by A J Fontenot
The Golden Chair
BOOK 1 IN THE ERIN REED TRILLOGY
A.J. Fontenot
This book is a work of fiction. The characters and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is fictionalized or coincidental.
The Golden Chair. Book 1 of the Erin Reed Trilogy. Copyright © 2019 by A.J. Fontenot. All rights reserved. AJFontenot.com.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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Cover design by Elena of L1graphics.
A man of courage is also full of faith.
Marcus Tulles Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
“Wherever you are, be all there.”
Jim Elliot (A.D. 1927-1956)
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1
Lake Volta, Ghana
The sudden, muffled pops caused them both to jump.
Mofi had never heard gunfire before. And he wouldn’t have known he’d just heard it now, if it wasn’t for Tano beside him.
He sat up to look toward the sounds. Tano, wearing his signature tie-dye shirt, put a swift hand on him. And then, in a silent motion, pulled him behind the logs they were sitting on. It was so forceful, he almost lost his balance in the process. The afternoon breeze previously lulling them was now dead behind the logs.
“Mofi,” Tano’s face was taut. “Stay here,” he said in a harsh whisper. He put his hands on each side of him, as if to emphasis his next point. “Do not leave until I come back.”
Mofi watched Tano run the twenty or so yards, hunched over, to the two-story building. It was once a lodge, but had since been converted to the base of operations for the underwater logging operation on the coast of Lake Volta. Downstairs was mostly outdoor workspace, saws and heavy machinery. But upstairs was where the offices and airconditioned rooms were. Mofi watched Tano, still nimble for his age, jump, grab the railing, and pulling himself up and over. And then, his tie-dye shirt disappeared over the second story’s short balcony wall.
Mofi had been on the job exactly two days. Before this, he’d sold cell phone chargers at red lights in the metropolis that was Accra, Ghana’s capital. It was hot, competitive work. And dangerous. Last week a boy fell asleep on the side of the road and was run over by a car. Not to mention, it didn’t pay well. The money he was making logging was at least ten times what he made in Accra. Though, he sent most of that money back home.
This was different work, too. They were using big machines to cut the trees from underwater. And the trees that came out, once stripped, were good lumber. And unlike normal logging, this was relatively safe. Or, at least, it was supposed to be.
Tano came back, running with his head ducked low. He stopped behind the pile of logs where he’d left Mofi waiting. “They’re dead,” he said, drawing a deep breath. “All of them.”
Mofi was processing his words, trying to understand. “Dead? Who is dead?”
“The others.” Tano looked up at him. “He killed them.”
“Why…what did—” Mofi began, but Tano cut him off, “Do you remember, yesterday, when the underwater machine found the cave?”
“Yes.”
“I think I know what they found. I didn’t understand it until just now. This is the Volta Region,” Tano said, stressing those last words.
“Of course. I know.”
“Where the Ashanti war happened,” continued Tano, “with the British, a long time ago. Do you know the story?”
“Yes.” Mofi didn’t see how any of this was relevant right now. “Everyone knows the story. But it’s just a fable — Tano, what’s going on?”
“It’s not a fable. I thought it was. Everyone did. Until last night. I overheard them talking.”
“Who?” Mofi interrupted.
“The big man. Keeler. We’d just finished our work in this area, and I asked him if he was ready to move on. He said ‘no.’ I asked him what we wanted us to do next. He said ‘nothing.’ That didn’t make any sense. They’d always pushed us hard, to move fast.”
Mofi continued to listen.
“And then, later, I heard him on the phone, saying they’d found something. He called it ‘the artwork,’ which was strange. There is no artwork way out here. And certainly not underwater. And then before I left, I heard him talk about ‘an Ashanti man coming with a truck,’ or something like that.”
Mofi was listening, trying to understand.
“I only just pieced it together,” said Tano.
Tano jerked around, looking back at the building. In the still of the now-breezeless afternoon, they heard a door shut. Looking carefully over the stack of logs they were hiding behind they could see the big man walking out onto the balcony.
He was looking for something.
“Mofi,” Tano said, turning back to him, “listen to me carefully. There’s not a lot of time. They’ll have counted the bodies. They’ll know we’re still alive. Probably do already.” He was speaking slower now, more deliberate.
“I need you to find someone and tell him everything I’ve just told you.”
This was a strange request, because, as far as Mofi could tell, Tano hadn’t just told him anything. And why him, he thought.
Tano pulled the leather strap hanging around his neck out from his shirt and broke it free. He put it in Mofi’s hand. “Find my brother,” he said. “Do you remember him, from when you were a boy?” Mofi nodded.
Tano’s brother wasn’t really his brother. He was a white man that came to stay with them in their village when Mofi was young. He didn’t know many of the details. He only knew that he helped the tribe do something or other. But that’s all he could remember. And even though he hadn’t seen him in many years, he prided himself, as many Africans do, on his remarkable memory.
