The two Land Rovers drew up outside the gate of a barbed wire fence, that surrounded a group of low buildings. A prison. A couple of men with rifles stood in a gatehouse and one of them came over, looking deeply suspicious, when Madari got out of the vehicle and showed his ID.

"We're here to make an inspection and speak to the prisoners. Here is my written authority." He handed the man a document. "Please call your superiors and admit us immediately."

The gate guard scowled at the ID and the authority. "You cannot come in," he said. "No appointment."

"I don't need one. Read the authority. I'm permitted to make surprise inspections and talk to the prisoners without prior appointment. Please call your superiors and they will tell you to let us in."

They'd done this several times now at other facilities. The guards never wanted to let them in and seemed to think they could make Madari go away again if they just scowled a lot and, in some cases, pretended they couldn't understand any language spoken to them, and that they certainly couldn't read any silly bit of paper. But Madari just kept calmly insisting they call their superiors. Usually the presence behind him of the blue-helmeted soldiers had an effect.

This guard looked at the vehicles and the soldiers then, without a word, turned away and went back to the guardhouse, where they saw him pick up a phone. A wire ran from the guardhouse up to the prison buildings.

"I say fifteen minutes," Bennett's voice came from behind him.

"Twenty," Ritchie countered. "These guys look stubborn."

"No," Madari said. "Ten minutes. Word about us has got around. They know we won't be put off."

He glanced back at the car, at the smiling Bennett leaning out of the window of the driver's seat of one of the Land Rovers. Her persistence in asking Madari if she could drive had eventually paid off. One of the guards, the one not on the phone was also watching her with some interest. Madari stepped back over to the vehicle.

"Bennett, I want you to stay with the vehicles after we go inside."

She frowned now, losing her smile. "Sir, you need pictures. That last place when you had Geoff take them instead they came out terrible. I'm the photographer."

"A men's prison is no place for a young woman."

"I'm not a young woman, I'm an officer." Her frown cleared, to a conciliatory smile. "Anyway, sir, I've got all the lads here to protect me. Anybody even looks at me funny -"

"Lieutenant -"

"Sir, please." She glanced at the others for a moment and then opened the door, forcing Madari to step back. The two of them took a few steps away from the vehicle, out of earshot of the men and Ritchie and Elimu. "Sir, I'm here to do a job, just like you and them. I... appreciate that you're looking out for me, and I know it won't be pleasant in there. But please, let me do my job."

He sighed, unable to do anything in the face of the almost pleading look she wore. "All right, Lieutenant. But stay close to me in there."

"Don't worry, sir." Her smile came back. "I'll stay close and protect you."

He rolled his eyes at that and was about to speak again, when the man who'd been on the phone came back over.

"Only one car," he said. "Boss says, only one car."

"Both cars," Madari said. "Both cars and all the men. Read the authority."

The man grumbled, glanced at Bennett, who scowled fiercely at him in return, then he went back to his phone.

"Fifteen minutes," Bennett said, putting her sunglasses on.

In the end, it was nearly an hour. These people were more stubborn than Madari had anticipated. Or were buying time, and hiding evidence of course. Three different men, of increasing orders of seniority, came out to read the authority and then talk on the phone.

Meanwhile, Madari had Ritchie get the men out of the vehicles and do a bit of drill. Not that he was making any kind of show of strength, but he couldn't expect the soldiers to sit sweltering in the vehicles.

Each man that came out of the prison he took the name of and wrote down the time. When they questioned that he said it was for his report, and that seemed to intimidate them more than the squad of soldiers at his back.

Finally the man in charge of the prison appeared himself, read the authority, argued for ten minutes about it and, since he really had no choice, finally let them in. The officers and men climbed back into the Land Rovers and drove through the gates and up to the prison buildings.

Madari left two men guarding the vehicles, and took the rest inside. They provided security for the officers, and carried equipment if needed, and, he had to admit it, as much as he liked to think he had an air of command, they backed up his authority.

