By Dr. Joseph Wanshe
Lester and Justin were cautiously on the heels of the Mercedes Benz Vintage in which the three bearded kidnappers were using as their means of escape. It was about ten-thirty when a sign started flashing on and off on the computer screen on the dashboard indicating that they had a tail. “You are followed,” a female computerized voice said as they all looked at the screen.
Lester quickly looked into the rear-view mirror and saw a Peugeot 504 with the police color of navy blue just pulling out of sight by reducing its speed. He snapped the car with his camera mind though he knew that its picture would be stored in the memory of the computer.
“It’s that police car again,” Lester said. “The one that was parked in front of Carl’s house.”
“Why is he interested in us?” Justin asked.
“Can’t tell,” Lester said. “Can we throw him off?”
“That may mean losing our own prey if we don’t have the Mercedes Benz in front of us on satellite surveillance.”
“We should have done that earlier.”
“I don’t think the policeman is interested in interrupting our mission or else he would have tried to stop us earlier within the past ninety minutes. What I think is that he wants to observe us or wants us to lead him to our destination.”
“Those guys are taking too long to let off the twins as they promised,” Lester observed. “They are well out of Abuja.”
“They know we are on their tracks even as we have kept out of their view, but just enough to let them know we are after them.” Justin said. “They can’t claim that we are following them so they don’t have a reason to hurt the girls.”
“I don’t trust them to let to girls go free,” Lester said. “We’ve entered Nasarawa State and would soon be encountering its major cities.”
“How far have we gone into Nasarawa?” Justin asked.
Lester got the keyboard out. Within a few seconds he got the map of Nigeria on the computer screen.
“We are somewhere around here,” Lester said, touching the red strip that indicated a road in the northeastern corner of the map. “We have passed Karu and Keffi Local Government Areas and are entering Akwanga. “Guess it’s about time we pounced on them.”
“Let’s hear what they are saying,” Justin suggested
Lester took the map off the screen and it was replaced by inscriptions they could not understand. The voices of the men in the car ahead reached them through the speakers of the car.
“They are speaking Arabic,” Justin said.
“Yea. I understand it too little to be able to interpret what they are saying.”
“I wish I chose the language among the ones I was to study at the beginning of my studies as an agent.”
“The system can attempt an interpretation. I’ll direct what they have said into the transliteration program.” He tapped buttons on the keyboard and the voices they were hearing stopped as the Arabic writing on the screen converted into Roman alphabets. A box in the top right comer of the screen served as a lie detector with a one-percent error margin.
“Let’s wait for them to talk some more,” Lester suggested.
“Do we e-mail the scanned copy of the document to Ambassador Quentin?”
“We should rather send it ourselves to the CIA headquarters. That will make things much faster. There is no time for playing politics over the issue.”
“All right then. Send it.”
Lester tapped the keys. “It’s done,” he said. “The Director of CIA will get it directly.”
“We won’t allow these guys to take those girls beyond the capital of Nasarawa State, Lafia. Lafia is the most populated part of the State and the traffic there is usually congested. I don’t think they will harm the girls in the eyes of the onlookers when we attack because they’ll know that a quick getaway may not be easy.”
“Don’t forget you’re dealing with suicidal fanatics,” Justin reminded his friend.
Lester agreed. “But Lafia is still the best place to make our move.”
2
As they approached Lafia, they could observe that the tempo of activities on both sides of the road were fast-changing. People were gathering in small groups at street corners. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry. Women were leading their wards back into the houses that were mostly fenced all round. The atmosphere was tense.
“Something is wrong,” Lester Milawski observed.
“What do you think? Justin Friend asked.
“It looks like an imminent riot.”
Lester activated the radio of the car, using the keyboard. There should be something on the crises on the news if they are current enough.”
There was a stream of martial music and Lester and Justin waited for a voice to come on air. They looked out at the environment around them; whatever the situation was, it was getting more dangerous. The crowds were getting larger and armed with dangerous weapons: Swords, hammers, daggers, bows and arrows, spears, and Dane guns. This people must have prepared for this day.
