by Layton Green
Grey squinted in the morning sunlight, and jogged the twenty minutes from Belgravia to the Embassy. The physical exertion helped sedate his battered nerves. He had to tell Harris he wouldn’t be around for a few days, and he had a question to pose to the Ambassador. One he wasn’t going to like.
Harris’s secretary informed him that Harris wouldn’t be arriving for at least twenty minutes. Grey realized it was not yet nine, and then took in his ragged appearance. He hadn’t showered or had any real sleep in two days, and in the meantime had been waylaid, dragged off to Fangwa’s house, and tortured in his dungeon. He apologized to the secretary, who continued staring at his bandaged arm as Grey backed into the hallway.
He walked to the end of the floor and then darted up the stairs to the top level. The Ambassador typically arrived at eight. Harris would never forgive him for leapfrogging the bureaucratic hierarchy, but Grey didn’t give a damn. He had to make sure no potential landmines impeded his search for Nya.
He opened the door to the Ambassador’s reception area, and encountered the raised eyebrows and jutting briefcase jaw of Mr. Gregory.
“I need an audience with the Ambassador.”
Gregory reached for his coffee. “Mr. Grey, I’ll have to check the calendar, I’m not sure we can-”
Grey slammed his hands on the desk. “Take a look at me, genius. It’s an emergency.”
The buzzer sounded.
• • •
Grey found the Ambassador behind his desk, pen in hand. “I apologize for the intrusion,” Grey said.
“You found something, and you look like you haven’t slept. Since you’re here without Harris, there’s a reason you wanted to tell me directly.”
“I’m here without Harris because he’s not in yet, and what I have to say can’t wait.”
“Then go ahead and—Dominic, what happened to your arm?”
He fumbled. “I burnt myself.”
The Ambassador pulled his eyes away, and Grey said, “What does the CIA have to do with this?”
“Where did you get this information?”
“A man named Nigel. He’s an ex-mercenary.”
“And how in the hell does he know?”
“I’m not sure. I apologize for my impertinence, Mr. Ambassador, but there’re lives at stake. Is our government involved in any way with Addison’s disappearance? I need to understand what I’m getting into.”
“Do you think I’d have let you run slipshod into the CIA?”
“Probably not, but I have to be sure.”
“They have nothing to do with this. Yes, William kept in contact with certain members of the MDC. He ran messages between them and the CIA on occasion. I thought he’d phased that out. He was retired, for Christ’s sake.”
Grey took in the information. “Ever heard the name Jeremiah Mashumba?”
“Isn’t that the same last name as your liaison with the Ministry?”
“It’s her father. He was involved with the MDC. He was murdered eight months ago.”
“I’ve never heard the name before. Dominic, I needn’t tell you that the information about William is confidential.”
“Of course,” Grey murmured. If the CIA link was a dead end, then Grey didn’t understand what William Addison had to do with any of this. Had he simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time?
“Is that it?” The Ambassador said tersely. “What about progress on William-”
Grey heard the door open, and turned to see Harris’s dour face. Mr. Gregory stood behind him, out of the Ambassador’s line of sight. The bastard must have called Harris.
“Mr. Ambassador,” Harris said, “my utmost apologies. I had no idea he was here.”
The Ambassador seemed weary. “Yes, yes. We were just discussing the progress on William.”
“Well,” Harris said, nodding at Grey, “continue.”
Grey tensed. He might as well get it over with now. “I needed to tell you I’ll be out of the office for a few days.”
“We’re in the middle of an investigation!” Harris’s eyes added the implied, of the Ambassador’s best friend.
“It concerns the investigation,” Grey said.
They were both staring at him, waiting. God, how to phrase this? It even sounded ridiculous to Grey. “I believe the N’anga kidnapped William. And now he’s kidnapped Ms. Mashumba. I have very good reason to believe her life’s in danger. I have days, if not hours, to find her.”
Harris started to speak, but the Ambassador cut him off with a gesture. “The who? Where’s this person now?”
“I’m unsure.”
“Then how do you propose to find him?”
“There’s a man I think will lead us to them. I need to find him and follow him.”
“His name?”
“Lucky. He owns a club downtown.”
Harris guffawed, and the Ambassador looked at him. “You know him?”
“I’ve been to his club,” he mumbled.
The Ambassador addressed Grey again. “Do you have proof of the involvement of either of these men with William’s disappearance?”
“The last place Addison was seen was at the ceremony, and other people at these ceremonies have disappeared—”
“I said proof, son.”
The words seeped out of him. “Not hard evidence, no.”
“But you think William is to be found with this… person you mentioned?”
“If he’s alive, yes.”
“Do you think he’s alive?”
Grey hesitated. “There’s a chance.”
The Ambassador considered that. “Have you reported Ms. Mashumba’s kidnapping to the Ministry?”
“Yes. Nothing will be done for days.”
“Have you requested a different liaison?”
“Same issue. There’s no time.”
The Ambassador blew out a long breath. “So what do you have? And don’t waste my time with speculation. You have no idea what kind of a leash we’re on here.”
