Two quick strides and then he was scrambling up a small ash tree, barely big enough to support his weight, much less an adult's.

Just as Sampson came running around the back, the boy flipped sideways over the top of a high cedar fence into a service alley beyond.

Seconds later, Bree came out the front door.

There was no gate to the alley. They had to sprint back through the house, out another door, and around the block, Just to find out what they already knew: The boy named Benjamin was long gone.

The so-called lookout for the murders had gotten away from them.

Five minutes later, they had an APB out, but Bree wasn't holding her breath. Her thoughts had already turned to Alex, and how to reach out to him.

“He needs to know about this. Like, last week. Only I don't know how to reach him. I don't even know where he is now.”

Chapter 66

THIS PART OF Africa wasn't recommended for backpacking or camera safaris. The yowl of hyenas was a constant reminder of where I was now. So were the road signs that said things like warning-lions-crocodiles!!

Getting out of Sierra Leone and back to Nigeria was proving to be even more complicated than I had expected. And dangerous too, treacherous at almost any curve.

Like right now. Two military-issue jeeps sat nose-to-nose across the road, blocking our way. This was no ordinary border crossing, though. We were less than an hour outside Koidu.

“Are these guys actually government?” I asked Moses. “Any way to tell?”

He shrugged and shifted uncomfortably on the seat of the Drifter. “Could be RUF.”

There were six of them by my count, all wearing a mix of fatigues and street clothes and the familiar flip-flops. All of them were armed, including a mounted gunner in the back of one of the jeeps.

A lanky guy in a maroon beret came striding over to my window. His eyes were bloodshot, like he might have been stoned. He raised his rifle with one arm and held out the Other hand.

“Papers.”

I played it cool for now and showed him the police clear-ance and my passport.

He barely looked at them. “Fifty dollars. To pay for your visa.”

Whether these men were government officers or not, I knew right then that this was grift, pure and simple. A holdup.

I raised my gaze and looked into his red eyes. “I just spoke with the US embassy in Freetown this morning. Deputy Ambassador Sassi assured me himself that my papers were in good order. So what's the problem here?”

He stared back hard at me, but I didn't flinch. Two of the other guards started over from the side of the road, but he held up a palm to save them the trouble.

“Still, it is ten for the passenger. Twenty, if it's in leones.”