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chapter 12
3.10° N latitude, 9.00° E longitude
West coast of Cameroon
From within the pilothouse, Francisco Beyard stared out over the trawler’s foredeck, arms crossed, motionless, except for his eyes, which scanned the steel gray of the ocean.
He leaned over the console, punched coordinates into the ship’s navigation system,
and felt the vibrational shudder of course correction down to the core of his soul.
Nine years and she’d come back into his life as suddenly as she’d left it.
Nine fucking years since he’d traced her to the murky water of Douala’s port.
There had been no warning, no indication. Just there. Or not.
No good-byes, no thanks-for-all-the-memories, no fuck-all-of-you-and-your-despicable-existence.
Just a vanishing, leaving him in agony while he spent two months of nausea and sleepless nights putting the pieces of the puzzle together;
maddening days following a nonexistent trail; coming at last to the dead end of the freighter
and the weathered deckhand with his stories of knife fights and linguistic skill and of the boy, Michael, who could only have been Essa.
He had stood helpless and transfixed, watching the Santo Domingo shrink into the distance, the final tie to her severed.
And there, with Valencia, Spain, whispered into the wind, the trail ended with no way to follow it further.
He had paced the docks, convincing himself that he didn’t care, reminding himself that he’d been doing just fine before she’d entered his life.
And it was the truth, though so much more the lie.
Like four generations before him, he was Cameroonian, a white African with no other passport, no other nationality, and no white man’s country to return to when times got rough.
This was home, his land, and since he was thirteen he’d had only one goal: to leave it.
To amass a fortune with which he could build a good life outside Africa, somewhere in the world, anywhere,
where hard work was rewarded and couldn’t be wiped out in a flicker by the favorites and family relations of whatever sham democracy happened to be in power.
From pre–World War I France, his paternal grandparents and great-grandparents had come and built a life on the continent,
all of it come to ruin in the heartbeat it took to raise the ire of the local government. Over. Finished.
Generations of hard work obliterated pretty much overnight because his progenitors had picked the wrong continent.
They should have chosen the New World, where those willing to tame the wilderness kept what they carved out.
His mother’s family hadn’t fared better in Equatorial Guinea.
They’d come to Bioko Island in the late 1800s and had owned cocoa plantations until, six months after Independence, the bloodshed began.
The educated and foreigners of all colors were the first targeted,
and his mother’s family fled to Douala, attempting to start over with nothing while they watched their homeland, once one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, deteriorate into a killing field.
By his late twenties, by anyone’s standards, Beyard was ahead of the game.
But the taps of currency had really begun to flow when he found Vanessa Munroe.
It had been no accident. Gossip surrounding the unusual girl filtered through Douala’s expatriate community,
and he had arranged the meet through the Papadopoulos brothers, using their beach home in Kribi.
Under the pretext of running an errand, Vanessa’s boyfriend, Andreas Papadopoulos, had left them in the quiet of the garden.
Tall, gangly, and, with the exception of striking gray eyes, awkward-looking, she was not what Beyard had expected.
In the quiet she studied him and then turned away, resting her forearms on the back of a wooden bench.
Standing so that his arms rested next to hers, he said, “Rumor has it you speak Fang.”
She nodded. “And several of the other local languages as well.”
“I need an interpreter for the evening,” he said. “If you can manage that, there are five hundred francs in it for you.”
Without facing him she said, “Five hundred francs is a lot of money if you want someone who speaks Fang.
“Ten thousand CFA would get you the same thing from a waiter at La Balise.”
He smiled. “True, but you don’t look like you speak Fang. More important, I need someone I can trust.”
She turned and brought her eyes to his, eyes that threatened to penetrate and read thoughts. “And you can trust me?”
“I don’t know,” he said after a moment’s pause. “Can I?”
The hint of a smile settled at the corners of her mouth. “It’ll cost you five hundred francs to find out.”
THE RENDEZVOUS WAS on the patio of a building at the edge of town that functioned as a hotel of sorts during the high seasons.
The night was alive with the mingled sounds of laughter and the rhythms of soukous playing over a nearby radio.
The smell of roasting meats and smoke from wood-burning cooking fires wafted through the air.
The only requirement Beyard had of her was that she listen to everything said around them.
In the foyer while passing to the patio, she pulled him aside and warned of being held at gunpoint should they make the transaction.
The meeting was filled with veiled threats and bad French that soon turned to shouting.
