Gold Trap

by Lilly Maytree

  Which was more than she could say for Tom Anderson.

  The fact he had purposely set out to extract personal information from her (and succeeded) made her question whether or not she had deciphered that footstep correctly. And she had been so certain of it! Had she simply been too frightened at the thought of facing foreign authorities with so much strange evidence stacked against her? Or, had she chosen because Tom Anderson had the familiarity of an American? There were, after all, quite a number of dangerous Americans.

  Maybe she didn’t have enough faith to actually get herself through something as terrible as being taken to jail. Even if she got released when they discovered she was innocent. Just the thought of it! Of course, it was easy to believe faith would get you through any terrible thing while sitting in church on a Sunday morning. But actually coming face-to-face with it gave a person’s mind an amazing ability to conjure up vivid imaginations of what awful things might actually happen. That’s what made her hesitate. Her own mind.

  Which had been playing quite the number of tricks on her, lately.

  Such as the fact that her memory of the man standing in the rain was now beginning to turn into the express image of Tom Anderson. Disappointing, to say the least. Because it wasn’t often that she compelled the attentions of such handsome men, and she had been enjoying that little memory. Working in a place where one tended to see only the same people day after day, often made her crave such things.

  True, the similarities between the two men were rather uncanny. But somewhere along the line, she had elevated the rain man to “dashing prince” status. Tom, on the other hand, bordered very close to being an arrogant brute. What else could you call someone who made a habit of physically forcing people to do things they didn’t want to do? For heaven’s sake, this wasn’t the Stone Age.

  What a mess this thing had become!

  Suspected of theft, and possibly even kidnapping! It was absolutely the last thing she thought would ever happen to her. Now, or any other time. Not to an ordinary teacher who’d spent the last ten years living a well-ordered life in a quiet university town. Why, she couldn’t remember a time in her life when she hadn’t been sure of things. She even prided herself on being a good judge of character.

  All the way up until she had gone chasing after her destiny.

  “Dear Lord”—she murmured into the wet paper towel she was running over her face— “all of a sudden, I can’t seem to be able to tell the difference between a good person and a bad one around here. If I can’t figure it out on short notice, how in the world am I supposed to tell?”

  Then, at that precise moment, she had another flash. It was of a conversation with her brother that had taken place many years ago. When Meg had been quite young. After school, one of the boys in her class had talked her into walking home on the other side of a busy street. They moved across with the flow of other children being shepherded by the crossing guard, and had quite the pleasant walk together. Until the boy stopped at a side street and said, “This is where I turn. You have to go two blocks up to the traffic light and cross back over. After that, go back one or two blocks, maybe three, and turn on your street.”

  Then he left her there.

  Meg trudged on dutifully by herself, but everything looked different from that side. There were no landmarks she recognized coming from that direction, and she couldn’t find her street. First one wrong turn, then another…and suddenly she was lost. She burst out crying, wailed her heart out, in fact, while more and more cars continued to race by on busy streets.

  Only the sudden appearance of her older brother saved the situation. Sent out to hunt her down before dinner, the carefree youth with hair as red as hers, gave a familiar loud whistle from half a block behind her. Then hollered, “Hey, drop anchor, Meg, have you slipped your cable? Come about, or you’ll end up in Port Townsend!” She had never been so glad to see anyone in her life. She flung her arms around him and clung unabashedly, not caring who might see. For once, he didn’t seem to mind, either, and was even sympathetic as she told him what happened.

  Then, as if it was his duty in the absence of their father, he said, “What in blazes made you walk off with some strange kid who had no manners in the first place?”

  “I couldn’t tell…I didn’t know!” She sniffed. “How do you know, Bennie?”

  “By what they do, of course. Any decent kid would have walked on your side of the street and crossed over himself. Keep your eye out for what people do, Meg. It’s not always the same as the way they talk.”

  He put an arm across her shoulders and headed her toward home. But he framed the comforting gesture with the remark, “And quit calling me Bennie, or I’ll have to wallop you.”

  Hmmm. If Megan were to judge things by that long ago standard…The fact that Tom Anderson had made some sort of character judgment, himself, and not had her arrested on the spot was a good thing. The fact that he came rushing down to find his father in the first place, was another good thing. On the other hand, he could have just been playing the part of a concerned son, and his true intentions were merely to set up an alibi. That would not be good, at all.

  Still, one couldn’t easily falsify the many spontaneous reactions he had in response to her accusations of him during their previous conversations. Which made the score two to one if she counted her own personal discernment that he was, indeed, a good person. But purposely setting out to get as much information about her as he could, without revealing his actual intent…well, now, that made them even again, and…

  There was a loud rap on the door that made her jump, and she heard the steward’s voice through the thin partition. “You will please exit the lavatory, we are making ready to land!”

  Meg hurriedly tossed her things back into her bag and exited just as the plane banked gently in preparation for descent. Which gave her an odd sense of losing her balance that made her reach out to steady herself. Right at the moment Tom reached out and helped her into his aisle seat, at the same time sliding into her empty one by the window. Another courtesy.

