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chapter 11
Beyard righted himself, then stared at her for a moment.
“Hello, Essa,” he said finally, the words rolling off his tongue in a rich, thick mixture of accents.
The initial shock that had registered on his face faded, and all that replaced it was nonchalance.
He walked toward the kitchen without another look and said, “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Yes, please,” she called out after him. “Water will be fine.”
Cupboard doors banged. “I must say”— his voice was raised but muted by the distance— “when my boys told me I had a visitor, you were the last person I expected.”
He walked back into the living room. “I’m surprised to see you here. Not just here, you know, although yes, it is even more unexpected, but to see you at all…”
He paused and motioned around the room. “In the same room with me, or even in this country.”
He handed her the glass. “It’s tepid. The idiots who work for me let the generator run out of fuel.”
She raised her glass toward him and took a drink. They both sat in silence,
he facing her, his forearms on his knees, she with her legs stretched over the edge of the chair.
He rolled his glass between his palms. She watched him, studied him.
He was more muscular, his hair no longer sun-bleached blond, his tan not as deep,
but he was still weather-beaten, his chiseled features emphasized by the lines that only extended outdoor exposure could bring. His eyes were still strikingly blue.
He was the first to break the silence. “How did you find me?”
“I was in Kribi a few days ago and spoke with Boniface. He mentioned you’d set up shop in this general direction. I knew what I was looking for.”
He leaned back and with a half smile said, “Atavistic in the end,” and then, after a long pause, “So you asked about me?”
“Yes, I did.” She waited, unsure of which direction to take the conversation, and then said, “How’s business?”
His face still wore the half smile, and as he watched her, she knew that his mind had kicked into analysis mode.
“You didn’t travel halfway around the world from wherever it is you came from to ask me about business, just as you didn’t meet with Akambe to find out where I was.”
“No,” she replied, meeting his gaze and then shifting to look around the room. “I’m making small talk.
“Other business brought me to Boniface, and I asked about you because I wanted to know how you were. I hadn’t intended to drop in at your hideaway.”
“But here you are.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, “here I am. Unfortunately, it’s that same ‘other business’ that has brought me here.
“I need a ride off the island, and I’m willing to pay you well for it. I’d also like to hire your expertise.”
He said nothing, and his eyes wandered to the grimy piece of cloth still wrapped around her arm. Then he stood. “Have you eaten?” he asked.
She cocked her head to the side to look up at him and remained seated and silent.
“Whatever it is you want,” he said, bending toward her and lowering his voice to almost a whisper, “can be better discussed on a full stomach. Come.”
She followed him into the austere kitchen, and he lit the burner under a pot that sat on the stove.
Against one wall was a tiled counter that ended in a metal sink. Handmade cupboards had been built into the far-right wall.
The stove and refrigerator sat side by side on the left wall, fitting together only because they were both so small.
The stove was divided in two, half of it running off propane and the other half on electricity.
A screened window over the counter looked out into the yard.
Against the coming darkness, he closed the shutters from the inside, the slanted wooden slats allowing air to continue to circulate.
A small table and two handmade chairs stood against the remaining wall.
Like the living room, the kitchen was sparse and clean. He pulled a place setting out of the cupboard.
“Don’t ask what it is,” he said as he served her from the simmering pot, “it won’t kill you.”
Forest rat, monkey meat, it made no difference— whatever it was, she’d had worse.
He sat across from her and watched as she ate, and when she finished, he took the plate from the table and placed it in the sink.
“How long since you’ve eaten?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Dinner sometime yesterday.”
He nodded toward her arm. “What happened?”
“Drugged, beaten, and shot.
“I would have been dumped into the ocean except I jumped first— I’m supposed to be dead.”
He propped himself against the sink, arms crossed at his chest, legs crossed at the ankles, staring at her in silence with the slightest semblance of a smile.
He shook his head almost imperceptibly and then went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of beer.
He handed one to her, knelt beside her, and took her left arm in his hands.
He lifted the bloodstained material away from the wound and pressed lightly around the edge of it, and she winced.
He put his hand to her forehead. “You’re burning,” he said.
“I know.”
“The bullet needs to be removed. I’ve got a bottle of Black Label somewhere in the house. You might want it.”
She gave him back the unopened beer. He returned to the kitchen with the whiskey and pulled a shot glass from the cupboard, then handed both to her.
“How long has it been since I saw you last?” he asked. “Ten years?”
“Nine.”
“Nine years. It’s a long time. You look good, by the way.”
“So do you.”
