Mike Maden - River of Gods

“Interesting paint jobs,” Pearce said.

“They paint them bright orange so that when they crash we can find the bodies more easily and send them back home.” She flashed a smile. Soldiers weren’t the only people with guts.

A big man in stained coveralls and a crew cut ambled heavily out of the open hangar door, like a bear walking on two legs. He stuffed an oily rag into a rear pocket as he approached the plane.

Judy and Pearce stepped out of the cargo door, stretching out their tired muscles.

“Judy!” The big man dashed over, surprisingly fast for his size. They hugged. Judy nearly disappeared in his massive embrace.

“So good to see you, Whit.”

“You, too, sister. Who’s this?” Whit’s green eyes beamed through a pair of rimless glasses. His hair was so blond it was nearly white, and the bristles in the crew cut were as thick and stiff as a shoe brush.

“Whit, this is Troy Pearce. Troy, this is the Reverend Whit Bissell. He runs the AMF division in central and west Africa.”

Whit thrust out a meaty paw. “Great to meet you, Mr. Pearce. And call me Whit.”

Troy took it. The man’s hand was a vise. “Name’s Troy. Mr. Pearce was my father.”

“I just put on a pot of coffee back at the house. Should be ready in a jiff. You two want to clean up while we wait?”

“We need to fuel up and get going, Padre. We have an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?”

“A friend in trouble. We need to go get him,” Judy said.

“What kind of trouble?” Whit asked. He frowned with pastoral concern.

“Not the kind of trouble you can help with,” Troy said. “Unless you’re handy with a—”

“We can use your prayers, Whit, that’s for sure,” Judy interrupted, throwing Pearce a nasty glance. “And a refuel.”

“I can pray, but I’m not sure how much fuel I can spare. How far are you going?”

“Heading up north. Cameroon,” Judy said, lying by omission. “We’re bone-dry and we need a full tank to get there.”

“How much is a full tank?”

“Five hundred and twenty-eight gallons,” Judy said. “And 80/87 avgas is fine. We don’t need the fancy stuff.”

“Sorry, but I can’t spare it.”

Pearce pointed at an old GMC fuel truck parked a hundred yards away on the far side of the airstrip. “Is that thing full?”

“Half.”

“That must be, what, fifteen-hundred-, two-thousand-gallon capacity?”

“Two thousand.”

“So we take five, we leave you five. What’s the problem?” Pearce asked.

“We’re glad to pay for it,” Judy said.

“It’s not that, though we could surely use the donation. The problem is, we need the gas. We do a lot of medical missions and emergency transport. Just got back from one yesterday, as a matter of fact. And I’m the fueling hub for two other agencies. Avgas is hard to come by in this part of the world. When the refinery has it, I have to make a six-hundred-mile round-trip to go get it, and they say it will be another four to six months before I can restock. I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”

“Our friend is in trouble, Whit. We really need that fuel.” Judy laid a hand on his forearm.

Whit shrugged. “I understand, but I’m sorry.”

“I think Jesus wants us to have that gas, Padre.”

The missionary’s broad back stiffened. “I don’t take kindly to blasphemy, Mr. Pearce.”

“I’m not blaspheming. I’m quoting scripture.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sermon on the Mount. ‘Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.’ So I’m just askin’—can we please have that fuel?”

“No. I’m sorry. There are too many other lives at stake.”

“Our friend’s life is at stake, too,” Judy said.

“Then I’ll pray for him.”

Pearce stepped closer. “There’s another verse, Padre. Something like, if a man strikes your face—”

“Troy . ” Judy’s eyes flared.

Whit didn’t back down. “You’d rob a mission? We’re doing the Lord’s work here.”

“Didn’t David eat the Bread of the Presence from the tabernacle?”

“The Devil can cite chapter and verse, too.”

“Then pray for us sinners, Padre, but only after you help me get that damn fuel loaded.”

Whit tugged on his ear, then laughed. “You might be a horse’s ass, Mr. Pearce, but somebody’s darn blessed to have you as a friend.”

Zhao residence

Bamako, Mali

6 May

The Malian boxer was ten centimeters taller and at least ten kilos heavier than Zhao, but it was his face and not Zhao’s that was drenched in sweat and bleeding heavily over the left eye.

Both men were shirtless and ripped. The black man kept his gloved hands up by his face, one hand carefully guarding the eye now swelling shut. He kept driving cautiously toward Zhao, who was springing on the balls of his feet, dancing half circles around the squeaking parquet dance floor, first left, then right, then back again, a smile plastered on his handsome face, his bare hands loose and bouncing in front of his broad chest.

Guo stood at parade rest. The boxing ring was in Zhao’s colonial mansion. Previously it was a ballroom with a giant crystal-and-gold chandelier dangling overhead. Guo disapproved of the entire house and its furnishings—a garish historical anachronism. Everything about the house screamed excess and self-indulgence. Guo preferred the sleek linearity of his modern high-rise apartment in Beijing, or the spartan efficiency of a military barracks, to this European monstrosity.

It was an honor for Zhao to personally request Guo’s services. Zhao was the kind of man the Party groomed for leadership. If Zhao’s star continued to rise, he would inevitably reach the Standing Committee, perhaps even the presidency. Weng emphasized the importance of this mission to Zhao’s career, which meant, of course, his own. Their fates were now intertwined. The two men were practically mirror images of each other: ambitious, intelligent, powerfully built, and ruthless. They were even the same height. The primary difference was that Zhao fought in boardrooms, Guo on battlefields. Politics versus blood. In Chinese history, the two were often commingled.

“You read the files I sent you, Guo?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Malian threw a lightning left jab into the space where Zhao’s head had been a nanosecond earlier. Threw a second. Missed again. Zhao laughed.

“What did you learn?”

“Mossa Ag Alla is a dangerous opponent, that he is to be killed upon contact, and that I am to conduct operations without revealing my identity or location while in country.”

Zhao danced right, then left. “Correct on all counts. And secrecy is vital. The Mali government would be outraged if they knew you and your team were here.”

The chiseled Malian charged again, throwing a vicious right cross, lowering his left hand just a few centimeters.

Zhao saw the punch coming in the man’s eyes even before he threw it. As the African swung his enormous right fist, Zhao spun on the ball of his right foot and launched a devastating roundhouse kick. His heel crashed into the boxer’s left temple, just behind the swollen left eye. The African boxer grunted as his brain short-circuited. His upper body still twisted on a right axis, following the centripetal weight of the failed right cross, and the strike from Zhao’s heel into his skull accelerated the spin. The big Malian pirouetted on his right leg, then tumbled to the floor like a bag of wet meat slapping wood. He didn’t move.