“Can you tell me what the story’s about?”
“Not in a sentence or two, no. But I will when I get there. I’d be glad to.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
“Okay. Good.”
Jon waited, sensing that a moment of silence would probably seal things.
“Well, okay. Let me see what I can do. How about if I call you tomorrow?”
“Okay. Great. Thanks, Honi.”
WHAT
But there was another story, too, which his articles had only touched, and maybe it was the story his brother really wanted him to write: Over the last twelve months or so, a handful of Western foundations and relief organizations had poured billions of dollars into aid and development projects in unlikely regions of Africa. Some of the projects were fairly typical, others not. In the impoverished nation of Buttata, a substantial road-building operation was under way, which would eventually link dozens of mud-hut farming villages where the only modes of transportation at present were bicycles and donkey carts. In the Republic of Sundiata, which was virtually cut off to Western visitors because of ongoing ethnic and tribal conflicts, the government had partnered with Chinese charity groups to build health clinics, hospitals, and a wind farm in sparsely populated, remote regions of the country without electricity or running water. In a valley inhabited by goat-herders, what appeared to be a medium-hub airport was under construction, eight or nine kilometers from the vestiges of a village that, according to one account, had recently been decimated by a mysterious flu-like disease.
Jon had stumbled on accounts of this deadly illness elsewhere, too, while interviewing subsistence farmers. An illness that had supposedly infiltrated several villages and farming communities, killing dozens of people, maybe hundreds. The accounts were all anecdotal and took up only three sentences in his story about the people of Sundiata. But it seemed to bother some of the investors who had interests there.
His stories had also alluded to an apparent contradiction in how some Western foundations operated: Issuing millions, in some cases billions, of dollars in grants to combat poverty, disease, and malnutrition while at the same time investing similar amounts in businesses that contributed to those problems. The prestigious, well-heeled Gardner Foundation, for example, had recently awarded $730 million to a fund battling AIDS and malaria in Africa, primarily in East Africa, while the company also held $1.9 billion worth of stock in thirteen drug companies that were restricting the flow of AIDS and malaria medicines and lobbying for international legislation to prevent other drug-makers from producing cheap generic versions.
He had published two installments of the story in
NINE
CHARLES MALLORY PARKED HIS rented Peugeot 406 a block and a half from Promenade des Anglais, locked it, and walked along the sidewalk toward the water. It was a brisk, bright afternoon in the South of France, normally his favorite time of year in this city. He was dressed in khaki slacks, loafers, and a navy blue polo shirt.
He turned onto the Promenade and walked east, passing the Hotel Negresco, the familiar markets and cafes, coming finally to the building marked 32 ?, the five-story apartment house where Frederick Collins lived.
He walked around to the back, pressed a six-digit combination on the entry gate pad, and pushed his way in. Took the steps, not the elevator, to an apartment on the fifth floor. Used his key, locked the door behind him. The room was clean, modest, and sparsely furnished. He checked the computerized entry monitor just inside the foyer closet, which recorded each time the door had opened and closed. No activity since he had left, September 12, 1328 hours. No one had been in the apartment.
Charlie walked across the living room and unlocked the French doors, which opened onto a shallow terrace. He stepped out and stood against the railing, breathing the cool Mediterranean breeze for several long moments, watching the turquoise sparkles of the Bay of Angels across the road and the beach. And, briefly, Charlie allowed himself to remember something he had blocked from his thoughts. An evening that had begun a little like this, that wasn’t supposed to have happened. An evening when Frederick Collins was still safe in this city, free to come and go as he pleased.
But he had to turn away from those thoughts, he knew. There was only one direction now, one appointment to keep. Everything in his life had coalesced into one objective. One moment. He locked the doors again and pulled the curtains. In the bedroom, he slid open a drawer and found Collins’s Glock 17 9mm handgun, loaded with hollow-point bullets. He slid the weapon into the front of his pants, covering it with his polo shirt, and went out again. Down the stairs to the street, north several blocks, then east. He made a turn into an alley flanked by storage bays and warehouses, certain that they had picked him up on satellite-mounted cameras by now. He had provided them ample opportunity. If they had been able to track Frederick Collins to Kampala, they would know to track him here. He had made that easier for them, using Collins’s credit card at the airport and walking through several outdoor public spaces without wearing a cap or a hat.
He stopped in front of a metal door numbered 127 and used his key, jiggled it in the lock and entered. The four-room space smelled of sawdust and paint thinner. He’d converted this apartment into a woodworker’s shop. Cabinet-making was the part-time job that Frederick Collins did when he was here in Nice.
Charlie lowered the blinds of the front window and twisted the wand so the slats were just past horizontal. In the pantry closet was a lifelike partial mannequin and two pillows. He carried them to the old easy chair in the main room and stretched a blanket over them. He set up the room, then, exactly as he had planned in his head during the Air France flight north from Africa. When he was done, he sat at the table in the tiny windowless kitchen and placed the weapon in front of him, gripping the trigger-hold. What followed would be the most difficult part. But it was necessary.
Eventually they would have to come after him; he was certain of that. If he kept moving, they would keep following, to see where he would lead them. If he stayed here, though, if he waited, they would have no choice; sooner or later they would have to come for him. And when they did, he would find out what he needed to know. He would learn the missing piece and, he hoped, understand what had gone wrong.
He sat in the kitchen as the breeze shivered the metal slats in the main room and the shadows lengthened and he listened. Waited.
AND, FOR MOMENTS at a time, he thought again of Anna Vostrak. Her dark, reassuring eyes looking at his. The smell of curry spices from a Promenade restaurant reminded him of the last time she had come here— September 1—to visit Frederick Collins. They had sat in a cafe on Promenade des Anglais, drinking red wine as the night settled, the sea breeze cooled, the lights brightened in the hills above the harbor. They’d talked over a leisurely dinner about their shared project. About the contact she knew in Germany, the investigator who might be able to help him. To help them. A man named Gebhard Keller. And then they had let it go. Anna had looked lovely, her fine black hair lifting up occasionally off her bare shoulders in the breeze. Walking back, she had stopped, held his hand and kissed him. They walked with an expectant step after that, excited, it seemed, by the freedom they had given each other.
Inside, they began to kiss, to take off clothes, as if they had to do it then or the chance would disappear forever. They had made love with a slow urgency, savoring the feelings, the shared need that would be temporarily satisfied. Afterward, as the curtains billowed in around the French doors and the street sounds returned, she had
