VULTURES IN THE PLAYGROUND
A. Sparrow
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 by A. Sparrow, All Rights Reserved
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To Alex
Chapter 1: Monrovia
The shanty town bustled with the commerce of poverty. Women sold charcoal by the chunk, beans by the handful, twigs for cleaning teeth. Every pane of glass, every sheet of plywood, every child was coated in dust. The sun, reduced to a fuzzy red orb, shimmered above a sea of zinc roofing. The harmattan had come, robbing the sky of its blue and its stars.
Archie had fouled up big this time. Jet lag had dulled his normally keen sense of direction. He had gotten turned around and had no idea how to make it back to his hotel.
Two men tailed him, their gaits loose and jaunty, like young lions replete after a meal but game for an opportunity kill. Faces rigid and unsmiling, they had mirrored every twist and backtrack in his route, loitered outside every shop in which he feigned an interest.
He had been indulging his habit of taking a long walk before settling into his hotel room after a long flight. The practice incurred little to no risk in a stable country like Ghana, but in a failed state like Liberia, it only begged trouble, particularly with fifteen thousand in crisp hundreds lining the zippered pockets of his smuggler’s vest.
The cash was destined for a malaria project in Nimba County. It was a risky way to conduct business, but the local bank there had a habit of embargoing wire transfers until ‘special handling fees’ had been paid. Between the flimsy doors of his room and the squirrely demeanor of the desk clerk, Archie hadn’t felt comfortable leaving the money behind at the hotel. If he had thought it any more secure to carry it on his person, he had been mistaken.
Even now, in the depths of dry season, the air was a dank and fetid sponge, pungent with charcoal smoke and burning plastic. Shadows of dead palms stretched like talons.
Eyes forward, legs churning, Archie strode on, pretending to know exactly where he wanted to go and how to get there. But one glimpse sufficed to tell anyone he was lost. What possible business could a man of his advantages—spotless clothes, white skin—have in the meanest shanty town in Monrovia? Walking alone at nightfall? Men like him were meant to be chauffeured in shiny Land Cruisers.
Children waved and laughed. They chased him until their worried mothers called them back. But their presence made Archie feel no more secure. Little kids were ubiquitous in this landscape and their presence would be no deterrent to any violence heading his way.
‘Boss man,’ they called him—a relict term that offended him more than epithet ever tossed his way on this continent, seething with connotations of slavery and subjugation. All the other names, at least—faranji, mzungu, obruni, oyinbo, yovo—denoted whiteness or foreignness not just caste or privilege.
Boss man. What a bizarre thing for a nation founded by repatriated slaves and having no colonial history to call its paler visitors. He was no boss man. He was just a man.
He paused at a soft drink stand crammed into what could pass for a double wide phone booth, pieces together from scrap plywood and painted in the universal colors of Coca Cola.
A woman sat inside with a baby on her lap. “Liberty Hotel? Do you know it?”
For the umpteenth time he asked the question and received only a shrug in return.
He bought a Coke with a clean, uncreased bill—further proof of his privilege, clashing with the wad of greasy, blackened dollars she gave him as change.
This bottle might come in handy if things got rough, serving as a projectile, a club or even a knife. Though, he shuddered to think of a confrontation coming to violence. It might be better not to resist and hope no one noticed his money vest.
He tracked his pursuers out of the corner of his eye. Attentive to his every movement, their posture nevertheless remained relaxed and patient. In Liberia, no one was ever in a hurry, not even muggers. They had ample opportunity to pounce, yet still kept their distance. Why so cautious?
It couldn’t be because they feared him. He probably looked like easy prey—another pasty, out-of-shape American, one of the common breed of international functionary that came to shuffle aid proposals or hold workshops, the kind who didn’t read the State Department security warnings, ignorant of Liberia’s recent history, its civil wars, massacres and chronic lawlessness.
The alleys were busy with people going about their late day chores, hauling water, packing up market wares, hauling kindling and bundles of scythed grass for their goats. But crowds were no deterrent to a determined pair of muggers. These ordinary folk knew better than to meddle in someone else’s dirty business. How many civil wars does one survive sticking one’s nose where it didn’t belong?
If it wasn’t for the treasure trove he carried in the vest beneath his shirt, he might have called their hand and gotten the whole thing over with. He had a dummy wallet in the rear pocket of his khakis, stuffed with small bills and expired credit cards. He had left the flap unbuttoned, to further entice and distract. If that didn’t satisfy them, they were welcome to the iPod bulging his shirt pocket and the Nikon dangling from his belt. Those were replaceable; they might even be insured. A simple bump and snatch would leave him no more harmed than a gecko sacrificing the tip of its tail.
But the 15K in the vest raised the stakes immensely. Fifteen thousand USD was worth killing for in this part of the world.
Finally the alleys opened up and dumped him out onto a larger through street. He paused at the corner, puzzling over which direction would bring him closer to the hotel. He figured he needed to go west towards the ocean and setting sun, but this road ran north and south. Yet another jumble of shacks and alleys lay between him and refuge.
Sweat dribbled down his torso. He glanced up and down the street. Where the heck had all the taxis gone? When he was last in Monrovia, their primary colors crowded the lanes as thickly as spawning salmon.
Driving in from the airport, come to think of it, the only vehicles he had seen had UN or NGO insignias. It would have been nice to see one of those about now. They had policies against taking hitchhikers, but someone noticing his distress might make an exception.
There were no police around either, not that he could have counted on them to be much help. In Monrovia, he had heard, cops participated in as many crimes as they deterred. It would have been a fifty-fifty proposition as to whether he would have been taken in and hassled for bribes. Those odds didn’t sound too bad now against a ninety-nine percent chance of getting mugged.
An older man with a weary but kindly face turned to him.
“You lost, boss man?”
Archie cringed at the salutation, but let it pass without correction. “Is there anywhere I can find a taxi?”
