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chapter 14
2.00° N latitude, 9.55° E longitude
West coast of Equatorial Guinea
The sea was an endless sheet of steel gray reflected off the cloud-covered sky and the trawler a small black blemish on the horizon.
It was nearing sunset, that period of day when the sky would change into brilliant hues and the ocean would undulate with color.
Munroe leaned into the wind and the ocean spray, closed her eyes, and allowed her thoughts to flow in random patterns,
willing synapses to connect and make sense of patchwork pieces of information that continued to bring more questions than answers— and found nothing.
The cigarette boat cut across the water with considerable speed, closing the distance on the city of Bata, which was now at some invisible point over the horizon.
Three hours earlier the trawler had weighed anchor off the southern coast of Cameroon,
and, with the exception of George Wheal, who had agreed to remain with the ship until Beyard returned, the crew had dispersed to the mainland.
In the pilothouse Munroe, Beyard, and Wheal had sat poring over hand-drawn maps that Beyard had assembled throughout the years
and debated over supplies and transportation for the few possible routes through Bata and into Mongomo.
The project was Beyard’s now. Munroe had never officially given it to him;
he’d taken it, dissected it, and then meticulously planned it, a master strategist setting out pieces to one more living chess game.
It was a throwback to another life, another world, and as it was then, there would be no discussion now about doing the job her way.
Beyard was no lackey; conceding command was the price she would pay for his participation.
And then Bata was there, its red-and-white visage faintly visible on the horizon.
They continued south a few miles past the city, just beyond the reach of the port, to one of Beyard’s properties, where they would exchange the boat for a land vehicle.
THE WOOD OF the dock was worn smooth and weather-beaten, held fast by solid pier beams driven deep.
It ran from the back of a well-manicured property over the sands of the beach, fifty feet out into the water, and tied to it was a small fishing boat, the wood still raw and new.
Beyard guided the cig to the opposite side of the pier and with a confident hop moved from the boat with the mooring ropes.
The house stood on two acres, a single story that seemed to spread out and melt into the lush landscape.
From the back door, a woman walked toward them. Her skin was soft brown, her features smooth and perfect,
and behind her a small child followed, barely walking and clinging to the shapely dress that skimmed her ankles.
Her smile was genuine, and she greeted Beyard with a familiar hug.
In all the planning of the afternoon, Beyard had failed to mention a woman or her child,
and when she greeted Munroe with the casualness of an equal, Munroe pushed away hostility and forced a mask of pleasantry.
The woman smiled when Beyard spoke, and the electricity that flashed between them betrayed a history far beyond the platonic.
Beyard knelt to the eye level of the child and tickled his rounded tummy, then pulled the youngster to his arms and tossed him in the air.
Peals of laughter filled the property, though Munroe heard nothing but the rush of blood pounding in her ears and stood paralyzed with an ersatz smile plastered to her face.
Beyard put the child down and turned to Munroe. His mouth was moving, and she forced the sound to register.
“This is Antonia,” he was saying. “She, her husband, and their three children live here— it’s their house and their land unless I happen to be in town.”
He nodded beyond the house. “There’s a guesthouse on the far end of the property. That’s where we’ll stay the night.”
The guesthouse was furnished with necessities and not much else.
The building consisted of two rooms: a bedroom with a small bathroom annexed to it and a larger room that functioned as a living room on one end, a kitchen on the other, divided by a four-place table.
There was no air-conditioning, but the ceilings were high and a steady breeze tempered the humidity.
By the time they had showered, darkness had settled, and Antonia, not one of the servants, brought food from the main house.
From the bedroom Munroe heard her enter, and from behind the closed door she traced portions of the muted conversation.
There were spaced silences. Lingering. And then the front door closed, and both Beyard and the woman were gone,
and Munroe realized that she’d been holding her breath and felt a stab of self-loathing because of it.
The emotion she felt was a violation of the cardinal rule of survival; it skewed reason, clouded logic, had to be eradicated.
Munroe took a deep breath and exhaled. She needed control, and to regain it required internal shutdown.
Another intake of air, and she closed her eyes and then against her better judgment fought it, argued against it, and finally postponed it.
Beyard was a rare equal, a man with skill and motive to destroy both her and the assignment.
The danger was an intoxicating lure, difficult to abandon.
It was twenty minutes before Beyard returned. Over dinner they conversed— Munroe knew it with her eyes— Beyard’s moving mouth, a shrug, a flirt,
the sound of her own voice traveling through her head and Beyard’s charming smile in response.
