Patterson, James - Alex Cross 14 - Cross Country

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.

Cross Country

Chapter 33

“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.

Cross Country

Chapter 34

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.

“What for?” I asked.

“Sometimes God is the answer. Other times it's cash.”

Smiling as ever, the diminutive priest gave me his card, then turned and walked away with a final, friendly wave.

I found out what he meant around three hours later, which was the amount of time I had spent sweating on the immigration line. There were just two slow-moving officers at the counter for something like four hundred people.

Some passengers sailed through, while others were detained at the head of the line for as long as thirty minutes. Twice I saw someone taken away by an armed guard through a side door rather than being allowed to go out to the main terminal.

When it was finally my turn, I handed my landing card and passport to the officer.

“Yes, and your passport?” he asked.

I was momentarily confused, but then I remembered what Father Bombata had said and understood. I held a scowl in check. The official wanted his bribe.

I slid two hundred naira across the counter. He took it, stamped me through, and called out for the next person without ever looking at me again.

Cross Country

Chapter 35

THE LOW HUBBUB and frustration of clearing immigration was nothing compared with the instantaneous onslaught of noise and hurrying people that met me when I passed through the hand- and fingerprint-smudged glass doors and into the main terminal at Murtala Muhammed.

There's where I got my first real indication that I was in a metropolitan area of thirteen million people. I think at least half of them were there at the airport that day.

So this is Africa, I thought. And somewhere out there is my killer, or rather killers.

No fewer than five Nigerian “officials” stopped me on my way to the luggage carousels. Each of them asked for verification of my identity. They all basically said the same thing. “Visa, American Express, any card will do.” Each of them clearly knew I was American. They all required a small bribe, or maybe they thought of it as a gratuity.

By the time I reached the baggage carousel, got my duffel, and pushed back out through the twenty-deep wall of people pressing in, I was tempted to fork over a few more naira to a raggedy-looking kid in an old skycap hat who asked where I wanted my bags taken.

I thought better of it, however, and pushed on, hauling my own luggage, keeping everything close to the chest. Stranger in a strange land, I thought, though I was also strangely pleased to be here. This promised to be quite an adventure, didn't it? It was completely new territory for me. I didn't know any of the rules.

Cross Country

Chapter 36

THERE WAS NO relief outside, where the air smelled of diesel, and no wonder: There was a raft of old cars, trucks, and bright yellow buses everywhere that I looked. Locals of all ages walked alongside the traffic, selling everything from newspapers to fruit to children's clothing and used shoes.

“Alexander Cross?”

I turned around, expecting to see and meet Ian Flaherty, my CIA contact here in Nigeria. The CIA was good at sneaking up on you, right?

Instead, I came face-to-face with two armed officers. These were regular police, I noticed, not immigration. They had all-black uniforms, including berets, with insignia chevrons on the epaulets of their shirts. Both of them carried semiautomatics.

“I'm Alex Cross, yes,” I told them.

What happened next defied all logic. My duffel bag was ripped from my arm. Then my small suitcase. One of the officers spun me around and I felt cuffs on my wrists. Then a hard pinch as they snapped down too tightly.

“What's going on?” I struggled to turn to look at the policemen. “What is this? Tell me what's happening.”

The officer with my luggage raised a hand in the air as if he were hailing a cab. A white four-door Toyota truck immediately pulled up to the curb.

The cops yanked open a rear door, ducked my head, and pushed me in, throwing my travel bag after me. One officer stayed on the sidewalk while the other jumped in next to the driver, and we took off.

I suddenly realized-I was being kidnapped!

Cross Country

Chapter 37

THIS WAS SURREAL. It was insane.

“Where are you taking me? What is this about? I'm an American police officer,” I protested from the back of the truck. No one seemed to be listening to a word I said.