Cross Country (7 page)

T
HAT NIGHT, I gave Nana Mama a little taste of her own medicine. I waited until late, after the kids had gone to bed. Then I found her in her favorite reading chair, huddled over a copy of
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
.

"More news articles. I want you to take a look at them. They tell a horrible story, Nana. Murder, fraud, rape, genocide."

The article I'd given Nana included coverage of the gang's DC murders. There were two long and well-written stories from the Post, one on each family, including pictures from happier times — like when they'd had their heads.

"Alex, I already told you. I know what's going on there. I don't want to discuss this anymore."

"Neither do I."

"You don't have to solve every single case. Let it go for once in your life."

"I wish I could."

I put the folder flat on her lap, kissed the warm top of her head, and went up to bed. "Stubborn," I muttered.

"Yes, you are. Very."

I
N THE MORNING, I went downstairs around five thirty. I was surprised to see that Jannie and Ali were already up. Nana stood fiddling around at the stove with her back to me. She was cooking something cinnamony and irresistible.

Jannie ferried glasses of orange juice from the counter to the table, where there were already silverware and cloth napkins for five.

Ali was already sitting at his place, working on a big bowl of cereal and milk. He saluted me with a drippy spoon. "He's here!"

Et tu, Ali.

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise," I said, loud enough for the whole room.

Nana didn't respond, but she had heard me, for sure.

Only then did I notice a yellow-bordered National Geographic map of Africa Scotch taped to the refrigerator door.

And also, set down with the napkins and silverware on the table, my passport.

"So," said Nana. "It was nice knowing you."

A
CIA OPERATIVE named Ian Flaherty was "babysitting" a hysterical family down in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The parents' teenaged son and daughter had been kidnapped. They were gathered together in the living room, waiting to learn the ransom demands, and the atmosphere couldn't have been more desperate.

His cell rang, and everyone crowded into the room looked at him with anxious faces and deep concern.

"I'm sorry, I have to take this. It's another case," he said, then walked out into the lush gardens just off the living room.

America was calling — another kind of emergency.

Flaherty recognized the voice on the other end as that of Eric Dana, his superior, at least in rank.

"We have quite a situation on our hands. A homicide detective named Alex Cross is on his way there. He'll arrive on Lufthansa flight 564 at four thirty p.m. The Tiger is in Lagos?" Dana asked.

"He's here," said Flaherty.

"You've seen him yourself?"

"I have, actually. Do you want me to meet the detective's plane?"

"I'll leave that up to you."

"Probably be best if I meet him. Alex Cross, you say. Let me think about it."

"All right, but you have to watch over him. Don't let anything happen to him… when it can be helped. He's well liked here and connected. We don't want a mess over there."

"Too late for that," Flaherty said and snickered a nasty, cynical laugh.

He went back to comfort the family whose children were probably already dead.

But they would pay anyway.

W
ELL, THE INVESTIGATION had definitely taken a turn now. But was it for better or for worse?

Everything that had led to this trip ran through my head like extended case notes, going all the way back to my Georgetown days with Ellie, and then up to Nana's grudging consent that morning.

Nana's going-away gift, such as it was, sat open on my lap. It was a copy of Wole Soyinka's memoir,
You Must Set Forth at Dawn
.

She'd bookmarked it with a family photo — Jannie, Damon, and Ali, cheesing with Donald Duck at Disneyland a year or so back — and she had underlined a quotation on the page.

T'agba ha nde, a a ye ogunja.

As one approaches an elder's status, one ceases to indulge in battles.

It was her version of getting the last word, I suppose. Except that it had the opposite effect on me. I was more determined than ever to make this trip count for something.

Whatever the odds against me, I was going to find the killers of Ellie's family. I had to; I was the Dragon Slayer.

"A
H, SOYINKA. AN illuminating writer. Have you read him before?"

"No, this is my first," I said. "It was a going-away gift from my grandmother."