It continued through the meal, external harmony enshrouding internal turmoil.
Shutdown was inevitable. But it could wait.
They were awake before daybreak, that time of darkness when the jungle came to life with ascending simian and avian orchestras that shut out the predatory calls of the night.
The air was damp with a light mist, and when the sun rose, it brought a thickening to the humid heat.
Beyard’s transportation was a nondescript Peugeot, originally beige or possibly white, now permanently rust-colored.
Unlike everything else he owned, whereby aged appearances disguised state-of-the-art equipment, the Peugeot was decrepit.
In response to Munroe’s reluctance to use it, Beyard insisted. “It’s better for us this way,” he said.
“My other vehicles are known. With this one we are provided a certain sense of anonymity,
“and in any case we’re not going far— in about five kilometers the roads become paved.”
“We’re not taking this thing to Mongomo?”
“No,” he said. “We’ll use the Land Rover for that, possibly one of the Bedford trucks.”
“Do you have easy access to one?”
“Shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” he said.
“When I’m not using them, they’re leased out to the Malaysians and Chinese— I have a company that handles logistics from the logging cut sites to the port.
“It’s a legitimate cover for the trucks and gives me the opportunity to pay my dues in terms of hefty contributions to the local fraternity of nepotists.
“During the rains I’ll use them if we have to haul through the bush, so it won’t be out of place.”
Munroe nodded and then said, “If I want to leave a few things behind, do you have a secure spot?”
“I do,” he replied, then led her back to the guesthouse bathroom
and with a skilled set of hands removed a section of the doorframe and pulled out from the wall a narrow sealed container that held several thousand euros.
“Should still be some space in there,” he said, and handed it to her.
She pried the lid loose. “How secure is this property?”
“No military will enter, if that’s what you mean.”
She removed the Equatoguinean residency card from the security belt and placed the belt with her passports, credit cards, and Emily’s death certificate into the container.
“What guarantee do you have?”
“Antonia is the oldest and favorite niece of one of the president’s wives,
“and Antonia’s husband is connected to the president through the military. Between the two of them, the property is safe.”
She sealed the lid. “That’s good for them, but it doesn’t protect your valuables.” She nodded toward the container in her hands.
He smiled and took the container, slid it back into the wall, and replaced the boarding. “You have to know everything? All my secrets?”
Munroe shrugged. “Whether you tell me now or not doesn’t really matter. When I want information, I get it. I’ll find out one way or the other.”
“All right then,” he said. “Antonia and I, we go way back— I’m the father of her eldest son. He’s eight, so you can do the math.”
While he spoke, Beyard walked toward the front of the house, and Munroe followed.
“About four years ago, when our relationship was shot to hell and there appeared to be no future for us,
“she married her current husband— she’s wife number three. He lives in the capital, and she sees him once or twice a month.”
Beyard opened the door of the Peugeot for Munroe and fiddled with the handle in order to get it to remain closed.
He slid into the driver’s seat and slammed his own door several times before cranking the engine.
“I bought this place for her,” he continued. “Put it in her name.
“It’s her insurance policy and will buy her freedom if that’s what she chooses— you know how it goes here—
“and now that the oil companies have their compounds nearby, it’s a valuable little piece of real estate.”
Munroe knew well. When an Equatorial Guinean woman married, she became bound to the husband and his family, often becoming a form of property.
Divorce, although technically possible, placed an impossible burden on the woman:
By law the husband kept the children from the marriage and the woman was required to pay back the dowry or else be imprisoned,
and imprisonment in the country’s decaying mixed-gender jails was little better than a death sentence.
The vehicle sputtered forward. “I think you would agree,” Beyard said, “that my confidence is well placed and the property is safe.”
Munroe looked at him sideways and crossed her arms. “Yes, I would agree.”
She paused and turned toward him. “It may have been nine years, but you haven’t changed much. There’s always a price. You’re using her.”
He looked at Munroe, taking his eyes off the dirt track that passed for a road. “I’ve never denied it,” he said. “The fact is, she doesn’t care.”
“And her husband, does he care? Surely he knows your history, knows you use this property,
“knows you’re sometimes here when he’s gone— he can’t be happy about that. He probably wouldn’t mind if you disappeared.”
“Nah,” Beyard replied. “I’m the one who introduced the two of them, and he’s one of my best friends.” He shrugged.
“Things are what they are, Essa. My relationship with Antonia ended four years ago and, I might add, through no fault of hers.
