Invasive Species (9 page)

Kigoma, Tanzania

TREY HAD NEVER
worked in Tanzania. The reason: The country was too well trodden. With the exception of a vanishing patch of forest here, a remote mountain range there, all the wild areas had been extensively studied by scientists before he was even born.

For Trey, that was a deal breaker. Nothing was more boring than walking in somebody else's footsteps.

He'd visited, though. Just once, with his parents and Christopher when he was fourteen. In and around the tuberculosis conference Thomas and Katherine were attending, the four of them had followed vast herds of wildebeests in the Serengeti, witnessed lions bringing down a zebra in Ngorongoro Crater, and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.

It was this last that Trey remembered most vividly. Even now, he could bring back the breathless thrill of standing amid ice fields at nineteen thousand feet on the summit at dawn, all of Africa at his feet, the fading stars above close enough to touch, brilliant meteors tracing across the purple sky.

He remembered his parents flanking him, his mother's arm around his waist, his father's draped across his shoulders.

*   *   *

TREY WALKED DOWN
the stairs and onto the tarmac at Kigoma Airport a little after noon two days after his departure from New York. The atmosphere was noticeably wetter, more tropical, than in the savannas to the east. Clouds piled up on the horizon, replete with moisture picked up over the Congo rain forests to the west.

To the first European explorers, Africa had been an unimaginably vast continent. More than a single place, it was a thousand that didn't even overlap or intersect. Trackless swamps, endless forests, sourceless rivers. Going in, you knew you were going to get lost.

You could disappear for years, or forever. As David Livingstone did before being found by Henry Morton Stanley in Ujiji, only a few miles from where Trey was standing right now.

But that was then. Nothing was far enough apart anymore. You could move from desert to forest, from mountain to savanna, in just a few hours. The mystery was all but gone, the teeming plains little more than gigantic zoos filled with semidomesticated animals, idling minibuses, and clicking tourist cameras.

The taxi stand outside the terminal building was starved for business. Trey chose a canny-eyed young man from among the dozen importuning drivers and climbed into the backseat of his 1970s-era Peugeot. It had once been red, most likely, but the sun and rain had turned it a grayish brown.

The driver glanced at Trey in the mirror. “Yes?”

“Nyerere Hospital.”

Without a blink, the driver pulled away from the curb. If he had some idea why Trey was here—and Trey thought he did—he didn't show it.

The hospital was located on the outskirts of town. It was a relatively new building, rectangular, made of whitish stone and steel. The polished sandstone floor of the lobby had ammonite fossils in it.

As he walked in, Trey saw a squarish young white man in a gray suit, blue tie, and sunglasses sitting in the waiting area. Instead of going to the reception desk, he walked over to the man, who looked up at him (or at least in his general direction) without taking the sunglasses off.

Trey had seen a thousand just like him in a hundred countries. It didn't matter to them if they were walking clichés: Embassy men, CIA officials, and (increasingly) private contractors almost always dressed like this.

Trey read this one as embassy.

“You're making sure that Sheila Connelly gets out of here with no fuss,” Trey said to him, not phrasing it as a question.

Embassy was a little softer than Trey had expected, with a round face behind the dark glasses. His sandy hair was thinning on top, even though his smooth cheeks marked him as no more than thirty.

Trey guessed he was unhappy to have been posted here, and Trey couldn't blame him. Since the end of the cold war, East Africa's global importance had dwindled. Tanzania was far from being prime territory.

Finally Embassy shifted in his seat. “You a friend of hers?” His voice, too, was unexpectedly soft, the accent showing South Carolina origins.

Trey said, “Hope to be.”

He introduced himself, then sat down opposite and said, “Didn't think she'd need protecting by you guys.”

Embassy's sunglasses were trained on him. Trey waited, giving the man the chance to decide how much he was willing to say.

CIA agents were never worth talking to. They were always looking to dump you in some secret prison and forget about you. Nor did embassy men open up when their mission was dangerous or high profile.

