“My experience in Kolwezi is why I joined the Company. If France’s intelligence agencies had been better informed, we could’ve avoided the whole mess. I thought that by working with the CIA, I could end battles before they started, but it’s not agile enough. So Ross and I are forming our own private military company,” he said. “Security Solutions International. SSI’s won a few military contracts, enough money to start the firm in earnest. We’ve got two projects we’re working on here.”
“What are they?”
“You’ll see.”
Wanting to know more, I tried a different approach. “Was there a tactical reason that you chose this country to start in?”
He shook his head. “We started here because I was already assigned to this station office.”
“So you launched your firm when Ross was still in the field. Did he ever come up here from Ghana?”
“Of course. It would’ve been impossible to organize things otherwise.”
I realized that Ross had said he’d never been to Burkina, which meant he’d lied to my face. And although I prided myself on my ability to detect deceit, I hadn’t picked up on it.
The waiter cleared our plates and started toward the kitchen. I glanced across the table at Slater.
“I’m leaving the Company,” he blurted suddenly.
I nodded, not wanting to commit to any reaction to the news.
“But they’re not threatened by SSI. They’re happy because we have the same goal. It’ll be a big help to them that we can creatively stop problems before they escalate into something too large for either organization to control.”
I thought about this, and realized I didn’t believe it. What he’d said about the Company not being agile enough made it sound like he was unhappy with them, so I doubted he was leaving on good terms. I was sure the Company viewed him as a threat. I asked him suddenly, “Is SQLR something you came up with through SSI? Is that one of your projects?”
He looked surprised. “What makes you think that?”
“If the CIA knows you’re leaving, I doubt they’d give you permission to bring someone new out here.” They would have no reason to grant him any concessions, particularly if his departure was making them unhappy, which it sounded like it was. I said, “I haven’t been working for the CIA at all, have I?”
He let out a nervous giggle and hunched into himself in a mannerism that was surprising on a former soldier of the 82nd. “Ross warned me that it would be hard to hide things from you. Not technically, no.”
I was annoyed to learn this, but mostly at myself for not paying attention well enough to have figured it out earlier.
“The Company would never think to hire you,” he said. “Or use you like we plan to.”
“Was that a job offer?”
“Yes, SQLR is a test run. To see if you like the way we work and to see if the way you work suits us. It has so far and I hope it continues to. I think Helene would’ve wanted you to join us. And I owe her memory a lot, more than I could ever explain.”
I didn’t know if it would be a good fit for me, but I had no problem pretending I thought it was. “Would I have to live here in Ouaga full-time?”
“No. We’ll be overseeing projects all over the continent. You’d be able to keep New York as your home base and fly out to where we are whenever we need you.”
“If my experience so far means anything I’d be happy to join SSI,” I said, lying to keep my options open. My suspension from the FBI had felt like the last straw—I was considering resigning, but wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted.
He was pleased. “Good. That way I can look out for you, which I think your sister would’ve appreciated. And I bet she would’ve been happy to see us working together.”
He ordered another round of drinks for us and paid the check. He was three Scotches in and it was starting to show in his body and gestures. He said, “There’s something else I need to tell you. Just to clear the air. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. Helene and I were married. When we were driving back from California we stopped in Vegas and did it there.”
I stared at him, too astonished to respond, my mind reeling. I couldn’t believe it. She’d been married and hadn’t told me. Hadn’t invited me. He studied my face for a moment, trying to read it. “Are you all right?”
“I would’ve liked to have been there,” I said as expressionlessly as I could.
“We were going to have a reception in New York. But then the accident happened…”
I stood. “I have to go.”
“I hope this doesn’t change anything between us. Or your feelings about the job.”
“No. It’s just a lot for me to think about.”
I left the guest house, headed back to Zone du Bois, with my mind turning over the news he’d given me. The way he’d delivered it had taken my breath away, but I wanted to forgive him for that. He’d married my sister, whom he’d loved powerfully, and she’d died a couple of hours later. I didn’t know how someone copes with something like that.
20
I SPENT THE NEXT AFTERNOON AT THE house in Zone du Bois waiting to hear from Thomas. I had lunch out on the patio, where I liked to eat my meals while listening to the radio or reading the newspaper. Jean was, as usual, sitting in a plastic chair by the gate, near the motorcycle. I looked up to see him letting a young man into the yard, where he began cutting the grass with a machete. It made me nervous to watch him work—I was afraid he’d lop off a finger in service to the greenery at the American house.
There was an announcement on the radio: The CNR had imposed compulsory physical education events and Thomas was attending one being held in Ouaga.
As I listened to the hollow thock of the machete hacking against leaves and branches, I imagined him at the event, the center of attention—the star—surrounded by admirers, shaking hands, smiling, exhausted, and terribly lonely.
The phone rang, but of course it wasn’t him. It was Slater. “I hope you’re not still upset about that news I gave you.”