They left the hotel without completing the sale and hadn’t yet pulled out of the potholed dirt parking lot before he offered her a full-time job.
In response she stared at him and then shifted to rest her head on the window.
Gazing out the glass, silent, arms crossed, she said, “I know who you are and what you do and what working for you would mean.”
“Sleep on it,” he replied. “Tomorrow we can talk.”
The next morning he invited Andreas to breakfast and, in questioning deeper into Vanessa’s missionary background, was surprised to realize that the teenagers’ relationship went far beyond the innocent puppy love the Papadopoulos parents assumed it to be.
“She’s your age?” Beyard asked.
Andreas looked up in a shock of silence. “Younger.”
“Sixteen? Seventeen?”
“Fourteen.”
Beyard let out a low whistle. “Her parents? Do they know?”
“They know. She throws it in their faces. Sometimes I think she’s using me just to get at them— not that I mind, you know.”
He smiled, almost bashfully. “She took me to her home this Christmas to meet them,
“and I swear the freakiest, loudest sex of my life was with her parents six inches from my head on the other side of the wall. Trust me, they know.”
“So they don’t care?”
“Oh, sure they care. What are they going to do about it?”
“Take her home? Send her to live with relatives? Cut off her money?”
“She refuses to return home, she already lives with friends of the family, and even if they did cut off her money, she’d find a way to get by.”
Andreas shrugged. “In the end her father indulges her. Emotional blackmail, I guess.”
Beyard repeated the job offer over lunch. If she would agree to work for him, he would cover her living expenses,
pay for whatever distance-learning education she chose, and give her a percentage of each job he collected on.
She didn’t answer, said she’d think about it, told him to come back the next day, and when he did, he learned that she’d left Kribi.
It took several days to locate her in Douala, and when he did that, she gave no apology and said simply that she would take the job but wanted a larger percentage.
When he balked, she shrugged, turned to go, and he yielded.
He moved her to his beach home, gave her the run of the house, and rarely saw her when work was slow.
But when on the job, she stuck by his side, a silent partner with the power of observation and linguistic skills worth many times the percentage he’d conceded.
It was in the hours after, the pressure off and the money safely away, that they talked and drank into the night.
He taught her to play chess, she intrigued him with observations on the cultures they lived among,
he introduced her to fine wine and classical music, and she recited local legends and argued theology with him, their conversations often turning philosophical.
It was almost a year later that he learned she had set him up,
that months prior to being introduced, she had researched him— located information he didn’t even know existed— analyzed him, understood what drove him, what made him tick,
and then used Andreas, not to get to her parents but to get to him.
Knowing that the brothers would talk, she’d planted ideas and stories, framing the context in order to pique his curiosity.
She knew he would come looking, and when he did, she baited him with the one ability he lacked and couldn’t resist.
In the end she’d gotten exactly what she wanted: emancipation and money.
He’d laughed; in some perverse way it had pleased him to know that he, the consummate strategist, had been played.
But that night he began to see her differently, as an equal.
It was then that he realized she was no longer the gangly teenager he had brought into his house.
Her body and her face had changed from those of an awkward girl into those of a beautiful woman, and with this realization came the desire to possess her.
No, those were the afterthoughts. What he really wanted was to fuck her, and after that he wanted to own her, both body and mind.
She had fallen asleep on the couch, long legs trailing out from the thin blanket in which she’d wrapped herself, and he’d knelt in front of her and watched her sleep.
He was so close he could feel her breath on his cheek— she could have been his— and he’d reached out a hand to touch her and then pulled it back.
It was a conscious decision, a strategic decision.
It had nothing to do with any notion of goodness or morality;
he lived life by his own rules, getting what he wanted as ethically or as ruthlessly as necessary, because it made no difference.
He was who he was without pretense or excuse, and his life amalgamated barbarianism and culture.
Until now he had never denied one desire for the sake of another.
And if he had known then the pain this change of view would bring, he would never have laughed.
In time, having his base in Kribi began to be a problem.
In its own right, his property was secluded and, as was critical, had access to both sea and land.
But it wasn’t enough. He needed a location with less scrutiny, and that was what drew him to Equatorial Guinea.
Río Muni, the mainland portion of the country, was just south of Cameroon’s border and Bioko Island a short trip, depending on which boats they used.
The location was propitious in that it was almost equidistant between Libreville and Douala,
and as Equatorial Guinea was dirt poor, with no navy or coast guard to speak of, there was virtually no risk of bumping into authorities while transporting goods from one location to the next.
