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the man the soldiers had seen with Father Willy Dorhn, the same man who had run from them in the rain forest. He was the real person of interest here. Someone who might well know about the photographs the priest had taken and the missing camera memory card that went with them.
    White had wanted to see him in person, get a sense of him before the army interrogators took over. If the army didn’t get the information he wanted, he would have to find a way to do it himself. Experience had taught him that if possible it was best to get a sense of your quarry before he had any idea that you even existed, especially when you had no information about him. It gave you a step up, a chance to see how he carried himself, what his attitude was, what he might be like physically and mentally if you had to go up against him. It wasn’t much, but it was more than the other man had.

9
    4:47 P.M.
    The room was unbearably hot.
    The soldier’s uniform had no name tag, just gold oak leaf clusters on his epaulets. The best Marten could construe was that he was a major in the army of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. He was big and powerfully built, well over six feet and easily two hundred and fifty pounds. A fearsome tribal scar covered most of the left half of his face, while a similar scar was on his right forearm. Taken together they gave him more the appearance of a bush warrior than a military officer. Yet none of it compared with his eyes. Dark brown and bloodshot, they were like those of the soldier who had come after him in the rain forest. Homicidal and wholly merciless, they were the gateway to the possessor’s soul and something Marten would fear for the rest of his life.
    “Speak into the microphone,” the major commanded in a deep, heavily accented voice, sweat glistening on his forehead, the microphone of an old-style cassette tape recorder held inches from Marten’s face. “State your name, profession, and place of residence. Then describe what took place yesterday when you were in Bioko South.”
    Marten was seated on a straight-backed chair in the center of a dimly lit room. Sweat soaked his hair, running down his neck and his face and into his shirt. To his left two solidly built uniformed officers stood erect and in silence. Beyond them, two more uniformed men guarded the door. The men at the door were clearly not officers but everyday soldiers, young and alert and eager. Their eyes locked on Marten, they seemed almost hungry, as if they were hoping he would do something so they could act on it.
    All of them were dressed in the same sweat-stained jungle-green camouflage uniforms, their trouser legs bloused over heavy, laced-up combat boots. Each wore a dark red beret with some kind of bright yellow and black insignia stitched on the front. The major and the two officers carried sidearms, while the men at the door fingered light machine guns.
    The room itself was large, its floor covered with cracked linoleum. An aging wooden table was just inside the door and had several old and rusted chrome kitchen stools standing alongside it. The walls were water-stained plaster, long ago painted a sickly green. What little illumination there was came from three bare lightbulbs that hung by frayed electric cords from the ceiling, and from the spill of afternoon daylight that crept in through broken shutters in the room’s only window. A lone ceiling fan turned slowly above Marten’s head, barely moving the stifling air.
    Beyond all that, the thing that caught Marten’s eye was a young male goat tied to a leg of the wooden table happily chewing on a stack of old newspapers. Whether it was a pet or regiment mascot or some kind of indigenous good-luck charm or was there for some other reason entirely, there was no way to know, but his presence seemed strange, even in a frightful place like this.
    “Sir, speak into the microphone,” the major commanded again. This time his voice resonated with impatience. “State your name, your