The Freedom Broker, page 22
Heat rushed to my face. This was my chance to be Blado’s boss. I could do better than the older boy if I stayed calm.
Oba took off his bandanna and wrapped it around my eyes. The cloth stunk, but I kept my body still, wanting to hit that bull’s-eye. We’d practiced shooting blindfolded so we could learn how to reload and fire in the dark. There was talk of nighttime raids, and Oba wanted us ready. We had to close our eyes and keep our feet in the same spot, doing it over and over again until we could hit the target from ten feet, then twenty, then thirty. It was amazing how good we got without even seeing the target.
“Prepare to fire.”
I dug my feet into the dirt, then lifted the rifle.
“Fire.” Oba’s voice echoed in my ears.
I held steady and pressed the trigger. Boom, boom, boom. After firing all five shots, I lifted the bandanna. I’d hit the small circle on every shot, but a little to the right. Not good enough. Blado smiled.
“Not bad. I’ll give you one more try.” Oba turned to Kofi. “Post a new target.”
This was my last chance to beat Blado. I would be a better leader of the troops. Fear didn’t earn loyalty—good leadership did. Papa said so.
Kofi pulled down the old target and kept it to compare with Blado’s shooting. After he posted the new one, I lined up my feet and reloaded my rifle.
Last time, my shots went right. Not again.
When Oba blindfolded me with the bandanna, I stayed still and waited for his command.
Scuffling footsteps. A soft cry. Probably Blado trying to distract me. No way would the bully win. I entered the shooting zone, picturing the target. I could do this.
“Fire.” Oba’s voice sounded farther away, but I didn’t care what he was doing. I wanted to win. I wanted all the bullets to land in one black hole. I squeezed the trigger, kept my aim steady.
The sound was different this time, like a hammer smashing a watermelon. What had happened? I’d kept my aim steady. I ripped off the blindfold.
Kofi and Oba held Blado in front of the target. A bandanna covered the boy’s mouth. All five shots had hit a small circle in his chest, his tan shirt soaked with blood.
My body shook. Kofi laughed his hyenalike cackle.
Oba dropped Blado’s dead body on the ground. “I told you the better shot would lead the troops. We already knew you were the best. Congratulations, you’ve killed your first enemy.”
I sank to my knees. I couldn’t speak.
Oba looked at Kofi. “Drag the body into camp. I’ll tell the boys that Blado tried to run away and Mzungu stopped him. That will keep them in line.”
I couldn’t believe it. They’d made me a killer.
BABY BRANDON
Oba and I were on the hunt for food because the villagers’ grains were almost gone. Charcoal and mud covered my face and body to make me dark so the animals wouldn’t see me coming. My belly was growling. I’d only eaten one meal a day for the last few weeks. My ribs stuck out, and my arms were matchsticks. I needed meat.
I missed good dinners from home but tried not to think about all that. Thea and Papa would not be proud that Oba had tricked me into killing Blado. I said nothing to the other boys about what had happened, but they looked at me with scared eyes now. News travels fast in a camp.
I stepped carefully in the thick bush, trying not to make any sound. Branches cut my skin, but I didn’t care, because I had eaten lots of candies and breathed in brown-brown—gunpowder mixed with the white powder. It made me feel so awake.
Oba froze and lifted a hand to tell me to stop. An animal? I could feel drool in my mouth. We’d eat tonight.
He pointed to the right, then stepped like a cat through the bush. I followed, heart thumping hard. He was just ahead of me. I saw light through the trees. The hot sun fried the back of my neck. An empty stomach, the heat, the buzz of the brown-brown. I felt dizzy and almost tripped.
Strong fingers dug into my arm. Oba gave me a mean stare. I shook my head, trying to get rid of that weird feeling. He was crazy enough to roast me over the fire if he got too hungry.
I heard a sound. Soft at first. Like a kid’s laugh.
Oba ran through the trees. I hurried to keep up. He lifted his AK-47.
