Mortal Threat Page 5

  “Such a tragedy,” The Leopard said, sliding a Ka-Bar knife from its sheath. “Last chance. Are you going to tell me what I want to hear?”

  Dr. King eyed the knife, swallowed hard, and shook his head. The Leopard slid behind the small man, grabbed his chin, and lifted it upward as he pressed the finely honed blade against King’s carotid artery.

  “This knife will cut your artery, and you will die in less than a minute,” he said.

  “I’m a doctor. I know. But neither the recipe nor the ingredients are here.”

  The Leopard pulled some rope from his tactical vest and tied the doctor to the chair. In five minutes, he trashed the entire lab, then came back to the computer, which he noticed had a blue screen. The blue screen of death, he thought. The doctor had, at some point, erased everything on the hard drive.

  “Sorry about that,” King mocked.

  The Leopard used one hand to lift Dr. King’s neck upward, as if he were about to bleed out a pig. Placing the knife against the left carotid artery midway down King’s neck, he whispered, “I know you have another laboratory, Doctor.”

  He felt the man shiver under his arm, perhaps wondering how The Leopard knew, or realizing his work and colleague could all be lost, making his heroic silence useless. Or perhaps he was just scared.

  With a quick push, he slid the knife into King’s throat. He pulled it out and wiped the blade with a lab towel. Death was everywhere, he thought, especially on this continent. What was the difference between a black kid dying of Ebola or a white man dying from a cut neck? Not much, he reasoned.

  Though he was aware of the task he had just performed and of its impact on millions of people, he had more work to do. With this lab destroyed and still no filled memory stick or vials of formula to show for it, he needed to move quickly.

  He untied the doctor from his chair and wrapped a towel around the dead man’s neck to absorb what blood had not already left his body. Lifting the featherweight man over his shoulders as if carrying a bag of seed, The Leopard pushed through the screen door of the wooden building filled with beakers and spectrometers. From the outside, the shack looked like a French mountain still. On the inside, however, it boasted the most recent advancements in medical technology.

  Standing on the porch, he noticed the Tanzanian firmament above him. Brilliant arrays of white and yellow stars swirled around the sky like artwork. He saw Orion and the faint hint of the Southern Cross. Billions of pinpricks viewed him with a steady gaze, as if some powerful being were on the other side shining a spotlight against the black curtain.

  Having already poured the gasoline, walking away from the building, he flicked the lighter lid upward and nudged the switch that would hold open the butane aperture. He tossed the burning lighter into the doorway. To his satisfaction, flames immediately licked upward and spread like demons running scared along the plywood floors.

  He stepped into the jeep and cranked the engine, which idled roughly. He had about a two-hour drive to his final stop. This time he would employ tactics, not a direct assault. He would envelop the area in an indirect approach to allow him to observe the young doctor’s movements, which he believed would lead him to his goal. She wasn’t even a doctor; she was just an idealistic medical student whiling her summer and winter breaks away in Tanzania.

  Clearly the frontal assault had not worked on Dr. King; The Leopard had not secured the formula. He’d suspected that approach might not be the most productive, given the import of the project King and the girl had been developing. Yet, of the two dossiers he had developed on his targets, he had selected King as the one who would be most responsive to direct threat, if either of the two would respond to such a tactic.

  Nonetheless, King had not, and part of The Leopard respected him for that.

  ***

  Last night he had laid the doctor’s body in the woods to employ an indirect approach. He needed the girl to grab the cure, and then he would make his move.

  Now, observing Amanda Garrett from a thicket outside the village of Mwanza, he watched a second village burn in less than twenty-four hours and laid the crosshairs of the scope affixed to his rifle onto the stairwell opening into which Amanda Garrett had descended. Like smoking out mice from a sugarcane field , The Leopard thought.

  The two African boys ran from behind one of the burning huts toward the cellar. The constabulary quit securing the cellar and began trying to extinguish the fire that was devouring Amanda’s hut. The Leopard could see a vehicle and the band of orphans heading away quickly in the distance to the south.

