I am whole.
The gun is still in my hand, but it’s cold. I haven’t fired it. My ears ring. I look back up at Mr. Omoko as he looks past me. There is a sudden brightness at his chest, right at his heart, like a flower blooming. He raises his fist and coughs a little into it. When it comes away, it is red. He takes a step. He tries to raise his gun, but it slips from his hand and lands in the grass.
I feel myself turn to look over my shoulder, and it takes some time for my eyes to focus. At first there’s nothing there. Light playing on leaves. Darkness. And then I see the gun muzzle slide out from the crook of a tree branch where she’d steadied it to line up a perfect shot.
Catherine’s face is clear; she is calm. Our eyes meet and lock, holding steady for a long time. Then she slides the gun strap over her shoulder and hefts it onto her back.
There is a noise from Mr. Omoko, and I turn back. He’s fallen to his knees, hand to his heart. The red slides out around his fingers and drips onto the ground. He opens his mouth like he wants to tell me something, but I turn away, to the forest.
Catherine is gone.
I stand completely still, staring into the dark between the gem-bright leaves. Flattening and springing up with the wind, the grass is like an ocean. I do not look toward the sounds of my father’s last wet breaths.
Instead I wait until everything goes silent, until the insects pick up their interrupted song, until I hear Boyboy say my name softly. Then I look at the man on the ground. He stares up at the sky, still and finally harmless.
FORTY-TWO
Sister Dorothy assures Michael that his father’s surgery went well. They are used to dealing with bullet wounds and worse at the clinic. “We didn’t even have to put him under,” the sister says. “He was on a business call almost the entire time.” She shakes her head, clearly not understanding that Mr. G’s call with Bug Eye was one negotiation that couldn’t wait. “You can go in to see him in just a moment,” she says. “How is the arm?”
“Fine,” Michael answers. They’ve put a cast on his wrist.
“That was quite a break,” she says. “It sounds like you are all very lucky to be alive.” And with a little squeeze to my shoulder she’s off to check on a baby that was born this morning.
Life, even in the middle of all this death, is persistent.
General Gicanda had been the one to sweep us up from the carnage in the field, rolling in with a small army of Rwandan special forces only moments after Omoko was dead. At first I thought it was the militia, but then Mr. Greyhill shouted at us to put down the guns we raised at them. General Gicanda attended to Mr. Greyhill himself, carrying him to the helicopter and laying him beside a trussed-up, still-unconscious Ketchup. On the way to the hospital, he pointed out the militia camp. Or what was left of it.
It turned out that Mr. G had got Boyboy’s messages after all, but had decided not to take any chances. Gicanda’s strike on the camp came after Mr. Greyhill radioed in the coordinates. They were supposed to come to Mr. G’s aid sooner, but taking out the militia took longer than the general had anticipated.
If anyone at the hospital is surprised to see Rwandan troops this deep in Congo, they give no indication. The soldiers set up watch in the corridors. In contrast to the militias, their uniforms are spotless and pressed, and their guns and boots shine with oil. They are tall and healthy looking, standing at attention and gazing out over the heads of the nurses and nuns bustling around them. Three are stationed around Ketchup’s bed, even though he’s now under heavy sedation.
The nuns say it’s too soon to know if he will have any permanent damage from the fracture in his skull, but there’s not much swelling and he’s stable, and once they stop feeding him sedatives, he should wake up within twenty-four hours. Mr. Greyhill has told the nuns to spare no expense in making sure he stays alive. He knows what Ketchup’s life is now worth.
A different nurse sticks her head around the door of the surgery room, where Mr. G is resting. “You can go in now,” she tells Michael and me.
We both jump up and hurry into his room. Boyboy waits in the lobby. When we burst in, Mr. G doesn’t look up from his phone and his face is as unreadable as ever. There is a red stain the size of a bottle cap on the dressing on his leg.
“It’s done,” Mr. Greyhill says, finally putting his phone away. “Come in, close the door, sit. She’s safe and I have assurances she’ll stay that way. Your associate is pleased with the payment I’m offering in addition to his brother. He’s promised me you won’t be harmed. Everything’s been arranged for the handoff to occur as soon as we touch down in Sangui.” He looks at his phone again. “We’ll leave within the hour. The general will escort us to the border.”