Davidia must still be here. I have no reason to believe they’ve taken her elsewhere.
Michael Adriko is elsewhere. He never got here. He’s gone. He got away.
* * *
After two days’ grilling, I got a break.
Off-line, I finished transcribing the handwritten letter to Tina. The notebook pages ended with this quick entry:
I’ve slept two hours with my face on the table and just woke up to find everything changed. The general returned my pack and clothes and even several hundred of my 4K dollars — all the twenties.
Michael’s sitting in the back of the general’s pickup — hands unbound. I saw Davidia getting in the front. The day has turned. Whether it turns upside down I
Much activity — time to go—
… All right, Tina, there you have it. My rise from terrified prisoner to confused detainee.
Michael or Davidia must have told the Congolese Army about her connection with the 10th Special Forces. And only about Davidia’s connection, surely, because when Michael disappeared, nobody cared.
Last time I saw Michael I was getting in the truck, up front, with the Congolese so-called general and Davidia. Michael leaned over the rail, nearly into my window, and handed me a pellet of chewing gum. “Here. Keep yourself busy.”
When we made our rendezvous that night, it was like a magic trick. During a rain, the men in the back of the general’s pickup had covered themselves with a dark plastic tarp. They whipped the tarp off. Michael had vanished.
Our escort were three US infantry Nissan pickups, just like our general’s, only olive rather than white.
As Davidia and I boarded, one of the youngsters who’d guarded us said to me, “Newada Mountain.”
“Yes?”
“I am from there. I am Kakwa.”
“Yes?”
“Your friend is there.”
“Michael? My African friend?”
“Yes. He left to Newada Mountain.”
“Oh!” I said — getting it for the first time—“New Water Mountain.”
As for lately, Tina: no activity to report. I’ve spent the day in idleness, in limbo, in hope. I’ve made a proposal, and wheels may be turning. We just might forge an arrangement. In any case, they haven’t said no, and they’ve given me a day off. I can use one — my head still spins, and I slept very little last night, and before that I had no appetite for dinner, as my lunch was interrupted when this American, wow, a genuine asshole — attached to NIIA I suppose, but he withheld identification — dropped out of the sky.
I was sitting at a table with Patrick Roux, my tentmate and alleged fellow detainee, when we heard what must have been this new man’s chopper landing but thought nothing of it, choppers come and go. Ten minutes later he entered and bumped across the cafeteria like a blimpy cartoon animal, I mean in a state of personal awkwardness, as if balancing a stack of plates, but he carried only his hands before him, at chest level. A blue checked shirt, khaki pants, brown loafers. “Come and talk to me.”—And I said, “No.” He had a fringe of brown hair with a big bald spot. He had fat cheeks and soulful, angry eyes. Reasonably young, mid-thirties.
He stood by my place leaning on the table and looking down at me until a sergeant and a private came and lifted me by either arm from behind. As they quick-marched me out, he went over to the serving line, apparently for some lunch.
Online, just before I pressed SEND, I added:
The soldiers took me to a tent, and the sergeant left, and the private stood at ease by the tent fly, and I sat on one half of the furniture, that is, on one of two folding chairs.
The sergeant returned with a chair of his own, unfolded it, and sat down and stared at me. Together we waited thirty minutes for my first interrogator.
I said nothing, and the sergeant said nothing.
He was present every minute of every session, and he always said nothing, and he never stopped staring.
* * *
My answers had to come fast. He who hesitates is lying.
“We’ve been getting a lot of NTRs from you.”
“We?”
“Your reports have been forwarded to us. They were all NTRs.”
“If there’s nothing to report, that’s what I report. Would you rather I make things up?”
“Why would you transmit two identical NTRs with a thirty-second interval between them?”
My stomach sank down to my groin. It irritated me that I couldn’t control my breath.
“On October second you sent two NTRs in a row from the Freetown facility, thirty seconds apart. Why is that?”
“It was my initial utilization of the equipment. I chose to double up.”
“But on October eleventh you sent an NTR from the Arua station. Weren’t you utilizing that equipment for the first time?”
“It didn’t seem necessary to be redundant. I had confidence in the equipment because the setup there seemed more robust — was obviously more robust.”
“Why don’t you go Danish if you’re working Danish?”
“Pardon?”
“If you’re working as a Dane, why don’t you travel as a Dane?”
“I thought I was working for NATO.”
“You’re an army captain.”
“Yes.”
“In whose army?”
“Denmark.”
“Flashing a US passport.”
“A Danish passport is something of a risk, because I hardly speak Danish at all. It makes me look bogus.”
“Two NTRs thirty seconds apart — isn’t that a pretty crude and obvious signal?”
He was right. I kept quiet.
“Who intercepted that crude and obvious signal? Who was it actually meant for?”
“This is boring. Can’t we just talk?”
“I see you’re in red.”
“You’re noticing only now?”
“White is for the grown-ups. Red is for the noncompliant. Gitmo protocol.”
“Guantánamo Bay?”
“Yes.”
“All those nifty short forms — I hate them.”
“Give us a location on Michael Adriko.”
Here I counted to five before admitting, “I’ve lost him.”
“General location. Uganda? Congo?”
“Congo.”
“East? West?”
“East.”
“Close to here?”
“I could only guess.”
“Then do so.”
“I believe he has reason to be in the area.”
“You had him, you lost him, he’s reachable. We should know that. Isn’t that something to report?”
“From what facility? We’ve been in the bush.”
“I’d call it something to report.”
I raised a middle finger. “Report this.”
“Believe me, I will.”
“Good.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said. “Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“Smoke pot? Opium?”
“Never.”
“Which one?”
“Cut it out.”
“What about alcohol?”
“Yes.”
“Correct. You were reported drunk in the restaurant of the Papa Leone there in Freetown on…” He consulted his notepad.
Fucking Horst. Old Bruno. “The evening of the sixth,” I said.
“So you agree.”
“I agree on the date. Not on my condition. I didn’t take a Breathalyzer.”
“What about when you sent the meltdown message, rockets up your ass and ‘go fuck yourselves’ and all that, were you drunk?”
“I’m sober now. Go fuck yourself.”
He said, “Captain Nair, in March of 2033 they’ll give me a gold watch, and I can retire. Till then I’ve got nothing to do but this.”
“I’m through answering questions.”
“As you wish. But you and I will stay right here.”
“When can I see an attorney?”