The Memory Collector

by Meg Gardiner

  He’d come this far. He’d gotten the flask out of the lab and out of South Africa. Now he was about to make the transfer. He couldn’t mess this up.

  Sweat broke on his forehead. He was a big man, and the heat got to him. He wiped the handkerchief over his brow and drank the rest of the Castle in one go. Relax. When the meet went down he couldn’t look half-crazed. Looking jumpy would unmask him not only as an amateur, but as an easy mark.

  The breeze rippled the surface of the river, turning it silver. He raised the binoculars and scanned the southern shoreline. Near the high grass of the riverbank a canoe bobbed on the water. Locals, fishing. A pontoon boat was motoring upriver, a sunset booze cruise carrying sunburned Dutch and Japanese tourists, wealthy folks who were probably staying at the Victoria Falls Hotel over there in Zimbabwe. Beautiful, awful, fucked-up Zimbabwe, ruined by greed and egoma niacal cruelty. Screwed by—what did you call it? Politics.

  Politics, that’s what was close to ruining his future. He was a smart guy, everybody said so. He said it to himself every morning in the mirror: You’re smart. You matter. The project mattered. Killing it was criminal.

  But he was about to fix that. The company’s work wasn’t going to disappear down some black hole. He was going to make sure it got to people who could put it to good use. His payday would be a thank-you for services rendered.

  And handing it over in a broken country would ensure that nobody in the wider world took any notice.

  The sun glittered on the water. The river looked like a trail of mercury pouring across the vast green plain. What had the hotel brochure said—when the river was high like this, 150 million gallons of water spilled over the falls every minute? Incredible.

  He pulled another beer from the cooler. He had to stay chilled and show he had the balls for this. He tried to uncap the beer but the bottle opener chattered against the glass. Maybe the big Chevy engine was making it rattle, but he didn’t think so.

  Captain Wally put the boat into a sweeping turn toward the center of the river. Ahead, egrets flew from an island, blindingly white against the purple water and green shoreline. The sky above was the blue of glazed pottery.

  This was when most folks got the travelogue. Look, there’s a hippo. See that log? It’s no log, it’s a crocodile. But Lesniak had been specific: No talk. He’d paid for the ride.

  He’d paid extra for the stop they were going to make. He glanced again at his watch. In two minutes they should cross to the Zimbabwean side. He drank half the beer, getting ready.

  He was doing the right thing. This was important. Brass ring.

  As they skipped across the water he scanned the shoreline, seeing thick grass, acacia trees, a thin sandy beach. Downriver, another jet boat was racing in their direction.

  Straight at them, actually. Captain Wally eased back on the throttle.

  Lesniak frowned over his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  Captain Wally smiled. “My cousin. Last week he borrowed sixty liters of fuel. Now he is repaying me.”

  The other boat turned in a broad arc, cutting a white wake across the river. Then it dropped to a crawl and settled low in the water. The skipper gave a languid wave. In the bow a passenger slouched beneath a baseball cap, arms crossed, a fishing rod at his side. He gazed at the southern shore, seemingly unperturbed by this time-out for family business. As if thinking: It’s Africa. Go with it. The boat pulled alongside and its skipper called out in Tonga. Captain Wally laughed. Lesniak raised the binoculars and scanned the shoreline again. Where was his contact?

  The boat rocked, and from the corner of his eye he saw Captain Wally’s first mate hop to the other boat to grab the fuel cans. He refocused the binoculars. There—ahead, a Nissan Pathfinder edged through the tall grass down to the beach. His heart began ringing like an alarm clock.

  The Pathfinder was muddy and had Zim tags. He felt a pang of disappointment. But what had he been expecting, diplomatic plates? Or fuzzy dice with an intelligence service logo hanging from the mirror?

  Something. He’d been hoping for some clue that told him who his contact really worked for. A U.S. or European agency, or the Israelis, or maybe some group farther east.

  The boat rocked again, and the hull reverberated as feet landed on the deck. More conversation in Tonga behind him. Forget the family gossip, skipper. Get going.

  The engine revved and the boat rose at the bow, moving sharply away from Captain Wally’s cousin. It headed straight down the center of the vast river.

  Lesniak turned. “Head for shore, that’s the guy . . .”