He set a pot of water on the stove and then left the kitchen again, returning a few minutes later with a small metal kit that brought with it another wave of memories.
He dropped a few items into the boiling water. After several minutes he withdrew from the pot a pointed precision blade that looked like a scalpel.
“It’s been a long time,” he said, and he laid it on a cloth on the table in front of her, together with several other items. “Do you trust me?”
She dumped a shot of the whiskey into her mouth and swallowed. “I always have, Francisco.”
He removed the wrapping from her arm. “Misplaced trust can be a dangerous thing.”
She downed a second shot and then a third. “Was that a warning?”
He shrugged. “A lot of time has gone by, Essa. You’ve changed. I’ve changed.”
The bullet had hit when she was still upside down and had entered underneath the arm and traveled in the direction of the elbow.
The alcohol took the edge off as Beyard sliced into the muscle but didn’t do much when he removed the bullet.
She wanted to scream, wanted to hit him, resisted both.
Beyard extracted the bullet from its resting spot and held it up to the light, examining it before placing it on the towel before her.
“A souvenir, perhaps,” he said. She downed another shot as he irrigated the wound with hydrogen peroxide.
“You’re lucky, you know.” He pushed a needle into her, threading the first stitch through the open wound.
She clenched her teeth. “How’s that?”
“That you found me here.” His face held a look of concentration, and another bolt of pain went up her neck.
“I’m not here that often. Tonight I dropped off a load of supplies and planned to head out for the next month— wasn’t even planning to stay the night. What would you have done if you hadn’t found me?”
“Dunno,” she said, and her voice shook as he pushed in the needle for another stitch.
“Probably wait as long as I could, use a mirror to do what you’re doing now, eat through your supplies, write an IOU, and then do the long-walk thing back to Malabo.”
Beyard laughed an involuntary laugh, and she flinched as his hand moved. “I guess at the core you haven’t changed much.”
“Have you?”
His face grew serious, and he drew the last stitch.
“As long as there’s no infection, you should be fine,” he said. “You might have to baby it for a while, I had to cut pretty deep.”
By the time he finished, she’d downed nearly three-quarters of the bottle.
Drunk and exhausted, she made no protestation when he undressed her and put her in his bed.
He left the room, and she collapsed into a grateful fog of forgetfulness.
When she woke, it was dark, and even with her eyes closed the bed floated in soft circles.
She was aware of time having passed; in spite of the dark, it had to be at least afternoon.
On a low-lying table on the other side of the mosquito netting, she found four half-liter water bottles.
She took one and drank from it, dampening the fuzzy dryness that coated her mouth and then, in spite of the spinning room, pulled herself up out of bed.
She fumbled in an attempt to open the shutters and let in some light, realized that a blanket had been nailed up over them, and couldn’t remember if it had been there last night.
But for her panties, she was naked.
She searched for her clothes and instead found a freshly laundered pair of Francisco’s pants draped over a chair with her security belt lying on top of them and a shirt hanging off a nail on the wall behind them.
Off to the right of the chair was the bathroom, a bare rectangular room with a concrete floor that slanted toward the northwest corner and ended in a metal drain cover.
To the right of the drain was an eighty-liter bucket filled with water.
Using a scoop, she bathed with the cold water, taking care to avoid the wound on her arm.
She found Francisco in the kitchen. He was silent as he busied himself,
and when he saw her in the doorway shielding her eyes from the day’s brightness, he stopped and closed the shutters.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “I was just getting ready to check in on you.”
“Thank you for the clothes,” she said. “And for your bed.” She took a seat at the small table and put her head in her hands.
“How’s your arm?” He set a mug of coffee and two white pills in front of her, took her arm and rolled up the sleeve, examining the makeshift bandaging.
“It doesn’t hurt as bad as my head.”
He pressed lightly on the wound and then lowered the sleeve and placed her arm back on the table.
“Paracetamol is the best I can do,” he said. “I’ll change the bandages when you feel better.”
“Thanks,” she said, and swallowed the pills with a sip of the black coffee.
He transferred the food onto a plate and set it on the table. “If you’re hungry,” he said, and then he left the kitchen.
Food was the last thing she wanted, but it was necessary.
She toyed with the fork as she listened to him knocking about in the bedroom, and she’d managed to finish about half the plate when he returned to the kitchen.
Beyard pulled the second chair out from the table, turned it around, and sat down, resting his arms on the back of it.
“I didn’t sleep much last night,” he said. He jabbed an index finger toward his forehead and twisted it. “Too many questions and a lot of memories.”
