An African Affair

by Nina Darnton

  “We must be out of propane,” she thought, irritably. She looked around for a canister, but didn’t see one. Upstairs in her study, she sat at her desk, lit a candle, and wrote a piece about J.R.’s death on an old Olivetti manual typewriter, a necessary tool for any reporter in Nigeria. If they wanted to expel her once it appeared, so be it. Her phone line was still working, so she called New York and read the piece to the recording room. Then, exhausted, she washed up and climbed into bed. But it was too hot to sleep, so she withdrew a pad and pencil from the drawer. She listed everything she knew about Solutions, Inc. and everything she had observed or discovered about James. On another page, she wrote down everything that Vickie had told her. Then she put the pad aside and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow, she thought, a heavy rain would bring relief.

  The next morning she was up early. Still no rain, and the air was so thick it was hard to breathe. She made herself a sandwich, filled a large thermos with filtered water, and took some cash from her safe.

  The Lagos-Badagry Expressway was notoriously dangerous. Bandits often robbed and killed drivers, sometimes leaving their bodies on the roadside with their arms propped up as if to wave at passersby. Shortly before the coup, a newspaper article detailed a horrendous case of an ambushed bus—everyone on it had been hacked to death with machetes. The case had heightened outrage against the Olumide regime.

  Lindsay found the road littered with potholes. A car ahead of her suddenly bucked as it hit a deep hole at too high a speed and then stopped, its wheels stuck. The driver gunned the motor, but the car didn’t move. Lindsay hit the brake and turned the wheel, just avoiding a collision. A few miles after leaving Lagos, she came to a blockade. Two small fires burned on both sides of a makeshift booth. About ten cars had come to a standstill in front of it. She stopped, waiting her turn. When she reached the booth, a soldier demanded her passport. He looked at it for an exasperatingly long time before she realized what he was waiting for. She handed him fifty naira, at which point he returned her passport and waved her on. Similar checkpoints materialized every five miles, and she knew that the sooner she handed over the money, the faster she’d be on her way.

  Eventually, she saw the sign for Badagry. She drove through the town and into the bush on roads that skirted dense rainforest. Soon she saw a cluster of mud houses with palm frond roofs and a few larger homes topped with tin. Chickens wandered freely pecking in the dirt, and toddlers, some of them wearing only a bead necklace, played next to them. A girl of about six swept one of the yards with a straw broom, a baby strapped to her back. She stopped and stared as Lindsay approached.

  “Hi.”

  The girl smiled shyly and looked down. Lindsay reached into her purse and offered her a peppermint, which she accepted quickly. Four more children ran over and Lindsay managed to dig out and distribute several more pieces of candy. One of the boys carried a toy car made of elaborately strung and twisted strands of steel wire. “That’s beautiful,” Lindsay said. The boy didn’t answer, but proceeded to show her how it worked, kneeling and placing it on the ground and pushing it forward on its rubber wheels. “Did you make that?” Lindsay asked. The boy shrugged and nodded proudly.

  Lindsay asked them if they knew Margaret, but the children looked confused and she realized that she didn’t know Margaret’s last name. But J.R. was well known, so she asked if they knew who he was. This time they looked scared and the older ones ran away.

  “I’m Margaret’s friend,” she said. But the little ones just stared at her. A man came over and asked why she was there and she explained that she was a journalist, a friend of J.R.’s.

  “I heard what happened to him,” she said. “I’ve come to pay my respects to his family.”

  The man hesitated. “Wait here,” he said, at last.

  She moved to the shade of a nearby walnut tree. More children surrounded her, begging for candy, but she had run out.

  She heard a voice behind her speak harshly in Yoruba and the children scattered. Lindsay turned and saw Margaret.

  “Margaret, I just heard. I am so sorry. Are you all right?”

  “Yes. We are safe here.” She led Lindsay to one of the round mud houses. It was surprisingly cool. Lindsay sat on a mat on the floor and Margaret offered her a beer and then sat down next to her.

