Blood Ransom (21 page)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 11:09 A.M.

RACHEL BOTELA’S APARTMENT, BOGAMA

Nick hung up the phone with Natalie. He had one hour to get to the hotel with the photos. Despite the humid weather, a chill ran down his spine as he stared at Rachel’s body. He glanced out the window from Rachel’s apartment and onto the street below. Their jaunt across the country had just taken another horrible twist.

The green curtains covering Rachel’s open window waved in the morning breeze. Gone was the hope that this excursion involved nothing more than a quick delivery of goods to the capital. Now he was simply determined to make sure the death toll didn’t rise any more.

Two policemen stood outside the building talking to a shopkeeper and blocking his escape. The last thing he needed was to be accused of being involved in Rachel’s death. The TV and DVD player still sat on the cabinet. He was no expert, but he was quite certain this was no random burglary.

It wasn’t hard for him to draw his own conclusions. If Rachel had taken in Chad and Natalie, it was more than likely against the wishes of her fiancé. And now she was dead. From what he’d heard from Natalie, this put Patrick Seko in the middle of everything.

For the moment, though, he couldn’t worry about Patrick or
Rachel. With Natalie’s life in danger, he needed to find Chad and the photos. He flipped open his phone and called Chad again. His friend answered on the second ring.

“Chad? It’s Nick.”

“Where are you?”

“At your friend Rachel’s apartment.”

“So you made it out of the jungle?” The normally upbeat tenor of Chad’s voice was gone.

“I’ll save that saga for another day.”

“At least you’re all right. I’m at the embassy right now. And Natalie…she’s been kidnapped.”

“I know. I just spoke to her.”

“What?”

Nick glanced out the window. The two uniformed policemen were still there. “When Natalie couldn’t get ahold of you, she called me instead.”

“What did she say?”

“Her captors think she was talking to you, and they want you to meet them in an hour at the Oasis Hotel with the photos.”

“So they’ll make an exchange?”

“That’s what I’m hoping, but there’s something else.” Nick stared at Rachel’s still form on the couch. “Natalie’s friend Rachel…she’s dead. I can’t see a weapon, but it doesn’t look like a robbery either.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “We stayed there last night. We knew they were after us, but…” Chad’s voice cracked. “I’ll let the embassy know what’s going on and arrange for them to take me to the hotel. But whoever these guys are, they mean business. Nick, if they find out that I’m here and have the photos, they’ll kill Natalie too.”

“Then we need to start praying that doesn’t happen.” Nick looked outside once more. The police were gone. “I’m heading to the embassy now, but if for whatever reason she doesn’t return with you, we’ll figure something out, Chad. We’re going to find her.”

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 12:14 A.M.

OASIS HOTEL, BOGAMA

Chad glanced at his watch again. It was already after twelve, and Natalie was nowhere to be seen. The RD didn’t have any five-star hotels, at least by American standards, but the Oasis was the closest thing they had to luxury accommodations. For two hundred dollars a night, a guest could forget he was in a third-world country and enjoy the swimming pool, gift shops, restaurants, and travel agencies. Forget, that was, until they stepped outside onto the rush of the main boulevard.

The lobby was quiet and filled with modern furniture, palm trees, and touches of the local decor. He crossed the tiled floor, stopping near the entrance where a security guard stood to ensure prostitutes and other unwanted individuals didn’t enter. Paul’s car sat parked across the street, barely within view of the front of the hotel.

His phone vibrated and he answered it immediately.

“Chad, it’s Paul.”

Chad could see the silhouette of the embassy worker in the backseat of his chauffer-driven car. “There’s no sign of her yet.”

“Then I’m taking you back to the embassy now—”

“No.” Chad stepped away from the window. “She could still be coming.”

“If they arrest you, you’ll be shoved in some prison cell, and you won’t be able to do anything for her.”

Chad turned around and searched the lobby. He wasn’t ready to give up yet. “What about Nick? Has he arrived at the embassy yet?”

“I called five minutes ago, and he’d just shown up. Someone’s doing interviews with both Nick and Joseph now.”

“Give me fifteen more minutes.”

A woman walked across the lobby, her back to Chad. His pulse skipped. Sundress, ponytail, sandals…She turned and waved at someone sitting on the other side of the lobby. He let out the breath he’d been holding. It wasn’t her.

“Chad—”

“Fifteen minutes.”

