Lords of Corruption (26 page)

"What are you going to do with that, Josh? There are too many of them. And they're armed with more than sticks."

"I can't die here, Annika. I have a sister at home who needs me. I have things I want to do. . . ."

"Sometimes things are beyond our control."

He suddenly became aware of the weight of the sat phone in his pocket, and he clawed it out, dropping the board.

"Who are you calling?"

"Trent. I'm going to tell him that none of this is any of our business. That we just want the hell off this continent."

The footsteps on the other side of the closed door slowed, becoming more cautious.

"I'm going to tell him that if he calls thes
e g
uys off, we'll never say anything about this."

Trent's office phone started to ring, and he thought about Laura. About how she'd take the news that he'd been gunned down in middle-of-nowhere Africa. About what would happen to her when she had no one to turn to -- no one to shove her out of the life she'd been born to.

It was still ringing when the boy kicked the rickety door open. He started screaming in Xhisa, jerking the barrel of the gun from Josh to Annika and back again every second or so.

Josh put the phone slowly back into his pocket and retreated a few steps, holding his hands out in front of him. "Take it easy, kid. Okay?"

Annika looked around the room with an expression of sad nostalgia. She barely seemed to notice the shouting, gun-waving child.

"Talk to him," Josh said. "Say something!"

She shook her head. "They don't send children to negotiate, Josh. They send them to kill. We're his initiation into manhood."

"I'm not going to just stand here and let this little bastard shoot us."

"It happens every day here. To people more innocent than us."

The boy was shaking visibly, trying to conjure up enough rage to do what he had been told. Around his eyes, though, it was clear how far from home he was. And how much he wanted to be transported back there.

He swung his gun toward Annika yet again, but this time something in him had changed. He was ready.

Josh lunged, but it was too late. There was the deafening crack of the gun, Annika falling backward, the warm spatter of blood.

His momentum carried him into the boy, slamming him hard into the wall. The gun fell from his hands, and Josh grabbed for it, already fantasizing about using the butt to cave the kid's skull in and then going out the front door shooting. He might not ever leave this village, but he was going to make sure Luganda didn't, either.

The fury that was blinding him started to subside when he noticed that the boy wasn't fighting back. It was only then that he saw that part of the kid's head had been ripped away. Josh released him and watched him slide to the ground, finally comprehending what had happened. The rusted old Russian gun had blown up in his face.

He turned and dropped to his knees next to Annika's motionless body, yanking her
T-shirt up and finding nothing but smooth, unbroken skin. The only blood on her was in her hair, a matted section above her left temple about the size of a silver dollar. He put a hand on her chest and felt the rise and fall of her breathing. She wasn't shot. She'd just hit her head on the bedpost when she'd fallen.

More shouting drifted in from the front, and he pushed closed the door leading to the church before opening the armoire and shoving the clothes hanging in it under the bed.

He dragged the boy's body across the floor, trying not to think about the mangled head nestled against his chest. His shirt was soaked with blood by the time he had crammed the body inside the armoire and closed the door.

When the urge to vomit subsided, he pulled Annika to the crimson puddle that the boy had left by the door, splaying her limbs artistically before lying down next to her.

Less than a minute passed before the door was thrown open. He didn't move, looking through his nearly closed eyelids at the boots that passed by. Annika's right hand was beneath his leg, and he tried not to tense when it twitched. He hadn't praye
d s
ince he was a kid, but she was right. If not now, when?

Okay, God. I can understand why you might not want to help me out. But Annika's lived her whole life for you. Please don't let her wake up.

From what he could see from his position on the floor, there were three soldiers in the room, one of whom was Luganda. Even in Xhisa, Josh could confirm that his speech was slurred by alcohol.

"Agabezi!" Luganda shouted.

Probably the name of the kid leaking into the armoire. For obvious reasons, there was no answer, and the man said something that elicited guffaws from the other soldiers in the room. Maybe they thought that the boy had run off and hidden after killing them. If so, they obviously found it hilarious that an act as trivial as cold-blooded murder would bother the average adolescent.

Josh focused on staying completely relaxed and controlling his breathing, but what were the chances that no one would open the wardrobe or check to make sure they were really dead? When they did, though, he'd be ready. The board he'd dropped earlier was within reach, and with the element of surprise he still had a chance of cracking open Luganda's lying, back-stabbing skul
l b
efore they shot him. Surely Annika's God wouldn't deny him that.

Luganda's dusty boot prodded Josh's shoulder and then delivered a hard kick to his stomach. He'd seen it coming and managed not to react, keeping his muscles slack as the pain flared and Luganda shouted down at what he assumed was a corpse.

Once again Josh cursed his inability to understand. He thought of the dismissiveness with which JB had treated Luganda and how he himself had fallen into that trap. He realized that he didn't know the first thing about the man -- how old he was, if he had a family, how he'd come to work at the compound. The African had just faded into the background -- a provider of drinks and maker of arrangements.

Luganda kicked him again, this time nearly falling over from the effort. When he regained his balance, he gurgled a few orders and Josh was lifted from the floor.

The soldiers swung him back and forth a couple times, and then Josh felt himself floating in the air for a moment before slamming down in the bed of the pickup truck. Something metal jabbed into his back, but he managed to keep from grimacing. Not that it was likely the two soldiers woul
d n
otice. They'd dropped him three times on the way through the church to hit off a jug of African moonshine and were well on their way to not even being able to stand.

