16: Incriminating
Their last days at the facility had been torture for George. Although he'd been allowed to switch back to his usual job, sparing him the torture of another eight hours of digging, Michael had been feeling the effects of splitting rocks for eight hours, covering for George, and had to give away all of his cash to pay off the guy who'd swapped with George. They'd wanted something to buy petrol with, and George had given most of his to Moses for the books.
More importantly, a quiet shift had allowed George's muscles to recover, and when he got up for their final shift, he was feeling a lot better, if still a bit sore. In contrast, unrelenting work had caused one of Michael's shoulders to become inflamed, and he admitted he was having difficulty lifting his arm up high.
"I'll have to live. Can't skip tonight," he said to George in a reassuring tone when they got up, having stayed in bed as long as possible to make sure they were well-rested. "All happy with the routine?"
George nodded. "Good to go."
Now that they had a concrete plan and a time to put it into action, a lot of George's nerves were calmed. In less than twenty-four hours, he'd be on his way home.
In the darkness underground, George sat on a lump of rock, awaiting instructions. He'd parted from Michael after receiving work assignments, but he hadn't been able to fight off his anticipation and had thought of nothing else except the plan since he'd started work. He needed to wait for the perfect moment, and he'd thought this would come along fairly quickly, but so far, no good. It was turning into a surprisingly quiet shift, which wasn't what George wanted, and he couldn't run the risk of waiting for the water break. By the time conditions were right after the break, they'd have lost two crucial hours.
Carts full of rock were taken away from the rock faces for crushing on a particular network of rails, then, when empty, returned on a separate network, to ensure that they didn't bump into each other. George had mastered the workings of this network early on, because he was often the one told to go and clear rocks from the lines or check on the progress of carts. Most of the diggers didn't care: so long as their full carts went away and got replaced by empty ones, then they were happy. George had realised that, apart from the foreman, he didn't think anyone else working tonight understood the network properly, and so a little disruption could go a long way.
Getting anxious, he started hopping from one leg to the other to keep himself from going stiff from sitting on the cold rock. This whole part of the operation depended on only him, and he was determined that they'd get off to a good start. He just needed the conditions to be absolutely perfect.
It took another ten minutes, but things swung George's way. He got a call to help move a train of several empty carts, which meant that there were full ones entering the network. He responded, saying he was on his way, but instead of staying on the empty network and looking for this train, he cut through a side tunnel and reached the full network. Disrupting it was easy - derailing a cart simply needed a carefully placed piece of rock on a rail, and it would take twenty minutes to get it sorted again. But they needed longer. With trepidation, George located the train of full carts and pulled hard on a mechanical lever to use a set of points to move them onto a secondary line, which squealed horribly as the wheels ran over the rusty metal. This line was used for clearing the full network and looped back onto the empty network. George got behind the first cart and, using a piece of stone as a hammer, unlinked it from the rest of the train, then got behind it and started pushing.
The cart picked up speed, the wheels protesting so loud in the enclosed space that George wanted to cover his ears from the noise. He knew he had to get up as much speed as possible, though, so he kept pushing, the cart going from walking pace to a slow jog and then a run, and then George gave it a final, hard push, and let go, turning around and doubling back on himself, the screeching noise echoing over and over. He tucked himself into a corner where a ventilation shaft was and clamped his hands over his ears.
The runaway cart circled back onto the empty network and carried on picking up speed. Given how much it weighed, if anyone got in the way of it they would certainly be killed, so he hoped that the first thing it would meet would be the train of empty carts he'd been asked to move. As expected, after twenty seconds, there was an almighty crash as the cart ploughed into something, sending rock flying everywhere and causing a terrible grinding noise as it demolished the rails. Vibrations came through the tunnel floor, and shouting started from a different part of the tunnels, so after counting to ten, George took to his feet and headed for the lift.
Just before he reached it, he removed a glove, he spat on his index finger and rubbed it on his shirt to get it as clean as possible, before pushing it hard up his nostril, digging his fingernail in, and dragging downwards. It hurt a lot more than he was expecting, and his eyes were watering, but blood gushed out and was quickly covering his mouth and chin and dripping onto his shirt. Replacing his glove, he staggered over to the lift, blinking at the light, doing nothing to stem the flow of blood.
