hundred dollars and then forced him to let them in.
We hadn’t heard anything because we had been at Muddy’s performance. He pointed at the dresser. I opened the top drawer to find the hundred dollars. If he had known what was going to happen, his asking price would have been much higher—enough to get out of town.
He asked what was going on; he had heard the gunfire and commotion. O told him to stay indoors and handed him back the hundred dollars.
When we got back to O’s apartment, we found Muddy looking at the maps I’d taken from Sahara’s Range Rover—she pointed to one of them, where tourist landmarks had been circled. The Jomo Kenyatta Conference Center, Nairobi National Museum, Fort Jesus in Mombasa, built by the Portuguese in the 1500s, Tree Tops Hotel, where in 1952 the then–Princess Elizabeth had learned that her father had died and she would be queen, and many others. We would have to visit all these places and figure out why they were of interest to Sahara and Company—and more importantly, what they had planted in them.
“Janet!” Muddy suddenly yelled. Janet, could they go afterher too? Jamal knew about her, but I suspected he would have kept her hidden from Sahara and his crew. His pride and fucked-up code would not have allowed him to drag a promising young student, a survivor, an innocent girl whose only crime was being saved by O and me, into this mess. Also, Sahara didn’t appear to me to be the kind of a man who would go after Janet for revenge—he was too calculating for that.
All the same, there was no harm in checking to make sure she was okay. Nothing was predictable anymore—not with Mary lying dead on the floor.
What would become of Janet without her surrogate mother, the person she trusted, feared, and loved the most? She had found herself a home—now it would be as if its warmth was gone and just the shell remained. She was doing well, finally she had managed to put her life back on track—and the law degree she had decided to pursue was within grasp—but sometimes all it takes is one traumatic experience to bring others rushing back in. O simply had to find a way of stepping up and becoming the father that, by default, Mary had made him.
Muddy asked O for the keys to the Land Rover, tucked one of the Glocks from the dead men into the small of her back, and stuffed extra clips into her pockets. As she rushed out, Hassan walked in, flanked by plainclothesmen dressed in tweed jackets and other forms of ill-fitting and hot-weather-unfriendly attire.
He looked around, whistling after each dead white man. A bomb explosion a few days before and now three dead white Americans—his job was on the line, with Nairobi not only looking ungovernable but outright unlivable.
He knelt by Mary’s body and, for just a second, he was no longer the calm, dangerous manager of violence; this was just too close to home. He turned to O.
“Whatever you need … we’ll do whatever needs to be done,” was all he said. All of us, including the tweed jackets in the room, knew what he meant. It was one thing if I had died, or O—but this was just too much. The balance, the divide, the pretense that our work would not come home with us—call it what you like—it had to be protected. Otherwise, why should the good guys care? If it became open season on spouses, it would be children, relatives, friends next—a civil war, with cops on one side and robbers on the other, and those that we cared for in the middle. This line had to be protected at all costs.
Paramedics, armed with first-responder equipment so archaic that it looked downright dangerous, rushed in to triage. Hassan waved them away and they lined up against the walls as if mounting an honor guard.
There were some American dead—no one was going to get bagged before the Americans said so. Mercifully, Jason and Paul arrived.
“I am very sorry,” Jason said to O, as he went and held Mary’s hand for a second.
“Are these the
We hadn’t heard anything because we had been at Muddy’s performance. He pointed at the dresser. I opened the top drawer to find the hundred dollars. If he had known what was going to happen, his asking price would have been much higher—enough to get out of town.
He asked what was going on; he had heard the gunfire and commotion. O told him to stay indoors and handed him back the hundred dollars.
When we got back to O’s apartment, we found Muddy looking at the maps I’d taken from Sahara’s Range Rover—she pointed to one of them, where tourist landmarks had been circled. The Jomo Kenyatta Conference Center, Nairobi National Museum, Fort Jesus in Mombasa, built by the Portuguese in the 1500s, Tree Tops Hotel, where in 1952 the then–Princess Elizabeth had learned that her father had died and she would be queen, and many others. We would have to visit all these places and figure out why they were of interest to Sahara and Company—and more importantly, what they had planted in them.
“Janet!” Muddy suddenly yelled. Janet, could they go afterher too? Jamal knew about her, but I suspected he would have kept her hidden from Sahara and his crew. His pride and fucked-up code would not have allowed him to drag a promising young student, a survivor, an innocent girl whose only crime was being saved by O and me, into this mess. Also, Sahara didn’t appear to me to be the kind of a man who would go after Janet for revenge—he was too calculating for that.
All the same, there was no harm in checking to make sure she was okay. Nothing was predictable anymore—not with Mary lying dead on the floor.
What would become of Janet without her surrogate mother, the person she trusted, feared, and loved the most? She had found herself a home—now it would be as if its warmth was gone and just the shell remained. She was doing well, finally she had managed to put her life back on track—and the law degree she had decided to pursue was within grasp—but sometimes all it takes is one traumatic experience to bring others rushing back in. O simply had to find a way of stepping up and becoming the father that, by default, Mary had made him.
Muddy asked O for the keys to the Land Rover, tucked one of the Glocks from the dead men into the small of her back, and stuffed extra clips into her pockets. As she rushed out, Hassan walked in, flanked by plainclothesmen dressed in tweed jackets and other forms of ill-fitting and hot-weather-unfriendly attire.
He looked around, whistling after each dead white man. A bomb explosion a few days before and now three dead white Americans—his job was on the line, with Nairobi not only looking ungovernable but outright unlivable.
He knelt by Mary’s body and, for just a second, he was no longer the calm, dangerous manager of violence; this was just too close to home. He turned to O.
“Whatever you need … we’ll do whatever needs to be done,” was all he said. All of us, including the tweed jackets in the room, knew what he meant. It was one thing if I had died, or O—but this was just too much. The balance, the divide, the pretense that our work would not come home with us—call it what you like—it had to be protected. Otherwise, why should the good guys care? If it became open season on spouses, it would be children, relatives, friends next—a civil war, with cops on one side and robbers on the other, and those that we cared for in the middle. This line had to be protected at all costs.
Paramedics, armed with first-responder equipment so archaic that it looked downright dangerous, rushed in to triage. Hassan waved them away and they lined up against the walls as if mounting an honor guard.
There were some American dead—no one was going to get bagged before the Americans said so. Mercifully, Jason and Paul arrived.
“I am very sorry,” Jason said to O, as he went and held Mary’s hand for a second.
“Are these the
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