The American Mission (22 page)

“What's in there?” Alex asked.

Ilunga looked thoughtfully at the door for a moment and then inquiringly toward Antoine. The priest nodded once.

Ilunga pulled a large key out from under his shirt. It was hanging on a metal chain around his neck. The lock turned easily.

The door opened outward, and Ilunga had to use all of his strength
to pull it open. Alex resisted the temptation to step in to help, something he knew would have been humiliating for the older man.

Behind the door was a set of stairs.

“The basement,” Ilunga explained. “We keep some of our . . . school supplies . . . down there.”

It seemed unlikely that the Freedom Coalition was storing pencils and copier paper behind a five-thousand-dollar door.

Ilunga hit a light switch inside the frame and closed the door behind them when they started down the stairs. The light was set right over the stairs so most of the basement room was still in shadow when they reached the bottom. Ilunga touched another switch on the wall and the room was bathed in a bright incandescent light.

Racks of AK-47s, grenade launchers, and other small arms reflected and amplified the light. The basement was packed almost wall-to-wall with weapons of various types and calibers.

Albert Ilunga was building a private army.

J
ULY
14, 2009

K
INSHASA

T
hat night he had the dream again. It was the first time the dream had visited since he had come to Kinshasa. The dream, like the illness that spawned it, was patient and adaptable. It bided its time. It evolved. This time, the Tsiolos appeared in the dream. Father and daughter. Anah was there with him as well. Father and daughter. And when the riders came on horses the size of mountains, there was nothing he could do to save them. Waking, Alex found the sheets wrapped tightly around him like a cocoon. He untangled them and stripped the sodden mass from the bed.

It was early. The sun was just coming up, so Alex decided on
surya namaskara
, the sun salutation, for his morning yoga. He felt immeasurably better after the workout, and a shower and shave helped to further clear his mind. He had a decision to make that he had been putting off since his visit to the headquarters of the Freedom Coalition—whether he was going to report to Spence and Washington what he had learned about Ilunga's private armory.

The answer to that question eluded him throughout a day of meetings and reports. The Silwamba administration was stepping up its attacks on Congolese civil society. He and Leonard had coffee with the head of the Center for Public Integrity, a local organization working to expose political corruption in Kinshasa. The center had just been raided by the police, and Alex promised to see what he could find out from a contact at the Interior Ministry. It was clear that the regime was growing nervous and looking to reassert its dominant position. There was no telling how Silwamba and his security services would respond to reports that one civil-society leader was stockpiling weapons.

It was easy to imagine what the Congo might be like with someone like Ilunga in charge rather than the loathsome and avaricious Silwamba. Ilunga's leadership qualities and the force of his personality were compelling. There was something about his passion for justice that reminded Alex of Marie Tsiolo. He had been thinking about her quite often since his visit to Busu-Mouli two weeks ago. She was stubborn and opinionated, but also smart and compassionate. She was also, he admitted to himself, extremely attractive. He wondered idly what kind of excuse he might be able to manufacture to make another visit to her village.

•   •   •

A
lex wrapped up his work at about seven and chatted with Anah for twenty minutes. Skype had helped to take some of the sting out of the enforced family separations that were an inescapable part of diplomatic life. Anah seemed bubbly and happy, showing off a starfish that she had found on the beach that morning. He missed her terribly, and it felt like there was a hole in the pit of his stomach after he broke the connection to Brunswick.

Before leaving the office, Alex ran a stack of classified traffic through the shredder, then removed his hard drive from the computer with a special key and locked it in the safe. The Marines swept the office
every night looking for unsecured classified material. Alex's newly restored clearances were still provisional, and Viggiano clearly had it out for him. He could not afford any security violations. When he was satisfied that there were no loose confidential papers anywhere, he punched the exit code into the alarm system to secure his office.

He did not feel like going home to brood further on his dilemma. Instead, he drove to a jazz bar that he remembered in the Ngaba section of Kinshasa near University City. At one time it had been a popular hangout for Peace Corps volunteers on their infrequent visits to the capital. The Peace Corps was long gone, but Leonard had told him that the Ibiza was still there and the music was still good.

He parked on the street in front of the bar, a nondescript concrete building painted a cheery canary yellow and wedged between a block of apartments and a small supermarket. A date palm growing in a pot by the door was hung with colored Christmas lights.