"What's going on?" the lift operator asked, in a panicked tone, listening to the frenzy of shouting coming from the tunnels. He caught sight of blood all over George's face and recoiled.
"Cart coupling snapped, caught me in the face," George explained, deliberately slurring his words and pointing to the blood. "I need to go to the infirmary."
Faked injuries to get out of work were common, but combined with the pandemonium that had erupted, the lift operator seemed convinced and got the lift to come down from the surface. As it rumbled downwards, Michael shot out of a tunnel, panting.
"A full cart's hit a whole group of empties, lots of casualties," Michael said, taking gulping breaths of fresher air. He looked at George, then at the lift operator. "I need to get some people awake to help evacuate."
The operator nodded, his face pale, and Michael and George jumped into the lift as soon as it arrived. The operator set it going back to the surface, then grabbed a phone line to raise the alert, setting off sirens after a few seconds which echoed up the lift shaft.
"Perfect work, George," Michael said happily, giving him a double thumbs-up. "It's carnage down there, a whole tunnel is totally blocked."
"Are there really casualties?" George asked, his heart thumping in his chest.
"I exaggerated. There's a few people with cuts and bruises from flying rocks, but some idiot stuck their head out at the wrong moment to see what the noise was and got hit by an empty cart. I didn't stop to see what happened, and he was definitely alive, but badly hurt, when I passed him."
George swallowed. He felt guilty that he'd had to hurt someone, but luckily he didn't have time to dwell on it when the lift arrived at the surface, sirens sounding all over the compound.
"What's-" someone said as they saw the lift arrive, but George's blood covered face made them back away.
"Loose cart, lots of casualties," was all Michael said, grabbing George's shoulders and guiding him past the group of bodies that was growing around the lift. "Got an injured man here, coming through."
George's nosebleed was already clotting, so once they were away from the crowd, he wiped as much blood on his face, neck and arms as he could, to exaggerate the effect. Instead of following the path to the infirmary, they skirted around a quiet edge of the compound and collected a bag, made from a pillowcase, which Michael had prepared with as many essentials as he could get his hands on. They kept their helmets and lamps, but George threw his bloodied gloves under a bush.
"Okay, we're on time," Michael whispered. "Wait five minutes to make sure everyone's over at the mine, then we'll go."
George avoided touching anything to keep himself from smearing blood everywhere, but Michael double-checked the bag.
"Got the knife, don't have any money…" he muttered, taking care not to make any noise.
"Let's have the knife," George said. "I'm covered in blood anyway, so we might as well have a go at activating my transmitter."
"Genius, George," Michael said, beaming at him. George held out his arm and Michael painfully cut a small incision into it, drawing a fresh dribble of blood but managing to extract the tiny black device. Michael dropped it onto the floor and stamped on it to make sure it was destroyed, then passed George a strip of fabric from the bag to tie around the cut.
"It's only tiny, you'll live, but keep your hands clean," Michael said firmly, using another piece to wipe his hands.
After the five minutes was up, with the sirens still blaring, they crossed the compound, keeping to the shadowy areas outside the floodlights, and came to the office building. Michael tried the door but it was locked, as expected.
"Knife," he asked, and George fished it out of their bag. He jammed the blade between the automatic doors and moved it up and down, finding some purchase before using the blade to lever them open a crack,
"Grab on," he said, and George dug his fingers into the tiny gap and heaved. With Michael's one-handed assistance, they managed to get the doors open enough that they suddenly sprang open, the mechanism creaking after years out of use.
"Precaution in case of fire or something getting stuck," Michael explained as they passed through.
They'd expected an alarm, but they got lucky and it seemed to be deactivated or dead. George led the way to Descamps' office, and once they were inside, he shut the door behind them.
"Okay, you take his desk, I'll do the filing cabinet," Michael said, stepping over to a metal cabinet in the corner and using the knife to lever it open. George went round the desk and started pulling open drawers, examining the documents using his headlamp. Anything in Swahili he just ignored since he couldn't read it, put to one side for Michael to look at, then focused on anything French or intelligible Mandarin. Luckily, Descamps seemed to prefer French, and George hit on a pile of financial transaction records which he began piling on the desk.
