A uniform knocked on the door and brought in fresh coffee. None of the men needed it; the energy in the room was high.
“We drove all the way back to the ranch after that, a lot of the drive in the dark, which was very tough. Koss was in the lead car with Van Oot, who was driving, and Danny. They drank hard the whole way back. I was in the other jeep and Joe Turner was driving. We didn’t drink and we didn’t talk much. I just wanted to get back to the mine, forget the whole thing. But it didn’t turn out that way.
“When we got back to the ranch, Van Oot and Danny were falling-down drunk and they found their way to beds somehow. Turner and me, we sat on the porch with Koss and he told us what he’d learned on the ride back—that the woman was Danny’s girlfriend, or something like that. We’d already figured that. He also said they thought this disease must have moved through pretty fast and that maybe half the village had fled. Nobody talked about it being contagious, but that was what everyone was thinking about. Nobody wanted to end up like the people we saw there.
“We spent the night at the ranch. Everyone was exhausted and slept through until the afternoon. When we finally woke up, Danny was vomiting and having cold sweats. It might have been a hangover, but everyone was real nervous. Then it hit me and we knew that we were in trouble. It started with the vomiting and then the chills. Turner wanted us to get in the jeep and head back to the mine; go to the infirmary there. I couldn’t go. I’ve been in combat. I know what my limits are and I just couldn’t go. Then it hit Van Oot and there was definitely no way we could do it with only two men healthy; so we were stuck.”
Somebody was banging on the door. Westermann exhaled hard in frustration and got up. He cracked the door to find one of the deputy chiefs, a career cop named Flamini, looking pissed.
“Get out here,” Flamini hissed.
Westermann gave Kraatjes a look, then left the room to meet with Flamini.
Flamini, within grasping distance of his pension, had one of those bodies with a thick torso and thin, bowed legs. His eyes were narrow with anger.
“What the fuck is going on in there? I’ve got a lawyer, one of Truffant’s guys, down here who wants to know why you’ve pulled this kid in. Says he wants to be in the room.”
“He’s not a suspect, sir. He’s a possible source in an investigation.”
“Yeah? If that’s so, why the fuck is Truffant sending one of his lawyers down here—paying a fucking mint in the process—to get this kid out?”
“I don’t have an answer for that.”
“Well, you can consider your interview over or you can charge him with a crime and let the lawyer in.”
The uniforms who were hanging around checked out the confrontation. Westermann looked around, saw Deyna leaning against the wall in the back. Their eyes met. Deyna winked.
Flamini said, “What’s it going to be, Lieutenant?”
Without turning, Westermann knocked twice on the door and waited until Kraatjes emerged.
Flamini reddened. “Jesus fucking Christ, what are you doing in there, Jack?”
Kraatjes stared at him. “We’re conducting an interview. What are you doing here?”
Westermann said, “There’s press here.”
“What?” Flamini snapped.
Westermann nodded toward Deyna, and Westermann’s two superiors looked over. Deyna played it cool.
Kraatjes spoke more quietly. “What are you doing here?”
Flamini told him about the lawyer.
Kraatjes kept his eyes on Flamini. “You can take this up with the Chief, but this interview is going to continue.”
“This is coming from higher up than the Chief.”
Kraatjes shook his head. “In this building, nobody’s higher up than the Chief.” Kraatjes turned back and opened the door. Westermann followed him in, leaving Flamini steaming but powerless.
“I’m sorry about that, Jimmy,” Kraatjes said quietly, taking his seat. “You were telling us that you and Danny were both sick.”
“Van Oot got sick, too. Not long after me—the vomiting, chills. I’m not sure how the days went, the three of us were really out of it, and Turner and Koss were trying to take care of us because the Africans who worked on the ranch got spooked when they saw us, the condition we were in, and just kind of disappeared. I remember—or I think I remember—being outside as it was becoming dark. I don’t know why I would have been. But the ranch had this huge porch, I think he called it a veranda, and it had these big wicker chairs and tables, and I remember looking at it in that yellow light and it being empty and thinking that we were totally alone out there; and we were dying.
“I don’t know, maybe four, five days after we got back, Danny was really sick—there was blood on the floor from where he’d been vomiting. We couldn’t wake him up. There was this wind that was howling and kicking up sand and dust, a real storm. These Africans showed up in two army jeeps. They pull up and there were maybe three with machine guns who stayed on the porch, and this other guy, real dark-skinned and wearing sunglasses, he came in and talked to Turner and Koss. They took him to see Danny and then Van Oot and me. We were all in bed. This guy was real thin and he wore his shirt unbuttoned and he had this wooden cross on a leather thong. Danny, this guy said, the life had already left him, like his body was just going through the motions of dying. Me and Van Oot, he gave us some kind of drink that he made, I didn’t see what was in it, but it was foul-tasting and I’ve drank strychnine in church, so I know. I threw a lot of it up, but some of it stayed down. I came out to see the rest of them on the porch. Van Oot and Danny were too sick to get out of bed, but Turner and Koss and the Africans were drinking beer.