His smile got even brighter, his eyes wider. "Is she a Nigerian?"

"Just a well-read American."

"Ah, well, nobody's perfect," he said and then laughed before there could be any suggestion of an insult. "T'agba ba nde, a a ye ogunja. It's a Yoruban proverb, you know."

"Are you Yoruban?" I asked. His accent sounded Nigerian to me, but I didn't have the ear to tell Yoruban from Igbo from Hausa, or any of the other tongues.

"Yoruban Christian," he said and then, with a wink, added, "Christian Yoruban, if you ask the bishop. But don't tell on me. Do I have your word on it?"

"I won't tell anyone. Your secret is safe."

He extended a hand as if to shake, and then sandwiched mine between both of his when I reached out toward him. The priest's hands were tiny, yet they communicated friendship, and maybe something else.

"Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior, Detective Cross?"

I pulled my hand back. "How do you know my name?"

"Because if not, considering the trip you're about to take, now might be a good time to do so. Accept Jesus Christ, that is."

The priest made the sign of the cross over me. "I am Father Bombata. May God be with you, Detective Cross. You will need His help in Africa, I promise you. This is a very bad time for us. Maybe even a time of civil war."

He invited me to come sit in the empty seat next to him, and we didn't stop talking for hours, but he never did tell me how he knew my name.

E
IGHTEEN HOURS — WHICH seemed more like a couple of days — after I left Washington, the flight from Frankfurt finally landed at Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, Nigeria.

Then, as I deplaned onto the tarmac, I suddenly felt like I was in Anytown, USA. It might have been Fort Lauderdale, for all I could tell.

"I'm sorry I can't help you here, brother." Father Bombata came up and shook my hand again before we separated.

He had told me he had an escort meeting him to speed up his arrival. "Put two hundred naira in an empty pocket, my friend," he told me.

"What for?" I asked.

"Sometimes God is the answer. Other times it's cash."

Smiling as ever, the diminutive priest gave me his card, then turned and walked away with a final, friendly wave.

I found out what he meant around three hours later, which was the amount of time I had spent sweating on the immigration line. There were just two slow-moving officers at the counter for something like four hundred people.

Some passengers sailed through, while others were detained at the head of the line for as long as thirty minutes. Twice I saw someone taken away by an armed guard through a side door rather than being allowed to go out to the main terminal.

When it was finally my turn, I handed my landing card and passport to the officer.

"Yes, and your passport?" he asked.

I was momentarily confused, but then I remembered what Father Bombata had said and understood. I held a scowl in check. The official wanted his bribe.

I slid two hundred naira across the counter. He took it, stamped me through, and called out for the next person without ever looking at me again.

T
HE LOW HUBBUB and frustration of clearing immigration was nothing compared with the instantaneous onslaught of noise and hurrying people that met me when I passed through the hand- and fingerprint-smudged glass doors and into the main terminal at Murtala Muhammed.

So this is Africa, I thought. And somewhere out there is my killer, or rather killers.

No fewer than five Nigerian "officials" stopped me on my way to the luggage carousels. Each of them asked for verification of my identity. They all basically said the same thing. "Visa, American Express, any card will do." Each of them clearly knew I was American. They all required a small bribe, or maybe they thought of it as a gratuity.

By the time I reached the baggage carousel, got my duffel, and pushed back out through the twenty-deep wall of people pressing in, I was tempted to fork over a few more naira to a raggedy-looking kid in an old skycap hat who asked where I wanted my bags taken.

I thought better of it, however, and pushed on, hauling my own luggage, keeping everything close to the chest. Stranger in a strange land, I thought, though I was also strangely pleased to be here. This promised to be quite an adventure, didn't it? It was completely new territory for me. I didn't know any of the rules.

T
HERE WAS NO relief outside, where the air smelled of diesel, and no wonder: There was a raft of old cars, trucks, and bright yellow buses everywhere that I looked. Locals of all ages walked alongside the traffic, selling everything from newspapers to fruit to children's clothing and used shoes.

