The Ares Decision Read online

  “I think she’s serious,” Smith said.

  Janani shook his head miserably. “Women have become so…What is the word you use? Uppity. It’s this new feminism.”

  He walked over to a chest of drawers and pulled out a minuscule chrome .32. “This looks very nice with a handbag.”

  Even Howell managed a laugh, less at Janani’s joke than at Sarie’s deadly expression.

  “I was thinking of something more like this,” she said, walking up to a row of scoped semiautomatic rifles. She grabbed one and pulled the bolt back, confirming that it was loaded before starting for a table piled with sandbags.

  “That’s not a toy,” Janani said as she laid the gun down and knelt behind it.

  When she didn’t acknowledge his warning, he turned back to Howell and Smith. “My first wife behaves like this. I blame Oprah. We get—”

  All three of them ducked in unison as an explosion rattled the rickety thatched roof above them. There were shouts from inside the building and a number of armed men ran out, only to find Sarie joyfully clapping her hands. “You put dynamite behind them? I love that!”

  The African frowned, looking at what was left of his plywood target cartwheeling through a distant cloud of dirt and shattered rock. “Only the ones at eight hundred meters.”

  “Do you mind if I shoot another?”

  Janani walked over and snatched away the rifle. “Out of the question, madam. This weapon is far too heavy for you and the stock is all wrong. I’ll have something more suitable when you and your friends return.”

  27

  Kampala, Uganda

  November 21—1741 Hours GMT+3

  NO PROBLEM. HOTEL.”

  Sarie chuckled quietly in the backseat as Jon Smith’s head sank into his hands. They’d found their driver a few miles from the arms market hoofing it back to Kampala. He’d seemed a little shocked to see them alive but gratefully climbed back behind the wheel after checking his rust bucket of a cab for damage.

  “No,” Smith said for the fifth time. “Hospital. We want to go to the hospital first.”

  Howell’s detour, while admittedly productive, left them no time to stop at the hotel before their appointment with the director of Kampala’s main medical facility.

  “No problem. Hotel.”

  Smith groaned and fell back into his seat.

  “I think he’s missing the subtlety between the words ‘hospital’ and ‘hotel,’” Sarie offered. “What’s it actually called?”

  He must have been more tired than he thought not to come up with that himself. Sixty hours of travel took a hell of a lot more out of him than it had when he was thirty.

  “Mulago,” he said, enunciating carefully. “Not hotel. Mulago Hospital.”

  The driver’s eyes widened with understanding. “Mulago? You sick?”

  “Yes! You’ve got it! I’m sick. Very, very sick.”

  “Mulago. No problem.”

  Fifteen minutes later they pulled up to an enormous crate of a building surrounded by a railing painted an unfortunate baby blue.

  “Mulago!” the driver announced as Smith threw open the door and slid out from beneath his pack.

  He crouched and leaned back in to look at Howell. After his hour of normality at the arms market, he’d turned melancholy again—something worryingly at odds with his personality. “Can you stay with the car, Peter? We won’t be long.”

  The Brit leaned his head back and stared up at the mildewed headliner. “I don’t have anything else on my calendar.”

  * * *

  HELLO, I’M DR. Jon Smith and this is Dr. Sarie van Keuren. We have an appointment with Dr. Lwanga.”

  The woman stood with surprising nimbleness from behind a desk about half her size. The stern expression she’d worn when they approached transformed into a toothy smile. “Of course,” she said in lightly accented English. “I have your appointment right here. If you will just follow me, please.”

  She led them less than ten feet to an open office door and then stepped ceremoniously aside so they could enter.

  “Dr. Lwanga?” Smith said, approaching a bespectacled man standing at an odd angle that suggested childhood polio. He closed the book in his hand with a snap and limped toward them. “Drs. Smith and van Keuren. It is a great honor.”

  “Likewise,” Sarie said. “You have a beautiful facility here.”

  “There isn’t much money,” he responded. “But one does what one can.”

  “We know you’re busy, Doctor, and we don’t want to take up too much of your valuable time…,” Smith started.

  “Of course. What is it I can do for you?”

  Smith fell silent, letting Sarie take the lead as they had agreed. She was a minor celebrity across the continent for her work on malaria and knew better what questions to ask. He’d just stand by and make sure she didn’t get overexcited and reveal too much.

  “Jon and I are heading north on a brief expedition to find a parasitic worm that affects ants. But while we were doing our research, we found a mention of another parasite that caught our attention.”

  “I’m afraid this isn’t really my area,” Lwanga said apologetically.

  “We came to you because there are reports that it may victimize humans, causing rabies-like symptoms and possibly bleeding from the hair follicles. Also, it seems to affect only the North, which is where you grew up, isn’t it?”

  Lwanga’s expression seemed strangely frozen as Sarie continued.

  “We couldn’t find any information on what animals might host the parasite or really any corroboration that it even exists. Does it ring a bell by any chance?”

  The African suddenly came back to life. “I’m afraid not. I’ve never heard of anything like what you’re describing.”

  “Would you know someone we could talk to—maybe a doctor working in the rural areas to the north? Someone who could help us ask the right people the right questions?”

