Franco

Chapter 9 of Microcosmia

Microcosmia

Chapter Nine

Franco

For both Mudhead and Vane, the next day was an exasperating challenge in cooperation and translation. The dynamic functions of foot pumps and valves, the very Western concepts of aluminum sinks and stainless steel toilets--these were profoundly mysterious to the nomadic Afar. Measurements and tolerances required clarification in depth. For Vane it was frustrating, claustrophobic work; assembling parts by memory, repeatedly yelling instructions through his gills. Though he fiercely cursed Mudhead’s penchant for garbling the CO’s critical commands, and inwardly blessed the Afar’s inherent call to mimicry, he still found room for hope and self-congratulation: the circulation created by his fan was nothing short of life-saving.

Folding partitions created compact toilet stalls, defined by Vane with considerable embarrassment. Arriving on that same run were loads of heavy foam padding, along with mountains of carpet pieces. Vane took his pick first, favoring solids in earth tones. He demonstrated from the Stage; unrolling and rerolling a pad, layering carpet pieces like throw rugs to produce a civilized softness underfoot. The Afar, nodding and murmuring appreciatively, quietly stepped back inside their Domos, respectfully laid their pads and pieces, and carefully covered them over with dirt.

Next came Yards: oblong Square divisions still marked off by stakes. Using smaller lattice guides, a Square’s Yard could be subdivided into 10 x 10 corner squares for a coop, a hutch, a pen, and a camel pad. Other folding guides measured off rectangular side patches for the Square’s gardens, both vegetable and flower. A south-side lattice produced a walkway and front yard, the north-side lattice a backyard and cooking/dining area. Any given Square’s fence might be picket, chain link, simple hedge, or whatever the resident’s imagination could produce. Or no fence at all. It was an aesthetic, not a security, concern. There would be no crime in Mamuset.

Once he had Squares up and running, Vane delivered a grueling series of lectures on micronutrients, tilling, and irrigation, commencing every morning directly after Strauss. Fields were sectioned for corn, tubers, beans, alfalfa, millet, and teff, a native grain. The chessboard effect was retained. And though Vane at times could be brutal in his grudging test of the communal will, the Afar just ate up his demands and begged for more. So he gave them more. To decrease the crater’s salt content, backbreaking applications of lime were instituted, coupled with diligent soil-turning and near-continuous flushings of Fields west of the Ridge. Vane kept waking expecting an uprising. But each morning he found the Afar scrambling for the crippling privilege of hoeing hundreds of rows east to west. The dog was walking its master.

The project’s first real hitch came on a morning like any other, after only a few short weeks of work. Calisthenics were completed. Breakfast, come and gone. Vane had finally concluded his lectures on the multiplication tables, proper civil comportment in a free society, and the great vitamin E controversy, with Mudhead’s usual sarcastic mistranslations snapping from every Utility Square speaker. The relieved Afar, tools in hands, were scurrying off to Fields.

But on that otherwise typical, searing morning, the primary convoy arrived late, light, and manned by an evasive company of belligerent drivers. There was no excuse for it; by now the route from Massawa to Mamuset was entirely serviceable. And no matter how many times Mudhead tried to solve the mystery of the missing cargo, all he got was a raucous demand for cash up front and the promise of a broken jaw if he didn’t quit snooping. The CO kept him at it until the drivers threatened to split with their loads intact. Vane had to take them seriously--light or not, almost a day’s worth of food was at stake.

A call to Addis Ababa got him nowhere. And Honey, through ‘local’ contact Tibor, would only report unspecified difficulties in Port Massawa. Warehouses were non-responsive. When he stormed back to Dock, Vane found the drivers ganged around a stock-still Mudhead, chorusing their demand with mounting hostility. He pressed to his friend’s side, and the ring closed round behind him. Through Mudhead and a series of universal hand gestures, Vane explained that he carried only petty cash, and that payroll operated out of a Massawa warehouse. The drivers turned away, preparing to make good their threat. Vane’s very unmanly squeal of protest bought a minute. The men turned back. Vane studied the dozens of tractor trailers. Tons and tons of dried and frozen foods were in the balance. He thereupon offered, on his signature, double pay in Massawa if the men would only leave their loads behind. Their response was clear enough: they weren’t planning a return to Massawa any time soon. Not only that, they didn’t believe Vane for a second. Again with the ultimatum: cash in dollars American, in the fist and on the spot. The noose continued to tighten. A low growling sound, which Vane first supposed came from a refrigerator trailer, swirled out of a looming line of spiky shadows surrounding the drivers.

The Afar appeared to glide as they multiplied. Their common growl rose slowly, in pitch and in intensity, like a ring of cellos ascending in legato half steps. At last Vane cried out “Stop!” and threw his arms high. The sound cut off immediately, but the crowd’s hundred eyes continued to glare. Vane hollered, “Kid!”

The youngster shot through the ring like a projectile, dancing in circles, head down and fists clenched.

“Mudhead! Tell Kid he’s in charge until we get back! We’re gonna go find out what the hangup is. You tell him to get Crew busy unloading these trucks…now!” He spat at the nearest driver’s feet. “Then tell these reptiles they can pick up their walking papers in Massawa!”

Vane cockily strutted up to Isis while Mudhead translated. He fired her up, tore round in a tight circle, and braked emphatically. The African climbed in with decorum and braced himself. The Land Rover took off like a comet with a burning-rubber tail.

