Cross Country (18 page)

T
HE NEXT MORNING, we returned to Lagos, exhausted and with heavy hearts. Clearly, this kind of insanity happened often here. How could the people bear it?

"Whatever you need, Alex. I want to get this killer as badly as you do. I've written about him enough."

She had her own apartment in the city, but we drove to her parents' house on a part of Victoria Island — to a side of this fascinating megacity that I hadn't seen before.

The streets here were wide and clean, with no buildings taller than two stories. Most of the homes sat behind yellow or pink stucco walls. Still, there was a familiar smell of fruit and flowers decaying in the air.

Adanne pulled up to a gate and punched in a code.

"Alex," she said before we got out of her car, "I prefer to save my parents the stress and worry. I told them we've been in Abuja. They're worried about civil war."

"Okay," I agreed. "Abuja it is."

"Thank you. You're very kind," she whispered up close to my ear. "Oh, here they are. They'll think you're a new boyfriend. But I'll clear that up, don't worry."

Everyone was coming out through the carport to the parking pad as we pulled in. I was still pondering the idea of Adanne's new boyfriend.

Two boys, adorable, smiling twins in school uniforms and undone neckties, appeared. They were elbowing each other to be the first to open Adanne's door.

There were hugs all around for Adanne and then introductions for me. I was a policeman from America who was helping her with an important story. I was not a new boyfriend. Adanne had everyone laughing about that absurdity within seconds. Ha, ha, what a comedienne she was.

I
MET HER mother, Somadina, her father, Uchenna, her sister-in-law, Nkiru, and the nephews, James and Calvin. They couldn't have been warmer or nicer people. It seemed utterly natural to them that a complete stranger should come stay in their home for an unspecified amount of time.

Adanne showed me to her father's office. The walls in here, like in Adanne's office at the
Guardian
, were covered with framed news stories.

I noticed that a couple of them dealt with a gang of killer boys, and the man who led them. The name Tiger wasn't used, however.

"Are these all yours?" I asked, looking around. "You've been a busy girl, haven't you?"

She was a little sheepish now, the first embarrassment I bad seen from her.

"Let's say I've never had to wonder if my father is proud of me. My mother as well."

I also noticed a framed military portrait on the desk — a young soldier with Adanne's features and her eyes.

"Your brother?"

"Kalu, yes." She went over and picked it up. Instantly there was sadness in her eyes.

"He was with the Engineering Corps. My big brother. I adored him, Alex. You would have liked him."

I wanted to ask what had happened to him, but I didn't.

"I'll tell you, Alex. Two years ago, he went to Niku — for a meeting at the Ministry of Urban Development. There was a dinner that night. A private function at a popular restaurant. No one knows exactly what happened, but all fifteen people there were found dead. They were massacred with guns and machetes."

The Tiger? I wondered. And his killer boys? Was that why she had written about him? And maybe why I was here now? Was everything finally coming together?

Adanne set the picture down with a sigh. Then she absently ran her fingers through her braids. Once again, I couldn't help noticing how beautiful she was. Stunning, really. There was no getting around it.

"That was the first time I ever heard of the Tiger. Only because I did my own digging. The 'official' investigation by the police went nowhere. As usual."

"And you're still digging?" I asked.

She nodded. "Maybe someday I can tell my parents that Kalu's murder is solved. That would be the greatest thing, 'make my career,' as they say. In the meantime, we don't talk about it here, you understand?"

"I understand. And I'm sorry."

"No need for that, Alex. I'm working on a story that's larger and more important than any particular killer. It's about the people who hire them, the ones who want to control our country. Honestly, the story scares even me."

For a few seconds, neither of us said anything, which was unusual for us. We looked at each other, and there was a sudden but undeniable charge in the silence.

Like most of the men she met, no doubt, I wanted to kiss Adanne, but I held myself back. I didn't want to insult her or dishonor her parents, or, more important, Bree.

She smiled at me. "You are a good man, Alex. I wasn't expecting that — in an American."

