英文有声《第43条疤痕》三部曲

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chapter 15
Beyard’s eyes found hers, and even in the dark it was evident that his face registered shock.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” His words came in a garbled, half-choked whisper that held no control or calm.
“I don’t want to kill you,” Munroe said, “but I’ll blow your fucking head right off if I have to.” 
She kicked a chair toward him. “Sit.” He did as he was told, and it was clear that he did it out of confusion and an attempt to understand rather than because of any genuine fear. 
She pulled the penlight from her pocket, aimed it at his right eye, and stood in front of him just beyond his reach.
“I consider you a personal and strategic threat,” she said. “I’m tired, hungry, and mad as hell, so don’t try my patience. 
“I want answers, and I want the truth, even if you think it’ll piss me off. 
“I haven’t got time to waste, and lies, distortions, and half-truths will only cause this to end with you dead and me gone.”
Beyard squinted at the light and shifted away from it. “I’ve never lied to you,” he said.
“There have been omissions,” she said. “Do you take me for an idiot?”
She waited for a moment, allowed silence to fill the room, and studied his eyes and the shifting tension of his face for the invisible cues that would betray his deception. 
“When was the last time you spoke with Boniface?”
The corners of Beyard’s mouth twitched slightly, and he turned his head to the side. 
He took a shallow breath, and in the split second it took for him to bring his eyes straight at her, her suspicions were confirmed.
“If this is about Akambe,” Beyard said, “I’m speechless.”
“Answer the fucking question.”
“About two weeks ago.”
“He told you that I was heading to Malabo.”
Bravado shifted to discomfort. There was a pregnant pause. “Yes.”
“He gave you pictures, didn’t he? You sent people to follow me, to watch my movements.”
A deep inhalation and then, “Yes.”
“And you had me drugged and taken out to the boat to be killed.”
“No.”
The tightness in his face and inflection in his voice said truth; she raised the weapon as if to fire and said, “You’re lying.”
“Vanessa, I swear it,” he said. “I had nothing to do with what happened to you on the boat. 
“When I spoke with Boniface, he told me he’d worked papers for you and that you were moving in the direction of Malabo. 
“At first I felt only anger— I wanted to hurt you. And then I was curious, wanted to know what you were like, why you were here, what you were doing. 
“I was afraid to see you personally, didn’t know how I would react. So I had you followed.”
Munroe shook her head slowly. “‘Misplaced trust can be a dangerous thing,’” she said. “Those words meant something, though I didn’t know it at the time. 
“All this while, at any point, you could have told me— given me the information I needed to make the connection— and you didn’t. 
“And now twice in the past week I’ve been taken at gunpoint by the same group of men, and you’re the only connection between those events,” she said. 
“They never asked to see my ID, never even got a good look at me. Explain that.”
“I’m as puzzled and confused by it as you are,” he said. “What? You think I planned that? Pretend I’m about to get my own head blown off right beside you? 
“What a fucking stratagem that would have been. It wasn’t just you almost killed out there today. At this point I want answers almost as badly as you do.”
“What about Malabo?” she said. “Your bumbling idiots disappeared right before I was dragged off.”
“It was coincidence,” he said. “I swear, I had nothing to do with that. No matter how angry I was with you— to kill you? No, Vanessa, I could not do that.” 
He paused and looked at her with a sly smile. “I’ve known what you are capable of. 
“If I hated you that much, I would have done the job myself, made sure it was done properly— not hired some half-assed group of fuckups to do it for me.” 
He paused, and when Munroe said nothing, he continued. “When I heard that you had purchased tickets for Bata, I told my guys to pack up shop and to notify me when you’d left town. 
“It was only the next day, when you weren’t on that plane, that I knew something had happened— what exactly was anybody’s guess. 
“Among the possibilities was that you’d gone to the GEASA office as a ruse and that your true destination was somewhere else.”
Munroe stepped closer and, standing directly in front of him, pressed the muzzle of the gun under his chin and forced his head back. 
She moved behind him, tracing the weapon against his neck as she went. His eyes followed, although his head did not move. 
She continued until the muzzle was at the base of his skull and she stood an arm’s length behind him.
“Emily Burbank,” she said. “How much of the information that you’ve fed me is accurate?”
“I have never lied to you,” he said. “What would be the point in that?”
“You did see her three years ago in Bata?”
“Yes.”
“The information given to us by Salim and supposedly said by the other two friends of yours— was it genuine?”
“All true as far as I know. I had an idea that they might have seen the girl. That’s why we went there.”
At the tail end of the explanation, Munroe heard the inaudible, words that shouldn’t be. 
She took a deep breath and for a brief second tilted her head toward the ceiling. 
“Francisco,” she said, her voice soft and singsong, “I can smell the omission, taste it, touch it. What are you not telling me?”
He was silent.
“I need to get moving, so say what you’re going to say. Or don’t.” 
She punched his head forward with the gun. “Whether you live or die— your choice.”
He sighed. It was a deep breath, and in the exhale came the sound of defeat by the inevitable, finality, 
as if by whatever he was to say next he executed his own death and was willing to accept it as it was. 
“When I saw the girl in Bata three years ago,” he said, “I recognized the men she was with. I know who they are and where to find them.”
In a silent scream, Munroe clenched her teeth and kicked the back of the chair, nearly knocking him out of it. 
“You fucking almost got us killed,” she hissed. “For nothing! Goddamn it, Francisco, you knew! 
“What the hell could the point of today possibly have been? You fucking knew!”
“I wanted to be sure the information I had was up-to-date.”
The explanation wasn’t right, it didn’t fit. Even with her judgment clouded by fury, she knew it. “That’s bullshit!” she said. 
Then she took a deep breath and, monotone, in a near whisper, said, “I’d love to kiss you right now, stroke your hair and tell you how sorry I am to have to do this.” 
She moved one carefully placed foot at a time until she was once again standing in front of him. 
“You’ve meant more to me than any other person I know,” she said, and raised the gun to his forehead. “Good-bye, Francisco.”
His voice cracked, and in a half scream he yelled, “Wait!” 
And then, just above a whisper, “Goddamn it, Vanessa, what the hell do I have to do to prove to you that I’m telling the truth?”
“You haven’t told me all,” she said. “Killing you is a matter of self-preservation, Francisco. A necessary evil. No offense. I’m sure you’d do the same if the roles were reversed.”
He let out a long breath and then lowered his eyes. “How long is the assignment going to last?” he asked. “Two weeks, maybe three. 
“Get in, get out, easy, simple. Well, maybe not as easy now, but I didn’t have a gauge on that this morning. 
“When the assignment is over, what happens to you? You go back to your world, and I stay in mine. I have you only for as long as this project continues.” 
His eyes met hers, challenging. “Given that scenario, why don’t you give me a reason not to go into Bata?”
However pathetic, it was the truth she’d needed to snap events into focus. 
She moved the light out of his eyes and shut it off. “That is the most lame-assed crap excuse I’ve heard in my life.” 
She flipped the safety and with a shove returned the gun to the small of her back. 
“What the hell were you thinking? You of all people should know better than to make tactical decisions based on emotion.” 
She took his wrists and released the cuffs. “Consider this payback for locking me in the cell on the ship.”
He sat still on the chair and stared at her, rubbing his wrists where the handcuffs had been. 
“Even a grand master makes a mistake now and then,” he said. He looked up. “I don’t know whether to kiss you or smack you.”
She crossed her arms and stared. “I swear, Francisco, if I find that you’ve double-crossed me, you’re a dead man. 
“I will hunt you down, and there is nothing you or any one of your men could do to keep me from fulfilling that vow.”
“I’ll admit I haven’t been completely straight,” he said. “I should have told you about tracking you in Malabo, 
“and I shouldn’t have withheld information about the girl, but beyond that I’ve done nothing to sabotage your work. 
“I don’t give a shit about your assignment or this girl that you’re trying to find, but I do want you alive, 
“and I’d like you with me for as long as possible. Is that good enough for you?”
“For now.”
“And you might as well know that I haven’t been able to get in contact with one of my guys since the night you were shot. 
“He’s possibly one of the two passing your photo around Bata, although I swear I have nothing to do with that.” 
Beyard continued to rub his wrists. “Were you really going to kill me?”
“I don’t know. At the least I would have left you here and taken the boat to Cameroon.”
She moved across the house toward the bathroom, and he followed. Her fingers ran along the doorframe until she found a grip. 
Beyard stood behind and remained silent while she separated the segment from the wall, pulled the container from its hiding place, and slid the belt out.
“How would you take the boat?” he asked. “You don’t have the key.”
She strapped the belt around her waist and tucked it under her pants. “I wouldn’t need one any more than you would,” she said. “But even so, I could get it if I wanted.” 
She looked off in the distance toward the main house. “It’s in there.”
“Antonia doesn’t know where it is.”
“She knows which rooms you frequent the most, and thanks to you”— Munroe knocked on the wood in her hands and then shoved the frame back into place— “I know where to look.”
Beyard opened his mouth to say something, and stopped. He nodded in the direction of the main house. “Let’s go.”
IN THEIR ABSENCE the cig had been refueled, and it carried enough additional fuel in storage to make the trip twice. 
The noise of the engine shattered the silence, and Beyard guided the boat away from its mooring. 
When they were on open water, he placed a small box in Munroe’s hand. 
“Truce,” he said. “A gesture of goodwill— without it I’m lost from my ship, and I’m giving it to you because I trust you and hope that you trust me. 
“When you activate it, we’ll get our coordinates and George will know we’re on our way in.”
To the east the color of the sky had shifted from star-studded black to deepest blue. 
By the time they coasted alongside the trawler, the sun had fully climbed into its arc across the sky. 
On the deck Wheal nodded at Munroe and grasped Beyard’s hand with both of his. “Didn’t expect you back so soon,” he said.
Beyard reached for a hose that lay curled against a wall a few feet away. 
“We ran into a few problems,” he said, and cranked the tap, hosing himself off, shoes, clothes, and all, the force of the water carrying with it the mud and gunk of the previous twenty hours. 
Dripping wet, he handed the hose to Munroe, and to Wheal he said, “We’ll be up in the wheelhouse in ten minutes. Will you meet us there?”
Still grimy but minus the mud and in clean clothes, they gathered in the pilothouse. 
For Wheal’s benefit, Beyard summarized the events that had brought them back to the ship. 
He spoke in English and even with his lack of fluency was descriptive in the telling of it, 
although his version neatly left out all mention of the guesthouse from the moment the pistol had been placed to his head.
When he was finished, they sat in silence. There was no need to say what they all were thinking. 
The minutes passed slowly and were emphasized by the regular ticks of the radarscope that filled the quiet. 
Beyard bit on the edge of his thumb, Wheal tapped a pen against the table, and Munroe sat with her head kicked back and her legs stretched out.
Wheal was the first to speak. “I want to know what happens next.” 
He turned to Munroe. “You know that if you go back in, you’re playing against terrible odds— it’s a high-risk venture, the stakes being your life 
“and”— he paused and nodded at Beyard— “more important as far as I’m concerned, Francisco’s, if he decides to go with you. Is what you’re after worth that much?”
Munroe tapped her fingers against the table, a steady Morse rhythm, and then nodded almost imperceptibly in answer to Wheal’s question. 
“Yes and no,” she said. “I’m willing to put my life up against it, I’m not willing to put up Francisco’s— or anyone else’s, for that matter. 
“It’s a decision he has to make for himself, but I’ve got to go back in regardless.”
Wheal rested his forearms on the table. “Listen,” he said. “We’re all a little nuts to be in this business, a little fucked in the head, a little short on fear. 
“I don’t give a rat’s ass that you’ve got a death wish, but what you’re setting out to do is suicidal, and that’s where I draw the line. 
“Not because of you. Go fucking die, I don’t care.” Wheal nodded again toward Beyard. “My job is to keep him out of trouble, and you”— he pointed at Munroe— “are trouble.”
“Oh, how sweet,” she said with the high pitch of patronization. “You’re playing daddy. Does Francisco get grounded if he breaks curfew?”
Predictably, Wheal eased back from the table, straightened, and crossed his arms. 
Outwardly, Munroe’s face was placid; inside, she was amused. 
He had an eight-inch, hundred-pound advantage, and his was the posture of an alpha male adept at intimidation. 
She’d taken on guys his size before, and what she lacked in bulk and strength she more than made up for in speed and agility. 
In another time and another place, the challenge would have been more than welcome. 
She would’ve continued to provoke him until he exploded, then, and like lightning, would have gone up over the table, and the pain from the ensuing fight would have been cathartic— but not here.
“I can’t give you what you want,” she said. “The status quo has already been disrupted, 
“and even if I walk away, nobody, especially not you or me, has the power to put things back the way they were. 
“I don’t want to see what you have here ruined any more than you do, but it’s out of your hands now, you know that.”
“If I’m going to lose my friend, I’d like to know it’s fucking worth it.”
“I have no answers for you, George. It’s possible we’ll wind up a couple of decomposing bodies in a ditch. 
“It would be tragic and, considering statistical probability, long overdue. 
“Yes, I could walk away and guarantee myself a few more days, but for what? So this can haunt me for the rest of my life? No thanks. 
“Whether I want it or not, I’m locked in. I’d also like to get my hands on the bastard who wants me dead. 
“And there’s the issue of Emily Burbank: If she really is alive, I need to find her, out of principle and to fulfill a promise I made to a mother in Europe.” 
She turned to Beyard. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me, and I really don’t expect you to accompany me, 
“but I am going back, and when I start setting things in motion, it would be helpful to know what you’re planning to do.”
Beyard, who had been silent throughout the exchange, with his arms crossed and his chin on his chest, raised his eyes and said, “Do you even have to ask?”
Wheal leaned forward into Beyard’s line of sight. “This thing is worth your life?”
Beyard let out a snort. “You know me better than that.”
“Then why the hell go?”
Beyard sat back and wrapped an arm over the chair. “I have my reasons.”
Wheal stood and placed his hands on the table, leaning down so that his head was almost level with Beyard’s.
“This is fucked up, Francisco, you know it’s fucked up. You’re risking everything we’ve had. Seven years of friendship.” 
Wheal snapped his fingers. “Seven years of partnership. For what?”
When Beyard said nothing, Wheal walked toward the door. “The two of you can sort it out. This is insane, and I want no part of it.”
When Wheal had left the room, Beyard said, “I’ve crossed the Rubicon.”
“You can still change your mind.”
Beyard rested his elbows on the table and placed his chin against his folded hands. 
“No,” he said. “Regardless of how events play out, there’s no going back.”
Munroe put her feet on the table and tilted back in the chair. 
“All right then,” she said. “We’re going in again, and this time we do it my way.”
The look of concerned sadness that had been on Beyard’s face opened into a smile of amusement, but he said nothing. 
Munroe ignored what the smile implied. War was a boys’ club that she’d infiltrated long ago, and he, like so many others before him, would figure it out eventually. 
“We’ll need supplies that you don’t have,” she continued, “so I’ll need to make a few calls. 
“If you’ve got connections and friends in the government, this would be a good time to call in some favors, find out what they know, and see if we can’t learn something.”
“Do you still have the number that you got from Salim? What we get when the phone is answered could be enlightening.”
“It’s pulp in one of my pockets.”
It took Beyard an hour to make the rounds by phone, 
during which time Munroe assembled a supply list that she e-mailed to Logan, 
and then, unable to reach Logan by phone, she and Beyard retreated to the galley, where they put together a meal from an odd assortment of frozen and canned goods. 
It was the first they’d eaten in over a day, and between shoveled-in bites they discussed what little Beyard had learned.
The events that had transpired off the coast of Bioko Island and by the edge of the Boara River had apparently never happened. 
No word or rumor floated through the capital, 
and if the orders had come through official channels, they had escaped each of the people Beyard relied on for information. 
The U.S. embassy in Malabo provided few additional clues. 
Notification of Munroe’s death had come from a fisherman who’d described in graphic detail a body found along the shoreline 
and who’d produced a residency card he claimed had come from it.
Munroe brought a piece of paper to the table and began to sketch. 
“We’re working through an information blind,” she said. “What are the givens?”
“We know that this girl was alive a few months ago,” he said. “That she lives in Mongomo, 
“that she’s married to or is the mistress of Timoteo Otoro Nchama, vice minister of mines and energy, 
“and that someone in the Equatoguinean government is willing to kill to prevent you from getting to her.”
Munroe kept her eyes on the paper and rapidly diagrammed. “The big question to which we have no answer is why. We also don’t know who.”
“Have you considered the possibility that this girl does not want to be found? That it is she who is pulling the strings to keep you away?”
Munroe stopped writing, looked at him, and one corner of her mouth turned up, twisting her lips into a half grin. 
“I’ve considered a lot of possibilities,” she said. “But not that one.”
“It’s worth a thought.”
“Yes it is,” she said, and returned to the paper. “We can assume that wherever Emily is, she’s being watched— protected or threatened. 
“We can assume that, like in Bata, at each of the country’s gateways someone is watching for me, and that no matter how many times I attempt to enter, I will be tracked.
“I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but since it’s me that the trouble follows, I won’t be going in again.”
“What the hell, Essa? Two hours ago you nearly started a fight with George because you insisted you were going back.”
“Oh, I’m going,” she said. “But not as me.”
Munroe stopped writing and turned the paper around so Beyard could follow. “There’s one group of foreigners who can come and go as they please. 
“They have the president’s blessing, nobody hassles them, nobody looks, nobody wants to know: Israeli military.” 
She tapped the pen onto the paper and continued to diagram. 
“So under the cover of an envoy out of Cameroon, we enter from the northeastern gateway and beeline south to Mongomo.”
Beyard stared at the paper, his lips drawn tight, and shook his head slightly. “I’m not sure if you’re completely mad or a fucking genius.”
“I guess we’ll soon find out,” she said, and returned to the paper once again. 
“Since this is the dry season and the roads are passable, best-case scenario we can be in and out in two days. 
“Worst-case…” Munroe paused and sighed. “There are a few critical unknowns making it difficult to define worst-case. 
“It should be a clean in and out, there and gone before anyone is even aware of our presence. Should be…” And her voice trailed off.
“Mongomo will be our point of greatest vulnerability. It’s what concerns me most,” she continued. 
“There are any number of reasons that looping back the way we enter might not be possible, 
“and the way I see it— and you have more experience in this than I do— we have two alternative return routes out of the country. 
“Potentially fastest and most problematic is east into Gabon— a roughly five-kilometer run to the border. 
“Second is working the tracks through the center of the country to the coast— 
“more dangerous because of time spent inside the country and the variables that could turn up along the way, but once we get to the coast a much cleaner getaway.”
“Both are viable,” Beyard said. “If we have trouble in Mongomo, we have to rule out Bata as a gateway— we’ll be expected there. 
“Mbini would work. It’s slightly farther south, off the beaten path, and I have contacts there.” 
He leaned back and after a moment said, “Last word has it the Israeli presence is extremely small and limited to specific areas. 
There are no female forces in the country, and should we encounter genuine troops, our cover will be blown.”
“All true,” she said. “Which is why two days from now I will be heading to the training base outside of Yaoundé to get a feel for what the Israeli operations are like in Cameroon, 
“get onto the base if I can— make a dry run of it. I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks.”
“It sounds like an unnecessary risk,” he said. “Cameroon may not be Equatorial Guinea, but it’s not far from it. 
“You get caught and you’ve not only blown your original objective, you’ll lose the next ten or fifteen years of your life rotting in some hole of a prison.”
“I know,” she said. “But I also know what I’m doing. I won’t get caught.”
“Considering the way things have gone so far, you sound extremely confident.”
Munroe stopped and stared at him and then without further explanation said, “Gathering information is what I do for a living. I won’t get caught.” 
She returned to the paper. “Your job: We’ll need transportation with plates and papers for Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon. 
“If we locate Emily and she wants to come with us, we need to be prepared to extract her and as many as three children. 
“The two of us will also need Israeli military passports.”
“Two vehicles?”
Munroe nodded.
“It’s all doable,” he said. “And I’m certain Boniface can handle the vehicle papers and plates, even the papers for Emily and a few kids. 
“I’m not so sure about the military passports. 
“He’ll have to go through Nigeria for those, and even still, Israeli military passports are pretty rare— especially if we need two of them. 
