Stories of Tie Up Games

Dear @LunaDog, John Dance is risking a lot. So is Erica. And she is ready to go to Ngabo under a false identity.

in other words, she is prepared to do just what she has to, in order to prevent this utter outrage concerning her father's good name.

And it is good that John Dance is prepared to help her, perhaps Erica is just TOO emotionally involved to be thinking completely straight here, totally understandably. It is he, not her, who is talking ALL of the sense here, the one coming up with the plans that stand some chance of success.

Dear @LunaDog, exactly. With her being emotionally involved, she needs someone who looks at things from a certain professional distance, because later today things are going to get real.

The next few days pass in a blur of controlled chaos.

Dance works his contacts like a man knowing that the clock is ticking – arranging burner phones, sending encrypted messages, calling in favors from people who owe him and people he shouldn’t still be able to reach.

Erica keeps her head down at work, keeping up the facade of normalcy while internally preparing to step off the map.
Besides spending time with her kittens and Lea up at Ironwood Pastures, she clears her schedule, makes vague excuses, tells Claire she’ll be taking a short leave of absence. “A personal matter,” she says and leaves it at that.
Claire understands, volunteering to take care of Spot and Tiger while Erica is unavailable.

Every night, Erica stares at the shoebox.
She hasn’t put it back under the bed. It stays open on the coffee table like an altar to memory, to everything she stands to lose - and everything she’s determined to protect.
She also adds something to its content – her gold university class ring – which she doesn’t want to take with her to Ngabo.
She can retrieve it upon her return.
If she returns.
Chances are good that she won’t.

By the time Dance hands her the fake passport, her hands don’t tremble anymore.
She’s ready. Steeled.


~~~


A silver and blue Air France 777 cuts through the cloud cover like a blade.
Below, the vast green canopy of Ngabo unfurls - dense rainforest laced with red dirt roads and flashes of tin roofs catching the morning sun.

Inside the cabin, Erica sits by the window, her seatbelt fastened, fingers clutched around a cheap ceramic cup of cooling coffee.
Her eyes scan the jagged horizon - the edge of a continent she’s never stepped on, but which now holds the truth she’s come to uncover.

Beside her, Dance looks half-asleep behind dark aviator shades, but his hands are resting on his thighs, still, controlled - not relaxed.
Not here.

The pilot’s voice carrying a distinct French accent filters through the Boeing’s loudspeakers: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are now making our descent into Ngabo International Airport. Local temperature is thirty-four degrees Celsius…”

Erica closes her eyes.
One last breath.
If this trip might have felt unreal at any point, she is now way past it.
There’s no more room for doubt in her mind.
Things are about to get very real.

The plane dips, and the world outside tilts with it.


~~~


The air is thick the moment they step off the plane.
It slaps her skin - hot, wet, reeking of kerosene and overripe mango.
This isn’t arrival; it’s immersion.
A bus awaits the passengers to take them from the landing strip to the terminal, a prefabricated concrete building with waiting lines and flickering ceiling fans that do little against the heat.

Uniformed soldiers in dark green fatigues move through the crowd with bored eyes and AK-47s slung low across their backs while a couple of men in cheap suits and fake Ray Ban sunglasses take sharp looks at the arriving passengers from the Air France flight.
Secret Police, Erica muses.
Got to be.
Just like Dance had warned her.
She forces herself to exude calm.

Dance scans the hall with the casual sharp eye of someone who’s done this before numerous times. Erica adjusts her shoulder bag, her blouse already clinging to her skin.
Her passport - the new one with a false name - clutched in her left hand.
They follow the signs toward customs.
The waiting line crawls painfully slowly.

Behind the counter, a young officer eyes the documents of each traveler like he’s memorizing their soul, checking their names against the passenger manifest on his clipboard.

When Erica steps up, she offers her best disinterested smile as she puts her passport on the counter.

“Purpose of visit?” the officer asks like he is asking every other traveler.

“Journalism,” Erica says, presenting her press credentials.

The immigration officer doesn’t even look at the letter, only flips through her passport.
He then glances up once, comparing her face to the photo in the passport.
Too long.
He turns her passport over, shaking it.

Her heartbeat kicks.
“What is this guy doing?” she thinks.

“Mrs. Elena Frederick…” he mutters as he dots her name on his passenger manifest.
The he stamps her passport.
Hard.
No smile.
Just a flat nod.
She steps aside, barely exhaling, dragging her trolley behind.

