"I know." Gilman blushed a little, but looked Sister Catherine full in the face, meeting the silent inquiry.

After a moment the nun nodded. "There's a half bowl of egosi soup in that ice chest."

"Thank you." Gilman watched the white-clad figure leave. So someone had seen and someone had talked. Well, she decided, it didn't matter. She was no teenager to skulk around and deny she had a lover. And a great one too. She gulped down a giggle. She hadn't giggled in a long time. She went for the soup and took an extra second to straighten out her face before heading back.

Gilman rearranged the flurry of papers on her desk while Jantor ate. She spent more time looking at him than at the notes she handled. Then came a light knock on the door.

"Come in," she called, frowning over a page of Allingham's knotted scribble.

She glanced to see who it was when the door opened and sprang to her feet. Wilton, nearly as brown as any Biafran, stepped in, allowing Gilman's hug. Gilman felt her stiffen-was that the physical contact, or was that Wilton noticing Jantor here with her?

"You're here, great, wonderful, welcome, Wilton. How are you? You okay? So much has been happening. I discovered a better way to deal with those ligatures I was fussing about when you were last here."

Gilman was glad to see Wilton. She wouldn't explain about Tom-Tom, sitting right here with them looking on with interest. Was Wilton waiting for her to say something? Did Wilton already know? Was it guilt that had Gilman sweating? She didn't feel guilty. She was grown up and what she did in private wasn't anyone's business.

She went on about the slipknot ligature. She talked about elephantiasis treatments. She told Wilton about her latest fatality from cerebrospinal meningitis.

"Wilton," Gilman said. "Where'd you come from?"

"'From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it...'"

But Gilman paid no attention to the quoted answer though it had a familiar and slightly unpleasant ring. She grasped Wilton's wrists and turned the fingers to the light. She traced the barely healed ridged scars that ran jagged across. Little white marks from stitches.

"Jesus," she said aloud. "What did you do to your hands? Tendon damage?"

The hands of an artist. Look at that. Gilman could not help trying to straighten the right forefinger to see if it could move that far. Careful, careful. Would these fingers ever regain their old flexibility, or ever channel again the inspirations that only Wilton knew? She remembered the painted dragon on the wall of Wilton's room so many years ago and blinked frantically to stem her absurd tears.

"Are you doing exercises to..."

"They're healed." Wilton dragged them away and put them behind her back. "Lindsey and Sandy say hello."

"Glass?" Gilman asked. Her mind hummed with unasked questions-surely the accident had happened in the last two months. She felt Jantor studying them both, but he remained silent while Gilman's mind considered supplemental therapies for Wilton's hands. Restricted extension of the fingers. Glass might make wounds like that. But she read the finality when Wilton looked away and for once Gilman shut her mouth.

"How did you get here?" Jantor asked.

"Flew. Spent last night in town."

"How come I didn't hear about your arrival? What came in with you?"

"Second-hand M16s, ammunition, a few crates of stockfish. I didn't have a reservation."

"Hell. Hope Steiner got his...But it's too late now. Last night should have been all medical and food."

Gilman considered Wilton. Had she always been like this, so rigid, so disapproving? No, she'd changed since their last meeting. Was she quite a stranger? Wilton looked at the bowl in front of Jantor.

"Hungry?" Gilman asked.

"No. I need water. Only that. I brought more medical supplies, courtesy of Lindsey and Sandy."

"I bet Lindsey had a lot to do with it," Gilman said.

"Gilman," Wilton said, "take my word. Lindsey contributed just as much to the project as Sandy did."

"Sit down, Wilton," Gilman said, both ashamed and annoyed by Wilton's behavior. "You know I didn't mean it. Let me go find you some water and a bite of bread."

She headed back to the kitchen wondering what Wilton and Jantor would make of each other. Best be quick. When she returned with her supplies, she found both silent, but it felt to her like the silence that comes after talk.

"I remember meeting you months ago," Wilton said in her dry voice to Jantor. "You didn't shoot me."

"A couple of months ago. Yeah."

She took Gilman's offered water and bread with a smear of Marmite.

"Who is this Lindsey?" Jantor asked.

"Lindsey Kinner. Once an adjunct to the US Embassy. Occasional economic and general advisor to various persons. In Lagos. An old school friend of ours."

"The same Lindsey who's on the War Council? Strange place for an American."

"Yes." Wilton leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. "How rumors fly. Some are true."

Jantor whistled. "I always figured that Lindsey was a man. The doctor has interesting friends."

Gilman stopped herself from saying Lindsey wasn't a friend. No need to upset Wilton.

"One of my guys said you grew up in Nigeria. Which Region?"

