Viral

by James Lilliefors

  He watched the Nairobi skyline as they came to the crush of the city—the I&M Bank Tower, the Times Tower, the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, the NSSF Building, and a dozen other skyscrapers. Things were better in Nairobi, he had heard; the economy growing again, the corruption not so bad as it used to be. Reliable services, good restaurants. The civil unrest of the Moi era had long since abated, although new violence had swept through the slums surrounding Nairobi after the 2007 election. The wounds had not all healed. It was still a dangerous city, where a dozen or more carjackings occurred each day. A city that sometimes seemed to live up to its nickname: “Nairobbery.”

  In town, Mallory’s cab driver barreled wildly along Haile Selassie Avenue, dodging the overpacked mini-buses, hurtling past the site where the U.S. Embassy and the Ufundi Co-operative House had been blown up in 1998—a highly circuitous route to the Norfolk, for sure. By the time they reached the City Market, Jon was fairly certain they were being followed—by a dark-colored Renault he had noticed ever since leaving the airport. It was right behind them crossing the Nairobi River, and then two cars back as the driver turned onto Uhuru Highway.

  It was no longer in sight when they arrived at the Norfolk Hotel. But as Jon Mallory paid the driver and thanked him, he saw that it was parked in the next block, the driver’s head slumped down slightly behind the wheel.

  THE NORFOLK WAS a charming old colonial-style hotel, a little creaky but comfortable and clean, with colorful gardens in back and a busy terrace lounge. Jon checked in, pretending to be a businessman, setting his computer case on the counter. He asked perfunctory questions about Internet and phone service and requested a map of the city. He was given a room on the second floor, facing the gardens.

  Upstairs, he took a Tusker lager from the mini-bar and downed half in one long drink. He clicked on the television, found the international news on CNN and cracked open the window to enjoy the air. During his second beer, he tried calling his old colleagues in Nairobi, without success—Sam Sullivan’s number didn’t answer; Sara Musoka’s came back as out of service.

  Jon latched the door. He sat at the table and unfolded the sheet of paper from his shirt pocket, puzzling again over what those letters might mean: htunoilerctt. Was it an anagram? A substitution cipher? He finally gave up and tried to nap, but it was no good. He felt restless, tired, and energized at the same time. At a few minutes past five, he went out, slipping through the rear servants’ entrance and heading along the back streets toward downtown; after several blocks, he saw that the Renault was right with him, following at a distance of a half block. Jon wondered who it might be—someone trying to find his brother, perhaps. But why were they being so obvious? He tried taking an alley, too narrow for auto traffic. But the Renault was right there when he emerged on Radio Road.

  A block from the Hilton, Jon impulsively hailed a cab. “The Carnivore,” he said.

  The cab darted into traffic.

  The Carnivore was one of Nairobi’s most popular tourist restaurants, an upscale nyama choma joint. Jon followed a waiter to the back of the restaurant, past the roasting pit where hunks of crocodile, zebra, antelope, goat, and ostrich were cooking. He ordered a bourbon and water and watched the waiters walk briskly back and forth carrying trays and meat on spears. Mostly what Jon wanted was to hide, to think and to let a little time pass.

  LEAVING THE RESTAURANT, after a drink and a plate of olives, Jon took a cab back to Radio Road. It was nearly dark now, and the streets were alive with a new energy. He wanted to have a look first, at the street, if not the residence. The cabbie let him off three blocks away. There was no sign of the Renault anymore.

  The address Honi had given him was in a rundown neighborhood of brick apartments, a street that might have belonged to any inner city in America—except this one seemed deserted. He heard a persistent low rattling sound as he walked through the night shadows.

  The address was two buildings from a corner. The streetlight opposite the building flickered, off, then quickly on, then off again. The building’s windows were dark. When Jon Mallory approached, he saw a shape shift in the shadows: a huge man rising in front of the building, shining a flashlight in his eyes for a moment.

  “Hello,” Jon said, shielding his eyes. The flashlight was still on, but pointed at the ground. The man wore some sort of security guard uniform. The rattling sound had been his breathing. This was not going to be easy.

