ECLIPSE (9 page)

She sat alone among the dead, her senses absorbing what had happened, her conscious mind struggling to accept it. She measured her life in minutes.

At last Okimbo emerged from what once had been her home.

He stopped and gazed up at the sky, now a light blue from which all evidence of the eclipse had vanished. Then he came to Marissa.

“They are all dead now,” he told her. “There is no one left to be your witness.”

Marissa forced herself to stand. In an ashen voice, she asked, “Where is my husband?”

Okimbo shrugged. “He’s here somewhere, I suppose. Why don’t we look for him together?”

Marissa could not speak. He took her hand as he had taken Omo’s. “A man’s own house,” he said, “is the logical place to start.”

Like an automaton, Marissa took one step, then another, picking her way through the dead. At the door of the house, Okimbo stood aside, waving her inside with an air of courtesy. Staring through the doorway, Marissa could see nothing but Bobby’s ruined desk.

Swallowing her dread, she stepped inside.

At once she gasped, covering her mouth.

Omo lay on the carpet, her dress around her waist. Her open eyes were sightless. A ribbon of blood came from her throat.

Marissa reeled. As she stared down, a moving shadow seemed to merge with Omo’s body. Marissa started, then looked to her side.

Bobby hung by his wrists, shirtless, lashed to the ceiling fan by a rope. Eyes filled with pain and horror, he held the neck of a beer bottle clamped between his teeth. His pants were spotted with urine. As the fan slowly rotated, exposing his back, Marissa saw the bloody welts of a whipping. From behind her, Okimbo said, “He understands that if he drops the bottle, the lashes will redouble. So far he’s doing admirably. Though watching your young friend’s last moments seemed to have upset him.”

Marissa fought to keep her sanity. Focusing on the tenuous fact that Bobby was still alive, she waited to see his face. The fan, groaning, strained with his weight. “No worries,” Okimbo said. “He’ll come around again.”

A stocky soldier leaned against the wall, eyes glazed, a heavy, blood-streaked chain dangling from his hand. “Bring Okari his father,” Okimbo told the soldier.

Instinctively, Marissa stepped forward, reaching to touch her husband’s bare ankle. When Bobby’s face appeared again, he gazed at her in mute suffering. Suddenly his eyes widened and the bottle dropped from his mouth.

Flinching, Marissa turned to see. The soldier stood in the doorway, Chief Okari’s severed head tucked in the crook of his arm. The chief’s headdress, nailed to his skull, was slightly askew.

“No matter,” Okimbo said to Bobby. “It is said you never listened to him.”

Bobby’s eyes closed. Kneeling, Okimbo retrieved the bottle.

“No,”
Marissa cried out.

“No?”

“You can’t do this to him,” she said in desperation. “I’m an American citizen . . .”

Okimbo laughed aloud. “Oh,” he responded, his voice a parody of awe. Turning to the soldier, he said, “Mrs. Okari has become American again. We must cut her husband down.”

The soldier stared, as though stupefied by what he held. “For God’s sake,” Okimbo snapped. “Drop the head.”

The man blinked, then laid Chief Okari’s head on the carpet and drew the machete from his belt. As he advanced toward Bobby, passing close to Marissa, she smelled the gin and marijuana. She was terrified that Okimbo wanted the soldier to sever Bobby’s head.

She shut her eyes as the soldier’s blade whirred; the next sound was the thud of her husband’s body hitting the floor. Her eyes opened only when she heard him moan.

Bobby lay curled in the fetal position. Standing over him, Okimbo solemnly declaimed, “I arrest you on charges of vandalism and sedition, and for the murder of three employees of PetroGlobal Luandia. Further charges will be added stemming from the villagers’ resistance to your detention.”

Bobby gave no sign of hearing. Okimbo turned to Marissa, a mocking glint in his eye. “He will face our system of impartial justice. Do not expect to travel; nor will it be in your husband’s interests for you to speak ill of your adopted country to the foreign press. But as an American citizen—not to mention a Luandian—you will be treated with due respect. In fact, I will personally escort you to your husband’s compound in Port George.”

Overcome by fear, Marissa was barely able to comprehend the scene around her: the dead ravaged girl, so precious to her; the head of Bobby’s father bleeding on their carpet. Her husband had at last passed out, a mercy.

