For a confused, off-kilter moment, Nze had wondered if he might be an official escort of some kind. But then a scent that was at once recognizable and incongruous wafted over him from the car’s interior . . . the pungent, leafy smell of khat.

Although the stimulant drug was legal in Gabon—as it was throughout the rest of Africa—Nze knew no ministerial guard would have the effrontery to chew it while on duty.

He’d stopped halfway inside the car, hesitant, suspicion abruptly taking root inside him.

A profanity was husked in his ear: “Encule-tête!”

Powerful hands closed around Nze’s neck from behind, wrenched it backward before he could react. The hood fell over his head and was pulled down below his eyes, his face. Then Nze was shoved into the rear of the car, where his mouth was quickly wrapped with duct tape outside the sack.

Someone pressed into the car after him and the door of the Mercedes slammed shut.

An instant later, Nze heard the driver get inside.

Nze made smothered sounds through the tape, struggled to move, but could scarcely wriggle his body. He’d been crushed between the man in dark fatigues and whoever boosted him into the car.

An object jabbed into his right side. Hard. The blunt barrel of a gun.

“Ça suffit!” The order to stop squirming had been spat by the same gruff, husking voice he’d heard out on the sidewalk. Again, close against his ear.

Nze became still, heard a different voice from his opposite side.

“Dépêche toi, vas-y continue!” the khat chewer shouted at the driver. Urging him to hurry up, get on with it.

The car had jumped forward into the street.

Nze was certain the hideaway to which they brought him was near the ocean harbor—perhaps a storage warehouse, or indoor berthing space. It had taken only minutes to get there. As they pulled him from the car, guiding him roughly along, he had felt the transition from asphalt to old wooden boards under his feet, smelled saltwater and diesel fuel, heard what sounded like the rhythmical knocking of a ship’s hull against its moorings. Then a roll-down security gate being raised on rusty metal tracks in front of him.

He was led indoors. Thrust into a chair. Told he’d be shot if he put up any resistance.

The gate clanged shut.

Nze sat without budging for hours before he was shuffled out into the 4×4. At the time, he had no idea why they had kept him at that interim place . . . but much later, after his captors passed out of the city, he would conclude they had been waiting for the night to run itself thin. It only made sense. The roads leading into the bush were slow to traverse by daylight, and filled with unseen hazards in darkness, becoming more arduous as Port-Gentil’s outlying townships and settlements were left behind in the distance. They would have wanted to limit the amount of ground that had to be covered before the first rays of dawn came bleaching through the sky.