“I’m the one who’s fucked in the head. We have a son together, and regardless of what things are now, I want her to be happy.
“Whether I’m using her or not, she still comes out ahead, and so does the boy.” He turned to look at her. “Satisfied?”
“I suppose.” And then, after several moments of silence, “Does your son know you’re his father? Do you see him often?”
“Yes, and not very. When he turned seven, I took him to Paris. He stays with friends of Antonia’s family and goes to one of the best schools in the city.
“And yes,” he said in answer to Munroe’s unasked question, “at my expense. I fly him home twice a year.
“I’m determined that he will have two worlds to choose from when he grows older, and I’ve made arrangements that should anything happen to me, he will be taken care of.”
And after he’d been silent for a moment, “You of all people are in no position to be judgmental about using or not using someone, when you are at this very moment using me to get what you want.”
“I’ve offered to hire you. That you won’t take the money is not my concern.”
Beyard smiled. It was a smile of knowing, of understanding.
“Essa, perhaps in your other life, among other people, such words would have meaning— but not between us.
“You and I both know that games of semantics are meaningless when we have a deeper understanding of human nature.
“And you are using me. You know what I want more than money, and you give it to me like a drug, in small doses, feeding me until it becomes an addiction.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that I don’t know it. Just as Antonia does with me,
“I have given you permission to use me. You and I, Vanessa, we are very much alike.”
FROM BEYARD’S PROPERTY the road was nothing more than a deeply rutted dirt track that cut through encroaching foliage,
and as the vehicle crawled along it, a branch occasionally brushed through one of the open windows.
A couple of kilometers from the property, the track connected to a wider dirt road, which later converged with tarmac,
and where the orange-red dirt ended, they crossed the first checkpoint.
Several strands of barbed wire were strung across the road, and two makeshift wooden sawhorses blocked the lanes and worked to keep the nearly nonexistent vehicle traffic from passing.
There was one weapon shared among five men, and to the side of the road an assortment of logs and stones circled a ground cooking fire over which an aluminum pot boiled.
Beyard bantered with the commander of the group and then, five beers lighter, the Peugeot was on its way across the tarmac heading up the only segment of the coastal highway that was paved
and into Bata, the largest and primary city of Equatorial Guinea’s mainland.
With a population of seventy thousand, Bata was the second most populous city in the country, but in land area was larger than the capital.
Unlike Malabo, which was dense, overcrowded, its narrow city streets congested,
Bata was long and spread out, the streets wide and relatively empty and most of them paved.
The buildings that fronted the ocean were two- and three-storied, constructed in the style of Mediterranean and Spanish villas.
Farther back from the shore, the buildings were mostly one-storied squares of cement-block houses built for functionality without regard to aesthetics, albeit widely spaced and neatly set along the street edges.
Several kilometers south of the city lay the port, where the natural resources of the country were shipped out at an astounding rate,
and below the port were the foreign compounds, where oil companies housed their employees in little pieces of America transplanted to West Central Africa.
Several kilometers to the north was the single strip of tarmac that served as the largest airport of the Equatoguinean mainland
and that operated only during daylight hours when visibility was good— a strip long and wide enough to accommodate a 737 and nothing larger.
Leading out of the city to the east was the highway that ran through the north-central heart of the country,
previously red clay that transmogrified into an impassable swampy muck during the seasonal rains, now tarmac paid for by oil.
The Peugeot shuddered and sputtered before finally coming to rest in front of Bar Central.
The establishment was one of the city’s most popular restaurants, doubling as a watering hole,
and it was, Munroe hoped, the first step to picking up Emily Burbank’s trail.
Like Malabo, Bata was a city without entertainment,
a place where a trip to an air-conditioned grocery store was a day’s highlight,
and in the absence of everything else, the restaurants and bars were the de facto social gathering points.
Those who ran them felt the pulse of the city, knew the rumors, heard the gossip, and were keenly aware of the faces as they came and went.
And like most of the restaurants in the country, Bar Central was owned and operated by expatriates, in this case brothers originally from Lebanon.
The eldest of them now stood behind the bar at the cash register,
and when he noticed Beyard, he offered a generous mustachioed grin, raising his hand in a semi-salute.
A few moments later, he joined the two of them at their table, shook Beyard’s hand, and embraced him in a brotherly hug.
He and Beyard joshed back and forth for a moment before the man pulled up a chair.
His name was Salim. His black hair was peppered with gray, and his eyes were a dark hazel.