“I wasn’t upset. Just surprised.”
“Really?” he said.
“Really,” I lied.
“Good. Listen, I assume you haven’t heard from Thomas.”
“Not yet.”
“I want you to do something for me.”
“What if he shows up here while I’m out?”
“He won’t. I promise. Not in the middle of the afternoon.”
“What do you need?”
“There’s a dead-drop location near the market close to the house. I want you to pick up the film that’s in it and bring it to me at the embassy.”
I agreed and hung up. I was excited about the assignment, in the sense that it was something proactive to do, which beat waiting around. The market was only a ten-minute walk from where I was, but I took the motorcycle. I’d been there once already to exchange money, because an Algerian there had a better rate for a cheaper commission than the Société Générale. It was one of the many markets in Ouaga, and I can’t say that I ever visited one I liked. I’ve never enjoyed crowds or haggling, and the alternative, overpaying, wasn’t exactly a thrill either. The dead-drop location was on a desolate stretch of road about a hundred feet past the mosque with green trim that stood at the market’s northwest corner.
My heart was pumping fast as I approached it. I looked around, and once I was sure no one was watching, retrieved the metal spike stuck in the ground and quickly grabbed the film.
As I headed back, I thought of Helene and me in our Soviet café. The temperature was wrong but the heart-pumping thrill of the mission was what I’d always imagined. As I was cutting through the market, I was suddenly aware that I was being followed; when I turned to look I saw a young soldier a few paces behind me. I walked faster. He did too.
The muezzin’s droning ca
ll started. Vendors started to leave their stalls, headed toward the mosque, and in so doing, created a bottleneck at the top of the street. I felt trapped. Someone tapped my shoulder, and thinking it was the soldier, I tensed. Although the dead-drop location was already some distance away, I was worried that he was following me because he’d seen me retrieving the spike. I turned. I saw that the soldier was still a few paces back, also caught in the crush of bodies. The person who wanted my attention was a man in wraparound shades. He asked if I was French.
“American,” I told him.
“You’ll like this.” He pushed a flyer into my hand. On it, there was a caricature of Thomas—his head was bandaged and he was wearing a straitjacket—and there was a Democratic Defenders emblem in the bottom corner. I imagined Slater in his office, cranking out flyers at his handbill press.
Every weekend Sankara sends emissaries to every corner of the country, and God help the chief whose hallway or staircase the President of Faso deems excessively noisy. This confirms the findings of two French doctors: Sankara is mentally deranged. That also explains why both his domestic and foreign policy are totally incoherent and dramatic failures at all levels. Fellow citizens, we are being governed by an individual who is already in an advanced stage of madness!
I looked up from the flyer to the sound of overlapping voices mounting into an argument. There was a second man in the market handing out the same flyers, and he and one of the vendors were shouting at each other. The vendor tore the flyer into pieces.
He shouted in a mix of French and Mooré, and I managed to gather that he was calling the flyers foreign-produced garbage. He wasn’t the first person I’d heard suggest that the Democratic Defenders flyers were propaganda produced outside of the country. People seemed to suspect the Ivory Coast though, not the United States. Ironically, the flyers that criticized Blaise’s relationship to Houphouët, Ivory Coast’s president and Chantal Compaoré’s father, were the ones that made people most suspicious of their involvement—the flyers were thought to be a false flag.
Several of the men who’d been on their way to the mosque intervened in the argument. They tried to calm the vendor down.
“The president is a dictator!” one of the Democratic Defenders yelled as they left the market. “And you’re all reactionaries! Pay attention! The PF is a dictator! He came for the striking teachers and the trade unionists. Next it’ll be you!”
* * *
—
THE AMERICAN EMBASSY WAS way on the other side of town, in a suburb in the north of the city. As I rode, the soldier was a steady presence in my mirror. I was rattled. Had Thomas sent him, wanting to know what I was up to before he came to the house? The neighborhood was like my own, wealthy and isolated, the building a low, adobe-colored box lousy with gleaming windows. I stopped and showed the guard posted at the boom gate the embassy identification Ross had given me. I turned to watch the soldier continue straight past the embassy. The guard let me through with a smile.
I parked and crossed through the lot in the shadow of an indecorously large American flag. A marine was exiting the embassy as I reached the steps; he held the door open for me. I remembered that there was a marine attachment on the grounds—after the bombing in Beirut all of the American embassies were getting them.
I took off my sunglasses and looked around the reception area. The artificial cool and the English spoken by the employees lent it the insular feel of an American satellite. The walls were cornmeal colored, and one featured a large mural of a welcoming woman wearing a head wrap and holding out a bowl of fruit.
Slater was already there, flirting with a secretary wearing her hair in a cornrow bun, bright red lipstick, and a striped blazer. He had on a gray suit, which the secretary complimented; he thanked her, took her hand in his, and asked: “Awa, darling. Any mail for me back there?”
