James PATTERSON - Cross Country

It was dark when I woke up, and I hurt all over, but especially around my nose. At first my mind was blank. I had no idea where I was; not Africa, not anywhere. I just thought How the hell did I get here?

And then, Where is here? Where have I been taken?

My hand went up to my temple. I felt a sharp sting where I touched an open wound, and then I remembered the handcuffs. But they weren’t on my wrists anymore.

I was on my back, on a hard floor, stone or cement maybe.

Someone was looking down at me. I couldn’t make out his expression in the nearly lightless room. I could only tell that he was a dark-skinned man.

Not one man, I realized. Many. A dozen or more men were standing around me. Then I got it! They were prisoners – like me.

“White man is awake,” someone said.

My clothes gave me away, I supposed. They had made me for an American. “White man” was meant to be an insult, one that I had heard already on the trip.

“Where am I?” It came out as a croak. “Water?” I asked.

The one who’d already spoken said, “Not until morning, my friend.” He knelt down and helped me sit up, though. My rib cage felt like it was ready to explode, and I had a monster headache that wasn’t going away by itself.

I saw that I was in a bleak, filthy holding cell of some kind. Even with my nose broken, the smell was unbelievably strong and foul, probably coming from a latrine in some unseen corner. I took shallow breaths through my mouth.

What little light there was came through a grated door on the far wall. The place looked big enough for maybe a dozen of us, but there were at least three times that number, all males.

Many of the prisoners were lying shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor. A relatively lucky few were snoring away on wall-mounted bunks.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Midnight, maybe. Who knows? What’s the difference to us? We’re all dead men anyway.”

AS MY HEAD cleared some, I realized that my wallet was gone. And my belt.

And, I realized as I felt around some more, the earring from my left ear. The lobe was scabbed over where a small silver hoop had been, a birthday present from Jannie.

Where had they taken me? How far was I from the airport? Was I still in Nigeria?

Why hadn’t anyone tried to stop them from kidnapping me? Did it happen all the time?

I had no idea about any of these questions, or their answers.

“Are we in Lagos?” I finally asked.

“Yes. In Kirikiri. We are political prisoners. So we have been told. I am a journalist. And you are?”

A metal scrape came from the direction of the door as it was unlocked, then opened wide.

I saw two blue-uniformed guards pause in the light of a cement corridor before they stepped in and became shadows themselves. Seconds later, one of them played a flashlight over us.

It caught me in the eyes and hung there for several seconds.

I felt sure they were here for me, but they grabbed the man two down from me instead. The one who had said he was a journalist.

They pulled him roughly to his feet. Then one of the guards unholstered a pistol and pressed it to his temple.

“No one talks to the American. No one,” the guard told the room. “You hear me?”

Then, as I watched in disbelief, the man was pistol-whipped until he was unconscious. Then he was dragged out of the holding cell.

The reaction of the other prisoners around me was mostly silent acceptance, but a couple of men moaned into their hands. No one moved; I could still hear snoring from a few of them.

I stayed where I was, holding it all in until the vicious guards were gone. Then I did the only thing I could, which was ease back down to the floor, where every shallow, rapid breath produced another slice of pain through my chest.

What kind of hell had I gotten myself into?

I WISH I could say that my first night in the prison cell in Kirikiri was a blur and that I barely remember it.

It’s just the opposite, though. I will never forget any of it, not one second.

The thirst was the worst, on that first night anyway. My throat felt like it was closing up. Dehydration ate at me from the inside. Meanwhile, oversize mosquitoes and rats tried to do the same from the outside.

My head and torso throbbed like a metronome all night, and a sense of hopelessness threatened to overwhelm me the minute I let my guard down, or, God forbid, slept for half an hour.

I’d read enough from Human Rights Watch to know something about the conditions in this kind of prison but the gap between knowing it and living it was enormous. It was possibly the worst night of my life, and I’d had some bad ones before this. I had spent time with Kyle Craig, Gary Soneji, and Casanova.

As dawn finally came, I watched the single barred window like a television set. Seeing its slow change, from black, to gray, to blue, was as close as I could get to optimism.

Just when the prisoners around me began to stir, the cell door opened again.

A wiry guard stood at the threshold. He reminded me of a very tall grasshopper. “Cross! Alexander!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “Cross! Over here! Now!”

It was a struggle to look halfway able-bodied as I slowly rose to my feet. I focused on the pain of my chest hairs being pulled out where they had fused with the dried blood in my shirt. It was just instinct, but it got me up on rubbery legs and across the floor.

Then I followed the guard into the corridor. He turned right, and when I saw the dead end ahead of us, I let go of any thoughts I’d had about getting out of the prison.

Maybe ever.

“I am an American policeman,” I said, starting up my story again. “I’m here investigating a murder.”

And then it struck me – was that why I was in this prison?

THIS DEFINITELY WAS hell. We passed several foreboding, metal doors like the one to my cell. I wondered how many prisoners were kept here, and how many of them were Americans. Most of the guards spoke some English, which made me suspect that I wasn’t the only American here.

The last door on the ward was the only one without a lock. An old office chair sat in front of it, its seat nearly rusted through.

“Inside,” barked the guard. “Quickly now, go ahead, Detective.”

When I went to move the chair out of the way, he shoved it into my hands. Just as well. It was something to sit on besides the floor, and I didn’t feel much like standing right now.

Once I was in, he closed the door and, from the sound of it, walked away.

This room was similar to the holding cell except that it was maybe half the size and empty. The cement floor and stone walls were streaked dark, which was probably where the putrefying smell came from.

There was no latrine here. Possibly because the whole area had been a latrine at one time.

I looked back at the gray metal door again. Given that there was no lock, was it more foolish to try to get out of here than to just sit and wait for whatever might come next?

Probably not, but I couldn’t be sure about it, could I?

I was halfway to my feet when I heard footsteps again.

I sat back down. The door opened and two police officers came in wearing black uniforms instead of prison-guard blue. My stomach told me it was a bad trade-off.

So did the hard, pissed-off look on the guards’ faces.

“Cross? Alexander?” one barked.

“Could I have some water?” I asked. There was nothing on earth that I wanted more. I could barely speak now.

One officer, in mirror shades, glanced over at the other, who shook his head no.

“What am I charged with?” I asked.