Although he couldn’t have been older than forty-five, deep stress lines across his face put him closer to sixty.
Beyard introduced Munroe, and when he did, Munroe took Salim’s hand and said, “Assalamou alaykoum.”
Salim smiled widely— “Wa alaykoum assalam”— and then to Beyard, “I like this girl. Where did you find her?”
The conversation continued in small talk until Munroe slid a printout of Emily’s Internet photo across the table to Salim. “Nabhatou an hadihi al bint.”
Beyard intervened. “We would very much like to know if you’ve seen the girl,” he said. “But if anyone asks, we only came for breakfast.”
Salim pushed back from the table and said, almost as if in surprise, “Francisco, my friend. That you have to ask? For you, anything.”
And, turning to Munroe, “Yes, I’ve seen the girl.” He ran a finger around the back of his ear and tilted his head to the side. “Last time maybe six months ago.”
“She comes here often?” Munroe asked.
“I wouldn’t say often. Maybe once or twice a year.”
“She comes alone?”
“Alone? No, never. Always with people. And her husband, he comes more often.”
Munroe was silent for a moment. “She’s married?”
Salim gave a shrug and a half smile.
“Married? Well, I don’t know that a dowry has passed or documents have been signed, but that she’s with him, yes, I am very sure about that.
“He has the last name of Nchama, that I also know.”
“Mongomo clan,” Beyard said.
“She lives here in Bata?” Munroe asked.
“Again, I don’t know,” Salim answered. “But I think no.”
Munroe tucked the printout into her shirt pocket. “If you don’t mind me asking, is there anything in particular about this girl that caused you to remember her— anything specific at all?”
Salim shrugged and was silent. His finger wandered again behind his ear,
and finally he gave a slight smile and said, “I know my clientele; after a while you get used to the way things are, patterns.
“For the most part, like remains with like. The Spaniards, they socialize with the Spaniards, the French with the French.
“It is not often you see one of the men of this country with a non-like woman over whom he claims ownership.”
“Did she appear happy, unhappy, fat, thin, well dressed, poor?”
Salim sat back for a moment. “The last time I saw her, she was thin, almost frail,
“and her hair, it was much longer than this picture and wound tight around her head.
“She was dressed modestly but expensively, somewhat like the wealthy women of the local men— a particular style not African yet not Western.
“She did not appear so much sad or unhappy as just … well, perhaps vacant.”
“What about the times you’ve seen her in the past?” Munroe said. “How would you describe her then?”
“Truthfully,” Salim said, giving a slight laugh, “I can’t say that I have ever studied her.
“I’ve seen her maybe four or five times over the past few years, but I’ve never paid much attention.”
“I appreciate it,” Munroe said, and then, “If you remember anything more, would you contact Francisco?”
Salim nodded, and then said to Beyard, “You should know you are not the only ones showing pictures around the city.”
Munroe, who had been in the middle of taking a bite of pastry, stopped, replacing it on her plate. “There are others passing around photos of this girl?”
“A photo of you,” he said. “You’ve nothing to worry about from me.
“I expect no trouble, and if I’m asked, I can positively say I did not think you resembled the photograph.”
He gave another chuckle. “Perhaps it would be better for your sake not to be seen around the city for a few days.”
“What did he look like— the person with the photo?”
“There were two of them. One military but without a uniform and the other a younger man, maybe in his twenties, possibly from the Mongomo clan.
“He was well dressed.” Salim stood. “One moment,” he said, and then walked to the bar counter and pulled a piece of paper from beside the cash register.
“They gave me this number to call in case I should see you.” He handed the paper to Beyard, and Munroe slipped it from him and into a pocket.
“Did they leave the photograph?” Munroe asked, and then to Beyard, “The particular photo being used would tell us a lot about who is looking.”
“They left nothing except the number,” Salim said. “But the photo was not of such good quality that you are easily recognized.”
Outside in the car, Munroe turned to Beyard. “If it was just me, I’d attempt to gather a bit more information before heading out of town,
“but it’s not just my neck, and you know the city better than I do. You have an opinion?”
“I think you should take a nap in the backseat, where you’ll be out of sight,” he said.
“There are two more places where I have trustworthy acquaintances. Let me see what I can find out.”
The news from the two other restaurants was similar: Yes, they knew or had seen Emily Burbank, not often, maybe once a year.
The manager of La Ferme was certain that Emily did not live in Bata and believed Mongomo was her home.
Both confirmed that there had been two men the day before yesterday looking for a white woman, but neither knew why.
