ECLIPSE

by Richard North Patterson

  Abruptly Bobby sagged. Reaching through the bars, Pierce kept him from collapsing. “Just brace me for a minute,” Bobby murmured.

  He took one deep breath, then another, and gripped the bars again. “After this attempt at assassination failed, Karama decided to hold an election—”

  “Which you called on the Asari to boycott.”

  “Yes—Karama wanted a ‘mandate’ for all the world to see. He left little to chance. Candidates opposing his slate were jailed or killed. His thugs drove off voters and stole their ballots—I saw soldiers cruising through Port George with ballot boxes in their jeep. When a poll watcher complained, Okimbo’s soldiers dropped him at his home with both Achilles tendons cut. The only flaw in Karama’s plan was the Asari.”

  Pierce heard something scurry in Bobby’s cell, perhaps a rat. Bobby seemed not to notice. “After the election, Karama summoned me to his palace in Savior City . . .”

  His voice breaking, Bobby struggled to remain upright.

  “Rest,” Pierce urged him.

  “You must hear this.” Straightening himself, Bobby began speaking, his memory so precise and vivid that Pierce imagined himself there.

  IT WAS PAST midnight. A minion in resplendent dress led a frightened Bobby through a marble sitting room with fifty-foot ceilings and sumptuous French decor. Karama stood in a spotlit garden, hands clasped behind his back, staring through iron bars into the darkened void of what Bobby understood was his personal zoo. The uniform that fit him so precisely had been tailored on Savile Row.

  Gazing at the president’s back, Bobby waited until he turned.

  Even at night, Karama now wore aviator sunglasses; his face showed no emotion, as though seeing Bobby after fifteen years was unremarkable. From the darkness came the growl of what Bobby guessed to be a lion. “You have heard of my zoo?” Karama asked.

  “Yes.”

  “One side houses zebras and giraffes; the other, lions. At first I wondered about their inherent natures before their parents taught them. So I took a lion cub and fed him vegetables in the sitting room, hoping he’d become a house cat.” Karama laughed softly. “He ate the house cat. That ended my experiment with turning lions into vegetarians. Predators will always be predators.”

  Bobby could think of nothing to say. Karama placed a hand on his shoulder. “It is one thing to share a woman, my old friend. Two men cannot share a country.”

  Bobby shook his head. “I care only that my people share what oil brings.”

  “And yet you asked them not to vote.” An undercurrent of anger crept into Karama’s speech. “For this, you demand the attention of the United Nations. What do you imagine—that you will win the Nobel Peace Prize by preening like a peacock on the world stage? Or do you simply enjoy holding me up to ridicule?”

  At once, Bobby knew that Karama still resented his “betrayal” with Ela. “You can end my people’s suffering,” he answered as calmly as he could. “Then they won’t need the world’s help.”

  Suddenly, Karama smiled broadly. “So those who tell me you’re a secessionist have given me false information. This is good news, old friend.”

  “Then let me tell you how to help us—”

  “All in good time,” Karama interrupted with sudden heartiness. “Once you move to Savior City and become my oil minister, we can talk at leisure.”

  Grasping Karama’s purpose, Bobby felt a chill: Karama meant to hold him captive to fear until he became a stranger to his people, forced to mouth Karama’s words. “I’m honored,” Bobby answered slowly. “But my ambitions are for the Asari.”

  Karama’s face became stone. “There’s only one way to achieve them. Join me.”

  “In time, perhaps—”

  “If I manage to win your approval, you mean. Then you will intercede with the world on my behalf.”

  Unsure of how to answer, Bobby remained silent.

  “In time you will let me know your judgment,” Karama said with an eerie smile. “Then I’ll make mine. In the meanwhile, I will have my private jet fly you to Port George.”

  Apprehension flooded Bobby’s mind. Karama had once ordered a rival pushed from a cargo plane at twenty thousand feet. At the least, Karama not only had the power to imprison Bobby in his own fear but, by flying Bobby home so ostentatiously, to spread the rumor that Karama had corrupted him. “Travel safely,” Karama told him softly. “If only for your wife’s sake. They tell me she’s as beautiful as Ela.”

