Chapter 10: Plans
They all awoke the next morning at the first stirring of the village; as they were sitting up and breaking open ration packets, there was a hesitant tap on the doorframe and a woman edged through carrying a large wooden bowl covered with a huge leaf of some sort, ostensibly to keep it from getting soaked by the pouring rain outside. "Food," she said shyly, her words directed to everyone but her eyes on Alex.
Flint blinked. "Madam, we thank you, but it is not necessary. We brought plenty of our own." She acted like she hadn't heard them, holding out the carved wooden bowl.
Alex rose and translated Flint's words to the woman. "Guest-right," The woman insisted, holding out the bowl.
"If their concept of guest-right is the same as it is with my people, it would be considered the height of discourtesy not to accept," Cam said quietly to Flint, who looked at Alex helplessly. She shrugged, but was that a hint of a smile hanging around the corner of her lips?
"Hold on." Cam reached for her pack, dug around for a moment, and came up with a handful of chocolate bars. "Trade." She held them out to Alex, who grinned as she took the carved bowl from the woman and pressed the candy bars into the woman's hand. The woman looked down at it, and her face broke into a delighted smile; Flint kicked himself for not thinking of it. He should have remembered the last time they were here how the village children had descended with obvious delight on the half-a-chocolate bar Allie had been carrying forgotten in her pocket. And he also remembered how carefully they had shared the treat; each child got a tiny bit, no one tried to claim more than their fair share and no one begrudged another child any. Very different from American children, who, he vaguely remembered from his limited interaction with several over the years, were inherently selfish and would not have shared. "They don't get that many sweets."
Alex grinned. "No they don't. I went to the stores before we left and loaded myself down with sweets and candy and some things I thought they'd need, but I didn't bring any chocolate because it perishes easily and wouldn't do well in this climate. But they are going to enjoy those chocolate bars." She sat down on her bedroll, lifting the leaf off the bowl."Rice and vegetables. You know, as much as I missed New York burgers, there's something about the food here that I did miss." She looked up. "I realize it's not what you're used to, but does anyone want to share this? It would be rude if we didn't eat it, as well as a waste, and these people have so little that they can't afford to waste anything."
"I'll try it," Cam offered instantly, rummaging in her pack for her basic issue mess kit; canteen and canteen cup, multipurpose eating utensil, small flat circular plate.
Shana offered to try some too, and then Snake Eyes. Seeing this example, the guys also agreed to sample the village cooking; Recondo and Brawler and Flint remembered food like this the last time they'd been here, although their visits to the villages had been very brief; Recoil and Spirit finally agreed to try it, and there were pleased sounds all around the hut as they tasted the village cooking for the first time. "It's not like it is Stateside, but it is good. Fresher, somehow," Recoil said with his mouth full.
Alex nodded. "It is. They don't have access to the kinds of preservatives we do, nor the refrigeration, so what they do have is made pretty fresh at every meal. They don't waste anything, so every last bite is eaten and there are hardly any leftovers, and so because they don't have things like salt and artificial preservatives they season naturally with local herbs, which is better than the artificial stuff we use and also tastes better. It's also why they tend, on the whole, to be healthier and stronger and live a little longer than we do if a bullet doesn't get them first."
Breakfast over, the recon teams headed out, leaving White Queen, Scarlett, Gung Ho, and Snake Eyes in the hut. "White Queen? Where are you going?" Gung Ho asked as Alex started for the door.
She turned to him, huffing out her breath in exasperation. "Flint's a great leader and a brilliant tactician, but he's forgetting one little detail. This is not US soil and this is not a US base. This is a village, and there are already people living in it, and don't you think, before we start changing everything around and building stuff in their village without their knowledge and permission we should discuss it with them first?"
Silence in the hut for a moment. Alex rolled her eyes. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but when America comes into Third World countries like this there is automatically this mindset of 'oh we're the best in the world and you're the poor backwards country and we can show you how to do things better so we'll do things our way' without thinking about the people you're trying to help. Yes, the US has a lot of infrastructure elements that these people envy; water treatment plants, sewage treatment plants, roads, indoor plumbing and running water—but that doesn't necessarily mean that we can go in and 'take over' and insist that they do things our way. Our way may not work for them, so before we start something like this, maybe we should talk to them? Flint said he wants a barrier across the road that can be used to secure access; what if that's against the law in this country? After we're gone, they'll get in trouble."
"I never thought of that," Gung Ho said slowly. "You're right. So who are you going to get?"
