The American Mission by Matthew Palmer Page A

that integrated breath control with low-frequency vocalizations. It was almost a humming sound, and Alex hoped that the rotor noise would mask it from his colleagues. The breathing exercises helped. His pulse rate dropped slightly, and the surging sense of panic began to recede somewhat. Just in case, he patted his pocket to make sure that the plastic bottle of Zoloft was still there. That was his insurance policy.
    As Alex climbed through the narrow hatch into the Mi-8, his chest tightened and it became harder to concentrate on the
pranayama
. It felt as though there was not enough oxygen in the aircraft’s cramped interior.
    The Mi-8 was primarily a cargo carrier, and seating was limited to a bench made of canvas-strapped aluminum tubing welded to the hull. Alex took a seat and buckled up the restraints. He concentrated on his breathing and struggled to maintain an outward appearance of equanimity. Jonah Keeler leaned over in his direction and said something that Alex did not catch. He nodded in agreement, hoping that the StationChief would leave it at that. It was evidently an adequate response, as Jonah turned to his other side to talk to one of the UNSAF officers traveling with them.
    The rotor volume increased, and the aircraft shuddered slightly as it lost contact with the ground. As they rose up, Alex looked out of one of the small portholes at the ground below. Rather than verdant jungle, his mind’s eye saw a blood red desert and Janjaweed
horsemen riding with leveled lances. He knew it wasn’t real, but the image below him was so powerful and haunting that he pulled up hard against the restraints. The webbing dug into his shoulders.
    He looked away from the window and bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. The pain helped to beat back the vision of the past. Without conscious thought, he reached for the bottle of Xanax in his pocket, grasping the top lightly with two fingers. The flight would be so much easier if he was mildly sedated. The side effects of the drug included irritability, memory problems, and drowsiness. None of these were particularly attractive attributes to acquire in advance of negotiations with a homicidal sociopath. Instead, he took a picture of Anah out of his shirt pocket. It was her most recent school picture, and she was sitting in front of a plain blue background smiling at the camera.
    Alex held his daughter’s picture in the palm of his hand, stealing occasional glances at it throughout the eighty-minute flight. But it was not until he was back on solid ground at the UN peacekeepers’ advance base on the shores of the Aruwimi River that he felt fully in control.
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    T he normally sleepy outpost was bustling. The UN soldiers had already exchanged their sky blue berets for jungle-pattern Kevlar helmets. The young Pakistani conscripts who had arrived in the Congo as peacekeepers had been told to prepare for war.
    This was as close to the rendezvous point as they could get by air. Manamakimba had been clear that he would shoot at any helicoptersapproaching his camp. According to the CIA assessment, the guerillas had collected just enough shoulder-fired missiles to make the threat credible.
    There was only one road upriver, and it was about an eight-hour drive from the UN camp to the bend that Manamakimba had identified as the meeting place. The peacekeepers-turned-warriors would give the negotiators a two-hour head start and a total of six hours from first contact in which to make a deal. At zero hour, and assuming as nearly everyone did that the negotiations would fail, the Pakistanis would assault the camp in strength and, at least according to the plan, secure the freedom of both the hostages and the negotiators.
    The negotiating team traveled in a convoy of five lightly armored Toyota Land Cruisers. The UN’s fully armored Humvees were significantly heavier and tended to sink up to their axles in river