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Ahmadou Gaborone wasn’t precisely sure why it surprised him. He’d been warning of attacks against Obike since construction started on the village, but his sermons were theatrics for the most part, smoke and mirrors meant to keep the sheep in line.
Now he had smoke, all right, but there wasn’t a mirror to be seen.
“Yes, Master.” Nico Mbarga’s attitude was solemn as he answered. “Someone set the fires. Timed them to be discovered all at once, I think.”
“But why?”
Mbarga shrugged. “I don’t know, Master. When we find the one responsible, he’ll tell us.”
“Only one? There were three fires, Nico.”
“Master, it isn’t difficult. A bit of fuse, even a candle or a cigarette can make a simple timer. Certain chemicals, as well.”
“Who has such knowledge in Obike?”
Mbarga had to have felt Gaborone peering into his soul. He stiffened to a semblance of attention and replied, “As for the chemicals, Master, perhaps no one. But anyone who’s ever smoked or used a candle might be wise enough to place it in a twist of cloth or paper, even some dry grass. When it burns down…” Another shrug.
“A simple matter, then. But why would any member of our fold do such a thing?”
“Master, we’ve spoken of morale in camp since the Americans were here. It’s possible that someone wishes to depart but fears to tell you openly. In that case, a diversion might allow them to slip out while we were busy with the fires.”
“A traitor, then.” The word tasted bitter on Gaborone’s tongue.
“Perhaps only a coward, Master.”
“It’s the same thing, Nico. Those among my people who lack faith in me are traitors to the Process. They betray me and themselves.”
“Of course, sir.”
Another moment made it clear to Gaborone what had to be done. “We need a head count, Nico. Have your men assemble everyone, immediately. No excuses. None. If someone is too sick or lame to walk, have your men carry him outside. I want to see my people. If there is a traitor in the village, I must know his name and look into his eyes.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Go, then! Do it now!”
Mbarga ran to do as he was ordered, calling to his men along the way. Within five minutes, he’d retrieved the megaphone that Gaborone sometimes employed for sermons, braying orders now for every person in the village to assemble near the mess hall, falling into ranks by dormitories to be counted.
Mbarga did it well. He didn’t mention traitors or betrayal, rather claiming that the master wished to reassure himself that no one had been injured by the fires. It was a good excuse and went unquestioned, since Obike’s residents were long accustomed to surprise assemblies, lectures and the like.
Gaborone stood apart and watched as his people assembled, lining up in groups of ten or twelve, depending on the barracks they inhabited. He searched their faces, tried to scan their souls, seeking the foul rot of betrayal that he felt should stand out like a lesion on the flesh. It pained him that he couldn’t spot a traitor in the ranks. That failure made him wonder if his gifts were fading, if the secret voices had deserted him.
Impossible!
The gift of prophecy wasn’t a transient thing. When someone was selected as a messenger of God, that designation was a lifelong calling. Still, prophets were only human. They could make mistakes. And sometimes they could be deceived.
The head count took another thirty minutes. Some of Mbarga’s men were bad with numbers, lost their place and had to start again, forcing Mbarga to be harsh with them. When they were done, there should be 732 assembled congregants, including guards.
And if no one was missing, what came next?
Mbarga jogged back to offer his report. Anxious, the master asked, “How many?”
“Seven hundred,” Nico said, “and thirty-one.”
“One missing, then. Who is it?”
“An American from dormitory number 7. Patrick Quinn.”
The name inspired vague memories. Resentful parents and a battle over money. It was nothing Gaborone hadn’t experienced before, mere trivia, considering his greater plans.
“Find him!” the master ordered. “Bring him here to me!”
CHAPTER FOUR
Patrick Quinn might’ve lost some weight since moving from Wyoming to the Congo, but a quarter mile into the Executioner’s forced march, the body slumped across his shoulder seemed to be gaining more poundage with every step.
Bolan knew that the feeling was a combination of fatigue, deadweight and the oppressive jungle atmosphere, but understanding didn’t make his burden any lighter. He experimented with his speed, plodding, jogging, looking for a happy medium between the two, but nothing eased the chafing or the dull ache that had started in the left side of his body.
No hunters were pursuing him, so far. Bolan was confident he would’ve heard them coming through the forest, but he couldn’t say when the pursuit would start. His rest stop had to be a brief one, and perhaps he’d shift Quinn to his other shoulder for the next half mile or so.
When he was two miles from the village, he could use the satellite phone to contact Grimaldi, and his ride home would be airborne within minutes. There was still a long, hard march in front of him, but if he reached their rendezvous without a swarm of trackers on his tail, there would be time to rest while he waited for the chopper.
And by then, Bolan knew he would need it.
He was forced to lower Quinn by stages, to avoid a sudden drop that might inflict concussion or a list of other injuries. First Bolan crouched in front of a looming tree, then braced one knee against the spongy soil. He set down his rifle and gripped Quinn’s torso with both hands, leaning forward an inch at a time until his passenger was seated on the ground, reclining with his back against the tree trunk.
Perfect.
Only when he saw Quinn’s face did Bolan realize that something had gone wrong.