“Not today. There has been no petrol in Monrovia all week. They are all queued up at the filling stations. A shipment is coming tomorrow, they say.”
“I see,” Archie sighed and looked back at his pursuers who had paused behind him in the alley. “You wouldn’t happen to know the quickest way to the Liberty Hotel from here?”
“Liberty? I have never heard of this one. Maybe it is new?” The man shrugged and sauntered off. Archie made quick eye contact with one of the men following him, who promptly glanced away. This was ridiculous. Why didn’t they do something already?
He crossed the larger road and turned down a lane lined with shops selling second-hand clothing. The men crossed behind him, and they were joined by a third, who carried a dirty Styrofoam box atop his dreadlocked hair. The men traded hand signals. One rushed by Archie without a glance, preceding him down the alley. They set up a triangle around him.
Archie paused at the clothing stand, confused at what to do. He had the bottle of Coke in his hand, now empty, but his hands were sweating so much it slipped from his grip and shattered against a stone. He stared at the shards and up at the faces flipping his way but rushing by, as if they knew what was to come.
Panicking, Archie squeezed around a bamboo partition, past a group of ladies chopping onions to mix with their rice. He broke out into the next alley and ran, aiming for the sunset. A whistle screeched. He saw the brick coming out of the corner of his eye. Before he could react, it slammed into the side of his head.
***
His muscles went slack. He crumpled and rolled half into a ditch. He lay among broken glass and goat feces, his vision wavering at the fringes. He never quite blacked out, but for the moment he had little control over his limbs.
His head lolled to one side as a cinder block crashed down, just missing his skull. It shattered against the concrete, sharp fragments splattering his cheek. The men pounced like jackals on a carcass. One took his fake wallet. The other reached into his shirt, snapping the cord of his security pouch, taking his real wallet and passport. Archie flailed feebly as he patted at the bulging vest beneath his shirt.
The third man slid the ice chest through the weeds and dropped to his knees. He held Archie’s arm flat, pressed a knife against his wrist and sawed. As the blade bit, Archie jerked his hand free. He kicked out his knee, catching him squarely in the ribs. He grunted and dropped his blade. Archie squirmed free and scuttled off like a crab, backing up against a fence.
One of the men called out. “Soldiers coming!”
A military truck careened around the corner. They all scattered, but the third man lingered at the corner of a building and glared, knife still bared. His face was chiseled and angular. Tribal scars in sets of three crossed his cheeks and forehead. Archie would remember this face. This was the man who had tried to chop off his hand.
Archie picked up the brick that had conked him. He was about to heave it at his assailant when a pair of soldiers hopped off the troop carrier to pee in the ditch, startled to see a white man laying on the ground, but too drunk and incurious to give a damn.
When Archie looked again, the man with the scars was gone. He reached up and found his hair all matted and sticky with blood. His money vest remained intact. He wished he had thought to zip his passport inside.
Soldiers ran into a shop and loaded cases of liter bottles into the bed of their truck. Archie knew better than to approach them. Several were already rocked out of their skulls on palm wine. Friday night was coming on strong.
Archie rose and limped back to the main road, struggling to walk a straight line. He paused at the next corner, scouting the street from behind a display of recycled clothing. He was about to step out when the man with the scars came trotting past. The bastard had circled around the block, and was now doubling back to the scene of the crime.
Archie ducked behind a rack of T-shirts. He waited until the man was half a block away, and started after him. These guys had his passport. It might be useful to know where it ended up, even if he couldn’t retrieve it on his own.
But the light was fading quickly. If his attackers were bold enough to try to hack off his hand in daylight, he couldn’t imagine what they would do to him under cover of darkness.
He felt all queasy and filled with dread. Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight, but he kept on following. Keeping up wasn’t easy. The guy kept veering down alleys, hopping ditches, scrambling over piles of rubble.
Archie dropped onto a stool amidst a knot of shoeshine boys when the man paused to scan his surroundings as if he sensed something wrong like a zebra sniffing the wind. The kids laughed at Archie’s flip-flops, but proceeded to clean them anyway with a bit of rag dunked in a can of muddy water.
The man turned towards a corroded chain link fence backed with zinc sheeting and topped with razor wire. He punched a code into a keypad and slipped through a heavy steel gate. The gate slammed shut behind him.
Archie slipped the kids some coins and sidled up to the fence, peering around the edge of the gate. A pack of growling, snapping dogs sensed his presence and followed him around the periphery.
Dump trucks, graders and other construction equipment filled the compound within, some of them stenciled with ‘Xtraktiv’ in a shattered black font. Two unmarked humvees mounted with fifty-caliber machine guns were parked beside a sandbagged bunker against the main building.
That name—Xtraktiv—rang a bell. At the airport, a van with that logo had picked up a trio of young men who had been goofing around, posing for pictures with a security guard.
A metal placard posted on the gate warned—‘NO SOLICITORS’—but there was a local telephone printed underneath. He pulled out a Sharpie and tried jotting the number on his hand, but his palm was too bloody. He found a clean patch on his forearm and wrote it there.
He staggered off into the twilight, heading back down the alley toward the glow of the setting sun. Generators cranked up. Lights flickered on. Frogs began to croak from a slough.
Blood dribbled down his chin and dripped off his fingertips. Some passersby seem startled to see him. Others barely gave him a second glance, as if bloody-faced white men were a common sight on a Friday night in Monrovia.
The smell of roast chicken wafted from a grill and sent pangs through his stomach. He wondered if anyone could make change for a hundred dollar bill.
Chapter 2: Liberty
Taxis that night were as rare as unicorns. But Archie lucked into the only one operating on embassy row, swooping in as it dropped off a carload of young missionaries at a courtyard restaurant.
“Liberty Hotel, please.”
“Oh!” said the driver. “We are very close.”
“Good,” said Archie. “The closer the better.”
Finally, he could relax, but the muscles in his neck stayed knotted and his head throbbed in time with his pummeling heart. He stank of fear and smoke and sidewalks.