“Imitations would work. The border guards certainly have not seen enough of them to know one from the other.”
“Imitations are fine,” she said, and she continued to sketch, 
“although it’s not the border guards I’m concerned about. The vehicles will have to be fitted to smuggle weapons and equipment.”
“None of this should be a problem,” he said. “But we’re looking at a serious amount of cash, and it’s my understanding you haven’t got much money with you.”
“Once we get into Douala, I can front you sixty thousand dollars. 
“The rest will take a few days— I’ll need to have it wired over. We’re going to need weaponry,” she said.
“Except for the MP5s we keep onboard, I’m limited to Russian or East European.”
“We need to keep it as authentic as possible.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“Ammunition?”
“Have plenty.”
“Lupo was using a Vintorez when he was playing sniper on the pilothouse roof. What are the chances I can have it?”
“Everything is negotiable,” he said. “If the price is right, I’m sure we can arrange something.”
By the time Munroe got Logan on the phone, he’d already started work on the supply list. 
“Some of these items are going to be hard to come by,” he said. “Might take a couple of weeks to track them down.”
“Two to three weeks should work, but there’s a catch this time— I need you to deliver most of it to me in person.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I kid you not. There are a few things I need sent ahead to the FedEx office in Douala: the pilot uniforms and the Hebrew-English learning system. 
“For everything else get yourself a visa and prepare to fly to Douala. Funding goes standard through Kate. 
“Having you courier this stuff in is the only way I can guarantee that it gets into the country. 
“I figure you’ll know how to pack it to avoid hassles going through airline security, 
“but if not, let me know and I’ll walk you through it. Can you clear your schedule?”
Logan’s response was a barely audible grunt, and she could hear the keyboard clacking in the background.
“E-mail me your flight itinerary as soon as you have it. You’re looking for the earliest return possible, preferably in and out on the same day, even if it means different airlines.”
Another grunt.
“If for any reason funding is going to hold things up, use my retainer; it should cover everything. 
“And, Logan, last thing: I’ve got two days,” she said. “After that I can’t guarantee when or how often I can call, 
“so does that give us enough time to confirm everything for the time frame we’re working?”
“It should.”
“Then I’ll be back with you in two days. And, Logan?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
TWO DAYS. NOT because it was what she wanted, but because it was necessary. 
Remaining on the ship would put space between the phases; 
the downtime was critical in allowing the bits and pieces of information accumulated over the past weeks to filter to the bottom of the mental pool, to shift from one game plan into the next. 
Downtime was typically difficult to deal with; in the stillness, internal pressure would steadily build, urging toward action and the rush of adrenaline— but, regardless, the stillness was critical.
The silence this time was different. When supplies had been packed, the weapons disassembled, meticulously cleaned and put back together, and there was nothing more to do to kill time, 
the hours passed over the chessboard and in philosophical discussion with Francisco, a throwback to another time, the world forgotten, and Munroe was at peace.
Two days later she stood against the railing and watched the trawler’s deck crane lower one of the cigarette boats to the water. 
It was dawn, and the ocean was calm and the air empty except for the noise made by the machinery. 
Munroe turned from the railing and reentered the pilothouse. 
She’d been trying since five to reach Logan and would continue to call at fifteen-minute intervals until he picked up. 
She checked the clock. It was late evening in Dallas; she should already have been able to reach him. 
On the sixth attempt, he answered. “I’ve been trying to get you for over an hour,” she said.
“Battery died. I’ve been hunting down the supply list, haven’t had time to recharge.”
“How are we?”
“We’ll have what you need within the next ten days,” he said. 
“The FedEx package is already on its way. They said three days, but we all know that means at least a week. 
“The uniforms were the hardest to come by, but I’ve got a guy working on those, and I’ve been guaranteed delivery within a week. 
“There’s been some kind of delay with the funding, and I’ve been too busy to figure it out.”
“Don’t bother with it,” Munroe said. “I need to call Kate anyway, and I’ll make sure it’s settled. Do you have your itinerary?”
“That’s the other thing. Apparently Miles Bradford is heading your way, and Kate suggested he bring the items, save me the hassle. 
“And truthfully, Michael, if he can, I would appreciate it, because I’ve got a shitload of work stacked up for me.”
Munroe was silent for a moment and then said, “If you don’t hear anything else from me on it by tomorrow, then arrange to get the items to Miles. Ten days, right?”
“Yeah, ten days.”
The news about the supplies was good. Miles Bradford was a problem.
“We don’t have a lot of choice,” Breeden explained in answer to Munroe’s query. 
“Between your insistence on continuing the assignment and Miles’s determination to return to Africa, Richard Burbank changed his mind about rescinding. 
“He wants Miles with you, and since you’re under contract, there’s not much we can do about it. 
“The good news, though, is that since the contract is still open, Richard covers expenses, and considering the bill that Logan just sent me, that’s not a small thing.”
“That’s only a third of it,” Munroe said. “I need you to wire over twice that in cash. I’ll e-mail you the bank information.”
“I’ll get it to you as soon as I can. The accounting department at Titan is giving me the runaround— they want itemization before releasing for expenses, 
“and I’ve been trying to get in touch with Richard to get it sorted out. Apparently he’s out of town.”
“You know how it goes,” Munroe said. “We won’t know what the money is for until it’s already spent. 
“And half the time it’s for greasing palms and oiling the machinery of bureaucracy. 
“If you can’t get ahold of Burbank by tomorrow, just do what we’ve done before. 
“Put whatever label you want on it, whatever it takes to be sure I get the money and that Logan gets the funding he needs. He had to dip into the retainer.”
“I’ll take care of it today.”
Munroe replaced the phone, stood still for a moment, 
and then, with clenched teeth, slammed the palm of her hand into the wall and kicked the chair closest to her. 
Beyard, who’d been standing on the other side of the room, said, “Whatever the problem, surely it is not the wall and the chair that are to blame.”
“Better the furniture than a person.” She sighed and sat in the chair, looking up at Beyard. 
“We have a problem,” she said. “Or a wrinkle, or whatever the fuck we want to call him.”
“Him?”
“Miles Bradford, my partner from Malabo. I’m sure you know who I’m talking about.
“He’s flying to Douala in about two weeks’ time, and either I kill him as a matter of prevention or he’s coming with us to Mongomo.”
Beyard sat in the chair opposite and after a moment of silence said, “Essa, there’s something you’re not telling me. 
“This man who was your partner, he is already familiar with the scenario, 
“and if my sources were accurate, you have worked well together. Logically, he would be an asset to this assignment.”
“There are two things, Francisco.” She drew herself up so that she looked him directly in the face. 
“First, I don’t know if I can trust him. That he was left while I was hauled off to be murdered and dumped overboard doesn’t sit easy with me, 
“but I can work with it. What angers me most can’t be explained by logic.” She paused. “I simply don’t want him here.” 
She motioned toward the navigational controls. “I don’t want to share this with him, don’t want to share you with him. 
“This… this is a part of me that is sacred, my own. I don’t want it tarnished by an intruder who already knows everything else about me that there is to know. This is mine.”
Beyard nodded and then stood. “In your words: ‘You of all people should know better than to make tactical decisions based on emotion.’ 
“I don’t want an intruder any more than you do,” he said. “But the plan comes first. 
“If he’s a risk to the enterprise, we can remove him, but I think we would want to be very cautious in that regard.” 
He held his hand to her. She reached for it, and he pulled her to her feet.
They took the cig north to Douala, docking at the southernmost edge of the port. 
The docks were crowded with people and with metal containers stacked three or four high, 
each filled with items that waited to clear a customs procedure fraught with requests for bribes and dubious processing fees. 
Muscular bodies glistening with sweat unloaded goods while trucks long ago retired from work in the Northern Hemisphere stood nearby with engines idling, belching smoke. 
The smell of burned diesel fuel mingled with the odor of decay and the aroma of salt and fish coming off the ocean.
Beyard’s driver met them, and they unloaded the boat. 
Money had changed hands, papers had been signed, and there would be no questions asked as they drove into the city with a small arsenal behind the backseat. 
The first destination was the Société Générale de Banques au Cameroun, 
and when the money had been withdrawn and transferred to other accounts, they navigated the streets to a modern two-bedroom flat that stood in the heart of the city.
The apartment was one of four on the ground, with three walk-up levels above, 
and the building stood next to two others that were identical, all in a quiet compound surrounded by a high cement wall that had been whitewashed and glass-topped and gleamed bright under the sun. 
It was there that they would rendezvous once all the pieces had been put into place.
AT FIVE-THIRTY THE next morning, Beyard dropped Munroe off at the bus station. 
She had originally planned to leave alone, to disappear into the dark of the early morning, but Beyard wouldn’t hear of it. 
He’d insisted on taking her to the bus station, and if he’d had his way, he would have waited until she’d boarded the five forty-five bus for Yaoundé. 
Munroe knew it wasn’t so much a protective gesture as that he didn’t want to let her go. 
She kissed him, then pulled away. “If I’m not back in ten days, it’s because something’s happened,” she said. “I’m not leaving you.” 
And then, when the red of his vehicle’s taillights had finally pulled out of the depot and vanished down the street, 
Munroe caught a cab and returned to the city center. Alone.
After nearly four weeks of continual companionship, solitude brought with it the feeling of nakedness soon replaced by the exhilaration of freedom. 
On Avenue de Gaulle she located a reputable barber and waited on the doorstep until the place opened for business. 
It was time to revert. And then time to shop and, after that, a four-hour trip to the capital.

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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.

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chapter 13
2.40° N latitude, 9.30° E longitude
West coast of Cameroon
It was midafternoon when Munroe first heard the sounds of activity around the ship. 
From the wheelhouse she had a view of the entire deck. Alongside the trawler were three smaller boats, each loaded to capacity. 
Five of the crew had already boarded the trawler, and one stayed on the water to guide the deck cranes as they were manipulated over the boats to lift them out. None of the faces were familiar.
One at a time, the cigs were brought over the cargo bay and lowered directly onto the wheeled storage racks that waited below. 
A smaller crane located inside the ship unloaded the cargo from the boats, which were then wheeled into place and locked down. 
Halfway through the loading, Munroe left the pilothouse for the hold to get a better view. 
In less than half an hour, all three boats and their cargo had disappeared from the ocean and into the belly of the ship, 
and it wasn’t until the lockdown was complete and the crew headed for the stairwell that they noticed her watching them.
The echoes that had reverberated off the walls fell silent. Beyard wiped his wet hands on the back of his pants. 
“My apologies, gentlemen,” he said. “Let me introduce you to our guest. This is Essa Munroe.”
Their words came fast, a jumble of accents and languages overlapping one another. 
Beyard held up his hands, and there was quiet. “It appears,” he said to Munroe, “that your reputation precedes you.” 
He winked at her. “For some inexplicable reason, you are something of a legend in these parts. 
“I’m sure these gentlemen will enjoy the opportunity to discover whether the tales they’ve heard are true.”
Beyard introduced his team, and one by one she shook their hands. 
They hailed from four countries— Romania, the United States, South Africa, and in addition to Beyard there were two others from Cameroon. 
English was the lingua franca, although some spoke it less than others, and French filled in the gaps.
Over a midday meal, Beyard regaled his crew with stories of times gone by, exaggerating with poetic license events that needed no exaggeration. 
Munroe enjoyed the humor and the retelling of happenings she had blocked out for nearly a decade. 
Beyard spoke animatedly and caught her eye on more than one occasion. When he did, her face flushed.
After the meal the mood of the crew changed from festive to somber. 
They would be traveling north through the night, and preparations would need to be made before the handoff. 
The galley emptied, and the ship fell ghostly silent.
There was nothing but time— that and the rocking of the ship. 
Munroe walked the vessel, familiarizing herself with every space, and then, restless and with nothing more to do, she searched out Beyard’s team. 
The only member of the crew who appeared to be left on board was in the pilothouse. 
George Wheal was Beyard’s second-in-command on the ground and first mate at sea. 
An African-American ex-SEAL, at six foot six he towered over the rest of the crew.
She stuck her head beyond the door and knocked on it. “Can I keep you company?”
“Sure, come on in.” Wheal’s voice had a booming quality that reminded her of Boniface Akambe.
She sat in the chair next to him, both of them watching the water as the trawler churned up the coastline. 
Munroe was first to break the silence. “So what got you into this fine mess of a job?”
Wheal swiveled his chair, peaked his forefingers, and peered over the tops of them. 
“When you’re trained to blow things up, there aren’t a lot of options in civilian life. 
“Francisco needed a guy who could make things go boom, and I needed a job. Voilà, here I am.”
She studied his face and his chocolate skin, then turned toward the ocean and smiled. “The locals treat you differently from the others, don’t they?”
Wheal chuckled and rubbed a hand over his head where his hair would have been if he’d had any. 
“Yeah, until they know better, they treat me like I’m Beyard’s houseboy. Or, if we happen to be going through the bush, a porter. It helps being a big guy,” 
he said with a laugh that filled the room. “It gets you some respect at least.”
She nodded knowingly. “Works both ways, doesn’t it? You mention Africa back home and all that comes to mind is animal documentaries and Masai running around with spears.”
Wheal smiled. “Yeah, it works both ways.”
They sat in silence until Wheal rose to fiddle with the knobs on the console. 
“Is it true what they say about you?” he asked. “That you speak to the locals as a god and they see you as divine?”
Munroe laughed and then said, “No, it’s not true.”
“So someone just made that shit up?”
“Not exactly. They believe I’m a powerful witch and are terrified of the juju.” She shrugged. 
“I speak the languages, know the cultures, and understand the nuances behind what they do— legends grew from that. 
“You can’t really blame them, considering the level of superstition. Hell, there’s still even the occasional human sacrifice.”
“You and Beyard,” Wheal said. “You used to be tight, huh?”
“Yeah, we were.” She tucked her legs up in the chair. “Has he told you much?”
“He only talks about you when he’s drunk, but I’ve been with him for seven years, long enough to make some sense out of his ramblings. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find your presence here troubling.”
“Do you find me threatening?”
He flashed a toothy grin. “Not even if all the stories I’ve heard are true.”
She rolled her eyes. “Which they probably aren’t.” And then, meeting his gaze, she stared at him for a moment and said, “So what is it?”
He shrugged and turned away. “I’m only looking out for him. Looking out for myself. We’ve got a decent thing going here. Don’t mess it up.”
“You think I will?”
“I know you will,” he said. “Francisco doesn’t do this because he likes it. 
“He does it because he’s a fucking brilliant strategist and it comes naturally to him.” 
He glanced at her. “With you around, his mind’s not going to be on the next job, it’s going to be on you. For me that’s a problem.”
She stood to go. “I can appreciate your perspective. If the roles were reversed, I might look at it the same way.” 
Her hand was on the door. “You’re a good man, Wheal. For what it’s worth, I’m glad Francisco found you.”
THE CLOCK ON the dining-room wall showed that it was after midnight. 
Even with the steady rocking of the ship and the hum of the engines, Munroe hadn’t been able to fall asleep. 
Too many memories clashing with puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. 
She poured a cup of coffee and then on impulse poured a second for whoever was in the pilothouse.
She knocked on the door, and when Beyard answered, she hesitated, debated, and then let herself in. 
She handed him the mug. “Couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Figured whoever was up here would want the company.”
He took it from her, placed it on a narrow ledge, and squeezed her empty hand. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “I was just thinking about you.”
“What about?”
The silence was filled by sounds from the radarscope, its monochrome band keeping time, a metronome of sorts. 
Beyard gave a glance at the console, stood, and then took her mug from her hand and placed it on the ledge next to his. 
With one hand around her waist, he drew her close and traced the curve of her neck with his fingers. He brushed his lips against hers. 
“Just thinking about you,” he whispered. He moved his lips closer, his hands behind her neck, his fingers through her hair. 
He smelled of salt and the ocean and all things familiar. Her eyes followed his as they traced the outline of her body. 
And then he kissed her lightly, hesitated, and pulled her again to his mouth. 
The kisses were deep, passionate. His hands ran over her shoulder blades, to her neck, and down her spine.
She didn’t resist and didn’t reciprocate. 
After what he’d said in the hallway, she understood where this came from and hadn’t yet sorted through the options of what to do with it and how to use it. 
Francisco reached for the buttons of her shirt, then he stopped and backed away. 
He stroked her face. “I have wanted to do that for eleven years,” he said, drawing her close and holding her to his chest. 
“I could be consumed by you. It would be so easy.” Then he let go and turned away to face the windows and the navigation console. 
With his back to her he said, “Stay with me through the night?”
She took a seat behind him, and they sat in silence for some time, she staring at the back of his neck and he facing the prow.
“Tell me about your life,” he said.
“Anything in particular?”
“Have you been happy?”
“I haven’t been unhappy.”
“It’s not the same thing,” he said. “What about marriage? Have you found your match?”
Such a simple question, so many complex ways to answer. She said only, “No, I haven’t.”
He turned to look at her briefly and then faced front again. “It’s difficult, isn’t it? 
“For people like us, to find someone who understands and can live with who we really are, without judgment, without trying to make us conform to their own preconceived notions of life.”
He was quiet again, and the time passed between them.
“I left the continent, Essa,” he said, “after I tracked you down and knew more or less where you’d gone and that you were alive. 
“You never told me of the legends that followed you. By the time I figured that part out, we’d had several disastrous deliveries. 
“Then Jean left. I had put together enough of a fortune to pull out, so I did. 
“I packed up and left, tried to start over in France, and when that didn’t work, I went to Spain. I was back in Africa within two years.”
He turned to look at her. “It wasn’t the business that failed. I made money in Europe, set up new contacts that I still use. Could have gone on indefinitely.” 
He pounded a fist into his chest. “It’s inside. I couldn’t live their life, couldn’t adjust.” 
He got up to check the navigation console and then sat down again. “So here I am, back where I started, back in my element where I thrive— hate it but thrive. 
“No matter how despicable it may be to you, at least I am there to look at myself in the mirror each morning, which is better than the alternative.”
She stood and, putting her hands on his shoulders, worked out the tension in his muscles. 
“We all have our demons, Francisco. Some are harder to fight than others.”
He reached a hand up and placed it on hers, then gently pulled her in front of him. “What are your demons, Essa?”
Her smile was sad, and she shook her head. “The aloneness. The invisible walls. Always the outsider looking in. Different. Unusual. 
“I despise their world and the superficiality of it all and yet still want to be a part of it. 
“I wonder sometimes how much simpler a life of na【马赛克1】veté and unawareness would be.” She moved away and returned to the seat behind him. 
“I have on occasion found people I could trust with who I really am, and when that happens, I walk away.”
He turned to look at her, clearly puzzled.
She shrugged. “It’s safer that way— for them, for me. 
“It’s far easier to bear personal pain than the responsibility of someone else’s. 
“I feel safe around people as tough as I am, but they don’t come along that often.” She smiled wanly. “So I walk away.”
She stayed with him until shortly before dawn and then stood to go.
“Will you sleep?” he asked.
“If I can.”
“Take my cabin, please. You’ll rest better there and”— he held up his hand— “I swear on my own life that I won’t lock you inside.”
“All right,” she said, and left.
His cabin was larger than the others. 
Instead of dual bunks sandwiched tightly together, his had a double bed and its own bathroom. 
The cabin was well lived in, a home whose occupant never left for long, 
yet it still managed to have an aura of sterility, testament to Beyard’s fastidious nature. 
Built into one of the walls was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with volumes ranging from the intellectual to the mundane 
and, in a recess that appeared to be built specially for it, a marble chessboard. 
Munroe glanced at the board, at a game in play, and lifted one of the pawns. 
A tacky gum had been stuck to the bottom of each piece to keep them from spilling across the board with the rolling of the ship. 
She analyzed the game and then showered and for the second time slept in the clothes she was wearing, falling asleep on top of his bedspread. 
Sometime later, somewhere on the border of awareness, she heard him come into the cabin, felt him lie next to her on the bed, and then sleep came again.
By next nightfall they had moved into the waters off Nigeria’s coast, their position precoordinated and pinpointed by GPS. 
The lights on the trawler were out, the engines quiet, and there was enough heavy artillery on hand to supply a small conflict. 
