don't ignore the facts. I did beat you. I did degrade you. And while I never considered it my right I did rape you. Repeatedly. I reveled in it. I cannot begin to find the words to express my delight in having your flesh shackled to my will. In fact, if you don't have a gun or if you fail to use it I'll probably do it to you again."

It was Sara's turn to laugh. "There you are! See? You always tried to make it easy on me. Now you're doing it again, albeit with an unhealthy dose of self-loathing added in."

"Christ save me," he groaned. "Now you're a therapist?"

"No, but what did yours say?" she retorted.

He took a drink. "That I'm a basically decent person who got myself into bad situations and tried to do the right thing. She also told me to grow up and quit whining. I didn't like her."

Sara was holding her sides and laughing so hard that everyone in the bar was staring at her. "I'll bet you told her that too. Did she tell you off?"

Robert smiled thinly. "Told me to go fuck myself and asked how I felt about my mother."

"I wish I had been there," Sara said as she wiped the tears from her eyes. "I really do."

"Thank you, Sara," Robert said, "For saving my life. Twice. How did you get the clothing into the bathroom?"

Sara smiled vacantly and inclined her head. "Because I absolutely had to go shopping for daddy," she said in a sing-song voice. "And everyone knows that blonde girls are the most vacant, bubble-headed idiots on the face of the earth," she finished with a giggle.

"It wasn't particularly hard. No one wanted to accidentally push the button of the sexually-abused hostage. 'She wants to buy souvenirs for her father. Isn't she just pathetically sweet?' I went shopping, bought clothing, went to the bathroom and left a set of clothing behind. No one even noticed it was missing from the five bags of crap I had. What did you do with the diamonds I left you?"

"Let me finish my drink and I'll show you. There's a school and a clinic down the street. The orphanage is still being built. And there's a bamboo plantation back in the Maya Mountains where most of the Africans live..."

"You brought them here?" Sara exclaimed, interrupting him.

"The good ones; those that survived and wanted to come. I owed them at least a chance at a new life," he stated, "and they were the ones that got me out of the country."

"What would you do if you had the rest of the diamonds?" she asked quietly.

"I'd use them to hire people to track you down and drag you back to me in chains," he replied.