Do-Gooder (11 page)

“At the hotel?”

“No, at some lady’s house.” I didn’t want to say Mrs. Okono’s name. It seemed like a betrayal after how nice she’d been to us the night before. And I couldn’t repay her kindness by sending the goon squad to her door. Of course, if The Slav hit me again, I’d probably give them turn-by-turn directions to her house. An international spy I was not. “Henry called it a boarding house.”

“And yesterday?”

“We just drove. Stopped once for gas.” Before he could ask, I added, “I have no idea the name of the place. Henry drove, so I didn’t pay any attention.” Crap, was I throwing Henry into the line of fire? If Henry could answer their questions, maybe that would make things better?

“Who did you speak with?”

“No one.”

“At any time was the vehicle left unattended?”

“No.”

“You are positive?”

“Yeah. We didn’t talk to anyone or leave the Range Rover until we came across you guys.”

The questions kept coming, but my answers stayed vague. Hard to be specific when I didn’t know anything. By the time The Slav escorted me to the room I’d shared with Henry, I was drained, exhausted, and nauseated. The left side of my face throbbed, and I’d have given anything for an ice pack. Unlikely. They’d kept me and questioned me for what seemed like hours. Shorty didn’t order The Slav to hit me again, thank God. They wanted something that was supposed to be in those boxes, something that hadn’t been there. They never said what, not even a hint, but I got the feeling they assumed I was hiding something or knew more about what was going on than I did. I almost wished I did know something. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like such a coward.

When The Slav hauled me up to leave, I held back a second, briefly meeting Shorty’s gaze. “Can I get my insulin pump? Or my stuff? I’m diabetic and….” I trailed off as Shorty turned and left the room, not acknowledging my request. I looked up at The Slav, but he just gestured to the door.

“What happened?” Henry surged to his feet and materialized in front of me when I walked into the hut. One of his hands curled around my side, the other reached as if to touch my swollen cheek.

“Back!” The Slav barked. A guard behind him raised his gun to punctuate the sentence.

“I’m fine,” I whispered when Henry hesitated.

A battle raged in his brown eyes, but finally Henry stepped back, slowly as though wading through mud. I followed him, my arms crossed over my chest. Had the temperature dropped? Goose bumps prickled over my skin and I shivered.

“You.” The Slav motioned for Henry to follow him.

Henry looked to me, but I couldn’t meet his eyes. They were going to question him too. And I couldn’t stop it or change it in any way. I turned away from him and slid to the ground with my back against the rough wall. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

Thump
.

Thump
,
thump
.

I MOVED
to the corner of the room. Something about having two sides protected by walls instead of just the one made me feel more secure. A false sense of security, maybe, but I’d take what I could get.

I couldn’t get warm. It had to be ninety degrees outside, and I couldn’t get warm. Shock or fear? A drastic blood sugar drop? I hadn’t eaten anything since the cassava porridge Mrs. Okono gave us the day before, but I didn’t feel hungry. There wasn’t room for hunger in the mix of everything else fighting for dominance in my body. Even the thought of food….

I scrambled forward to the bucket that had been tossed in earlier, distantly relieved to see Henry hadn’t needed to use it, as my body heaved. Dry, unproductive heaves, given my empty stomach. Didn’t make them less nasty. My body spasmed repeatedly, and I curled over the bucket, gagging with the need to vomit. Tears streamed down my face minutes later when my body finally decided to give up. Any more and I was likely to throw up my liver or a kidney or something. Given the soreness of my abdomen, I wasn’t entirely convinced I hadn’t lost an organ or two. Maybe my useless pancreas.

I lay on my side with my knees drawn up nearly to my chest and my arms wrapped around them. My brain ran sluggishly, every word, every thought, floating in gel. Interspaced between each hard-won thought was a single fear: Henry. What were they doing to Henry? Surely Henry had the answers they were looking for? Right?

And when they got the information they wanted? What then? Would the mercenaries drop us off in the nearest town with cab fare? Sure.

And where the hell was Chuck? He had to have noticed we didn’t make it to the camp, right? Unless he was so busy saving the world he couldn’t be bothered to save his son.