Dance follows - his encounter even briefer.
He has done this many times before.
Whatever name he’s going by now is forgotten the moment the ink hits the page.
That’s his superpower: he is everybody, a random man.

They’re through. For now.

Outside the airport, a curtain of heat reflected by the concrete walls of the terminal building presses down on them even more – so much that Erica has to cough when a whiff of humid, tropical, petroleum-laced air hits her.

A dusty Toyota Land Cruiser idles by the curb. Their local fixer, tall and wiry with mirrored shades, a bamboo toothpick in his mouth and a phone glued to his ear, waves them over.
“Welcome to Ngabo,” Dance – now John Reid – whispers.


~~~

There's no turning back now. She's fully committed.

Dear @LunaDog, she is past the point of no return. That much is clear. The question is how they will find what she is looking for.

Dear @Jenny_S you capture Erica´s Mood before the Flight, the Situation as she lands, the Pass Port Controll so well, Erica´s underlying Tension is palpable alwas. The Picture fits perfectly imho.

Dear @Caesar73, let's see what Ngabo is like, shall we? Something tells me, Erica is up to a rude awakening.

The Land Cruiser lurches forward with a cough of diesel fumes.
Didi, the fixer, chews his toothpick like it’s personal.
His shades reflect the chaos ahead.
Erica sits in the back seat close to the window, the dust-streaked glass framing a world unlike anything she’s known.

The city heaves with noise and motion.
Old cars, long past retirement, belch smoke as they jostle for space, horns honking in short, angry bursts.
Mopeds move between them like schools of fish, dodging potholes and overloaded trucks stacked with bags of rice, slabs of concrete and rusted rebar.

From somewhere ahead, a siren wails - high and sharp. An olive-green military pickup truck barrels down the opposite lane, soldiers standing upright in the back, rifles slung, eyes scanning.
Traffic parts reluctantly as it passes.
The soldiers don’t thank anyone.
They don’t need to.

Erica’s eyes track everything: women in bright headscarves balancing baskets of cassava or jugs of water on their heads.
Children, barefoot, chasing a half-deflated soccer ball through clouds of dust.
Men in plastic sandals slouching in the shade, chewing khat - their jaws working rhythmically, eyes glazed but tense.
It’s a slow violence, the kind that simmers under the surface.

Then - movement.
Across the intersection, a young woman on a bicycle tries weaving through the sluggish traffic, her eyes darting nervously.
She’s carrying a bulging sack strapped to her bike, her dress fluttering with every pedal stroke.

Two policemen step into her path.

The girl tries to swerve, but it’s too late.
One grabs her handlebars with a practiced snap, the other snatches her arm and yanks her clean off the seat.
The bicycle clatters to the ground.
She screams - not in protest, but in fear.
A pure, instinctive, almost feral sound that cuts above the street noise.

The taller officer slams her face-down against the dirt, planting a knee between her shoulder blades.
She thrashes, kicking up dust, her cries muffled against her own forearm.
A sharp click echoes - metallic, unmistakable.

Erica flinches.
“They’re handcuffing her,” she murmurs, barely audible.

No one around the woman and the officers moves.
Vendors glance, then look away.
A woman with a child turns in the opposite direction, tugging the little one along.
The city rolls on, indifferent.

The officers haul the girl upright, her arms locked tightly behind her, wrists bound in stainless steel.
Her chest heaves as she sobs uncontrollably.
Her bicycle lies forgotten in the road, but no doubt, someone will pick it up and make it his in a heartbeat.

One of the policemen keeps the young woman in a tight grip, his forearm over her throat, the other arm around her waist.
She cries, pleads.
Although Erica doesn’t understand the local language, she can hear the woman’s fear in her voice, sees her trying to get her hands out of the cuffs.

To no avail, of course.

The other policeman stares at the woman, wipes his hands on his pants, then, with one practiced move, tears her dress open at the front, baring her breasts.

Laughing at the predicament of the poor victim, the policemen frisk her, ripping her dress open further till she is practically naked, running their hands all over her body before shoving her into their dented patrol car.

The door slams.
They’re gone.
Just like that.

Erica exhales only when the sirens fade.
“Jesus,” she says quietly. Anything she ever thought police brutality could mean pales in comparison to what she has just witnessed.

Dance doesn’t look.
“Don’t stare. Don’t draw attention to yourself,” he mutters.

But Erica’s heart is racing. In her mind, she can still hear the woman’s scream and the clicking of the handcuffs.