Grey could point them to Doctor Fangwa’s house, but there was nothing there that would implicate the N’anga or Lucky, or that made mention of Nya or William Addison. The gruesome scene would only raise uncomfortable questions Grey didn’t have time to answer.
Grey pulled the note Lucky’s emissary had given him and showed it to the Ambassador. He knew what the outcome would be, but he had to try every angle that might help. Harris crowded in to take a look.
A slow flush spread across the Ambassador’s face. “An unsigned, typed note that reads like a riddle? I assume you have more.”
Grey rushed through the entire story. As he tried to describe the import of the note he’d found in Lucky’s wallet, the Ambassador put a hand out.
“Dominic, this story sounds, to put it mildly, a bit surreal. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but in any case, you’re missing the point. Without evidence, our hands are tied. Even for a close friend of mine. Believe me, I’ve pushed this to the limit. This cocksucking government thinks we personally instituted apartheid. Without proof they’ll laugh me off the phone, and all we’ll have is an embarrassing situation and a call from Washington. So tell me, do you have any conclusive evidence of anything?”
It took every bit of self-control Grey possessed to control his temper. “Dammit, I’ve been trying to tell you. Sir. Professor Radek can corroborate.”
“They won’t give a damn about that! Unless you have something I can take to the Ministry in person, I can’t let you pursue this investigation under the aegis of the United States government, without the presence of Ms. Mashumba or a different liaison. I’m sorry, Dominic. I want to find William more than anyone, but there’s nothing I can do.”
Silence pumped into the room. Grey stood erect and stared at a spot on the wall. Had the Ambassador added that last phrase as an implied acceptance of what he knew Grey was going to do anyway?
It really didn’t matter.
Harris broke the silence. “Grey and I will brainstorm possible
avenues we can take to find William.”
“No we won’t,” Grey said softly.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve said what I have to say.” He started for the door.
“If you leave this building right now don’t bother coming back!”
Grey turned his head. The Ambassador frowned at Harris’s lack of control, but said nothing. Grey reached for the door.
“You’re fired, Grey,” Harris yelled at Grey’s back.
“Dominic,” the Ambassador called out.
Grey turned again. “Sir?”
“If you’ve chosen your path, don’t leave here with your embassy ID.”
Grey took out his identification and tossed it at Harris’s feet.
50
Nya watched the steady advance of the gruesome mask. She summoned every ounce of anger she could, she pictured her beloved father lying as she had found him, throat slit and eyeless, reduced to a dead thing, a lifeless husk. The anger surged through her, but it could not quite overcome her other emotion.
She was terrified.
Father Cowden had told her she possessed faith. She laughed to herself. Would faith save her now? The only thing her residual smattering of belief lent her was a greater fear of the N’anga. She couldn’t force her mind to wrap around the image of a benevolent God, but she didn’t have to try to imagine the unnatural things that the man standing before her could do.
He approached her, guttering torch held aloft, bestial mask shimmering behind the flames. He stopped a few feet away and looked down at her. She could smell him: a greasy stew of incense and musk.
As the light drew nearer she glanced down and gasped. She was lying spread-eagled on a slab of stone. A crisp white sheet covered her midsection, leaving only the ends of her limbs exposed. Leather straps, attached to iron rings set into the stone, bound her hands and feet. A padded headrest supported her head.
She forced her face to assume a threatening scowl. “What do you want?”
No answer.
She swallowed. She knew no one knew where she was. She had absolutely no idea how she’d ended up at the ceremony in the first place, and even less of an idea how she’d gone from there to here, wherever here was.
“Who are you?” she said, trying to will the anger to overpower the fear. “Why did you kill my father, you bastard?”
Still no response. She despised her pathetic, forced bravado.
A shiver coursed through her from a chill in the air, and she tried to wiggle her fingers and toes—they moved! At first she could only flex her extremities, but gradually she felt sensation return to her limbs, precious life coursing through her.
She struggled, urging the warming blood to flow faster, until satisfied that everything still functioned. Her small victory was dampened by the fact that her restraints had her stretched so tight that, except for her head and her digits, she could barely even wiggle. She tried to buck her hips, but only managed a few centimeters.
The N’anga took three methodical steps towards her and stopped inches from her right side. She caught her breath. He leaned over her and reached up, and she craned her neck to follow his movements. He set the torch into a sconce affixed to a rock wall a few feet above her head.
He reached towards a ledge cut into the rock wall. He withdrew a six-inch knife, with a scalpel-thin blade.
“Don’t you dare touch me with that.”
He reached down with his left hand and removed the sheet. Nya cringed as he exposed her lithe body, quivering with fear and cold, covered only with a crude loincloth.
“You monster! Don’t touch me!”
He placed an obsidian hand, creased with age but still powerful, on her lower abdomen, covering her belly button. She struggled again, futilely. Between her bonds and his hand on her center, she couldn’t budge.
His right hand, the one holding the knife, descended to her side, inches from where his left hand held her down. He dipped the blade into her skin with practiced dexterity. She winced. He didn’t cut deep; the knife descended lightly into her caramel flesh, made a straight incision three inches long, and then lifted.
