By Dr. Joseph Wanshe
“Yes, we’ve right from the start understood that saving the girls is the priority and not the adventure of raiding,” Lester said on his handset
“Satellite surveillance will resume,” came the voice of U.S. President, “but transmission will be delayed for as much as five minutes. Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I guess you are ready to move into the place now.”
“Yes. We are about to begin.”
“The best.”
“Thanks.”
Lester returned the palmtop to its position on his belt. They both did last minute inspection on their weapons as they stood at the mountaintop, watching through their night-vision goggles, making last minute observations of the camp at the bottom of the surrounding mountains.
They had just taken the last of the food they had and were now hoping to get their next meal from the camp. During the day, they had climbed to the top of a tree with thick foliage to sleep. The bug they had installed in the spine of the Arabic secret book that was now at the camp had yielded little information as they had listened to the voices of the men from the camp and read the interpretation of the words the computer in the jeep far away was sending to their palmtops. They learnt there were two main leaders at the camp.
“Every interesting story should have a second part,” Justin said.
“And those following it up will jump at the second part when it’s made available,” Lester said.
“The world is been waiting for he second part because the bad guys did not face nemesis in the first part. CNN really will give them the second part.”
“Let’s find out if the story extends further than this part,” Justin said as they both began to descend the mountain.
2
They had not gone far down the slop when they came in contact with the first man, one of the guards that were on the lookout. He was sitting in the darkness, his back against a big stone, facing up the mountaintop. He was surreptitiously smoking what smelt like hashish.
The man could not see Justin and Lester who were about fifteen yards away in the darkness.
“It’s one of them,” Lester whispered on the microphone of his headset.
“Yeah,” Justin whispered back, ten yards away from Lester.
Lester removed a knife from the pocket of his jeans trousers and, pointing it at the man, pulled back a switch on the side of the hilt. The blade flew into the night without a sound.
Justin saw the glow of the hand-made cigar, which the man had been smoking, fall as the man’s head fell back in a sleeping fashion against the rock behind him.
They walked the short distance to the dead man. After a brief observation, they were sure there was no one else around.
“I hope he is not too thin for me to use his uniform,” Lester said as he undressed the man.
With his T-shirt and jeans trousers still on him, it took Lester less than three minutes to get into the dead man’s uniform and transfer his equipment.
They began to descend again and for a while the mountainside seemed devoid of any life. They passed stunted vegetation and boulders, moving as quietly as they could. Somewhere near the button of the mountain they started hearing the faint voices of a group. They moved closer and could make out the five men seated on stones around a fire.
As if telepathic communication had taken place between them, Justin and Lester got heir silenced pistols out.
After the first two were shot dead, only the one left had immediately understood that something was wrong. He grabbed the riffle by his side, but a bullet made him drop it as soon as he held it.
It was Justin’s turn to don the uniform of one of the militants. He went to the dead men and selecting one as heavyset as himself and quickly freed the man of his uniform. The problem with the shirt he got from the dead man was that there was a spot of blood at the front where the bullet had penetrated into the man’s chest. He heaved the backpack unto his back and positioned the straps to pass over the red mark of blood on the shirt, completely hiding it from sight.
The next place they would encounter men was at the gate of the camp. To get there they had to descend the rest of the mountain and cross the floodlit level ground where they would be seen long before they got to the gate.
“Only three things are going to set us out as strangers,” Justin said. “Our arms, the backpacks and the goggles.”
“They won’t just start shooting even if they suspect us as we get closer,” Lester said. “They are not on alert and if we walk directly facing the gate they may not be sure we are carrying backpacks until we got to the gate.”
“We have to walk casually. If we move too fast, a suspicious person could be scared into taking swift action. And the guns we have to put them across our shoulders so that only the butts will be showing as we move there.”
Lester nodded as they both pulled off their night-vision goggles and handsets and stowed them away in the breast pockets of their shirts. They started on their way down the rest of the mountainside, heading for the gate.