The Sahara covered the northernmost part of Cameroon, right? It wasn’t supposed to be in my mouth. I licked my lips, but it didn’t do any good. Still dry as… well, the Sahara. Without much interest, I looked over at the water jug. Water would be good, but… yeah, not worth the effort.

When would they bring Henry back?

Why was it so fricking hot?

Hadn’t I just been cold?

Whatever.

I couldn’t keep my eyes open and, after the most disturbing morning ever, I let myself fall asleep.

I blink
the spring sunlight out of my eyes as I peer around the corner of the gym. I am supposed to be in chemistry, but when Wendy didn’t show up for lunch, I knew something was going on. She sits on the bench of the old metro bus stop just off campus. She’d chopped her hair off short yesterday, right at her ears. Not a real haircut, but as if she’d hacked at it with a knife or kitchen scissors or something.

I sit on the bench next to her, dangling my hands nonthreateningly between my knees. I don’t look at her. I figure it’s better to let her get used to my presence before pressuring her for more than she is ready to give.

I pretend not to see the gun sitting in her lap.

“Hey.” I pull a bottle of water out of my backpack—why is the red fabric so bright?—and hold it out for her. I start counting in my head. I reach forty-five before she takes the bottle from me and twists the cap off. She takes the sip, but I swear I taste the clear, filtered water and feel it seeping past my lips and into my dry mouth.

“So,” I say, “want to talk about it?”

Her fingernails are bitten down to the quick. She’d even gnawed at her cuticles, which are red and ragged. She shrugs.

“Is it loaded?”

My heart stutters in my chest when she engages some mechanism that spits the magazine out of the gun.

“Why do you need that?”

A big red bus drives past, splashing through the puddles left by a heavy rain. I blink away the spattering of water and try to wipe the excess moisture from my face.

When had it rained?

Another big red bus speeds past, drenching us in more rainwater.

When my vision clears, I see a figure on the other side of the street. A tall, hulking figure. Sunlight glints off a piece of metal on his chest, and the breeze ruffles the knee-length jacket he wears. The sheriff facing the gunslinger. Or is he the gunslinger? He feels like the bad guy.

I put my hand over the gun in Wendy’s lap. “Whatever you think you need to do, you don’t. Let me help.”

Water pours into my mouth again. What the fuck is the deal with these stupid buses? Do they have to hit every damn puddle?

“Let me help.”

More water fills my mouth, and I panic, batting at the source of the liquid.

“Damn it, Isaiah, let me help.”

I STRUGGLED
awake and found myself propped against Henry’s knees as he tried to get me to drink from the jug of water. I sat up, wincing as every joint protested the movement. I held up a hand to stop him. “Are you trying to drown me?”

“You need to drink,” Henry said, the jug still poised at my face.

“You couldn’t wake me up first?”

“I tried. You kept muttering something about water, but you wouldn’t wake up. Your lips are dry and your face is hot, and you’re not sweating. No sweat in this humidity? Dehydration is not a pretty thing.”

“Yeah, well, dehydration is the least of my worries.” Despite the muttered words, I reached for the jug and took several deep swallows. Still stale. Still warm. Still more refreshing than a pitcher of ice-cold lemonade.

Henry was here. Which meant he’d returned from his round of questioning. I dropped the jug and only Henry’s quick response kept it from spilling over the ground. “You’re okay?” I searched his face for signs of bruising. There, marring the pretty line of his cheek, a patch of abraded, swollen skin. I traced my fingers alongside the bruising. “They hit you?”

The left side of his mouth quirked up. “Just once. They hit you too.”

Yeah. My face throbbed at the reminder. “What do they want?”

“They never said, not directly. I think there was something in the boxes we picked up at the university.”

“The canisters?” Even saying the words made me feel like I was part of some Cold War-era spy parody. Like maybe the canisters held microfilm or something.

“Yeah.”

“Why do they want them? Drugs, you think?” The idea of traveling through Cameroon with a car full of drugs…. Christ, talk about a recipe for life in an African prison. Of course, looking around, I wasn’t far from there. No bars, but no freedom either.