  PIERCE STILL HELD Bobby upright. Through his cloth shirt, Bobby’s ribs felt too close to the skin. His account of Karama’s parting words lingered in the silence.

  “Besides Karama,” Pierce asked, “who wants you out of the way?”

  “PGL. Their manager in the delta, Trevor Hill, seems a decent man. But he doesn’t decide how his bosses deal with us. If the Asari movement manages to spread across the delta, Hill’s superiors may feel that they have too much to lose.”

  “Who else?”

  “Local chiefs paid off by PGL, men like my father.” Briefly, Bobby’s eyes shut again. “The gangs and militias, FREE most of all. They use the goals of the Asari movement to cover their own criminality and greed . . .”

  Bobby’s knees gave way. “Rest,” Pierce urged again.

  “Just hold me up,” Bobby answered fiercely. “I will not face another man sitting in my own filth.”

  Their faces were inches apart. After a moment, Pierce asked, “What about the leaders closest to you, the ones who backed away?”

  Bobby’s eyes clouded. In a softer voice, he answered, “Eric Aboh and the others feared that our movement would disintegrate, leaving them alone. A lone man is frail; only a mass movement can sustain him. Without this, the best of men—even those like Atiku Bara—crumble under the weight of fear and temptation.”

  “But did they conspire with Okimbo?”

  “To frame me? That I do not wish to believe.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Bobby said with sudden force. “You cannot help me by blaming the Asari. What we need now is for Americans to understand how Karama and the oilmen force our people to live, and how your country has become a part of it.

  “It is not just filling your tanks with our petrol. It is a new imperialism where the government cares only that petrotyrants like Karama deliver you from the threat of Osama bin Laden and your disasters in the Middle East.” Anger sustained the strength in Bobby’s voice. “When your military strategists look at Luandia, they don’t see the Asari or others in the delta. All they see is the Muslims in the north, worried they’ll become ‘Islamofascists’ or whatever buzzword they’re using to frighten Americans and ignore the rights of others.

  “Long ago your government should have been shamed by its own arrogance. Instead you continue to blunder through the world pursuing policies you misconceive as clever, and end up with one brutal mess after another—from Vietnam to Iraq—which you then try to correct by creating yet another mess in another country. So now it is Luandia’s turn.”

  Though their perspective was very different, Pierce was struck by how closely Bobby’s vision hewed to Martel’s warning that Luandia was becoming a pawn in the fight for oil. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Help your country see us. My people need the very things America says it stands for: transparency, fair elections, a civil society that nourishes and protects us.” Reaching through the bars, Bobby gripped the front of Pierce’s shirt, eyes glinting with almost feverish passion and, Pierce guessed, exhaustion. “We need schools, roads, water, programs that persuade a new generation of leaders that violence is not the answer. More than that, we need hope. Without hope, the violence of Karama and FREE will create a conflagration that consumes Luandia and companies like PGL.” Bobby’s fingers tightened. “That is my message to America. If the United States cares nothing about what happens here, my people—and yours—will reap what you sow: a delta so savage and so criminal that not even Karama can contain it.

  “That is why
I cannot die. I alone can deliver all of us from this nightmare. Without me, there will be no one left who can negotiate a peace.”

  Pierce looked into Bobby’s eyes. Perhaps sleeplessness and hunger had stripped the veneer of humility from Bobby’s self-belief, exposing its molten core; perhaps his anguish at the massacre cut so deep that to insist on his own transcendence was his only defense against the fear of failure and death. Pierce looked at Bobby’s hands and then into his face, attempting to fathom how this man must feel now. Quietly, he asked, “Do you know anything about who hung those workers?”

  Bobby’s eyes dimmed. “No.”

  “Not followers who might have believed they were acting in your name?”

  “That is not what I believe.”

  “What do you believe?”

  Bobby inhaled, releasing Pierce’s shirt. “That it was Okimbo.”

  “What reason would he have?”

  “If Okimbo fails to crush the Asari movement, he loses what matters most to him, power and money—whether from Karama, PGL, or militia groups like FREE. Maybe he even imagines himself as Karama’s successor.” Bobby spoke more softly. “When I found those men, Okimbo was already there. And yet they were not protected from death.”

