“He’s part of this.” Urgency sharpened his voice. “Better that you not know the details. When we get closer, I’ll explain.”
She got out of bed. Slipping off her nightgown, she turned to him. “What can I take?”
“Only what you’re wearing.”
She hesitated, as though absorbing what might lie ahead. Then she hurriedly opened a drawer and threw on a blouse and blue jeans. “Let’s go,” Pierce said. “We’re taking the tunnel.”
She gave him a questioning look. “What about Edo?”
“He can’t know, for his sake. Let’s hope he doesn’t hear us leave.”
Quickly but quietly, they descended the main staircase, briefly looking about the darkened house before going to the kitchen. Marissa snatched two flashlights from a drawer, giving one to Pierce, before they took the back stairs to the cellar.
Kneeling, Pierce pushed aside the barrel lid and removed the stone that hid the darkened shaft. “You first.”
Marissa began climbing down the ladder. Glancing up, she said, “There’s no one to cover the tunnel. If they come inside, they’ll see it.”
Pierce wrestled the lid to a position where it partially obscured the opening. “All we need’s an hour,” he said. Then he climbed into the hole as Marissa, standing at the bottom, held her flashlight so that he could see. Pausing, he pulled the loose stone into place, covering the opening, then descended until he stood beside Marissa.
The dank smell of moist earth filled Pierce’s nostrils, intensifying his claustrophobia. “Have you ever done this before?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then follow me.”
Holding out his own flashlight, Pierce led her into the darkened maw. His feet splashed into a puddle of water. “We’re below sea level,” Marissa said.
She did not need to explain; at any time the tunnel could collapse and fill with water. Pierce accelerated his pace, pushing ahead the few feet of yellow light and shadow provided by his flashlight. The tunnel narrowed. His elbow banged into a timber, causing dirt to crumble at his feet. Pierce started; behind him, he heard Marissa gasp.
The wall held. More cautiously, Pierce began moving again. “How long will it take?” she asked.
“Twenty minutes or so.”
As he spoke, the musty, suffocating air caught in his throat. How much oxygen was there? he wondered. His steps quickened slightly, splashing water again.
“Deeper,” Marissa said tightly.
“If it was flooded,” Pierce assured her, “we’d know by now.”
He was not certain of this. Silently, they kept moving.
Minutes passed. Their path became mud; the pools of water deepened. Pierce imagined the walls collapsing, sealing them beneath the earth. He had a brief but intense memory of his parents’ home, then his apartment in San Francisco. Perhaps this was how insanity felt—glimmers of lucidity in a darkened world. Then Pierce heard the sound of falling earth.
Slowly but completely, the walls behind Marissa began to crumble. Wrenching her forward, Pierce ran headlong, and then his flashlight found the ladder.
Behind them, he saw that the last few feet of tunnel had held. Water began to seep around his feet. Pointing at the ladder he urged, “Take it.”
She edged past him, grasped the ladder, and climbed with the swift agility of fright. Pierce aimed the flashlight to help her see. When she reached the top, he said, “Push.”
As she did, the floor of the shack opened. Pierce waited until she disappeared. Then he climbed the ladder. At the top, he saw Marissa peering at the lunar landscape of the garbage dump. Closing the cover to the tunnel, Pierce stood beside her, searching the ruins for the forms of human beings.
There was no one. Perhaps two hundred yards away, the spire of the flare pipe rose from the beach, its giant orange flame brilliant against the night sky. Pierce doused his flashlight, then hers. “Follow me,” he said.
Together they began to clamber across the field of metal and garbage, nerves jangling at the crunch of their steps on rusted metal. Pierce thought of meeting the soldier Femu in this place; by now he might be dead, or wishing for death. He focused his attention on the flare. As the distance closed, they could hear its roar, feel its heat. Sweat glistened on Marissa’s forehead.
Changing course, Pierce began to circle the flare, keeping the same distance. Suddenly he could see the beach. Hurrying, he led Marissa toward the edge of the flare’s light, where the beach became shadowy again. As the darkness concealed them, he slowed, breathing hard, then looked back toward the Okari compound. On the far side of the oil flare, it sat on the hill above the beach, a half mile distant. He saw no sign of soldiers.
