He winked, pulled the damp shirt back over his head, and said, “I don’t think so.” And then, “What do the people who live here do for entertainment?”
“You’ve seen the bars—work, drink, and food, that’s all there is—and the women—if you’re up for a good dose of HIV.”
By afternoon the rain had eased slightly. Shortly before the close of the business day, the minister arrived. He was alone, as he had been the day before. From the foyer he invited them directly into his office. He was brusque, formal, and lacking the undertone of friendliness he’d borne toward them the day prior. “I have no new information for you,” he said. “But it is possible that Don Felipe, Malabo chief of police, does.” On a piece of lined paper, he wrote in a quick scrawl. “A brief letter of introduction,” he said. “Take it to him and see what he can do for you.”
“Forgive me for asking,” Munroe said. “But if our friend was last seen in Río Muni, is it likely that the police on Bioko Island have information?”
“You would have to find that out for yourself. I do know that Don Felipe is also head of the presidential security detail and a confidant of the president. It’s possible he has learned things that I am unaware of.” He handed Munroe the paper and then stood and took them to the door.
In a pattern that had become more than familiar, they were followed from the ministry to the hotel and again from the hotel to the restaurant. During dinner, on more than one occasion, Munroe caught the eye of one of the Shadows, and in acknowledgment they would smile or nod in return. She saw that they no longer drank alcohol and in response to this had soft drinks and desserts sent to their table.
The next morning she and Bradford located the office of the chief of police in the city’s single-story station, an overpacked structure with scuffed and mud-splattered walls. The windows were empty rectangles fenced by open wood-slat shutters, and from them the sound of striking typewriter keys filtered to the outside.
The anteroom to the police chief’s office was taken up completely by three desks and an ancient sofa, and the small space that remained was occupied by people waiting to speak with the man. Munroe left the letter of introduction with an aide and returned to the building’s bare front entrance. She leaned against an empty space that served as a window and, prepared to wait the better part of the day, watched the passing traffic.
Within minutes a plainclothes officer approached. “I work for Don Felipe,” he said. “He is on his way to the station now.” He opened a door that connected to the building entrance. “Please wait,” he said, and then he left them.
Like the anteroom, the office was filled nearly wall to wall with furniture, the pieces having been pushed so closely together that Munroe’s and Bradford’s knees touched when they sat. Cut through the wall above a plywood-barricaded, glass-filled window was a boxed air-conditioning unit that almost managed to cool the room but did nothing to erase the stale smell of must that permeated the building.
Don Felipe entered the room accompanied by two young men wearing civilian clothes and holstered sidearms. He carried with him the letter that Munroe had left. He shook their hands, took a seat across from them, and then, almost as an afterthought, offered them coffee. He spoke in brusque, commanding Spanish.
“Silvestre Mba has asked that I help you,” he said. “Tell me more about this girl that you are looking for.”
Munroe handed Don Felipe another photograph of Emily Burbank, along with a sheet of paper identical to the one she’d given the minister, and, in words similar to those she’d previously used, explained the desire to find Emily.
Don Felipe took the photograph and, as the minister of foreign affairs had done, studied it intently, then handed it to the young man who stood silently to his right. “In the Republic of Equatorial Guinea,” he said to Munroe, “we have an illustrious record of wholesome relationships with our guests. We treat all foreigners fairly and properly, and if something ill should befall a man or woman who is in our great country, it is because that person has failed to live by the law. In fact, our president, representative of God to our people, is known as a good friend and a supporter of human rights by your country. There are many things you Americans can learn from us.”
Don Felipe lit a cigarette. He leaned back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other. He drew a deep breath and then exhaled the smoke into the room. Taking a second draw, he reached forward and placed the cigarette in the ashtray. “I know of this girl you are looking for,” he said. His eyes remained fixed on Munroe. She sat expressionless, holding eye contact, and silence ensued. To the man who stood on his right, Don Felipe spoke in Fang, ordering the retrieval of a document.
