The Memory Collector (2 page)

It came out as a scream. Seth swung a fist and kicked for the man’s knees.

“Jesus.” The man twisted Seth’s arm behind his back.

A sharp pain wracked Seth’s elbow. The man shoved him toward the bushes.

Then, in a rush of muscle and power and furious barking, Whiskey attacked. The dog lunged and sank his teeth into the man’s wrist. The brick reeled and let go of Seth.

Seth staggered, glasses crooked, through the trees toward Fulton Street. Behind him he heard crazy barking. The brick shouting. A horrible yelp from Whiskey.

Forty yards to Fulton. Whiskey’s whimper fell to a moan of pain. Seth kept running. Twenty yards. He could hear his dad:
Don’t swerve for an animal. If it’s between you and a dog in the road, you need to be the one who lives.

But this was happening because of his dad, and he had to get out of it or he and his mother were going to be in a whole huge world of pain and fear.

Fifteen yards. He could see the street, cars, the sidewalk, the cross street that led off Fulton.
His
street—his house was a block up the road. He squinted, trying to tell if his mom’s car was parked there.

Somebody was standing on the driveway. A woman—he saw pale legs in a skirt. Long light-brown hair.

His strength flooded back in a vivid burst. “
Mom!
”

Whiskey wailed.

Seth faltered. Whiskey had rescued him—he couldn’t abandon the dog. He spotted a rock, picked it up, and turned around.

Oscar Mayer was barreling straight at him. Before Seth could jump the man hunkered low, like a linebacker, and tackled him.

Seth hit the ground so hard his glasses flew, but he kept hold of the rock. He bashed it against the guy’s head.

“Let me fucking
go.
”

The man grabbed Seth’s hand and pinned it to the ground. The brick ran up, jerking Whiskey by the collar.

“Really is his old man’s kid, isn’t he?” The brick turned his arm, looking at a bloody bite. “Bastard mutt.”

Seth threw his head back. “Mom!”

Oscar Mayer grabbed Seth’s face and tried to force his mouth open and shove a handkerchief inside to gag him. The man had blood on his forehead where the rock had hit. Seth locked his jaw. Whiskey surged, trying to reach him. The man pinched his nose. Seth kicked, trying to get the guy’s knees, but next to the human hot dog he was just a stick insect. He opened his mouth to gulp a breath and got the handkerchief jammed past his teeth.

The man grabbed Seth’s hair, leaned down, and put his lips next to Seth’s ear. “I’ll hurt you.” His voice, so close, made wet noises against Seth’s skin. “But first I’ll hurt your dog. With a screwdriver.”

All Seth’s strength turned to water. A dark weight pressed on his chest, and tears rose uncontrollably toward his eyes.

Oscar Mayer smiled behind his shades. His gums looked pink and glistening. He turned to the brick. “Call.”

Without his glasses the twilight looked blurred and murky. Seth heard the brick on a cell phone.

“Come on.”

Oscar Mayer wiped the back of his forearm over his brow. “You know what this is about?”

On the street, a black van screeched to a stop. A man hopped out and strutted toward the woods. He was a skinny white guy, but he looked like a gangbanger. Or like one Seth had seen on MTV. Blue bandanna tied around his forehead, chain hanging from the pocket of his saggy jeans, shoulders rolling. He was like the
Mickey Mouse Club
version of a lowrider.

Oscar Mayer eyed the man like he was dressed for a parade. Marking him down as a moron. A scary one.

Then he turned his hot dog head back to Seth. “You know where your dad is? What he’s doing?”

Seth clamped his mouth shut.

“You got a choice. You want to get hurt or disappear?” He scanned Seth’s face and let his wet mouth smile again. “Didn’t think so.” He looked at the other men. “Get him up.”

2

T
he wind grated across the water. Chuck Lesniak ran a handkerchief over the back of his neck. Along the riverbank the green grass was shoulder-high. It swayed under the breeze, whispering to him.
Brass ring.

