Lords of Corruption (9 page)

"So people can cook," Katie cut in. "Most of the area has been clear-cut, so the women have to go farther and farther to get wood. And with the lawlessness, they're getting raped and mutilated by rebels."

Josh squinted his tired eyes, trying to process that. "Why don't men get the wood?"

"Because they'd be executed if the rebels caught them."

"You're telling me that African men are such cowards that they stay home while their daughters and wives get raped and mutilated?"

She froze, staring at him with an expression of shock, colored with just a hint of disgust.

"Well," Flannary said, throwing an arm around Josh's shoulders, "on that note, I think we'll just head on over to your bungalow."

"It was good to meet you," Josh said lamely, allowing Flannary to drag him away. The feeling was clearly not mutual.

"Christ, that came out sounding racist,

didn't it?" Josh said when they were alone again. "That's not the way I meant it. I'm just really tired. Or maybe it's the malaria pills . . ."

Instead of letting him have it, which would have been completely justified, Flannary started to laugh. And once he got started, he couldn't stop. He bent forward at the waist, convulsing wildly but somehow not spilling any of his drink.

When he started coughing and choking, Josh slapped him a few times on the back. "JB? Are you okay?"

When Flannary finally managed to catch his breath, he started leading Josh down the path again as though nothing had happened.

"I hate to say it, kid, but I think I'm warming up to you."

"What do you mean?"

"You want to know why she was so upset?" "Because it was a really asshole thing for me to say?"

"Guess again."

"Because I just got here and have no idea what I'm talking about?"

"An enlightened attitude, but that's not it either."

"Then why?"

"Because you're right. The simple trut
h a
nd it's one of the few here -- is that men don't gather firewood. Period. It's women's work, and there's no amount of rapes and mutilations that's ever going to change it."

The bungalows were simple concrete affairs, similar to the wall that surrounded the compound but with a few incongruous architectural details that showed some effort. Flannary led Josh through the open door of one of them and waved his drink around in place of a tour.

It wasn't bad -- a combination of his family's trailer and a dorm room, but with the strong scent of mold being circulated by a rickety window AC unit.

"It's got a bathroom in the back," Flan-nary said. "Nothing fancy, but it's a flush toilet, and on sunny days the water's . . ."

He lost his train of thought when a young girl entered carrying a beer and another umbrella-topped gin and tonic.

"Falati," Flannary said, "you're like the daughter I never had." There was no comprehension in her expression, but that didn't seem to bother him. He handed the beer to Josh and took the gin for himself.

"Nice to meet you, Falati."

She nodded politely and disappeared bac
k t
hrough the door.

"So what do you think?"

"I was expecting a mud hut, so I think it's great."

"Mud huts don't happen around here. Hard to get top dollar."

"What?"

"This place is owned by President Mtiti's cousin, and let me tell you, they're charging rent that would get you a Central Park view back in the States. Plus, having us all corralled like this makes us easy to keep track of."

Josh took a pull on his beer and then held up the bottle. "How much is the president's cousin going to charge me for this?"

"You don't want to know. But don't worry, the tabs all say stuff like 'children's antibiotics' and 'children's mosquito nets,' so it'll sail right through your people."

"What's the difference between antibiotics and mosquito nets for kids and ones for adults?"

"There is none. But the word 'child' tends to grease the skids in the industry."

"Maybe I should have ordered a Shirley Temple."

"Funny! You're a funny guy."

The man who had carted off Josh's luggage came through the open door, emptie
d o
ne of the suitcases onto the floor, an
d s
tarted carefully going through the content
s f
olding, organizing, and finally selecting an appropriate drawer or shelf.

"Hey, don't worry about that. I can do it."

"Don't sweat it," Flannary said. "This is his job. He's paid to do this. Right, Luganda?"

The man looked up from his position on the floor and displayed those amazing teeth again. "I'm at your service, JB. Like always, yes?"

"Luganda is a national treasure," Flan-nary said to Josh. "He knows everybody, can get anything, and has all the choice gossip. If you need something, you go straight to him and he'll take care of you."

"I appreciate that, but he doesn't really need to . . ."

Flannary's frown silenced him.

"Look, sport. You're not at home anymore. Here, you're rich. And as a rich person, you have an obligation to hire people less fortunate than you to do your work. There's nothing an African hates more than some rich, fat white guy who comes here and decides he's going to do his own laundry and gardening and whatnot."

"I'm actually not rich, JB."

He laughed but this time managed to not almost die. "As far as the Africans are concerned, all white people are rich. And you know what? They're right."

"I don't think that's --"

"Let me tell you something about the Africans that's going to serve you well. Are you listening?"

Josh glanced uncomfortably at Luganda pawing through his boxer shorts and then back at Flannary, who seemed completely comfortable talking like the man wasn't there.

"Yeah. Sure, I guess."

"Africans are the world's greatest pigeonholers."

"Huh?"

"When an African meets someone, they immediately put that person into a category, and that category completely controls how they treat you. You're a European. Period. Whether you're Charles Manson or Mother Teresa makes absolutely no difference."

"I find that hard to believe."

Flannary rolled his icy glass across his forehead. "We had a black kid from Chicago come work here about a year ago. He lasted less than two months before he damn near went nuts."

He paused, and it was obvious that h
e m
eant for Josh to inquire as to the cause of the mental breakdown.

"Okay. Why?"

