The Senator stood when she appeared. “Zoe,” he said, kissing her cheek, “I’m so glad you could come.”
She touched his arm. “Hi, Dad.”
He seated her formally and then returned to his place. Almost immediately, a uniformed waiter appeared, and Jack asked for a bottle of champagne.
She searched his face. “What are we celebrating?”
“That you’re here, that I’m here. Do I need a better reason?”
She twisted her watch. “Why are you here, Dad?”
Something like annoyance flashed in his eyes. “Is it such a crime for a man to want to take his daughter to dinner?”
“An interesting opening. I should think there are less contentious ways to begin a conversation between us.”
He thought about what he’d said, and his eyes darkened. “Hardly intentional.”
She shrugged. “You haven’t answered my question.”
He grimaced. “I’m in Africa to—”
“I know why you’re in Africa,” she said, cutting him off. “You’re here to satisfy your constituents that the cuts you’re proposing to the foreign-aid budget don’t stand a chance of making the Dark Continent any brighter. So what difference does it make if a few hundred thousand AIDS patients die an early death?”
He looked wounded. “You accuse me of heartlessness. You know as well as I do that I voted for PEPFAR, not against it. I’m not suggesting that it be eliminated, just reined in a bit.”
“That’s not what your campaign is saying,” she retorted.
He gave her a calculating look. “That’s just politics.”
“Precisely,” she said.
He took a sharp breath. “It’s been eleven years. I thought by now you would have …”
The anger in her eyes seemed to interrupt his train of thought.
Would have what, Dad? she almost said. Gotten over it? Are you really that naive?
She allowed him to stew in discomfort until the waiter appeared with the champagne. The Senator took his glass and looked out over the gardens. Zoe left hers on the table untouched. When the waiter asked if they wished to order, she shook her head.
“Give us a few more minutes, please,” she said kindly.
She stared at her father, wondering how this was going to play out. She had hoped she might find a way to socialize with him with her emotions chained in the basement. Obviously, she had miscalculated. The problem was she needed his support.
“So how is the campaign?” she asked, attempting to make conversation. “The BBC says you’re up in the polls.”
He turned back to her. “The Brits tend to understate things. We’re well ahead.”
“Which makes it doubly odd that you’re here,” she said, unable to help herself. “You don’t need to win any austerity points.”
“I’m on the African Affairs Subcommittee,” he said.
She smiled. “I’m your daughter. Your DNA is better than a lie detector.”
He tensed. “What do you want me to say?”
“Why don’t we start with the truth?”
Her father just stared at her.
“Okay, let me guess. Sylvia wants you to make sure I keep quiet. Am I getting warm?”
The Senator blanched. It was no secret how little Zoe cared for his second wife. Yet he never seemed to grasp how well she could read Sylvia Martinelli’s mind.
“I thought we had an … understanding,” he said slowly.
“You mean the suggestion you gave me when I was seventeen? That doesn’t count.”
The waiter reappeared, looking gun-shy. This time the Senator waved him away. “You would talk about it in public? Why?”
“What I might contemplate and what I intend to do are not necessarily the same.”
He frowned. “This isn’t a law class. You don’t get points for being coy.”
“True, Dad, but it’s so much fun.”
He looked away and sipped his champagne. To her surprise, he dropped his guard. “You’re right, Sylvia wanted me to come. But it was a good excuse to get away. I wanted to see you. I thought we turned a corner in Cape Town.”
She steadied her breathing. “In a way we did. You stood up to her.”
He shrugged. “The trust is almost yours, and Atticus is a bit of a Scrooge.”
“So you’ll talk to him again this year?”
“Only if you finish the meal with me and leave the old grudges out of it. I want to hear about you. Talk to me like you did when you cared what I thought.”
He made the statement so baldly, so unsentimentally, that Zoe almost missed the emotional charge beneath it. Then the words registered, and she felt like she had been punched in the gut. Even after all he had done, had she ever stopped loving him? It was a question too painful to examine, let alone to answer with conviction.
