An Open Heart (13 page)

Jace awoke in Kijabe to the squawking of the ibis. He showered and was almost finished dressing when he heard pounding on his front door. He looked out the front door’s inset window. A familiar Toyota Land Cruiser with the emblem of the Ministry of Health sat in the gravel driveway. He opened the door, leaving the metal bars in place, and found himself across the bars from two uniformed officers.

The first held up a badge. “Kenya Police. We’ve been instructed to bring you in for questioning.”

Jace unlocked the bars. “On what charge?”

“Extortion of a government official. Bribery.”

Jace sighed. He knew arguing with the officers would get him nowhere. They were pawns of someone in the government intent on making his life miserable. “Come in,” Jace said. “I’m almost ready. Would you like some chai?”

The officers smiled. “Asante.” Thank you.

Jace fixed the sweet milky tea and set three steaming mugs on the table.

“An American knows how to make Kenyan chai?” The taller of the two officers took a sip.

Jace nodded. “Kenya was my first home.” He paused and shook his head. “But it seems Kenya doesn’t love me anymore.”

They sipped their tea and talked of an upcoming rugby World Cup match.

In fifteen minutes, Jace followed them to the vehicle. “This belongs to John Okombo. Did he send you to get me?”

“Our department is suffering. We have limited vehicles. Minister Okombo was kind enough to lend us his.” The officer’s large smile of perfect white teeth gave Jace the impression that he’d been handed the standard bull.
Of course Okombo sent you. He wants to show me how powerful he is.

Jace stayed quiet during the trip, enduring yet another version of African NASCAR. They took him all the way back into Nairobi to a police station off Ngong road.

As they entered the two-room facility, Jace paused to let his eyes adjust. Either the electricity was off or they hadn’t paid the light bill. The room was dark, dusty, and contained only a desk and two wooden chairs. A uniformed man with black hair and a well-trimmed moustache sat behind the desk. The men who had accompanied Jace greeted him with a nod. “Captain.”

“So this is the American heart surgeon.”

Jace squinted.

“Why is it that you insist on cluttering up my day, Dr. Rawlings? Certainly we have better things to do than to sort out your problems.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“You are accused of bribing a government official.”

“Ridiculous.” Jace studied the men and pondered his next step. Ask for an attorney? He needed more information. He’d heard from his father that as long as you let the official feel like the big man, and didn’t try to argue, business would go smoothly. He decided to try. “With all due respect, Captain, I would like to know the exact nature of your concerns. Perhaps I can clarify the issue for you.”

He raised his voice. “Bring the recording.”

A third officer entered the room carrying a small cassette player and set it on the desk in front of Jace. The captain pressed a button and Jace heard his own voice. He recognized his conversation with the minister of health.

“Drop the fee and I’ll do what I can to convince the hospital to take her as our first open-heart case.”

“Don’t play games with my daughter’s life.”

“Exactly,” Jace responded. “Don’t play dangerous games with me. I’ve lost many patients before. But have you lost a daughter?”

The captain snapped off the tape.

Jace cringed. They were making him out to be an uncaring jerk. He wanted to scream.
That’s not the way I meant it!
Instead, he forced himself to remain composed and meet the gaze of the uniformed man.

“Our beloved minister of health is under the impression that you are trying to escape paying an import tax. It seems you are leveraging the life of a young woman.”

“Sir, I was only pleading with Minister Okombo to drop the fee so that I can get to work. How can I pay thousands in taxes when the equipment will be used not for financial gain, but to serve the poor of Kenya?”

“The situation does not sound so simple. Minister Okombo says he sent the girl to you, hoping for help. Instead, all he gets are threats.”

“I’ve been misunderstood.”

“Have you? It seems the tape speaks for itself.”

“I will be glad to operate on the girl if I can get my equipment and the necessary staff to help. I was only hoping a man as powerful as Minister Okombo could use his influence to help me out. I would never put money in front of a patient’s life.”

“Perhaps you can explain why the tape sounds as if you are doing just that.” He hesitated. “Or do I need to forward this tape to a judge?”

“Please, sir—surely you understand my desire to keep this out of the courts. That would certainly delay the heart program. I will pay the fee if I have to. I said those things so that Minister Okombo would understand that I am not a pushover. I wanted to make him believe that I believed the stakes were quite high for not getting my equipment through customs. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been to Kenya. I grew up here. I know how things work.”

“Why don’t you explain it to me?”

Jace hesitated. “Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between a legitimate tax and a bribe.”

“You think our customs official was asking for a bribe?”

Jace stayed quiet.
Yes. Of course it was a bribe.

“Losing Kenyan lives is a high cost to pay for your games.” He looked at the officers. “Why don’t you take Dr. Rawlings to a holding room until I can contact Minister Okombo? If he is comfortable mediating a solution without the courts, so be it.”

Jace wanted to argue, but sensed it would only aggravate the men. An officer grabbed Jace by the upper arm and led him out of the room. Outside, he took Jace across the gravel parking lot and shoved him through a high metal gate into a fenced enclosure. The holding room turned out to be a ten-by-ten-foot section of gravel bounded by a ten-foot solid metal fence topped with razor wire.

Jace sat in the corner and leaned against the fence.

There he waited for the next three hours, with only a rectangle of sky to occupy his thoughts.

Jace had had little trouble with the law. His only other point of reference for dealing with public officials had left him suspicious and wounded. His mind slipped back to an afternoon shortly after he’d operated on Virginia’s governor. He’d been in the hospital making his rounds when, as he passed the waiting room, someone called his name. He looked up to see Anita Franks and two men he assumed were security. “Hi, Mrs. Franks. Your husband looks a little better today.”

