“You should. I gave the authorities a letter telling them you’re an American lawyer who may help represent Bobby Okari. For the moment, they’re trying to tamp things down by honoring the form, if hardly the substance, of our so-called human rights. Still, you’re lucky that Okimbo isn’t at the prison today.”
Once again, Pierce pondered the fluidity with which Bara navigated between ostensibly opposing forces. At last the army passed and Pierce and Bara drove to the barracks at Port George.
S
URROUNDED BY A
high stone wall, the barracks had but one entrance, a steel gate guarded by two soldiers. After Pierce showed his passport, a mustached young officer appeared. Stone-faced, he introduced himself as Major Bangida, and permitted Pierce to enter.
They crossed a courtyard surrounded by soldiers’ quarters. To one side, a two-story stone prison with barred windows looked down upon a platform that appeared to be a gallows. Bangida led Pierce to a metal door to the prison and told the soldier guarding it to direct him to Okari’s cell. But for the gallows, Pierce could have been visiting a prisoner in America, until he climbed the stone steps to the second floor, dark and dank and fetid with the odor of human waste.
At the end of the corridor was a cell without windows, illuminated only by a bare bulb in the ceiling. As Pierce came closer, a form rose from the shadows with the painful slowness of an old man, gripping the bars for balance. Then Pierce saw Bobby Okari peering through the bars.
Bobby’s bloodshot eyes betrayed hope and apprehension. His chin was flecked with gray stubble, and the lines graven in his gaunt face seemed more than the years could account for. “Bobby,” Pierce said. “It’s Damon Pierce.”
Bobby studied Pierce’s face as though examining every feature. “Damon,” he replied softly. “This I never expected.”
“Marissa e-mailed me,” Pierce answered. “How
are
you?”
“As you see me. A bottle to piss in; a bucket to shit in; rats and roaches for company. They don’t let her come—a kindness perhaps. Since we last met, I have learned much about how men can subvert the essence of what it is to be human.”
Pierce nodded. “I want to help you,” he said quickly. “I’m trying to figure out how to develop some legal leverage—I’ve got the background for it. But we may not have much time, and there’s a lot I need to understand. Starting with your relationship to Karama.
Everything,
from the beginning until now.”
Bobby’s teeth showed in a brief smile, a ghost of his former animation. “You’ve made inquiries, I see.”
“A necessity. Your fate’s in Karama’s hands.”
Bobby’s gaze turned inward. “I first met him fifteen years ago,” he said at length, “when I was a novelist and sometime journalist in Port George. He was Captain Karama then—like many young officers, he saw the army as a path to power.
I
saw him as an interesting person, most of all for how he listened to others: attentive, watching their eyes and weighing their words, asking questions to deepen his understanding. Without quite saying so, he implied that he wished for the army to secure the democracy we’d never truly had.” A weary irony crept into Bobby’s voice. “I had my
own ambitions for Luandia and needed friends who might someday have the power to help. During that time, Karama and I spent several long evenings together. Only later did I discover his gifts for deception.”
“How so?”
Bobby seemed to wince. “One night, after many drinks, we discovered that we shared a woman. Ela was also a journalist, beautiful and ambitious—that she’d be using us both was unsurprising. But as drunk as I was, I saw the change in Karama’s eyes.
“When I next saw Ela, she was a shell. It seemed that she’d learned things about Karama’s tastes she would not speak aloud. Soon after, she vanished. No one knows where.” Bobby looked directly at Pierce. “Marissa knows nothing about this. When I brought her here, Karama was not in power. The best thing you can do is remove her from this place.”
“Karama has taken her passport, Bobby.” Pierce paused, waiting for Bobby to absorb this. “You haven’t finished the story.”
Bobby touched his eyes. “While I was in America, to my further surprise, Karama immersed himself in army politics. Fairly soon after I returned, a general close to him decided to depose the corrupt civilian president, who, nevertheless, was preferable to a military ruler.
“The general’s plan was to assault the presidential palace at night. To his surprise, Karama ordered his soldiers to slaughter the troops who were to carry out the coup, and personally dispatched his former patron with a bullet to his head. When dawn broke, the president had survived and General Savior Karama, now the army’s chief of staff, was the most powerful man in Luandia.” Bobby’s tone remained soft. “Two years later he went to the palace, put a gun to the president’s head, and reminded him how easily he could pull the trigger. The president chose to resign. The quiet officer of my acquaintance had become Luandia’s nightmare.”
