When They Come for You

by James W. Hall

  Jules knuckled his eyes, muttered. A halo of marijuana clung to him.

  “Listen to me, kid. You tell me who hired you, and I let you go. Give me his name, and there’ll be no police.”

  “Fuck you, Missus Bruce Lee. Fuck you, you fucking fuck.”

  Moussa shook his head sadly. “Your American movies, they have shameful encouragement on our national youth.”

  Moussa touched the knifepoint to Jules’s cheek and demanded in slow, precise French that he reveal the identity of the man who sent him.

  Jules’s sight was coming back. He leaned away from the blade, turned his head carefully, and squinted at Moussa.

  “Who sent you?” Harper said.

  Jules faced forward.

  “One thousand American dollar,” he said. “I tell you what you want.”

  “Get serious.”

  Jules was sniffling, eyes raw. “Okay, tough American lady want to bargain. Then here we go. Eight hundred dollar and you teach me Bruce Lee trick you did to my boy. Teach me this, and eight hundred, I tell you name you want.”

  “Forget it. You talk to me or go to jail. No bargaining.”

  Jules was silent as Moussa directed her through the remaining turns.

  As they approached the hospital, Harper eased into a parking space behind an ambulance near the emergency entrance.

  “All of us are going inside together,” she said. “We get Moussa medical attention, then you and I are going to talk, Jules.”

  “No, Missus Bruce Lee. Not tonight.” Jules grunted and shouldered hard into her, swung his leg over the transmission hump, and stamped the accelerator.

  Lurching forward, the Mercedes slammed the rear bumper of the ambulance. Jules twisted and threw himself on Moussa, seized his knife hand, and slammed it against the dashboard, breaking the weapon loose.

  Harper grabbed for a dreadlock but missed. Shoving Moussa out of his way, Jules jumped from the car and bent down to speak to her, eye to eye.

  “Big people want you dead, real big people, Missus Bruce Lee. You in bad trouble, plenty bad trouble.” Then he bolted into the darkness.

  EIGHTEEN

  Early March, Côte d’Ivoire, Africa

  Harper helped Moussa shuffle into the emergency room. He spoke at length with the admitting nurse, then they took their seats. The room was full of the bloody and broken and the sick, citizens of a country tilting toward anarchy. She would not be driving north to Akoupé tonight.

  “I spoke to him.” Moussa shivered, his voice delicate.

  “Spoke to who?”

  “Jean Luc Diallo.”

  “You did? When?”

  “Two days ago on the telephone, then I drove to the plantation to meet face-to-face. To be certain the journey you were undertaking was safe, that I would not be exposing you to danger.”

  “You didn’t need to do that.”

  “Listen to me, please. You speak a great deal but are not highly proficient in listening.”

  Harper nodded. She knew Moussa’s reprimand was on the mark.

  “When I reached the Royale Plantation outside of Akoupé, Jean Luc was the source of a great uproar. Murdered only hours before my arrival.”

  Harper closed her eyes and groaned.

  “Stabbed repeatedly, body discovered in the weeds outside his office. The authorities claim his killing was because he had spoken out against the army’s ruthless attempts to stifle dissent. This is what we are now calling justice, these lies, this violence. But Jean Luc’s wife is certain her husband was killed not for his political words but for other reasons, murdered by his own employers, the bosses where he works, the cacao plantation. She believes they learned of his disloyalty, that he was about to expose their wrongdoings.”

  “Because of me. To shut him up.”

  Moussa dismissed her guilt with a feeble wave. “Jean Luc’s wife is a good woman. She believes the owners of the plantation are dishonorable and dangerous. For that reason she presented to me a gift that she believed might assist you. Lead you to what you seek.”

  “What gift?”

  “I don’t know what it is. I did not open the gift.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I tried to give it to you already. The box of chocolates at dinner. But you would not let me explain and walked away angry.”

  “Oh, Moussa, I’m sorry.”

