Cross Country

their voices high and pitiful.
    “That,” the Tiger told him, “is the sound of your mistakes, your greed, your stupidity.”
    Shol grappled with both hands at the Tiger’s huge and unmovable wrists. His eyes reddened and veins appeared ready to burst at his temples. The Tiger watched, fascinated. It was possible, he’d learned, to bring a man to the edge of death, and then keep him there for as long as he liked. He liked this because he despised Shol and his kind.
    The greenhouse door shattered as two bodyguards arrived to rescue their employer. “Come in!” shouted the Tiger. In one motion, he spun Mohammed Shol around and pulled a pistol from the paddle holster at his ankle. He charged forward, Shol in front as a shield, firing as he came!
    One bodyguard went down with a nine-millimeter hole in the throat. The other sent a bullet through his employer’s outstretched hand, then into his shoulder.
    Shol screamed, even as the Tiger launched him the last several feet across the floor, where he crashed into the guard. Both men went down. Then the Tiger shot the second bodyguard in the face.
    “Oga!”
Rocket said as he appeared in the empty doorway.
Oga
meant “chief” in Lagos street parlance. The Tiger liked the designation, and it came naturally to his young soldiers.
    The screaming had all but stopped in the house, but there were still sounds of breakage and gunfire as his boys let off the last of their venom and steam.
    “There was a tutor. Children being taught.”
    “Taken care of,” said Rocket.
    “Good.” The Tiger watched as Shol struggled to stand. He fired once into his leg. “You’ll need a tourniquet or you’ll die,” he said to the businessman.
    Then he turned to Rocket. “Tie Mr. Shol up. Then put this in his mouth. Or up his ass, if you like.”
    “This” was an M67 — a grenade.
    “Pull the pin before you leave.”

Chapter 78
    EVERYTHING CONTINUED TO feel unreal and fantasylike to me.
    All the doors at the church shelter for men were locked after nine o’clock. No one could get in or out. With traffic being what it is in Lagos, I barely made it back there in time.
    My cot was at the far end of one of three lodges, long high-ceilinged dorms off the main corridor where breakfast would be served in the morning.
    Alex Cross,
I thought.
What have you come to? What have you done this time?
    The guy in the next bed was the same guy as the night before, a Jamaican man by the name of Oscar. He didn’t talk much, but the strained look in his eyes and half-healed track marks told his story.
    He lay on his side and watched me while I rooted around for a toothbrush.
    “Hey, mon,” he said in a whisper. “Dey is some shorty man o’ God lookin’ your way. He dere now.”
    Father Bombata was standing at the door. When I saw him, he beckoned with a finger, then walked back out of the dormitory.
    I followed him outside and into a hall packed with last-minute arrivals. I pushed upstream toward the front doors, until I caught up with the priest.
    “Father?”
    I saw then that he was dialing a cell phone and wondered who he was calling. Was it good news or bad that I was supposed to hear?
    “Ms. Tansi wishes to speak with you,” he said and handed over the phone to me.
    Adanne had news! An assassination in South Darfur had occurred that day. One of the representatives to the Sudanese Council of States was dead — and his family had been slaughtered.
    “Any connection to Basel Abboud in DC?” I asked her.
    “I don’t know yet, but I can tell you that the Tiger does frequent business in Sudan.”
    “Weapons? Heroin?” I asked her. “What kind of business, Adanne?”
    “Boys. His loyal soldiers. He recruits at the Darfur refugee camps.”
    I took a breath. “You might have told me about this earlier.”
    “I’ll make it up to you. I can have us on an air freighter to Nyala first thing in the morning.”
    I blinked. “You said ‘us’?”
    “I did. Or you can fly commercial to Al Fasher and see about ground transport from there. I leave it to you.”
    Any other time I never would have considered it. But then, I’d never been five thousand miles from home without a lead and sleeping in a men’s homeless shelter before.
    I put my hand over the phone. “Father, can I trust this woman?”
With my life?
    “Yes, she is a good person,” he said without hesitation. “And I told you, she is my cousin. Tall and beautiful, just like me.
You can trust her, Detective.
”
    I was