I turned around, expecting to see and meet Ian Flaherty, my CIA contact here in Nigeria. The CIA was good at sneaking up on you, right?

Instead, I came face-to-face with two armed officers. These were regular police, I noticed, not immigration. They had all-black uniforms, including berets, with insignia chevrons on the epaulets of their shirts. Both of them carried semiautomatics.

"I'm Alex Cross, yes," I told them.

What happened next defied all logic. My duffel bag was ripped from my arm. Then my small suitcase. One of the officers spun me around and I felt cuffs on my wrists. Then a hard pinch as they snapped down too tightly.

"What's going on?" I struggled to turn to look at the policemen. "What is this? Tell me what's happening."

The officer with my luggage raised a hand in the air as if he were hailing a cab. A white four-door Toyota truck immediately pulled up to the curb.

The cops yanked open a rear door, ducked my head, and pushed me in, throwing my travel bag after me. One officer stayed on the sidewalk while the other jumped in next to the driver, and we took off.

I suddenly realized — I was being kidnapped!

T
HIS WAS SURREAL. It was insane.

I leaned forward in my seat and got a baton hard in the chest, then twice across the face.

I felt, and heard, my nose break!

Blood immediately gushed down my face onto my shirt. I couldn't believe this was happening — not any of it.

The cop in the front passenger seat looked back at me, wild-eyed and ready to swing the baton again. "You like to keep quiet, white man. Fucking American, fucking terrorist, fucking policeman."

I had heard that some people here didn't like American blacks referring to themselves as African American. Now I was feeling it firsthand. I breathed hard through my mouth, coughing up blood and trying to focus though my head was spinning. Humidity and diesel fumes washed over me as the truck weaved through airport traffic, the driver repeatedly sitting on the horn.

I saw a blur of cars, white, red, and green, and several more bright yellow buses. Women were walking on the side of the road with swaddled babies held low on their backs, some of them with baskets balanced on top of their geles. There were a great number of huts in view, but also modern buildings, plus more cars, buses, trucks, and animal-driven carts.

All around me, business as usual.

And business as usual inside this truck, I feared.

Suddenly the cop was on me again. He stretched over the seat and pushed me onto my side. I braced for another strike of his billy club. Instead, I felt his hands patting me down.

Then my wallet was sliding out of my pocket.

"Hey!" I yelled.

He pulled out the wad of cash I had — three hundred American, and another five hundred in naira — then threw the empty wallet back in my face. It sent a shudder of pain deep into my skull.

I coughed out another spray of blood, which hit the seat and earned me another baton strike across the shoulder.

The dark blue nylon sheet covering the backseat suddenly made sense to me. It was there for bloodstains, wasn't it?

I had no bearings, no idea why this was happening, no idea what to do about it either.

In spite of my own better judgment, I asked again, "Where are you taking me? I'm an American policeman! I'm here on a murder case."

The officer barked out something in dialect to the driver. We swerved, and I fell against the car door as we came to a fast stop on the shoulder of the road.

They both got out! One of them tore open the door on my side and I dropped to the ground, cuffed and unable to break my fall.

A world of dust and heat and pain swam around me. I started to cough up dirt.

Powerful hands were under my arms now, lifting. The cop, or whoever he was, brought me up to my knees. I saw a little boy staring from the back of a packed Audi station wagon as it passed.

"You are a brave man. Just as brave as you are stupid, fucking white man."

It was the driver talking now, stepping in for his turn. He slapped me hard, once across the left side of my face and then back across the right. I struggled to stay upright.

"You two are doing an excellent job—" I was definitely punchy. Already I didn't care what came next.

It was a hard overhand fist to my temple. I heard a strange crunching sound inside my head, then another.

I don't know how many closed-fist blows came after that.

I think I passed out at four.