by Kyle Mills
"I have to get in touch with her," he admitted finally. "I have to know if she's okay."
"I understand."
"I'm not a bad person, Annika."
"I know. Neither of us is. I just can't decide if we're good ones."
Chapter 35.
JB Flannary squinted into the refrigerator and focused on a lonely jar of olives. Robert Page's country home was typical of the New York set: It was neither in the country nor homey. Nothing more than an expensive and generally useless bauble expected in the circles he traveled in.
"There's nothing in there," Page said, poking his head through the door to the dimly lit kitchen.
"You're the master of the obvious."
"I don't need a bunch of your attitude, JB. Get yourself a drink, and the pizzas I ordered will be here before you even have a good buzz on."
The bar was better-stocked than the refrigerator, and Flannary poured himself a tall Scotch as Page disappeared back into the living room. The snowball that he had nudged downhill was now picking up speed and mass, careening out of control, threatening to crush everything in its path. The messages left on Josh's phone about Fedorov had gone unanswered, and now that phone was out of service. A call to Katie confirmed that Josh hadn't been seen at the compound in days and that his project had been shut down.
Now everyone was trapped. If he backed off and didn't publish the article, Mtiti would eventually find Josh and Annika, and they'd be dead. On the other hand, if he did publish the article, there was no telling what would happen to Mtiti and his country. Based on the history of the area, his best guess was a bloody tribal war that would kill tens of thousands and create a refugee crisis that could drag surrounding countries into the conflict. And from that would come . . . nothing.
He downed the Scotch, standing straight and examining his face in the dark window over the sink. The sun-damaged skin and lack of hair made him look older than his birth certificate indicated. As far as he was concerned, the birth certificate was wrong he'd lived three lifetimes. Or at least seen three lifetimes' worth of the horrors men could unleash on each other.
The Scotch was doing its job taking the edge off, and he returned to the living room.
Tracy was sitting at a table typing on her laptop while Page organized stacks of paper on the floor.
"Have you looked at these numbers?" Page asked. "NewAfrica has administered more than seventy-five million dollars in USAID and UN programs. How much of that do you think found its way into their pockets? The oversight reports we've got give them glowing ratings."
Flannary shrugged. "Oversight's looking for competence and efficiency. If your main goal is to create that illusion, it wouldn't be hard to fool them."
Tracy glanced up from her computer. "If the inspectors are assuming that New-Africa's an honest, good-intentioned charity, they'd be completely blind to this kind of thing. As sick and twisted as he is, you almost have to admire Fedorov for coming up with it."
She was almost giddy. It was the story she'd been dreaming of her entire life -- all twenty-odd years of it. In her mind, she would become the hero every journalism student dreamed of being. She would bring down a vicious organized crime figure and snatch millions of helpless Africans from the clutches of an evil, corrupt government. JB tried to remember if he'd ever been young enough to see life in such simple terms.
"Did your guy get photos of the mass grave?" Page asked.
"My guy? He's not my guy."
"You sent him there, didn't you?"
"Hell, no, I didn't send him there! I asked him to go check out one of NewAfrica's old projects. Nothing more."
His tone made Tracy look up from her computer and Page put his hands up submissively. "Take it easy, JB. I'm not accusing you of anything. I just want to know if we have any photographic evidence."
"I think they were busy being shot at."
"Is there any way they could get back there and get pictures? Shit, if we could get something of them moving those bodies, we could --"
"Are you fucking crazy, Bob? They're probably already dead. And if they're not
"Don't shout at me, JB. I'm on your side, remember? I just want this piece to be as strong as possible. I want it to be a bomb going off in Washington. And so do you. I'm prepared to give you basically as much space as you need and maybe even some latitude to talk about the failures of the aid industry in general. But we need reaction from USAID and the UN, we need to talk to Mtiti's opposition in country, and we need to try to figure out where all this money's gone. If we put in the time, I see this as a cover. What would you think of that, JB? A cover story."