On top of the pilothouse, Lupo, the Romanian, lay hidden with a silenced sniper rifle, 
and the rest of the crew were stationed around the ship wearing Kevlar and cradling submachine guns. 
Clouds thick with rain blocked out what light the moon and stars would have provided, 
and at ten minutes after two a single light flashed on the horizon, followed several minutes later by the sound of engines across the water.
Beyard stood on the prow. He faced the approaching ship, 
and Munroe stood behind him at a distance; it was her position, the observant, silent shadow. 
He was an outline, tall, shoulders squared, a shape blending with the night, a man in control and secure in his surroundings. 
She knew that his mind ran strategy, a giant chessboard to be played in real life. 
To watch him and stand in awe of him was familiar from the past, but the emotion running beneath the admiration took her by surprise. 
In Beyard’s confidence was a power, a force that lesser men could never hope to imitate, and she was drawn to that power.
From over the darkened waves, the other ship loomed, not as large as the trawler but sleeker and no doubt faster. 
Munroe watched as a Zodiac bearing five men closed the distance between the two ships. 
She waited until she could gauge the extent to which they were armed, then, as the first began to climb the ladder, retreated into the shadows. 
Three of the Zodiac’s five boarded, and Beyard strode toward them.
Their leader was a short, heavy figure in battle fatigues. His men stood silent where they’d stepped onto the deck, 
and he moved forward, greeting Beyard with a strong handshake that implied a shared camaraderie. 
He handed Beyard a briefcase, and the banter between the two was easy and familiar. 
The commander’s English was perfect, absent any indication of pidgin, and crisp with enunciation that contrasted sharply with Beyard’s bastardized English.
The wind stifled the sounds of their conversation, and so Munroe turned her focus to the trawler’s crew, confirming their positions in relation to one another. 
She moved around a railing near the side of the ship, and it was then that she heard the low, nearly inaudible whine of an electric engine. 
She glanced at Beyard, who was nodding in approval over the open briefcase, then up toward Lupo, invisible on the pilothouse roof.
The sound of the engine cut. Munroe turned toward the ladder, saw that the commander’s men were no longer there, 
and in that instant a burst of gunfire shattered the night.
She dropped, palms to the deck, and the first rush of adrenaline coursed through her veins. She waited. Listened. 
And then inched toward the side of the ship, peered over, and confirmed a second Zodiac, empty. 
She swore under her breath. The commander and his men were familiar with the trawler and its layout; she’d seen that in their interaction with Beyard. 
This wasn’t a handoff at sea but a goddamn hijacking— the pilothouse and the hold with its cache of weapons, those would be their targets.
On deck, Beyard was gone, as was the commander, and the ship had turned driftwood silent. 
Munroe took a deep breath, mentally placed the crew, then knelt and took off her boots. 
The cold of the ship’s metal spread from her toes to the marrow of her bones. 
There would be no halfway tonight, no truce. 
If the trawler were to be taken, she and the crew would be executed, and should they succeed in defending it, the enemy must die. 
It was the cold-blooded reality of treachery: One way or the other, the ocean would claim her dead. 
Munroe stood, bare feet fueling the savage ecstasy of the hunt to come.
Another burst of gunfire erupted aft, followed by the muted clap of the sniper. 
Munroe hugged the wall and moved toward the foredeck, where Wheal had been. 
There was another hiss from the sniper, followed by a padded thud, then an exchange of gunfire. Silence.
Munroe slid around the corner. Wheal, crouched low, signaled in her direction, motioned fore, then held up three fingers. 
She nodded and gestured for a knife. He slid one to her, and Munroe took it, retreating the way she’d come. 
With the blade between her teeth, she slipped over the side of the trawler.
The Zodiacs had been left empty. Stupidity or overconfidence, Munroe wasn’t sure, but their failure to guard egress would cost them. 
She sliced at the fabric of the first Zodiac, eyeing the silhouette of the enemy ship less than three hundred meters away. 
The Zodiac collapsed under the knife, took on water, and sank.
Munroe slit the material on the second boat, scurried up the ladder, and slithered onto the deck, 
cautious not only of the intruders but of moving into the kill zone of one of the crew.
A fusillade of bullets from one of the submachine guns ricocheted off the stairwell that led to the pilothouse. 
There was return fire, silence, and then another thud on the deck. 
Hidden as he was with a night-vision scope, Lupo had a temporary advantage. Against how many, though? That was the question.
Munroe moved amidships to a hatch that would feed away from the deck with its high probability of getting caught in the crossfire, 
then to the hold, the only direction in which Beyard could have disappeared. 
She dropped down into the dank belly of the ship, and the black swallowed her. 
Disoriented by the lack of light, Munroe’s fingers traced the railing, and, sightless, she moved forward, one cautious step at a time.
Awareness of a presence came finally, not from the front as she expected but from behind, 
an expulsion of breath so soft it raised the hair along her arms. 
In a fluid movement, she slipped over the top of the railing and held herself in place while a whiff of body odor and soap, cigarettes and cooking oil, passed by. 
There was no way to gauge his height or even the strike distance, rendering the surprise of a knife useless. 
But there were legends and superstitions. Here in the dark, they were a weapon.
Unable to pinpoint her location in relation to the items in the hold or ascertain the length of the drop, Munroe hung to the bottom rail, turned to face the opposite wall, 
pitched her voice an octave higher, and in accented pidgin English hissed, “Who dares disturb my sleep?”
Hesitant footfalls mixed with the chambered echoes of her voice, and so she said again, this time more forcefully, “Who dares disturb my sleep?”
The presence swore, mumbling under his breath just clearly enough that she could discern his language. 
In Ibo she repeated the phrase once more. She traced his reaction by the elevated breathing. 
Soft and singsong and slightly louder, she said, “Leave me.”
He did not turn but faltered, and she persisted, reaching out into the dark until she snagged his bootlace. 
“Mek you no woreemee,” she wailed. “Or I go kee you.”
His breathing became frantic. 
She could follow him now, knew the direction he faced, gauged the height of his head, knew that she must strike, 
and as she slid over the railing, the man bolted back the way he’d come. 
Munroe followed only far enough to guarantee that he’d gone through the hatch. With any luck, Lupo would have him as soon as he hit the deck.
Munroe returned to the railing where it joined the stairs. 
Whatever others were in the hold— and she was certain that at the least this was where the commander remained— they had heard the voices, and she would draw on that to flush them out. 
Following the stairs to the floor of the hold and moving cautiously through the dark, 
she cycled through Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba, calling and taunting, gradually becoming aware of more than one presence through the footsteps and shuffling.
Halfway across the floor, she bumped into one of the enemy, startling him more than she startled herself. 
He yelped, swung wildly, but before he could fire his weapon, she’d plunged the knife into his throat, 
cursing inwardly at the speed, at the instinct, at one more death she would never be able to wash clean. 
She dropped his body softly, setting his arms and legs spread-eagled.
Passing the keel of one of the cigarette boats, she picked up a whisper from Beyard, perfectly spoken to blend with the chamber’s echo of ghostly wails. 
She belly-crawled in his direction.
“There were five,” he whispered.
“We need starlight,” she said. “Can you get the top open?”
“Take me three minutes.”
She moved from under the boat to the front of the hold, and there she waited until the first ambient rays of the cloud-covered moon began to seep in. 
Shrill and harsh, she yelled, “See your dead! I have taken him! Leave now and live!”
The response was a rapid report of assault weapons, which came in sporadic bursts, punctuated by yells and curses, all filling the cavernous hold with an ear-shattering din. 
And then from the rim of the opening gap came the repeated hiss of the sniper. The hold fell silent.
At last the commander’s voice reached out from the darkness. “Even I have heard the legends,” he said. “We will leave.”
Munroe followed the sound of his voice and, silent through the shadows, came behind him, put the knife to his throat, and removed his weapons. 
The commander’s call to his men was followed by the sound of their rifles falling, and from within the hold two stepped into the center.
All lights off, Beyard turned the trawler northwest, putting a slow distance from the enemy ship, 
and then the commander and the four men who remained were left to swim while the dead were dumped overboard. 
With so much blood, chance dictated that sharks would finish the fight. 
The briefcase— now emptied— in which the lure of payment had been delivered was also dumped, 
and the crew swept the ship for tracking devices and explosives. As a precaution they would rotate the guard until dawn.
IT WAS FOUR in the morning when Munroe knocked on Beyard’s door. 
He called out an answer, and when she opened the door, he stood by the bed, a thick towel around his waist, his hair and body still wet. 
She froze silent for a moment and, realizing that she stared, blushed. 
His physique had improved with age— either that or she had never appreciated it the way she should have. What was he now— thirty-seven, thirty-eight? 
“I need to make another call to the United States,” she said.
“If you give me a minute,” he said, “I’ll go up with you. 
“Augustin is in the wheelhouse, I’ll take over for him until you’re finished.” He patted the bed, an invitation for her to sit, and returned to the bathroom. 
When he came back, he was dressed, and he sat beside her. “It was nice having you with us,” he said.
She nodded. Smiled.
“Would you come back if I asked?”
“Knowing that I’ve built a good life for myself beyond this,” she said, “would you ask it?”
“I don’t know.”
She ran a palm across his clean-shaven face. “What if I asked you to come with me, to be part of my life?” 
It was a rhetorical question meant to challenge, not to invite, but he ignored the undertone, took her palm, and kissed it.
“If I could, I would spend every waking moment of every day as a part of your life,” he said. 
“But there’s nothing out there for me, Essa. I already know that.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead, then stood. 
She took the hand he offered and followed him to the pilothouse, where she put in a call to Logan.
LOGAN SOUNDED RELIEVED when she said hello. “I’m glad to hear your voice,” he said. “It means you’re still alive, still safe.”
“You worry too much,” she said. “I’m in good hands.” She glanced at Beyard, whose back was to her.
“Do you have the supply list?” he asked.
“Actually, no. That’s why I’m calling. 
“I might not need it— things may be more straightforward than I’d thought. But don’t go anywhere, I’ll check back in a few days.”
“Michael, before you go— I got a call from Miles Bradford last night. I think you need to talk to him.”
“Say again?”
Logan drew in a breath. “It will take too long for me to explain it all, and it’s convoluted. I just think you need to call him.”
“I suppose that means he knows I’m alive?”
“He knows it now because of me. Before that it was just speculation on his part. 
“Apparently he’s tried to talk to Kate and she won’t give him the time of day.”
“Fine, give me the number.” She jotted it down as he spoke. “Thanks, Logan, I’ll be in touch.”
She stared at the paper and then dialed. When Bradford picked up, she said, “It’s Michael. You wanted to talk with me.”
A second of silence on the other end, and then Bradford’s voice: “Are you okay?”
“I am now.” And then, “This call is costing me five bucks a minute. Make it fast, make it good, and make it worth my time. 
“What the hell is going on, and what’s this bullshit about my body washing up on shore?”
“Until I spoke with Logan last night,” he said, “I had only believed you were alive, wasn’t sure, couldn’t know. 
“It’s a relief to have it confirmed, to hear your voice.” His tone was full of genuine sincerity. 
“I’ve been trying to get in contact with Kate Breeden,” he said. “She won’t take my calls.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Listen, Michael, there are several things I think you should know. First, it was the U.S. embassy that informed me you had drowned and washed up on shore. 
“Second, the local officials never produced a body, and when I got too demanding about it, I was informed that my stay in the country was over and I was put under guard until the next flight out. 
“I’d had reservations about your disappearance from the beginning: I knew I’d been drugged and thought it was you who did it. 
“When I went to your room to confront you, there were signs of foul play. 
“I searched the hotel and the area around it and nearly had my skull cracked by a police officer when I got into a fight with some of the hotel staff, 
“who wouldn’t or couldn’t give me straightforward answers about whether or not you’d left.
“I’ve had more than one conversation with Richard about the situation, laid out the scenario of Emily’s being in Equatorial Guinea as you’d given it to me. 
“He has latched onto the issue of the death certificate and refuses to acknowledge the strangeness of it. Says he’s tired and that this is closure for him.”
Munroe was quiet and then said, “I have an eyewitness who’s placed Emily alive on the Equatorial Guinean mainland within the past three years.”
Silence.
“You there?” she asked.
“Yeah.” His voice was tight, strained. 
“I’m just thinking about what you said, the possibility of what it means. What are you planning to do?”
“I spoke with Kate several days ago. She told me Burbank pulled the plug on the assignment. 
“My contract gives me a year to locate Emily, and if he rescinds, I’m guaranteed a shitload of money, which I will happily take. 
“But I’m not leaving. Someone tried to kill me, Miles, and you know as well as I do that it’s because of my search for Emily. 
“I have no idea why it was me and not you or both of us, but I will find out. 
“I’m going to Bata with or without Burbank’s blessing, and I’ll keep going until I find her or find my killer, whichever comes first.”
“I want to go with you,” he said.
Munroe laughed. It was a harsh laugh, sarcastic and unfeeling. 
“You weren’t much help to me the first time around. I can’t think of any reason I’d need you the second time.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” His voice was hard. “Emily is like a niece to me. I took Richard’s assignment for her, not for him. 
“You don’t give a damn about her. You took this assignment for the money, and now it’s about revenge. I want in because I care about her.”
“Forget it, Miles,” she said. “I don’t need a liability on my hands, and I have all the help I need.” She hung up without giving him a chance to respond.
She pulled a sheet of paper out of the fax machine and drew a diagram, an outline of tenuous facts surrounded by big, fucking, glaring holes. 
And in the middle, attached to nothing, she added another: By morning the U.S. embassy was already aware of her death. 
Chances were they’d been notified before she’d even been taken onto the boat. 
She sat in front of the paper staring, willing the answer into focus. Nothing. She needed more pieces.
It was Beyard’s hands on her shoulders that returned her to the present. 
“We can take it to my cabin,” he said, “go over the details there.” 
She nodded and folded the diagram, and he picked up a two-way radio, calling Augustin back to the pilothouse. 
In another hour the sun would begin to rise.
“THE EMBASSY HAD already been informed of my death by morning,” Munroe said.
She lay on Beyard’s bed, her hands behind her head, studying patterns on the ceiling. 
He was next to her, lying on his side, quietly watching her. 
“It would be useful to know who informed them, what branch of government, who in that branch,” she said. 
“I need to get the embassy’s phone number. I’m sure it’s on a consular sheet somewhere on the Internet.”
He traced her profile. “We’ll get it,” he said, “But first you need to sleep.” 
She began to sit up in protest and he put a finger to her lips. 
“You know as well as I do that clarity and focus will come with sleep and food. We have time. We won’t be in Kribi until sometime in the afternoon tomorrow.”
She lay back down and in that moment of acquiescence understood that Beyard was dangerous.
He continued to run his finger along her body, tracing it down her throat and over her chest. 
His gaze followed his hand, and so he avoided her eyes. 
“On one of those calls,” he said, “you used the name Michael. It’s the same name the deckhand from the Santo Domingo gave me.”
His hand rested on her stomach, and she took it and brought it to her lips. “It’s a moniker I’ve taken for the work that I do.”
“You’ve never told me what it is that you do.”
“It’s a topic for another time,” she said. 
She turned to look at him and then rolled over and straddled his pelvis, pinning his hands with hers. 
She leaned over him and touched his lips with hers. 
He breathed a sigh and then without warning jerked his hands free, grabbed her by the waist, and put her back down on the bed. 
“Don’t toy with me, Essa,” he said. He was strong. Powerful.
“Why do you assume I’m toying?” she asked. “I want your body as badly as you want mine.”
He smiled. His eyes were sad; his mouth was cruel. “You couldn’t possibly.”
He stroked her hair, still avoiding her eyes. “When you were here with me, I resisted what I wanted most, 
“and when you were gone, I spent years trying to forget what it was that I wanted.” He brushed his hand lightly over her neck and down her chest. 
“And here you are again. In front of me, beside me, mine for the taking. I’m not sure whether I love you or whether I hate you and want to destroy you.”
“Does it matter?” she asked. She knelt on the bed and removed her shirt, took his hands and brought them to her breasts, 
and then bent and kissed him, touching her mouth lightly against his, teasing him with her tongue. 
He searched out her eyes. “This is a game of control for you,” he whispered.
She grazed down his neck, and his breathing quickened. “If it is,” she said, “what does the strategist in you tell you that it means?”
He stared at her for a second and then wrapped his arms around her, brought her to him, and filled his mouth with her, 
and when he did, a heat gripped her throat and shot through her body.
It was one thing to allow a man access to her body, another thing entirely to allow a man access to her soul.

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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.”

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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.”

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chapter 10 West coast of Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea

Awareness came slowly through a haze of confusion, and Munroe struggled toward lucidity, attempting to attach meaning to the stimuli hammering at her senses.  
First came the dank smell of oxidized metal and then the cold of steel through clothing.  
It was dark, and the air had a salty dampness to it.  
She lay on her side, gagged and hands secured behind her back.  
Her feet were bare and, as far as she could tell, bound to something heavy.  
Cigarette smoke hung in the air, and voices spoke hushed and rapidly in a language that had no meaning. 
Where the hell was Bradford? There was movement— the erratic regularity of a small boat rocking on the open ocean.  
From behind came the low whine of an engine that indicated slow forward speed.  
There was starlight, and a lamp on the prow highlighted the shadows of four men.  
The boat was no more than fifteen feet long and, but for a small cabin on the bow, open-aired.  
She could smell rain in the distance, knew they could smell it, too. 
Three feet away one of the men lolled against the gunwale.  
Near his face was the soft glow of orange that brightened as he inhaled.  
On his belt he had a knife and, holstered close to it, a sidearm. 
The mental fog continued to lift, and confusion segued to anger.  
The patio with Bradford, the hotel room, darkness. The images merged and collided.  
Internal pressure built steadily, was rising from her gut into her chest, a hammer percussing as a war drum whose beat would end when blood was spilled.  
Her vision blurred to gray, and she wrestled it back. Thought before action, knowledge before battle. 
Her eyes followed the guard as he smoked, and she twisted so that her hands could reach her ankles.  
Wrapped around her feet was a chain that ran through a section of metal pipe. A weight. An anchor.  
Hauled off to be dumped like garbage. No questions, no accusations, no torture, and no chance for explanation or pleading—  
brought to the water to disappear, to be wiped off the face of the earth. The fucking bastards. 
The internal drumbeat pounded harder, faster, and the urge to strike became unbearable. Breathe. Think. 
In the distance the sky was tinged by the glow of natural gas burn-off.  
She turned to the stars and, as she had on so many occasions in the past, found the map written in the equatorial night sky.  
The flare worked as a marker to gauge the distance.  
They were close to the coast. Close enough to swim if she could survive the treacherous currents.  
How far out were they? A quarter of a mile? It had to be less. 
The man at the gunwale straightened and turned. She froze.  
He came closer and reached his hand out, snapping his fingers in front of her face, and when he received no response, he kicked her in the ribs. She groaned.  
He turned his back, and the light on the prow framed his profile. In spite of his weapons, he wore civilian clothes.  
He dropped the cigarette and faced her again, squatted and fumbled with the buttons of her shirt. 
The percussion rose higher, louder, drowning out the sounds of the boat.  
One movement, swift and soundless, a serpent’s strike, was all that it would take to reach for the knife, slit his throat, and dump his body in the ocean.  
She tested the strength of the nylon that held her wrists.  
The guard’s commander barked an order, and the man stopped, stood, threw a second kick to her gut, then lit another cigarette and walked back to join the others. 
Take him, take them all. Pilot the boat to the shore and then… and then what?  
Return to Malabo with no place to hide while attempting to smuggle herself off this prison of an island? 
Breathe. Think. Time. Time was necessary in order to gain information, to understand, to strategize. 
Munroe glanced at the glow on the horizon. The oil companies used helicopters to airlift their sick employees to Cameroon. It was an option.  
She gritted her teeth, yanked her right thumb out of its socket, squeezed the hand free of the restraint, and then relocated the thumb with a silent, painful snap.  
She looped the nylon around both wrists to hold her arms in position and then tested the chains on her feet and found them loose.  
Careful so as not to let the metal grate on itself, she pulled her ankles out and, confident it would not be a problem to get free of the anchor, replaced them. 
Luba. She could take the boat to Luba and refuel there.  
