Rare Earth Read online

  “I went to them,” she said softly. “They told me to file a notice. Which I did. Since then I’ve heard nothing.”

  “Why did Serge go into that village? He was looking for something, wasn’t he, Kitra?” Marc had nothing to go on except hunches. Until Kitra’s silence offered definite confirmation. He felt a hand squeeze his heart until his voice was robbed of strength. “Why haven’t you been honest with me?”

  “Everything I have told you is the truth.”

  “But it’s never been the whole truth, has it? What—?”

  Kitra bounded to her feet. “I have to make a phone call.”

  “What? No, Kitra, wait—”

  “You want answers? All right. I need to speak with someone first.” She tried for scorn, but the shakiness to her voice belied her deeper emotions. “If you are really that concerned with the truth, then you can wait another few minutes.”

  Marc watched her leave. He wished he had a reason strong enough to bring her back. He sat there for a long time, feeling the heat gather.

  Philip found him there, still seated beneath the baobab, vainly searching his surroundings for answers. The young chief said in English, “You will walk with me, Marc Royce?”

  “I’m waiting for Kitra.”

  “She has spoken on the phone. Now she paces with the apparatus held in both hands. She waits as you are waiting.” Philip gestured into the sunlight. “Come.”

  When Marc rose to his feet, the chief took his arm and guided him around the admin building. Once they were out of the central compound, Philip said, “My friend, you are troubled.”

  The simple way Philip spoke, without any question, released the torrent. Marc spoke softly, but the heat released with his words was as strong as the sunlight.

  As they crossed the compound, Marc spoke of his late wife. Their love. Her illness and her passage. And the dark days that followed. Then the trip to Iraq, he mentioned that as well, for the travel ignited what he was feeling now, a need to move on.

  Philip led them through the first rim of hovels, then took a winding trail away from the main road. As they traversed the camp, people emerged from the huts. They murmured a low greeting to Philip, eyeing Marc with solemn awareness. Marc was aware of them as well. He had no idea how much of what he said Philip actually understood. But he was not sure that the chief’s understanding was nearly as important as the fact that he spoke at all.

  By the time Marc went silent, a collection of children and young teens formed a motley retinue. The youngsters spoke quietly among themselves. When Marc was finished, one of the teens had the temerity to speak with Philip. Behind the boy, a woman from a neighboring hut came into view. Two more stepped forward, and an elderly man. All waiting their turn. Philip used his fly whisk to point them all back in the direction from which he and Marc had come, clearly telling them to bring their concerns to the elders’ hut. They dropped their gazes and moved away.

  Philip took hold of Marc’s hand and steered him on. He said, “You loved your wife long and well. It is a good thing, this love. Even when you must bury your heart with your love when she departs.” He pointed them down an even narrower trail. His words were far clearer than before and carried the easy resonance of an educated man. “But now the Lord Jesus, he has performed the miracle. Your heart is called from the cave of death. And you are afraid of the light.” He used his whisk to offer a greeting to an ancient crone, who appeared from within her hut’s shadows. “Will you accept advice?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “There are two issues you face. Not one. The first has little to do with the woman Kitra. She lit the lamp, yes. But she and the lamp are not one and the same. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Marc replied, thinking how fortunate the tribe was to be led by this man.

  “Now there is the second issue. And this is not your decision at all. It is Kitra who must choose.” Philip stopped and faced him. “But whatever the woman decides, the lamp has now been lit.”

  Here the man’s true stature was revealed, Marc decided. Along a snakelike trail, followed by the ragged teens, the true man shone clear.

  Philip was a king.

  Not because he commanded armies or held conquered people beneath his sandal. Rather because he saw their needs with unearthly wisdom, and called their concerns his own. Because his people loved him.

  Philip was the servant who led, the leader who served. The impossible combination made real.

  Marc cleared his throat and said, “Charles mentioned that you had a dream about me.”

  A glimmer surfaced in the dark gaze, a faint smile. Enough to suggest Philip had been hoping Marc might speak of this. “I dreamed of a hero,” he corrected. “I still wait to know whether you are that man.”

  Marc did not know how to respond.

  Philip’s gaze fastened upon him. “I suspect we are both waiting for this answer together.”

  Marc took in a deep breath of the hot, dry air. “If the dream is prophecy, isn’t that a vision of what will happen?”

  Philip’s response was as instantaneous as it was grave. “God’s greatest gift was the salvation that came through his Son. Bonded to this is God’s gift of choice. Mankind’s freedom to choose their life’s course is mostly spoken of in terms of sins. And this is true. But the choices do not end there, Marc Royce. They begin. We are saved from sin, yes. But to what end? Do we choose rightly and grow to God’s purpose? That is the question I wait for you to answer. Because you are the one called. Oh yes. I do believe this. Now you must decide if you are ready.”

  Marc felt the words strike him with such resonance his entire being seemed to vibrate.

