“No.”
From the corner of his eye Marten saw movement. He turned his head. The goat was right beside him. One soldier had it by the head. A second lifted its tail. The major touched the prod to the animal’s genitals and pressed the button on the handle. The loud snapping sound of high voltage was drowned out by the goat’s scream as its genitals and the muscles around them contracted in wild spasm. The goat shrieked and kicked wildly, trying to free itself from the iron grip the soldier had on its head. It was no good. The man was too strong. The major smiled at Marten, then stuck the prod between the animal’s legs and touched the button again. And then again. The terrified animal yelped and screamed in agony. Then it kicked up violently, knocking the prod from the major’s hand, jerking away from the soldier holding its head. Then, bellowing and dragging its hindquarters, to the laughter of the soldiers, it circled the room desperately looking for an escape. Finally it hid quivering under the relative safety of the wooden table. Whereupon the soldier who had been holding it walked over and knelt down as if to comfort it. Instead he grinned, drew his pistol, and shot it between the eyes.
“Cena,” the major said in Spanish. Supper. He retrieved the prod from where the goat had kicked it and came back toward Marten.
Marten’s eyes followed the prod, then shifted to the major. “If I knew I would tell you,” he said with all the strength he could manage. “I don’t.”
“That is not a satisfactory answer, Mr. Marten. Besides, it’s early yet. Very early. I’m sure it won’t be long before your memory returns.” Slowly he ran the prod between Marten’s legs, letting it come to come rest at the base of his testicles.
Just then the hawk-faced soldier raised his hand. Abruptly the major left Marten and went to him. A brief, muted conversation took place between them. When it was done, the major nodded and came back to Marten.
“Get dressed,” he said.
Marten glanced at the other man, then looked back to the major.
“Get dressed,” he said again.
A storm of relief rushed through Marten, but he dared not show it for fear this was part of the game. Make him think he’d been spared, then start the process all over again. Quietly he stood and then slowly dressed. Undershorts first, then trousers, then his shirt. The whole time he carefully watched the hawk-faced man, wondering what he’d said to the major and what was next.
In the next moment the major looked to one of the young soldiers guarding the front door. Immediately the man picked up Marten’s passport case from the table and delivered it to him.
“There is a ten-o’clock flight to Paris this evening.” The major put Marten’s passport case in his hand. “You will be on it.”
Marten stared at him, then looked around the room, wondering what they were doing, if this was some kind of trick. There was only silence.
“Thank you,” he said finally and as politely as possible, then started for the door. As he reached it the second young soldier flung it open.
Marten should have taken the gift he had been given and left as quickly as he could. Instead he stopped in the doorway and turned to look at the major.
“What happened to the priest?” he said quietly.
“Dead.” The answer was sharp and stabbed across the room.
Marten had expected it to come from the major, but it had come from the hawk- faced soldier. It was the one and only time he had addressed him, and when he did he locked eyes with him.
“There were two boys-”
“Dead,” the man repeated, his voice cold and flat. “Everyone in the priest’s village is dead. It is a tragedy that no one seemed to know where the photographs were. Certainly one of them would have traded his life, or hers, or”-he purposely emphasized the next-“his mother’s… or father’s or… child’s… for them if they had. It would have been a simple thing.”
Marten said nothing. Then, with a glance at the major, he turned and walked out the door.
5:40 P.M.
11
THE HOTEL MALABO. 6:30 P.M.
Nicholas Marten stood in a tiny shower stall that was crammed, like the toilet, into a corner of his room. Head back, his eyes closed, he let the water run over him, relieved beyond imagination to be free of his army interrogators and on his way out of Bioko. At the same time, he thought of the cold bravado with which the hawk-faced soldier had told him of the village massacre.
How many had lived in that village? Sixty? Eighty? Maybe more. He wondered what was so extraordinarily valuable to the army about those photographs that they would expend so much effort and take that many lives trying to retrieve them.
The only answer that made sense was that they wanted them as proof to the world that an outside force was fueling the rebellion and that their deliberate actions in repressing it-highly criticized by human rights groups, the United Nations, and any number of countries-were justified. Still, if they were so eager to uncover the pictures and had not yet found them, why had they suddenly stopped their interrogation and let him go?
Part of the puzzle might have been the condition of his hotel room when he returned. The place had been thoroughly ransacked. Every piece of his personal belongings gone through, his bed stripped, the furniture turned over. They hadn’t found the photos there, and they hadn’t found them on his person, but that didn’t answer the question of why they had let him go when they could have as easily killed him and buried his body somewhere in the rain forest where a missing man, no matter who he was, would never be found. A missed communication between them? Maybe. Goodwill? Not from men like that, particularly when they knew he’d seen firsthand what the army did to old priests and young boys and boasted about their slaughter of the villagers. So their freeing him had to have been for some other reason altogether. What that was he couldn’t imagine.
7:10 P.M.
Freshly shaven and dressed in a clean shirt, jeans, and sport coat, Marten left his bags at the front desk and headed for the bar. He walked gingerly, his balls still swollen and achingly tender from the field-goal-like kick presented to him by the major’s “specialist.” What he wanted most was to have a gin and tonic, or two or three to kill the pain, and then get the hell out of there on the ten-o’clock flight to Paris. Yet suddenly there was doubt even about that. In the last half hour a tropical storm had whirled in from nowhere. Wind and rain pelted in never-ending sheets. The lights flickered and went off, then came back on. He’d been warned at the desk that the airport might close down.
“For how long?” he’d asked of the white, middle-aged desk clerk.
“For however long the storm lasts, senor. An hour. A day. A week.”
“A week?”
“Sometimes, yes,” the man grinned.
“The airport closes, you make sure I have a room. I don’t want to sleep here in the lobby for a night, much less a week.”
“I don’t know if that is possible, senor.”
“You don’t?”
“No, senor.”
Marten reached into his jacket, took out a small roll of bills, and handed him a
