An enclosed grove of exotic fruit trees showed on the other side. Shol stopped.
“We’ll meet in here. Can I offer you tea? Or perhaps grapefruit juice?” The latter was a boast, since such juice was a delicacy here.
“Nothing,” the Tiger said. “Only what I came for. Then I will be gone.”
Shol dismissed his houseboy with a quick flick of the wrist, then used a key from his jallabiya pocket to let them inside.
It was pleasant in the greenhouse, temperature controlled with a waft of humidity lacing the air. The tiled floor was shaded under a low canopy of green. Above was the geometric pattern of a glass-and-steel ceiling.
Shol gestured for the Tiger to enter a small dining area in the back.
Four rattan chairs surrounded a luminescent bai wood table. Shol moved aside a potted sapling. Then he ran the combination on a floor safe hidden behind the tree.
Inside the safe was a paper envelope, stuffed thick. Shol took it out and placed it on the table between them.
“I think you’ll find it’s all there.”
Once the Tiger had checked the contents, he set the package on the floor and sat back. Shol smiled.
“You’ve done much here,” the Tiger said, gesturing around the room. “It’s impressive.”
Shol smiled, puffed up by the compliment. “I’ve been blessed many times.”
“Not just blessed. You’ve been busy. You are clever, I can tell.”
“It’s true. Between the legislature and my businesses, there’s little time for other things.”
“Travel,” the Tiger said. “Meetings day and night? And your family, of course.”
Shol nodded, clearly enjoying that the subject was him, “Yes, yes. On most days.”
“Saying things you shouldn’t. Putting your loved ones at risk.”
The nodding stopped. Shol seemed to forget that he was afraid of looking the Tiger in the eye, and did it now. “No,” he said. “Truly. I’ve not talked about my business dealings with you, or anyone else.”
“Yes,” said the Tiger, without moving. “Truly. You have. You know a reporter – a woman? Adanne Tansi?” He reached with one finger and tipped open his collar an inch. He spoke into a microphone.
“Rock da house! Now, Rocket. Spare no one. Make an example of them.”
Chapter 77
A FEW SECONDS later, the entire greenhouse reverberated with a half dozen or more gun blasts coming from outside. And then bursts of machine-gun clatter.
Mohammed Shol tried to get up, but the Tiger was fast and agile and already had his hands around the man’s throat and was choking him. He slammed Shol into the far wall and a spider web pattern blossomed in the glass.
“Do you hear that?” the Tiger shouted at the top of his voice. “You hear it? All your fault!”
There was more gunfire. Then screams – women first, followed quickly by boys, their voices high and pitiful.
“That,” the Tiger told him, “is the sound of your mistakes, your greed, your stupidity.”
Shol grappled with both hands at the Tiger’s huge and unmovable wrists. His eyes reddened and veins appeared ready to burst at his temples. The Tiger watched, fascinated.
It was possible, he’d learned, to bring a man to the edge of death, and then keep him there for as long as he liked. He liked this because he despised Shol and his kind.
The greenhouse door shattered as two bodyguards arrived to rescue their employer. “Come in!” shouted the Tiger. In one motion, he spun Mohammed Shol around and pulled a pistol from the paddle holster at his ankle. He charged forward, Shol in front as a shield, firing as he came!
One bodyguard went down with a nine-millimeter hole in the throat. The other sent a bullet through his employer’s outstretched hand, then into his shoulder.
Shol screamed, even as the Tiger launched him the last several feet across the floor, where he crashed into the guard. Both men went down. Then the Tiger shot the second bodyguard in the face.
“Oga!” Rocket said as he appeared in the empty doorway. Oga meant “chief” in Lagos street parlance. The Tiger liked the designation, and it came naturally to his young soldiers.
The screaming had all but stopped in the house, but there were still sounds of breakage and gunfire as his boys let off the last of their venom and steam.
“There was a tutor. Children being taught.”
“Taken care of,” said Rocket.
“Good.” The Tiger watched as Shol struggled to stand. He fired once into his leg. “You’ll need a tourniquet or you’ll die,” he said to the businessman.
Then he turned to Rocket. “Tie Mr. Shol up. Then put this in his mouth. Or up his ass, if you like.”
“This” was an M67 – a grenade.
“Pull the pin before you leave.”
Chapter 78
EVERYTHING CONTINUED TO feel unreal and fantasy-like to me.
All the doors at the church shelter for men were locked after nine o’clock. No one could get in or out. With traffic being what it is in Lagos, I barely made it back there in time.
My cot was at the far end of one of three lodges, long high-ceilinged dorms off the main corridor where breakfast would be served in the morning.
Alex Cross, I thought. What have you come to? What have you done this time?
The guy in the next bed was the same guy as the night before, a Jamaican man by the name of Oscar. He didn’t talk much, but the strained look in his eyes and half-healed track marks told his story.
He lay on his side and watched me while I rooted around for a toothbrush.
“Hey, mon,” he said in a whisper. “Dey is some shorty man o’ God lookin’ your way. He dere now.”
Father Bombata was standing at the door. When I saw him, he beckoned with a finger, then walked back out of the dormitory.
I followed him outside and into a hall packed with last-minute arrivals. I pushed upstream toward the front doors, until I caught up with the priest.
“Father?”
I saw then that he was dialing a cell phone and wondered who he was calling. Was it good news or bad that I was supposed to hear?
“Ms. Tansi wishes to speak with you,” he said and handed over the phone to me.
Adanne had news! An assassination in South Darfur had occurred that day. One of the representatives to the Sudanese Council of States was dead – and his family had been slaughtered.
“Any connection to Basel Abboud in DC?” I asked her.
“I don’t know yet, but I can tell you that the Tiger does frequent business in Sudan.”
“Weapons? Heroin?” I asked her. “What kind of business, Adanne?”
“Boys. His loyal soldiers. He recruits at the Darfur refugee camps.”
I took a breath. “You might have told me about this earlier.”
“I’ll make it up to you. I can have us on an air freighter to Nyala first thing in the morning.”
I blinked.
“You said ‘us’?”
“I did. Or you can fly commercial to Al Fasher and see about ground transport from there. I leave it to you.”
Any other time I never would have considered it. But then, I’d never been five thousand miles from home without a lead and sleeping in a men’s homeless shelter before.
I put my hand over the phone. “Father, can I trust this woman?” With my life?
“Yes, she is a good person,” he said without hesitation. “And I told you, she is my cousin. Tall and beautiful, just like me. You can trust her, Detective.”
I was back on the line. “Nothing goes into print until we both say so? Do we have a deal on that?”
“Agreed. I’ll meet you at the Ikeja Cantonment, at the main entrance by five. And Alex, you should prepare yourself emotionally. Darfur is truly a horrible place.”