It seemed to be a form of poetic justice that the country responsible for his familial poverty would soon be responsible for his rise to wealth.
He added extra men to his team and brought in mercenaries for protection.
He used work as an escape from the euphoric ache that drove him to distraction when Vanessa was in his presence,
grateful that Pieter Willem had her away for so many hours of the day.
In spite of her repeated requests that Francisco remove Willem from the team, he never did.
Beyard’s reputation grew, and so did the rumors surrounding the woman who accompanied him.
He didn’t understand the whispers and the extent of the superstition, because she never mentioned them.
It was only after she was gone that he realized it was more than his heart that was so deeply entwined with her,
that his success was steeped in legends, that the people he dealt with were terrified of the juju she commanded.
And suddenly the juju was gone.
He had stood that day on the docks of the port staring out over the ocean, watching the Santo Domingo until it disappeared over the horizon.
And then, hating her, he’d returned to Kribi to start over with what was left.
He’d rebuilt, figured it out, just as he always had.
And now she was back.
MUNROE RAN HER hand over the door where the missing handle should have been.
Her fingers traced the doorframe and tested the strength of the door itself, noting metal through the woodlike veneer.
She placed her ear against it, listening for the sound of Beyard in the hallway, and, hearing nothing, knocked lightly and said, “Francisco, can you open, please?”
Silence.
The hinges were on the outside.
She pulled the residency card from her belt and slid it between the door and the frame at the latch. Nothing.
Her fingers moved to the walls, testing as she went. Metal.
The cabin had a small bunk on each wall, a table that folded out between them, and cupboard space above the beds.
There was no porthole and no bathroom. This was a cell. A prison.
A sea of gray washed over her, and she fought it back. She’d expected payback, but not in this way and not so soon.
Munroe dropped the backpack on a bed and then, after staring at it a moment, emptied the contents.
Slowly, in shock, she sat beside them. They were her personal belongings,
an assortment from the items she’d left abandoned when departing Cameroon: a hairbrush, a notebook, and a few articles of clothing.
She picked up the hairbrush and ran her fingers along the bristles, held on to the thick brush head with one hand, the handle with the other, and, gripping tightly, pulled hard.
The pieces separated, and a four-inch blade slid out from under the bristles.
It was a memento of her time fighting off Pieter Willem, one of many crude weapons she’d constructed in an attempt to never be defenseless.
She shoved the pieces back together and tossed the brush onto the pile.
No matter what Beyard’s intentions, she would never use a blade on him that had been intended for Willem.
A shudder ran through the ship. The engines had been given life, and they were now moving through the water to an unknown somewhere.
In the silence the walls of the room weaved claustrophobically closer, and Munroe turned off the light and lay back on one of the beds.
She took in a deep breath and followed it with a second and then a third, working backward into a state of calm and clarity.
Unless Beyard planned to let her starve, he would return.
She had two days before Breeden expected contact. Two days with no watch and no way to gauge the time; waiting was all she could do.
The movement of the ship and the vibration from the engines remained constant, and it was two hours, three at the most, before she felt the differentiating tremor of footsteps down the hall.
She tucked the hairbrush into her pants at the hip and returned to lying on her back with her arms behind her head.
She did not get up when the door opened. Beyard stood in the doorway, a silhouette against the light in the hall.
“Don’t tell me this room was reserved for me,” she said.
“You’re not the first guest, if that’s what you mean.”
“What do you want, Francisco?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “And until I do, I want to be sure you aren’t going anywhere. In the meantime I’ve kept my promise, I’ve taken you off the island.”
She watched him, studied his posture, and analyzed his intonation. “Where would I go? We’re on open water.”
She sat up. His body tensed. “I’m not scared of you, Francisco, and I have no reason to run away.”
“You’ve done it before,” he said, his voice soft, melancholic. “I have no guarantee you won’t take one of the small boats in the night.”
“True,” she said, and she stood. Unable to see his eyes, shrouded in shadow as they were, she gauged how fast she could move by the minute reactions of his body.
“But why would I want to do that when you’ve already said that you would help me? I not only need to get to the mainland, I need your knowledge, your expertise, once I’m there.”
“I have no interest in providing my expertise.”
She took a step toward him. “I was willing to pay you well, but obviously money no longer interests you.”
Another step forward, casual and slow. Her hands were an exaggerated supplement to her words.