  The wind chattered against Lesniak’s shirt. The engine growled, deep and dirty. The boat bounded across the water.

  Captain Wally was no longer at the wheel. Captain Wally was no longer aboard. He and his crewman were on the cousin’s jet boat, which was fast receding into the distance.

  Standing at the wheel was the cousin’s passenger.

  Lesniak gripped his beer. It felt clammy. He felt clammy.

  “You?” he said.

  The man at the wheel wore jeans and a black T-shirt and even blacker sunglasses. With the sunset glaring behind him, it was impossible to tell what he was looking at. Or whether he had eyes. He was lean and taut, his mouth grim in a sunburned face. He had removed his baseball cap. His copper-colored hair caught the sunlight.

  The boat cut smoothly through the swollen river. The wind and spray turned the sweat cold on Lesniak’s back. He saw the southern shore recede. He saw the Nissan Pathfinder flash past. Brass ring . . .

  “Where are you going?” Lesniak said.

  The man held the throttles steady. Slowly his head clocked around until his sunglasses seemed to center on a spot between Lesniak’s eyes. The beer bottle slipped from Lesniak’s fingers, hit the deck, and rolled around, clinking.

  “I can explain,” he said.

  The man spun the wheel and drove the boat toward a cluster of tiny islands. They left the open flow of violet water and swept into a narrow channel between islets knotted with trees. Egrets carpeted the branches like huge blossoms. The man cut the throttles back to idle. The boat settled lower in the water.

  The man stared at Lesniak. “Give it to me.”

  Lesniak’s chest rose and fell. White wings loomed all around. The smell of bird shit hit him so hard he gagged.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We both know that’s not true. Give it to me.”

  Lesniak put the back of a hand to his nose. He felt his courage and self-assurance shrivel.

  He had never bothered to learn this man’s name.

  He knew him only as Rusty. That’s what they all called him—Rusty, the sheepdog. The herder. The babysitter. The hired hand, a glorified gofer, a guy who showed up when the bigwigs came to town. Somebody’s ne’er-do-well relative, he’d heard, who landed himself a cushy job nannying execs and tech geeks on corporate road trips.

  Wrong. This guy was no nanny. Why had Lesniak never noticed he was a mean and cold son of a bitch?

  “I don’t have it,” he said.

  “The guard at the lab talked. I know you took it.”

  The boat swayed with the current. Rusty the sheepdog turned the wheel to keep it pointing downriver. “Who got to you?”

  Birds fluffed themselves in the trees. White wings everywhere, blank eyes, all watching, none seeing him. Lesniak’s lips pulled back, and he knew, horribly, he was smiling. Stop it, he told himself. You look like a fool. His left hand went reflexively to the pocket of his chinos, felt the contours of the flask. He couldn’t stop grinning. If he stopped, he’d burst into tears.

  This was his chance. He’d managed to get here with the product because of his sweat and ingenuity and willingness to take the risk. This was his brass ring.

  The boat slid beneath grasping branches. The air was thick and stinking. Beneath the rumble of the Chevy engine Lesniak heard a rushing sound. Maybe it was his own blood, trying to flee his veins.

  �
��Who hired you?” the sheepdog said.

  He had to play this carefully. He cleared his throat. “Make me an offer.”

  Rusty’s sunglasses didn’t reflect the sunset. They were pure dark, carbon black, nothing there. He spoke slowly.

  “You have rained down grief on my head. So tell me who hired you, and then give it to me.”

  “What?” Lesniak blinked. Grief? That wasn’t how you negotiated. “Seriously, make me an offer. I’m flexible.”

  Rusty goosed the throttles and lazed the wheel to the right. They cleared the bird islands and rejoined the main channel of the river. My God. The tourist brochures had said the Zambezi was a mile wide at this point, but he hadn’t pictured what that meant. The rushing sound was louder. Not his blood, but millions of tons of water roaring over rocks around another bend downriver.

  The wind felt like a cheese grater on Lesniak’s face. He wiped his hand across his upper lip. “An offer. I’m open. What I have, it’s uncut. Pure. Perfect clarity . . .”

  Rusty leaned down. Maybe he was grabbing a beer. Maybe this was all a joke.

  He came up with a hunting rifle.

