Chapter 33

 

At eight a.m., Elaine and Dmitry were sitting in the SUV, parked at the Chagoua Roundabout. Giorgio Cattoretti was still in the back of the vehicle, lying on his side, dozing.

Elaine could scarcely believe that they’d finally arrived in N’Djamena after such a long and difficult journey. They had driven all night on side roads and animal trails, and had avoided any major problems, although they’d gotten stuck in the mud a few times. It had rained off and on. Right now it was overcast, with intermittent drizzle.

Although Elaine was relieved to be back in “civilization,” she was now worried that something had happened to Nick, that he’d been seriously hurt, or even killed, by the Janjaweed. She regretted not making more of an effort to stop him—his life was hardly worth having Raj arrested, and she worried that her anger at him over Isabella had tainted her thinking. He was already half an hour late and she hadn’t heard a word from him. In another hour, Raj would be arriving at the airport, and shortly thereafter heading to the hotel, expecting to meet with Stanley Ketchum. She was sure that if the package wasn’t waiting for him at the hotel’s front desk, everything would fall apart.

She picked up the sat-phone and called Nick’s number, which was actually Stan’s old number, but hung up after a few seconds—she got the same “turned off or out of the service area” message that she’d gotten the last few times. She’d called Luna, too, to see if maybe Nick had contacted her, but she hadn’t heard a word from him either.

Elaine glanced at Dmitry. He was just sitting there, watching the cars and trucks roll around the roundabout, and the Chadians and foreigners milling around the kiosks, browsing and bargaining with the sellers. She knew he was wondering what they would do if Nick did not show up with the diamonds, but that he didn’t want to ask—if Nick didn’t show up, that would likely mean that Nick was dead.

Elaine had done a lot of reflecting on the situation with Nick and Isabella, and decided that she ought to forgive him. Raj and Cattoretti were the ones at fault—they’d set Nick up with her and had taken advantage of his natural human decency. Before he’d left to go after the diamonds, he told her that Raj had changed Isabella’s cell phone records to make him think the woman had aggressively tried to stop him from going on the suicide mission. Nick had a good heart and always gave people the benefit of the doubt, and that’s one of many reasons Elaine loved him. He deserved to be given the benefit of the doubt, too.

“Janyet?” Dmitry said, drawing her out of her thoughts. He was pointing ahead. “Maybe that is Nick?”

She saw a compact had just pulled over, parking right behind a truck full of watermelons that was trying to back out into the roundabout. There was a rental sticker on the back window.

The door opened.

Nick climbed out.

Relief rushed through Elaine’s weary body, more relief than she wanted to admit.

The robed driver of the watermelon truck got out and started yelling at him, but he just raised his hand and came over to the SUV, limping.

Elaine glanced down at his leg as he approached her window.

“Are you alright?” she said.

“Yeah, just a little banged up.”

“I’ve been trying to call—”

“I lost the sat-phone.”

“Did you manage to...?” she began, but she didn’t have to finish the question—his grin told her that he’d gotten the diamonds back.

He leaned up against the window, the truck driver still yelling at him in Arabic, and subtly reached down and pulled the beige cloth pouch from his pocket and slipped it to her.

Elaine flinched when she saw the blood smeared across it.

“I didn’t even have to kill anybody. I shot the old man but it wasn’t fatal.” Nick shrugged. “Some rebels or Chadian soldiers showed up right afterwards, not sure what they did to him.”

The watermelon truck driver was still yelling at him.

“Just one goddam minute, okay?” Nick snapped.

Elaine glanced at her watch again. “We have to hurry if we’re going to get these to the hotel before Raj arrives.”

Nick glanced into the rear of the SUV, noticing that Cattoretti was still there. “What are you going to do with him?”

Elaine hesitated, not sure how Nick would react. “I was thinking you could stay here and watch him until we have Raj arrested. Just a few more hours. If you don’t mind.”

“And then what?”

Fortunately, the watermelon truck driver had gotten back in his vehicle and layed on his horn, nonstop, and Elaine didn’t have to answer.

Nick looked into the window at Dmitry. “Come on, follow me.”

 

* * *

A moment later, they were following Nick in the little rental car, heading towards the outskirts of N’Djamena. As they drove along, Elaine excitedly called Luna. “We got the diamonds back—we’re GO!” They discussed a few details of their plan and she told Luna she would call back shortly to continue.

By the time she cut the call, Nick turned down a dirt road that ran parallel with the river, where there were lots of Chadians bathing and doing laundry, despite the fact that it had started raining again.

Nick made another right-hand turn and they drove down a road that wound back and forth through clusters of huts and finally out into a large open field of long grasses.

He stopped and got out, glancing around, and then reached inside the car and pulled out a pistol. He stepped over to the back of the SUV.

“Unlock the back door,” he told Dmitry.

Elaine turned around in her seat and watched Nick open it. Cattoretti was sleeping, apparently.

“Wake up!” Nick said, roughly punching Giorgio’s sandaled foot.

Cattoretti muttered something, then raised his head suddenly when he saw the pistol pointed at him.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“Get out,” Nick said. “You’re coming with me.”

Cattoretti craned his head around as Nick dragged him out of the back. “Elaine! Don’t let him do this!”

“He’s not going to hurt you,” Elaine said, but Nick had already slammed the door shut. With Cattoretti’s hands still bound behind his back, Nick marched him past Elaine’s window but he stopped short, looking pleadingly at her. “Elaine, what are you doing?”

“Shut up,” Nick said, and shoved him ahead. Cattoretti kept looking back at her as Nick opened the car door and pushed him into the back seat.

“Elaine, you can’t let him do th—”

Nick slammed the door closed.

He walked back over to Elaine’s window.

She handed him a plastic bag that contained all of Cattoretti’s fake passports and sat-phone. “Promise me, Nick.”

He glanced at Dmitry, then looked back at Elaine. “Promise you what?”

“That you won’t do anything to him.”

“I promise. Unless he tries to escape, that is.”

“No, Nick, not even if he tries to escape.”

Nick just stood there, holding the plastic bag, watching her. “I really don’t understand your relationship with that prick.” Yet she thought there was a knowing gleam in his eye.

Elaine swallowed. Was he hinting that he knew Cattoretti was Ryan’s biological father?

She said, “You would never kill anyone in cold blood—I know you.”

“But what if he tries to escape?”

“Come on, Nick, don’t play games with yourself, you’re too intelligent for that.”

Cattoretti had managed to turn around and was watching them through the rear window, listening.

Nick shrugged and said, “Okay, fine. I’ll treat the Italian slime bag with kid gloves, if that’s what you want.”

“Just promise me you won’t harm him, Nick.”

He hesitated. “Why?”

“Just promise me. Please? As a personal favor to me?”

Nick looked into her eyes for a few seconds, and then muttered, “Fine, you have my word,” and walked back to the car.