Margaret Truman's Allied in Danger

by Margaret Truman

  CHAPTER

  55

  PORT HARCOURT, NIGERIA

  Portland, Brixton, and Chambers deplaned into the Port Harcourt airport and were immediately immersed in a sea of people. Shrill voices cut through the general din competing with a constant series of PA announcements, crying babies, rhythmic music coming from boom boxes, and shouts in a wide variety of languages.

  “I have to get my suitcase,” Chambers said as they skirted two men selling T-shirts with photos of Hollywood actresses on them.

  “Your suitcase is a pain,” Brixton said. “You should use a carry-on.”

  “But I didn’t,” Chambers said sharply. He turned to Portland. “Where is this Gomba fellow we’re supposed to meet?”

  “He said he’d be just outside the main entrance,” Portland replied, leading the way in that direction through throngs of other passengers, and peddlers selling everything from trinkets to medicine guaranteed to cure all ailments known to man, and some that weren’t.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Chambers said.

  “Yeah, you do that,” Brixton said.

  “Lay off him, Robert,” Portland said.

  Brixton ignored the admonition and asked, “Do you know what Gomba looks like?”

  “He sent a text message saying that he’d be wearing a yellow hat with a big brim.”

  Brixton snickered. “Great. So all we have to do is find a black guy in a yellow hat.”

  They managed to reach the entrance to the terminal and stopped for a moment to get their bearings before going through the doors to the front of the building, where they encountered as many people as had been inside. Portland stood on his toes and searched for Gomba.

  “There he is,” he said, pointing to where a long line of cars waited, their engines running, owners standing by them.

  “Jeffrey Gomba?” Portland said to the person in the yellow hat leaning on a silver Mercedes. He wore a black suit, and an open-necked white shirt with decorative folds on the chest, a tux shirt. Bare feet were encased in sandals. But the moment he said it he realized that the wearer of the yellow hat was a woman, a stunningly beautiful one with a perfectly chiseled cinnamon-colored oval face and a female body that was barely contained by what she wore.

  “You’re Portland?” the woman asked.

  “Right. This is Robert Brixton, a close friend.”

  Gomba extended her hand, whose nails were tipped in a vivid red nail polish. “I appreciate you picking us up,” Portland said, “but I have to admit that I’m surprised that—”

  “My pleasure,” Gomba said. She looked beyond Portland. “Where is the third person?” Her voice had a discernible cultured lilt to it.

  “He’s getting his checked baggage,” Portland said. “You’re … you’re a woman.”

  Her laugh was guttural. “I was when I got up this morning.”

  “Your name is Jeffrey?”

  A lighter laugh this time. “Thanks to my daddy. I’m the youngest of five daughters. My father always wanted a son, but that wasn’t to be, so he gave me a boy’s name.” She looked beyond Brixton and Portland. “Big mistake checking baggage,” she said. “Takes too much time.”

  “Tell me about it,” Brixton groused. He’d found the conversation between the beautiful woman with a male name and Portland amusing.

  Gomba lit a cigarillo and offered one to them. “Lino cigarillos,” she said. “The best.”

  They declined.

  “Welcome to Nigeria,” Gomba said, taking in the chaos surrounding them. “There are lots of problems here.”

  “So I’ve read,” Portland said. “You—you act as a guide?”

  “I do whatever I must to make a living in this crazy land. You need something? Gomba will get it for you. You have a problem? Gomba will solve it.”

  “A jack-of-all-trades,” Brixton said.

  “What is that?” Gomba asked.

  “Just a saying,” Brixton said. He looked at his watch. “Where the hell is Chambers?”

  Gomba, too, checked her watch. “We must leave,” she said. “It is difficult to drive at night where we are going.”

  “Where are we going?” Brixton asked, searching for Chambers in the crowd.

  “To meet my friends who will help you,” Gomba answered.

  “Who are they?” Brixton asked over the din.

  Gomba’s answer was interrupted by a uniformed Nigerian police officer who ordered Gomba to move her car. Gomba smiled and said something in one of Nigeria’s myriad native languages. The officer responded in kind. The confrontation was resolved when the officer accepted naira notes from Gomba and walked away without saying another word.

