Mission of Honor (25 page)

Seronga knew the small-unit offensive and defensive drills by heart. He also knew the area where the bus would be bringing them. If it came down to self-defense, he would have to have a plan.

Seronga entered the living quarters. While Pavant stood by the door to make sure no one entered, Seronga went to the bed. He opened his backpack and withdrew his cell phone. He called Njo Finn. The truck driver was about sixty miles northwest of Maun. The signal was not very strong, and Seronga made the message as succinct as possible. Seronga told the man exactly where to meet him. Using code words that were known to all the Brush Vipers, Seronga also told Njo what to have ready when the tour bus arrived.

It might not be the cleanest or best-planned operation the Brush Vipers had ever undertaken, but that did not matter to Seronga. He only had one concern: that it worked.

Washington, D.C. Friday, 5:03 AM.

It was not a restful night for Paul Hood.

He dreamed that he was trying to prop up the Hollywood sign. It was an endless task. One of the big white letters would begin to tilt forward, and he would rush over to it. He would push it back up, and another would immediately start to drop over. The rate of fall did not change, but the order did. There was no respite, nothing that could be done by rote. Hood woke around three-thirty A.M., wired and perspiring. Is that how he viewed his life? Constantly propping the same things up, minute after minute after minute? Was it all superficial, like Hollywood? Or was that his own past as the mayor of Los Angeles coming back to nag at him, to tell him that this was all he was good for? Bureaucratic management.

Hood flicked the television on and turned on the History Channel. The subject was World War II, the European Theater. The subject was always World War II, the European Theater. Hood watched for a while, then decided there was no point. He was not going to get back to sleep. He showered, dressed, and headed for OpCenter.

The night team was not surprised to see him. Since the separation, he had been there late at night and early in the morning. And Hood was not surprised to find Liz Gordon still in her office. She was there with J2 and Mae Won. Those two had the energy of the young. They were sitting around her desk, working on networked laptops. The smell of coffee hung in the open door like a scrim. 

Hood rapped on the jamb. “Good morning.” 

J2 and Mae both returned the greeting. Liz did not look away from her monitor.

“Paul, I’m beginning to think you’ve got a very serious problem in Botswana,” Liz said.

“More than just a Vatican problem?” he asked.

“Very much so,” she said.

“Talk to me,” Hood said. He walked toward her.

Liz’s shoulders were slumped. She rubbed her eyes and looked over. “There are events in history mat trigger what we call ‘mass movements.’ Examples are the American Revolution. The Communist Revolution. The French Resistance during the Second World War. Even the Renaissance, though that was less clearly defined. It’s the result of a collection of people whose imaginations are stirred to action by a person or an event or even an idea.”

“Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin” Hood said.

“That or Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle” Liz agreed. “You get an emancipation movement or a sweeping overhaul in the meat industry. Incited by one thing or another, people come together with a common goal, their collective efforts producing seemingly impossible results.”

“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” Hood said.

“Exactly,” Liz replied. “I think we’re looking at something that is being positioned very much like that.”

“Let’s back up a second,” Hood said to her. “I assume this is based on a profile you worked up on Dhamballa?”

“Yes,” Liz said. “He is definitely not a stereotypical cult leader. That’s why I’m looking at this as a social phenomenon instead of an aberration.”

“You’re that sure?” Hood said.

“Absolutely,” Liz told him. “J2 and Mae were able to get into the computers at Morningside Mines Ltd. and access his personal records.”

“Morningside Mines?” Hood said. “Where are they based?”

“Antwerp,” J2 said. “So are about a million other diamond companies that I found.”

That information might or might not tie Burton to Henry Genet.

 “Our man Thomas Burton is thirty-three,” Liz said. “He has no history of mental illness. To the contrary. He is remarkably focused. Over the course of nine years as a mine worker, he was promoted quickly and regularly. He went from working the hoses that wash the mine walls for drill men to drilling to running the line itself.” “The line?” Hood asked.

“That’s where the diamonds are sorted and cleaned,” Mae said.

“So he was competent and hardworking,” Hood said. “Where’s the jump to religious leader?”

“We don’t have that link yet,” Liz went on. “It could be from someone he knows, something he read, or even a holy revelation.”