In the backseat of the car, Munroe shifted to avoid as many of the protruding springs as possible, crossed her arms over her face, and closed her eyes.
Random thoughts rushed, collided, and merged. It was no longer one puzzle; it was two— possibly three.
She pulled in air, and with each deep breath, worked backward into a state of clearheaded focus, placing the new pieces of information against what she already had.
There was a fit somewhere, the answer just beyond reach, tantalizing strings of thought that floated across the recesses of her mind and then vanished.
And then a connected synapse: The minister of foreign affairs and the Malabo chief of police—
when they’d been presented with the photo of Emily Burbank, the odd look on each of their faces could only have been disguised recognition.
Emily was familiar to them in a personal way. A large piece of the puzzle slipped into place.
Emily Burbank was the constant, the segment of data that made sense.
If today’s news was accurate, then as of six months ago Emily Burbank was alive and out in the open among the population of Bata.
There was no secret of it, she was neither hiding nor being hidden.
But neither had she, in the past four years, contacted her family— surely she must know they were looking for her.
The texture of the developing trail was there, materializing, touchable, waiting to be found and followed.
If Munroe could get to Mongomo, Emily was within reach.
Beyond Emily the events shattered into scattered, jagged pieces.
Munroe and Bradford had been followed around Malabo from the time they’d arrived.
She’d ended up on the boat, while Bradford was escorted out of the country.
The men on the boat would have assumed she was dead and, even if for no other reason than to avoid admitting the fuckup, would have reported her as such.
To be searching for her here, now, someone in the local military had to know that she was alive and that this was where she was headed.
Munroe could not shake the lesser and more treacherous possibility— that the men passing around her photo had been informed of her whereabouts by someone closer,
someone who knew her movements, who would have been able to arrange to have her followed from the moment she’d set foot in Equatorial Guinea.
The men with the photo had been in Bata two days ago. Where had she been two days ago?
Somewhere off the coast of Nigeria. How many of the people who knew she was alive were aware she was heading to this city?
Logan. She hadn’t mentioned where she was or where she was going.
Kate. Kate knew just about every step she was taking— but Bata? No, that part had been left out.
Francisco. He’d had no idea she was in Equatorial Guinea before she’d shown up at his house and could never have arranged to have her followed.
Unless… unless he’d learned of her imminent arrival from Boniface Akambe. The dots were there, perhaps the connection.
Bradford. Shit. She’d told Bradford about Bata, and he had been there with her in Malabo nice and cozy in his bed right about the time she’d been trapped by an anchor on the ocean floor.
He’d known all their movements in advance. And when she’d turned up undead and undrowned, he’d insisted on returning to Africa, coming with her to Bata.
Three puzzles, each with similar coloring, identical pieces, and interlocking shapes.
To Beyard she said, “We should probably get out of town.”
She remained in the back while he maneuvered through the city, and when most of the buildings were behind them, she climbed into the front.
Beyard reached out his hand and swept a strand of hair off her face.
“This thing you do for a living— your job that you still haven’t told me about. You’re a strategist?”
“Not like you,” she said, and then she laughed. “Actually, quite a bit like you.
“I go into developing countries and gather information— usually abstract and obscure—
“and turn it into something that a corporation can use to make business decisions.”
“So finding missing people, this is not what you do for a living?”
“No,” she said, twisting on the seat until she was turned toward him.
“What if we found a partnership that suits both of us?” she said. “Something legal that doesn’t involve getting shot at.
“You’d be very good at what I do— we could work together.”
“Let me think about it.”
They rode in silence until, rounding a slight bend, they came upon a checkpoint less than a hundred feet ahead, one that hadn’t been there earlier,
a group of men closer in appearance to the well-trained and heavily equipped presidential guard than the motley band they’d encountered in the morning.
There were eight soldiers and three vehicles, each soldier armed with an automatic weapon.
Flares and portable road blades sealed off the tarmac.
The vehicles, an SUV and two pickups, were black, and the windows on each tinted.
From the interior of the SUV, shadows of additional men played against the windows,
and the vehicle was parked so that the windshield was not visible from the road.
Beyard slowed the car, his eyes hard, lips drawn tight. “I’ve got a carton of cigarettes in the back. If that fails, then cash.
“We assume the worst, which is that they’re looking for you. We act on the best— that they’re out for a joyride.
“On the floor underneath the seat is a cap. Put it on.”
At a crawl the Peugeot closed the distance.
