The American Mission (10 page)

“They are beautiful,” Marie said sympathetically, knowing what was coming next.

“My family is dead. They are all dead. Serena and my daughter, Claire, were killed by Rwandan
genocidaires
. My sons starved to death. The Rwandans came to fight wars and stayed to make money. It is the same with the South Africans and the Zambians. These are our neighbors, but they are the newcomers. The Europeans and the Americans,
they have been at this for a hundred years. I lost my first family. I am not going to lose my second.”

He motioned to one of the camp boys, who ran over immediately. Manamakimba pulled off the boy's hat and rubbed his head affectionately. Marie could see a line of bright red welts on the boy's neck, the unmistakable marker of schistosomiasis, a dangerous, even potentially fatal, parasitic infection. The boy already looked weak and malnourished. He was going to have a hard time fighting back against the parasitic worms burrowing into his lungs and liver. Treatment for the condition was relatively cheap and painless. It was also, Marie was certain, unavailable to the Hammer of God. There wasn't a pharmacy or a doctor this side of Kisangani.

“Charlie is sick,” Manamakimba said simply. “It is likely he will die. It is not my intention to allow that.”

“Nor should it be,” Marie said. “But taking the life of others isn't going to do this boy any good.”

Manamakimba said nothing. But he patted Charlie on the head and sent him away.

•   •   •

F
our hours later nothing had changed. As the negotiations dragged on, Marie noticed Alex glancing surreptitiously at his watch. She wondered what he could possibly be waiting for. Out here in the jungle, time was an almost meaningless abstraction.

Meanwhile, the guerilla leader was clearly warming to his theme of the Hammer of God as the real defenders of the Congo, forced into battle against an array of national enemies both foreign and internal. He required little or nothing in the way of feedback to encourage his monologue. “By branding us as criminals and outlaws, the puppet government in Kinshasa has pushed us into a corner. The Hammer of God is my family. They are all I have left. I love them and they love me. I provide for them as a father. I give them food and shelter. There is little
enough I can do about medicine, but we care for the sick and injured as well as we are able.”

“What if we could do something about medicine?” Marie asked impulsively. “What if there was a way that we could provide treatment to your sick and wounded? What might that be worth to you?”

“It might change things. It depends.”

Marie thought she saw an opening, but she needed to explore the options privately with the American first.

“Give us a minute to talk,” she said to Manamakimba.

“Of course,” the Hammer of God said, rising from his chair. “We have plenty of time.” He looked at Alex as he said this.

When they were alone, Marie turned to Alex and asked with a fierce urgency, “Is there something you can do to get medical care for the Hammer of God? A doctor and some medical supplies. I think he'd be willing to do a deal if we can come up with the right incentives.”

“It wouldn't take much to make a difference,” Alex agreed. “You and I both know what's wrong with Charlie. Schistosomiasis. It's easy enough to treat. There's a State Department doctor in Johannesburg. I could potentially persuade him to offer the Hammer of God his services, but there's not enough time to set it up now.”

“What do you mean? Why do you keep looking at your watch? What's going to happen?”

Alex told her about the UN rescue operation that was scheduled to get under way in only forty-five minutes. Marie was appalled.

“This is going to cost a lot of lives,” she observed. “Yours and mine not least among them.”

“In all likelihood,” Alex agreed.

“Then we had better close this deal, hadn't we?”

“Indeed. And remember, if the shooting starts, get low and flat and stay there.”

Manamakimba returned and took his seat. One of the camp boys brought fresh glasses of juice and set them on the rock.

“Well,” Manamakimba asked. “What do you have in mind?”

“In exchange for the immediate release of all of the hostages, I can offer you the services of Embassy medical personnel for a week to tend your sick and injured,” Alex said. “I can also offer you whatever medical supplies are necessary for him to provide treatment.”

“Two weeks,” Manamakimba said. “And I want a doctor, not nurses.”

Marie was encouraged that Manamakimba seemed to accept the basic outlines of the deal.

“Understood and agreed.”

“And medicines, whatever is needed.”

“Also agreed.”

“Good drugs, not the expired castoffs that some of the missionaries have been trading for souls.”

“Of course.”

Manamakimba wasn't quite finished bargaining. “And one more thing . . .”

“Yes,” Alex asked cautiously.

“By releasing you and my other . . . guests, I am taking your commitment to this bargain on faith.”

“You'll have to trust that I'll make good on my word, yes.”

“I want a token of your commitment up front.”

“What are you thinking about?”