They got to the leveled ground and started walking the expanse of powdery soil, rutted by the wheels of heavy vehicles and the boots of the soldiers. The gate was about twenty yards away from the mountain they had descended and made of criss-crossed metal bars. It was situated between two rocks that made it impossible to see the rest of the camp as they had seen it from the top of the mountain.
“Our disguise is no use,” Justin whispered. “The men at the gate are looking curiously at us.”
“They’ll wait to satisfy their curiosity until we get to them and put them out of business,” Lester replied in a low tone.
There were five men in light brown uniform on the inside of the gate. Two were sitting down and seemed less concerned about the approaching men, while the standing three focused their eyes on the unarmed Justin and Lester, waiting for them to get closer. They started exchanging words apprehensively.
They finally got to the gate. By this time all the men were looking at them. Reaching for the rifle slung across his shoulder, one of the guerrillas asked a question in Arabic. The answers were the noiseless slugs that ripped the three men standing. The two who had been sitting grabbed their rifles but before any of them could get their fingers on the trigger, they all went down in slow motion.
“That’s the password,” Justin said.
“The gate is locked. We have to climb,” Lester said.
They both put the pistols back into their pockets and started to pull up the tall gate. At the top, they discovered that two continuously moving cameras had them in sight.
As they both dropped on the inside and looked around, there seemed to be no one immediately in sight as they walked up to the nearest buildings. The first men to set eyes on them took them to be members of the camp and went about their business, but not when the sound of an alarm began.
Two men washing two Landrovers stopped their work at the sound of the keening alarm and looked around. Their eyes got riveted on Justin and Lester.
“We are really out of place here,” Lester said as he lowered his M60 machine gun from his shoulder.
The two men went down in a brief rain of bullets.
“I’ll start fixing the bombs straight away,” Justin said as he moved to his right where there was a long shelter lined with trucks and jeeps.
Two men in light green uniforms appeared from the opposite side and were immediately struck dead with bullets from Lester’s machine gun. Another group of six emerged, shooting in Lester’s direction. He shot down the first three as he saw the remaining three collapse with the fire of Justin’s carbine.
“I’m through with this place,” Justin said as he came abreast of Lester. “Let’s try and get to the central building as soon as possible.”
They shot as they moved, giving each of the men who appeared no chance to shoot. The men came fearlessly and suicidally now, bursting out from every angle like bees. Justin and Lester resorted to the use of grenades.
Justin turned just on time to see Lester going down to the rocky ground in a hail of bullets that struck his chest.
“No!” he screamed as his carbine spitted out fire. He saw the men responsible falling and turned to attend to his partner.
Lester was back on his feet, his gun is his hands. “They are beginning to be tactful,” he said. “We had to leave this position.”
The bullets had ripped open the brown uniform and the T-shirt he wore underneath, exposing the black bulletproof he had taken from the jeep.
But leaving the open area was not yet possible; they had to do a little more killing. The men had now stopped pouring in carelessly and had taken up hidden positions at corners and behind cars to protect themselves as they fired.
Justin and Lester were trying to move forward and pass between the blocks of apartments, which was the shortest way to the three-story building in the center of the camp. There was ceaseless fire coming from the blocks and sporadic shots from the direction of the gate. Justin faced the block, shooting as he moved slowly. Lester took care of the direction of the gate, his bullets silencing the many sources of fire as he moved backward.
In that formation in which they defended each other’s back, they made it to the blocks of single-room apartments. A new round of gunshots began at one end of the blocks and for a moment, it seemed that Justin and Lester were going to be trapped in between the two blocks. They had to also watch out for possible attack from the apartments.
Men of different races were willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of this stronghold. Unsociable characters poured out, men and women.
