Lew crouched, touched bodies, touched the cold rough wall where they had moved over to give him space. He sat, put his back against the wall, started to stretch his legs, and bumped them into someone else. “Sorry.”
“Put your legs over mine,” said the man across the way. “Later, we’ll reverse.”
“Thank you.”
The man beside him, the one who had touched his shin and spoken to him, now said, “Have courage, brother. God will watch over you.”
There was some dim light from the ventilator slot in the door. By its light, Lew could see that the man was portly, gray-bearded, probably the wrong side of fifty. He wore a torn white shirt and black trousers, and he had recent cuts around his eyes and on the bridge of his nose, as though he’d been hit while wearing glasses. He said, “I am Bishop Michael Kibudu.”
“Lew Brady. Bishop?”
“Of the Evangelical Baptist Mission. My church is in Bugembe.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Two months. I don’t believe there has ever been a white man in here before. Not in here. Would it be improper for me to ask what unlucky chance brought you to this place?”
“They got it into their heads I’m connected with the CIA.”
“Ah. They accused the archbishop of being in the employ of the CIA.”
“The one they killed? Is this some kind of religious persecution or something?”
Bishop Kibudu smiled, a sweet sad incongruous expression. “Something like that,” he said. “May I ask, are you saved?”
Had that particular question ever been asked in more ridiculous circumstances? “I don’t think so,” said Lew.
12
Frank took a swallow of 7UP, then carefully poured gin into the bottle and gently swirled it. He tasted again, nodded in satisfaction, and carried the bottle into Balim’s office, where Balim himself was on the phone, while to one side Isaac Otera and Bathar (who was known to everyone except his father as Young Mr. Balim) looked worried and useless as they watched Ellen pace back and forth in front of the desk, her expression full of storm clouds. “Here,” Frank said, and extended the bottle.
She glared at him, at his hand, at the 7UP. “What’s this?”
“Got gin in it. Calm you down.”
“I don’t want to calm down, you prick,” she said, and turned away to glare instead at Balim, talking slowly and insinuatingly and gently into the telephone.
Frank threw a mutinous look at the back of her head and downed the spiked 7UP himself. She was going too far, that’s all, and his sense of guilt was finally giving way to anger. They were doing what they could, weren’t they?
Drawing the conversation to a close, Balim extravagantly thanked the person he’d been talking to and with apparent reluctance hung up. He said to Ellen, “Now we must wait, the most difficult part of all.”
“It’s been hours.” Even Frank could see it was only her anger that kept her from falling apart; still, she shouldn’t go on calling him names in front of everybody.
“Patience is our only friend, at this point,” Balim said.
“He could already be dead.”
“Please,” Balim said, rising heavily from behind the desk, “put that much out of your mind. I have been told that a shipment of black Toyotas was received from Japan in Uganda within the last year, all consigned to the government. So these are not kidnappers or bandits.” He had come around the desk while talking, and now he tenderly touched Ellen’s forearm with his fingertips, as a faith healer might, as though to encourage a flow of his own strength and assurance into her. “They have taken Lew into custody, that is all.”
“But we don’t know what they’ll do to him.”
Frank said, “They’ll question him. It’s some kind of mix-up; they think he’s somebody else. They could even figure it out for themselves and let him go.” He didn’t himself quite believe any of this.
Ellen gave him a look of utter contempt, but at least she didn’t call him a prick. She said to Balim, “I want to call the American Embassy.”
Not again, Frank thought, we’ve been through all that. But Balim was patience itself. He said, “Ellen, I know my concern for our friend pales beside yours, but believe me, my concern is real, and if the American Embassy could help us I would phone them first. First.”
“Of course they’ll help. He’s an American citizen.”
“The American Embassy in Uganda is closed. Shall an American chargé d’affaires in Nairobi phone the French Embassy in Kampala and ask a chargé d’affaires there to make what would surely be a routine inquiry for a wandering American believed to be in Ugandan custody?”
“Why not?”
“Who is this American? the Ugandan authorities would ask themselves. Who is he that diplomats ask after him? And soon they will learn he has a long career as a mercenary soldier in Africa.”
“The same with the American Embassy in Nairobi,” Frank said, “not to mention the Kenyan government. What’s our connection with this guy Brady? What are we all up to? See what I mean?”
Even as he finished his statement, Frank saw by the warning looks from the others that he’d made some sort of tactical error, but he didn’t know what it was until Ellen turned to glare at him, saying, “So that’s the point, is it? This deal you’re all in on. We’ll try everything we can to get Lew back, just so it doesn’t endanger the deal.”
Fortunately for Frank, Balim himself answered, saying, “Ellen, no, certainly not! Frank made his point badly, but his intention was a good one, I assure you.”
Frank didn’t much care for Balim’s talking about him that way, even just as a psychological ploy with Ellen; nor did he care at all for Ellen’s sneer of contempt when she said to Balim, “A good intention, from Frank?”
Isaac Otera suddenly said, “You call it a deal. Maybe it is.”
Everybody turned in astonishment to look at Isaac, who wore the tight-clenched expression of the public speaker struck by stage fright but determined to go on. Blinking, hands closed into fists at his side, he said, “Maybe it’s something else. But whatever it is, if it comes out that Lew is in Uganda to help set up a coffee-smuggling operation, you’ll never see him again.”
“That’s right,” Balim said.
With a huge smile, feeling a great weight lift off his chest, Frank pointed at Isaac and said, “That’s what I meant! That’s the whole thing!”
Isaac took a hesitant step toward Ellen, saying, “The truth is, even though Lew was arrested because of some mistake, he has something to hide. Whatever we do to rescue him, we mustn’t risk giving away his secret.”
“Good God,” Ellen said faintly.
Balim said, “I am attempting now to get in touch with a gentleman high up in the Ugandan government. It may take—”
“Father, dear Father,” Young Mr. Balim said, “tell her the whole truth. She deserves it.”
Frank glowered, thinking, He’s after her, the slimy little wog, but the elder Balim nodded, accepting his son’s reproof. “The habit of secrecy,” he said, “is at times too strong in me. Ellen, our associate inside Uganda in the coffee transaction is a white man named Baron Chase, who is very high up in the government there. One of Amin’s most trusted assistants.”
“A white man?”
“Frank has known him for years.”
“A snake in the grass,” Frank said.
“But even a snake in the grass,” Young Mr. Balim said, smiling comfortably at Frank, “can have its uses.”
“I bet it can,” Frank told him.
Balim Senior said to Ellen, “I can’t call Baron Chase directly. What I have done is send messages to him through two separate intermediaries, that he should get in touch with me at once, on a matter of the utmost urgency. Those two gentlemen are both now on their way to Uganda. If one of them experiences difficulty—”