  “You are in danger, miss, and should leave our country at once and return to the safety of your own land.”

  In the far doorway a nurse with a clipboard appeared and called Moussa’s name.

  Harper helped him stand and limp across the room, but at the entrance the nurse would not allow her to go farther.

  “I’ll wait out here,” she said.

  “No need,” Moussa said. “My wife is to come soon, they telephoned her on my behalf. Back at the hotel, the desk clerk is holding your gift. Please leave my automobile keys with him. And when you return to America, tell Mr. Ross McDaniel I wish him great health and speedy happiness in all his future endeavors.”

  Twenty minutes later back at the Sofitel, Harper approached the main desk, and the clerk rose from an easy chair and smiled broadly.

  “Ah, yes, good lady, you have returned safely. I am so pleased of it.”

  “Do you have something for me?”

  “Oh yes, oh yes. A most lovely gift.”

  He hurried into the office and returned with the gold box of chocolates. With a merry smile he handed it over. “I understand these are splendid delicacies, these candies. I was very tempted to thieve one for myself.”

  Back in her room, she settled the box on the desk.

  After staring at it for several moments, she leaned over and sniffed it. No scent of chocolate. No scent of explosives either. Not that she would have recognized such a smell. But it felt like a trick, a gift sent from the wife of a dead man. A man who’d died while trying to relay some grim secret to Ross and through him to the outside world.

  Was the box truly a gift from Jean Luc’s wife or a booby trap? She nudged it away and stood. The flesh on her shoulders was rippling with chills. Someone at the plantation knew she had arrived in Abidjan, and they’d sent a gang of thugs to kidnap her. Would they also have sent an explosive device? A backup plan in case the thugs failed?

  Whoever they were, they’d sent a man to murder Jackson Sharp and ransack his apartment. Maybe the man was searching for the film Jackson showed to Ross at the Denny’s back before Christmas. Evidence of a crime, the faces of the guilty.

  Was the blond guy in Sharp’s apartment the man from the film, and the same one behind this box of chocolates? Not ready for another go at her, he’d hired henchmen for his dirty work, sent along explosives in case his punks botched the job?

  Or was Harper simply feeling the cold itch of paranoia?

  She sat across the room from the box and dialed Nick’s number.

  “I can be there tomorrow late afternoon. Say the word.”

  “No,” she said. “Not yet. I’m making progress.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Actually, I’m not sure that’s wise.”

  “People listening?”

  “Christ, I don’t know. They planted spy cameras in our house. Whoever they are, they’re devious shits.”

  “You don’t sound good. You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m staring at a box of chocolates. Afraid to open it. Does that sound okay?”

  “What box?”

  She told him about her night, softening her encounter with Jules and his half-assed gang and leaving out Moussa’s knife wound. If she’d told him the full story, he’d be on the next flight. As much as she loved him and trusted him, she’d begun to relish her independence. She was nimbler without him alongside second-guessing.

  “Trust your intuition, Harper. If you sense something’s wrong, then leave the box and get the hell out of there.”

  “It’s too heavy to be chocolate truffles.”

  “Leave it. Go back to the airport. Ge
t out of that room.”

  She rose from the chair, walked to the desk, looked down at the gold box. She switched the phone to speaker and set it on the desk.

  “Did you hear me, Harper?”

  She told him yes, she heard him clearly.

  “Well? What’s going on?”

  She picked up the box, felt its contents shift, something solid. She set it down, stepped away.

  “What’re you doing? Talk to me.”

  She came back to the table, tugged on the bow, unfastened the red ribbon, loosened the ties.

  Maybe she was more like Deena than she wanted to believe. Taking suicidal risks, plunging ahead into this reckless quest. Not courage at all, but simply nothing left to lose.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, bracing herself, then lifted an edge of the lid.

  No explosion.

  She took a quick look inside, stiffened, let the lid fall back.

  “Talk to me, Harper.”