~~~


The Land Cruiser pulls up in front of a crumbling facade painted in faded cream and green.
The Continental Hotel stands like a relic.
Once colonial, once proud and glorious - now barely holding it together - but still the best place in the city for foreigners.
Which says less about it and more about everything else.
A couple of buckets of paint could have gone a long way.

Erica steps out into the heat again.
Cracks snake across the marble of the entryway.
An old bellboy in a maroon vest shuffles forward to help with their bags.

Didi lingers near the car. Dance palms him a wad of folded bills. Quiet, efficient.
“Number?” Dance asks, his voice clipped, like it’s not the first time he's traded cash for silence in a country with more secrets than laws.
In passable English, Didi rattles off his burner phone number. Dance texts his own back. No names. Just codes. They nod. No thanks needed.

Together, they step into the hotel lobby.
Here the air is surprisingly cool – courtesy of a wheezing big air conditioner.
A chandelier hangs overhead, coated in a patina of dust and lost grandeur. Fake plants in real ceramic pots try their best to distract from the peeling paint.

“John Reid and Elena Frederick,” Dance tells the concierge who passes him two room keys and points toward the staircase.
He also shows them the empty palm of his hand, clearly expecting a tip.
Baksheesh.
Money makes the world go around, certainly in this part of the world.


~~~

No wonder that Erica is shocked by what she experiences when she drives through the City? When she watches what happens to the young Woman. Her impulse to act is only to understandable. But she is in a foreign World, with different Rules.

Well done @Jenny_S

Dear @Caesar73, Ngabo certainly is not New York City. Law and Order as she knows it doesn't apply here.

She's in a completely different world here. Good job John Dance stopped her from just charging in 'like a bull in a China shop.' As he implied, she wouldn't have lasted five minutes.

Dear @LunaDog, I bet you're right. Although I leave it to the reader's imagination what might be happening where the policemen take the young woman, Erica probably wouldn't enjoy her time behind bars in Ngabo.

The hallway smells of detergent and mildew. The rooms are basic – no balcony, beds with mosquito netting draped around them, a sink, a dented trash can.
No bathtub.
No shower.
Just a toilet in the corner behind a hanging curtain.

Erica drops her bag on the floor with a soft thud.
She takes it all in, not with disappointment - but with resolve.
She’s not here for comfort.

Her blouse is soaked through already. She undresses to the skin without ceremony and opens the tap over the sink.
The water runs brown for a moment, then clears.
She splashes it over her face.
Again.
Again.
Breathes.

This is the beginning.
After putting a fresh, clean set of clothes on, she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror – the woman looking back at her is not the polished New York attorney, but a stranger in khaki and grim determination. She doesn't look away.


~~~


Half an hour later, reasonably refreshed and somewhat rested, Erica meets John Dance downstairs at the hotel bar.
The place smells of stale beer and citronella.
Ceiling fans spin lazily above rattan furniture.

Erica appears at the doorway, transformed.
Lightweight khaki slacks, blue safari shirt, laced-up hiking boots. Her “United Press” vest draped over one arm, a black writing pad clutched in her hand like a shield.

Dance sits at the far end, sipping a can of warm beer, his camera on the floor between his boots.
His posture is lazy, but his eyes miss nothing.

“Ready to go, boss?” he says, half a grin behind his stubble.
He lets out a loud, deliberate belch. A table of locals laugh like they’ve just witnessed a good joke.

Erica smirks.
He’s playing the part perfectly - the tired, cynical warzone cameraman.

She motions toward the door. “Sure. Let’s go.”


~~~


The Land Cruiser still idles, coughing diesel into the thick afternoon air.
Environmental protection doesn’t seem to be of concern around here.

Erica slides into the front passenger seat this time - notebook on her lap, aviator shades on.
Dance gets in behind her, slapping the roof of the car like a man who’s done this too many times.

Didi adjusts his mirrored shades, his voice flat.
“Where to?”

Erica pushes her aviators higher. “The palace. The new construction zones.”
Didi nods. “Understand.”


~~~


They approach the Presidential Boulevard slowly, the skyline is shifting between marble statues and barbed wire, tall cranes are clawing at the sky.

“Security’s heavier than last time,” Dance mutters.
Didi doesn’t respond, just grips the wheel tighter.

Then it happens fast.

A green military truck veers across traffic, cutting into their path with squealing brakes.
“Shit,” Didi hisses, checking the mirrors, trying to put the Toyota into reverse.

