Part 1 (1/2)
Blood Forest.
Jonathan Taylor.
Bara Korofi.
(Savage Land).
”If you want to travel fast, travel alone.
If you want to travel far, travel together.”
-African proverb.
1.
The explosion came without warning, disturbing an otherwise placid environment. Green forest spread out all around, rolling sometimes as the ground rolled and other times where trees dared to stretch higher than others.
Above the treetops, the tiny Cessna shuddered. The whir of its single propeller blocked out the sounds of nature and above the shade of the trees the sun beat through the winds.h.i.+eld with menacing intensity. The c.o.c.kpit's air conditioning system struggled to keep out the heat.
Brandon started at what sounded like a gunshot ripping through the tiny cabin. He had been leaning back-dozing-sungla.s.ses perched on his nose to keep out the glare of the sun. Upon hearing the abrupt noise, so loud over the constant drone of the propeller, he sat up and looked toward the front of the c.o.c.kpit. His wife was at the controls, an array of digital instruments flas.h.i.+ng in front of her.
Sam's blonde hair was bunched up behind her head, the longest strands falling out over her sunburned shoulders. She glanced back toward him for only a moment before bringing the Cessna-172 into a climb. The green jungle fell away and the burning bright sun dropped into view.
”What was that?”
She shook her head slowly. ”I don't know. Something just came up and then popped.”
Brandon narrowed his eyes in confusion. ”It popped?”
He leaned forward, looking over her shoulder. Ahead, the propeller blade spun, a translucent disk against the sky blue background. He searched the horizon, but the sky was empty. ”What do you mean it came up?”
Sam squinted through her sungla.s.ses, trying to see through the glare despite the tint of both the black lenses and the winds.h.i.+eld. ”I saw something-like a rock-and it just flew up and popped.”
”What?” He caught movement through the winds.h.i.+eld. A cylindrical object the size of a softball shot up in front of them. Sam reacted on instinct, turning the Cessna to the left, the right wing rising into the air. In front of them, the green horizon tilted and the strange object moved to the window at his right.
A moment later, the cylinder burst apart in a wave of thunder. The sound shook his gut, forcing his heart into his throat. Shrapnel burst forth, cracking the window in three places.
Sam glanced to the right, loose tresses of hair whipping behind her. ”What was that?”
He had gotten a good look as the object ascended and exploded. ”Rocket.”
”Oh, G.o.d.”
The Cessna had been moving generally east when the object first appeared, and now they were flying north. Brandon scanned the jungle canopy beneath him. The Ituri Forest stretched out in all directions, its interior totally hidden by the top leaves.
”Where are we?” he asked, searching the wavering, mottled shadows for a break in the foliage. He spotted two telltale grooves-gaps in the canopy where the area underneath was free of trees. Although he couldn't see the ground through either of them, he knew that they would each signify one of two things: a road or a river.
Sam's voice was filled with panic as she struggled to answer her husband's question. ”We should be coming up on the Ibina River any minute I think.”
He shook his head. He pointed at a twisting path in the landscape. This time he caught glimpses of black through the leafy branches. ”Are you sure that's not the Ibina?”
Her face dropped when she saw the snaking waterway, a tributary of the Ituri. The river, which carved its way north from the Mutumba Mountains in the south, served as a temporary boundary.
”Do not cross the Ibina,” Simone had warned them. ”The Ugandan militias control the land east of it.”
Their a.s.signment was purely for research. They had volunteered their time and the use of their Cessna to conduct an aerial survey of African villages and estimate local populations. Brandon's winnings as a poker player gave them extra time and money and they saw volunteering as a way to make good use of it. Their gentle tour of the jungles of the eastern Congo had brought them into the heart of a war zone. They flew parallel to the twisting river that marked the border between danger and relative safety. Somewhere below them a camp of armed rebels lay in wait to chase away those that would dare venture into their territory.
”Maybe that was a warning shot,” Sam said.
”A warning shot that almost hit us.”
”They're not going to shoot down an unarmed plane,” she cried. She continued their desperate climb as the forest rolled underneath them.
Brandon scanned the foliage. To the east, the forest sloped gently upward and one of the breaks in the trees twisted along that hill. There must be a road there, he thought. That must have been where the grenade came from, propelled by some type of launcher. He wasn't well versed in military weaponry, but he guessed that they had already moved out of range.
Both of his guesses were proven correct a moment later, when the forest and sky lit up, a stream of lights bursting into the air. A trail of tracer rounds wove up from the road and angled steadily toward the small Cessna.
”Sam, get us out of here.”
His wife was trying to do just that. In addition to the steady climb, they were moving northward where another jungle hill lifted over the canopy. If they could make it over that hill, the rebels would no longer have the plane in sight.
”Sam! Look out!” he shouted and ducked down in his seat as the stream of rounds moved right toward them. He gritted his teeth as the first of the bullets ripped through the tiny cabin. A trail of fire tore through the floor and the seat next to him, easily penetrating the hull of the lightweight aircraft. Metal twisted and broke. Gla.s.s cracked as the powerful gun pulverized the instrumentation panel next to his wife.
She screamed and ducked her head, raising her shoulders to protect herself from flying gla.s.s while she kept her hands on the controls of the airplane. The trail of bullets moved right through the c.o.c.kpit in a straight line and chewed through the Cessna's nose, barely missing the propeller.
They were in trouble.
Sam swore when she looked at the instrumentation panel. Half of the displays were cracked and the other half were turned off. Thick smoke billowed from the engine. The propeller sputtered out and began its slow death, the flat, translucent circle seeming to spin for the first time.
The smoke cleared and the hill rose up to meet them.
”Sam! The flaps!”
”I know!”
Their descent slowed as the hill grew in the winds.h.i.+eld. He held on tight, hands gripping the seat cus.h.i.+on, as their descent took them right over the tops of the highest branches. With the propeller silent and only the sound of rus.h.i.+ng air around them, he heard the plane's landing gear rip through the top leaves.
They were going to crash. They needed a safe place to land, but the dense jungle left them with few options.
The plane turned eastward suddenly. Brandon wondered why Sam would be sending them deeper into militia territory; but as he looked over the rapidly pa.s.sing forest, he saw what she had in mind. Up ahead, the jungle parted, revealing a narrow black river. The Cessna was amphibious, outfitted for both dry and water landings. Maybe that shallow-looking stream could serve as a runway.
The propeller died completely and she flew deadstick. They would come down hard and fast. The trees rose up around them until the tips of the Cessna's wings. .h.i.t the outermost branches and ripped leaves asunder. The black river got closer, and Brandon saw just how shallow and narrow it was. Sam struggled to hold the plane aloft.
He felt the plane buck as their left float hit the stream first. The aircraft bounced lightly as it skimmed the water. They were still moving fast, too fast to land.