Mark Greaney - On target

"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, but she crazy now after what they did. They killed my father, too. Only my mother and I left, and she at the camp at Dirra. If the Janjaweed come, nothing we can do. They have guns, camels, horses. If they come, we are all gonna die."

Court shook his head. "We can do this. These Janjaweed are killers, but they are cowards. They don't come to fight; they come to slaughter. We make it tough for them, bloody some noses, kill a couple of them even, and they will break and run. They aren't looking for a battle, believe me. These guys kill women and children for fun. We can do this."

"It doesn't matter if they're not real soldiers, they have guns! We don't have anything to stop them with."

"Yes, we do."

"What do we have?"

"We have me."

The kid's eyes grew wide. "You crazy, man," he said, a little smile growing on his face.

Smiling at a time like this meant Bishara was a bit crazy himself. Court could tell immediately that he'd be able to work with this kid.

"What's in the other trucks?"

"Uhhhh, the first truck has food, mostly. Stuff for the workers, not flour for the IDP. Also parts to repair the well-"

"Forget it. What's in the truck in front of us?"

"That's got the canvas rolls in it, plus water, the generators, six small generators for the camp. Also there is like a pump thing for the well."

The oversized tactical portion of Gentry's brain spun almost too quickly for the rest of his mind to keep up. "No good. Okay, the truck in the back?"

"Uhhh," Bishara thought for a minute. "Tools, hand tools, wood and nails and lumber to build a new latrine. Oh, and gas for the generators."

Court shined the light up on the young Fur tribesman. "Gas?"

"Yeah."

The Gray Man's head cocked. "How much gas we talking about?"

Bianchi was surprised to see the men blocking the road ahead. At least a dozen in strength, some sat high on large dapple-gray horses, others even higher on massive tan or chocolate camels. Their rifles hung low off their chests or by their sides, turbans of different colors piled high on their heads, covering their faces as well as their hair. Most wore sunglasses, some wore mismatched camouflage battle dress. A couple had military style boots, but most just wore sandals. There were long trench coats on a few of the men, while others were nearly bare-chested save for their tactical vests full of rifle magazines.

These were the Janjaweed. The term comes from the Arabic words for evil and horse. They were the evil horsemen. Black Arab tribesmen, originally culled from the best Arab horsemen of the Sudan: cattle ranchers or camel ranchers. Now, any Arab villager with a horse or a camel or, occasionally, with a pickup truck, could become a member of the government-sponsored militias who had been wreaking havoc against the non-Muslim population of western Sudan for the past eight years, killing hundreds of thousands, displacing millions, and raping and maiming and terrorizing untold numbers.

If there was evil in the world, and who could say there was not, then the Janjaweed were evil.

But Mario Bianchi was unafraid. He knew these men.

This particular franchise of evil was on his payroll.

The Italian was annoyed at facing yet another delay but absolutely not concerned. He'd made arrangements with the commanders of these men, arrangements that allowed him to travel this desert track unmolested. Occasionally he would be stopped by some band or another of the Arab tribesmen. They were not impolite; they just ordered him out of the cab of his truck while the African men working for him were wrestled more violently from the vehicles. But Mario Bianchi knew he merely had to speak with the commander leading the party, deferentially drop some names, even offer up his satellite phone if the Janjaweed underling was unaware of the arrangement in place and wanted to check with his superiors directly for confirmation.

And that was always the end of it.

Bianchi ordered his driver to stop. He looked to the Canadian woman, whose eyes were wide and fixed on the men in the dust ahead. "No problem. I know the leader of these gentlemen. There is nothing to worry about." He brushed his hand across her cheek and smiled.

"Hey, Bishara?" Court yelled out from back in the truck bed. He held a wooden and iron hand tool; he'd been nailing a frame of pine four-by-four posts together with the hammer end of the device. The opposite side of the instrument was a sharp hatchet, and there was the hook of a crowbar on the side. "Why are we stopping?"

"Men in the road!" Bishara yelled back. Court could barely hear him. He had burrowed like a mole into the gear and luggage, and his hearing and mobility were affected by the sacks and suitcases and pallets of water bottles and large rolls of tarpaulin above him. Sweat from his hairline had run into his ears and eyes. Even taking a deep breath was a challenge in the dark, claustrophobic confines in the back of the truck. Bishara had been back with him helping for a while, but two men kicking and pushing and digging through the cargo proved to be more hindrance than help. After burying one another with their own movements one time too many, Gentry sent the young man back up front to the cab with instructions for the driver. Court had then tried to use the flashlight and the hammer at the same time while he worked, but he finally gave up. Slinging a hammer in pitch-blackness had caused him to bang his thumb and forearm four times in five minutes, but not having to screw with the light at the same time sped up his work rate, even though it was hell on his extremities.