Erica’s spine stiffens.

Another truck boxes them in from behind.

Armed men spill out.
Boots trampling the asphalt.
Rifles pointing.

One soldier steps up to the passenger window and shoves the barrel of his weapon right inside - so close Erica can smell his sweat.
Her writing pad slides off her lap.

“OUT! OUT! MOVE!” he barks, his breath hot, reeking of rot and khat.

Dance raises his hands, showing his palms.
“Camera. Just camera!” he says.

The door gets wrenched open.
Erica is yanked out hard, her feet stumbling on the packed dirt.

Rough hands seize her upper arms, spin her around.
She feels a palm glide down her back, over her hips.
Too low.

She freezes. For a moment she had thought they were going for the camera but quickly realizes that it is her they want.

Behind her, soldiers are shouting in Ngaboan. Boots scuff the gravel.

A hand pushes her forward hard until her chest bumps the hood of the Land Cruiser. The impact hurts painfully, her cheek presses against the hot metal.

Just like the girl on the bike she saw earlier…
The thought hits like a slap in the face.

She blinks sweat from her eyes, the air smells thick with diesel, fear, and the tang of metal.
Her pockets get rifled.
Her passport is taken away from her.
A crisp 100-dollar note is exactly where Dance had told her to leave it – in her passport.

“I’m an American citizen,” she groans, but all it earns her is laughter from the soldateska and a hard hand grabbing her hair, yanking her head back. She yelps as a jolt of pain shoots down her back.

Suddenly, the grip on her is released and the soldiers snap to attention as a man in a suit approaches.

Clean-shaven.
Smart.
Ray Bans.
Impeccable.

He walks with a swagger that says he doesn’t need a gun to be dangerous.

One of the soldiers hands him her passport.
He flips it open like a bored customs officer.
“Name?”

“Elena Frederick,” she answers, her voice low, measured - obedient.
Her lips barely move.

His gaze sweeps her up and down.
Then down again.
“Press?” he asks, tapping the United Press logo on her vest.

She nods.
A cold shiver runs down her spine as the man touches her and she looks at the ground.
“Yes, sir.”

He smiles, enjoying the power he wields over her.

“Protection fees,” he finally says nonchalantly, plucking the folded hundred from the passport.
He tucks it into his pocket like it belongs there.
“Welcome to Ngabo, Miss Journalist.”

Her passport drops onto the Toyota’s hood beside her elbow.

And just like that, it is over.

The soldiers climb onto their trucks, engines rev, the trucks vanish.

Dance helps Erica into the front seat again.

No one speaks for a long minute.


~~~

Welcome to Ngabo, Erica!

Btw your picture are all superb, but this one REALLY captures the moment!

Dear @LunaDog, thank you so much for the praise.
Despite the rapid development of AI, doing these images takes some time. I'm glad you enjoy them.

Tomorrow, I'll post the next episode early, because I'm away for the weekend and will have to ask my readers to be patient till I return Sunday night.

Dance leans forward in the backseat, his hand landing gently on Erica’s shoulder.
“You okay?”

His voice is soft but charged.
Erica is still staring at the spot where the soldier's gun had poked into her ribs.
Her hand itches from where they grabbed her, and her pulse still drums in her neck.
She nods anyway, brushes a loose strand of hair out of her face.
“Yeah,” she says a little too quickly. “I’m fine.”

“You did good,” he says, quiet and sincere. “Proud of you.”


~~~


Outside the Toyota, the city morphs.
The royal gates of the Presidential Palace slide past, high walls topped with concertina wire, flanked by guards with dead eyes and twitchy fingers. Behind them, nothing is visible - just a void wrapped in concrete and suspicion.

Beyond the palace, the city explodes into dust and noise.
Tower cranes creak against the sun.
Workers swarm half-built concrete shells, climbing without harnesses, barefoot and shirtless.
The air is thick with cement dust, engine fumes, and human struggle.
OSHA doesn’t live here.

The population of Ngabo’s inner city has clearly swelled - possibly drawn by the surge in construction work - and once they're off the main traffic arteries and past the big construction sites, the evidence is impossible to miss.
The city unravels into a patchwork of desperate improvisation.
Mud-brick huts lean against the concrete and adobe shells of one- and two-story homes.
Corrugated tin shanties cling to their sides like barnacles, spilling into the streets and choking the passageways until they narrow into alleys so tight the Toyota can barely squeeze through - sometimes not at all.
In those places, only foot traffic, mopeds, and the occasional donkey cart find a way forward.