“Like God talking to Moses,” Hood said. “It almost doesn’t matter what it was,” Liz replied. “Burton is committed to this.”

“Could it be a sham of some sort?” Hood asked. “Unlikely,” Liz replied. “Someone could be using him, for sure, but Burton himself is honest. His employee file contains quarterly performance reviews. They describe him as intelligent, conscientious, and absolutely trustworthy. The mine owners routinely send out private investigators to watch people who work on the line. They want to make sure the workers are not pocketing diamonds and selling them privately. The investigators actually do things like paying clerks in shops or restaurants to give the subject too much change.” “Just to see what they do,” Hood speculated. “Right,” Liz said. “Our man gave it back. Every time. There is a philosophical consistency about an honest man who eventually turns to preaching. One is a statement to a single individual. The other is a statement to a group.” She shrugged. “But both are about truth. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t pushed into this or encouraged by someone else,” Liz added. “But he, himself, believes in what he is doing. I am sure of that.”

“What about family?” Hood asked. “Any crises of vendettas that might have motivated him?”

 “Burton’s father is dead, and his mother lives in a nursing home in Gaborone,” Liz said.

“Paid for by her son?” Hood asked.

“Yes sir,” J2 said. “I checked his bank records.”

“Do we know how the father died?” Hood asked.

“Malaria,” Liz replied. She added, “The elder Burton died in a state-run hospital, not in a missionary hospital. Thomas Burton is not acting out against the Church.”

“Are there any siblings?”

“No brothers or sisters,” Liz said. “And no wife.”

“Is that unusual in Botswana?” Hood asked.

“Being unwed? Very,” J2 said. “I looked it up.” He leaned forward in his seat and looked at the monitor. “Only four percent of males over eighteen are single. Those stats are pretty much spread one percent each over the military, the clergy, widowers, and miscellaneous.”

“But Vodun clergy are permitted to marry,” Mae added. “I put together the file on the religion.”

“There are other reasons Burton might not have married,” Hood said. “Having his mother to support could be one of them. Mae, what are the qualifications for Vodun priesthood?” Hood asked.

“A male priest is called a houngan,” Mae said, “and in order to become one, a man must communicate with spirits in the presence of another houngan. Sort of a religious conference call. Women priests or mambos have to do the same thing with a senior mambo.”

“I suspect that’s a way of proving both men are hearing the same things,” Liz suggested. “Either that, or it’s a way of ensuring that the ranks or priests are joined only by those whom the priests approve.”

“Everything is political,” Hood observed.

“That’s true, but we don’t know whether Burton ever became a houngan,” Liz went on.

“How could he not?” Hood asked.

“Burton is claiming to be the embodiment of the powerful snake deity Dhamballa,” Liz said. “We don’t know if the usual rules of ascension to the priesthood apply.”

Hood stared at her. “Are you saying that Thomas Burton thinks he’s a snake god?” he said flatly.

“That’s right,” Liz replied.

Hood shook his head. “Liz, I just don’t know about this. Do you think that Burton could be playing the part of Dhamballa? Faking it? He was a poor mine worker. Perhaps he’s being paid to serve the political needs of Albert Beaudin and his partners.”

“He didn’t take money from people in the market,” Liz said. “Why would he take it from Beaudin?”

“Mothers in nursing homes can become expensive,” Hood said.

“I did the math,” J2 said. “His salary was enough to cover that.”

“Beaudin and his people may be using Burton,” Liz agreed. “But I don’t think he’s acting.”

“Why?” Hood asked.

“Two things,” Liz told him. “First, Thomas Burton’s epiphany would not have taken place in a vacuum. Even if he had no religious training, he would have gone to someone who did. Someone who could explain what he was thinking, feeling. The experience was obviously so powerful that any houngan or mambo Burton might have visited was convinced that he had been blessed. At least, no one questioned him or stood in his way.”

“Do we know that for sure?” Hood asked.

“We’re surmising it,” Liz said. “Only a few weeks passed between Burton quitting his job at the mines and Dhamballa holding his first small rally. If there had been any serious resistance from Vodun priests, it would have taken months or even years to sort out. And it probably would have resulted in the use of black magic against him.”

