The Intern Affair (56 page)

83

Samir went down
the hall and knocked at
Charles
’s door.
The latter answered immediately, a worried look on his face.

“Is she all right?
What’s wrong?
Should we wait until tomorrow?”

“Hold on,
Charles
—one question at a time.” Samir entered the room and noticed that the four men were sitting, or standing, looking at him intently.

“Talya is fine, she’ll sleep for awhile,” Samir began, taking a seat beside
Charles
on the bed, “I came to see you before we have lunch together to make one thing very clear. The four of you have no idea what she’s been through during the past days. Now Talya has an infinite desire to avenge her friends and to destroy
Charos
’s operation even at the cost of her life.
She will be extremely dangerous tonight.
Her instincts will take over as soon as she’s on site.
Mark my words if any of you try to stop her she’ll kill you before you have time to breathe your last breath.
I will be with her, and I will stop her whenever I feel it’s necessary. But again, please don’t make any move to detract her from her purpose.”

Samir’s statement took
Thomas
aback. “What makes you think we would? We’re all in it for the same reason.”

Charles
was agape.
Christian
and
Jerry
’s faces didn’t betray any sign of worry.
They knew what Samir was saying.

“Just that I know you care for her as I do, but you haven’t looked into her eyes since the announcement of her friends’ death or after she was dropped off in front of my window in
Paris
.
That woman, gentlemen, has been beaten, molested and humiliated, and she’s angry. She won’t care where the opposition comes from; she’s determined to see her plans through to the end.”

Charles
’s concern was on the rise again. “Okay, now that you have told us, what do we do?”

“Nothing more than you would do otherwise,
Charles
,”
Christian
said. “I have seen this happen before.
The one thing you should
not
say is that you want to send her home.
She’ll fly off in a rage and it will end our mission the minute you express your intention.
Another thing is that none of us should try stopping her if she does something brash or out of the ordinary, especially tonight.
As Samir said, she’ll be ‘on the prowl’ so to speak, and ultimately that’s what we need.
She’s so in synch with the situation or with her surroundings right now, that disturbing her instincts in any way, would cost us dearly.”

“Are you telling me that we should just let her go and get killed at will?”

“No,
Charles
,”
Thomas
said. “I think what
Christian
and Samir are saying is that we should follow her, as you would watch a cat playing with a mouse.
Just watching her will guide us to find what
we need
to find.
Samir will do the rest.
I’ve seen it this morning.
She distrusts everyone.
Let’s not cross her path tonight
,
that’s all.” He then shifted his attention to Samir. “Now, how about this lunch of yours? Are we getting any or do we have to lace your shoes to get a feed around here?”

The men chuckled.
The tension among them had been bro
ken
.

“All right, gentlemen, I’ll get the food—”

“What about Talya, doesn’t she want to eat?”

“Not right now,
Charles
, she is sleeping and she needs that more than food at the moment.”

84

When Talya woke up
,
she was bathing in sweat, feeling dirty and uncomfortable.
In a jolt, she got up, got the shirt-length thawb and cotton pants out of the pack and went down the corridor to the bathroom.
As she suspected, there she found a shower recess.
Boy, am I going to enjoy this!

Talya returned to the room feeling clean and
released
—she was back in her cool clothes.
No more thick jeans clinging to her skin, no more T-shirt exposing her arms to the sun; ultimately, she felt good at wearing the veil, which hid her face from scrutiny.
She then looked around for something to eat.
She had heard Samir come in to fetch the food and retreat quietly, while she was napping.
Yet, she was sure he had left something behind for her to eat.
She found a mango, a piece of bread, some cheese and a glass of milk set out on the dresser.
She devoured everything hungrily while she sat by the window.

She was sucking on the mango stone, when she noticed a pick-up truck come to a stop in front of the hostel.
A man came out of the front cab. He opened the tail-gate of the flatbed at the rear of the vehicle and pulled out a packet.
Talya had seen a similar packet before today. She dropped the mango stone in the bin beside the dresser, slipped the abayah over her head, wrote a short note, which she left on the dresser and left the room surreptitiously.

She went out of the hostel and began walking toward the market, where she was certain to find the man from the pick-up.
Sure enough, she did.
He was shopping.
He bought quantities of food, bags of rice, sacs of fruit and bread.
If Talya was right, he had exchanged the packet for the supplies he was buying, and the man was going back to Sabodala.
This time however, he wasn’t going to be alone.
When he returned to his truck for the third and last time, and settled himself behind the wheel, Talya had already climbed aboard the flat bed and was hiding among the provisions under the tarp.
To do this was easier than mounting Katoof.
No one had paid attention to her.
A veiled woman would often ride in the back of a truck. That was a servant’s place. She crouched between the bags and sacs and got ready for an hour’s drive.
The hour was right.
They would arrive just before sunset and she knew Samir was going to follow her with the Landrover.
She had become so attuned to his feelings, his movements and his thoughts that she had no doubt, when he would see the room empty and read the note; he would understand what she was doing.

