Page 11 of Risk It All
Chapter Four
Madeleine
Three weeks after our tense encounter, the wheels of the Boeing 747 leave the ground on the first phase of our flight to Nigeria. For as much work as it required to put together a trip like this, I feel it came together remarkably easily, much of it due to the man sitting next to me. I glance briefly at Max. He's looking out the window, watching as the earth shrinks below us.
He baffles me. He never once questioned me or acted annoyed at my take-charge attitude. When I told him that he needed to pack light and to be prepared to carry everything wherever he went, he didn't complain. When I told him that he shouldn't bring his cell phone or any electronic devices, he didn't argue. When he offered to charter a plane for us and I explained commercial would be best to remain incognito, all he asked was if we could fly first class. What kind of man, especially a powerful man like Max, was willing to put his life in the hands of a woman he hardly knew?
“How come you never fuss?” I ask, cringing at my choice of words that gave away my Virginia upbringing.
He turns his brilliant baby-blue eyes with a hint of amusement on me. “Fuss? What's there to fuss about?”
“You didn't have one complaint or argument about how this trip came together.”
“Why would I complain? You're the expert.”
“Most people would complain.”
He smirks. “You mean, most men. Most men like me.”
“I didn't mean—”
He waves my comment away. “I learned a long time ago that if you find quality people who can do quality work, get out of their way and let 'em do their job. I have no idea how to plan a trip like this. You do.”
He makes sense, and yet it's still odd that he put the whole thing in my hands. He didn't even need to go. He'd read all the material I sent him plus some he found on his own. He'd been three-wayed onto several of the calls I made to Nigeria. He knew more than most people about the problems of child labor and animal poaching.
“Now what?” He grins. “You have this adorable frown line when you're fretting.”
His amusement at my response to him is unwanted. “Fretting?”
“I think it's the word they use in Virginia.”
I decide to ignore his teasing. “I just don't get why you're spending all this money and taking all this time. You have the information.”
He sighs and settles back into his seat. “Reading it isn't the same. You have to see it, smell it, be in it. As good a researcher and writer as you are, you just can't capture everything. And you can't explain it in a way I'd need to understand it.”
That makes sense. As a writer, I often struggle to describe my experiences in a way that makes readers feel they're part of them as well. He'd praised my article on the foster care system, which suggests I did an adequate job in depicting the life of children in care. “Was that how it was with my foster care article?”
“It's the closest I've read so far to capturing what it's like. But it's still different living it.”
I study him for a minute, surprised that I don't see bitterness or sadness when he references his childhood. It's as if his growing up in foster care is simply a fact of life that might have been hard, but he overcame it.
“So to figure out how you can make changes to help the children, you need to see them, see the environment they're in?”
Max nods. “There are nuances and subtleties that can't be captured in the written word. I hope you're not offended. I've always been like that. It drove my teachers crazy.”
“Really?” It isn’t hard to imagine Max being the type of student that annoyed, and yet endeared, his teachers to him with his charm.
“I had to draw models, move around and do all sorts of crazy stuff to understand much of what they were teaching me. At first, they thought I was hyperactive, but finally a teacher realized I was a kinesthetic learner.”
“So, you have to move to learn?” I turn my body towards him, fascinated by his story.
“Right.”
“Well, good, because we'll be doing a lot of moving.”
“Maybe we can go over the plan again.”
I nod. The better he understands the plan and what we might encounter, the easier this trip will be. “We'll get to Frankfurt tomorrow morning and then fly to Abuja. We'll get there at about three in the afternoon, Nigeria time. We'll be met by Henri who will drive us down to an area near Nasarawa. It's about three hours.”