Justin and Lester kept shooting for about seven minutes and the movement out of the compound between the two blocks of apartments was very slow. Lester suddenly caught a movement on the rooftop. It was the head of a man spying down. He knew what would follow; they man was preparing to open fire and take them by surprise. Lester did not give him a chance. He raised his gun upward and when the man re-emerged he let out fire which ripped the man’s chest. The man’s bloody body came tumbling heavily to the ground.
Justin and Lester finally made it to the end of the blocks. The gap between the blocks and the story building was about twenty yards. As near as the building was, the open area they had to cross was very dangerous and could decide whether the much they had done was a waste or not.
On the ground floor of the story building, below the balustraded balconies, the front door in a recessed porch with a burglarproof protection was just being closed. A man was hastily closing the garage doors.
Justin reckoned that it would be difficult to get into the building with all the entries, including the garage, closed. He opened fire on the man in the garage. A man appeared on the lower balcony with a gun. Justin’s bullets made him shiver before falling off to the ground.
“Let’s move in before it’s too late,” Justin said to Lester.
They ran for the story building, trying to take care of every direction as they moved. If not for the bulletproof underwear, they could not have reached the garage on their feet. Once within, they closed the doors.
A man materialized from the door behind them. Lester did not waste time aiming at the man; he just hosed the area in which the man stood with slugs and the man twitched before falling. He dug his hand into his backpack and pulled out a square-shaped explosive, pressed a button as the digital figures on the small screen on it raced from 00:00:00 to 00:20:00.
The door was ajar. He kicked open the door and saw nobody in sight. The exquisitely furnished room had been hastily deserted. There were bottles of liquor and half-empty glasses of wines on the tables. A bar on the far side had a collection of different expensive alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. On the large foamy chairs were deserted clothes of both men and women: a black jacket, a tie, a shawl and a bra. A lady’s purse and a pair of shoes were carelessly thrown on the red carpet.
Justin and Lester moved in with caution. Their entry provoked a bout of gunfire from the stairs that led up to the next floor. They shifted back. Whoever was shooting was an amateur; he had not allowed them to emerge properly before opening fire and the shots were seemingly meant to scare rather that get them.
Lester plastered himself against the wall that hid them, pulling out his pistol, peeped around the corner and at the same time let out a single shot. The fire coming from the stair immediately ceased.
They both moved out to the stairs. The dead man at the stairs was in mufti and an apron. They bypassed the man and went to the next floor. There was no human in sight. It was a newsroom with a large television set on the far side and rows of upright chairs for viewers.
Lester moved over to a door on the opposite side and looked in. It led into a urinal. As he turned away from the door he saw a man in dark brown uniform with ranks appear at the top of the stairs behind Justin. His gun was aimed at Justin. If Lester’s gun had not already been pointed in the man’s direction he would not have been able to shoot before the mujahedin.
Justin turned around to see the man falling down the stairs.
“You are becoming careless,” Lester said.
“Sorry,” Justin said. “I’m already thinking of home.”
“America or Heaven?”
Justin pointed his gun at the stairs waiting for the slightest movement. Lester went about the job of placing bombs on the walls.
“I’m through,” he said at last as he joined Justin at the foot of the stairs in the brightly lit hall.
“We move up now,” Justin said and at the same moment an explosive sound came from the ground floor. The noises suggested that the soldiers had forced their way into the building and would soon start appearing on the floor where Lester and Justin were.
They heard the stampede downstairs as they proceeded up the stairs. The sudden intensity of shots that came from the floor above even before they got there surprised them. They could estimate that there were at least eight men. Lester fell on his belly on the stairs and began to crawl upward. Justin fired a round of shots downstairs before joining Lester in the snakelike fashion.
Lester raised his head above the topmost step and spied the floor. Three bodies were down; his shots had achieved something. They both started shooting up to the floor as the men who were now firing desperately receded to safety.
Lester got to his feet as the fighters who had broken in reached the second floor. Lester fired indiscriminately, bringing down several bodies before any of them had the time to reciprocate the bullets.