The voice of a female news broadcaster finally came on the radio:
“Throngs of rioters were seen on the streets of Bauchi State protesting the removal of Senate President Imeson Sule from office. The rioters claim that due process had not been followed and there were undertones of personal vendetta generated by Western nations who wanted to push power in the country away from the North. There are also reports that the riot has spread to other States in Northern Nigeria and in the Middle Belt region.”
“It’s political,” Lester commented.
“If the protesters are really rabid, it could be dangerous for us,” Justin said.
“And an advantageous situation for those kidnappers.”
“We won’t let that happen,” Justin said.
“I think I better send a report to our headquarters on developments.”
Lester cut out the radio and began to type. Justin Friend drove the car, watching the mobs by the roadsides. The cars in front of him were slowing down and it seemed there was going to be a traffic jam. He looked far ahead and saw the Mercedes Benz Vintage with the kidnappers and the twins. He foresaw that if he did not move in closer, he would lose them, but there was no way to get ahead faster.
There was a roadblock ahead, Justin noticed. He strained his eyes to see what was happening. The occupants of the vehicles ahead were closely scrutinized and some interviewed before they were allowed to pass through. Some of the passengers were removed by the violent crowd and taken away amidst crude weapons welded above their heads.
The Mercedes Benz Vintage was the next car on the line at the roadblock and there were three cars in between it and the jeep. A man with a blood-laced sword was shouting above the din to the driver of the Vintage. The driver of the Benz spoke in Hausa language to armed man. If the kidnappers who were foreigners could understand Hausa, it meant they had been in northern Nigeria for a long time.
After the brief interview, the Benz was allowed to cross the barricade. The cars in front of the jeep moved forward. Justin was growing impatient with the hold up. The kidnappers were allowed to drive through and would have a distance advantage away.
One more car was allowed to cross the barrier as Lester and Justin moved closer. Now there were only two vehicles between the jeep and roadblock. Lester had finished typing and sending the report. He was watching could tell that those who were not allowed to go ahead were beaten mercilessly and bloodily right there on the scene before being taken away. The sedan car moved forward to the armed interviewers.
The driver of the sedan was questioned angrily and the interrogation did not last long since he couldn’t understand the language. He was roughly dragged out and the suit he wore was dirty and ragged before he was two yards away from his car.
“Please let me go,” the man pleaded. “I am from this State. I am an indigene of Nasarawa.”
His pleas provoked greater vengefulness from rioters, so much that one of them rushed forward at the pleading man and struck him across the nape with a hammer. Blood streamed down form the man’s head onto his clothes. He slumped to the ground as his assailants got wild at the sight of blood.
The sedan was driven off the road to the nearby place where a few other cars had been upturned and were covered by a large flame leaping avariciously at the sky. The body of the dead man was dragged.
“They will not let us get through,” Justin said.
“We won’t give them a chance.”
“We’ll fight not only for ourselves, but for the sake of those girls taken away. A lot is at stake.”
The next car before the jeep was allowed to penetrate the barricade without much interviewing of the occupants. Soon Lester and Justin found themselves face to face with the judges whose looks alone were a death sentence; even before they faced the summary judgment.
Lester and Justin were Americans; there car’s number plate and the clothes they wore suggested. The moment any of them attempted answering the interviewers, the first word they pronounced would give away their accents.
Even the excited crowd around knew Lester and Justin were sure prey and they jubilated. “Sanu da zuwa, Welcome,” they mocked.
There was no way to turn back, Justin he could tell when he looked into the rear-view mirror. There were other cars behind and reversing the jeep was impossible. Whatever happened here, he did not intend to die. Lester glanced into the mirror, too, and observed that the car that had been following them was missing. The policeman must have been smart to turn back at the right time to clear his life from peril, but he and Justin were on a mission they were not even about to flinch from.
Suddenly, the doors of the jeep were jerked open and hundreds of hands were thrust in, grabbing and groping as metal objects were used on the body of the car.