And then the moment of opportunity was gone. From behind, the engine cut and the boat coasted, rising and falling with the rhythm of the water.  
Hands pulled her up by the scruff of the neck and then, positioned under her arms, dragged her to the hip-high gunwale and propped her up. 
Another burst of rapid discussion in that indecipherable language.  
The hands slackened momentarily, and the dead weight of her body slumped forward.  
The hands picked her back up, and then there was silence.  
Through half-opened eyes, she saw the commander reach for his weapon, and in that instant she understood the argument. 
He raised the gun, and she pushed with her legs, propelling herself backward, falling headfirst over the edge, into the ocean.  
Water churned around her with an audible hiss. Bullets. Heat like a knife blade caught her left arm below the shoulder.  
The anchor tightened, and the weight at her feet flipped her right side up and plunged her downward.  
Unable to loosen the chains, she kicked. With her hands she pried until her right foot came out.  
The plunge stopped ten yards below the boat, and still the anchor held tight around her left ankle.  
Her lungs ached for air, and in panic she clawed at the chain. No time. Think.  
She forced her fingers between her foot and the chain, bought an inch, and then was free.  
She kicked off from the ocean floor and swam toward the light, removing the gag as she went. 
She broke water under the prow of the boat, only her face breaching the surface. 
She held her body protectively beneath its bulk as it rocked with the motion of the water,  
drank in the air one greedy gulp after another, then filled her lungs and sank.  
Under the boat she wrapped the gag around the wound in her arm and tied it as tightly as she could in an attempt to ward off the call to the deep-sea predators.  
She surfaced again, took another breath, and dove, this time putting as much distance as she could between herself and the boat. 
The men paced about the sides, searching for movement on the water.  
They drew the light around the gunwales, firing shots occasionally.  
Their voices were angry, accusatory, and Munroe knew they could never report the incident.  
She was, as far as they were concerned, very dead. She turned onto her back, gazed at the stars, righted herself, and pushed east. 
The surface currents were fast-flowing, and it was nearly two hours before she felt the smooth-rough edges of worn lava rock beneath her feet,  
another ten minutes to stumble over the jet-black, odd-size boulders that made up the stretch of coast.  
Away from the waterline, she dropped to her knees and then collapsed, chest heaving, taking in air, arms and legs limp as rubber.  
In the far-off distance, barely more than a pinhead of light in the blackness, a boat buoyed on the water.  
Munroe dragged herself to where the boulders touched the jungle, a niche of shelter from both the air and the sea.  
There would be no hiding from the rain that would soon arrive, but that didn’t matter. 
Alone in the blackness, with the ocean to the front and the jungle at her back, she heard the sound of her own laughter splitting the silence. 
It was the west side of the island. No matter where she had washed up, the road could not be more than a mile or two inland, but a mile or two of raw jungle.  
Without a path it would mean breaking a trail barefoot. Better to wait until dawn. 
She felt for her belt. It was still there, tucked safely under her pants.  
It increased the options somewhat; the credit cards were worthless, but there were fifty thousand CFA and two hundred water-soaked euros to barter with. 
She dozed occasionally and was glad for the first rays of sun that crept between the mountains, providing enough light for her to begin moving about.  
Finding potable water before the heat intensified was imperative in order to avoid dehydration.  
She had drunk during the night when the rain had filled the porous holes in the rocks, but that water was gone now.  
Not far away, the shadows of tall, lean palms jutted out over the water. Under the fronds they were thick with coconuts.  
She flexed her wounded arm, and ribbons of heat traced up and down it. 
The bullet was lodged in muscle, and the arm was weak. The thirty-foot climb was possible, but not worth the risk. 
She followed the coastline south until the boulders gave way to gritty sand,  
and there she found groups of coconut palms with recently fallen fruit at their base. 
She chose a green one with tinges of brown on the ends and, using rocks to cut through the fibrous husk, reached the seed and cracked it carefully to preserve the liquid.  
She drank and proceeded to the others until her thirst had been quenched, then filled herself on the rubbery meat of the young nuts. 
She continued along the coastline, frequently scanning the water’s horizon for boats.  
The soles of her feet blistered and bled from the sharp edges of the rock.  
When the heat of the sun became too strong, she sought shelter in the shade and slept until the late afternoon brought relief and she could set out again. 
Another mile south and a faint trail led away from the coast into the green.  
She followed it, and after nearly a mile the undergrowth changed from thick jungle foliage to short, squat trees in uneven rows fighting for light between the giants,  
their stubby trunks spotted by fat pods ripe with bitter cocoa seeds.  
The footpath ended at a solid line of tarmac. 
It was the Luba road, a two-lane highway that originated in Malabo and ran three-quarters of the island along the coast until it stopped at the second-largest city on the island— the city of its namesake— a deep-water port with a population of three thousand.  
It was the only road that ran along the west coast, and myriad small interior villages were joined to it by their own narrow dirt paths. 
Across the road a swath of land had been cleared,  
and raw cement blocks stacked on top of each other formed a half-constructed home with iron-red rebar reaching to the open sky and thick carpets of green mildew creeping up from the base of it.  
Other than the sounds of birds and the buzzing of insects, the stretch was completely silent.  
Cars would pass along eventually, perhaps even as many as three or four an hour. All that was necessary was to sit and wait. 
Munroe pulled the CFA from her belt and shoved it in her pocket— she might need it to pay for space in a share taxi if nothing better materialized. 
She sat against the trunk of a large tree, far enough away from the road to remain hidden, close enough to spot approaching vehicles.  
In the shade of the foliage, the air was wet with a mud-scented humidity and the soil rich and spongy and teeming with life. 
There was perhaps another two hours before dusk, when the armed soldiers who set up checkpoints every few miles along the road would be out in force, drunk and trigger-happy,  
and only the bravest or the craziest of drivers would attempt to travel along it.  
Until then the range of vehicles passing would be anything from small share taxis with their springs busted from the weight they bore  
to the overworked trucks of the European construction crews on never-ending development projects.  
With any luck one of the trademark shiny air-conditioned Land Cruisers of the oil-company executives would pass.  
It was the safest bet when it came to getting around: blend in with their crowd to become instantly invisible. 
In the silence, Munroe plowed a stick through the dirt, etching the ground absentmindedly while working through the options and the previous day’s events.  
As in a football coach’s game plan, circles and lines appeared in no apparent order— rapid strokes, jagged lines—  
and like the circles slashed into the ground, her thoughts ran around pell-mell but always returned to their place of origin: Emily Burbank. 
One second. Six inches. The mental tape replayed itself, an endless recording:  
the gun moving up through the dark toward her face and then the plunge backward into the water.  
One second before the bullet. She gritted her teeth and drove the stick faster, harder.  
Dumped in the ocean because she hadn’t taken the hint to leave the country. Emily Burbank. 
Until last night the assignment had been business. Now it was personal: Someone had ordered her dead and had nearly succeeded in putting a bullet in her brain.  
Another circle, another strand of thought. If she followed the interdicted trail to Emily Burbank, the answers would come hunting, seeking her out.  
And when the answers presented themselves, she would take retribution, even if it turned out to be against the president of the goddamned country. 
Bradford. Where the hell was he? Why wasn’t he in the boat? He’d been with her the entire time they’d been in the city.  
He was booked to fly to the mainland just as she was. Had he already been tossed overboard? 
She rubbed her hands over her eyes and pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose.  
What a fucking liability he’d become. Instead of one missing person, the job now included two. 
No. Bradford was capable of taking care of himself.  If they’d been hauled off in the boat together, there was nothing that could be done about it,  
and if he hadn’t been— she stabbed the stick into the ground and it snapped in two— he sure as hell had better be looking for her right now. 
She picked up another stick and dug it through the soil, gouging one rut after another. Emily Burbank. Mongomo. 
Malabo was the only city on the island where reliable and not-so-reliable transport across the water could be had.  
Malabo: an enticing prison, the city so easily locked down, the airport, the port, the hotels, banks, and city exits carefully watched.  
There were the oil companies and their compounds— to get onto one of those meant a chance, however slight, of being airlifted off the island to Cameroon.  
Too many ifs, so much dependent on bureaucracy and the decisions of others. 
No. Not the oil companies. Not Malabo. If the mainland was unreachable through the capital, then perhaps through Luba. 
Time. Information. She rested her head back against the trunk of the tree.  
A conversation with someone who better understood the local political climate was now a necessity—  
and access to money, supplies, and modern communications equipment.  
Above loomed the green of the jungle, and there was only stillness. 
Munroe examined the wounds on her feet. The skin was stripped away from portions of her heels,  
and dime-size blisters had formed and burst under the balls of her toes.  
Another couple of weeks and she’d have several millimeters’ worth of nature’s shoe leather to pad around on, but until then walking was going to be rough.  
She needed shoes, and they could be found a dozen or so miles to the north.  
The temptation was certainly there, but returning to Malabo was out of the question. Not for shoes, not for Bradford. 
She sat and waited, and over time bright red spots formed on her uncovered neck, forearms, and feet,  
the telltale signs that near-microscopic insects were feasting on her blood.  
In the bush one could only sweat and itch and wait,  
and the numbing quiet of the emptiness explained why doing nothing was such a favorite pastime of the locals. 
She would have checked her watch if she’d still had one. 
The rumble of a large vehicle carried through the silence.  
Munroe crawled closer to the edge of the road and, seeing the flat nose and wide body of a construction truck approaching, stood and walked several feet onto the tarmac.  
The vehicle had green license plates, a variation reserved for companies with special status, and in the cab were the shadows of two. 
The truck slowed and then stopped, sending a cloud of dust rolling behind it. The passenger window rolled down. 
“Hello there!” Munroe called out. “Are you headed to Luba?” The door on the passenger side opened, and a man stepped down.  
He wore faded jeans and a worn T-shirt, and his face and forearms were tanned to the point of being nearly brown.  
His work boots were dusty and spotted with cement, and Munroe couldn’t help but wish they were on her feet. 
“We go Luba,” he replied, the words broken and thickly accented. He gestured with his head. “You come?” Italians. 
Munroe nodded and climbed up to the air-conditioned space between them, the blast of cold a welcome relief against her sun-dried skin. 
The driver stared at her feet, her disheveled clothes, and the spots on her arms. “What happen to you?” 
The vehicle lurched forward in a cloud of cement dust. The passenger handed her a liter bottle of water. 
“Mi sono perso,” she replied, and drank without stopping until the bottle was empty. “Separated from my friends and very, very lost.” 
With the first words in their language, the gravity of her situation was apparently quickly forgotten.  
Both men broke into wide smiles. “Ma tu parli Italiano?” She smiled back. “I speak some, enough to get by.”  
There was something deeply affecting about language. If expected, it meant nothing.  
But if it came by surprise as a gesture of friendship, it was an instant opening,  
a form of flattery guaranteed to attain the objective for its master, and Munroe used it accordingly. 
The driver was Luca, a fifty-two-year-old native of Bari who had been a construction foreman in Equatorial Guinea on and off for nearly eight years.  
Salvatore sat in the passenger seat, younger, but not by much. 
He searched behind the seat and brought out a first-aid kit.  
Between bumps and jolts along the road, Munroe patched up her feet, and when the men asked about the stained cloth tied around her arm, she shrugged.  
“A scratch,” she said, and changed the conversation through questions of her own.  
They entertained her with stories of life in Equatorial Guinea and about their families back home, whom they saw only a few months out of the year. 
The pay they earned for working on the island more than made up for the difficult conditions,  
and the malaria didn’t bother them as much as the tumbu flies whose larvae bored under the skin and used the host to feed and incubate. 
They approached a bend in the road. Luca slowed the truck and turned to Munroe. “Do you have papers?” 
Two passports and one of the residency cards. But she wouldn’t risk losing the passports,  
and under the circumstances a residency card could prove problematic.  
“I had nothing on me when I was separated from my friends,” she said. 
Luca brought the vehicle to a stop on a narrow dirt shoulder that encroached into the wall of green.  
He rubbed his forehead and then motioned with his hand down the road.  
“We are coming to a checkpoint. They will want to see your papers. They won’t let you through without them.” 
Munroe calculated the options, read them in Luca’s face, and, as if rehearsing lines for a well-scripted plot, said,  
“If the papers are a problem, I’ll find a way to continue on by foot.”  
She paused and then attempted to stand and move past Salvatore in the passenger seat.  
“I don’t want to cause problems for you. Thank you for your help and for the wonderful conversation.” 
Luca held out his hand and stopped her. She knew he would. “It’s not safe for you on foot.”  
He tugged on his grubby cap and lifted it, scratching his head. “We have beer with us to offer— they won’t look in the back.” 
He replaced the cap, climbed out of the cab, and motioned for her to follow.  
The rear portion of the truck was open and carried equipment and supplies.  
“Stay under the tarp until we come to get you,” he said. “There is another checkpoint beyond this one before reaching Luba, possibly two— you never know.”  
He made sure she was secure, and from under the tarp Munroe heard the door slam and felt the engine rumble to life. 
Once past the checkpoint, she shifted so that she could see out from beneath the ceiling of blue plastic and breathe the fresh air. 
THE TRUCK SHUDDERED to a stop on one of Luba’s few paved roads. Puzzled, Munroe retreated farther under the tarp.  
Luca and Salvatore spoke rapidly in a muted conversation that she strained to overhear but could not make out.  
After several minutes the cab door slammed, and for the third time the vehicle lurched forward. 
When the truck fell silent for the last time, it was in a barren compound outside the city.  
Neither Luca nor Salvatore came as they had promised, and after waiting what felt to be a half hour or more, Munroe worked through alternative scenarios.  
She would sleep now while she could and slip away when the deep of night settled. 
It was footsteps that woke her. She reached for her knives and only after her hands came up empty did she remember where she was;  
it was an instinctive reflex she had not made in nearly seven years.  
She flipped to her stomach and prepared to move. The footsteps came closer, and Salvatore called out softly. 
Munroe answered in a whisper and then slipped out from the tarp.  
She sat on the edge of the truck bed, feet dangling over the side, and Salvatore climbed up next to her.  
He had been delayed, he said, because there was military around town demanding to see papers.  
Since she was without hers, they thought it best to wait before coming.  
Salvatore handed her a pair of shoes and then some socks. “I don’t know if these will fit,” he said. “But you can’t go walking around with your feet like that.”  
The shoes explained the stop in town. They were canvas stitched directly to flat rubber soles, imported from Nigeria or Cameroon,  
and they were at that moment the most beautiful pair she had ever seen. Munroe placed them on her feet.  
They were a little loose but would work. She handed him a five-thousand-CFA note.  
He smiled and refused it. “The hostels in town are full,” he said. “They are always full.  
“If you can’t find your friends tonight, you can stay here on the truck. But the workers will start unloading early in the morning.” 
She pointed to the shoes. “Are you sure I can’t pay for these— or for the ride?” 
“No, no,” he said. “You’re not the first traveler to find yourself in a difficult position in this lunatic country. We help when we can.” 
Munroe waited until Salvatore was out of sight and then slid off the flatbed and slunk into the shadows.  
She kept off the streets and wound in the direction of the shoreline. 
The pervasive smell of wood smoke and fish gnawed at her until she gave it notice, and once aware of it she worked her way back toward the source.  
It came from a clearing south of the town where small homes had been constructed out of homemade cinder blocks and topped with corrugated metal.  
Women tended a cooking fire outside the back of the largest structure.  
Around them men and children sat on upturned crates and straight-backed wooden chairs, talking, eating, and laughing.  
Ducks waddled and roosted nearby, and chickens scratched near the fire, picking up small morsels that had been dropped.  
A kerosene lantern hung from a tree not far from the group and another from the door of one of the structures.  
Other than the fire, the lamps provided the only source of light. 
Bubi was the language spoken by those native to the island,  
a soft singsong of words strung together in a manner distinctly different from the harsher Fang that dominated the mainland and the capital.  
Munroe had heard it spoken occasionally, but not often enough to converse, and so she opted for Spanish to call out an evening greeting. 
The adults responded with smiles and conversation, the children with bashful stares.  
She played the part of the quintessential traveler, and they answered her questions, chatting about the city and describing the best places for swimming.  
They invited her to eat, and she offered a few thousand CFA, which they refused  
and she insisted upon their taking by placing the money in the palm of one of the young children.  
In addition to the fish, there were plantains cut into strips and deep-fried in palm oil, plus forest snails in an oily tomato paste. 
She made small talk with the young men and asked about boats capable of handling a trip to the mainland.  
They shook their heads and then discussed the question among themselves in their own tongue while she listened intently.  
Such boats were in Luba occasionally, they said, but not now.  
They offered to take her to the shore in the morning and introduce her to men who owned boats,  
and she countered with additional CFA for a spot under one of their roofs.  
Her bed was the concrete floor with a jacket bundled beneath her head for a pillow.  
Sleep came easily, everything about the evening having been comfortingly familiar. 
The next morning Munroe stood on the shoreline under a half-moon and stars in front of a row of boats resting on the sand, a miniature armada ready for deployment.  
Their condition was as the young men had described, wooden fishing vessels old with dry rot.  
The smallest of them were pirogues, some with outboard engines and others without.  
A few of the boats had sails, and the largest, a wooden boat ten feet long, had a near-new outboard motor.  
She paced around it and ran her hands along the hull.  
It had the space to carry enough fuel to travel the distance, but it didn’t have the integrity to make the trip over the open water. 
In silence she walked away from the others and stood beyond the edge of the breaking water.  
She picked up pebbles and threw them out into the waves in rapid succession, attempting to quell a building rage.  
Trapped on the island, a prisoner, time lost for nothing.  
It would mean having to risk the return to Malabo after all and, from there, finding a way to the mainland.  
The airport was out of the question. So was the main port.  
She stared up at the patterns of light in the black sky and willed a solution into existence. 
There was another way. Boniface Akambe had said he could be found near Ureca.  
She’d wanted to see him, yes, but not under these conditions. But then limited options meant working with what was available.  
She negotiated a ride to the south of the island on a skiff.  
She would travel to Ureca. Best known for the sea turtles that returned to its shore each year to nest,  
it was an isolated village where conservation groups had made headway against poaching by paying the locals to guard the beaches during nesting season.  
The village was accessible only by sea or via a thirteen-hour trek through the jungles between the Grand Caldera of Luba and Mount Biao. 
Somewhere in that direction she would find Francisco Beyard. 
The sun’s first rays had already begun to peek over the mountain by the time the boat’s owner returned from town.  
He brought with him extra fuel, drinking water, and a piece of cloth that would work as a tarp.  
Two young boys with him loaded an assortment of supplies that had nothing to do with the trip.  
They would be bartered and sold in Ureca, providing the entrepreneurial boatman with extra money. 
The trip passed in relative silence. They hugged the coastline, following it around the widest part of the island.  
The occasional small village broke the monotony of green that advanced to the border of unending blue.  
Under the tarp Munroe dozed fitfully, in turn lulled to sleep by the steady rock of the boat and the cloud-covered sky and awakened by apprehension at meeting Beyard. 
Scripts of possible introductions worked through her mind. The promise of money would possibly appeal to him.  
If not that, then what? Appeal to the memories of a friendship destroyed when she disappeared without so much as a word?  
If he would not take her off the island, the alternative was a grueling hike back to Luba  
and a return trip to the capital to face the possibility of a permanent resting place at the infamous Black Beach Prison. 
Francisco Beyard was a risk worth taking. 
EVIDENCE THAT THEY had arrived at Ureca came from signs of humanity along the shore and the landmark rock that jutted upright out of the empty beach twenty feet into the air like an isolated obelisk.  
The boatman brought the boat as close to the beach as possible, tilted the engine upward,  
and together he and Munroe— gritting through the pain in her arm— pushed it thirty feet through shallow waves until it rested solidly on dry land. 
The sand was soft and deep brown, unlike the stretches of porous boulders and black rock that lined the western shore. 
Young boys shirtless and shoeless played nearby and ran to greet them as the boat came to rest.  
The boatman barked orders to them and passed out trinkets. They took up his bundles and led the two of them inland. 
The trail to Ureca climbed steadily upward through a quarter mile of lush greenery still wet with recent rain.  
