Do-Gooder

by J. Leigh Bailey

  “Isaiah—”

  I held up a stalling hand and swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Never mind. Family drama later. How are we going to save Henry?”

  No one had an answer.

  I HAD nightmares that night. Not like the weird stress and ketone-toxicity-induced dreams I’d had when I was sick. These were regular, run-of-the-mill nightmares. I wasn’t in them, not really. I watched the scenes come and go like movie previews. Each trailer starred Henry. Each trailer illustrated a new and horrible torture. Each trailer killed something inside me.

  In one, Shorty shot him, execution-style, when he found out the canisters he’d traded me for were fake.

  In another, Snake Eyes raped him, over and over.

  In one, Henry wasted away from starvation and dehydration.

  In another, an infection growing on his hand from the snakebite spread until Henry’s whole arm was a mess of pus-filled, rotting flesh.

  In one, the animals Henry loved so much slithered and crept into the hut. Snakes and spiders, talapoins and lovebirds, swarmed the room and ate him alive.

  After each one, I woke screaming, heaving, tearing at the bedding and tubes that tangled my limbs.

  After each one Mom or Chuck was there, soothing me back to sleep.

  Needless to say, when I woke up the next morning I was far from refreshed.

  I was, however, determined.

  “Can I use your computer?”

  Chuck had left at some point, to shower or to eat or something. Mom sat in a visitor’s chair (they’d had a second chair brought in during the night) doing something on her tablet.

  She looked up in surprise. I guess she hadn’t known I’d woken up. She set the tablet down on the bed next to me. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. Stronger.” I sat up and ran my hands through my greasy hair. “In desperate need of a shower. Hungry.”

  “I think we can take care of some of that.”

  While she called the nurse in to order a meal and find out if I needed any kind of special clearance to take a shower, I grabbed her tablet and started a search. No doubt The Suits had some kind of fabulous computer query or program to get the information they needed. Since I didn’t have access to such a thing, I would go to the Internet. I accessed a satellite mapping site and pulled up an image of Cameroon. I zoomed in on Doumé and found the road we’d taken. I tracked our route to the turnoff onto P4 and zoomed in closer and closer. I don’t know what I expected, but the clarity of the image surprised me. At its closest zoom, I could actually make out buildings along the roadside. They were fuzzy and indistinct, but they were clearly buildings.

  “They’ll have some food brought up in a little bit, and you’re free to take a shower in a minute. A nurse will be in to wrap your hand to keep the IV dry.” Mom peered over my shoulder as she delivered her updates. “What are you working on?”

  “I’m finding Henry.” I tapped the spot on the map where I was pretty sure we’d come across the mercenaries. I switched to a notes screen on the tablet and entered the longitude and latitude coordinates so I could find it again.

  “You should leave that to—”

  “To whom? The nameless government agency that’s willing to sacrifice Henry? I don’t think so.”

  She sighed. “I know this is… hard, but there’s nothing you can do. Especially from a hospital in Brussels.”

  “Which is why I’m going back to Cameroon with Dad.”

  “What?”

  Before I could answer—though, honestly, I intended to ignore her startled questions—a nurse walked in with plastic wrap and tape.

  “Can you do me a favor while I shower?” I asked as the nurse wrapped my hand.

  “As long as it doesn’t include a plane ticket to Yaoundé.”

  “Merci,” I said, thanking the nurse when she was done. She hovered a moment while I stood, probably making sure I didn’t fall down. It was a close call. My legs still felt like they were made of taffy instead of bones and muscle.

  I made my way carefully to the attached bathroom, dragging the IV stand with me. “Can you find out if Wendy is okay?”

  “Wendy?” My normally composed, supercapable mom sounded baffled. At any other time I’d have taken pride in that. Right now, I just needed information.

  “Yeah. The gun I had? I took it from her. I think her dad’s abusing her. I want to make sure she’s okay.” I shut the door behind me before she could answer.

  “Isaiah!”

