There was a narrow dirt path winding up to the house and I trudged along a few paces in front of the Tiger and his killers. Were these the same bloodthirsty devils who had murdered Ellie’s family?
Was the one in the Houston Rockets shirt the bad lieutenant? Had he traveled back and forth from Africa with the Tiger? What was their connection with what was happening in Lagos and down in the Delta? Could a civil war become a world war? Was it starting in Africa this time?
Suddenly I was struck hard in the small of my back. I lurched forward, and almost went down, but somehow I kept my balance.
Then I whirled around and saw Houston Rockets holding the butt end of his rifle. He was going to hit me with it again.
“Stop right there!” I yelled. “You punk, you little coward.” I wanted to go after him so badly, to wring his neck and break it.
The Tiger laughed, either at me or at his vicious killer. “No, no, Akeem! I want him conscious. Open the front door, Cross. You are the detective. You made it all the way here. Now you will see. Open the door! Solve the great mystery.”
Chapter 143
I TURNED THE rusty knob, then pushed hard on the sticking wood-frame door. It opened with a loud whine.
At first I couldn’t see much, even with the faint glow from the flashlight held behind me.
“Where are they?” I asked.
“Go in an’ see,” said the Tiger. “You wanted this—proof of death.”
I walked into the house and still couldn’t see anyone in there. My heart was racing. Everything in the first room smelled of mildew, of dirt and age, maybe of death.
“I can’t see anything. It’s too dark.”
Suddenly a light went on. A living area was illuminated—two small sofas, easy chairs, standing lamps—but I still didn’t see anyone else in the room.
I whirled to look at the Tiger, who loomed behind me. “Where are they?” I yelled. “There’s no one in here!”
“Tell me what you know,” he said, seeming serious and businesslike. “What did the she-bitch Adanne tell you? What do you know about the Delta? Tell me!”
I stared back at him. “Do you work for the CIA too? They wanted to know what Adanne told me.”
He laughed out loud. “I work for anybody who pays me. Tell me what you know!”
“I don’t know anything. I found out nothing in Africa. If I had, don’t you think I’d tell you? I saw you kill Adanne Tansi. That’s what I know, only what I saw with my own eyes.”
Someone stepped out of an adjoining hallway. I turned to see Ian Flaherty there in the farmhouse.
“I don’t think he knows anything. You can kill him,” he said to the Tiger. “Then he can be with his family. Go ahead. Get it over with.”
A terrible look crossed my face. “So the CIA was in on this from the beginning?”
Flaherty shrugged. “Not the agency, no. Just me. Kill him now. Get it over with.”
Then another voice was in the living room. “You get to die first, asshole.”
Sampson stepped into view. The car I drove had a tracker on it. John had followed the signal all the way down into Maryland. And he wasn’t alone.
“It will be a dead tie,” said Bree. She came up alongside Sampson. “You and the Tiger both die. Unless you start talking to us. Where are Nana and the kids?”
The punk in the Houston Rockets shirt pumped his gun. Bree shot him in the left cheek under his eye. He screamed, then dropped.
The Tiger dove back out the front door.
“I’m not armed,” said Ian Flaherty and raised both hands in the air. “Don’t shoot me. I don’t know what happened to your family. That wasn’t my doing, none of it. Don’t shoot me!”
I drove my shoulder hard into Flaherty’s chest and then ran past him after the Tiger. Sampson threw me a gun on the way out.
“Use it!” he yelled.
Chapter 144
IT WAS DARK outside, scarily black, and cold as the middle of winter. Just a sliver of moon was visible, with low clouds sliding fast across the night sky. I didn’t see the Tiger anywhere.
But then I caught a wisp of movement to the right of the dirt trail we’d taken to the house.
“Alex!” I heard Bree call behind me. I didn’t call back to her. I ran ahead and hoped she wouldn’t follow, that she couldn’t see me in the darkness. I wanted to get to the Tiger first, just me and him.
“Alex!” Bree shouted again. “Don’t do it this way. Alex! Alex!”
I continued to track movement, the faint outline of a man running up ahead. Or just noise sometimes, the rustle of branches. I was concentrating on that—when a shadow flew at me out of the brush.
I spun sideways and fired a shot into the chest of a killer in a white tee and white baseball cap. One of the boys! He grunted and fell over in a heap. I kept on running after the Tiger.
He was moving fast, but so was I. Two downhill skiers on a dark slope. I was gaining on him a little but not enough. I didn’t call out. I just ran with everything I had in me. There was nothing in my mind except catching him. No caution, not anymore. No fear for myself.
I could hear his heavy footfall, and his breathing, which sounded ragged. Still, I didn’t call to him. I held my gun out—and I fired twice. I fired low so I wouldn’t kill him by mistake. I needed to keep him alive so I could find out where my family was.
I didn’t think I hit him, but he turned his body, and that caused him to stumble. I put on an extra burst of speed. I was gaining on him now. I could make out more details, see him clearly.
Then I dove for his legs!
I nearly missed, but I caught him around the ankles and he crashed down on his chest and face and hit his head hard on a rock.