"Because he didn't look European but also didn't have a tribe, so the Africans didn't know how to deal with him. The only thing they could figure out to do was completely ignore him. Strangest thing you ever saw. It was like he was a ghost only white people could see."

Flannary started for the door, pausing at the threshold. "I'll let you settle in for a bit. Drinks are served by the pool starting in about an hour."

"There's a pool?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't there be?"

Music began to play outside, and Josh pressed the phone tighter to his ear. Luganda, apparently finished unpacking for him, now sat behind the counter of the compound's office watching a speech by Umboto Mtiti on a black-and-white TV.

Stephen Trent had provided a state-of-the-art GPS-enabled satellite phone but made it clear that Josh was to use it only for official business and emergencies. That left him at the mercy of the local phone system.

"Hello?" he shouted into the handset. "Laura? Are you there?"

"Josh! I can barely hear you. Are you in Africa? Did you make it okay?"

TB Flannary wandered in and leaned on the counter, looking at the television and halfheartedly pretending not to listen in on Josh's conversation.

"Yeah, I made it. But it took forever. It's nighttime here."

"I've been waiting for you to call. I was starting to get --"

Her voice was drowned out by hysterical shouting on her end.

"Hang on a sec, Josh. . . . Calm down, Fawn! I don't know what's wrong with it."

"Bullshit!" Fawn's muffled but still unmistakable screech. "You did something, you little bitch! I know you did. You're standing between me and enough money to get out of this shithole."

"I don't know anything about cars, okay, Fawn? Call a mechanic."

"Your mother --"

The crash of the screen door sounded as Laura retreated outside.

"Sorry about that, Josh. How are you? Is Africa amazing?"

"What the hell was that all about?"

He wasn't sure if it was a sigh or just static, but either way his sister sounded tired. "Fawn convinced Mom to let her sel
l t
he car to raise money for the Internet pill business she's doing."

"I bought that goddamn car! You --" "Calm down! Geez, everybody's yelling a
t m
e." She lowered her voice. "I rearrange
d t
he wires on the distributor like you showe
d m
e, and for good measure, I hid the title." "Jesus Christ! Laura, you need to --" "Did you see any lions yet?"

"They all got killed in cross fires."

"What? I couldn't hear."

"Nothing."

"What's it like there, Josh? Are you in a but by the edge of the jungle? I saw a movie once where lions hunted and killed people. No. Wait. Maybe that was India. . . ."

He looked down at his sweating beer bottle and then through the open door at a tiki bar wound with Christmas lights. "I don't think I have to worry too much about that."

Chapter
10.

"Where are we going?"

The turn leading to Umboto Mtiti's compound slipped by, and the driver shrugged, continuing to follow the armored vehicle in front of them. Stephen Trent twisted around in the backseat of the heavily armored limousine and looked at the machine gun mounted to the chase vehicle tailgating them. A bored-looking youth was holding on to it, more to keep himself from being thrown from the truck than out of interest in defending them against attack. More often than not, Trent noticed that the barrel was aimed directly at him.

"We're supposed to be meeting the president," he said, trying to prompt one of the men in the front seat to speak, though it was unlikely either spoke English. He moved to the center of the seat, staying as far from the tinted windows as he could and taking measured breaths. He'd hated everything about Africa since the first time his feet had touched the hot, blood-soaked, poverty-stricken ground there. But mostly he hated Umboto Mtiti -- a wildly unpredictable and paranoid man who considered any discussion that didn't take place at gunpoint to be a waste of time.

Trent wondered again how he had ended up trapped halfway between the psychotic Umboto Mtiti and the icily sociopathic Aleksei Fedorov. Too many wrong turns and impossible choices. Too much fear.

And now that fear was growing with every mile the motorcade traveled away from Mtiti's compound. In the distance, he could see the new prison looming, though in truth it was neither new nor a prison. Europeans had originally built it as a factory during their brief attempt to "civilize" the country. It had long since been shut down until Mtiti had decided its stone-and-steel construction would be an ideal place to contain anyone he saw as a threat to his power. It had become a potent symbol inside the country, the way he imagined the Bastille had been in France. The mere mention of it made grown men go weak.

And he was no exception. Despite the limo's air conditioning, the sweat was running freely down his back as they passe
d t
hrough the gate. Above, unused and slightly leaning smokestacks rose into the glare of the sky.

Trent stepped from the limo and into the cloud of dust its abrupt stop had created. Hundreds of dull, hungry faces watched him, though none of the stooped, skeletal men packing the courtyard dared approach. A small contingent of soldiers surrounded him and ushered him forward, shouting and occasionally using a rifle butt against any prisoner who didn't have the strength to move out of the way fast enough.

They passed through a metal door and immediately started down a set of stairs illuminated by a single bare bulb. The heat was stifling, and the smell of excrement and rot made Trent put a hand over his face.

"I think there's been a mistake," he said trying to keep his voice from shaking. "I was supposed to meet the president."

They kept moving downward, the men behind him not quite pushing but unafraid to make contact when they thought his pace was slowing.

He managed to keep from panicking, but only barely. There had been no mistake. Within the narrow context of his backwater country, Umboto Mtiti never made mistakes. He understood the subtle relationship between every faction of every tribe, knew exactly where to draw the line between terrorizing the people and inciting them, and had an uncanny nose for men with charisma and brains. Few survived much past early adulthood.