“I need to travel to Mongomo, and I would like you to come with me. Tell me what does interest you— name it and I can find a way to get it for you.”
Nearly close enough to reach him.
“I spent two months searching for you,” he said. “I had no idea what happened to you, didn’t know if you were dead or taken for ransom or just plain lost.”
His voice trailed off, and then he jerked his head up, eyes dark and angry. “Two months, Vanessa. Do you have any idea what kind of hell that was?”
She reached out to softly touch his forearm, and in the same second that the warmth of her hand touched his skin and his face shifted to follow the movement of her fingers, she slammed a fist into his jaw.
The force of the impact sent him reeling backward, and she moved with him, landing a second blow and then a third, forcing him against the wall.
He held his jaw and shook his head, eyes wide. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and painted his fingers.
Before he could react, she stood in front of him and pulled the hairbrush apart, holding the blade inches from his face.
“I could have killed you,” she said. “Never forget that.” She snapped the pieces back together and dropped the brush on the floor.
And then she softened her stance, lowered her voice. “I meant what I said, Francisco. I’ve got to get to Mongomo,
“and I don’t know anyone who knows that backwater hellhole better than I do, except for you. Now that I’ve found you, I’m not going anywhere.”
Silence filled the hallway.
Slowly Beyard slid down the wall to the floor, one knee bent, the other leg stretched across the corridor,
his shoulders slumped, a hand over his eyes, and he wept in silent shudders.
Munroe stood over him in shocked horror, and it was then that she understood.
She slid down beside him and put her head on his shoulder, and the past came flooding back,
the memories of so many events and the clues she had missed while she was consumed with avoiding Willem.
“Francisco,” she said, “I am so sorry. I had no idea.”
He put his arm over her shoulders and pulled her to him, held her so tightly she would be bruised in the morning.
The heat of his breath reached her hair and neck, and the remnants of tears touched her skin.
She relaxed into him. Time passed, and the display of emotion faded.
Control returned, and Beyard said, “Why did you do it? Why did you disappear like that?”
“I had to escape who I was becoming,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
“You could have told me, could have said good-bye, let me know you were okay.”
“I’m not saying what I did was right, but you know as well as I do that if I’d told you I was leaving, you would have begged me to stay.”
“Every night you came to me in my dreams,” he said. “My greatest fear was that Pieter had come back for you to spite me.
“Every night I was reminded of the times you’d asked me to send him away and I’d refused.”
Beyard’s voice caught and he breathed deeply, then continued. “When I learned that you’d left Africa, I hated you.
“I hated you for the sickness in my gut that followed me through every waking moment. And strangely, I was also happy,
“because I knew you were alive and that you had made the decision yourself, that it wasn’t Pieter who’d done it.”
“Willem is dead,” Munroe said. “That night when the two of you fought, I followed him to the boats. I slit his throat and fed him to the jungle.”
Beyard let her go, then pushed her back and turned her so that she faced him.
His expression shifted from the open mouth of shock to a disbelieving smile. “Why would you do that?” he said finally.
“Because he was a sadistic psychopath and by killing him I not only avenged myself for daily torture and rape, but I saved his future victims from the same or worse.
“It was his boat that I took back to Cameroon— I scuttled it just south of Douala. It’s probably still there.”
She paused. “I had to leave, Francisco, or become the monster that he was.”
Beyard grew quiet for a moment while the full impact of what she’d said filled the silence of the corridor, and then he pulled her close again and held her tightly.
“I didn’t know, Essa, I swear it. Looking back, it should have been so obvious, but I didn’t see it.”
“I know,” she said. “And I hid it from you because I knew that if you were aware, you would have tried to protect me and gotten killed in the process.”
“He told me he enjoyed sparring with you because you forced him to stay sharp. He said you were as gifted with a knife as you were with languages.”
“Or as cursed,” she said.
“Do you still carry them?”
“The knives? No. It’s too easy to kill when a knife is in my hands.”
She looked at her palms, felt the permanent macula of blood, and clenched her fists.
“I still train to keep my reflexes sharp, but even training knives are dangerous in the wrong hands.
“When I fight, even in practice, I’m overpowered by the urge to survive, to kill and win. Willem is not the only one dead by my hands.”
“Last night I saw the scars on your body.”
“They’re from Willem. All but two or three.”
Beyard said nothing, just held her tighter and then whispered back,
“Promise me that when this is over, when it’s time for you to go again, that you will let me know where you are and of your decisions.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
THAT NIGHT SHE slept on a settee that doubled for half of the seats at the small galley table.
