“No!” the man said as the pliers swung toward him. “Yes!” He was almost crying.
“Who came here tonight?”
He blubbered, gasping in panic, hardly able to get the words out. “A man. And… a woman.”
“Describe them to me.”
“The man was tall. He had a beard. And his eyes… different colors.”
“And the woman?”
“Young. Yellow hair.” The man gasped. “Please — it hurts!”
“Blond? Not dark-haired?”
“No, no. Ahhh!” Blood was pooling over the top of the table now.
“There was nobody else?”
“No. Just the two. And — and their cargo.”
“What cargo?”
“It was…” The man gasped. “A coffin.”
“Coffin?”
The man nodded desperately. “A big coffin. Refrigerated.”
A refrigerated coffin. “What did they want?”
“They rented a Rover. A, a Land Rover.”
“What else?”
“They asked for tie-downs. To lash the coffin into the bed of the Rover.”
“Anything more?”
Sweat was pouring from the man’s forehead, dripping from his nose, mingling with the blood on the table. “No. But they loaded their own supplies in with the coffin.”
“What supplies?”
“Water. Petrol. Camping gear.”
“How much petrol?”
He swallowed. “Dozen jerrycans, maybe more.”
“Where did they get the supplies?”
The man shook his head. “They were in the van they arrived in.”
The van. Shona, too, had mentioned a waiting van. It must have contained not only the petrol and water — but the refrigerated coffin, as well. Diogenes had planned even that — on the plane, if not before. At the thought, Proctor felt a shudder go through his frame.
But a van would not be well equipped for desert travel. A Land Rover, on the other hand, would.
“Did you see where they went?”
The salesman jerked his head. “East. They headed east, on the B6.”
East. In the direction of Botswana — and the Kalahari Desert.
Proctor took firm hold of the letter opener. Then he yanked it away from the table, out of the man’s hand. He did the same with the awl. Then, ripping the oily rag in two with his teeth, he quickly fashioned tourniquets and applied them to the hands.
“I need an all-terrain vehicle,” he said. He glanced out toward the lot, where a variety of cars gleamed in the remaining sodium light; there was one Land Cruiser, tricked out for desert travel. “That Land Cruiser. How much?”
“Take it,” the man said, weeping and cradling his mangled, bleeding hands. “Take it!”
“No, I’ll rent it.” Proctor did not want to be found with a stolen vehicle. “How much?”
“Nine thousand Namibian a week.” The man forced himself back up into the chair, where he rocked back and forth, forearms crossed before him, making a low keening sound.
Proctor counted out fifteen hundred American dollars and tossed them on the bloody table. “That should cover it for two. Get me the paperwork and receipt. Make sure everything’s in order.” He tossed a hundred more dollars at the man. “That’s to get some medical attention. Clean the place up. And keep your mouth shut — I don’t want anybody thinking I’ve paid you a visit. If I’m bothered — by police, military — I’ll come looking for you, and…” Instead of finishing the sentence, Proctor shifted his gaze to the pliers.
“No,” the man whimpered.
Proctor looked at the office’s watercooler. “I’ll take that jug. Do you have more?”
“…Closet.”
“Maps?”
“On the shelf.”
“Extra jerrycans of petrol?”
The man fumbled a key from around his neck. “In the shed. Back of the lot.”
Ten minutes later, Proctor was on the B6, driving east at high speed, heading for the border, with fifteen gallons of water, fifty extra gallons of petrol, and a full set of maps of southern Africa, from Namibia to Botswana.
10
Proctor had raced eastward on route B6 through Witvlei, then Gobabis, covering the two-hundred-plus-mile journey to the border crossing with Botswana in three hours. At the Mamuno border post a bit of money — strategically exchanged — had confirmed that the vehicle with the refrigerated coffin passed through less than two hours before, and for an additional sum Proctor had obtained a Botswanan visa on the spot. The process was swift and efficient, and in less than ten minutes he was once again on his way.
It was at this point that the chase — and Proctor’s progress — slowed significantly.
The B6 ended at a north — south highway called the A3. The exchange was situated at the edge of the Kalahari Desert, vacant and free of any roadside businesses. From this point he could not be certain which way Diogenes had gone. Proctor chose the route north, toward a town called Ghanzi, primarily on the basis that it was the road less traveled. He felt confident Diogenes had not taken the A3 south. The man would not risk trying to bribe a coffin through South African border controclass="underline" it was a stricter, less corrupt country, known for enforcing regulations. And it seemed logical, somehow, that Diogenes would head into the Kalahari Desert rather than away from it.
But for what purpose, he had no idea.
When Proctor reached Ghanzi, a bustling desert town, he realized something was amiss. It took many inquiries — he did not speak Setswanan — until he finally confirmed that the Land Rover had not passed through. Now he drove back along the A3, slowly and painstakingly, pondering where he’d gone wrong. He remained confident that Diogenes and the girl had turned north, rather than south — which meant that, along the way, his quarry had turned off the highway onto one of the sparse desert tracks that led deep into the Kalahari. But which one?
He tried one track after another as he headed back south. None showed any signs of tire tracks. At last, he pulled off the highway yet again to consult his maps. Although it was many hours from dawn, tremendous stored heat radiated off the asphalt in waves. Eastward lay the vast, untamed expanse of the Kalahari, populated only by sparse numbers of Bushmen and a scattering of isolated game camps for tourists. In the 250,000 square miles of desert, there was nothing else — no paved roads and no towns. He looked up from his map to gaze across the infinite, sand-colored plains, dotted with scrub and the occasional acacia tree, barely distinguishable in the moonlight.
But there was a town — of sorts — marked on the map. A settlement called New Xade, about sixty miles east, connected to the highway by a dirt road. Proctor sensed this was the road Diogenes must have taken; all the others he’d passed were not on the map and looked improvised and unreliable.
He backtracked to the New Xade turnoff: an unmarked, sandy track leading like an arrow into the darkness. Before he turned in, he pulled his Land Cruiser over to the shoulder again and got out. First he used a flashlight to examine his own tires, new Michelin XPSs, noting the distinctive tread. Then he went to the turnoff and, with the aid of the headlights, examined the sand — and there he saw the marks of a similar tread, turning off the road from the south and heading east. The tread was fresh, and no other car had turned off since.
Grimly energized, he drove eastward along the straight dirt road, toward the town of New Xade. Whether that was their final destination, or whether they were continuing on into the untracked desert, was something Proctor could not know for sure. But judging from the amount of water and petrol Diogenes had taken, he believed the man would be continuing on, deep into the Kalahari Desert, on a multiday journey, for reasons unknown — with Constance’s corpse.