I
EXCUSED MYSELF for a few minutes and borrowed Adanne's mobile to make a call. I didn't think Ian Flaherty would pick up, but I wanted to at least try and reestablish contact with the CIA.

"Cross?"

"Flaherty? How did you do that?"

"Caller ID, ever heard of it?"

"But—"

"Tansi. Your girlfriend's name is on the AU flight record along with yours. I've been looking everywhere for you. Both of you — she's a celebrity too. Writes controversial articles, one after the other. She's a big deal down here. We need to talk. Seriously. You finally have my interest. And so does your killer, the Tiger."

"Hang on a second. Slow down." I'd forgotten how quickly Flaherty could piss me off. "You've been looking for me? Since when? I only tried you about sixteen times."

"Since I learned something you want to know."

"What do you mean?"

He didn't answer right away. "I mean, I found out something you want to know."

It was suddenly obvious to me that he didn't trust the phone line. I stopped to regroup for a second and picked up a pen from the desk.

"Where can I meet you?"

"Let's say tomorrow, same time as before, at the place on that card I gave you. You know what I'm talking about, Detective Cross?"

He meant the bank on Broad Street but didn't want to name it, obviously. It was a Victoria Island location, so it was perfect for me.

"Got it. I'll see you then."

"And dress nice, Detective. Wear a tie or something."

"A tie?" I said. "What are you talking about?"

But he'd already hung up on me.

The prick.

E
VERYONE WAS WAITING for me on the patio after my call — with palm wine and kola nuts untouched until I got there.

Adanne seemed to be finding my visit either very joyful or amusing, and she was smiling all the time. I could tell she was happy to be home.

Then the boys got me into a little backyard soccer. The twins were either polite or genuinely impressed that I could juggle the ball a little, even as they schooled me up and down the yard. But it felt good to be running around with the kids. Nice boys. Not killers.

Dinner was a chicken stew called egusi — and fufu, which is pounded yam for dipping in the broth. There were also fried plaintains, served with a spiced tomato sauce that could have taken the paint off a car. The family setting seemed familiar to me, yet different at the same time, and I ate easily the best meal I'd had in Africa.

Uchenna's favorite topic clearly seemed to be his daughter, Adanne. I learned more about her in those few hours than in all the time she and I had spent together before coming back to Lagos. Adanne jumped in to tell her own version of a few of her father's stories, but when Somadina dragged out the baby pictures, she surrendered and went off to the kitchen to clean up.

While she was gone, the conversation got more serious, and her father spoke of the tragic murders of Christians in northern Nigeria, and then of the reprisals by Christians in the east. He told me the story of a Christian schoolteacher who was recently beaten to death by her Muslim students.

Finally, Uchenna talked about the provocative newspaper articles his daughter wrote on a weekly basis and said how dangerous they were.

But mainly there was laughter in the house that night. Already I felt at home. This was a good family, like so many families here in Lagos.

After Nkiru took the boys to bed and Adanne rejoined the group, the conversation turned to politics and grownup talk again. There had been four bombings in Bayelsa State that week, down in the Delta region near the oil fields. The pressure for Nigeria to split into independent states was growing along with the violence all around the country.

"It is all about bad men. All of it, always has been," Adanne said. "It's time that the world was run by women. We want to create, not destroy. Yes, I'm serious, Daddy. No, I haven't had too much wine."

"It was the beer," her father said.

A
ROUND MIDNIGHT, ADANNE led me to a small bedroom where I'd be staying in the rear of the house. She touched my arm, came in behind me, and sat down on the bed.

"They like you, Alex, especially my mother and sister-in-law. I can't see why. I don't get it."

I laughed. "I guess I fooled them. They'll catch on to me soon."

"Exactly right. Just what I was going to say. So now, we're thinking the same thoughts, I see. So — what are you thinking at this moment? Tell me the truth, Alex."

I didn't have a very good answer for Adanne. Well, actually I did, but I didn't want to say it out loud. But then I did anyway.