Beyard had offered her any cabin she wanted, including his own, and she had declined.
In the morning after breakfast, he brought her to the pilothouse, showed her their coordinates, and answered her questions about the ship’s navigational equipment.
When she was satisfied, he pointed her to the satellite phone and left.
It was two o’clock in the morning in Dallas, and the champagne in Breeden’s voice was flat until she heard Munroe speak.
“Michael! Where are you? We heard from Miles that you were dead, that you’d drowned and your body had washed up on shore.”
Munroe opened her mouth and choked. Then, gathering focus, said, “Miles Bradford is alive? You spoke with him?”
“Yes and no. I mean, yes, he is alive. I haven’t spoken with him personally. I got a call from Richard Burbank about two days ago. He’s taken Bradford off the case.”
“You can tell Burbank that the news of my death is greatly exaggerated and that I’ll be continuing the assignment as contracted.”
“To what intent? He says there’s a death certificate.”
Munroe rubbed a hand over her eyes. “Yes, that’s true up to a point.”
“So it’s true, then? Emily is dead?”
“The certificate is worthless, except to prove that someone doesn’t want me searching for Emily. There’s more to the story, and I’m building the puzzle.”
“As far as Burbank is concerned, the case has been closed.”
“That’s his call. If he wants to wrap it up, he owes me an additional two-point-five million.
“I’m going on with it whether he pays further expenses or not. Someone tried to kill me, and I’m not stopping until I get to the bottom of it.”
“I’ll contact him first thing in the morning. Do you have a number where I can get back to you? Where are you? Do you need help? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Munroe said. “I’m borrowing a phone, and I’m staying tucked away until I can sort out my options, but I’ll give you a call back in a few days.”
“Do you need anything? Is there anything I can do?”
“Just make sure Burbank gets the message, and if he closes the assignment, make sure I get paid. I’ll be in touch.”
Munroe resisted the urge to slam the phone into the cradle.
Miles Bradford: alive and back in the United States.
Vanessa Michael Munroe: drowned, washed up on shore.
Richard Burbank: closing the assignment because of an alleged death certificate.
What the hell? Miles Bradford had a lot of explaining to do, and if he had anything to do with her night out on the water, she’d be going after him next.
She dialed again. “Logan, it’s Michael.”
There was the sound of the phone being fumbled and then glass shattering and then Logan’s voice.
“Holy shit, Michael! Kate told me you were dead. I’ve downed countless fifths in your memory. What the hell happened?”
“It’s a long story that I can’t get into right now, but I’m going to need your help. How soon can you work on a supply list?”
“I can start on it tomorrow. How big is it?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ve got to discuss the job with a consultant, and I’ll get back to you.
“In the meantime contact Kate and tell her you have an order number coming up so she can get you the money.
“I’ve already spoken to her. She knows I’m alive and keeping the assignment open.”
“No problem,” he said, and then, “Listen, I know you can take care of yourself, but I’m worried about you. What’s this shit about you washing up on shore?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” she said, drawing each word out slowly. “But I will find out.
“I have a few things to sort through, and then I’ll get back with you— hopefully during your normal waking hours.”
“I was up,” he said, “drinking to your memory.”
“Thanks, Logan. Save it for the real thing.”
MUNROE FOUND BEYARD in the ship’s hold.
Originally designed for icing and storing fish, it had been gutted and converted to dry storage and docking space for the fast boats.
A long-hulled cigarette boat sat on a wheeled rack locked in place by bolts in the floor, and next to it was an empty rack, and above them two more.
Beyard worked his way around several dozen wooden crates that sat on pallets on the opposite side of the hold.
She cleared her throat to announce her presence. “Where’s the shipment headed?” she asked.
He didn’t look up. “I don’t care, really,” he said, and bent down to tighten a winch. “Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria— makes no difference.”
“It does to the people who end up at the other end of them.”
He found her eyes and gave her a wry smile. “Maybe we can discuss it over a bottle of cabernet and a game of chess.”
She held eye contact and cursed inwardly. How had she ever failed to miss that he was so goddamn charming?
Her foot found the bottom rung of the railing, and she rested it there, leaning her forearms on the top rail. “When’s the drop?” she asked.
“Tomorrow night. We rendezvous with my team this afternoon to pick up what they’re bringing in, and then we head north for a handoff at sea.
