Do-Gooder (22 page)

“Snake Eyes. He’s the one Henry—”

Mom stopped my words with a squeeze to my knee. She shook her head. Clearly she didn’t want me sharing details.

“He was there,” I finished.

“Frédéric Marchande.” Suit #1 set the picture aside.

I identified four others—The Slav and Mike and two others I hadn’t interacted with enough to give them nicknames. The sixteenth photo The Suits showed me was Rat Man the scientist. He was smiling in the picture, which I found odd. The rest of the pictures were candid shots, most taken from a distance, and the subjects all wore serious or bored expressions. This picture looked like it came off an ID badge.

“Adelbert Braun,” Dad said, smiling in satisfaction.

“You know him?” I asked.

“He’s one of the good guys.”

The Suits looked a little peeved, and Suit #2 made notes in his phone.

“Seriously? Like one of The Suits’ good guys?”

“Dr. Braun is part of the Horizon Brotherhood,” Suit #1 told me.

“The Horizon Brotherhood?” I’d never heard of it.

“It’s the group Delphine worked with,” Dad explained. “They have a number of their members undercover, so to speak. I knew they’d been trying to get someone into Averyanov’s group, but I didn’t know they’d managed it.”

At a sharp look from Suit #1, Dad said, “I’m not a member. I was once peripherally connected to the group. I’ve spent the last few years trying to distance myself from them as much as possible. My only connection now is—
was
—Delphine.”

Mom must have noticed the same hint of sorrow that I had in Dad’s tone when he spoke of Mrs. Okono. It occurred to me that he must have really cared about her. Her death had hit him harder than he’d been able to let on. Having to rush in to save me, he hadn’t had a chance to process her death. Especially since he probably found out when I told him.

“So he’s like a double agent?” I asked. Partly because I wanted to know, and partly because I wanted to distract Dad from thoughts of Mrs. Okono.

“Something like that,” Dad agreed. “The thing is, if he’s there undercover he may be able to delay letting Averyanov and his crew know about the fake chemicals.”

I may have been grasping at straws allowing myself to hope, but I clung to Dad’s words. “You think so? Do you know how to contact him?”

Dad shook his head. “No, but I do know how to reach some people who might know how to reach him.”

Suit #2 raised a stalling hand. “It’s inadvisable. If you draw too much attention to Dr. Braun, it puts everything—everything we’re working for and everything he’s working for—at risk.”

Dad flattened his palms on the conference table and leaned forward. “There is a kid—an eighteen-year-old kid—at risk. A kid, moreover, who has already been through more than you could possibly imagine. We have an obligation to help him. Besides which, that was the deal. If Isaiah could confirm that Dr. Braun—or someone else from Horizon—was at the camp, an attempt to bring out Henry would be made prior to any strike on the compound.”

Okay, so my Dad was a little bit kickass. It was kind of cool to see him in action.

WE ARRIVED
back in Africa the next evening. Mom came along this time and, instead of road tripping from the airport in Yaoundé to Dad’s refugee camp, we landed in Gemena, a small town in the northernmost part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was the closest airport to the mercenaries’ camp. We crossed the 200 or so miles between Gemena and Bayanga, the nearest town to the Dzanga-Sangha Preservation in the Central African Republic, and, therefore, to the mercenaries.

You’d have thought I would have enjoyed my first ride in a helicopter, but mostly it was loud, and my brain was too filled with worry—straight-up anxiety, actually—to notice the trip. Not being part of a secret military operation, Mom, Dad, and I booked a bungalow at the Sangha Lodge, a resort just outside of Bayanga. The place was rustic, but on the whole, not bad. It overlooked the river and was practically buried in the jungle. I could see why tourists came here to get what they probably viewed as the true African experience.

For us, the biggest draw was the relative quiet. While most of the conflict in the Central African Republic hadn’t spread this far south, I didn’t think there were a lot of tourists clamoring to visit the lodge. In fact, as far as I could tell, there weren’t any other patrons.