Manamakimba looked over at the line of Land Cruisers parked on the far side of the field. Off the assembly line, they retailed for nearly sixty thousand dollars. Fully armored, the vehicles were worth somewhere in the low six figures.

“I'll take one of your jeeps,” Manamakimba said. “I can put it to good use.”

Alex stood and walked over to the UN convoy. He was back in less than five minutes. Almost casually, he tossed a set of keys to Manamakimba.

“I threw in half a tank of gas,” he said. “It will take me a little time to arrange for a doctor. How can I get a message to you when I have that set up?”

Manamakimba reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a short stack of rectangular white cards. He handed one to Alex and one to Marie. The top line read
JOSEPH MANAMAKIMB
A
, and under that
COMMANDER, HAMMER O
F GOD
. There was an eleven-digit satellite phone number in the lower left corner, and a Gmail address. In the upper right corner, a red hammer was superimposed over an outline of the Congo.

“Call me anytime,” Manamakimba said. “E-mail is hit or miss. There are not many Internet cafés out here.”

“The Hammer of God has a logo?” Marie asked. This was beyond bizarre, something akin to Al Qaeda advertising for an administrative assistant in the classifieds.

“Sure. I may have trained as an engineer . . . but I took a couple of marketing classes at university.”

He turned to Alex. “Now may be a good time call your Pakistani friends in their new helmets and tell them they do not have to die today.” He checked his watch. “You have a little less than half an hour.”

J
UNE
25, 2009

K
INSHASA

A
lex read through his report again, just to be sure he hadn't missed anything. It didn't make any sense. Negotiating the freedom of the Consolidated survey team had been an impressive piece of diplomacy, the kind that should make an embassy immodestly toot its own horn in cable traffic back to Washington. Moreover, Alex had spent most of a day talking one-on-one with Joseph Manamakimba, who was himself a Class A intelligence target.

Alex had written a substantial report on the negotiations with Manamakimba immediately after getting back to Kinshasa, being careful to share the credit for the success with Marie Tsiolo. He worked through the night and by morning had a solid ten-page cable with a comment paragraph at the end that challenged the conventional wisdom of Manamakimba as a simple-minded killing machine.

Inexplicably, Spence had sat on the report for nearly a week. He knew as well as Alex did that immediacy added punch to any report. A
week was a lifetime in diplomacy. Cables that sat around too long lost their edge and their audience back home.

Finally, and after considerable prodding from Alex, the cable came back from the Front Office. It had a single note on the front in red pen, the color traditionally reserved in U.S. embassies for the Ambassador. Alex read it again, hoping that the words would offer him some insight into the thinking behind the message. “Good report, but I don't want to stir up a hornet's nest over this. I'll back-channel the appropriate people to keep them in the loop.”

That was it. It didn't make any sense.

He allowed himself the luxury of disappointment. In the hard, cold calculus of life in the State Department, the only accomplishments that counted were the ones that people knew about. Saving six lives was obviously the most important thing and that was enormously gratifying, but Alex was also eager to reestablish his reputation in the Africa Bureau. The report he had written would have gone a long way toward doing that. This was true even though Alex had been careful to downplay his own role. The FSOs and intelligence analysts who would have read the cable were experienced enough to understand how it had played out.

Mark Fong stuck his head into Alex's office.

“I'm going down for a cup of coffee. Do you want anything?”

Alex put the report in his shred-box. In the greater scheme of things, this was no big deal. The Congo was a big, fascinating place. There would be more opportunities.

“I'll come with you,” Alex said. “I could use a break.”

The cafeteria was on the ground floor and looked out onto the Embassy courtyard. French doors opened up onto a patio that held some plastic tables and chairs. It had a definite cut-rate flair, but the coffee was decent. A half dozen or so Embassy staffers were in the cafeteria for a midmorning break. Jonah Keeler was sitting by himself at one of the outside tables, and he motioned for Alex and Mark to join him.

“Morning, gentlemen.” Keeler had been reading
L'Avenir
, Congo's paper of record. He folded up the paper and put it on the chair next to him to make room for Alex and Mark. “How's everything on the political front?”

“Not too bad,” Mark said.

“I've been waiting eagerly for your report on our adventures last week, Alex,” said Keeler. “I haven't seen anything in the traffic yet. What's the holdup?”

“Just got the word from the Front Office,” Alex replied. “Spence doesn't want to report this front-channel. He's going to send some e-mails, but otherwise I think we are going to play this like it never happened.” Alex was pleased that there was no hint of disappointment in his response.

