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DAY 5: MORUTI

June 17,1979

1Zaire

FIVE HOURS OUT OF RAWAMAGENA, THE LANDSCAPE changed Once past Go over the easterno rain forest Elliot stared out the , fascinated

Here and there in the palelike cotton to the canopy of trees And occasionally they passed the dark snaking curve of a ash of a road But for the most part they looked down upon an unbroken expanse of dense forest, extending away into the distance as far as the eye could see

The vieas boring, and si to be confronted by what Stanley had called "the indifferent immensity of the natural world" As one sat in the air-conditioned conize that this vast, iant creation of nature, utterly dwarfing in scale the greatest cities or other creations of reen puff of a tree had a trunk forty feet in dia two hundred feet into the air; a space the size of a Gothic cathedral was concealed beneath its billowing foliage And Elliot knew that the forest extended to the west for nearly two thousand miles, until it finally stopped at the Atlantic Ocean, on the west coast of Zaire

Elliot had been anticipating Ale, her natural environned Here jungle with the same emotional neutrality that she named color cards, or objects spread out on her trailer floor in San Francisco She was identifying the jungle, giving a nanition

Elliot said to her, "Ale is

He persisted, probing for the ele?

Jungle here Jungle is Jungle place here Ale here

He tried another approach "Ale here?"

No Expressionless

"Where A to her trailer in San Francisco

Elliot watched her loosen her seat belt, cup her chin on her hand as she stared lazily out theShe signed, A

"Later, A, they flew over the shi coa, and the other porters went to the back of the plane, where they worked on the equipo, signed, They worried

"Worried about what, Amy?"

They worried men worry they worried problems After a while, Elliot moved to the rear of the plane to find Munro&039;sequip torpedo-shapedstraw around the supplies Elliot pointed to the muslin torpedoes "What are these?"

"They&039;re called Crosslin containers," Munro said "Very reliable"

"I&039;ve never seen equip theour supplies very carefully"

"That&039;s the idea," Munro said And he moved up the aircraft to the cockpit, to confer with the pilot

Aned, Nosehair man lie Peter "Nosehair nored her He turned to Kahega "How far to the airfield?"

Kahega glanced up "Airfield?"

"At Mukenko"

Kahega paused, thinking it over "Two hours," he said And then he giggled He said sohed, too

"What&039;s funny?" Elliot said

"Oh, Doctor," Kahega said, slapping him on the back "You are hu a sloide circle in the air Kahega and his brothers peered out the s, and Elliot joined thereen jeeps,down a muddy track far below It looked like a uru" repeated several tiuru?"

Kahega shook his head vigorously "No hell This damn pilot, I warn Captain Munro, this damn pilot lost"

"Lost?" Elliot repeated Even the as chilling

Kahega laughed "Captain Munro set hiive hile toward a wooded highland area, rolling hills and stands of deciduous trees Kahega&039;s brothers chattered excitedly, and laughed and slapped one another; they see quickly down the aisle, her face tense She unpacked cardboard boxes, withdrawing several basketball-sized spheres of tightly wrapped metal foil

The foil reminded him of Christmas-tree tinsel "What&039;s that for?" Elliot asked

And then he heard the first explosion, and the Fokker shuddered in the air

Running to the , he saw a straight thin white vapor trail terht The Fokker was banking, tilting toward the jungle As he watched, a second trail streaked up toward thereen forest below

It was a uided missile

"Ross!" Munro shouted

"Ready!" Ross shouted back

There was a bursting red explosion, and his view through the as obscured by dense smoke, The airplane shook with the blast, but continued the turn Elliot couldn&039;t believe it: so missiles at theathered up the silver basketballs in her ar the rear door, the hipping through the co?" Elliot said

"Don&039;t worry," Ross said over her shoulder "We&039;ll make up the time" There was a loud whoosh, followed by a third explosion With the airplane still banked steeply, Ross tore the wrappings froines roaring, the Fokker swung eight miles to the south and climbed to twelve thousand feet, then circled the forest in a holding pattern With each revolution, Elliot could see the foil strips hanging in the air like a glinting metallic cloud Two more rockets exploded within the cloud Even from a distance, the noise and the shock waves disturbed A softly

"That&039;s chaff," Ross explained, sitting in front of her portable co keys "It confuses radar weapons systeuided SAMs read us as somewhere in the cloud"

Elliot heard her words slowly, as if in a drea at us?"

