“How did you hear about this?”
“Procenko. He tried to drink me under the table right over there,” said Phillip, pointing toward the hotel bar. “But not even a Soviet colonel can drink me under the table. Especially a couple of years ago. Anyway, the next day I retained a guide and went to the site. It wasn’t hard to find. I just went to one of Patton’s regular campsites.”
“Did you name names?”
Again, Phillip laughed. “God, no. I don’t pick fights with Soviet military advisers. But this is a small community. Procenko told enough people what he’d done—he thought it was rather funny—and everyone knew that Patton had been his host.”
Terrance considered this. “Which ticked off Charlie Patton more? The idea that he had been outdrunk by a guest or that his guests had committed a rather egregious hunting faux pas?”
“A faux pas? They broke the damn law! And Charlie was responsible. He never went to jail, but I’m sure even he had to pay one motherfucker of a fine. Anyway, he thought I’d humiliated him by going out there and then telling some of our mutual acquaintances what the hell had happened. Publishing the photos. The combination of the humiliation and the fine? He was one pissed-off, over-the-hill hunter.”
“Well, it sounds like you did embarrass him.”
“He deserved it.”
A woman almost as tall as Phillip and roughly his age came up beside the photographer and linked her arm through his.
“Ah, Nicole,” he said, kissing her on the cheek and placing his hand on the small of her back. “Meet Terrance Dutton. I believe you’ve seen at least one of his films. Tender Madness.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet,” she said, and her accent suggested she was from East Africa. Like Phillip, she was clad for safari, and she, too, exuded cinematic beauty: a statuesque carriage and an impeccable, flawless face. She also had skin, Terrance thought, even blacker than mine.
* * *
.?.?.
For a moment, Terrance stood outside the hut where Katie had been taken, his rifle still aimed at the Russian. Here was the problem: it was dark in there. Who could say what this guard would do when either Terrance demanded he untie Katie or he himself went to untie her? It would be easy for the Russian to jump him. Terrance supposed there was a flashlight in the one Land Rover still parked in the boma, but even retrieving that was playing with fire. If he sent this guy into the vehicle to get it, who knew what else he might salvage? A pistol? A knife? He had, after all, been the one driving the damn thing.
God, a part of Terrance just wanted to shoot him. But he already had one dead man on his ledger; he didn’t want two. And they needed this person. He probably knew where Margie had been taken and where the other guests—Reggie and Felix and Carmen and Peter—were being held captive. He might know the direction to drive to get the hell back to civilization.
And, if necessary, he might offer some leverage. It was quite possible they’d need some.
Terrance had searched him to make sure he didn’t have other weapons on him and to see if he had any identification. He had neither. He had keys to the vehicle, cigarettes, and a silver lighter that was exquisite. It had a red and yellow five-pointed star, the hammer and sickle inside it, embossed on one side. It was likely Soviet army gear. But when Terrance had pressed him for details, he’d insisted he wasn’t a soldier and never had been. Claimed it was his father’s, but Terrance didn’t buy that. It didn’t look that old, and it didn’t look like it had seen a lot of wear. He claimed his name was Glenn, but it was evident he was lying. He was making too big a deal about the fact it was spelled with two n’s, not one.
And so now, at Terrance’s command, the Russian had paused in front of the hut where Katie Barstow was confined, about five feet ahead of him, but not close enough to the entrance that he could dive forward and lose himself in the darkness within. That had been among Terrance’s fears, which was why he had ordered him to halt where he was. The fact remained, however, that now Terrance was at a loss over what to do. It was just the two of them, and still, it seemed, he had no good options. Which meant, he guessed, you went with the least bad option. And the least bad option was probably this: see if there was a flashlight in the Land Rover. He couldn’t get Katie and David and Billy untied without one, and that was obviously his next step.
Which was when it clicked: he should untie David or Billy next, not Katie, so there would be two men against one. Screw the chivalry right now.