“I understand you worked for GenSys,” Jack said.
“For three years,” Arturo said. “But no more. The manager is a bad person. I prefer to stay in Bata. I’m lucky to have work.”
“We want to tour the GenSys facility,” Jack said. “Do you think we’ll have any trouble?”
“They don’t expect you?” Arturo asked with bewilderment.
“Nope,” Jack said. “It’s a surprise visit.”
“Then you may have trouble,” Arturo said. “I don’t think they like visitors. When they repaired the only road to Cogo, they built a gate. It’s manned twenty-four hours a day by soldiers.”
“Uh-oh!” Jack said. “That doesn’t sound good.” He’d not expected restricted access to the town and had counted on being able to drive in directly. Where he expected to have trouble was getting into the hospital or the labs.
“When Esteban called to say you were going to Cogo, I thought you’d been invited,” Arturo said. “I didn’t think to mention the gate.”
“I understand,” Jack said. “It’s not your fault. Tell me, do you think the soldiers would take money to let us in?”
Arturo flashed a glance in Jack’s direction. He shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re better paid than regular soldiers.”
“How far is the gate from the town?” Jack asked. “Could someone walk through the forest and just pass the gate?”
Arturo glanced at Jack again. The conversation had taken a turn in a direction he’d not expected.
“It is quite far,” Arturo said evincing some unease. “Maybe five kilometers. And it is not easy to walk in the jungle. It can be dangerous.”
“And there is only one road?” Jack asked.
“Only one road,” Arturo agreed.
“I saw on a map that Cogo is on the water,” Jack said. “What about arriving by boat?”
“I suppose,” Arturo said.
“Where could someone find a boat?” Jack asked.
“In Acalayong,” Arturo said. “There are many boats there. That’s how to go to Gabon.”
“And there would be boats to rent?” Jack asked.
“With enough money,” Arturo said.
They were now passing through the center of Bata. It was composed of surprisingly broad tree-lined, litter-strewn streets. There were lots of people out and about but relatively few vehicles. The buildings were all low concrete structures.
On the south side of town, they turned off the main street and made their way along a rutted unpaved road. There were large puddles from a recent rain.
The hotel was an unimposing two-story concrete building with rusted rebars sticking out the top for potential future upward expansion. The facade had been painted blue but the color had faded to an indistinct pastel.
The moment they stopped, an army of congenial children and adults emerged from the front door. Everyone was introduced down to the youngest, shy child. It turned out that several multigenerational families lived on the first floor. The second floor was the hotel.
The rooms turned out to be tiny but clean. They were all situated on the outside of the U-shaped building. Access was by way of a veranda open to the courtyard. There was a toilet and a shower on each end of the “U.”
After putting his bag in his room and appreciating the mosquito netting around the inordinately narrow bed, Jack went out onto the veranda. Laurie came out of her room. Together, they leaned on the balustrade and peered down into the courtyard. It was an interesting combination of banana trees, discarded tires, naked infants, and chickens.
“Not quite the Four Seasons,” Jack said.
Laurie smiled. “It’s charming. I’m happy. There’s not a bug in my room. That had been my main worry.”
The proprietors, Esteban’s brother-in-law, Florenico, and his wife, Celestina, had prepared a huge feast. The main course was a local fish served with a turniplike plant called “malanga.” For dessert there was a type of pudding along with exotic fruit. An ample supply of ice-cold Cameroonean beer helped wash it all down.
The combination of plentiful food and beer took a toll on the exhausted travelers. It wasn’t long before all of them were fighting drooping eyelids. With some effort, they dragged themselves upstairs to their separate rooms, full of plans to rise early and head south in the morning.
Bertram climbed the stairs to Siegfried’s office. He was exhausted. It was almost eight-thirty at night, and he’d been up since five-thirty that morning to accompany the animal handlers out to Isla Francesca to help get the mass retrieval under way. They’d worked all day and only returned to the animal center an hour earlier.
Aurielo had long since gone home, so Bertram walked directly into the manager’s office. Siegfried was by the window facing the square with a glass in his hand. He was staring over at the hospital. The only light in the room was from the candle in the skull, just as it had been three nights before. Its flame flickered from the action of the overhead fan, sending shadows dancing across the stuffed animal trophies.
“Make yourself a drink,” Siegfried said, without turning around. He knew it was Bertram, since they’d talked on the phone a half an hour earlier and made plans to meet.
Bertram was more of a wine drinker than an imbiber of hard alcohol, but under the circumstances he poured himself a double scotch. He sipped the fiery fluid as he joined Siegfried at the window. The lights of the hospital lab complex glowed warmly in the moist tropical night.
“Did you know Taylor Cabot was coming?” Bertram asked.
“I hadn’t the faintest idea,” Siegfried said.
“What did you do with him?” Bertram asked.
Siegfried gestured toward the hospital. “He’s at the Inn. I had the chief surgeon move out of what we call the presidential suite. Of course, he was none too happy. You know how these egotistical doctors are. But what was I supposed to do? It’s not like I’m running a hotel here.”
“Do you know why Cabot came?” Bertram asked.
“Raymond said that he came specifically to evaluate the bonobo program,” Siegfried said.
“I was afraid of that,” Bertram said.
“It’s just our luck,” Siegfried complained. “The program has been running like a Swiss clock for years on end, and just when we have a problem, he shows up.”
“What did you do with Raymond?” Bertram asked.
“He’s over there, too,” Siegfried said. “He’s a pain in the ass. He wanted to be away from Cabot, but where was I supposed to put him: in my house? No thank you!”
“Has he asked about Kevin Marshall?” Bertram asked.
“Of course,” Siegfried said. “As soon as he got me aside, it was his first question.”
“What did you say?”
“I told the truth,” Siegfried said. “I told him Kevin had gone off with the reproductive technologist and the intensive care nurse and that I had no idea where he was.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He got red in the face,” Siegfried said. “He wanted to know if Kevin had gone to the island. I told him that we didn’t think so. Then he ordered me to find him. Can you imagine? I don’t take orders from Raymond Lyons.”
“So Kevin and the women have not reappeared?” Bertram asked.
“No, and not a word,” Siegfried said.
“Have you made any effort to find them?” Bertram asked.
“I sent Cameron over to Acalayong to check out those cheap hotels along the waterfront, but he didn’t have any luck. I’m thinking they might have gone over to Cocobeach in Gabon. That’s what makes the most sense, but why they didn’t tell anyone is beyond me.”
“What a God-awful mess,” Bertram commented.
“How did you do on the island?” Siegfried asked.
“We did well, considering how fast we had to put the operation together,” Bertram said. “We got an all-terrain vehicle over there with a wagon. It was all we could think of to get that many animals back to the staging area.”
“How many animals did you get?”
“Twenty-one,” Bertram said. “Which is a tribute to my crew. It suggests we’ll be able to finish up by tomorrow.”