Fever (17 page)

Sara stepped closer to Wachira, her body language open and inviting. “Perhaps we can work out a mutually beneficial agreement.”

“What did you have in mind, Madame Ambrosini?”

“Let me continue with the school, for a while, until this situation is resolved. I will of course compensate you for coming all the way out here and for any future efforts on my behalf. I’m sure a man of your influence will not rest until you get to the bottom of this and the correct paperwork is located. And if I eventually have to move, I’ll write it off as a tax loss.”

Wachira seemed to be considering Sara’s offer. “What about your hot-headed friend?” He nodded toward Zak. “She causes difficulty.”

“I can handle her. Don’t worry, Commander. Do we have a deal?”

Zak watched in horror as Wachira and Sara shook hands. What had she done? It didn’t make any sense. Didn’t she know this man couldn’t be trusted? Zak pulled her phone from her belt and pretended to dial but instead took several pictures as they chatted, shook again, and Sara finally handed him a huge wad of cash.

She guided Wachira around the school foundation, explaining her plans for the building and pointing out their progress. She treated him like a benefactor instead of the man intent on destroying her dream, walking and chatting until dawn. Zak lagged a few steps behind, refusing to allow Wachira an unguarded moment with Sara. As the sun rose, Wachira ordered his men to their vehicles and kissed Sara’s hand before climbing into his jeep. Then he turned to Zak. “Madame Chambers, give your mother my regards.”

Zak’s violent thoughts returned and she wanted to hurl herself at Wachira like a missile. How dare he make reference to her mother, the woman he made a widow. She took only a couple of steps before Sara hooked her arm though Zak’s and gently guided her to the mess tent as Ben appeared from around the back.

“He is a very bad man,” Ben confirmed. “Trust nothing he says, miss.”

“I won’t,” Sara replied.

Zak pulled loose from Sara’s grasp and glared at her in disbelief. “Then you’re sure one hell of an actress. It looked like you could eat him with a spoon.”

“And you looked like you could kill him.”

“Trust me, I could and probably would’ve tried if—”

“If what? If I hadn’t been here? Is that why you agreed to continue with the job, so you could get a whack at Wachira?”

“What if it is?” Zak felt the exchange taking a dangerous turn but couldn’t stop. She had often imagined eliminating Wachira but, faced with the possibility, doubted herself capable of such cruelty. And involving Sara in any way had never been an option. “Do you have a problem with a little justice for the man who killed my father?”

“I have a problem with killing, period, and with being used for any reason.”

“Then maybe you do need another guide, because I can’t promise not to do either.” At this point she and Sara were standing almost nose to nose, their eyes locked in a staring battle. With her last statement, Sara reeled backward as if she’d been slapped.

The look on Sara’s face was akin to fear. Her usually warm brown eyes were wide and filled with pain. Her full lips were pulled thinly around a mouth that pursed with disapproval. She stared at Zak like she was a stranger, a stranger to be dreaded and avoided. She’d never had a woman regard her with such alarm, and that it was Sara made it more unbearable.

Ben stepped between them and placed his hand on Zak’s chest. His strong presence calmed her immediately. “Ebony, Miss Sara did a good thing.” He waited for his words to reach through her haze of emotion. “It gives us time to find the truth without drawing Wachira’s wrath.”

“If you want to play her little game, go ahead, but count me out. I learned years ago not to put my hand in the fire. There are other ways to handle this.” Zak turned and walked toward the river as the remnants of her rage seeped onto the parched African soil and the tenuous connection she’d experienced with Sara shattered into a million pieces.

*

Zak had been gone since their visit from Wachira, running alone in the desert for hours. Sara was glad she wasn’t around during breakfast so she could think without worrying about hiding her facial expressions. Her reality had suddenly taken a sinister shift. She knew Zak was intense and moody, but this morning she saw something else, a dark side capable of bloodshed. It surprised, frightened, and saddened her that Zak might intentionally hurt another human being. Sara was a consummate pacifist, and being involved in violence of any kind conflicted with her nature. The thought weighed heavily in her mind as she poked at her breakfast. Joey and the work crew pulled into camp as she and Ben finished cleaning the breakfast dishes.

“You had visitors?” Joey asked.

“How did you know?”

“Checkpoint just over the ridge, never there before. They stopped us.”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure, they search everyone and let us go. Now we work.”

“Actually, Joey, I was wondering if you’d take me into Talek. The other men can stay and work on the school. I’ll pay for your matatu services, of course.”

“Sure, miss.”

She found Ben and told him she needed to go into town and get more supplies, blaming the shortage on feeding lunch to a group of hungry workmen every day. He was reluctant to let her leave without telling Zak, but acquiesced when she told him Joey would drive her. The two men conferred briefly in Swahili before Sara and Joey left.

“What were you talking to Ben about?”

“Ben says you don’t need supplies, got enough for two weeks. So Ben says I must keep close eye on you. Don’t let you make trouble.” Joey smiled like he’d been entrusted with the family’s prize cow.

She wondered how Ben had gotten to know her so well. And even though she lied about her reason for leaving camp, he gave her the time and space she needed to work through her concerns. Friendship like that was hard-won in the world she lived in but seemed so effortless from this kind man. She suddenly envied Ben’s unassuming manner and his calming effect on Zak.

At the rise of the hill, Joey slowed the jeep as they approached the police checkpoint, and Sara recognized one of the men from their morning visit. He waved them through, staring intently at their license tag and speaking into his walkie-talkie.

While the lightweight van bumped along the washboard road, Sara wondered what had happened to Zak that morning. She had seemingly morphed into another person. Her entire body hummed with suppressed fury and the look in her eyes was pure hatred. Sara felt certain that if she hadn’t intervened, Zak would’ve gone after Wachira in spite of the overwhelming odds. Her own safety didn’t even appear to be a concern. The only thing that stopped her was Sara’s presence. Was she concerned about Sara being hurt, was she worried about another witness, or did she suddenly realize the lunacy of her actions?