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 12:45 P.M.

BOGAMA

Chad slid into the backseat of Paul’s car, convinced he’d made a mistake in leaving the hotel. But thirty more minutes had passed and there was still no sign of Natalie. Which meant something had gone wrong.

As soon as he shut the car door, Paul signaled for his driver to leave. “They’re not coming, Chad.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “There are a dozen demonstrations going on around the city. They could be caught in traffic, or detained at a police roadblock—”

“If that were the case, don’t you think they’d call and let you know they’d run into some kind of problem, but were still coming?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m just making a logical observation,” Paul countered.

“Nothing’s logical about any of this.”

Chad checked to make sure his phone was still on—which, of course, it was. Paul was right. They simply hadn’t called.

The images playing out in his mind didn’t help, but he couldn’t deny that the captors’ silence probably meant that, for whatever reason, they didn’t need Natalie as insurance anymore. The scenario churned his stomach.

He tapped his fingers against the armrest. “Tell me what’s logical about kidnapping someone over a handful of photos, murdering your fiancée, and then—”

“We don’t know for sure that Patrick is involved.”

Chad ignored Paul’s frown. “I might not be able to connect him directly to the Ghost Soldiers and the election, but he’s involved. Since Stephan saw the photos Natalie was robbed, her house trashed, we were both chased through the middle of the jungle, and now he’s put out a reward for our capture, Natalie’s been kidnapped, his fiancée killed…Sounds pretty involved to me.”

Slivers of guilt sliced through him. What he did know was that he should have insisted they all stay together when they left Rachel’s house. Of course, there was always the possibility they all would have been taken hostage, but at least he’d be with her and able to do something to help her. What he hated was not being able to do anything. Like now.

“We do have another lead on him.”

“On Patrick?” Their car hit a pothole, and Chad smacked his head against the window. “What is it?”

“My secretary called a few minutes ago and told me that one of our embassy workers talked to Rachel this morning. Apparently they were friends and Rachel gave her something she wants us to see. We’ll meet her at her apartment, which is only a few minutes from here.”

The crowds were beginning to swell along the sidewalks. Banners for the election blew in the breeze. “I thought you said it was too risky for me to be out in public.”

“It probably is, but it’s quicker to meet her at her house than if we wait for her to return to the embassy on public transport. If we’re going to get answers, we need them quickly.”

“Fine.” Chad prayed this wasn’t going to be a wild-goose chase, but the truth was they didn’t have any other leads at the moment.

Ten minutes later, Mercy greeted them at the door of a small apartment on the fifth floor of her building and ushered them into
the tiny living room. It was decorated simply with locally made teak furniture, handmade doilies, and family photos. Chad sat down on the worn leather couch, thanked Mercy’s mother for the drink and cookies she offered him, then proceeded—as tradition required—to ask the woman about her family. Even growing up in the RD couldn’t erase the impatience of not being able to get to the point, but here time was relative. There was a process to follow and rushing through it would only leave him—and his hostess—frustrated. It was simply the way things were done.

Greetings took ten minutes. When her mother finally left the room, Mercy pulled an envelope from a drawer in the television cabinet, then sat down across from them on a plaid chair that had seen better days. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you are in a hurry.”

Paul took a sip of his Coke. “It’s fine. Your mother’s a gracious hostess.”

“Thank you.” Mercy’s pretty, dark face was etched with a deep frown. “She’s really dead?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I just talked to her this morning.” Tears flooded the woman’s eyes. “She came by my apartment right as I was on my way to work. She was upset. She was on her way to the embassy, but had forgotten something at her apartment.”

She slid the envelope across the coffee table. “Rachel gave these to me and told me if anything happened to her…I thought she was just being paranoid after a fight with Patrick. I never really thought anything serious was going to happen…At least not this serious.”

Paul picked up the envelope, broke open the seal, and pulled out a half dozen printed pages. “It’s e-mail correspondence and photocopies of some kind of demographic government reports.”

“Whose e-mail correspondence?” Chad asked.

“Patrick’s.” Paul flipped through the pages. “Rachel must have printed them from Patrick’s computer.”

“What exactly did Rachel say when she gave them to you?” Chad asked.

Mercy fidgeted in her chair. “She said she’d had company over last night and that there had been a problem, but she was in a hurry and didn’t elaborate.”