The car cut down a dark lane and turned onto a well-lit boulevard the Archie recognized instantly. He could have easily walked.
The taxi turned into the compound of the Liberty Hotel. The sight of its backlit sign induced a smile. He could finally get washed up, tend to his wounds and find something to eat—not necessarily in that order.
Headlights washed over a pre-teen boy pulling a green plaid suitcase that looked way too familiar.
“Holy shit! That kid’s got my bag!”
“What you say?” said the driver.
“Stop. Right here!”
“But sir, the drop-off is over there by—”
“Right here! Right now! Stop!”
Archie bolted out of the cab and ran after the kid, who tried sprinting away with the suitcase in tow. The tiny wheels caught on the rough pavement and threw the bag over on its side. The boy dragged it behind him, frantically trying to right it when Archie caught up, lunged for the handle with his good hand and wrested it away.
The kid screamed. “Teef! Help me! Dis man is a teef!”
Passersby gathered; people emerged from an open-air bar.
“This is mine,” said Archie. “Look at the tags. My name is—” He noticed that all the tags and destination stickers had been yanked off. “You little fuck!”
He grabbed the suitcase and zipped it open, pulling out the photocopy of his passport that he always packed in his luggage. He held it up to the light beaming down from a termite-clouded street lamp.
“Look at that. That’s me, you little—” But the kid had disappeared into the shadows. The crowd was already dispersing, perhaps fearing the trouble that would ensue once Monrovia’s hyper-aggressive and unpredictable police arrived on the scene. Liberian cops tended to err on the side of inclusivity, often rounding up bystanders in lieu of actual perpetrators. And Friday night in Monrovia was no time or place to get entangled with the law.
Archie stormed into the hotel lobby, brushing past an elderly security guard, who smiled and saluted as he entered, as if all was right with the world.
A sleepy young man peered up at Archie from a sofa behind the counter. Archie’s bloody face jolted him out of his stupor.
“Oh! What happened to you, boss man?”
“Mugged,” he said. “My key, please. I’m getting my things and leaving. The security in this place leaves something to be desired.”
“Sir?”
“I said, give me my key! If you can’t keep these damned kids from breaking into my room, you don’t deserve my business.”
“But sir, you have reservation for three nights. We have a penalty for cancelling reservation.”
“No way am I paying any penalty. I want my key, now. Give it.”
The clerk’s eyes flickered with anger. He pursed his lips and snatched Archie’s key from a nook, slapping it on the counter.
When Archie reached the room he found the door jamb splintered and the lock dangling loose. He didn’t even need the key. How both the clerk and security guard hadn’t noticed any hanky-panky was beyond him. Were they both sleeping? Or were they accomplices?
He pushed the door open with a simple nudge. As he had feared, the courier bag holding his laptop was missing, but at least his toiletries remained in the bathroom. He grabbed them and stormed back out down the hall, tossing the key on the front counter.
“Sir, if you leave now, you must pay for half a day.”
“Fuck that. I’m not paying anything.”
“I will call the police.”
“Go ahead. Call. I’d love to talk to them.”
Outside, Archie was glad to see the taxi still waiting. He threw his toiletries in the back seat beside his suitcase and climbed in front.
“You got enough gas to get back to Robertsfield?” He hoped to stay at the former Hilton the airline crews still used, right across from the airport. It was expensive, but had proved a good refuge in past troubles.
“I … don’t tink so, boss,” said the driver. “My tank, it is almost empty.”
Archie sighed. He didn’t want to stick around Monrovia. Most of the other hotels were flea bags of the worst sort. But he remembered one he had seen on the way in from the airport, near the old rubber plantation.
“There’s a new hotel this side of Harbel. You know which one I’m talking about?”
“It is called … Hibiscus?”
“Yeah. I think that’s it. Looks like your needle’s not quite pegged. Think you can make it that far?”
“Maybe.” The needle of his fuel gauge was well into the red zone near the big ‘E.’ He sucked air through his teeth and bit his lip. “We try.”
“Good man. What’s your name?”
“I am called James.”
“James, I’m Archie. If we run out, I’ll help you push.”
“If we run out you give me fifty dollar … plus the full fare … for staying overnight.”
“Deal,” said Archie.
***
They made it to Harbel with the engine coughing and sputtering in the final throes of fuel starvation. James coasted into the lot, rolling to a halt behind a row of cars lined up before the reception area. The place—the Red Hibiscus—looked promising. Every letter of its lighted sign still glowed. Its brick walls were freshly painted, the ornamental shrubs well tended.
Archie felt a smile lift the corners of his cheeks. This was just the kind of refuge he needed after his rough welcome to Liberia. He hoped they had a vacancy.
The place wasn’t nearly as nice-looking inside as out. The mirror in the lobby had a huge crack like a lightning bolt. The carpets were grimy and the dining room looked like it had been vandalized—broken chairs and tables heaped in one corner.
But business seemed to be thriving. The bar, at least, seemed lively enough, thronged with a mix of Lebanese expatriates and well-to-do Liberians.
“Any rooms available?” he asked the petite woman behind the counter, who was fussing over a sheath of invoices.
“We have,” she said, without looking up. “But only standard singles. The deluxe rooms are all taken.”
“Are they air conditioned?”
“They have fans,” she said, shrugging.
“That’s fine. I’ll need two rooms, please. My driver will be spending the night as well.”
She handed him two registration forms, but once she looked up, she couldn’t stop staring. “What happen to your face?”
“Oh. It was just an accident,” said Archie. “Um … I’ll have to get James in here to fill this out. I only know his first name.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said the woman, her face fixed in a grimace, as if merely looking at him pained her. “Put them both under your name.” She clasped her hand to her chest “Do you need bandages?”
“Um, maybe,” he said, remembering that his first-aid kit had been packed in his stolen courier bag.