“Not forever,” Pierce said. “Presidents don’t last here.”
“So I hoped. But Karama became a prodigy of paranoia. He built a new capital city meant to be so impregnable that no usurper would dare a coup. He began sleeping by day and governing at night, so that enemies could not use the dark against him. Even those closest to him learned to fear for their families. Distrust your foreign minister? Take his thirteen-year-old daughter as your mistress and dare him to complain. The man
wished
that Karama had killed her . . .”
His voice trailed off. “Are you all right?” Pierce asked.
Bobby closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the bars. “Karama likes group sex. His partners were screened, of course. One night the procurer in chief flew in three prostitutes from Paris. After Karama had the first two, the third claimed that she wanted him at once, and offered him what she said was Viagra.
“Karama asked her to take it first. When she began to cry, he explained the alternatives to her in detail. After that she took the pill. Karama gave her two companions to his men; the girl who died foaming at the mouth was lucky.” Bobby stared at the chains around his ankles. “Their deaths are the first movie of a double feature Karama shows to those who servility he questions. The second film records the death of the general who recruited them. During the viewing, it is said, Karama serves champagne . . .”
Abruptly Bobby sagged. Reaching through the bars, Pierce kept him from collapsing. “Just brace me for a minute,” Bobby murmured.
He took one deep breath, then another, and gripped the bars again. “After this attempt at assassination failed, Karama decided to hold an election—”
“Which you called on the Asari to boycott.”
“Yes—Karama wanted a ‘mandate’ for all the world to see. He left little to chance. Candidates opposing his slate were jailed or killed. His thugs drove off voters and stole their ballots—I saw soldiers cruising through Port George with ballot boxes in their jeep. When a poll watcher complained, Okimbo’s soldiers dropped him at his home with both Achilles tendons cut. The only flaw in Karama’s plan was the Asari.”
Pierce heard something scurry in Bobby’s cell, perhaps a rat. Bobby seemed not to notice. “After the election, Karama summoned me to his palace in Savior City . . .”
His voice breaking, Bobby struggled to remain upright.
“Rest,” Pierce urged him.
“You must hear this.” Straightening himself, Bobby began speaking, his memory so precise and vivid that Pierce imagined himself there.
I
T WAS PAST
midnight. A minion in resplendent dress led a frightened Bobby through a marble sitting room with fifty-foot ceilings and sumptuous French decor. Karama stood in a spotlit garden, hands clasped behind his back, staring through iron bars into the darkened void of what
Bobby understood was his personal zoo. The uniform that fit him so precisely had been tailored on Savile Row.
Gazing at the president’s back, Bobby waited until he turned.
Even at night, Karama now wore aviator sunglasses; his face showed no emotion, as though seeing Bobby after fifteen years was unremarkable. From the darkness came the growl of what Bobby guessed to be a lion. “You have heard of my zoo?” Karama asked.
“Yes.”
“One side houses zebras and giraffes; the other, lions. At first I wondered about their inherent natures before their parents taught them. So I took a lion cub and fed him vegetables in the sitting room, hoping he’d become a house cat.” Karama laughed softly. “He
ate
the house cat. That ended my experiment with turning lions into vegetarians. Predators will always be predators.”
Bobby could think of nothing to say. Karama placed a hand on his shoulder. “It is one thing to share a woman, my old friend. Two men cannot share a country.”
Bobby shook his head. “I care only that my people share what oil brings.”
“And yet you asked them not to vote.” An undercurrent of anger crept into Karama’s speech. “For this, you demand the attention of the United Nations. What do you imagine—that you will win the Nobel Peace Prize by preening like a peacock on the world stage? Or do you simply enjoy holding me up to ridicule?”
At once, Bobby knew that Karama still resented his “betrayal” with Ela. “You can end my people’s suffering,” he answered as calmly as he could. “Then they won’t need the world’s help.”
Suddenly, Karama smiled broadly. “So those who tell me you’re a secessionist have given me false information. This is good news, old friend.”
