Somehow, we both knew I'd pay that one. I didn't want to push my luck. I gave him two American fives and we were on our way-to the next roadblock anyway.

We hit four of them before the actual border crossing. Each rite of passage went about the same. It got easier as we went, cheaper anyway, and by the time we finally crossed at Bo Waterside to Liberia, I'd paid out only another fifteen bucks or so.

The precious thing we did lose was time.

We didn't get into Monrovia until after dark, and with no guarantee of supplies east of there, we had to spend the night.

I worried through the night and didn't sleep very well.

We were safe so far, but the speed we were traveling was no Tiger's pace.

He was getting away again.

Chapter 67

WE DROVE ALL the next day and into the second night, alternating at the wheel, trying to make up time. As we traveled, Moses told me that he was representative of most people here-not the RUF, and certainly not the Tiger and his murderous gang.

“There are many good people in Africa, sah, and no one to help them fight back against the devils,” he said.

Less than half an hour east of Monrovia, we passed the last billboard and radio tower and entered dense rain forest that went on for hours.

Sometimes it opened up into clear-cut fields, with stumps like grave markers for miles in every direction.

Mostly, though, the road was a tunnel of bamboo, palm, mahogany, and vine-choked trees such as I'd never seen before-with leaves and low scrub slapping and slathering the sides of the truck as we pushed through.

Late in the afternoon, we were near the coast, driving through tidal flats and then wide swaths of open grassland that were the antithesis of the jungle we'd just left.

I saw a huge colony of flamingos around sunset, thousands and thousands of stunningly beautiful birds, an incongruous sea of pink in the orangish light.

Finally we had to stop for the evening. We were both too tired to drive. As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered how many fathers got to tell their kids they'd spent a night in a real African jungle.

Chapter 68

I WOKE UP some hours later. Moses was already laying out breakfast on the tailgate of the Drifter.

Canned sausages, a couple of bruised tomatoes, and a two-liter jug of water to sip from.

“Looks good,” I said. “Thank you, Moses.”

“There is a river. Over there if you wish to wash up.” he pointed with his chin to the opposite side of the road. I noticed his shirt was soaking wet. “It is not far.”

I bushwhacked with my arms, skirting a huge knot of thorny scrub the way Moses had obviously done before me.

About twenty-five yards in, the brush opened up and I came out onto a mud-and-gravel bank.