The Taste of Fear (19 page)

Kenya Airways flew to Kinshasa via Nairobi every day, but Kinshasa was way over on the western side of the country, more than fifteen hundred kilometers from where he wanted to be. Eventually, however, he discovered that a United Nations plane made regular stops to the eastern port town of Kalemie, to resupply the aid workers stationed at the UN base there. The next flight left the following morning. The man in charge of it was the Indian general likely steaming himself in a sauna right now.

Fitzgerald flicked the Kent away, left the Land Cruiser, and entered the Turkish bath. A black man behind the front desk smiled at him. Fitzgerald didn’t smile back. “I want to look around,” he said. The man started to shake his head but stopped himself when Fitzgerald dropped fifty thousand shillings on the counter. “It’s okay?”

“Okay.”

Okay
was the most recognized word in the world, and Fitzgerald always liked hearing it. He passed through the changing area and emerged in a large and airy art deco room. Shafts of sunlight slipped through the slit windows near the domed ceiling, casting a chiaroscuro effect on the numerous marble statues of naked men and women frozen in classical poses. To his right was a steam room; to the left, a cold plunge pool. He stuck his head in the steam room. Hot and dry and smelled like eucalyptus. Several men in towels and slippers sat around on the wall-mounted benches. No general.

He continued to the far end of the spa, checking each hot room he passed. Still no general. That left only the body-scrub room. He pushed through the door and was greeted by humid air and colored quartz-tiled walls. Lying face down on a raised stone platform was the plump brown general, naked and covered in suds. A young Middle Eastern attendant stood next to him, holding a branch of soapy oak leaves.

“Get out,” Fitzgerald told the kid.

The attendant bowed and left.

The Indian general looked up, squinting. Gold chains dangled from his neck, while gold rings boasting oversized gemstones adorned his fingers. The fashion faux pas aside, it was a fair bit of bling for somebody who didn’t clear much more than a grand a month, and it said a couple things about the general. One, he was a self-conscious materialistic fuck, and two, he was likely open to bribes. To a Western mentality, bribery was frowned upon. In Africa, it was simply the way things worked. There was even a name for it here: the Dash System. Everybody—police officers, politicians, military officials—hustled for the dash. Government put up a lot of anti-bribery posters and talked tough about stamping out corruption, but it was all hypocritical bullshit. They skimmed twenty percent off the top of everything that came their way.

“General Deshepande?” Fitzgerald said.

“Who are you?”

“I was told you’re in charge of the flight leaving for Kalemie tomorrow?”

“Who are you?”

“I need a seat on that flight.”

“You come here, to ask me that?”

“Aye, I did.”

“Why are you dressed in street clothes?”

“I don’t like young boys scrubbing me down.”

“Who are you?”

“We’re going in circles, General.”

“The flight is for UN workers.” He shook his head, his double chin wobbling like a rooster’s wattle. “No civilians. Call up an airline. Buy a ticket like everyone else.”

Fitzgerald knew Deshepande knew there were no commercial flights to Kalemie. If there were, he wouldn’t be chartering a plane. “One thousand dollars,” he said bluntly. There was actually a certain etiquette to offering a bribe, but he had neither the time nor the patience to see it through.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m a big supporter of what the UN is doing over here, General, and I’d like to make a one-thousand-dollar donation to whatever cause you find worthy.”

The annoyed look left Deshepande’s face, replaced by sly calculation. “You could make this donation into a bank account of my choosing?”

“I can do better. Cash, tomorrow morning.”

“You are a very kind man. But one thousand dollars does not go very far these days.”

“Two thousand then, though I’m afraid that is all I could possibly afford.”

Deshepande was silent.

Fitzgerald waited.

“Why do you need to go to the Congo so badly?”

“I’m a journalist covering the humanitarian crisis.”

“You are writing a story?”

“Sure.”

Whether Fitzgerald was or wasn’t was a moot point. The man just wanted to get their stories straight in case someone asked why he was transporting a civilian.

“You know,” General Deshepande said, nodding thoughtfully, “I believe there is room on the flight tomorrow for a journalist covering the humanitarian crisis. The flight leaves at 7:55 a.m. Be at Jules Nyerere at seven. You will find me in the departures lounge.” He smiled a pudgy smile. “And it would be most convenient if your generous donation could be made in small denominations.”

Shortly after eating the meager dinner Miranda had thrown up. The wet, retching sounds made Scarlett sick as well. But she had already emptied her stomach out from the embassy, and there was nothing more to come up. Sometime after that exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she drifted into a nearly comatose sleep full of those awful dreams that were becoming more and more vivid with each passing viewing.

And that was that. A day in the life of a hostage.

Scarlett maneuvered herself into a sitting position, propped her back up against the wall, pulled her knees to her chest. “Anyone have a guess at the time?”

No one answered.

“Hello?”

No answer.

