Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

The man took out the camera, looked at it, and then rummaged in a box on the floor under the table until he came up with a cord, which he attached to the computer and to the camera.

Chinma was shaking as he watched the man type and move the computer mouse and type again.

And then the pictures came up onto the screen, tiny pictures, lots of them.

"They are very small," said Chinma.

"These are just thumbnails," said the white man. He moved the mouse and clicked it and one picture filled the screen. It was a picture of two of Chinma's sisters, lying dead on the ground.

"Aw, kid, don't you know? We've got a hundred thousand dead people, we don't need pictures of more."

Chinma was puzzled for a moment. Had the soldiers killed so many?

Then he realized—the man hadn't seen the bullet wounds. He thought they were dead of the monkey sickness.

"Guns," said Chinma. He pantomimed holding an automatic weapon. "Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh," he said, like the sound of the gun.

A passing black woman saw him and immediately rushed toward him. "What are you doing!" she shouted. "Trying to infect Dr. Wangerin?" And then she turned to Dr. Wangerin. "This tent has been contaminated and your president's quarantine now makes it impossible for you to leave!"

"The boy's all right," said the white man—Dr. Wangerin. "He already had the nictovirus and he hasn't contaminated anything. What I'm looking at now is something very different. Acute lead poisoning."

He clicked again and a new picture came up. This time it was a picture of the soldier with the flamethrower setting fire to the bodies of the robbers.

The Nigerian woman's eyes got big and she began to move away.

"Stop right there," said Dr. Wangerin. "Where do you think you're going?"

"She tells the government about the pictures," said Chinma.

The woman shook her head and put out her hands as if to ward off Chinma's words.

"The government pay her to tell on you," said Chinma. Any Nigerian would know this, from the way she was acting. But of course the white people would have no idea.

"Sit down!" said Dr. Wangerin to the Nigerian woman. Looking terrified, she obeyed. "Security!" he shouted.

Within a few moments she was in handcuffs and in the custody of two white men with pistols. Meanwhile, the light-haired security man noticed Chinma, and despite Dr. Wangerin's assurances, he seemed very angry with the dark-haired one.

"Never mind the boy," said Dr. Wangerin.

"Complete mission failure," said the light-haired gunman to his companion.

"Your mission now is Dr. Bekaba," said Wangerin. "She doesn't leave this place until I say so."

"We have to turn her over to the authorities," said the dark-haired security man. "Those are the conditions of our work here."

"Yes," said Dr. Wangerin. "But not for one hour. Got it? She talks to no one, and no Nigerian comes anywhere near me for one hour. Then you can turn her over to the police—which is probably who she's working for anyway."

"The police shoot her," said Chinma.

"What?" asked Dr. Wangerin. "She's their spy."

Chinma shrugged. A spy who got caught by Americans would simply be shot, and then they'd pretend she was working for some rebel group instead of the government. Why didn't these white people understand how things worked in Nigeria?

Dr. Wangerin turned back to the pictures, showing them now to the men with guns.

"It's mass murder," whispered the light-haired gunman.

Dr. Wangerin did something and the computer did something and then he detached a little square thing from his computer and handed it to one of the men with guns. "Get out of this country immediately and take this with you."