There was an open-air Land Rover with a sign on the door. I got closer. My head wasn’t working right, but I knew it was Mr. Grantam, the park ranger, and his young son, Brandon. Me, Papa, and Thea had gone on safari with him last year. The two of them were standing on the driver’s seat, and Brandon was pointing at two giraffes butting heads.
“Look, Daddy. Are they mad at each other?”
Mr. Grantam wore a brown uniform with a gun, binoculars around his neck. “Not really, Brandon, they’re just trying to decide who’s the boss. You know, like me and Mom do sometimes.”
The little boy laughed again. His father messed up his hair. I was so busy watching them that I didn’t see Oba get close. Mr. Grantam turned to see Oba with his AK pointed at them. The giraffes hurried away, as if they knew playtime was over. Mr. Grantam reached for his holster, but Oba had him cold with the rifle.
“The gun.”
“Daddy!” Brandon scrambled into his father’s arms.
“Stay calm. Just tell me what you want.” Mr. Grantam looked at Oba and then at me. Didn’t he know who I was? Maybe he couldn’t tell because of the mud and charcoal.
“Take off the gun.” Oba couldn’t miss if he tried. He was only a few feet away.
Mr. Grantam held Brandon close and tossed the holster and gun into the red dirt.
“Whatever you need, I can help.” Even though Oba had the AK pointed at him, Mr. Grantam seemed calm. I guess he was used to guns.
Oba stepped forward and grabbed the kid. Brandon squealed, “Daddy!”
“It’ll be okay, son. Just take a deep breath.”
Brandon kept quiet, but his blue eyes were huge saucers. It made me think of Thea the night I’d been kidnapped. She’d been so scared, she couldn’t scream for help.
“You have food?” Oba held Brandon’s neck to keep him from squirming away.
“In the bag.” Mr. Grantam pointed to the sack on the passenger seat. “Take it all. Just let the boy go.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, white man.” Oba turned to me. “Shoot him, and I will spare the boy.”
“Let’s just take their food and leave them be.” I tried to process what was happening, but my brain was cloudy, fuzzy.
The man’s face was really pale. Oba pulled Brandon closer, putting the barrel of his rifle against the kid’s head. “Shoot the man,” he told me.
“Calm down. I just want to take my son home.” Mr. Grantam’s voice was strong, brave.
“Do it.” Oba was scary calm. I knew he meant it. “Or I shoot the kid on the count of three.”
“Don’t do it.” Mr. Grantam looked right at me. Didn’t he know I was Nikos Paris?
Oba started counting. “One . . .”
What to do, what to do? My head was all confused. Could I shoot Oba? No, the kid would die first. I remembered how Oba had killed Nobo. He never bluffed.
“Two . . .” Shooting Blado had been horrible, but he’d been a bully. This kid was young, like Thea, innocent. I couldn’t let it happen. Papa always told me to look after anyone younger than me. My hands shook on the rifle.
“Three.”
I fired straight at Mr. Grantam. Bang, bang, bang. Three red blotches dotted his chest. He slipped to the ground, reaching for his son.
Brandon screamed.
Oh, God, what had I done? I’d just shot the boy’s father in front of him. I let my AK drop. My legs felt like big rubber bands. I leaned over and puked. Standing up straight, I watched Oba fire a bullet into the boy’s head. Brain matter splattered the ground. Oba dropped the tiny body onto the red earth.
I ran over and knelt beside the boy. “No! You said you’d save him if I shot his father.”
“Too young to fight. Don’t need more mouths to feed. We’re not UNICEF.”
Oba walked over to the truck, grabbed the sack of food, and emptied it on the ground, opening packages, shoving food into his mouth. Apples, candy bars, sandwiches—everything I’d dreamed about for the last few months. But now I couldn’t eat them if I tried. I was dead inside.
Thea’s mind reeled as she placed the pages on the bed. The words were poignant, but they couldn’t properly convey what had transpired. She’d had no idea he’d been turned into a child soldier, twelve years old and forced to kill. The damage that had been done to her brother’s psyche was unfathomable.
An overwhelming mix of emotions filled her. Hatred for Oba, for forcing Nikos to commit such atrocious acts of violence. Another emotion surged from beneath the surface. Anger, red-hot anger, toward her father.
