After four hours of rutted dirt, military roadblocks, and fetid mud bogs, the landscape around Dan Ordman had completely transformed. The jagged, grass-covered hills that made up his world had been replaced by dense jungle rolling into a reddening horizon. Although he’d lived in Africa for almost a year, this was the first time he’d seen the rain forest, smelled the damp rot, listened to the birds and monkeys just out of sight. There was something about it that made him nervous. Probably just the fact that, until now, he’d never been more than twenty miles from the comfortable expatriate community that he’d wrapped himself in. Or maybe it was something more primordial.

“It’s going to get dark on us.”

Gideon maneuvered the Land Cruiser around a tree that had sprung up in the middle of the road and glanced at Dan. Or more precisely, he aimed his mirrored sunglasses briefly in Dan’s direction. Gideon didn’t interact with people in the accepted sense of the word. It was always strangely one-sided—what he wanted you to know, what he was willing to do for you, what he had time for. What he cared about.

The first time they’d met, Dan had decided the African looked more like a sculpture by an amateur artist than the product of God or evolution—a little too tall, muscles a little too well-defined, and a slack face with blank eyes. Not the friendly, capable right-hand man Dan had envisioned from his parents’ sprawling oceanfront estate. But he’d come here to learn, and his first lesson had been that reality rarely lived up to fantasy. Life was about figuring out how to bridge that gap.

“It’s not far,” Gideon repeated for probably the tenth time. “And it’s cooler at night.” There was a stirring behind them, and Dan twisted around to look at the four kids crammed into the vehicle’s backseat. The youngest was probably twelve, and his haphazardly nourished frame was dwarfed by the Russian machine gun clutched between his knees. They were all dressed about the same: dirty jeans topped by ragged T-shirts silk-screened with the otherworldly images favored by the local teens. Cartoon characters frolicked, distant sports teams competed, British bands crooned. One had the slogan “I wish these were brains” configured in a way that suggested the shirt had been designed for a well-endowed woman.

Dan settled back in his seat, feeling a dull rush of adrenaline when the sun hit the horizon. Evil spirits came out at night. At least that was what he’d been told, and he had no reason to dispute the idea. Africa changed after sunset. Its normal chaos and dysfunction turned dangerous, malevolent. Wasn’t Africa where humans had first developed their fear of the dark?

Gideon jerked the wheel to the right and slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop in a maneuver typical in this part of the world. Behind the wheel of a car, Africans acted as though everything was a desperate emergency. Out from behind the wheel, they acted as though nothing was.

“What? Don’t tell me this is it?” Dan said.