The receptionist gave a polite, if somewhat patronizing smile. “I’m afraid you’ve just missed him… by a hundred and ten years, actually.”
Mulamba smiled as well — a polite smile that hid his irritation. “I understand. I want to read about Mr. Stanley. In your… bibliotheque.”
“You mean our library, sir? I’m afraid our reading room is reserved for members of the Society.” The young man paused, as if recognizing that he had made a potentially embarrassing assumption. “Are you… er, do you have your membership credentials?”
“I am not a member of the Society,” Mulamba confessed.
The receptionist offered a sympathetic frown.
“May I join?”
“Certainly, sir. We have a variety of membership options. You can learn about them all at our website.”
Mulamba was having more difficulty now managing his frustration. “Please, I do not have a great amount of time. May I join today?”
“What, right now? Well, I suppose we could do that. Let me just print you off an application. May I presume that you’ll be selecting our ordinary membership?”
Woodhouse leaned over the desk, and fixed the receptionist in his laser-like stare. “Here, now, mate? Have you got a supervisor we could talk to? Someone who can get things done?”
The young man shrank in his chair, but tried his best not appear intimidated. “Sir, I assure you—”
“You know who this is?” pushed Woodhouse, jerking a thumb at his charge. “The bleedin’ President of the Congo, that’s who.”
Mulamba put a restraining hand on Woodhouse’s arm. “Please, Ian. I do not wish to…”
He was groping for the right word, when a paunchy but well-dressed middle-aged man seemed to materialize beside the reception desk. “Did I hear correctly? Are you Mr. Joseph Mulamba?” The man did not wait for a reply, but reached out and began vigorously pumping Mulamba’s hand. “Jonathan Grigsby, sir. Assistant Director of the RGS. This is a rare and unexpected honor, sir. I wish that you would have phoned ahead so that we could arrange a more fitting reception.”
“Mr. Woodhouse advised me not to publish my itinerary.”
“Mr. Wood — ah, your bodyguard, of course. Well, it’s no matter.” He made a shooing gesture to the receptionist, who quickly surrendered his desk. “The full resources of the Society are at your disposal, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Grigsby. I wish to see the papers of Henry Morton Stanley.”
“Of course,” beamed Grigsby. “We have a full collection of all his published writings in our digital archive. You are welcome to use one of the computers in the reading room, or if you like, I will arrange for you to have full access to the archive off-site so that you can peruse the information at you leisure.”
“Forgive me, Mr. Grigsby, but I am not speaking of the published works. I would like to see Stanley’s original diaries.”
Grigsby’s enthusiasm slipped a notch. “Ah, well let me see what we have. You do know that most of Sir Henry’s journals are housed at the Belgian Royal Museum for Central Africa?”
“I was not aware of that.” Mulamba frowned. “The portion I wish to read relates to the search for Dr. David Livingstone. Would that be in your collection?”
“The original?” A crease appeared in Grigsby’s forehead. He seated himself at the terminal and began tapping on the keyboard. Minutes passed in an uncomfortable silence, and at one point, Woodhouse caught Mulamba’s eye and tapped his watch meaningfully. We’ve been here too long.
Woodhouse was not merely being paranoid. While the newly elected president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was popular with most of his countrymen, his bold vision for the future of his nation — and for all of Central Africa — was not embraced by all. He had enemies, a small but highly motivated minority of his countrymen, who feared that his promised reforms would somehow undermine their wealth and power.
Ironically, he felt much safer here, abroad with just two personal protection agents, than he did in the Palais de la Nation, his office in Kinshasa, where he would be surrounded by soldiers and bodyguards, any one of whom might secretly be plotting his assassination.
“Ah,” announced Grigsby. “The original diaries containing his record of the search for Livingstone are in the collection in Belgium, but we do have scans of the document in our archives.”
“What about the missing pages?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Stanley removed several pages from his diary,” Mulamba explained. “Including the entries where he described the actual meeting with Livingstone. Do you have those pages?”
“Well, no. As you’ve said, those are… well… rather missing.”
Mulamba sagged in defeat. “I had hoped that perhaps those pages would have found their way into your collection.”
“Sadly, no. If they still exist, they might be in the museum in Belgium. They aren’t on record, but perhaps they were catalogued incorrectly.”
“Oui. Yes, that is a possibility worth exploring. Thank you, Mr. Grigsby.” Mulamba extended a hand, which Grigsby shook, and then Woodhouse was guiding the president back toward the exit. The bodyguard ducked his head out to check with his counterpart, and then held the door open for Mulamba.
The two bodyguards bracketed him for the short walk back to the SUV. Even though the vehicle had not been out of his sight the entire time, Clarke did a quick walk around the exterior, checking to verify that no one had tampered with it. When he finally gave the all clear, Woodhouse opened the rear door and gestured for Mulamba to get in.
“Thank you, Ian. I apologize for wasting your time.”
The bodyguard smiled. “As long as your checks cash, my time is yours to—”
Woodhouse’s head suddenly split open like a ripe melon, splattering blood, bone chips and brain matter all over the interior of the SUV.
Mulamba was too stunned to even move. He was no stranger to violence of this sort. He had witnessed countless atrocities during his childhood. Yet this was different. This wasn’t a border village or a back alley in Kisangani. It was London. This was the civilized world. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen here.
Woodhouse fell onto the floorboard and then slid back onto the sidewalk, as if his bones had turned to liquid. From the corner of his eye, Mulamba saw Clarke drop, similarly stricken. It occurred to Mulamba that he ought to pull the door shut and engage the locks. That would be enough. He would be safe inside the armored vehicle, safe from whoever had killed his bodyguard, but before he could move, a figure in a red hooded sweatshirt thrust his head and shoulders into the vehicle and brandished a pistol.
“Don’t move,” the hooded man warned. “Just be cool and you’ll live.”
Mulamba managed a weak nod. The man got in and pulled the door shut. Another similarly attired man opened the front door and slid into the driver’s seat, and without saying a word started the engine.
As the SUV pulled away, continuing down Kensington Gore, Mulamba barely noticed the scenery passing by.
5
Domenick Boucher sat back in his chair and let his gaze sweep around his office. The room had a comfortable familiarity to it. Even though much of his working day was spent on the move — visiting various directorate heads and their personnel, leading briefings in the conference rooms and the crisis center, shuttling back and forth between the White House, the Capitol, the Pentagon and other destinations throughout Washington — this space was his. It was, in every sense save the literal, home.
Boucher had occupied this office, and held the title of Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, for nine years, which meant he had been leading the organization longer than anyone in its sixty-six years of operation. That was longer even than the legendary Allan Dulles, who had overseen some of the most dramatic and controversial intelligence operations in the nation’s history, culminating in the disastrous Bay of Pigs incident. Boucher would not have quite such a notorious legacy.