Pierce faced the ocean and turned on his flashlight. He kept the light on as he counted to ten. When he turned it off, a light appeared above the darkness of the water.
He took Marissa’s hand, leading her to the water’s edge. The light on the water vanished. As they waded into the surf, Pierce heard the outboard motor, then saw the outline of a boat. It glided toward them, its motor idling. “Get in,” a man’s voice ordered.
Touching the small of Marissa’s back, Pierce urged her forward. A hand reached out from the darkness of the boat, pulling her inside. Pierce climbed in after her. As the man pushed the throttle, his ruddy, weathered face came into the half-light. Turning to Marissa, Pierce nodded toward their pilot. “This is Trevor Hill. He’s taking us to Petrol Island.” Facing Hill, Pierce asked, “Are you set?”
“As much as I can be,” Hill responded. “Needless to say, I didn’t file a flight plan. Too much to explain.”
Marissa looked bewildered. “Where are we going?”
“To an airstrip on Petrol Island,” Pierce responded. He did not wish to tell her that the flight was unauthorized; that Hill was leaving PGL and stealing one of its planes; that this man was risking his life, and theirs. Leaning forward, Pierce murmured, “What about Van Daan?”
“Sleeping, I hope—since we suspended him, he’s been confined to Petrol Island under watch. But God knows who he works for, or how they might react.” Hill glanced over his shoulder. “Enough talk for now.”
Without lights, they navigated the choppy waters toward Petrol Island, perhaps a mile distant. They moved slowly but steadily; if Hill had been drinking before Pierce called, he showed no sign of it now. Pierce prayed that this was true. If all went well, Hill had a plane to fly, and thick banks of what looked like rain clouds had begun to obscure the moon. Marissa shivered. Though it was not cold, Pierce put his arm around her.
For half an hour, they moved across the water toward Petrol Island, Hill searching for patrol boats. If their escape had been discovered, their pursuers would consider water their most likely course—and since FREE’s raid, Hill had told Pierce, at the request of PGL Okimbo had increased the patrols cruising the waters between the island and Port George. “There,” Hill said softly.
Some distance away, but close enough to provoke fear, a patrol boat cut the darkness with a beam of light. Hill shut off the motor. Helpless, they drifted, watching the light of the patrol boat scan the water. Marissa grasped Pierce’s hand. The patrol boat kept coming closer. The low growl of its motor grew more ominous.
Marissa’s grip tightened. The beam of light swept within twenty yards of Hill’s boat, then back again. Pierce could see the outlines of the soldiers looking to each side. Then the boat moved on as they continued to float silently, unseen.
Pierce felt Marissa exhale. Hill kept watching until the boat had nearly vanished. Then he restarted his motor, glancing at the darkened sky.
They forged across the water. A half hour crept by. As Petrol Island grew closer, Pierce spotted the lights of a boatyard.
Cutting back on the throttle, Hill steered the boat toward the side of the dock. When they reached it, Hill inclined his head toward a wooden ladder and threw Pierce a rope line. Climbing onto the dock, Pierce lashed the rope to a post. Marissa followed him up the ladder, then Hill.
>
At the end of the catwalk was an open jeep. Hill got in the driver’s seat, Pierce beside him, as Marissa slipped into the back. Sounding relieved, Hill said, “Just a couple of miles to the airstrip.”
Hill navigated the jeep along a narrow road. As they turned onto the main thoroughfare, a four-lane highway, the world of Petrol Island materialized around them—the refinery to one side, the compound to the other. They headed toward the compound, passing a white man with a woman passenger, likely a prostitute from Hooker Village. Their headlights caught a jeep filled with soldiers coming toward them in the opposite lane. Over his shoulder, Hill snapped at Marissa, “Duck.”
She curled sideways, head pressed to the seat. As the jeep came closer, Hill gave the driver a careless wave. When the man waved back, Pierce felt his eyes close.
“Nearly there,” Hill murmured.
No one spoke. There was no more traffic on the road. Moments later, Hill turned down a side road. Beyond a field of grass, Pierce saw four small planes sitting on the tarmac. The airstrip was dark. “I closed it down,” Hill said. “Bad weather coming. There shouldn’t be anyone here.”