“But,” started Mofi, “I don’t know where he is. And why do you need me? Why can’t you find him?” There were so many questions Mofi wanted to ask right now. Not least of them why someone, the big man, had just killed the other workers. And why, if Tano was right, he was now looking for them, too.
Tano glanced over his shoulder again.
“You’ll find him,” Tano said, looking back at Mofi. “He’s back, working in the area.”
Tano took a breath and with a deep calm, looked at Mofi. “I’m going to go over there. When I leave, you count to ten, and then run as fast as you can. Away from here.”
2
Keeler
Keeler never much had a problem with killing. It’s why he enlisted in the first place. And it’s why, ultimately, he was discharged, ‘dishonorably.’ But there was always a steady demand for people who needed killing. He’d worked East Africa in the nineties. Latin American after that. And even a little bit in Russia. Though, in his experience, the cold was the worse killer. If he had the choice, he’d take the hot. Which was one of the reasons he was now here in West Africa.
As he walked out of the room, onto the second story balcony, he felt the breeze from the lake. F
rom the second floor, he could see the water from Lake Volta disappearing into mountain’s edges. Trees, all these years later, still poking out from the water, like omens from a past life. And Keeler, as it turned out, was looking for life. Eleven down. Thirteen total. Two more to go.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw a blur of color, a man moving toward him, fast. Tie-dye shirt. Number twelve. Keeler turned, slipped a six-inch knife from its holder on his leg. As the man rushed him, he grabbed him under the arm and used the runner’s own momentum to pick him off his feet. In a single, fluid motion, he slid the knife deep into the man’s ribs. The colors on the shirt all becoming red. Keeler twisted his body around the man, removing the knife as he moved and planting it down deep into the man’s neck. And then, as if choreographed, let him fall to the ground, making only the noise of an inanimate thud. Three seconds after the man had stepped onto the platform, he lay in his own blood, completely still.
Keeler looked around briefly to make sure there were no more like him waiting.
At that moment, he saw something else. Not close. Someone running through the logs. Twenty-five, thirty yards away. He raised his rifle, turned off the safety, put the scope to his eye, taking time to make the adjustments.
The runner’s head now filled Keeler’s view. It bobbed between the stacks of recently cut logs as it ran. Keeler was methodical, calculating. His black-gloved hand squeezed the trigger, knowing the shot wasn’t clean. A miss. The man kept running. Closing in on the tree line.
An amateur would unload right about now. Use the fully automatic spray the weapon was easily capable of, thinking that more bullets would have a better chance. But that was sloppy. The truth was, one or two careful shots always had a better chance of hitting their mark.
Keeler let off another shot. The man slipped into the tree line. Did he fall? Keeler continued moving his scope forward, where he would be if he was still running. Then, movement. He missed. Too many trees. He was gone. Keeler swore under his breath.
He lowered his rifle and grabbed his walkie from his belt. “We have a runner. Just hit the tree line. I’m going to pursue on foot.”
“Which way?” came the voice on the other end.
“Southeast.”
“No,” scratched the walkie in return. Even though the distortion of the long distance, Keeler could hear the softness in the other man’s voice. Not the voice of a soldier. Not the voice of a leader.
The voice again: “If he’s already at the tree line, he’s got an advantage on you. He’s a local. It’ll take you too long. Besides, I need you to oversee cleanup. That’s more important.”
Keeler considered this for a moment. He knew exactly what he was capable of. And he knew exactly how long it would take him. He paused before responding.
“I’m sending a tracker.”
The Patuka, as he was known locally. Roughly translated: the hyena. Every place had one. The opportunist whose loyalty to power was only topped by his greed. You didn’t even have to find them. They had a way of finding you. A remora who spent his life feeding off of the shark.
This one just happened to be an excellent tracker.
Keeler pulled out his cell phone. Reception was okay at this height. He clicked the button for contacts; there were only three. He dialed and waited. “New job,” he said into the phone. “Active now. Details to follow,” and then hung up.
3
Washington D.C.
“This isn’t adding up.” Erin Reed stood looking down at a conference table in front over her. It was a scramble of papers, charts, and photos. She looked up at the minimalist clock on the wall — the kind that had only hands and no markers. Almost time, she thought.
Carl Ibsen, her boss and closest friend for the last nine years, stood across the table from her. “It’s simple. A few people got too close. And…”
“And died,” she finished.
“Our sources on the ground tell us this an isolated case,” he said. “It’s Africa,” he held up his hands. “This stuff happens.”
“A bacterium,” she said, “that hasn’t seen the light of day in over fifty years is found. And within twenty-four hours everyone exposed to it turns up dead. That doesn’t sound like a story to you?”
