Lords of Corruption (20 page)

"Which project?" Josh said, watching the soldier shrug and shake his head.

"What?"

"Which project are you sending them to?"

"It's in the northeast part of the country."

"Really?" Josh said. "I hear it's pretty u
p t
here. Maybe I should go check it out.

Where is it exactly?"

"I don't think it would be worth the trip -- we've got it under control. In the meantime, I need you to come back to the capital so we can get together. There are some things we need to talk about."

"I'm telling you that there aren't, Stephen. It's not that I don't appreciate the opportunity you've given me here, but it's not going to work out. For a lot of reasons."

"Humor me, then. Why don't you com
e u
p this afternoon? We'll have a drink and get everything out on the table."

Josh looked up the road and calculated how long it would take to make the drive. "That's kind of short notice. I don't think I can make it that fast."

"Why not?"

He was about to say "car trouble" but then realized that the phone he was talking on had a trackable GPS in it.

"I'm out in the countryside, Stephen. Like I said, I want to see some sights before I leave."

"Okay, when?"

"Give me a couple, days. No hurry, right? We've still got a few weeks before my flight."

"Fine. A couple days. But no longer. There are some things we need to resolve."

The line went dead, and Josh jammed the phone back in his pocket. The guard was starting to look a bit annoyed with Annika's interrogation, but their conversation seemed to be getting somewhere, so he just stood back and didn't interfere.

He should have guessed that she would be Flannary's solution to his reluctance to head off on this particular wild-goose chase. In truth, he'd probably have done it anywa
y t
here was definitely something wrong here, and he wanted to know what it was. Annik
a w
as a nice addition on a number of levels, though.

The soldier searching the vehicle slammed the back hatch and waved them on. They climbed in, and Josh accelerated up the dirt road while Annika shouted thanks through her open window.

"Did you get anything?"

"We seem to be going in the right direction, but he didn't know how far or where exactly."

Josh glanced in his rearview mirror at the soldiers settling into a narrow strip of shade. "How long did it take you to learn to do all this?"

"What?"

"Speak the language, handle those guys like that."

She thought about it for a moment. "I've been here almost seven years. Since I was nineteen."

Josh tried to wrap his mind around that amount of time, to imagine what it would be like to have spent more than a quarter of his life there. "What did your parents think of that?"

"Oh, the same thing you would imagine. My father was very angry."

"Really?"

"He thought it was too dangerous. An
d h
e believes that people have to help themselves. That this is the only path to improving your life."

Josh grinned. "For some reason, that's the exact attitude I would expect from an old Norwegian guy."

"Are you making fun of him?"

"Nope. It's the same principle my country was founded on. We've even got a phrase for it: pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps."

"Like you did. You grew up very poor, you went to jail. And now you have a good education and a good job. You did it without anyone's help."

"Who told you I went to jail?"

"JB's got a big mouth."

She shrugged. "Everyone makes mistakes. And everyone can be forgiven. What's important is that we're truly sorry and try to make things right."

He wasn't so sure. If there was a God, He clearly wasn't impressed by the Hagartys.

"You see, I'm different than you," Annika continued.

"Not an ex-con?"

"I was going to say that I grew up privileged. I lived in the small world that mone
y c
ould buy. Do you understand what I mean?"

He nodded.

"The price, though, is that you become a very tiny piece of a machine that works perfectly without you. I wanted more. I wanted to see what else there was in the world. I wanted to help people who weren't born like me. People who weren't born lucky."

The sun was moving toward the horizon, and Josh watched its progress as if it were a gas gauge hovering just above empty. "It's going to be dark soon."

Annika was reclining in her seat with her bare feet hanging out the window. "It's cooler to travel at night."

Her nonchalance wasn't as confidence-inspiring as it should have been. He couldn't figure out if it was the result of her belief that it was safe or if it was just the fatalism that permeated all things African.

She seemed to think they were on th
e r
ight track, but as near as he could tell, the
y w
ere just penetrating farther and farthe
r i
nto the middle of nowhere. The calenda
r r
olled back with every mile, leaving behin
d e
verything the modern world had to offe
r e
lectricity, machinery, modern clothing
,
and building materials.

The jagged, grassy buttes he was accustomed to had been replaced with endless jungle that swallowed nearly every trace of humanity. He hadn't realized how reassuring the intermittent villages and occasional animal-drawn carts were until they had disappeared.

"In some ways it's better in this part of the country," Annika said, seeming to read his mind. "By the time aid makes its way this far, most everything of value has been stolen by the government. So people rely on themselves and the culture they developed over thousands of years." She pointed to a distant figure moving along the side of the road ahead. He leaned forward and squinted, finally discerning the shape of a woman carrying an enormous jug on her head.

"Pull over. Let's see if she can help us."

Despite having witnessed similar conversations at least ten times that day, Josh sat transfixed by the way the woman immediately responded to the confidence and caring Annika exuded. It was hard not to wonder if he would have ended up a person like her if circumstances had been different. Probably not. But Laura could. She had it in her to do something worthwhile, and h
e w
as going to make goddamn sure that nothing got in her way.