With the buildings sagging like tired drunks, propped up with prayer and spit, children duck under handcarts.
Others chase each other barefoot through the dust.
Women balance crates and bundles on their heads with supernatural grace.
A teenage boy relieves himself against a crumbling wall, eyes hollow - too young to be that numb.

The sudden misfire of a tuktuk motorcart, though, lets Erica sink down in her seat.
For a moment she thought someone was shooting at them.

Overhead, tangled webs of electrical cables buzz with pirated power, feeding clusters of dim bulbs and sputtering fans.
Below, a low-hanging haze of smoke from open cooking fires blurs the skyline, mixing with the acrid tang of open sewage that makes Erica instinctively roll up her window.

Didi catches her reaction and flashes a wide, knowing grin.
To him, she’s just another American - a female, soft, wide-eyed, and clueless about the raw reality of deep Africa.
Erica, for her part, can’t help but wonder how anyone manages to survive in a place like this. But at least there are no patrols, no police or soldiers haunting this maze of shacks and shadows. After their run-in with the corrupt authorities, that absence brings a strange kind of comfort.


~~~


Later, back at the hotel, Erica stands at the sink, rinsing her face with water that runs rust-colored before it clears.
Her shirt clings to her spine.
Her eyes catch her reflection.
She's not the same woman who boarded the plane in New York City.

As eye-opening as their tour through downtown Ngabo has been, it didn’t get them a single step closer to finding out anything about that mission back in 1994.
Still, she will not give up.


~~~


In the dim hotel bar, the ceiling fan ticks like a slow metronome.
Erica presses a cold can of Pepsi Zero to her cheek, grateful for anything clean and cold. Dance sips warm beer and studies a battered map he borrowed at the reception desk.
“Maybe Didi…” he begins, voice low, but doesn’t finish as the skin on the back of his neck begins to prickle.

Then a voice cuts in.
“Carter. Long time no see.”

Erica flinches.
A man pulls out a chair at their table, uninvited.
He’s lean, leathery, with a beard that might have once been neat.
Khaki slacks, cracked sandals, a shirt that’s survived a hundred washes too many. He smells faintly of sweat, woodsmoke, and something darker.

Dance looks up.
No smile.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” he says flatly.

The man offers a hand. “Cal Whitmore. Pleased to meet you.”
Erica takes it.
His grip is dry and firm. Rough like sandpaper.
His eyes scan her face like he’s flipping through a dossier in his head.
“Elena Frederick,” she says.

“Sure you are,” Cal replies, grin full of edge. “And that guy’s name isn’t John either.”

Dance doesn’t move, but the tension in his shoulders says plenty. “Cut the crap, Cal.”

Whitmore leans back.
Not impressed.
Not threatened.
“Carter and I go way back. Langley, Beirut, Addis. I taught him everything he knows - except humility.”

“He’s exaggerating,” Dance mutters.

“Am I?” Cal’s eyes slide to Erica. “What’s your story, sweetheart? This your first rodeo?”

She shrugs, Pepsi can sweating in her hand. “I’m a journalist. United Press.”

“Sure you are.” His grin fades slightly. “If you’re with this guy, you’re not here for the nightlife.”

Erica hesitates, then glances at Dance.
He gives her a single, almost imperceptible nod.

Releasing a breath she wasn’t aware she was holding, she says “I’m working on an article.” Trying to be vague without sounding vague. “About a 1994 U.S. intervention.”

That gets Cal’s full attention.
“Well, hell,” he murmurs. “The Sinclair Raid? Didn’t think anyone still cared.”

The Sinclair Raid.
The name hits her like a backhand.
Not just the mission - her name.
Sinclair.
Spoken by this sunburned ghost in sandals.

“We do,” Dance says. “You know anything?”

“Nothing worth writing home about,” Cal replies. “But I know someone who does.”

Dance – Carter – isn’t letting up. This might be the thread worth pulling. “So?”

Whitmore reaches for the half-empty beer on the table and takes a long pull.

“Son, you saved my sorry ass once. This is payback: the person you want to talk to is a retired nurse. She belongs to the Mekedde tribe and goes by Mama M’batha. As far as I know she still part-times at the hospital. Not sure if she’ll even talk to you, though.”

He empties the beer, then pushes his chair back and stands, leaning across the table.
His eyes focus on Erica as he says “Here’s some free advice for you, lady: if you start digging up graves in Ngabo… eventually, something reaches back out.”

