Nigerians in Space Page 7

  Ferguson allowed himself a smile. “That sounds like Bello.”

  Ferguson’s flight wasn’t for a few more days and he said that the missing PV cells wouldn’t be discovered for some time, perhaps even years. He’d replaced the cell with a mock-up in the lab and would retain his title as an emeritus professor. He was so patient and calm about the situation that Wale felt childish. Wale hadn’t sold the house in Houston or negotiated any sort of honorable release from NASA; no, he’d locked his lab partner in a vault and stolen his boss’s car. It was unlikely he’d ever be able to return to Texas.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Wale. As we say, Allah preserve us from ‘If only I’d known.’”

  They boarded a tram to Ferguson’s apartment. Wale wanted to call Tinuke in the hotel and assure her that everything was alright. He also wanted to contact Bello. Ferguson pointed out cultural landmarks as the tram narrowly avoided crushing tourists on rented bicycles. After they stepped off, they walked to an old four-story building with a placard: 1843. Ferguson used a skeleton key to enter the door and they stepped through a portico into a small courtyard lined with ivy. A half-dozen bicycles were parked in a rack and marble steps led into three different entrances to the left, right, and center of them.

  “Do you own?” Wale asked.

  “Rent.” Ferguson jingled another key to enter the doorway on the left, but when he inserted the key the door budged open. He paused. “Strange. I’ll have to let the tenants know. It’s sort of a cooperative.”

  A narrow marble staircase twisted up before them, the steps worn from years of use. There was a dank, musty smell that reminded Wale, not unpleasantly, of basements. They climbed the steps until Ferguson stopped abruptly on the third floor.

  “What is it?”

  Ferguson shushed him quiet. Before them, a dark green apartment door was partially open.

  “Wife?” Wale whispered.

  “She’s in Bamako.”

  “Maybe it’s Bello.”

  They crept forward. Ferguson grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall. They could hear papers being tossed and pots banging in the apartment. Whoever it was didn’t seem worried about making noise.

  “We should call the police,” Wale said.

  Ferguson pointed at his hat and shook his head. Wale got it, they couldn’t call. He was a thief and Wale was too. Better a beggar than a thief.

  A large object crashed to the floor. Wale tensed. He began stepping slowly back down the stairs. “Let’s leave, Femi. Wait to see who comes out. No need to play the hero.”

  But it was too late. Ferguson kicked the door open with a yell, screaming maniacally. “This is my apartment! Get the hell out of here!”

  Wale stayed glued to the steps.

  “Who are you?” Ferguson shouted. “What are you doing here?”

  Then, a husky voice, eerily calm: “It’s no concern of yours.”

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Ferguson said, suddenly sounding scared. “It’s fine! Put that down! Take what you want. I’ll leave.”

  “No you won’t,” the burglar said. “You know whatahm looking for, o.”

  Wale tried to place the accent. West African? He didn’t see anything he could use as a weapon. He inched back up the steps, hoping to get a glimpse. Once he knew what the burglar looked like, he could wait for him in the courtyard or follow him, get the jump on him somehow.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ferguson said.

  “The PV cell. Give it to me, o.”

  So he knew about it, Wale thought. How many people had Femi told? He moved to the doorway.

  “You’ll leave, then,” Ferguson said. “You promise that?”

  “Dat depends.” There was a pause. “No, hands down! No tricks, o.”

  “It’s not a trick. The cell is on my head. In the lining.”

  “Get down on your knees.”

  Wale held his breath. Then he peered around the corner. Before him, he could see Ferguson on his knees on an oriental rug. The burglar’s back was turned to the door and his chocolate-skinned arm was holding a small pistol. Ferguson spied Wale as he crept forward and looked over Wale’s shoulder, pointing with his eyes. Wale turned to see a light summer jacket hanging from a hook. Ferguson nodded, just slightly.

  “Who are you?” Ferguson said, trying to distract the burglar. “Who are you working for?”

  “Not your concern.”

  Wale fished in the pockets of the summer jacket and found a short thick white envelope. He tucked it into his belt. He searched for something he could use to attack, but could only find a pillow. He picked it up. Put it down again.