3
Hamad Zahir, the leader of the group had answered the questions of the interrogators at the roadblock with a quick tongue. The questions were asked in Hausa. The questioners knew they were foreigners and wanted to know which country they were from. Hamad who was at the steering wheel and all the people he was driving. Hamad assured them that everyone in the car was from the Middle East, including the twins who had been given improvised pieces of clothes to cover their heads. A few words in Arabic and the rioters were persuaded to allow him and his group through.
He had looked behind him and had seen that the Americans in the jeep were near. Their jeep was surely not going to be allowed to get through. Once on the other side, he and his friends would be free from danger and would decide what to do with the girls
“Those men will have a hard time getting through that crowd,” Hamad said in the Arabic with glee and his colleagues responded with laughter.
“They should be roasting in the flames of their car by now,” Shadi said.
“As if those angry men knew we were in danger, they just put up the road block at the right time,” Tohad marveled.
“God is not with your men, girls,” Shadi said in English to the two girls who were at the back with him. “We’ll be ripping your bodies open soon.”
The car had just passed Lafia. Hamad and his group noticed that the tight security on the road. The police, in anticipation that the crises between Akwanga and Lafia would ignite more disorder, were out on the roads to maintain law. They were looking into cars in search of weapons.
Patricia and Pamela noticed that they were now entering a relatively more peaceful part of the State were most people dressed in western clothes. At first they were both nursing fantasies of escape or rescue by the policemen at the checkpoints, but the way Hamad and his group had skillfully passed through a few of them without arousing the suspicion of the policemen made the girls less hopeful. Shadi Barsh who sat in the back seat with them had repeatedly warned them that they would die faster than they could imagine if they tried to raise alarm anywhere.
The twins knew of their father’s attempt to save them. They had noticed Hamad’s men looking constantly behind the car, conscious of being followed. Their captors had jubilated after they had crossed the rioting crowd; that meant that Hamad’s group hoped that the rescue team had been trapped and most likely killed. Patricia and Pamela had never been more afraid in their lives.
“We still have a long journey ahead of us,” Hamad informed his group. “The more we go southward, the more we will be entering domains where our caftans and beards will make us outlandish.”
“We’ll also be encountering Benue State,” Tohad Loftian said from the front seat. “That is one States in which the Tiv people are dominant.”
“I know something about the Tiv,” Shadi, the Palestinian said. “They are a warlike race.”
“The British colonialists met tough resistance in the region,” Loftian said. “But now it seems they are in love with the Western world.”
“So don’t you think we should avoid Tiv territory by diverting to Obi Local Government Area where we can find our way to the neighboring Taraba State?” Hamad asked.
“We are already in part of Tivland here in Nasarawa and we’ll encounter more of it in Taraba, but I guess we’ll look less strange in there than in Benue.”
At a roundabout with abundant sellers of small items but few buyers, Hamad chose the road heading northeast from Lafia to Obi Local Government Area as he drove at a higher speed.
“Don’t worry girls,” Loftian turned and said in English to the girls in the back seat, “if you haven’t had a proper breakfast this morning, we’ll get you something to eat soon.” He caught the menacing expression on Shadi’s face and turned back on time to see Hamad frowning too. He doggedly added: “Don’t be too happy, because it may be your own ears you’ll be eating. He meant to sound wicked, but his voice was unconvincing.
Patricia had earlier thought of Loftian as their hope of escape from the hands of the extremists. He was soft hearted, she had noticed back at home when Shadi had given her a blow across the face. Loftian had winced at the sight of her blood and, a little later, had a sorry mien. Wherever he was from, he did not belong with the other two – Hamad and Shadi; he was different.
4
Tohad Loftian really had a different nature and background. He was twenty-seven, born in Abadan, in Iran, near Iraq. His mother had been divorced when he was eight years old. At his tender age his father had confidently decided that he was not his biological son.
His divorced mother had taken him and moved to Gorgan in northern Iran to begin a new life, away from the disgrace. His mother assured him that the man who had sent her away with him was actually his father by blood. Loftian did not grow up with hate toward his father; he felt nothing toward him. As a cool and calm youngster, he never had a strong desire for vengeance toward those who hurt him.
He wished men would attain a higher degree of understanding among themselves for the sake of world peace.