The prison governor – to give him a title he could never earn in a more civilised country, Madari thought – led the way, Madari at his side and Sergeant Bekono right behind. Bennett, Elimu and Ritchie followed in that order, soldiers surrounding them and bringing up the rear.

Coming from the fierce sunlight outside – on a rare dry day - into the dim interior left Madari blinking for a moment, eyes adjusting. He knew it would be even darker when they got into the prisoner areas. A faint, but familiar stink of men crammed together in poor conditions came to him.

It was familiar mostly from his time here. His own prison in the desert had been almost luxurious compared to the ones here, despite some overcrowding. At least there the prisoners had worked together to keep it as clean as they could. But it evoked other memories in him too. The cell before the prison. The torture cell. He didn't dare take a deep breath to calm himself.

The governor was talking about taking Madari to his office, no doubt for more pointless arguments, but Madari insisted the inspection had already been delayed too long, and demanded to be taken to the prisoner areas at once. The governor gave in, reluctantly, gathered some more prison guards, and led them into the cell blocks.

They walked down a concrete corridor, with barred gates at either end, men with big bunches of keys and carrying truncheons guarding them. He could hear the prisoners now, shouts, perhaps excited about visitors, anything to break the routine.

At the barred gate the inspection party stopped while the governor ordered the gate unlocked. The harsh strip lights in the corridor made it hard to see into the dark cell block beyond, but he could see there were bars on either side of the walkway down the middle. Men's hands and arms were thrust through those bars and the walkway was narrow.

He glanced back at Bennett, who looked nervous, but when she saw him looking at her, put on a more determined expression.

"Stay in the middle of the path between the cells," Madari said to her, quietly. "You two," he said to the soldiers a little behind her. "Keep her between you at all times." They stepped up to stand on either side of her rather than behind. Although he didn't repeat the order to the soldiers guarding Elimu and Ritchie, Bennett didn't look offended at being singled out. She gave a small nod of thanks. She might be determined that he should treat her equally to the men, but she wasn't a fool either.

The gate opened and Madari steeled himself, shoulder back and stepped through. The stink was horrible in here, but he controlled his reaction to it, needing to stay calm and strong. He couldn't give the prisoner governor any opening to rush Madari through the inspection.

Large communal cells lay on either side, as he'd already been able to see. A long row of them, dimly lit and each cell holding at least a dozen men, their dark faces barely visible in the gloom. The only light came from skylights above the walkway. There were strip lights between those, but they weren't turned on. He stopped at once, the only one of the officers through the gate yet and turned to the governor.

"Turn on the lights."

"We don't turn them on during the day," the governor protested. "It costs too much money."

"I appreciate that. But I can't carry out an inspection when I can't see. Turn on the lights."

The governor grumbled to himself in some language that Madari couldn't understand, though could guess the words included speculation about Madari's parentage, but turned to a guard and nodded. The man turned to a panel of switches on the wall, and one by one the lights down the centre walkway between the cells turned on. The noise level rose dramatically at this surely rare or even unprecedented development.

"Proceed," Madari said, and the governor and his guards led the way down the cell block.

If the noise level had risen when the lights came on, it exploded when Madari's party set off between the cells. Madari caught some of what the prisoners shouted when they pressed against the front of the cells, and plenty of it was about Bennett. He looked back several times to make sure she was all right. She still wore that determined look, but was being very careful to stay right in the middle of the path and to match her pace with the men guarding her. A few prisoners reached out towards her, but a harsh word from her guards made them pull back quickly.

It wasn't only Bennett they reached towards though. Hands brushed against Madari's arms as he walked at the governor's side, close enough for them to reach. And not all of the shouts were obscenities, some were pleas for help.

He felt sick at how little help he could actually be here. His mission was to check for evidence of torture, not to inspect general prison conditions. They might indeed disgust him, but he couldn't do much about them, except make his report.

Like so many things that he'd put into his reports, knowing that nothing could be done about them. Prison conditions, police unfairness, bandit activity, more reports of missing children. Though he'd told his officers not to allow themselves to be upset that they couldn't save the whole country, at times he either raged, or wept for the misery of the people here.