Beyard’s face was expressionless, and his eyes moved rapidly from the men to the vehicles and the road ahead,
and Munroe knew that, like hers, his mind had moved into a state of hyperalertness, interpreting the data and scanning the future against possible scenarios.
Two of the soldiers stepped onto the road and ordered the vehicle off the edge of it.
Munroe fished under the seat for the cap and said, “Do you have any tools? Pocketknife? Carpet cutter? Anything?”
“Check the glove compartment. I might have a screwdriver.”
She found the cap. It was grimy and covered in dust, and she slipped it on.
Many of the locals had difficulty distinguishing the features of one foreigner from the next, even more so if working with photographs.
The cap would help distort appearances. Ten meters to the checkpoint.
Munroe kept her body upright and her eyes straight ahead while her fingers moved through the contents of the glove compartment and turned up a penlight, which she shoved into a pocket.
Beyard brought the vehicle off the road, sandwiching it between the tarmac and thick foliage.
He shut off the engine, and Munroe reached across his lap, took the keys out of the ignition,
flipped the ignition key off the ring, handed it to him, and kept the remainder of the keys in her fist.
Three soldiers approached the car, two with their weapons aimed at the occupants while the third demanded the vehicle’s paperwork.
Beyard passed the documents through the open window,
and when the man turned to walk with them in the direction of one of the vehicles, Munroe caught his profile and recognized him as the one who had kicked her on the boat.
While the paperwork made the rounds, Beyard stepped out of the car.
He kept his hands visible, pointed to the trunk, and then lifted two fingers to his mouth. “I left my cigarettes,” he said.
The soldier nodded toward the rear of the car and followed Beyard with the weapon.
Beyard pulled out the carton and returned to the driver’s seat, where he made a show of breaking out a pack.
“They’ve now got another vehicle stationed behind us just where the road bends,” he said. “Two men, same equipment.”
“At least one of these guys was on the boat with me that night,” she said. “I don’t recognize any of the others.”
“If you see authority, point it out to me,” he said.
“Might be in the SUV. I see shadows.”
A bush taxi approached the checkpoint from the direction they’d come.
The vehicle held six occupants, and the roof was hidden under the bundles piled high on top of it.
Two soldiers standing on the opposite side of the road approached the taxi, peered through the windows,
and then, without asking for papers or vehicle documents, moved the road blades aside and waved it through.
Beyard flipped a cigarette out of the pack and fiddled with it. “If you saw what I saw,” he said, “we have a problem.”
“I saw it,” she said. “I’ve got a residency card on me that I need to get rid of.
“I don’t want to give them documented proof that I’m the person they’re looking for.”
Beyard pulled a lighter from the ashtray, lit his cigarette, handed the lighter to her,
and then stepped out of the vehicle with several packs of Marlboros in his hands.
He leaned his back against the car door, placed the packs on the hood, and said to the soldier nearest to him, “Care for a smoke?”
The man remained still, neither moving nor acknowledging Beyard’s question,
and in response to the lack of reaction Beyard began a monologue,
his voice loud enough to be heard by the soldiers nearest to him: the weather, the food in the city— everything and anything, it didn’t matter, he simply talked.
Munroe set the residency card on the floor in front of her and lit a corner of it.
It was a slow burn, the plastic wrapping itself around in curls while it let off noxious fumes.
The flame had burned a third of the way through the card, taking with it the photo and most of the personal information when the mood outside the vehicle shifted.
Munroe stomped on the flame and shoved the remainder of the card into the seat cushion.
The soldier who had originally taken the vehicle’s documents returned without them.
In a language familiar from the night she’d been shot, he barked a command to the two standing beside the vehicle, and they ordered Munroe out.
Beyard pulled a long draw on the cigarette and blew smoke into the air. Not good.
Beyard was a nonsmoker, and that he was going through the motions of a habit he found particularly disgusting was an old signal, a warning. Comply.
Three soldiers crossed the road and joined the three already there.
One of them ordered Munroe and Beyard onto the ground and one at a time kicked their legs apart, pulled their hands back, and cuffed their wrists.
Under gunpoint she and Beyard were forced into the back of one of the trucks.
They were shoved onto their stomachs, and while they lay on the bed of the truck, the soldiers sat along the rim, weapons held toward the captives.
The vehicle lurched forward. After a few moments of driving, they left the road.
Munroe could feel it in the jolts of the truck, hear it in the way the sound of the vehicle’s engine carried through the chassis, smell it in the way mud and living things permeated the air.