  He noticed movement in the dark hole, just the slightest flicker of blond hair, as if she had started up the steps and then dropped back into the cellar. Perhaps she had forgotten something.

  Moving the scope to one of the two African boys, he assessed their stature. They were strong and able and seemed loyal to the girl. So he moved the weapon to the constabularies, who had drifted farther into the village, which was nothing but a raging inferno. His plan was working perfectly. He fired two accurate, silenced shots, killing the Askari.

  As he moved the scope back to the cellar, he saw that he had missed the girl’s exit. She and the two boys were running south toward the lead group of orphans, who had a thirty-minute head start on Garrett and her companions.

  Then he heard the sound of a gasoline engine in the sky. A white Sherpa airplane banked low over the village, like a gull seeking safe purchase but finding none.

  His brilliant plan was suddenly askew as he noticed the airplane line up for a landing on the road that led south from the orphanage.

  6

  Amanda watched an airplane circle low once and then again. It looked like the small wings-above-the-fuselage Sherpa cargo plane that did the resupply runs. She wondered if the pilot and his crew were watching the fire or coming to rescue them. Either way, she knew it wasn’t the resupply day, and even if it were, the airfield was forty miles away. The planes usually did not travel this far north.

  By now they were jogging as best they could with the cooler and backpack. The cooler was about the size of a small Igloo Playmate that would carry a six-pack of beer. Amanda saw Mumbato look at Kiram hauling the cooler. Not to be outdone, he tried to grab the backpack from her, but she refused to transfer her precious cargo to the teenager.

  “You can help when I get tired,” she told Mumbato. “Rotate carrying the cooler with Kiram.”

  She looked at the airplane that was now lined up directly to their six o’clock as if it were on a strafing run. The plane lowered gradually and continued on azimuth in their direction. Now only one hundred meters or so behind them, she began to worry that the airplane could have someone aboard who was after Project Nightingale .

  “Quick, get off the road!” she commanded as the airplane buzzed over them. They scrambled to the side and landed in a small ditch that was filled with briars. Amanda moved the hair out of her face and checked on her two boys. They were scared but focused.

  As the small airplane buzzed low over their heads, dust and debris sandblasted them. Amanda turned her head in the opposite direction and closed her eyes. She could feel the prop wash from the airplane blow grit into every unconcealed portion of her body, mostly her ears.

  “Airplane land,” Kiram said softly. He pointed in the direction they were traveling as they dared to turn into the dust storm created by the landing aircraft. Amanda opened her eyes, carefully wiping grime away from her face.

  She watched the airplane land and roll to a quick stop. The dust billowed around the white fuselage as a form emerged from the craft. Amanda wiped her eyes again, removing more of the dust she could feel caking against her skin.

  Stepping from the cloud was a vaguely familiar form that she couldn’t quite place. Her mind was immediately drawn to her college memories at Columbia University, and she realized who it was.

  “Amanda!” called Webb Ewell.

  “Webb?” she answered against the din of the spinning airplane propellers.

  “Amanda, are you okay?” he asked as he jogged toward her.

  She stood and climbed the short distance out of the ditch.

  “Webb?” she asked again, though she could plainly see it was him. He approached from a few yards away.

  “Seriously? What’s going on?”

  Instinctively she hugged him, simply happy to see an old friend and someone who might be able to help them out of the current situation. Webb was dressed in khaki pants and a white dress shirt, as if he had just come from a boardroom meeting or a preppie party. He was six feet tall with dark brown hair. Strong but not athletic, Webb was one of those all-around good guys, she remembered.

  “Didn’t expect to see me here, did you?” Webb shouted.

  Kiram and Mumbato emerged from the ditch and quickly came to Amanda’s side, as if to protect her.

  “Everything okay, Miss Amanda?” Kiram asked her.

  Amanda turned toward Kiram and said, “Yes, this is a friend of mine. He’s going to help us.”