85

When lunch was over
,
Samir got up. “I think it is time to go, gentlemen. I’ll go and wake Talya and get ready to leave. I know you’re all carrying guns, but please remember that we’re dealing with nitro-glycerine. One shot in the wrong direction and we’ll all be in
God
’s presence a moment later.
Talya and I have knives, which we will use only if anything should go wrong, as I have explained earlier.”

“Do we take anything with us?”
Charles
asked.

“Nothing,”
Christian
replied, “so that our hands and mind are free to move rapidly.”

“Before we go, Samir, I want to thank you on behalf of everyone at
Tristan
, and let God be with us,”
Charles
said, shaking hands with Samir.

“Inshallah, my friends, Inshallah!”
In a moment, Samir was gone.

When he opened the door of their room, he knew instantly what had happened.
He took one look around, picked up the note from the dresser and rushed back to
Charles
’s room.
He flung the door open without knocking. “She’s gone ahead, gentlemen.
She seized an opportunity and we need to follow her quickly. So, please leave everything and follow me.”

“How do you know she’s gone ahead, maybe she’s at the market?”
Charles
was regaining his voice after the shock.

“No,”
Christian
put-in urgently. “Remember what we’ve said, she is abiding by her instincts and all we can do is to stay on her and observe where she’s going, nothing more.” He was already down the corridor chasing Samir down the stairs.

Charles
was still worried. “
Thomas
? Do you think I should stay behind?
I feel like I’m hindering everyone’s progress. I don’t understand how she moves anymore.” He was rushing behind his colleague and friend.

“Not on your life,
Charles
.
She will need our help to get the evidence in front of the courts.
Just be grateful that we’ve decided to come down and help her.”

In moments, the two Landrovers were seen getting out of town southward on the road leading to Sabodala and the Guinée border beyond.
Samir and
Christian
were in the first car, while
Charles
,
Thomas
and
Jerry
took the second car.

Samir said, “We’re only a few minutes behind them.
It’s a pick-up truck that we’re following and I believe what she has in mind is for us to hide ourselves in the truck’s dust until we reach the gate.”

“How do you know it’s a pick-up?”
Christian
asked.

“I thought that was obvious, at least to you? There is no way a veiled woman would hitch a ride with anyone. And the only vehicle in which she could escape notice and be transported to her destination undetected—”

“—is a pick-up truck. I should have thought of it as you’ve said.
But did she leave a note or any indication as to what she intents to do once we get close to the mining camp?”

“Yes, just read the note.” Samir handed
Christian
the scribbled piece of paper. On it he read:
             

The last hut on Main Street

“And what does that mean to you?”

“Plenty,
Christian,
plenty.
Because
when I was at Sabodala; I stayed in the last hut at the end of the main street of the camp.
I had described it to her and she will know which hut I meant, when she gets there. Besides, I believe she stayed in that hut as well when
Kareef
and
Ousmane
had arranged for her to visit the mine unexpectedly.”

Christian
nodded. “Yes, I read about that unwarranted stop-over in her statement. But how do we know that hut is empty?”

“That’s an educated guess on her part.
That hut is the closest one to the nitro cache and she knows the fear that the men, who are left on site, must have of it blowing up.
So she played the odds and she’s now convinced the men will be sleeping anywhere but in that hut.”

“Okay, now what do we do about this guy who’s driving the pick-up?
He will know we’re following him as soon as we reach the fork on the road—”

“You can leave that to me.
I’ll handle him as soon as we’re sure he’s going to Sabodala.”

“Can I help?”

“Oh I’m sure you could, but, you’re blond hair won’t inspire trust around here, and trust is what I will need from the man in the truck.
Although he will be deceived in the end, trust in me, is what I will need from him when I stop him.”

In the second Landrover,
Jerry
was at the wheel.

“
Jerry
, do you have any idea what’s going to happen when we reach the site?”
Thomas
asked, while he felt
Charles
pulling himself up from the back seat behind him, to listen to the answer.”

“Well, I can only speak from experience. I don’t know Talya at all.
But I think what’s going to happen is this; we’re going to stop the car we’re pursuing once Samir is sure that the guy at the wheel is actually driving to Sabodala.
After that it’s a simple matter of taking the man’s place and drive through the gate and eliminate unwanted opposition.”

Charles
could not accept this course of action without questioning it. “You mean we’re going to kill innocent people?”

“Not innocent people,”
Jerry
answered from over his shoulder, “only traffickers, because the man in the vehicle ahead is very much a trafficker, you can be sure of it, and the men guarding the mining site, are as well.”

“But that means killing people, any which way you put it,”
Charles
argued.

“I believe
Christian
has informed you before our departure of the measures that he and I would have to take.
However, if we can bypass the guards or avoid killing anyone, we will.
We’re not doing it for pleasure.”