IT WAS AN old snapshot from our college days. I remembered the time as soon as I saw it. Ellie and I were sitting on a blanket on the National Mall. We had just finished finals. I had a summer internship lined up at Sibley Memorial, and I was falling in love for the first time. Ellie told me that she was too. In the photograph, we were smiling and hugging one another, and it looked as if we could be that way forever.

Now here I was in her house, responsible for Ellie in a way I never could have imagined.

I let myself stare nostalgically at the picture for a few more seconds, then forced myself to move on, to come back to the present mess.

It didn't take long to find three hundred typed pages of a manuscript titled Deathtrip. The subtitle on the title page read Crime as a Way of Life, of Doing Business, in Central Africa.

A copy of a plane ticket had been inserted in the manuscript. The ticket was round-trip from Washington to Lagos, Nigeria. Ellie had returned from there two weeks ago.

I looked through the index at the back of the manuscript and found a listing for “Violence, African Style,” and a subhead, “Family Massacre.”

I turned to the relevant manuscript page and read: “There are gang leaders for hire all through Nigeria and especially in Sudan. These brutal men and their groups-often made up of boys as young as ten-have an unlimited appetite for violence and sadism. A favorite target is entire families, since that spreads both news and fear the farthest. Families are massacred in their huts and shacks, and even boiled in oil, a trademark of a few of the worst gang leaders.”

I decided to take the partial manuscript with me to get it copied. I wanted to read everything that Ellie had written.

Was this what had gotten her killed-her book?

Next, I stared for a long time at a striking, poignant picture of Ellie, her husband, and their three beautiful children.

All dead now.

Murdered right here in their home. At least they hadn't been boiled in oil.

I took one more look at the photo of the two of us on the National Mall. Young and in love, or whatever it was that we were feeling.

“Ellie, I'll do what I can for you and your family. I promise you that.”

I left the house, thinking, What did you find in Africa?

Did somebody follow you back?

Chapter 11

EVERYBODY THERE KNEW there was trouble, but no one knew what kind or how bad it was.

A dark green panel van had screeched to a stop in front of a low-level mosque in Washington called Masjid Al-Shura. More than one hundred fifty peaceful congregants were crowding the sidewalk in front.