The first mate walked past, carrying a beer cooler down the dock to the jet boat. It was a humid March evening, and the first mate’s faded Manchester United shirt clung to his back. The skipper of the jet boat wore epaulets and a sea captain’s hat with gold braid, even though they were a thousand miles inland. He was a compact Zambian with a smile the size of an ostrich egg.

He waved to Lesniak. “Please, come aboard.”

His Tonga accent was heavy. His warmth seemed genuine. His name tag read WALLY. He sensed Lesniak’s nervousness. Chuck was the only passenger on tonight’s cocktail-hour tour of the Zambezi River. He’d paid for a private ride.

“Please. The boat is thoroughly sound. I will show you. Her engine is three hundred fifty horsepower and built by Chevrolet.”

Captain Wally was misreading Lesniak’s apprehension, but that suited him. He nodded. “Made in the USA. Then it’s A-okay with me.”

Lesniak climbed aboard. The boat rocked and his binoculars swung from the strap around his neck. It was a whomping big speedboat, called a jet boat to convince tourists they were having an extreme-sports experience along with their wine coolers. He touched his pants pocket to check that the flask was secure. The flask was the only bottle he needed tonight. The wind hissed through the grass again.
Not long now.

The first mate cast off from the dock. Captain Wally started the engine. It rumbled awake, spewing exhaust. He goosed the throttles and slid smoothly away from the dock. White water churned behind the boat.

Over the gargle of the engine, the captain called to him. “Please, have a seat in the bow. It is cooler there. Enjoy a beverage.”

Lesniak edged to the front of the boat, grabbing a beer from the cooler. A beer couldn’t hurt. Could steady his nerves.
Brass ring. Last chance to grab it.

He had to keep calm. If he could do this, he’d be set for life. Then he could split to California. Forget South Africa—he was never going back. He’d only moved to Johannesburg to work for the company, and that job was gone. He snorted.
It’s not a job, it’s a malaria-ridden adventure.
Screw Chira-Sayf and all its shiny promises. He’d never adapted to South Africa, even though Jo’burg looked like Dallas, and everybody spoke some kind of English, and he had a Porsche and a house with a maid and a cook and guard dogs and CCTV mounted behind the razor wire on the walls that surrounded his lush garden. And he’d had money, boo-coo bucks compared to what a materials technician made in the U.S. Until the boss pulled the plug.

The boat accelerated through thick air. The sun hung fat and red above the water. Lesniak uncapped his Castle lager, tilted his head back, and drank.

The beer was icy. Yes, he deserved this. This drink, this chance. The flask felt warm in his pocket.
Brass ring.

Why had the boss shut the project down? Only one answer made sense: He was getting rich out of it. Screw the employees, lay everybody off, while the fat cats slurped the cream.

Yeah, Alec Shepard was keeping the technology, keeping the product for himself, and planning to sell it to God knows who. That’s how the rich operated.

The river was huge—sinuous, half a mile wide, and running high. In the ripening sunset the water looked darker than blue, almost purple. He checked his watch. Ten minutes to rendezvous.

He’d been here less than a day, taken a flight from Jo’burg to Lusaka and then a commuter hop down to Livingstone, Zambia’s tourist hot spot. He’d spent the night in a five-star lodge beside the river. Ignored all the activities on offer—wildlife safaris, African dance performances, whitewater rafting below Victoria Falls. Sat in his air-conditioned room watching ESPN on cable. March Madness, Kentucky vs. UCLA. He’d kept the blinds closed. Even ten thousand miles from California, smack in the center of southern Africa, he felt paranoid.

When you renegotiate a deal to cut out the middleman, you’d better look over your shoulder.

His contacts had chosen this spot for two reasons. First, because Livingstone and Mosi-O-Tunya National Park were full of European tourists, so a couple more white faces wouldn’t draw attention. Second, because this was a great place to smuggle something across a border.

He’d come this far. He’d gotten the flask out of the lab and out of South Africa. Now he was about to make the transfer. He couldn’t mess this up.

