Blood Ransom (7 page)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 11:39 A.M.

KALAMBALI SQUARE, KASILI

Stephen set down his briefcase and moved over to Natalie’s desk, picking the photos up one by one. The familiar pang of guilt wrenched through his gut. There was no denying the story the pictures told—the faces of the victims wouldn’t let him.

For a moment, he was back on one of the street corners of the capital, seventeen years ago, on the eve of another presidential election. All public meetings had been banned. Hospitals were paralyzed as doctors and nurses went on strike. Curfews were imposed and food was virtually nonexistent.

He’d lost Camille that day, and his heart had never completely mended. Maybe if he’d believed her, believed that together they could make a difference in changing this country, things would have turned out differently. He’d prayed every night since then that God would let him relive that one moment over and find out. But God apparently wasn’t in the business of redeeming lost souls. And his was certainly lost.

You’re a coward
,
Stephen Moyo.

“Stephen?”

At Natalie’s voice he jerked his head up. “What did you say?”

She leaned against the wall cabinet, irritation evident in her gaze.
“I said, what do we do now? You have the contacts in the government. We can’t just look away and pretend this didn’t happen.”

“Maybe not, but I don’t want you involved either. I’ve got to think.”

But not here—it felt like the cement walls were closing in on him. Ignoring Natalie’s surprised look, he shoved the photos into his briefcase and walked out.

As he stalked down the hallway, he forced the past away and focused on the present. The question was what was he going to do? He didn’t believe Natalie. He couldn’t. Even the blatant proof he carried couldn’t erase his doubts. Patrick had assured him that there were no grounds to the circulating rumors.

Still, he envisioned the horror on the face of a young girl in the photos. Something was wrong. Very wrong. What would Patrick have to gain in covering up something like this?

Unless he was somehow involved…

Stephen pushed the implications aside and instead threw open his office door.

Natalie was right behind him. “I won’t forget what I saw.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“I mean it, Stephen. You can’t just walk away from this.”

He froze at his desk, letting his briefcase crash to the floor as her words reverberated in his mind. A fresh flood of memories…

“You can’t just walk away from this.”

Camille had said the same thing to him. She’d stood in front of him, the wind whipping against her long skirt. Ebony skin. Wide smile. Broad cheekbones…

He couldn’t shut out the image.

Gunshots had echoed in the distance, and the smell of death hung heavy in the air. She hadn’t cared that the odds were against her. She’d found the courage to stand up for what she believed.

And he’d lost her.

Natalie rested her palms against the desk beside him. “What are
we going to do, Stephen? This points to the reality of a modern-day slave trade—”

“No!”

“No? What do you mean, no?”

He rubbed a bead of sweat from his forehead as he moved around the desk and slid into his seat. This was why he’d left his last post. Leaving the corruption seemed easier than confronting it.

Coward.

“Stephen?” Natalie’s persistent voice wouldn’t leave him alone.

“I don’t know. I might be able to make a few phone calls,” Stephen relented, gripping the edge of the desk with his fingertips. Yes, he could do that much—make a few phone calls.

She dug the photos from his briefcase and handed them to him. “Then call them. Please. We need to know if anyone recognizes anyone in the photos.”

Stephen stared at his telephone. The image of Camille wouldn’t let go of him. He didn’t have to get involved, but he also couldn’t just do nothing and let it happen again. He’d make a call or two. Then it was someone else’s job to do something.

He started digging through his desk, trying to clear his mind enough to remember where the business-card holder was stashed. Normally he was more organized—He let out a sigh of relief. The holder was sitting in the third drawer where he always kept it.

Natalie pressed her back against the wall. “I’m taking Joseph back to my house. Promise me you’ll call someone when the lines are up again.”

He nodded.

“Good. And give the pictures to Patrick when you see him again. Surely that’s enough evidence to convince him he’s wrong.”

“Are there any other copies of the photos?”

She clinched her fists at her sides. “I have my own set somewhere safe.”

Somewhere safe.

He hadn’t felt safe for years. It was as if he’d been thrust into some cloak-and-dagger game without knowing who the players were. He didn’t want to ignore the plight of an entire village—or, for that matter, the possibility of countless others. But he knew the dangers of getting involved. He’d never make a difference anyway. Chances were it was all about money. Money had always been the root of this country’s destruction. Dhambizao was rich in natural resources—gold, diamonds, zinc, and other prized minerals—and there were lots of megacorporations willing to pay to get to them. More than enough motivation for power-hungry officials to line their own pockets while ignoring the toll it took on their people.

