off their heads. They threw the heads into the well.
Ahbeba sobbed and Ramal hid her eyes. All around them, women and children and old men wailed. Ishina Kotay, a strong young woman with two babies, as fast as any boy in the village when she was a girl, jumped to her feet and bolted for the jungle. The flame-haired man shot her in the back.
Ahbeba felt light-headed, as if she had smoked the majijo plant. She lost track of what was happening, and vomited. The world grew hazy and small with empty spaces between moments of brilliant clarity. The day had begun with cakes for breakfast as the first kiss of light brushed the ridges above her village. Her mother had spoken of princes.
Commander Blood fired his rifle into the air and jumped up and down, howling like his men. The rest of the rebels jumped up and down, too, caught up in the frenzy.
''Now you know the wrath of the R UF! This is the price you pay for defying us! We will fill the well with your heads!'
The white demon and the tall scarred warrior turned toward the huddled villagers. Ahbeba felt their gaze
sweep over her as if their eyes held weight.
The white demon shook his head.
''Stop jumping around like a baboon. If you kill these people, then no one will know what happened here. Only the living can fear you. Do you understand that?'
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Commander Blood stopped bouncing.
'Then we must leave living proof.'
''That's right. Proof that will scare the shit out of the other miners. Proof that your enemies can't deny.'
Commander Blood walked over to the headless bodies of the South African guards.
'What could be more terrible that what we have done? ''
.... This. ''
The white demon spoke to the scarred warrior in a language that Ahbeba did not understand, and then the drug-crazed rebels ran forward with their axes 'and machetes, and hacked off the hands of every man, woman, and child in the village.
Ahbeba Danku and the others were left alive to tell their story, and did.
Part Four THE LAST DETECTIVE :67
CHAPTER 21
time missing: 49 hours, 58 minutes
I called Starkey from the parking lot while Pike phoned the San Gabriel Information operator, starkey answered her cell on the sixth ring.
I said, 'I have two more names for the BOLO. Are you still at the river?'
'We're gonna be here all night with this mess. Hang on while I grab my pen.'
'The man Mrs. Luna saw with Fallon is named Mazi Ibo, m-a-z-i, i-b-o. He worked for Fallon in Africa.'
'Hang on, Cole, slow down. How do you know that?' 'Pike found someone who recognized the description. You'll be able to get his picture off the NLETS for a positive with Mrs. Luna. Did Richard cop to the ransom?'
'He still denies it. They tore outta here an hour ago, but I think you're onto it, Cole. That poor bastard was shitting bullets.'
Pike lowered his phone and shook his head. Schilling wasn't listed.
'Okay, here's the other name. I don't know whether he's involved, but he might be in contact.'
I gave her Schilling's name and told her how he was connected to Ibo and Fallon.
She said, 'Hang on. I gotta get to my radio. I want to put this stuff out on the BOLO.'
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'He keeps a mail drop in San Gabriel. We just checked with Information, but they don't show a listing. Can you get it ?' 'Yeaho Stand by.' Pike watched me as I waited, then shook his head again. 'He won't be listed under any name we know.' 'We don't know that. We might get lucky.' Pike studied the mail drop address, then flicked it with his finger, thinking. He looked up as Starkey came back on the line. She said, 'They got squat for Eric Schilling. What's that address ?' I gestured for the address, but Pike slipped it into his pocket. He took my phone and turned it off. I said, 'What are you doing?' 'They'll have a rental agreement, but she'll have to get a warrant. This place, it'll be closed by the time everyone gets there. They'll have to find the owner, wait for him to come' down, it'll take forever. We can get it faster.' I understood what Pike meant and agreed to it without hesitation, as if the rightness of it was obvious and beyond debate. I was beyond hesitation or even consideration. I had become forward movement. I had become finding Ben. Pike went to his Jeep and I went to my car, my head filled with the atrocities that Resnick had described. I still heard the flies buzzing inside the van and felt them bumping my face as they swirled up from the blood. I realized that I didn't have my gun. It was locked in my gun safebecause Ben had been staying with me, and was still there. I suddenly wanted a weapon badly. I said, 'Joe. My gun's at the house.' 69
Pike opened his passenger door and reached under the dash. He found a black shape and walked over with the shape palmed flat against his thigh so that bystanders wouldn't see. He passed it to me, then went back to his Jeep. It was a Sig Sauer 9mm in a black clip holster. I clipped it onto my right hip under my shirt. I thought it would make me feel safer, but it didn't.
The I-io freeway stretched across the width of Los Angeles like a rubber band pulled to its breaking point, running from the sea to the desert, then beyond. Traffic was building and heavy, but we drove hard on our horns, as
