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gazed across the water at the torches flickering on the oil platform and then, shaking his head, turned away to walk home.
    With Bobby and Marissa at their head, the people of Goro gathered where the road began, many with cigarette lighters held aloft. As the march commenced, the villagers began singing their anthem: “Be proud, Asari people, be proud.”
    A few feet ahead, Marissa spoke to Bobby beneath the chorus. “Women blocking roads, men seizing the platform. Did your council approve?”
    “Is it dangerous, you mean?”
    His voice held a hint of challenge. “I already know that,” Marissa answered calmly. “So do the others.”
    “Do you doubt me?”
    “Only when I should. What did Atiku say?”
    Bobby did not look at her. “Atiku is rallying support in England,” he answered in a weary voice. “Our young need more than words from us, or more will drift away.”
    Through her misgivings, Marissa sensed that he had made this decision in the face of resistance from his lieutenants and found it painful to consider how this might end. Taking his hand, she asked, “Is today all you had hoped for?”
    Bobby summoned a small smile. “Do you see their eagerness, the joy on their faces? For a day they are free of docility and fear.” He paused, then finished softly, “Were I to die right now, Marissa, I would die a happy man.”
    His faintly autumnal tone reminded Marissa of the gray flecks she had begun to notice in his hair, the deepening grooves in his face that betrayed that he was not only older than she, but suffering from an exhaustion he tried to conceal from the others. She grasped his hand more tightly.
    For a mile they walked at the head of the Asari along a dirt road forged by PGL repair crews between mangroves and palm trees, the orange glow of flaring gas lighting their path. Then Bobby stopped abruptly.
    Marissa followed his gaze. At a fork in the road ahead, three silhouettes hung from the thick branches of a tree, specters in the devil’s light.
    Turning, Bobby held up his hand. The marchers fell quiet, save for cries of shock from those who saw what Bobby saw. “Wait here,” Bobby told Marissa.
    But she did not. Together, they moved toward the tree, stopping only when the three shadows became corpses. As Bobby held up his cigarette lighter Marissa saw that strangulation had contorted their faces and suffused their eyes with blood. All were Luandian; all wore denim shirts bearing the letters PGL.
    Her stomach constricting, Marissa turned to Bobby. Tears shone in his eyes. “Now what will happen to us?” he murmured.
    A stirring in the grove of palms behind the corpses made Marissa flinch. The figure of a large man emerged, followed by three others. As the men stepped into the light, Marissa recognized the familiar uniform of Luandian soldiers and saw their leader’s face.
    Instantly she felt herself recoil: though she knew him only by the patch over his right eye, by reputation Colonel Paul Okimbo was a mass murderer,a rapist, and, the survivors of Lana whispered, insane. Okimbo wore the eye patch, it was said, to conceal a walleye and, bizarrely, to evoke the Israeli general Moshe Dayan. Stopping beside the hanging bodies, he trained his remaining eye on Bobby, then Marissa, letting his gaze linger.
    Facing Bobby, he said, “This is your work, Bobby Okari.”
    “No,” Bobby answered. “Not mine, and not ours.”
    Okimbo emitted a bark of laughter. “So you say. But soon you will face the justice of Savior Karama.”
    Marissa watched Bobby exert the full force of his will to meet Okimbo’s stare. A spurt of anger broke the colonel’s impassivity. “Unless the Asari withdraw at once,” he snapped, “there will be consequences. Some will die.”
    Feeling the dampness on her forehead, Marissa saw the sheen of sweat on Bobby’s face. With palpable reluctance, he answered, “As you say. But this will not end here.”
    “Of that you can rest assured,” Okimbo responded with the flicker