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clay pot black with soot and a machete. He was a short man, thin and bony and bald. His skin was very pale, his eyebrows dark and bushy, and the lenses of his eyeglasses were thick as bottle glass.
    â€œGood day, ladies and gentlemen,” he said in Spanish, and immediately repeated the greeting in English and French.
    He introduced himself: “I am Brother Fernando, a Catholic missionary,” first shaking Mushaha’s hand and then the others’.
    â€œHow did you get here?” Mushaha asked.
    â€œWith the help of some truck drivers, but most of the way walking.”
    â€œOn foot? From where? There are no villages for miles around.”
    â€œThe roads are long, but they all lead to God,” the man replied.
    He explained that he was Spanish, born in Galicia, although it had been many years since he had visited his homeland. Almost as soon as he left the seminary, he had been sent to Africa, and he had been there for more than thirty years, carrying out his ministry in a number of different countries. His most recent assignment had been a village in Rwanda, where he worked with other missionaries and three nuns in a small compound. It was a region that had been devastated by the cruelest war the continent had witnessed. Refugees swarmed from one end of the country to the other, escaping the violence, but it always caught up with them. The ground was covered with ashes and blood; no crops had been planted for years; people who escaped the bullets and knives fell victim to hunger and illness; starving widows and orphans wandered roads straight out of hell, many of them wounded or mutilated.
    â€œDeath is having a ball in those parts,” the missionary concluded.
    â€œI’ve seen it, too,” Angie added. “More than a million people have died, the slaughter continues, and the rest of the world doesn’t seem to care.”
    â€œHere in Africa is where human life started. We all descended from Adam and Eve, whom scientists say were African. This is the earthly paradise mentioned in the Bible. God wanted this to be a garden where his creatures would live in peace and abundance, but you see what hatred and human stupidity have made of it,” the missionary added with a preacher’s zeal.
    â€œAnd you were escaping from the war?” Kate asked.
    â€œMy fellow workers and I received orders to evacuate the mission after the rebels burned our school, but I am not another refugee. No, the truth is that I have a task to fulfill. I must locate two missionaries who have disappeared.”
    â€œIn Rwanda?” asked Mushaha.
    â€œNo, they are in a village called Ngoubé. Here, look.”
    Brother Fernando unfolded a map and spread it on the ground to show them the point where his companions had disappeared. Everyone grouped around him.
    â€œThis is the most inaccessible, the hottest, and least hospitable area of equatorial Africa. Civilization has not as yet reached here. There is no way to get around other than by canoe on the river, and there are no telephones or radios,” the missionary explained.
    â€œThen how is it possible to communicate with the missionaries?” Alexander asked.
    â€œLetters take months, but my brothers were able to send us news from time to time. Life there is hard, and very dangerous. The region is controlled by one Maurice Mbembelé. He is a psychopath, a madman, a brute who has been accused of acts as horrific as cannibalism. We have heard nothing of our brothers for several months. We’re very worried.”
    Alexander studied Brother Fernando’s map, which still lay on the ground. That piece of paper could not give even a vague idea of the immensity of the continent, with its multitude of countries and six hundred million people. During that weeklong safari with Michael Mushaha, Alexander had learned a lot, but he nevertheless felt lost before the complexity of Africa, with its diverse climates, geography, cultures,