She knelt by his side. Roughly, Okimbo wrenched her arm. “Let us go,” he said.

P
IERCE WAS STILL AWAKE WHEN DAWN CAST ITS THIN YELLOW LIGHT
on the grass, the cypresses, the white-capped ocean. He sipped coffee as he read the latest report from the BBC, posted just minutes ago.

“Luandian president Savior Karama,” the bulletin read, “has announced the arrest of the dissident Bobby Okari on charges of murder and sedition. While there are fragmentary reports of military activity in the vicinity of Goro, none are confirmed, and the government states only that ‘appropriate measures have been taken to quarantine resistance.’

“A spokesman for the principal oil exploration company in the Luan-dian Delta, PetroGlobal Luandia, says that it has removed all personnel from the affected area and has no knowledge of conditions on the ground.”

Filled with worry, Pierce typed out an e-mail, hoping that a quick message to Marissa might draw some response. “Are you safe?” he asked. “If you can, answer ASAP.”

Hours passed. Fretful, Pierce checked his e-mail every fifteen minutes or so. The only message was from Amy, requesting that he forward his keys to the house.

His reaction was a spasm of anger. As he sat down, mentally composing a response, a second e-mail appeared on the screen.

“They’ve killed hundreds of us,” her message said, “and taken Bobby. We need help from America. Please come.”

W
AITING AT
L
ONDON
H
EATHROW FOR HIS FLIGHT TO
L
UANDIA,
Damon Pierce felt as if he were about to leave his life behind.

Upon landing he could be a target for kidnapping or robbery by those who would see only an affluent white man, perhaps an oil company executive. On the advice of his security firm—retained at the insistence of experts—Pierce had concealed ten thousand dollars in a waistband, a leg strap, and a sock with a hidden compartment. In his briefcase was an alarm that, when wedged against a hotel door, would emit a piercing shriek were someone to break in; in the prior month there had been seventeen hotel robberies in Waro, Luandia’s commercial center and most populous city, where armed gangs had gone door to door unimpeded by police. He would have bodyguards in Waro and Savior City, the capital. But in the Luandian Delta this was pointless; even were his protectors not hopelessly outgunned by the militia groups pervading the delta, such a force would defeat his purpose. One could not search out witnesses to a government-ordered massacre accompanied by a private army.

“The delta’s one of the most dangerous places on the planet,” the chief of his security team had advised him. “People die there without knowing why.”

That was seven days ago. Since then, the State Department had warned Americans in Waro about bombings by Islamic terrorists, then evacuated all diplomatic personnel from the delta and admonished civilians not to go there, citing militia attacks anticipated in reprisal for the arrest of Bobby Okari. Setting aside Karama’s assertion that the massacre
had not occurred at all, the irony of Goro, Pierce’s security adviser noted, was that the Asari were the only dissident group Okimbo could slaughter at will. Their movement was, after all, nonviolent.

Now Pierce scanned his fellow passengers. Some wore bright African clothes, others Muslim garb. Many of the women were round, and their smooth faces reminded him of Marissa’s quip that only white women required plastic surgery. One little boy shot Pierce glances of curiosity from behind his mother, reminding him that he was about to become an oddity.

Pierce had never been to Africa. Even those friends who had gone there avoided the Luandian Delta. It was, Bryce Martel had told him with a smile, “a place so paranoid that it makes Beirut look like Cincinnati.”

T
HEIR MEETING HAD
been central to Pierce’s preparation. Martel was a former highly placed CIA officer now dedicated to strategic planning in the post-9/11 world: Luandia, as Martel explained, had become an obsession among those fixated on sources of oil beyond a Middle East beset by hostile forces. “Luandia’s like a criminal syndicate that peddles oil instead of heroin,” Martel said. “The world needs what Karama has. Okari and the delta are caught up in our addiction.”

They were dining at Aqua, an elegant seafood restaurant in San Francisco. A sybarite, Martel had chosen a particularly prized Meursault. Savoring the wine, Pierce said, “Tell me about conditions in the delta.”

Martel pondered the question. In his late sixties, he remained slim, with salt-and-pepper hair, a weathered visage, and bright green eyes too sharp to require glasses. His manner was crisp and wholly unsentimental. “They’re deteriorating,” he said bluntly.