  “Now tell me,” Margaret said. “Why did you come?”

  “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for your loss,” she said. “But, I also came to ask something of you.”

  “If I can help you, I will,” Margaret said softly.

  Lindsay told her about the statues and the murder of Mike Vale. Finally, she confided her suspicions. Lowering her voice to a whisper, she said, “J.R. told me before the coup that he had heard rumors of a shady foreign organization that helped the northern radicals organize the coup. I was hoping that he had told you something more. Did he ever mention James, for instance?”

  Margaret looked thoughtful. “No. I never heard names. But I have something that might be useful.” She got up and fetched a carton from the far side of the room. “After Bayo was killed, J.R. persuaded me to take the children and come here,” she said carefully, in flawless English. “He gave me this for safekeeping. I haven’t even looked at it. If he had kept out of this, his children would still have their father. But he was a good man. I could not persuade him to stand back.”

  Lindsay thanked her and opened the box. It was filled with photographs, memos, and newspaper clippings. She glanced quickly through the written material but couldn’t make much sense of it: names she had never heard of, memos from people she didn’t know. She skimmed the reports for any evidence that James had been involved but found nothing, so she turned to the photographs. She rifled through them but recognized no one.

  She asked Margaret if she could take the carton with her.

  “Yes. Keep it. I don’t ever want to see it again.”

  “Maybe there are still friends of J.R. who would want it.”

  Margaret gave a weary sigh. “They are all dead or in jail.” She got up and walked outside, making it clear it was time for Lindsay to go.

  Lindsay drove even more slowly on the way back, fearing that she might hit one of the potholes and damage her car, or worse, expose her cargo. At the checkpoints, she was polite and generous knowing that she was walking a thin line. If she gave too little, it would be resented as stingy. If she gave too much, she would probably be robbed. At one roadblock, she saw a man bleeding on the ground while his family stared, frightened.

  The two-hour trip took her close to four, but she managed to get home without mishap. She carried the carton up to her bedroom and locked the door. Then she sat on the floor and went through it, item by item. She couldn’t make much sense of the written material, though it was clear that The Next Step had an informant up north. She pulled out the stack of photographs. She still recognized no one. Her eyes were getting bleary and she felt discouraged, but she kept going. Toward the end of the stack, a small color snapshot grabbed her attention. She saw three men. Two of them were dressed in the elegant long white robes of the north. The third wore a stylish beige tailored jacket, a striped shirt with a white collar that looked like it was made by Turnbull & Asser, and neat brown slacks. He was carrying a black cane. When she looked closely, she could see that the cane’s white handle was carved in the shape of a dragon’s head. Lindsay had no doubt—this was the man she’d seen James talking to in Oshogbo. The picture had a piece of paper attached to it with a pin. An arrow pointed to the man in Western dress, identifying him. “Abdul Abdeka,” it said.

  CHAPTER 33

  The next day, Lindsay brought the carton to the embassy. Vickie plopped it on her office table and the two women pored over the contents. Vickie scrutinized the picture of Abdul Abdeka.

  “I’d like to know who took this,” she said. “And how it came to J.R.”

  “I’m guessing it was taken by someone undercover for The Next Step,” Lindsay said carefully.
>
  Vickie looked up sharply.

  “I think the picture might have been taken by James,” Lindsay said.

  “I don’t think so,” Vickie said abruptly.

  “Why not?” Lindsay challenged.

  “Because I think it’s more likely that James was less innocently involved.”

  Lindsay stiffened. “What are you saying, Vickie?”

  Vickie sighed and reached for Lindsay’s hand. “I think you know what I’m going to say.”

  Lindsay pulled away. “Stop playing games, Vickie. Tell me what you want me to know.”

  “There’s no way to say this gently. It’s James. He isn’t who you think he is.”

  “You have no idea who I think he is.”

