ECLIPSE by Richard North Patterson

the ignition, and floored the accelerator. The car lurched into a space in traffic Pierce had not perceived, joining a disorderly scrum of cars and cabs and trucks hurtling toward Port George on what would have been, were any rules obeyed, a two-lane road. “The trick is not to stop,” said Pierce’s supposed escort. “Or be followed. Welcome to Luandia.”
    Still apprehensive, Pierce decided he had no choice but to trust this man until he could get his bearings. He hesitated, then asked baldly, “How’s Bobby?”
    Bara—if indeed he
was
Bara—glanced at him, his eyes narrowed. “A week after his arrest there are still no charges, at least not formally. Nonetheless his punishment proceeds. They took him to a military compound in Port George. He is often chained, sometimes beaten, fed very little, and forced to shit in a bucket they seldom remove from the cell he shares with rats. Even as his lawyer I cannot see him outside the presence of the butcher Okimbo.”
    Beneath his rapid speech—a rhythmic patois that evoked Jamaica—Pierce heard both fatalism and anger. Before Pierce could respond, the headlights in the opposite lane revealed a gap into which Bara accelerated, throwing Pierce back into his seat as they passed a doorless van crowded with Luandians. “A necessity,” Bara said coolly. “There are those who wait by the road for oilmen to kidnap. Driving with a strange white man is not my favorite thing.
    “As for Bobby, physically he was never strong. He has suffered greatly. But his spirit remains unbroken. He will not speak of the horrors he endured, only those he saw.”
    “According to the government,” Pierce said, “Bobby saw no horrors. All Okimbo’s soldiers did was overcome armed resistance.”
    “Yes. From chickens, goats, children, and headless old men. For which our grateful women showered them with sexual favors before dying from the pleasure of it.” Bara’s voice softened. “I’m alive because I came too late to die. I was returning from a trip to England; on the road to Goro that day, I saw a mother and daughter who had managed to escape. They tried to tell me what was happening, though the words came hard. Then they vanished into the forest—perhaps the only witnesses save for Bobby and Marissa. I decided to turn around.”
    “Had you expected a massacre?”
    “After the traitors abandoned Bobby? Yes.” Eyes fixed on the road, Bara added quietly, “Perhaps I was late on purpose. I did not wish to die.”
    He fell silent. Captured by the headlights, Pierce spotted what could have been, had his mind accepted it, a charred corpse protruding from the bushes at the shoulder of the road. As Pierce turned, staring back, the phantom disappeared.
    “Yes,” Bara said matter-of-factly. “I saw him driving out.”
    The car struck a pothole, lifting Pierce from his seat and shooting a spasm of pain through his spine. “Do you know what happened?”
    Bara shrugged his shoulders, both hands still grasping the wheel. “Perhaps he was a robber, perhaps worse. If the would-be victims overwhelm an attacker, they will sometimes beat him to the ground, put a flat tire around his neck, douse the tire in gasoline, and immolate the wrongdoer.” He spoke with weary resignation. “It’s a form of citizen justice—the police do nothing they aren’t paid to do. The rule of law in Luandia is rhetorical.”
    “So it seems.”
    Bara glanced sideways. “African savagery, a Westerner might say. But before the English came, our communities were self-policing. It was from the British we learned that the police could be tools of violence and repression, indifferent to all crimes but dissent. Our police have simply jacked up the violence and corruption.”
    Above the darkened wetlands the scattered lights of Port George appeared closer and brighter. “The police we fear most,” Bara went on, “are those we can’t detect. The state security services are everywhere, spies waiting for us to commit