"I'm going to go get the headman—the one who greeted us when we got here. We can explain our plan to him, see if the laws permit it, first; see if he agrees to it, second; and third, see if they can help." She smiled sweetly at his puzzled look. "Flint said he wanted a defensive fence but there weren't enough people to do it. He forgot there's a whole village out there who want to protect it just as much as we do. This is a job, a mission, for us; for them, this is their life, their survival. We can build all we want but it's not going to help them in the long run if they don't know how to maintain it, or how to use what we give them." She turned and marched out without another word.
Shana blew out her breath in a sigh. "Alex can be very intense."
Gung Ho grinned. "She said the same thing about you. Both of you are very staunch defenders; Alex with words and ideas, and you with actions and weapons, but you both have passions for the same things."
"I can see her point," and Shana looked sidelong at Snake eyes, who nodded too from where he was sitting on his bedroll, indicating he agreed with her, "but I do have to say I'm a little miffed that I didn't think of that first. Or Flint."
That's what makes us Joes such a good working team. Everyone brings a different set of experiences and viewpoints to the table and everyone's input is given equal weight and measure, and everyone is open-minded enough to accept that another's idea might be different than our own and be a better solution. They were all nodding by the time Snake Eyes finished signing.
Alex returned with the headman; he listened to them with a deep frown which at first Gung Ho was thinking was disapproval for the plan, then realized the man was thinking very hard indeed about what they were telling him. After Alex finished speaking he sat silently for a moment, then broke out into a flood of French.
First issue; the laws. No, there were no laws about constructing movable barriers across the road; they had thought about it once but had no idea how to engineer one; all the ones they had seen was in pictures; what came to his mind was the liftable barriers that America used to block cars from railroad tracks when a train was due, and they thought that would require electricity, of which they had some via their diesel generator but was not reliable and could be put to better use in someone's home. If the Joes could construct one that could be raised and lowered by hand without the use of electricity, they would definitely not mind one at each end of the road that went through. Since this road, and Keshero, was the largest village/settlement between Sake and Goma, they had done some trading in tourist souvenirs and commodities which had become the village's largest source of income. "By putting a barrier or gate at each end of the road we can force the cars to stop, increasing our chance to sell our souvenirs," he told them, like the tiny hand-carved wooden flower necklaces Shandi made and the hand-woven, brightly-colored African shawls and garments made by the village women. "If you can make a barrier easy enough for a child to handle, we can put a house right next to it so that one family can tend the barrier. As the adult collects the money the child swings the barrier aside so the car can pass and go on to the souvenir stands and market section."
"Money?" Shana asked.
The man looked at her. "Madame Alex says that you have these things in America, where one must pay a small sum of money in order to travel a road. Since the gatekeeper and his family will be required to tend the gate at all times, they may not have time to gather and prepare food. So it only makes sense that they be paid for their time and effort. A portion of this…toll, I think Madame Alex calls it…will be placed in the village's communal fund and a portion of it will go to the gatekeepers to compensate for their time and attention. If the gate can be operated by a child the adults will be free to pursue their own business, or a child with a crippled parent can have the parent collect the money while the child does the work of raising the gate, giving someone who might not be able to do anything else to contribute the village something to do."
It was the first time Alex had ever seen Scarlett and Gung Ho speechless; both were standing there silent as the old man spun out his plans for Flint's orders. She stole a glance at Snake Eyes and saw amusement glinting in his eyes too; he didn't often get to see Scarlett floored.
Gung Ho recovered his voce first. "Those sound like very good plans, and we are all in favor of them. Our commanding officer also mentioned that he would like to see a fence built around the village, but I assume this is going to be impossible given that it's pouring outside."
The man frowned. "It would be difficult, but it will not be impossible. With the ground soaked from the rain, the mud will be easy to drive logs into so long as the ends are sharpened, and when the dry season comes the mud will harden to almost like stone. Yes, this fence will be doable." He smiled dryly at Scarlett, who had still been unable to say a word. "You were not expecting to hear such talk from one such as I."
"I...no…no, I did not," Scarlett replied. "Wisdom comes from unexpected places at times, and only a fool would not recognize it when they hear it—or to learn the lesson such wisdom imparts." She finished wryly, "I am many things, but not a fool."
"Wise child," the old man's face broke into a mass of wrinkles as he smiled. "Now, shall we get on with the building of the fence and the barriers?"
The six members of the recon team set out together, but just past the first hundred yards of road they all went their separate ways. Flint watched as Spirit and Recondo, Recoil and Brawler all disappeared into the gray curtain of pouring rain that surrounded them, and frowned slightly. It suddenly seemed very lonely…
"You feel like, for one minute, you're the only person left in the world." Cam said quietly from behind him, her voice pitched to carry over the gentle patter of rain. "Like those movies where something terrible happened to the rest of the world and you're the only one left. You almost expect a zombie or something to jump out of the rain at you."