Munroe started to speak, and he held up his hand, “There will be time, I hope, to answer the questions and lay the memories to rest.
“Last night you said you wanted to pay me to take you off the island. I want to hear more about this— regardless of what my answer may have been, perhaps I now have little choice.
“I need to know, Vanessa: Who wants you dead and does whoever it is know you are here?”
She was quiet for a moment, and finally she said, “I don’t know.”
He sat in silence, watching her, and she knew he would not speak until she had answered fully.
“I have ideas,” she said. “I know why and have a vague notion of who gave the order.
“I wasn’t followed here, but of course in spite of my precautions there is the possibility that when the boatman returns home, he will talk, and talk will travel, and eventually it will get back to Malabo.”
“And this … what did you say? Notion. This notion of yours?”
“I’ve been hired to locate a girl who went missing four years ago, and so far the information I have points to the Mongomo crossing into Gabon.
“There were two of us. My assignment was to find the girl, my partner’s assignment was to keep me out of trouble— not that it did much good.
“I have no idea what’s happened to him.” She stopped and took another slow sip of coffee.
“We were followed from the airport and watched closely when we went about town.”
“You were in Malabo asking questions?”
“Yes.”
“Brilliant.” There was no attempt to hide the sarcasm.
“It gets better,” she said. He raised his eyebrows. With an effort she reached around and pulled the belt from under her pants.
Her body was stiff and painful. She opened the Ziploc bag, removed Emily’s death certificate, and handed it to him.
He took it and, while his eyes scanned the paper, said, “You say she disappeared in Mongomo?”
“I believe it was in that area. I can’t be certain until I’ve gone there to prove it one way or the other.”
“And you got this paper in Malabo?”
“Yes, from the chief of police.
“He called in one of his people and had this delivered to me, then afterward suggested I return home.”
“A veiled threat.”
“Not so veiled.”
Beyard stared at the paper and read it through a second time.
His brows were furrowed. “What’s in this for you?”
“A lot of money,” she said.
Beyard sat back from the table. “It’s not the way they do things here.
“Hauling you into the police station for questioning, yes. Torture, yes. Death from beating and starvation at the Black Beach Prison, yes.
“But to put you in a boat and dump you into the ocean, I’ve never heard of it. Who were the men that did this?”
“I’m not sure. They wore civilian clothing and spoke a language I haven’t heard before.”
“The presidential guard?”
“I speak Arabic.”
“Angolans?”
“Perhaps. They were packing Makarovs, not that it narrows the playing field by much.”
He stared again at the death certificate, then placed it in the bag and handed it back to her. “And you say they had this waiting for you?”
“More or less, yes.”
Deep lines remained creased across his forehead.
“I am certain that what happened to me was a result of searching for this girl.”
“So stop searching,” he said. “It would be the easiest way to stay alive.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
A damn good question: Why not? She looked straight at him and simply said, “I just can’t.”
He let out a quick snort. “Maybe there will be time later to argue semantics.” He stood.
“When word reaches the capital, they’ll be headed this way, and it won’t take them long to begin looking for me.
“My ship is a kilometer or so up the coast. We’ll leave at dusk.”
He turned and stared at her and then squatted so that his eyes were level with hers.
“If it had been anyone else, Vanessa, I would have turned them over to the authorities myself and stayed to watch the execution.
“I lost you once. I have too many unanswered questions to let it happen again— at least so soon.”
“I’m prepared to pay you well.”
He shook his head slowly and gave her that same half smile.
“And how do you propose to do that, when it is because you have no money and nothing of value to barter that you come to me?”
“I had planned to come see you when the job was over, Francisco. Not to ask for your help but simply to see you.
“This,” she said, pointing to herself and then to the room around her, “was, as you say, a last resort.
“It’s true I’m stranded at the moment, but it doesn’t mean I’m without resources— they’re just not here on the island.”
She paused and then asked, “Do you have a satphone?”
“I have one on my ship.”
“How much do you want, Francisco? Name your price.”
“I want nothing,” he said. “I’ll do what I can for you, Essa, because it’s you, and only that.”
She had begun to stand and then stopped. Beyard was no altruist.
He was a cutthroat, and there was always payback; he wanted something and would demand it eventually.
“When this is over,” she said, “you’ll have the option of living your dream and leaving the continent.”
“Perhaps,” he said, and then, “Go sleep off the hangover. You’ll need your strength come evening.”
She returned to the bedroom, because compliance with Beyard’s requests would be the easiest way to get what she wanted,
but she didn’t sleep, didn’t even make the attempt.