The village was a tidy collection of houses, neatly demarcated and separated by narrow dirt pathways that had never been used by a motorized vehicle.  
Unlike the cinder-block houses in the villages to the north, most of the homes in Ureca were wattle and daub, their roofs covered with thick thatchwork. 
The boys brought Munroe to the home of the village elder, chattering as they went inside. They soon came scuttling out, followed by an aged woman.  
She wore a worn T-shirt, and wrapped around her waist was a colorful cloth, a matching band around her hair.  
Her weathered face was adorned with cutting scars. She greeted Munroe and motioned her inside. 
Munroe was offered a seat opposite a man who was certainly much younger than he looked.  
He sat regally on a wooden chair, his hand atop a polished stick.  
Munroe was treated graciously, and when she had accepted coffee and they had begun to drink, he asked why she had come and he requested the documents that permitted her to travel to the village. 
She handed him her residency card and explained that although she did not have a paper from the Ministry of the Interior, she was part of a diplomatic mission with several requirements, not the least of which was to visit Ureca.  
Because of its uniqueness, she explained, it was one of the most important villages on the island, and as the village elder he was one of the most important men.  
He nodded in agreement and asked no more about the papers.  
As indirectly as possible, she asked questions that would lead her to Beyard’s location. 
The elder was thoughtful and slow to speak. He provided information judiciously,  
and his reticence gave Munroe reassurance that Beyard’s reach had extended into the elder’s pocket. He was not far away. 
Full of dignified humility, she apologized for coming without a gift for such an important representative  
and explained that part of her responsibility on this mission was to meet with a man who would provide transport.  
Because she had traveled in haste, she had come empty-handed, but this man would aid her in bringing back a gift. 
The elder was silent for a moment, and Munroe refrained from speaking, knowing that he weighed potential reward against the potential loss of reward should he displease his paymaster.  
Finally he spoke. “I cannot say for sure what is or what isn’t,” he said. “My eyes and ears are not as young as they once were.  
“But there are whispers that at Point Delores young men occasionally find work.” 
“It is obvious,” she said, “that you are a very wise man and that your people are fortunate to be blessed with a leader such as yourself.”  
He nodded again, and with his permission she took her leave. 
She found the boatman with his wares spread about him, surrounded by the women of the village.  
Voices were raised and spoke in rapid succession as they bartered.  
Munroe understood traces of the conversations, words coming to her in flashes of illumination.  
Another few days and she would be conversing, another week and she’d be fluent. 
When the racket settled and the crowd thinned, she called to the boatman.  
Just one more small trip and his end of the bargain would be complete.  
Point Delores, she had learned, was a nesting area a few miles farther along the coast. 
They beached the boat as they had earlier in the day, and from the sands Munroe searched for signs of humanity.  
A small pirogue sat above the waterline and, not far from it, a path recognizable only by an occasional footprint and foliage that had been disturbed.  
She knelt and touched the earth. It was wet, heavy with water. The footprints had been recently formed.  
The path led inland for less than half a mile and ended at a small clearing that encircled three buildings. 
The largest of the buildings was a block house similar in style to those on the north of the island; the others were wattle and daub.  
On the roof, together with the corrugated metal, were several solar panels, and electrical wires leading from one of the smaller structures intimated at a generator.  
A screened-in porch fronted the central building, and to the side of the porch two young men sat dozing in the shade. 
They did not move when she approached. She knelt beside them and in their own tongue said softly, “Excuse me.” 
Her aim had been to avoid startling them, but from the looks of fright they bore, she had failed miserably.  
In Spanish she said, “I came to find the Merchant.” And when in their faces she found affirmation of the property’s owner, she added, “Is he at home?” 
The shorter of the two shook his head and then said, “He returns in the evening.” “Good.” She smiled. “I will wait for him inside.” 
Munroe paid the boatman the last of her money and instructed him with words to repeat if questioned about her purpose for visiting this part of the island. 
In the silence she turned toward the house and opened the screen door.  
She let herself in through the front door, and the young men watched with obvious indifference.  
Memories played like time-lapse photography. Another life. 
She entered directly into the living room, an open space that belied the small size of the house.  
It was sparse and empty, the walls plastered and painted white, the furniture consisting of a rough-hewn sofa and two chairs.  
The floor was concrete painted over with brown floor paint, and it was all spotlessly clean, somehow suggesting the sterile environment of a well-kept clinic.  
The shutters were closed and the air hot and stale. She tried the fan. There was no electricity. 
From the living room there were doors off a small hallway, and she could see through the open door to the kitchen.  
She lay down on the sofa, ignoring the temptation to look around.  
She had invaded his house, but some things were still sacred.  
In the stillness and quiet, her eyes grew heavy, and she was pulled downward into sleep. 
IN THE FOGGY distance of consciousness, Munroe heard shouting.  
Aware that time had passed but not how much, she struggled to wake and pull herself out of the sticky haze of sleep.  
A web of heat and exhaustion enveloped her and dragged her back down. 
The deep roar of a generator split the silence and drowned out the human voices.  
The lights in the room blinked on and off and then put out a steady wattage.  
A breeze cut through the stale air in the room as the fans began to oscillate. The temperature had changed, dusk had come.  
The mosquitoes would be out in force, held at bay by the netting that covered the windows. 
Footsteps on the porch were followed by another barrage of shouting. The voice was familiar.  
She was awake now, and uncomfortable. She shifted on the sofa.  
The front door slammed open and shut. He stormed into the room and then, making eye contact, stopped in midstep, almost tripping over himself. 

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chapter 9
Two officers walked toward them with brisk strides, navy blue uniforms frayed at the hems, ill-fitting and spotted with stains. 
The older of the two wore a piece of industrial cord as a belt and, in addition to the whistle, carried a black baton-shaped stick slipped through a makeshift loop on his pants. 
He didn’t stop until he had invaded nearly all of Bradford’s personal space, and then he said loudly, “You must obey the law, you must obey!” and demanded to see Bradford’s papers.
“He speaks no Spanish,” Munroe said, and the officer, inches from her face and smelling of cheap beer, commanded that she interpret.
He examined Bradford’s residency card and after a few moments handed it back and demanded to see Munroe’s. 
He looked it over and then gave a grunt and waved it in her face. 
“Your residency is invalid,” he said as if in triumph. “You have only two names. You are here illegally.”
Munroe stared at the ground, bit down hard on her lip, and, when the urge to laugh had passed, looked into his eyes and with a voice full of humility said, 
“I apologize for having only two names. Sadly for me, I was only given two names at birth. It’s not unusual where I come from.”
The officer’s face darkened, and he placed a hand on his baton. “It doesn’t matter how things are done in your country. 
“You are in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, and you will respect the way of our land and our laws. You have only two names. Your residency is invalid.”
“I understand what you are saying,” she said, “but I was only given two names, and the representative who signed my permit understood this.”
The officer scowled and said again, “You are here illegally. The law provides peace to the republic, and foreigners must also abide by it.” 
With slow and deliberate movements, he placed the card in his chest pocket. 
“Present yourself at the police station tomorrow morning. Until that time I will retain your document.” 
Then, with the younger officer following, he walked stiffly to the cordoned-off avenue.
Bradford watched them go and in a whisper said to Munroe, “What was that all about?”
She hooked her arm in his, drew him around in the direction of the hotel, and started walking. 
“That,” she said, “was an example of why this country is what it is. 
“No matter how much the well-intended try to intervene or how much oil is pumped out of the ground, some things are unchangeable or made worse by the presence of money. 
“When nepotism is de rigueur, today’s goatherd becomes tomorrow’s despot, and a shiny new whistle and a used uniform are all it takes to create a new tyrant.”
She looked over her shoulder toward the officer who stood again on a corner with three others dressed in blue. 
“The laws are arbitrary. It’s fine to drink and drive, but you’ll be cited for having a dirty vehicle. 
“It’s illegal for you to offer a bribe but permissible for them to accept one. According to him I’ve broken a law by having only two names.” 
She sighed in quiet amusement. “As for us, the only thing to do is flow with it and do our best to stay out of trouble.”
“Are you going to try to get it back?”
“The residency card? Nah. 
“If I want it back, I’ll need to spend the better part of tomorrow and possibly the rest of the week at the police station attempting to figure out who has it and what hoops I have to jump through for it— not to mention shelling out a small fortune.” 
She gave his arm a playful squeeze. “I had the cards made so that I wouldn’t have to deal with that in the first place.”
They stayed in the hotel that evening, Munroe preferring to avoid another encounter with the police while the city was cordoned off. 
Instead of roaming the streets and socializing with the locals, they dined on the hotel’s patio, where each of the umbrella-capped tables hosted its own assortment of oil-related patronage.
When the waiter came to clear the table, Munroe stopped him and nodded toward the far end of the dining area, 
where two of the Shadows nursed imported Spanish beer and occasionally passed a furtive glance in their direction. 
“Do you know them?” she asked.
He followed the direction of the nod and then, looking back at the table, said, “Perhaps it would be better not to know them.”
She requested three of what they drank, and when the waiter returned with the beer, she took the cans and stood to leave the table. 
As she did, Bradford stopped her with a hand on her forearm.“Where’re you going?” he said.
The warmth of his fingers wrapped around her skin, and Munroe’s vision blurred to gray. 
She waited a heartbeat and took a breath, then leaned down toward him, looked him full in the face, and said softly, 
“I’ll tell you this once, Miles, because I like you. Touch me that way again and I swear I’ll break every one of your fingers.”
He removed his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Bad habit.”
“To answer your question,” she whispered, “I want to know who they are and what they want.” 
And then she straightened and walked across the patio to where the Shadows sat.
She stood in front of the men with a smile of demure innocence. 
In Spanish she said, “I’ve seen you around town,” and then, placing the beer on the table, “Can I join you for a drink?”
There was a moment of silence. Without waiting for an answer, she pulled out a chair, and with a teasing glance in the direction of the one who’d been so focused on her at the airport, she sat. 
She leaned toward him with girlish coyness and stuck out her hand. “I’m Michael.”
After a second’s hesitation, he took her hand and returned the smile. “Nicolas.”
His hands were small and thick, and the grip was solid. He wore a heavy gold ring and on his wrist a Fendi watch. 
Across the table his companion sat with arms crossed, and in Fang he whispered a warning. 
Nicolas said nothing and instead turned to Munroe and motioned toward his companion. “My cousin Teodoro.” 
She flirted in Teodoro’s direction, offered her hand, and said sweetly, “Are you scared of me?”
Both men laughed. It was a nervous laugh, but it was the opening she needed. 
She pushed a beer at each of them, then popped the top of her own and raised it in a mock toast.
They drank, and she engaged them with harmless questions about life in the city. In turn they asked about Bradford. 
“Is he your boyfriend?”
She gave a playful smile. “No, he’s not.”
“Your husband?”
A pout. “Not that either.”
“Are you married?”
Raised eyebrows and wide eyes. “Are you looking for a wife?”
Laughter.
Munroe ordered a second round of drinks. Behind her, Bradford sat, leaned back in the chair with his arms draped loosely across his stomach, legs stretched out under the table. 
His eyes were half closed, and though to anyone who might have noticed he appeared pleasantly relaxed, to Munroe he screamed attentiveness. She ignored him.
For the fourth round of drinks, Munroe switched to distilled alcohol, knowing that the boys were used to chasing beer with the harder stuff.
During village celebrations, half-filled glasses would be refilled with the nearest bottle, lending to mixtures of vodka, whiskey, wine, and more— she would bring it on.
A few more rounds and Munroe shifted the conversation from the mundane to their homes and families. 
Children? Yes. Wives? Only Nicolas. Teodoro could still not afford to buy one— pay the dowry rather— but he had girlfriends and children. 
Brothers and sisters? Many. Famous parents? A chuckle. Maybe one day.
“You speak Fang,” she said. “Are you from the mainland?”
“Yes. From a large village, an important village.”
She smiled in adoration. “The most important village in the country?”
Laughter. “Of course.”
Shock. “But nobody’s village could be more important than the president’s village.”
“That is our home!”
Pay dirt. The questions continued, friendly and noninvasive: the landscape, the animals, the tribal customs, 
each innocent detail building on top of the last as she constructed a composite picture of the Mongomo area, 
of the roads, military presence, and security on the mainland, knowing what to expect and what had changed. 
After the boys had put away their eighth round, her questions shifted to why they’d been following her, 
and at that, Nicolas stood and excused himself and Teodoro followed suit.
The conversation was over.
Munroe watched them stroll across the patio, their walk not quite as coordinated as it had been when they’d come in, 
and once they passed through the doors leading out to the front of the hotel, her posture tightened and the look on her face changed. 
The charade was done, the information gleaned far beyond what she would have hoped to gain, all but the most critical piece. 
She returned to the table, where Bradford still sat stretched out with half-shut eyes. 
“With both of them drunk and gone,” she said, “Shadow Three will soon be in the vicinity. I’m heading to bed.”
He tilted his head back to look at her. “Sit with me? I have a question.”
She pulled a chair from the table. He was silent for a moment, his eyes studying her, and she sat quietly, watching in return. 
Finally he spoke. “Why do you do it?” He gave a breathy chuckle, ran his fingers through his hair, and leaned forward. 
His expression straightened. “Why debase yourself, put on that doe-eyed doll act, the performance? I don’t get it. 
“You’re one of the most brilliant people I know. To watch you stoop to that level, it’s so… I don’t know… insulting… painful.”
“If I’m making an ass out of myself, I’m the one who’s the fool— why should it bother you?”
He shrugged.
Munroe sat forward in her chair, mirroring his position. “Listen, Miles, there are a lot of things in my life I’m not proud of, but tonight certainly wasn’t among them. 
“I do whatever it takes to get the information I need to be able to do my job, and the doe-eyed doll act, as you put it, was what those guys would respond to. 
“It’s why I’m paid what I’m paid to do what I do— the information I need is out there, and I will always find a way to get it. Tonight was child’s play.”
She stood to go and then placed her hands on his shoulders, bent down, and whispered in his ear, 
“I know just as well as you do why it bothers you, Miles.” And she walked away.
LIFE IN THE tiny capital started before dawn in preparation for the coming of the water. 
It was accumulated in the mountains during the night and then released to flow through the pipes of the city. 
By seven or eight, the stream trickled into droplets and the faucets ran dry, 
and whatever water remained, collected in buckets and containers, would have to last until the next release. 
Those living in more elevated areas would be fortunate to collect enough water to bathe, wash dishes, and flush toilets. 
For a country with one of the highest rainfalls in the world, water in the capital city was a scarce commodity.
At eight, Munroe and Bradford hailed a taxi for the five-minute trip to the ministry. 
The blockades that had shut down the city the day before were gone, and the narrow roads were already teeming with life.
They were not the first to arrive in the foyer of the minister’s office; an elderly woman, no doubt recently arrived from a village, sat at one end of the sofa. 
She wore a bright floral-patterned dress that had obviously been kept and cared for over many years. 
Her shoes were from another era, laced-up leather, worn and resoled, clean and polished. 
Her hands, gnarled from decades of hard work, lay folded in her lap.
The woman hailed from the mainland, a survivor, one of the few left from the missing generation, those who somehow managed to survive the genocide of Macías Nguema and his decade of terror. 
Through the waiting of the morning, she graced Munroe with stories rich in history and legend.
It was nearly noon when the minister arrived. He was without his entourage, and as he passed through the foyer, he nodded at Munroe and Bradford. 
A short while later, the secretary directed the two of them toward the closed door of his office, 
and the elderly woman remained on the sofa, silent, giving no protest that her turn to speak to the great man had been overlooked.
When the minister received them, he remained seated behind a large wooden desk. 
His handshake was as soft as his hands, and he wore a tailored Italian suit. He spoke in English, his voice dry and raspy. 
He gestured for them to sit in the chairs facing his desk— plush and antique, upholstered in well-worn deep red velvet.
Having dispensed with the pleasantries and ample humility and praise for the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, 
Munroe handed him a photo of Emily Burbank followed by a sheet of paper with Emily’s physical data. 
“We are looking for a friend of ours,” she said. “She has been missing for a while, and we have reason to believe that she is or was in Río Muni, possibly in the Mongomo area. 
“Knowing the reliability of your government and the care with which you treat foreign visitors, 
“we had hoped that Your Excellence would know something of our friend, perhaps having received word about her. We are checking with you first before traveling ourselves.”
He took the photo, looked it over intently, and followed with an air of disinterest. 
Then, while he gazed indifferently at it, he said, “How long ago did she enter the country?”
“We’re not certain of the exact date,” Munroe replied. “About four years ago.”
“It’s a long time,” he said. “So many things can happen in four years. I wasn’t the head of this ministry four years ago.”
“I understand.”
“And her purpose for entry? Which company was she working for, or perhaps a church?”
“She was here as a tourist,” Munroe replied. “At least that is what we understand.”
“Do you mind if I keep this?” he said, and then, without waiting for a reply, tucked the photo and the sheet of paper into his breast pocket. 
He eased back in his chair. “Nothing comes readily to mind, and I make no promises, but I can have my people look into it and then get back to you. 
“I would suggest you return tomorrow morning. I will be in the office by nine.”
They left the foyer for the stairs, and on the ground floor was the minister’s H2, black and shiny, parked under the center of the building. 
Munroe stopped in front of it and stared at her reflection in a window. “What do you want to bet that vehicle is the only one of its kind in the country?”
“Should it matter?” Bradford asked.
Munroe shrugged. “Not to me or you. I’m sure it will to the owner when it comes time for new parts, 
“but who I’d think it would matter to most is the woman on the vinyl sofa upstairs waiting to speak to the great man who before the discovery of oil was just as poor as she is.” 
She turned from the Hummer and walked toward the street. “And he has no driver,” she said.
“I suppose that means something?”
“Yes,” she said, almost as if to herself. 
She stopped and turned for a second look, then stared at the ground for a moment. 
Finally she said, “People of importance are rarely without an entourage or at least a driver. 
“The president came into town yesterday, which means that most of the sycophantic ministers are not even showing up for work today.” 
She was quiet. “He came alone.” Another pause. “You know, it’s possible he came to the ministry for nothing more than to see us.”
THE DOWNPOUR STARTED in the early evening and continued on through the night, 
a heavy pelting of water that thundered against rooftops and drowned out the sound of all else. 
By morning the city streets were shallow rivers rushing toward the ocean. 
Pedestrian traffic was light; when the water’s onslaught against shoes and clothing came as much from the ground as it did from the air, only the most desperate ventured into it. 
And like the population of the city who watched the rain from doorsteps and windows and under porticoes, 
Munroe stared out the balcony window, debating against returning to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and knowing that she would go anyway.
By the time they arrived and assumed the position on the sofa that they’d filled for the past two days, they were drenched. 
The foyer was empty, even the secretary absent. 
“He won’t show up,” Munroe said. “When it rains like this, everything shuts down for a de facto holiday. 
“Between the rain— which is over half the year— and all the official holidays, it’s surprising any work gets done at all.”
Bradford flicked water off his neck. “If you’d told me that at the hotel, I would have worn my bathing suit instead.”
“That I’d’ve liked to see.”
Without a second’s pause, he pulled off his shirt and, wrapping it around his fists, wrung it out. 
The water joined a puddle by his feet, where a stream of droplets from his pants had already collected.
“How long do you plan to keep doing this?” he asked.
Munroe smiled at his torso. “The waiting?”
“Yeah.”
“With three weeks until Christmas and then everything shutting down through mid-January, we’ll have to get what we can in the next week. If we don’t have it by then, we head to the mainland.” 
She paused for a second and then pointed to his legs. “What about wringing out your pants?”
He winked, pulled the damp shirt back over his head, and said, “I don’t think so.” And then, “What do the people who live here do for entertainment?”
“You’ve seen the bars— work, drink, and food, that’s all there is— and the women— if you’re up for a good dose of HIV.”
By afternoon the rain had eased slightly. Shortly before the close of the business day, the minister arrived. 
He was alone, as he had been the day before. From the foyer he invited them directly into his office. 
He was brusque, formal, and lacking the undertone of friendliness he’d borne toward them the day prior. 
“I have no new information for you,” he said. “But it is possible that Don Felipe, Malabo chief of police, does.” 