It was still early by Kinshasa's standards. Even so, there was a pretty good crowd at the Ibiza, including a handful of Westerners. The four-piece ensemble on the stage at the far end of the room was covering Joseph Kabasele's “Indépendence Cha Cha.”

Alex took a seat at the bar and ordered a Stella Artois on draft and a plate of
gambas
, freshwater shrimp from the Congo River grilled and served with garlic and chili paste. The beer was cold, the shrimp were fresh and succulent, and the music was sublimely beautiful. In a moment of clarity, he realized that there was simply no way he could justify reporting what he knew about the collection of weapons in Albert Ilunga's basement. Something was happening in Congolese politics that needed an opportunity to evolve. Alex would not take responsibility for crushing it. There had really never been another choice.

The band launched into a Miles Davis arrangement of “On Green Dolphin Street.” The saxophonist was pretty good, Alex thought, and the keyboard player was exceptional. He closed his eyes and let the music wash through him, draining the tension out of his body. When he
opened his eyes, Jonah Keeler was sitting on the stool next to him, eating one of the shrimp from his plate.

“Good band,” he said.

“Not bad. Not the most adventurous playlist, but they're pretty tight.”

Keeler raised a finger to get the attention of the bartender.

“Jack and Coke, please.”

“Oui, monsieur
.
”

The band wrapped up “On Green Dolphin Street” and started on Abdullah Ibrahim's “African Suite.” The bartender brought Keeler his drink.

“I don't suppose this is . . . what are the kids calling it these days . . . a coincidence?” Alex asked.

“Nope.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Please. We spend billions of dollars a year on intelligence. Now admittedly, all that money can't seem to find bin Laden. But it sure as shit can find you.”

“What are you interested in? Music lessons?”

“There's something I'd like to show you.”

“Something we couldn't talk about in the office.”

“Most definitely.”

“Can you tell me what it is?”

“I'd rather show you.”

“When?”

“You gonna finish those shrimp?”

•   •   •

K
eeler put two five-thousand-franc notes on the bar to cover the bill. He left his drink untouched. When they got outside, Keeler gave Alex his instructions.

“Go home. Park in your normal spot. Go inside and wait for one
hour. Then leave by the back door. Walk two blocks south to Batatela Street. I'll meet you at the northwest corner by the kiosk. Wear comfortable clothes.”

“What is this about?”

“Tradecraft.”

Alex followed his instructions and by ten o'clock he was standing on the corner of Batatela and Rue Ouganda. The kiosk sold newspapers, magazines, snacks, soda, and, if you knew to ask for it, locally grown cannabis. This late, the kiosk was closed. A plywood shutter was locked shut to protect the dusty Fantas and a few ounces of low-grade pot. There was little traffic on the street.

A black Honda CR-V pulled up to the corner. Alex noticed that it had regular Kinshasa license plates rather than the
corps diplomatique
plates that identified Embassy vehicles.

“Get in,” Keeler said, from behind the wheel.

“Nice wheels,” Alex said, when they were under way. “I thought you drove a Beemer, though.”

“I do. This is a Company car. Tonight, we're on Company business.” Alex could hear the capital letter in Company. The CIA.

For about twenty minutes Keeler drove in a seemingly random pattern around the city, circling blocks, doubling back on his route, and keeping as much as possible to the smaller side streets.

“More tradecraft?” Alex asked.

“Nah, I'm just lost. But I'm too much of a man to stop and ask for directions,” Keeler replied.

“Who are you afraid is following us, our side or the bad guys?”

“Are you absolutely sure there's a difference?”

•   •   •

W
hen Keeler was satisfied that they were on their own, he took a sharp turn without signaling onto the on-ramp for the N1 and they drove south for about forty-five minutes to Dibulu. There were a
few other cars on the highway, but traffic was moving swiftly. Right outside Dibulu was an exit with a sign that read
AUT
HORIZED
VEHICLES
ONL
Y
.
VIOLATORS
ARE
SUBJ
ECT
TO
PROSECUTION
. For the less literate drivers, there was a picture underneath the warning of a guard with a rifle shooting an intruder in the back. Keeler did not take that exit, but he did turn onto an unmarked gravel road about two miles farther on that curved back in the direction of the threatening road sign.

