Lords of Corruption (22 page)

"You have no clue how those people have to live. And the idea that a bunch of assholes from the West would go in there and knowingly contribute to the suffering . . ." Flannary's voice trailed off for a moment. "Look, the NGOs I've written about in the past are a problem, but there's a big difference between being a clueless bull in a china shop and what I'm talking about here."

"I don't know," Page said.

"Come on, Bobby. It's got a strong domestic angle -- we're talking about an American charity ripping off American donors and the American government. I also think the
y m
ay have murdered one of their American workers. A young kid who went over there to help."

Page stared out the window for another minute. "That girl Tracy seems to be able to tolerate you. You can have her for two days. After that, you're going to have to prove to me that this is going somewhere."

Flannary was going to protest getting stuck with a kid barely out of diapers but decided not to push it. "You won't regret this."

"Yes, I will," Page said, pointing to the door.

Flannary got up to leave but paused with his hand on the handle. "Are we still on for dinner tonight?"

"I'll pick you up at your hotel at seven thirty."

Chapter
27.

Josh Hagarty pressed the phone to his ear, feeling a weak burst of adrenaline every time the crackling ring sounded but preparing for the almost inevitable moment when the connection died.

Two rings. Three.

He and Annika were staying at a remote B&B run by a German woman so old she seemed indestructible. A chain-smoking mummy with a vaguely creepy accent and an affinity for vicious dogs. She'd told them that the guesthouse had once been a successful stopping-off point for Europeans on safari but that after Mtiti's rise to power, business had dried up. Despite the hard times, though, the plumbing worked and the electricity was just reliable enough to run a glacial Internet connection and an utterly unreliable phone.

Four rings. A new record. He pulled his back off the bed's headboard and leane
d f
orward.

Come on, babe. Pick up.

"Hello?"

"Laura! Christ, I can't believe I finally got you."

Annika came out of the bathroom wearing only a T-shirt and a pair of panties. Normally Josh would have had to concentrate not to stare, but he'd been trying to get in touch with his sister for two hours, and for the moment, the sound of her voice obscured everything else.

"Are you okay, hon? Is everything all right?"

"I thought you were coming home, Josh."

Her voice was almost unrecognizable, and it wasn't just the bad connection. There was none of the deadpan excitement that was always audible when he called or came home. For the first time in seventeen years, he thought he heard despair. "It looks like I've got a flight out on the nineteenth. That'll put me in Kentucky on --"

"The nineteenth? That's like two weeks!"

Laura had always been fiercely independent. She made a point of constantly reminding him that she wasn't his responsibility -- that she loved him but she didn't need him. All that was gone now.

"There just aren't any flights right now. If
I could get there any sooner, you know I would."

"It's okay. It's just that it would be better if you came home, Josh."

He wiped the sweat from around his mouth as Annika looked on with concern. "What if I could figure out how to send you the money I've made? Could you get an apartment or a hotel or something until I get home?"

"I can't leave Mom, Josh. You don't know what's happening here. It's --"

"You don't have to leave Mom!" he shouted and then paused to regain control of the volume of his voice. "Look, you can spend as much time with her as you want. But you need somewhere else to go. Just until I get there."

He heard a familiar crash that was the trailer's screen door being thrown open, followed by a startled yelp from his sister.

"Laura? What's going on?"

"Stop!" he heard her shout, though she sounded increasingly distant. "Give that back!"

"Laura? Are you --"

"Hey, so is this big brother?"

Even after a decade, he recognized the voice immediately.

"Ernie, put Laura back on."

"I should have known you'd end up in Africa, the way you used to hang around all those coons back when we played football. Seemed like you liked them more than you liked us."

"Ernie, put --"

"Nice family you got here," he interrupted, obviously enjoying himself. "And your sister? Cute kid. You remember how I love blonds?"

"If you fucking touch her, I'm gonna come back there and kill you, you piece of shit."

"You threatenin' me, Josh?"

"I'm telling you what I'm going to do. You take it for what it's worth."

"I'm kinda scared now. I may have to call the cops for protection. They know all about you ex-cons. Or maybe we'll just get your mom to sign a restrainin' order and keep you away from here."

"Just hang up the phone, Ernie." Fawn's voice.

"No!" he heard Laura shout. "Don't hang up! I want to --"

The line went dead, and he just sat there, staring at the phone in his hand.

"What happened?" Annika said. "Is she okay?"

He didn't answer, sinking back into th
e m
attress and letting the phone fall to the floor. He barely noticed when she crawled onto the bed and straddled him.

"Josh?"

"There's a guy living at the house," he said haltingly. "I used to know him. He's .. . he could hurt her."

"What about the police?" she said, bringing her face closer to his in an effort to make eye contact. Her hair brushed lightly against his chest.

He shook his head. "It's complicated. My family's not like yours, Annika. We're . . ." He fell silent. How could he explain to her something that he himself didn't completely understand?

"You've told me how strong and smart Laura is. And you'll be home soon. She can take care of herself, right?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. "She's only seventeen. And I left her. I left her when I went to prison, then I left her when I went to school. And now, for the thousandth time, I'm not there when she needs me."

"You came here for her, Josh. NewAfrica was going to send her to university, to give her medical insurance. They were going to pay you enough money to take care of her."

