“Mrs. Dexter must have been one of those survivors,” Fletcher supposed. “What if they made up some kind of treasure map between them? Something they both needed to collaborate on to find the barge again?”

  “Father did get hold of a fairly substantial donation to start the Kutshu Mission,” Sophie confessed. “I assumed it was just another overseas benefactor.”

  “And Mrs. Dexter went back to the States a rich woman!” Fletcher remembered. “What if they both got back to civilization with some of that gold ore?”

  “They couldn’t haul that much of it,” O’Neil judged. “Ore means rocks with gold threaded in ‘em. Bulky and heavy. But if it was a big barge there’d be tons of it, worth thousands.”

  “And it might still be there today!” Fletcher exclaimed. “No wonder that Major-general is so keen to get his hands on the Dexter letter!”

  “Yeah, about that,” O’Neil sighed. “After some killer L’Evesque hired didn’t do his job right I took a look-see inside the envelope. It makes no sense.” He produced the folded missive and handed it to Sophie. “Here.”

  Fletcher craned his head curiously as the girl unfolded Mrs. Dexter’s final words. Sophie’s soft lips moved as she read the recipe for monkey soup.

  “I don’t understand,” she said at last. “Is this some kind of code?”

  “A cypher,” Fletcher suggested. “If we take the third letter… or maybe the capitals mean something?” He pointed to the ingredients. “Suppose those numbers are paces from somewhere? Or miles? Perhaps there’s an anagram?”

  Sophie glanced at O’Neil suspiciously. “Are you sure this was the actual contents?”

  “I broke the seal myself. And the handwriting on the inside matches the script on the envelope.”

  “Pepper to taste,” Fletcher read. “That’s got to mean something!”

  “Well if it does we sure as hell aren’t gonna figure it out without the Reverend,” O’Neil decided. He lay back on his roll and stretched his arms out to cradle his head. “Joe’s on first watch. G’night.”

  ***

  Major-general L’Evesque scowled as he surveyed the abandoned mission site. All that remained were a few ramshackle temporary houses and the detritus of a hasty departure.

  “They didn’t take the road, sir,” his watch officer assured him. “Any of the roads. They can’t have got far in the bush.”

  L’Evesque silenced him with a stare. These natives of the Ubangi were used to vanishing into the forest when trouble came. They could travel quickly and efficiently if they were willing to abandon the worst wounded.

  The communications officer tried to offset his commander’s anger. “Major-general, we have radio confirmation from our man in Akula. O’Neil was alone except for one companion who might have been the attorney’s clerk. He had no men, and hired none on the river except a couple of guides.”

  That didn’t improve L’Evesque’s mood. “He was bluffing then. He made a fool of me. Of me!”

  The communications officer had the wit to stand to attention and say nothing.

  The Major-general turned to his assembled forces. Nearly all his ranging mercenaries had returned. Now forty-one men gathered around the mission clearing waiting for instruction.

  “He made a fool of me,” he announced to his troops. Nobody laughed. Nobody dared. “That American, that O’Neil, has a letter that will lead him to a quarter of a million francs of gold ore. The old foreman showed me the shipping manifest before he died. Somewhere out there that lost treasure awaits discovery, and that American seeks to deny it to us.”

  L’Evesque paced round the abandoned cooking hearth. “We are going to find him, and then we are going to find it. I’ll grant an extra share to the man who brings me O’Neil’s hand. Another share for the missionary’s girl.”

  The mercenaries were combat-hardened men who liked profit. That was the sort of thing they liked to hear.

  “I want no survivors to bear tales back to civilization. This is gold that belonged to the Belgian royal family. We don’t want them to send people looking for it. So nobody from the hospital camp survives. Clear?”

  A round of yes sirs and ratcheting of firearms signaled the soldiers’ agreement. Nobody in the Free Brigade lasted long if they objected to spilling civilian blood.