“God, I hope not.” Henry outlined his Q&A with Shorty. From what he told me, it sounded like they had asked Henry the same questions they’d asked me. Henry knew a bit more than me—for example, he could tell them that we picked up the cases from Claude Behgha in the Sciences building at L’Université de Yaoundé, details I couldn’t provide.

I lowered my voice. I didn’t think anyone was listening in, but what did I know? “Did you tell them about Mrs. Okono?”

Henry leaned close. “No, I left her out of it. You know that’s where the stuff went, right?”

“You don’t think she’s involved, do you?”

“Mrs. O? Nah. She’s good people. I can’t imagine she’d be part of this. But remember those footprints? Someone must have gotten into the Range Rover and removed the canisters, whatever they are.”

My dry tongue swept across my equally dry lips. I lifted the water jug and took another swallow. My stomach growled, completely at odds with the earlier dry heaves and the nausea that still roiled in my belly.

Henry’s eyes darted to mine, and he sucked in a breath. “Shit.” His hand patted at my side and fumbled to lift the edge of my T-shirt. “Damn, damn, damn. They took your insulin pump yesterday, didn’t they?”

I pushed aside his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

His face was pale in the dim light of the hut. “What do you mean, don’t worry about it? What happens if you don’t get your insulin?”

Shrugging, I said, “Depends on whether they feed us or not.”

“Look at me,” he demanded.

I hadn’t realized I’d been avoiding his gaze. Not that I was going to make eye contact now.

Henry reached over and guided my face around, tipping my chin up until I was forced to meet his eyes. “What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know. It’s never happened to me before,” I said, hoping Henry would accept it.

Of course he wouldn’t. “Seriously, Isaiah.”

Maybe if I pissed him off he’d let it go. “You’ve worked in a clinic for almost two years. Shouldn’t you know this kind of stuff?”

Henry scowled. “I’m an aide, a gofer, not a doctor.”

I sighed. “Without the pump and without food? Diabetic ketoacidosis, probably.”

“Which means?”

“Well, according to my doctor, it means my body will, essentially, poison itself. Without sugar to burn, and without the insulin to regulate it, fat and protein cells will break down, causing a nasty chemical reaction in my body. Dehydration for sure. Depending on how long it lasts, there could be delirium, coma. You know, fun times.” I didn’t mention the possibilities of death, liver disease, or brain damage. That way I wouldn’t have to think about it either. Or something like that.

“How soon?”

“I don’t really know.” That was a fib. Actually, it was a bold-faced lie. I’d hit crisis point soon—I could last maybe a week, two at the most—if I was lucky. Too bad nothing about any of this had been lucky.

“What do we need to do?”

Suddenly I was angry. I liked anger better than fear. “What can we do? Short of getting my insulin back, I’m pretty well screwed.”

“So we get your insulin back.”

I flopped back onto the hard ground. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re sort of hostages here. It’s not like I can walk out and request my backpack. They’ve probably already trashed it.”

“Why can’t we?”

I jerked back up, ignoring the protesting muscles of my back and stomach. Dry heaves were a bitch. “Excuse me?”

“Why can’t we? Why can’t we walk out and ask for your backpack?”

“Um, in case you missed it, there are several big, bad, and bald men out there with scary guns. Guns, I might add, they like to point at
us
. Besides,” I added, “I’ve already asked.”

“What are they going to do if I ask too? Shoot me?”

“Maybe!” Dread was a physical entity, squeezing my throat. “Don’t be stupid, Hank,” I croaked out as he stood and walked to the door. “Please, don’t.”

Henry knocked on the door before crossing his arms over his chest.

The door swung open and the barrel of a gun appeared, closely followed by the man with snakelike green eyes. “Stand back,” he ordered. Even his French-accented voice was snakelike, with a sibilant emphasis on the S sound.

Henry took two steps back and watched the creepy guy with enviable calm.

“What do you want?” Snake Eyes asked.

“We had a red backpack when we were… taken.”

“So?”

“Can we have it?”

Snake Eyes snorted and started to step away from the open door.

“Wait!” Henry reached forward, stopping at the last second when Snake Eyes raised his gun a few inches. “Why can’t we have the pack? There’s nothing in it that could do any damage.”