They both stepped onto the next floor. A thin path of carpet led to a flight of stairs on the opposite side of the floor. To their left were two barred doors that looked like cells and a third wooden one had a neon sign over it that read: DANGER.
Justin and Lester did not have much time to stare around. They knew the position of the men on the floor they had just stepped on. Justin tapped Lester on the shoulder and showed him his fist. He started lifting finger after finger, beginning from the pinkie, to indicate he was counting from one to three.
On the lifting of the third finger they both jumped out of their protected place to face the hiding guerillas. There were four of them in dark blue uniform, crouching behind furniture.
“We are here! We are here,” two girlish voices shouted in chorus.
Justin crossed the floor to one of the cells. He found Patricia and Pamela locked in it. There were four padlocks on the door and it was not going to be easy opening them with shots from the gun.
“Wait a minute,” Justin said and was about to move back to help Lester at the door where he was firing heavily down the stairs.
“Help me too,” a male voice cried, “I’m Tohad Loftian. They imprisoned me because I was kind to the girls.”
Justin glanced back but what interested him was not the naked man with a lacerated body in a cell. He stopped and went back straight to the door over which the neon sign hung. There was a smaller sign on a black plastic plate on the door and it said: POWER CONTROL UNIT.
Justin turned the doorknob, pushed the door open and went in. It was a small room with a panel of various electrical devices fixed on the wall. There were also control switches. He went in and quickly began to push down the switches from “on” to “off”. When he was through, the room was in darkness and he hoped the entire camp was, too. He walked out and closed the door behind him. It was also dark outside the room but through his night goggles, he could see Lester who making sure nobody came upstairs. The men on the lower floor were arguing angrily with themselves.
Justin moved over to the cell in which Patricia and Pamela were locked. “Hold on for just a while,” he told them.
He walked across the room on the track of red carpet to the stairs that took him to the top floor. He opened fire on a metal door at the position of the lock. After the third round, the door gave way, slamming against the wall inside.
“Please, we beg you. We are innocent,” a voice said in the dark room.
Justin was not ready to be tricked. He entered the room very slowly and with his carbine at the ready. He observed there were two men and three women in the room. The two men stood behind a sofa on which the three women hunched up against each other.
“Who is the leader of the camp?” Justin asked.
“I’m the leader,” the man in a loose gown responded.
“I hope you really have control over all your men here on this camp,” Justin said.
“I do,” the leader answered.
“Good,” said Justin. “What is your name?”
“I’m Usman Awide,” the man who could not see Justin responded.
“And the other man should be your assistant called Ahmed?” Justin asked.
“Yes, Ahmed Shafaqat,” the assistant answered.
“Very nice to have you all together,” Justin said as he heard the sound of shots from Lester’s gun on the lower floor. “You have a job to do for us. Tell your men to stop fighting. It’s over.”
“I’ll do that,” Usman Awide said quickly as he came around the sofa.
“You come along with him,” Justin ordered the assistant. “To the balcony.”
They went to the door on the far side of the room. Justin watched the men carefully as they felt with their hands for the door. They pulled it open and walked out to the balcony
“Tell them,” Justin instructed. “They should recognize your voice.”
The whole camp was in total darkness. There was no light in any of the windows.
“Comrades,” Usman began, “stop fighting. I repeat, stop fighting. Stop shooting.”
“Tell them to all withdraw from this building,” Justin instructed.
“Withdraw from the building immediately,” Usman shouted. “Stop fighting and withdraw from the building, now.”
There was confused shouting among the guerrillas down in front of the story building. The shooting gradually subsided and then stopped, leaving only the murmuring voices of the men and women.
“Tell them to provide a Landrover that is in perfect working condition,” Justin ordered. “They should keep it down at the porch as close as possible.”
“Get a Landrover!” shouted Usman. “Keep it at the door of this building as close as possible – and don’t attempt to shoot. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes!” came the chorused reply.