  “Then make ready to march at first light. We’ll send the trucks down the trails to supply us as we quarter the forest. Threescore refugees cannot move without leaving traces. Remember I want the girl alive. The solicitor’s clerk too, if he’s there. I’ll have some questions for him.” L’Evesque dismissed his troops with one last order: “See that O’Neil dies bloody.”

  ***

  O’Neil was already up when Fletcher awoke. The big man was whetting his hip-knife and watching the nurses draw water from a small brook to bathe patients in preparation for the day’s flight.

  Colorful birds chattered a dawn chorus. An orange-purple horizon promised another bright African day. Fletcher rose with a wince; he wasn’t used to sleeping rough and every stone and nut in the forest seemed to have found its way under his bedroll.

  “No snakes, though,” O’Neil pointed out, reading the young clerk’s mind. “They like to creep into beds for the warmth.”

  “Thank you,” Fletcher told him insincerely. “That will certainly help me sleep better next time we bed down on some rock-strewn precipice.”

  “The mambas are the worst,” Komolo Joe joined in. “They grow to twenty, twenty-five feet round here. One bite sends a man screaming and shuddering to his death.”

  “At least then he gets to lie down peacefully,” Fletcher answered with a little smile. The rookie knew he was being teased but he took it with good grace. “To think I used to dream of the romance of Africa! Along with the lions and the gazelles and the giraffes and the monkeys nobody mentioned the ants and the mosquitoes and the snakes and Komolo Joe.”

  The old guide spat a wad of tobacco at a passing rodent and laughed.

  O’Neil saw the clerk’s gaze running over the people in the camp. In part it was because Fletcher was a conscientious man who had taken it upon himself to keep track of the rag-tag collection of refugees he’d accidentally rescued. But that wasn’t all. “She’s down at the stream, talking to Nurse Mary,” O’Neil told the youngster.

  “Ah, right. I mean… she who?”

  O’Neil snorted. “Only one she in your mind right now, kid. And good luck t’ you!”

  The clerk blushed again. “I don’t think… Miss Foster’s not the sort… She’s very…” He caught his breath. “I’m only me!”

  O’Neil counted off on his hand with his hook. “Big hero comes out of nowhere and saves her from the sleazy Frenchman. Chases off a whole bunch of soldiers for her. Evacuates her father’s mission and guides fifty wounded people through dangerous jungle while avoiding murderous villains that hunt ‘em. That’s gotta count for something, Fletcher.”

  “But you did all of those things, O’Neil!”

  The big man nodded. “But think about it, kid. So did you.”

  Fletcher’s eyes widened as he realized how far he’d come.

  “Just go say ‘good morning’ to the girl, willya?” O’Neil ordered him. “Try not to fall in the stream.”

  ***

  The mercenaries made efficient preparation to move on from the abandoned mission hospital. There was one last minute distraction.

  “Sir! A vehicle!” one of the perimeter watchmen called.

  L’Evesque looked where the soldier pointed. Through his field glasses he observed a battered car navigating the rutted road back to the abandoned camp.

  Reverend Foster was returning to his mission.

  “Detain it,” the Major-general ordered.

  It wasn’t a difficult operation. The Reverend and his driver weren’t expecting trouble. The back of the Buick carried the pregnant woman he’d traveled to visit and her family. Those relatives who couldn’t fit inside the vehicle clung on the running boards outside. A spray of machine gun fire cleared a man and two boys from one side and punctured the car’s tires.

  The old clergyman was dragged from the Buick while the other occupants were pushed to the ground at gunpoint.

  “What’s happening?” demanded Foster. “Who are you? Why did you kill these people?”

  L’Evesque slapped the old man across the face. “I ask the questions! Your camp, where will it have gone?”

  Now he’d been dragged into the clearing, Reverend Foster could see that the mission had bugged out. One glance at the uniformed mercenaries told him why. “They could be anywhere by now,” the minister replied. “You’ll never find them.”

  The Major-general hit him again. “Wrong answer.”

  “The best you’ll get from me,” Foster promised him.

  “We shall see. Where is the gold, preacher?”

