Lords of Corruption (15 page)

"Where are we going?"

"There's something I want to show you."

Flannary steered around a group of soldiers unloading food from an armored vehicle. They stopped and stared at the Land Cruiser as it eased by.

"You know, I read some of your articles. My sister printed them out for me before I left. They seem a little unrealistic."

Flannary shrugged. "I did some negative pieces back in the day, but according to my editor, it was a little more truth than his readers wanted to deal with. No one likes complicated, Josh. People want to hear that if you give Africans food, they don't starve. So now I write happy stuff, and the charities love me."

"And that allows you to stay."

"It allows me not to have to go home." "Have you ever written something about my charity?"

"No, you guys are different. You're a small, results-oriented organization, creating sustainable projects for the long-term benefit of the African people through a culturally sensitive partnership with the government."

Josh recognized the quote from New-Africa's most recent brochure. "Don't be patronizing."

"Never!"

"So have you written about us or not?"

Flannary stopped the vehicle and pointed through the windshield at an open-air general store with shelves full of every imaginable product. Bags of food with "Donated by the People of the United States -- Not for Sale" written on the sides, tools, clothing, and, piled haphazardly in the dirt, the missing parts for the project's earthmover.

"Gideon's little side business," Flannary explained.

Josh threw open the door and jumped out of the vehicle, dodging when Flannary tried to grab the back of his shirt.

"Don't get out of the car, Josh!"

A woman appeared from around a pyramid of disposable diapers and chattered nervously at him. She made shooing motions with her hands.

"One of Gideon's wives," Flannary said, coming up beside Josh but keeping most of his attention focused on what was going on behind them. "We should go. This isn't a part of town that a couple of crackers should be walking around in, you know?"

Josh ignored him, wandering through the myriad products as the woman followed along, her voice getting louder. He stopped when he came to a table stacked with individual cans of hairspray. Nothing her
e m
ade any sei.-16e. His impression at the airport had been right: He'd landed on another planet.

"Josh, we should really get out of here. We're starting to attract attention?"

Flannary's nervousness was starting to turn to fear, but all Josh could feel was anger. At Gideon, at Stephen Trent, at Fawn Mardsen. And at himself for being so stupid for so long.

He reached out for a can, but Flannary snatched it from his hand and slammed it back on the table. "The American company that makes that stuff gets a huge tax break for donating their surplus, which goes on American freight ships that get paid four times the going rate to bring it here. Okay? Are you satisfied?"

"And the Africans get hairspray."

"Don't be so cynical, Josh. The kids love it," Flannary said, grabbing his arm and dragging him back toward the Land Cruiser. Up the road, a group of raggedly dressed men were approaching, talking among themselves but keeping their eyes locked on the two white men who had penetrated their territory. "They have this game where they throw it in a fire and see which one of them runs away last. Of course sometimes they stay too long and the thing blows up in thei
r f
aces. But that's the way it goes, right?"

Flannary was concentrating more on his driving than usual, obviously not anxious to let the sun set on them so deep into the refugee camp. When they turned onto what passed for a main road, he seemed to relax a bit.

"Think, Josh. Why is it that your dinky little charity can accomplish more at the snap of a finger than huge organizations like CARE and UNICEF can in a month of red tape?"

"How the hell should I know?" Josh said, still fuming about Gideon's store. If he had the tractor parts, what else did he have? How many of those mysterious payments in their books had gone straight into his pocket while the people on the project dug in the dirt with sticks?

"Have you ever seen any of NewAfrica's other projects?"

"No."

"Do you know anything about them?"

"Why ask me? It's a matter of public record, right? The U
. S
. government puts money into them, so they must have to file some kind of report."

"Charities have two sets of documents: the ones they send home and the ones tha
t n
ever leave Africa. Care to guess which ones actually reflect reality?"

Josh watched a young boy with a missing leg lurching out of their way. He wondered if he'd lost the limb throwing hairspray into fires.

"Why doesn't NewAfrica operate in any other countries, Josh?"

"What are --"

Machine-gun fire sounded, and they both ducked involuntarily. Flannary's foot went a little deeper into the accelerator as he peered through the steering wheel at the darkening street. "Rebels," he said. "They're coming farther north every day. I've seen it before in other countries. The government's losing control."

Chapter
17.

The cornfield was still smoldering, making it impossible for Josh to enter. Not that there was any reason to. Nothing had changed. And nothing would.

"It's all gone," Josh said into the satellite phone. "Everything."

"I don't understand what you're telling me," Stephen Trent responded. He didn't seem as controlled as usual, and the fact that his buttery-smooth exterior had cracked so easily made Josh wonder if it was fake.

"Then you're not listening. The corn's all burned. The shed and the tools, too. And the irrigation system is a twisted pile of junk. Oh, and the tractor with all the missing parts? No need to worry about that anymore."

"Jesus Christ, Josh. We're flying in photographers from the States right now. And do you have any idea how hard it was to convince President Mtiti to come there?"

"I can't say that I do, Stephen."

"Does Gideon know about this?"

Gideon. That was a whole subject in and of itself. He considered telling Trent about Gideon's store but decided against it. After his conversation with an unusually circumspect JB Flannary the night before, he was even less comfortable with who everybody was and where they stood.

"He said it was an accident, Stephen. But I wouldn't trust that guy as far as I could throw him."