The fifty-mile stretch to Massawa did nothing for Vane; all his bluster and bravado were quickly replaced by funk and defeatism. The problem slammed his back against an imaginary wall. Before a single fact was in he knew he’d failed. Knew it.

It was a good thing he’d carried his inheritance to the desert, far from cameras and gold diggers. He’d never have handled the pressures of power and responsibility; his head would have exploded. And he’d have taken a whole lot of people down with him. Arguably a bad thing. And, after he’d blown, the rags would have reassembled the pieces to produce that insatiable egomaniac the public demanded--an ill-mannered, lecherous, walking time bomb triggered by a final play of soured greed. Tinsel starlets and cast-iron henchmen would have materialized, singing lurid tales of the pampered heir’s physical and psychological abuses.

Better to live apart from all that. Better to forget. Better to be forgotten.

Mudhead watched his racing boss nodding with naked misery. He clung to the bucking Rover and smiled grimly, knowing that, all else notwithstanding, Vane was going to die an African.

Massawa, an ancient commercial port with a light military flow, was nothing like the place they’d worked out of only three weeks ago. Now the hills were crawling with earth-moving equipment, preparing what looked to be a series of battlements. A new airstrip flickered in the rising morning heat, her twin radar dishes mooning the sky. The rest of the place stank of decaying municipal control; in the trash piled along the major road’s sides, in the abandoned cars and trucks looted of batteries and radios, in the new potholes and drooping power lines. Where once the harbor possessed an easy, almost sanguine ambiance, there now existed a very ominous military presence. Jeeps full of hot-dogging black Muslims roared past, trying to goose a reaction out of Vane. Each soldier wore fatigues and combat boots, a camouflage Muslim headpiece, and very dark glasses. In addition, some wore streaming multicolored robes, flak jackets, and miscellaneous military paraphernalia of unfamiliar vintage and origin. All sported Uzis or shotguns, and looked far more like street thugs than soldiers. By contrast Vane looked sporty and naïve, Mudhead almost officious. They were the good boys on the wrong side of the tracks.

Nearer the water, Eritrean army vehicles monitored traffic by holding flow to a crawl in both directions. Civilians were halted with a randomness that appeared deliberately contemptuous; the roving sentries took particular delight in detaining the Land Rover, and in thoroughly checking and rechecking Vane’s papers.

Eritrea’s retaking of the Red Sea coast had deprived Ethiopia of her navy; at present, these seized Ethiopian ships were commanded by officers of Eritrea’s army. Except for a narrow sea corridor, Massawa’s commercial port was completely obstructed.

Several small aid ships were locked in solid with the old Ethiopian naval vessels--they’d been immobilized for over two weeks (help for the sick and starving was dead in the water: the ethical distribution of humanitarian aid in East Africa, of little interest during peace, is of no interest whatever during war).

But a deep front existed. In fact, ships bearing the aid of major democracies were escorted up and down that narrow corridor with great ceremony. Their cargoes were unloaded, signed for, and warehoused. These stored wares were then divided and subdivided by Army officers and competing lords of crime. What did get through to relief organizations (mainly harried mobile distribution groups virtually cut off from facts and figures) was a miserable fraction of that reaching the fatted lips of Eritrean officers, and the fatting coffers of organized crime. While there was a perpetual outcry of disappointment and suspicion at the chain’s far end, those groups doing the actual feeding and medicating believed aid was at an abysmal low due to losses caused by conflict, rather than hush and piracy.

Port Massawa’s ugly amalgam of crime and police had produced a dank bully culture; in this world corruption was not merely commonplace, it was the cornerstone and standard. Islam was a shadow; prostitution and murder were open means of barter and resolution. No one questioned a thing, no one imagined questioning a thing. The government supported the port by allowing it to remain open under military authority, and the military supported the economy by regulating the flow of seized tobacco, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals. Used syringes floated in raw sewage amid cigarette butts and broken liquor bottles. Massawa, once the jewel of Red Sea ports, had almost overnight become a Third world ghetto, infested with every modern disease the area could support. Yet in the hills there remained oases, sheltered from the filth and misery, where the more successful bosses kept up retinues of Chinese gardeners and Turkish chefs. On these estates Eritrean officers and kingpins competitively expanded their stables of w****s, sycophants, and spies.

Vane and Mudhead stuck out like sore thumbs in all this squalor. The black Muslim sentries, standing loosely at intersections, were frankly contemptuous of the young driver’s fairness, and of his elder partner’s bleached robes and anal-retentive appearance. They watched in eyeless appraisal; wearing their ammo belts slung to the right in deference to Allah, doing their sinning with the left hand alone.

Military vehicles seemed to come popping off assembly lines as Isis approached the water. These vehicles’ occupants initially passed alongside with affected indifference. Then with looks of hard inquisitiveness. Finally, with postures and expressions of outright hostility. Those black sunglasses were everywhere. Vane and Mudhead faced straight ahead.

Harbor Massawa was a festering wound; a garbage-covered pustule peppered with the rotting corpses of rats, cats, and the occasional mongrel. Those ubiquitous gangster-soldiers in fatigues and dark glasses fit right in. Jeeps full of them loitered in subterranean drives and in the entrances to overgrown alleys. Heads turned as one as the Land Rover rolled by.

A mile off the water was a barricade of worn military vehicles parked crosswise. Only one car at a time could be admitted. Vane put Isis in neutral.