  The Reverend’s brows furrowed. “What gold? The mission funds are…”

  Another blow. The old man’s lip was split. “Where is the lost Koloneke gold that never made it to Boma all those years ago?” L’Evesque demanded.

  Foster looked at him with incredulity. “Are you insane? That boat was grounded. It sank.”

  The Frenchman leaned in. “But you know where. You and an American woman named Dexter.”

  “No.”

  L’Evesque hit him in the face again, blackening one of the preacher’s eyes. “When she died she sent you a letter about the gold’s location.”

  A new kind of pain crossed Reverend Foster’s bloody face. “Diane Fairfax is dead?” He closed his eyes to blink back tears.

  “Fairfax?” It took L’Evesque a moment to recognize that the padre had known Dexter by her maiden name. “You will tell me now where you left the gold. What happened to it? What did that woman know?”

  “I told all this to the authorities long ago,” Foster protested. “We fled Koloneke as it fell. The barge was heavy with all the ore, even more overloaded with frightened people escaping the Zappo Zaps. As we made our way downriver it became clear that we were dangerously low in the water.”

  “And then?”

  “There were arguments. Jack Fairfax, the foreman, he wanted to throw people overboard who had no reason to be on a company boat. There were fights. Then some of the hands fell to temptation and decided to take the cargo for themselves. They all had guns. There was shooting. I tried to intervene and was struck down…”

  Foster paused, lost in his memory of that gory night so many years ago. Had he ever been that young? He remembered his despair at what men could do to men.

  “Go on,” the Major-general commanded.

  “While I was stunned the boat went out of control. It ran aground on a mud flat somewhere, then shipped water. It sank—slowly but surely—down into the silt. Jack Fairfax was dead by then. Most of the crew and passengers were dead. Diane Fairfax, the foreman’s daughter, she dragged me to land and saved my life.”

  Foster rubbed his face and was surprised when his hand came away bloody. “Diane saved me. But we weren’t safe. We’d not traveled far from Koloneke, only a few miles downriver. The Songye warriors were ranging all along that shore, plundering and killing because King Leopold’s rule was broken. The others from the boat who’d survived the firefight grabbed what they could and fled into the jungle. None of them made it out again.”

  “But you did,” L’Evesque concluded. “You marked the spot where the barge had foundered, you and the foreman’s girl. It made you rich.”

  Foster shook his head. “I think Fairfax had been skimming profit from the mine for a long time. He was carrying notes and diamonds that turned out to be worth thousands. Diane retrieved her father’s stash from his body. Later she gave me a share of it to found my mission. We fled the Zappo Zaps and hid in the forest. We lost the Songye but we lost ourselves too. We survived on bush meat for six weeks trying to find our way out.”

  “But between you and the foreman’s daughter you could find the gold again,” L’Evesque asserted.

  “Of course not. It was night. It was chaos. I wasn’t even conscious when the barge went down. There are countless minor waterways along that stretch of the Congo between Koloneke and Boma. Do you think if the sunken ore could be found it would not have been raised by now?”

  L’Evesque leaned in close to the clergyman. “You will tell me where the gold is, old man.”

  “I don’t know.”

  The Major-general’s face darkened. He rose suddenly. “Bring him!” he ordered his men.

  The old missionary was dragged after the commander to the place where the family from the hills was wailing on the ground, mourning their dead who’d been gunned down when the car was stopped. Foster’s wounded driver was with them.

  L’Evesque pushed his Luger barrel hard up to the pregnant woman’s swollen belly and glared at the clergyman. “Mrs. Dexter sent you a letter, her last action with her last breath. It revealed the location of that gold the two of you knew about, Reverend Foster. You will reveal all you know about it or I will shoot this bitch.”

  Any opposition the victim’s family might have made was ruthlessly ended when L’Evesque’s soldiers clubbed them down and stood over them. The pregnant woman whimpered.

  “Choose your reply well, priest,” the Major-general warned.

  ***

  Armless O’Neil was used to trekking through the lush African forest. He’d never had to do it taking an entire mission of invalids with him.