"But it didn't work out that way, did it?"

"Sometimes things don't. But you did everything you could. That's important."

When he didn't respond, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. He knew he should push her away, but instead he slid a hand along her bare thigh.

Just for a little while. He could forget about NewAfrica and Ernie Bruce. About his past and JB Flannary. For a few minutes he could pretend to have something good in his life.

Chapter
28.

"Look at that," Annika said, pointing down at the rutted path they were walking along.

It had been ten hours since they'd left the guesthouse, most of which had been spent lost, hammering the Land Cruiser over increasingly remote dirt roads. But now there was finally evidence that they were on the right track.

The afternoon rains had left the story of the people they were trying to find etched unmistakably in the ground. Deep furrows made by the tires of overloaded trucks had been first, followed by indentations made by people jumping out of those trucks, and now the unmistakable pattern of a tractor tread crossing the carpet of footprints extending into the distance.

Josh knelt and ran a hand over the impressions in the damp earth, allowing himself a rare flash of optimism. They were going to find a well-equipped agricultural project ru
n b
y someone capable of helping the people he'd so badly let down.

"I think we're finally gonna be able to prove that JB's nuts," he said, looking up at Annika. "Too much drinking in the sun."

The uncertainty behind her smile was obvious, but he chose to ignore it.

"Come on," she said holding out a hand and helping him to his feet. "We could have a long way to go."

He'd never been particularly claustrophobic, but the way the jungle encroached on the narrow track and spread itself out above created a world of impenetrable shadows, unfamiliar sounds, and suffocating humidity that was starting to get to him.

The Land Cruiser had made it a few miles past where the trucks had gotten bogged down, but they'd had to abandon it when the rock ledges became too steep to negotiate.

"You look better," Annika observed.

It was the first time that day either one of them had said anything even remotely personal. For the most part, their trip had consisted of long silences punctuated by brief comments about the map Annika had printed showing the location of Josh's sat phone and, presumably, the old woman whose bag he'd hidden it in.

Neither one of them seemed to know how to deal with what had happened the night before. It was amazing how sex could change things. But kind of wonderful, too.

"I feel better," Josh responded. "You know, when you think about it, there isn't a single thing that's happened that can't be explained by Africa's normal state of insanity: the abandoned project we went to, the way they carted my people off. Even Gideon getting those soldiers to chase me. And Laura? What you said is exactly right. She's smart, and she's strong. She can handle Ernie and Fawn until I get home. It's only a little while longer. Everything's going to be okay. It's going to work out."

His newly improved attitude sounded a little forced, even to him. But why couldn't it all work out? Why couldn't things go his way for once? The way he saw it, he had a little good luck coming.

"If you're so certain, maybe there's no reason for us to be here, Josh."

He looked at her, unsure how to interpret the statement. The construction seemed vaguely sarcastic, but the delivery wasn't. The closer they got to finding what they'd been looking for, the more nervous she became. In fact, she was starting to look a little ill.

"Are you okay?" he said, putting a hand on the back of her neck and squeezing gently.

"Sure. Of course I am. It's just the heat." An obvious lie, but not one he wanted to think about.

"I just need to be sure that my people are doing okay, Annika. That NewAfrica's just self serving and not --" He paused for a moment, trying to find the right word, but she beat him to it.

"Evil?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"And then you can leave here with a clear conscience and never think anything about it again."

He wasn't sure what to say. It seemed ridiculous to be feeling about her the way he was -- they hardly knew each other. Why had he spent most of the day fantasizing about a life together? A life lived all over the world, full of adventure, with never a moment behind a desk or worrying about keeping up with the Joneses.

"I'm sorry," Josh said finally. "If you --" "I understand. You have a lot of responsibilities. And there are many things beyon
d y
our control. It's a hard thing for us." "Us?"

"Whites. We think we have power ove
r e
verything, and when we don't, we think it's a failure. But sometimes it doesn't have anything to do with us."

Her words were oddly off subject and had the vague sound of a warning. He told himself it was just his imagination.

The path they were on began to widen, finally opening into a large clearing hacked from the jungle. The dirt had been churned up, and there were downed trees pushed into piles at the edges. At its center was a single shovel, standing upright.

He tried to continue forward, but Annika grabbed his arm.

"There's nothing here, Josh. Let's go."

He looked behind him at the thousands of footprints pressed into the ground and shrugged her off, walking to the shovel and taking hold of it. She followed but stopped a good ten feet away when he began to dig.

It took less than a minute for him to strike something. Not rock or wood. He dropped to his knees, digging with his hands, feeling increasingly nauseated. The first thing he uncovered was a dirty piece of cloth. He recognized the pattern and dug faster, throwing the debris behind him and revealing the motionless form beneath.

He rose and took a few stumbling steps back. It was the old woman he'd helped i
n t
he refugee camp. But now her open eyes and mouth were filled with dirt, as was the deep gash across her throat.

He looked around him at the churned dirt covering an area half the size of the football field where he'd spent much of his youth.

"Josh," Annika said. Her voice was steady, but the sun was reflecting off the tears on her cheeks. She approached and reached out to him, but he backed away.

"You knew," he said. "You knew what we were going to find here."

"I wasn't sure. I --"