"This is all ancient history," Michael said, still flicking through the cabinet. "Anything good over there?"
"Some financials, but nothing too exciting," George responded. "If that's no good, you can do the other drawers here, everything's stuffed full."
Michael came over and started on the opposite side of the desk. He stopped after a few seconds and started using the knife to unscrew the case of the small computer he'd noticed.
"Might as well take the whole hard drive," he said, levering the component out. "No time to search it."
George wasn't getting any major breakthroughs on his side of the desk, and when he reached a pile of receipts for equipment dated five years ago, he gave up.
"Anything?" he asked Michael.
Michael shook his head. "Nothing, all useless. Maybe Descamps takes everything home with him."
George shrugged. "Well, these files on the desk are at least recent." He picked them up and stuffed them wholesale into the pillowcase.
"Let's keep searching, we've got plenty of time," Michael said, flicking his headlamp off and heading to the door.
The rest of the office block was all set on one floor, the corridors making two squares which met in the centre, like a square figure eight. Descamps' office was in one corner, so they worked their way around their square, but every room was either dilapidated, with wires hanging from the ceiling and peeling paint, or full of boxes which contained nothing but reams of documents in Mandarin. George tried to examine a few but the text was dense and technical.
"Operating manuals, maybe?" he suggested, pointing to a diagram of a piece of machinery.
"Or just old maintenance records. Nothing we want," Michael said, sounding frustrated.
With one side of the square clear, they swapped to the other side, but it was mostly more of the same. They'd been looking for over an hour and both of them were starting to get nervous.
"I'm not hopeful," Michael admitted as they got down to the last few rooms. "I think when we're done here we just make a move, every minute is another minute for something to go wrong."
George nodded. They pushed into the next room, which was more stacks of boxes, but George noticed a locked metal box in one corner. It had a small notepad sitting on the top, which, when George flicked through it, was blank.
"Could've been locked for years," Michael said, eyeing the padlock.
George shook his head. "Everything's covered in dust but this is clean. It's either new or gets used often."
Intrigued, Michael crouched down in front of it and looked more closely.
"Can't get into the padlock," he said, unhappily. "We either need a multitool or a big brick or crowbar, this thing's heavy-duty."
George tried lifting the box. "It's heavy but not too heavy. We could just take it and open it later?"
Michael nodded, his attention distracted by the notepad. "Better than nothing. But we need to load it straight into a car."
"I haven't seen any car keys," George said, shrugging. "Maybe we should leave it. Anyway, that pad is blank."
Michael held it at an angle to his headlamp. "No, it's not. You can see some writing where the ink has bled through, and the stubs of pages torn out."
"What does it say?" George asked, but he thought this sounded like a dead end. "Descamps was using an ink pen when I saw him, so it's probably his writing."
"It's in Swahili," Michael said. "I can usually read Swahili but it's not words that make sense, just a list of words and figures, like a price list or a receipt, but I can't understand the words."
The DRC had several official languages and there was a chance it could be in any of them. "Definitely not French?" George asked.
Michael gasped. "They're not words, they're names, George. Girl's names. I never studied names because it seems pointless, but there's some here I recognise."
George looked puzzled. "Why would you write down a list of girl's names with numbers next to them?"
When Michael next spoke, his voice was even and measured. "It's a price list. These are girls who've been trafficked and sold… These numbers here," he pointed to the column, "are ages. Fifteen, seventeen, eleven…" He flicked over the page and read quickly. "Here, this is French," he said, holding it up for George.
"Let's see… it says 'receipt', something like, 'provided', then Lubumbashi, then something I can't read."
Michael squinted at the word. "It's Swahili slang for sex." He sounded disgusted, and his hand was shaking. "These are all abducted girls who've been sold into sex slavery. There's hundreds of names," he said, flicking through pages.
"Let's take it, and the box," George said, confidently. "There's probably more evidence inside."
"I would definitely leave it, if I were you," a voice boomed from the doorway, flicking on the light and startling both of them. As George blinked, trying to get his eyes to adjust, he looked up at a tall African man with a long beard and a pock-marked face, his dark eyes glittering as he grinned, his hands resting on an AK-47 pointed straight at Michael.
"I don't think we've met," he said, in polite English. "I'm Bheki."