  Pierce smiled a little. “I’ve wondered about that myself.”

  Taking Pierce’s hand in both of his, Bobby finished with quiet urgency, “Then do not doubt me, Damon. Help us. Help Marissa.”

  Meeting Bobby’s eyes, Pierce felt the weight of his helplessness. Slowly, he nodded.

  Footsteps sounded behind them, and then the soldier who had taken Pierce to Bobby’s cell led him away again.

  BARA WAS PARKED outside. Above the shantytown Pierce saw a thick cloud of smoke split by tongues of flame. Gunfire sounded in the distance.

  Drained by his encounter with Bobby, Pierce slid into the passenger seat. Bara’s face was grim. “Okimbo?” Pierce asked.

  “Yes. The army’s decimating the so-called neighborhood where they claim the killers of that soldier came from. Unless Bobby lives, that is the face of our future.”

  “So he believes.” Pierce reflected for a moment, then took out his cell phone and asked his security team to book a flight to Waro.

  7

  PIERCE LANDED IN A COCOON OF PROTECTION. AS SOON AS HE GOT off the plane, his chief security adviser, Hank Vorster, shepherded him to a private corner of the airport, cordoned off from the sea of Luan-dians departing and arriving. Though they had never met, Pierce had seen Vorster’s photograph, a safeguard against kidnapping by an impostor. Vorster was a veteran of the South African special forces; the second member of the team—Dennis Clellan, formerly a British marine—awaited them. Though Vorster was taller and sported a beard, both men wore close-cropped hair, looked remarkably fit, and had the same expression of tensile alertness. Their mission, honed by protecting visiting businessmen, was to keep Pierce safe. Their briefing was to the point.

  “It’s forty kilometers to Waro,” Vorster told Pierce. “The traffic is stop-and-go at best, especially on the bridges. That’s where criminals can break into the van and take you away—or, in your case, worse guys pretending to be criminals who work for God knows who.

  “The goal is not to stop between here and our destination. There’ll be a police truck in front and in back of our vehicle, both with a trained driver and an armed guard.” Vorster looked at Pierce intently. “Your job is to follow a few simple rules. If we have to slow down, or there’s trouble, we’ll handle it. Don’t open a window. Don’t make eye contact. Keep your hands where anyone can see them. Some of these guys are twitchy—reach for your cell phone and they’ll shoot you. That we don’t want—a stupid death is unforgivable. Any questions?”

  “Yeah. You just hire Luandian police like they’re security guards?”

  Vorster shrugged. “Everything’s for sale here. These guys don’t make squat.”

  “But don’t they know why I’m here?”

  Vorster grinned. “They think you’re an oil company executive. We’ll wait for someone else to disabuse them.”

  He nodded to Clellan. Looking around warily, they shepherded Pierce through the chaos, one at each elbow.

  THE WHITE SUV was double-parked between two police trucks watched over by Luandian policemen with semiautomatic weapons. Vorster and Clellan hustled Pierce inside it.

  The dark, hawk-faced man in the back, Bryce Martel’s former CIA colleague, extended his hand. “Dave Rubin,” he said. “Welcome to the wonderful world of Waro. Hope we can tell you enough to make the trip worthwhile.”

  Vorster got in front, Clellan behind the wheel. Abruptly, the lead police truck turned on its siren and flashing lights, and the three-vehicle caravan pushed into the six-lane road amid the worst traffic Pierce had ever seen—not only congested but without discernible rules. There were no sidewalks: in the sweltering late-afternoon smog, pedestrians scurried along the edge of the road, inches from being struck; men on mopeds sliced through narrow spaces between cars and trucks; vehicles stopped so abruptly that bumpers often collided. Their caravan careened through traffic, forcing aside other cars and herding pedestrians to the side, the reflexes of each driver so remarkable that Pierce began to laugh. “Is it always like this?”

  Vorster turned to answer. “Unless it’s worse. Traffic governs the life of everyone here—all movement can stop for hours, and you sit there in a catatonic trance, afraid of being snatched or robbed.” He pointed to an adolescent tapping on the window of a stalled car. “He’s selling SIM cards for cell phones. Waro runs on them—it’s the only way you can tell someone you’re suffering from vehicular paralysis.”