“I wonder if she told Natalie about the e-mails,” Chad cut in. “She was obviously worried that something might happen to her.”

Paul took another sip of his Coke. “Fear can be a powerful motivator. It can also be just as powerful a silencer.”

Chad shook his head. “So she must have gone by Patrick’s office and gotten onto his computer. Would they let her do that?”

Mercy nodded. “They know her there, so it wouldn’t have seemed out of the ordinary for her to show up, even when Patrick wasn’t there. She often went after work and helped him or waited in his office for him to return from a business meeting.”

Paul tugged on the end of his tie. “How long have you known Rachel?”

“Four and a half, maybe five, years.”

“So you know Patrick?” Chad asked.

“Of course. He’s…Well, I’ll just say that I don’t particularly like the man, but she seemed to love him, and he treated her well most of the time.”

“Most of the time?” Paul handed her a tissue from the end table beside him.

She blew her nose with the tissue, then took a deep breath. “He can be a bit possessive and demanding, but that’s Patrick.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about Rachel and Patrick?”

“Rachel never talked much about her personal life, especially when it came to romantic interests. But for the past few weeks, I believe she was starting to have reservations about marrying Patrick.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“When Patrick asked her to marry him, her family was ecstatic.
Rachel’s father is a member of parliament, and they believed that marrying Patrick would help cement his post in the government.”

“Did Rachel ever tell you specifically that she was having doubts?”

Mercy shook her head. “Not in so many words, though she did tell me once that she wasn’t sure where Patrick’s loyalties were.”

“Meaning?”

“At the time it made me wonder if she was implying his loyalties no longer lay with the president, but instead with a higher bidder.”

“Do you think the higher bidder in this case is Okella?” Chad asked.

Mercy shook her head again. “I don’t know.”

Paul handed Chad the stack of papers. He scanned through them and, while no names were mentioned, the intent was obvious.
Need to make the rest of my deposit…I’ve taken care of it…The problem has been neutralized…

If they were interpreting things right, Patrick had shifted his allegiance to the other side.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1:39 P.M.

MERCY’S APARTMENT BUILDING, BOGAMA

Chad’s footsteps echoed as he hurried down the metal staircase toward the ground floor of the apartment building. He moved out of the way of two girls who carried heavy bags of cornmeal on their heads and wondered how many people had escaped into the city only to find life as strenuous as it had been in the village.

Paul opened the outside door and they merged onto the crowded street, with Chad bringing up the rear behind Paul and Mercy. The light breeze felt good after the stuffiness of Mercy’s apartment.

Chad stopped for a moment on the sidewalk. Strange. The clothes shop they’d passed coming in had rolled down its metal awning and closed for the day. The shop beside it was closed, as were several others on the block.

The crowds were getting heavier. Dozens of people milled through the streets. Children hung posters of President Tau on telephone poles while others waved banners for Barnard Okella. Chad groaned. Another rally was beginning.

He turned away at the sight of a police officer. He was tired of playing cat and mouse, and at this point wasn’t sure which was the bigger threat—the authorities or a mob that could turn violent in an instant.

“Where’s your driver?” he shouted at Paul above the roar of the crowd.

The embassy driver appeared from the alley behind them before Paul had a chance to respond. “I’m sorry. I had to move the car. The streets are too crowded and I was getting blocked in.”

“What’s going on out here?” Paul asked.

“Riots have broken out all over town,” the driver told them, still trying to catch his breath. “I just heard on the radio that the army’s moving in and every available police officer is required to report to work.”

Street kids waved posters of President Tau and shouted his name in unison. Joseph had mentioned how it was common for the political parties to hire street children to help with the rallies. One of the flyers fluttered to the ground in front of Chad. He picked it up. President Tau looked back at him.

Chad glanced behind him. Antiriot police were moving in to block the street behind them. This was no pre-election rally. With the votes not even in to be calculated, how had things escalated into a riot?

“What do we do now?” Mercy’s voice trembled in fear.

Chad searched for an escape. The way back to Mercy’s apartment was blocked. The faint scent of tear gas filled the air. Black smoke from burning tires billowed in the distance. A gun fired and the crowd began to scatter.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Chad shouted above the chaos.

Their driver waved for them to follow him. “I’m parked a couple blocks north.”

He ushered the three of them down one of the side streets past a row of closed shops. They reached the embassy car and had just managed to shut the doors when a ripple of gunfire broke out behind them.