She struggled to keep her head from slamming against the floor. They were working a small track now.
The lighting changed, and she caught glimpses of green. Deeper into the bush.
She couldn’t see Beyard— her head was turned opposite— but she could feel him.
He had moved closer, a gesture no doubt meant to reassure, but there was nothing reassuring about the situation.
Black, muddy boots were only inches from her face and just above them a touch of dull metal, the man’s weapon pointed at her head.
The truck stopped without warning. The soldiers emptied the vehicle, and Munroe was pulled up from behind and dragged backward out of the truck.
Her head hit the tailgate on the way out, and she fell to her knees.
A throbbing penetrated her skull, followed by a telltale trickle down the side of her face and the acrid smell of blood.
Her vision blurred gray, and internally the percussion of war began to beat out.
At eye level was the belt of one of the captors. Sidearm. Ammunition. Knife.
The urge to strike welled, instinct began to flow,
and then in an instant the fury collapsed into itself, a fire without a source of fuel. And she was immobilized.
A split second of fear brought on by the sight of Beyard had swept her back. Fear.
It was probable that in working out her own escape, Beyard would be killed.
Instead of every sense shifting into overdrive toward self-preservation, she was fucking worried about Beyard. It was new, this sensation of fear.
She’d never had to cultivate the demons and primal instincts lurking underneath the surface.
Control them yes, ward them off yes, but never to call on them.
It was a god-awful time for feral instinct to go domestic.
She was forced to her feet. Not far from the vehicle lay a narrow trail that led into the bush.
The soldier standing closest stuck his weapon into her ribs and nodded in the direction she should go, and when she didn’t move, he pushed her.
The color of the trees phased from emerald to drab olive, and the internal percussion was a very faint tap against her chest.
The undergrowth was dense and the trail difficult to find, and when she slowed, looking for direction, the weapon behind her connected with her back.
The inner hammer pounded. She smiled a smile of death and clenched the fist that still held the keys.
With her thumb she repositioned them so that they protruded between the slits of her fingers.
It was impossible to tell how many of the men followed behind, or if Beyard was following the same trail or had been forced onto his own private death march.
She could make no movement, no plan until she knew where he was and how many men walked between them.
She risked another jab to the ribs and called out, the bleat of a Peters’s duiker, one of the small antelope that inhabited the underbrush.
A few moments later, it was returned. Beyard was back there somewhere following the same path.
The trail ended abruptly at the edge of a small gully.
Fifteen feet of mud and gnarled and twisted root systems separated the top, where she stood, from the bottom, where a murky, rust-red river cut through the landscape.
During the rains the river would be pregnant and swollen with water, but now it was only a remnant of itself.
Between the trail and the river’s edge, there were a few feet of space, nothing more.
The soldier yanked at her wrists and pushed her to her knees, his weapon pressed into her neck.
She faced the river, her back to the trail, and his belt was at eye level, his weapon only inches from her cheek.
In the stillness the sound of footsteps came from behind and with them the call of the duiker.
Beyard was placed as far away from her as the foliage would allow.
His hands were secured behind his back, and she was sure that, like her, he was on his knees with a soldier positioned next to him, weapon angled toward his head.
And then there was relative silence.
There were more men approaching. They were near, still moving down the trail;
how many was impossible to tell, although instinct told her they could be no more than six.
An execution would take place, and the men guarding them now would do nothing without the orders that were getting closer by the second.
Munroe closed her eyes to focus. She could possibly get out alive.
If she had to worry about Beyard, there was no telling, and every heartbeat of hesitation was a hastening to her own demise.
Things were what they were; it was now or never.
She moved her right thumb out of its socket and slid off the cuff, popped the thumb back, and tightened the keys in her hand.
She shifted her weight forward, pulled taut, and then looked up at the soldier.
When he turned toward her, she smiled sweetly and in Portuguese said, “Will you kill me now?”
He said nothing and turned his face so that he stared out across the water, but she had spotted what she wanted.
His eyes had dilated in registered recognition. He was Angolan.
She continued, “I cannot die without speaking of the treasure.” Her voice was soft and lilting, each word uttered slowly and precisely.
“You will find it buried underneath the mound on the beach five kilometers south, where the mouth of the river meets the ocean.”
With each word she lowered her voice until at the end the lie trailed to only a whisper.
It was involuntary— the man could not help himself; with each word his head moved nearer to hear what she said.
She struck like a mamba. Deadly. Silent. Fast.
