The Refusal

“If you look up in the corners of the room, Mr. Shisa, you will see small video cameras. I’m sure we have some lovely footage of your encounter with Mr. Townsend. Now we would like to have a friend in the provincial office when it comes to giving out uranium mining rights, and I’m sure that your wife, who we understand is General Kirungi’s favorite daughter, would not be pleased to see these videos. Would you like to make an arrangement with us? We would, naturally, be happy to put you on a consultant’s stipend—all very private, of course.”

Shisa hunched there under his covers, trying to speak but unable to do so.

“It is, of course, an offer of very limited availability, Mr. Shisa.” Winterberry made a dramatic gesture of looking at his wrist watch. “Your general is a man who doesn’t linger over his pleasures. I calculate that you have ten minutes or less to mull over this offer and be dressed and standing down by his Mercedes unless we want him figuring out what has transpired here. Do you really want him to know that you have broken his favorite daughter’s heart?”

Shisa was standing by the Mercedes when General Kirungi emerged, all smiles, from the governmental office.

The U.S. team’s SUV was parked behind the hotel. After the Mercedes had roared off in a cloud of smoke, Brian Townsend helped Eric get cleaned up at the hotel, while the two silent colleagues dismounted the video cameras. And then they were off, headed back to Kalaibo in the dust cloud that still lingered in the wake of Kirungi’s Mercedes.