Lost Empire

“No, but I know adventure hounds when I see them. I’d say you two can handle yourselves better than most, but Africa is an unforgiving place. The number on my card is my satellite phone. I’ll leave it on.”“Thanks, Ed.”

They shook hands, then Ed turned and headed toward a Quonset hut whose window displayed a flickering red neon BEER sign.

They grabbed their backpacks and headed toward the terminal but were intercepted on the sidewalk by the two officials from under the baobab. After a cursory glance at their passports, the officials poked through their belongings, then stamped the passports and offered a “Welcome to Mafia Island” in halting English.

“You need taxi?” one of the officials asked. Without waiting for a response, he raised his hand and whistled. From the turnaround outside the airport entrance, a rust-riddled gray Peugeot growled to life.Sam said, “Thank you but no. We’ll find our own transportation.”

Hand still raised, the official looked quizzically at Sam. “Eh?”

Sam pointed to the Peugeot and shook his head. “La asante.” No thanks.

The official shrugged, then waved off the taxi driver and said, “Sawa.” Okay. He and his partner walked back to the baobab.

“What was that all about?” Remi asked.

“They were in cahoots. At best, we get a padded fare; at worst, we get taken to a private alley and robbed.”

Remi smiled. “Sam Fargo, where’s your trust in humanity?”

“Right now, it’s the same place as my wallet-well hidden.” While Mafia Island was a popular destination for extreme scuba divers, it was also a hub for the Tanzanian black market. Sam explained this to Remi.She said, “You’re a font of trivia. Where did you come across this tidbit?”

“I downloaded the CIA World Factbook to my iPhone. Very handy. Come on, we’ll walk. It’s not far.”

“What’s to stop us from getting mugged on the street?”

Sam lifted the tail of his shirt to expose the butt of the H amp;K.

Remi smiled and shook her head. “Just go easy, Tex. No O.K. Corral reenactments, please.”

ACCORDING TO THEIR MAPS, the Mafia Island airstrip bisected the island’s largest town, Kilindoni, into north and south portions, the former situated more inland, the latter hugging the coast. That was where, Selma had told them, they would find the docks and the boat she’d rented for them.

Despite it being not yet eight in the morning, the sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky, and within minutes of leaving the airstrip both Sam and Remi were sweating. They felt eyes watching their every step, many of which belonged to curious children who paralleled their path, waving and smiling shyly at the white strangers who’d come to their village.

After twenty minutes of walking down hard-packed dirt roads lined with ramshackle huts that ranged in composition from tin to brick to cardboard, they arrived at the beach. Equally dilapidated boat sheds and warehouses lined the dunes overlooking the water. A dozen wood-plank docks jutted into the surf. Thirty to forty boats, from decades-old motor cruisers to skiffs to dhows, both sail driven and motorized, bobbed at anchor in the harbor. Near the waterline, clusters of men and boys worked, repairing nets, scraping hulls, or cleaning fish.“I miss the Andreyale,” Remi murmured.

“Well, now that it’s got a grenade hole in the center of the afterdeck, we own it,” Sam replied. “Maybe we’ll pull it off the bottom. We’ll call it a souvenir.” He turned and sca

“There,” Remi said, pointing fifty yards down the beach to a thatch longhouse fronted by a black-painted four-by-eight-foot plywood sign sporting a crow painted in bright red.

They walked that way. As they approached the wooden steps, a quartet of men stopped their animated conversation and looked at them. Sam said, “Morning. We’re looking for Buziba.”For a long ten seconds none of them spoke.

“Unazungumza kiingereza?” Remi said. Do you speak English?

No response.

For the next two minutes Sam and Remi used their limited knowledge of Swahili to try to start a dialogue but to no avail. A voice behind them said, “Buziba, don’t be a jackass.”They turned to see a gri

“Are you following us?” Sam asked.

“More or less. We’re probably the only three Americans on the island right now. Thought a little solidarity couldn’t hurt. I know old Buziba here,” Ed said, nodding to the gray-haired man sitting on the top step. “He speaks English. Playing dumb is his bargaining strategy.” Ed barked out a sentence in Swahili, and the other three men got up and wandered back inside the bar.“Now, be a gentleman, Buziba,” Ed said. “These are friends.”

The old man’s dour expression dropped away. He smiled broadly. “Friends of Mr. Ed are friends of me.”

“I told you not to call me that,” Mitchell said, then to Sam and Remi: “He saw reruns of the TV show. He gets a laugh out of comparing me to a talking horse.”

Remi said to Buziba, “Your English is very good.”

“Fair indeed, yes? Better than your Swahili, eh?”

“Without a doubt,” Sam replied. “A friend of ours called you about a boat.”

Buziba nodded. “Miss Selma. Yesterday. I have your boat. Four hundred dollars.”

“Per day?”

“Eh?”

Ed said something in Swahili, and Buziba responded. Ed said, “Four hundred to sell. He gave up fishing last year; been trying to sell the thing ever since. The bar brings in plenty of money for him.”Sam and Remi exchanged glances. Ed added, “You’d probably pay that for two days’ rental from anyone else here.”

“Let’s see it,” Sam said.

THE FOUR OF THEM walked down the beach to where an eighteen-foot aquamarine blue dhow sat atop a half dozen V-shaped sawhorses. A pair of young boys were sitting in the sand beside the dhow’s hull. One was scraping while the other was painting. Buziba said, “Look. Inspect.”

Sam and Remi walked around the dhow, checking for signs of decay and disrepair. Sam poked the seams with his Swiss Army knife while Remi tapped the wood, sounding for rot. Sam walked to the stern, climbed up the ladder leaning against the transom, and stepped onto the afterdeck. He reappeared two minutes later and called down, “The sails have got some rot.”“Eh?” Buziba replied. Ed translated, listened to Buziba’s response, then said, “He’ll throw in a new set for fifty dollars.”

Remi asked Sam, “How’s the cabin?”

“Cozy in the extreme. Not the Moevenpick, but we’ve seen worse.”

“And the engine?”

“Old but well maintained. Should give us six or seven knots.”

Remi walked to the transom and inspected the propeller and shaft. “I’m betting the bearings could use repacking.”

Ed translated, listened, then replied, “He says another fifty and he’ll have it done in two hours.”

“Twenty-five,” Sam countered. “He gives me the supplies and the tools, and I’ll do it myself.”

Buziba jutted out his lower lip and stuck his chin in the air, thinking. “Fifty. I add potable water and food for two days.”

“Three days,” Remi replied.

Buziba considered this, then shrugged. “Three days.”

CHAPTER 16

INDIAN OCEAN

“OKAY, SHUT HER DOWN,” SAM CALLED.

Remi turned off the ignition key and the dhow’s engines sputtered out. Sam hoisted the sails, and they held their collective breaths for a few seconds until the canvas caught the wind and billowed out. The dhow’s bow lifted slightly and the boat lurched forward. Sam crab-walked aft and dropped onto the afterdeck beside Remi.“We have liftoff,” Sam said.

“Here’s hoping we don’t have to call Houston with a problem,” Remi said and handed him a bottle of water.

It was already midafternoon, and they were only five miles north of Mafia Island. While Remi’s discerning eye had noticed the propeller shaft’s bearing problem, it hadn’t been until Sam had gotten it apart that they realized how much time the repair would require. As Remi supervised the boys in finishing up the maintenance and changing out the sails, Sam and Ed worked under the shade of a makeshift sheet awning.