"You see?" Dhamballa said.
"A bishop is coming," Father Bradbury said. "A single clergyman. I'm certain he has been sent to tend to the needs of the people I left behind. My flock. My followers. He is no threat to you."
The priest spoke softly and with great compassion. But as he awaited Dhamballa's reply, Father Bradbury had an uneasy feeling, a sense that he had just made a terrible mistake.
"He is no threat," the voodoo priest repeated disdainfully. His dark eyes glared at the priest. "As I suspected, they will replace one with another."
"As you suspected?"
"They send one mightier in rank and from another nation, daring us to defend ourselves," Dhamballa said.
"You used me," the priest said angrily. "You didn't know anyone was coming-"
"They are daring me to go after him," Dhamballa said more to himself than to Father Bradbury. "But Leon expected this. We will postpone visiting the other churches to deal with this great man from America." His eyes shifted to the soldier. "Grinnell, return the priest to the hut."
The soldier took Father Bradbury by the arm. The priest tried to wrench it free.
"Wait!" the priest said. "What is going to happen now?"
Dhamballa turned back toward his mat. He did not answer.
Of all the hapless, trusting fools, Father Bradbury thought. The voodoo priest had done exactly what the priest himself had been trying to do. To engage his opponent and find out what he was thinking. Only Dhamballa had done it better. He had gotten the priest to open up, to hope, to trust. In so doing, Father Bradbury had told Dhamballa where and how to seize his next hostage.
As he was led from the hut, the priest wailed in despair.
Chapter Twenty
It was as if no time had passed.
Most human bodies have a better memory than the mind. Skills once learned do not go away, whether it is assembling a rifle or holding a pencil. Reflexes and instincts work faster than thought. Even when the limbs age, they have the capacity to recall their abilities and execute many of them. The mind? Leon Seronga could not tell someone how to tie a shoe. But he could show them. He could not remember what he had for dinner two nights ago. But his fingertips could remember the weight of a switchblade he had learned to use when he was a boy. Whenever Seronga took the old knife from his pocket, his hand and arm could run a slash attack on their own.
Seronga sat on his motor scooter looking out at the tourist center. His body told him it was 1966. His senses were finely tuned. His muscles, only slightly impaired by age, were still at hair-trigger readiness. He and his companion, Donald Pavan t, had driven to Maun and rented Malaguti Firefox F15 RR scooters. Dressed in white and blue Dainese scooter jackets, the men had pretended to be recreational bikers as they made their way across the floodplain. They raced through gullies and jumped small hills as they headed away from the city. Now that it was nearly dark, the men had stopped to keep an eye on the tourist center. If everything was all right, they would contact the men at the edge of the swamp. They would proceed to the Church of Loyola in Shakawe to kidnap the priest there. Seronga expected that he would be guarded now, probably by local police. The military would not want to give mis a high profile. Not yet. But whoever was there, it would not matter. There was always a way in.
Seronga and Pavant had come here to keep an eye on any surreptitious developments at this church. The Brush Vipers wondered if the archdiocese in Cape Town, perhaps the Vatican itself, would let the violation of this place go unanswered. Would the Church respond with calm or would they send a battery of priests? Perhaps they would send nuns to see if women were vulnerable.
The secure phone provided by Genet beeped. The call from the Belgian gave Seronga his answer.
"Dhamballa just spoke with our guest," Genet informed the leader of the Brush Vipers. "As we anticipated, there is a new one coming over. We were told that a bishop is due in Maun tomorrow afternoon. Two individuals from your locale will be meeting him at the airfield."
"Is this new arrival traveling alone?" Seronga asked.
"That's what we were told," Genet informed him.
"Where is he coming from?" Seronga asked.
"The United States," Genet replied.
"Interesting."
"Very," Genet said. "That automatically makes it a global affair and guarantees the interest of international press if something happens."
Any move against him could draw America into this conflict in some capacity. Probably in a demarche, intense diplomatic activity. Possibly even a military one. There was a zerotolerance policy for terrorism. A limited search-and-rescue operation could be called for. On the other hand, the clergyman might simply be bait to capture the abductors. The government in Gaborone might dispatch troops to protect him. Or perhaps the Vatican had made its own security arrangements.
Seronga thanked Genet for the update and hung up. The Belgian did not have to tell him what to do. That had been decided ahead of time. If a replacement were sent for Father Bradbury, he was to be taken. But not with a show of force this time. The abduction of Father Bradbury had been done that way to show the world that Dhamballa had soldiers to use if he wished. If Seronga had come back with his army, the Botswana president might begin to fear a brewing civil war. He would have no choice but to call on his own military. Dhamballa did not want that. This time, the kidnapping must be different. It must be very subtle. To slip the priest's replacement away would show Gaborone that this was not a war. It was a dispute. And the dispute was not with Botswana or its people. It was with the Roman Catholic Church. Only later, when Dhamballa had established a strong religious base among the general population, would he use his ministry to impact nationalism and politics.
Seronga briefed Pavant. The thirty-three-year-old was the youngest of the Brush Vipers. He was also one of the most militant. Born and raised in Lobatse on the South African border, Pavant was exposed to refugees from apartheid. Pavant believed that Africa was for native Africans and their descendants. He was one of the first men to discover Dhamballa and his ministry.
The men waited a quarter of a mile from the tourist center. They sat on their bikes, shielded by the darkness. They ate chicken sandwiches they had picked up in Maun and watched the dirt road for headlights. They did not speak. After five hours on the bikes, the silence felt good.
At a few minutes before nine o'clock, the evening bus from Maun pulled up to the front gate of the tourist center. Seronga asked for the binoculars. Pavant reached into the small equipment locker on the back of his bike. He removed the case and handed the binoculars to Seronga. The leader of the Brush Vipers peered across the dark, still floodplain.
There were several things odd about the group. The size, for one. There were about twenty-five new arrivals. That was a large number for this time of year. Most of the large tour groups came when the weather was cooler. Seronga watched carefully. They were all carrying duffel bags as well as having suitcases stored below. The bags had a sameness to them, as if the tourists had packed an identical amount of clothes, the same number of personal items. Individuals on a trip did not do that. Seronga also noticed that no one had. Plastft bags or souvenir caps, the kinds of things one typically picked up in airports or local gift shops.
And one thing more struck Seronga as very unusual. Most of the tourists were men.
"It looks as if a lot of people came in," Pavant remarked.
"Too many," Seronga remarked.
As Seronga watched, there were other things that made him uneasy.