I sat on a wooden deck chair on the patio of our bungalow and stared out at the muddy-looking river. Somewhere on the other side of that water, through several miles of the rain forest, was Henry. Trapped in a small building. Subject to God only knows what kind of treatment. I told myself he was still alive. He had to be. I didn’t know if I could handle knowing he’d died there. Two days in a hospital on an entirely different continent, plus the two days of traveling, meant that Henry had been on his own with the mercenaries for four days.

Dad slid into the chair next to me.

“I think Henry would like it here,” I said. I didn’t look away from my view of the river. “He’d probably be able to tell me about all the plants and whatever animals are slinking around down there.”

“You’re probably right,” Dad said, stretching his legs out in front of him. He looked at home here, somehow. More than he had in Brussels. Of course, the man had spent the last twenty-five years in Africa. It probably was more home to him than anywhere in the States.

“I don’t think I said, but I’m sorry about Mrs. Okono. I know you two were close.”

“I’m still processing,” he said. “She was a great woman and the way she died… she didn’t deserve that.”

“What’s happening at your camp right now? Can you afford to be away as long as you have been?” I didn’t care about the camp, not really, but I didn’t want to think about the mission. Not yet.

“They can muddle through a few days without me.”

“But you couldn’t even take a couple of days to pick me up from the airport?” As soon as the words came out, I wanted to take them back. Now wasn’t the time to rehash the topic. Especially since Henry had already explained. “Never mind,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, I think maybe we should talk about it. It’s long past time.”

I shook my head, still watching the water. “No, it’s okay. You’ve already explained why you had to stay away. I get it.” Something long and vaguely log shaped floated at the surface. Was it a log? Or a crocodile? Did this part of the world have crocodiles? Maybe a python? Did pythons swim? Henry would know.

“Once the threat was gone, I could have—I
should have
—contacted you.” He touched my arm, and the brief gesture caused something anxious to tighten in my chest. “I… could you look at me for a second?”

I turned to him.

“You have every right to be angry—”

“I’m not angry. Not anymore. Not really.”

“I was scared,” he blurted out.

That threw me. “Scared?”

He rubbed his hands on his thighs. I noticed for the first time he’d changed clothes. He now wore the same kind of long, pocketed shorts Henry had worn. “It had been so long, and your mom is such a wonderful person. After all that time, what could I give you? I’m proud of the work I do. I make a difference. But I don’t have much money. Anything you needed, your mom gave you. Anything I could have given would have been too little, too late. So, yes, I was scared.”

I couldn’t handle the intensity in his green eyes. But I couldn’t look away either. “I didn’t—
don’t
—need you to
give
me anything. Except you. I needed to know you cared. That you loved me. A phone call. A birthday card. Anything to let me know that you knew I existed.”

“Not a day went by that I didn’t think of you. Miss you. I may not have kept in touch with you directly, but I kept up on things in your life.”

“Mom?”

“Your grandparents, actually.”

“Nana and Granddad Piasecki?” I saw Mom’s parents every couple of months. They lived in Michigan, and we went there for holidays and stuff. Dad’s parents had died before I was born. “They never said anything.”

“I asked them not to. It wasn’t a big risk since no one would have any reason to tie me to my ex-in-laws, but it was still a risk. Every six months they’d send an e-mail updating me on everything that was going on in your life.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut. My thoughts and emotions were a jumbled mess. Part of me wanted to hug him and declare that all was forgiven. Part of me wanted to yell at him for the last two years when he could have contacted me but didn’t. Part of me wanted to blame Mom. She’d known I resented Dad, and she’d known why he wasn’t in contact. She had kept trying to placate me with all the good deeds he was doing, rather than giving me any kind of explanation I could wrap my head around. I’m sure it was done for my own good, but still. I wanted to be mad at all of them, but I couldn’t quite make the anger stick. Because I got it. I did.

“You’ve got to know that I never stopped loving you, or worrying, but I was too afraid to contact you. To see you hate me in person.”

“I don’t hate you.” Four little words. Once said, the truth of them settled into me. I
didn’t
hate him. Even the resentment had faded. That old saying “no good deed goes unpunished” flashed in my head. He’d done what he thought he’d had to, and, as a result, he had to sacrifice years with his family. Unintended consequences. Back in May, I’d done what I thought I’d had to, and, as a result, I had to sacrifice my summer. I also got kidnapped by mercenary soldiers and almost died. Unintended consequences.