“Not too late turn back,” Mudhead said quietly, “Mister Vane.” It was the first time he’d formally addressed his employer.

They listened to the hot engine. Finally Vane said, “It’s always too late.” Neither man moved.

A minute later Mudhead muttered, “Maybe Bossman right.”

Vane, a tourist seeking landmarks, looked around casually. Two alleys back, a jeep crawled out of the shadows, hesitated.

“On right too.”

A jeep crunched up on either side. Vane slowly turned his head to the left and stared poker-faced at the cold black masks with the impenetrable black glasses. An officer in the passenger seat said, in a thickly accented voice, “You will proceed to the checkpoint.”

“We have clearance. We’re civilian.”

The man immediately stepped out and got in Vane’s face. “You are wrong, sir. You have zero clearance here. You have entered a military zone in wartime. You are therefore under the jurisdiction of the Port’s commanding officer. He alone determines affairs in Massawa.”

Vane thrust out his chin. “I would speak with this commanding officer.”

“This is already arranged. You are expected.” Still staring Vane down, he said, “Proceed with this vehicle,” and climbed back in.

Isis was escorted to the gap, where a gold Mercedes waited with engine humming. The Rover’s doors were yanked open.

“No, not him. The American alone.”

Mudhead was hauled out and smothered in a human knot. Before Vane could open his mouth he was flanked by four soldiers.

“I’ll just be a minute,” he said bravely. “No napping.” He walked close behind the officer, caught up in a tight crescent.

The man halted at the driver’s door. After half a minute he stamped a boot. The car’s rear door popped open, as though triggered by the concussion. The back was empty.

Vane slid across the seat. The officer shut the door firmly and leaned in his head. “There are alcohol and tobacco in that compartment. Indicate to the driver that you desire these things and he will flip a switch up front, releasing the compartment’s door.”

“Thank you.”

“This automobile utilizes a very powerful air conditioning system, made necessary by our country’s extreme temperature. The car’s metal can become quite hot; at times even the glass will burn flesh. The deep coolness is for your protection, not for comfort. For this reason we require that all windows remain up. The doors will be locked for your safety.” A pause. “Enjoy the drive. It is a short trip.”

Vane stared straight ahead. The black face studied him curiously, withdrawing as the dark window hummed up. The door locked with a whisper. In half a minute the car’s interior was a deep freeze.

The driver’s head and shoulders did not invite conversation. The man wore no religious or military apparel, and stank of old sweat and cheap cologne. Half his left ear was missing. Vane sat back and stared out the window as the Mercedes quietly rolled toward Massawa’s Old Harbor section.

His memories were of an idyllic montage, almost Mediterranean in feel. But now the harbor was a cesspool, dominated by what had to be the planet’s largest, filthiest, and most decrepit three-island general-cargo ship, all set to burst at the seams. Scheherazade was a World War II eyesore, a fat mother hen wallowing in disrepair. Her name, acid-etched on the prow, incompletely obscured the ghost of her previous incarnation--DEUT was all Vane could decipher. Dozens of flagging derricks hung from her deck, leaning crazily over the holds and water, while seagulls swarmed about her like flies round a dog’s mess, dropping their dull white thanks on her cargo and hull. The ship had not been cleaned in many, many years; below her mangled rail the white streaks of dung resembled icicles hanging from eaves. Scheherazade’s bridge had caved in from some past abuse of cargo, and was now a sad sagging shack with a soot-and-crap smokestack.

Vane mulled over his smashed bags and crates. Holds were overflowing with flour, rice, and fertilizer, parts and parcels poking up like flotsam. On deck, boxes and sacks were stacked willy-nilly, so that the tops of stacks formed a bumpy foundation for the next level. Everything was battened ingeniously; with ropes, with cables, with hoses and rags. Wide banks of flowing grain were intermixed with glacier-like drifts of bird dung and narrow dunes of fertilizer, the whole mess spilling across the deck into black holds and doorways. So grossly overladen was the ship that Vane could see only a narrow, zigzagging walkway between the heaving cliffs of cargo.

All around Scheherazade, Old Harbor lay festering; oily, stagnant, reeking with floating garbage. Gone were the typical rusting container ships, the native fishers, the tugs and transports. In their place were a dozen antique Eritrean naval vessels, slowly rocking with the tide. Docks were silent, overrun by strays and wharf rats. Contempt hung over everything; contempt for sanitation, contempt for life, contempt for the military, contempt for Eritrea. The camouflaged sentries were less conspicuous here; the ones Vane observed peering from cover were done balancing military protocol against energy expenditure. The heat always won. No man not an officer was willing to readily forsake shade unless addressing Mecca. So the black-eyed bogeymen, leaning half-out of shadows, watched insolently as the gold Mercedes passed, counting the days until the shiny prize would, by coup or subterfuge, be theirs.

Having spent most of the last five months in this section of Massawa, Vane was well aware they were headed for one of his principal warehouses. His blood rose when he finally made out the wide aluminum building, squatting deserted in the hanging sun. In a few minutes the driver pulled up to an open side door. The car’s locks released.

Vane sat still. “Thanks again,” he said quietly. The head did not turn.

When he stepped out the heat hit him like a haymaker. He kicked the door shut and the Mercedes pulled away.

Out of the frying pan and into the pressure cooker--Vane strolled through the warehouse’s hot shadows, barely able to breathe, casting cursory glances left and right.

He’d been robbed.

