Nze was grabbed by the shirt collar again, pulled up onto his knees with a vicious jerk, and steadied from behind so he wouldn’t keel over, as he had in the four-wheel drive.

The tape around his hood was torn off. Then the hood itself.

Up and off.

Nze’s eyes filled with an explosion of glare. He grimaced as they adjusted to the daylight, blinked away stinging tears.

Swooning from fatigue, his vision a watery blur, Nze still found he could discern a great deal about his surroundings. He was in a small circular clearing, its edges shagged by high thickets of Marantaceae with dark green leaves the size of elephant ears. The clearing’s plainly defined boundaries and trammeled-down carpet of sedge suggested it was man made, slashed out of the forest with machetes like those his captors had used on the trail. Around and underneath Nze, the sawgrass growth was especially scorched, almost black, giving it the appearance of a large stain spread across the ground.

Then he spotted the tire lying in front of him. Doubtless the same tire that had been jammed against him in the cargo section for many hours. A portable metal gasoline can was beside it. A row of men nearby to the right, their knees level with his eyes.

He raised his head for a look at their faces. There were four of them—Andre in his conspicuous chauffeur’s suit, and two Bantu with semiautomatic rifles slung over their shoulders, dressed in coverall fatigues identical to those worn by the khat chewer. Nze could not see the latter, but thought he might be responsible for the shadow falling over him from behind . . . and realized now that he was not the group’s only user. As the minister knelt there before them, one of the Bantu removed a wad of the drug from a banana-frond wrapping in his hand, passed it to the other tribesman, then got a second wad and put it in his mouth with two fingers.

They chewed and watched him with hyped, bright eyes.

Nze looked away from them to the group’s single white, a lance-thin man in a safari jacket and bush hat. His eyes were pale blue, his skin the color of chalk.

Nze at once saw the camera hanging over his chest from a neck strap. It was a 35-mm with a large objective lens.

The white met Nze’s gaze with his own, studying him. Both hands in the gusset pockets of his jacket.

“Bienvenue,” he said in the lightly accented French that Nze remembered from their trip. “Por le maia distance, se bien regarder aà la lumiè‘re du jour.”

Nze was silent.

“I assume you’ve guessed who I am,” the white said.

Nze gave a slow nod.

The tire, he thought.

The gas can.

The burn-stained ground around him.

He felt himself trembling with fear.

“Let’s hear you say my name,” the white said. “It’s been a grueling ride for everyone. But worn out as we are, we must strive to be polite.”