Mission of Honor

Chapter Twenty

It was as if no time had passed.

Most human bodies have a better memory than the mind. Skills once learned do not go away, whether it is assembling a rifle or holding a pencil. Reflexes and instincts work faster than thought. Even when the limbs age, they have the capacity to recall their abilities and execute many of them. The mind? Leon Seronga could not tell someone how to tie a shoe. But he could show them. He could not remember what he had for dinner two nights ago. But his fingertips could remember the weight of a switchblade he had learned to use when he was a boy. Whenever Seronga took the old knife from his pocket, his hand and arm could run a slash attack on their own.

Seronga sat on his motor scooter looking out at the tourist center. His body told him it was 1966. His senses were finely tuned. His muscles, only slightly impaired by age, were still at hair-trigger readiness. He and his companion, Donald Pavan t, had driven to Maun and rented Malaguti Firefox F15 RR scooters. Dressed in white and blue Dainese scooter jackets, the men had pretended to be recreational bikers as they made their way across the floodplain. They raced through gullies and jumped small hills as they headed away from the city. Now that it was nearly dark, the men had stopped to keep an eye on the tourist center. If everything was all right, they would contact the men at the edge of the swamp. They would proceed to the Church of Loyola in Shakawe to kidnap the priest there. Seronga expected that he would be guarded now, probably by local police. The military would not want to give mis a high profile. Not yet. But whoever was there, it would not matter. There was always a way in.

Seronga and Pavant had come here to keep an eye on any surreptitious developments at this church. The Brush Vipers wondered if the archdiocese in Cape Town, perhaps the Vatican itself, would let the violation of this place go unanswered. Would the Church respond with calm or would they send a battery of priests? Perhaps they would send nuns to see if women were vulnerable.

The secure phone provided by Genet beeped. The call from the Belgian gave Seronga his answer.

"Dhamballa just spoke with our guest," Genet informed the leader of the Brush Vipers. "As we anticipated, there is a new one coming over. We were told that a bishop is due in Maun tomorrow afternoon. Two individuals from your locale will be meeting him at the airfield."

"Is this new arrival traveling alone?" Seronga asked.

"That's what we were told," Genet informed him.

"Where is he coming from?" Seronga asked.

"The United States," Genet replied.

"Interesting."

"Very," Genet said. "That automatically makes it a global affair and guarantees the interest of international press if something happens."

Any move against him could draw America into this conflict in some capacity. Probably in a demarche, intense diplomatic activity. Possibly even a military one. There was a zerotolerance policy for terrorism. A limited search-and-rescue operation could be called for. On the other hand, the clergyman might simply be bait to capture the abductors. The government in Gaborone might dispatch troops to protect him. Or perhaps the Vatican had made its own security arrangements.

Seronga thanked Genet for the update and hung up. The Belgian did not have to tell him what to do. That had been decided ahead of time. If a replacement were sent for Father Bradbury, he was to be taken. But not with a show of force this time. The abduction of Father Bradbury had been done that way to show the world that Dhamballa had soldiers to use if he wished. If Seronga had come back with his army, the Botswana president might begin to fear a brewing civil war. He would have no choice but to call on his own military. Dhamballa did not want that. This time, the kidnapping must be different. It must be very subtle. To slip the priest's replacement away would show Gaborone that this was not a war. It was a dispute. And the dispute was not with Botswana or its people. It was with the Roman Catholic Church. Only later, when Dhamballa had established a strong religious base among the general population, would he use his ministry to impact nationalism and politics.

Seronga briefed Pavant. The thirty-three-year-old was the youngest of the Brush Vipers. He was also one of the most militant. Born and raised in Lobatse on the South African border, Pavant was exposed to refugees from apartheid. Pavant believed that Africa was for native Africans and their descendants. He was one of the first men to discover Dhamballa and his ministry.

The men waited a quarter of a mile from the tourist center. They sat on their bikes, shielded by the darkness. They ate chicken sandwiches they had picked up in Maun and watched the dirt road for headlights. They did not speak. After five hours on the bikes, the silence felt good.

At a few minutes before nine o'clock, the evening bus from Maun pulled up to the front gate of the tourist center. Seronga asked for the binoculars. Pavant reached into the small equipment locker on the back of his bike. He removed the case and handed the binoculars to Seronga. The leader of the Brush Vipers peered across the dark, still floodplain.

There were several things odd about the group. The size, for one. There were about twenty-five new arrivals. That was a large number for this time of year. Most of the large tour groups came when the weather was cooler. Seronga watched carefully. They were all carrying duffel bags as well as having suitcases stored below. The bags had a sameness to them, as if the tourists had packed an identical amount of clothes, the same number of personal items. Individuals on a trip did not do that. Seronga also noticed that no one had. Plastft bags or souvenir caps, the kinds of things one typically picked up in airports or local gift shops.

And one thing more struck Seronga as very unusual. Most of the tourists were men.

"It looks as if a lot of people came in," Pavant remarked.

"Too many," Seronga remarked.

As Seronga watched, there were other things that made him uneasy.

Genet and Dhamballa had set out very strict guidelines for Seronga and his Brush Vipers to follow. Clergymen were to be captured as nonviolently as possible. None was to be martyred, even if it meant aborting a mission. Care was to be taken so that parishioners were never harmed.

Military or police action taken against Dhamballa or the Brush Vipers was to be met with deadly force. Dhamballa did not like killing. It angered the gods. But Seronga did not have enough soldiers that he could afford to lose any of them. He argued that self-defense was not an evil act. He also did not want his people captured. A prisoner who had been tortured, his brain rewired, could be made to say just about anything. A show trial could be used to discredit Dhamballa.

Reluctantly, Dhamballa had agreed to killing under those conditions. But neither man had expected things to reach that stage this early.

Seronga continued to study the group. The truth was, he had no way of knowing whether these were tourists or soldiers traveling incognito. He could not see if they were black or white. They might have come from Gaborone. Perhaps the United States sent them from the embassy to look after their cleric. The Americans had soldiers stationed there. These could have been selected from their ranks. Perhaps they would go touring when the deacons went to Maun to meet the American cleric. Perhaps the tourists would be watching for any attempts to abduct the new arrival. The bishop could not be allowed to reach the church and resume Father Bradbury's work. If he did, priests and field missionaries might be encouraged to stay. Dhamballa could not afford to let that happen.

"How is their posture?" Pavant asked.

"Excellent," Seronga said.

"Then they can't be tourists," Pavant said. "They always slump."

"Yes, and when these people got out, several did stretches," Seronga said. "They seem accustomed to traveling great distances." He handed his companion the binoculars. "And look at how they're moving."

Pavant studied the group for a moment. "They're passing each other bags as they unload them."

"Like troops," Seronga said. "Let's give them a while to settle in, and then we'll go over."

Seronga took the binoculars back. He continued to watch the bus until it pulled away. The more he saw of the dark figures, the more convinced he became that something was afoot.

He would soon know if that were true. And if it was, he would know what to do about it.