Most of those people were innocents of course, and those here in this prison were not – though he felt sure many of them were innocent of the crimes they'd been locked up for. But even prisoners should be treated properly. It was a mark of a civilised country he thought. It wasn't about the prisoners and what they deserved, it was about what kind of people you wanted to be. Of course, having been a prisoner himself, he could be biased.

They reached the end of the cell block and came out into another brightly lit corridor.

"Well, if you are finished now..." the governor began, but Madari shook his head.

"I haven't even started. You will show me to a room where I can talk to prisoners and my doctor can examine them and my adjutant can photograph them. My second, Mr Ritchie will continue the inspection and any rooms he requires access to will be opened immediately." Torture didn't go on in cell blocks, Madari knew. It went on in small, locked rooms.

"I... I'll have some prisoners brought to you..."

"No, we'll select them at random," Madari said. And of course, he'd make sure the word went out that any man who specifically wanted to talk to them should do so. "I'm also authorised to speak to any of your staff that I want to." He looked steadily at the governor. "That includes you."

Sweat gleamed on the man's face under the harsh lighting.

"Do you practice torture here, sir?" Madari asked, surprising himself at the blunt question. He hadn't asked that outright before.

"No!" The governor protested at once.

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

~~~~

Jahni wandered over to the buffet table, which is where he always gravitated to at parties. Especially ones like this, where most of the other guests were rich and, to his eye, idle.

A warm breeze wafted over him when he wandered out to the terrace, a drink in one hand, a pastry in the other, and looked into the courtyard, with its fountain and small flowering trees. Colonel Rahama's home was beautiful, though he liked it more when it was quiet and not filled with chattering crowds of party-goers.

"Oh, Captain Jahni," a woman's voice said, making him turn. The Colonel's wife stood there, with a young woman at her side. "Captain Jahni, I don't think you've met the guest of honour herself. This is my grand-niece Amina." The party was to celebrate her graduation from university, Jahni remembered.

Amina held out her hand to him and, taken a little by surprise, he popped the rest of the pastry in his mouth and returned the handshake, saying 'My pleasure' only after he managed to swallow the pastry. She smiled at that, he felt sure.

Madame Rahama – she used the French form, Jahni knew – looked around and then said, "Oh, I must see my husband about something. I'll be back in a moment." She hurried off. Jahni blushed. Could the old lady be any more transparent in her matchmaking intentions?

Amina was still smiling at him when he turned back to her. She had a friendly face, if not a beautiful one. Bright, intelligent eyes, and smooth, glossy black hair, that she wore uncovered. Aside from her uncovered hair, she dressed modestly in a long tunic and trousers in fine honey-coloured silk. A string of beads around her wrist made him look twice, thinking they were amber, like the ones he'd given Faris, but they weren't. Just some kind of polished dark yellow stone.

"Ah, this is a nice party," he said.

"My great-aunt does like to throw parties," Amina said, nodding. "Though she surprised me with this one. I thought she didn't even approve of me going to university. Especially not abroad."

"Where did you study?"

"Paris. My family has a lot of connections to Paris."

Jahni nodded at that. "Yes, the Colonel calls it his spiritual home."

She laughed. "I don't know about spiritual. The first thing Great-Uncle Shari gave me when he knew I was going was a list of his favourite restaurants and the names of the head waiters at each of them."

Jahni laughed too, mostly at the thought of anyone calling Colonel Rahama "Uncle Shari".

"I went to university in Cairo," Jahni said, after a slight pause.

"Oh, what did you study?"

"Mostly loafing in coffee houses and sunbathing," Jahni admitted, with a grimace. "But they insisted on me handing in essays about business studies once in a while."

"Oh, how very tiresome of them," she said, chuckling. "Business studies and then you end up in the Army?"

He shrugged. "Long story. I never expected to have an Army career."

"And yet here you are, my uncle's best officer and a hero."

"I wouldn't say I was the best officer in the regiment," Jahni protested.

"Well my uncle would."

That startled him really. He'd expect Rahama to name Madari, or any of the senior colonels his best officer. He was surely grooming Madari and perhaps some of the others as potential successors. But was 'potential' the important word here? The 'best' officer might be the one with the most potential, even if he had less experience than the others.

Did Rahama really have so much confidence in Jahni? That was both flattering and of course a huge amount of pressure. So much to live up to. That potential itself. The Colonel's expectations. It would be terrible to let Rahama down, by failing to live up to his potential, or even... to destroy his own career.

"Captain?" Amina said. "Would you like another drink?"

He broke away from his thoughts and looked at her for a moment. Perhaps it was the light, but he thought she looked a little like Sophia, though younger of course, more unsophisticated, her hair and make up simpler. But yes, she reminded him very much of Sophia.

"Yes, thank you, Amina, I would. Please, call me Kahil."

They walked back inside together.