His stomach sank when he reached the line asking for his passport number. He knew the number by rote. That was not the issue. He had just forgotten it had been stolen and did not look forward to the rigmarole he faced in getting it replaced.
The woman opened a drawer and pulled out a tube of ointment and a box of children’s band-aids replete with sparkly stars, dragons and faeries. “Take whatever you need,” she said.
“Why, thank you!”
She placed two keys on the counter, each wired to a hefty slab of mahogany.
“I don’t know where this porter has gone. I can help you with your bags.”
“Oh, no need. I only have but the one.”
Archie went outside and found James reclining in the front seat of his cab. He reached through the window. “Here’s your key.”
“Oh no … That is okay. I will sleep in my car.”
“You sure?”
“Is better. For security.”
“I don’t think that’s a problem. This place seems pretty well lighted. And there’s a guard over there.”
“Is better I stay with my car.”
James looked serious and determined. Archie thought better than to argue.
***
Archie’s room was clean but spare. It smelled a bit like a moldy basement. The bed was one of the narrowest twins he had ever seen, its sheets ghosted with the dim outlines of old blood stains and body oils, like a poor man’s Shroud of Turin. The bathroom provided two towels, but they were made of a polyester blend that seemed only to repel water.
Still, it was a refuge, set far back enough from the main road to soften the rumble of passing trucks.
The water that dribbled out of his shower was cold. It took him a good hour to get clean. He tended gingerly to the wound on the side of his head, picking bits of crusted blood and road grit out of his hair. To close the wound on his wrist, he improvised a butterfly with the sticky part of the glittery band-aid. The porcelain ran with streaks of reconstituted blood.
He was lucky the knife had been dull and that his watch band had interfered. Otherwise, it would have severed an artery. He couldn’t imagine what that man had been trying to do to his hand. He couldn’t have stealing the watch. It was a cheap-ass Timex Indiglo.
He turned on a window fan and sat naked on the bed, his scalp throbbing beneath a lump over his ear as thick as a wallet. He opened his suitcase, the contents of which seemed mercifully undisturbed. It felt good to slip into some clean clothes. He tossed the shirt and pants he had been wearing into the trash. With all of their slashes and scuffs, they were not worth salvaging.
He sat and stared at the mirror above the bureau through a fog of fatigue and pain. He looked awful, but he couldn’t blame it all on that brick to the head. How had he hit middle-age so suddenly? The face in the mirror did not match the one in his mind’s eye. Not at all. That soaring forehead. Those creases angling down from his nose. He was starting to look like his freaking father. No wonder he hated looking into mirrors.
***
Archie made it back to the restaurant just before it closed. He had gone looking for James, hoping the cabbie would join him, but had found him in the parking lot scraping the last of his rice and palm oil stew from the bottom of a large bowl.
“Don’t worry about me, boss. You take care of yourself.”
He found a table on the patio that didn’t wobble as much as the others and ordered a large Club beer. Its white on green shamrock logo made him wonder how the Celtics were doing in the playoffs. Inside, he was still an Eastern Connecticut boy, even though he hadn’t lived in the state since high school.
The waitress didn’t bother bringing him a menu. Turned out, the kitchen had only one item available that night: grass cutter stew over rice—the same dish James had enjoyed. The lack of a choice didn’t faze him. At least it arrived promptly with some fried plantains and a fiery relish of onion and chopped pepper. With a tall beer to wash it down, it certainly hit the spot.
The perfume of rubber trees permeated the smoky air. Giant termites swarmed the street lamps. He ordered a second Club and pondered his situation. Here he was, with no passport, no credit cards, and no netbook. He had planned to hire a car and spend a full day up-country, but that would have to wait.
He had built a day of wiggle room into his schedule and it looked like he would be spending it at the US Embassy. Maybe some of his hosts from Global Change for Children could come down and meet him in Monrovia. He only needed a few hours to go over papers and transfer the money.
He wondered how quickly the embassy could get him a new passport. He doubted they could arrange one by Thursday when he was scheduled to fly to Accra. The last time this had happened to him, in Nigeria, he had been stuck in Lagos for two extra weeks. Of all the places in the world he could be stranded, Monrovia was near the bottom of his list.
Liberia hadn’t always been this bad. Founded by former American slaves, it had neither benefitted nor suffered from colonialism, though the Americo-Liberians who dominated its politics managed to cultivate their own brand of oppression.
In the late 80s, when Archie had first started coming here, it had been a pleasant enough place to visit, dictator or not. Sure there had been the usual corruption, bureaucratic hassles and road blocks, but the people had always had a laissez faire attitude towards visitors.
But that was before the civil wars, before the fall of the old despot Samuel Kenyon Doe and the depredations of Charles Taylor, the new despot. He found it difficult to reconcile the friendliness and humanity of West Africans with the brutality that could explode in their civil wars.
Since then, everything that had been bad about Liberia had been made worse—the cities grittier, the people poorer, even the dogs more desperate.
Archie thought it would be good to call work and let them know what had happened. He turned on his trusty old Siemens GSM slab phone. Puzzled when it failed to locate a network, he opened up the back and saw that it still held the Claro SIM card he had picked up in Peru. He had forgotten to swap in his global Mobal chip before he left.
No biggie, he could pick up something local in the morning. There were ads all over the streets for up and coming mobile companies. At least some aspects of commerce were coming back to life in this place.
Though it meant that he would be unable to share his predicament with anyone back home. Not right away, at least. Not now when he had this tremendous urge to vent and commiserate with someone who cared. And who was that, these days? Who gave a damn what happened to him on the other side of the Atlantic?
Not Trudy, his ex-wife. Not anymore. They were still friends, in a sense, on a remembering birthdays and Christmas cards basis, but Trudy had her own life now out on the West Coast.
His estranged younger brother Karl might be amused by the story of his mugging, but why give him the pleasure? Karl had never forgiven Archie for staying in Angola when mom was in her last days, fading with emphysema. But mom had understood. Why couldn’t he?
