Cross Country (22 page)

"F
LAHERTY," I SAID. "It's Alex Cross."

"I'm at the consulate. I'm in Africa. They're sending me out of the country. It's going down right now. I need you to talk to someone and get it stopped. I'm close to the bastard, the Tiger."

He didn't even pause before he answered. "No can do. I can't cover for you anymore."

"I don't need you to cover for me. Adanne Tansi is dead — he killed her. I need you to make a call or two. I can break this case now."

"You don't get it," Flaherty said. "You're done over here. Game over. Go home and stay there. Forget about Abi Sowande. Or whatever his name is now."

The water in the other shower stopped. The man in there started whistling. I hit the heel of my hand against my forehead, putting it all together. Flaherty hadn't been covering for me at all. I had this all wrong, right from the beginning.

"I was covering for you, wasn't I?" I said.

The whistling in the next stall stopped for a second and then continued.

"That's why you wanted people thinking I was CIA. I was out in the open. While you played covert, I was a useful distraction."

"Listen." I could hear in Flaherty's voice that he was done. "I've got to run. We saved your bacon a couple of times. Be thankful. There's a war going on here. Get the hell out of Dodge — call me from the States."

"Flaherty!"

He hung up at the same time that the shower curtain flew open.

The marine who'd fetched the towel was there and looking totally pissed off. He pushed me into the wall and pinned my wrist. I didn't struggle with him. For one thing, my shoulder was howling with pain. When he reached for the cell phone, I just opened my hand and let him take it.

Game over, all right.

I was going home.

Whether I wanted to or not.

Honestly, I had mixed feelings.

I
LEFT THE consulate pretty much the way I'd left Kirikiri — as a captive. This time, of the American government. I wondered if I could possibly get away again. And did I really want to?

The main gates to the consulate were closed as we drove toward them. No one was waiting to get in anymore.

The demonstrators had swollen in number, though. They were lined along the fence, holding on to it like they would jail bars, cursing against all things American, as well as the life that fate had dealt them.

Once we were through the main gates, the crowd closed in around us.

Bodies pressed against the car windows, palms slapped on the glass, and fists beat the roof. I could see anger and fear in their eyes, the frustration of lifetimes of injustice and misery.

"What do these people want?" the young marine in back with me asked. His name tag said Owens. "Those hostages in the Delta are Americans and Brits. They're probably going to die."

"What do they want?" the marine at the wheel said. "They want us not to be here."

And nobody wants me here, I was thinking, not even the Americans. Nobody wants to hear the truth either.

T
HE ROADWAYS TO Murtala were even more crowded and bustling than the last time I'd been here — if that was possible. We parked at the very same air base Adanne and I had used to go to Sudan. We had to take a shuttle from there.

The surprise to me was how little attention anyone gave to two men handcuffed together. I guess these people had other things on their minds besides me and my marine guard.

The terminal at the airport was overflowing, noisy, and as chaotic as the scene of a bombing. We burrowed our way in to a security office to arrange a walk-through to the plane.

Apparently the handcuffs weren't coming off until I was buckled in tight and pointed toward home.

The waiting area was packed, like everywhere else, with all eyes turned toward a single TV. It was tuned to an African channel.

The female reporter had a Yoruban accent, just like Adanne's, and it was the strangest thing, but that's what finally put me over the edge. Tears started to roll down my cheeks, and I began to shake as if I had a fever.

"You okay, man?" the marine cuffed to me asked. He seemed like a good man, actually. He was just doing a job, and doing it well.

"Yeah, yeah," I said. "I'm fine."

Still, I wasn't the only one crying in the room. With good reason. Nigerian troops had moved in on the Bonny Island complex in what was supposed to be a "rescue mission." Instead, all thirty-four hostages were now dead. Open fighting had broken out all through the Delta region. Riots were reported in at least two other states in the south.

The images of the slaughtered hostages were shocking by American news standards. The hostages were lying on the floor of the corridor, adults and children both. The bodies were slumped and fallen, draped over one another, with bloodstained clothes, and hoods still over their heads.

One woman near me let out a piercing scream. Her family was still down in the Delta. Everyone else was quietly fixated on the screen.

"Governors' offices in Rivers, Delta, and Bayelsa states have issued warnings," the reporter went on. "Local citizens are urged to avoid all but the most necessary travel for at least the next twenty-four hours. Full curfew is in effect. Violators will be arrested, or possibly shot."

The marine cuffed to me, Owens, spoke. "Your plane is boarding. Let's go, Detective Cross. Hell, I wish I could go with you. I'm from DC myself. I'd like to go home. I miss it. You have no idea."

I took a number from Owens and promised to call his mother when I got back.

A few minutes later we were all being led out to the airplane. I heard someone call my name and I looked to one side, toward the terminal building.