  “I have money,” Ferguson went on. “I can give you a dash.”

  “Not anymore. We froze your accounts. Toss me de hat.”

  Ferguson removed the hat from his head and threw it to the burglar. He tore the fabric open.

  Wale drew closer now, ready to leap. I can do this, he thought, I can jump on him before he turns.

  “You were telling de truth,” the burglar said. “You shouldn’t have.”

  And it was all too swift. He snapped the pistol up and fired at Ferguson. Blood sprayed out from his jaw onto a white couch behind him. He let out a whimper. Then he stepped forward a pace and took aim between Ferguson’s eyes.

  “No!” Wale shouted.

  Wale leapt for him as he fired. The bullet thumped into the couch as Wale tackled him in the waist, and the gun flew across the floor. Ferguson fell to the carpet with blood dripping from his jaw. The gun was still close to the burglar and Wale scrambled for it on the floor. He whipped at Wale with a knife, tearing his shirt sleeve until he withdrew his arm. It was all the time the burglar needed. The gun was closer to him now, within reach, and Wale had nothing but his fists. He squinted at Wale with yellowed, watery eyes.

  Wale dived headlong into the stairwell as the shot exploded into the door frame. He rolled down a few steps before righting himself with his forearm. Then he leapt the entire distance onto the next landing.

  He plunged into the courtyard, expecting to find the burglar barreling after him. But he didn’t come. He halted for a moment and held his breath. Then he heard another thump, like a cricket bat slamming into a pillow. He looked for the burglar in the window but he didn’t appear. He would have to come down eventually, he thought. But there was nothing to attack him with, only a few flower pots lining the courtyard, which could hardly threaten his gun. He was too quick with it. Wale ran.

  Wale hopped on the nearest tram and switched lines three times until he found himself near a park lined with baby strollers. Young mothers pushed their children beneath weeping cherry trees, casting sidelong glances at the nervous, sweaty man. Then he picked up a payphone and called the police, giving a false name.

  “Ah, Mr. Smith, you mean he is a Negro?” the dispatcher said in lumbering English, sweetly.

  “Yes, a Negro. An African.” He went into detail about the burglar’s rich chocolate skin and his yellowed eyes, feeling stupid that he had nothing else to give.

  “Thank you. A Negro.”

  “He has a gun! Armed and dangerous! Get there now!”

  “But you must be mistaken. Guns are not legal in Stockholm,” the dispatcher argued.

  Wale hung up. The police might just catch the burglar if they were quick enough. At least that would be something. He hoped they didn’t arrive with Billie clubs.

  He frightened away a young mother on a bench and stared into space, replaying the incident again and again as the children in the park screamed and giggled and climbed over things. It had all happened so fast. Here they were preparing to call Bello, set things right, and the burglar had appeared. For all his years in Texas, Wale had never seen a gun fired before. His basketball teammate Bill Dalton had once dragged him to a game of paintball and that was enough for him. He remembered the balls whizzing by his ear as he hid behind rocky outcroppings that felt much too small, the sting of a direct hit, and catching Dalton in
the act of rubbing off a splash of blue from his trousers, to which he’d replied: “It doesn’t count if you can rub it off.”

  The real thing was much worse. He’d felt paralyzed by the force of the shot that had torn clean through Ferguson’s jaw, and then the knife as it had almost sliced him. Somehow the burglar had known about the PV cell. That meant he probably knew about Bello and Brain Gain in general, and he was willing to kill for it. Why? And the dispassion with which the burglar had spoken to Femi when he’d known all along that he would shoot him, as if he’d been toying with him. If Femi had only lied about the PV cell he might not have been shot. If Femi had listened to Wale and stayed out of the apartment in the first place, none of this would have happened.

  Allah preserve us, Femi had said, from ‘If only I’d known’.

  “We froze your accounts,” the burglar had said in his husky, almost lazily effeminate voice. Which accounts? Was he talking about the Swiss account? No one knew about it, presumably, other than Bello. Who did he mean by ‘we’? Who was powerful enough to freeze someone’s bank account? Was it Interpol? The CIA? The Russians? Femi hadn’t truly stolen anything yet, unlike Wale. And why did he care about the photovoltaic cell? Even the Swedes didn’t care about it—Femi had said so himself.