When the aide left the room, the silence continued, broken only by his return. He carried with him a small envelope, which he handed to his boss. “I believe,” Don Felipe said to Munroe, “that this document brings you to the end of your journey,” and he placed it on the coffee table and slid it to her.
Inside was a single piece of paper, which Munroe looked over and then returned to the envelope. Don Felipe ground his cigarette into the ashtray. “The law is supreme in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea,” he said. “No person is immune to it. Now that you have the information you came for, I recommend you return to your country.”
Munroe nodded. “Thank you for your kindness and your warm welcome,” she said, and then, “As I’m sure you are aware, the trip from my country to yours is very long and tiring. I have heard wonderful things about the beaches of Bata and of the animal habitat EQUOFAC. Before returning home, we will vacation for a few days.”
Don Felipe rested in the chair. He was silent for a moment, his eyes focused on Munroe. Finally he stood and shook her hand, “All respectful visitors are welcome in our land.” He walked with her toward the door and opened it. “It’s unfortunate,” he said. “Some have entered who are unwelcome—dangerous people from the neighboring countries. My men and I do the best we can to keep the peace. If you choose to stay, that is your decision, but please know we cannot guarantee your protection against such unwelcome elements.”
“I thank you for your graciousness and concern,” she said. “Your people are blessed to have a protector such as yourself.” She turned, and with Bradford ushered out next to her, the door closed.
It would have been less than a ten-minute walk back to the hotel had Munroe opted to go on foot. Instead she flagged a taxi. Bradford raised his eyes in question as she did so, but she offered no explanation. She remained silent for the ride, her head kicked back against the seat, staring up at the roof of the car, and Bradford, too, said nothing.
At the hotel she headed toward her room and would have shut the door without a word if Bradford hadn’t placed a hand against it. “Michael, I really want to understand what just happened.” She paused and then held the door open for him.
He sat on the chair by her bed, and she walked to the glass door that led to the balcony and stared out the glass. “I didn’t catch even half of what went on in there,” he said. “What did he give you?”
She was still staring out at nothing. “Emily’s death certificate.”
Silence filled the room, and after a moment Munroe turned toward Bradford. His shoulders were slumped forward, and his head was in his hands. He ran his fingers through his hair and then straightened. “So she’s really dead?” His face was tight and expressionless. “I never supposed that when we got the news it would come so unceremoniously.”
Munroe turned again toward the balcony. “That paper is worthless. Trust me, if there was even a remote possibility that the document had value, I’d be out of here in a heartbeat—job over, mission accomplished—collecting a fat bonus for providing hard evidence of what happened to Emily.” She turned to Bradford. “No, the search just got a little more dangerous and a lot more complicated.”
“I’m not questioning your judgment,” he said. “If you believe there’s still a chance she’s alive, I’ll grasp at that straw, but I really have no idea where you�
��re going with this.”
Munroe walked to the bed, sat down, and opened the envelope. “We’ll start with this,” she said, “although there are so many things wrong with it, it’s hard to know where to begin.” She bit on her lip and squinted at the document. “For starters, there’s the paper itself.” She held it up so he could see the designs printed around the border and the details of the heading. “See the number at the top? It’s five-thousand-CFA paper—government paper. It has to be purchased from the Ministry of Finance.”
His face was completely blank.
“Anytime people want an official document, they have to buy one of these and then take it to whatever government branch has the information they need. If you want goods processed through the port, the approvals are put on government tax paper. You want a birth certificate? Government tax paper. You want a license for your vehicle? Government tax paper.” She handed it to him. “Someone had to pay for this at the Ministry of Finance and bring it to the police station. I doubt that the clerk who typed it out and is making fifty dollars a month was the one to do it.”
“So what you’re saying is that whoever requests an official document has to supply the tax paper in order to get it?”