His smile faded as Flannary stared dumbly at him.
"Have you not been listening to what I've been saying, Bob?"
"We might be able to make month after next. I'd be willing to bump --"
"Josh and Annika might not make it to next week! We put together whatever we can by the deadline for this issue and get it out there. Or I go to the Times."
"The Times?" Page said. "With what? A picture of Aleksei Fedorov walking into a building and a phone call from a guy you can't even get in touch with anymore? Yeah, I'm sure they'll jump right on that."
"If I take this to my brother --"
"He'll tell you the same thing I'm telling you. The Times isn't the Enquirer, and neither are we."
The doorbell rang, and Tracy stood, clearly happy to have an excuse to leave the room. "That's the pizza. I'll get it."
Flannary ignored her as she hurried down the hall. "Then maybe I should go to the Enquirer. Maybe they'd show some guts."
"Guts? You mean the courage it takes to run a bunch of bullshit speculation when you have the ability to write a Pulitzer-worthy piece that could do some real good? What kind of impact . . ." His voice trailed off, and his gaze fixed over Flannary's shoulder.
"Don't let us interrupt."
The voice was only lightly accented but still recognizable as Eastern European. Flannary turned slowly, careful not to make any threatening moves.
Tracy was being held by a man who was nearly ripping the hair from her scalp with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. A second man pulled the shades down and then crossed the room, stopping with the barrel of his gun hovering an inch from Robert Page's temple.
The man at the center of it all was easily recognizable from the video they'd taken. Same expression and, as near as Flannary could tell, the same clothes.
"Clever," Aleksei Fedorov said, holding up the webcam Tracy had set up across from the NewAfrica office. Flannary barely had time to raise an arm to protect himself when Fedorov suddenly threw the camera. It shattered against his elbow, knocking him off balance long enough for Fedorov to rush him and slam him back against the wall.
He'd miscalculated, though, not taking into account the fact that he wasn't dealing with a typical middle-aged American reporter. Flannary had spent his life in some of the most violent places on earth, and, without thinking, he swung a fist at the European's head. The force of the blow drove Fedorov to his knees, and Flannary realized that with one well-placed kick, he might just be able to separate this piece of shit's head from his body. To avenge all the helpless people whose meager lives he'd destroyed.
Flannary swung his foot with everything he had, his whole body going tense as he focused on his target. He was six inches from smashing that dead expression right off Fedorov's face when the man who had been covering Page tackled him.
As they hit the floor, the familiar sound of a gunshot filled the room, accompanied by a less familiar ache in his stomach. The lights above seemed to fade for a moment and then became too bright. Flannary squinted up at them, only vaguely aware of Tracy's screams or of Fedorov dragging the man off him.
A moment later, Tracy was next to him, pressing her hand against his stomach, crying soundlessly. He glanced down at the blood gurgling around her fingers and then back at Fedorov, who was bringing a gun butt down repeatedly on the head of the man who had shot him.
Chapter 36.
Much of the capital city was dark, the power outages that occasionally swept across the country having become chronic over the last few days. Josh was standing just inside a small alley in one of the few neighborhoods that had power. Bare bulbs hung from wires strung between buildings, illuminating the well-armed men patrolling the streets. They seemed unusually vigilant, probably worried that the loss of electricity would embolden the rebels, who were becoming increasingly aggressive in their attacks.
Josh had done everything he could to avoid coming into the city -- stopping at no fewer than ten villages and towns to find a working phone or Internet connection, with no luck. The consensus, delivered with that unwavering African fatalism, was that the problems were likely to persist for the foreseeable future.
That had left him no choice but to drive his stolen pickup right into Trent and Mtiti's back yard, aiming it at the still-powered business district before parking and covering the last half mile on foot. Jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, and hands in his pockets, provided him with enough anonymity to make it to a tiny storefront with "Phone and Internet Here" graffitied over a well-lit window.