On a piece of lined paper, he wrote in a quick scrawl. “A brief letter of introduction,” he said. “Take it to him and see what he can do for you.”
“Forgive me for asking,” Munroe said. “But if our friend was last seen in Río Muni, is it likely that the police on Bioko Island have information?”
“You would have to find that out for yourself. I do know that Don Felipe is also head of the presidential security detail and a confidant of the president. 
“It’s possible he has learned things that I am unaware of.” He handed Munroe the paper and then stood and took them to the door.
In a pattern that had become more than familiar, they were followed from the ministry to the hotel and again from the hotel to the restaurant. 
During dinner, on more than one occasion, Munroe caught the eye of one of the Shadows, and in acknowledgment they would smile or nod in return. 
She saw that they no longer drank alcohol and in response to this had soft drinks and desserts sent to their table.
The next morning she and Bradford located the office of the chief of police in the city’s single-story station, an overpacked structure with scuffed and mud-splattered walls. 
The windows were empty rectangles fenced by open wood-slat shutters, and from them the sound of striking typewriter keys filtered to the outside.
The anteroom to the police chief’s office was taken up completely by three desks and an ancient sofa, 
and the small space that remained was occupied by people waiting to speak with the man. 
Munroe left the letter of introduction with an aide and returned to the building’s bare front entrance. 
She leaned against an empty space that served as a window and, prepared to wait the better part of the day, watched the passing traffic.
Within minutes a plainclothes officer approached. “I work for Don Felipe,” he said. “He is on his way to the station now.” 
He opened a door that connected to the building entrance. “Please wait,” he said, and then he left them.
Like the anteroom, the office was filled nearly wall to wall with furniture, 
the pieces having been pushed so closely together that Munroe’s and Bradford’s knees touched when they sat. 
Cut through the wall above a plywood-barricaded, glass-filled window was a boxed air-conditioning unit that almost managed to cool the room but did nothing to erase the stale smell of must that permeated the building.
Don Felipe entered the room accompanied by two young men wearing civilian clothes and holstered sidearms. 
He carried with him the letter that Munroe had left. He shook their hands, took a seat across from them, and then, almost as an afterthought, offered them coffee. 
He spoke in brusque, commanding Spanish. “Silvestre Mba has asked that I help you,” he said. “Tell me more about this girl that you are looking for.”
Munroe handed Don Felipe another photograph of Emily Burbank, along with a sheet of paper identical to the one she’d given the minister, 
and, in words similar to those she’d previously used, explained the desire to find Emily.
Don Felipe took the photograph and, as the minister of foreign affairs had done, studied it intently, then handed it to the young man who stood silently to his right. 
“In the Republic of Equatorial Guinea,” he said to Munroe, “we have an illustrious record of wholesome relationships with our guests. 
“We treat all foreigners fairly and properly, and if something ill should befall a man or woman who is in our great country, it is because that person has failed to live by the law. 
“In fact, our president, representative of God to our people, is known as a good friend and a supporter of human rights by your country. 
“There are many things you Americans can learn from us.” Don Felipe lit a cigarette. He leaned back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other. 
He drew a deep breath and then exhaled the smoke into the room. Taking a second draw, he reached forward and placed the cigarette in the ashtray. 
“I know of this girl you are looking for,” he said. His eyes remained fixed on Munroe. She sat expressionless, holding eye contact, and silence ensued. 
To the man who stood on his right, Don Felipe spoke in Fang, ordering the retrieval of a document.
When the aide left the room, the silence continued, broken only by his return. 
He carried with him a small envelope, which he handed to his boss. “I believe,” Don Felipe said to Munroe, “that this document brings you to the end of your journey,” 
And he placed it on the coffee table and slid it to her. Inside was a single piece of paper, which Munroe looked over and then returned to the envelope. 
Don Felipe ground his cigarette into the ashtray. “The law is supreme in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea,” he said. 
“No person is immune to it. Now that you have the information you came for, I recommend you return to your country.”
Munroe nodded. “Thank you for your kindness and your warm welcome,” she said,
and then, “As I’m sure you are aware, the trip from my country to yours is very long and tiring. 
“I have heard wonderful things about the beaches of Bata and of the animal habitat EQUOFAC. Before returning home, we will vacation for a few days.”
Don Felipe rested in the chair. He was silent for a moment, his eyes focused on Munroe.
Finally he stood and shook her hand, “All respectful visitors are welcome in our land.” 
He walked with her toward the door and opened it. “It’s unfortunate,” he said. “Some have entered who are unwelcome— dangerous people from the neighboring countries. 
“My men and I do the best we can to keep the peace. If you choose to stay, that is your decision, 
“but please know we cannot guarantee your protection against such unwelcome elements.”
“I thank you for your graciousness and concern,” she said. “Your people are blessed to have a protector such as yourself.” 
She turned, and with Bradford ushered out next to her, the door closed.
It would have been less than a ten-minute walk back to the hotel had Munroe opted to go on foot. Instead she flagged a taxi. 
Bradford raised his eyes in question as she did so, but she offered no explanation. 
She remained silent for the ride, her head kicked back against the seat, staring up at the roof of the car, and Bradford, too, said nothing.
At the hotel she headed toward her room and would have shut the door without a word if Bradford hadn’t placed a hand against it. 
“Michael, I really want to understand what just happened.”
She paused and then held the door open for him.
He sat on the chair by her bed, and she walked to the glass door that led to the balcony and stared out the glass. 
“I didn’t catch even half of what went on in there,” he said. “What did he give you?”
She was still staring out at nothing. “Emily’s death certificate.”
Silence filled the room, and after a moment Munroe turned toward Bradford. 
His shoulders were slumped forward, and his head was in his hands. He ran his fingers through his hair and then straightened. 
“So she’s really dead?” His face was tight and expressionless. “I never supposed that when we got the news it would come so unceremoniously.”
Munroe turned again toward the balcony. “That paper is worthless. Trust me, 
“if there was even a remote possibility that the document had value, I’d be out of here in a heartbeat— job over, mission accomplished— collecting a fat bonus for providing hard evidence of what happened to Emily.” 
She turned to Bradford. “No, the search just got a little more dangerous and a lot more complicated.”
“I’m not questioning your judgment,” he said. “If you believe there’s still a chance she’s alive, I’ll grasp at that straw, but I really have no idea where you’re going with this.”
Munroe walked to the bed, sat down, and opened the envelope. “We’ll start with this,” she said, 
“although there are so many things wrong with it, it’s hard to know where to begin.” 
She bit on her lip and squinted at the document. “For starters, there’s the paper itself.” 
She held it up so he could see the designs printed around the border and the details of the heading. 
“See the number at the top? It’s five-thousand-CFA paper— government paper. It has to be purchased from the Ministry of Finance.”
His face was completely blank.
“Anytime people want an official document, they have to buy one of these and then take it to whatever government branch has the information they need. 
“If you want goods processed through the port, the approvals are put on government tax paper. 
“You want a birth certificate? Government tax paper. You want a license for your vehicle? Government tax paper.” 
She handed it to him. “Someone had to pay for this at the Ministry of Finance and bring it to the police station. 
“I doubt that the clerk who typed it out and is making fifty dollars a month was the one to do it.”
“So what you’re saying is that whoever requests an official document has to supply the tax paper in order to get it?”
“Exactly,” she said. “And that brings us to the next glaring inaccuracy: A death certificate in this country is meaningless. 
“Nobody has them or has use of them. When there’s a death in a village, there’s no autopsy or police report— certainly no ‘cause of death’ to be determined. 
“There’s a village ceremony, a burial if the person is lucky, and that’s the end of it. 
“You ask the government for a death certificate and the big question is going to be, what for?”
“But we’ve got one.”
She nodded. “I’ll get to that in a minute. 
“This document is just a lot of misspelled wordiness that certifies that the person named died in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea.” 
She pointed at the paper. “No details whatsoever. It doesn’t even say where it happened or what nationality she was.
“For all the flaws of this country’s government, let’s not forget the ten years they spent under communism. 
“They’re real big on redundant paperwork and following procedures by whatever the day’s formula may be. 
“At the least we should expect an indication of whether she died on the mainland or the island.”
“Look, Michael,” he said, “I want to believe you more than you can possibly know, but why would they even have that document? 
“Wouldn’t it be so much easier for them to simply say that they have no idea what we’re talking about?”
“I can think of several possible answers to that question,” she said, “but here’s what I think holds the most water: This piece of paper doesn’t even prove that Emily was in the country. 
“They got Emily’s name from us— copied it off the bio we gave Mba at the ministry. 
“What this piece of paper means is that someone who was educated abroad, who knows what a death certificate means to people like us, 
“doesn’t want us snooping around the mainland and hopes that this is enough to convince us to go home.”
Munroe took the death certificate and sealed it inside the Ziploc bag that held her passport and that she kept in a security belt worn underneath her pants, around her waist.
“Miles, things are going to get dangerous from this point. We were issued a threat, and if we’re not careful, someone’s going to make good on it. 
“Maybe you should call Burbank, see if he’ll let you out of the assignment.”
“I stay,” he said. “So what’s next?”
“We need to get out of the city as soon as possible, preferably in the direction of the mainland.” 
She looked at her watch. “We’ve got time before the GEASA office closes.”
Like most places of business in the city, the airline headquarters was located on the first floor of a three-story building. 
The office was small, dark, damp, and empty but for a desk on either side of the room. 
There were two people in the office, one a secretary or clerk, the other someone of importance who took their money and wrote out the ticket information by hand. 
The transaction was completed within fifteen minutes— they would be on the first flight leaving in the morning.
On the way out of the office, Munroe handed Miles his ticket. 
“Flying to Bata is a bit like playing Russian roulette,” she said. “Literally. The machines are old Russian planes that get no maintenance. 
“They’re stuffed beyond capacity and flown until they go down— usually into the ocean. Hopefully tomorrow won’t be the day.”
Munroe stopped midstep and searched up and down the street through the pedestrians and a steady stream of vehicle traffic. 
Bradford followed her eyes. “Did the Shadows follow us here?” he asked.
“I was certain of it,” she said.
“So was I.”
“Think they could’ve gotten good enough to avoid our spotting them?”
“I doubt it,” he said.
“So do I.”
Munroe and Bradford walked the return trip to the hotel hoping to spot a Shadow and find relief in the normalcy of being tailed, but instead they found that they were alone.
Over dinner they said little to each other, and for the first time since arriving in the city Munroe heard the wisps of threat. 
It came not in words but in the silences, in things unspoken and in the background banter among the hotel employees that was no longer there.
The waiter, previously friendly and good-humored, was tonight solemn and taciturn. 
He brought their drinks, and Munroe had them sent back, requesting unopened cans, 
and then in unspoken agreement neither she nor Bradford ordered anything to eat. 
Rather, they sat in silence nursing Coke out of the can, pretending to be amused by a rowdy party of drunken expats two tables down. 
And when they had sat long enough so as to keep up appearances, they left the patio to return to their rooms to wait for light and get out of the city.
They had decided that it would be best if they both slept in the same room. 
Bradford returned to his to retrieve some of the bedding as well as his belongings, and while she waited for him, Munroe kicked off her shoes. 
When she tossed them against the bed, the first signs of dizziness hit. 
She doubled over to steady herself, braced herself against the bed, and felt darkness closing in. 
She opened her mouth to yell for Bradford, but no sound came. 
She crumpled to the floor, and the last thought to go through her mind was to wonder how the hell it had happened.

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chapter 8 The package from Boniface Akambe arrived at the hotel five days later by way of a knock on Munroe’s door and a small brown envelope hand-delivered by Akambe’s eldest son. 
While the teenager sat silent on the bedside chair, Munroe placed her original against the forgeries, brushed her fingertips along their faces, and then angled them against the light. 
Satisfied, she tipped the young courier and sent him on his way.
And then, alone, on the edge of the bed, elbows to knees, she tapped the packet against her knuckles. 
The cards were invitations that beckoned a return to the past. She tightened her fist around the envelope. Fuck it. 
It was one step closer to Emily Burbank and five million dollars, and maybe a clean break from the madness in her head.
She shoved off the bed and headed across the hall. Bradford opened the door before she knocked, and she moved past him into the room. 
“Malabo awaits us,” she said. She sat on the bed, and next to the notebook that Bradford had lately carried everywhere, laid out four cards. 
“Your residency permits for Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.” Bradford moved the book away and then tossed it into his backpack. 
He flipped the cheap laminate of a Guinean residency to and fro. “It seems so homemade.”
“Probably is,” she said, “just like the real ones.” She paused. 
“Look, Miles, I know you’re no stranger to dangerous places, and again, I really don’t want to insult your intelligence. Humor me.”
Still looking at the cards, he said, “I march to your orders.”
“You may not need the Cameroonian pieces. In Equatorial Guinea you’ll be asked to show documents regularly, 
“and police and military often confiscate them for ransom. Better these than your passport— whatever you do, don’t let them have your passport. 
“The residencies list you as a diplomat, so if it comes down to it, they should keep you from being hauled into a police station.”
Bradford returned the cards to the bed and with a playful smile said, “And if they demand to see my passport or I’m hauled off anyway?”
“Well,” she said, and blew out an exaggerated sigh, “since your job is to stick by my side, I doubt you’ll end up in a situation that I can’t talk you out of.” 
She smiled. “But if you still manage to get yourself thrown in jail, then you can figure out how to get your own self out.”
“Well, thank you,” he said, and winked at her.
She stood. “It’s too bad you’ve been hired to be a pain in the ass, Miles. Under other circumstances I think I’d rather like you.”
“That doesn’t count as flirting, does it?” “No,” she said. 
She walked to the door and turned to look at him before closing it behind her. Maybe under other circumstances.
THE FLIGHT WAS scheduled to depart in thirty minutes, and even by African standards the check-in procedure was moving slowly. 
Bradford glanced at his watch, the same stealthy flick of the wrist he’d been making for the last hour. 
Munroe placed a hand on his. “We’ll be fine,” she said.
At the front of the line, two women haggled with airline personnel over weight and piece allowances. 
Next to them a cardboard box, taped and tied with twine, leaked a sticky mess over the concrete floor, 
and the translucent walls of a zippered bag hinted of an assortment of vegetables and clucking chickens.
Bradford pulled the notebook from his backpack and scribbled across a page, 
the same rapid, illegible scrawl he’d been putting down since they’d arrived in Cameroon. 
Munroe angled herself to look over his arm. He winked and then deliberately turned to shield the page. 
Another line and half a minute later, he shut the book and shoved it back into his pack.
The local flight lifted off from Douala two hours late, with no apology from the airline or expectations of such from the passengers, 
only relief when the ventilation system kicked in, dissipating the odors of garlic and bush meat and bodies packed too closely together.
From the air, Malabo was a white-and-red swath that notched a piece of the coastline, 
a breach in the carpet of deep green that otherwise bordered the sea and rose into the mountains, 
and the fifteen-minute flight seemed a mockery in the face of the three-hour ordeal that had come before.
On the ground, evidence of change was everywhere. 
Hangars and new buildings carried signs of life and industry in place of overgrown vegetation and burned-out aircraft that had previously stood sentinel over a deserted runway.
Their passports were stamped without question. 
Women customs officers searched methodically through their belongings while armed military personnel stood watch in uniforms less tattered than Munroe remembered, and with weaponry more sophisticated.
Outside, while taxi operators clamored for attention, Munroe’s focus was jolted by a man who stood in her peripheral vision.
He was near the terminal doors, one foot propped against the wall, a neglected cigarette in his fingers and on the ground the used remains of nearly a pack. 
When she made eye contact, he averted his gaze. She settled into the taxi, turned again toward the building, but he was gone.
The taxi picked up speed, and heat blew through the open windows. It was a two-kilometer stretch into the capital. 
Streetlights lined the median of well-paved tarmac, and along the road on either side were warehouses and container yards, businesses and buildings, all new and nicely maintained.
It was impressive change for the little country, which ten years prior had a tin-topped terminal connected to the city by a swampy, potholed road 
that ran through encroaching jungle and detoured over a marshy creekbed because the one-lane bridge had fallen apart.
The driver took them to the Bahia, the best hotel the city had to offer: 
three stories, clean and cool, and situated at the end of a small peninsula overlooking a panoramic view of the ocean. 
Inside the lobby the desk clerk was absent, and at the far left wall the bartender slept with his head on the bar.
The quiet was broken by the hum of an air conditioner.
Munroe called out, and after a moment a woman shuffled in from a room off to the side, sleepy-eyed and with a look of annoyance. 
From under the front counter, she pulled out a transaction book, flipped indifferently through the pages to the day’s date, 
and with deliberate tedium wrote into the book their names and passport information. 
After taking the money for two rooms, she informed them that the hotel had only one room vacant and that the second could be acquired that evening.
The room was clean and spartan, the bathroom bare, without even the customary bar of wafer-thin soap, 
but unlike lesser hotels here there was a roll of toilet paper and, besting the rest of the city, running water supplied by giant tanks that sat on the roof.
Munroe watched from the bedroom door as Bradford walked the length of the hallway noting ingress and egress and scoping the surrounding area from the windows. 
“If the second room is on another floor,” he said, “we need to share space.”
She shrugged and pushed off from the doorway. “We can discuss it,” she said, “if it happens.”
The restaurant was closed until evening, so they left the hotel in search of a meal 
and found the city quiet, streets and sidewalks empty as if the entire population had gone to sleep or simply disappeared in the middle of the day. 
A steady breeze blew in off the ocean, mixing with diesel fumes and mildew and the stench of garbage left rotting in the sun.
Malabo was a mixture of once-beautiful Spanish architecture, with its porticoes and colonnades that had somehow endured nearly half a century of abuse and neglect, 
and a jarring contrast of newer cinder-block buildings— assorted shapes and angles slapped together in any space wide enough to fit them.
At four, restaurants and grocery stores reopened, 
and the city’s small matrix of one-way streets— originally constructed to accommodate horses and carriages, now paved and potholed— returned to a state of gridlock, 
unable to bear the burden of vehicles brought on by the rapid influx of money.
The face of the city changed with the setting of the sun. 
Streets that ran along the oceanfront hosted a series of hole-in-the-wall bars unnoticeable during the day 
but that, like those in a navy town, came alive for the evening. 
They filled with foreigners from the oil industry, 
and where the foreign men went, the local women followed, fawning over them, drinking with them, and, more often than would be readily admitted, accompanying them home for the night.
Away from the artery of the city, where the money flowed less freely, where the streets were dark without electricity and the population dense and overcrowded, the faces were different but the scene the same. 
Life and vitality and laughter came with the darkness. 
Cheap Cameroonian beer ran plentiful, while meals were prepared over outdoor fires and small children played in the empty streets.
There, at an open-air bar, barely discernible but for the crowd around it, 
Munroe and Bradford sat on rough-hewn wooden chairs around a makeshift table that had been covered in a red-and-white plastic laminate. 
Munroe leaned her head back and closed her eyes, breathing in the essence of the city.
They had come to this part of town only because Bradford couldn’t dissuade her from it and she would have gone without him. 
He was alert, measuring the threat, judging the crowd; it was evident in the tightness that ran along his neck.
Eyes still closed, she said, “Miles, you can relax.” “I’m not paid to relax,” he said.
She smiled, ignored him, and allowed surrounding conversations to swallow her. 
A few moments later, a discussion at the periphery brought Munroe upright, and she angled slightly to observe.
On a bench just at the edge of her line of sight, two men were joined by a third— the same man so focused on her at the airport. 
Like the two on the bench, he was young, probably early twenties, and like the others, he was dressed in casual slacks. Hanging off his belt were two cell phones.
Threads of the conversation lifted on the breeze. The men spoke in Fang of many things, including her and her companion, but the details wafted away. 
When the men had each drunk several beers, Munroe turned to Bradford and suggested another part of town.
They walked in the direction of the ocean through streets dark and devoid of cars. 
Along the sidewalks, on steps, and in doorways, people clustered, their laughter and conversation streaked by light and bathed in music that filtered from open windows.
The chatter that followed in Munroe and Bradford’s wake told of humor in finding foreigners in this part of town. 
They were occasionally called out to, and several times children ran up asking for sweets.
Non-police street crime, like everything else in Equatorial Guinea, was rapidly increasing. 
