The man in the white suit had taken the bag, opened it, removed the article inside with his thumb and forefinger, and given it a careful inspection. The shape, feel, and coloration were right; after a few minutes he’d been convinced it was authentic.

“Tell me your price,” he said, and slipped it back into the bag.

He had paid what the merchant asked without dickering and left the market for his appointment downtown.

Etienne Begela’s title was Minister of Economic Development, and his office was on the fifth floor of town hall, a building of tall colonnades and marble walls that reflected the august sensibilities of the French governors for whom it was originally built. The man in the white suit had announced himself at the main security desk and waited less than a minute before the guard who phoned upstairs motioned him toward the elevator.

Now he took the short ride up, walked through a hall in profound need of air-conditioning, and turned a bend. A young woman approached, rushing toward the car from which he had just emerged—Begela’s aide. Her gaze averted, she nodded her head in acknowledgment as she swept past him.

He returned the minor courtesy, sensing her nervousness.

Another turn of a corner and he saw Begela at his door, leaning out into the corridor.

“Mr. Fáton,” the minister said. “Bonjour, do come in—”

The man in the white suit disdained physical contact, but allowed for local custom and shook Begela’s extended hand. The Gabonese were demonstrative in their airs, offering the firm grip and steady eye as they connived.

As he entered Begela’s office, Fáton noticed a cup of steaming coffee and an open records file on the aide’s unoccupied desk. Not to his surprise, she had been hastily dismissed.

Begela showed Fáton through to his inner office, pulling its door closed behind them. Fáton had seen the room before, a typical high-ranking bureaucrat’s sanctuary, its walls fortified with certificates of education and accolade, photographs of Begela posed alongside his ministerial cohorts, a flagpole in the corner—in this instance brandishing the green, yellow, and blue national stripes.

Begela gestured toward his desk with a sweeping wave of his arm.

“Please, please have a seat,” he said, his too-loud voice another example of that nettlesome overexpressiveness. “I know why you’ve come, but let me reassure you that I did my best in Libreville.”

“Your best?” Fáton lowered himself into a chair, removed his hat, and watched the minister round the desk to sit opposite him. “It seems, Etienne, that the unwanted newcomers face no greater problem than to choose their lodgings before arrival. Are you going to tell me that is all I was to expect from you? After listening to your pledges? After what I have spent?”

The minister looked at him. His skin was chestnut brown, his face a long oval. With its flat cheeks and narrow eyes under high, arched brows, it seemed an animated version of a Congolese mask Fáton had once purchased for himself at the fetish market.