  Jon nodded toward the apartment, his pulse racing. “What happened?”

  “Pilipili iko mtini yakuwashia nini,” the man said, speaking in Swahili.

  None of your business.

  Jon reached in his pockets and pulled out several shilling notes. The man took them and stuffed them in his pocket. “All closed now,” he said. “Crime scene.”

  Okay. Jon took a deliberate breath and let a few moments pass. “I think I know someone living here. I was supposed to meet him.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  The big man shrugged and shined his flashlight through the window. Held it there. The place seemed to have been ransacked. File cabinets hung open. A bookshelf overturned, a desk on its side. “Police. Raided it.”

  The man nodded down the street. Another man, sitting behind the wheel of a dark-colored Fiat, appeared to be watching them.

  Jon stepped back, taking a mental picture of the building—three stories, brick, worn wood-frame window casings—and then he walked away, back toward the Norfolk. So he was too late.

  Several blocks up Radio Road, he saw the Renault pull out of a parking space and into traffic. A mini-bus followed, blaring hip-hop.

  He walked to the edge of Central Park, found an open bench and sat, watching the traffic. What now? Let the information come to you. He gazed up the street, at the office buildings, the slanting shadows, the layers of the city, with the breeze blowing the smells of night—curry spices, fried foods, car exhaust. If this was the neighborhood where his brother had been, what would he have done here? Where would he have eaten and shopped? Who would have seen him and talked with him?

  He stood and crossed the park, enjoying the enclosing darkness of the trees, the warm air. On the other side, he sat on a bench again, at University Way this time. Watched the passing cabs and buses, the shop lights and electric signs brightening in the evening air. Down the street, a business sign caught his eye: FOOD MARKET, it read—the words spelled out vertically, because there wasn’t enough frontage space to do it horizontally, the “A” burned out:

  F M

  O

  O R

  D K

  E

  T

  He stared at the sign, then above it at the darkening sky and the nearly full moon. But his attention was drawn back to those letters. Why? They reminded him of something. Something that Jon hadn’t thought about in many years. A game, a simple code—a secret shared among a small cadre of friends on the leafy street where he had grown up, in the D.C. suburbs. When they were children, Jon Mallory and his brother would send messages to each other through a simple cipher system known as a double or triple rail split. Their father had taught it to them; it had probably been his brother’s introduction to the world of ciphers, a world that had come to fascinate and obsess him.

  Could that be what those letters mean? Jon Mallory pulled the paper from his shirt pocket and studied the letters again: htunoilerctt. Yes. Twelve letters. It could be either a two-line rail split or a three-line. He wrote out the first four letters: HTUN. Then, below it, the next series: OILE. Below that, the last four: RCTT. Three rows of letters:

  HTUN

  OILE

  RCTT

  Reading from top to bottom, carrying over to the next column, Jon wrote out what the letters spelled—if, in fact, this was a code: HORTICULTNET. He said the word out loud, sounding each syllable, separating them, searching for a pattern that might mean something.

  Horticultnet.

  Net could mean dot-net, as in a we
bsite. Jon folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket. He looked for the Renault again. Not seeing it, he walked back through the park toward the Hilton. Across the street from the hotel was the largest cyber café in the city, Browse Internet Access Ltd. Jon took an open terminal several spaces from the nearest customer, fed it shilling notes, and typed in the web address: Horticult.net. An image of a bed of roses came into slow focus, morphing into what seemed to be a small cluster of tomato plants. It was a gardening site, full of links, categories, posts. “Welcome to the Rich and Rewarding World of Gardening!” was the home page greeting.

  Okay, he thought. Now what? Had he actually been directed here? Or was this just some strange new coincidence?

  He surfed the site for several minutes, orienting himself, but nothing seemed to stick. When he clicked the button for Posts, a long series of topics appeared; he scrolled through them for six minutes, growing frustrated. Nothing.

  Until he came to one titled “Planting Tomatoes: An Opportoon Time.”

