know what they pay the owners for the captives. Nine, ten thousand for one. At the most fifteen. So a lot of profit for them. They will take it.”
Ken chewed his lip. “If they don’t, I’ll hold you to your promise,” he said.
Manute made a movement with his head; it might have been a nod, it might have been a reflexive twitch caused by the flies, which were everywhere.
Santino hefted the airline bag onto the table. Out came the American currency in one-hundred-dollar denominations; in went the Sudanese pounds while Manute and the officer flipped through the greenbacks, then stacked them side by side to make sure they were the same height. Quinette focused her camera on the men’s hands and the piled bills—click—and wondered what she would say about this picture when she gave her presentation. She hadn’t considered the economic practicalities of God’s holy work; they made it seem less than holy. All of Manute’s talk—“nine or ten thousand for one . . . a big profit”—like he was discussing cattle prices.
After Manute and the officer left, Quinette observed Ken throw a brusque, sidelong glance at Phyllis, who looked back at him with her quick green eyes. She straddled the bench across the table from him and drew her notebook from her pocket as if it were a gun.
“A little bush-league currency arbitrage?” she asked.
Ken said nothing. A couple of dozen flies made tiny polka dots on the back of his shirt.
Phyllis had taken her hat off, and the light slicing through a gap in the trees exposed the gray streaks in her reddish hair and the whisker-thin wrinkles etched into her papery skin. The woman might have owned a certain pale, gaunt beauty when she was younger, but now, with the honed planes of her high cheekbones raked alongside the blade of her nose and her chin tapering sharply below taut lips, her face had so many points and edges that Quinette imagined it could cut you anywhere you kissed it.
She stood aside and listened, somewhat baffled by the conversation that followed. Phyllis said, “So they’ll take the ten grand and exchange it at the Nairobi rate and pocket the fifty-seven thousand difference,” and Ken replied, “Fifty-seven thousand pounds comes to about a hundred bucks.”
“A hundred bucks goes a long way in a country with a per capita income of about five hundred. And if these guys from the SRRA do skim a hundred or two every time you come out, then they’re making themselves, oh, say about a grand a year.”
“Think I’ll grab something to eat and set up my tent before it’s dark. Hate doing that job by flashlight.”
This from Jim, rising stiffly.
“Good advice for everybody,” Ken said. “Unless you’re interviewing me, Phyllis, and if you are, just what is the question?”
“Do you think you’re getting ripped off, and if you do, how do you feel about it?”
“We’re talking human lives here, human rights, and you’re talking petty change, even if what you’re insinuating is true, which I don’t think it is.”
“Not what I heard in Nairobi.”
“What did you hear in Nairobi?”
“Rumors that this slave redemption program is a cash cow for some people.”
“From skimming nickels and dimes off a currency exchange?” Ken shook his head to highlight the absurdity of Phyllis’s suspicions.
“Then how about the redemption money?” she asked, unfazed. “What happens to the dollars after you turn it over to them? What do they do with it? A total of a hundred grand so far, isn’t that what you told me on the plane? So let’s forget their skimming the cream and talk about the whole pail of milk. A hundred grand isn’t nickels and dimes, is it, Mr. Eismont?”
Ken flinched—he’d picked up on her change to his last name.
“It goes back into the SRRA’s accounts, to repay for the withdrawals of Sudanese pounds for the redemptions.”
“You’re sure about that? In Nairobi I’ve seen movers and shakers from the SRRA in new suits, driving new cars.”
“Better follow Jim’s example. Get your tents set up. You know how it is in this neck of the African woods. Not much twilight. It’s light, then it’s dark.”
“We’re staying in a hut. We don’t need tents.”
“All kinds of critters in these roofs. Spiders, snakes. They drop down at night. You wouldn’t want them crawling all over you. Or would you?”
Phyllis snapped her notebook shut, picked up her hat by its chin strap, and swung it onto her head, tucking her hair underneath. “Don’t take things so personally,