materialize again. All she had to do was put some heat on Kornev, and she would have everything she needed to pursue her main purpose in life. And that didn’t have anything to do with Marshall Hail or any of his amazing drones.
Kara was awakened by a smiling Diambu. She immediately knew it was not Afua, because she had never seen him smile. Instead, it was his brother, Baako. She couldn’t remember a time during the last twenty-four hours when she hadn’t seen Baako smiling.
“Good morning,” Baako said, his smile wide and gracious.
“Good morning,” Kara responded, trying to sound just as chipper as the man looking at her.
“If you are not too tired, I have arranged for us to have breakfast on the deck out here. Or would you like to wait for your boyfriend?”
Kara sat up in the hammock and stretched.
“No, that won’t be necessary. Let him sleep. Jet lag bothers him more that it does me. That sounds wonderful. I am so hungry for some reason,” she said, although she wasn’t at all hungry.
Knowing Afua Diambu would be neutralized this morning had her nerves on edge, and her stomach was a little upset.
About fifty feet away, nearer the kitchen’s sliding glass doors that emptied out onto the deck, two women were setting a table. One of them draped a yellow linen cloth over the tabletop, and the other was setting down plates and glassware. The silverware tinkled, sounding odd against the sound of the waves that were rolling in at high tide.
Baako left Kara and walked over to the table and took a seat. A moment later, Kara rolled out of the hammock, and she sat in front of the only other place setting.
She was wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt; she didn’t feel very pretty. But then she wasn’t there to impress anyone, so she didn’t feel guilty about it. Once she had been seated, Baako nodded at her and held up a pitcher of orange juice.
“Would you like some juice?” he asked.
“Sure, that would be great.”
Baako poured some juice in one of Kara’s empty glasses and then poured himself a glass. She drank while he watched her. After a few big gulps, she set her glass down and smiled politely at the man.
“Do you know what Baako means in my language?” her dining companion asked.
Kara smiled, shook her head. She said, “No.”
“It means the firstborn. My brother and I are identical twins, but I was born first. I was the first son in our family, and that is significant in my country.”
Kara took another sip of her orange juice and let Baako talk.
“Even though my brother, Afua, is well respected, I am older and have a great deal of influence in his life.”
Kara was confused about where this conversation was headed, but she was very interested in what the brother of a Top Ten Terrorist had to say.
“I have a question for you, but I don’t want to be too forward,” Baako said, in almost an apologetic tone.
“That’s OK,” Kara said, assuming it was going to be something about her and Kornev’s relationship status. She was accustomed to being asked if she was single, attached, or in love, but mostly men wanted to know if they just might be able to score with her.
But Baako surprised her by asking, “Do you know what your boyfriend does for a living?”
Kara didn’t know how to respond, but she felt that yes was a safe answer. Because as far as he knew, Kornev could have lied to her and told her that he was a carpet salesman.
“Yes,” Kara said, and then waited patiently for the follow-up question.
“What do you think he does?” Baako asked, probing for a response that he expected Kara already knew.
“Sales,” Kara said.
“What kind of sales?” he inquired, at this point, relentless for a direct response.
“Sales of things that are expensive and hard to get.”
Kara watched Baako to gauge his reaction. She was now very interested in where this was going.
Baako took a sip of his orange juice and was quiet for a moment.
After a spell, the Nigerian said, “I wanted you to know that I’m not a person who is interested in expensive and hard to get thing, unlike my brother.”
Kara said nothing. She gave Baako a puzzled look.
“As a matter of fact, I hate expensive and hard to get things. And I also hate that my brother likes them. It puts everyone — all my family in jeopardy.”
Kara pretended not to understand what Baako was talking about, but she dared to ask the common-sense question, “Then why don’t you all leave?”
Baako flashed her his amazingly wide smile before his face returned to normal. “We don’t really have anywhere to go. Our wonderful brother has given us everything we have.” Baako held his arms out to his sides, gesturing at the entire compound.
Kara remained silent, but smiled cajolingly, nonetheless.
Afua’s brother appeared to have run out of words. He looked at her as if he had made some sort of point and was simply waiting for Kara to understand what he was saying.
“Why are you telling me this?” Kara asked. Her smile was gone, and there was an intensity to her.
“Because I don’t buy Victor’s story about who you are. I don’t trust what he told us.”
Kara looked upset, and Baako continued.
“I am a good judge of character, and everything about you says you are someone else.”
Kara was almost afraid to talk for fear that she was undoing herself with every word she spoke. But she had gone this far, so she might as well listen to him.
“Why don’t you believe I am Victor’s girlfriend.”
“Lots of reasons,” Baako said. He steepled his fingers under his chin. “You are way too pretty to be with someone like Kornev. He doesn’t fly first class or hang out in exotic places. He’s all about work, and you don’t look like a person who would put up with that.”
Kara looked at the man blankly, and asked, “Anything else?”
“In the time I’ve known Victor Kornev, he has never had a girlfriend. He is a loner. Girlfriends represent a security risk, and they are a liability to him. I have never known Kornev to risk his life for a woman.”
Baako said the word woman, as if it was a word that shouldn’t be spoken in public.
“What else?” Kara said, hoping that was all.
Baako smiled again, placed his hands in his lap, leaned back in his chair and told Kara, “Yesterday, while you were in the living room walking around and looking at things, I noticed that you spent some time looking at the keys hanging on the pegboard. This might sound odd, but I have never known a woman so interested in keys. You were also trying to act nonchalant while you were checking
out the video cameras. I watched you from outside the glass doors, while you were looking closely at all those things.”
Kara smiled innocently, not knowing what to do or say.
Baako waited for Kara to respond.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. She left her rebuttal there, hanging in space, a phrase that could be interpreted in the manner he chose to take it.
Baako smiled back at her. But now, his joyful carefree grin was tainted by something more serious. It was something a little more threatening that lurked just under the surface.
“If you are not who you say you are then that means my family, rather my brother, could be in danger. And I want to tell you something about my brother. Something that you could tell your people.”
Kara said nothing. She looked past Baako with a blank expression, as if she were looking at a passing ship out on the distant water.
“The people who work for my brother are not nice people, but I think you know that. My brother is not like the previous boss of his company. Afua wants to make some positive changes. For example, there was a school full of girls who had an unfortunate experience. My brother wants to help right that wrong to make sure they find their way back to their homes.”