  “Do you know, for example,” Vickie said evenly, “that his art gallery is a cover for discreet mercenary activity?”

  “What do you mean by ‘discreet mercenary activity’? Are you saying he’s an assassin?”

  “Not directly. But he hires the people who are.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  “Because he’s worked for us on occasion.”

  Lindsay stared at her.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t authorized to tell you.”

  Lindsay felt a jolt of hope. “Is he working for you now?”

  “No. He worked with us to bolster Olumide, but this time, he acted as a double agent. We believe the Northern Alliance employed Solutions, which must have paid him a lot of money to double-cross us. We think this means he’s getting ready to retire and he wanted a big cash-out. The pension plan for mercenary assassins isn’t what it used to be.”

  Lindsay was taken aback by Vickie’s contempt for James.

  “You despise him,” she said coldly. She felt surprisingly calm, almost detached. “But you admit you’ve worked with him, he’s done some dirty work for you. You just don’t like it when he does it for someone else. How dare you pose as a moralist. Why are you any better than he is?”

  Vickie started to answer, but Lindsay cut her off. “Oh, you’re going to tell me you do it for your country, but that really means you do it for the oil companies, doesn’t it? You’re government mercenaries instead of individual ones, that’s all. You don’t care how corrupt these governments are as long as you have oil rights. You don’t care how many people smuggle heroin as long as it’s not to the U.S. Maybe James got tired of seeing the locals screwed. Maybe he thought this new government would be better for the country. Maybe he got fed up with your hypocrisy.”

  Vickie withstood the onslaught until it ended. When she spoke, her voice was soft but firm. “People who are in love can invent anything, Lindsay—including the person they love. You can make him into anything you want in your imagination, but you’re a journalist and you know better. The only thing his group stands for is greed, death, and deceit. The leaders of the Northern Alliance lied to their own people to get their cooperation. They financed their movement with drug sales and now they will continue to line their own pockets in the same way. He doesn’t care, Lindsay. He is a truly amoral man. We work with people like him because fighting terrorism and drug smuggling is a dirty business, and the people who help us in that struggle are usually not the nicest people in the world, but that’s who we need to work with to keep the rest of us safe.”

  Lindsay was tired and confused.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “We need your help. He trusts you.”

  Lindsay was silent.

  “Look, he killed Maureen. We recognized his signature on the bomb.”

  Lindsay whirled around. “Now you’ve gone too far. He would never have killed Maureen. He cared about her and her husband. What motive would he have?”

  “I don’t think he did it deliberately. I think he planned the bombing but he didn’t expect Maureen to get there so early. She was the only journalist killed.” Vickie paused. “Why didn’t you come with her, by the way?”

  Doubt crossed Lindsay’s face.

  “I was held up,” she said softly.

  “Where?”

  Lindsay hesitated.

  “At home.” She resisted saying it, resisted thinking it, a cherished memory suddenly seen in a terrible new context. “James came over. I was taking a shower. He walked into my bedroom. We started to make love—”

  “And it delayed you.”

  “Yes. It saved my life.”

  “I think he delayed you on purpose.” She paused a moment. “At least you have that.”

  Lindsay still wasn’t sure. She had to give him a chance to answer these charges. Surely she owed him that.

  “I think I should go now, Vickie. I can’t think straight. If what you say is true, I’ll want to get out of the country as soon as I can. I certainly don’t want to get involved in spying on him for you, if that’s what you have in mind. If it isn’t true—and I still hope to prove it isn’t—then obviously I’m going to fight you as hard as I can.”

  Vickie reached into her briefcase, withdrew some papers, and tossed them on the table.

  “You might want to take a look at these. They track the pharmaceutical shipments to Lagos Hospital. You can see how much quinine, antibiotics, morphine, and paregoric were ordered and paid for and then what they received.”

  Lindsay bent forward to see the figures.

  Vickie continued. “The hospital received only a third of what they paid for.”