“Then let me tell you how to help us—”
“All in good time,” Karama interrupted with sudden heartiness. “Once you move to Savior City and become my oil minister, we can talk at leisure.”
Grasping Karama’s purpose, Bobby felt a chill: Karama meant to hold him captive to fear until he became a stranger to his people, forced to mouth Karama’s words. “I’m honored,” Bobby answered slowly. “But my ambitions are for the Asari.”
Karama’s face became stone. “There’s only one way to achieve them. Join me.”
“In time, perhaps—”
“If I manage to win your approval, you mean. Then you will intercede with the world on my behalf.”
Unsure of how to answer, Bobby remained silent.
“In time you will let me know your judgment,” Karama said with an eerie smile. “Then I’ll make mine. In the meanwhile, I will have my private jet fly you to Port George.”
Apprehension flooded Bobby’s mind. Karama had once ordered a rival pushed from a cargo plane at twenty thousand feet. At the least, Karama not only had the power to imprison Bobby in his own fear but, by flying Bobby home so ostentatiously, to spread the rumor that Karama had corrupted him. “Travel safely,” Karama told him softly. “If only for your wife’s sake. They tell me she’s as beautiful as Ela.”
P
IERCE STILL HELD
Bobby upright. Through his cloth shirt, Bobby’s ribs felt too close to the skin. His account of Karama’s parting words lingered in the silence.
“Besides Karama,” Pierce asked, “who wants you out of the way?”
“PGL. Their manager in the delta, Trevor Hill, seems a decent man. But he doesn’t decide how his bosses deal with us. If the Asari movement manages to spread across the delta, Hill’s superiors may feel that they have too much to lose.”
“Who else?”
“Local chiefs paid off by PGL, men like my father.” Briefly, Bobby’s eyes shut again. “The gangs and militias, FREE most of all. They use the goals of the Asari movement to cover their own criminality and greed . . .”
Bobby’s knees gave way. “Rest,” Pierce urged again.
“Just hold me up,” Bobby answered fiercely. “I will not face another man sitting in my own filth.”
Their faces were inches apart. After a moment, Pierce asked, “What about the leaders closest to you, the ones who backed away?”
Bobby’s eyes clouded. In a softer voice, he answered, “Eric Aboh and the others feared that our movement would disintegrate, leaving them alone. A lone man is frail; only a mass movement can sustain him. Without this, the best of men—even those like Atiku Bara—crumble under the weight of fear and temptation.”
“But did they conspire with Okimbo?”
“To frame me? That I do not wish to believe.”
“No?”
“No,”
Bobby said with sudden force. “You cannot help me by blaming the Asari. What we need now is for Americans to understand how Karama and the oilmen force our people to live, and how your country has become a part of it.
“It is not just filling your tanks with our petrol. It is a new imperialism where the government cares only that petrotyrants like Karama deliver you from the threat of Osama bin Laden and your disasters in the Middle East.” Anger sustained the strength in Bobby’s voice. “When your military strategists look at Luandia, they don’t see the Asari or others in the delta. All they see is the Muslims in the north, worried they’ll become ‘Islamofascists’ or whatever buzzword they’re using to frighten Americans and ignore the rights of others.
“Long ago your government should have been shamed by its own arrogance. Instead you continue to blunder through the world pursuing policies you misconceive as clever, and end up with one brutal mess after another—from Vietnam to Iraq—which you then try to correct by creating yet another mess in another country. So now it is Luandia’s turn.”
Though their perspective was very different, Pierce was struck by how closely Bobby’s vision hewed to Martel’s warning that Luandia was becoming a pawn in the fight for oil. “What do you need me to do?”
“Help your country
see
us. My people need the very things America says it stands for: transparency, fair elections, a civil society that nourishes and protects us.” Reaching through the bars, Bobby gripped the front of Pierce’s shirt, eyes glinting with almost feverish passion and, Pierce guessed, exhaustion. “We need schools, roads, water, programs that persuade a new generation of leaders that violence is not the answer. More than that, we need hope. Without hope, the violence of Karama and FREE will create a conflagration that consumes Luandia
and
companies like PGL.” Bobby’s fingers tightened.
“That
is my message to America. If the United States cares nothing about what happens here, my people—and yours—will reap what you sow: a delta so savage and so criminal that not even Karama can contain it.