Three years had passed since mom’s death. One would have thought that Karl would have gotten over it by now. Of the old nuclear family, all they had left was each other.
Who else was there to call? No one. He had let too many friendships fade after he and Trudy were no longer a couple. He had acquaintances here and there, and colleagues from work, but no one with whom he would feel comfortable sharing a breathless, beer-fueled outpouring of his soul.
That realization sent an icy pang down his core. As time went on, he seemed less self-sufficient yet more isolated—a potentially terminal divergence. He took a swig of his beer and looked out at the pair of distant tail-lights heading up the road to Robertsfield.
Melissa, the neighbor who fed his cats and watered his plants, deserved a call. She only expected him to be gone two weeks. The way things were going, he might have to tag on at least another week or two. He certainly would not be making it to Ghana any time soon, where the bulk of his work awaited. It looked like the Global Fund monitoring and evaluation team was going to have to start without him.
Melissa, at least, might offer a sympathetic ear. She was one of the few people in his life who seemed genuinely interested in what he did, draining entire pots of coffee listening to stories of his travels. She would barrage him with so many questions it could feel like an interrogation.
It was mostly trivia she asked about—what the hotels were like, the restaurants, the food. And she was a sucker for wildlife. She had to know about every snake or monkey he spotted crossing the road, his infrequent encounters with hippos and hyenas. She would gawk at the pictures and wish she had been there.
Talking to Melissa always perked him up. Sure, he was lonely and she was young, pretty and female, but there was more to it than that. She exuded this joy for the simplest things that couldn’t help but infect him with the notion that sticking around this world might be worth the bother.
He swigged down the last of his Club. He still felt wired, despite all the beer, but it was nothing a Benadryl couldn’t neutralize. First stop in the morning: the US Embassy.
Traces of ink on his forearm had survived the shower. He pulled out a pen and copied the number onto a napkin. These Xtraktiv folks might be interested in knowing that one of their employees mugged foreigners in his spare time. Who knows, maybe if he could get the management to intercede on his behalf, he might recover his old passport and not have to wait for a new issue from the embassy? Otherwise, it would be a royal pain to re-acquire all the visas he needed to finish his tour. He stuffed the napkin into his pocket and went back to his room.
***
Despite the Benadryl, Archie spent a fitful night. He was plenty groggy but he couldn’t sleep. Roaches swarmed the walls and traversed his blanket like herds of wildebeest crossing the veldt. Mosquitoes whined in his ear and pricked his brow. He could have deployed one of the bed net samples he carried in his suitcase, but couldn’t muster the energy to move. It wasn’t till dawn had already begun to show that he managed a few contiguous hours of slumber.
He dragged himself out of bed with the sun beating strong on the palms outside his window. His linens looked like a murder scene, smeared with streaks of blood and ointment. Embarrassed, he pulled off the pillow cases off and rinsed them in the sink. He didn’t want any maids freaking out at all the blood.
The restaurant was bustling compared to the night before. He was the only Caucasian among the otherwise diverse patrons, including a couple of Francophone businessmen from Côtes d’Ivoire and an African-American family. James nodded and smiled from the doorway. Archie waved him over to the table and they shared a couple of egg sandwiches with finely-chopped hot peppers.
“So … Is there petrol today?”
James beamed and nodded. “Yes.”
“Excellent!”
“And it is good we stay in Harbel. The queue was much shorter than it would be in Monrovia.”
“Was? Did you already get fuel?”
James nodded.
“Excellent! Listen, I promised to fill your tank, plus a retainer for hanging around overnight.” Archie peeled off a hundred dollar bill from his roll and handed it over.
James folded and pocketed it, looking quite pleased.
“Want some more coffee?”
“No thank you.”
“Let me settle my bill and we can head to the embassy, alright?”
Archie went to the front desk. The same lady from the night before remained at her post.
“And how you feel this morning?” Her hand flew up to her cheek. “Oh! Your face looks so swollen. Are you sure you do not need a doctor?”
“I’m fine,” said Archie. “Just a little sore. Hey, uh … would you happen to know where I can get a SIM for a mobile phone?”
She slid open a drawer. “We have Comium.”
“Never heard of that one. Must be new. Do they have good coverage?”
“The best.”
“Then I’ll take one, plus twenty bucks of air time.” He slapped another hundred on the counter and received a new SIM, a scratch card and a wad of grimy, threadbare dollars in return.
Feeling empowered by the caffeine buzzing in his veins and his restored ability to communicate with the outside world, he strode off towards his room.
“Meet you out front, James. I’m just gonna brush my teeth.”
Chapter 3: Embassy
Archie went to his room and set up his phone with the new SIM, filling the account with scratch card minutes. He needed to report his travails to the HVI office, but with the four hour time difference, it was way too early to reach anyone, even though they tended to be early birds. Instead, he called ahead to the US Embassy to try and get things rolling on his passport reissue.
The phone rang about seven times before someone answered.
“Good morning! So sorry for the delay there, I was hoping our receptionist would pick up but it looks like she’s not in yet.” The woman spoke with a mild southern accent. Northern Virginia, if he had to guess.
“Yes, uh … my name’s Archie Parsons and—”
“Hang on, I think she’s here. Oh wait, it’s just Jeffrey. You know we’ve had a skeleton crew here since the nonessentials got evacuated, but everyone’s starting to filter back. We’ll be back to normal soon. Not soon enough. So how can I help you?”
“Yes ma’am, you see, my passport was stolen and I need—”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” said the woman. “But I can’t say it’s unusual for Monrovia these days. Sometimes the police confiscate them and hold them for ransom. Can you believe it? The police!”
“I got mugged. That’s how—”
“Oh, that’s just awful, just plain awful. But like I said, it’s not unusual in Monrovia these days. Well, listen … this isn’t actually my job, but let me take your information and I can find someone who can help you. Do you happen to know your passport number?”
