Mission of Honor (30 page)

“I said that I would like to ask you something, Eminence!” the driver said loudly.

 “Of course,” Seronga replied.

“Do you need medical care?” the driver asked.

“Excuse me?”

“A doctor,” the driver said. “I only ask because I noticed that there is blood on your sleeve.”

“Oh,” Seronga said. “Thank you, no.”

“If you are hurt, I have a first aid kit in the trunk,” the driver went on.

“This isn’t my blood,” Seronga told him. “A passenger was shot by a guard. I tried to help him.”

“A passenger?” the driver said. “Was it serious?”

“He died,” Seronga said.

“Ah,” the driver said. “I wondered why people ran out. As you can imagine, I could not hear very much inside this car.”

“I do not have to imagine,” Seronga replied.

“Did you know the victim?” the driver asked.

“I did not,” Seronga answered truthfully.

“What a sad world we live in,” the driver said. He shook his head and concentrated on his driving.

“How would you make it better?” Seronga asked.

“I do not know,” the driver admitted. “Maybe everyone should have children. Then we would want to stop shooting each other. Or maybe we should spend time making children. That would keep us too busy to shoot.” He glanced in the mirror. “I am sorry, Eminence. That is something you are not permitted to do. But you are not the one who needs to learn peace.”

If he only knew, Seronga thought. The driver returned to driving, and Seronga went back to thinking.

He had been talking to Dhamballa a great deal over the past few weeks, learning about the Vodun faith. It just now struck the Brush Viper that they had experienced the Vodun ideal of veve. A perfect, symmetrical pattern. Death in, death out. The blood of two deacons had allowed Seronga and Pavant to get into the situation. And the blood of the American bishop had given the Brush Vipers an excuse to get away from the airport.

To get away and do what? Seronga asked himself.

That was the real question. The attempt to kidnap the American clergyman had been a disaster. Neither Seronga nor Dhamballa nor any of their advisers had anticipated this outcome. A kidnapper did not expect an assassin to hit the same target at the same time.

Seronga had never failed before. He did not like the way it felt. It was distinctive by the stillness it radiated. An individual who failed suffered a system-wide internal crash. The skin felt dead. Failure slowed the heartbeat and respiration. The mouth stayed shut, the jaw powerless. The brain sat motionless, unable to get past the event. Nothing moved, nor did it want to.

But the brain has to move, Seronga told himself. There was too much to do. And there would not be time to procrastinate.

Seronga turned back to the side window. He stared out at the flat, sun-washed fields of grass toward the distant mountains. They seemed so far away. Everything did. A half hour before, Seronga had been poised to turn up the pressure on the Church. Now the scenario had changed. Seronga wanted to talk to Dhamballa, but he could not call. They were out of range. Not that it was crucial. Louis Foote monitored radio broadcasts from Gaborone at the Okavanga camp. He would hear about this soon enough and inform Dhamballa. Hopefully, the Belgians would help put together a plan of action. Still, he would have liked to inform Dhamballa himself.

Seronga wondered briefly if he should call Njo to alert him, at least, that they would be arriving alone. He decided against it. It had always been the plan for Njo to get them out of Maun as fast as possible. The only difference now was that they would not have a captive. And they would not be running from anyone. At least, not anyone they knew about.

Now that Seronga had opened his mind, thoughts flew at him. He wondered about the plane that had taken off. Where was it going? Who owned it? He thought about going back to the tourist center and talking to the Spaniards. Perhaps they had gathered additional information. But that would be too risky. The bodies of the two deacons could have been found and identified. Or they might check with the hospital in Maun and find out that he had never gone there.

No, he decided. It is best to get to Dhamballa.

Beside Seronga, Pavant was simply angry. He was breathing heavily through his nose, his hands fisted in his lap. He obviously had things to say but did not want to discuss the incident in front of the driver.

After they passed the exit for the Maun police barracks, Seronga told his driver to cut over to the Central Highway.

“Are you sure you want to do that, Eminence?” the driver asked. He was an elderly man with white hair and sun-cracked skin.

“I am,” Seronga replied tersely.