Life for Loftian and his mother was hard. They lived in poverty and lack. Loftian had not been able to school properly and some days he woke up too hungry to go to class. He was absent from school most of the time and as a result performed badly. His starvation told on his grades and his physical weight and his mates gave him an Arabic nickname, Fakhir, which meant “weakling”.
His mother became sick when he was nineteen and conditions for both of them got worse. Loftian had to leave school. He started doing odd jobs and earned just enough to feed his mother and himself. He could not tell what was wrong with his mother neither could the doctor he called to the house diagnose exactly what was the cause of the ailment. The doctor prescribed drugs, which he acquired. He helped his mother take her medicine and eat her food every morning before he went out to work, every afternoon when he came for break to see her condition and in the evening when he returned from his struggles.
It took only months for his mother to give up the ghost. Loftian was left alone in the world. He financed the burial if his mother in the best way his money allowed with no help from the few relatives who turned up.
He worked for the rich of the society and learnt that his value in society was low. He was one of those in the street, the pawns who existed only to ensure the survival and success of others who lived like gods. But this realization did not generate any ill feelings in the young man all the while he labored for the rich.
When he was twenty-one, he had the opportunity of working for a jewel merchant. When he was not traveling across the Persian Gulf to Saudi Arabia or to North Africa, he was in major shops in Iran selling jewels and ornaments. The jeweler who employed paid his workers well and Loftian was grateful to the wealthy man who had introduced him to the Merchant known as Sheikh Ibrahim.
Sheikh had a lot of foreign contacts and the rumors were that he was often involved in arms traffic and that his ships sometimes carried contraband against the laws of Iran. He controlled a secret Mafia.
Tohad Loftian gained weight due to his improved income. On a certain day, knowing that his boss was around, he was energetically loading a truck with long wooden packs that nobody but Sheikh and a few others knew what they contained. He was one of the many who were carrying the packs that were brought to the coast by speedboats that moving back and forth between the coast and a ship that was far away at sea.
He noticed Sheikh Ibrahim and his bodyguards walking toward him. To his surprise, they stopped near him. After a careful look at him, Sheikh said, “See me at my Villa in two hours.”
Loftian was shaken. He dared not search the dark glasses on the wooden face. As soon as he was through with the drudgery he had quickly taken his bath and rushed to Sheikh Ibrahim’s Villa. At the gate it had taken him a hard time to get in as if the Sheikh himself had invited him come. He waited for an hour before a security man finally led him in to Sheikh Ibrahim. After he had spent some more time in the waiting room he was at last taken in by one of Sheikh’s houris. The women had almost the same characteristics; they were all tall and slender, with very beautiful faces and did not use any kind of shawl. This was Sheikh Ibrahim’s paradise.
With a wave of the hand Sheikh disposed of all those who were present in the large, overly ornamented drawing room except one of his bodyguards who stood in a corner in a black jacket and a concubine who relentlessly teased Sheikh by the ears and beards. The boss was in a very pleasant mood as he sat on a couch in a light blue smock.
“Sit down,” Sheikh said absent-mindedly, his gruff voice.
Loftian obeyed and sat on the edge of a single foaming chair as if he was going to jump at the slightest sound. At the age of twenty-six he was still not used to the sight of women dressed provocatively like the woman who was playing with Sheikh’s features. The diaphanous gown she wore showed that she was completely naked beneath without a bra or a pair of underpants. And the ambience of a well furnished room was intimidating.
“I hope you don’t imagine that those you see working for me are all untrained?” It was a question and Tohad Loftian was puzzled. He had worked for Sheikh Ibrahim for five years.
“I want you to join a secret organization that would give you all the training you need,” Sheikh said. “You have to think about it properly before you decide. And if you decide against it, you will have to give up working for me.”
Loftian’s got the idea that after the training he would go on working for Sheikh like before and that it would only mean that he had become a sort of registered or certified member
“And mind you,” Sheikh said in addition, “the training would also mean an increase in your pay. It’s your choice to make.” He turned his attention to the whore by his side. He fumbled with the pneumatic round breasts under her pink fabric and kissed her wetly.
It did not take Tohad Loftian long to make up his mind.