Luganda could still be heard shouting the dead boy's name as Annika was thrown into the truck on top of him. Josh waited a few seconds before allowing himself to partially open one eye. From his position, no one was visible, and he dared a glance up at the belt-fed machine gun above him.

It was almost unbearably tempting. He'd never fired a gun like that, but it seemed simple enough. Jump up, throw the bolt, and a second later you were cutting people in half. The problem was, which people? It didn't exactly have the look of a surgical tool, and while he didn't have as big a problem as he should with leaving Annika's villagers to their own devices, shooting indiscriminately into them in an attempt to save his own skin was another matter entirely.

He shifted his head subtly to look over the truck's back gate as muffled shouts erupted from inside the church.

"Agabezi! Agabezi!"

It was a familiar theme, but with critical differences. The voice was unfamiliar, and the tone was panicked.

They'd found him.

Josh shoved Annika's limp body off him and leaped over the side of the pickup, spotting two soldiers running out of the church as others ran to meet them. No one was looking in his direction when he slid into the driver's seat and reached for the keys hanging in the ignition. That changed when the truck's sickly starter began to turn. The first shots sounded just as the engine caught. He slammed his foot to the floor, feeling the pickup's sluggish acceleration and watching the young soldiers grow larger in his rearview mirror.

He waited for the bullet that would kill him to penetrate what was left of the back of the cab, imagining it puncturing his lungs, leaving him to drown in his own blood while they pulled Annika from the back and beat her to death. Or worse.

But the bullet never came. There were shots -- seemingly thousands of them --but the soldiers were too young and too drunk to hit anything.

Just before Josh rounded the corner and disappeared behind a low ridge, he stuck his arm out the open window and raised his middle finger.

Chapter
33.

Stephen Trent didn't rise from his desk when Gideon entered but jumped to his feet when Umboto Mtiti followed. He glimpsed soldiers taking up positions in the hallway before Mtiti slammed the door shut behind him.

"Mr. President," Trent stammered, feeling the sweat break cold at his hairline, "why didn't you tell me you were coming? We aren't prepared --"

"Yes, that's obvious, isn't it?"

Gideon's ubiquitous sunglasses were gone, revealing yellow-and-black eyes. The casual arrogance of his stride had disappeared, too, replaced by the awkward gait of someone completely consumed with not doing or saying the wrong thing.

"To what do I owe this honor, Excellency?"

Mtiti sat in one of the chairs in front of Trent's desk, the medals on his uniform rattling ominously. Gideon stood well behind him, partly out of subservience and partly in an attempt to disappear.

"Your new man found the bodies of the people we relocated," Mtiti said.

Trent didn't answer immediately, trying to focus on what he had heard and not on how vulnerable and far from home he was. "I don't understand, sir. How could that be possible?"

"I'm told that he hid the phone you gave him in some old hag's belongings. Apparently there is a GPS in this phone?"

Trent's legs were in danger of failing him, and he sank into his chair. He looked past Mtiti at Gideon. "How could you and your people not know that?"

Gideon had never made any bones about the fact that he considered Trent weak and pathetic -- good at cleverly carrying out Mtiti's will but of little use otherwise. In a world where one was judged on physical strength, courage, and willingness to do violence, Trent knew he came up far short.

"This is your fault," Gideon said. "You should never have given him the phone."

That prompted Trent to return his slightly averted gaze to the president. As usual, Mtiti's face was a thick mask, equally likely to break into insane laughter or homicidal rag
e a
t any moment.

"We gave him the phone so Gideon could keep track of him. Just like Dan. Just like everyone."

Mtiti didn't react, but out of the corner of his eye, Trent could see Gideon glaring defiantly. It infuriated Gideon to have to explain himself in the presence of the soft, pale man in front of him -- to know that Trent's business relationship with the president could eclipse Gideon's own blood connection. He understood his position well, though, and was smart enough to be careful.

"I don't understand how this happened," Trent continued. "How do you know he used the phone to track those people? Did you see him at the gravesite? Did you just stand there?"

"If it weren't for me, we wouldn't have discovered any of this," Gideon said, the volume of his voice rising, but not quite to his normal shout. "He would be on his way to America, knowing everything."

Trent was about to fire back but held his tongue. It seemed likely that Gideon had indeed known about the phone and had left it where it was, salivating over the thought of exacting his own personal revenge against
Josh Hagarty. And then he'd let him get away.

But making that accusation any more forcefully could be dangerous. Just as Gideon had to acknowledge the power of business relationships, Trent had to acknowledge that family relations represented a bond too strong and complex to be trifled with by an outsider.

"Enough of this," Mtiti said. "Where are they now?"

" 'They'?" Trent said.

"He's with a white woman," Gideon replied. "They went to the village where she works. I sent soldiers, but they escaped."

"They escaped?" Trent said incredulously. "Two unarmed whites -- one of whom is a woman -- escaped your soldiers?"

Gideon stared silently back at him.

"Who has the phone now? You or them?" Trent asked.

"They do," Mtiti said. "Find them. Now."

Trent reached for his laptop and pulled up the website used to track the location of the sat phone. He entered his user name and password and waited for the screen to respond.

Invalid log-in.

He typed them in again, more carefully this time, but knew it was futile. Josh
Hagarty was many things, but he wasn't an idiot.

"They've changed the password."

"Change it back," Mtiti said.

"It's not that simple, Excellency."

"Why is it not simple? It's your phone, isn't it? Didn't you pay for it? Didn't you buy it from a company in your country? Maybe you don't want to change it back. Maybe you're working for this phone company? Maybe they want to take over the communications in my country and give them to the Yvimbo."