What I saw there froze my blood and seemed to change everything.

Father Bombata was looking right at me, and he raised his small hand and waved.

Standing beside him, towering over the priest — if he was indeed a priest — was the Tiger. Abi Sowande. The monster ran his thumb across his throat.

What was that supposed to mean — that this wasn't finished?

Hell, I knew that.

It wasn't over by a long shot. I had never given up on a case yet.

But maybe the Tiger already knew that.

I wanted nothing more than to escape into sleep for a few hours on the plane to London, where I would eventually connect with a flight to Washington.

But I couldn't stop the terrible nightmare images from my time in Africa: Again and again I saw Adanne's murder and rape by the monstrous Tiger.

And what had come of the murders of Adanne and her family? What had been accomplished beyond a failed chase after the killer called Tiger? What of all the other deaths here that would never be avenged, or even properly memorialized? What of the secrets Adanne had shared with me?

I woke with a shiver as the flight descended into London's Gatwick. I had slept some and now I felt groggy and had an upset stomach and a splitting headache.

Maybe it was just my paranoia, but the Virgin Nigeria flight attendants seemed to have avoided me for most of the trip.

I needed water now and an aspirin. I signaled the attendants, who were collecting cups and soda cans before we landed. "Excuse me?" I called out.

I was certain the women had seen me signal, but I was ignored by them again.

Finally, I did something I don't remember ever having done on a flight. I hit the "Attendant" button. Several times. That got me a stern look from the closer of the flight attendants. She still didn't come to see what I needed.

I got up and went to her. "I don't know what I've done to offend you—," I began.

She cut me off.

"I will tell you. You are a most ugly American. Most Americans are that way, but you are even more so. You have caused suffering to those you came into contact with. And now you want my help? No. Not even a cold drink. The seat belt light is on. Return to your seat."

I took her arm and held it lightly but firmly. Then I turned and looked around toward the cabin.

I was hoping to see someone watching us, someone who had spoken to the flight attendants about me.

No one seemed to be looking our way. Nor did I recognize anyone.

"Who told you about me?" I asked. "Someone on the plane? Who was it? Show me."

She shook herself loose. "You figure it out. You are the detective." Then she walked away and didn't look back. That angry face of hers and the mystery of her anger toward me followed me all the way home.

T
HE NEXT TWELVE hours of the trip passed very slowly, but finally I arrived in Washington. I wasn't able to reach Nana to tell her I was home. So I just grabbed a taxi waiting at Reagan International and headed to Fifth Street.

Once I was in the cab, I got lost in a kind of jet-lagged reverie.

No one had any idea about the carnage and suffering until they actually visited parts of Nigeria, Sudan, Sierra Leone — and there were no easy answers or solutions either. I didn't believe that the violence I had seen came from regular people being evil. But those at the top were, at least some of them.

And then there were psychopaths on the loose, like the Tiger and the other killers for hire, the wild boys. The fact that terrible conditions might have made them killers hardly seemed to matter.

The irony that kept jabbing at me was that I'd spent the last dozen years chasing murderers in the States, and it seemed like child's play now, nothing compared with what I'd seen in the past weeks.

I was shaken out of my reverie when the cab slid over to the side of the road. What was wrong now? I was home, and still misfortune followed me? What — a flat tire?

The driver peered back and nervously announced, "Engine trouble. I am sorry. Very sorry." Then he pulled a gun and yelled, "Traitor! Die!"

S
OMEBODY WAS STUBBORNLY ringing the front-door bell at the Cross house. Ringing it again and again and again.

Tonight the book was
Ralph S. Mouse
, and Ali wouldn't stop giggling at every page, often a couple of times on the same page, saying, "Read it again, Nana. Read it again."

Nana waited patiently for Jannie to get the front door. But it rang again, and then again. Persistent and rude and maddening. Jannie had been making a cake in the kitchen. Where was that girl? Why didn't she answer the door?

"Now who can it be?" Nana mumbled as she pushed herself up and out of Ali's bed. "I'll be right back, Ali — Janelle, you are trying my patience, and that's not a good idea."

But when she got to the living room, Nana Mama saw that Janelle was already at the door — which was flung wide open.

A strange boy in a red Houston Rockets basketball shirt was still ringing the bell.

"Are you some kind of a crazy person?" Nana called out as she hobbled quickly across the foyer. "Stop that bell ringing this instant! Just stop it now. What do you want here so late? Do I know you, son?"

The boy in the Rockets jersey finally took his hand off the bell. Then he held up a sawed-off shotgun for Nana to see, but she kept coming forward until she protectively held Jannie.

"I will kill dis stupid girl in a second," he said. "And I will kill you, ol' woman. I will not hesitate jus' 'cause you de detective's family."