Josh had a lot of regrets in his life but few moments that he would say actually haunted him. Laura crying at his sentencing was one. And now he could add the image of Annika standing on an empty roadside, receding in his rearview mirror. He'd actually skidded to a stop a few miles later, overwhelmed by the need to go back for her but fully aware of the pointlessness of it. Staying together didn't make sense. She was better off where she was. Better off without him.
There were very few people in his life who really meant anything to him, and now he'd managed to put two of them in mortal danger. It was time to stop playing the helpless foreigner and make sure they were safe. What happened to him wasn't important anymore.
A burst of gunfire sounded for what was probably the tenth time in the last hour, and the soldiers drinking in the middle of the intersection across from Josh began jogging halfheartedly toward it. When they were out of sight, he started nervously across the street and entered the store he'd been staking out.
It was crammed with a little bit of everything -- Western and African medicine, used clothing, videotapes, canned food. There was a dirty computer at the back, and when Josh pointed to it, the man behind the counter nodded.
Josh sat on the upended log that functioned as a chair and looked skeptically at the screen. Improbably, the Internet connection was functioning, and even more improbably, it was relatively fast. He glanced behind him every few seconds, but the store remained empty, and the man at the counter appeared to be mesmerized by the blackand-white image of Umboto Mtiti on a minuscule television. The distorted, angry sound of his speech filled the store, evoking the same sense of dread as the hum of a nearby hornets' nest.
Josh knew he needed to get out of there as fast as he could, but he had a long list of tasks he had to accomplish first. He had to see if he could contact the U. S. Consulate, since his effort to drive there had been stymied by military roadblocks. He also had to see if he could get the sat phone he'd left with Annika turned back on. But first things first. E-mail.
He felt a wave of panic that there was nothing from Laura but managed to fight it off. It didn't mean anything. In fact, it was exactly what he should have expected. Right?
Nothing from JB, either, but there was something from someone named Tracy Collins with the subject line: Important Info from JB Flannary!!
He clicked on one of the linked files and waited for the overtaxed processor to bring up a scan of an old newspaper article. It was in a foreign language, so he concentrated on the photo for a moment. The wavy-haired man had an Eastern European look, thin and intense. The overall impression was that he was someone not to be flicked with. Unfortunately, Josh had a sinking feeling that that was exactly what he'd done.
He paged down to a handwritten translation of the article and began to scan it, becoming so engrossed that he didn't notice the quiet footsteps approaching from behind until the stained blade of a machete was pressed against his throat. He was dragged backward and slammed to the ground, the position of the machete making it impossible to fight back. His hood was pulled back, and the pressure of the blade increased until it broke the skin, causing blood to mingle with the sweat on his neck. Josh remained perfectly still, taking rapid, shallow breaths and watching his reflection in Gideon's sunglasses.
Stephen Trent appeared a moment later, righting the log and taking a seat on it. He motioned toward the door, and a young African man appeared. A moment later, he was kneeling in front of the computer tapping on the keyboard.
"I can't imagine what you were thinking," Trent said.
Josh didn't respond, afraid that any movement of his neck muscles would cause the machete to dig deeper. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the shopkeeper locking the door and pulling tattered curtains.
"Do you know how much trouble you've caused us?" Trent said, nodding toward Gideon, who reluctantly eased up on the blade.
"A lot, I hope."
Trent shook his head sadly. "Not as much as you probably think. You've been a real irritation, though, I'll give you that. Do you know that Mtiti had to cut off phone, power, or both everywhere except for a few blocks here in the capital? He had to pull soldiers from other assignments to track you when you entered the city and make sure you didn't get anywhere you could do more harm. And I'll tell you right now that he's going to bill us for every dime of this operation."
"Maybe you could do a telethon."
Trent grinned. "I like you, Josh. I'd hoped to bring you along slowly, let you in on what we're doing here. But you didn't need me to say a word, did you? You figured it all out on your own."