“Black magic,” Hood said. “Are you talking zombies now?”

“Mae?” Liz said.

The young woman nodded. “We are. Only the word is really nzumbie, which means ‘ghost.’ “

Once again, Hood had to fight a sense of condescension. The fact that this was not his world or set of beliefs should not make it invalid. He had a flashback to when he was mayor of Los Angeles. He was hosting a movie industry dinner and was seated between two powerful studio heads. They were earnestly debating which of their studios was on top of the next big trend: talking animal movies or films about the post apocalyptic era. Hood had brought the executives together to discuss internship programs for underprivileged city youths. He could not get worked up over the subject of Babe vs. Waterworld. But to the producers, with hundreds of millions of dollars at risk, it mattered.

To the Vodunists, this mattered.

“The zombies we’re talking about are not the stiff, vacant eyed killers we’ve seen in the movies,” Mae went on. “From everything I’ve read, they are conversant, very active beings. No blood drinking, no flesh eating, no mindless mayhem.”

“But are they still, like, slaves to masters?” J2 asked.

“No one is sure whether they’re slaves or just willing subjects,” Mae replied. “Either way, they are extremely devoted to the houngan or mambo who created them.”

“These zombies may also be victims of sleeping potions and mind control drugs,” Liz said. “Over the last fifteen or twenty years, there has been a fair amount of scientific debate about the subject in the psychiatric and medical journals. The consensus is that they do not die but are artificially placed in a deep narcosis and then revived.”

“Mind control drugs,” Hood said. He was glad that there was finally something he could hook into. “Could the Brush Vipers be victims of chemical brainwashing?”

“It’s possible but unlikely,” Liz replied. “Working as a soldier in the field requires the ability to act independently in a crisis. That brings me back to exactly what black magic is. To a Vodunist, it is not necessarily the supernatural. It is simply bloodshed.”

“Which is why we don’t think this Dhamballa man believes in it,” J2 pointed out. “If the Brush Vipers had used violence to set him up, it would definitely have shown up as a blip on some of the South African intelligence reports from the region. I checked those. All the fights and arguments our people noted were about boundaries and trade and that sort of thing. Nothing about religion.”

“Maybe the Brush Vipers kept people in line for him,” Hood suggested.

“They didn’t start showing up until after Dhamballa held his first rally,” J2 said.

“All right,” Hood said. “So Burton had this revelation and started his ministry with a core of people who believed in what he was doing, probably in his home village and possibly at the mine.”

“Correct,” Liz replied.

“At which point the mine owners and Genet might have become aware of him,” Hood went on.

“Yes,” Liz said. “We’re not sure whether Burton was still working for them when he adopted the Dhamballa personality or whether they watched him after he left. Whenever anyone quits suddenly, the PIs watch them for a while. Make sure they did not sneak some diamonds out.”

“I see,” Hood replied. “Liz, you said there was a second reason you did not think that Burton was acting.”

“Right,” Liz said. “It ties in with the sanity issue. A man who is unbalanced, a man who has a god complex, has a very specific need. He wants to be the absolute ruler. He wants to be Jesus Christ or Napoleon or-Mae, who’s the supreme god in Vodun?”

“Olorun,” Mae replied as she consulted the monitor. “He is ‘the remote and unknowable one.’ His emissary god on earth is Obatala. He’s the god who reports on human activities.”

“From what we’ve been told and what little we’ve read, Burton is not making claims of that sort,” she said.

“No,” Hood replied. “Dhamballa is just saying that he’s the incarnation of a snake god.”

“We have to be more precise about that,” Liz said. “Vodun priests do not claim to be an embodiment of gods so much as a representation. A spokesperson, if you will.”

“He’s still hearing voices in some fashion,” Hood said. “You consider that sane?”

“You mentioned Moses a minute ago,” the woman replied.

“What makes you think that Thomas Burton is any less rational? How do you know he is not what he says?”

Hood wanted to answer, Common sense. But something in Liz’s voice made him hesitate. Her tone was not critical of Hood but respectful of Thomas Burton. In that moment, Hood realized he would never have said either of those things to Edgar Kline.