“That will not take us to Orapa,” the driver said. “It will take us to Maun, Tsau, and Shakawe.”

“I know,” Seronga replied. “I changed my mind. I’ve decided I would like to go to the church in Maun.”

“Ah, I see,” the driver said apologetically. “I will take you there. But then I must charge you for two zones, Eminence.”

“We will pay for the longer trip,” Seronga assured him. “Just take us there, please.”

“Of course,” the driver replied. He called his dispatcher to let him know the change of destinations.

After the taxi had gone a few miles, Seronga noticed the driver glancing repeatedly into his rearview mirror. A minute later, the driver picked up his cell phone. Seronga leaned forward slightly and listened. The driver called a number and spoke in colloquial Setswana. It was a language that native Botswanans used to speak with longtime friends. Otherwise, they spoke English. That was how the driver had spoken to Seronga.

“What are you doing, Paris?” the driver asked.

Seronga could not hear the other man’s response.

“I know you are working,” the driver said. “But why are you taking this route?”

The Brush Viper turned casually and glanced back. There was another taxi behind them. It was one of three other cars on the deserted road.

“Oh,” the driver said in response. Then he chuckled. “I thought you were following me.”

Seronga did not like the sound of that. 

The driver and his friend chatted for a few moments more. When the driver hung up, Seronga leaned closer to the front.

“May I ask why you called the other taxi?” Seronga said.

“Paris Lebbard turned off the Okavanga road at the same time we did,” the driver told him. “It is unusual for two people to take this route to Maun. I asked Paris why.”

“What did he tell you?” Seronga asked.

“He said that he was engaged to show someone around for the day,” the driver replied. “He thought this would be a scenic route. It isn’t, though. Maybe he is just trying to add extra miles.”

“Did Mr. Lebbard say who his passenger is?” Seronga asked.

“A Spanish woman,” the driver told him.

Seronga did not like that, either. “Did he say anything else?” the Brush Viper asked.

“Nothing else, Eminence,” the driver said. His voice was beginning to show some concern. As if he had done something wrong. “Do you wish me to call him back and find out more?”

“No,” said Seronga. He did not want to risk giving her any information. “Just drive on. Don’t worry about it.”

“Yes, Eminence.”

Seronga sat back. The blood on his sleeve was beginning to dry. It occurred to him that he had rarely felt caked blood. When men died in the field, either they were quickly taken away or left behind. If they were left behind, they were invariably eaten by carnivores. It was strange, the things an old soldier had not experienced after all these years.

He returned to the problem at hand. A Spanish woman, he thought. It could mean nothing. She might be a tourist. Or she could be part of the military group that had gone to the tourist center. Perhaps Seronga and Pavant did not get away as clean as they had imagined.

Pavant obviously had the same thought as Seronga. The younger man leaned toward him. The driver would not be able to hear them over the clank of the air-conditioning and rattling muffler.

 “We should stop and let the other driver pass,” Pavant whispered.

“No,” Seronga said.

“What if they are following us?” Pavant demanded.

“We can watch them better if they don’t suspect what we’re doing,” Seronga told him.

“We can watch them better if they are in front of us,” Pavant said.

“We will do it this way,” Seronga insisted. “If they are following us, they will stop in Maun. We will take care of them there.”

Seronga slumped down. The back of his black shirt was thick with perspiration. It clung to the air-chilled vinyl seat. Seronga felt the coolness. It moved along his arms and up the back of his neck. He began to come back to life. But he was revived by more than that. Seronga was encouraged at having a possible target, a potential link to whoever was behind this.

If so, there was another job still to be done.

And this time, he would not fail.

Washington, D.C. Friday, 9:00 A.M.

The call from Mike Rodgers was a shocker.

Before Rodgers phoned with news of the assassination, Bob Herbert, a very tired Liz Gordon, and political adviser Ron Plummer had spent nearly an hour in Paul Hood’s office. They had been discussing the imminent arrival of the American bishop in Maun. Darrell McCaskey was supposed to attend, but he was busy talking to his Interpol connections in southern Africa. He said he would come by as soon as he was finished.