"I think there's an attraction between us, but we have to let it go."

"That's probably right, Alex. Or maybe not."

She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek and held her lips there for a few seconds. She smelled nicely of soap, clean and fresh.

Adanne looked up into my eyes and she was still smiling. She had perfect white teeth. "I just want to lie here with you for a while. Can we do that? Just be here together without any more intimacy than that? What do you think? Can we do it two nights in a row?"

I finally kissed Adanne back, on the lips, but I didn't hold the kiss for very long.

"I'd like that," I told her.

"Me too," she said. "I have love in my heart for you. It's just a crush, I think. Don't say anything, Alex. Don't spoil this, whatever it is."

I didn't. We held on to each other until sleep took us both. I'm not sure if it took us farther away or closer together that night, but nothing happened for either of us to regret.

Or maybe I would come to regret that nothing happened.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, Adanne was up early, making coffee and fresh-squeezed juice for everyone. Then she volunteered to drive me to my meeting with Flaherty. She was more serious and businesslike now, the way I'd seen her away from her family.

"I have no idea," I told her and smiled. Now I was the one smiling all the time. "It's another Nigerian mystery, I guess."

"You're the mystery," she said. "I think so."

"You're not alone in that."

She stopped the car in front of the bank on Broad Street.

"Be careful, Alex." She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "It is dangerous out there, more than ever."

Then I hopped out of the car and gave a wave, and she was off. I decided immediately not to think about her, but then I was thinking about nothing else but Adanne — her smile, last night at her house, things that we didn't do.

Flaherty! I reminded myself. What the hell does he want from me?

The CIA man was nowhere to be seen, though. I waited about twenty minutes, just long enough to start getting paranoid, when his Peugeot skidded up to the curb.

He threw open the door on my side. "C'mon, let's go. I don't have time to waste." When I got in, I saw there was a blue folder on the seat and picked it up.

"What's this?"

Flaherty looked dirty and sweaty and totally stressed out, more weaselly than usual. He pulled away and started driving. Typical of him, he didn't bother to answer my question.

So I opened the file. It was just a single photocopied form with a passport-size picture of a young boy stapled to it.

"Adoption papers?"

"Orphanage records. That's your Tiger. His name is Abidemi Sowande. Born Lagos, nineteen seventy-two, to wealthy parents. Both of them died when he was seven years old, no living relatives. Apparently little Abi wasn't exactly the picture of mental health. He ended up on a ward for a year after that. When he came out, the old family fortune was gone."

"What happened to it?"

Flaherty shrugged, and a little smoke from his cigarette got into his eye. He squinted and rubbed at it.

"Sowande was supposed to get transferred to state care, but somewhere between hospital and orphanage, he disappeared. He was a bright boy apparently. High IQ anyway. He spent two years at university in England. Then he disappeared until a few years ago here. That's it, all I have. No further record of any kind until now. We think he might have worked as a mercenary."

I stared at the picture in my hand. Could this boy be the man I'd seen in Darfur? The killer of so many people here and in Washington? Ellie's murderer?

"How do we even know it's him?" I asked.

"The dead guy in Sudan — Mohammed Shol? We got a source says he was bragging about doing business with 'the Tiger,' supposedly knew a thing or two about him. It seemed like a long shot, but then someone dug up this record and we got a print match to the crime scene at Shol's. Sweet, right?"

"I don't know," I said, holding up the folder. "I mean, really, what am I supposed to do with this? Seems a little convenient all of a sudden."

Flaherty glared over at me and swerved out of his lane.

"Jesus, Cross, how much help do you want here?"

"Help?" I said. I wanted to hit him. "You hang me out to dry, then show up and give me the name of someone who doesn't seem to exist anymore? Possibly a mercenary, but who knows? Is that the kind of help you mean?"

"This is gravy, Detective. I told you not to count on me from day one."

"No, you told me that on day four — after I spent three nights in jail."