  The going was slow. Eighteen of the fifty-one refugees were too ill to walk and had to be borne on stretcher pallets by their kin or by volunteers. A lot of the others were elderly. Three were babes in arms. Everybody had to carry their own meager possessions in addition to what food and medical supplies Sophie had been able to salvage during the quick evacuation.

  O’Neil consulted with Komolo Joe and the formidable head nurse Mary Brown and decided that the best route would take the hospital south-west towards the Congo delta. The journey was downhill and there was some chance of getting help from one of the tiny settlements that dotted the verdant valleys. Joe and the boy they’d rescued from L’Evesque scouted ahead to find the best going for the straggling ribbon of escapees.

  O’Neil himself preferred the rearguard. That way he could make sure none of the tired, wounded people strayed too far behind the main mass and could watch for trouble in the form of wild animals or the mercenary searchers. He gritted his teeth at the maddeningly slow pace that the column necessarily had to take and stayed alert to every movement in the bush.

  Sophie Foster encouraged the weakest and the slowest, moving to each knot of travelers in turn, offering words of support and sometimes a helping hand. All the mission refugees knew her, of course, and in her father’s absence they looked to her for leadership. Despite her youth and her own obvious exhaustion she accepted the challenge.

  But it was Daniel Fletcher who surprised O’Neil most. The young clerk rose to the occasion. Fletcher’s keen eye for detail ensured that fresh water was found, that nobody went astray, that everything was packed and carried. By the end of the second day’s travel it was his organizational planning that set the pace of the journey, that saw supplies distributed, that ensured each patient had what was required. Out of his element, exhausted and dirty in an unfamiliar environment, the young man never complained and never stopped working.

  By that second evening of the escape the refugees had lost one stretcher case to fever but a baby girl born in the early hours had restored their number.

  Fletcher dropped down at last by the banked-down fire at their night camp with a grateful gasp. “You know, I really regret that we didn’t have time to save the coffee when we moved out,” he admitted.

  Sophie—who he’d happened to plunk down beside—allowed herself a small chuckle.

  “According to Joe we’re about three days off the river,” O’Neil reported. “There’s villages down there that can take in the worst wounded. The others can just melt into the forest there without the danger of being hunted down by L’Evesque’s soldiers.”

  “You really think we can manage three more days of this?” Sophie asked worriedly.

  “We have to,” Fletcher said. “We have supplies for that long, medicine for longer. The goats from your camp can keep the children fed. We just have to find safe places to hide people.”

  “We’ll hit the Congo somewhere between Lusengo and Makanza,” O’Neil predicted. “Not that far from Koloneke where this whole mess started.” He rubbed his stubbly chin and wondered how he’d ended up responsible for a whole mission-full of invalids. “After that I figure we park folks where they can be cared for and get Miss Foster here back to Léopoldville and into the care of the American embassy. That way she’ll be safe while we try and find her pa.”

  Sophie was about to object, but Foster chimed in to support O’Neil. “If those mercenaries caught you then they could force your father to tell them anything. And they would be… unkind to you. The best way to thwart them is to keep you safe.”

  “But none of this makes sense,” the missionary’s daughter objected. “Why come after father with soldiers just for a monkey stew recipe?”

  “I’ve been thinking more about that,” Foster admitted. “What if the code was around the numbers and letters? So ‘2 tsps of fine chopped Onion’ means take the second letter of ‘Onion’ – N – and so on. That would get us…” he stopped to calculate, “…NAARAE…” The clerk trailed off, embarrassed.

  Sophie laughed at him; but her eyes twinkled. “Keep up the good work, Sherlock. I think maybe you should…”

  She fell silent as the guide boy rushed up to O’Neil. “Soldiers,” he whispered urgently to the big man. “Joe says come.”

  O’Neil gestured to Foster and Sophie to stay put. “Keep the camp quiet.” He checked his holstered pistol and hip-knife then shouldered his rifle and followed the boy.