Cross Country

don’t even know where he is now.”

Chapter 66
    THIS PART OF Africa wasn’t recommended for backpacking or camera safaris. The yowl of hyenas was a constant reminder of where I was now. So were the road signs that said things like WARNING — LIONS — CROCODILES!!
    Getting out of Sierra Leone and back to Nigeria was proving to be even more complicated than I had expected. And dangerous too, treacherous at almost any curve.
    Like right now
. Two military-issue jeeps sat nose-to-nose across the road, blocking our way. This was no ordinary border crossing, though. We were less than an hour outside Koidu.
    “Are these guys actually government?” I asked Moses. “Any way to tell?”
    He shrugged and shifted uncomfortably on the seat of the Drifter. “Could be RUF.”
    There were six of them by my count, all wearing a mix of fatigues and street clothes and the familiar flip-flops. All of them were armed, including a mounted gunner in the back of one of the jeeps.
    A lanky guy in a maroon beret came striding over to my window. His eyes were bloodshot, like he might have been stoned. He raised his rifle with one arm and held out the other hand.
    “Papers.”
    I played it cool for now and showed him the police clearance and my passport.
    He barely looked at them. “Fifty dollars. To pay for your visa.”
    Whether these men were government officers or not, I knew right then that this was grift, pure and simple. A holdup.
    I raised my gaze and looked into his red eyes. “I just spoke with the US embassy in Freetown this morning. Deputy Ambassador Sassi assured me himself that my papers were in good order. So what’s the problem here?”
    He stared back hard at me, but I didn’t flinch. Two of the other guards started over from the side of the road, but he held up a palm to save them the trouble.
    “Still, it is ten for the passenger. Twenty, if it’s in leones.”
    Somehow, we both knew I’d pay that one. I didn’t want to push my luck. I gave him two American fives and we were on our way — to the next roadblock anyway.
    We hit four of them before the actual border crossing. Each rite of passage went about the same. It got easier as we went, cheaper anyway, and by the time we finally crossed at Bo Waterside to Liberia, I’d paid out only another fifteen bucks or so.
    The precious thing we did lose was time.
    We didn’t get into Monrovia until after dark, and with no guarantee of supplies east of there, we had to spend the night.
    I worried through the night and didn’t sleep very well. We were safe so far, but the speed we were traveling was no Tiger’s pace.
    He was getting away again
.

Chapter 67
    WE DROVE ALL the next day and into the second night, alternating at the wheel, trying to make up time. As we traveled, Moses told me that he was representative of most people here — not the RUF, and certainly not the Tiger and his murderous gang.
    “There are many good people in Africa, sah, and no one to help them fight back against the devils,” he said.
    Less than half an hour east of Monrovia, we passed the last billboard and radio tower and entered dense rain forest that went on for hours.
    Sometimes it opened up into clear-cut fields, with stumps like grave markers for miles in every direction.
    Mostly, though, the road was a tunnel of bamboo, palm, mahogany, and vine-choked trees such as I’d never seen before — with leaves and low scrub slapping and slathering the sides of the truck as we pushed through.
    Late in the afternoon, we were near the coast, driving through tidal flats and then wide swaths of open grassland that were the antithesis of the jungle we’d just left.
    I saw a huge colony of flamingos around sunset, thousands and thousands of stunningly beautiful birds, an incongruous sea of pink in the orangish light.
    Finally we had to stop for the evening. We were both too tired to drive. As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered how many fathers got to tell their kids they’d spent a night in a real African jungle.

Chapter 68
    I WOKE UP some hours later. Moses was already laying out breakfast on the tailgate of the Drifter.
    Canned sausages, a couple of bruised tomatoes, and a two-liter jug of water to sip from.
    “Looks good,” I said. “Thank you, Moses.”
    “There is a river. Over there if you wish to wash up.” He pointed with his chin to the opposite side of the road. I noticed his shirt was soaking wet. “It is not far.”
    I bushwhacked with my arms, skirting a huge knot