  He tore open Ferguson’s envelope. Inside, he found a ticket from Stockholm to Basel and a ticket from Basel to Abuja, both departing in two days’ time. There was also a ticket from Bamako to Abuja, stopping in Dakar, departing the following week. The Bamako ticket was presumably for Ferguson’s wife in Mali. To his dismay, Wale saw that Ferguson’s name was clearly printed on the tickets. They were useless to him. Behind the tickets, he found several small decals on wax paper, the kind you might find in a cereal box, meant to be ironed onto a teeshirt. There were four. Two green and two yellow. Entry visas. Those he could use.

  He found a much smaller sheet of paper, a note typical of the ones Bello liked to leave, with this scribbled on it:

  Photovoltaic Formula

  It was an older formula, widely available in scientific journals, and Wale could think of no practical use for it. It was hardly revolutionary or worth hiding. On the reverse side, he found a hand-written address: 251 Upper Tree Road, Cape Town: 41421. Finally, he felt some relief. It was the address to the fallback point in Cape Town.

  Laundering

  1993

  Stockholm, Sweden

  Lights were flashing in front of the airport hotel when Wale arrived. Two police cars, one with an officer in it, were parked along the circular drive. He grew frightened. He’d given a false name to the dispatch, but maybe they’d had a tip-off or wanted to question him. Had that burglar called it in? He was capable of such devilry; he was capable of anything. He also had the chilling realization that the description he’d given of the attacker would fit him as well. Ah Mr. Smith, the dispatcher had said, you mean he is a Negro? Wale was a Negro. Ferguson was a Negro. It had been stupid to call the police at all.

  His wife Tinuke would be inside the hotel, no doubt calling her relatives to complain about her husband. His son Dayo would be with her, wobbling in his three-year-old shuffle. Wife and son. His charges.

  At the nearest payphone he called the hotel lobby and asked to be patched through to their room.

  “Tinuke.”

  “Wale! Why didn’t you call? I was worried.”

  “I didn’t want any trouble.”

  “Where have you been? No, wait, here is Dayo. He wants to say hello.”

  He heard the receiver being passed to his son. “Papa! Papa!”

  “Good, Dayo. Please put your mother on the phone.”

  “Are you coming back to the hotel?” Tinuke asked.

  “I’m right outside.”

  He looked up at the airport hotel and saw curtains being drawn aside on the third floor. Tinuke stepped into view wearing tight-fitting stretch jeans, a garment Wale found distasteful. She was frowning. “What are you doing, Wale? Come inside.”

  “It’s the police. Have they bothered you?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll come up.”

  It was a small, utilitarian hotel room. Every wall was white and sterile and so thin you could hear the programs line by line as the guest next door watched television. There was a high pinewood desk and a stiff contemporary arm chair. The room had a view of the street and, through two identical hotels, the planes on the tarmac of the airport beyond.

  Tinuke was washing something in the bathroom sink when he opened the door. His son came tottering up in tiny Hawaiian print Jams shorts with a light blue beanie. Wale scooped him into his arms and Dayo said a lot of gibberish, punctuated by ‘Papa, Papa’, and the odd logical sentence or two. Tinuke squeezed his arm and for a moment they were a happy family.

  “Dayo’s been sick. He threw up in your suitcase.”

  Wale noticed the empty suitcases and the clothes strewn about the room.

  “The police didn’t come?”

  “No.”

  Dayo began pattering around the room, yelling “Boats! Boats! Boats!” He sped into the bathroom and right back out again. “Boats! Boats! Boats!”

  “I told you to keep our suitcases packed.”

  “Don’t start, Wale. Please.”

  He stuffed his clothes back into his suitcase, ignoring the smell: “You’re sure the police didn’t come.”

  “Don’t pack them, Wale. Put them in the sink. I have wash to them.”

  “Did a man named Bello call?”

  Tinuke looked at him with sudden concern. “No one called.”