  There used to be a time when all I had to think about was an upcoming quiz or whether Mom would let me borrow the car to go out with my friends. Now I worried about Wendy and Henry and mercenaries and abusive fathers and sarin gas. Sarin for God’s sake. Because of my stupid decision, Mom had to send me halfway around the world. Because of me, she’d had to come halfway around the world. I figured I was doing the right thing by not telling anyone where I’d gotten the gun. I’d protected Wendy. Or so I thought. But I’d known—I’d known—that her father was a problem. Taking the gun wouldn’t have changed that.

  The door to the bathroom opened. “I’m putting a clean gown on the counter,” Mom said.

  I peeked around the edge of the shower curtain. “Any chance of getting some pajama bottoms or sweats or something?” Because, yeah, with all the important crap I had to worry about, at least pajama bottoms were something that could be attained without risking life or limb.

  “Sure,” Mom said before shutting the door.

  The trouble with the plan I had brewing was I didn’t know how much I could trust my memories. Sure, now I felt fine, almost back to normal in fact, but for so much of the time I’d spent at the mercenaries’ camp, I was a little loopy. Did I know what I thought I knew? Would what I knew even be helpful in any way? The list of things I didn’t know was much longer.

  I didn’t know how many people manned the camp.

  I didn’t know any names.

  I couldn’t even swear to how many days I’d been there.

  I didn’t know if any of the other huts were occupied.

  I didn’t know if there were any kind of security measures in place. I assumed guards, but not how many or where they were stationed.

  I used a washcloth to scrub at the dirt that had taken up a permanent position under my fingernails.

  Who was I kidding? I was a kid. A bratty, self-centered kid, and I thought I’d somehow be able to rescue Henry?

  I threw the washcloth into the corner and grabbed the tiny bottle of shampoo. By the time I’d washed and rinsed my hair twice, I had a plan.

  Chapter 24

  “I SENT a couple of e-mails to find out what I can about Wendy,” Mom said as I exited the bathroom. One of my hands held on to the IV pole, the other held the back of the chintzy hospital gown closed. “I also called your father and asked him to pick you up some more comfortable clothes.”

  I nodded and settled back into the bed. My body may have been tired, but my mind was energized. “Can I use your tablet again?”

  She handed the device over. “What are you hoping to find?”

  “I’m going to find Henry.” I opened the correct app. “Do you have a pen and some paper?”

  She dug a pen and a pocket-sized notebook out of her purse. I barely acknowledged the items before I pulled up a search engine and got to work.

  Twenty minutes later, Chuck showed up with a couple shopping bags.

  “I know where they’re keeping Henry.” I shoved the tablet at him.

  His brows lowered in confusion. “What?”

  “Here.” I pointed at a spot on the map.

  Chuck dropped the bags and sat next to me. He peered at the satellite image of the eastern edge of Cameroon and the western part of the Central African Republic showing on the screen. “Are you sure?”

  “Almost positive.”

  “How’d you figure it out?” He zoomed the map out until the whole western half of the African continent was displayed, then slowly zoomed back in.
<
br />   “Well, by doing the same thing your Nameless Agency friends are probably doing. I did a search for lumber companies—past and present—in Cameroon and the Central African Republic and plotted their location on a map. If we figure it took four hours at the most to get from where the mercenaries picked us up to get to their camp, and if we figure an average speed of, say, thirty miles an hour—there’s no way they were able to travel any faster than that, especially given the terrain of the area—we would have been within 120 miles from that point. Then I looked at each lumber company on the map that was within that area.”

  “Was this the only site that matched your criteria?”

  “There were three. One company I was able to confirm was still open and running, so I could ignore that. The great thing about this program,” I said, pointing to the satellite imaging logo in the corner, “is that you can zoom in close enough to see some of the buildings. The other site I identified has two big buildings and only two smaller buildings that I can see. This one, you can see the one big building and the row of smaller buildings along the side. I can’t zoom in close enough to see activity—though I bet your Nameless Agency friends could do it—but this matches what I remember.”