“Exactly,” she said. “And that brings us to the next glaring inaccuracy: A death certificate in this country is meaningless. Nobody has them or has use of them. When there’s a death in a village, there’s no autopsy or police report—certainly no ‘cause of death’ to be determined. There’s a village ceremony, a burial if the person is lucky, and that’s the end of it. You ask the government for a death certificate and the big question is going to be, what for?”
“But we’ve got one.”
She nodded. “I’ll get to that in a minute. This document is just a lot of misspelled wordiness that certifies that the person named died in the Republic of Equatorial Guinea.” She pointed at the paper. “No details whatsoever. It doesn’t even say where it happened or what nationality she was. For all the flaws of this country’s government, let’s not forget the ten years they spent under communism. They’re real big on redundant paperwork and following procedures by whatever the day’s formula may be. At the least we should expect an indication of whether she died on the mainland or the island.”
“Look, Michael,” he said, “I want to believe you more than you can possibly know, but why would they even have that document? Wouldn’t it be so much easier for them to simply say that they have no idea what we’re talking about?”
“I can think of several possible answers to that question,” she said, “but here’s what I think holds the most water: This piece of paper doesn’t even prove that Emily was in the country. They got Emily’s name from us—copied it off the bio we gave Mba at the ministry. What this piece of paper means is that someone who was educated abroad, who knows what a death certificate means to people like us, doesn’t want us snooping around the mainland and hopes that this is enough to convince us to go home.”
Munroe took the death certificate and sealed it inside the Ziploc bag that held her passport and that she kept in a security belt worn underneath her pants, around her waist.
“Miles, things are going to get dangerous from this point. We were issued a threat, and if we’re not careful, someone’s going to make good on it. Maybe you should call Burbank, see if he’ll let you out of the assignment.”
“I stay,” he said. “So what’s next?”
“We need to get out of the city as soon as possible, preferably in the direction of the mainland.” She looked at her watch. “We’ve got time before the GEASA office closes.”
Like most places of business in the city, the airline headquarters was located on the first floor of a three-story building. The office was small, dark, damp, and empty but for a desk on either side of the room. There were two people in the office, one a secretary or clerk, the other someone of importance who took their money and wrote out the ticket information by hand. The transaction was completed within fifteen minutes—they would be on the first flight leaving in the morning.
On the way out of the office, Munroe handed Miles his ticket. “Flying to Bata is a bit like playing Russian roulette,” she said. “Literally. The machines are old Russian planes that get no maintenance. They’re stuffed beyond capacity and flown until they go down—usually into the ocean. Hopefully tomorrow won’t be the day.”
Munroe stopped midstep and searched up and down the street through the pedestrians and a steady stream of vehicle traffic. Bradford followed her eyes.
“Did the Shadows follow us here?” he asked.
“I was certain of it,” she said.
“So was I.”
“Think they could’ve gotten good enough to avoid our spotting them?”
“I doubt it,” he said.
“So do I.”
Munroe and Bradford walked the return trip to the hotel hoping to spot a Shadow and find relief in the normalcy of being tailed, but instead they found that they were alone.
Over dinner they said little to each other, and for the first time since arriving in the city Munroe heard the wisps of threat. It came not in words but in the silences, in things unspoken and in the background banter among the hotel employees that was no longer there.
The waiter, previously friendly and good-humored, was tonight solemn and taciturn. He brought their drinks, and Munroe had them sent back, requesting unopened cans, and then in unspoken agreement neither she nor Bradford ordered anything to eat. Rather, they sat in silence nursing Coke out of the can, pretending to be amused by a rowdy party of drunken expats two tables down. And when they had sat long enough so as to keep up appearances, they left the patio to return to their rooms to wait for light and get out of the city.