The road ended at the tarmac. Hill got out, then Pierce and Marissa. They followed him toward a propeller plane at the far end, shrouded in darkness by the lowering clouds. “It’s small but stable,” Hill observed. “I’ve flown these all over Africa.”
He stopped abruptly. A split second after Hill, Pierce saw the jeep parked beside a wing of the plane. “Going for a spin?” a thick voice asked.
Pierce froze; he knew the voice at once. From the shadow of the plane stepped Roos Van Daan, two young Luandian soldiers at his side. As they approached, the soldiers aimed their handguns at Trevor Hill. “You shouldn’t have checked on available planes,” Van Daan told Hill. “Why ask when you’ve closed the airstrip?”
“Who’s paying you?” Pierce demanded.
Van Daan’s teeth flashed. “That, Counselor, is your last question. And I object.” Glancing at the soldiers, he said, “They were trying to escape. Shoot them all.”
Pierce reached for Marissa’s hand. One of the soldiers looked from Van Daan to Hill. Calmly, Hill spoke to him in a native dialect. As Van Daan turned to the soldier, puzzled, the man put his gun to Van Daan’s temple and fired.
Eyes wide with shock, Van Daan sagged to the ground, blood spurting from his shattered skull. Gazing down at him, Hill said laconically, “I paid them.”
Fighting shock, Pierce turned to Marissa. She began to tremble. He gripped her shoulders. “Listen,” he said. “Trevor’s flying you to Accra. You’re to go to the American embassy. They’ll get you home from there.”
“Home?” She stared at him in confusion. “What about Bobby?”
Pierce felt the first heavy drop of rain on his face. “PetroGlobal’s brokering a plan. But Bobby won’t go along until you’re safe.”
Her eyes filled with doubt and worry. Pierce could read her thoughts: she was trying to imagine a bargain that her husband would agree to. “You’ve trusted me this far,” Pierce said. “It’s way too late to stop. Now go.”
Marissa blinked at the rain spattering her face. “You’re not coming with me?”
“I’m staying here.” He tried to sound reassuring. “I need to make sure this goes the way it should. I’ll see you on the other side.”
He glanced at Hill. A look of empathy passed through Hill’s eyes: he had just heard Pierce lie about her husband and himself, knowing they both might die. But then so might Hill and Marissa, shot down by Luandian pilots.
Hill spoke to the soldiers in dialect. Each taking a leg, they dragged Van Daan’s body toward the grass. “They worked for Van Daan,” Hill told Pierce, “providing security for Petrol Island—it seems they learned to hate him. They have no idea what’s happening. But they’ll get you back to Port George.”
The first flash of lightning split the night sky. Thunder followed, then sheets of rain. “We’ve got to get up,” Hill shouted.
Pierce turned to Marissa. “Call me from the embassy,” he said quickly. “Please, hurry.”
Swiftly, she kissed him, then ran after Hill with her head down against the rain. Pierce watched until she vanished inside the plane.
18
PIERCE’S RETURN TO PORT GEORGE WAS FILLED WITH FOREBODING and regret, a deep sadness for that already lost, and that which would be lost. For nearly two hours, he and the soldiers retraced Hill’s route in the open boat, soaked by a driving rain that obscured the lights of Port George. Flashes of lightning struck the water, one frighteningly close, followed by thunder so awesome and enveloping that it evoked God’s judgment. Constantly Pierce thought of Marissa, buffeted by these brutal skies above the trackless reaches of the delta. Now and then they saw the streaks of beam lights from a patrol boat; once they hid among the floating mass of oil tankers moored offshore. By the time they reached the harbor at Port George, clothes clinging to their bodies, Pierce felt spent. With a residue of good manners, he shook the two men’s hands and gave them money from his wallet. Then he climbed a ladder and stood on the dock, alone. It was just past two A.M.
Rain pelted him like bullets. He could not return to the Okaris’ compound; but he felt a primal need for shelter, a place to rest and to think. Above the waterfront, the red neon words HOTEL PRESIDENT blinked like a mirage through the sheets of water. Passing between two looming cranes, Pierce headed for the sign.
