Viral (11 page)

Okay
, he thought. Now what? Had he actually been directed here? Or was this just some strange new coincidence?

He surfed the site for several minutes, orienting himself, but nothing seemed to stick. When he clicked the button for Posts, a long series of topics appeared; he scrolled through them for six minutes, growing frustrated. Nothing.

Until he came to one titled “Planting Tomatoes: An Opportoon Time.”

Jon stared at it, his pulse quickening.
Opportoon
. The word used in the e-mail from his brother. There were twenty-three entries here, an assortment of odd, badly spelled and punctuated accounts of cultivating tomatoes. He called up the list of “posters” and scrolled through them; twelve names. One of them stopped him. Again:
Marianna
. Jon clicked on it, read through a lengthy series of tips for avoiding “blossom end rot”—when tomatoes looked normal on top but contained a large black spot on the blossom end. It was caused by a lack of calcium, he read, and also by a lack of regular mulching. The poster had found success using “red mulch.”

He skimmed through the rest of the text, through references to verticillium wilt, catfacing, fruit rot, sunscald, organic fertilizers. And then, midway through the text, he found what he was looking for: a series of seemingly haphazard letters in the midst of the article, which might have had something to do with blossom end rot but which he was pretty sure didn’t: gheaeoorcrnategdrd.

Jon copied down the eighteen letters. He then scrolled back through the posts to see if there was anything he had missed and logged off. He crossed the street to the Hilton. In the lobby, he picked up a copy of
The Daily Standard
from the concierge’s desk and
entered the bar. He sat at a table and ordered a bottle of Tusker and a plate of almonds. On the newspaper, he began to figure out the message.

Three levels again:

Go 3C Garden Road.

A direction, an address.

It has to be a message
. More than that, it confirmed that his brother was still alive, still trying to give him information. And that there
was
something for him here in Nairobi. The other side knew his brother’s office address and knew that Jon was coming to visit it. But they wouldn’t know this
other
address.

Jon scribbled over the words and began to work the crossword puzzle, sipping his beer, thinking. Finally his brother had gotten his attention, perhaps bypassing a sophisticated, multi-billion-dollar surveillance apparatus with a code only the two of them would know. If this had been a message, though, he wondered if there had been others he had missed. Probably, yes.

While drinking his second lager, Jon got an idea—as he often did during his second drink of the evening. At a row of pay phones in the lobby, he tried the number for Sam Sullivan again. Still no answer. He returned to the bar and drank another Tusker, pretending to work the crossword but too excited to focus on it. What was it Honi had told him?
He may have a message for you there, in Nairobi
.

Not on Radio Road.
In Nairobi
. Now he understood.
That
was the clue. Something he had missed. It was John’s task to keep up with his brother.

On his way out, Jon tried calling again. This time, there was an answer.

“Sullivan.”

“Sam Sullivan?”

“Yes.”

“Sam, it’s Jon Mallory. From the States.”

“Hello?”

“I’m in Nairobi, Sam, for a couple of days. How are you?”

“John
Mulroo
?”

“Mallory.”

He seemed uncertain who Mallory was, but they talked for several minutes anyway, Jon describing a long-ago evening of nickel poker and Tusker lagers in a colleague’s living room, arguing about the World Cup and George W. Bush. And another night at Kengele’s Club, where Sullivan had danced with a woman who must’ve been seven inches taller than he was. Once he was fairly sure Sam remembered him, Jon offered to buy him dinner. “I’ve got a proposition for you. A chance to earn some money,” he said, recalling Sam’s weakness for the quick payoff. “Can you meet me at the Norfolk Hotel tomorrow, say at seven? Hibiscus Lounge?”

“May be busy at seven, mate. What’s it about?”

“I can’t really say over the phone. Good money in it, though, for very little work.”

“How much is good?”

“Mmm. A few hundred dollars? Less than an hour’s work. Can’t really talk about it now, though. Can you meet me?”

“Well, I could. If I wanted to, I suppose I could.” He cleared his throat and then coughed violently. “Forget dinner, though. Let’s just have a drink, cut to the chase.”

“All right. And could you keep the appointment just between us?”

“Pardon me?”

Jon said it again. He had taken a chance using the phone, he knew, but there was no other way to do this. If they had intercepted his call to Honi, they could probably intercept the calls from his room. But they wouldn’t have traces on every phone in Nairobi.