Flint laughed as he turned to her. "That's exactly what it feels like, with the exception of the zombies. Those aren't real."
"I know," she said, picking a direction apparently at random and starting to walk. "But it's kind of fun to pretend sometimes."
He shrugged as he followed her. "Allie likes laughing at those. She tries to drag me out to every one of those horror movies when they come out. Me, I'm a bit more of the practical type."
"There are things out there so much scarier, and unfortunately more real, than zombies and made-up monsters. I used to think the way you do; they aren't real."
"What changed your mind?" They were going up a steep incline now, and Cam motioned for silence until they got to the top of the hill.
"You want to know what changed my mind? Charlie. I swear the man picks out every deliberately gruesome, ugly, disgusting horror move just so he can watch me scream and hide my head." Cam paused, doing a couple of squats to work the fatigue out of the leg muscles she'd just used to get to the top of the hill. "Can I ask you something? Why do guys do that? I asked Charlie and he just laughed and wouldn't tell me." Rather belatedly, she added, "Sir. Sorry."
"It's okay. Cam, I realize that this is your first mission with us so you don't know the rules yet, but one of the ones we adhere to while out here is that there is no rank. I'm not a Warrant Officer unless something comes up that requires Authority To Make A Decision." She could hear the capital letters. "So out here, I'm just another one of the guys. Don't hesitate to talk to me exactly as you would them, because our work is incredibly dangerous and if you try to lean on formality here that split second could potentially end up getting someone killed."
She nodded. "Okay, gotcha."
He grinned. "Now, in answer to your question—you answered your own. We guys still have this streak of old-fashioned chivalry in us; we like to be the…the…"
"Big strong macho guy?" She asked with a twinkle in her eye as they started moving again, heading left along the ridge of the hill they'd just ascended.
"Yes, that's it. We like being the big strong macho guys, and while we like having you girls fight alongside us, and we know you're every bit as capable as we are, every once in a while we like reminding you tough, capable ladies that there is a reason you keep us around, even if it's kind of ornamental and purely for our ego." His rueful smile softened his words.
Cam laughed as they came to a stop at the edge of the top of the hill. "All right, I'll give you that."
He looked around them, then back at the way they'd come. He'd ordered waterproof gear for everyone on this mission knowing it was the middle of the rainy season, but he hadn't counted on just how much rain was actually involved. He could barely see more than twenty feet in each direction; anything further than that was lost in the gray curtain of the surrounding downpour. "Cam…I didn't pay attention to where we were walking—do you have any idea where we are?"
"Yeah. This hill is a pretty good vantage point for about a third of the area I was assigned to cover for today so I started out going in a southeasterly direction to get here. I'm hoping that the rain will slack off for just a few minutes, give me an overview of the terrain. According to the maps, there's a lake this way, and if you're going to kidnap children as slaves you're going to need a source of fresh water until your slave transporters get there. Also, it'll be easier to get them out by water than getting out through jungle overland; given the altitude and the fact that we're in on a gradual slope the lake probably drains into a river and the river eventually will drain down to the sea—so it makes sense that they'd be here in our search area."
Flint stared at her. "Did you tell Recoil? He's technically in charge of the recon teams for this mission as Gung Ho is in charge of the home team."
"I didn't tell him, no, because I don't want him to get tunnel vision because he thinks they are definitely going to be by the lake. If, as is possible, the children from the village slowed down too much, they could have just killed them, and if they did that they would have gone further inland, not towards the lake. So while I think it is likely they'll be in our search areas by the lake, it is equally likely that they could be inland where Spirit and Recoil's teams are." She pushed a lock of wet hair out of her face and said, "Hey, look, it's clearing up a little."
The rain was slacking off a tad bit, and Flint whistled as he saw the view from the top of this hill Cam had picked out. While the hill itself wasn't high enough to lift them out of the treeline, it was high enough to get them a decent way off ground level and give them a general overview o f the land. While it did roll gently in a series of hills and gullies, there was a definite downhill pattern to it, and he could see the rivers of rain in the soil rushing in the direction they were heading, which confirmed Cam's guess that they all did meet somewhere in front of them in a lake of some sort. However, "I don't see any signs of human tracks."
"You wouldn't, not in this rain. The whole purpose to coming up here is to get an overview. I was hoping maybe we'd get lucky and the Goddess would give us a break; maybe put the camp right where we can see it easily, but of course it's not going to be that easy. We'll just have to work our way downward following the river." She pointed to the rivers in the soil in front of her. "Follow the water. And keep an eye out for anything like broken branches that might signify they went down a different path."