The young man’s skin was clammy, deathly pale. His breathing was a shallow whisper, barely there. When Bolan checked his pulse, two fingers probing for an artery below the bristly jawline, he discovered an erratic, feeble beat.
Bolan had never gone to med school, but he’d passed the basic first-aid course required of every Special Forces soldier, and he recognized a classic case of shock. Quinn’s vital signs were fading fast, and if the trend wasn’t reversed, Bolan’s inert companion would become a true deadweight.
Some people panicked in a crisis; others did what had to be done. Bolan has lost his panic gene in mortal combat, long ago and far away. Younger than Quinn, he’d learned that those who lost their head in crisis situations often lost their lives, as well. All things being equal, cooler heads and steady hands had better chances of survival.
Bolan’s life wasn’t at risk this time, not yet, but it was still a case of do-or-die. He guessed that Quinn’s condition represented a reaction to the sedative—either some kind of unexpected allergy or possibly an overdose occasioned by his recent weight loss.
In either case, if Bolan’s supposition was correct, he had the answer in his pocket.
Stony Man had planned ahead, as always. While the sedative injection had been judged appropriate and safe for adult males of Quinn’s expected size and weight, the Farm’s medical officer had left nothing to chance. The hypo kit furnished to Bolan also included an all-purpose antidote, a sort of steroid-adrenaline cocktail designed to suppress allergic reactions and to jump-start failing hearts.
It would be either Quinn’s salvation or a waste of time. If something else was killing him, or if he suffered some adverse reaction to the antidote itself, Bolan had no more remedies on tap. He couldn’t operate, couldn’t keep Quinn alive with CPR and still meet Jack Grimaldi for their pickup. He would simply have to watch the young man die, then take the bad news back to Val.
Screw that.
Bolan removed his last syringe from its high-impact case, peeled back one of Quinn’s denim sleeves and found a vein. He pinched Quinn’s bicep, made the vein stand out more prominently and administered the dose with steady pressure on the hypo’s plunger. Ten long seconds saw it done, and Bolan stowed the kit, now useless to him, as he settled back to wait.
Some fifteen seconds after the injection, Quinn began to twitch, as if experiencing a mild seizure. Warm color rose from underneath his collar, tingeing throat and cheeks. Quinn muttered something unintelligible, batting weakly at his face with his left hand.
And then his eyes snapped open.
“EXPLAIN THE PROBLEM once again, if you don’t mind,” Pablo Camacho said. His frown was thoughtful, almost studious.
It angered Gaborone to have his concentration interrupted, but he couldn’t show impatience to Camacho or the man who stood beside him, likewise waiting for his answer. One of them would soon pay millions for the key to Armageddon, and until the contract had been executed, Gaborone couldn’t afford to vent his spleen toward either one.
“The fires were set deliberately,” Gaborone replied in even tones. “Having discovered that, I realized that someone might be injured, or else missing from the camp.”
“The fire setter.” Adnan Ibn Sharif remained impassive as he spoke.
“Perhaps. In any case, a survey of our people has revealed one absent from his dormitory. An American. My men are searching for him now in other barracks, the latrines, mess hall.”
“You have guards here,” Camacho said. “Can anyone simply walk out, unseen?”
“It’s a community, Mr. Camacho, not a prison camp. My people stay because they wish to. They have faith in me and in the Process. We await the end times here.”
Camacho fairly sneered. “Someone grew tired of waiting, it would seem.”
“We don’t know yet if the young man in question set the fires. He may still be in camp, somewhere. In any case, he will be found and questioned.”
“Found in any case?” Sharif was plainly skeptical. “What if he’s run into the jungle? Can you find him there?”
“Some of my men are native hunters. They can track a leopard through the thickets to its lair.”
“This is a man,” Camacho said, “not some dumb animal.”
“A white man from the U.S.A.,” Gaborone said. He forced a smile. “If this one ran into the forest, he’ll be lost by now.”
“But going somewhere, all the same,” Sharif replied. “We’re wasting time.”
“On the contrary. Even as some search the village, others are scouting the perimeter. They will discover any signs of recent passage.”
Camacho shifted restlessly, hands clinched to fists inside his trouser pockets. “Tell us something more of this American you’ve lost. How do you know he’s not a spy?”
“I know my people,” Gaborone replied. “They’re converts, gentlemen, not infiltrators. Each has sacrificed to demonstrate devotion. They have given up their lives and families to follow me.”
“Still, if a spy wants to impress you,” said Camacho, “he could do all that and more. I’ve been indicted in absentia by the government in Washington. For all I know, your arsonist is a narcotics agent and these fires were signals for a raid.”
“In which case,” Gaborone asked his uneasy guest, “where are the raiders? Do you hear the sound of aircraft circling overhead? The only landing strip within a hundred miles is guarded by my men, and they have radios as well as weapons. You are perfectly secure in Obike.”
“Why don’t I feel secure?” Camacho asked.
“Perhaps you’ve lived in fear too long,” Gaborone said. “In fact, the young man whom we seek converted to the Process months ago. Before I had the pleasure of your company—or yours, Mr. Sharif. Could he predict that we would meet and come to terms on business matters, gentlemen? I doubt it very much.”