Watching his old associate leave without another word, Dance runs a hand over his face. “He might have a point there,” he says.

Erica bites her lower lip.
Everything, the heat, the smell, even the can of cold Pepsi in her hand, is forgotten.
She touches the Rolex on her wrist.
Whatever she will find in Ngabo looking at her, she will look back at it.


~~~

Superb as ever, has this just led to the first 'breakthrough?' But will this nurse actually see Erica, let alone talk to her?

Although, because you'll be away for a bit means we'll have to wait a bit longer to find out the answers to those questions, you ENJOY your break Jenny. Nobody can argue that you haven't earned it!

Dear @LunaDog, let's hope that this old acquaintance of Dance's points them into the right direction.

Sorry to keep my readers waiting, but here in the sticks I can't use my laptop.
I promise I'll post the next episode Sunday night.

"Didi catches her reaction and flashes a wide, knowing grin.
To him, she’s just another American - a female, soft, wide-eyed, and clueless about the raw reality of deep Africa.
Erica, for her part, can’t help but wonder how anyone manages to survive in a place like this. But at least there are no patrols, no police or soldiers haunting this maze of shacks and shadows. After their run-in with the corrupt authorities, that absence brings a strange kind of comfort."

I like that description:The different Perceptions both, Erica and Didi have. Straight to the Point.

The Pictures you include in your Stories now @Jenny_S add much to the Atmosphere.

Indeed it will be interesting if Dance´s Contact, can give them some Pointers.

Also interesting changed Perception of herself. The Foray in the heart of Africa already changed her.

Dear @Caesar73 with my weekend trip over and me back home, we'll continue with Erica's adventure in Ngabo.
Let's see what happens next.

The ceiling fan in the hotel room makes a slow, lazy whump-whump-whump overhead, pushing air thick as pea soup.
Erica lies on the bed, barely covered by the black silk kimono clinging to her like damp paper. She’s sweat-slicked and still, framed in the warm amber light of a single lamp.
The mosquito net hangs around the bed like a ghost’s veil, a flimsy defense against a world alive with unseen wings and teeth.
Somewhere outside the netting, something buzzes.
It’s the kind of sound that keeps you guessing whether it bites.

Beyond the open window, Ngabo breathes into the night.
Distant shouts, a motorbike backfiring, a donkey braying in complaint.
A passing radio plays distorted rumba, briefly rising above it all before vanishing again in the urban cacophony.
She listens.
Not for anything specific.
Just for what this place is - this city pulsing with need and noise.

A breeze slips in, carrying the scent of diesel, grilled meat, smoke, and something green and ancient – jungle, perhaps.
It cools the sweat on her collarbone.

Erica stares at the ceiling.
“What if this goes South?” she says to herself.
But it’s not the kind of question she wants answered.

Images flicker before her inner eyes - the merciless, indifferent eyes of a checkpoint soldier, the young woman pulled off her bicycle getting handcuffed and manhandled, the shacks clinging to concrete, children with feet like leather playing in the dirt.
What a contrast to the world she left behind - climate-controlled, credentialed, civil - it feels like a postcard now.
She realizes how privileged she is as a Westerner, how protected her life at home really is.
At home, she’d complain about the traffic.
Here, children walk barefoot on broken glass.

And this has been only her first day in Ngabo, a country where people still believe in witchcraft and ghosts.

She exhales.
Lets it all sink in.

Then sleep takes her - thin, dreamless, mosquito-humming.
Her last thought before dozing off is that this Mama M’batha might be able – and, hopefully, willing - to help her.


~~~


Sunlight cuts through the haze, hot and unrelenting.
The pavement shimmers.
A small line of tuk-tuks bicker with each other in backfiring exhaust and horns that honk like geese on amphetamines.

Erica steps outside in yesterday’s slacks, shirt and press vest, aviators on her nose, her hair tied up.
A smear of sunblock is still visible just beneath her cheekbone.
The so-called “European Breakfast” - sugary bread and instant coffee - sits uneasily in her stomach.

Didi waits beside the Land Cruiser, arms folded, his eyes hidden behind mirrored shades catching everything and giving nothing. A fresh bamboo toothpick relentlessly moves between his lips.
Dance - or Carter, or whatever his name really is - emerges behind her, boots heavy on the cracked marble.
He leans in and says to Didi: “We need to go to the other hospital.The one for the locals.”

The fixer tilts his head “Who’s sick?”