Papa had kept her in the dark. She understood how he might not have disclosed this sensitive information to her as a child, but why not tell her in later years? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t witnessed horrific situations in her job. But, no, Christos had chosen not to tell her what had happened to her own brother.
She agreed that it was smart to keep this information out of the public eye. Nikos already had enough celebrity as a former child hostage and scion of the head of Paris Industries. If the press discovered that he’d been a boy soldier, murdering people, he might never have had a chance at a normal life. She had to give Papa credit there. Still, why had he given up on his own child, excluding him from the family business, acting as if he was a leper?
It all started to make a sick sort of sense. Nikos might have been given everything he needed and more, financially, but he’d been forced to hide the brutality of what he’d experienced, forced to hide the truth of what had really happened, forced to live a lie.
Their father didn’t require such silence purely to protect Nikos from the public. He’d also done it for himself. Papa had muted his son because he didn’t know how to handle a damaged child. With no wife to help, he’d been overwhelmed, channeling his energy into his business, where he could flourish, instead of dealing with the difficult task of reforming someone who’d been so psychologically scarred. He’d sent Nikos away so he didn’t have a daily reminder of the horror that had befallen his son.
Papa must have used his wealth and power to whitewash any mention of Nikos’s activities during captivity. Most of the press coverage had been about the million-dollar reward he’d given General Ita Jemwa. Hush money. She wondered if there was even more she didn’t know about.
Emotion overwhelmed her. She was saddened and angered by Papa’s reaction to Nikos’s ordeal, yet she felt guilty about that anger. For God’s sake, he himself was being held captive now, locked in his own private hell.
And Nikos—how did she feel about him? “Complicated” didn’t begin to describe it. Her brother had been taken in her place. She owed him in the most profound way. That guilt haunted her, too.
Still, reading about what Nikos had done filled her with fear. What was her brother capable of? Was it possible that he was behind Papa’s kidnapping? Part of it made a sick sort of sense: swooping in to kidnap Christos right before the biggest deal of his career. The ultimate payback. But Nikos had seemed genuinely disturbed when he found out about the kidnapping. Could he really be that good a liar?
The story of her brother’s kidnapping had opened her eyes, demonstrating that even the people she loved, her family, were capable of anything if pushed hard enough. In the field, she had killed to avoid being killed. Sometimes choices were taken away from you.
She turned off the lamp and crawled under the covers. She needed to shut off her mind, sleep for a few hours. Tomorrow the negotiations would begin, and she had to be sharp. Nothing could be taken at face value. Peter Kennedy’s murderer was still at large, and presumably whoever it was had had a hand in Christos’s kidnapping and everything else that had happened since. The general seemed smug, as if he knew something they didn’t. And the Chinese were driven to win the contract at any cost. She would also have to face Nikos, her understanding of her brother forever changed, now knowing he’d been a child soldier, a killer.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The bright African sun pierced the crack between the room-darkening drapes in Gabrielle’s room. She’d been up since well before dawn, communicating with the HRFC team, already cruising through her supply of Gitanes.
Her buddy and former CIA operative Rick Dennison had given her an off-the-books care package, including a SIG Sauer, a first-aid kit, GPS trackers, a few bugs, an M24, and a parabolic microphone, among other items. She smiled, surprised there wasn’t a flame-thrower in the mix. Who knew what might come in handy?
Someone knocked on her door. She looked through the peephole. Max. She crushed her cigarette into the crystal ashtray and let him in.
“Any news?” he asked.
“Not really. Come in.”
He glanced briefly at the mahogany bed in her suite. It hadn’t been easy to say no to his attempts to break her one-night rule, but not for the usual reasons. She might actually like him, and that was a whole lot more dangerous than sex.
He looked disheveled, strained. “I’ve been working with Interpol, combing through leads coming in to their hotline. I will meet my contact from the Harare office later today.”
She half smiled. “Our kind of work doesn’t exactly lend itself to regular hours.”
“Our kind of work does not leave much room for a life,” he said.