“I want to be trained,” he agreed, his voice croaked with the tension in his muscles.
Sheikh had gone on flirting with the concubine as if he had not heard him. He laughed degenerately as the women’s trunk came over his body. Loftian felt very uncomfortable when the flimsy dress slipped upward and the houri’s large and round buttocks were laid bare. He had never been that close to the nude body of a grown woman. His breath quickened at the prolonged sight before him.
Sheikh turned the woman on his lap so that she sat on his thighs facing Loftian directly. He rolled up her dress and her black pubic hair was exposed. Sheikh’s hand played over the woman’s full and curvy body and found its way to her crotch where his fingers disappeared. At first the woman reacted lasciviously, producing sexual moans, her lips pouted, but she suddenly screamed in pain and ungracefully wriggled away from Sheikh who laughed wickedly.
“Very well,” Sheikh turned to Loftian. “As you have agreed you have to be also prepared for it is no child’s play and it is not a day’s affair. You will spend sometime at a camp at a location, which will not be disclosed to you until you get there. In exactly five days from now.”
Sheikh pulled the woman back to his body and for a moment Loftian thought it was over.
Sheikh added, speaking with deliberate slowness: “Do not go back on your word here this afternoon for it will not be fair to you if you did.”
Tohad Loftian kept his decision.
The training took place at a camp was located on the outskirts of Ahwar, in the southern part of Yemen. There he met a few other trainees from different countries; to his surprise one of them was an American.
During his one month stay at the camp he had expected so much but all they got was orientation on why the secret organization was anti-America. Most of the reasons were based on morality and international policy. The after the first week they were thought intelligence gathering, the use of arms and explosives. They could send email with coded language and avoid use of words that indicated violence.
He learnt that he did not have to go back to work for his boss anymore. After the training, he was detailed to Nigeria. He had a false passport to take him there. He was told that upon arrival in Nigeria, a man by the secret name Akin Bakir would welcome him. That man’s actual name, he later discovered was Hamid Zahir.
He left Yemen with a resolution to return to Iran some day. It was the place where memories of his mother would always be fresh. He had been very close to her until her death. He had shared her pain and sorrow. He now compassionately saw his mother in every woman and his father in every man.
5
It was the same compassion that Tohad Loftian was feeling for Pamela and Patricia. He wished he could rescue them, but he dared not even imagine this hanker of his clearly, for if his friends knew about it, he was automatically a dead man.
There were fewer policemen on the road now as they drove towards Awe, near on the boundary between Nasarawa and Taraba States. The road was once again lonely and there were trees on both sides.
“There is a river ahead – River Benue,” Hamad informed his friends. “When we cross it, know that we are in Taraba and only a few hours to the Cameroonian camp.”
6
The suite in White Stars Hotel was exquisitely furnished with a large luxurious bed and a circle of foamy chairs. Carl sat with Barbara in his arms on the sofa that made up part of the circle of chairs. It was about twelve-thirty and they were watching a live coverage of the crisis around the country on the television set. The pictures were nothing but a study in destruction.
“In Bauchi State hundreds of youths were seen on the street causing as much damage as they could to property. Some government parastatals were also attacked. The riot has left at least two hundred people dead. The State has a long record of political crises, but the magnitude of damage this time…”
“I went around the hotel and made inquiries from people who were just coming back from town,” Carl said. “They say the riots have not affected the capital and there are policemen everywhere to check any further development.”
Barbara was silent. Her eyes had gone red from weeping, her hair was completely disheveled, her mind distant with fear.
“I want my daughters back. I want Pat and Pam back,” she cried hysterically.
“It’s not our fault and I have done what I think best to save them. Justin and Lester will do something. Ambassador Owen assured me they are good and well-experienced in this sort of thing. Let’s wait and see. Let’s have faith.”
Barbara was not such a fragile woman but was very sensitive to whatever happened to Patricia and Pamela.
“I think it is better you have some sleep,” Carl suggested.
He gently lifted her in his arms and took her to bed.
“I’ll stay awake and wait for the call which might came from Owen, Justin or Lester,” he said as he returned to the sofa.
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