It began the usual way, in the bathroom of the Lassimo Hotel.
I knew where it would end, too. Call it a premonition. Before the day was out, I’d be tearing through the back streets of Maputo, dodging Markov’s goons while a hysterical varecia variagata tried to claw out my eyes. I could see it all, right down to Cardinal Ribisi hot on my tail in his flame-red Lotus with the autographed Jesus bobblehead on the dash.
Jakarta all over again.
This time I’d taken the best room in Lassimo, which meant no running water, a surplus Foreign Legion camp bed, and about equal chances of armed rebels or stampeding wildebeest reducing the place to rubble.
Dr. O, our contact in Mozambique, had warned me when he extracted the tracking chip. “They’ll make you the second you step out the door. You can lose them in the bairros, but you’d better leave town until El Pishtaco makes port.”
He taped the chip to a wild goose and put it on a flight to Nairobi. He had a wicked sense of humor and a grudge to pay off.
It was the old dilemma – try to disappear in the crowd where the enemy is strongest, or take a powder to the sticks and stand out like a penguin in Prudhoe Bay.
When I was washing my hands in the bathroom I’d felt that familiar tickle on the back of my neck. There was a triangular patch of mirror that still had a little silver, and I could see the same guy in the yellow shirt from the lobby trying a little too hard not to look at me.
I would have to move soon.
I held the highest clearance in the PRL, which entitles you to exactly jack in terms of intergovernmental cooperation. On the other hand, in Maputo 20 USD got you a ’67 Bimmer and a driver with an Uzi for a week, plus dinner and a room with the mayor and a decent pad thai for breakfast made by his Siamese twin chefs. Regular twins – a couple guys on the lam from the Chennai Rowdies.
Only I didn’t have 20.
Well, nobody said prosimian repatriation would be easy, and nobody joins the League for the fame or money. Mostly it meant days on the run, nights in the bush, and skipping lunch to pay for extra Bactine. You learn to keep up on your inoculations or you don’t last long.
But it also meant a crack at saving the world, all the sweet grannies and cute puppies, jazz, gin, and jelly donuts. Not a bad day’s work, and there’s a Dunkin’s right next to HQ.
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