Justin waited for about two minutes. They heard the sound of a powerful car driving toward the building as its lights fell on the multitude in front. It drove straight through the crowd and to the front of the mansion.
“Once again, no shooting. No tricks,” Usman Awide reiterated.
“Let’s go,” Justin ordered, watching the men carefully as they turned back into the room. He was making sure they did not leap off the balcony. But he did not see a big possibility of the two committing suicide. There was evidence that they loved life. “You have the keys to the cell in which you kept the girls, don’t you?”
“I do,” Ahmed Shafaqat answered.
“Get them,” Justin commanded.
Ahmed went toward a chest and started fumbling with it. “We did not molest the girls.” Usman said pleadingly. “You can ask them themselves. They’ll tell you we did not maltreat them. We were kind to them. We are not bad people. We have principles.”
“But you kill, don’t you?” Justine said. “Your men butchered the wife of a policeman in Nigeria and killed the security man at the gate of the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria. God knows they could have done worse if they had met him or his wife at home.”
“That wasn’t on my own instructions,” Usman said. “I’m not the leader of the Princes of the Middle East. I get my instructions from the headquarters in Iran.”
“You seem to be in the position to know so much. If you behave yourself properly you may get to the FBI alive and your confessions may be of help in hunting down other key members, and maybe you could testify against them.”
“Yes, I’ll be willing to do that,” Usman said gratefully. The hope of buying his freedom back with confessions made his tone lighter.
“Let’s hurry up and be done with this business,” Justin said as Ahmed returned with the key in his hand. “Move down stairs.”
The two camp leaders began to walk hurriedly out of the room.
“Are you going to leave your women behind?” Justin asked as Usman and Ahmed hesitated at the door. “Hey ladies,” he turned and said to the women who sat in the darkness with fear glowing in their eyes, “come with us. There won’t be any life left for you to fuck in a short time from now.”
The women got up quickly and moved to the door to join the men. Justin followed the group of five closely. Their cooperativeness and his gentleness with them did not mean he was going to be surprised. He was simply confident; it was a game he had played several times before.
Back on the second story, Justin noticed through his night-vision spectacles that Lester had taken the opportunity of the cease-fire to adorn the whole room with high-powered explosives. He had completely emptied his backpack and fixed a new belt of bullets to his gun.
“I need the bombs in your bag for the next floor,” Lester said. “There is no time to get to the other areas of the camp to plant more bombs, but enough of them concentrated here would do enough justice.”
Justin un-strapped his bag and handed it to Lester after he had taken out two magazines.
“Stay here,” Justin instructed the group in front of him, “while I and Ahmed go to get the girls.”
They detached from the rest of the group in the middle of the room. Lester was there to take care of them. He watched as Justin went with Ahmed to the cell in which Patricia and Pamela were locked. Ahmed used the keys in his hand on the locks which he was feeling one after another in the dark. Soon he was through with the padlocks and pulled away the bars for Patricia and Pamela to come out.
“How about me? I tried to save the girls,” a deep male voice shouted in distress as Justin and his group turned away from the cell. Justin hesitated, but on second thought walked away, the girls in front of him and Ahmed leading the way back to the center of the room.
“Let’s get going,” Justin said. “We’ve waste enough time already.”
Justin and Lester were behind as they herded rest seven to the first floor. The three prostitutes were in front, followed by the leaders, Usman Awide and Ahmed Shafaqat and then Patricia and Pamela. The man in the prison upstairs who was claiming he had tried to save the girls on the way to the camp was still shouting for help. He cries fell on deaf ears.
The newsroom on the next floor below was devoid of soldiers as Lester and Justin could see in the darkness. The chairs had been scattered by the earlier struggle of the soldiers to get to the upper floor. Lester did not take much time in placing the explosives from the bag Justin had given him on the walls of the room.
They all went down to the ground floor, walking very slowly. This room, too, was in complete disorder. The front door was no longer in place; an explosion had taken place on it and it was now lying on the ground with the metal bars meant to protect it from burglary.