Without pausing, the N’anga made three more cuts, his thumb on the flat of the blade, slicing into her skin as a master chef would a ripe tomato. Thin lines of blood oozed out of the cuts. She closed her eyes as he worked, forcing her mind to flee elsewhere, as it had in the darkness.
She realized he had stopped cutting, and prayed he had left. She opened her eyes.
The N’anga’s knife hand hung at his side, and his left hand hovered over the area where he had made the cuts. His hand moved forward, as if he had been waiting for something… and then she knew.
He wanted her to watch. Before she could look away, before she had time for another thought, his fingers pried into her flesh and gripped the long rectangle of skin outlined by the incisions. His fingers squeezed together, and with a violent jerk he tore a flap of skin off her body.
Nya screamed.
She couldn’t believe the pain; even more, she couldn’t believe the base nature, the shocking cruelty, of the act. She cursed as she flung her head from side to side. The red pulp of her wound gaped at her: a small, perfect rectangle of exposed flesh. He ran a finger slowly along the wound, causing a new wave of pain to consume her, and then straightened. He folded his arms and resumed staring at her. Her chest heaved.
He observed her for a moment and then leaned over her again. He placed his left hand in the same position and started his incision a few inches higher, just above her ribs. He quickly made his cuts, reached into her and pulled off another flap of skin.
My god, the pain! Her eyes rolled and she bit her tongue, tasting the salty sting of her own blood. She lifted her head and slammed it backwards. She felt the soft padding, and then she understood the purpose of the cushion.
She knew what was happening. She remembered the first ceremony, the bleating of the poor goat as the N’anga cut into it, again and again, using smelling salts and God knew what else to bring the poor creature to a state of unimaginable agony.
The N’anga was performing the two hundred cuts right before her eyes, on a living human being.
On her.
He bent over her again, and her screams echoed off the cavern walls.
51
Eyes dazed, mind stumbling, Grey walked away from the U.S. Embassy. Had that really just happened?
He’d known the day would come, and he cared even less than he thought he would. He had no idea where he’d go or what he’d do, but for the moment those questions, and everything else save one thing, were irrelevant.
Grey tried to call the Ministry again, and got what he expected: a request to come in next week and discuss the situation. It’s urgent, you say? Bring us some proof, and we’ll be happy to consider the matter. Grey closed his cell phone. He had nothing on the N’anga, no idea where he was, and the only link was Lucky, whom he and Nya had been forbidden to pursue, and against whom he also had nothing.
He and Viktor were on their own.
Grey walked to Club Lucky, in case Lucky had already arrived. Grey leaned against locked doors in frustration. He’d expected as much, but still found it difficult to accept the wait. He debated going to see Nigel, and then discarded the idea. Nigel may or may not have the information they needed, and he couldn’t chance that Nigel might be wrong or provide false information. Lucky was the only sure bet.
He returned to his apartment, ate, showered, paced. Sleep was out of the question. He didn’t know how he’d pass the time until two, but pass it he did, fitfully, mulling over every angle.
He changed his bandages, then donned his boots, black khakis and a brown T-shirt. He arrived at The Meikles at one, but Viktor didn’t show until two-thirty, his face bleak and shadowed. He noticed Grey hovering over a coffee, and motioned for him to follow.
They took the elevator to Viktor’s floor, marched to his suite and huddled together in the sitting room.
“I tried C
lub Lucky,” Grey said. “No one’s there yet.”
“When do you think he’ll arrive?”
“Anytime before seven is probably futile. I cased the place today; there’s a front and a back entrance. I need you to watch the front just in case. There’s a bar across the street you can hole up at. I’ll be watching the back, I think that’s the one Lucky uses.”
“I can do that.”
“I can follow him easier on my own, and I’ll call you from the road. You can catch up with me tomorrow, when he leaves for the ceremony.”
“What if you lose him?”
“That’s not an option. But that reminds me. Do you have a car?”
“I have a rental in the hotel car park.”
“Can I borrow it tonight? Can you get another one for yourself by morning?”
“Of course,” Viktor said with a tilt of his head, leaving the question unasked.
“I can’t use my Embassy car. I was fired today and had to give up my building access.”
Viktor’s eyebrows rose.
“Long story. Actually it’s not. They ordered me not to go looking for Nya, I refused, and they fired me.”
“They lost a good man,” Viktor murmured.
“Technically the Embassy hired you—is this a problem? We’re not supposed to be investigating anything without Ministry approval.”
“At times the law enforcement agencies and I… pursue the same objective. That’s the extent of our relationship.”
“That’s sort of what I figured. And helping Nya is your objective?”
“Yes.”
“But not the only one, is it?”
Viktor held Grey’s gaze. “Her safety is foremost.”
Grey nodded, and Viktor drummed his fingers on the table. “I attended a ceremony a few days ago, to see for myself. What I saw I found quite… troubling.”
“Where were you? Did you see the circle? The fog? Someone trapped inside?”