The Informationist: A Thriller by Taylor Stevens Page B

until Christmas, and this was the closest to home for the holidays she’d been in at least a decade.
    M UNROE WAS UP with the sun, and for over an hour the sound of lively traffic and busy sidewalks had filtered through the open windows, calling her to meet them. She’d given Bradford her word that at least this once she would wait for him before leaving the room, and she was dressed and lying on the bed deep in thought when he knocked.
    They took breakfast in the hotel’s small dining room. The mood between them was light and the conversation friendly, and when they had finished and were waiting for the waiter to bring a second round of coffee, Munroe stood. “I’ll find out where he’s gone off to,” she said.
    The waiter had been on his way back from the kitchen when she stopped him. She placed a capsule of powder in the palm of his hand and followed it with a twenty-euro note. “My friend has been very difficult about taking his medication,” she said. “If you put this in his coffee, the money is yours. If you get it in the wrong drink, you’ll pay.”
    It was several minutes after the coffee that Miles began to show visible signs of somnolence. Monroe reached over and placed her wrist to his forehead. “Everything all right?” she asked. “You don’t look very well.”
    “Not so good,” he said. His words were slightly slurred. “I feel so tired.”
    “It might be the climate and the jet lag,” she said. “It does that to you. It can take a while to get used to it. Let’s get you back to your room.”
    By the time the elevator had taken them to their floor, Bradford was slumped over her shoulder. With some difficulty she got him into his bed, removed his shoes, and made sure the air-conditioning worked properly. Knowing he would wake thirsty, she set out a bottle of drinking water and tucked the light blanket around him.
    It was a crappy deal. She would have preferred another way, but there were things to be done that belonged to no one else. “Sleep well,” she whispered. She left his key in the room and, using a skeleton set, locked the door behind her.
    She checked her watch; she’d be lucky to get back before dark.
    The streets of Douala were narrow and full of loud and chaotic life. Bicycles laden with goods stacked five feet into the air fought for road space with Peugeot cars converted to share taxis and packed with twice as many people as they were built to carry. Traffic surged in disarray, vehicles jostled for position, their horns being applied as frequently as the brakes. Pedestrians crowded the sidewalks. Colonial buildings sat side by side with modern structures, and green fronds peeked above walls that separated homes from the cacophony of the streets.
    First stop was the Société Générale de Banques au Cameroun and an account left abandoned when she had fled the country so many years ago. Munroe expected that it would have been closed due to inactivity, the money vanishing into the ether, or at the least be inaccessible. Rather, it was all there and had even accrued a modest sum of interest. She folded the bank statement and then at the FOREX window changed five hundred euros into Central African francs. It would be enough small change to last a while; most of the hotels and airlines accepted and sometimes preferred euros to the local currency.
    Outside, Munroe hailed several taxis and sent each yellow car on its way until she got a newer vehicle, its engine integrity less questionable, the seats still solid and without the grime and reshaping of those that had borne too many passengers; with the driver she negotiated a return rate to Kribi, that sleepy party town three hours south of Douala.
    Known for its pristine beaches, Kribi was quiet and relatively empty for most of the year but swelled beyond capacity during holiday periods. It was in Kribi that the past would converge with the present. She needed documents, and the man who could get them would be found there—she had