  It wasn’t a bomb. But it wasn’t chocolate truffles.

  “I’m going to send you a photo, Nick. Hold on, I’m taking it now. Tell me what you see.”

  “Goddamn it, stop playing games.”

  “It’s coming now.”

  After she sent the JPEG, Harper walked to her window and looked out at the dim lights beyond the Ébrié Lagoon. A single small boat slicing across the black sheen, on some lonely mission.

  Across the room, Nick spoke her name. She returned to the phone.

  “Is that a mask?” he said.

  “It is. It’s carved from wood. Mirrors for eyes.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “The wife of the man Ross was going to interview sent you a wooden mask.”

  “The Internet here is spotty,” she said. “Could you research this? Give me somewhere to start. Who makes this sort of mask, what it might mean. Anything. Can you do that?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Call me back when you have something.”

  It was two hours later, Harper dozing on the bed, still dressed, lights glaring, when Nick called back.

  “Doctor Henri Bakayoko, professor of anthropology at the university in Abidjan.”

  “Why him?”

  “I believe it’s a Mossi mask. The Mossi are an ethnic group from Burkina Faso originally, but they’ve spread through Ghana and the Ivory Coast.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “Just a search of Google images, row after row of African masks. I think this one is for a girl child. The mirrored eyes mean female, the two vertical horns indicate it’s a child.”

  “And this Henri character?”

  “It’s his area of specialization. The university where he teaches isn’t far from your hotel.”

  NINETEEN

  Early March, Côte d’Ivoire, Africa

  Nine the next morning, she took a taxi to the university. Fifteen minutes, north then west into the Cocody district. The Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny was composed of several three-story brick-and-glass structures scattered across wide lawns and connected by covered walkways. No ivy-covered campus, this place had a stark industrial feel and was filled with neatly dressed men and women, solemn and quiet as if their studies were a grave undertaking, far from the frivolous collegiate spirit Harper was familiar with.

  She located Professor Bakayoko’s office, was told by his young female secretary that the professor would appear within the hour. Harper sat in a guest chair with the chocolate box on her lap and tried to tune out the pounding of a pile driver operating nearby, close enough to rattle the diplomas on the office walls at ten-second intervals.

  The professor arrived with an armload of books and a sweaty face. He was short and round, and his red tie was askew. White shirt rumpled, dark suit shiny with age. He was in his seventies, a fringe of white hair rimming his scalp. He had bulging eyes and a glower that looked like a permanent fixture.

  He spoke to his secretary in brusque French that Harper couldn’t follow. Then he turned on her and asked her in the same growling French what she wanted with him.

  She rose and held out the box of chocolates, and his face relaxed momentarily, then hardened again.

  “You are American?”

  “I am.”

  “Bringing me chocolates? For what do I owe this gift?”

  “Can we speak in your office?”

  He huffed at her and plodded away, nudging open his office door with his hip. Harper looked questioningly at his assistant, and she shrugged and waved go-go-go, follow the professor.

  His office was tiny with barely room for the desk and his high-backed leather chair. Nowhere for visiting students to sit. She stood waiting till he had unloaded his books on his desk and was seated. He dabbed his face with a handkerchief, then stuffed it back in the breast pocket of his coat.

  “My name is Harper McDaniel. I’m investigating a crime back in my homeland, and I think you may be able to help me.”

  “You are police?”

  “No, this is unofficial. My husband was killed and my child.”

  “And this has what to do with me?”

  She set the box on the desk in front of him and stepped back.

  He opened it, took a long look, lifted the mask out of the box, and held it close to his face.

  “What is this?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “You are testing me? You question my knowledge? My expertise.”

  “No. I came for your help.”

  “You insult me with this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You are spy, come to mock me, take my job. I know what you are doing. I understand. Go, get out of here. I will not play this ugly game.”

  He placed the mask back in the box and gave her a backhanded wave.

  She picked up the box. “There’s some kind of misunderstanding.”