Through the doorway it was possible to see the Landrover parked outside. All the doors on the side of the story building were left wide open. The headlights and tail lamps were turned off. The guerillas were now standing very far from the building as their leader whom they had learnt to obey, not only by reason but also by instinct, ordered them. Everything showed that the men and women were willing to obey instructions to save their leaders without whom there was no immediate capable replacement.
“You’ll go first,” Justin said to the prostitutes. “You’ll occupy the seat on one ride at the back of the car.”
The three women did not hesitate. They walked straight out of the house to the car and entered it as they had been instructed.
“You next,” Justin said, pointing at Ahmed Shafaqat. “Can you drive very well?”
“Yes,” Ahmed answered, eager to be of use.
“Good. You’ll take the driver’s seat,” Justin said. He watched the assistant as he went to the car and sat himself as he had been ordered. “No silly ideas,” he shouted at Ahmed whom he was sure had a strong desire to live.
“How about you in the passengers seat beside the driver?” Justin asked his friend Lester in a polite tone.
“My best place in a car when I want to enjoy a journey,” Lester said as we went out and walked boldly around the car to his appointed seat.
“You shouldn’t be afraid,” Justin said to Pamela and Patricia. “I don’t think they’ll try anything stupid now that we have their leaders in check. You’ll go and take the seats in the middle of the car.”
Patricia and Pamela moved out quickly. They were aware that the story building was decorated with bombs that would be going up any moment.
As soon as the girls were seated, Justin turned to the paramount head of the mujahedin fighters who did not know their leader was not living by the rules of their religion. “To the back of the car,” he said. As Usman Awide began to move, he seized him his clothes at the back. “You are the key to getting out of here. Make any false move and I’ll make you a sacrifice before putting things in order.”
“No false move,” Usman assured as they began to move out of the building, Justin’s gun pointed at his head, ready to blow his brains to pieces.
They got to the back of the Landrover and took the long seat opposite that of the prostitutes without incident. Justin pulled shut the rear door. All the other doors had been closed.
“Drive,” Justin ordered Ahmed Shafaqat who sat in the driver’s seat.
The car began to move. The engine sounded efficient as it moved from the story building. The crowd around gave way as the car made its way to the blocks of apartments Justin and Lester had passed on foot earlier. They went through the blocks and, past the garage which housed a variety of cars, to the gate.
The gate was now partly open and the bodies of the men whom Justin and Lester had shot were still sprawled on the ground. The space provided by the ajar gate was not wide enough for the car to pass through without climbing on the bodies. Ahmed stopped the car.
“Do I go and open the gate?” he asked
“Do,” Lester said. “And be fast about it.”
Ahmed jumped out of the car and, under the glare of the headlamps, carried out the task of pushing the second wing of the gate open. When he was through he came back to his seat at the wheel and drove the car out the gate.
Justin and Lester kept their spectacles on, keeping an eye over their two prisoners and the prostitutes and also looking into the darkness on the roadsides.
“You can ask the girls now if I mal handled them,” Usman who was sitting next to Justin said. “I kept them in the best prison. My men would have done all kinds of dirty things with them. Just ask the girls themselves.”
Justin could tell the source of Usmam’s fear. The man knew that his usefulness in getting away from the camp had ended and he was completely at the mercy of his captors. This was the moment to get some information from the man who was not yet mentally organized.
“What do you know about the Princes of the Middle East?” he asked. “Who are the leaders?”
The leaders are not the same as the leaders of the Middle East,” Usman Awide said. “They chose that name to gain prestige and their plan which is to dominate the world is far from being fulfilled. They have to first of all install their hardcore members into power as the Presidents of at least five Middle East nations, including Iran, before the war begins.”
“Is the President of Iran a member?” Justin asked
“No, but there is a plan to either assassinate him or to sponsor our political candidate in the next presidential elections. He is an enemy we have planned to remove at all -”
BOOM!