“It’s a straightforward job with no slogging it through the bush. After that I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
He stopped and looked at her for a moment, then said quietly, almost as if begging, “Essa, I would really like it if you’d be by my side for the handoff.”
“Just like old times?”
“Just like old times,” he said.
“Who are we dealing with?”
“Nigerians.”
“Sure, I might even be useful.” And then, “Do you have some time free? I’d like to get your advice on a few things.”
“I’ll be in the pilothouse in half an hour. Meet me there.”
WHEN SHE KNOCKED on the door, he was bent over a series of charts that lay spread across a table braced against the wall.
He slid the charts aside to make space for her, and the smile on his face said that he was genuinely happy to see her.
She sat on the edge of the table, dangling a leg over the side, and said, “How long is the list of people in this country with the power to have me dumped into the Atlantic?”
Beyard let out a low breath and leaned back in his chair. “It’s hard to say, really, without knowing who the men were that carried it out.
“If we assume that they were Angolans, then it would have to be someone within the presidential family, someone connected enough not to risk a similar fate if the president was displeased about it.
“If they were merely rank-and-file military, the main issue, I suppose, is who you are, who you’re connected to.
“If you don’t have any important connections, the list of who could do it grows exponentially longer.”
Munroe stared out the windows. The ship was surrounded by various shades of blue that stretched to the horizon, connecting in the far distance with the barely visible mountainous peaks of Bioko Island.
She ran her fingers along the back of her neck. So many pieces of the puzzle and but for the central figure of Emily Burbank, none of them connected.
“What do you know about Titan Exploration?” she asked.
“Besides the inconvenience they’ve been to me, what’s to know?” He shrugged.
“They’ve been around for the past four or five years, started as a small presence off the coast of Río Muni,
“and once they struck oil, the operation grew and has continued to grow ever since.
“They just finished bringing another offshore well online last month. A tanker shows up about once a week, fills, and goes.”
“The girl I’m trying to find is the daughter of Titan’s founder.”
Beyard sat quietly and tapped his pen against the table. “What was she doing in Mongomo? Why not Bata, why not Mbini?”
“I don’t think her travels here had anything to do with Titan. It seems to be coincidence.”
“Well, if she was connected to the captain of one of the oil firms and something happened to her here, I can see why someone in this country might not want you looking for her.”
“That doesn’t explain why I was followed upon arrival.”
“True.”
“And,” Munroe continued, “if someone in the government is covering up her disappearance, did that person even know who she was when whatever happened, happened?”
“Do you have a photo of her?” he asked.
“Not on me, but I can get one off the Internet if you have access.”
He pulled out a laptop and connected the modem through the phone. “It’s painfully slow.”
Munroe retrieved a page with Emily’s high-school photo, downloaded it, filled the screen with her face, and then turned it toward Beyard.
He sat quietly, staring at the picture. “I’ve seen her,” he said.
Munroe shook her head. “You’re messing with me, right?”
“No, I’m serious. It was just over three years ago at the Bar Central in Bata.
“Her hair was different, but it’s the same girl— same eyes, same nose.
“She was with a group of local men. Maybe there was another woman, I don’t remember.
“She was pregnant. At the time it struck me as odd. I couldn’t remember ever having seen a pregnant foreigner in Equatorial Guinea,
“and if I had, perhaps it was a Spaniard, but never a blond girl as white as she was.
“I must’ve been staring, because she turned to look at me. I smiled at her, and she smiled back.”
Munroe pursed her lips. “You’re certain it’s the same girl?”
“It’s been three years, Essa, I’m not going to stake my life on it.
“You know as well as I do how few foreigners are on the mainland, and how fewer still are women. They stand out.”
One more puzzle piece.
“You said that after the handoff you’d take me where I wanted to go. Is Bata an option?”
“I can’t take the trawler to the port, but I can get you there.”
“And afterward will you go with me on to Mongomo if that’s where the search takes me?”
Beyard sighed. “If there’s no way to stop you from going, then yes, I’ll go.
“I’d like to see you stay alive. Someone’s got to watch your back. It might as well be me.”
She smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Now I need to know how much it’s going to cost me.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then his eyes shifted from the windows directly to hers.
“What I want in exchange,” he said, “is your promise that when this is over, you won’t simply walk off. I want to know where you are and how to contact you.”
She felt invisible shackles snaking around her wrists and ankles, took a deep breath, and said, “If that’s what it takes, I promise.”