  “You bought him off,” Brixton said.

  Gomba laughed. “It is just a business transaction. It was easy. Usually they want more, always more.”

  “Everybody in Nigeria seems to be involved in these so-called business transactions.” As Brixton said it he thought of Flo in Los Angeles and wished that he were there with her. He wished he were anywhere but Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

  Chambers eventually emerged from the terminal carrying his suitcase.

  “It’s about time,” Brixton said.

  Gomba greeted Chambers, who also displayed surprise that the person they were meeting was a woman. She commented on his African dress.

  “It’s comfortable,” Chambers said.

  “You look like a Nigerian,” Gomba said, “except for—”

  “I know,” said Chambers. “I’m the wrong color.”

  “A little makeup will fix that,” Gomba said cheerily. “Come. We’re losing time.” Gomba threw Chambers’s luggage in the trunk with the other bags and urged them to get in the car. Once they were—Portland took the front passenger seat—Gomba pulled away from the curb, cut off a panel truck and two cars, and drove across a median divider, the right wheels digging into the grassy strip.

  “Whoa!” Brixton exclaimed.

  “Not to worry,” Gomba said over her shoulder. “I am a very good driver, only had a few tickets.”

  Darkness began to set in as they rode in silence, Chambers and Brixton wincing each time Gomba had to navigate multiple tie-ups on the roads she chose. She once had to skirt a crater that slowed traffic to a crawl, bringing forth a string of curses from her. They seemed always to be surrounded by okadas, motorbikes whose reckless drivers caused Brixton to mutter, “They’re nuts, like the Japs and kamikaze.”

  “Do you mind telling us where we’re going?” Chambers asked, hoping his question wouldn’t result in Gomba taking her eyes off the road.

  “You will soon see,” their guide said. “You need help? Jeffrey Gomba is here to help you. Patience! It is a virtue.” A loud laugh followed. “You can call me Jeffy,” she added. “Sounds more feminine, doesn’t it?”

  They eventually left the more populated areas between the airport and the city of Port Harcourt and were now on narrow dirt roads. To their left and right were the waters of the Niger Delta’s twisting streams, rivers, and lakes, sparkling in the moon’s rays. The roads narrowed even more, causing Jeffy to drive slowly to avoid hitting rocks that were strewn everywhere. As they progressed, a feeling of unease permeated the car.

  Chambers kept asking where they were headed, to Brixton’s annoyance, although he, too, had become edgy. He knew that Portland had engaged Gomba on the advice of someone at the British Embassy in D.C., but he couldn’t help but wonder whether they’d ended up in some sort of trap. Who was this woman who called herself Jeffy, this beautiful Nigerian wearing a black suit, tux shirt, and yellow floppy-brimmed hat? For all Brixton knew she might be driving them to their demise.

  “Tell me a little about yourself!” Brixton yelled over the seatback to her, suffering the same anxiety as Chambers.

  “Almost there,” was Jeffy’s nonresponsive reply. “Almost there.”

  There was a jetty perched on the edge of a small waterway. She stopped the car, left the headlights on, got out, and walked to the edge of the rickety woo
den dock. Her passengers joined her, their every step causing the dock to sway. There was a sour smell in the heavy humid air, an oppressive odor of gasoline or motor oil coupled with human excrement.

  “What are we doing here?” Chambers asked, his voice belying his nervousness.

  Portland, who’d remained silent for most of the trip, now spoke up. “He’s right,” he told Jeffy. “What the hell are we doing here in the dark?”

  The silence was broken by the sound of an approaching motorboat. Jeffy waved to it before going to her car to turn off the lights and to lock it. When she returned, the boat, which had been shrouded in darkness, now came into view. It was an older craft, wooden, with a makeshift patterned bedsheet stretched over its occupants. Jeffy trained a flashlight on it. The paint on the hull had flaked off in large swatches. It had once been blue. Now its sides were weathered gray.