Without a sound the keys tore through the man’s neck, replacing his trachea with a gaping hole.
The force knocked him to the ground, and air and blood bubbled from his throat.
His fingers struggled to find his weapon, which lay just beyond reach, and Munroe kicked it with her foot.
There could be no gunshot, only stealth and silence. She moved on top of him, grabbed his head, and twisted for the snap.
She rolled to her belly, held on to his body with one hand and the weapon with the other, and slid down into the gully, catching her footing on the root system protruding through the mud banks.
She grabbed the knife from his belt, took the sidearm and shoved it in at the small of her back, slung the assault weapon over her shoulder, and then let go of the body.
It slid down the embankment, landing facedown in the muck of the river, lending a deeper red to the water.
It had taken five seconds, long enough for Beyard to die ten times, but there’d been no sound of gunfire, no noise from the distance where he’d knelt.
Munroe rose to the edge, ready to take the soldier that guarded him,
and was greeted by Beyard’s boots as he slid after her into the gully, dragging a body with him.
Her hands worked quickly, searching the body of Beyard’s guard for a key to the handcuffs.
“How the hell did you manage that?” she asked. She found nothing.
“You think I survived this long by letting other people fight my battles?” He breathed out a cruel whisper of a laugh.
“Thanks for the distraction.” He gave a forced smile and then dropped the body into the gully and hissed, “Move.”
She leaned into the bank and crab-walked, a half swing, half jump, throwing her weight forward and balancing against whatever she managed to hold on to. Speed was all that mattered.
Beyard was close behind, and like her he had an assault weapon slung across his back as he worked the bank, hanging on to whatever he could to keep upright and avoid sliding to the bottom.
Sounds of confusion filtered across the gully, and Munroe and Beyard scrambled up into the foliage.
They’d managed to get about forty meters from the spot of execution.
On their stomachs they began the slow crawl forward. Silence was now their best friend.
The empty cuff dangled off Munroe’s hand, and it made her nervous.
In spite of precautions, the cuffs made noise when any two parts of metal connected. Faint. But noise nonetheless, and any noise would attract gunfire.
Elbows to the spongy ground, they moved deeper into the bush.
Munroe had a guess as to where they were, but only a guess,
and when she was certain there was no way to be seen from the banks, she rolled to the side and motioned for Beyard to lead.
The unmistakable hiss of a Gaboon viper sounded not far from her head.
She remained motionless and after what seemed an eternity cautiously rolled back.
The snake’s venom could kill in fifteen minutes, and civilization was a hell of a lot farther than that.
A staccato of gunfire sounded from the way they’d come, and then silence.
They crawled forward a foot at a time, listening and then moving again.
If the soldiers had followed them into the gully, they had not found the area where they’d entered the bush; all sounds of pursuit had moved in other directions.
Another round of gunfire disturbed the canopy, farther away than the previous burst and far enough in the distance that no voices could be heard.
They moved from their stomachs to a crouch and, as they covered distance and the silence deepened, to a full walk.
And then thirst and time became the enemies.
It would have been different during the rains, when red clay mud would ooze through their clothes, into their hair, across their faces,
and would sting when it mixed with sweat and dripped into their eyes and the taste of it filled their mouths.
It would have coated their skin and worked as camouflage and kept the biting insects at bay.
And the rain that transmogrified the clay into mud would have been plentiful and easily quenched their thirst.
But the rains had begun to dissipate weeks ago.
At some point in the hours of the nocturnal morning, when the silence was deepest, when the calls of the night jungle had stilled, and before the predawn awakening, they made it back to the guesthouse.
They’d utilized the dirt road for the last kilometer, hanging tight to the edge in case they needed to disappear into the foliage.
They had maneuvered past one checkpoint, the typical ragtag group of warriors, several of them drunk and passed out, the others half dozing.
Beyond that, no sign of military.
Their thirst was nearly unbearable, and by the light of a near-full moon they maneuvered skillfully through the kitchen to water.
They drank in rapid gulps, water dribbling down their faces streaking the grime and dirt, a strange form of war paint,
and when Munroe could drink no more, she searched for a paper clip, wire, anything she could use to open the handcuff lock or work as a shim.
She found nothing. Those were items so familiar in the West, that other world.
Beyard left for the bedroom and then returned, cuffs off, and placed a key in her palm. She released the lock. “Thanks,” she said,
and in one drawn-out movement slapped the mud-crusted cuffs around his wrists and pulled the pistol out of the small of her back. She leveled it at his head.