“Nobody. We’re looking for someone who works there.” Dance clarifies.

Didi chews the toothpick for a beat, expression unreadable. “You sure?”

Climbing into the front seat of the Land Cruiser, Erica answers with certainty.
“Very.”

In her back pocket, she feels the shape of her now sweat-stained and wrinkled passport. Folded inside: another crisp hundred-dollar bill, just in case the uniforms come calling again.

Didi puts the idling Land Cruiser in gear.
Spitting diesel fumes, the vehicle lurches into traffic with a growl and a shudder.


~~~


The city unfolds like a fever dream.
Vendors shout in half a dozen languages.
Kids weave between traffic with crates on their heads.
A preacher in white robes screams into a megaphone about the End Times while next to him, a goat stands on top of a burned-out car, chewing cardboard.

Like yesterday, the deeper they go, the more the roads dissolve into dirt, ruts, and sewage trenches. Tin-roofed market stalls crowd every sidewalk. Satellite dishes bloom like metal flowers above concrete ruins.

Thirty minutes in, much of it idling in jammed traffic, Didi turns onto a side street barely wide enough for the Toyota.
Then, without fanfare, he brakes.

A building squats ahead - low, cracked, the color of dried blood and old mud. A rusted metal sign, once white, above its door reads simply: HÔPITAL PUBLIC NGABO.
Didi pops the door locks. “Hospital.” he says, deadpan, still chewing the sliver of bamboo.

Erica turns to Dance.
“I’ll go by myself.”
Her voice is steady.
Determined.
“You being with me might slam the door before it even opens.”

Dance hesitates - not long, but long enough. Then he nods.
He’s been watching her during breakfast and felt a transformation taking place in the woman.
Of course, one day in deep, dark Africa wouldn’t turn a New York City lawyer into Jungle Jane, but he can literally feel her steely resolve.

Adjusting her press vest, Erica slides out of the Land Cruiser.
Dance’s voice floats to her as the door slams shut with finality: “Be careful.”

The sun hits her like a slap.
A nurse in a faded uniform watches from a doorway, arms crossed.
It’s not often that white faces show themselves here.


~~~

Jenny_S wrote: 3 weeks ago He’s been watching her during breakfast and felt a transformation taking place in the woman.
Of course, one day in deep, dark Africa wouldn’t turn a New York City lawyer into Jungle Jane, but he can literally feel her steely resolve.

This is perhaps only to be expected. This is one resourceful woman here.

Hope that you had a nice break @Jenny_S

Dear @LunaDog, Erica is a woman on a mission, but she'll still has to find that mysterious nurse. Tonight, we shall find out what the deal is.

I had a most wonderful weekend horseriding and feel awesome. Thank you so much for caring.

The Land Cruiser pulls away, its tires stirring dust into the humid air.

Erica stands alone now, facing the squat, tired-looking building: the Public Hospital of Ngabo.
Its mudbrick walls are sun-bleached and cracked, stained by years of monsoon, neglect, and whatever oozes from the city’s wounds.
A rusted corrugated tin roof slopes low, as if the place is ducking under the weight of its own burden.
The faded sign above the entryway droops on one nail. The “P” in Hôpital is half gone. Flies buzz at the open doorway.
Something about the place feels like it’s holding its breath.

She bites her lower lip.
A queue of patients snakes from the entrance and down the cracked steps.
Dozens of people.
Some sit listlessly on the ground.
Others lean against the wall, propped on crutches or on each other.
Dirty bandages peek from under shirts and wraps, red fluid seeping through.
A baby wails softly.
A woman fans herself with a piece of cardboard.
A man stares at Erica with eyes yellowed from fever.

These people need help, she thinks.
Real help.

She doesn’t want to push past them.
Doesn’t want to pretend her mission matters more than the child with the swollen face or the old man clutching a handkerchief to his coughing mouth.

But she’s here.
And she has to move forward.
“Excuse me… beg your pardon…” she says, weaving through the crowd. “Thank you… sorry…”

No one stops her.
No one reacts.

She steps through the doors.

Inside, the heat is worse.
There’s no air conditioning, just the thrum of ceiling fans struggling against decades of sweat and sickness.
The whitewashed hallway is narrow, dimly lit, and smeared with the ghosts of a thousand touches - handprints on plaster, scuff marks along the floor. The tiles under her soles are chipped, feel sticky.