Even so, compared to any city of its size in the surrounding countries, Malabo was relatively safe. 
Munroe felt and heard no threat, though her reassurances did little to set Bradford at ease. 
His posture said that he was prepared for an attack from any of the dark shadows they passed.
Unlike Bradford, she was not concerned about street thugs.
They found another watering hole, this one frequented by as many foreigners as locals and run by a Chinese matron and her daughter. 
Several minutes after they were seated, the young men from the previous bar arrived. 
They were now two instead of three, and when they sat at a half-empty table, the hostess treated them deferentially.
Munroe watched Bradford’s body language and knew that he, too, was aware of having been followed.
He turned to her, and she nodded a silent acknowledgment of what he didn’t say. 
They sat and drank, and when she’d had enough of observing and being observed, they returned to the hotel and retrieved the key to the second room.
Bradford stopped her at the threshold of her door. “When did you first pick them up?”
She opened the door, held it for him to enter, and said, “One at the airport, two at the first bar.”
“Do you know who they are?” She pulled off her shoes and tossed them against the bed. “No idea.”
He stared toward the window. “I don’t like it.” “Of course not,” she said. “You’re not paid to like it.”
He gave a humorless smirk, paused, and said, “Did you make out much of what they were saying?”
“Not enough to be of value.” She stripped off her sweat-dried shirt and draped it over the back of a chair. 
The sports bra underneath was equally drenched, but that would wait until Bradford was gone.
He was silent, and she followed his eyes to her arms and abdomen, where slivers of white reflected the neon light of the room.
“Forty-two of them,” she said. “If you must know.” “I’m sorry,” he said. 
He raised his eyes to meet her stare. “I’m not usually surprised like that. I thought…” His voice trailed to silence.
“Your file isn’t as complete as you imagined it was,” she said. And then she grinned.
He scratched the back of his head. “The men following us…” She nodded. “They’re dressed well. They aren’t military or police, which is a relief. 
“What’s puzzling, maybe troubling, is that, waiting as the first man was, they had to be expecting our arrival— or else we’ve been mistaken for someone else.”
“What about being set up for a hit?” She sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him. “Seriously? 
“I think that if they intended to relieve us of our meager worldly possessions, they would have made the attempt when we were conveniently on the wrong side of town.”
She paused and then stood. “If I pick up even a wisp of information, Miles, I’ll be sure to let you know.” With that, she opened her door and motioned her head toward it.
THE MINISTRY OF Foreign Affairs was an aging colonial structure that had been gutted and renovated 
and somehow through the process had come out looking tacky through improvements. 
The building was shaped like a lowercase n, the bottom floor tiled and open for people and vehicles to pass through to an overgrown courtyard. 
On the left and up a flight of stairs, they found the office of the minister. It was eight in the morning.
The minister’s secretary sat at a metal desk that was bare but for a half-sharpened pencil, a ballpoint pen missing its cap, and a well-worn notebook. 
From her they learned that appointments were made on a daily basis— first come, first served— 
and provided that the minister was in town, he might or might not take the time to see those who waited for him. 
She was able to confirm that as of yesterday he was in town, but she had no idea if he would be at the office today or tomorrow, or for that matter any day at all. 
She motioned to a cracked vinyl sofa and suggested that they sit and see.
Munroe sat, stretched out, and leaned back with closed eyes. 
Without the distraction of sight, she heard things otherwise missed: conversations in the background, whispers in the hallways, and the continuous scratch of Bradford’s pen on paper.
She would wait today, tomorrow, as long as it took, within reason. 
She held no illusions as to how much information the ministry would provide even if they had it available; 
information was not the foremost purpose of the appointment. 
After Malabo the search would shift to parts of the country where few unaccompanied foreigners went. 
Meeting the minister would lay the groundwork to dispel suspicion of their movements and to provide the means to name-drop if necessary.
Over the course of the morning, several more appointment hopefuls joined the room. 
The hum of nearby air-conditioning units filled the silence, 
although in the foyer, where they waited, there was only heat and humidity, which the elevated ceilings did little to alleviate. 
By midmorning their shirts were heavy with perspiration. 
By early afternoon the minister had not shown up, and the secretary rose to leave, suggesting to those waiting that they try again at three or four.
Outside the building, mingling with a group of men loitering in the shade, was one of the men who had followed them last night. 
When they passed, he trailed behind. He was an amateur at best; his shadow nearly blended with theirs as he kept pace. 
They nicknamed him Shadow Two, caught a cab back to the hotel, and at three returned to the ministry, 
where they spent the afternoon as they had the morning: on the vinyl sofa, in the heat, waiting for an audience.
It was shortly after four when Munroe sat up from her half-prone position. “He’s on his way in,” she whispered.
The bustle started at the bottom of the wide stairwell and increased in volume as the minister, followed by a small entourage, breezed through the hallway leading to the foyer. 
He was on the phone, ignoring the few who followed, and in the waiting area he stopped, nodded, and then retreated to his office, 
where he remained for an hour before leaving again, apparently finished for the day. 
When he and his retinue had gone, the secretary picked up a purse from behind the desk and to the small waiting crowd said, “Try again tomorrow.” And then she left the building.
The crowd filtered out, and Munroe stood and stretched, breaking up the kinks in her neck. She turned to Bradford. “Let’s go get dinner.”
He tucked his pen into the notebook and put it away. “How would you rate today?” he asked. “A total wash?”
“Not in the least,” she said, twisting sideways until her spine popped. “The discussions in the waiting area were fascinating.” 
She waited a beat and then laughed when his face clouded over. “Waiting is a part of life here, Miles. 
“There’s no point in trying to rush it. In the meantime I listen, observe, and learn. We’re in no hurry.”
They walked in the direction of the hotel, and when they rounded the block toward the coast, caught sight of Shadow One, the man from the airport.
As they neared the coastal avenue that functioned as the city’s main artery, the sidewalks were crowded and there was an unusual level of police activity. 
Whistles shrilled through the distance, and makeshift barricades blocked vehicles from entering the street.
Preferring to avoid contact with the local police if at all possible, Munroe flagged a taxi. 
The driver shook his head at her request and rattled off an explanation before driving away.
“The president is passing through,” Munroe said to Bradford. “The city is basically shut down— roads to the airport, the port, anything across the main street as well. 
“Could be an hour, ten hours, two days, or who knows until it clears, so we walk. 
“If anyone talks to us or asks us for our papers, don’t say a word. 
“Do you have your Guinean residency handy?” Bradford nodded. “Okay,” she said, waited a beat, and then, “Let’s go.”
On each of the corners that connected the street to the coastal avenue, police officers clustered into groups of three and four, their demeanor shifting from attentive to festive and back again. 
Very few carried firearms or had access to a vehicle, their sole power appearing to lie in whistles and citation booklets. 
Munroe and Bradford passed, and the officers, more focused on traffic than on pedestrians, paid little attention to them. 
They had reached the other side and were nearly beyond the road leading down into the port when an officer blew his whistle.
“Ignore him,” Munroe said under her breath. “Don’t even turn.” The whistle blew again, and they kept walking. 
It was only after the officer yelled in their direction, commanding the two blancos to stop, that Munroe slowed and threw Bradford a warning glance.

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chapter 7
They shared an uneasy truce, Bradford mostly silent as he accompanied Munroe about town. 
It may have been his way of giving space, although he was more likely nursing a grudge. 
If there was going to be payback, Munroe was confident it would come only after the hunt for Emily had ended, 
and so, over a late lunch, attempting to make nice and bring back some of the rapport they’d previously shared, she handed him an air ticket to Malabo.
“It’s where we go next,” she said, “Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea.”
Bradford took the booklet and flipped through the pages.
“Ever been there?” she asked.
He placed the ticket on the table and with a half smile said, “Nope. But it’s where Titan has its oil wells.”
Munroe said nothing and then, after a moment of silence, “It’s odd that none of the reports mentioned that.”
“Is it a problem?”
“I don’t know.” She ran her fingers through her hair and then folded her hands and placed her chin on them. “It does seem a freakish coincidence.”
His eyes moved from the paper on the table up to hers. “What do you mean?”
“I suspect that Emily disappeared along the Equatorial Guinean–Gabonese border.”
Bradford took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He sat back in his chair, silent for a moment, and then leaned in toward her. 
“I know the rules, and I’m not questioning your judgment, but I have questions.”
She nodded.
He was quiet again, head down, and then he looked up. “I was there, Michael, I was part of the team. 
“I’ve seen the reports, I’ve spoken to people who saw her before she disappeared. How do you make the leap from Namibia to Equatorial Guinea?”
“I have information that others didn’t have— a copy of Kristof Berger’s passport, for one. 
“I also grew up in this area, spent a number of years in Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo, and the DRC, which was Zaire back then, so I know the history and legends in a way most don’t.”
“Why am I not surprised?” he said.
“How familiar are you with local history and politics?”
“Richard told me about Cameroon and Gabon, so I’ve done some research. Not a lot, but some. He didn’t mention Equatorial Guinea.”
“As an American, you don’t need a visa to get into Equatorial Guinea, so I didn’t bring it up. 
“It’s a strange and paranoid little country— anyone from around here who has lived there will tell you the same thing. 
“Have you ever read Frederick Forsyth’s book The Dogs of War?”
“Heard of it, never read it. Should I have included it in my research?”
She smiled wryly. “It’s fiction, Miles, unless you believe the rumors. 
“It’s about a group of mercenaries who get hired to take over a small country when big business realizes it’s cheaper than paying for mineral rights.”
He nodded his appreciation of the idea and ran his finger around the rim of his glass.
“Forsyth was in Malabo when he wrote the book. No guess as to where he got the idea. 
“Naturally, the book is banned in EG, although that makes no sense. It’s the rest of the world that poses the threat.” 
She picked up her glass and took a long drink, then continued. 
“A few years ago, a group of mercenaries nearly succeeded in turning the book into reality. They got busted purchasing arms in Zimbabwe.”
“I remember,” he said. “What a fiasco that was. Wasn’t it Margaret Thatcher’s son who pled guilty to financing the plot?”
“Exactly,” she said. “Since then Equatorial Guinea has hired armed forces from Angola for protection, 
“and last I heard, the Israelis are training the Moroccan presidential guard— which is no surprise, since they’ve been handling training in Cameroon for over a decade. Paranoid. But I digress.”
“I understand about Kristof’s passport,” he said. “Visa stamps, right?”
“Correct.”
“What does local history have to do with it?”
“Equatorial Guinea History 101,” she said with a chuckle. “It takes some backtracking. Up for it?”
He nodded.
“In 1969, shortly after EG gained independence from Spain, President Macías Nguema claimed the country had been handed over with virtually no currency reserve. 
“That was the start of, or trigger for, deteriorating governmental relations with the Western world and is where the nickname ‘Auschwitz of Africa’ comes from.”
She paused.
“Go on,” Bradford said.
“In 1979, the current president, Teodoro Obiang, led a nearly bloodless military coup against his uncle, 
“and here’s where local history diverges and the facts differ depending on who you ask: 
“Before Nguema was tracked down and executed, he had taken what remained of the national reserves, supposedly around five million dollars, and buried it in a hut outside his house in his home village. 
“By the time it was dug up, most of it had decomposed. He claimed he’d done it to protect it from thieves. 
“I can’t say it’s entirely true, because the story changes slightly depending on who’s telling it. 
“And,” she said with a shrug, “that story is brought to us by the same people who say that Obiang hacked Uncle Macías to death when he found him, 
“while published history says Macías was executed about a month later by hired Moroccans. I tend to believe the latter.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because Macías Nguema made himself out to be a god and ruled by divine right. 
“The locals believe that he drank the blood of his victims to imbibe their power. 
“The stories of death, torture, and human-rights violations are well enough documented to put some credibility to the rumors. 
“In any case, because of the superstitions surrounding him, I doubt that any of his own people would have done the actual killing— not even Obiang, 
“whom, I might add, the state radio claims can kill with impunity because he is in daily communication with God.”
Bradford was quiet for a moment. “So folklore and local history says Nguema buried the country’s currency reserves before he died. 
“And this ties in with Emily’s disappearing here because …?”
“This begs another question. How familiar are you with the transcripts of Kristof’s conversations?”
“Not very.”
“There was a phrase he repeated several times to the investigators and that he reiterated to me when I went to see him: ‘We went where the money was buried.’ 
“It makes no sense taken on its own, but when put together with the country’s history and the stamps in his passport…” She pointed her finger into the table. “It pinpoints here.”
Bradford rubbed his palms over his eyes and let out a long breath. “I see where you’re going with this,” he said. 
“But how would Kristof have known the legend, and why would that be the one thing he says to both you and the investigators?”
“That I don’t know.”
He leaned back until the chair’s front legs came off the floor, placed his hands behind his head, and stared up at the ceiling. 
After a moment he brought the chair down firmly. “So where is Nguema’s village?”
“Nsangayong. On the eastern edge of the mainland, several miles from the Gabonese border.”
“And you think that’s where they disappeared?”
“I highly doubt it.”
Miles narrowed his eyes and drew his lips tight. He placed the palms of his hands flat on the table, and Munroe wondered then if he might be ready to strangle her. 
He shook his head slightly, opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again. 
Finally he said, “If not where the money was buried, then where?”
“Where most people would have assumed that the money was buried. Nsangayong is a nondescript hamlet that doesn’t even show up on a very good map. 
“My money is on Mongomo, the current president’s village, which is a whole lot bigger. 
“It’s only a few miles north of Nsangayong and where most people think Macías Nguema was from.”
Bradford picked up his ticket and flipped through the stiff pages. “We’re flying to Malabo— on the island. That’s something of a detour.”
She smiled. “Yes and no. The only way to the mainland from here is by sea or road— neither by any form of scheduled transport, 
“so it’s a tedious trip no matter how you look at it— and from Malabo we can catch a local flight. 
“But besides that, everybody who’s anybody in the country spends the bulk of their time in Malabo, and it’s also where the government branches are located. 
“I’d like to make the acquaintance of a few name-droppable people before wending our way to the backwoods of the mainland.”
Bradford motioned to the waiter and ordered another drink. He turned to Munroe and nodded in appreciation. 
“So that’s where the indicators point. Not bad for a week’s worth of work.”
“It helps to know the country and the history,” she said, and then, “Miles, are you married?”
He laughed at first, but, realizing that she was serious, he stopped. 
“Divorced twice, but the second marriage only lasted eight months so it shouldn’t count. Are you hitting on me?”
She smirked. “If I decide to hit on you, there will never be a doubt in your mind. 
“In all seriousness, Miles, if you have anyone in your life who’s important to you, call that person before we go.” 
She leaned toward him in earnestness. “I know you’ve survived some pretty rough places, 
“and being around the world as you have, it’s easy to believe that one despot-run country is much like another. 
“In most places you’d be right. But Equatorial Guinea is different. 
“Maybe it’s the years spent under communism, maybe it’s because it’s so small and so easily controlled, certainly some of it has to do with attempted coups, 
“but I can’t even begin to describe the level of suspicion and paranoia that runs through that country or the power to destroy that the president and his cronies have when you’re within their borders.
“We’ll be going in there asking questions of people who interpret questions as an insult and a challenge to their authority. 
“If anything we do or say happens to raise the ire of the government, we will more than likely join a long list of ‘disappeared.’ 
“You know as well as I do that our own government will be useless in helping us out. 
“If you remember the Zimbabwe fiasco, then I’m sure you also know that there was already a ground crew inside Equatorial Guinea, 
“and every person suspected of being a merc or in on the coup plot, whether guilty or not, is either wasting away in prison or has joined journalists and political opponents in front of the firing squad. It would be no different for us.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” he said, and then, with a teasing grin, “It can’t be all bad. Surely you have at least one good story.”
Munroe flashed a smile. “A few hundred miles to the north, Nigeria produces some of the world’s highest-grade sweet crude, and to the south is Gabon, another oil-producing country. 
“At the time Cameroon was producing as well, and Equatorial Guinea, communist and dirt poor, managed to acquire short-range missiles.” 
She waved her glass in a wide arc. “Needless to say, when the madman at the helm of that little country got his hands on his own private arsenal of warheads, the neighboring countries were not pleased. 
“Such is the beauty of oil. The United States intervened by putting pressure on the sellers to get the explosives back. 
“Naturally, the Equatoguinean president refused. So the sellers told him that the warheads were reaching their expiration date, and if they didn’t get reset, they’d explode.”
“So what’d they do when the bombs didn’t go off?”
“Oh, the president was smart enough to return the missiles before the ‘expiration date,’ and that was pretty much the end of that.”
Miles laughed and chugged down the last of his drink. “You’re not going to tell me that’s real history.”
She shrugged. “I heard it from one of the locals, but who knows?” 
She drummed the flat of her hands on the table and then stood to go. “You’re not taking prophylactics, are you?”
He shook his head.
“Didn’t think so. Ever had malaria?”
“Dengue fever, twice.”
“Where we’re headed, the malaria is particularly lethal.” She handed him a small box. 
“You break a fever, take the pills. They’ll keep you alive until we can get you medical treatment.”
THERE WAS NO point in taking a taxi when walking would speed up the acclimatization, and so at Munroe’s insistence the return to the hotel was on foot. 
They navigated the pedestrian traffic in silence and had gone nearly half the distance when they passed a storefront advertising phone service. 
Munroe paused and then, with Bradford following, entered the shop through a swinging half door that served more as a demarcation than anything else.
To Bradford she said, “I want privacy,” and he stepped back to the street, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed.
The interior was narrow, partitioned off from a clothing business that dominated the space.
At the front was a counter and beyond the counter a hallway connecting four small pressboard cubicles.
Like the hundreds of similar businesses that dotted the city, the vendor filled the demand left by a national telephone company that took weeks if not months to process a request for phone service 
and required a deposit equivalent to the average person’s yearly earnings for a line with international access.
Munroe chose the cubicle farthest from the front and from there called Kate Breeden. 
Ignoring an echo that bounced her voice back, she walked Breeden through the assignment to the present, laying out the line of intent for moving into Equatorial Guinea.
“Does Burbank know where you’re headed?” Breeden asked.
“I spoke to him before leaving Europe. He knows I’m in Cameroon. 
“He sent a babysitter, so I’m sure he’s up to date. When I’ve got something definite, I’ll give him a call, but until then a conversation would waste both of our time.”
The primary purpose of the call was a contact arrangement: As long as Munroe was in Equatorial Guinea, she would communicate on a weekly basis. 
A skipped contact and Breeden should assume that something had gone wrong— it would be the only way for her to know. 
Breeden held Munroe’s will and final instructions; she knew what to do.
The conversation had taken six minutes, and the woman who ran the service charged for nine. 
Munroe placed payment for seven on the counter and held up her wrist. “I timed it.”
“Didn’t you know,” the woman replied, “time is different in the United States?”
“Every minute in the United States has sixty seconds,” Munroe said, “just like it does here in Cameroon.” 
And then, switching to the woman’s tribal tongue, “You have your money.”
Back on the street, Bradford said, “How many languages do you speak?”
“It’s in my file,” she replied dryly.
“Yes, I know,” he said with a smile. “As an estimate.”
“Twenty-two.”
He let out a low whistle. “Is that any kind of world record?”
“Another forty and I might start getting close,” she said. “Sometimes dialects count, sometimes they don’t.”
“How do you do it? I mean, outside of Arabic, the one other language that I do speak, I struggle with the bits and pieces. How do you manage so many?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Language has been with me as far back as I can remember. A blessed curse or a poisoned gift— if you know what I mean.”
“No, not really.”
She turned toward him. “There was never a time I didn’t understand whatever was spoken around me. 
“By six I spoke English, my nanny’s tribal tongue Mokpwe, Ibo of our Nigerian-born driver, Fang of the cook and gardener, and French, the language of the country. 
“Then I started picking up dialects, and the locals began to view me with suspicion. 
“They said I was a child witch because I knew things I shouldn’t have known— they were afraid of the juju.”
“Juju?”
“Witchcraft, power— superstition is very strong in the culture. 
“I was young, I didn’t really think much of it— like I said, language had always been with me— and I spent so much time mixing with the locals that it all made sense. 
“But when I was a teenager, I moved to Douala and a wider social circle. 