~~~~

The governor had plenty to worry about. Several prisoners made allegations of torture here at the prison or in police custody. Ritchie found some isolation cells with suspicious equipment in them, which Bennett took photographs of. She also photographed injuries the prisoners making accusations showed them, while the doctor inspected and documented the injuries. The guards they questioned were often evasive and defensive.

The worst part was that the prisoners who came with the allegations often thought Madari could get them out of here. Of course, he couldn't. He could only promise that his reports would help to end these illegal practices and thank them for their bravery in giving evidence and promise them the prison staff here would not be told which men had come forward.

To look into their eyes when he had to make it clear he couldn't free them was like looking into a mirror that let him see into the past. See his own old terror and desperation to escape.

It was dark outside when they completed the inspection. They walked back through the cell block the way they'd come in, and the prisoners around them were not shouting obscenities this time, but were quiet, though with stirs of voices here and there. Several of them were singing, something with harmonies, in a local language. Even Elimu didn't understand it, just shaking his head when Madari glanced back at him.

Bennett walked behind Madari again, holding tight to her camera bag with its precious rolls of pictures. She had a small darkroom set up back at the lodge, and would spend tomorrow making prints to go with Madari's report. She'd held up well during the trying day, full of other men's pain and horror, but now looked tired and her eyes shone, as they left behind the men they could do no more for.

Her distress made Madari's gut clench. They reached the vehicle and Madari saw everyone loaded aboard before he turned to the governor, who wore a look of relief that they were going. Madari offered his hand, taking the man by surprise and when he took it, Madari pushed backwards, forcing the governor to back up, away from the vehicles, away from the prison guards.

"Your cooperation is noted." Madari said. "Your eventual and reluctant cooperation."

"I had to..."

"You have two choices now," Madari said, his voice low, and yet holding the governor's attention purely by the tone in it. "You can go on like this and you will eventually be stripped of your job. I promise that I will make that happen. I'm sure yours is a lucrative position that you don't want to lose." He wasn't referring to the man's government salary of course, and the governor knew that, took on an outraged look. "Or you can start to clean up your act. That doesn't mean hiding or destroying evidence. You know what it means. I suggest you begin immediately. You have a lot of work to do."

He disengaged his hand, turned away and marched back to the vehicles. He climbed into the lead one and said, in a tired, hoarse voice.

"Move out, Private." The driver started up the engine at once, and led the way out of the prison. Once on the road he put his foot down, perhaps as glad to get away from the place as Madari.

"What was all that about, sir?" Bennett said. "With the governor?"