  He put his thumb on his chin and paced back and forth. They had to leave immediately. It was too dangerous to be here. At any moment the killer could be tracking him down.

  “We’re going. Pack your things.” Tinuke slowed for an instant before continuing to drop clothes in the sink. “I said pack your bags.”

  “Wale, you just returned. You need to sleep. You were up all night.”

  “I’ll help you pack.”

  He pulled aside the curtain. No sign of the killer. Tinuke began massaging her temple. He fished around her suitcase for her passport and pulled the clothes iron from the tiny closet. He carefully peeled off the entry visas and ironed them into her passport, one for South Africa, the next for Nigeria. Then he began working on his own. South Africa, yes. Nigeria—and Dayo careened into him.

  “Dayo! Stop your running!”

  “Boats!”

  The Nigeria visa had smudged beyond recognition. It looked like a green insect had been smashed on the page.

  No problem, he thought, trying to remain calm. I’ll get Bello’s man to give me another one in Cape Town.

  Tinuke arrived behind him, shaking and tearful. “Wale, I haven’t asked. I haven’t. So I would like you to answer for me. Where have you been?”

  “Meeting a friend.”

  “You expect me to pack up and leave? When you won’t tell me anything? When was the last time you told me the truth?”

  “It’s not just anywhere. We’ll go to Basel—that’s only a two hour flight—and pick up a few things. Then we’ll go to Cape Town to meet Bello.”

  “If you want to go to Nigeria so badly, let’s go. Let’s go to Nigeria. We have family there. In Cape Town I don’t know anyone. There’s apartheid.”

  Wale went on about how Mandela had been freed and how there were opportunities for an election. “You’ve seen the news. Apartheid’s over. Bello will be there. We have to meet him at the fallback point.”

  She began crying on the edge of the bed, but when he tried to comfort her, she shrugged him off. And he thought to himself, what would he tell Ferguson’s wife? She was in Mali, according to Ferguson, but how could he tell her that he’d just watched a man shoot her husband in the jaw? And that he’d fled for his life like a coward?

  “Come on, Tinuke, this is no time for dramatics. We have to go!”

  “Why?”

  “To meet him! He’s the one that arranged everythin
g.”

  “You’ve lost it, Wale! Wake up! It’s Nigeria! You’re a lunar geologist! What does Nigeria have to do with you, or us, anymore?”

  Tinuke had abandoned a career in nutritional science to raise their family, and he remembered this at moments like these, her sacrifices filling the silences. She was smaller than him by a few inches, but broader in the womanly places, with soft, dark brown eyes. He had married a beauty and been plagued by her mind, which probed into his bold assertions with the slipperiness of a microbe.

  “Bello will be there,” he said coldly.

  “Yet you won’t introduce me to him or call him. What are we doing here? What did you do, Wale? Why are you so afraid of the police?”

  He peered out again from behind the curtains. Still only one police car, but more might be on the way.

  “Not now, Tinuke! We don’t have the time.”

  “Are you a criminal?”

  “Pack your things. Dayo, come on, Dayo, would you like to get in an airplane?”

  “Boats!”

  Tears, crying, more dramatics.

  “Are you a criminal? I can accept that, Wale. I’m your wife. Just tell me what you did so I know you’re okay. We can get through it together.”

  “Don’t be silly! Let’s go.”

  Dayo was playing with a toy rubber vampire. The toy had at first terrified the boy, but he’d conquered his fear somehow and it now became his companion whenever his parents were shouting. Wale picked him up, dragging his suitcase with his free hand.

  “Papa!”

  “Come, Tinuke!”

  She grabbed something from Wale’s suitcase. “What is this, Wale?”

  It was the snowglobe, still full of the moondust from the Apollo mission. It felt inconsequential after what Wale had seen, and dangerous. The killer might come for it if he knew that Wale had it. He considered smashing it, then gave up the thought on principle. He couldn’t defile a piece of the moon. He removed Dayo’s pajamas and wrapped the globe, stuffing it into the child’s backpack as Tinuke picked him up and planted a kiss on his forehead. Dayo giggled.