The hotel was four stories, sterile in its modernity. Pierce paused at its glass entrance. He had nowhere else to go, yet was safe from detection only in the rain. But he could do no good unless he acted—with whatever misgivings—as he would have before Marissa’s escape. He walked into the lobby, drawing the silent stare of a security guard, then went to the front desk and hit a bell for service.
A frail old man appeared; after a flicker of astonishment he pretended there was nothing remarkable about a rain-soaked oyibo, without luggage, appearing like a fugitive to request a room. Eyes downcast, he asked to see Pierce’s passport and a credit card. Pierce had no choice but to comply, knowing that one phone call might bring soldiers to arrest him. Taking a room key, he slipped the old man some cash.
The third-floor room was small and shabby. With the drapes closed, Pierce stripped off his shirt and removed his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans. When he pressed the power button, the phone came on.
He lay back on the bed. His first call was to Rachel Rahv. Hearing her voice mail, he left a terse message: Leave Luandia at once, and take the others with you. Then he called Grayson Caraway.
For a second night, despite the hour, the ambassador was awake. “It’s Damon,” Pierce began. “Tell your friend in Accra to expect a visitor.”
Caraway sounded mildly astounded. “You managed it?”
“So far. It may not work out quite so well for me . . .”
“Where are you?”
“Still in Port George. What do you hear about Okari?”
“Rumors. Two hours ago I called the foreign minister at home. Adu had clearly been drinking, I think out of dread. Ajukwa’s been arrested, he said.”
Pierce sat up. “What does that mean?”
“That something you said stuck with Karama. Though who knows what or why, or how it relates to Okari. But Ajukwa may already be dead: aides who vanish in the middle of the night tend not to reappear.”
For an instant, Pierce absorbed that he might have caused a death without fully comprehending the reason. He pushed the thought aside. “I told Okimbo that Bobby was considering Karama’s offer. Once they learn she’s gone, that’s done. If there’s anything else you can do to save him, now’s the time.”
“I’ve been trying to reach the president. But he’s still focused on the troops.” Pausing, Caraway spoke more softly: “It’s a strange night. There’s more than Ajukwa, I’m afraid. Adu heard that a hangman has been called to Port George. I’m not sure there’s anything else I can do.”
Pierce felt anxiety overcome hi
m. “What can I do, dammit? I’ve got no way of reaching anyone except by a cell phone that needs recharging.”
The ambassador spoke softly. “Assuming the worst, what does a lawyer usually do in these circumstances? Provide hope, I suppose. Or at least what comfort you can—”
“I’m not a priest,” Pierce snapped.
“Surely not. But you knew what Okari’s prospects were, and stayed.” The ambassador’s tone mixed apology and compassion. “I’ll pass along any messages you need me to. But I may be of more use if you’re arrested. After all, you’re an American.”
This touch of weary irony left Pierce with nothing to say. “Good luck,” the ambassador said. “If I hear anything more, I’ll call. Please know, Damon, that I’m sorrier than I can say.”
Pierce thanked him, and got off.
Lying back on the bed, he considered his situation. He had no e-mail, no way of reaching out, nothing but a cell phone and this room. It made him think of Bobby Okari—facing so much worse, alone.
He lay there, envisioning Bobby’s cell. For a time he debated whether to turn off his phone, preserving power, or keep it on for Caraway and Marissa. It was just past four o’clock. The battery had perhaps five hours to go; by then, all of this might be done. He kept the phone on.
No one called. No one came for him.
A little before five, Pierce forced himself to get up, shower, and put on his damp clothes. Then he went to the lobby and out into the street.
The rain had stopped. A young cabbie waited outside, no doubt hoping for an early fare to the airport. Getting in, Pierce said tersely, “Take me to the barracks.”
HE ARRIVED THERE in the first thin light of morning, before the pollution that fouled the air had tinged the dawn with orange. Pierce presented himself to the sentries and asked for Major Bangida.
In moments Bangida appeared, crisply dressed and fully awake. In a sardonic tone, he said, “We’ve been looking for you. Okimbo wasn’t expecting a visit.”
Pierce felt his last hope die; from Bangida’s manner, they knew about Marissa. Fighting back his fear, he followed the major into the courtyard.
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