  “It’s been a long time since I left my village and I’ve been very remiss about staying in touch.” He stuck out a hand in what was clearly a dismissal. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I have rounds.”

  “That was a very strange meeting,” Sarie said as they came back out into the heat of the afternoon sun. “I don’t want to seem negative, but I’m not sure that he was being completely honest with us.”

  It was obvious that she was having a hard time coming right out and calling the aging physician a liar, but Smith had no such qualms. In the world of professional liars he lived in, Lwanga was a rank amateur.

  “He knew exactly what you were talking about, Sarie. Did you see the tea service next to his desk?”

  “Ja.”

  “How many cups were on it?”

  “How many cups? I don’t know.”

  “Ah,” Smith said. “You see, but you do not observe.”

  “Sherlock Holmes,” she said with a grin. “Does that mean I get to be Watson?”

  “Not yet. But I see potential. There were three cups and steam coming from the pot’s spout. You know better than me that Africans are nothing if not polite.”

  She nodded slowly. “He intended for us to stay on a bit.”

  “Until you brought up crazy people bleeding from the hair.”

  “The stuff about him losing touch with his village is nonsense, too, Jon. African politeness is nothing compared to African devotion to family.”

  They crossed onto the sidewalk and Smith reached for their taxi’s door. “And so the plot thickens.”

  * * *

  DR. OUME LWANGA stood at the edge of the window, peering down into the street below. The phone in his hand was slick with sweat, and he had to grip it tightly to keep the smooth plastic from sliding through his fingers.

  “They said that specifically,” President Charles Sembutu’s voice on the other end said.

  “Yes, sir. They didn’t give details of which rabies symptoms, though madness seemed implied. They did disti
nctly say bleeding from the hair.”

  “That’s all?”

  “They were interested in a possible animal host but said their main objective was a worm affecting ants—that this other parasite was just something that came up in their research. They didn’t seem certain it even existed.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Getting into a brown taxi with a box on the roof.”

  “Is there anyone else in it besides the driver?”

  “I think there’s someone in the backseat. From my position it’s hard to tell. Do you want me to—”

  The connection went dead and Lwanga watched the cab pull away from the curb, feeling a pang of guilt. Their fate was in God’s hands now.

  28

  Northern Uganda

  November 21—1833 Hours GMT+3

  MEHRAK OMIDI SLOWED WHEN the young man in front of him broke into an elaborate karate pantomime, kicking at bushes and the humid air, spinning unsteadily, and making noises like a strangled bird. He nearly fell over a rotting log and shouted angrily at it before grabbing one of a number of beers stuffed into the pockets of his fatigues.

  Omidi had landed in Uganda nine hours ago and immediately driven to the remote rendezvous point dictated by Caleb Bahame. He’d expected to be picked up by the man himself and taken to camp, but instead spent three hours riding blindfolded in the back of a rickety military vehicle. And now this.

  They’d been walking through the wet, insect-infested jungle for long enough that he began to question whether the men around him had any idea where they were going. Most were drunk, and no fewer than three fights had broken out—one of which he’d been forced to break up when knives materialized.

  “How much longer?”

  The man in front squinted back at him and said something in his native language before forging on.

  Omidi followed, keeping up easily despite the unfamiliar humidity and terrain. He hated sub-Saharan Africa and everything in it—the air, the disease, the worthless inhabitants. It would have given him great satisfaction to have sent one of his men in his place, but it was impossible. No one else could be trusted with a task so vast and historically important.

  When he actually allowed himself to consider what, with God’s blessing, he would accomplish, it made the breath catch in his chest. Centuries of dominance by America and the West would come to an end. Their arrogant citizens would finally understand that everything they thought they had was an illusion. They would watch in horror as the power and money they had so greedily amassed failed to protect them. And when it was finally over, they would shrink away like beaten dogs.

  The sun touched the horizon, stoking his anger and frustration. Soon, they would have to stop. While his guides were well equipped with alcohol and pornography, none seemed to have thought to bring a flashlight or night-vision equipment.

  He quickened his pace and reached for the man in front of him again but then heard a distant voice reverberating through the jungle. The men around him heard it, too, whooping in excitement and pumping their rusting assault rifles in the air.

  Bahame.

  As they closed on the amplified voice, the scent of human habitation assaulted him—open latrines, garbage, and the distinctive rot of death. They passed crated weapons and food, as well as a few light military vehicles that may or may not have been in operating condition. All were piled with tree limbs and vines so as to be invisible from the air.

  They broke out into a clearing and Omidi spotted a man pacing across a makeshift stage speaking into a megaphone. He was dressed in worn fatigues accented by a large amulet made of what appeared to be human teeth and bones.

  No fewer than a hundred people were packed into the clearing, transfixed by the graying figure looking down on them. Most were teens or younger, clad in tattered civilian clothing and holding weapons as sophisticated as AK-47s and as primitive as feather-adorned spears. At least a quarter were girls, some unashamedly shirtless, displaying budding breasts wet with perspiration. A disgusting display by a disgusting race.

  The man on the log-and-stone podium spotted him and pointed, speaking unintelligibly as his audience parted.

