I LAY back after the door closed behind them. The thin pillow the hospital provided wasn’t very comfortable, but compared to the dirt floor of the hut, it was the height of luxury. Of course, it wasn’t the same as Henry’s shoulder. That was the best pillow of all.
Chuck rubbed his face and settled back into the visitor’s chair.
I had a million questions for him, starting with why he’d ignored me for so long and ending with how he knew international spook politics. The latter was by far easier to ask than the first.
“Why did Shorty—Averya-what’s-his-face—know who you are? Why did he assume you had the canisters?” Even now, saying the word canisters made me think of old black-and-white spy movies. Knowing that some kind of secret government agency was involved made it worse. Next thing you know, James Bond was going to join the fun.
He opened his mouth, then shut it.
The door to my room clicked shut, and Mom came forward. She’d taken the time to shower when she’d checked into her hotel. She hadn’t taken the time to do her hair or put on makeup. I scooted over on the narrow hospital bed and beckoned her over to sit in the space I’d cleared. I grabbed her hand.
Mom looked at Chuck. “I think he deserves the whole story.”
Another silent conversation took place over my head. Was it an adult thing? Something learned in college? Whatever. It was getting annoying. “What story?”
Neither answered. At least not out loud.
“Damn it, somebody tell me something!”
Finally Chuck nodded and raked his fingers through his reddish-brown hair. “You asked how Averyanov knew my name. Well, it goes back almost twenty-five years. After med school I came to Africa with a special medical missionary program. It was a good opportunity to put my skills to use and do something worthwhile at the same time. I’d started at a camp in Chad for Sudanese refugees.”
So his story was going back into ancient history. I settled back to be updated on the last quarter century.
“I’d been there almost three years when an old college buddy approached me. He was working for a governmental agency—”
“Like the CIA?” Somehow I didn’t think he would say, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question.
“—for an agency that will remain nameless.” Chuck’s lips pursed. “It was his job to collect and analyze data from the field. The camp in Chad was ideally situated to transport information. Information from Libya, from Sudan. It was an international informational crossroads. He asked me to… keep an ear to the ground for any interesting information. I’d pass on whatever I learned.”
Holy shit. My father had worked for the CIA (or some other Nameless Agency).
“At first it was exciting. My work was satisfying and worthwhile, but then I got to do more, something that could have more far-reaching consequences. It’s easy to get caught up in that kind of excitement and patriotism. I began to take a more active role in the information exchange. I had contacts over half a continent and connections to several powerful government personnel. Eventually some people became suspicious of my role—not that I was deeply involved. The information that came through me was pretty small-time. But when the chance came to move to a camp in the Central African Republic, I jumped at it.
“Best decision I ever made,” he said, smiling at Mom. “I met your mom there, and then she was pregnant with you.”
Seeing that silly, infatuated look on Chuck’s face was a little surreal. At least they were good memories.
“I decided to quit my role as informant. There wasn’t much risk, but I wasn’t willing to put you or your mom at risk at all.”
Somehow I didn’t think it was that easy to quit the Nameless Agency. Chuck must have noticed something in my expression. “For the most part I was left alone. Every so often, though, something would come to me that had to be passed on. Somehow word got out. Some of the people who were compromised by the information that came my way learned about me. Threats were made. Threats against you and your mother.”
Mom’s hand tightened around mine, and she rested her head against mine.
“I had to get you out of the CAR. To do that I had to make a deal. You and your mom would be sent back to the States and protected until the threat was neutralized. In exchange, I’d stay and follow the daily routine until everyone believed that the rumors about me were just that: rumors. They also had to believe that you and your mom were sent away because things weren’t working out between us. It was another layer of protection.”
Chuck stood up and began to pace the small room. “I had to cut off all ties. There was too great a chance that any telephone or Internet activity was being monitored. It wasn’t supposed to last as long as it did. When things were deemed safe enough, so many years had gone by that I didn’t know how to approach you again.”
“How long?” I asked. That he stayed away to protect me and Mom, I’d think about later. But now I needed to know how long he’d been able to contact me and chose not to.
He slumped back into the chair. He knew what I was asking. “Two years.” “So at any point in the last two years you could have called and didn’t?”
“Would you have welcomed me?”
I opened my mouth to answer, and he cut me off. “Honestly. Would you have welcomed contact from me?”
“If you’d explained….”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t explain. Not then. I shouldn’t even be telling you any of this now.”
If he’d approached me two years ago, with no explanations, how would I have reacted?
I’d probably have told him to take a leap. In language that would have gotten me grounded.
“Isaiah,” Mom said, brushing a lock of hair off my forehead.
I jerked my head away. “You knew.” She flinched, but I ignored it. “I thought I could trust you, and all this time, you’ve been lying to me.”
“Isaiah—”
I held up a stalling hand and swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Never mind. Family drama later. How are we going to save Henry?”
No one had an answer.
I HAD nightmares that night. Not like the weird stress and ketone-toxicity-induced dreams I’d had when I was sick. These were regular, run-of-the-mill nightmares. I wasn’t in them, not really. I watched the scenes come and go like movie previews. Each trailer starred Henry. Each trailer illustrated a new and horrible torture. Each trailer killed something inside me.
