the secret police’s clandestine prison. He doubted anyone would walk with him up to the front door and knock, but he did not expect too much trouble getting directions from a local on a street corner if Court whipped out a small wad of Sudanese pounds.
Court hurried to the side of the road now. His plan was borderline brutal, certainly cruel, but he did not doubt its effectiveness. He would wait for the driver of the motorcycle to get within a few yards of him, and then he would step into the road and knock the man and his vehicle over. He prepared himself for this action, but noticed the bike was moving slower than it should have been with so much open road. He then presumed it to be only a motor scooter, which would still be an effective vehicle to make his way through narrow streets and thick third-world traffic, even if it wasn’t going to move very fast, even with an open throttle.
But then, after an eternity, the vehicle appeared behind its single headlight, and Gentry cussed aloud. It was a tiny motorized rickshaw, a scooter with a covered three-seat bench behind the driver, a feeble two-stroke engine, and a wide tricycle-type rear axle.
Gentry was pissed. This was probably the slowest vehicle in existence with the exception of a donkey cart. Still, he recognized it would be a hell of a lot better than jogging, so he stepped into the dark road. He did not try to topple the little vehicle; instead, he just flagged it down.
The rickshaw pulled over. A black man in a turban sat behind the handlebars. “Taxi?” he asked, no shock or surprise at the sight of a bearded white man in a military-style jumpsuit. Apparently Court wasn’t the first foreigner to wander stupidly around the darkened suburbs of Al Fashir. He climbed in hurriedly, and the driver twisted the throttle forward on his handlebars, sending the machine slowly again on its way with a whine like a lawn mower in thick, wet grass.
Court told the driver to take him into Al Fashir’s souk, or marketplace. Every town has a market, he assumed, and apparently this backwater was no different, as the driver did not press him further. Instead, as the fortyish Darfuri tribesman set off for town, he turned back to his fare and offered to sell him a drink from a tiny cooler he kept in the backseat. Court checked it out, saw a half dozen bottles of tepid water, the bottle caps’ safety seals broken. Gentry admitted to himself that he was thirsty, but he wasn’t about to chug old plastic bottles refilled with local tap water. Also on the floor he found a small repair kit for the rickshaw in a burlap bag. There was nothing of interest to him in the kit, save for a single red road flare and a small, rusty screwdriver.
Court pocketed the flare and the tool as the first vestiges of an idea began forming in his mind.
They headed east for no more than three minutes before they hit the bustle of the city. Nearly a fourth of the vehicles on the road were powered by donkeys instead of engines, and suddenly the two-stroke job under the seat of the rickshaw did not seem quite so impotent in comparison. Another third of the vehicles on the road were NGOs of some sort: UN, UNICEF, CARE, the Red Cross. Additionally there were some UNAMID military vehicles on the road and GOS army men on motorcycles. The last 10 percent of traffic were locals in cars and trucks. They were very much a minority on their own streets.
He pressed the driver to hurry more than once, but even with the slow speed he imagined himself still to be well in front of the NSS sedan, which had gone far in a different direction to meet up with the highway. He knew, however, it would only take one traffic jam or missed turn to make this a close race.
They pulled up to the marketplace and stopped. “Here is the souk. Twenty pounds.”
Court said, “I want you to take me to the Ghost House.” He was hardly surprised that the man jerked his head around to look back at his passenger. No one wanted to go to the secret police interrogation facility. Court had already yanked a fat wad of cash from his wallet. He held it up for the man to see.