Liza discovers in her late mother's suitcase an object linked to the extinct clan of leopard men, the most fearsome assassins of their era.
So begins a quest that will arouse malicious attention from the four corners of the world, and raise questio...
In the early afternoon, Kaba called to let me know that only my laptop had disappeared from my bag. He still thought I possessed the stone of Babowa, despite my refusal to admit it, so he asked me if I had anything else valuable in my bag, to make sure the object had not been stolen. I replied that everything of value was on my computer and no one could open it without a password. He seemed convinced by my explanations and told me not to worry, because he would find it.
An hour later, he called again to inform me that my computer had been found in Chief Kalao of Bena-Tshitolo's house.
"How is that possible?" I asked him.
"Unbelievable, right?" he replied. "He wanted to keep a souvenir of our visit, obviously. Currently located in my trunk, coming back to Bakunga."
"The computer or the chief?" I asked, worried.
"Your computer is in your bag, on the back seat."
"Kaba, you're talking about six hours of travel on bad roads," I exclaimed.
"Don't mock the condition of my rear suspension, cousin. See you in a few hours!"
This whole trip was turning out to be the opposite of what I'd imagined. I realized that I was no further along in my quest for the truth about the object and the Shamas than I was before going to Babowa. I had seen no text, no symbol, no evidence of the Shamas' existence. I had only been treated to tales and legends that seemed far-fetched to me. The object was very real and still just as mysterious, and now it was forbidden to talk about it here, the only place where I could get answers. Mutis noticed my disappointment but did his best to avoid the subject, thinking that the incident with the guards had traumatized me somewhat. Of course, he was completely unaware of the real reason for my visit. After dinner, he suggested that I take a tour of the city the next day with his daughters. An invitation I couldn't decline.
I was already in bed when I heard Kaba come back. Exhausted, I figured the reunion with my backpack could wait until the next morning, and so, I went back to sleep. When I woke up, Mbombo, one of Mutis's daughters, informed me of the prevailing tensions in the city that morning, due to an uprising by the police and the military, who had not been paid for several months. She explained to me how difficult it would be to do the tour of the city we'd agreed upon the day before, and that even access to the airport the following weekend, for my return to the capital, was becoming questionable.
"The city's police officers don't seem that destitute. Hard to imagine they've been unpaid for so long," I remarked.
"They have several sources of income. It's normal," she explained.
"What other sources of income do they have, for example?" I asked.
"They're paid regularly to turn a blind eye to violations of the law. You know how it works," she told me.
"Will they refuse to turn a blind eye if they finally receive a decent, steady salary?"
"Hard to say. People always want more, right? There are some policemen who are always well paid. But are they doing their job properly? Certainly not," she explained to me.
"Did the bad pay precede the bad work, or is it the other way around? That would indicate whether one could be the cause of the other," I argued.
"I really don't know. I just hope this discontent passes quickly. The city is completely paralyzed," she said, cutting the discussion short.
It was natural to think that the officers who were protesting all over the city that day were just demanding what was rightfully theirs. Unfortunately, the reality was quite different, and these same policemen did not feel at all obliged to fulfill their duties. My observation was that this problem affected most trades in the country, and there were fewer and fewer exceptions to the rule as the years went by.
I had not seen Kaba that morning. I asked if anyone had seen him and was told that he had left very early. It was around eight o'clock in the morning when he came back to the house and returned my bag to me.
"Hi, cousin! Check that everything is there!" he said, handing me my backpack.
"There wasn't much, in any event... Yes, it looks like everything is here."
"Liza, you can show me the stone, if you have it. You know you can trust me. Besides, it could be fake," he told me.
"Assume it's fake, in that case," I replied.
"I just want to see it, Liza. Why don't you trust me?"
"Because you don't trust me, either, when I tell you that I don't have any stone of Babowa. On the other hand, I would have liked it if the wise Odia of Bena-Tshitolo had revealed to me everything she knows about the mysterious object I described to her," I explained to him.
"Right now, her chief is rotting in a jail cell because of us. She'll never agree to talk to us again," he told me.
"What if we approached her differently? It's important to me to know more about the object."
"You came here with the goal of discovering the history of that stone, didn't you?" he asked me, sure of himself.
"Have you ever seen a stone of Babowa?"
"No, but whoever sees one knows it is one," he retorted.
"Why is it a taboo subject around here?"
"It's for political reasons... Don't try to find out more, believe me."
His phone then began to ring. It was one of Colonel Frank's men, who seemed to be alerting Kaba that people were plotting against him. The man claimed that Chief Kalao had contacted the governor, accusing Kaba and Colonel Frank's guard of complicity with the rebels.
As unlikely as it seemed, Kaba, who "controlled everything" in his city, knew this was something to take seriously. Colonel Frank Monama, an officer in the National Army, was one of the most famous men in Bakunga. His son and Kaba were childhood friends, and the day before, members of his security detail were the ones who had accompanied Kaba to Babowa. Except, the governor had never looked kindly upon the colonel's popularity, and it was known that despite appearances, the two men hated each other bitterly. In seeking the governor's attention, Chief Kalao had evidently decided that the war between him and Kaba had only just begun. What was more, he was offering the governor a way to put an end to the colonel once and for all. The friendship between his father and the governor, if indeed it was real, was the card Kaba had to play.
The alleged collusion between Kaba and the rebels operating in the region was totally imaginary and absolutely could not be proven; everybody knew that. The existence of ties between Colonel Frank and these same rebels was equally implausible. However,the testimony of the chief of a village located near a conflict zone, denouncing the complicity between a high-ranking member of the National Army and rebel groups, was a bomb capable of causing heavy casualties in this region of the world, where all means were justified to achieve one's ends. Anyone who could use this news to their advantage would do so, starting with the governor. The media, both local and international, would revel in it. Indignation would rain down on all sides. The threat hanging over the colonel was quite real. It weighed just as much on Kaba and, of course, his father. They had to act very quickly.
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