Her head was still fuzzy, and though it was difficult to focus on processing the pieces of information that made up the puzzle of the past week,
her mind replayed endless loops of conversations and events and cogitated over Miles Bradford and what had happened to him.
FRANCISCO CAME WHILE it was still light. He carried a backpack and handed her a smaller one. “Can you carry it?” he asked.
“What’s in it?”
“Just a few things I don’t want the bastards to get their hands on when they loot the place.”
The trek to the ship took them away from the coast via a faint path that wound steeply upward.
Heading into the lush volcanic jungle, the trail skirted whatever habitations dotted the coastline and snaked around behind them.
Francisco broke the path ahead, and the outline of his body, the smell of the wet earth, the pack on her back, and the sucking sound of footsteps in the silence were all a flashback in living color that brought with it the long-unfamiliar sensation of home.
The path curved down to the coast almost as quickly as it ascended, and near the waterline Beyard uncovered a hidden dinghy.
They shoved the small boat forward and climbed inside. The trawler sat in deep water off the coast, and they boarded from a ladder off the side.
By the time Beyard hoisted the dinghy and brought it over the deck, the sun had set and darkness covered the water.
The ship was larger than his last. As with his previous vessel, Munroe knew that the rusted and nondescript exterior was a well-disguised shell for a state-of-the-art home on the water.
Beyard led her from the deck to the living quarters below. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Impressive.”
“It’s a former Ukrainian fishing trawler, originally built for a crew of fifteen. Doesn’t look anything like what it used to.”
“I can imagine,” she said. She walked from room to room, peering inside each one.
They were small and compact, every space taken advantage of, and some had signs of having been recently occupied.
“Where’s your team?”
“Around.”
“On the ship?”
He shook his head. “We will rendezvous.
“With all the oil-related movement going on in Equatorial Guinea, it’s been more difficult to work. But there are ways. And other businesses.”
“You don’t worry about leaving your ship unattended while you’re ashore?”
“I don’t often do it,” he said. “I usually take a fast boat to the island and leave the trawler with my crew, but no, I don’t worry.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere— who’s going to mess with it?
“The local fishermen know to leave well enough alone, and if someone who knew what he was doing did find their way onboard… well, you know how it goes— I’ve got it covered.”
He stopped and opened a door to a small cabin, reached in, and turned on the light. “This one’s yours.”
“Where will you be?” she asked.
“Down the hall or up in the pilothouse.”
He jabbed his thumb in both directions. “The phone is also in the pilothouse. I’ll take you there once you’re settled.”
She stepped inside the cabin to look around, and the door shut behind her.
Only when she reached to reopen it did she realize that there was no handle and no way to get out.
MILES BRADFORD STOPPED and turned in a slow, dazed circle, taking in the chaos of the living room, where books and glass shards littered the floor.
The coffee table was overturned. There was a crack in the mirror over the mantel
and a hole next to the entertainment center where he’d put his fist through the drywall.
He stared at his hand and wiped at blood that trickled from two of his knuckles.
The situation felt better now that he’d destroyed something.
There were no words for this. So much work down the goddamn drain.
He’d played out any number of scenarios in his head along the way to finding Emily, but losing track of Munroe wasn’t one of them.
He’d seethed during the entire trip back to the United States, rage pressing against cracks in his resolve, looking for an escape valve, until it finally exploded in the seclusion of his home.
Bradford kicked again at the sofa, then stopped and shook out his arms and shoulders. Enough.
He glanced again at the surrounding mess, sighed, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed.
It had been a long while since he’d last had to call in the housekeeper to clean up after an outburst.
She in turn would telephone her husband, and together they would put the place back in order, patch up the wall,
and by the time he returned tonight, only the smell of fresh paint would be left as testament to the lapse in exercised calm.
Bradford stepped over a lamp and checked his watch. An hour to catch the flight to Houston.
BRADFORD STROLLED THROUGH the hushed corridors of Titan’s headquarters.
The corporate staff either ignored him or pretended not to see him,
and a nod at Burbank’s assistants was enough to gain access to the boss’s office.
Bradford opened the door and, seeing Burbank, stopped midstep.
Titan’s driving force sat hunched over the desk at the opposite end of the room, fists tight and body curled, obviously unaware of Bradford’s having entered.
In the awkwardness of the moment, Bradford half turned to leave, then paused and remained transfixed, watching the silent emotional struggle until the moment turned painfully long.
He rapped softly on the doorframe, and when Burbank raised his head and gave a wan smile, Bradford said, “Hey,” and stepped into the room.