“Well, that's a damn shame. You did a hell of a job out there, and any insights into Manamakimba's thinking are worth sharing. If you'd like, I'd be happy to scavenge from your report and send it back in my channels. The trolls in the basement at Langley would eat that stuff up.”

“Thanks for the offer, Jonah, but I think that's exactly what Spence is looking to avoid.”

“I can appreciate that, but I think it's a mistake.
Que será, será
. Hey, did you happen to the check the score of the Georgetown-Temple game?” Keeler had graduated from Cornell, but he had grown up in Philadelphia and was a huge Temple fan.

“Was there a game?” Alex asked innocently. In truth, he had checked the box scores that morning online and knew that Keeler's Owls had upended the favored Hoyas on national television.

They talked basketball for a few minutes, and then Mark Fong excused himself. He was on a deadline. He had also made clear on more than one occasion that he considered sports talk an indescribable form of torture that merited its own entry in the annual human rights report.

“There's something I've been meaning to ask you about since our trip last week,” Alex said when Mark had left.

“I'm listening.”

“It's about Marie Tsiolo. I think she could help me get a better handle on what's going on in the east. Also, Manamakimba seemed to know an awful lot about her. There's something going on that he hinted at, but he didn't offer details. Something that involves Consolidated Mining. I'd like to know more about what it is.”

All of this was true, but it was not, Alex admitted to himself, the whole truth. His interest in finding Marie was at least as much about her stunning brown eyes and her daunting aloofness.

“Do you think you could help me track her down?” Alex continued. “There's nothing in Consolidated's records about what village she is from. I think she's Luba, but I could easily be wrong about that.”

“Why not just ask Spence's new best friend, Henri Saillard, how to get ahold of her?”

“I'd rather that Consolidated Mining not know I'm looking for her.” Alex somehow doubted that Marie had parted amicably from her employer.

“So, you want the seventy-five-billion-dollar-a-year intelligence community to help you get a date for the prom?”

“Something like that.”

“I'll see what I can do,” Keeler replied.

•   •   •

T
hat evening, Alex Skyped with Anah in Brunswick from the unclassified computer in his office. Internet connections in Kinshasa were spotty at best, even for the Embassy of the United States. The picture was a little jerky, but Anah's voice came through clearly. She sounded happy, Alex thought. Brunswick was now her home as much as his.

“I made a picture of you today, Daddy,” she said with a shy smile. “Gramma bought me a new art set and some big sheets of paper. Let me show it to you.

“What do you think?” she asked, holding the picture up to the camera.

It was a picture of the two of them walking hand in hand in what Alex supposed was a park. His daughter was well past the stick-figure stage. The people in the drawing were recognizably Alex and Anah. She had some real natural talent, he thought, even allowing for the blinders of parental pride. In the picture, they were holding hands, her dark brown fingers curled tightly around his peach-colored ones. The pastels smudged together in a way that felt more true than strict anatomical accuracy would have allowed for. In the drawings of her family that Anah brought home from her art classes at school, it was always the two of them together. Hers were invariably the smallest family portraits in her class. No mother, no brothers or sisters, not even any pets. Just Anah and her father.

“That's fantastic, sweetie. Will you save that one for me? I think it's too good for the refrigerator. We can put it in a frame and I can hang it up in my office.”

Anah's smile broadened at the thought.

“I'd like that,” she agreed.

Instead of going home after the call, Alex headed across town in the red Toyota RAV4 that he had inherited from his deceased predecessor. It was a little unsettling to drive a dead man's car, but Julian's next of kin, a semi-estranged brother, had not wanted to hassle with shipping the vehicle back to the United States. Alex did his best to follow the map on the seat beside him. He had only the sketchiest directions from Leonard, and the neighborhoods he was driving through were gradually getting worse and worse.

Half of the buildings in this part of town looked abandoned. Trash blew through the streets or accumulated in rotting piles. A lone, one-legged drunk tottered uneasily on his crutch, a plastic bottle of home brew in his free hand.
Nina Simone Sings the Blues
on the RAV's stereo
was the perfect accompaniment to the dismal scenery. Almost imperceptibly, Alex felt the black dog of depression creeping up on him. Quite likely, he recognized, this was a function of coming down off the high of the hostage talks. He fished a pill bottle out of the glove compartment and shook a single white tablet onto his palm. He washed it down with a quick swig from a bottle of water.