I crawled over him on my hands and knees. Then I went up on my haunches and punched down with all my strength.
My fist connected with his jaw. Sweat and blood flew out to the sides.
“Fucker! Traitor!” he yelled at me, growling like a jungle cat under attack.
“My family—where are they? What happened to them?” I shouted.
Then I punched him again, with everything I had, all the anger and rage living inside. This time he lost a tooth, but he was strong, even hurt like this, and he finally threw me off.
Then he was on me! I shielded my head with my arms and he struck my wrist, perhaps breaking it, I thought. But I didn’t make a sound. I arched my body several inches. I managed to grab him around the neck and hold on. I didn’t know where the strength was coming from, or how long it would last.
I tried to head-butt him, and because of the odd angle I was at, I connected with his Adam’s apple. He gagged, then spit phlegm and blood.
“My family!” I yelled again.
“Fuck your family!” he cursed. “Fuck your kids! Fuck you!”
Then he got to the hunting knife. I was still thinking that I had to keep him alive—not that I had to survive this, but that he did. I held his knife hand at the wrist, but I was losing my grip. The fight was turning his way. This was it; this was how I died. I would never know about Nana, Ali, Jannie. That was the worst part, not knowing.
A shot rang in the night.
The Tiger straightened up, but then he came back down at me with the knife. “Die!” he yelled. “Like your family died!”
A second shot struck where his right eye had been glaring at me a second before.
“Where are they?” I yelled again. “Where is my family?”
He didn’t say another word. His good eye was all hatred. The rest of his face was a bloody mess. The Tiger couldn’t answer. He collapsed on me, dead.
“Where are they?” I whispered.
Chapter 145
BREE CAME RUNNING up as I pushed the massive corpse away from me. Even now that he was dead, I still hated the bastard with all my heart and soul. Bree knelt on the ground and hugged me. “I’m sorry, Alex. I’m so sorry. All I saw was the knife. I had to shoot him.”
I kept holding on to her and rocking. “
Not your fault. Not your fault.” But then I began to shudder and shake. I knew what I had lost here, knew that the Tiger had been my last chance to find my family.
We left the body and trudged back to the farmhouse. Police cars from the neighboring towns were arriving, and the trees were lit with a crimson-and-blue glare from their domes.
Sampson came out of the farmhouse as we approached. “I’ve gone through every room. There’s no one here. I don’t see any sign of them either, Alex. No blood anywhere, nothing obvious anyway. I don’t think they were ever here.”
I nodded, trying to register crime scene facts and to comprehend their meaning. “I want to look again anyway. I need to look for myself. What about Flaherty?” I suddenly thought to ask.
“The state police have him for now. He showed them he was CIA. I don’t know what happens next. I don’t think they can hold him.”
Chapter 146
WE SEARCHED THE house and a nearby work shed, and a barn—until first light of day.
Then we began to comb the surrounding grounds. At this point there were more than thirty police officers and FBI agents searching at the scene, but it still didn’t seem like enough manpower to me.
Everything was feeling even more unreal now. I was here, but I wasn’t. I had no idea about the passage of time either; it seemed as if I could have been at the farm for a couple of days or for just a few minutes.
Proof of life, I thought. That’s what I want, isn’t it?And if not that, then proof of death.
We found a Nissan minivan that had to be the vehicle the Tiger and his killer thugs had come to the farm in. The van held small arms, clothing, and video games in cardboard boxes.
But there was no sign of blood inside, no rope to tie anyone up with. Nothing to make us believe Nana or the kids had been inside the vehicle.
There were more tire tracks up near the house, but nothing seemed unusual. Judging from the look of the place, I figured it hadn’t been a working farm for at least a couple of years. Town records showed that it belonged to a Leopoldo Gout, but we hadn’t been able to contact the owner yet. Who was Leopoldo Gout? What did he know about what had happened here?
Finally, at around four that afternoon, Bree walked me to my car. Then she drove me home to Fifth Street. I was in no shape to continue looking, she said, and she was right.
I hoped against hope for a good ending, but there was no one there at the house. The mess in the kitchen remained as I had found it, and I left it just that way.
For memories’ sake.
Nana’s kitchen. Her favorite place to be.
Chapter 147
IT WAS ALL so baffling, so incomprehensible, wrong in so many ways.
Bree and I brainstormed for a while, but I couldn’t concentrate. My thinking was too chaotic; I was too crazy in the head, too disturbed and lost. I didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to eat, and I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even keep my eyes shut the one time I lay down on the living room couch. I thought about taking a drive, then decided no, not right now.
“I’m going to go for a run,” I finally told Bree. “Clear my head. There has to be something I’m missing.”
“Okay, Alex. I’ll be here. Have a good run.”
She didn’t offer to come, understanding that I wanted to be alone now. I did need to be by myself, to plan, to do something that would make some sense of what had happened.
I ran, at first along familiar streets close to my house, but then on the streets winding off Fifth, where I didn’t remember ever coming on foot before.
Finally I was able to concentrate a little better, and I began to think about what Adanne had told me in Lagos. Had her secrets caused any of this—the death of her family, her own murder, whatever had happened to Nana, Ali, and Jannie?