  “Trying to hide out in the lav so you can get out first and run off somewhere?” he said, just as she was about to mentally mark that down as a good thing.

  Always thinking the worst of people definitely belonged in the bad column.

  He got another bad point at customs. There were three people working at the counter, so they were standing side by side, and he made no excuses for unabashedly scrutinizing her things as her agent removed each item for a thorough inspection. It distracted her so, that she was late in noticing there was some kind of a problem, and the supervisor had to be called over. She only realized it when Tom’s expressive face clouded over, and she turned back to find the two men in uniform conferring in whispers across from her.

  Finally, the second man stepped forward and said, “Will you come this way, please?” while the other scooped the rest of her things into the bags and followed.

  They took her to a small office behind the counter where another man, also in uniform, sat behind a black wooden desk that seemed to take up the entire room. There were more whisperings as the supervisor informed him about the problem and pointed her toward the nearest of two chairs. The agent carrying her things put her duffle by the door and dropped her string bag on the huge desk with such a thump that several items fell out.

  Meg felt a rising sense of irritation at her cameras being tossed around like that and was about to make a remark when her full attention was suddenly riveted to the grotesque form of a human skull. It had a hammered copper ashtray embedded into the top and was holding down a pile of papers. As if it were nothing more than an expensive desk ornament. At whose expense? She wondered if it was real, or just some manufactured replica made to shock tourists. And even though Meg had been fully prepared to personally witness some of these things on her tour (monuments of the slave trade, and all that), it caught her off-guard under the present circumstances.

  “Please think carefully before
you respond.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry…what was the question?”

  “If you would be so good as to state your full name.”

  “Oh. Megan Andreanof Jennings.”

  “Of Russian origin?”

  “It refers to a place not a family. I was born off the Andreanof Islands in the middle of a storm. They’re in Alaska. I’m as American as I can be. It is a U.S. passport, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but false identity papers are not hard to come by.” He went back to studying it, as if there might be another clue there. “Why were you listed as Mrs. Anderson on your ticket?”

  “A mistake, I assure you. Some hotel clerk who made the reservations back in St. Louis assumed I was married, when I wasn’t.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “That isn’t what I mean, either. Look, is that what the problem is? The name on the ticket doesn’t match my passport?”

  “No, but I find it interesting.” He looked across at her through his gold-rimmed glasses and smiled. He motioned the others out of the room and got to his feet. “Why did you come to Ghana, Miss Jennings?”

  “I’m on a tour.”

  “There were no tours connecting with this flight.” He moved to a brass coffee service that rested on top of a filing cabinet at the back of the room, turned back to her, and asked politely, “Would you like some coffee? Or a sweet, perhaps?”

  “Coffee would be nice.” Meg didn’t want to offend him by refusing (another tip she had learned from the tourist pamphlets). “I’m with Bremen Tours. A ten day tour that ends up here in Accra.”

  “Ah, yes, I am familiar with them. And now, I quite understand.” He handed her a very small cup, hardly enough for a few swallows, and Meg dutifully took a sip. It was thick and strong, and nearly took the top of her head off. What in the world was it?

  “It is my own recipe,” he replied with a smile, as if she had asked the question out loud. “Liqueur, I think you call it in the States. My own brand of espresso liqueur. Now. Miss Jennings. You may not realize, but we have a very delicate situation here. I might have to confiscate some of your things.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the new regulations regarding drug runners and terrorists.”

  She set the little cup down and leaned forward in her chair. “Well, that certainly isn’t me, there must be some mistake!”

  “Yes, indeed. There has definitely been a mistake. Perhaps you are under the mistaken impression, Miss Jennings, that we are a backward country with a highly inadequate security system? I assure you we are not.”

  “And I assure you that I am not a security threat.”

  “You lied on your ticket.”

  “I told you I didn’t make the reservation.”

  “Yes, and that is what makes this case interesting. Now, if you would have perhaps said you had recently become married and your passport was still unchanged…well, then…I might have thought nothing of it. The name is a small matter, anyway, compared to the nature of your undeclared item.”

  “But…I declared everything.”

  “Shall we look through, again?”

  “Be my guest.” Meg gestured toward the string bag on his desk, and he did not hesitate to dump the rest of the contents out between them.

  As if he already knew what he wanted, he shoved aside her two cameras and reached for the batch of tour brochures. He held up the one about the Mole National Park. He opened it, made an expression of mock surprise, and lifted a folded sheet of paper from the hiding place. Meg didn’t recognize it.

  The man perused it for a few moments. “I’ve seen many of these illegal documents. They are a menace to all our efforts to make ourselves a respected presence in the world marketplace. Probably no more than a worthless scam, but nevertheless, the government has declared them as contraband.”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” Meg objected. “I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Yes, everybody says that when they are caught. But, as you can see, it was in your belongings.”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea how it got there!”

