The van rumbled to a stop on the dirt road, and Tolu killed the engine. I watched him for a moment, his profile glowing sunset orange before he looked over with a neutral expression. Then, subtly, he gave me a nod of agreement.
I opened my passenger door, setting foot on the hard-packed desert beside a mud brick building that now lay in ruins. The nearest farm was half a kilometer away, the swaths of land in all directions a wasteland of dried-out ravines and scrub brush. Abuja was miles to our southeast, the buildings glittering on a horizon that seemed to stretch endlessly as I rounded the vehicle, completing my visual sweep.
Stopping at the van’s bumper, I paused to observe the sight to the west—the enormous, rounded monolith of Zuma Rock dominated the horizon, a thousand feet of stone standing in sharp contrast against the peaceful hues of the sunset as a few smoky clouds drifted lazily overhead. This was the real Nigeria, I thought, the scene that preceded the corruption and oil and drugs, the murderous terrorism and loss of civilian life by the tens of thousands. It was the scene that would remain long after my species left the earth.
Raising a gloved fist, I pounded twice on the side of the van.
The cargo doors swung open, and I stepped back as Worthy and Reilly maneuvered the restrained politician out of the back, propping him upright as Cancer retrieved the one item we’d never before carried on mission: a metal foldout chair.
He opened the seat and set it a few meters behind the van, unsheathing his fighting knife as his teammates dragged the captive over and spun him around. Cancer maneuvered the flat side of his blade against the man’s wrists, slicing upward to cut the flex cuff.
Worthy and Reilly lowered Malu into the chair, removing first his blindfold and then the duct tape over his mouth before departing.
I approached him slowly, seeing the politician looking about in terror, first observing Cancer and me looming over him, then Worthy and Reilly standing in a loose perimeter, ensuring no vehicles approached this desolate stretch of desert. Then his eyes swept the horizon, locating Zuma Rock before settling on the van’s open cargo area, where Ian now sat with his legs dangling over the bumper, analyzing a computer in his lap. I watched Malu’s eyes following the cables leading from Ian’s computer to the laptop we’d found among his possessions, along with his cell phone that was likewise being scanned.
The intentional positioning of his chair seemed to have the desired effect—he panted for breath, seeing that we had the means to catch him in a lie.
I pulled a bottle of water from my cargo pocket and held it out to him. Malu accepted the offering greedily, unscrewing the cap and dropping it in the dirt before downing half the bottle in four long pulls. Wiping his mouth dry, he looked up to see Cancer extending a pack of cigarettes toward him. Malu shook his head, one cheek grossly swollen and marred by dried blood from Cancer’s previous pistol strike.
Then the politician met my eyes, watching me with unease as I smiled.
I couldn’t help it; we’d actually succeeded in leaving Gwoza alive, then managed to snatch Malu on our last day in Nigeria. And best of all, there was no way for Malu to know who we were.
Leaning down, I spoke the most fearsome string of words I could.
“Erik Weisz says hello.”
Malu’s hand lost its grip on the water bottle, which tumbled to the ground to spill a widening puddle.
“I did not betray him. Please, you must believe me.”
“You tried to run,” I said, “and we had no choice but to keep you from getting on that plane.”
Blinking quickly, Malu spoke with wild despair. “I fled to protect his syndicate.”
“My syndicate didn’t ask for your protection. We asked for your loyalty. What evidence have you betrayed of our arrangement?”
He shook his head quickly, as if his vigor would speak to his truthfulness.
“None whatsoever. Do you think I am mad?”
I gestured to Ian sitting on the van tailgate, his equipment scanning Tolu’s computer and cell phone. “If you’re lying, we’re going to find out in the next few minutes. That won’t end well for you.”
He shook his head again. “My electronics are clean. The only link to your organization is on the SIM cards.”
Ian looked over with a raised eyebrow, his silence and expression confirming the uncomfortable truth: we hadn’t found any.
“Where are they?” I asked sternly, as if I knew exactly what he was talking about.
Malu responded by pulling open one side of his blazer, then using both hands to peel open an inner seam. I stepped forward, amazed to see a tiny zipper concealed between folds of fabric. He had to pinch the slider between fingernails just to grab it, much less slide it down the zippered teeth. The hidden pocket was almost impervious to pat-down, and Malu reached inside to produce a stack of multicolored SIM cards.
He held them up one at a time, explaining, “Blue is for Boko Haram. The red is Gradsek. Green, Venezuela. And this one”—he lifted a final black card between his trembling fingertips—“is for Weisz himself.”
I turned my palm up, and he eagerly deposited all four. Ian appeared beside me, but I couldn’t help staring at the cards for a moment before handing them over—what Malu said seemed to confirm everything we’d discovered so far, but there was only one way to know for sure.
Handing the SIM cards to Ian, I watched him scuttle off to the van to begin his analysis.
Malu continued, “Every cash transfer was accurate, paid in full. I kept up my end of the arrangement until the recent...exposure.”
“What assurance do we have that you did not compromise our employer?”
He was taken aback by the question, waving his hands emphatically as he replied, “What could I compromise? You must understand I have not seen Weisz’s face, or even the emissary who delivered the SIM cards. I merely followed his instructions exactly. Once the first exchange worked as he said it would, I knew he was a man of his word. I did everything he asked since then, and have made him a fortune.”
I looked over at Ian impatiently, seeing his face lit by the computer glow as he continued to analyze the SIM cards. Bizarre as it seemed under the circumstances, we couldn’t spend all night out here—Reilly, Worthy, and I would be riding a boat down the Niger River in four hours with all our military equipment, with Cancer and Ian departing by commercial air the following day.
Cutting my eyes to Malu, I asked, “If you didn’t expose Gradsek, then who did?”
“Perhaps the Venezuelans had a leak, or perhaps—” He halted abruptly, trying to think of any possible explanation. “Perhaps Boko Haram suspected we betrayed them. But you must understand, I did not even know their names, only the phone numbers, only Weisz’s instructions.”