that he and the team would be arriving the next morning, the audaciousness of what she was doing nearly overwhelmed her. Was it really she engineering a hoax—no other word for it—of this magnitude? She collected herself and used the remainder of the day to conduct a kind of dress rehearsal. Then she marched her troupe to the airfield and had them camp out nearby. A night in the open would add to their haggard appearance, make them look more like captives who had come a long way on foot. Inflicting more suffering on people who had suffered so much brought pricks of guilt; but the purpose demanded it, the purpose justified it. She must keep the purpose uppermost in her mind, lest she falter.
Outwardly, she was composed; inwardly, no director or playwright on opening night experienced the anxiety Quinette did when Tara’s Caravan landed at about nine in the morning. Ken stepped out, wearing a soft, short-brimmed hat that looked like a codger’s beach hat. Jim Prewitt, heavier, older, blinking into the mean sunlight, followed him; then came Jean and Mike; then Santino holding the prize, an airline bag of cash; and the media contingent, two correspondents and a film crew.
She greeted each of them, her Nuban dress and hairstyle drawing curious looks from the reporters, then led the group to a grove of trees, beneath which the make-believe slaves were assembled. They looked the role indeed—Quinette herself would have taken them for the real thing—and they played it as instructed, maintaining a wary silence. After introducing him to the retriever, who likewise put in a good performance, she gave Ken a list of names, whispering that she’d done some preliminary work for him. “There’s a check mark by the ones who want to tell their stories,” she said, her heart fluttering with one rhythm, her stomach with another. For a moment, she thought she was going to be sick.
Less than three hours later, she watched the Cessna take off and felt she could soar with it, such was her relief. A grain sack filled with twenty thousand five hundred dollars was at her feet. Two women giving testimony had gotten stage fright and forgotten their lines but remembered after some prompting from an interpreter. Otherwise, the thing had come off without a hitch. The sight of Ken typing fictions of captivity into his laptop brought a new prickling of conscience, which she salved with a prayer for forgiveness and this thought: Ken would benefit, too. The fresh publicity would garner for the WorldWide Christian Union contributions far exceeding twenty thousand.
She and Negev returned to Loki the next day. Wes said, “Well, I’ll be damned,” when he opened the sack and pulled out bricks of hundred-dollar bills. To make sure he kept his end of the bargain, she flew with him to the pickup point on the Uganda border and then on to New Tourom, the Hawker crammed with ammunition boxes, missiles, and launchers. Michael was waiting at the airfield. Observing the off-load, he held her and said, “You are a marvel.”
In all innocence and with perfect certitude, she pointed at the sky and said she’d had a lot of help.
Her life resumed its normal pace—teaching school, ministering, tending her garden. The war had gone into a lull and, deeming it safe to travel, Fancher and Handy departed on one of their evangelizing journeys to a distant town. Michael forbade her to go. Too dangerous, he said, even with half a dozen armed men to watch over her. By this point she thought the threat of assassination was overblown, but she complied without further protest—and was glad she did when, later, she observed Yamila flirting with Michael with her eyes. Yamila’s demeanor and expression underwent a dramatic change whenever he was near, the she-leopard domesticating herself instantly into a demure kitten. Illiterate peasant or no, this, Quinette thought, is a woman who knows how to lure a man.
The missionaries returned from their trip, having harvested several more souls to Christ. For the week following, they oversaw the final repairs to St. Andrew’s mission. The last chips in the church’s facade were patched, windows delivered by an aid plane were installed, and the brass bell and dedication plaque were polished. It looked splendid in the shimmering dust of late afternoon, the trees laying long shadows on mown grounds webbed with rock-lined footpaths leading to the school, to the tailor and carpentry shops, to the cottages where teachers would live when