  He rose from his chair and stalked around the desk, his glower tightening into an even uglier scowl. “Go!”

  On Harper’s way back to the lobby, the young woman who’d sat outside the professor’s office caught up to her. She was Harper’s height, painfully slim, with dark, eager eyes.

  “I’m sorry, miss. Forgive my granddad. He’s not well.”

  The girl glanced nervously back down the empty hall, as if expecting the old man to appear. She put a light hand on Harper’s back and guided her down the stairs.

  “I’m Henriette, I watch out for grandpère. No one else has patience for it. In these recent years, he’s very stubborn and difficult with people. Last year he was made to retire but refuses to leave. Out of respect, the university allows me to keep his office open. So I watch after him and make sure he causes no trouble.”

  At the lobby, the young woman peered up the stairway, then edged Harper into an alcove and lowered her voice.

  “You want to know about a Mossi mask. I hear you speaking through the office wall.”

  “That’s right.”

  “My auntie, she can tell you what you need to know. I will write you a map, how to find her. She is Mossi and knows many people. She’s a minister. Her English is much superior to mine.”

  When the taxi driver read the slip of paper, he demanded his payment in advance. Five thousand West African francs, less than ten dollars.

  He drove her west out of the city, beyond several miles of decaying office buildings and empty storefronts. A half hour later, the asphalt turned to gravel, then to a muddy track. Lining the roadway were one-story shacks with corrugated siding and plywood roofs. Throngs of children played by the roadside, three- and four-year-olds in diapers, older boys in Day-Glo tee tops, kicking balls and rolling car tires.

  The auntie’s name was Fatou. She was settled in a chair, cooking a yellow mush on a covered grate that occupied the center of an open courtyard next to the single concrete structure in the village. Around her, a dozen children squatted in the dirt, watching the steam rise from the soup. An orphanage, the taxi driver explained, giving a melancholy s
igh.

  “Too much war,” he said.

  Fatou was speaking on a cell phone while she stirred the mush. Seeing Harper, she snapped it shut. The children eyed Harper with a mix of curiosity and dread. As Harper passed by them, two girls around seven clutched each other in a desperate hug, as if she might be there to tear them apart.

  Harper halted in front of the steaming kettle and introduced herself in French. Fatou looked at her with interest and replied in husky English.

  “Henriette says you possess a Mossi mask and come with questions.”

  “That’s true.”

  “How did this mask arrive to you?”

  “Someone on the Royale Plantation sent it. I think she meant for the mask to lead me somewhere.”

  “Lead you where?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe here.”

  “Let me see it, this mask.”

  Harper slid the box from her shoulder bag, opened it, and held out the mask.

  Fatou stared up at her, eyes unreadable.

  “Your purpose here is what?”

  Harper had to consider that for a long moment. “I’m seeking the truth,” she said at last.

  Fatou drew in a deep breath. “What you are seeking, the truth, this is easy to attain.”

  “Is it?”

  “What you do next, after you have this truth, that is not so simple.”

  Fatou raised her ladle and chimed it against the side of the kettle.

  The children rose and formed a ragged line. Another woman in a red, flowered dress arrived with wooden bowls and handed them to the children as they passed by for their dipper of soup.

  “Some of these children, the ones you see before you, some of them once lived in Soko, the village where this mask was made. It is carved from Ceiba pentandra, the false kapok. It was made to honor the deceased and allow their spirits admission into the world of their ancestors. Without this mask, the dead cannot enter the afterworld and instead make trouble for the survivors.”

  “Where is this village?”

  “Soko is across the border in Burkina Faso. But Soko no longer exists.”

  “What happened to it?”

  Fatou gave Harper a searching look, then turned and shouted something toward the open door. A moment later, a young man in his twenties with sleepy eyes came stumbling into the gray sunshine. He wore faded blue jeans that hung dangerously low and a white polo shirt with the collar cocked up.