Was she alone? Scarlett wondered with a reinvigorated burst of panic. Had the others been taken during the night? God, she hated this stupid blindfold! The not knowing and the continued blackness were too much. Like Chinese torture. Drip-drop, drip-drop, you’re going insane. Nevertheless, Scarlett forced herself to relax. Everybody was here. Of course they were here. They were just sleeping, that was all. Where else would they be? On the top deck, working on their tans? She laughed softly to herself, and to her dismay it sounded like the cackle of the homeless she’d often seen camped out on Sunset Boulevard or Beverly Wilshire.

She bit her top lip to shut herself up.

Keep it together, Scarlett. Be strong. Keep it together.

In the gloomy silence the old riverboat creaked and settled and rocked gently. Water sluiced against the hull. Mosquitoes whined and bit. Scarlett found herself wondering if escape was still possible, as Thunder had suggested. Real escape, not jumping down a toilet. She didn’t think so. Ditto with being rescued or released. Which left the unenviable fate behind door number four. Death. As much as she wanted to write that one off as well, she couldn’t lie to herself. What was the point? It was impossible, like trying to forget your name. If they were going to be killed, how would Jahja and his cronies do it? Decapitation? Starvation? A bullet in the head? Would she be first or last? Or would everybody be executed together?

Maybe going out on Laurel Canyon Boulevard would have been best after all, she thought darkly. Maybe that had been her real fate, and now God was trying to right the wrong, first with the lioness, now with this.

Maybe, maybe, maybe! Dammit, I don’t want to think about maybes. I just want to go home, go home, go home. . . .

Scarlett was nodding off to sleep again when she heard movement on the top deck. She jerked awake and listened. Definitely movement. Then something much louder. The anchor being raised? The engines started up with a roar like a rudely woken dragon. The entire ship rattled and shook.

She heard the others stir.

They were here.

Of course they were, she chided herself.

“Wonder what’s for brekkie,” Thunder said.

“How do you like your eggs?” she asked in jest, happy to have someone to speak to.

“Sunny, please.”

“I’d die for some coffee,” Joanna said.

“Pancakes,” Miranda said.

The small talk was good. It was normal. To keep up the charade, Joanna asked Miranda questions about her family. Miranda told her she had a pit bull named Iggy.

Thunder jumped in, saying he’d had two dogs, a six-year-old dachshund and a fifteen-year-old golden retriever, but when the dachshund died unexpectedly of a heart attack last year, the retriever died a few days later, apparently of a broken heart.

Scarlett told them she was a cat person and got promptly booed.

Sometime later, long after the fake-happy conversation had tapered off and the gloom and doom returned, the engines slowed. The riverboat began chugging along at what seemed like half the previous speed.

“Did you hear that?” said Sal, who had been mostly quiet since waking.

“What?” Scarlett said.

“I think it was a foghorn.”

She listened but didn’t hear anything except for her own breathing. She brushed along one of the walls until she found a window. She pressed her ear against the grubby glass but still didn’t hear anything. Maybe Sal was imagining things. She wouldn’t blame him. You went a little batty when you were blindfolded for this long. God knows she had.

“Lettie,” Thunder said. “Try to pull down my blindfold.”

“My hands—”

“Use your teeth.”

They found each other in the middle of the room. Scarlett raised herself on her tiptoes, bit the cloth near Thunder’s temple, and tried to tug the blindfold down. It didn’t budge. She bit the cloth over the bridge of his nose and tried again, still to no avail. It seemed the terrorists had earned their Boy Scout merit badges in knot tying.

“Let me try you,” Thunder said. She felt teeth pinch the blindfold, then he started tugging down.

“Wait,” she said. “Try to pull up.”

Thunder resumed his effort. The blindfold moved a centimeter or two but got caught on the ridgeline of her brow. “No go,” he said.

“You had it,” she encouraged him. “Try again. Don’t worry about hurting me.”

He gave it another shot. Once more it got caught on her brow.

“Keep pulling,” she said, trying to keep the pain from her voice. The cloth dug sharply into her eyelids.

He kept at it, jerking like a dog trying to get at something, and finally the damn thing started to slip over the bony protrusion.

“It’s working,” she said.

Then, all of a sudden, she could see. She let out a small cry of joy.

“It worked?” Sal said.

“Yes!”

Scarlett looked around the barren room, their prison for the past day or so. It was a dump. Rat droppings were everywhere. Chewed newspapers were piled in corners like nests while stringy gray cobwebs dusted the low rafters. Three small porthole windows lined both the port and starboard sides of the cabin. The door and a large window faced the stern. Joanna and Miranda were standing beside each other. The vice consul looked ten years older than she had the day before. The passport clerk seemed deflated. Sal stood off by himself. His face was haggard, his jaw thatched with dark stubble, but his back was straight, his head held high.

Thunder was right next to her, seeming none the worse for wear except that his neat lawyerly hair was now a mess. The cut on his forehead was red and angry looking and had started to bruise. She found it an odd sensation to be able to see when no one else could. It was a little voyeuristic. Like being the Invisible Man.