“And yet we still do it.” She took in his Cartier watch and signet ring. “Why even be an inspector for the Hellenic Police, when your family has more money than olives?”
“Justice. Everyone deserves it, rich or poor.”
“Agreed.” She wondered if his sister’s accident was part of what drove him so hard. She’d like to ask more about what had happened but didn’t want to pry.
“You understand me, Gabrielle.” He stepped closer, his right hand stroking her cheek.
Her cell phone beeped, disrupting the moment. Part of her was relieved.
Two messages arrived from her analyst, Ernest.
Max reached for the bright blue box of Gitanes. “You mind?”
“I thought you’d quit.”
“I just started again.” He lit a cigarette, breathed in a lungful of smoke, and reviewed the messages on his phone while she did the same on hers.
Her first message detailed an intercepted conversation between the prime minister of Kanzi and his brother-in-law, Bini Salam. According to the information, Salam wanted to oust General Ita Jemwa from his position as head of security, but Kimweri refused. African leaders often appointed family members to prominent positions. With the promise of great wealth on the horizon, the prime minister’s relatives would be jockeying for position. If Bini Salam went head-to-head with the general, she’d bet on the military man.
The second message kick-started her heart. The plane tail number Konstantin Philippoussis had given them had been traced back to a Belgian shell corporation, which had been the holder of an end-user certificate, or EUC—an internationally accepted document that allowed for the shipping of arms to legitimate recipients. And that EUC was linked to an Ares weapons deal in Syria.
It had taken several analysts to sift through many layers of ownership and link the shell corporation to an automotive manufacturing company, which had been sold two years ago to none other than Quan Chi, one of the lead negotiators in the Kanzi oil deal. Was this the link she’d been searching for?
She typed a brief response, pushing her team to follow the money trail to other shell corporations. Was it possible that the Quans had arranged an under-the-table arms deal with Ares? Had Ares kidnapped Christos Paris to help influence the negotiations?
It would make sense. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute stated that while data on Chinese arms deals were difficult to confirm, it was common knowledge that China was one of the top suppliers of arms to sub-Saharan African countries. It was buying up minerals, oil, and natural gas, offering military aid or other assistance in exchange for the resources.
Or was one of the Quans actually Ares, working both ends?
Goose bumps ran down her arms.
China was especially influential in the murky world of small-arms sales—such as AK-47s and grenades—as they were easier to buy, sell, and use and were considered far more destructive, because of their ubiquity, than heavy weapons. Small arms played a powerful role in fueling bloody rebellions and encouraging civil unrest in Africa. Could Ares be working to supply arms to the Kanzi government in exchange for control over the oil rights?
She’d need to investigate further, collating the details in her mind. She glanced at her watch. “We’d better go; it’s time for the negotiations to start.”
Chapter Fifty
Thea finished her shower with a blast of cold water to revitalize herself, dressing in a navy suit, a crisp ivory blouse, and black pumps she’d purchased in town. She slipped her extra insulin into her jacket pocket. The two extra-large coffees she’d ordered with breakfast should give her the kick in the pants she’d need.
She’d conferred with Ahmed, Nikos, and six Paris Industries corporate lawyers in a private meeting earlier in the morning. Though Ahmed had agreed to have Nikos join them at the table, she was going to represent the family, handling the opening remarks on behalf of Paris Industries.
After her speech, she’d hand over the details to the experts. Ahmed had had a speechwriter send over a statement for her, and they’d reviewed the fine points. She was no oil executive, but she certainly had a lot of experience keeping calm in dicey situations. Kidnap negotiations required intense discipline and often unfolded over endless days. She wasn’t worried about even a high-stakes business deal.
Thea entered the conference room where the summit would take place. Cathedral windows let in the piercing morning sunlight, the deep burgundy drapes pulled wide open. Two tables sat near the front, and ten chairs perched on a small stage, ready for the Kanzi dignitaries. The venue held the same opulent grace and elegance as the rest of the hotel. She greeted Ahmed Khali and the team of lawyers. The COO’s demeanor was intense, his eyes studying the proposal like the nose of a pig hunting for the finest truffles. This was his big moment, his chance to shine.