They had decided that it would be best if they both slept in the same room. Bradford returned to his to retrieve some of the bedding as well as his belongings, and while she waited for him, Munroe kicked off her shoes. When she tossed them against the bed, the first signs of dizziness hit. She doubled over to steady herself, braced herself against the bed, and felt darkness closing in. She opened her mouth to yell for Bradford, but no sound came. She crumpled to the floor, and the last thought to go through her mind was to wonder how the hell it had happened.
chapter 10
West coast of Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea
Awareness came slowly through a haze of confusion, and Munroe struggled toward lucidity, attempting to attach meaning to the stimuli hammering at her senses. First came the dank smell of oxidized metal and then the cold of steel through clothing. It was dark, and the air had a salty dampness to it. She lay on her side, gagged and hands secured behind her back. Her feet were bare and, as far as she could tell, bound to something heavy. Cigarette smoke hung in the air, and voices spoke hushed and rapidly in a language that had no meaning.
Where the hell was Bradford?
There was movement—the erratic regularity of a small boat rocking on the open ocean. From behind came the low whine of an engine that indicated slow forward speed. There was starlight, and a lamp on the prow highlighted the shadows of four men. The boat was no more than fifteen feet long and, but for a small cabin on the bow, open-aired. She could smell rain in the distance, knew they could smell it, too.
Three feet away one of the men lolled against the gunwale. Near his face was the soft glow of orange that brightened as he inhaled. On his belt he had a knife and, holstered close to it, a sidearm.
The mental fog continued to lift, and confusion segued to anger. The patio with Bradford, the hotel room, darkness. The images merged and collided. Internal pressure built steadily, was rising from her gut into her chest, a hammer percussing as a war drum whose beat would end when blood was spilled. Her vision blurred to gray, and she wrestled it back. Thought before action, knowledge before battle.
Her eyes followed the guard as he smoked, and she twisted so that her hands could reach her ankles. Wrapped around her feet was a chain that ran through a section
of metal pipe. A weight. An anchor. Hauled off to be dumped like garbage. No questions, no accusations, no torture, and no chance for explanation or pleading—brought to the water to disappear, to be wiped off the face of the earth.
The fucking bastards.
The internal drumbeat pounded harder, faster, and the urge to strike became unbearable.
Breathe. Think.
In the distance the sky was tinged by the glow of natural gas burn-off. She turned to the stars and, as she had on so many occasions in the past, found the map written in the equatorial night sky. The flare worked as a marker to gauge the distance. They were close to the coast. Close enough to swim if she could survive the treacherous currents. How far out were they? A quarter of a mile? It had to be less.
The man at the gunwale straightened and turned. She froze. He came closer and reached his hand out, snapping his fingers in front of her face, and when he received no response, he kicked her in the ribs. She groaned. He turned his back, and the light on the prow framed his profile. In spite of his weapons, he wore civilian clothes. He dropped the cigarette and faced her again, squatted and fumbled with the buttons of her shirt.
The percussion rose higher, louder, drowning out the sounds of the boat. One movement, swift and soundless, a serpent’s strike, was all that it would take to reach for the knife, slit his throat, and dump his body in the ocean. She tested the strength of the nylon that held her wrists. The guard’s commander barked an order, and the man stopped, stood, threw a second kick to her gut, then lit another cigarette and walked back to join the others.
Take him, take them all. Pilot the boat to the shore and then … and then what? Return to Malabo with no place to hide while attempting to smuggle herself off this prison of an island? Breathe. Think. Time. Time was necessary in order to gain information, to understand, to strategize.
Munroe glanced at the glow on the horizon. The oil companies used helicopters to airlift their sick employees to Cameroon. It was an option. She gritted her teeth, yanked her right thumb out of its socket, squeezed the hand free of the restraint, and then relocated the thumb with a silent, painful snap. She looped the nylon around both wrists to hold her arms in position and then tested the chains on her feet and found them loose. Careful so as not to let the metal grate on itself, she pulled her ankles out and, confident it would not be a problem to get free of the anchor, replaced them.
The Informationist: A Thriller Page 12