The Taste of Fear Read Online Free PDF

concluded with uncharacteristic snappishness, “is things have gone to hell here. The people of Africa were better off under the British and the French, the Germans and the Portuguese.”
    Scarlett set down her fork and knife, convinced there was something weighing heavily on his mind, something that had nothing to do with their marriage. “If you need to get back to the office, Sal, I understand. We can postpone this safari. I’ll fly back to LA in the morning—”
    “I’m not going back to the office, and we’re not postponing anything.” He dabbed his lips with a paper napkin and stood. “Take your time eating. I’m going to stretch my legs. It’s a three-hour drive to Ngorongoro Crater.”
    Scarlett watched Sal walk down the sidewalk until he disappeared from view. She pushed her plate away from her, leaned back in her chair, and sipped her coffee thoughtfully.
    Damien Fitzgerald spotted the sign for the travel company, a red-and-yellow thing that filled the entire second-floor window of a brick building on Mikocheni Coca Cola Road. He didn’t know why someone would name a road after Coca Cola. Maybe the city’s first Coke bottling shop used to be on this street. Or maybe the guy whose job it was to name streets was drinking a Coke when he got to this one. Fitzgerald didn’t care one way or another. All that mattered was he’d finally found the office for Magic Africa Safari.
    After landing in Julius Nyerere International Airport, he’d browsed the Internet for all the safari companies in Dar es Salaam that serviced Tanzania’s northern safari circuit. There had been several dozen. The addition of the keyword “luxury” narrowed the search significantly. He wrote down the telephone numbers and addresses of the ten most expensive companies. He didn’t think Salvador Brazza would settle for anything less. It turned out he was right. He hit the money on the third outfit he called. Yes, Salvador Brazza and Scarlett Cox had booked a safari with them, the woman on the phone had said. But no, she could not provide any details. It was prohibited by management.
    Bollocks to management, Fitzgerald thought once more. What was the big deal with giving out some information? It was just an itinerary he wanted. Was it because Brazza’s wife was a celebrity? Did she receive special treatment?
    Probably. Bloody actors.
    So instead of getting the information he wanted neat and tidy over the phone, he’d been forced to drive around Dar for the past forty-five minutes, searching for the travel company. Dar was a big city with a lot of one-way streets and mindless pedestrians. Needless to say, he was no longer in a very good mood.
    He swung the rented Toyota Land Cruiser to the curb and parked behind an idling meat truck. He got out, the heat hitting him like a blast from an open oven. It was the middle of the summer below the equator. He crossed the street and entered a brick office building. The lobby was small but well-maintained with polished floor tiles, a potted plant, and an imitation leather sofa. The number between the “Up” and “Down” buttons on the bronze elevator plate read 4. He pressed “Up” and waited. The stainless steel doors had a bright annealed finish in which he could see his reflection. At sixty-one, Fitzgerald was as tall and lean as he’d been at thirty, if slightly softer around the waist. His graying hair had receded into a well-defined widow’s peak while white stubble textured his sharp jaw line. Seeing himself now, he thought he looked absurdly how someone in his line of work was supposed to look. That, of course, was because he knew what his line of work was. To a stranger on the street, he could just as easily have passed as a fit university professor, or a lawyer.
    A chime announced the cab’s arrival. He took it up to the second floor. The doors opened directly into the travel company. A long counter lined with neat piles of magazines and flyers separated the customer area