  Jon stared at it, his pulse quickening. Opportoon. The word used in the e-mail from his brother. There were twenty-three entries here, an assortment of odd, badly spelled and punctuated accounts of cultivating tomatoes. He called up the list of “posters” and scrolled through them; twelve names. One of them stopped him. Again: Marianna. Jon clicked on it, read through a lengthy series of tips for avoiding “blossom end rot”—when tomatoes looked normal on top but contained a large black spot on the blossom end. It was caused by a lack of calcium, he read, and also by a lack of regular mulching. The poster had found success using “red mulch.”

  He skimmed through the rest of the text, through references to verticillium wilt, catfacing, fruit rot, sunscald, organic fertilizers. And then, midway through the text, he found what he was looking for: a series of seemingly haphazard letters in the midst of the article, which might have had something to do with blossom end rot but which he was pretty sure didn’t: gheaeoorcrnategdrd.

  Jon copied down the eighteen letters. He then scrolled back through the posts to see if there was anything he had missed and logged off. He crossed the street to the Hilton. In the lobby, he picked up a copy of The Daily Standard from the concierge’s desk and entered the bar. He sat at a table and ordered a bottle of Tusker and a plate of almonds. On the newspaper, he began to figure out the message.

  Three levels again:

  GHEAEO

  ORCRNA

  TEGDRD

  Go 3C Garden Road.

  A direction, an address.

  It has to be a message. More than that, it confirmed that his brother was still alive, still trying to give him information. And that there was something for him here in Nairobi. The other side knew his brother’s office address and knew that Jon was coming to visit it. But they wouldn’t know this other address.

  Jon scribbled over the words and began to work the crossword puzzle, sipping his beer, thinking. Finally his brother had gotten his attention, perhaps bypassing a sophisticated, multi-billion-dollar surveillance apparatus with a code only the two of them would know. If this had been a message, though, he wondered if there had been others he had missed. Probably, yes.

  While drinking his second lager, Jon got an idea—as he often did during his second drink of the evening. At a row of pay phones in the lobby, he tried the number for Sam Sullivan again. Still no answer. He returned to the bar and drank another Tusker, pretending to work the crossword but too excited to focus on it. What was it Honi had told him? He may have a message for you there, in Nairobi.

  Not on Radio Road. In Nairobi. Now he understood. That was the clue. Something he had missed. It was John’s task to keep up with his brother.

  On his way out, Jon tried calling again. This time, there was an answer.

  “Sullivan.”

  “Sam Sullivan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sam, it’s Jon Mallory. From the States.”

  “Hello?”

  “I’m in Nairobi, Sam, for a couple of days. How are you?”

  “John Mulroo?”

  “Mallory.”

  He seemed uncertain who Mallory was, but they talked for several minutes anyway, Jon describing a long-ago evening of nickel poker and Tusker lagers in a colleague’s living room, arguing about the World Cup and George W. Bush. And another night at Kengele’s Club, where Sullivan had danced with a woman who must’ve been seven inches taller than he was. Once he was fairly sure Sam remembered him, Jon offered to buy him dinner. “I’ve got a proposition for you. A chance to earn some money,” he said, recalling Sam’s weakness for the quick payoff. “Can you meet me at the Norfolk Hotel tomorrow, say at seven? Hibiscus Lounge?”

  “May be busy at seven, mate. What’s it about?”

  “I can’t really say over the phone. Good money in it, though, for very little work.”

  “How much is good?”

  “Mmm. A few hundred dollars? Less than an hour’s work. Can’t really talk about it now, though. Can you meet me?”

  “Well, I could. If I wanted to, I suppose I could.” He cleared his throat and then coughed violently. “Forget dinner, though. Let’s just have a drink, cut to the chase.”

  “All right. And could you keep the appointment just between us?”

  “Pardon me?”

  Jon said it again. He had taken a chance using the phone, he knew, but there was no other way to do this. If they had intercepted his call to Honi, they could probably intercept the calls from his room. But they wouldn’t have traces on every phone in Nairobi.