Archie recited it from memory.
“Just a sec. Let me enter it into the system. You realize that you’ll still need to come here in person and file a DS-64 … uh … hang on … oh dear … this is odd. Are you sure you gave me the right number? I might have made a mistake in entering.”
Archie gave her the number again, speaking slowly, certain that the number he had given her had been correct. It was as deeply ingrained in his head as his birth date.
“Are you certain that’s the right number? The system is telling me that the number you gave me is invalid. And there’s a strange, little flag that’s popped up in the database. Never seen that before. Hang on, let me have one of the guys come over and have a look.”
She put Archie on hold. He could feel his phone minutes ticking away as Shania Twain twanged her way through ‘Whose bed have your boots been under.’ He should have known better than to try to handle the reissue over the phone. He was about to hang up and just wait till he got to the embassy when he overheard snatches of frantic and combative discussion.
“Hang on sir. I need to transfer you to a more secure line.”
“Secure? What for?” There was a buzz and a click.
“Hello? Mr. Parsons?” The voice coming over the line was as deep and resonant as a radio pitch man’s, and just as devoid of any regional inflection.
“Doctor, actually. But that’s okay.”
“Sorry to hear about your incident. We’d very much like to provide you some assistance. Do you mind telling us where you’re staying? We can send a driver.”
“Huh? Since when does the embassy come door to door?”
“Liberia’s a pretty rough place these days as I’m sure you understand. Sometimes we’ll go the extra mile for our citizens, especially for folks like you, who do so much for the hearts and minds. So where is it you’re staying?”
“Well … it’s called “The Red Hibiscus. It’s a new place on—”
“We know it. Hold tight. We’ll send a team out right away.”
“A team?” Something weird was going on. This was not how embassies operated. Did they know of something bad about to go down that they weren’t willing to share over the phone? A coup, perhaps? “You know … you really don’t have to come all the way out here. I’ve got a taxi waiting for me in the lot. It’s just as easy for me to come there.”
“Oh, it’s no problem at all,” said the man. “They’re already dispatched. Can I please have your room number so I can pass it on?”
Archie’s skin prickled. The guy he was speaking with had such a disarming manner, but the oddity of the circumstances triggered a vague and primal sense of danger. He had not survived all those years of visiting failed states by ignoring his instincts.
“Um … I’ll be out in the lobby. I’ll look out for them and … uh … wave.”
“Okay, then. Just sit tight. Have a cup of coffee. We’ll have someone there within the hour.”
“Okay. Um … thanks. I guess.”
He hung up. Archie sat there, his stomach squirming. Since when did an understaffed and overworked embassy provide door to door service for someone with some missing paperwork? It wasn’t like he was some VIP. He was just some crap operative for an insignificant beltway bandit operation.
Maybe it was those damned psycho-active malaria pills making him paranoid again. When he had taken mefloquine after 9/11 it had turned every Middle Eastern person in Addis Ababa into a terrorist and convinced him that a cab driver named Muhammad was trying to kidnap him simply because he had taken an alternative route to the Ministry of Health.
Archie listened to his gut. He packed his things hastily and checked out. He found James loitering by the door.
“You are going now?” said James.
“Kind of,” said Archie. “I want you to find a shady spot by the exit of the lot. We’re going to sit a spell.”
James loaded the suitcase and pulled up just off the main avenue under a mango tree with low, overhanging branches. Archie sat with his back against the passenger door, watching the turn-around in front of reception for signs of a diplomatic vehicle.
A grey van pulled up and disgorged three men wearing combat boots and oversized windbreakers. The Xtraktiv logo on the door leapt out like a swastika.
“Hmm. It’s those guys again,” Archie muttered, as a wave of unease quivered through his gut.
The men disappeared into the lobby. A minute later they burst back out the door, scanning the parking lot and its environs.
“Go,” said Archie, seized by misgivings. “Go James. Go!”
“Where do we go?”
“I don’t care. Back to Monrovia. Wherever. Just go!”
***
Traffic had backed up for almost a mile behind the checkpoint outside Monrovia. It seemed like everyone who had deferred travel during the fuel shortage had spontaneously taken to the roads. If the Xtraktiv van was following, it was not visible among the train of cars that had accumulated behind them.
Vendors hawking fried dough balls and skewered meat took advantage of the long queue, shoving their wares through the window, some of them so persistent they had to be pushed away.
They were rolling through an area of overgrown fields, ragged palms and rusted, sagging fences. The old Voice of America compound had stood here before the turmoil of the 1990s had forced a move offshore to São Tomé. Stray dogs and goats ruled the property now.
The checkpoint stop was routine and cursory. A quick peek in the trunk from some sleepy-eyed soldiers and they were on their way again. They were rolling through a hectic market area when Archie’s cell phone chimed.
“Hello. Mr. Parsons? Are you still at your hotel?” It was the guy from the embassy, the one with the radio voice.
“Um … kind of … I’m … uh … in the area.”
“Well, we just send some folks to meet you, and the lady at the desk said that you apparently … uh … checked out.”
“Well yes. Actually, I did. I decided to try another hotel closer into town. You know … to make it easier to conduct my business.”
“I don’t understand. We agreed you would stay put. What was the point of us sending a ride if—”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I must have misunderstood you. You know, I am kind of jet-lagged and … my ears—”
“I thought I made it quite clear,” said the man, his voice even and calm but simmering under its lid. “So where are you headed now? Back to the Liberty?”
“Back?” Archie’s face flushed. “How did you know? How could you possibly know I was there originally?”
“You … told us.”
“No I didn’t. I never mentioned it.”
“Oh, sure you must have. To Elaine, when you described the mugging.”
“No. I didn’t. I never said a word about staying at the Liberty.”
“Listen, this is silliness. It was just a hunch. The Liberty’s a pretty common destination for international guests—those who don’t know any better. I prefer the Cape myself, but I’d recommend the Royal if you have to stay downtown because—”
Archie hung up the phone.