"Probably the FZA," Munro said "Forces Zairoises Ar?moises - the Zaire army"

"The Zaire ar buttons, not looking up

"Asurface-to-air missiles at us and it&039;s a mistake? Don&039;t you think you&039;d better call them and tell them it&039;s a mistake?"

"Can&039;t," Ross said

"Why not?"

"Because," Munro said, "we didn&039;t want to file a flight plan in Rawaena That means we are technically in violation of Zaire airspace"

"Jesus Christ," Elliot said

Ross said nothing She continued to work at the coet the static to resolve on the screen, pressing one key after another

"When I agreed to join this expedition," Elliot said, beginning to shout, "I didn&039;t expect to get into a shooting war"

"Neither did I," Ross said "It looks as if we both got ained for"

Before Elliot could reply, Munro put an ar to be all right," he told Elliot "They&039;re outdated sixties SAMs andup because the solid propellant&039;s cracked with age We&039;re in no danger Just look after Amy, she needs your help now Let me ith Ross"

Ross was under intense pressure With the airplane circling eight miles from the chaff cloud, she had to make a decision quickly But she had just been dealt a devastating - and wholly unexpected - setback

The Euro-Japanese consortium had been ahead of thehteen hours and twenty round in Nairobi, Munro had worked out a plan with Ross which would erase that difference and put the ERTS expedition on-site forty hours ahead of the consortium team This plan - which for obvious reasons she had not told Elliot - called for them to parachute onto the barren southern slopes of Mount Mukenko

From Mukenko, Munro estimated it was thirty-six hours to the ruined city; Ross expected to ju on cloud cover over Mukenko and the specific drop zone, they ht reach the city as early as noon on June 19

The plan was extre untrained personnel into a wilderness area, e town If anyone suffered a serious injury, the chances of survival were slight There was also a question about the equipment: at altitudes of 8,000 - 10,000 feet on the volcanic slopes, air resistance was reduced, and the Crosslin packets h protection

Initially Ross had rejected Munro&039;s plan as too risky, but he convinced her it was feasible He pointed out that the parafoils were equipped with automated altimeter-release devices; that the upper volcanic scree was as yielding as a sandy beach; that the Crosslin containers could be over-packed; and that he could carry Amy down himself

Ross had double-checked outcome probabilities from the Houston computer, and the results were unequivocal The probability of a successful ju there was one chance in five that soiven a successful ju it virtually certain they would beat the consortiuh She had looked at the data and said, "I guess we jump"

"I think we do," Munro had said

The jueopolitical updates were increasingly unfavorable The Kigani were now in full rebellion; the pygmies were unstable; the Zaire army had sent arani - and African field ar onto Mukenko, they expected to bypass all these hazards

But that was before the Zaire arhty ani territory, wasting ti plan, so carefully worked out and confirmed by computer, was suddenly irrelevant

And to add to her difficulties, she could not confer with Houston; the computer refused to link up by satellite She spent fifteenpower and switching scrambler codes, until she finally realized that her trans electronically jammed

For the first time in her memory, Karen Ross wanted to cry

"Easy now," Munro said quietly, lifting her hand away fro upset" Ross had been pressing the keys over and over again, unaware of what she was doing

Munro was conscious of the deteriorating situation with both Elliot and Ross He had seen it happen on expeditions before, particularly when scientists and technical people were involved Scientists worked all day in laboratories where conditions could be rigorously regulated and monitored Sooner or later, scientists came to believe that the outside world was just as controllable as their laboratories Even though they knew better, the shock of discovering that the natural world followed its own rules and was indifferent to thens

"But this," Ross said, "is obviously a non-military aircraft, how can they do it?"