  Three men in the boat exchanged greetings. The young man operating the engine throttled back, causing the motor to burp and balk, with sounds occasionally resuming a low rumble. His two colleagues were also young. They were black, of course, their faces coming and going in the erratic motion of Jeffy’s flashlight. One, who was bare-chested, wore a bright orange band on his head that almost obscured his eyes. Another was dressed in a one-piece camouflage outfit and cradled an AK-47 in his arms. The boat’s operator had an unusually elongated face that never changed its stoic expression. Brixton’s take on him was that the smile gene had been absent at his birth.

  “Get in, my friends,” Jeffy told Portland, Brixton, and Chambers.

  “Why?” Chambers asked.

  “Where are we going in that thing?” Brixton demanded.

  “As I have told you, to meet the people who will help you,” Jeffy said. Her pleasant, friendly tone was now replaced by a stern voice. “You must trust me,” she said. “If you do not trust me I—”

  “I just don’t want to be kept in the dark like this,” Portland said.

  Jeffy laughed. “‘In the dark,’”she said. “Very clever. Come on, man, all of you get in. We don’t have all night.”

  Portland was the first to scramble aboard, followed by Brixton. Chambers appeared to be deciding whether to join them. “Come on, man,” Jeffy said. “Wasting time is not good.”

  “Are we going to a hotel?” Chambers asked.

  “Later, man,” said Jeffy. “First we make our plans.”

  As the boat’s operator advanced the throttle, the engine protested and grumbled before catching and propelling them away from the dock. Chambers looked back at Gomba’s car and wondered whether he’d ever see his suitcase again. He was also aware of the way the man with the AK-47 stared at him. He forced a smile and indicated his African garb with his hand. The man’s stony stare never changed, the whites of his large eyes his only discernible feature in the darkness of the swamp they’d entered.

  Jiffy pulled a flask from her inside jacket pocket and offered it to Portland, who sat beside her on one of the boat’s four bench seats.

  “What is it?” Portland asked.

  “Ogogoro, man,” she said. “Very good gin. My father makes it from the juice of the raffia palms. Very powerful, good for your stomach and your sinuses. You listen to Dr. Gomba.”

  “You’re a medicine man, too,” Portland commented.

  “Medicine woman,” she corrected. “I am a registered nurse among other things. Doing many things is the only way to survive in Nigeria unless you work for the oil companies.” She spit over the side. “I would rather die than do that!”

  The boat’s pilot made a sharp left turn into a channel flanked by mangroves, their branches hanging low over the water and forcing everyone to crouch in their seats to avoid being hit by them. Minutes later they broke free of the mangrove canopy and were in a cove with a small, sandy beach.

  “This is it?” Portland asked as the boat’s pilot ran it full throttle up onto the sand.

  “What is this place?” Chambers asked.

  “We are among friends,” Jeffy said, “good friends who will help you.”

  “Who are these friends?” Portland asked.

  “Men who share your vision of how our people have been raped by the big oil companies, their land polluted and destroyed, their families torn apart by greed.”

  “What is this, some MEND operation?” Brixton asked. “That’s what it’s called, isn’t it, MEND?”

  Gomba answered with a simple nod as the young men in the boat hopped out and manually pulled the boat as far up on the beach as possible. Portland, Brixton, and Chambers climbed from the beached boat and were soon surrounded by a dozen men carrying weapons of various types, some of whom greeted Jeffy Gomba warmly. Their chatter was indecipherable to Brixton, Portland, and Chambers, who stood awkwardly on the perimeter of the knot of people. Jeffy eventually introduced them to the Nigerians, not by name but by “my good friends.”

  Most eyes were on Chambers, whose African garb had garnered attention, but the others were also acknowledged. Brixton’s expression mirrored his confusion at why they were there, and where they would go next. His question was answered when the group moved from the beach to a campground of sorts, a series of ramshackle huts fronted by a makeshift sidewalk made of wooden slats lashed together. Beyond the huts was a larger building, a one-story partially completed structure made of cinder blocks and wooden panels that had been haphazardly fitted together. Old clothing was wedged into gaps to keep out the elements. A porch sagged in front of the building. Above it a flag made of white bath towels waved in the evening breeze. They would later learn that the flag was in honor of Egbesu, who, Jeffy explained, was a mythical spirit worshiped by her Ijaw ethnic group. The odor of oil and human waste was even stronger now. They passed what served as an open-air latrine, a mud flat containing human feces and urine. Chambers gagged but managed not to vomit.