Madari smiled tiredly at her. "Just a few words of friendly advice."

~~~~

"Just reporting all secure for the night, sir," Bennett said, poking her head around the open door into Madari's suite.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. I'm just making some tea. Would you care to join me? Unless you want to get to bed."

"Sunday tomorrow, I could stay up a bit longer," she said. Madari let the unit relax a little on Sundays. Many of the men went to mass in the village in the morning. Bennett came in and closed the door behind her.

That wasn't really proper, he knew. But it had become a habit, as these late night chats had become a habit. It wasn't proper to have a young woman alone with him in his rooms, but since that night at Christmas, over a month ago now, she'd sat up late with him several times. She seemed to be able to tell when he wasn't sleeping well and staying up late and would join him to talk.

It really was only to talk. He felt no temptation to make advances to her and certainly got no obvious signals from her that she expected or would welcome them. Of course, others might be more suspicious and he never mentioned the meetings to anyone. For the sake of her reputation as much as his own.

He made the tea while she sat on the sofa and picked up a book he'd been reading, in French.

"How many languages do you speak, sir?" she asked.

"Three fluently, a little of some others."

"Arabic, English and French for the fluent ones, so what are the others?"

"I've been studying Italian the last few years." He smiled. Usually from a horizontal position and with few clothes on. "And Farsi, though I think I've forgotten most of that."

"Farsi?"

"It's the language they speak in Iran," he said, bringing over her tea and sitting down with his own.

"Well, I didn't know that. You're always teaching me something new, Colonel."

"And vice-versa," he said, chuckling. "Of course, most of the things I learn from you aren't very applicable for someone who doesn't drink alcohol."

"Hey, that's not fair. I'm sure I've mentioned a few things that aren't about beer!"

"I'm sorry, of course, sometimes you also talk about Australian Rules Football."

"Only to interrupt Ritchie and the Brig when they've talked for three hours straight about cricket." She grinned and Madari winced.

"Indeed." He sipped his tea, looking at her. "How are you... holding up, Karen? This is a stressful posting. You know that you can talk to me if you find it hard to cope."

"Oh, I'm fine, sir." She smiled, seemed genuine. She didn't appear the overly-sensitive type, which must help. Still, he waited, gave her a moment, and sure enough the smile disappeared and a more anguished look came into her eyes. "Sometimes it feels as if we're not really doing anything though. That there's nothing we can really do to help. Like that prison we were at last week. Did we really help those men?"

"We're just the first stage of the help. Evidence gathering. Others will follow up on our work."

She sighed and nodded. "I hope so. I hope the reports don't just end up in some big black hole somewhere."

"I won't let that happen," Madari said. "I have enough influence and know people who can make sure that won't be allowed to happen."

She smiled, cheering up at that. "I forgot you were a big shot back home."

"Big shot." He laughed at the word. "I suppose I am in a way, yes."

"I'll have to visit you at home one day, see if you've been exaggerating."

"Oh, Karen, my dear, I'd be delighted to see you there. You would liven things up in ways you can't even imagine."

~~~~

"Sir," Ritchie said, standing at the open door of Madari's office. "There's some post for you." He came in, carrying several letters and laid them on Madari's desk. They looked as if they'd been through quite an ordeal to get here, possibly including being chewed by wild beasts. But he smiled, delighted when he saw an airmail envelope with a familiar stamp and the address in Kahil's handwriting.

"Something official there," Ritchie said, indicating a letter with a United Nations logo on it. Madari had been reaching for the letter from Kahil, but checked his hand and picked up the official one instead. He was on duty. Kahil's letter must wait.

"Post!" He heard Bennett exclaim outside the door. "And I was starting to think the rest of the world had vanished and we just hadn't heard about it yet."

"A couple for you, Karen," Ritchie said, making her come into the room and almost grab them from his hand. They'd be personal letters from home, all the official correspondence would come to Madari.

He opened the UN envelope and checked the contents. Acknowledgements for the reports he'd already forwarded on. Most were about their primary mission of course, but he'd sent others too, about problems the local people had reported to them. Including one problem that kept coming up more and more often now, to the point he was becoming disturbed about it. If this was happening at home it would be a huge investigation. The police would not rest until they'd stopped it. He knew from Bennett's reaction that the same would be the case in Australia.

Now the letter said only, the UN would investigate "when resources are available." Which meant never, he felt sure. Where were the resources to look into the disappearances of a dozen African children, when many more than that died every day on this continent from more urgent problems?

Madari slapped the letter down on the desk and stood up. He strode past his two junior officers, with a snapped comment about taking his coffee break, and stalked off to the lounge where they so often sat after dinner with the Brigadier. It was empty now and he rang the bell that called the staff and asked for coffee. The girl who took his order scurried off, intimidated by his thunderous demeanour.