The OpCenter brain trust agreed that there would be an attack. Hood felt that the Brush Vipers would not strike for at least two or three days. They would wait for the bishop to settle in, to establish a routine. A clean, successful abduction required that a kidnapper tap into his intended victim’s pattern. It also allowed them to study any defenses.

“That makes sense, but not everyone is as cautious or careful as you are, Paul,” Plummer said.

Hood had to admit he had a point.

Herbert and Plummer thought the Brush Vipers would strike again immediately. He felt that they had to show they could come and go unhindered in their own country. They also could not allow the clergyman to reestablish a presence in Maun. If that happened, his arrival would be viewed as a successful, even defiant return of the Catholic Church to Botswana.

Liz had a different view altogether. She did not look at the situation from a political perspective. To her, it was a question of creating what she called a “higher drama zone.” The Brush Vipers needed that.

“They can’t use the same scenario twice,” Liz insisted.

 “Psychologically, to simply abduct another clergyman from the tourist center is equivalent to standing still. That would be viewed as yesterday’s soup warmed over.”

“A one-note repertoire,” Plummer said.

“Right,” Liz agreed.

“Maybe they’ll just kill him,” Herbert said.

“I don’t think so,” Liz said.

“That goes back to what you were saying before about white magic?” Hood asked.

Liz nodded.

“What does the method matter, if they move closer to ousting the Church?” Herbert asked.

“It matters to their own sense of self,” Liz said.

“Yeah, assuming these guys will think it through the way you have,” Herbert said.

‘This isn’t something you necessarily think about,” Liz said. “It’s something you just do. Dhamballa and his people have shown good psychological instincts so far. Don’t forget, their faith includes aspects of mind control that have been refined over ten thousand years. If they are true Vodunists, they know a great deal about human nature.”

“If you’re right,” Hood said, “the Brush Vipers will have to hit the bishop before he reaches the church.”

“Yes,” Liz said. “If they don’t strike quickly, if they have to follow him back to the church, then they will be forced to do something more dramatic than abduction.”

That last statement was still hanging in the air when the phone rang. It was Mike Rodgers. Hood put the call on speakerphone. Rodgers gave Hood the information about the assassination just as Maria had given it to him. He told the group about Maria’s immediate plans.

“Mike, this is your operation now,” Hood had replied. “You want to tell Darrell?”

“Yeah,” Rodgers had said. “Got another call to make first. Meanwhile, you’ve got to let Lowell Coffey know what’s going on. If there were security cameras, I don’t want Maria Corneja exposed to any legal fallout from leaving the scene or pursuing Leon Seronga.”

 “Good point,” Hood said.

Hood told Rodgers that he would call Edgar Kline in New York.

The news about the assassination stunned everyone but Liz Gordon and Bob Herbert.

“Is that dramatic enough for you?” Herbert asked Liz.

She did not need to reply.

The others left the room so Hood could phone Kline. As Bugs Benet placed the call, Hood’s reaction was deep frustration. All four of them had been wrong about the next step.

Or had they?

Hood and Liz had agreed that the Brush Vipers were not likely to be involved in an assassination attempt. The way Maria described it, someone other than Seronga had shot the bishop. Perhaps it was someone who was not associated with the Vodunists. Hood found that even more troubling. Time and energy would be wasted pursuing the Brush Vipers when the real adversary was elsewhere. Perhaps the enemy was attached to Beaudin and Genet in some way.

But why would the Europeans have been supporting Dhamballa until now? Hood wondered. To ensure that he would take the blame for this killing? How did Beaudin benefit from that?

Hood hoped that Edgar Kline would have some insights. As Hood waited to be put through to Kline, he wondered if the Vatican security operative had expected an ambush. He also wondered if that would benefit Rome in some way. The situation in Botswana was religion on the outside but politics in the center. It was a struggle for control of the nation’s soul. In politics, death was a tool like any other. A martyr could help the Church get back into Botswana. Or perhaps the Vatican felt that if the Brush Vipers attacked an American, the United States would be drawn into the struggle on the side of the Vatican.