41

Rafael and Rodrigo grinned as the guards chucked me from the truck, tied up like a roast. The sand didn’t do much to cushion the fall. I hit the ground with a groan.

“Mr. Camara, how wonderful to see you again,” the Spaniard said.

“The feeling’s not mutual, you sack of shit.”

Rodrigo walked closer, his hand on his weapon.

“So, fatty, how are the neck and the ear?” I said, sniggering. “Not infected, I hope.”

The Venezuelan drew his Beretta.

“Wait!”

The Buddha had come over, accompanied by the National Guard officer, a colonel, judging by the stripes on his shoulder.

“What’s going on here? Who is this man?”

Rafael glanced at the soldiers, who were tensing up, and at the Arab bodyguards, whose rifles were at the ready. He relaxed his shoulders in an effort to calm himself.

“Nobody… He’s nobody, just a nuisance. A private detective who’s been snooping in our business. We’ll fix that right away.

“Don’t believe any of that, General,” I sneered. “Killing me would be counterproductive.”

The Buddha went white. “What makes you think I’m a general?”

I knew I was being way too cocky, but I had to gain some time any way I could.

“They may be wearing civilian clothes, but your men are clearly soldiers. Besides, the colonel here gave you a respectful military salute. From that I deduced, you’re a rank above him, which would make you a general. I’m leaning toward Algeria’s military. The Nigerien plates on your vehicles are obviously a decoy.”

“Obviously,” the Buddha repeated.

He coldly assessed me with his small piglike eyes.

“You’re quite the Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you?”

“He’s nothing but a French has-been cop,” Rafael said.

“Let’s not dwell on the past, Rafael. After all, you were a Spanish cop before you got into cocaine.”

While we were talking, the bundles were still being loaded onto the pickups. They had to be worth several million euros. Enough to make your head spin. I decided to switch over to the colonel, who was standing off to the side.

“Colonel, you’ll be getting a call from Bamako soon. It’ll be for me. When the call comes, please be kind enough to hand over your communications device.”

“What? What does that mean?” the colonel asked. His eye twitched almost imperceptibly.

The Buddha pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “Explain to me, Mr. Camara, why I shouldn’t kill you like a dog right here and now. No one will find your body and—”

The colonel’s satellite phone started pinging. The Buddha rolled his eyes as the colonel answered, excusing himself. He gave the caller a bit of customary sucking up and then went white. He started protesting, claiming he didn’t understand what he was being accused of. With a defeated look on his face, he shook his head. Finally he handed me the phone—a brand new Thuraya.

“It’s for you,” he muttered.

He signaled a guard to untie my hands. I grabbed the phone, my heart beating wildly.

“Yes?”

“Solo, are you all right?”

It was Hamidou Kansaye.

“For the time being, but I doubt that’ll last.”

“I wanted to make sure you were alive. Give the phone back to Doumbia.”

“Who?”

“Doumbia, the National Guard commander.”

I handed the phone back.

Next to me, the Buddha was fussing. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?”

Doumbia was having a heated discussion with Kansaye. I was glad I wasn’t in his place. But I wasn’t particularly fond of the place I was in either. He ended the call at last, wiping the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. He signaled to one of his men.

“Lassana! Free him.”

Rodrigo intervened before Rafael had time to stop him. “What? Are you crazy! This cabrón is going to rat us all out. We have to get rid of him.”

The National Guard soldiers pointed their weapons at the Venezuelan. I could tell by their tense faces and nervous fingers that a simple gust of wind could set off a shootout. Rafael put a hand on his partner’s arm.

“Rodrigo, please shut your mouth.”

“This asshole-bitch is a protégé of the police commissioner,” Doumbia said. “Who made it very clear that if anything happens to his boy, we’ll pay for it. I don’t want to get involved with the police.”

The Buddha rolled his eyes.

Clearly, Rodrigo didn’t know when to leave well enough alone. “So what? Why should we give a shit about the police commissioner? Shoot the fucker, and let’s be done with it.”

“You don’t know Hamidou Kansaye. If we kill his protégé, my career is fucked, along with my business.”

The guards stepped between me and the drug traffickers.

“We’ll just buy him off, like the others,” the Buddha said.

“We can’t. This is his boy.”

“He’s his son?”

“Pretty much. If I kill him, Kansaye will be on us like a pit bull. He won’t let go till we’re dead. You got it?”

Rafael hadn’t taken his eyes off me. I could tell he was thinking hard.

“Doumbia’s right. Free him,” he said, surrendering.

“What? You too, Rafael?” Rodrigo shouted.

“Shut it, Rodrigo!”

The Spaniard had taken the Buddha and Doumbia off to the side. I figured they were still weighing their options, but I couldn’t tell what my odds were by the looks they were shooting me. The unloading operation was almost finished. The guys in tagelmusts were busy covering the precious cargo with canvas tarps. The pickup trucks’ engines started revving. The drug lords wound up their chat and headed over to me. Doumbia signaled to one of his men to cut my ropes.

“We’re going to let you go, Camara,” Rafael said. “You can’t do us much harm anyway.”

“Are you sure about that?” I replied, massaging my sore wrists.

“You know very well that we’ve bought out this county, just like the other countries we’ve bought out. What can you do? Go cry behind the skirts of your Frenchies—the people who’ve been after you for years?”

I brushed the dust off my clothes, pulled my shoulders back, and planted my feet.

“You know I’m not going to give up till I get you.”

“I know,” he said with a smile.