Stone now remembered the driver’s name. Mitchell. Five years before, the man had worked for the RSO, or more accurately Jonathan Worthington, the chief investigator for the embassy’s security office. He was a local employee known by the State Department as a foreign service national, or FSN.
“I apologize, Mr. Mitchell. On the bus, your name was on the tip of my tongue, but …”
Mitchell placed his right hand on his heart. “No sir, I should have said something, Mr. Hayden.”
“How do I get in touch with my friend Jonathan Worthington?”
Mitchell’s face clouded. His eyes filled with tears. Ignoring Stone’s question, he looked away and addressed Sandra. “The van is ready, madame.”
She rose. “See you later. If I live.”
Stone patted her on the back. “I’ll be back early afternoon. Can I bring you anything?”
Sandra shook her head and headed for the door. Mitchell closed the door behind them, avoiding eye contact with Stone. The door reopened and Craig stuck his head in, motioning with his index finger for Stone to follow. The countersurveillance team was ready to support Stone for his meet with Dirk Lange.
Two blocks from the central square, Hayden Stone found York Export Ltd. in the shadow of Electricity House. The city roadway in this section of town looked reasonably maintained; however, the sidewalks were cracked and broken. Stone carefully negotiated a deep hole. A twisted ankle was the last thing he needed. The two-story building where he found Dirk Lange’s office had recently been painted bright white, which contrasted starkly with the surrounding area of pockmarked structures plastered with faded, tattered posters. A sign hung to the right of the door and in Gothic font stated YORK EXPORT was on the second floor. Stone found the front door locked.
After repeated knocks — the doorbell didn’t work — a slight Sierra Leonese woman appeared at the door and asked his business. Stone told her he wanted to speak with Lange, at which she shook her head but opened the door wider and led him toward a stairway. The interior of the building smelled fresh from a new coat of paint, and sections of the wood staircase had been replaced.
He followed her up the stairs where a middle-aged man waited. “Sir. Pity you have missed Mr. Lange,” he said. “Presently he travels in the Kono District. He should return from Koidu tomorrow.” The temperature inside the building was stifling, and the man dabbed his shiny black face with a handkerchief.
“Made sense,” Stone thought. Koidu’s was where the diamond fields were located. He continued up the stairs. “May I leave a card for Mr. Lange?” Stone asked with an Irish brogue.
The man nodded and invited Stone into the clean, almost sterile office. The outer space contained four desks at which women worked vintage computers. Their eyes darted up to Stone and returned to their monitors. Three closed two-door safes were positioned in separate corners of the room. Through an open door Stone looked into what looked like Lange’s office. An up-to-date desktop computer sat on a credenza behind the desk alongside a satellite phone dock. Maps of Sierra Leone and greater Africa hung throughout the office.
Stone pulled out his Irish passport and looked inside. “Seems I’ve left my cards behind. May I give you my name and contact number, Mr. …?”
“I am Amadu. The office manager.”
As Amadu searched for a notepad, Stone tried to read the computer screen on the desk next to him. He glimpsed rows of numbers under a heading of what seemed to be a Dutch firm, name not recognized. The office was, as they say in the intelligence trade, clean. Not much could be learned on first sight, but the lack of telltale signs sometimes told more than intended.
Amadu returned with paper and pencil, and Stone said, “My name is Finbarr Costanza.” He gave him a telephone number to the cell phone Craig had provided. “I’ll drop by again tomorrow afternoon.”
“I suggest you call beforehand, sir. If the telephone is working.” Amadu frowned. “May I tell Mr. Lange the nature of your business?”
“I’m a travel writer.”
“Really?” The slight lift of Amadu’s eyebrow revealed amusement.
“Searching for ideas and possibilities.”
Leaving York Export, Stone took the route planned by Craig and his team. They instructed him to walk to the town center and after a few blocks turn east until he came to an eating establishment by the name of Goldie’s. The café stood in sight of the once-famous two-story City Hotel that now reportedly served as a base for prostitutes.
Along the way, Stone picked up the countersurveillance. The three Africans and two Americans that Craig had placed on him. Their operational techniques impressed Stone. He had gone three blocks when he heard people singing a hymn. The music came from behind a dilapidated storefront, its front window displaying a taped-on cardboard white cross. He walked in out of curiosity and to puzzle the men following him.
Stone surmised the church was either Catholic or Anglican as the priest wore a white collar and around his neck a clerical stole, a long, narrow piece of purple cloth. At the far end of the dimly lighted room, a gold chalice draped with a white cloth sat in the middle of a table. The congregation consisted of fewer than a dozen people and was, like their minister, black. Heads were bowed and eyes closed in prayer. Feeling like an intruder, Stone turned to leave but saw the stand holding a few lighted votive candles. He walked over and looked for a fresh candle.
“We must hide them,” came a low voice from behind. The priest opened a drawer and withdrew a white candle. “Some of our parishioners take them home for nighttime. They have no electricity.”
The priest looked ageless, face scarred, his right eye socket sewn shut. An apparent victim of the war.
“Here, Father. For your candle and the parish.” Stone emptied his wallet of all but a ten-dollar bill.
Without counting the currency, the priest tilted his head and returned to his flock, now singing a new hymn. Following a ritual when on a mission, Stone lit the candle for his family and ancestors.
Inside Goldie’s café, which matched the hotel across the street for shabbiness, he found Craig leaning against the counter chatting with a wizened woman. He handed Stone a cold Coke bottle that looked twenty years old and had been refilled as many times.
“That was fast,” Craig said.
“My client’s out of town. Maybe tomorrow I’ll see him.”
Craig looked disappointed. Was it because Stone wouldn’t be leaving as soon as he had hoped?
“Well then,” Craig said. “I suppose you’ll have time to see the sights. By the way, the team reported you’re clean. No one followed you.”
“I’m going to look up an old friend,” Stone said, debating if he trusted what was in the drink and if indeed it was what the label claimed, or some exotic refill from a backroom vat. “Jonathan Worthington. He worked for the embassy when I was here last.”
Stone returned to the embassy. At the entrance, he observed the driver, Mitchell, pulling up to the curb. He approached and inquired about Sandra.
“She was happy to get back to her lodging, Mr. Hayden. Do you wish me to take you back to the compound also?”
“Not quite yet. Let’s sit in the van.”
Mitchell looked ahead and only responded in short, clipped sentences to Stone’s questions about Freetown and the troubles the city had experienced. Stone asked the question that he sensed Mitchell wanted to avoid: Where was Jonathan, and did he no longer work at the embassy.