He didn’t know which side of the fence President Tau sat on, but in the long run it didn’t matter. There would be no investigation. Never would be. The best thing Joseph could do was to count his lucky stars he hadn’t been there when the village was ransacked. At least the boy still had a chance.

Trying to ignore the photos, Stephen clicked open the document he’d worked on earlier that day and started typing. Work was the one thing that could make him forget. About Joseph’s village, about the election…about Camille.

He’d barely gotten started when he heard voices down the hall and recognized Patrick’s voice. Five minutes later, Patrick sauntered into Stephen’s office, tugged on the edge of his suit jacket, and sat on the edge of the desk. “Natalie told the secretary that you have something for me.”

“Apparently you were wrong.” Stephen slammed the pictures onto his desk, then pushed them toward Patrick. “Looks to me as if these prove the existence of the rumored Ghost Soldiers. Or whatever you want to call them.”

“Where did you get these?”

“The boy with Natalie, Joseph Komboli, took them. Ghost Soldiers attacked his village.”

Patrick looked through the photos slowly, as if trying to digest
what he was seeing. He flipped through them a second time. “You haven’t shown these to anyone, have you?”

Stephen shook his head. “I saved them for you. I figured you were the one who could do something about the situation.”

“You did good.” Patrick leaned over and patted him on the shoulder. “I suppose neither of us have forgotten…well…Camille, for one.”

Stephen cringed at the veiled threat and bit his lip rather than say something he’d regret.

“Where did Natalie go?”

“I don’t know. She said something about going home.”

“She has another set?”

“She’s got a second printed copy and the memory chip in the camera.”

Patrick leaned closer until Stephen could smell the foul odor of his breath. “I’m counting on you, Stephen. Counting on you to make sure Natalie stays out of this. We have to stick together, you know.”

Stephen forced a smile, but he knew the people Patrick worked for and his gut told him that giving the photos to Patrick was no different than throwing them into the incinerator. And that looking away this time would cost him more than losing the woman he loved.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 12:01 P.M.

KASILI

Natalie listened to the hum of her car as it idled at the stoplight. She tapped on the steering wheel and waited for the light to turn green. Kasili, like most of the larger cities in the country, was a startling contrast of two worlds. Modern, though neglected, office and apartment buildings on paved roads bordered unlit dirt roads and rows of traditional mud huts. Where she sat, hawkers stood along the side of the roadway, walking from car to car with everything from mangos to clothes hangers to sunglasses. A blind beggar stood at the street corner holding a bowl in his outstretched hands. It was the same man she’d given coins to for the past six months.

She pulled up her ponytail and wiped the back of her neck with her hand. Yesterday’s rains had left the air humid, and the cramped, stuffy quarters of her non-air-conditioned car didn’t help either. But with incidences of carjackings on the rise, keeping her windows rolled up in the city had become a necessity.

Natalie gulped down the last of her water, dropped the empty bottle onto the seat between her and Joseph, then pressed on the accelerator as the light turned green. She needed time to clear her head and figure out what to do now. Stephen might have promised to make
some phone calls, but she knew that wasn’t enough. The rest of the world didn’t have time to deal with the problems of the RD.

For now, they’d go back to her house, eat a bowl of leftover curry with some chocolate cake, and see if she could come up with a plan. While a slab of cake might not solve today’s problems, it certainly couldn’t hurt.

She glanced over at Joseph’s solemn expression. They both needed a break from the emotional impact of what they’d seen.

Natalie paused at another red light. But as it flickered to green, glass shattered behind her. She gasped and jerked around to see what had happened.

“Your bag!” Joseph fought to unlock his door.

“And your camera.” Turning, Natalie saw the thief as he darted away. Short frame, ebony skin, knitted cap…

Ignoring a honk behind her, she shifted the gear into Park and jumped from the driver’s seat. Her black purse dangled between the thief’s fingers as he skirted across the road toward the throng of people surrounding the market. A second later he disappeared behind a vegetable stand.

Natalie had barely made it to the curb on the opposite side of the street. She stomped her foot against the sidewalk and returned to the car. It was no use chasing the crook. She’d never find him. His head start had been too significant.

Another car blasted its horn behind her. She slid into the driver’s seat and glanced at Joseph. Shards of glass had splattered across the backseat and onto his headrest. “Are you all right?”

He sat forward in the seat to avoid the glass. “I think so.”

She drove with trembling hands until she came to the relative safety of the guarded parking lot of a hardware store. “I’m so sorry about your camera, Joseph.”

