Chapter 3

Near Balika, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

He woke from a fevered sleep gradually. His head hurt as he looked around. There was a bandage of sorts on his head and another holding his left arm to his chest. The room had walls and a roof of sheet tin, with a floor of dried grass. Nothing was familiar.

“Хто я?” [“Who am I?”] he mumbled in Ukrainian to the black woman at the periphery of his vision.

The woman shook her head and brought a canteen of water to his lips. She laid a restraining hand on his chest. He laid back on a mat of reeds. It was too much trouble for him to think. And thinking hurt. He closed his eyes, the world swam in a confusing swirl. He went back to sleep.

She poured some water into a cloth, and wiped his face with it. At least the fever had broken.

The scar in the jungle caused by his single engine aircraft’s crash was already partially grown over.