The man at the computer stood and turned toward them. "Done."
"You got everything?"
He nodded, and Trent returned his attention to Josh. "We wouldn't want anything to happen to you with a bunch of information on Aleksei sitting in your inbox, would we?"
"Fuck you."
"Don't be belligerent. You had to know this was going to happen. Why go looking for trouble? Why get involved? You don't owe these people anything. Not one of them gives a shit whether you live or die. You're just another white face with money they want to get their hands on." He became increasingly agitated as he spoke, but Josh wasn't sure why. "If you'd just kept your nose out of things, you'd have been living in an air-conditioned villa making more money than you can imagine in a few years. And your sister would be driving a Mercedes around Harvard."
Josh tensed at the mention of Laura, and Trent noticed. "I'm sorry," he said, pulling a phone from his pocket and beginning to dial. "You must be worried sick. Would you like to talk to her?"
Trent put the phone to his ear and waited for the person on the other end to pick up. "We've got him. Uh-huh. He was in his email account when we got here. Everything's been erased. Yeah, he's right here."
Trent held the phone out, and Josh concentrated on not reacting as a thin voice emanated from it. "Josh? Who are these people? You have to help me! They say they're going to --"
Her voice was suddenly cut off, and Josh laid his head back on the floor, his heart pounding uncontrollably. Gideon pulled him to his feet and forced him out into the humid night. Trent followed, still talking on the phone.
"We don't know yet, Aleksei. Yes. It's not going to be a problem. We'll find out." Gideon opened the rear hatch on Trent's Land Cruiser and shoved Josh inside. There was already someone there, reclining against the back of the seat, face in shadow. His profound stillness left no doubt that he was dead, but it wasn't until the vehicle started moving that Josh caught a glimpse of a blood-stained Hawaiian shirt beneath the green jacket.
Luganda had paid the price for displeasing Umboto Mtiti and NewAfrica. Now it looked like it was Josh's turn.
Chapter 37.
Aleksei Fedorov slapped the duct tape back onto the girl's mouth and went back to screaming into his phone.
"Where's Annika Gritdal? This is your responsibility! Do you understand me? Your goddamn responsibility., Flannary watched, blinking hard in an effort to keep his vision clear.
They didn't have Annika.
He tried to concentrate on that, but it was too thin a victory to hide the defeats. To make him forget his own stupidity and the lives it was about to destroy.
He was lying on a concrete floor in a warehouse full of unmarked crates, the only heat provided by the growing puddle of blood leaking from his belly. Page and Tracy were twenty feet away, secured to chairs next to the wide-eyed blond girl Fedorov had just silenced.
Flannary scooted weakly to his right until he was pressed up against the woman next to him. Her dead eyes stared at the lights hanging high above them, and he tried to recall what she'd said her name was when she'd allowed them to set up that camera on her balcony. The memory was gone, though, so he just lay there stealing what heat was left in her body. Because of him, she didn't need it anymore.
"Are you in?" Fedorov said, leaning over the shoulder of a young man with the distinction of being the only person in the warehouse sitting without the assistance of a roll of duct tape. He had a portable computer on his lap, and his eyes kept flicking nervously from the blood gurgling past Flannary's unfeeling fingers to the dead woman he'd cuddled up with to the three panicked people struggling to free themselves.
"With the managing editor's password, I have access to their entire system. I've deleted all the obvious references to New-Africa, and now I'm running a search with as many keywords as I can think of to make sure I got everything. I'm pretty sure I did, though."
Page grunted as he pulled against his bonds, and Flannary let his head loll in the editor's direction. He was virtually unharmed nothing more than a red mark on his cheek in the rough shape of Fedorov's hand. It was all that had been necessary to get him to give up everything he knew in a breathless stream peppered with pleas for mercy and promises to keep his mouth shut. Tracy had been tougher, but what was a girl to do when an Eastern European psychopath threatened to skin her alive?