“All right,” she agreed. “Just pleasantries and platitudes.”
“And a good old-fashioned African braai,” he said with a smile.
The meal passed without incident. Zoe filled up on tenderloin while her father regaled her with scuttlebutt from the campaign trail—the media snoops digging for dirt; the rows with the other candidates; the hanky-panky between interns; even a self-effacing gaffe or two. She couldn’t help but wonder at the political animal he had become. He was born brilliant and charismatic, a lord among leaders. But since his departure from the boardroom, he had added polish to his innate sense of timing and delivery. At moments, Zoe found herself mesmerized by him.
They finished off the meal with espressos, and then the Senator walked her to the parking lot, his security detail in tow. He nodded at the Land Rover. “I’m glad old Atticus isn’t stingy with your living expenses.”
In spite of herself, Zoe smiled. “It’s the only time he’s not.” She hesitated, then gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight, Dad. Thanks for the invitation.”
He looked into her eyes. “I wish I could change the way things are between us.”
“Please don’t. I was almost beginning to enjoy myself.”
The pain in his eyes was sincere. “Be safe,” he said, seeing her into the SUV.
She watched him walk back to the hotel, flanked by bodyguards, and then keyed the ignition. She flipped on her headlights and started to pull out when she recognized something in her peripheral vision. She peered into the shadows, searching for an explanation. At once her mind processed what she was seeing—a black Jaguar sedan with the blue crest of the Lusaka Golf Club on its bumper.
She scanned the lot, noting the silhouettes of at least twenty SUVs. What if the rapist is here? she thought with a shudder. She got out of the Land Rover and walked slowly down the row, her heels clicking on the tarmac. She passed two silver SUVs, but neither bore the familiar crest. At the end of the row, she caught sight of another candidate in the corner of the lot. She glanced around, taking in her surroundings. The darkened lot was eerily quiet. She walked through the last row of cars and approached the SUV.
Something moved at the edge of her vision.
She froze, her senses on high alert. She stared into the shadows. Something was not quite right, but she couldn’t tell what it was. A memory came to her suddenly: Johannesburg, 2010. The night she had stayed late at work; the long walk to the car; the gang that had appeared out of nowhere; the guns they had pointed at her face; the thought that she was about to die.
Suppressing her nervousness, she looked toward the silver SUV, now fifteen feet away. For some reason, the driver had backed into the space. To see the trunk, she would have to walk around the vehicle. She focused on the hood and traced out the emblem in the dark. It was the three-pointed star of Mercedes Benz. Her heart soared. Dominic saw a Mercedes.
She stepped around the SUV. The shadows here were nearly complete. She reached into her purse, thinking to use the flashlight app on her iPhone, when she heard scratches on asphalt. She swiveled around and saw two men crouching behind the next car. One of them was holding an object in his hand. The fear ca
me upon Zoe in an instant.
She was sure the object was a gun.
Kicking off her heels, she took off barefoot across the lot. She heard a muffled shout and poured on the speed. She didn’t have enough of a lead to use the cars as a screen. Her only option was to reach the hotel. She ran through the rows of vehicles, bypassing the Land Rover and sprinting toward the brightly lit entrance.
Two hundred feet. One hundred.
At once she realized something—the only footsteps she could hear were her own. She glanced over her shoulder and saw no one behind her. Suddenly, an engine roared and a yellow sports car careened across the lot, heading in her direction. For a second she stood transfixed. Then she jumped out of the way.
The truth dawned on her slowly. They aren’t muggers; they’re car thieves.
“Are you all right, miss?” said a male voice, as the sports car sped out of the lot and vanished into the night.
She turned around, feeling an extraordinary sense of relief. The man was older—perhaps sixty—and slightly heavyset, though his girth was concealed by an elegant three-piece suit. Beside him stood a gaunt young man in a pink dress shirt and expensive jeans.
She nodded. “I think they just stole that car.”