  Of course he did. Back at the hotel, girls in bikinis were lounging poolside while waiters served them frosty drinks with pink umbrellas. But out here, every tour guide and his grandmother carried a hunting rifle, because they were cruising through the African bush along the shores of a goddamned game park.

  How could this be happening to him? He was a top-notch technician. He had an A.A. from DeVry. He played on the company softball team. He was a normal California guy who just wanted his BMW and a nice house in Los Gatos and some recognition and his freaking brass ring.

  Rusty pointed the barrel of the rifle at Lesniak’s chest. “You’ll give it to me right now, and then you’ll tell me who’s behind this.”

  The sheepdog had turned on his flock.

  Lesniak felt itchy. Felt naked. Saw the muzzle aimed at his heavy, sweating stomach. Say something. Be a man. “Or?”

  “Or you’ll give it to me.” Rusty’s face was expressionless. “ ‘Give’ being loosely defined. Maybe involving free will on your part, maybe not. Your choice.”

  “You can’t kill me. Captain Wally saw you, and his first mate, and his cousin. They’re witnesses.”

  The barrel stayed level on his chest.

  The first hint of a whimper floated up Lesniak’s throat. Rusty had paid them off. Of course he had. The Zambians were men who made, what, two dollars a day? He’d probably bought them for the price of a Big Mac.

  And nobody knew Lesniak was here. He’d told people at work that he was flying to London for R&R before heading home to the Bay Area. At the hotel today he had told nobody he was taking a boat ride. And he’d given Captain Wally a fake name.

  Nobody would miss him for weeks.

  In the distance, the sound of rushing water rose to thunder. Lesniak glanced downriver. Beyond a tree-lined bend, mist boiled into the air, so thick it obscured the view. But his thoughts turned as clear as glass.

  Rusty the sheepdog had come here to take the flask. Maybe for himself, maybe for the CEO, maybe for one of the groups that would beggar themselves to buy what was in it.

  Whether Rusty shot Lesniak before he took it or after didn’t matter. The man was going to kill him.

  Lesniak lurched to the side of the boat and jumped.

  He belly-flopped, hard. The water engulfed him as if he’d been swallowed by a dragon. The current surged, hauling him along faster than he could have believed possible. Reflexively he opened his eyes and saw blue gloom. He flailed upward and broke the surface, gasping.

  The river, swollen from the summer’s rains, rolled him up and down as if he were a thorn stuck in the dragon’s chilly skin. The shore was a distant strip of green grass. He thrashed, struggling to keep his head above water as it swept him along.

  Ten yards to his left the boat was keeping pace with him.

  Oh, sweet Jesus. He kicked, feeling the flask bump his leg. His clothes and shoes dragged him down. The boat pulled alongside.

  “Give me your hand,” Rusty said.

  “Don’t shoot me.” A swell lifted him, and he saw a cluster of tiny islands ahead. Trees grew densely along their edges, branches dragging in the river.

  “Your hand,” Rusty shouted.

  If he could get under the low-hanging branches, Rusty wouldn’t be able to reach him. Lesniak swam for it. He choked, “Shoot and the flask goes down with me.”

  “If you die, you’ll float. Long enough for me to retrieve your body,” Rusty said. “Alive or dead, you’ll give me the stuff. It’s your choice.”

  A sob broke from Lesniak’s mouth.

  “Listen to me. I’ll swap. You give me the stuff, and I’ll give you the jet boat.”

  Lesniak windmilled his arms. In the fast-flowing water, the islands bobbed in and out of sight. If he could get in beneath the trees, he could hide.

  His arms were leaden, his lungs burning, water sloshing in his mouth. He coughed, looked ahead, saw waves, branches, a log. The islands drew closer.

  The log twitched its tail.

  He screamed. So much adrenaline dumped into his system that the sunset turned white. The tail switched back. The crocodile was floating directly ahead of him. Oh Jesus oh Jesus . . .

  He turned, wailing. The river poured him toward the croc.

  The boat pulled alongside. Rusty yelled, “Get aboard. Hurry.”

  Lesniak slapped at the fiberglass hull and his hands slid off. Hysteria rose in his chest. The sound in his ears was Chevy engine and rushing water and his own panicked sobs. He clawed at the slick fiberglass. He tried to dig his fingernails into the wet side of the boat.

  A hand clamped around his wrist. Rusty began to haul him up.

