to limit our conversations to the night, when everyone else is asleep.
It’s then that we plan. I lie in bed, thinking. One paces around the room, anxious and bored.
“We should escape tomorrow,” she says. “We could tell the president that there are a bunch of gross aliens planning war right in his backyard.”
“Not yet,” I reply, shaking my head. “We’ll know when the time is right.”
“What if the time is never right?”
I’ve spent two years like that, acting the part, waiting for an opportunity to make a difference. Even with their vast resources, my people are slow in finding the other Garde. There are successful operations from other cells: a mission in upstate New York yields a captive Garde. More often there are missions that never get off the ground because the target disappears, or the scout team does. I’m not sure how long the Garde can keep this up. I hope they manage to get organized soon, but I worry that One is right, that I’m biding my time for an opportunity that will never come.
And then, finally, word comes to us about Africa.
CHAPTER 22
For the first time in years I’m invited into the General’s briefing room.
“We have reliable intelligence that a member of the Garde might be hiding in Kenya,” says my father, handing out a printout of an article from a travel magazine. The article is a few months old, and considering its vague content, it is no wonder it took our techs so long to unearth it. In the article, while gushing about a small marketplace in Kenya, the writer describes a kid with a strange ankle branding that’s unlike anything he’s seen on other local tribespeople. The description bears a striking resemblance to the Loric charm.
“Has this been confirmed?” I ask, getting in my question before Ivan is even finished dragging his finger along the article’s middle sentences.
“Obtaining confirmation using normal methods has proven an obstacle.”
“We can’t exactly blend in with this kind of community,” I say, earning a sharp look of annoyance from my father, even though he knows I’m right.
“What’s that mean?” asks Ivan, slow on the uptake as usual.
It is just the two of us being briefed by the General. Whatever my father has planned in Kenya, it will be the first time Ivan and I will be out on our own. We both know what a prestigious and dangerous mission this is. I’m a little surprised the General chose me for this assignment-for any assignment, really. Could it be that he doesn’t worry about placing me in harm’s way anymore? I decide now is a good time to play the apt pupil, to demonstrate my commitment to Mogadorian progress.
“Assuming they’re in an African village environment,” I explain to Ivan, keeping my words insultingly slow, “it would make slipping in a scout team extremely difficult. They’d know we weren’t locals, and we’d risk tipping our hand to the Loric prematurely. It’s smart planning on the Garde’s part. Isn’t that right, Father?”
“Yes,” my father concedes, “that is correct.”
“Why don’t we just go wipe out this village?” asks Ivan. “Who cares about blending in?”
I snort. “How many incidents like London do you think we can have before the humans start asking questions?”
“So what if they ask questions?”
“You’d endanger the security of the entire war effort to massacre one village, then?”
“Adamus,” says the General, his voice a menacing rumble, “would you like to run this briefing?”
“No, sir,” I reply. Ivan smirks.
“As for your question, Ivanick, subtlety is the correct course of action here.”
I feel Ivan deflate a little next to me. Subtlety is not something I’m sure Ivan even knows the meaning of.
“We have managed to secure you cover identities that will not unduly disturb the locals,” continues my father. “You two will infiltrate this village and determine whether there is indeed a Garde presence. I will have a strike team mobilized in the jungle should you obtain confirmation.”
My father gives me a long look, sizing me up. Then he turns to Ivan.
“Ivanick, you will be in charge. You will report back to me directly.”
Ivan nods eagerly. “Yes, sir. Of course.”
The General turns back to me.
“Adamus,” he says, “do not disappoint me.”
“No, sir,” I reply.
CHAPTER 23
Ivan watches the mosquito bite his forearm, shakily take flight and then plummet dead onto the hut’s wooden floor. Our blood is apparently poisonous to the insects, although that doesn’t stop them from trying. Ivan glowers at the swollen bites reddening his arms.
“We should’ve just wiped this place out,” he grumbles.
The three tanned Italian aid-workers in the hut with us pretend not to have heard him. I don’t know who they think we are, what story they were told to convince them to let us pose as fellow volunteers, but I can tell they’re afraid. I imagine they all have relatives locked in a place like West Virginia, that their complicity is part of some screwed-up deal my people forced on them. I wish I could tell them they weren’t in danger, that this would all be over soon, but that would be a lie.
We arrived in the village yesterday, in a Jeep driven by one of the sullen aid-workers. The place is small, carved out of the encroaching jungle. It’s comprised of huts around a single well and a modest outdoor marketplace. The village is on the road to Nairobi, so its marketplace attracts people from smaller nearby villages, here to trade with each other or sell goods to the tourists that pass by on buses twice a day. There is a small basketball court next to the hut the aid-workers live in, built by their predecessors to help them connect with the locals. Children sprint across the flattened soil, tossing a ragged, dark-brown basketball at the netless hoop.
Ivan and I are the perfect choices to be posing as aid-workers. We’re the right age for it: idealistic teenagers come to volunteer their time between high school and college. It’s the kind of activity that would look great on a kid’s college application. Of course, for Mogadorians, assisting the less fortunate would be viewed as a waste of time.
“Humanitarian aid,” spits One, appearing at my side. “Your people have a sick sense of humor.”
I shake my head. She’s right, but I doubt the General realizes the grotesque irony of our cover. To my people, these aid-workers and the villagers are mere tactical assets, pawns to help us smoke out the Garde that might be hiding in the jungle.
Today the aid-workers have circulated word that they have a new shipment of vaccine for the village youths, something to fight against malaria. One by one the local children line up to grit their teeth and receive a shot.
When the children stop by our tent, Ivan and I study them. Most of them arrive barefoot or in sandals, but the ones wearing sneakers or socks are ordered by Ivan to take off their shoes and socks. None of them finds this strange. Humans are too trusting. There are many kids the age of the one we’re looking for, but none of them bears the Loric scar. Every smooth ankle is a relief to me.
One of the kids receiving his injection stares at Ivan, then says something in Swahili. The other children in line laugh.
“What did he say?” I ask.
The aid-worker with the needle pauses, giving me a nervous look. Then, in shaky English, replies, “He says your friend looks like pale hippo.”
Ivan takes a step towards the boy, but I stop him with a hand on his shoulder.
“The boy’s right,” I tell the aid-worker, “he does look like a hippo.” I flash the boy a thumbs-up, and the children laugh again.