“Alex, I know terrible things,” she’d told me. “I’m writing a story about it. I have to tell somebody what I found out.” She was afraid that something would happen to her.
Well, something had happened to Adanne.
I continued to run and I found that I was getting stronger physically, or moving faster, anyway. What a cruel world this could be sometimes. Jesus. That wasn’t how I looked at things usually. That wasn’t me. Only now it was.
I didn’t notice anything, until a gray van stopped suddenly at the curb and the sliding door flew open. Three men jumped out. Suddenly they were all over me, knocking me down, pushing my face into the grass and dirt on somebody’s lawn.
Then I felt a sting in my thigh.
A needle?
Three men, not boys. Not the Tiger’s team.
Who then?
Who was holding me now?
What did they want?
Chapter 148
THERE WAS A damp cloth over my face, some kind of a hood that reeked of rubbing alcohol. Then I was being pulled to my feet. I’d been unconscious, but I didn’t know for how long.
I had no idea where I was now, but it wasn’t a five-star hotel. I could smell, almost taste, body odor, feces, and urine. The ground under my feet was rough stone, maybe concrete. Did that tell me anything?
“Put your hands flat against the wall and spread your legs. Stay just like that. Don’t move, or you’ll be shot.”
“Where’s my family? Where the hell are they? Who are you?”
Instead of an answer to the question, I heard an amplified whirring sound in the room.
“Stay just like that—or you die right here and now. Then you’ll never know about your family. Never is a long time, Dr. Cross. Think about it.”
I thought about other things first. Who had grabbed me off the street in Southeast and was holding me now?
Could it be another Tiger? Somebody else from Nigeria?
The voice didn’t sound like it. No accent. American. Could it be the CIA?
“Where’s my family?” I asked again.
No one answered, and I stayed there with my hands tied and held flat against the wall over my head. I knew this particular kind of torture had a name, wall-standing. I was also made to wear a hood and was subjected to loud noise and sleep deprivation. I’d heard about these torture techniques before. Now I was the victim.
No one answered any of my questions, and I wondered if I was alone. Was I delirious? Was I dreaming all this?
My hands went numb first.
Then I could feel pins and needles stinging my ankles and feet. Then shooting pains moving up and down my legs.
My head began to swim and I thought I was going to pass out.
“I have to pee,” I said. “I have to go.”
No answer.
I held it as long as I could, then let go down my legs, over my bare feet. No one reacted. Was anyone there? Was I alone now?
Wall-standing. Some American government officials had said that it was okay to use techniques like this on suspected terrorists.
Was I a terror suspect? What had I done to deserve this? Who was torturing me?
My hands were completely numb and I badly wanted to sleep. I could think of little else and would have given anything just to lie down on the floor. I couldn’t give in, though.
Wall-standing. I can do this.
I thought about stepping away from the wall and what the consequences might be. I held internal debates with myself. They wouldn’t kill me, would they? What would be the point of it?
Finally, I turned my body so that only one hand was on the wall. Did that count? Was it a violation of the rules?
Immediately I was kicked hard behind the knees! I went down hard on the floor. Cold to the touch. A bed—finally!
But I was yanked right back up and thrown hard against the wall. Still, no one spoke. But I assumed the position. Not just my legs were trembling now. Everything was—my entire body was shaking terribly.
Who else was with me in the room?
What did they want from me?
Chapter 149
THEN I WAS talking to Jannie. I was hugging her, and I was so happy that she was all right. “Wher
e’s Ali? Where’s Nana?” I asked in an excited whisper. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
Suddenly I came to and realized that I had been sleeping on my feet. Jannie wasn’t here.
It was only me.
I had the sense that I was in the second day of captivity. Or may be the third day. Suddenly I was startled as someone pulled the cloth hood up around my nose, still keeping my eyes in darkness.
“What?” I muttered. “Who are you?” As I spoke, I realized how dry my lips and mouth were.
I was given water, which splashed from somewhere, maybe a bottle, pouring down my throat and all over my face.
“Don’t be greedy, now,” someone said and snickered. A captor with a cruel sense of humor. “Eat this! Slowly. Don’t make yourself choke.”
I was fed three crackers, one right after the other. I didn’t choke, but I was afraid I was going to throw them up as fast as I’d eaten them.
“Water?” I asked. “More water, please?” My throat was tightening up again.
There was a long pause, but then the bottle was returned to my lips. Once more, I drank greedily.
“Too fast,” someone said. “You’ll cramp up. Don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
Then I was pushed into position again.
Wall-standing.
Chapter 150
SOMETIME AFTER THAT, I began to seriously hallucinate and I wondered if there was something in the water, or maybe even the crackers I’d eaten.
I was convinced that I was back in Africa and that I was lost somewhere in a vast desert. I knew I was going to die soon, and that didn’t seem like such a bad thing. I actually welcomed death and wondered if I would meet Nana, Jannie, and Ali on the other side. Would Maria be there too? And others I had lost?
I was struck hard in the back—and I fell to my knees again.
“You were dreaming—asleep on your feet. That’s not allowed, hotshot.”
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