After a few wrong turns, Alex found the place he was looking for, a church with unadorned concrete walls and a tile roof. A sign in front identified the church, rather grandly he thought, as
ST. MARY'S OF THE ASSUMPTION.
This was definitely the place.

Alex's second impression wasn't much better. He drove through the gate and parked. There were two other cars in the lot. Both were up on blocks and neither had an engine. They seemed to have been built primarily out of rust. The church was actually located inside a small compound enclosed by a crumbling brick wall. In addition to the church, the compound included two blockhouse-style buildings and a stone and wood structure that looked like it might once have been a barn or a stable.

Alex locked the car and went into the church.

Inside, the church was well lit and pleasantly clean. A young boy was sweeping the aisle with a broom made of rough straw. An enormous plasticine Christ smiled down on him from the cross hanging on one of the side walls.

“Hello. Can you tell me where I can find Father Antoine?”

The boy nodded. He took Alex's hand and led him to a door at the back of the church, near the altar. Alex knocked.

“
Entrez
.”

Father Antoine was sitting at an ancient wooden desk piled with books and papers, and he was running a finger down a column in an oversize ledger bound in red leather. He was wearing a white cassock and a matching skull cap. A pair of bifocals perched at the end of his nose.

“Hello, Father.”

The priest got up from the desk and embraced Alex, kissing him on both cheeks.

“Kill the fatted calf,” he said, pulling back from the hug and clapping Alex on the shoulder. “For the prodigal son has returned. Welcome home, my dear friend, it's been . . .”

“Eight years,” Alex finished.

“Too long,” Father Antoine agreed.

“I'm sorry I've been out of touch, Father. No excuses. But I've tried to keep up with things, and I heard that you had moved from Goma to Kinshasa. It didn't take long for me to find you. Everyone in town seems to know about this place. It looks like you're doing good work. The kind of work that you always talked about.”

“We are doing the Lord's work. My flock is growing and we take in children—war orphans and AIDS orphans mostly—who have nowhere else to go. The facilities are still a bit rough, mind you. We could use the services of a good carpenter.”

“If I meet any good ones, I'll be sure to give them your card.”

It was an old joke. Alex and Father Antoine had worked together on numerous Peace Corps–sponsored construction projects in the Goma area. They had quickly discovered that the priest and power tools were a potentially lethal combination, and Antoine had contented himself with offering a steady stream of encouragement and unsolicited, and usually erroneous, advice.

“So, are you back on a visit? I understand that tourists are getting some terrific deals at Kinshasa's finest hotels.”

“More than a visit, actually. I'm working at the U.S. Embassy. I should be in town for the next two years at least.”

“Well, that should certainly give us plenty of time to get caught up.”

“And enough time to wear out my welcome, I expect.”

“Come, let me show you around. I know it's supposed to be a sin, even if only a venial one, but I'm really quite proud of this place. I get
few chances to show it off. And then I hope I can persuade you to join us for dinner. The children would love to meet you.”

“That would be nice. I have an adopted daughter myself that I'm hoping you'll get to meet soon. Her name is Anah and she's nine. Plus, I'm never one to pass up a free meal.”

“Oh, it won't be free, I assure you. But you'll pay for it later. Congratulations on becoming a father. It's a weighty title, more important than king or ambassador or even”—his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper—“pope. But please don't tell Rome.”

Father Antoine turned and retrieved a wooden cane next to his desk chair.

“Land mine,” Antoine explained, when he saw Alex looking at the cane. “It happened only a couple of months after you left. I was lucky, actually. I got to keep my leg. Many others aren't so fortunate.”

“I'm sorry,” Alex said. “Land mines are evil things. Bury one and it'll wait patiently for years for the opportunity to hurt someone.”

“That's the truth of it. I have no idea whose weapon it was, or even which war it was from. We've had so many.”

Inside the church, Antoine motioned to the young boy still sweeping the floors to join them.

“Jean-Pierre,” he said, “go back to the house and get ready for dinner. Make sure the house is in order. We have company. We'll be by in a few minutes.”

Jean-Pierre nodded but did not reply.

“He's a good child,” Antoine said, after the boy had run off, “but he won't speak. He hasn't said a word since he came here two years ago. He was a soldier for one of the rebel groups, I can't remember which one now. Before they took him, they murdered his family in front of him—his father, his mother, and his two sisters. As far as I know, he hasn't spoken since then. I'm quite concerned for him. Since he can't speak, he can't confess; and unless he confesses, he cannot be absolved.