“I apologize, but my job is to keep you safe,” he replies.
“Fine,” I sigh, turning around. I’m just going to have to deal with this until we get rid of Bheka. I understand the high threat level right now, and that Carter wants to keep me safe. I should be thankful he let me join and didn’t keep me locked up in the bedroom for the entirety of the trip. I’d go crazy back home alone.
“Home, sweet home,” Carter announces as we come up to the hotel that we’ll be staying at.
“Thank god,” Amy mutters from behind me. She’s soaked in sweat, no doubt from the pantsuit she thought it appropriate to wear in the middle of summer. That’s not what I would do back home, much less out here where it’s a good ten degrees hotter at minimum, but she’s always so serious, so the pantsuit shouldn’t come as a surprise.
The doors to the hotel roll open as we walk up to them, and we’re met with a cool breeze of conditioned air. The hotel itself isn’t much to ogle at, but it’s inconspicuous, and that’s what matters. We could afford to stay nearly anywhere, but the fewer eyes we draw, the better. We already look a bit odd with how everyone is dressed. I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t look like I’m part of a secret organization.
I stay close to Carter as he checks us all into the hotel, instructing Henry to stay in the room with Amy and not to hover around the room that he and I will be sleeping in together. Privacy is always a plus, and Amy doesn’t seem at all peeved to have Henry as her roommate.
“I’m going to have a look around,” Henry says, eager to scope out the hotel as everyone else gets settled in.
I give him a thumbs-up, happy to have him out of my hair for a while.
“Let’s go,” Carter says, using his head to point toward the elevator. “We’re on the fourth floor.”
“Okay,” I reply, coming after him as he moves toward the elevator.
The place smells like cigarettes, but most cheap hotels do. My father used to smoke them on occasion, so I actually don’t mind the smell. There’s an old comfort to it, even.
“We should probably get some rest before the drive tomorrow,” Carter says once we step into the elevator. He presses a thumb into the button with the number four on it.
“Yeah,” I say, stretching my back with my arms in the air. “I’m pretty tired.”
Carter yawns. “Same.”
We ride up the elevator in silence. I think both of us just want to get into a comfortable bed and snooze for a while. The journey down the Kalahari Desert is going to take about six hours, and the bumpy roads going there aren’t comfortable. Once there, we’re rolling out the plan to lure in Bheka, but I have no idea what that plan is.
“So, what exactly are we doing when we get to the desert?” I ask as we step out into the hallway on the fourth floor.
“Hire some local goons, raid one of Bheka’s drug warehouses, and hope that he takes a trip into the city to see what’s up. I doubt he’ll take kindly to local competition.”
“Aren’t the Valangana freedom fighters, though? What would they be doing with drugs?” I ask, puzzled.
“Is that what they told your father before they killed him?” Carter asks, sticking the key into the door to our room. “Don’t believe the enemy, Honey. They’ll say anything to gain sympathy and support from the general public while they ruin the locals with bad drugs. My bet is that they’ve exhausted the local market and saw the Dormer Mafia as a chance to spread their crooked wings. I don’t think they realized the forces they were dealing with.”
“My father always ran small so people wouldn’t realize the extent of his operations,” I say, seeing his point now. Bheka is a crook, but he isn’t that powerful. The only reason he was able to eliminate my father was that he got lucky and lured him in under the guise of needing guns for a good cause. My father always had a soft spot for the good guys, but Bheka turned out to be sour.
“I just hope we have the right guy,” Carter says, pushing open the door.
“Me too,” I reply, stepping in.
The room is surprisingly nice, considering the state of the rest of the hotel. The bed is large and appears to be clean, with many crisp white blankets piled on top, and more pillows than either of us would ever need. The room is cold, almost too cold for me to stand, and the carpet is a solid color. They always use multicolored carpets to hide stains, which is why you see them in every cheap hotel.
“Pretty nice, huh?” Carter says, closing the door behind us.
“Yeah, I’m surprised,” I say, dropping my bag onto the bed.
“I made sure we had a good room,” Carter says. “Money talks, especially in a place like this.”
“I see that,” I reply, looking around. The more I look, the more surprised I am with how nice it is. It’s like I stepped into an alternate dimension where we chose to stay at a five-star hotel instead of a shoddy little place away from the main city. It’s bizarre.
“I’m going to get cleaned up,” Carter announces, walking toward the bathroom.
“Okay,” I say, barely listening to him. I’ve already got my camera out, twisting a knob on the side in preparation to take pictures of our room. I’d like to get some pictures of the outside of the hotel in the morning as well for contrast. I’m sure it’ll be a hell of a blog post once all this is said and done.
While Carter is in the shower, I start taking photos of the room, trying to get the best angles to dramatize the scene. Once I have enough, I