The huge end fans were gone; torn from their stands. Split and reeking sacks of manure lay intermingled with torn bags of borax and manganese sulfate. A strange mustiness emanated from the mysteries behind looted shelves, where water or some other fluid had reacted with sulfates of zinc and copper. Vane casually probed an unfamiliar burlap bag with a forefinger. He leaned forward for a sniff. The texture was grainy, the smell neutral.

The warehouse’s only innocuous features were two identical red leather barstools set on either side of a polished driftwood coffee table in an isolated pool of sallow light. A very stagy setting. Vane walked over and looked down. The table sported a sincere but lame spread of Americana: a six-pack of Coors long necks, a zinc-plated Zippo lighter perched on a fresh pack of Marlboros, a five-ounce bag of Fritos corn chips, and a small jar of Skippy extra chunky peanut butter. Carefully centered amid these articles was a wide glass ashtray with the legend Ramada Inn cut into its base.

Vane perched on a bar stool and stared at nothing. Finally he plucked out a Coors, screwed off the cap, and raised the bottle to his lips. Foam blew out the mouth and ran down his arm; the brew was room temperature. He flicked the liquid from his hand and cursed quietly. After a few breaths he took a tentative swallow and studied the shadows. If this warehouse was any indication, seventy-to eighty per cent of his stores had been pirated. He drank deeper. It wasn’t just a matter of replacing these stores. If Eritrea was being raped from within, anything coming through was as good as lost. He had to find a new corridor. But before that, if Mamuset was to survive, he had to get his property back.

Slats of light and shadow bisected boxes and shelves, giving the warehouse a lifeless, mechanical feel. Vane gently set down the bottle, squinted and perked up his ears. Not a sound, not a movement. Then, very slowly, a black contour melted out of the lesser darkness; deep sunglasses and epaulet-crowned shoulders preceding a broad chest crisscrossed by wide, camel-hide ammo belts. Vane watched two pale lips, obscene in a horizontal oval of cropped facial hair, convulse nervously until the coffee-stained teeth split for a genial smile. A heavy voice oozed, “I won’t waste precious time with shallow salutations, homeyboy. Your arrival has forced me to cut short a local celebration. The party’s life involved the exquisite disemboweling of three former employees who were, to their great misfortune, completely unaware of who butters the sides of their bread.” The mouth’s corners turned up a notch. “How do you appreciate my mastery of the idiom, Mr. Vane? I find that my toads are delighted and confounded by Americanisms.”

“I guess it’ll have to do. So who the Devil, as we Americans say, are you?”

A tall figure stepped into the dirty pool of light. The man very gently clicked his heels, and gave a bow so conservative it was more a reclining of the brow than a nodding of the head. “Colonel Franco a’ Muhammed en Abbi…Franco to you, Cristian Honey Vane, son of the celebrated John Beregard.”

Vane smiled sourly. “Franco? El Caudillo?”

The colonel bowed again. “You flatter me.”

“And you’re…what? Moroccan? Algerian?”

The square jaw cocked. “You were expecting…what? A man as dark as the African night?” He shook his head and clucked. “Outside the field, Mr. Vane, you will find no black officers here; not in Eritrea. Command is…ah…imported. An…international puzzle is being assembled--a fascinating structure, but,” and he held a forefinger to his lips while mimicking paranoia, “these are matters for which your ears are far too green. Suffice it to say that I am Massawa’s head official, the top of the dog. I alone coordinate the comings and goings of all before me, all around me, all beneath me. No man possessing a stake in Massawa is not indebted to me for life. I am chief of police; I am liaison between soldier and state. Knower of things, giver of favors, receiver of pleasures so abundant I grow weary of their getting. I am God here, Mr. Vane, appointed, indirectly, by a…Great Apportioner. And I know all there is to know, and I see all that is worthy of seeing. Nothing escapes me!” He sighed painfully. “And yet…I have come to suffer from--ennui. Bored with my petty anthill, I ask myself idle questions, such as: Why would Allah embrace pigs simply because they squat five times a day in swinish obeisance? And how is it that seemingly dignified men will snap at doubloons like dogs after treats? And, of course, what could possibly motivate one of the richest men in the world to come slinking through this serpentarium into my warehouse? Could it be that you too suffer from this great and noble disease, this ennui?”

“One of my warehouses,” Vane corrected him. “And I didn’t come slinking. I only came to see what’s hanging up my supplies. My experiences here, along with your quaintly struggling explanation, have answered the immediate questions. The lifeline to Mamuset, the land I bought, the enterprise I pissed bullets for, has been sabotaged by the lead goofball in a troupe of opportunists straight out of the nineteenth century.” He shrugged. “No, Mr. Abba Zaba, I don’t suffer from ennui.”

Franco cocked his head. Exhibiting no military bearing whatsoever, he drew back the other barstool and swung over a leg. He extracted a small writing pad and retractable pen from a breast pocket, thumbed the pen wide and, his expression intense, entered a quick note followed by a series of jabbed exclamation points. He looked back up, the intensity replaced by the warmest of smiles. “And you, sir, may address me as simply Franco.”

“Well, Mr. Simply Franco, ennui is cured, simply enough, by directing one’s energies into the constructive realm. Stop being so selfish and worldly. It’s your little fiefdom that’s killing you, not the Big Picture.”

“I believe I have intimated as much.”

