Free Six Bullets by Jeremy Bates Page B

several hours going over the information he’d been sent. Then he
booked the first flight leaving for Tanzania the following morning.

CHAPTER 
3
Tuesday, December 24, 10:01
a.m.
Arusha, Tanzania
     
    “When would you like me to pick you up?” asked the guide,
a native of Zanzibar. He was small, bald, quick to smile, and dressed exactly
how Scarlett thought a safari guide should dress. Khaki shorts, an olive vest
with about twenty pockets on it, and a cotton twill bush hat. He’d met Scarlett
and Sal at Kilimanjaro International Airport forty minutes ago before driving
them to Arusha, the first and last stop of any size before they reached the
lodge atop the volcanic caldera.
    “Come back in an
hour,” Sal told him.
    Once the guide
wheeled the big Land Rover away into traffic, Sal and Scarlett were immediately
swarmed by a dozen men, each toting the cheapest safari package in town. They
explained repeatedly that they were not interested. The street hawks were by
degrees obstinate, indignant, but finally resigned.
    “Good God,” Sal
said, straightening his blazer.
    “It’s what they
do,” Scarlett said.
    “It’s barbaric.”
He shaded his eyes with his hand against the morning sun. “There should be a
supermarket somewhere nearby. I’ll get the supplies. Why don’t you browse
around and meet back here in, say, thirty minutes?”
    Scarlett agreed
and Sal left, waving off a new group of vultures that had descended upon him. Scarlett
took a moment to get her bearings. She was standing at the base of a
white-trimmed clock tower, surrounded by belching trucks, taxis, and an
eclectic mix of locals and khaki-clad tourists. On the drive into the city the
buildings had been rickety wooden things with tin roofs. Here, in the
government district of the CBD, most were concrete, painted various shades of
washed-out white, blue, yellow, and red. Almost all of them were plastered with
gaudy, dated advertising.
    She started down
what a street sign announced was Sokoine Road, storing the name away in case
she got lost. She passed tailor shops filled with row after row of sewing
machines and kiosks selling candies and phone cards. Women with perfect
postures balanced fruit or baskets on their heads while men led their cattle
and other livestock. Children played in the alleyways with toys fashioned out
of string and empty bottles. She even spotted a couple native Masai warriors
dressed in their checkered regalia and holding long spears. From somewhere in
the distance came the toxic smell of burning garbage.
    All in all,
Scarlett’s first impression of Arusha was that of a tourist-hungry frontier
town—Africa’s twenty-first century equivalent of the Wild West. It was
fascinating and exotic and a little intimidating all at the same time.
    On the next block
she came to what appeared to be the central marketplace. A few hundred cages
containing squawking chickens and roosters surrounded the entranceway. Beyond
them, inside the tented structure, the maze of stalls was filled with
everything imaginable. Sandals soled with tire tread grips, colorful cotton kangas,
traditional medicines, vividly colored vegetables, you name it. Some people
were sucking baobab seeds and tamarind-like sweets. Others offered to guide her
around for a private tour, probably looking for a tip. She politely declined.
If she started doling out money, she’d never leave the place in one piece.
    While she
wandered up and down the aisles, merchants tried to lure her to their stalls
with shouts of “ Karibu! ” and “Hello friend!”
    Scarlett waved,
flashed the smile she usually reserved for the paparazzi, and felt irrationally
guilty for not stopping at each.
    Once she did a
big loop and was returning to the main entrance, she paused at a display
selling beads, woodcarvings, and jewelry on which the outline of the African
continent had been painted. She pantomimed a ring around her finger. “Rings?”
she said, to clarify.
    The old woman
behind the