But this kind of mind-numbing assignment? Babysitting a hospital waiting room? There was a chance.

Eventually Embassy shifted a little in his seat and said, “Well. There's been some rumblings from the families of the other people who died.” He paused. “We're just making sure she gets on her way safely.”

He licked his dry lips. His forehead gleamed with sweat. The lobby wasn't air-conditioned, and it must have been hot inside that suit.

Trey got to his feet. “I'm getting myself something to eat and drink,” he said. “Want anything?”

“Not allowed to eat while I'm on duty,” Embassy said darkly.

Trey waited.

“Cafeteria here is under renovation.”

Trey smiled. “I'll figure something out.”

*   *   *

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER,
he was back from a market down the street, carrying Cokes, coffee, sandwiches, and a paper bag full of passion fruit. Keeping a chicken sandwich, coffee, and the passion fruit for himself, he handed the rest of it over.

Embassy dug into a sandwich, then said through a mouthful, “Nice try. But I still can't tell you anything.”

Trey said, “'Course not.”

The man took another bite, followed by a gulp of soda. His sunglasses were a little fogged up. “Real good,” he said.

Trey said, “No one really believes that Sheila burned down her mother's place, do they?”

Embassy lowered his sandwich and looked across at Trey. “People who set fires go to jail,” he said.

“And?”

“We're putting your friend on an airplane today and waving 'bye. Then everyone's happy and I can go back to my place in Dar.”

Trey said, “What killed Sheila's mother?”

It was worth a shot. But the sunglasses were as blank as blacked-out windows. Trey knew he wasn't going to get any more.

He stood. Embassy looked up at him and said, “She gets no visitors. Sandwiches won't get you through the door.”

“I know.” Trey hesitated. “She goes home today, you said.”

Embassy nodded.

“Can you tell me about what time?”

Trey watched him think about it before saying, “The last flight back to Dar.”

Trey said, “Thank you.”

Looking down again at the remains of the food Trey had brought, Embassy added, “And the first flight tomorrow to Rome, and then New York.”

At the door Trey turned and said, “You going to be here when I get back?”

Embassy sighed. “Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“But they won't let you talk to her then, either.”

*   *   *

TREY CLIMBED INTO
the taxi and handed over a passion fruit, which the driver accepted without comment. Getting a knife out of the glove compartment, he sliced off one end of the purple fruit's tough skin. Then he handed the knife to Trey, who did the same with one of his own.

The driver slurped up some of the seeds and pulpy fruit, then said, “Yes?”

Trey said, “Ujiji. The house that burned.”

The man shook his head. “Nothing left there.”

Trey took a moment to eat some of his passion fruit, sour enough to make his eyes half close.

“The house,” he said. “Please.”

The driver seemed to be considering whether to say no. But it was a quiet day, Trey had hired him for hours—and was paying well—so eventually he sighed, finished sucking out the innards of his fruit, engaged the gears, and pulled away from the curb.

*   *   *

THE FIRE HAD
done a thorough job. Where the house had stood, all that remained was sodden rubble. Even the nearby trees had been scorched.

But it didn't really matter. Trey knew what had happened here, or at least most of it.

He stood in the midst of the rubble and breathed in deeply through his nose. Nothing but the odor of smoke and wet wood.

He turned and walked past the scorched trees to the edge of the clearing. Breathed in again, but smelled only the forest itself.

Somewhere in the distance, a trumpeter hornbill let loose with its raucous call.

He went back to the waiting taxi. Climbed inside, slamming the door behind him. Before he was even settled in his seat, the car had pulled out and was leaving the ruin behind.

“Ujiji Market,” Trey said.

The driver grunted.

*   *   *

THEY PASSED BENEATH
an avenue of mango trees lining the road. People were clustered in the shade, eating lunch or sleeping or just sitting in twos or threes, talking. Some of them looked up at the passing taxi, but without much interest.