  Philip stepped in so close, his handsome features and his intensity filled Marc’s vision. “There is an expression among my people, bado kidogo. It means, not just yet. It is an expression of great sadness, an end to hope. So much in our land remains just beyond the horizon. Our people are told to wait, and wait, and wait some more. Do not force my people to wait upon you, Marc Royce. Do not disappoint us, or our God. Yours and mine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Marc crossed the central compound to be met by the camp director, who handed him another list of urgently needed supplies. Kitra emerged from the medical facility and waited until the director thanked him and departed. She then walked ahead of Marc to the baobab tree where she stood in its shade. Waiting.

  Marc stepped up beside her. He saw the tense way she gripped her arms across her middle, and hated that he was the cause for such tension. Especially now. “There’s no room in my day for arguments. I’ve just come from witnessing miracles. And I can’t help but hope there is room for one more.”

  A long breath slipped out, exposing the weary strain in her features. But she still would not look at him.

  So he said it again. “I think it’s time that you trust me. I want to make your objectives my own. I see the pain of your brother’s disappearance. I see how you help these people. I have to trust that whatever secrets you carry are good ones. I want to help you make them—”

  “You must go and speak with my father.”

  He stopped. “What?”

  “You won’t understand anything until you see it for yourself.”

  “Your father,” he repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “In Israel.”

  “He will meet you at the Tel Aviv airport.”

  “You’ve spoken with him?”

  “That was who I had to call.”

  “About me. Coming to Israel.”

  “Will you go?”

  “Kitra . . . Yes, I will.”

  She looked at him then. A faint disquiet tainted her voice and her gaze. “Will you? Really?”

  “Of course I’ll go. I thought . . .”

  “You thought I would shut you out.” She sighed once more. “Perhaps I should. But I can’t.”

  Marc could not stop his grin from surfacing. “You can’t?”

  “This isn’t funny.”
r />   “No. Well, yes. In a way it is. But I’m smiling because I’m happy.”

  “I have never lied to you. Do you believe that?”

  “I don’t just believe it, Kitra. I feel it in my heart. It’s the only way I can be standing here, talking with you like this. Because you have always told me the truth. Just, well, maybe not as much of the truth as I might have liked.”

  “I’ve told you all I can.”

  “All right. Sure. I can accept that.” The blood zinged through his veins. “You’re a good person in an impossible situation. I wish you would tell me what I don’t know, but if I have to go hear it from your father, fine.”

  She started to reach for him. Her hand touched an invisible barrier between them, and stopped. Marc felt the sparks fly between her fingertips and him. Kitra murmured, “How is it you always know the right thing to say?”

  He wanted to close the distance between them. But something inside said the first move had to be hers. “I’ll leave tomorrow.”

  The chopper sounded on the horizon, a vague drumming that grew steadily louder. Calling him away. Kitra tried to smile, but her mouth could not seem to find the proper shape. “I hear your ride.”

  He wished for nothing more than to stand there for hours, feeling the barriers between them crumble. “Why don’t you come with me? To Israel, I mean.”

  Pain bloomed on her features. “I can’t. Don’t ask why. Please. It would tear me apart to explain.”

  He swallowed his protest, and nodded.

  Kitra signaled to five young boys hovering by the admin building. They smiled and held out a dirty backpack. Kitra motioned to Marc and said, “This is for you. I asked them to secretly follow the Asian visitors and note everywhere they took a sample of the earth. They went back and dug in the same places.”

  Marc thanked the youths, who beamed proudly and ducked their heads in unison. He unzipped the pack and found himself staring at several dozen plastic baggies stamped with the words Medical Samples. “This is great. I can’t tell you—”

  “Give them to my father,” she said. “He will know what to do.”

  Marc closed the pack and set it on the ground by his feet. “Serge didn’t go into that village looking for the missing people.”

  She spoke to the youths, who smiled once more and drifted away. “I never said he did, Marc.”

  Marc tried to recall her exact words, but could not. He decided it really did not matter. “He went to take samples of the earth. This is why you came to Kenya, isn’t it? For whatever is here in these samples.”

  “What we suspect. No, more than that. What we hope.”

  From beyond the camp’s borders came the sound of rotors winding down. Marc’s satellite phone rang in his pack. “I have to go.”

  “If there is anything there of importance, my father will know. And tell him . . .”

  “Yes?”

  Her voice broke under the strain of forming those words. “Tell him I’m sorry.”

  Ten minutes into the flight back to Nairobi, Marc’s sat phone rang. The chinless bureaucrat, the one who had interviewed him in Washington and now served as Marc’s boss at Lodestone headquarters, was definitely not happy to have his team arrive in Nairobi and not have Marc there to greet him. His bad attitude was made worse by having to shout to be heard. “Where have you been?”

  “Back at the French camp, sir. They have a new director in place. I needed to liaise. The camp director has given me a massive new order for urgent supplies.” Marc fished the list from his pack. “These include—”

  “Never mind that. You’re being reassigned. To Manila.”

  Marc stared at the chopper’s sun-splashed windscreen. “Say again.”

  “We have an urgent situation developing out there, and the current administrator is not up to the job. You leave immediately. Your replacement is already on the ground in Nairobi, and my deputy is prepping him.”

  “Sir, in the past week I’ve gained new orders for our company, orders worth at least a half-million dollars.”