She returned with Drummond in tow. He must have been in the kitchen. He dismissed the girl and poured the coffee himself, giving Madari a searching look when he brought it over.

"You look like a man wishing he was allowed to drink something stronger than coffee."

"If I was a drinking man..." Madari shrugged.

Drummond wandered over to the drinks cabinet, picked up the brandy decanter and poured a measure into his own coffee. He held it out to Madari.

"A drop? Keep the damp out. I won't tell a soul."

Well why the hell not? He'd committed worse sins. What did it even matter any more? Madari held out his coffee cup and Drummond poured in a little brandy.

"Still early," he said. "And we don't want you drunk on duty. Sit down now."

Madari wasn't sure he could relax enough to sit, but a sip of the brandy laced coffee and he felt warm relaxation spread through him.

"Something upsetting you then, Faris?"

"The fact I can't even follow my own advice for one," he said, sighing and passing a hand before his eyes. "I told my officers to stay focused on the job we came here to do and not to try to save the whole country."

"And you're finding it hard not to try to do that yourself."

"I'm so used to being able to make things happen, Clive. As Karen puts it, I'm a 'big shot' back home. I have influence. But here, my authority, my power is so limited."

"It's hard, I know. When I first came here, it took me a while to learn the same thing. Realised in the end I could help, but only here, locally I mean. Build this business, employ people, train them up, help them get educated. But that's important. That... spreads out, you know. What you're doing is important too. You know that." Madari saw Drummond glance at his hands, a reminder.

"Yes. I know, and I'm trying to take some satisfaction in that. But sometimes, that's not enough, when there's so much other suffering."

He sipped his coffee again and felt he'd like to sit in here, in the comfort of the soft leather wing back chair and forget it all for a while and let coffee fill his senses and just... daydream for the rest of the day. Daydream of hot, dry air, silent darkness, and thick, black hair he wanted to run his fingers through.

He shook himself as Drummond spoke again.

"Something specific brought this on? You got some post this morning."

Madari sighed. For a bluff and crusty old soldier, Drummond was surprisingly perceptive. Which he took as a reminder that Drummond's persona was all part of an image.

"Do you remember me telling you about how many reports we'd had about missing children in the local area? I made a report to the UN, but they can only say they'll investigate when they have the resources available."

"Same day Satan wears ice skates to work, I suppose," Drummond said, nodding with a grimace on his face.

"Quite."

Drummond sipped coffee again for a while. "Does seem to have been a lot of those. Kiddies go missing sometimes of course, dangerous country this. Animals, mostly. My tourists love photographing chimpanzees, but those buggers are some of the nastiest." He shook his head. "Never known this many go missing in such a short space of time though."

"Do you think someone is taking them? A people trafficker?"

"People trafficker? That the modern name for them is it? There's an older one. Slave trader." He looked at Madari, must have read the horror in his face. "Used to tell us at school that slavery was abolished a long time ago. They were wrong. One of my security lads, he was sold to a slave trader when he was a boy. Escaped though. They're made to work in mines, or taken to the city to work in factories. And worse things in store for the girls."

"If this is a... slave trader," Madari said, the old, horrible phrase sounding so strange to him, "then why are they now stealing the children instead of buying them?"

Drummond stood up and strolled to the fireplace, piled with dusty logs.

"You might think the people around here have it rough - and in comparison to you and me - they do. But in some ways, this part of the country is in fairly good shape. Lots of good growing land, enough to eat most of the time. Some decent clinics around. Schools. Most people here can feed their children. It's when people can't that they start selling them."

"Then why would the trader even come here at all if the people aren't desperate enough?"

"Perhaps it's someone who's locally based. Doesn't want to move his operation, but needs ready cash."

Madari looked at him narrowly. "You have someone in mind don't you?"

"Well, you said my local knowledge would be a help to you."

Madari sighed. "But, Clive, I just don't have the authority to do anything about it."

"Oh, you're a sharp fellow. You'll think of something. Now..." He sat down again. "Let me give you a briefing about one of the big shots around here. His name is Sefu..."