  Lesniak’s legs dragged in the water. He grabbed Rusty’s forearm. “Pull me out. Pull me out.”

  Rusty grunted with effort. “Grab the lip of the hull, not me.”

  Kicking wildly, Lesniak dug his nails into Rusty’s forearm. “Don’t drop me. The croc . . .”

  Straining, Rusty pulled Lesniak halfway out of the water. Lesniak’s feet propellered. He looked up, frantic, and saw blood running from Rusty’s forearm where his fingernails were clawing the man’s flesh.

  Oh, God. Rusty wasn’t big enough to pull him aboard. Lesniak outweighed him by forty pounds, easy. His panting increased. His feet were still in the water and oh God, the croc, the croc . . .

  The boat rolled and began to spin. Rusty slid toward him on the slippery deck. Lesniak screamed and tried to climb up Rusty’s arm.

  Rusty gasped, “Let go of my arm, grab the hull, and let me pull you—”

  “Help me!” Lesniak screamed.

  Rusty grabbed Lesniak’s belt. Lesniak felt himself being pulled up—shoulders above the side, gut bumping the lip of the hull. He kicked helplessly, trying to worm both feet out of the water. The boat swung lazily around, rising and falling on the flow of the river. He grabbed at Rusty, clawed for his shirt, swiped a hand, and knocked the man’s sunglasses off his face. He had to get out of the water. He was crying, he heard himself, he couldn’t stop.

  Rusty groaned with effort. “Stop fighting me. You’ll pull me over and we’ll both drown.”

  Lesniak wriggled a knee over the top. His shoulders drooped back toward the waterline. They were spinning in a circle. His right foot was tingling. The croc, oh Christ, the jaws the teeth the hideous pain . . . He slid back down the hull. Rusty grabbed for him and got a hand on his pants pocket.

  The pocket ripped open. The flask fell out and landed on the deck.

  Lesniak stared at it. The boat continued its lazy spin. The flask glinted in the sun. Around the screw-top lid, he saw bubbles.

  Oh, shit.

  Bubbles were foaming from under the lid of the flask. The seal had broken.

  The boat rolled. The flask slid across the deck. No, no—if a wave swamped the boat the flask could be swept overboard. Lesniak let go of Rusty’s
arm and reached for it. The flask was his future, everything important and good and brass fucking ring and—

  “I can’t hold you,” Rusty shouted at him. “Hang on to the hull.”

  No way, not in a million years. Hang on and Rusty would grab it and he’d never get it back and everybody would find out and . . .

  The flask gleamed. He stretched, fingers grasping.

  The boat snapped into a roll. Lesniak lost his grip and fell like a punching bag back into the water.

  The current took him. He surfaced and spun around, frantic. He was moving fast again, clear of the little chain of islands. A huge roar rose in his ears. It wasn’t the engine anymore, but the water, the sound of water coursing over rocks in massive amounts.

  On the boat, Rusty had the flask. Struggling for balance as the boat spun, he tightened down the bubbling top and shoved it in the back pocket of his jeans.

  Lesniak stared, stunned. Rusty fought his way back to the controls of the speedboat. He wiped his bloody arm against his shirt, turned the wheel, and headed downriver. Fast. Straight at him.

  Hell, oh, no. With that huge Chevy engine and a fiberglass hull that would crack his head like a teacup. Lesniak turned and began a final, thrashing attempt to outswim it. The water swept him forward.

  He heard Rusty shouting at him. Heard “Stop,” and “Don’t . . .”

  Terrified, he looked back over his shoulder. Without his sunglasses, Rusty’s eyes looked freakishly pale in the sunset. A flock of egrets sped low across the river behind him, white and graceful.

  The jet boat bore at him. Then Rusty spun the wheel. The boat went into a tight, arcing turn. It passed ten yards behind him, spewing white water in its wake, and turned upriver.

  Bobbing on the swift current, exhausted, Lesniak felt a knot in his throat. The guy was leaving. Thank God.

  Thank God, hell.

  Rusty had the flask. He had the stuff. Slick, all of it.

  The boat receded slowly, motor roaring. This was why it had the huge Chevy engine—it needed every single horsepower to fight the current here. The growl of the engine was hard to hear above the ever-louder rush of water over rocks.