Sweat broke on his forehead. He was a big man, and the heat got to him. He wiped the handkerchief over his brow and drank the rest of the Castle in one go.
Relax
. When the meet went down he couldn’t look half-crazed. Looking jumpy would unmask him not only as an amateur, but as an easy mark.

The breeze rippled the surface of the river, turning it silver. He raised the binoculars and scanned the southern shoreline. Near the high grass of the riverbank a canoe bobbed on the water. Locals, fishing. A pontoon boat was motoring upriver, a sunset booze cruise carrying sunburned Dutch and Japanese tourists, wealthy folks who were probably staying at the Victoria Falls Hotel over there in Zimbabwe. Beautiful, awful, fucked-up Zimbabwe, ruined by greed and egoma niacal cruelty. Screwed by—what did you call it? Politics.

Politics, that’s what was close to ruining his future. He was a smart guy, everybody said so. He said it to himself every morning in the mirror:
You’re smart. You matter.
The project mattered. Killing it was criminal.

But he was about to fix that. The company’s work wasn’t going to disappear down some black hole. He was going to make sure it got to people who could put it to good use. His payday would be a thank-you for services rendered.

And handing it over in a broken country would ensure that nobody in the wider world took any notice.

The sun glittered on the water. The river looked like a trail of mercury pouring across the vast green plain. What had the hotel brochure said—when the river was high like this, 150 million gallons of water spilled over the falls every minute? Incredible.

He pulled another beer from the cooler. He had to stay chilled and show he had the balls for this. He tried to uncap the beer but the bottle opener chattered against the glass. Maybe the big Chevy engine was making it rattle, but he didn’t think so.

Captain Wally put the boat into a sweeping turn toward the center of the river. Ahead, egrets flew from an island, blindingly white against the purple water and green shoreline. The sky above was the blue of glazed pottery.

This was when most folks got the travelogue.
Look, there’s a hippo. See that log? It’s no log, it’s a crocodile.
But Lesniak had been specific: No talk. He’d paid for the ride.

He’d paid extra for the stop they were going to make. He glanced again at his watch. In two minutes they should cross to the Zimbabwean side. He drank half the beer, getting ready.

He was doing the right thing. This was important.
Brass ring.

As they skipped across the water he scanned the shoreline, seeing thick grass, acacia trees, a thin sandy beach. Downriver, another jet boat was racing in their direction.

Straight at them, actually. Captain Wally eased back on the throttle.

Lesniak frowned over his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

Captain Wally smiled. “My cousin. Last week he borrowed sixty liters of fuel. Now he is repaying me.”

The other boat turned in a broad arc, cutting a white wake across the river. Then it dropped to a crawl and settled low in the water. The skipper gave a languid wave. In the bow a passenger slouched beneath a baseball cap, arms crossed, a fishing rod at his side. He gazed at the southern shore, seemingly unperturbed by this time-out for family business. As if thinking:
It’s Africa. Go with it.
The boat pulled alongside and its skipper called out in Tonga. Captain Wally laughed. Lesniak raised the binoculars and scanned the shoreline again. Where was his contact?

The boat rocked, and from the corner of his eye he saw Captain Wally’s first mate hop to the other boat to grab the fuel cans. He refocused the binoculars. There—ahead, a Nissan Pathfinder edged through the tall grass down to the beach. His heart began ringing like an alarm clock.

The Pathfinder was muddy and had Zim tags. He felt a pang of disappointment. But what had he been expecting, diplomatic plates? Or fuzzy dice with an intelligence service logo hanging from the mirror?

Something. He’d been hoping for some clue that told him who his contact really worked for. A U.S. or European agency, or the Israelis, or maybe some group farther east.

The boat rocked again, and the hull reverberated as feet landed on the deck. More conversation in Tonga behind him.
Forget the family gossip, skipper. Get going.

The engine revved and the boat rose at the bow, moving sharply away from Captain Wally’s cousin. It headed straight down the center of the vast river.