Where All Paths Lead

Chapter 1

"The UN has approved the Europe-based mining conglomerate's request for international arbitration and they are seeking legal action against the DRC," Dr. Aguiyi said around the half-smoked cigar tucked into his mouth. He lit the cigar, taking a drag off its mysterious and pungent blend in pensive slowness, then let the smoke billow out onto the cloud of his wooly beard as he remarked, "I don't know who the hell they're seeking legal action against since we slaughtered the entire cabinet, but it's cute that they think their laws will still extend to Zaïre when the dust settles."

"Mm-hmm..." Leif mumbled, his attention fixed more to the drawing he was attempting in the margins of the novel he'd been slowly reading.

As interesting as he was sure the book was to some, he had never developed a taste for fiction and had found this distraction insufficient. He had also never developed a talent for recreating living creatures in pencil as his daughter had, abandoning the shoddy depiction of a rabbit that more resembled a long-eared pup to return to his strength in assembling complex geometric perspectives. In his opinion, The Brothers Karamazov was improved with his added illustrations of nineteenth century Russian monasteries, but that wasn't saying much.

He only drew to hear the familiar and comforting sound of graphite scraping against paper; the daily background noise of what used to be his small and private life. If he listened to it long enough, he could feel as though his Simone was sitting in the same room, sketching away in the mutual enjoyment of each other's company.

"Hey, you okay, Old Scratch?" Francis asked, tapping his stack of reports across his desk to where Leif sat engrossed in shading the onion-shaped domes.

"Peachy," he muttered, mimicking his daughter's stock sarcasm to that inane question.

"You want to drop acid and watch the boys brawl in the yard?" the doctor offered.

"Not tonight, Frank."

Silence stretched on, but Leif could not recapture that elusive illusion with how Francis watched him, the imposition of his gaze too loud above the scape of the pencil. Zaïre, Venezuela, Cameroon, Haiti, he was far too uninterested to be stretched so far over the world when all that he wanted could fit so perfectly in his arms.

"We're going to find her," Francis assured him.

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

His pencil stopped its rapid scraping, letting the silence descend over them in the thick tension that followed before he explained, "Do not extend my daughter on some magical idea of confidence and theory. I cannot sustain myself on the idea of her alone; I must have her in reality, in this life that I am living right now, but I don't have her, do I? She is not here, so I must confront the concept of being without her as a question of how. How am I going to live this life where she is not? I don't have an answer to that, Frank, and I don't appreciate you trying to answer that for me. You want me to continue passing my time here accomplishing your goals, then tell me to work, but don't tell me to wait and hope. Don't try to comfort me with words; I have no use for them."

Francis removed his dusty bowler and ran his thick hand over the mandala tattoo, sighing in that weary way the elderly could summarize their exasperation with life itself. "What do you want me to do, Leif? If the men see you this depressed, they're going to lose morale and you know this entire thing is held together by the confidence they have in you. Not to mention that I hate seeing you so god-damned sad. Shit. I promised Bjørn I'd look out for you. So, what the hell can I do?"

"You're already doing what you can," Leif answered, the hard edge gone from his tone as he continued shading. "You're not a fairy godmother and I'm only asking that you don't try to be one."