  If there was any doubt that the encampment housed fighters, two pits surrounded by sandbags contained machine guns manned by members of the group. A half-dozen other men, their automatic weapons and rifles propped at their sides, lolled about on mattresses that had long ago been discarded from the beds they’d serviced.

  Gomba led her three guests up onto the porch and indicated they were to take seats on barrels that served as chairs.

  “What’s going on?” Brixton whispered as he sat next to Portland.

  “Beats me, mate,” Portland replied.

  Jeffy disappeared inside, returning minutes later accompanied by a tall, slender older man with white hair, dressed in purple coveralls and sneakers, and a young man carrying a battered black director’s chair. Jeffy didn’t introduce them by name. All she said was, “The commander wishes to welcome you.”

  The three men stood. The commander smiled and indicated that they were to resume their seats. When they had, the young man set down the director’s chair. The commander took it and instructed his young aide to bring refreshments for his guests.

  “Jeffy says you are good men to be trusted,” he said in almost flawless English. Brixton, Portland, and Chambers looked at one another before Portland said, “Thank you for your hospitality, sir.”

  The commander looked down from the porch at a dozen members of his ragtag army who’d gathered to witness the meeting. “I am afraid that I do not have much to offer in the way of hospitality,” the commander said, “but we do our best. Jeffy tells me that you have come to Nigeria on a mission. Is this correct?”

  “A mission?” Portland said. “Yes, I suppose you could call it that.”

  “A mission to avenge the murder of your son,” said the commander.

  “That’s right,” Portland replied.

  “A terrible thing when a son is murdered.”

  Portland said nothing. But Brixton spoke.

  “You’re right, sir,” he said, “about why we’re here. But I have to admit I don’t have any idea why we’ve ended up in the middle of a swamp.” He batted away a mosquito that attacked his face. “My friend David wants to confront the man w
ho shot and killed his son, a Frenchman who heads up a security force here.”

  “Alain Fournier,” the commander said flatly. “SureSafe.”

  “You know him?” Brixton asked.

  The commander smiled. “Of course we know him,” he said. “He is known to every Nigerian who lives and works in the delta—and is hated by all.”

  “Your people have had run-ins with him?” Chambers asked, wanting to be part of the conversation.

  Another knowing smile from the commander. “You might say that, sir. Run-ins? Yes, we have had many of those with Mr. Fournier.” He turned his attention to Portland. “What do you wish to accomplish by confronting Fournier?”

  It was a question that Portland had been grappling with ever since he’d made the decision to come to Nigeria. His stab at formulating an answer was postponed by the arrival of the commander’s aide carrying a tray containing a plate of small fried balls of food of an unknown origin, and small glasses of an equally mysterious beverage.

  “Please,” the commander said. “Enjoy.”

  “What is it?” Chambers asked.

  “Dough balls,” said the commander. “Quite tasty. The drink is paraga, a specialty of Nigeria, a mix of herbs and spirits.”

  Portland and Chambers took glasses as a courtesy to their host. Brixton didn’t. He’d had enough of this macabre nighttime gathering in a swamp with a bunch of Nigerian militants. That wasn’t why he’d accompanied Portland to Nigeria. He said, “Look, Mr. Commander, we appreciate all this, but the reason we’re here is for my friend David to confront the man who killed his son. That’s it, pure and simple. I thought that your friend Ms. Gomba would pick us up, take us to a hotel, and help plan how the confrontation would take place. I have to admit that we were shocked that she was a woman. I mean—”

  “Jeffy Gomba may be a woman,” said the commander, “but she has the heart of a warrior.”

  “Yeah, I don’t doubt that. She’s good-looking, too. But I’d like to know why you and your friends got involved.”

  His question coincided with his first swallow of the potent paraga. It assaulted his sinuses. His eyes watered and his throat felt as though a scalding liquid had been poured down it. Chambers, his glass poised at his lips, put it down. Portland wheezed and gasped, returned his glass to the tray, and managed to say, “It’s—it’s very strong.”