James PATTERSON - Cross Country

Obviously, I couldn’t get far without it.

THAT NIGHT, I gave Nana Mama a little taste of her own medicine. I waited until late, after the kids had gone to bed. Then I found her in her favorite reading chair, huddled over a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

“What’s this?” She squinted at the manila folder in my hand as if it might bite her.

“More news articles. I want you to take a look at them. They tell a horrible story, Nana. Murder, fraud, rape, genocide.”

The article I’d given Nana included coverage of the gang’s DC murders. There were two long and well-written stories from the Post, one on each family, including pictures from happier times – like when they’d had their heads.

“Alex, I already told you. I know what’s going on there. I don’t want to discuss this anymore.”

“Neither do I.”

“You don’t have to solve every single case. Let it go for once in your life.”

“I wish I could.”

I put the folder flat on her lap, kissed the warm top of her head, and went up to bed. “Stubborn,” I muttered.

“Yes, you are. Very.”

IN THE MORNING, I went downstairs around five thirty. I was surprised to see that Jannie and Ali were already up. Nana stood fiddling around at the stove with her back to me. She was cooking something cinnamony and irresistible.

I sensed a trap.

Jannie ferried glasses of orange juice from the counter to the table, where there were already silverware and cloth napkins for five.

Ali was already sitting at his place, working on a big bowl of cereal and milk. He saluted me with a drippy spoon. “He’s here!”

Et tu, Ali.

“Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” I said, loud enough for the whole room.

Nana didn’t respond, but she had heard me, for sure.

Only then did I notice a yellow-bordered National Geographic map of Africa scotch taped to the refrigerator door.

And also, set down with the napkins and silverware on the table, my passport.

“So,” said Nana. “It was nice knowing you.”

A CIA OPERATIVE named Ian Flaherty was “babysitting” a hysterical family down in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The parents’ teenaged son and daughter had been kidnapped. They were gathered together in the living room, waiting to learn the ransom demands, and the atmosphere couldn’t have been more desperate.

Oh no, Flaherty had thought.

His cell rang, and everyone crowded into the room looked at him with anxious faces and deep concern.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this. It’s another case,” he said, then walked out into the lush gardens just off the living room.

America was calling – another kind of emergency.

Flaherty recognized the voice on the other end as that of Eric Dana, his superior, at least in rank.

“We have quite a situation on our hands. A homicide detective named Alex Cross is on his way there. He’ll arrive on Lufthansa flight 564 at four thirty p.m. The Tiger is in Lagos?” Dana asked.

“He’s here,” said Flaherty.

“You’ve seen him yourself?”

“I have, actually. Do you want me to meet the detective’s plane?”

“I’ll leave that up to you.”

“Probably be best if I meet him. Alex Cross, you say. Let me think about it.”

“All right, but you have to watch over him. Don’t let anything happen to him… when it can be helped. He’s well liked here and connected. We don’t want a mess over there.”

“Too late for that,” Flaherty said and snickered a nasty, cynical laugh.

He went back to comfort the family whose children were probably already dead.

But they would pay anyway.

WELL, THE INVESTIGATION had definitely taken a turn now. But was it for better or for worse?

The plane from Washington to Frankfurt, Germany, was nearly full, and it was incredibly noisy for the first hour anyway. I spent some idle time guessing who might be continuing on to Africa, but it wasn’t too long before I fell back into my own dark reveries.

Everything that had led to this trip ran through my head like extended case notes, going all the way back to my Georgetown days with Ellie, and then up to Nana’s grudging consent that morning.

Nana’s going-away gift, such as it was, sat open on my lap. It was a copy of Wole Soyinka’s memoir, You Must Set Forth at Dawn .

She’d bookmarked it with a family photo – Jannie, Damon, and Ali, cheesing with Donald Duck at Disneyland a year or so back – and she had underlined a quotation on the page.

T’agba ha nde, a a ye ogunja.

As one approaches an elder’s status, one ceases to indulge in battles.

It was her version of getting the last word, I suppose. Except that it had the opposite effect on me. I was more determined than ever to make this trip count for something.

Whatever the odds against me, I was going to find the killers of Ellie’s family. I had to; I was the Dragon Slayer.

“AH, SOYINKA. AN illuminating writer. Have you read him before?”

I didn’t realize that someone had stopped in the aisle alongside my seat. I looked up, though just barely, at the shortest priest I’d ever seen. Not the shortest man, but definitely the shortest priest. His white collar came just to my eye level.

“No, this is my first,” I said. “It was a going-away gift from my grandmother.”

His smile got even brighter, his eyes wider. “Is she a Nigerian?”

“Just a well-read American.”

“Ah, well, nobody’s perfect,” he said and then laughed before there could be any suggestion of an insult. “ T’agba ba nde, a a ye ogunja . It’s a Yoruban proverb, you know.”

“Are you Yoruban?” I asked. His accent sounded Nigerian to me, but I didn’t have the ear to tell Yoruban from Igbo from Hausa, or any of the other tongues.

“Yoruban Christian,” he said and then, with a wink, added, “Christian Yoruban, if you ask the bishop. But don’t tell on me. Do I have your word on it?”

“I won’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe.”

He extended a hand as if to shake, and then sandwiched mine between both of his when I reached out toward him. The priest’s hands were tiny, yet they communicated friendship, and maybe something else.

“Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior, Detective Cross?”

I pulled my hand back. “How do you know my name?”

“Because if not, considering the trip you’re about to take, now might be a good time to do so. Accept Jesus Christ, that is.”

The priest made the sign of the cross over me. “I am Father Bombata. May God be with you, Detective Cross. You will need His help in Africa, I promise you. This is a very bad time for us. Maybe even a time of civil war.”

He invited me to come sit in the empty seat next to him, and we didn’t stop talking for hours, but he never did tell me how he knew my name.

EIGHTEEN HOURS – WHICH seemed more like a couple of days – after I left Washington, the flight from Frankfurt finally landed at Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, Nigeria.

I had watched the unbelievable, and somewhat hypnotic, sweep of the Sahara from the plane; the savannas that buffered it from the coast; and the equally vast Gulf of Guinea just beyond the city.

Then, as I deplaned onto the tarmac, I suddenly felt like I was in Anytown, USA. It might have been Fort Lauderdale, for all I could tell.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you here, brother.” Father Bombata came up and shook my hand again before we separated.

He had told me he had an escort meeting him to speed up his arrival. “Put two hundred naira in an empty pocket, my friend,” he told me.