horsemen wouldn’t be looking for high ground, for sound military terrain. Shit, they would be attacking a defenseless convoy. They could swoop down any place and any time.
From what he knew of the Janjaweed, they usually did not attack UN convoys, or any convoys, for that matter. No, the Janjaweed militia raided villages, burned huts, raped and slaughtered. Then they looted.
Looted! Yes. They would want to keep the trucks intact so that they could steal whatever was inside.
Court could picture the impending action now. They would likely just stop the trucks, get everyone out, and begin the butchery.
Back at Harvey Point, the CIA instructors tried to teach Court everything, but nobody ever taught him how to prevent a mass execution while unarmed.
His head spun back to the cargo hatch behind him. “What’s in the back?” Court asked Bishara, who was clearly alarmed by the American’s insistence that they were heading into some sort of an ambush.
“Nothing, man. No guns. Why you say the Janjas—”
“What are we hauling?” Court asked again, more insistent this time.
“Just stuff for the camp. Beds, radios, lamps, desks, shit like that for staff office and living quarters. And tools to build a new water tower. Why you say the Janjas—”
“Let’s take a look.” Court spun around in the seat and slid the small access hatch from the cab to the massive cargo compartment. There was just enough room to squeeze through, climb over luggage and bags of millet and some sort of a metal rack to make it to the top of the pile of stowed cargo. “Pass me a flashlight,” Court shouted at the young man poking his head through from the cab.
“Pass you what?” asked Bishara.
“A torch. Pass me a torch. Fucking British English,” he said under his breath.
A minute later Bishara and Court were on their hands and knees on top of the gear. It was like a tight crawl space above a ceiling. Easily one hundred fifteen degrees and pitch-black without the light. They bounced around wildly with every bump in the road. The driver must have wondered what the hell was going on, but he continued driving along in the convoy like nothing was amiss.
“Why you think Janjas are coming?” The young Darfuri finally managed to pose his question.
Court dug through boxes and bags while he spoke, throwing items over his shoulders left and right while Bishara held the light for him. Gentry explained, “The NSS is looking for the white woman. They want to kill her. Bianchi’s radio broadcast told them where we were. I figure the NSS doesn’t have a strike force out here on the road, so they’ll probably radio the Janjaweed to come get us. If they do, maybe they will just kill me and the Canadian woman, but I wouldn’t bet against them killing everybody, just to cover up the fact they are working with the NSS.”
Bishara nodded, understanding the ramifications of the words of this high-strung American. “What can I do?”
“You and I are going to have to work as a team here. We work together, and we can get ourselves and some of these others out of this. You understand?”
The kid nodded.
“The driver, Rasid. Do you trust him?”
Bishara shrugged. “I am from Zaghawa tribe, he is a Masalit. But he is a good man. I will tell him to do what you say.” Then Bishara asked, “What we gonna do?”
“First, we’re gonna pray I’m wrong.”
Young Bishara shook his head. “The Darfuri pray all the time. But the Janjas still come and kill us.”
Court continued digging furiously through the cargo below him. Already he had pulled a cigarette lighter and a mechanical alarm clock from the scrum of cardboard boxes. He clutched a roll of heavy plastic trash bags in his hand and held it up in Bishara’s flashlight’s beam. Then he dug down deeper, past stacks of sacks of flour and small drums of cooking oil. He heaved a woven basket of clothes out of his way and reached up to the SI loader, took the light himself, shined it down on a heavy wooden crate on the floor of the cargo compartment. He pried the lid off to find an array of welding equipment, an acetylene and oxygen rig, a welder’s helmet, iron joints, a torch.
Court looked up at Bishara at the top of the cargo. He said, “If they come, then we fight.”
“American, I know the Janjaweed; they destroyed my village, they raped my two sisters, killed one, let the other live,