  “That’s right. It looks like you guys need to get out of here fast. Let’s get on the airplane,” Webb shouted. She looked over his shoulder at the buzzing aircraft and saw a black man looking through the open door and pumping his fist, the international symbol for, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “You’re serious? What are you even doing here?” Amanda gasped. Then, hearing the fire rage, she motioned toward the airplane and said, “You’re my hero.”

  “Let’s go!” he shouted as he grabbed Amanda by the arm and began to run toward the airplane.

  “Come on, guys!” Amanda called over her shoulder.

  Kiram and Mumbato jogged toward the Sherpa. Kiram still carried the cooler in one hand while Amanda lugged the backpack on her shoulders. All of them ducked as they ran into the full blast of the Sherpa’s prop wash prior to entering the rear cargo door, dropped onto the road like a tongue. Amanda skidded onto the metal floor and carefully lowered the backpack beside her. Kiram and Mumbato were running behind the now moving airplane. Kiram slid the cooler next to her as he and Mumbato raced behind the airplane.

  Amanda saw the pilot wave his hand and shout, “Go! We must go!”

  While Kiram and Mumbato each had one foot on the cargo compartment and one foot on the ground, the airplane increased its speed. She leaned over and grasped an arm of each of the boys, who were trying to hold on.

  Leaning back, she felt both boys move toward her and land on the floor of the airplane. Her head hit the back of the pilot’s seat, but at least she had all of her charges.

  She lay there a moment, collecting her thoughts, when she noticed small holes suddenly appear in the side of the aircraft, sending one-inch-diameter lasers of sunlight spearing through the cargo bay.

  When Mumbato grabbed his arm, which was bleeding, she realized someone was shooting at them.

  The Sherpa bucked as it left the road and shot skyward, causing Amanda to slam into the rear of the aircraft. She had been attempting to tie a tourniquet on Mumbato’s arm and nearly did a full tumble backward.

  “Are you okay, Miss Amanda?” Mumbato asked, holding his bleeding arm.

  “I’m fine,” she said, straightening and moving her hair behind her ears. She took her kerchief and refastened it above Mumbato’s left bicep, which had actually caught a piece of shrapnel from the skin of the airplane when a bullet had exploded through the aluminum.

  “Me, too,” Mumbato said. “I’m fine.”

  Amanda finished tying the knot, exhaled heavily, felt the plane surge again, and then looked at Kiram, whose eyes were staring straight ahead at the backs of the heads of the pilot and Webb Ewell. Amanda watched him as the warm air buffeted them through the open cargo door. His mahogany eyes seemed especially dilated, almost entirely black. His scalp and close-cropped hair were glistening with sweat; but somewhere in the madness, Kiram had found the time to put on a green and red soccer jersey. Probably when she had gone to get the supplies, Amanda figured. As she watched him, it seemed his countenance remained clear, almost mystic, as if he were staring into a different astral plane.

  “You okay?” Amanda asked Kiram.

  When she got no response, Amanda crawled toward Kiram at the same time that Webb leaned back from the copilot’s seat and shouted, “You guys okay?”

  Amanda looked up and nodded, giving him a weak thumbs-up sign.

  “We need to go to Kenasha Airfield,” she said. “That’s our destination.”

  “Crazy, you know this airfield?” Webb said to the pilot.

  “Yes, yes, I know. It’s the airfield we were going to. About thirty miles southeast. No problem.”

  Amanda watched the interchange, noticing the worried look on the pilot’s face that said, I’m not telling you everything. More importantly, she thought, the pilot’s name is Crazy? Really?

  She looked over her shoulder and saw the thick jungle beneath them. Two main tributaries fed into Lake Victoria from the south. These streams were bordered by dense jungle on either side. Though navigable, the forests were filled with lush undergrowth that made any travel a tough slog. Amanda had little experience in the African outback beyond the occasional hiking adventure with the orphans. Those were usually tame events led by an experienced guide and a well-armed militia member or two. Though the wars were over, the wounds were still fresh and deep.

  “We’re going to crash!” Webb shouted.