Munro stared at her In the Congolese civil war, civilian aircraft had been routinely shot down by all sides "These things happen," he said

"And the jaot the capability to ja jammed between our transmitter and our satellite transponder To do that requires another satellite so

"You didn&039;t expect the consortium to Sit by idly," Munro said "The question is, can you fix it? Have you got counterot countermeasures," Ross said "I can encode a burst bounce, I can transround-base cable - but there&039;s nothing I can put together in the next few minutes, and we need infor at a time," Munro repeated quietly He saw the tension in her features, and he knew she was not thinking clearly He also knew he could not do her thinking for her; he had to get her calment, the ERTS expedition was already finished - they could not possibly beat the consortiu; he had led expeditions long enough to know that anything could happen, so he said, "We can still make up the lost ti that caora north Very fast river, no probleerous"

"We&039;ll have to see," Munro said, although he knew that she was right The Ragora was erous, particularly in June Yet he kept his voice cal "Shall I tell the others?" he asked finally

"Yes," Ross said In the distance, they heard another rocket explosion "Let&039;s get out of here"

Munro a, "Prepare the a said A bottle of whiskey was passed around, and each of thes

Elliot said, "What the hell is this?"

"Theprepared," Munro said

"Prepared for what?" Elliot asked

At that rim "From here on, we&039;ll continue on foot," she said

Elliot looked out the"Where&039;s the airfield?"

"There is no airfield," Ross said

"What do youto put down in the fields?" Elliot asked

"No," Ross said "The plane is not going to put down at all"

"Then hoe get down?" Elliot asked, but even as he asked the question, his stomach sank, because he knew the answer

"A Elliot&039;s straps tightly around his chest "I gave her a shot of your Thoralen tranquilizer, and she&039;ll be quite calrip on her"

"Keep a good grip on her?" Elliot asked

"She&039;s too small to fit a harness," Munro said "I&039;ll have to carry her down" Amy snored loudly, and drooled on Munro&039;s shoulder He set A

"Now, then," Munro said "Your parafoil opens automatically You&039;ll find you have lines in both hands, left and right Pull left to go left, right to go right, and - "

"What happens to her?" Elliot asked, pointing to Aoes wrong, your reserve chute is here, on your chest" He tapped a cloth bundle with a sital box, which read 4757 "That&039;s your rate-of-fall altimeter Automatically pops your reserve chute if you hit thirty-six hundred feet and are still falling faster than two feet per second Nothing to worry about; whole thing&039;s automatic"

Elliot was chilled, drenched in sweat "What about landing?"

"Nothing to it," Munro grinned "You&039;ll land autos Equivalent of jue You&039;ve done it a thousand tilac?ing into the plane The hipped and howled Kahega&039;s lanced at Ross, as ashen, her lower lip treoing to go along with - "

She juht Munro said, "You&039;re next"

"I&039;ve never jumped before," Elliot said

"That&039;s the best way You won&039;t be frightened"

"But I ahtened"

"I can help you with that," Munro said, and he pushed Elliot out of the plane

Munro watched hione Munro had adopted his hearty demeanor only for Elliot&039;s benefit "If a erous," he said later, &039;it helps to be angry It&039;s for his own protection, really Better he should hate someone than fall apart I wanted Elliot to hate me all the way down"

Munro understood the risks, The minute they left the aircraft, they also left civilization, and all the unquestioned assuh the air, but through tierous way of life - the eternal realities of the Congo, which had existed for centuries before them "Those were the facts of life," Munro said, "but I didn&039;t see any reason to worry the others before they juo, not scare them to death There was plenty of time for that"

Elliot fell, scared to death

His stomach jumped into his throat, and he tasted bile; the wind screaed at his hair; and the air was so cold - he was instantly chilled and shivering Below hi hills He felt no appreciation for the beauty before hi at hideous speed toward the ground But with his eyes shut he waswind