“Why?”

“Well, it’s the oddest thing. I’m being followed. Someone thinks that what I’m doing here is awfully important, I guess. I’ll explain when I see you.”

“You’re intriguing me, mate.”

“See you at seven.”

“Right.”

JON MALLORY STEPPED OUT
into the still-cool Nairobi morning shortly after 8:30. Merchants were lifting gates, sliding out carts, opening storefronts, displaying fruits and vegetables; boys stood on street corners already, selling cell phone cards and bottled water. Jon bought a copy of
The Standard
and a cup of coffee at a small grocery shop. He chatted with the proprietor about the weather and the local economy. Could be better, in both cases, but not bad. He walked into the park, found an open bench and sat, sipping his coffee, reading the news: local squabbles; rumors the Grand Regency Hotel had been sold to Libyan investors; internal dissent in Parliament.

After several minutes, he looked up and noticed the Renault driving past.

He waited in the park until after 9, when most of the businesses in Nairobi opened. Several blocks from the Norfolk, he went to a clothing store that sold “safari” clothes and souvenirs for tourists. Jon bought a bright yellow hooded sweatshirt with an image of a lion on it, two sizes too large, and an oversized safari hat.

For the next several hours, he traveled the city like a tourist, wearing the new sweatshirt and hat. He took a
matatu
to the Blixen Museum, an old stone farmhouse where Danish author Karen Blixen had lived from 1917 to 1931. Jon lingered on the terrace, looking out at the Ngong Hills, and thinking for some reason about Melanie Cross’s liquid blue eyes. He bought several books about Blixen in the gift shop, a few postcards and two pens, thinking he would give them to Melanie. He took a bus from there to the Railway Museum, where he looked at the old steam locomotives and ship models and the carriage supposedly used in 1900 to hunt the Maneater of Kima—the legendary “man-eating” lion. He lunched at the Nairobi Java House on Ndemi Road and afterward visited the Nairobi National Museum.

Everywhere Jon Mallory went, the Renault seemed to be following at a not-very-discreet distance. A subcontractor, clearly, performing cut-rate surveillance. But why?

It was after 6 when he returned to the hotel. He walked back up to his room, took off the sweatshirt and safari hat. He emptied the large shopping bag from the Blixen Museum and stuffed the sweatshirt and hat in it. Then he opened a beer and closed his eyes for several minutes, focusing his thoughts. Garden Road was about a mile from the Norfolk. It would take him maybe fifteen minutes to reach it.

SAM SULLIVAN WAS
sitting at a table adjacent to the gardens of the inner courtyard, wearing a back-to-front ball cap and a wrinkled white T-shirt showing the name of his business, Occidental Safari. He was looking at the newspaper sports page as porters wearing tails and top hats hurried past.

“Sam?”

“Jon.”

Sullivan stood, the paper fell to the floor. He was about Jon’s height, maybe an inch shorter. And, despite his generous appetites, still skinny.

“Here, have a seat, old friend,” Sullivan said, although his expression still didn’t seem to register recognition. His face creased into dozens of lines as he smiled, making him seem to age twenty years. “I ordered you a lager.”

“All right, good.” Three bottles of Tusker lager were on the table, one empty, another half full. “Sorry if I’m a couple of minutes late.”

“Not at all. Have a seat, mate.”

Sam leaned over to pick up the newspaper; he seemed to straighten up with great effort, as if his back hurt.

“So how have you been? How’s business?”

“Never been better.” Creases rippled his face. “Turning people away. Tourism’s coming back like gangbusters.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“You bet. Cheers,” he said, raising his bottle. Jon smiled cordially. Last time they had met, Sam had been in the midst of a divorce and was having cash-flow troubles. He’d quit journalism to become partner in a safari hotel west of Nairobi, but he sold his stake during the divorce—staying on, he said, as the “resident manager.” There was
something a little sad about Sam Sullivan, as if he were always swimming against the current, forcing a level of enthusiasm.

“In fact, we had a couple the other week from the States,” he said. “Very famous couple, evidently. Oh, I can’t think of her name.”

Mallory waited.

“Anyway, it’s been—what, five years? Four and a half?”

“Three. Nearly three.” Both men drank their beers.

“I’ve wondered about you, from time to time,” Jon said. “How you were making out. If you were still here.”

“Where else would I be?”