Burbank straightened, stood, and walked across the distance, his face shifting from stricken to calm as he went.
He clasped Bradford’s hand warmly and with his voice cracking said, “Miles, what the hell happened?”
Bradford shrugged, and his shoulders slumped as if the air had been let out of him.
Burbank stood motionless, and neither man spoke, as though they shared an unbearable burden that would only grow heavier with words.
Finally Burbank nodded in the direction of the sofa and said, “Come, let’s sit down.”
He poured a drink from the wet bar, handed it to Bradford, then sat opposite him with his elbows on his knees.
“I haven’t slept since I got your call,” he said. “Seriously, what the hell happened? What more have you found out about Emily? What about Michael?”
Bradford gulped down the contents of the glass, put it on the table, and with deliberation said, “Honestly, Richard, I don’t fucking know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? How could you not know?”
“One minute we’re following a logical trail to the mainland, next minute— poof, Michael’s gone and I’m persona non grata.”
The two men sat in silence for several more minutes before Burbank spoke.
“Miles, I apologize. I’ve been so focused on this thing with Emily. I just… Listen, are you okay?”
Bradford nodded and stared at the glass on the table. “Yeah, I’m fine. We were close, so goddamn fucking close.”
His eyes shifted to Burbank. “The answers are there, Richard. I can feel it.”
Burbank drew a long, deep breath and shifted back in his seat. “You really think there’s hope?”
“More than we’ve had since the beginning.”
“That’s the difference between us,” Burbank said. “For four years I’ve been tormented by not knowing, and now that I finally have some sense of closure, I can grieve and let it go. But you, you push for more.”
Bradford sighed. “I’ve already explained it, Richard. Even if Michael was wrong about the death certificate, you’re the closest you’ve ever been to getting answers.
“Real answers. Real closure. Not this ‘never really knowing for sure’ thing. I was right about bringing Michael in, and I’m right about this.”
“You’d return to Malabo?”
Bradford straightened so that he sat upright. “No, the mainland. We were headed to Bata when Michael disappeared.”
“This being persona non grata, it won’t be a problem?”
“There are ways around it.”
Burbank took a deep breath. “Miles, I’m conflicted. If you think there’s hope of finding answers, then of course I want them,
“but not at the expense of losing another person. If Emily did disappear in Equatorial Guinea, and now Michael…”
“That’s the other thing,” Bradford said. “I’ll be tracking down Michael first.”
“Her body?”
“The woman.”
“But you said she’s dead.”
“It’s what I was told, yes.”
Burbank said nothing, and Bradford continued. “That woman has got insane survival instincts.
“If she’s alive, and I’m certain she is, she’s going to be pissed off and heading for the mainland. I need to be there.”
“Assuming she’s alive— which, no offense, after everything you’ve told me, I find difficult to believe— there’s no way to know what she’ll do.
“You’re wasting your time, my friend,” Burbank said, and then stopped. “That is, unless you know something I don’t and you’re holding out on me.”
Bradford shook his head. “Research and gut instinct.”
Burbank stared toward the plate-glass windows. “I don’t know, Miles, it’s a stretch.
“It’s really a stretch— another futile pursuit, except this time I risk losing a good man for nothing.”
“With or without you, I’m going back. I’d rather have your support.”
Burbank’s focus returned to Bradford. “If you’re determined to go, then of course you have my backing, but I’d rather you not.
“I have the closure I need, so there’s no reason left, certainly no reason for you to put your life at risk.”
“Come on, Richard, you can’t be serious.”
“I am serious. I’m emotionally exhausted.
“I’ve been riding this roller coaster long enough. You want to go, you go— I’ll have my office sort out the details.”
Burbank’s face grew vacant, and his gaze returned to the plate-glass windows. “And be honest, we both know there’s a chance you won’t be coming home.”
Bradford said nothing, and Burbank sighed the deep exhale of defeat.
“Before you go,” he said, “get what you’ve seen and heard down in writing.
“The details you’ve uncovered— Michael’s disappearance, the government officials and the death certificate—
“everything you’ve told me and anything else you remember. Consider it your parting gift should you never return.”
Bradford nodded, and Burbank picked up the phone and, after a brief conversation with his lawyer, returned it to the cradle.
“He’s got time. You can see him on your way out.” And then, after a pause, “So what happens next?”
“I find Michael.”
“You’re so sure she’s alive?”
“Enough to bank on it,” Bradford said.
“And you can find her?”
Bradford gave a soft smile. “Yeah. That I can do.”