In one, Shorty shot him, execution-style, when he found out the canisters he’d traded me for were fake.
In another, Snake Eyes raped him, over and over.
In one, Henry wasted away from starvation and dehydration.
In another, an infection growing on his hand from the snakebite spread until Henry’s whole arm was a mess of pus-filled, rotting flesh.
In one, the animals Henry loved so much slithered and crept into the hut. Snakes and spiders, talapoins and lovebirds, swarmed the room and ate him alive.
After each one, I woke screaming, heaving, tearing at the bedding and tubes that tangled my limbs.
After each one Mom or Chuck was there, soothing me back to sleep.
Needless to say, when I woke up the next morning I was far from refreshed.
I was, however, determined.
“Can I use your computer?”
Chuck had left at some point, to shower or to eat or something. Mom sat in a visitor’s chair (they’d had a second chair brought in during the night) doing something on her tablet.
She looked up in surprise. I guess she hadn’t known I’d woken up. She set the tablet down on the bed next to me. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. Stronger.” I sat up and ran my hands through my greasy hair. “In desperate need of a shower. Hungry.”
“I think we can take care of some of that.”
While she called the nurse in to order a meal and find out if I needed any kind of special clearance to take a shower, I grabbed her tablet and started a search. No doubt The Suits had some kind of fabulous computer query or program to get the information they needed. Since I didn’t have access to such a thing, I would go to the Internet. I accessed a satellite mapping site and pulled up an image of Cameroon. I zoomed in on Doumé and found the road we’d taken. I tracked our route to the turnoff onto P4 and zoomed in closer and closer. I don’t know what I expected, but the clarity of the image surprised me. At its closest zoom, I could actually make out buildings along the roadside. They were fuzzy and indistinct, but they were clearly buildings.
“They’ll have some food brought up in a little bit, and you’re free to take a shower in a minute. A nurse will be in to wrap your hand to keep the IV dry.” Mom peered over my shoulder as she delivered her updates. “What are you working on?”
“I’m finding Henry.” I tapped the spot on the map where I was pretty sure we’d come across the mercenaries. I switched to a notes screen on the tablet and entered the longitude and latitude coordinates so I could find it again.
“You should leave that to—”
“To whom? The nameless government agency that’s willing to sacrifice Henry? I don’t think so.”
She sighed. “I know this is… hard, but there’s nothing you can do. Especially from a hospital in Brussels.”
“Which is why I’m going back to Cameroon with Dad.”
“What?”
Before I could answer—though, honestly, I intended to ignore her startled questions—a nurse walked in with plastic wrap and tape.
“Can you do me a favor while I shower?” I asked as the nurse wrapped my hand.
“As long as it doesn’t include a plane ticket to Yaoundé.”
“Merci,” I said, thanking the nurse when she was done. She hovered a moment while I stood, probably making sure I didn’t fall down. It was a close call. My legs still felt like they were made of taffy instead of bones and muscle.
I made my way carefully to the attached bathroom, dragging the IV stand with me. “Can you find out if Wendy is okay?”
“Wendy?” My normally composed, supercapable mom sounded baffled. At any other time I’d have taken pride in that. Right now, I just needed information.
“Yeah. The gun I had? I took it from her. I think her dad’s abusing her. I want to make sure she’s okay.” I shut the door behind me before she could answer.
“Isaiah!”
There used to be a time when all I had to think about was an upcoming quiz or whether Mom would let me borrow the car to go out with my friends. Now I worried about Wendy and Henry and mercenaries and abusive fathers and sarin gas. Sarin for God’s sake. Because of my stupid decision, Mom had to send me halfway around the world. Because of me, she’d had to come halfway around the world. I figured I was doing the right thing by not telling anyone where I’d gotten the gun. I’d protected Wendy. Or so I thought. But I’d known—I’d known—that her father was a problem. Taking the gun wouldn’t have changed that.
The door to the bathroom opened. “I’m putting a clean gown on the counter,” Mom said.
I peeked around the edge of the shower curtain. “Any chance of getting some pajama bottoms or sweats or something?” Because, yeah, with all the important crap I had to worry about, at least pajama bottoms were something that could be attained without risking life or limb.
“Sure,” Mom said before shutting the door.
The trouble with the plan I had brewing was I didn’t know how much I could trust my memories. Sure, now I felt fine, almost back to normal in fact, but for so much of the time I’d spent at the mercenaries’ camp, I was a little loopy. Did I know what I thought I knew? Would what I knew even be helpful in any way? The list of things I didn’t know was much longer.
I didn’t know how many people manned the camp.
I didn’t know any names.
I couldn’t even swear to how many days I’d been there.
I didn’t know if any of the other huts were occupied.
I didn’t know if there were any kind of security measures in place. I assumed guards, but not how many or where they were stationed.
I used a washcloth to scrub at the dirt that had taken up a permanent position under my fingernails.
Who was I kidding? I was a kid. A bratty, self-centered kid, and I thought I’d somehow be able to rescue Henry?
I threw the washcloth into the corner and grabbed the tiny bottle of shampoo. By the time I’d washed and rinsed my hair twice, I had a plan.