  Amanda looked up at the pilot, who was nervously playing with a control in between the two seats. The plane’s aspect was angled forward, and she could see through the open starboard cargo door that the ground was rapidly approaching. The pilot let out a slew of African curse words that she recognized. Crazy glanced nervously to his right and left and then leaned forward to look over the dashboard through the windscreen, which could have used a good cleaning. As he turned his head in her direction, Amanda saw wide eyes filled with fear.

  “What’s going on, Crazy?” Webb asked nervously.

  “We are out of gas,” he said flatly, his voice belying his facial expressions.

  “I thought you said…”

  “I know what I said, but someone either shot a hole in the gas tank or we hit a rock on that road because we are—”

  The propeller began sputtering and coughing.

  “Shit,” said the pilot.

  “Do something, man,” Webb hollered, anxiety clearly taking over.

  Amanda’s instincts kicked in.

  “Kiram! Mumbato! Lie down on the floor and hold on to these,” she said. She lifted a small metal D ring that was anchored into the floor of the aircraft. They were most often used for securing cargo to the floor of the aircraft so that freight would not shift or slide during flight. “Kiram, help Mumbato.” Amanda then lay atop the two boys who were lying face down on the sheet metal floor of the aircraft. She hooked the snap link of a three-inch wide cargo strap into one of the D rings, pulled it across their stacked bodies, and snapped the other link into the floorboard. She cinched the strap tight across them, like a big seat belt. When it became hard to breath she quit pulling on the tightening strap. “Both of you, hold on tight,” she said. She wedged the cooler and backpack into a small nook between the pilot’s and copilot’s seats, quickly laced straps from each through the D rings, and kept her hand pressed firmly on the backpack. The cooler was locked, insulated, and padded. Her rucksack was less so. She could feel the boys beneath her trembling. Neither had ever flown in an airplane.

  “Jesus, man, we’re going to die!” Webb shouted from the front seat. Amanda looked up and saw Webb pulling at his hair as if he were trying to figure out a tough math problem.

  “Crazy, can you land this on the road?” Amanda shouted above Webb’s screaming. She looked at Webb, and she flashed on him briefly at Columbia. He had always seemed to be…wherever she was. Perhaps he’d had a crush on her, but her love for Jake shut down any opening for a potential suitor. They had taken several biology and chemistry classes together, but Webb had gone in a different direction than medical studies, though not entirely.

  “No bother me.” Crazy was pushing and pulling on the controls of the aircraft. The engine had shut down, and they were in a deep glide. Amanda felt the plane losing altitude quickly, but not without some semblance of control.

  She felt the wheels nip the first of the trees.

  “Jesus!” Webb was clearly out of control. Amanda, for her part, stayed within herself, retreating to that place she had learned to go when she needed help the most. God had always been there for her. I’m curious about this one, God, she thought to herself.

  The second strike on the aircraft was more forceful, and Amanda dared to peek. She saw the tops of trees above the airplane as she looked out of the open starboard cargo door. Not an altogether bad sign, she surmised. The closer to the ground the better.

  “Watch out!” Webb screamed, though Amanda had already begun tuning him out. Their lives were with God now. Her work was too important for mankind, and she believed—she had to believe—that her accomplishments were divinely guided and that God would want her to continue. No, the HIV and Ebola programs would not die an unceremonious death in the African outback.

  She felt a large object strike the aircraft, and despite her faith, fear dominated her mind. Her thoughts shifted from Project Nightingale and God to her husband and then her father.

  “Help me, Daddy. Jake? God?” she whispered. Closing her eyes again, she clutched tightly to her backpack and the cooler. She pressed her face into Kiram’s back as he turned and tried to look at her. He wanted eye contact, she could tell. So she leaned over and looked into his deep eyes, which stared back not in fear but with a clear expression, as if he knew everything was going to be okay.

  “Good wins,” he whispered to her. That was their common refrain and hope.

  “Good wins,” she said back, trying to sound as reassuring as he had.