“We have not come to terms,” Sharif reminded him. “Not yet.”
Gaborone was rapidly reaching the end of his patience. “Indeed,” he replied, “have we not? Please pardon my presumption. I assumed that our discussions had some basis in reality. If you prefer to look elsewhere for what you seek, I won’t detain you any further. I can halt the trivial pursuit of one young man and have you taken to the airstrip. Are your things in order? Is an hour soon enough?”
Camacho fanned the muggy air with an impatient hand. “No one said anything about leaving. I can’t speak for Sharif, but I still want the merchandise, if we can strike a bargain on the price.”
“And I!” Sharif confirmed. “I’ve come empowered to close a deal.”
“Then, by all means,” Gaborone said, “leave petty matters of internal discipline to me. I’ll soon find out who set the fires and what possessed him to make such a grave mistake. Until then, gentlemen, please take advantage of our hospitality.”
He left them less than satisfied, but they were staying. It was all that mattered at the moment.
That, and finding Patrick Quinn.
NICO MBARGA HAD INFORMED his men, at the beginning of the search, that all results should be reported directly to him, without troubling the master. His troops knew the drill well enough, but it did no harm to remind them, especially when there were strangers in the village who might form a bad impression of the Process if its guards ran willy-nilly, here and there, spreading false rumors to the populace.
In this case, though, Mbarga was concerned with truth, as much as lies.
He wanted to be confident of every detail the master received about what had transpired. He also meant to be the only messenger with access to the throne.
To that end, long ago, Mbarga had commanded that his men shouldn’t address the master unless spoken to directly by His Eminence. If such a conversation should occur outside Mbarga’s presence, they were tasked to find him afterward and faithfully report whatever had been said. And as insurance against crafty liars, Mbarga had decreed that his soldiers had to always work in pairs, thus providing a witness for any chance encounter with the master.
It was the best he could do, and now it seemed that his system might be shattered by a pasty-faced American of no account.
Mbarga knew Patrick Quinn as he knew everyone in Obike, as a sketchy printout from the personal computer in his head. Quinn was a white boy from America, apparently devoted to the Process if his former words and actions were a proper guide. He’d come from money but had been cut off from access by his parents. That occurred from time to time, and while the disappointment hadn’t been enough for Gaborone to cut him loose, it ended any chance of Quinn’s advancement to the master’s inner circle. Quinn would be a cipher, toiling in the fields or begging handouts for the Process on some street corner until he either quit the sect or died.
This day, the latter exit seemed more probable.
Mbarga supervised the search, rather than rushing door-to-door himself and peering into cupboards, groping under cots. He left the grunt work to his men, as usual, and relegated to himself the task of asking questions where he thought they might be useful.
His knowledge of the white boy didn’t extend to peripheral friendships, so Mbarga questioned first the other occupants of Quinn’s barracks. Two-thirds of them were Africans, the other pair young Arabs, possibly Jordanian. In that mix, it was no surprise to find Quinn rated as a quiet loner who made few attempts at conversation. Probably, they wouldn’t understand him if he spoke, and wouldn’t care about the subject matter if they did. One failing of the master, Mbarga ruefully admitted to himself, had been the effort to dissolve racial and ethnic barriers between disciples of the Process. Sermons on the subject were absorbed, but never seemed to take.
The upshot of Mbarga’s grilling was that he knew nothing more of Quinn than when he’d started. Did the young man have a special friend inside the village, either male or female? Master Gaborone himself controlled the coupling of his congregants, selecting mates based on criteria known to himself alone. Even the married people, though, were segregated into dorms by gender, granted conjugal relations at the master’s pleasure, once per month on average.
Of course, that didn’t stop some villagers from falling prey to whimsies of the flesh. Mbarga and his men caught them from time to time, rutting like animals inside a storage shed or in the forest, passion honed to razor sharpness by the danger of discovery. In such cases, Mbarga took names for Master Gaborone, and punishments were devised to fit the crime. Public humiliation was a common penalty, sometimes accompanied by corporal punishment.
And wayward girls were marked. The master liked to counsel them himself.
In fact, the young American named Quinn appeared to have no contacts of that kind within the village—which meant none at all, since he was never sent outside Obike on his own. It seemed unlikely, then, that passion would’ve led to fire setting, and since he’d fled alone, it couldn’t be supposed that he’d eloped.
Mbarga still had more questions than answers when he carried his final report to the master, but at least one thing was settled. He knew where the white man had gone. More precisely, he knew how Patrick Quinn had left the village, though his destination still remained obscure.
He found the master standing with their foreign guests, and approached cautiously from fear of interrupting some important conversation. They had business to discuss, Mbarga knew, and it was not his place to meddle in such things.
“Nico, what news?” the master asked as he approached.
“Master, the white man is no longer in Obike, but I found the point where he departed from the village, heading south.”
“Toward Brazzaville?” Gaborone asked.
“Master, the city is two hundred miles away.”
“I know that!”
“My apologies, Master.”