"You wouldn't trust him? You've barely been in Africa long enough to unpack, and you're already making pronouncements about the trustworthiness of people we've worked with for years? I don't seem to remember anything like this happening before you got there. When Gideon was running things."

"Then maybe you should put him in charge."

"Fuck!" Trent shouted into the phone and then fell silent.

Josh had no idea what to say that wouldn't just be throwing gas on the fire, so he turned and took in the scene behind him. Many of the workers had shown up that morning, but with no tools there was nothing to do. They had formed small groups
,
and most seemed to be arguing, occasionally pausing to glare at another group but maintaining their distance. It seemed so obvious now. The pure, harmonious tribal ideal he'd seen when he'd gotten there had been a fantasy. He'd seen exactly what he wanted to. Or maybe what he was supposed to.

Josh walked toward a group of nine men squeezed into the shade of a small tree, talking heatedly. They watched him as he approached but clearly saw him as completely irrelevant now. If anything, their conversation grew in intensity, as did the urgency with which they passed around a jug of homemade liquor.

"When you say it's all gone," Trent said finally, "are you certain all of it's gone? There isn't an angle we could shoot from that would disguise the damage?"

Josh wasn't really paying attention, instead concentrating on the unintelligible words of the men in front of him. What he wouldn't give to know what they were saying:

He dug out his MP3 player and flipped on the record function.

"Josh?"

"I already told you," Josh said, putting the player in his back pocket and turning away from the group of men. "It's all gone. If yo
u w
ant a good angle, you might want to think about flying Mtiti to Florida."

"You're making jokes now?" Trent said, the volume of his voice rising. "I'm glad you're so damn broken up about this."

"Jesus Christ, Stephen. Do I want to help these people? Hell, yes. But I have no idea what I'm doing. And what's worse is that I have no idea what other people are doing. I mean, I expected to have to deal with some corruption and inefficiency, but . . ." He let his voice trail off for a moment. "The bottom line is that you hired the wrong guy."

When Trent spoke again, he had managed to reconstruct some of the calm that Josh was so familiar with. "Look, I'm not going to lie to you, Josh. This is a disaster. But I'm not trying to dump a bunch of blame on you. You're right. This is an incredibly hard job, and sometimes things happen that are beyond anyone's control."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, Stephen, but it's misplaced. As much as I wanted it to, this isn't going to work out."

"I don't understand. You're quitting?"

"The truth is, I've got some family problems that can't be dealt with from here."

There was a long pause.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Is it anything we can help you with?"

"No."

"We need to talk face to face, Josh. We put a lot of effort into finding you, and I'm still convinced we made the right choice."

"I'm not sure what you base that on, Stephen."

"Look, there aren't many planes going in and out of the country anymore. I'm going to reserve the soonest available seat for you. But I won't put the money down until we get together and talk. Fair?"

Josh had no interest in meeting or talking with anyone. He just wanted to go home, rescue his sister, and get on with his life. Whatever that life might be.

Tfmena Llengambi had taken a position at the base of the hill, and he motioned to the groups milling around to come to him. Some did, but the men behind Josh just talked louder, their speech slurred from the liquor and their laughter turning malevolent.

"I don't want to waste your time, Stephen. I need to --"

A hand suddenly gripped his shoulder and spun him around. Out of reflex, he dropped the phone and threw a hand out, landing a fist firmly in Gideon's chest. The African staggered backward a step, though it was more from surprise than the force of th
e b
low. A moment later, Josh found himself pinned to a tree with Gideon's thick forearm jammed against his throat.

Everyone had gone silent, but no one seemed inclined to interfere. The men he had been recording gathered around expectantly, and in the distance, Tfmena just watched.

"I hear you've been traveling to places you shouldn't," Gideon said, bringing his face close enough that Josh could smell the stolen food on his breath. Of course he'd expected Gideon's wife to mention the two white men poking around her merchandise, but he hadn't been prepared for a reaction this violent.

The pressure on his neck increased to the point that it was hard to breathe, but if Gideon was trying to scare him, his actions were having the opposite effect. Just who the fuck did this guy think he was?

He rammed his palms into Gideon's chest and shoved as hard as he could. The tree provided enough leverage that, despite his superior size, Gideon was driven backward hard enough to almost land him on his ass. A muffled gasp went up from the ever-expanding peanut gallery.

"Yeah, why didn't you tell me you were in the tractor-parts business? I was in th
e m
arket, you know?"

Gideon took a menacing step forward but recognized his delicate position when Josh balled his fists. While Gideon would almost certainly win a fight between them, it might not be easy. There was a lot of face to be lost in a narrow victory over a pampered white boy from America.

"This is not your country," Gideon said, holding his ground. "You come here and you judge us and you tell us how we should live. But my people have been here for thousands of years. We don't need you. And if you stay too long, things can happen. Like they did to your friend Dan."

Chapter
18.

When Josh got out of the Land Cruiser, the women Annika Gritdal was talking to began to giggle and whisper to each other. One gave Annika a nudge in his direction.

"It's still working," she said as she approached.

He'd spent the long drive preparing himself to see her again. This time, instead of acting like a smitten fifteen-year-old, he was going to be a suave, James Bond--like figure.

"What?" he said.

Not bad. He'd managed to maintain just the right amount of disinterest despite the subtle flow of her T-shirt and the tan legs extending from grimy work shorts.