“I don't suppose that we constitute an authorized vehicle,” Alex commented.

“Probably not. Although you never know what you can talk your way out of until you have to.”

Keeler killed the headlights. For a moment everything outside was dark, and Alex was sure that they were about to drive into the ditch by the side of the road. Suddenly the windshield came to life, projecting an image of the road ahead in which objects were outlined in eerie green light. A yellow line ran down the middle of the road. Other than that, it looked almost like driving in the day. The techie part of Alex's personality loved it.

“Very cool. How do you do that?”

“Heads-up display with a fourth-generation active night-vision system. I told you, it's a Company car.”

“You guys get much cooler toys than we do. The State Department gave me a laptop.”

“Does it come with a death ray?”

“Does Windows Vista count?”

“Well, it sure sucks the life out of you.”

They drove slowly down the gravel road for about fifteen minutes. Then the yellow line veered off the road into the scrub-covered hills. Keeler followed the line. “GPS,” he explained. After a short, bumpy ride, the yellow line ended with an icon of a red flag projected onto the windshield.

“Where are we?”

“A small military airfield near Kasangulu. It's a secondary field, rarely used by the DRC Air Force. I have a reason to believe that it's going to be used tonight.”

“By whom?”

“Patience. You'll see.”

Keeler opened the back of the CR-V. He pulled out something heavy and handed it to Alex. It was a black flak jacket. Alex put it on and Keeler helped him cinch it tight. It weighed about twenty pounds. The Station Chief donned a similar vest and slung a black duffel bag over his shoulder.

“Jonah, what the fuck are we doing?”

“We're going for a look-see. Don't worry. We're not going to get close, and we aren't going to do anything but look. I think you need to see for yourself what I believe is about to go down.”

“And the guards?”

“They mostly don't bother. Remember, this is a reserve airfield. They don't use it on a regular basis.”

There was enough moonlight to navigate by. It seemed to Alex that Keeler had been here before as he threaded his way confidently between the hills. A ten-minute walk brought them to a chain-link fence with three strips of barbed wire at the top. Keeler pulled a large set of clippers out of the duffel bag and cut a man-size hole in the fence in less than a minute.

“In you go, lad. Keep low.”

Alex crawled through the hole and kept himself flat on the ground. A moment later, Keeler was beside him. He looked at his watch, cupping his hand over it before pressing the button that illuminated the time.

“Fifteen minutes,” he whispered.

They waited.

Alex heard it before he saw it. It was the insistent drone of a turboprop. He looked up, but he could not see the lights of an incoming aircraft.

“They're landing without lights,” Keeler explained, when he saw Alex look up. “Really not terribly safe, you know. Let's go take a look. Keep right next to me. Do what I tell you. Don't stand up unless somebody's shooting at you. Got that?”

“Let's go back to that somebody-shooting-at-me part.”

“Follow me.”

Keeler led Alex up to the top of a small rise. There were a few sizable rocks at the top that they used for cover. From the top of the rise, they had a view of the airfield below. In the moonlight, Alex saw a large twin-engine aircraft land and pull up alongside two trucks and a car parked by what had to be the control tower. The Station Chief pulled some equipment out of the duffel and set it up on top of one of the rocks. It looked to Alex like a telescope with a parabolic dish on the end.

“Is that a microphone?”

“Best in the world. We're gonna see if we can both look and listen. This thing is a little temperamental. Next time, I'm buying Japanese.” He handed Alex a large pair of binoculars and took one for himself.

“Moon's so damn bright we almost don't need the night vision, but I want to get a good clear look at this.”

Through the binoculars, they watched the crew lower the rear door of the cargo aircraft and begin removing large crates strapped to wooden pallets. They worked carefully and efficiently. A group of six African men stood by the trucks. Two of them were carrying rifles.

“That's an Antonov An-26,” Keeler said. “No tail number. No registry. It's a ghost aircraft. There will be no record that it was ever in this country.” Keeler trained the parabolic mike on the scene below them and plugged two earphones into a splitter on the back of the device. He handed one to Alex, who slipped the single earpiece over his right ear.

A man in a suit stepped out of the back of the sedan and walked over to the crates. He was noticeably shorter than the others, and although his back was turned to them, Alex was quite sure that this was Henri Saillard.