  “What has that got to do with James?”

  “It’s all handled by Solutions, Inc. They arrange for the drugs to be stolen and diverted to the northern hospitals.”

  Lindsay looked at the figures. One of the expected deliveries, a shipment of quinine, morphine, and paregoric, was scheduled for receipt four days before Eduke died.

  She sat down heavily. She didn’t want to hear any more.

  “You’re proving that Solutions, Inc. is evil,” Lindsay said sullenly. “You haven’t proved that James works for them.”

  “He’s responsible, Lindsay. He’s responsible for Maureen’s death and he’s responsible for Eduke’s death. And who knows how many more if you don’t help us stop him.”

  All business now, Vickie began to explain what she wanted Lindsay to do. The Americans needed to know when James planned to leave and where he was going. They needed the distribution list showing how the drugs are smuggled out and to whom they are delivered. U.S. agents couldn’t pick James up in Lagos, she explained, because he was protected by the new Nigerian government. They needed to arrest him in a friendly country. And James must not suspect that the Americans knew about his double cross.

  Lindsay listened in a kind of dazed disbelief. Vickie removed a small glass vial from her drawer and placed it on the desk. “If you decide to help us, you may need this. Three drops will put him to sleep for two to three hours. You could slip into his apartment at the Victoria and look through his papers.”

  “Why don’t you just get one of your guys to break in?”

  “We can’t risk being connected to this.”

  “Jesus, what next? You want me to wear a wire?”

  “It may come to that.”

  “I’m afraid our relationship isn’t chaste enough to get away with that anymore. I’m leaving, Vickie. You can keep your magic drops. I don’t want them.”

  “I’m sorry, Lindsay. I am really so sorry. But I think when you’ve had time to assimilate this you’ll be back in touch. Please, at least agree not to tell him about this conversation. Even if you won’t help us, don’t help him escape.”

  Lindsay got into her car and drove home. She had a headache and rooted around in her bag for her aspirin. She couldn’t find them. Instead, near the bottom, she found the bottle of drops, right where Vickie must have placed it.

  CHAPTER 34

  By the time Lindsay got home, a torrential rain had begun. She was aware that the case against James was mostly circumstantial, but she found it hard to still believe in him. She hadn’t seen James since she’d told him about the drugs
in Mike’s statue. He had dropped off a note saying he’d arrive at around 4 P.M.—“happy hour”—a custom that had survived in the former colonies long after independence.

  He arrived a few minutes late, dripping wet. Grinning, he shook himself off and headed for the kitchen, where he fetched a dish towel and dried his face and hair. He was wearing a lightweight khaki safari suit and had a day’s growth of beard—an effect Lindsay had always found particularly attractive. Looking at him, she found it nearly impossible to believe this man who stirred her so deeply was the same person Vickie had described.

  His face lit up when he saw her, and he pulled her into a strong embrace, his wet clothes cooling her body. She responded involuntarily, at the same time, wondering if his greeting was part of an act and if he tailored his method of seduction to each victim. Victim? She had to stop thinking like that.

  She didn’t want him to notice that anything was different, so she gently pushed him away on the pretext of telling him about J.R. He seemed surprised and sorry, but not really distressed, and she couldn’t tell if he already knew. His reaction intensified her suspicions and she couldn’t help stiffening when he sat next to her. She began to talk about trivialities, jumped up to get drinks, and then, changing her mind, asked him to mix them while she darted into the kitchen to get some cheese. She was in a kind of frenzy, as though her heightened activity had some prophylactic power to ward off more catastrophe.

  “What are you drinking?” he asked, as he poured himself a scotch.

  “I guess I’ll have a scotch too,” she said. “With soda, and make it light.”

  She sat on the couch and sipped the drink, which was very strong. Then she got up again and moved to the chair across from him.

  “Lindsay, what’s wrong?”

  “Everything, James. I’m having trouble dealing with everything that’s happened.”