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s the oddest thing. I’m being followed. Someone thinks that what I’m doing here is awfully important, I guess. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  “You’re intriguing me, mate.”

  “See you at seven.”

  “Right.”

  FIFTEEN

  Monday, September 21

  JON MALLORY STEPPED OUT into the still-cool Nairobi morning shortly after 8:30. Merchants were lifting gates, sliding out carts, opening storefronts, displaying fruits and vegetables; boys stood on street corners already, selling cell phone cards and bottled water. Jon bought a copy of The Standard and a cup of coffee at a small grocery shop. He chatted with the proprietor about the weather and the local economy. Could be better, in both cases, but not bad. He walked into the park, found an open bench and sat, sipping his coffee, reading the news: local squabbles; rumors the Grand Regency Hotel had been sold to Libyan investors; internal dissent in Parliament.

  After several minutes, he looked up and noticed the Renault driving past.

  He waited in the park until after 9, when most of the businesses in Nairobi opened. Several blocks from the Norfolk, he went to a clothing store that sold “safari” clothes and souvenirs for tourists. Jon bought a bright yellow hooded sweatshirt with an image of a lion on it, two sizes too large, and an oversized safari hat.

  For the next several hours, he traveled the city like a tourist, wearing the new sweatshirt and hat. He took a matatu to the Blixen Museum, an old stone farmhouse where Danish author Karen Blixen had lived from 1917 to 1931. Jon lingered on the terrace, looking out at the Ngong Hills, and thinking for some reason about Melanie Cross’s liquid blue eyes. He bought several books about Blixen in the gift shop, a few postcards and two pens, thinking he would give them to Melanie. He took a bus from there to the Railway Museum, where he looked at the old steam locomotives and ship models and the carriage supposedly used in 1900 to hunt the Maneater of Kima—the legendary “man-eating” lion. He lunched at the Nairobi Java House on Ndemi Road and afterward visited the Nairobi National Museum.

  Everywhere Jon Mallory went, the Renault seemed to be following at a not-very-discreet distance. A subcontractor, clearly, performing cut-rate surveillance. But why?

  It was after 6 when he returned to the hotel. He walked back up to his room, took off the sweatshirt and safari hat. He emptied the large shopping bag from the Blixen Museum and stuffed the sweatshirt and hat
in it. Then he opened a beer and closed his eyes for several minutes, focusing his thoughts. Garden Road was about a mile from the Norfolk. It would take him maybe fifteen minutes to reach it.

  SAM SULLIVAN WAS sitting at a table adjacent to the gardens of the inner courtyard, wearing a back-to-front ball cap and a wrinkled white T-shirt showing the name of his business, Occidental Safari. He was looking at the newspaper sports page as porters wearing tails and top hats hurried past.

  “Sam?”

  “Jon.”

  Sullivan stood, the paper fell to the floor. He was about Jon’s height, maybe an inch shorter. And, despite his generous appetites, still skinny.

  “Here, have a seat, old friend,” Sullivan said, although his expression still didn’t seem to register recognition. His face creased into dozens of lines as he smiled, making him seem to age twenty years. “I ordered you a lager.”

  “All right, good.” Three bottles of Tusker lager were on the table, one empty, another half full. “Sorry if I’m a couple of minutes late.”

  “Not at all. Have a seat, mate.”

  Sam leaned over to pick up the newspaper; he seemed to straighten up with great effort, as if his back hurt.

  “So how have you been? How’s business?”

  “Never been better.” Creases rippled his face. “Turning people away. Tourism’s coming back like gangbusters.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “You bet. Cheers,” he said, raising his bottle. Jon smiled cordially. Last time they had met, Sam had been in the midst of a divorce and was having cash-flow troubles. He’d quit journalism to become partner in a safari hotel west of Nairobi, but he sold his stake during the divorce—staying on, he said, as the “resident manager.” There was something a little sad about Sam Sullivan, as if he were always swimming against the current, forcing a level of enthusiasm.