“Then why persist in these bullying tactics? It’s the way of small men. Imagine what you could accomplish if you were employed in the betterment of your surroundings.” Vane rose. He stepped up to a pallet stacked with fertilizer, used his key chain’s retractable exacto-knife to slit a bag, and caught a handful of pungent nitrates.

Franco looked on curiously. “You were expecting--what? Tons of camouflaged contraband, perhaps?” He shook his head sadly. “Mr. Vane, in Massawa we label our cocaine shipments plainly and with pride.”

“Just a businessman’s interest in his wares, Mr. Franco. You understand.”

“The title is ‘Colonel.’ And they are my wares, Mr. Vane.” Franco squinted at the rafters, measuring his words. “Ah, my belligerent civilian friend…you are aware that there is a mighty vessel anchored in Old Harbor, even now taking on supplies from these warehouses?”

“I saw it.”

“This great ship holds the contents of all those warehouses and yards you keep insisting belong to you. Those warehouses and yards are now almost completely emptied, the ship almost completely filled. Depending on the outcome of our little chat here, that cargo will either be returned or go on the market. You may call this market black if it suits you ideologically. Whatever.” An apt comparison eluded him. “I can see this is a pointed sore between us. The fundamentals of law you observe in your great nation are as applicable here as they would be on, say, the planet Neptune. For example, you presently feel distanced from certain articles which were once in your legal possession. What is your natural reaction? You will of course summon a policeman, who will quickly arrive to take a statement, receive a description of the articles named as stolen, and hopefully obtain a basic description of the guilty party. That is Step One; as understandable as the bleating of sheep at slaughter. I believe that, at all costs, this first step should be expedited with a clear head. And so, my friend, we shall now call us a cop. But which cop shall it be? I have several to choose from, and will personally guarantee that my selection’s work ethic leaves you with nothing but admiration for our humble ‘police state.’ For you see, Mr. Vane, tardy and otherwise unsatisfactory officers in Massawa spend the remainder of their lives flitting from shadow to shadow, afraid of their friends and neighbors, paling at the least whisper of wind.

“But so much for Step One. We have now obtained a staunch officer of the peace. He has arrived, Allah be praised, expeditiously and with great sobriety, for he quite rightly considers his professional performance a matter of life and death. He takes a statement: the wares of a rich foreigner are reported pinched by a dastardly criminal for purposes unspeakable. We even have a fairly accurate description of what you easily-violated democrats label a ‘perp,’ or perpetrator.” Franco nodded cozily. “One of the ‘perks,’ Mr. Vane, of being a god cursed with ennui, is a limitless supply of pirated satellite broadcasts from the land of Laverne and Shirley. Hence my acumen in the rare hobby of Americanisms.” He tapped a temple. “I am a legend.

“And our description of this audacious perp accurately embraces our whodunit: a tall, dreamy, vaguely handsome man with the medals of a hero and the nimbus of a god. Has he truly fouled the fair American? Our intrepid cop interviews relentlessly. None will say, none will say. But, almost inaudibly, a reverential whisper goes round. ‘Franco,’ it shudders, passing man to man. ‘Oh, Franco!’

“This is more than enough for the outraged American. As none of these seedy, double-dealing African gendarme seem willing to bring down this dashing burglar-of-cats, our umbrageous visitor immediately seeks an attorney who will reduce the offender to quivering confession in a solid Eritrean court of criminal law.

“Again, no problem. There are several lawyers and judges to choose from in Massawa, Mr. Vane, and each will perform with the efficiency and expediency of our impressive policemen.”

Vane raised his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, I get the picture. I’m being held for ransom by the chief thug in a weaseling gang of Third world terrorists. There’s no law, no decency, no justice in this dog-eat-dog jungle. But wait! That can’t be right. Surely you’ve watched enough TV to know Captain America’s on his way. I’ll be saved, and you’ll go down like all villains. The forces of Goodness always triumph. Top men in the cabinets of Eritrea and Ethiopia--you know their names--as well as in America, are deeply interested in the welfare of one captive corn-fed rich boy, and are perfectly aware of my whereabouts. Ironically, one of the drawbacks to being highly successful in a free country is an almost complete lack of privacy, especially when it comes to matters of state. Which is to say that the poor American rich boy, stuck in a pus-filled port on the Red Sea, is being watched, whether he likes it or not, by an invisible web of official nannies who, just like your sweating efficient policemen, do their job out of fear of a higher power. In short, Colonel Spaghetti-O, I can’t pee on a pansy without some little man in a trench coat taking a sample. Why? Because my holdings are so extensive, and so commanding, that the least tremor in their foundation causes waves of panic in Wall Street and in the Pentagon. Cristian…Honey, son of John Beregard, must remain healthy, happy, and sane. And, most of all, free. Believe it or not, it’s not just Hollywood and Burger King clinging to my shadow. NASA and JPL and a few other groups of initials that would stagger even Y-O-U, are frightfully obsessed with my well-being. I would not be in the least surprised to find United States agents, even now, waiting without, while American satellites monitor our every move.”