“Well. Nairobi hasn’t been the most hospitable place, I guess. Has it? Particularly since the elections. Still a little corruption, too, I see.” He nodded at the newspaper.

“Not much. I really don’t follow the news anymore. Don’t have time.” Sam set his beer on the table. He was grinning at something.

“What?”

“You know how Tusker got its name?”

“Tusker?”

“The beer you’re drinking. Know how it got its name?”

“I think I may have heard this—but, no, I can’t remember.”

“British chap named Hurst,” he said, keeping his eyes on Jon’s. “George Hurst. Owned a brewery here in the capital with his brother. Back in the 1920s. One day, he was hunting out in the Valley—not far from where my lodge is, actually. And the poor fellow was mauled by an elephant. Tusk went right through him. Gored him through the belly. The other brother decided he would name the beer after him. Not Hurst, mind you, the elephant.” Sam exploded in a loud, surprising laugh and reached for his bottle. “Absolutely true story, my friend.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“So anyhow.” He set his lager down, keeping a hand on it. “What’s all this about being followed?”

“I don’t know. It’s what I’m trying to figure out. I think someone’s been tailing me since I came here.”

“And you’re here for—what? Writing some sort of travel story?”

“Mmm hmm. Researching one.”

“Sure you’re not just being paranoid?”

“No. Although, in a sense, that’s what I want to find out. That’s what I want you to help me with.”

“This is the ‘proposition’?”

“Yeah. It’s a strange request, in a way. You might laugh.”

“I might. But go ahead.”

“I’d like you to help me distract them.”

“These imagined tails.”

“For just a few minutes. Fifty minutes would do. I’d pay you generously, of course.”

Sam licked his lips once, sizing up Jon Mallory. “How much did you say?”

Jon laid a legal-size envelope on the table.

Sam lifted it and discreetly counted the notes—twenty-seven thousand Kenyan shillings, about $300. More than Jon could easily afford, but he was gambling it would pay off.

“Okay.” Sam shrugged. “Not bad, I suppose, for fifty minutes’ work.”

“Not even work, really. I just want you to walk. Up and down University Way and Koinange Street. Stop at a bistro, if you’d like, have another lager, maybe a bowl of chowder.”

Sullivan laughed. “Now you’re starting to sound a little deranged, mate.”

“Will you do it?”

“Of course I’ll do it,” he said, tucking the envelope into his pants pocket. Then he waved the waiter over for more lagers. “But would you mind telling me why this is worth twenty-seven thousand shillings to you?”

“I just want you to divert attention.”

“From you.”

“Right.”

Sullivan sized him up all over again, as if he were someone different now. He waited until the new bottles and coasters were on the table and the waiter was gone before speaking again.

“I won’t pry into your business, mate, but how do I know I can trust you? I mean, I’m not going to get killed, am I?”

“No, of course not. Stay on the main roads. Go to public places. No one wants to kill me. They just want to follow me. To see where I’m going.”

“Why?”

“Good question.”

“Yeah.” He drank from the new beer. “And here’s another one: How are we going to make them think I’m you?”

Mallory slid the bag across to him under the table. Sam peered inside.

“Stop in the men’s room by the entrance before you go out. Take the bag with you, and put on the sweatshirt and the hat. Then go out. Stay on the main roads, as I say. Return here in one hour. Go back in the rest room, leave the sweatshirt and hat in the bag, then join me back here in the bar.”

Sam’s smile turned to a hard, grim expression. “Well. If it’s worth twenty-seven thousand to you, I imagine it’d also be worth fifty thousand shillings. Considering the risks I’ll be taking.”

“Probably would,” Jon said. “Except I don’t have fifty thousand.” He sighed and pulled several bills from his pocket, leaving him with just a few hundred shillings.

Sam Sullivan took the money. Jon looked at his watch.

“Okay? So we meet back here at 8:15.”

“Okay.”

Sam took the bag and walked to the men’s room. Jon watched him as he emerged a few minutes later wearing the bright yellow sweatshirt and safari hat. He walked outside without a look back.
Good
. Jon signed for his bill and walked up the staircase to the second-floor landing, where he could see the street in front of the hotel. Sullivan crossed the road to the shadows on the other side. Moments later, the Renault started up and began to inch along a half block behind him. Jon returned to his room, dressed in a black T-shirt. He went to the back of the lobby and pushed the elevator button. Hurried down the hallway to a servants entrance and the night.