Erica's boots echo lightly.
She passes rows of plastic chairs, some broken, most occupied.
Children curl against their mothers, faces slack with exhaustion.
A teenage boy holds a bloodied rag to his side.
Somewhere deeper in the building, someone is screaming - high, ragged, and desperate.
No one seems to care. It's just part of the rhythm here.

The nurses are the only color in the gloom. Their scrubs are homemade, patterned in vibrant florals - turquoise, yellow, scarlet - like wildflowers blooming in a field of ruin. Their backs are straight. Their eyes alert.

Erica approaches one of them - a woman moving briskly, clipboard in hand.
“Excuse me…I’m looking for Mama M’batha?”

The nurse doesn’t stop.
Doesn’t even look at her.
Just shakes her head, crosses herself and disappears around a corner, her sandals clapping against the tile.

“Did she even understand me?” Erica wonders.

She steps forward, scanning the space.
A wheeled gurney covered in a stained paper sheet rolls past.
A baby coughs in hiccups, her mother clutches the child closer as Erica walks by.
The air smells of bleach, sweat, iron, and something vaguely septic.

Down the hall, she spots a man in a white lab coat standing at a wall-mounted sink.
The coat is creased and damp at the collar.
His sleeves are rolled to his elbows, and he’s washing his hands methodically, like he’s done it a thousand times today already.

Erica approaches.
“Sorry, sir. Do you know Mama M’batha?”

The man looks up.
He’s young - maybe Erica’s age - with deep-set eyes and a sharp jawline. His stare is direct, assessing. His English is crisp, precise.
“Of course.” he says. “Everybody knows Mama M’batha. She is the one who sees dreams.”

Erica exhales.
She doesn’t know what the doctor means – but something inside her stirs, kindles the embers of the tiniest pinprick of hope.
“Please. I’d like to speak with her. It’s…important.”

He wipes his hands with a paper towel.
Studies her again - the press vest, the foreign face, the faint lines of heat and concern on her brow.
“Sure.” he says, not unkindly. “Everything is important here. But we’re about to operate.”

A door swings open behind him, and two nurses in masks push a tray of metal instruments into a side room. The light inside is surgical white, humming with cold fluorescents. Someone moans.
Erica nods quickly. “Of course. I understand. I can wait.”

The doctor gives her a look - not pity, not admiration, just tired acknowledgment.
A recognition of someone who’s here for a reason.
“Good.” he says. “Sit there. Don’t touch anything.”

She sits.
For the first time in ages, her legs feel heavy.
And she waits.


~~~


Erica sits with her back straight against the cracked plastic of the chair, hands folded in her lap, trying not to stare.
Not at the woman with the bandaged leg resting on a crate.
Not at the boy curled up in his mother’s lap, thin as a stick, his chest rising in shallow stutters. Not at the old man who hasn’t moved in an hour.

It’s not their pain she can’t stand.
It’s the weight of watching without helping.
The fear of appearing untouched by it.
Superior.

The air smells like iodine and heat and something older, deeper, maybe grief.
She glances at her wrist.
The hands on her watch don’t seem to move as if glued to the dial. She taps the Rolex absently, then stops herself.
Time doesn’t matter here.
Or maybe it runs backwards.
Reversing into history.
Into ghosts.

The ceiling fan ticks like a slow heartbeat.

And then - motion.
A flurry in the corner of her eye.

The operating room doors creak open, and the sound slices through the ambient murmur like a scalpel. A gurney emerges, pushed by two nurses. The patient is unconscious, a paper blanket drawn tight across his small frame.
Blood dots the edges.

Erica watches the doctor she spoke to earlier peel off a disposable apron, then strip his gloves away with two quick snaps.
One of the nurses gives him a quiet high-five, their expressions tired but satisfied - another small miracle done with threadbare tools.

Erica blinks, and that’s when she sees her.
An older woman stands just beside the operating room’s threshold.
Tiny.
Rail-thin.
Dressed in a worn but bright smock of cobalt and crimson florals.
Her face is a map of deep lines, more carved ebony than aged - like time passed through her, not over her.
Her eyes are dark.
Watchful.

She’s looking directly at Erica.
Still as a statue.
Unblinking.

Is that her?

Erica rises, slowly, lips moving before her voice catches up.
“Mama M’batha?”

The doctor leans down, whispering something into the old woman’s ear.
She doesn’t nod.
She listens.
Then, with one small gesture - a curled finger, motioning forward - she calls Erica over.
Soft.
Firm.
Not a request.


~~~