***
“Where to now, boss?” said James. “We are here, the center of Monrovia, like you asked.”
“Just keep driving around. And … don’t call me boss.”
“Okay man, but where you want to go?”
“Just keep moving. In circles, I don’t care. I just don’t want them to track these phone calls. I’m not sure they can, with any accuracy. But I don’t want to make it easy for them to find us. Understand?”
“Someone is chasing you?”
“Don’t know for sure. Probably not. I’m probably just freaking out over nothing, but ... better to be safe than sorry.”
James stared at him, blinking. “Okay, boss. Whatever you say. Remember, the petrol is scarce and expensive, but it is your money. How about I take you to Paynesville? Show you some fancy neighborhoods. Where the big shots live.”
“That’s fine, just … no dead ends. Okay?”
It was still too early to call Melissa or work. He fished the napkin from his pocket and un-crumpled it. He had a weird feeling about what he was about to do.
“Can I borrow your phone James?”
“My phone?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll pay for the minutes.”
“Okay.” Eyes wary, James handed over his phone.
Archie called the number he had copied from the placard on the fence.
A man answered, his voice reedy and American. “Octagon Petroleum.”
“I’m sorry. I must have misdialed. This isn’t Xtraktiv?”
“Well yeah, it is. OPM is our … eh … parent company. Who is this? How can I help you?”
“Well … um … this is kind of awkward. My friend … who’s now in the hospital … well he was mugged yesterday. And he said he saw the man who took his stuff run off into your compound. We were wondering if … maybe … he might be an employee of yours.”
“Who am I speaking to, please?”
“Um … this is Tom … Tom Brady.”
“And what’s your connection with this other guy … the one who got mugged?”
“He’s a colleague. We’ve worked together on projects.”
“This guy, the one who’s in the hospital. Is he okay?”
“Yeah, well … he’s a little banged up and … cut.”
“Must be serious if he’s still in the hospital.”
“Well, yeah. It’s bad enough.”
“Which hospital?”
“Why? You going to send him flowers?”
“If this man is accusing our employees or wrongdoing, we might like to have a chat.”
“Wait a minute … what about the guy who mugged him?”
“Do you have a description?”
“Well, according to my … friend, he was about five foot nine, African and—”
“Well, that certainly narrows it down,” said the man, sarcastically.
“Let me finish! He had tribal scars in sets of three down both cheeks. His hair was long and braided.”
“That right there describes about half of our male employees. Listen, if you’re going to accuse us of—”
“I’m not just accusing! This actually happened. I … my friend saw him go through your gate. He had key code access.”
He heard some indistinct muttering at the other end.
“What hospital is he at? That Catholic mission place?”
“Um … Harbel. He’s at the clinic at Harbel.”
“Okay Tom. I’m glad you contacted us. All I can say is … uh … we’ll look into it. I’d recommend you not mention anything to the local police … because … well, you know how they are.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“You haven’t yet, have you? Contacted them?”
“No. We haven’t.”
“Mind me asking who you work for, Tom?”
“Um … Global Change … for Children.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Alright, then. Thanks for letting us know. We’ll be in touch with Dr. Parsons and get this straightened out.”
“Wait … how do you know my—?”
But the line had already gone dead. Archie stared at a stand of banana trees, their large leathery leaves flapping and rustling.
“Here we are,” said James.
“Where’s that?”
Archie looked out at a dusty neighborhood of cinder block walls topped with broken bottles surrounding freshly painted concrete houses. Dark red soil marked the places where the newly planted young palms and spindly shrubs had recently been watered.
“This here is Paynesville,” said James.
Archie sighed. “Okay.”
“You like?”
“It’s nice.”
“Where to now?” asked James.
Archie’s head swam with confusion. He was having difficulty piecing together thoughts and making decisions. He wondered if he might have sustained a mild concussion.
Passersby began to accumulate around the taxi and stare. Apparently, foreigners were a curiosity even the upscale communities.
“Let’s get out of town for a while,” he said. “Just drive. Anywhere. I don’t care where.”
***
It didn’t make sense. None of it. The squirrely manner of that embassy operative. And now this Xtraktiv outfit, knowing his name. At that moment, James was about the only person in the world he could trust.
The taxi kicked up a cloud of dust as it hurtled down a series of dirt roads cutting through a massive but abandoned rubber plantation. They passed clusters of old plantation worker housing that looked like oversized rabbit hutches. It amazed Archie that people still chose to live in these places.
Archie’s phone kept ringing. At first he ignored it, but when it kept happening, he turned it off completely.
And then James’ ring tone went off—James Brown—old school funk.
“Don’t answer it.”
“It is okay,” said James. “Maybe it is my brother.”
“Please, don’t answer. Please.”
James shrugged and let the call go to voice mail.
“Any place I can buy another SIM?”
“Sure,” said James. “Lots of place.”
“Take me.”
James made a right turn at the next intersection and went back out to the main road. He pulled up in front of a small Lebanese grocery next to a filling station that was already out of petrol for the day. A tiny shack out front sold cell phones and accessories. Archie bought two sets of SIMs and scratch cards for an alternative service called LoneStar.
He came back and handed a set to James. “Here. Put this in your phone. Stop using the other one.”
“But my friends, my family, they know this number. They won’t know how to reach me.”
“Call them. Give them your new number. I’ll get you all the minutes you need. Just don’t use that old one while you’re with me. Okay?”
James looked askance at him. “What did you do man? Why are they chasing you so?”
“Nothing. I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s probably nothing. I’m just … being careful.”
“I don’t want no trouble man. Okay? This taxi is the food for my family. You’ve paid me some good money… but I’m thinking maybe the trouble is not worth it. Do you know what I mean?”
“I didn’t break any laws,” said Archie. “I guarantee you that. I don’t see how this is a problem for you. You’re just a taxi driver.”