“The delta’s principal city, Port George, is dangerous in the extreme. Like the delta as a whole, it’s riddled with militia groups who live off oil theft and kidnappings. In the last two weeks nine people were killed in street fighting between rival gangs. A third gang kidnapped a project engineer for PGL; a fourth snatched the state governor’s three-year-old daughter. In that environment, some bad guy may think you’re an oil executive or a spy. Worse, the bad guys include the army and police, both of which are capable of killing you unless they’d prefer to shake you down.”

“Terrific.”

“No help for that. But you can reduce the risk. Hide your cash. Don’t
bring information about your finances that you don’t need. Observe all police and military checkpoints; they may rob you if you do, but they’ll shoot you if you don’t. Don’t take pictures of anything—the police may jail you for espionage. Never travel after dark. Take no trips to remote areas. Don’t ride in an open boat. Refuse strangers who offer you assistance. Don’t meet with militia groups. Avoid the creeklands where they hide—even if you’re lucky enough not to meet them, you’re certain to get lost. Sensible rules,” Martel concluded with a sigh. “But given what Marissa Okari wants, you’ll break them all if you live that long.

“It’s not enough to visit Okari in prison. What he needs are facts compelling enough to make his death embarrassing to Karama and Lu-andia’s customers in the West. Your experience equips you to do two things: prove that what happened in that village was a massacre, and build Okari a defense. You can’t do either hiding out in a hotel. In effect, Damon, your friends are asking you to risk your life.”

“They’ve risked their lives for years,” Pierce answered. “I’ve got no wife or kids or anyone who depends on me. All I am is a lawyer with skills they may need, and that I haven’t used lately in the service of anything more than becoming richer. What might help me function better is to understand how Luandia got so screwed up.”

An observer by nature, Martel paused to scan the people around them. The restaurant and its bar were jammed with people in their thirties and forties: lawyers, investment bankers, venture capitalists, providers of arcane financial services, and others riding out the collapse of a real estate market some had done their best to overheat. The more curious trio sitting at the next table—a fat sixty-year-old man with two underdressed and suspiciously pneumatic Asian women young enough to be his granddaughters but who obviously were not—drew from Martel a wintry smile before he said, “We can start with our friends the British.

“In the colonial era, the Europeans busied themselves carving Africa into nonsensical so-called countries composed of warring tribes who despised one another. But it was the Brits’ particular genius to design Luandia out of two hundred and fifty different ethnic groups, many with their own distinct languages. The stated mission was to bring these benighted races the civilizing benefits of Christianity and economic progress. In truth, the economic progress included a lively slave trade, and the ranks of civilizers combined the enterprising but greedy with the worthless
younger sons of aristocratic families—licentious in the extreme, arrogant in their privilege, and hostile to the native people they didn’t sell or kill.

“Their legacy was chaos. In 1960, by which time this enterprise had become an embarrassment, the British left behind a self-governing ‘country’ with no sense of community, scant infrastructure, and wild disparities in education. Little has changed in the first fifty years. Of particular concern since 9/11 is the Muslim north, where until recently there was literally one college graduate and few resources of any kind, creating a population—at least in the minds of some—ripe for Islamic terrorism. That’s another reason we want Karama to like us.”

“What accounts for
him?”

Briefly, Martel scanned the menu. “An extreme form of social Darwinism,” he answered. “In theory, Luandia’s federal system looks pretty much like ours—there’s a president, a congress, a supreme court, and thirty states with governors. In reality, the government is inefficient, hopelessly corrupt, and outright brutal, with a history of stolen elections, military coups, and assassinations among competing factions. The result is a monster like Karama. He’s been in power for seven years now and shows no sign of leaving.”

Pierce frowned. “I’m trying to square that with the potential Marissa saw.”

“Oh, it’s
there.
Taken as a whole, Luandians are assertive, brash, funny, and smart. To see all that human capital mired in poverty, criminality, oppression, and disease is tragic. In the last half century they’ve gone backward. Their life expectancy is falling; Luandians’ sole statistical boomlet is in AIDS. And the biggest reason is the one Okari complains about: Luandia is wallowing in oil.”