“If so,” Franco retorted gleefully, “they will surely surrender royalties to my regime.” The colonel posed for an imaginary camera. “I do hope your directors are as efficient as your spies. But I agree. There are curtains for me. Secret agents, as we speak, are preparing to burst in on jet skis that were once briefcases.” Franco grinned and wagged a forefinger. “I will be shaken, Mr. Vane, but I will not be stirred.” He snapped up the notepad and pen, and the instant his eyes met the page all aspects of chumminess and nonchalance were swept from his face. Vane didn’t like the new look at all. Franco gave the impression of a civil monster; an official who could write off lives with a squiggle and jab, then return to business as usual. The colonel made a final slash and looked back up, a cheetah done feeding. He appeared to have trouble remembering the nature of their conversation. The glazed look slowly left his eyes. This was a different Franco. This was the garrulous interrogator bored with plain old torture. This was the man of ennui.

“Mr. Vane,” he said flatly, “you will find in Africa elements that obviate each and every clever Western countermeasure you may attempt to invoke. In this country terrible things take place in the night, things that go forever unresolved. And not only unresolved; they may go unreported. You feel your operation is of great moment, and that you, yourself, are under continuous scrutiny due to your imperial station. But here in Africa you and your entire project can disappear leaving only a black hole surrounded by chicken bones and stacked pebbles.”

Franco tapped his dark glasses with a gloved forefinger. “You’ve heard, perhaps, of the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s? Monstrous acts were performed on decent people, atrocities that shook the civilized world…they were merely peccadilloes.” He gestured continentally. “Within my reach are pockets of very uncivilized humanity, pockets crammed with primitives capable of doing unspeakable things to the most innocent of men. There are, additionally, demons and blood overlords to summon, maggots for hire, and ‘political prisoners’ who will do my darkest bidding for even a shot at release.”

Vane shook his head wearily. “So how did I know this was all gonna come down to threats.”

Franco copied the action, but with gravity. “These are not simple threats, my naïve American friend. Blood Africa is a place you cannot imagine. An ambitious man does not ‘die’ in Blood Africa. He reaches his apex and is then brought down. He is not let down. He is torn down, tissue by tissue, scream by scream. It is important to his successors that he be reduced not merely to death, but to dust; dust that has been sucked dry of every drop of blood, every scrap of dignity, every vestige of memory. Only then, when he has been ground into particles far too bleached for even the most anemic of vultures--only then can he truly be described as deposed.”

“Colonel,” Vane grinned, “I envy your position more with every syllable.”

Franco inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Thank you, Mr. Vane. But I will do the joke-making here. I am attempting to describe the world you have pricked, like a tick on a Titan, so that you may better understand the futility of your aplomb, and the absurdity of this notion--this scenario wherein a pasty, hollow-eyed American is saved in the nick of time.” He raised a hand. “No superhero rushes to your rescue. No sane man outside of Africa follows up on the unfortunate ingestion of a foreigner--no matter how well-heeled--by this cruelest of continents. If he does, he too will be swallowed. Africa is insatiable.”

Franco leaned deeper into shadow, then suddenly loomed with bogeyman fingers wriggling playfully. “In Af-ri-ca,” the bogeyman intoned, and was immediately replaced by the grave, sarcastic interrogator, “there is a universal belief that anger can take on a life of its own. It remains an aspect of the injured party, while at the same time extending beyond him. It reaches out to the offender in ways that are unbelievably brutal--ways that are wholly unimaginable to a soft white Westerner with his feeble barricade of black servants and Semitic boot-lickers.” He dropped his hands in mock resignation. “All your beads and crucifixes, sir, will do you no good here. Shades walk among us, unaffected by walls or pleas for mercy. My shade, Mr. Vane, protects my wares, and will travel throughout the world to avenge my losses.”

“I don’t hide behind angels and jabberwocky, Franco. White religion is as removed from my thoughts as your black demons. So go ahead and call out your phantom legions; I’m getting my property back one way or another. You just don’t seem to understand the extent of my influence. Listen, man: People of means, in high places, do not sit around in their offices arranging cinders and chicken bones. Nowadays practical concerns far outweigh superstitions. So get hip to the 21^st century. Step out of the dark and work with me, instead of against me.” He nodded civilly. “We’ll forget this unpleasantness ever occurred.”

Franco showed his entire dingy mouthful before bowing warmly. “Thank you so very much, Mr. Vane. You are wrong to believe these men in high places are above thousands of years of dark culture. They simply disguise it better.

“As to your proposition: I wish you to know I am wholly amenable. It was my sole desire that we reach this point of confluence. With your assets and my command it is fait accompli that our strengths should combine. Think of it! We are Napoleon and Alexander on the Elbe. We can take this forsaken land and bend it to our common will. We can be kings here, sir. King en Abbi and King Vane, masters of all they survey.”

“A sure cure for ennui.”

“A sure cure for mediocrity.” There was a pause. Franco said apologetically, “I can see you have doubts…Cristian. You view your good friend Franco as entirely self-assured, and this makes you wonder--is this visionary perhaps blind to his flanks and rear? Am I throwing away my hat to a man already at war?” Franco, clasping his hands beatifically, sighed at the baking roof. “You are proper to ask, my best and most trusted ally.” He nodded. “There are more than meet the eyes in Massawa. As omnipotent as I must appear to a man such as yourself--a man accustomed to having worms at his beck and call--it would be wrong, at this present, momentous junction, to not inform my dear friend and future partner that I am not sole bearer of the whip in this place. There is a foil--a pig of a dog of a b*****d of a man…he resides in Massawa…who knows where? My men report him in various places at various times, ever scheming to undermine me. He heads a family--actually more a gang--of thieves and black profiteers, seducing the population with opiates and promises. His men are distinguished by a distinctive marking on turbans and kaftans. You will see it wherever there is carrion; a heavy black vertical line with a red dot on either side. It is the symbol of the vulture.