"Half the time in the West, half in the East here."

"Missionary?"

"Of a kind. You might say a missionary of education."

"Those hands still hurt you?"

Wilton didn't answer.

Jantor looked at Gilman with a very slight nod. What did that mean? He was frowning as if he had something to tell her.

"Looks like a self-injury," he said later, alone together in her tent. She knew that, but it seemed wrong for him to say. He sat on the bed and she came over to stand against his knees.

Jantor shrugged as if he wanted to apologize.

"I know," she said then, feeling that she had to answer. "But accidents happen. There are times people fall into a window or something like that. I remember having to stitch up a girl who walked right through a glass door at her home once. The sheet of glass had been washed and she didn't see that the door was closed."

"Gives me the creeps." He reached to touch her hair.

"What does?"

"Hurting yourself. On purpose. Never understood it, unless it was a try for an honorable discharge by injury. Didn't really understand that either. It's a court martial offense if you get caught, but at least it has a purpose."

Chapter 52: Oroko.

October 1968 Ibadan, Western Region, Nigeria Lindsey had left on one of her banking trips to the North, telling Oroko to watch over Sandy. Oroko opened the apartment door after his distinctive patterned knock and gave Sandy a searching look.

His amazement at the copper in Sandy's hair when sunlight gleamed in it like something magical never ceased. Long light, end of day and end of work. She sat alone at her dining table in the late sun. He'd made a habit of frequent checks on her ever since the accident in the carport. But they'd scarcely spoken, and he couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing.

He stepped back, ready to go.

"I wanted to ask you about something," Sandy said. She'd been out of the arm cast for a week and he'd been waiting for that tone in her voice.

"You're off duty, Oroko. I know the schedule. So there's no escape. Sit down and pour yourself some Scotch."

He obeyed, sat down at the other end of the table from her, the shining expanse of polished teak a barrier between them. After a quick glance to check the perfection of his white shirtfront, he sat with formality, straightening his glasses. Sandy stood to push a tumbler of Scotch down the table to him.

Sandy tossed down a gulp while he lifted his drink and barely sipped.

"You drink like a girl," Sandy said.

"Sorry," he said, but he let himself smile.

"You said something when you visited me in the hospital."

He waited.

"About people thinking Lindsey and I are girlfriends. I mean lovers." she took another swallow as if it were necessary but bitter medicine.

"Yes," Oroko said.

She waited. Finally she groaned in protest and shoved her big chair back from the table.

"Yes? Is that any kind of an answer?"

"Yes," he said. "I answered the question."

"Does it bother you? Does it make a difference in how well you can protect her?"

"It simply makes both of you equal in my triage," he said.

She stared at him, but he knew his still features would give nothing away.

"We're not," she said. "Not girlfriends. Not like that."

"I know," he said.

Oroko took a fine mouthful of the Scotch and let it burn down his throat. Sandy hadn't turned on the lights and the evening descending seemed to make a difference in the relative importance of things in the room. The west window gave a golden light that caught on the white surfaces of papers and the warm tones of upholstery and wood. It lined the simple curve of Sandy's cheek and throat, and the impatient hand that moved on the padded armrest of her chair. Freckles like a sprinkling of cassia.

"They say Sir Voinadagbo will have Lindsey Kinner marry him now that his wife has passed away," Oroko said.

"Do they?" she smiled.

"I do not," he said.

"Really."

"Yes," he said. "She is not a woman for men. Nor is she a woman for women. She is for herself."

"It's what makes her so good at what she does," Sandy said.

"Yes," he said, then felt himself hesitate, and to his surprise, she looked at him as though she felt the catch in him also.

"What is it?"

"But she needs her friend," he said. "So you must take care. Some say you might marry."

He extended all his senses then for her reaction and it puzzled him that he felt nothing from her. Nothing at all.

"I am not a woman for men. Nor am I a woman for women."

"The first is not true." Oroko let himself take another deep swallow.

She said nothing. She raised the bottle to pour a bit more of the Scotch and it caught the fast deepening orange of the late sun.

"I cannot have children," she said. "I'm an incomplete woman."

"I see. Some men prefer no children."

He thought of how careful he'd had to be, how he'd even avoided seeing any one prostitute more than two times lest an individual beyond his protection become his weakness.

"Not when they grow old," she said. "They promise all things, but in time, men want their immortality. Trust me."

"Not all do. Children are hostages," he said. "Trust me."

"You knew," she said.

"I have seen your files," he said. "It is my job to know as exactly as possible." He rose from his place. "But you are a woman. Thank you for the drink."

Chapter 53: Sandy.