The older man followed her eyes. “I’m glad you were not injured.”
“I should call the police,” she said.
“You could, but they would not be helpful. The owner of the hotel is a friend. I will alert him about the incident. Insurance will replace the car.”
Zoe frowned, thinking of Joseph, but decided to take the man’s advice. She hadn’t seen the faces of the thieves, and she had no information about the car beyond its color. The man offered to escort her to her vehicle, and she agreed. She chatted with him briefly, but he didn’t offer his name or that of his companion. The younger man didn’t speak at all.
Zoe locked herself in the Land Rover and sighed, letting the residue of fear flood out of her. She watched through the windshield as the men shook hands and parted. The older man angled toward the black Jaguar she had seen earlier, and the younger man disappeared down the lane. At once Zoe remembered her lost shoes and the Mercedes SUV. With the thieves gone and the lot no longer deserted, she decided to take another look.
She pulled out of the space and drove down the lane, retracing the path she had taken on foot. At the end of the row, she looked toward the last rank of cars. Her jaw dropped when she saw the empty parking space. Seconds later, the silver Mercedes passed her in the lane, the young man in the pink shirt behind the wheel. She craned her head around but couldn’t see his bumper in the gloom. The thought struck her with sudden force: He matches the profile exactly.
She made a swift U-turn and followed the SUV. The man made a left on Haile Selassie Avenue and then a right on Los Angeles Boulevard. When traffic opened up, Zoe pressed down on the accelerator and gained on the SUV. She pulled to within two car lengths of the vehicle and studied its bumper. Staring back at her across the African night was the Lusaka Golf Club crest, positioned to the left of the plate and below the emblem of Mercedes Benz.
She took out her iPhone and opened the camera, zooming in until the license plate and the crest stood in opposite corners of the frame. The plate was slightly blurred but the characters were legible. She took a few pictures and then called Joseph and told him everything.
He whistled. “Don’t get too close. I’ll meet you at the Kabulonga roundabout.”
“Hurry!” She dropped back and changed lanes. “We’ll be there in three minutes.”
The suspect kept a leisurely pace through the suburbs and took Kabulonga Road off the roundabout. Zoe glanced in her mirror and saw a new pair of headlights behind her. That was fast, she thought. Two turns later, the suspect stopped outside an iron gate manned by a guard. Zoe drove past the gate and saw the upper story of a European-style villa over the electrified walls. He’s a member of the elite, she thought, and he lives in my neighborhood.
She checked her mirror and saw the outline of Joseph’s face in the glow of her brake lights. At the end of the road, she reversed course and drove slowly back toward the gate. Turning off her headlamps, she pulled to the grassy shoulder fifty yards from the driveway. She saw the guard standing in a puddle of light cast by wall-mounted security torches. He glanced her way and then ambled back to his chair.
Zoe used her iPhone to download a satellite image of her location. She zoomed in until she could see the layout of the property beyond the gate. The grounds had the appearance of a park with grass and trees surrounding the house and two outbuildings, one of which looked like a garage. Beside the house was a swimming pool.
Joseph pulled up behind her and turned off his engine. Before long, another vehicle turned into the driveway. It was the black Jaguar from the hotel. The guard opened the gate, allowing the sedan to enter the property. Zoe conjured the older man in her memory—the piercing black eyes, the flared nose and strong jaw, the expanding waistline and bespoke suit—and compared him to the thin man. Father and son, she guessed.
She heard her phone ring. “How did you find him?” Joseph asked when she picked up.
She told him the story, omitting only the detail about her father.
He was silent for a moment. “You didn’t get a picture of him, did you?”
“Why would I have done that?”
Joseph grunted. “We need something to show the witnesses. I’m going to stick around.”
“He might not leave until morning.”
“It won’t be the first time I’ve sat up all night.”
“Do you want me to stay with you?”
“No, your truck’s too visible. Did you get the license number of the SUV?”
She found the image on her iPhone and recited the number for him.