“Eh! Do you think I would not tell you?”
It was interesting to watch him with her—to me the charm he was using was obviously manufactured. It was mesmerizing to be able to see through it and also to see it work. Had Helene really found this man compelling? A doubt cropped up that I pushed away; she was a better judge of character than I was.
Releasing the woman’s hand, Slater gestured to me, and I followed him down a brightly sunlit hall lined on one side with courtyard-facing windows and on the other with office doors. I held out the film to him. “Hang on to it. I’ll show you where the darkroom is. You know how to develop film, right?”
“Yes.”
Another marine appeared from one of the doors—apparently the embassy was crawling with them. Slater clapped him on the back in greeting.
“We missed you at movie night,” the marine said.
“Next time,” Slater said. He introduced me, and the marine said with a nod, “It’s a pleasure, ma’am.” He continued on.
“I saw a soldier in the market. I think he was following me.”
“I doubt it,” he said.
“You’re probably right,” I said with a nod, even though I was annoyed that he’d dismissed me.
“Welcome to the show,” he said as I followed him into the political section. The room was small but held a half-dozen large gray filing cabinets, so overly full that they gave the impression of being on the verge of comic explosion. There were two doors with frosted glass that must’ve led to internal offices and a telex machine standing against the far wall beneath several shelves lined with black binders. A cardboard-backed photo of Reagan was taped on one of them.
An unremarkable mustachioed man in his fifties was talking to a clerk who was sitting at one of the desks in the center of the room, taking papers out of a tiered letter tray.
“That’s the station chief,” Slater said. “He knows we’re old friends, in case you’re wondering.”
I nodded. That seemed a little strong—friends—but I was willing to go with it. Slater approached, greeted his boss warmly, and introduced me. He also introduced the clerk and explained that he worked for the State Department. The two men nodded at me, but the interaction was a tense one.
“Where’s Dave?” Slater asked, seemingly oblivious. “Out lighting fires under his agents again?” He let out that strange giggle of his. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but he was making a joke that made me think of the arson at the ULCR meeting. I wondered if it had been set out of revenge for something someone at the station office had done.
“What are you doing here?” the station chief said, his tone undeniably hostile. The cold reception we were getting forced me to rethink something Slater had told me: He said he’d chosen to work at HDF. Now I wondered if he’d been banished there. That made just as much sense to me as what he’d said.
“I still have a right to use the facilities here,” he said.
As we went toward the back office, I felt the station chief’s eyes following us. Slater opened a door and flipped on the red light inside. We were in a small darkroom. There was a table with developing trays on it, a string for drying photos, and a sink in the corner. It smelled overpoweringly like photo chemicals. Slater closed the door behind us, forcing us close together.
“I’ve given the Company ten years of loyal service. They should be happy for me.” I guess he must’ve forgotten that he’d told me they were.
I looked up at him in the red light. He’d closed his eyes and had his fingertips to his temples, was breathing in and out heavily.
“This is the best the Company can do: a messy office with a dusty little bureaucrat in charge. This is why our government needs more private firms.”
“He might be able to hear you.”
“So what!” he roared. “Sorry, sorry,” he said with shake of his head and that giggle. “Can you develop film?”
Although I’d already told him so, I didn’t want to upset him more and was quick to nod again. “Black and white. I had some training
during my class on investigative photography at Quantico and took an art class in college. I might be a little rusty though.”
His anger had seemed murderous and then it was totally gone—his changeability caused my stomach to clench. I’d taken a step back, feeling frightened. I wondered if he’d ever made my sister feel that way.
“Good. Next time you’ll come here alone. I shouldn’t have to deal with any hostility. Instructions,” he said as he tapped them on the wall.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you embarrassed?”
He didn’t answer.
“You don’t have to be,” I added. “Not in front of me.”
He stared at me as if I were the unbalanced one, the one who’d been swinging so wildly between intense emotional states. Then he burst into a grin.
“Just like your sister. Right from the beginning it felt like she could see me so clearly.” He spoke slowly, carefully measuring his words. “No one had ever made me feel that way before. Never thought I’d feel that way again.”
He was beaming, the menace that had been in his face before totally gone. He reached out as if to touch me on the cheek, but thought better of it. He looked at the clock on the wall. “I have to go. Bring those pictures to HDF when you’re done. I might not be there. Just leave them on my desk.”
After he left I started to relax. He made me tense, which was a realization that I pushed away so I could focus on developing the film. As I hung the photos up to dry, clipping them on the line with clothespins, I saw that they were all of internal government documents: a memo indicating that a meeting to reunify the CNR had gone poorly, a handwritten note from Thomas asking that a member of his cabinet visit a chief in Tenkodogo who’d been accused of corruption. When Slater had said he had agents everywhere he wasn’t exaggerating: Whoever this source was, they must’ve been very high up in the government.
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