Perhaps this was the reason for all the secrecy about her life and work. Maybe Zak Chambers was a professional assassin handling a very personal job and using her as a cover. She tried to reconcile this thought with her past interactions with Zak. Talking Sara through the thunderstorm on the plane, saving her from a crocodile attack, revealing such tenderness when she talked about her father’s death. Zak’s tears of pain didn’t mesh with the behavior Sara had observed that morning. She just didn’t want to believe Zak capable of something so distasteful.

“Joey, I need to go somewhere that has a land line and a fax machine.” She needed to redirect her thoughts for a while, and the land situation was a good distraction. Randall had resources all over the globe, and property searches were a specialty of his.

“Not Talek for supplies?” Joey gave her a teasing grin. “I know a place.”

Twenty more minutes of jaw-jarring travel brought them to a small strip of concrete buildings with tin roofs that looked like all the others she’d seen, only marginally habitable. “Here?”

“Yes, miss. This is library. Has phone and fax but you pay, right? I wait.”

It took almost half an hour to get a connection through to Randall Burke, her attorney in New York. She directed him to conduct a thorough check of international corporations with interests in property in the Narok District of Kenya and to locate a map showing existing owners in the area. His timetable was immediately if not sooner. Then she waited while he faxed the PI’s written report on Rikki’s activities. The more pages that spewed out of the machine, the more depressed she became. When the final page came through, she was close to tears.

She folded the sheets and tucked them into her purse on the way back to the van. Joey gave her one look and averted his gaze. He seemed to know she didn’t want to talk. “We make detour through the reserve. See animals, maybe.” He drove away from the library in the opposite direction they’d come.

“I’d like that,” she answered. Along the new route, Sara saw people planting in the right-of-way between the road and a large fenced farm. “What are they doing?”

“They plant gardens. These people have no land so they grow food here.”

“How do they water the vegetables?”

“Tote water from the river at Talek, many miles a day.”

Compared to these industrious people’s fight for survival, Sara’s girlfriend woes seemed petty and selfish. She tried to ignore the multipage report that screamed for her attention and focused on the sights around her. Ahead, Sara saw another checkpoint but this one looked different. The men who manned the station were dressed in camouflage uniforms instead of the police blue. Huge metal spikes crisscrossed the road in both directions, and warning signs indicated that all traffic must stop. They waved Joey over to the side with menacing-looking weapons. “Jeshi,” Joey said, and his tone implied that wasn’t good.

“What does that mean?”

“Military, worse than police.”

Joey pulled into the directed spot and cut the engine. Officers encircled the vehicle. One read the license tag while another ordered them out and against the side of the van. The soldier closest to Sara grabbed her shoulders and slid his rough hands over her breasts, along her sides, between her thighs, and down her legs under the guise of searching her. His invasion felt personal and offensive.

She wanted to defend herself but decided it would only exacerbate the situation. What would Zak do? Strike that, she was better off handling it diplomatically. The combination of military, manhandling, and Zak would probably be deadly for someone.

“Is this really necessary? We haven’t done anything wrong. What is this about?” The officer shrugged as if he didn’t understand English and the groping continued. Next to her, Joey was being frisked by two men who shouted for silence each time he tried to address them in Swahili. “I’d like to talk with Commander Wachira.”

The men laughed at her. “Wachira is nothing. We are jeshi,” one of them answered.

“Mchuma, mchuma!” An officer yelled from inside the van and waved a handgun out the window.

Joey’s horrified expression confirmed the weapon wasn’t his. The panic on his face as he tried to explain was heart-wrenching. “It is not mine. I have no weapons.” His voice cracked. “This is wrong.”

The officer who was searching Sara jerked her arms behind her back and handcuffed her as she watched Joey being pushed to the ground. “Don’t hurt him, please.” The men hovering over Joey kicked his prone body, handcuffed him, and pulled him up by the cuffs.

“What are you doing? Where are we going?” Sara asked as they were led to a truck with a canvas-covered bed. She was shoved onto a long aluminum bench that ran the truck’s length. Shackles snapped together around her ankles with a loud clank, emphasizing the severity of her situation. The heavy metals were cold and their jagged surface cut into the flesh around her feet.

An officer secured the shackles to the floor and closed the flap, leaving them alone. The enclosure smelled of urine and vomit, and it took all Sara’s strength to control the churning in her stomach. When the truck started moving, Sara was unsure if her shaking was from the rough ride or her emotional state. She had to focus on something else.

“Are you okay, Joey? Did they hurt you?”

The young man forced a smile to replace the fear so clearly etched on his face. “I am good, miss. You?” His attempt to reassure her was touching.

“Fine, under the circumstances. What’s going to happen to us?”

“They take us to Nairobi. Weapons are forbidden.”

“That wasn’t your gun, was it?”

“No, miss, and not my father’s. Something bad is happening.”

The ride to Nairobi seemed interminable inside the dark, unventilated truck bed. Sara tried to keep her breathing calm and steady despite the poor air circulation and oppressive heat. The space was like a furnace. And without visual references, Sara was unsure which direction they were traveling or how long they’d been on the road. The officers had confiscated her cell phone along with her purse, so contact was impossible. Once again she regretted leaving camp without telling Zak.

“Will they let us make a phone call when we reach Nairobi?” Sara wasn’t sure who she would call first—Zak or her attorney. Since Randall was in New York, Zak seemed the most likely to get immediate results, though those results weren’t guaranteed to be positive. Had Zak also had run-ins with the military in Kenya as well as local police? The thought did little to settle her anxiety.