“Thanks. I’ll call my friend at the Department of Road Transport in the morning.”
“Tomorrow is Saturday.”
“He owes me a favor.”
She studied the guard sitting beside the ornate gate. Instead of slouching with his legs crossed, he sat erect with his hands resting on his knees. “There’s something peculiar about that guard,” she said. “He looks ex-military.”
Joseph murmured his agreement. “He’s also sitting outside the walls after dark, not inside in the guard shack. Obviously, they want him to be seen.”
Zoe scanned the walls again and noticed a tubular device mounted on a stand at the corner of the property. “They have cameras, too. Maybe his father is a government minister.”
“Or an industrialist. He’s obviously worried about a break-in.”
“Robberies aren’t common in Kabulonga,” she objected.
“But when they do happen, people often end up dead.” He took a breath and let it out. “Go home and get some sleep.”
“Promise me you’ll keep me in the loop.”
He laughed drily. “I’ll call you if anything interesting happens.”
Chapter 7
At nine fifteen on Saturday morning, Zoe sat in the CILA conference room tapping her fingers on the table, waiting on Joseph. At her request, Mariam had summoned the response team for an emergency meeting. All but Niza had arrived in casual attire, and Zoe had briefed them on the events of the night before. Joseph, however, had yet to show up. She had left two messages on his mobile, but he had not returned her calls.
By nine thirty even Mariam was showing signs of irritation. “This isn’t like him,” she said, checking her watch. “I’ll send an SMS.”
Suddenly, Zoe heard a horn and saw the nose of Joseph’s truck pull into the drive. A minute later, he sauntered in with an insouciance that belied the tension in the room.
“Sorry to leave you in the dark,” he said, “but I was busy, as you’ll see.” He found an empty chair and smiled at them. “The suspect’s name is Darious Nyambo, son of Frederick Nyambo, founder of Nyambo Energy Company, Ltd. Darious is thirty-one and a television producer at ZNBC. Frederick was Minister of Energy and Water
Development under President Mwanawasa. I had breakfast with a friend who works at the Department of Energy, and he gave me the scoop on the Nyambos. Frederick is the leading private investor in the coal and hydroelectric sectors on both sides of the Zambia–Zimbabwe border. His holdings and government connections make him one of the most powerful men in Zambia.”
“Any relation to Patricia Nyambo?” Mariam asked.
“She’s his wife.”
Zoe leaned forward in her chair. “You mean the High Court judge?”
“Exactly.” Mariam’s voice was grave.
Zoe’s eyes went wide. “Why have I never heard of Frederick?”
“He keeps a low profile,” Joseph replied. “You saw the security at his house. According to my friend, he’s a businessman, not a politician. He peddles influence quietly.”
“All of that makes for delicious gossip,” Niza broke in, “but what proof do you have that he’s the assailant?”
Joseph nodded. “I took photos of him and his SUV and showed them to our witnesses. Dominic and Given both recognized the SUV, and Dominic felt strongly that Darious is the man he saw. Given wasn’t quite as certain, but she agreed that they look a lot alike.”
“That’s enough for probable cause,” Zoe said, glancing at Mariam.
Niza held out her hands, as if trying to stop a runaway train. “Darious might have picked the child up and dropped her off, but what do we have linking him to the rape itself? For all we know, he took her somewhere and another man raped her.”
“We have Dr. Chulu,” Zoe disagreed. “And we have DNA.”
Niza rolled her eyes. “You act as if that’s a simple proposition.”
“You act as if it’s impossible,” Zoe shot back.
Mariam spoke up: “Sarge, what do you think?”
“The child witnesses are a problem,” he said calmly, “and we don’t have firm evidence of age. I would say we stand a fifty percent chance of getting assigned a magistrate who won’t consider DNA in a case involving the son of Patricia Nyambo.” He looked at Mariam. “That said, we should talk to the Director of Public Prosecution. If he agrees, we should co-prosecute.”
The Garden of Burning Sand Page 8