The woman began nodding, the jar on her head teetering precariously. The scene continued to deviate from the script he'd become familiar with as the woman began giving what appeared to be detailed directions. Annika thanked her profusely before jogging excitedly back to the vehicle.

"We've got something."

"You're kidding."

"I swear. Go up about three kilometers and turn left."

"That's as far as we go."

The dirt track had been right where the woman said, but the farther they went along it, the deeper the ruts became and the more the jungle closed in. Annika threw open her door and stepped out into the gloom, taking a deep breath of the humid air before continuing on foot.

"This doesn't seem like a good idea to me," Josh said, jogging up next to her but keeping his attention focused on the foliage to either side. He imagined hundreds of pairs of eyes staring out at them. Waiting.

"What doesn't?"

"It's getting dark. Maybe we should come back later."

She threaded an arm through his and pulled him along. "Don't tell me you're afraid."

As much as he hated to admit it, he was.

"People say there are lions out here." He swatted a mosquito on his leg. "And I forgot to take my malaria pill this morning."

"If I lived in Norway, I'd be sitting in a tiny office dreaming about adventure," she said, apparently oblivious to the enormous felines that were undoubtedly tracking their every move. "What would you be doing?"

He glanced behind him. Nothing but deepening shadow. "I don't know."

"You don't know? Okay. What would you want to be doing?"

"I guess sitting in an office. Not a tiny one, though. A huge one with mahogany paneling and a really soft leather chair. And air conditioning. Lots of air conditioning."

"What would you be thinking about?"

"Probably the kind of private jet I was going to buy."

He'd expected a disapproving frown but didn't get it.

"A plane? Sure . . . a plane would be good. Where would it take you?"

"Dunno. I guess I never really thought that far ahead."

The bugs had found them, and she shoo
k h
er head, using her long hair to shoo them from her face. "What good is a plane if you don't have anywhere you want to go?"

Despite her good-natured delivery, the question shook him a bit. In a single sentence, she'd made one of the main goals of his life seem like complete nonsense. How was it that it had never occurred to him that a plane wasn't an end? It was a means.

"Could we change the subject?"

"From money?"

"It seems more important if you've never had it."

"And that's how you Americans judge yourselves, isn't it? The more you have, the more valuable you are as a human being."

"I knew it."

"What?"

"You're a closet American hater."

"Oh, no. Definitely not. I love Americans. You're always thinking of something new and better. I just wonder when you're going to stop and enjoy those things you dream up."

They crested a hill, and she pointed, prompting him to slow and finally stop. The hill wasn't as elaborately carved as the one he'd been in charge of, but the terraces were still visible beneath the jungle reclaiming them.

Annika held up a color photo of the project from NewAfrica's brochure. He squinted at it in the failing light, trying to reconcile the image with what he saw in front of him. After a few moments, landmarks began to appear: a saw-toothed ridge to the east, a square depression where the tool shed had once sat.

"This is it," he said, focusing on the smiling faces of the people standing around Stephen Trent in the photo. After watching the presidential shoot at his own project, he saw that the crafting of the illusion was obvious. The angle, the focus, the workers' positions and expressions were all carefully designed to create a sense of progress that had never existed.

"Nothing's changed," Annika said.

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the state of the work in the picture."

She was right. It looked like the project had been abandoned the day after the photo had been taken.

Chapter
25.

"This the is so beautiful! And the water .. . it's so hot!" Josh laid a pair of his pants on the bed along with a belt that would hopefully keep them from falling down around Annika's ankles.

It had been too late to take her back to her village, and he'd managed to convince her to stay the night at his place with the solemn promise that he'd return her first thing in the morning.

"I can't believe you have a pool here."

"It's more of a hole in the ground lined with plastic, but I'm glad you enjoyed it. They serve breakfast next to --"

The shower curtain rustled, and her face appeared around it. "They serve you breakfast?"

"It's nothing fancy," Josh said, squeezing some toothpaste onto his brush. "Just a little fruit and some cereal."

"I'm glad to see you sacrificing so muc
h t
o help Africa."

It was hard not to be embarrassed by the way he lived. Despite everything that had happened to his project, to the people who were counting on him, he still had his pool, his breakfasts, and American Movie Night every Sunday.

She was enjoying herself too much to continue scolding him and instead nodded toward the shelf over the sink. "Is that shampoo?"

Josh held it out, and she snatched it, immediately disappearing again.

"It smells like apples! I love the smell of apples, don't you?"

He finished brushing his teeth and stood watching her vague shadow through the shower curtain. It was impossible not to.

"So what's next, Josh?"

"What do you mean?"

"JB's envelope had information on other projects. What if they're all like the one we saw today? We should try to find them."

"I thought you had to get back."

"I do. But this would just take another day or two. And it will give the women in the village something to gossip about. They feel so bad for me, you know."

"They feel bad for you?"

"Because I don't have a man and I'm s
o s
kinny and old, they figure I don't have much chance of getting one." She fell silent for a moment. "Oh, no. The water's getting cold and you haven't showered yet. Just let me get the soap out of my hair. I'll be out in a minute."