  “Your replacement will take over, Royce. The situation in Manila is critical and growing worse. We like how you handle emergencies. We’re giving you a substantial bonus for your good work.”

  “Sir, the UN administrator made it clear this was a personal connection.”

  “We are aware of your relationship with Frederick Uhuru, so we cleared this with him first.” When Marc did not respond, the bureaucrat said, “You should thank me, Royce. You’re jumping three pay grades with this relocation.”

  “I am grateful, sir.” Marc thought fast. “But before I head over, I am putting in for a week of leave.”

  “Denied. We need you there now.”

  “That was not a request, sir. I’ve been under enormous pressure here. I need some down time in order to perform at peak—”

  “You can’t stay in Kenya. I won’t have you second-guessing your replacement.”

  “Actually, sir, I was thinking about taking a break on the Med.”

  The silence was not due to a bad connection. “Seventy-two hours and not a minute more,” the Lodestone executive agreed with bad grace. “Then you will report to your new post or you will be posting your résumé.”

  Marc needed to report in to Washington. Walton needed to be updated. But his first call was to Boyd Crowder. “I’m being reassigned to the other side of the globe.”

  When he related his conversation, the colonel said, “Their move is a smart one. Manila is one of Lodestone’s biggest operations. If anybody questions their actions, they can call it a promotion.”

  “You don’t sound surprised.”

  “I’m not,” Crowder replied. “Since the same thing has also just happened to me and Rigby. We’re ordered back to Washington. We ship out tonight.”

  “They know.”

  “They suspect,” Crowder corrected. “If they knew, we’d be destined for a shallow grave next to my fallen men. Speaking of which, don’t under any circumstances go back to Lodestone-Nairobi. They have promoted Dirk to my old job. His first command as the new CO was for the gate to flag him the instant you show up.”

  Marc knew he should be worried. But all he could think of then was the evidence trail. “Lodestone is behind this. The evacuation of villages, the appropriation of land, the killing of your men. They’re in it up to their eyeballs.”

  “I hate to say it, but I’m growing ever more certain by the minute that you’re right.”

  “But you’re not part of this. Which means Lodestone has another group operating inside Kenya.”

  “There isn’t. I’ve checked. Then I had my buddies at HQ check. Lodestone has no other operation in the country.”

  Marc listened to the static for a time, but could come up with no alternative answer. “I’ve been granted seventy-two hours’ leave, long as I take it outside Kenya.”

  “They’re not taking any chances, are they?”

  Marc related the gist of his conversation with Kitra. He finished by saying, “I’ve got the sack of samples at my feet. Kitra told me to deliver them to her father. Why, I have no idea. But I’m going to do it.”

  Marc sat and listened to the rotors hum. Nairobi was not yet visible, but the city’s smog stained the porcelain blue sky. When Crowder finally replied, his voice had lost its edge. “I appreciate the trust, bro. Will you let me know if you discover anything further?”

  “The very instant.”

  Crowder read him off a number. “That’s my personal sat phone. I got a new one and I carry it everywhere. You find yourself needing a band of trusted men, you give me a shout. I’ll be there. Wherever, whenever. Crowder out.”

  The conversation with Walton was shortest of all. When Marc completed his summary, Walton said, “An embassy official will meet you at the Nairobi airport.”

  “I don’t have a flight yet.”

  “That will be taken care of. If anyone asks, you have hitched a ride on a plane owned by your new friend.”

  “
What’s the friend’s name?”

  “Smith.”

  “I thought you might have objections over my taking off for Israel.”

  “On the contrary. Our opposition is worried enough about you to post you to Manila, five thousand miles in the wrong direction. You have effectively been barred from Kenya. Crowder has been relieved of duty and returned to Washington, where they can best keep a close watch over him and his man. You have the samples of earth?”

  Marc watched the gloom of Nairobi rise in the distance. “Here at my feet.”

  “When you get to the airport, you will supply portions of each sample to the contact. You will then travel on to Tel Aviv, meet this father of the missing young man, and report back immediately.”

  “Roger that. Can you have your embassy guy swing by Lodestone HQ first and pack up all my gear? I’ve been warned off the place.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Marc started to cut the connection, but Walton said, “I’ve heard back from the security chief about your friend Uhuru. He has asked that we not include Frederick Uhuru in our investigation.”

  Which could only mean one thing. “They have him under surveillance and they don’t want us to tip their hand.”

  “I agree with your assessment.” Walton hesitated, then added, “Watch your back.”

  Despite the static and the chopper’s noise, Marc heard genuine concern in the ambassador’s tone. “Roger that, sir.”

  “The stakes are rising,” Walton went on. “You’ve just been given the only warning they are likely to offer. Next time, you won’t see them coming until it’s too late.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  When the chopper landed in front of the Lodestone hangar, Marc was met by a stocky young woman wearing a dark suit with low-heeled pumps. Her hair was cut short and framed her head like a cap of brown straw. She stood before a dusty Toyota Land Cruiser and chatted with a rail-thin African whose dark curls were frosted by age. Her voice was as crisp and professional as her features. “Marc Royce?”