  Close up, Caleb Bahame was almost regal, with strong features and skin unblemished by his years of living in camps like these. His movements were strangely exaggerated, choreographed to give his every word its own sense of gravity. Seeing Bahame standing there, feeling the oppressiveness of his presence, explained a great deal about how the African had gained so much power so quickly.

  Bahame had started bringing his clapped-together religion to the tiny villages of northern Uganda almost a quarter century ago. Not long after, he armed a group of disciples large enough to begin converting the region’s farmers, whether they were persuaded by his dogma or not. He burned and raped and kidnapped, learning to manipulate the pliable minds of children and turning them into a fighting force unbounded by any moral or religious sensibility that didn’t flow directly from him.

  As time went on, the religion he’d created became more political and more about him. He had portrayed himself as everything from Muhammad to Jesus to the reincarnation of Karl Marx—fanning the flames of tribal animosity and promising a utopian society of milk and honey without work or effort. Now, thousands of followers later, Bahame no longer knew where he stopped and God started.

  Omidi climbed onto the podium and Bahame threw down the megaphone to greet him. When their hands clasped, a loud cheer rose up.

  “Mehrak, my good friend,” Bahame said in English better than his own. “God told me you would be delivered safely to me.”

  “May his name be praised.”

  Bahame smiled and turned, using a claw hammer to break open a crate of whiskey. The exaltation of his congregation grew in volume as he tossed the bottles out to them, reserving one for himself.

  “My magic has given us many victories and has made them love me,” he said, breaking the neck off the bottle. His eyes were clear, but it was impossible to know what they saw. Unquestionably, a man to be very carefully handled.

  “You’re a great leader.”

  “Yes, but Uganda is a large country, full of evil. It will require more than magic to take it. Even my magic.”

  Omidi nodded gravely. “All great generals—all great men—face the same problem. You cannot do everything yourself. And to rely on others is…unpredictable.”

  “What you say is true, Mehrak.”

  “I’d like to see your magic. To see if you can teach us to wield it without your power.”

  He seemed pleased by that and took a long pull on the bottle before holding it out to Omidi.

  “My God doesn’t permit it,” the Iranian said.

  “He gives you his permission.”

  Omidi smiled politely, making sure his eyes portrayed only serenity. Was Bahame saying that he had spoken to God on his behalf ? Or that he was God?

  A murmur went through Bahame’s people, and Omidi used it as an excuse to turn and see what had distracted them from fighting over the liquor.

  A group similar to the one that had brought him there burst into the clearing dragging a badly injured African man along with them. Behind, a Caucasian in his late sixties appeared, terrified and exhausted.

  Bahame jumped to the ground and Omidi followed at a distance that would allow him to be an observer of what was going to happen without risking becoming a participant.

  “Where is the woman?” Bahame demanded.

  One of the men pushed their injured comrade to the ground at his feet. “Dembe let her escape.”

  The prone man’s right pant leg had been cut away and there was a bloody bandage wound around his thigh. He tried to crawl away but was stopped by the impenetrable ring of armed children that had formed around them.

  Bahame pointed to the white man. “Who is he?”

  “A doctor we found to keep this pig alive so he could face you.”

  The cult leader’s eyes widened to the point of bulging, and his stare f
ixed on the man begging pathetically at his feet.

  He dropped the bottle in his hand and picked up a rock the size of an apple, falling to his knees and bringing it down with horrifying force between the man’s shoulder blades. An anguished scream erupted from him, though it was quickly drowned out by the laughter of the crowd.

  “No, stop!” the doctor shouted. He made a lunge to protect his patient but was slammed to the ground before he could reach him.

  Bahame continued to work with the rock, studiously avoiding the man’s head and neck—attacking his arms, his torso, his legs. Sweat dripped from him and his breathing turned ragged as the dull thud of rock on flesh was joined by the sound of snapping bones and blood gurgling in his victim’s throat.

  The skill of it was admirable—turning a man’s body into a broken bag of parts while keeping him not only alive, but conscious.

  Eventually, Bahame began to tire, and he stood, still refusing to deliver the man into death. He picked up the whiskey he’d dropped, now spattered with blood, and drank from it before holding it out.

  Omidi hesitated for a moment, looking down at the man twitching in the damp soil. Finally, he approached and accepted it, using the bottle to salute his host before bringing it to his lips.

  29

  Kampala, Uganda

  November 21—2112 Hours GMT+3

  JON SMITH PUT HIS face directly into the lukewarm water, letting the shower wash away the sweat and dust. The hotel had turned out to be perfect—quiet, mostly empty, and out of the way enough that they would attract minimal attention.

  More important, though, the water pressure was good, the bed looked comfortable, and the restaurant served alcohol. It might be awhile before he got to enjoy those particular luxuries again, and he intended to take full advantage while they were at hand.

  He stood there until the water turned cold, then toweled off and walked out into the main part of the room, where he’d left the glass doors open to a private deck. The moon was visible through the gauzy curtains, and he dressed in its light before grabbing a beer from a trash can he’d filled with ice and heading out into the night air.