Christ. Maybe good deeds and unintended consequences were hereditary. I certainly seemed to take after Dad in that regard.

Dad continued to talk. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I want—I hope—that I can be part of your life again. To get to know you.”

“I’d like that.” I pulled my foot up onto the seat of the chair and used my upraised knee as a chin rest. The sun hung low in the sky, shooting red beams of light to blaze on the muddy river. Movement along the bank caught my attention. Two stocky-bodied, spindly legged animals—some kind of antelope—waded in the shallow water at the edge of the river. They had an auburn coat, almost the same color as my hair, and a number of white stripes crossing their backs. Pale, twisting horns pointed out from the tops of their heads.

“What are they?” I nodded at the creatures.

“I don’t know,” Dad said. “Outside of identifying venomous animals and insects whose bites I have to treat or the scary ones to avoid, I don’t know much about the wildlife here.”

Henry would have known. “Is everything set for Saturday?” I asked.

Saturday was the big day. The mission. We just had to get through the next two days and we’d bring Henry out. Not that I had a role in it, or anything. There was nothing I could do. I was just a kid. The only reason Mom, Dad, and I were even there was to pick up Henry and get him the hell out. So we’d wait here in our little bungalow until word came, and then we’d meet someone from the Nameless Agency and hop a helicopter to the nearest airport. From there, well, it depended on how badly Henry was doing.

Dad had a job in the whole thing. He had to be ready to take care of Henry. He’d had someone at the Lobéké camp pack up Henry’s gear and retrieve his passport so that if it became necessary Henry could be flown somewhere with a better hospital than could be found in the immediate area. Dad also brought a couple of boxes of supplies with us so that he could treat everything from dehydration to infection to small wounds. Or, if worse came to worst, enough supplies to keep Henry alive until they could arrive at a more advanced medical facility.

Even Mom had a purpose here. Sure, I suspected she’d be glued to my side until we were back in Milwaukee, but she was more than a babysitter. She had a booking agent waiting in the wings to purchase airline tickets to just about anywhere, depending on need. Yaoundé, Brussels, Washington, DC. Wherever Henry needed to go when this was over, she’d make sure he got there. She’d already shelled out thousands of dollars in airfare to get us all back to Africa. Dad didn’t have much money. It had taken every cent he had to get me rushed to Brussels. So Mom, thanks to her lucrative lawyer gig, provided the cash for everything, including the bungalow.

Me? I was baggage. The only reason I was along was that I refused to stay behind.

“I should find out from my contacts tomorrow if Dr. Braun and Henry are alive.” In addition to providing medical care, Dad also had the connections. “Once that’s confirmed, everything will roll into motion.”

We sat there in silence for a few more minutes and watched the sun disappear below the horizon.

“Did I tell you what Henry did for me?” I didn’t know why I asked that. Maybe it was the dark, or maybe it was the newfound honesty between me and my father.

Dad scrubbed his hands on his thighs again. “Your mother told me some of it,” he said cautiously.

“He saved me. More than once.”

“Tell me?”

“How much do you know about Henry’s past?” I asked.

Dad shrugged. “A bit. I know he was a runaway, that he spent some time on the streets before coming to Cameroon.”

“Do you know what he did to survive?”

Watching me gravely, Dad said, “I have my suspicions.”

I pulled at the drawstring of my track pants, just something to keep my hands busy. “Do you judge him for it?”

“Isaiah, it’s not my place to judge anyone, least of all a scared kid who didn’t think he had any options. Especially when he took action and turned his life around.” He paused. “Do
you
judge him?”

“No! I mean, I didn’t. Not for what he did on the street.”

“But you did judge him for something else?”

I bit my lip. “I was really out of it, you know? And, well, I had some trouble processing what Henry had to do to get my insulin.” I gripped the drawstring tighter, letting the cord dig into the skin at my hips. “I was so sure I was going to die, or go into a coma or something. But Snake Eyes—you know, the creepy French dude?—he had my backpack. Henry agreed… he agreed… he exchanged….”