“Within a couple of months, I’d added Greek and Arabic to the mix, and by then I realized I was different.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t end up working for the NSA or the CIA or one of the other alphabet-soup organizations.”
“I noticed that was absent in my file as well.”
“What was?”
“The recruitment attempts and job offers.”
“I take it you turned them down.”
She gave a sarcastic laugh. “They don’t pay as well.”
“Hey,” he said, “where’s your sense of patriotism?”
She grew quiet and turned the question around in her head and then rolled it out in a whisper. 
“Patriotism?” She looked at him. “How many years were you in the armed forces, Miles?”
“Felt like half a lifetime.”
She nodded. “You and every person who serves merits thanks and commendation, and you most certainly have it.” 
She was silent for a moment. “I can appreciate patriotism, but that’s about as far as it goes. I’m not like most people,” she said. 
“I have no devotion or affinity to any particular country— for that I assume I’d have to experience a sense of belonging.” 
She looked at him and searched his eyes for an indication that he understood, then added, “Patriots defend their homeland, Miles. Where is my home?”
“What do you mean? You’re an American.”
“Am I?” she asked. “What makes me an American? That I carry an American passport?”
“Well, partly that. It’s also where your family is from.”
“But is it where I’m from?” She sighed. “I was born here in Cameroon. 
“Spent nearly eighteen years living here or around the borders, but I’m not Cameroonian. 
“I understand the Turkish language and culture even better than I understand the American culture. But I’m not Turkish. 
“I carry passports from three countries, have lived in thirteen, and speak twenty-two languages. 
“To which country,” she asked, “should I be patriotic? To which do I belong?”
“Which one do you identify with the most?”
She stared at him. “None of them.” 
And then, regretting that she had said so much, changed the subject. “You didn’t make any calls when we were at the phone vendor.”
“Don’t read too much into it,” he said. “The people in my life know that what I do can be dangerous. I made my peace before I took the assignment.”
“Did you realize what you were getting yourself into when you took it?”
The corners of his mouth turned slightly upward.

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chapter 6
Boniface Akambe was a large man. 
Not only in his height and girth but in that he wore fine clothing, drove a new four-wheel-drive Land Cruiser, and owned several successful businesses. 
He was also a good-looking man with soft skin and a desirable-size gap between his top front teeth. 
Akambe had twelve children borne by three wives, two of whom lived in Douala while the third, the youngest, kept house in Kribi. 
His situation had improved since Munroe had seen him last. 
He’d been younger then— they all had been— and he’d had only one wife, though if he’d had his way, Munroe would have soon become the second.
It was Akambe’s family name and political connections that bought him protection and helped the businesses that fed his large lifestyle, 
but it was a lesser-known enterprise that had compelled Munroe to make this trip.
Kribi was exactly as she remembered— a small and lazy town with only a few main streets connecting the parts of the whole and far too many hotels for its size. 
Several new buildings had been added, but otherwise little had changed, and it took only a few minutes for the taxi driver to find the place Munroe had described.
The office was nondescript, on the ground floor of a three-story structure with peeling paint on the outside walls and water condensation dripping in a steady flow from an air-conditioning box that protruded over the sidewalk. 
Inside the office it was cool and fragranced by the lingering smell of mildew, and in several places the linoleum on the floor turned up its corners. 
A receptionist sat on a wooden chair behind a metal desk worn of its paint and showing makeshift repairs done over the years. 
In front of her was a manual typewriter and to the right of it an arrangement of manila folders, haphazardly stacked.
In the nine years that Munroe had been away from Africa, not once had the Fang language rolled off her tongue, but it came now in a familiar burst. 
“Hakum ayen Akambe,” she said. “Please notify him that I am here.” 
She didn’t need to provide more information, that she spoke in Fang was her calling card. 
With a look of surprise, the woman stood and went for a door on the opposite wall.
And then from behind came the rumble of Akambe’s voice. “Es-sss-sa,” he said, drawing her name into three syllables. 
He exited the door of his office, arms wide in welcome and a huge grin spread across his face. “Essa,” he said again. 
He clasped his hands together and then placed them on her shoulders and, holding her at arm’s length, said, “It could only have been you. How have you been? How many years now?”
“It’s been a long time,” she said, returning the smile and relishing the warmth. “A very long time.”
“Come, take coffee with me,” he said, and then barked a few phrases to the woman who had returned to the desk. 
He stepped aside so that Munroe could pass into his office. 
In contrast to that of the front room, the furniture here was new, the flooring and paint clean, and his wooden office desk so large it nearly filled the back wall. 
Akambe sat in the oversize chair behind the desk and Munroe on the sofa that rested perpendicular to it.
“Essa,” he said again after the coffee had been served. “Where have you been hiding yourself all of this time?”
“I’ve been across the ocean, studying and working.”
“Ah,” he said, and he leaned back and placed his hands on his wide midsection. “You went to your people. 
“Quite the trouble it made when you left. Francisco spent a small fortune trying to find you. He finally stopped when he knew for sure that you were alive and had left the country.”
A stab of guilt and the hollow ache that followed brought on a chorus of voices, chanting and calling her name, fighting for attention. 
She held eye contact with Akambe and, when the internal din had ebbed, said softly, “Have you heard from him?”
“I see him when he is in town, every few months.”
“He hasn’t left Africa, then?”
“He remains.”
She winced and took another sip of the sweet coffee. “How is he?”
Akambe stirred another spoon of sugar into the creamy brown liquid and said nothing for a while, then looked up. 
“He’s different. He works harder and plays harder, spends more time with women, drinking, behaving less like you and more like me.” 
He gave a hearty laugh and continued. “And then he leaves for periods of solitude. He built himself a place near Ureca on the island.” 
He paused, adding another spoon of sugar. “Time ages a person’s soul,” he said. “And they leave him alone as long as he supplies them now and then.” 
Akambe was quiet for a moment. “You should make a point to see him, Essa. He deserves at least that.”
She shrugged and put down her cup. “I will if I have the time. As it is, I am here for work and am pressed. I need your skill. Do you still make papers?”
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no.” His head tilted right and left as he spoke. “What do you need?”
She handed him passport photos of herself and of Bradford. “I need two sets of residency cards for each of these.”
“That I can do,” he said.
“For both Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.”
“Ah,” he replied, drumming his fingers on his desk. “Equatorial Guinea will take longer. And cost more.”
“Preferably diplomatic status,” she said, placing the rest of the photos on the desk and then laying a wad of cash on top of them. “If it’s not enough, I’ll pay the remainder when I return.”
He flipped through the bills. “It’s enough,” he said. “Where are you staying? I’ll have your papers delivered in five days.”
“Hotel Parfait Garden,” she said, and she stood to go.
Akambe raised his hand for her to pause and, full of importance, said, “Essa, I am looking for a wife.”
She smiled at the predictability and then attempted a straight face. “Boniface, maybe one day I’ll take you up on your offer, but not today.” 
In the taxi she allowed herself an audible chuckle. Wife number four.
From Akambe’s office the driver took her south of Kribi and turned onto the narrow dirt road that went past the beach house. 
A thick hedge ran the length of the property, blocking the view from the road, and the driver stopped beside the metal gate that was the single visible entry point. 
Munroe stepped onto the gravel driveway and stood, staring at the barrier that divided what once was from life as it was now. 
Voices from the past rose in unison, and she pushed back the screams into silence, fought the urge to ring the gate bell, and instead returned to the car. 
They drove north to Douala. By the time Munroe reached the hotel, it was dark. 
She purchased a bottle of water, headed for Bradford’s room, and let herself in. 
Dim street light filtered through the curtains, and Bradford’s breathing was steady and rhythmic against the hum of the air conditioner. 
She poured water into a glass, knelt beside the bed, and leaned forward to lift his head.
She touched the back of his neck, and his hand snapped around her wrist, a movement swift and exact. 
He pulled her close until her face was inches from his and in a whisper said, “You ever do that to me again and I swear I’ll radio tag you.”
She smiled and relaxed into him, and he let go. She slipped a hand under his head, raised him up, and put the glass to his lips; he drank greedily. 
When he had finished, he lay back on the pillow with his eyes open a sliver and said, “Why the hell did you do it?”
“I had some things I needed to do. Alone.”
“Next time just ask. I’ll give you space.”
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll ask.”
She stood and turned toward the door. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she whispered, and with the click of the latch, waves of internal tumult boiled over.
…Cry for sorrow of heart and howl for vexation of spirit…
With deliberate footsteps she walked across the hall, opened the door to her room, and, for Bradford’s ears, made the effort of both closing and locking it.
…leave your name for a curse unto my chosen…
There would be no sleep tonight, not after Kribi, not after the gate and the beach house.
…the Lord GOD shall slay thee…
Munroe followed the staircase upward until she could go no farther and from there located the door that led to the rooftop.
…and call his servants by another name…
The air was cool with the relief of night, and in the darkness there was solace. 
She found a spot, dry and open to the sky, and lay back, face to the pattern of stars, familiar as they had been once before, as they had been on that night.
In the silence the voices in her head chanted and rose in crescendo: The way of the wicked is death.
She didn’t fight them, didn’t try to shut them off— there was no point. 
Tonight they were strong; tonight they would take her, and she would allow her mind loose to follow where they led, inevitably to where they had begun: the night she’d killed Pieter Willem.
That night the camp had been temporary, the structures quickly thrown together. 
The spot was well concealed and had access to the water and to the boats hidden in the mangrove swamps not far from the tributary that would carry them to the Muni River. 
There were six in their group, and the thatched-roof shelters that acted as home were spaced unevenly in the small clearing. 
The plan had been to remain until the delivery and then move back to Francisco’s house in Kribi while they waited for the next shipment to come in.
Voices had carried in the stillness, and she’d crept closer to listen. 
Francisco and Pieter were arguing. Dusk was settling, and the pitch-black would follow in less than an hour. 
She could smell a storm coming and felt the change in the air. When the rain started, it would be impossible to overhear, 
and so she crab-walked until she could lean up against the shaky walls that held Francisco’s shelter together.
Life had been good until two and a half years earlier, when Jean Noel and his mercenary buddy Pieter Willem had been added to the team. 
Jean wasn’t bad; he saw her for what she was, a barely fifteen-year-old kid stuck out in the jungle, way out of her league but a necessary component to getting the job done. 
He was kind to her in his own way. When he wasn’t working, he taught her how to make rope, tie knots, set traps, poison darts, and hunt noiselessly in the dark. 
He also showed her how to take care of a gun and how to use it. It was Pieter who taught her to kill.
A small man of hardened muscle, Pieter was charming and a master of words that endeared him to the listener. 
It was his eyes that she couldn’t trust; from the day he’d arrived in Kribi, she had avoided him.
With Francisco’s approval Pieter had taken it upon himself to train her to fight— “to defend herself” were the words he had used when presenting the idea. 
Even if Pieter had returned to South Africa, he still would have been too close. 
Yet she was forced into his presence for hours every day. She couldn’t refuse. 
Francisco had given the order, and she worked for Francisco— more, she revered him. 
Eleven years her senior, Francisco was the older brother she’d lost when she was barely old enough to understand why.
Pieter’s training had started as he promised— as training. 
Away from the rest of the camp, he set about teaching her to fight. 
The location of the camps changed, and sometimes so did the country as the crew moved nomadically with the pickups and deliveries, but her being in Pieter’s presence remained constant. 
She didn’t know where he’d learned his technique or what exactly he taught; he claimed to be a master in several martial arts, and she wouldn’t have known one way or the other. 
She knew only that no matter how much she learned, she would return to her shelter bruised, bloody, and aching. 
And nobody at the camp would say anything about it. Those were the good times.
As her skills progressed and she learned to fight back, Pieter would keep at her until she was spent and unable to move. 
Every day it ended the same, with her flat on her back, held down with a knife to her throat as he raped her, whispering taunts into her ear while his sweat dripped into her face.
He threatened to hunt down her family and kill them if she left camp— she had no doubt he would make good on his promise, 
and no matter what she felt about her family, death and torture by a sadistic madman was not what they deserved. 
They had no idea where she was, and even if they had, there was nothing they could do. 
The only person who would care if Pieter slit her throat would be Francisco, and physically he could never best Pieter— none of them could.
Then Pieter brought the knives into the training session. 
Each time the sparring began, she wasn’t sure if she would live through the fight. 
Pieter deliberately cut her and regularly threatened to kill her. 
She fought to win, she fought to make him bleed, to end it, for the hell to be over. 
When her knife would connect with his flesh and the red liquid of life would smear across the blade, a shock of euphoria would go through her, 
always followed by the pain of his knife slicing another part of her body, and still it would end the same.
The better an opponent she became, the more Pieter tormented her. 
In an attempt to escape him, she refused to fight and then announced to Francisco— within earshot of Pieter— that she was trained and didn’t need more. 
Pieter came to her that night and gagged her. 
He pinned her down on the ground and slit one of her wrists, mocking her as she struggled against him. 
After she had lost considerable blood, he pulled her out of the dirt and bound her wrist to stanch the bleeding. 
He stroked her face gently, kissed her, and told her that if she ever defied him again, he would slit both her wrists and dump her in the Atlantic for the sharks.
He left her alone for a few days, and she knew it was to provide time for her to think about what he’d said and allow recovery from the loss of blood.
Then she had tried to manipulate him off the team by begging Francisco to send him away. 
Unable to tell the real reason, she hoped he might indulge her, and when he didn’t, she weighed the risk of the truth and chose life.
Then the sparring sessions were no longer enough to satisfy. Pieter began to trap her around camp. 
She never knew from which structure, tree, or rock he would appear; he seemed to take pleasure in devising ways to startle her. 
There was no place of solace or peace, and she lived on an emotional razor’s edge.
Staying away from Pieter consumed her waking thoughts, and she found safety by sticking with other people. 
If Francisco was there, she stayed by his side, and if he was away, she sought out Jean Noel. 
She could sense Pieter hovering, and if he caught her eye while she was under the protection of company, he bore her a sweet sadistic smile. 
When she escaped during the day, Pieter would come at night, and so she took to sleeping away from camp in hidden places. 
The better she became at avoiding him, the more he seemed to take pleasure in hunting her down; the harder she fought, the more he came back.
With his viselike grip around her throat, he would draw the flat of his blade across her cheek and goad her with what he was capable of. 
He would pull her face toward him so that her eyes could not avoid him, and he would laugh.
“You will never be as strong or as fast as I am, Essa” was his taunt. “You cannot escape me.”
She had no idea how old he was or how long he had been fighting for money, nor if the sadism came with the job. 
He told stories of coup attempts, of murder, of violence. That he was a killer she had no doubt, but she held everything else suspect.
Relief came from making runs to Kribi or Douala for supplies, or while on a delivery. 
They traveled to Kribi by boat, using Francisco’s trawler and leaving the faster cigarette boats behind. 
On a delivery, during the two or three days it would take to motor or trek through the jungle on remote, soggy footpaths, she would be left alone to do her job, 
and when it was over, the torment would start up worse than before.
Knowing that escape was impossible, she subsisted on thoughts of revenge, 
and hearing Francisco and Pieter argue had given her hope. If there was a disagreement, Pieter might leave.
And with that thought her throat constricted, cut off the air, and she struggled to breathe.
It would not be beyond Pieter to force her to go with him. Her hands began to shake, and her mind raced. 
She was worthless to Pieter. If it was convenient, he would just as easily dump her overboard as rape her. 
But she was worth a tremendous amount to Francisco, and spite would be reason enough for Pieter to haul her out of the camp. 
The argument turned to shouts. And then Pieter stormed out of Francisco’s structure and headed for the mangrove swamp that led to the boats. 
Darkness was coming, and the wind blew stronger, thunder drew nearer; the rain wasn’t far away.
She hadn’t thought; she’d merely acted. 
She traced her way back to her bed and the stashed tranquilizer gun that no one else had use for and that Jean Noel had let her keep. 
She knew the routes as well, if not better, than Pieter, and she circled behind him, walking barefoot through the sludge, following from afar, alert, cautious not only of Pieter but of the elements. 
The last thing she needed now was to run into a mamba or any other poisonous creature that infested the lowlands. 
She would need to have a perfect shot, couldn’t risk getting close; he was faster and stronger, and if she missed, she was dead.
His back to her, he untied the mooring of his boat. If he planned to leave in this weather, he would be preoccupied with getting out as quickly as possible, 
and so she risked shortening the distance. She crept closer until she could clearly see him. 
Aimed. Fired. The discharge, like nearing thunder, shattered the stillness of the jungle.
The dart hit Pieter between his shoulder blades. He stumbled and fell to his knees. 
When she was certain it had begun to take effect, she moved closer, fired the second for good measure, and then stood over him, one foot on either side of his body. 
His eyes rolled up in their sockets. She drew a knife and paused; the words of the Old Testament screamed, Thou shalt not kill.
She pulled his head back, knelt on his chest, and slit his throat. 
The blood gushed from his veins in spurts like a broken fountain staining her. 
She watched him bleed and felt nothing, then let his head drop to the ground, stood over him, and whispered, 
“The race is not to the swift, nor battle to the strong, nor yet favor to men of skill; time and chance happens to them all.”
She couldn’t leave him on the path; better to drag him into the jungle and let the animals have his body. 
She went to his boat and checked the fuel supplies. It was enough to get to Douala if she emptied every extra storage container. 
She brought the engine to life and guided the boat upstream. 
With Pieter Willem gone, nobody would look for it— she needed to sort out the options.
The rain began to come. It started in slow, large drops of water, and the downpour intensified until the torrent was powerful enough to sting. 
By the time she crept back to the camp, darkness had long enshrouded the jungle, and she dripped water. 
There was not a sign of blood on her; the rain had washed away the evidence. 
She shed her wet clothes, and climbed through the mosquito netting to her bed, where she curled in the fetal position and wept with racking sobs.
WHEN MUNROE FINALLY stood and left the rooftop, the first taste of sunlight had ushered the sky into hues of violet, and the bustle on the city streets shouted that the day had already begun. 
The internal voices were only whispers now; they’d bled themselves dry through the night.
How many passages were tumbling inside her head? She’d lost count. 
She had her father to thank— or curse— for every one of the verses that bubbled into consciousness. Father.
There had once been awe, inspiration, maybe love, always the desire for his approval, although it came in small conditional doses.
On the rare occasions that he was around, his sole interest seemed to lie in the Book, 
and so she’d studied it, memorized it, and, like a monkey for an organ grinder, recited it to gain attention and praise. 
Mother wasn’t much better, alcoholic that she’d become.
Life in Africa was sluggish, her mother had once said, moving like a languid fan stirring hot, stale air in circles; time lost meaning. 
The scarcity of amenities, convenience, and infrastructure added to the asperity of life.
For all the pieces of history Munroe was short on, one thing she knew: 
Her middle-aged parents hadn’t expected another child when they’d taken the call as missionaries to Cameroon, and if there was ever a mistake, she had been it.
And so she’d grown up untamed, the local children as playmates, her playground the dirt roads that wound through the small hillside town. 
She ran with the others, ragtag and barefoot, kicking deflated soccer balls toward imaginary goals and jumping out of the way of the occasional car or share taxi. 
She hauled water from the creek with her friends and learned to pound cassava and cook in large aluminum pots on open fires behind their homes. 
She knew the native plants that passed for vegetables and sometimes sold fruit at the local market. 
She spoke their language and understood their customs. 
Unlike the others, her house had air-conditioning, refrigeration, a maid, and a cook. 
Her father had a full-time driver, and there was a gardener who kept the aggressive foliage from reclaiming the property. 
All this until Munroe was thirteen, and her parents, in the ultimate act of pretending to care, sent her to Douala to be educated at the American School. 
It was a personalized version of boarding school, where meals and nights were spent with friends of the family. 
And there, at first behind her parents’ backs and later as blatantly as possible, she began to run wild; 
biblical passages were all she possessed of home, hollow words that translated into abandonment by parents more interested in saving the lost than their own flesh and blood.
Munroe let out a sigh as she passed Bradford’s room. His door was open, and although she didn’t see him, she knew that he was aware of her having been gone for the night. 
Chances were he’d spent the same sleepless hours guarding the landing that led to the roof. 
She didn’t bother returning to her room with subtlety; she merely opened the door and headed for the shower