“This man wears a snow-white fez bearing this symbol, and claims to be a man of Mecca. He is no holier than I; only slipperier. He competes in the black market, waylaying cargo with his harbor rats, underselling my agents, frustrating our very government. But, were he to learn on the Massawa grapevine of our grand partnership--then would he quiver in his ugly boots! You need not fear him. Not ever! Not while you are on the side of Franco!”

Vane delicately cracked open another beer. “If I see him, I’ll surely let him know.”

Franco grinned and bowed. “Ah, Cristian! You are an apple in my eye!” He began to pace, his face twisting with excitement. Abruptly he stopped, and his jaw dropped to his chest. Nearly exultant, he cried, “It is done! Done!” The colonel wheeled and paced with greater energy, his hands escaping him in chopping gestures. “You, my friend, and all your underlings may relocate in Massawa. This will be a move of great ceremony. Our dual coronation will be televised over the entire Horn of Africa.” The gestures became sweeping. “Yemen! Saudi Arabia! India, even! Maggot empires will see, will understand, and will grovel! Magnificence humbling Mesopotamia will roll before cameras trained upon our glorious union!” A thought struck him and he halted. Franco perched guiltily on his stool. “But do not brood on expenses, my loyal friend and confederate! The display will be financed by my beholden worms, by their relatives’ businesses, and by their brats’ futures. Do not fear, mon ami. I will bring you the sun. This party will be on Franco.”

Vane deliberated. After a minute he said, “Y’know, man, I really have to hand it to you. I admire your cunning. Not only that, you’ve got genuine balls. Televised coronations, groveling subjects, mind-boggling splendor. What an imagination!” He could tell the colonel’s eyes were burning behind the shades. “But I have an alternate plan.” Franco’s upper body tilted forward on the stool. “In this plan, my partner and sole confidant, you call forth your silly storm troopers, your puppets and your bogeys, and everybody lines up, with you at the very front. You’ve offered me the sun, I’ll give you the moon. You and your stupid army can get on your Third-world knees and kiss my hairy white a*s.”

Franco’s head jerked back as though he’d been slapped.

“An Americanism,” Vane said.

Franco leaned forward again. His voice was cool. “Then, my American friend, it would seem we are at an impasse. Your old ideas are out of place here. You are a foreigner of no property in a state at war. It is not solely my good nature that permits you to exit in one piece, free to return to an enemy nation. It is because I wish to give you time to reconsider.” He shook his head softly. “Anywhere you proceed in this part of the world, with your present point of view, you will be entirely frustrated. You cannot change people with money, Cristian Honey, you can only temporarily alter their behavior. Sooner or later they will turn on you, snakes that they are. This I know.” Again he tapped his temple. “It takes a man of the world to know men of the world. But you, sir,” he sniffed, “are far too innocent and spoiled.”

Franco blew out his cheeks, rolled his eyes to the rafters. “All right, all right, all right! You have won me over, my wily compatriot. You have broken me down. I will now speak of things that are in your ears only.

“Eritrea, this pathetic little strip of land against the Sea has…how shall I say it--Secret Friends. To cut through the chase, I will tell you that these friends are not friends of your country, presently or historically. And of them I will speak no more. I will only say that they are supplying Eritrea with intelligent weapons, and with men trained to instruct our soldiers in their use, and also in sophisticated tactics of ground warfare. At the same time we are collaborating with certain…dark partners, who are busily working Addis Ababa to soften her sweet belly.

“The state of Ethiopia will be taken, let there be no making of mistakes about it. She will fall before the crocodile moon, and her carcass will be jealously apportioned. But my friends are not interested in Ethiopia per se. They are not even interested in Eritrea. These states are merely stepping stones toward…Fairer Pastures.”

A note of softness, of awe, came into Franco’s voice. “And I have been promised my own pastures, Mister…Vane…Cristian…it is only due to our deep and abiding friendship that I now reveal what I do--

“Franco’s future stands far beyond this miserable port. And when I speak it you will know it is also your future, and that we were destined to become partners fast and final.

“The entire country of Eritrea will soon be merely an outlying territory of this new creation of my very powerful friends. Ethiopia will be little more. My friends will need a strong man to run this territory, and are impressed with my job here.” He tipped his head. “Do not let her dreary face dismay you. Massawa,” he said impressively, “is a military and administrative site, not a tourist trap. Beneath her surface she is running quite smoothly, thank you, but only because of my ruthless attention to detail. Example: when I first took control of this port a scant three weeks ago, the underground economy was a complete embarrassment. Some workers were spending as much as fifty per cent of their income on the procurement of qat leaves. Qat, if you have yet to experience it, produces a mild sense of euphoria when chewed. The user becomes addicted, loses interest in politics, fritters away whatever he may have saved. Think of it! Fifty per cent of one’s earnings devoted to a mind-numbing drug! I was outraged. But, after scrupulous investigations into the drug’s trafficking and its users’ psychology, I can tell you without too much humility that I was able to increase that percentage in some areas to as high as eighty per cent. My friends and I, just as do we two now, see eyes to eyes on these matters.” He nodded conspiratorially. “We know that no man of wealth and power achieves such a station without manipulating a few addicts and breaking a leg or two here and there. Great power breeds great cunning, and…great friends.

