For a number of years, the town was fated to be a mere curiosity for the occasional visitor arriving by small motorboat from the coastal town of Acalayong. The jungle had begun to reclaim the land by the time a representative of GenSys had happened upon it seven years previously. This individual recognized Cogo’s isolation and its limitless surrounding rain forest as the perfect spot for GenSys’s intended primate facility. Returning to Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, the GenSys official immediately commenced negotiations with the current Equatoguinean government. Since the country was one of the poorest of Africa and consequently desperate for foreign exchange, the new president was eager and negotiations proceeded apace.

Kevin rounded the last corner and approached his house. It was three stories like most of the other buildings in the town. It had been tastefully renovated by GenSys to give it storybook appeal. In fact it was one of the more desirable houses in the whole town and a source of envy of a number of the other GenSys employees, particularly head of security, Cameron McIvers. Only Siegfried Spallek, manager of the Zone, and Bertram Edwards, chief veterinarian, had accommodations that were equivalent. Kevin had attributed his good luck to intercession on his behalf by Dr. Raymond Lyons, but he didn’t know for certain.

The house had been built in the mid-nineteenth century by a successful import/exporter in traditional Spanish style. The first floor was arched and arcaded like the town hall and had originally housed shops and storage facilities. The second floor was the main living floor with three bedrooms, three baths, a large through-and-through living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a tiny maid’s apartment. It was surrounded by a veranda on all four sides. The third floor was an enormous open room with wide-plank flooring illuminated with two huge, cast-iron chandeliers. It was capable of holding a hundred people with ease and had apparently been used for mass meetings.

Kevin entered and climbed a central stairway that led up to a narrow hall. From there he went into the dining room. As he expected, the table had been laid for lunch.

The house was too big for Kevin, especially since he didn’t have a family. He’d said as much when he’d first been shown the property, but Siegfried Spallek had told him the decision had been made in Boston and warned Kevin not to complain. So Kevin accepted the assignment, but his co-workers’ envy often made him feel uncomfortable.

As if by magic Esmeralda appeared. Kevin wondered how she did it so consistently. It was as if she were always on the lookout for his approaching the house. She was a pleasant woman of indeterminate age with rounded features and sad eyes. She dressed in a shift of brightly colored print fabric with a matching scarf wrapped tightly around her head. Besides her native tongue, she spoke fluent Spanish and passable English that improved on a daily basis.

Esmeralda lived in the maid’s quarters Monday through Friday. Over the weekend she stayed with her family in a village that GenSys had constructed to the east along the banks of the estuary to house the many local workers employed in the Zone, as the area occupied by GenSys’s Equatoguinean operation was called. She and her family had been moved there from Bata, the main city on the Equatoguinean mainland. The capital of the country, Malabo, was on an island called Bioko.