  “Probably the same way you got here, Mrs. Anderson.” He slid the paper across the desk for her to look over. “It is the deed to one of our goldmines…made out in the name of your husband.”

  Gold Trap

  10

  The Road to Destruction

  “No West African path goes straight…”

  Mary Kingsley

  There was a horrendous pounding against the closed door, and Tom Anderson suddenly burst through with a disgruntled agent still holding onto him from behind. Which made what Meg was thinking to come tumbling out her mouth.

  “Tom Anderson…how could you? You snake! You…” She leapt to her feet and flung the paper at him. “You wolf in sheep’s clothing!”

  He caught it as it fluttered against his chest. “Let’s hold off having any squabbles in public, shall we?”

  Which in turn caused a delighted chuckle to escape the man behind the desk, and he waved the apologetic agent out the door, again. “Yes, yes…by all means, it is time to bring in the husband.”

  Meg had quite passed her limits and was ready to go to jail. “Call the American ambassador!” She scooped everything back into her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Take me to the consulate!”

  “One moment,” said the man at the desk.

  “This instant!” demanded Meg with a stamp of her foot and then a bang of her fist on his desk for emphasis.

  “All right.” Tom brushed her aside (like a pesky fly) to stand in her place. Then he reached into an inside pocket of his khaki vest to withdraw a wallet that was equally as bulging as the professor’s had been. “What’s it going to take to get us out of here?” He removed two bills that Meg could not see the value of and set them down on the desk.

  The man’s eyes widened.

  “That’s for the trouble she caused.” He set down another. “And that’s for any trouble you might have explaining all this. And” —he took out one more— “this is for the evidence.”

  “Evidence…” The man rose to his feet and offered his hand across the table in good will. “The worthless thing. It is worthless, I assure you. But go ahead and take it.”

  Tom and the man shook hands, (and acted as if she weren’t even in the room) after which he stashed the wallet back into his pocket (along with the offending document) and hustled her toward the door. She went along because she was dumbfounded. Speechless, as a matter of fact.

  But she came to her senses well enough halfway to the exit.

  She stopped and yanked her elbow out of his grasp. “You are nothing but a…”

  But he only put an arm (a very heavy arm) across her shoulders and continued to sweep her along. “Not here, Megan. Do you understand? I’ll explain everything as…”

  The first bar of the French national anthem emanated from one of his pockets, and he steered her out of the flow of traffic and closer to a waiting area before he took out his cell phone. He flipped it open with his thumb. “This is Tom,” he answered without letting go of her. There was a long silence, during which Meg could hear a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. She tried to pull away, again, but he only held on tighter as he continued to listen.

  Meg felt her temper rising in a way she hadn’t experienced in years. What right did he have to treat her like this? He was holding her so close she could smell the leather straps of his backpack mingled with a faint trace of Old Spice aftershave. She put both of her fists against his chest and pushed. It didn’t faze him. The harder she pushed, the tighter he squeezed, and the sound of his voice when he finally answered didn’t betray even a hint of effort.

  “Mother, take a breath. Now, listen. I have his passport. Yes. And all of his money, too. All of it. Yes. Isn’t that what I just said? No, he wasn’t. I’m going to meet him in Akosombo.”

  At that moment Meg came to the ultimate end of her limits. She had exerted every ounce of her strength for
nearly a minute, until, like a contest of arm wrestling, it gave out suddenly and failed her, when in spirit she would never have given up at all. Not for one minute. But instead, she went limp all at once (she couldn’t help it) with her forehead leaning against his chest, and such a great wave of frustration swept over her that she burst into tears. The iron hold went immediately gentle in response, then the slightest of tightening, again, in a gesture of apology.

  Which so infuriated her that (without even thinking) she drew back one of her still-clenched fists and hit him in the stomach with every last bit of force she could muster. It caught him off-guard. He staggered half a step backward, let the phone down from his ear, and Meg distinctly heard— “has ruined my plans, again, Tommy, that reprobate! You know every time he gets with Eddie, it’s like”—but it still wasn’t enough for him to let go. He gasped (as if he only just could because the wind had been knocked out of him) and sank back into one of the empty chairs of the waiting area, with Meg simultaneously having to follow suit in the one next to him.

  “Mother…” The voice on the other end was only an incessant drone now, because he had put the phone up to his ear, again. “I’ll handle things with Eddie. Take the wives and kids on holiday like you planned, and the rest of us will…just have to meet back up at the end of it instead of the beginning. That’s the only thing that’s changed…I know you can…it will, I promise.” He slowly returned the phone to his pocket and looked over as she sat there, still trembling from the entire experience, and an unchecked flow of tears streaming down her face. “Megan…”

  She sniffed and began to rummage through her bag for a package of tissue. “Don’t talk to me! And don’t think because I’m crying that you got the better of me, Tom Anderson! I’m…” She found the tissue and snatched one out so fast that it tore in half. “I’m just worn out, that’s all. Do you hear me? I’m worn out!”