“I am warning you now, my great and special friend, that your sorry little farm in the desert will be crushed by this huge coming wave, and all your charges splattered like cockroaches under a steamroller. But not with Franco on your side. I will guarantee you complete protection. More than that! With my connections you will be able to expand indefinitely. So do not scowl, my dear, dear friend. This--” he waved a hand, “all this is not merely the dream of a pipe; it is a future certainty. The world can be ours!

“But right now,” the colonel concluded in a cautious voice, “Massawa is in turmoil. The great wave is building. For our sake, the goods of these warehouses and yards are being held for safekeeping aboard that monster cargo ship. And aboard that ship they will remain, until you and I have signed our pact. Only then will my friends be certain you are one of ours, and not an agent of the American government.” His expression became hurt. “So you see, Cristian, your partner is in a touched situation. He has to put up a strong face with his still-suspicious friends by holding our wares in this miserable harbor, which must seem a hostile act to his future co-ruler. But know that, when we make our bid, your wealth and my influence will be a combination unbeatable. We will reign as we were meant to reign. And we will be invincible.” He spread his hands. “These things, good and bad, were made to be. They were made so the moment your hungry blue eyes fell upon this plump, waiting land.”

Franco tore off the top page and tossed the memo pad with its remaining blank leaves onto the coffee table. It was a closing gesture. He folded the page delicately and, observing Vane man-to-man, placed its secrets securely in his breast pocket, saying, “For my eyes only.” He patted the pocket, thumbed home its snap.

Franco bowed and stepped away from the stool, his smile retreating as he melted back into the shadows. “Take your time,” said the smile. “Study this offer in private. When you are ready, send a courier to Massawa. He will be royally received. Be prepared to be impressed.” The smile dangled in the darkness like a dirty yellow bulb. A gloved hand showed dimly, forefinger extended and thumb cocked in the universal gesture of a pointed handgun. “Allah and Visa,” said the smile, “baby.” The smile went out.

Vane sat quietly for a spell, listening. Though the warehouse was echoing still, he could tell the colonel had exited the premises. It was as if a cold front had moved on.

He grabbed a Coors, twisted off the cap, and shoved the bottle in his mouth before the beer could foam over. Warm or not, it was liquid ecstasy in that frying pool of light. Vane chugged it down. He then slit open the pack of Marlboros and lit one, placed it on the ashtray and let it burn. After a minute he picked up the memo pad and cigarette, tapped ashes onto the top blank page, and very gently rubbed the ashes into the paper. He blew the remaining ashes away, tore off the top page and held it against the light. The pen’s indentations, revealed by traces of ash, read:

Pissing bullets (gun then is?) (!!!!)

Putting peas on pansies (accomplishes what?!?)

Dogs eat in jungles (which jungles where?)

Rich American boys are fed corn (why? How much?)

Vane crumpled and tossed the page as he strolled back through the warehouse. He could see the cooking Land Rover framed in the access doorway, with Mudhead hunched to one side in the passenger seat. He heralded his approach with a heaved sigh, but the slouched white bundle remained motionless. Not until he reached Isis did Mudhead attempt to sit upright. Failing, he shook his head sharply, once each way.

“Bossman still driver.”

Vane climbed behind the wheel and watched the African staring into space, his throat arched and his face expressionless. In a minute Mudhead held up his right hand, purple and massively swollen behind the knuckles. “Mudahid Bossman right hand man,” he explained sourly, sweat rolling down his face. “So soldier break Mudahid right hand. Warning to Bossman.”

“Ah, Christ. Man, I…just hang in there, buddy. I’ll get you to a doctor.”

Mudhead shrugged his left shoulder. “Mudahid already see doctor. Military doctor. Doctor watch close when soldier break hand, so doctor know how re-break hand just right.” He sighed hugely. “Lucky Mudhead.”

Vane looked away. “How bad?”

“Plenty bad.”

Vane hit the ignition. “All things considered, right hand man, I think we’re getting out of here cheaply enough.” He took the same route back and tore through the blockade. With nowhere to turn, Vane found himself hurtling up the road like some young punk in a hot rod. Eventually he noticed a bug in his rear-view mirror. The bug became a motor scooter. Vane pulled over and killed the engine as the little Vespa hurtled past. The scooter made a hard U-turn and gently motored back. The rider, grinning under his goggles, handed him a stuffed lunch bag, revved his scooter twice, and shot back to the harbor.

Vane opened the bag curiously. Inside were a dozen prescription bottles, a handful of disposable syringes, and several vials that were certainly morphine. The ’scrips were Percodan, codeine, and Tylenol 4. “Happy Ramadan,” he said, and handed the bag over. “Looks like you’re gonna be facing Mecca for quite a while.”

Mudhead groaned as he peered into the bag, but half a minute later his good hand was digging. Vane checked out the back seat, on the off chance he’d been left a beer; Mudhead would need something to wash down the pills. To his surprise he discovered two cases of Lowenbrau, cartons and cartons of cigarettes, and a variety of snacks: nuts, jerky, trail mix, chips. A Coleman ice chest was stocked with cubes. There were even packages of local sweetmeats with unreadable labels. The gas gauge showed a full tank.

“Funny guy,” Vane muttered, grabbing two bottles. He warned Mudhead to go easy on the Percodan, fired up Isis, and respectfully kept his eyes on the road while his friend worked morphine into a syringe. After a deep breath he guzzled his own beer and handed Mudhead a follow-up. A mild overdose might be just the thing.