James gave him a long look. “I am saying this, man, because you are making me nervous. I see the fear of death in your eyes.”
“Death? Oh no. Nobody’s killing anybody. That’s ridiculous.”
“I am just saying; this is what I see in your eyes.”
“No. Everything’s gonna be fine,” said Archie. “I’m just … being cautious, until I know for sure. This is how we’re going to do things.”
James stared straight ahead out his windshield. A tattered Liberian flag dangled from the awning of the phone shop and wafted in the breeze.
“I just don’t want no trouble, man. I am tired of it.”
“I understand. I’ll let you know … if things get hairy.”
James sighed. “I am going to need some more petrol soon. This place would only give me a few liters last time.”
“Let’s go find some, then,” said Archie, climbing into the passenger seat. He checked his watch. “Meanwhile, I’m going to make a few more calls.”
Chapter 4: Harbel
Highlife music blared from a shack selling bootleg CDs as James’ taxi crept forward in the petrol queue. At the present rate, it would take another half hour to reach the pumps, but at least they still had fuel at this establishment, unlike the first two they had tried.
Archie glanced at his watch. It was almost seven a.m. back in Maryland. He decided to give Melissa a call. She stayed at his place whenever he was away on lengthier excursions—the missions that sent him country-hopping down the west coast of Africa. Sometimes he would find traces of her lifestyle when he returned—lacy panties under the bed, ratatouilles in the freezer and bottles of cheap Merlot in the recycling bin.
She would be making her coffee now and feeding Felix and Tony, his cats. She answered on the second ring.
“Hey, Melissa. It’s just me checking in.”
“Hi Archie. I was wondering when you would call. How was your flight?”
“Oh, it was fine. It was my walk that got a little bumpy.”
“Walk?”
“I got mugged. They took my passport and credit card.”
“Oh my God! Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m patched up. A little sore. I‘ve got kind of a weird situation brewing. The embassy is acting kind of strange, and I’ve had some odd dealings with this company whose employee I think stole my passport. Well … it’s hard to explain.”
“Huh? Come again?”
“It’s probably nothing. Just the malaria pills making me delusional. So anyhow, I’m here, I’m doing fine. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
“Um. Okay.” Digital ghosts crackled in the background. “So … it was nice to hear from you. Felix and Tony say hi. Stay safe.”
“Bye.”
Melissa seemed a lot less talkative than usual. Perhaps she had a gentleman friend over. Understandable, given it was only his second night away and she was moving from a three roommate, two bedroom living situation to a three bedroom condo all to herself. He wasn’t crazy about the idea of some strange guy shagging his house-sitter on his own mattress, staining his sheets, snoozing on his pillows. But what right did he have to expect celibacy? At least she kept the place tidy. He always came back to green house plants, vacuumed carpets and happy cats.
He called his work next. By seven, most folks would be in. Early birds were common at NGOs centered on sub-Saharan Africa, given that most of their business was conducted in time zones at least four hours later. Not to mention, hitting the road by six helped avoid the worst of the DC-area traffic.
“Health Ventures International. How may I direct your call?”
“Hi Beth. Archie here. Any chance that Michael’s in yet?”
“Oh, Dr. Parsons! HR’s been trying to reach you.”
“Oh?”
“Hang on. I’ll forward you.”
Archie sighed. He really didn’t want to talk to HR about what was probably some quirk on his last travel claim. He needed to speak to Michael Boone, his program manager, and let him know that Global Change for Children would not be receiving their cash allotment any time soon.
“Alan Tibbs here.”
“Alan, this is Archie. I’m not sure why they connected me with you.”
“Oh my gosh, are you in Liberia already?”
“Um, as a matter of fact, I am.”
“Well, congratulations! I wish we could have reached you before you traveled. It would have spared you a trip.”
“Huh? Congratulations for what?”
“That position you applied for at PMI. You got it!”
“What? I didn’t … I never ….”
“You didn’t expect it? I don’t see why not. You’re perfect for the job. I mean, talk about qualifications.”
“Alan. I never applied.” In fact, he would never have gone near an opening with the President’s Malaria Initiative. It was a USAID-affiliated outfit with political baggage out the gills, rumored to be riddled with spooks.
“Whoa. That’s some aggressive recruiting,” said Alan. “I don’t see how you could say no. It’s a GS-14 with a 30% post differential plus all the usual perks and allowances including POV shipment. We’ll sure miss you here.”
“Wait a minute, Alan. I’m not leaving HVI just yet.”
“Oh really? But I thought you had requested termination. In fact, I’m looking right here at a termination order, effective immediately. They don’t even need you follow through on your current mission. They’ll send someone else to take up the slack. Hey, if you want, I can have someone at the travel office book a flight out for you tonight. There might be seats on KLM.”
“I can’t fly, Alan. My passport was stolen.”
“Oh. Well that sucks. Well, the embassy can get a new one pretty quick. Now you’ll have to go there in person to re-apply, so they can verify your identity. We’ll keep you on the books till you’re safely home. That way you get the benefit of our insurance.”
“Listen, I need to speak to Michael. I think there’s been a mistake.”
“It’s going to be hard to reach him today. He’s in DC for a workshop. He’s not taking calls.
“Just … great.”
“Oh, and about that cash you’re carrying? The accounting folks would like you to deliver it to a contact at the US Embassy in Monrovia, a man by the name of John Smart.”
“How interesting. All roads lead to the embassy.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. It’s just … I find all this very curious.”
***
The taxi was all gassed up with no place to go. Archie handed James another hundred dollar bill. “Pay for the gas and keep the change.”
James grinned. “Every time you pay for something it is one hundred dollars.”
“You’re a good driver, James. Stick around and I’ll keep it coming.”
“No problem. I stay.”
“So, do you like driving taxis?”
“Yes. It is good. With riders like you. Very good.”
“Well, it looks like you might have some competition soon.”
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