  The site I’d found was in the Central African Republic, near the edge of the Dzanga-Sangha National Park. Strange to think I’d been transported over the border into another country without knowing it.

  “Let me make a call,” Chuck said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a cell phone.

  “No.” My hand covered his. “Not yet.”

  “We need to tell them what you found out.”

  “I’m not telling them anything until Henry’s safe.”

  “Be reasonable,” he said.

  “No.” I would have said more, but a hospital aide came in with a tray.

  “Lunch,” she said, depositing the meal in front of me. Mom dug into one of the bags Chuck brought in. She pulled out a pair of blue-checked flannel pajama pants. “Why don’t you go get dressed real quick, then come out and eat your lunch?” It was phrased as a suggestion, but there was no denying the command in Mom’s tone.

  I grabbed the pants and dragged my IV pole back into the bathroom. I may not have had access to both my parents over the last ten years, but even I could read the tension between Mom and Chuck. Yeah, the adults wanted to talk out of earshot of the kid.

  I made sure to keep the door open a hair. Now if only they didn’t keep their voices too low to hear. I held my breath, leaning into the doorframe.

  “You can’t tell me you don’t have contacts,” Mom said.

  I didn’t quite catch Chuck’s reply. His words were a barely audible murmur of sound.

  “Have you changed so much? The man I married twenty years ago wouldn’t leave some poor kid in the hands of militants. He’d have done anything in his power to help.”

  “Jesus, Julianne, you didn’t see him. Isaiah almost died. I had to choose. Isaiah or Henry. It’s killing me, knowing he’s still there. I hope to God I never have to make that kind of choice again.” He said something else, but I couldn’t quite hear the words. Then he said, “Henry’s a good kid. I would give anything…. Isaiah, is everything okay in there?”

  I realized I’d been too still. Damn it. “Yeah, I… I’ve got to go pee. I’ll be right there.” Crap. Stupid, stupid excuse. Now I had to take a piss or they would wonder.

  “Do you need help?” Mom asked.

  “Jesus, Mom. I definitely don’t need help taking a leak.” Thankfully they’d removed the catheter earlier, or this would be even more awkward.

  I forced myself to empty my already mostly empty bladder. I flushed, then washed my hands quickly. I bit the tags off my pants and, with more difficultly that I had expected, got them pulled up. The checked pattern clashed with the green dotted hospital gown, but at least I didn’t have to worry about mooning a passing nurse.

  “Hurry up,” Mom called. “Your food is getting cold.”

  I’m not sure what Mom was worried about. My lunch consisted of some kind of brothy soup, cold, dry toast, and a small pot of tea. Not much could improve the meal, not even heat.

  Mom and Chuck each sat in a visitor’s chair next to my bed. The room was full of what would probably be called a weighty silence. It had to be weird, didn’t it, for my mom and dad to be in the same room together after not seeing each other in so long? Well, I was about to make it even weirder.

  “So, I think we need to talk about Mrs. Okono.”

  Chuck’s eyebrows rose in surprise, and sorrow flooded his eyes. “Delphine? Why?”

  “When Shorty brought her in—” I swallowed. I had hoped that thinking back on that day would be like remembering a dream. The whole thing had been surreal. But even now, thousands of miles away, I couldn’t distance myself from the images of her death. Knife flashing, blood spurting. Henry losing it. I cleared my throat. “When they had her, she said something. She said that she had to keep the chemicals from reaching the border. Which means, first of all, that she knew about them. Secondly, it indicates that maybe she was part of a group who was actively working against the mercenaries, or at least against whoever paid them. Right?”

  I glanced at Mom. Was this weird for her? We were talking about Chuck’s girlfriend. Or, at the least, his friend-with-benefits. A lady who’d been assassinated in front of me. She didn’t look upset. Or, more accurately, she didn’t look jealous or freaked out. Instead she looked… sad. Sad for my dad? That he’d lost a friend?

