Seronga put his hand on his chest. He lowered his head gratefully. "Although I hope these precautions will not prove to be necessary, Sergeant Diamante, they are appreciated."
The sergeant nodded back. "We will not acknowledge you on the bus except in passing, as fellow travelers. I hope you are correct, Deacon. That the journey will be a safe one."
The two men left. When they had disappeared around the corner of the church, Pavant got out of his wicker chair.
"None of these bloody devils understands!" Pavant said angrily.
"I know," Seronga answered calmly. Part of his mind was here, dealing with Pavant's rage. The rest of it was looking ahead three hours, trying to figure out what to do.
"They think they can call in even more foreigners and swat us down. They don't understand that this is our country," he r struck his chest with his fist, "that this is our faith we are fighting for. Our history, our birthright."
"They're wrong," Seronga assured him. "They will find that out."
"We have to alert Njo," Pavant said.
"I agree," Seronga replied. But that was all Seronga knew for certain. He looked down.
"What is it?" Pavant asked. "What's wrong?"
"The question is, what do we tell Njo?" Seronga said. "It is one thing to defend the island from an attack that probably will not come. This is different. We have to decide how far to escalate this conflict militarily."
"Do we have a choice?" Pavant asked. It was more of a statement than a question. "As soon as we take the bishop toward Njo's truck, they're going to realize that something is wrong."
"I know that," Seronga said.
"Either we need backup to cover our retreat from Maun, or we must make a preemptive strike against the Spaniards," Pavant decided.
"A retreat would not work," Seronga said. "Even with the bishop as a hostage, they would follow us to camp."
"Then we must attack," Pavant said forcefully.
"Lower your voice," Seronga cautioned, looking around. He gestured toward the church. For all they knew, the Spanish soldiers were standing there, having a smoke.
"I'm sorry," Pavant said. The Brush Viper bent closer. "We must make sure that they do not leave the bus station. They must not trace us to Dhamballa. They must be killed."
"Or eluded," Seronga said.
"Why?" Pavant asked. "Dhamballa will have to understand-"
"It isn't just Dhamballa that I'm worried about," Seronga said. "If we attack these men, the Spanish government will insist that it was unprovoked. They will say the soldiers were tourists. They will brand Dhamballa and his followers as terrorists. Our own government will be forced to hunt us in earnest to protect international relations, business investments, and the tourist trade."
Pavant stared at Seronga. His dark eyes lost some of their fire. "Then what do we do?" he asked. "We can't bring the bishop here. That will invigorate this parish. The Church will win."
"They will also find out that we are not real deacons," Seronga added. "We will be hunted relentlessly."
"So we cannot come back to the church, and we cannot let the Spanish soldiers follow us to Dhamballa's camp," Pavant said. There was renewed anger in his voice and frustration in his dark eyes. "That does not appear to leave us very many options."
"No," Seronga agreed.
In fact, there was only one thing to do. Regardless of the consequences, they would have to fight. Seronga would not let Dhamballa know now. He had already decided that sooner rather than later, the Brush Vipers would have to separate themselves from Dhamballa. The Vodun leader wanted to be known as a man of white magic. His credibility would suffer if the death of the deacons were tied to the Brush Vipers. Seronga could still help him, but from a distance. He thought of the Middle East, where leaders publicly denounced radical military organizations while benefiting from their violent activities. That separation could occur within weeks when, hopefully, Dhamballa would have enough bodies around to protect him from government interference. There would be followers who moved around with him as well as foreign journalists who covered his rallies. The Europeans had promised to bring in reporters as soon as the Vodun movement had its first major rally.
The leader of the Brush Vipers rose. Everything old eventually returns, he thought. During his decades of service to the government, Seronga had engaged in various small-scale engagements, from border skirmishes to ambushes. Most of those times, the Brush Vipers had been the perpetrators. Occasionally, they had been the targets. So it would be agayi.
Seronga knew the small-unit offensive and defensive drills by heart. He also knew the area where the bus would be bringing them. If it came down to self-defense, he would have to have a plan.
Seronga entered the living quarters. While Pavant stood by the door to make sure no one entered, Seronga went to the bed. He opened his backpack and withdrew his cell phone. He called Njo Finn. The truck driver was about sixty miles northwest of Maun. The signal was not very strong, and Seronga made the message as succinct as possible. Seronga told the man exactly where to meet him. Using code words that were known to all the Brush Vipers, Seronga also told Njo what to have ready when the tour bus arrived.
It might not be the cleanest or best-planned operation the Brush Vipers had ever undertaken, but that did not matter to Seronga. He only had one concern: that it worked.
Chapter Thirty
It was not a restful night for Paul Hood.
He dreamed that he was trying to prop up the Hollywood sign. It was an endless task. One of the big white letters would begin to tilt forward, and he would rush over to it. He would push it back up, and another would immediately start to drop over. The rate of fall did not change, but the order did. There was no respite, nothing that could be done by rote. Hood woke around three-thirty A. M., wired and perspiring. Is that how he viewed his life? Constantly propping the same things up, minute after minute after minute? Was it all superficial, like Hollywood? Or was that his own past as the mayor of Los Angeles coming back to nag at him, to tell him that this was all he was good for? Bureaucratic management.
Hood flicked the television on and turned on the History Channel. The subject was World War II, the European Theater. The subject was always World War II, the European Theater. Hood watched for a while, then decided there was no point. He was not going to get back to sleep. He showered, dressed, and headed for Op-Center.
The night team was not surprised to see him. Since the separation, he had been there late at night and early in the morning. And Hood was not surprised to find Liz Gordon still in her office. She was there with J2 and Mae Won. Those two had the energy of the young. They were sitting around her desk, working on networked laptops. The smell of coffee hung in the open door like a scrim. ^
Hood rapped on the jamb. "Good morning."
J2 and Mae both returned the greeting. Liz did not look away from her monitor.
"Paul, I'm beginning to think you've got a very serious problem in Botswana," Liz said.
"More than just a Vatican problem?" he asked.
"Very much so," she said.
"Talk to me," Hood said. He walked toward her.
Liz's shoulders were slumped. She rubbed her eyes and looked over. "There are events in history mat trigger what we call 'mass movements.' Examples are the American Revolution. The Communist Revolution. The French Resistance during the Second World War. Even the Rennaissance, though that was less clearly defined. It's the result of a collection of people whose imaginations are stirred to action by a person or an event or even an idea."
"Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin" Hood said.
"That or Upton Sinclair's The Jungle" Liz agreed. "You get an emancipation movement or a sweeping overhaul in the meat industry. Incited by one thing or another, people come together with a common goal, their collective efforts producing seemingly impossible results."