Cross Country

clothes. I need you to listen to me. I just witnessed a reporter named Adanne Tansi being murdered at the Kirikiri Prison. She was writing an important story that has relevance to the violence near the oil fields.”
    The doors to the office opened, and Oweleen’s eyes shifted right past me. It was as though the moment I raised my voice, I’d lost him. He didn’t even respond to what I’d said.
    He spoke directly to the double marine escort waiting there. “We’re all done here. Take Detective Cross downstairs and get him cleaned up for travel back to the US.”

Chapter 119
    THE TWO MARINES were polite and respectful enough but very mission oriented as they escorted me to a subbasement locker room.
    It had tall wooden lockers and a faded carpet, a tiled steam room and whirlpool, and a small area for showering. As promised, I was given a fresh towel.
    One of the marines asked me my trouser, shirt, and shoe size and then left. The other marine told me I had about ten minutes to shower and dress, so I ought to get started. Both of the marines were black — probably no coincidence there.
    There were four stalls, each with a curtained changing cubicle in front. I stood inside the last one, my mind racing while the clock ran down on my time in the country.
    What was I going to do?
There were no windows in the room, and there was only one exit. I turned on the water, just to sound busy.
    Then I leaned in and let it pour over my head.
    Suddenly my whole body was shaking. I was remembering Adanne, and that had to stop, for now, anyway.
    A minute later, I heard someone moving around outside. A curtain slid open and closed. One of the other showers was turned on.
    Someone was humming that James Blunt ballad that was always on the radio, the one where he keeps repeating the word
beautiful.
    I took off the remnants of my shirt. Then I stuck my head under the water again, and leaned back out, dripping on the floor.
    “Hey, can you get me another towel?” I asked the guard.
    I had noticed there were stacks of them by the entrance when we’d come in.
    “Why do you need two?” he leaned inside the shower and said.
    “Are you kidding? You saw the way I look. And smell.”
    He shook his head but went to get the extra towel.
    “Thanks,” I called.
    I immediately stepped over to the other cubicle, holding the curtain rings to keep them from singing on the bar.
    Whoever was showering next to me had hung his clothes on a hook in the changing stall.
    I rifled through the pants pockets and found just what I was hoping for —
a cell phone
.
    Seconds later, I was back in my own stall — just before the marine looped a white terry towel over the top of the bar. “You’d better pick up the pace,” he said from outside the curtain.
    I turned the shower up as hard — and as loud — as it would go.
    Then I dialed Ian Flaherty’s number.
    He answered himself.

Chapter 120
    “FLAHERTY,” I SAID. “It’s Alex Cross.”
    “Cross? Where are you?”
    “I’m at the consulate. I’m in Africa. They’re sending me out of the country. It’s going down right now. I need you to talk to someone and get it stopped. I’m close to the bastard, the Tiger.”
    He didn’t even pause before he answered. “No can do. I can’t cover for you anymore.”
    “I don’t need you to cover for me. Adanne Tansi is dead — he killed her. I need you to make a call or two. I can break this case now.”
    “You don’t get it,” Flaherty said. “You’re done over here. Game over. Go home and stay there. Forget about Abi Sowande. Or whatever his name is now.”
    The water in the other shower stopped. The man in there started whistling. I hit the heel of my hand against my forehead, putting it all together.
Flaherty hadn’t been covering for me at all. I had this all wrong, right from the beginning
.
    “I was covering for
you,
wasn’t I?” I said.
    The whistling in the next stall stopped for a second and then continued.
    “That’s why you wanted people thinking I was CIA. I was out in the open. While you played covert, I was a useful distraction.”
    “Listen.” I could hear in Flaherty’s voice that he was done. “I’ve got to run. We saved your bacon a couple of times. Be thankful. There’s a war going on here. Get the hell out of Dodge — call me from the States.”
    “Flaherty!”
    He hung up at the same time that the shower curtain flew open.
    The marine who’d fetched the towel was there and looking totally pissed off. He