Paul told the driver to floor it, then flipped on the radio. The local news channel was reporting how the current head of the military,
General Dumasi, was on his way to try to stop the unruly attacks that had taken place across the city during the past few hours with an unprecedented face-to-face meeting with the protestors.

Where were the president and vice president in all of this?

Chad gripped the armrest to keep his balance as they wove through the heavy traffic. Forty minutes later they pulled through the secure gates of the embassy. It should only have taken ten minutes, but at least he felt safe now. And guilty. Natalie should be here as well.

Paul led Chad into the building, barking orders to his staff. “Meeting in five minutes. I want to know what’s going on out there.” He turned to Chad. “You’re with me.”

Within five minutes, Paul’s staff had assembled, and the guards were ordered not to allow anyone without an American passport inside the premises. With the city in turmoil, they were officially closed for the day.

“Political rallies across the city turned ugly this morning when a car exploded four blocks from here,” the consular assistant, introduced to Chad as Brandon Carmichael, began. “Antiriot police arrived in key locations, but their presence only seemed to spark further demonstrations across the city.”

Paul scribbled on his notepad. “What set them off to begin with?”

“From what we’ve been told,” the assistant continued, “it began as nothing more than normal political rallies held to encourage voting. The parties hired a few dozen street kids to hang posters, wear T-shirts, and chant. It wasn’t supposed to get ugly.”

Paul looked up. “But it did.”

“Fourteen are dead in the Umgani district, including two police officers and one minor. Another man was killed across town when a stray bullet hit him.”

Chad scratched his ear. He felt as if he’d just stepped into a war-room discussion.

Paul scribbled something else on his pad. “What’s the UN’s involvement at this point?”

Another man, with wire glasses and a receding hairline, spoke up. “The plan at the moment is a continued military presence throughout the city with the addition of a curfew if things don’t settle down immediately.”

“We heard on our way here that General Dumasi is planning to meet with the protesters,” Chad spoke up. “Is that true?”

Carmichael nodded. “I believe they are even planning to televise the exchange in an attempt to encourage the population to stay away from the rioting areas.”

“Shouldn’t that be the role of the president, or, at the least, the vice president?” Paul threw out.

“General Dumasi is still head of the military, and at this point, he’s as good a man as any,” Carmichael continued. “No one has forgotten the last coup that almost destroyed this country. Today’s death toll is nothing compared to what happened back then, but it’s got to stop now if we’re going to avoid it happening again.”

Chad noted the worried expression on Paul’s face. They all knew what would happen if something went wrong in this election. The cord was already pulled too tight, despite the UN’s attempts at a peaceful election. Protests, flares of violence, killing, and tribal conflict could set off another civil war that could last for months and destroy any strides the country had made in the past few years.

“I understand there’s been no word yet from Natalie Sinclair,” Paul continued.

The man with the glasses shook his head.

Chad swallowed his panic. It had been over six hours since he’d seen Natalie, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“We just received an official report from the police department regarding the death of Patrick Seko’s fiancée,” the consular assistant continued. “Her death, though, is believed to be completely unrelated with today’s violence.”

“And?” Paul prodded.

“From the initial investigation, we were told that her death is being called a suicide.”

Chad spoke up for the first time. “That’s impossible.”

“Excuse me?”

Chad leaned forward in his chair to address the consular assistant, wondering if he’d just spoken out of turn. “When I talked to Nick Gilbert on the phone, he was at her apartment and distinctly told me that she’d been murdered. There was no sign of a burglary or a weapon.”

“He told us the same story in his statement,” Paul said.

“The bottom line is that if you start looking at all these pieces side by side,” Chad continued, “I don’t think there’s any denying that someone’s trying to cover up something. The photos, Natalie’s disappearance, Rachel’s death, and who knows? Maybe even the riots. There’s no way I can be convinced that all of this is simply coincidence.”

Joseph walked into the room and took an offered chair across from Chad. At least they’d managed to keep Joseph safe.

Paul passed the boy a Coke. “How are you doing, young man? Guess you’ve been through the wringer today.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sorry we’re late.” Mercy entered the room behind Joseph. “We’ve gone over his story thoroughly and have a report ready to file.”

“Anything new—”

An explosion rocked the room. Windows shattered. Chad felt the vibration of the blast as he dropped to the floor and covered his head.