Nine years in, and she still couldn’t shake the instinct. Something didn’t smell right here.
At first, she thought it was just a holdover from her grad school days. Find the truth. That was what her journalism professor at Georgetown, Mark Allen, nailed into their heads. If you’re not doing that, you’re not doing your job, he drilled.
After school, Erin landed an impressive job working for the Washington Post. Part of that, she’d always figured, was because of her mother’s history there. Her editor, a heavy Irishman by the name of Conall McGillis, worked with her mother in the early nineties. McGillis was one of the few people who had an even bigger file than Erin did on what really happened to her mother.
And then Erin took that trip to Trinidad.
The point she looks back on that changed everything, and not in a good way. It was a decade ago, but those six horrible days left her different. More different than she wanted to admit. And, not to mention, they nearly killed her. And it was those six days that ultimately caused her to leave the Post, and journalism, for good.
Shortly after that, Carl Ibsen approached her.
“A little bird told me you’re looking for…,” he hesitated, “a change of pace, let’s call it.” He said it like he knew more than he was leading on, but wasn’t too interested in hiding that fact. But then…that was Carl. He wasn’t cocky, he was charismatic. He had the kind of charm that didn’t come from his looks. He was tall, but if you saw him on the street, you’d forget him. Maybe that’s why he was so good at what he did.
“It’s journalism,” he told her. “Journalism with the kind of people behind you that can make a difference.”
She didn’t know what that meant.
“I own a media firm that focuses on a select few large clients.”
“PR,” Erin said.
“No, PR is manipulative. And rarely works. Besides, people see through that. We work with clients who are doing actual good in the world, and then we liaise with the wider media. You can think of us more as a feeder service.”
“I’ll tell you what,” he continued, “you give me a month, and see if it’s not a good fit for you. And then, if not, we go our separate ways. What do you say?”
Erin did need a job. And she had worked herself into a corner. Her experience was all in journalism. And, after Trinidad, she had to get out. But she was still in that awkward phase where she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do next.
“Okay,” she said. “A month.”
It had been nine years since she and Ibsen had that conversation. The kind of years where you look back and wonder if it’s really been that long. But in that time, they’d become a good team. And rushed, brainstorming meetings like this weren’t uncommon, especially in their line of work.
“You know me,” Ibsen said, resting his hands on the conference table. “I’m pro-press. I hired you, of all people, to head our major publicity campaigns. But look at the data,” he waved his hand over the mess of papers in front of them. “This isn’t one of those cases. Our first job is to keep our clients safe.”
“That’s what I don’t get,” she said. “The sample set is too small. We’re only talking about a handful of people here. There’s no way to know if we’re getting close to a tip or not. The prudent option is to beat the Post to the punch. Even if it turns out to be nothing.”
“Here are the facts,” he said. “One of ITG’s subsidiaries exposed some new virus—”
“Bacterium,” she corrected.
“Bacterium,” he said. “It killed a few people — sad — but our teams on the ground have no reason to believe it will go any further than it has. Next,” he held up his thumb and index finger, “ITG’s board is coming in and wants to be briefed on the implications. As th
ere are no implications, we will tell them exactly that. It’s an isolated case. And then, of course, we are watching it, blah, blah, and will keep them apprised of any developments.”
Erin considered this. Specifically, she thought about what he wasn’t telling her.
To his credit, Carl Ibsen’s skills lay in curation. In 2005, Ibsen tapped his personal network and started R4 Worldwide, this PR firm. In the early days, they were just another struggling company doing public relations. But Ibsen was different. He was a visionary. He saw the world was shifting, and so he soon fired all of his smaller clients and decided to double-down on only the largest ones, becoming a boutique agency.
But, then, the financial crisis happened. And like many smaller businesses, R4, mortgaged to the hilt, was getting ready to file bankruptcy. No amount of charisma was going to change that. Except, it didn’t happen like that. An obscure shipping mogul, Eli Bren, who Ibsen had done minor jobs for in the past, bought a controlling interest in R4. Bren, of course, got a good price on the deal. But then again, Ibsen didn’t have much of a choice. He’d be relinquishing the reigns one way or another, to an investor like Bren, or to the bankruptcy courts. This way, at least, allowed R4 to stay alive.
At first, most things stayed the same. R4 was still a specialized PR firm. But soon they began handling a lot more work for InTrans Global — ITG, one of Bren’s companies.
Bren had amassed a fair amount of capital over the years, and he was in the practice of buying smaller humanitarian aid organizations. It was actually Carl Ibsen’s idea to use them for publicity for Bren’s other, larger companies. It really came down to a matter of channeling the flow of information. Ibsen’s PR brainchild was to use ITG’s capital to support Bren’s various charities, or NGOs. That way, when ITG showed up in the news, it was in relation to humanitarian work and not the typical selfish press releases their competitors were putting out.