He nodded at his backpack sitting on the floorboard in front of him. “We still have the printed photos in my backpack.”

Running her fingers through her hair, she worked to steady her
breathing. So much for clearing her head. She couldn’t even think. All she could hear was the shattering of the backseat window replaying in her mind like a broken record.

Joseph picked off a shard of glass that had stuck to the collar of his shirt. “You should call the police.”

Natalie tried to swallow the lump of irritation rising in her throat. Of all days. She’d had several friends robbed at intersections in their cars, but she had enough trouble to deal with today without having to fill out a police report on items she’d probably never see again. She made a quick inventory of what was missing. A handful of change, her international driver’s license, Joseph’s camera…

Joseph’s camera.

She felt the acid rising in her stomach. What if this hadn’t been a random theft after all? Stephen knew she had an extra set of photos. What if he’d told Patrick? Patrick might deny the existence of the Ghost Soldiers, but if there was a cover-up involved…

The implication ripped through her like one of the shards of glass on the seat behind her. If Patrick was involved, he’d have had just enough time to arrange a local thug to ensure that no evidence remained of what had taken place in Joseph’s village.

No. Surely she was jumping to conclusions. She needed to go home and think.

The jingling of her cell phone made her jump. “Hello?”

“Natalie, it’s Chad.”

Relief flooded through her as she checked for traffic, then exited the parking lot. “The phones have been down. I’ve been trying to call you.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I…” Her voice broke.

“Natalie—” The line crackled.

“Chad?”
No
,
Lord. Please. I’ve got to have someone I trust.
She pressed the phone against her ear and tried to stop the rising panic in her voice.

“Natalie, what happened?”

She breathed out a sigh of relief. “I went to Joseph’s village. It’s true. The Ghost Soldiers exist, Chad. I have pictures. Proof.”

A pause. “I thought you weren’t going to get involved.”

“I couldn’t ignore what Joseph saw.” Natalie blinked and tried to see through the tears.

“Maybe not, but this isn’t a game, Natalie. Especially if the Ghost Soldiers exist. It’s too dangerous.”

“Really.” Anger seeped through the tears. “I’d say so. Someone just smashed the back window of my car and took my purse with the camera and memory chip.”

“Are you in your car?”

“Yes.”

“Come to the hospital, and we’ll figure out what to do together.”

Squeezing the phone against her shoulder, she turned left onto her street. “I’m already here at my house—”

“Natalie, you don’t know if it’s safe.”

“I need to go inside and try to sort through what’s going on.” She waited for Joseph to open the gate for her before pulling into her driveway and turning off the engine. The front door was shut, and the metal bars were still intact on the windows. Nothing looked out of place.

“Everything looks fine here.” She hurried up the porch steps. “I’ll be at the hospital in thirty minutes. Forty-five, tops. I promise.”

She hung up, then jammed her key into the security gate, thankful Joseph was with her. The small entryway looked undisturbed. Her umbrella hung on the iron coat rack. Yesterday’s mail lay unopened on the half-moon table.

She looked farther in. A stream of light shone onto the tiled kitchen floor.

The back door stood open.

“
No, no, no…
” Natalie took a step sideways, knocking into Joseph in the process. She looked into the living room. Her couch was tilted
forward. Drawers had been pulled out and dumped on the floor. Papers lay scattered across the floor.

Joseph stood beside her, eyes wide, his fingers clutching his backpack. “Who would do this?”

“I don’t know.” Natalie punched in Chad’s number as terror rose in her throat and sucked the air from her lungs.

“Natalie?”

“They’ve been here.” This time she didn’t try to erase the panic in her voice.

“Get out of the house, Natalie. Now.”

“I’m coming. I’ve got to grab my passport and some cash in case I can’t come back.” She rushed toward the tiny garage situated off of the living room, thankful she’d opted not to carry her ID in her purse.

The door to the garage slammed open against the cement wall. Nothing looked touched in this part of the house. Something had scared the intruders away…unless they were still hiding…

Pushing the thought aside, she scrambled toward the old sleeping bag and camping chair where she’d hidden a small safe. Her emergency backpack sat next to it. She’d packed it months ago, a “grab pack” with enough food, water, and other emergency items to last at least three days if conditions in the country turned completely sour. Maybe she should bring it along as well.

“Natalie?”

“Just a minute.” She laid the phone on the shelf beside her and opened the safe, then picked the phone back up.

“Get out of there, Natalie.”

Grabbing her passport and the backpack, she rushed outside with Joseph beside her. “I’m on my way.”