“The guy with the sunglasses said his name was Senah Glélé—I remember the name, Koss wouldn’t shut up about him. Anyway, Glélé said that he’d been sent by Legba to save the children of Jesus. I had a pretty good fever; he seemed strange but no stranger than anything else.”
“Who’s Legba?” Westermann asked. “A tribal chief?”
“What? A chief?” Jimmy laughed cynically. “No, Legba’s an African god. They had a lot of gods over there.”
Westermann nodded. “Sorry, Jimmy, please go on.”
“Yeah, well, Glélé, he said Koss had the disease, too, but he wasn’t affected by it, maybe because he was so close to God. I remember that he stared for a long time at Koss, like studying or something, and that wasn’t something Koss normally would have been good with. But he let Glélé do it.
“They left, but by then Danny was gone and Van Oot died the next morning. I started recovering quickly after the visit, but you can see how it left me.” Symmes pointed to his sagging face, his withered arm.
“Koss knew that I was a Christian, but what most interested him was what Glélé had said about him not being affected by the disease because he was so close to God. He really took that to heart, started thinking he was special, or chosen, or something. The thing was, when we made it back to the mine and they were able to take blood samples and all that, it turned out later that he did have the virus, but he didn’t show any symptoms. So Glélé had been right.”
Kraatjes had his hands together, fingers and palms flat against each other. He looked somewhere over Symmes’s shoulder, trusting that Westermann would catch Symmes’s reactions.
“Do you think, James, that your Christian faith saved you?”
Symmes’s shoulders drooped. “I’ve thought about that a lot. I know what Koss thinks, that he’s some kind of special child of God or some such. Me, I don’t know. Van Oot and his friend were so far gone by the time Glélé arrived, it might have just been too late for that medicine to help them. I’ll tell you this though; before then, Koss wasn’t one for religion, so I don’t know why the Lord would have spared him. But I don’t know.”
Westermann asked, “Do you know that Ole Koss is in Prosper Maddox’s congregation?”
“I do.”
“What do you think of that?”
“Koss, well, he found religion real fast once he thought he had a special part in it. He knew about Dr. Maddox from me, from killing time out at the mine. So, I guess it doesn’t surprise me too much.”
Westermann was about to follow up when there was a perfunctory knock and the door was flung open. A uniform stepped in, followed by Flamini. “This interview is over,” Flamini said, smirking.
Kraatjes was out of his chair. Westermann stayed seated, deferring to his authority.
“You get in touch with the Chief?”
“The mayor did.”
“The Chief knows the pecking order.”
Kraatjes nodded and turned to Symmes. “You want to leave?”
Symmes seemed confused by the situation and stared mutely at Kraatjes.
Flamini said, “Let’s get him out of the room, there’s someone here to take him.”
Outside, Ole Koss stood with his arms crossed, and next to him, Big Rolf. Westermann stared at his father, feeling the anger rising in him.
“Hey, Jimmy,” Koss said, as if they were just two good friends meeting after a long separation.
Symmes was silent, his eyes darting desperately back and forth between Kraatjes and Koss.
“Jimmy?” Koss pressed.
“Ole.” Symmes’s voice sounded hollow, lost.
Westermann put his hand on Symmes’s shoulder, leaned in so that he could talk in his ear. “You want to leave with Ole Koss? We can set you up with a bunk here, if you want, or a hotel where we put up witnesses. You don’t have to leave with him.”
Symmes nodded, seeming to understand.
Big Rolf looked to Kraatjes. “My client would like a word with Mr. Symmes. I assume you have no objection.”
“Go ahead.”
Koss and Symmes walked to a corner of the squad room. A group of uniforms eyed Koss, gave him room.
Westermann seethed. “Rolf.” He nodded to his office. His father followed him in. Westermann left the door open; saw some uniforms looking in from across the squad room.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Big Rolf played it neutral. “I’m Prosper Maddox’s lawyer, Piet. I’m representing his interests.”
“But why this? Why now? You haven’t represented him in the past, have you?”
“My client hasn’t been the target of police harassment in the past. He hasn’t needed representation.”
Westermann shook his head. “Do you have any idea what is going on here?”
Big Rolf reddened. “How dare you?”
Westermann saw then that his father had no idea; no idea at all.
“Rolf,” he said slowly, “if Jimmy Symmes walks out of here with Koss, whatever happens after that is on your conscience.”
Big Rolf opened his mouth to speak, but Westermann brushed past him.
Koss and Symmes stood with Kraatjes.
Westermann said, “Are you staying with us, Jimmy?”
Symmes shook his head.
Kraatjes said, “He’s decided to leave with Mr. Koss.”
Westermann saw that Koss had Symmes’s bag. “You sure?”
Koss stepped forward. “He’s made his decision.”
Big Rolf joined them. Koss took Symmes by the arm and led him toward the exit, Symmes hobbling along with the help of his cane. Big Rolf took a step to follow, stopped, and looked at Westermann. Westermann met his father’s eyes and saw things he’d never before seen there: confusion, uncertainty, fear.