  “It’s a metaphor,” Rubin interjected. “You’ll see when we get closer to Waro. Someday soon the traffic will stop, the sewage will back up, the power grid will give out; bands of armed criminals will occupy the hotels, and the whole place will cease to function. No wonder Karama left.”

  “I thought this was a police state,” Pierce said.

  Rubin shook his head. “It’s a kleptocratic autocracy. Karama doesn’t care if Waro is an urban jungle. He doesn’t worry about criminals unless they’re stealing from him. The only ‘law breakers’ he cracks down on are people like Okari.

  “The result is the slow disintegration of civil order—or, in places like the delta, the entire fabric of society. Young men either join a militia or find some other way to extract money from PGL. A teenager who doesn’t like those choices can leave for the city.” His voice filled with disgust. “You saw Port George.”

  The SUV squealed to a stop. Briefly, Pierce was distracted by the sight of a New York Yankees cap passing, as though suspended on air. Peering out, he saw that it belonged to a man without legs, his torso balanced on a skateboard he propelled with his arms. Then the caravan started forward again, sirens screeching. “In the creeks,” Pierce said, “we saw militia men bunkering oil, and no military in sight. That can’t work without graft.”

  From the front seat, Vorster smiled, the corners of his blue eyes crinkling. “Ah,” he said amiably, “the dawn of wisdom.”

  “Aside from Karama,” Rubin told Pierce, “the criminal militias have been Okari’s greatest challenge. But who’s to say that Karama and the militias are strangers to each other? In the grand kleptocracy of Savior Karama, corruption is the sole ideology that can unify opposing forces.”

  “In other words,” Pierce said, “illegal bunkering needs—or feeds—corrupt officials.”

  “Assuredly. But don’t forget the element of competition.” Rubin sat back. “Hank and I make a dime or two advising folks in the oil business about security issues in the delta. So I’ve distilled militia predation to its essence.

  “Start with the raw materials—a pool of youth who are underedu-cated, unemployed, and pissed off that their standard of living is worse because of oil. They go three places: armed gangs with names like ‘Blood Suckers’ and ‘Creek Vipers,’ ethnic militias, or FREE—”

  “What’s
the difference?”

  The SUV lurched, bouncing the three men in their seats as Clellan braked to avoid a boy in a wheelchair who was begging amid heavy traffic. “The gangs are local,” Rubin answered, “the ethnic militias, tribal. FREE is delta-wide, and spouts high-sounding principles it swiped from Okari. But most of these guys originated as election enforcers for rival politicians; all depend on oil theft and kidnapping. The upshot is a proliferation of nonstate rival armies—maybe fifteen thousand men with twice that many weapons—engaged in a Darwinian battle for territory and control.

  “One’s always attacking another. Often the boys are high on confidence builders like pot or cocaine, which don’t do a lot for their judgment—lucky one of the guys you ran into didn’t use your head for target practice. Whatever the inspiration, they kill one another indiscriminately. The more enterprising among them pay the heads of local army units to help eliminate their rivals.”

  Vorster laughed at this. “When I see news about the army battling some gang, I always wonder what other gang paid them.”

  “Unless it’s a local politician,” Rubin amended. “The governor of Asariland uses state oil money to finance a militia group that steals more oil, which in turn funnels him a share of the profits. That also assures him of a standing gang of enforcers available to rig the next election—”

  “Behold,” Vorster announced to Pierce, gesturing toward the windshield. “Beautiful Waro Harbor.”

  The city, Pierce saw, was built on islands connected by a network of bridges, one of which was choking the traffic ahead. As they reached the bridge, Vorster scanned the pedestrians on both sides, alert for danger. Pierce focused on the water. In the foreground was a floating slum, thousands of wooden houses perched on stilts above their own bobbing refuse, their rusted tin roofs wreathed in the haze of cooking fires. A few fishermen in canoes skimmed the surface of the water, as sludgy as an oil slick. The walls of the public housing on the adjacent island had turned a leprous gray-black. In the sooty air, the high-rises beyond looked like a mirage.