  She reached out and took Chuck’s hand in hers. “You can’t protect her anymore.”

  Using his free hand, Chuck rubbed at his eyes. “Delphine was part of an underground movement. A sort of grassroots political and humanitarian effort. She would provide a place to stay for certain high-profile refugees. The ones who needed political asylum or a place to lay low on their way to Yaoundé or Douala and on to Europe. Her group has a number of people stationed throughout the area—in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Congo—who use her as a point to drop off information.”

  “What happened the night Henry and I stayed with her, do you know?” Shorty had said she’d drugged Henry and me. I think that, out of everything we’d experienced, hit Henry the hardest.

  “She called me the morning after you two left. She didn’t find out about the chemical agents being smuggled with the supplies from the university until after Henry had left to pick you up. She knew the chemicals couldn’t make it to their final destination. She set it up so that someone from her group would retrieve them in the night, but she couldn’t chance that either you or Henry would wake up. She mixed some sleeping pills into the meal.” He leaned forward, staring at me earnestly. “She wasn’t trying to set you up. She was trying to protect you.”

  I understood why she didn’t want us to wake up and catch someone going through the boxes. She wouldn’t have wanted a confrontation at her home. She also wouldn’t have wanted to answer any questions as to why somebody was going through the SUV. “What did she think would happen when the mercenaries discovered the chemicals weren’t where they were supposed to be?”

  “She called me and I was on my way to meet up with you guys. We were going to get you off the highway, switch vehicles. Unfortunately, the SUV we took broke down about two hours in. By the time we were able to get someone out to repair it… well, it was too late by then.”

  “What happened to the SUV?” Mom asked. I was wondering the same thing. Had it been a deliberate attempt to slow them down? Was someone in the refugee camp involved?

  “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t,” Dad said. “It wasn’t sabotage or anything. I was in such a hurry that I didn’t avoid a pothole. I hit it hard enough and fast enough that I blew the tire and busted the tie rod.”

  “So everything I’ve been through the last week and a half resulted from bad timing and bad luck?” I stirred my soup, having lost my appetite. I changed the subject. “This group Mrs. Okono was part of,” I said casually
, “do you know any of the other members?”

  Chuck narrowed his eyes, and Mom sat straighter. “Don’t even think it,” Chuck said.

  “Too late.”

  Chapter 25

  I’D FIGURED Chuck would be the one I had to convince. I’d underestimated Mom. My plan—or my conditions for cooperation, really—required that I go back to Cameroon. Mom refused. No argument, no negotiation. Straight-up refusal.

  “You almost died,” she said. “You are still in the hospital, recovering. The minute they release you, we’re catching the first flight back to Milwaukee.” She paced the narrow space next to my bed, arms crossed in front of her.

  Chuck frowned at the words.

  “But, Mom—” I broke off. I wouldn’t whine.

  White-knuckled, her hands clutched her elbows.

  This was hard on her. Clearly. But I had to do something. I was tired of having stuff happen to me. I needed to do something. And, even though I knew the likelihood of me actually being able to participate in Henry’s rescue—he would be rescued, damn it, even if I had to stow away on the first plane to Africa to do it myself—was small, I had to try.

  “It’s my fault,” I said, hating the way my voice cracked on the words. “None of this would have happened if not for me. I took the gun from Wendy thinking I was helping her. What I should have done was report to someone that I suspected something was wrong in her life and let professionals handle it.” Of course, her father was one of the professionals. But maybe someone would have believed me.

  “It’s not your—” Chuck started to say.

  “It is,” I insisted. “If I hadn’t been caught with the gun, if I hadn’t had to go to Cameroon as some kind of community service stint, none of this would have happened. Henry wouldn’t have picked me up at the airport. You wouldn’t have been picking up supplies. Henry told me that it wasn’t your normal delivery schedule. If not for me, we wouldn’t have been involved in this mess at all.”