“Thanks to you.”

He studied her a moment. She’d aged in the last two days, but was still very much a woman dressed for the public. “How are you doing with all of this?”

She took a deep breath. “Got a year?”

He forced himself to chuckle. “You do need to leave the hospital occasionally. The team is taking good care of your husband.”

She nodded. “I do need to get out.” She hesitated. “Would you go with me? I’ll buy you lunch. It would mean so much to be able to thank you.”

“It’s not necessary, really.”

“No, but I want to.”

He checked his watch. “I have to be in my office for clinic in forty-five minutes.”

“Perfect,” she said.

In ten minutes, in spite of his misgivings, he sat across from her at a table at a local delicatessen. It took only moments to find himself enraptured by her charm.

“You’re staring,” she said, returning his gaze.

“You remind me of someone.”

“An old girlfriend, perhaps?”

He shook his head. “Maybe it’s just your hair.” He looked down. “My twin sister had hair just like yours.”

The sun was past its peak when Jace heard the rumblings of a diesel truck, tires crunching against gravel. A moment later, the gate rattled, so Jace stood and brushed the dirt from his khakis. His throat was dry, and his back ached from leaning against the fence.

The gate opened, and a guard said, “Come with me.”

Jace followed the officer to the back of the truck. The man pulled up the sliding door to reveal the crated equipment Jace had brought from Virginia. Alongside his equipment sat a dozen other boxes, each bearing the markings of biotech companies.

“Minister Okombo wanted me to allow you to inspect your equipment before shipment to Kijabe.”

“But I thought—”

The captain’s voice sounded from behind him. “The minister of health wants you to understand a gesture of goodwill.”

Goodwill? You’ve just kept me locked up for three hours in the sun and you want to talk to me about goodwill?
Jace nodded. The big man needed to be in control. “How thoughtful.”

“My men will escort you back to your hospital. Your equipment will be on the way, right behind you.”

Jace wasn’t sure which would be worse: doing without his equipment, or being indebted to a corrupt politician. He locked eyes with the police captain. “What about the import tax?”

“Evidently, it has been taken care of. Minister Okombo only gave instructions to have you escorted back to Kijabe.” He paused. “Good day, Dr. Rawlings.”

A mental image of the MP hovered in Jace’s mind.
He must have orchestrated this whole thing just to prove to me that he was in charge.
What will this madman do if I operate on his daughter and she dies?

14

Heather pushed the shopping cart up the aisle, fighting an annoying pull to the right from a wheel that wanted to roll only half the time. Maybe it was just getting her back for loading it down with two large bags of dog chow.

She was sniffing the end of a ripe cantaloupe when she heard her name.

“Heather?”

She looked over to see Lisa Sprague, a twenty-something reporter from the
Richmond Times Dispatch.
Lisa had done a local interest piece on Jace just after he’d operated on Governor Franks. She’d done a balanced job and hadn’t joined in on speculation about Jace and the governor’s wife.

Heather glanced at Lisa’s cart. Fresh fruit, yogurt, vitamin water. Lisa wore what appeared to be athletic gear, as if she had just stopped in on her way to the gym. Heather had known Lisa first from their church, but at this moment, she viewed Lisa as one of
them
, the media who had been so unkind to Jace.

Heather forced a smile. “Hi, Lisa.”

“I was just thinking of calling you,” she said. “Is it true what I heard about Jace, that he’s off on a mission to Kenya?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a mission, but yes, he’s off.”

Heather turned her cart away. It was time to act busy.

Lisa didn’t take the hint. “I was hoping to do a follow-up story, maybe include something about his trip.”

Heather shook her head. “No,” she said. “No interviews.” She tried to focus on picking out a few tomatoes, but Lisa stayed at her side.

“I could help,” Lisa said.

“Help? The paper hasn’t exactly been friendly.” Immediately, Heather regretted her sarcastic tone.

“I’m not interested in gossip,” Lisa said. “I was thinking a positive story about his work in Kenya would do some good.”

“No,” Heather responded. “I can’t do that now.”

Lisa hesitated, then leaned closer and said in a confidential tone, “I’m not like the others.”

Heather took a deep breath. “Look—I’m sorry. It’s just that things have been a bit stressful.” She lowered her voice. “You want to help?”

Lisa nodded.

“Then pray for my husband. The last thing Jace needs is a story painting him as some hero.”

“I will,” Lisa said. She stepped back. “You know, we were friends before I did the story.”

“I remember.”

Lisa retrieved a business card from a small leather purse and handed it to Heather. “If I can do anything else, just call.”

“Thanks.”

A minute later, in the checkout line, Heather threw in two Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, an impulse buy. The candy carried memories of her first date with Jace.

The two of them had sat in the back of the dorm lounge on folding chairs, trying to make sense of the game going on in front of them. Fellow students acted out advertising slogans, imitated famous TV and movie actors, and laughed about American politicians and their wayward ways.

Heather and Jace smiled politely.

And didn’t get any of it.

Jace leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Want to sneak out?”

She nodded.

A minute later they were walking down the hall heading for an exit. Heather playfully punched his shoulder. “Wow,” she said, “I thought I was the only one on the planet who hadn’t heard of Seinfeld.”

“Yeah, planet America.” Jace halted. “Whoa!”

She stopped with him in front of a candy machine. He was staring at the options.

“Of everything we had to do without in Kenya, American chocolate was the thing I missed the most,” he said. “I learned to like these when visitors would bring them as gifts.” He fished several coins from his pocket. “My treat.”

He smiled when they made the same selection. Heather unwrapped the Reese’s cup. “Whenever someone would come to visit us in Mozambique, this is what I would ask for.”