No, there would be no brightly lit, pastry-fueled eulogies celebrating her life and service. She’d have to settle for a few toasts by anonymous men and women sitting in dusty third world bars scattered across the globe. And truthfully, she’d have it no other way.
The speaker wrapped up his story and indicated to his right. “Director Drake had the privilege of knowing Brandon personally and wanted to say a few words, so I’ll shut up now. Are you ready, sir?”
Randi watched Drake stride to the lectern amid respectful applause. This seemed to confirm the rumor that Gazenga was working on something high-level. What it was, though, she still had no idea. His focus was on central Africa, and there was nothing she could find going on there that couldn’t be explained by the continent’s normal state of barely controlled chaos.
Of course, the digging she’d done had been fairly superficial thus far. The fact that he’d died of a perfectly credible accident so soon after passing her that note suggested two possibilities. One, he should clean out his fridge more often. Or, two, someone very slick and very powerful had wanted him dead. Assuming the latter was true, it had made sense to be as discrete as possible.
Unfortunately, there was only so much you could learn from the shadows. There was still no response to the message she’d left Jon, and all she’d been able to determine was that he was on leave from his job at Fort Detrick. Why he’d requested the leave or what he was doing with it was still a mystery.
She had a friend at TSA checking into whether or not he’d taken a commercial flight anywhere, but the answer was taking longer than she felt comfortable with. If Jon was in trouble, she needed to find him and bail his stupid ass out.
So there she was, making an appearance at Brandon Gazenga’s wake. It’d be interesting to see who noticed.
40
Flying insects looked like smoke in the headlights as Peter Howell eased the vehicle into a muddy ditch and then gunned it out again. Beyond the tiny circle of illumination, the darkness was as complete and unbroken as the bottom of the ocean.
Smith glanced into the backseat, where Sarie was stretched out with a limp hand resting on her rifle. She reminded him of Sophia in so many ways — the unrelenting enthusiasm for her work, the easy smile and sense of adventure.
What would his life have been like if she hadn’t died? Where would he be at that moment? Mowing the lawn? Carting their kids around in a minivan? Neither image was particularly easy to conjure.
When he faced forward again the bugs had relented enough to allow him to roll down the window and let in the warm, wet air.
“Ever wonder what you’ll do after all this, Peter?”
“After all what?”
“You know…When we’re too old to chase things through the jungle.”
Howell, visible in the light from the gauges, shook his head. “People like us don’t get to retire, Jon. One day we’re not as quick as we once were or we make a mistake, and that’s the end.”
Smith let out a long breath and sank deeper into the leather seat. “That’s a cheerful thought.”
Howell reached over and slapped his leg, a rare smile playing at his lips. “We’re not there yet, mate. I reckon we’ve got a few good fights left in us.”
Just ahead, an old fence constructed from local trees appeared and Smith pointed. “Could that be it?”
“Are we there?” Sarie said groggily, sitting upright and leaning forward between the seats.
“I’m not sure yet.”
Howell paralleled the fence, finally pulling up in front of a gate. Sarie jumped out before the car was completely stopped, stretching her cramped back before letting them through. There was no protest from either the latch or the hinges, and the road leading onto the property wasn’t overgrown. Maybe their luck was taking a turn for the better.
It was another ten minutes before a house appeared — an old, sprawling building with blooming flowers climbing faded walls. Sarie pulled the handle on her door, but Smith threw a hand back and stopped her. “Movement right.”
“I see it,” Howell responded, eyes darting to the rearview mirror. “Behind us, too. At least three. One machete, two rifles. Neither are automatic.”
“What? What’s going on?” Sarie said.
“Wait in the car,” Smith said as he eased his door open and got out. A security light on the porch came on, and he slowly raised an arm to shade his eyes. A moment later, a barefoot Caucasian man wearing jeans and a T-shirt came cautiously through the front door holding a shotgun.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“I’m Dr. Jon Smith, from the United States.”
“And your friends?”
Smith glanced behind him, spotting the Africans Howell had seen in the glow of their taillights. Added to the ones hiding at the edges of the house, there were at least five guns on them. Howell and Sarie might survive if things went their way, but Smith knew he wouldn’t.
“My friend Peter Howell and Dr. Sarie van Keuren from the University of Cape Town.”
The man considered what he’d heard for a moment and then leaned his gun against one of the pillars supporting the porch.
“I’m sorry for the reception,” he said, extending a hand as he came down the stairs. “We don’t get many surprise visitors, and this part of Africa isn’t as peaceful as it used to be. I’m Noah Duernberg.”
“Good to meet you,” Smith said as the vehicle’s doors opened behind him. When he looked back, the Africans who had been covering them were already wandering off.
Duernberg invited them into the house and they gathered around a heavy kitchen table by the light of a kerosene lamp. “We have to make all our own electricity out here,” he explained. “So we shut everything down at night. The generators make an awful racket.”
He pulled a few bottles of beer from a cupboard and passed them out. They were warm but Smith popped the cap gratefully.
“Where are you headed?” Duernberg asked, settling onto a hand-hewn bench near the window.
“Here,” Smith said.
“Here? You mean this area? What—”
“I mean this farm.”
The man was obviously confused, so Smith continued. “Is it safe to assume that Dr. Lukas Duernberg is your father?”
He nodded. “Was. He’s been dead for years.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“We didn’t really think we’d find anyone still living here,” Sarie said. “We couldn’t find any information on you and were just hoping to get something from the local people about where your family ended up.”
“My father saved one of Idi Amin’s children and he gave us this land. I think we’ve pretty much been forgotten — a few white people running a farm in the hinterland is the least of the government’s worries these days.”
“It must be hard with Bahame gaining power in the region,” Howell said.
The farmer nodded sadly. “My father built this house. We have a life here, friends, people who count on us for the bread on their table. But right now my wife and son are living in Kampala trying to find a country that will take us. It’s just too dangerous here now.”
“I understand what you’re going through,” Sarie said. “I grew up on a farm in Namibia and had to leave. I still think about it every day.”
Duernberg took a long pull from his beer. “Enough about things that are in God’s hands. What’s your interest in my family?”