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.

Now the sun was up, its heat building in the cargo section around Nze as the 4×4 gyrated along over pebbled, foliage-tangled jungle roads and trenches. In September, the days were quick to grow sweltering, and air-conditioners were useless and unused in motor vehicles. He could feel sweat pouring down his face under the canvas hood, feel the tire rubber wedged against his side getting warm. His entire body ached, besides, and his arms and legs were tingling from lack of circulation.

There was no way to be certain how many men were riding with him, but Nze had mentally indexed at least four voices from snatches of overheard conversation. One of them was very soft, belonging to someone who spoke French with a perceptible foreign accent . . . an American accent, he believed. The khat chewer from the backseat of the Mercedes was also among his hostile, unchosen companions, and Nze did not have to hear the man speak to know it. The combination of his drug of choice’s sickly sweet odor and the stultifying heat inside the cargo section had pushed Nze to the verge of nausea. And his constant tossing about hadn’t helped. With his mouth taped, he’d been afraid he would choke on his own vomit if the trip stretched on much longer, heaving up what little was left of yesterday’s dinner—and fine wine, he recalled miserably, thinking of the glass he had set down to answer the phone.