“It's not a market day,” the driver said. “No ferries today.”

Trey didn't reply. In silence they headed past the mango trees and toward the market, the docks, and the shore of Lake Tanganyika, its surface ridged with whitecaps under a looming sky.

*   *   *

AS THE DRIVER
had said, the market was quiet. But not deserted. Many of the stalls and tables were open, selling piles of bananas, stacks of brightly colored textiles, or wooden sculptures of elephants and giraffes.

Trey bought a little carved warthog made out of rosewood, then walked over to a woman selling
kanga
s, traditional garments made from cotton. She was wrapped in one herself, blue with a pattern of big gold leaves on it.

Trey knew that
kanga
s always came with a
jina
, a kind of motto or aphorism, stitched into the fabric. From a distance, he couldn't make out what hers said.

She was an old woman, somewhere between seventy and eighty, with a wrinkled-nut face and white hair cropped close to her scalp. Her eyes were sharp, though, watching Trey approach. Sharp and suspicious.

He was used to that.

“
Habari,
Mama,” he said.

She inclined her head.
“Mzuri.”

Now he could read her
kanga
's
jina
. It said,
Majivuno hayafai
: “Greed is never good.”

He smiled, and again when she bargained fiercely with him over a red-and-blue
kanga
patterned with fanciful birds and a motto that read, “Humanness is better than material things.”

Finally he handed over twenty thousand
shilingi
—about ten dollars, more than the woman had asked—and made a “keep it” gesture when she looked at him with raised eyebrows.

The money disappeared into her
kanga
, and she handed over his purchase. Then, with a sigh, she lit a cigarette and said, “Yes.”

Yes. Ask your questions.

Trey said, “Mama, what killed the missionary lady and those other people?”

“Fire,” she said at once.

When he didn't reply, argue, push, she watched him.

“Have there been other such fires,” he said after a while, “in Ujiji and Kigoma?”

After a pause, she nodded.

“Many?”

She shrugged and made a back-and-forth motion with her hands. “Some here. Some there. Not so many.”

She looked up to the sky, where only a pair of vultures circled.

“Not yet,” she said.

Trey leaned against her table, looking out at the quiet marketplace before turning back to her. “Have you seen them?” he asked. “The wasps?”

She nodded.

“I have as well.”

Her eyes were very dark. “I was . . . afraid.”

“Yes. Me, too.”

“Yet we both still live,” she said.

He looked back at her. “Mama, why burn the house? Why blame the daughter?”

For a long time, many seconds, she didn't answer. Then she said, “They do not want anyone to know what happened.”

“They?”

“If people learn about this, who will be blamed?” she said. “We will. Tanzania. Aid will stop. Tourists will no longer come here.”

“And everything depends on tourists.”

“Yes.” She looked down at her pile of
kangas
. “We will go hungry.”

Again they were silent for a while. Then Trey said, “The wasps. Have they always been here?”

“The
majizi
? No. Of course not. Four months. Five, maybe.” She gestured at the oily lake beyond. “They came across. With the bushmeat and the live animals. The monkeys. And the hunters, too.”

Trey took a breath. “What did you call them?”

“Majizi.”

Thieves.

Trey said, “What is it they steal?”

But the old woman only shrugged.

Then, as she looked over his shoulder, he saw her face set. “Enough questions,” she said. “Go now.”

A young man in a military uniform was standing at the other end of the uncrowded market. He was chatting with one of the vendors, laughing.

“Just tell me,” Trey said. “The thieves, are they still here?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “They will never leave. But not only here.”

“Where else?” Trey asked, although he knew the answer.

She opened her arms wide.

Out there.

In the world.

*   *   *

AS HE'D SAID,
Embassy was still at the hospital. He looked around hopefully to see if Trey had brought more food, then shrugged in a resigned way.

“You almost didn't make it in time,” he said. “They'll be down in a minute or two.”