“Continue speaking,” Justin said. “It’s the camp exploding. It’s no more.”
“You mean … you mean …” Usman was too shocked to speak properly. “That explosion is big … big enough to enclose the whole Wasdyl Sharap.”
“That is if you stored other explosives on the camp for your notorious activities.”
Usman Awide was twisting his neck to have a look at what was happening behind. Even Ahmed who was driving was peeping into the rear-view mirror.
“Mind the way you drive,” Lester warned.
Behind the car and, past the mountainside, to the camp, a tower of wild fire was slurping at the gate.
“Sodom and Gomorrah,” Justin said. “Don’t look back or you’ll turn in to a pillar of salt.”
“Damn!” Usman who was greatly affected by the destruction of the camp said, enraged yet careful not to offend Justin and Lester.
“I told you to continue your story,” Justin reminded him, “You planned to remove the President of Iran and then what?”
“I don’t know too much,” Usman said. “The leaders of the Princes of the Middle East keep most of their plans secret from members of lower ranks and only the leaders of the affiliated organizations know that they are waiting for the Princes of the Middle East”
“And you are also a leader of a camp,” Justin reminded him.
“I’ve been promised to be made the President of Cameroon in five years time,” Usman said. “It is intended to be through a rebellion which would have seen to the removal of the present President from power and possibly his death.”
The car moved into the night on the rocky and rough surface of the road. They had passed the first mountain near the camp and were beginning to assume that the mission was already a success.
There was suddenly a burst of bullets from the mountainside. It was easy to see that those responsible were hiding behind a round ball of rock. The sparks from the mouths of their guns had exposed their position. The first bullets landed on the windshield and some on the side of the Landrover.
Lester opened the door and stepped out, and using the fender of the car as a shield from the bullets of those lying in ambush, he began shooting at the ball of rock. Justin came out from the rear door and stood at the back of the car shooting. The sound of their guns were heavier and their effect superior to those of their assailants.
The shooting lasted for about a minute and a half. Through his night-vision goggles Lester could make out two figures at the rock. There was no way they could leave the rock without exposing themselves. The darkness could have aided them to leave quietly unobserved but not when Lester had his glasses and Justin had mounted the night scope on his M4 carbine.
As it was, the shooters were not ready to move an inch. They had enough ammunition to keep themselves busy for an hour. Lester suddenly stopped shooting. He wanted to try a trick he and Justin had tried when they had met in Venezuela. The trick had worked and as he stopped shooting now he was sure Justin understood what he wanted to do. Justin used his metal watch and made a clicking sound by sticking it against the metal body of carbine. It made the sharp clicking sound a trigger makes when a gun is empty. They allowed a brief silence to see if the prank worked.
It did. Two men emerged from behind the boulder and started running down the slop of the mountain.
“Drop your weapons and raised your hands up,” the two men barked.
By this time Lester had a grenade in his hand ready to throw it. He fling it into the night as it landed accurately between the two ambushers. A sphere of red fire exploded and engulfed the two men as they fell forward on their bellies and rolled lifelessly down the mountain to the road.
“Lets see who they are,” Justin said as he went to the front of the car to join Lester who stood over the two bodies that were lying in the headlights of the car. The dead men were clad in caftans which were badly burnt by the fire from the grenade.
“Look like two of the three men who kidnapped the girls yesterday,” Lester said.
“They must have taken a short cut from the camp to this place,” said Justin. “Faithful servants of their masters.”
Justin went back to his place at the back of the Landrover. He climbed aboard and found Usman Awide looking at him with hateful eyes. Justin ignored Usman’s sore look and closed the rare door of the Landrover.
“You’ve just killed some high officers of the Princes of the Middle East!” Usman shouting fiercely.
“You still believe in your organization?” Justin asked. “You’ve wasted your time possessing such vain passions.”
“Looks like I have to drive,” came Lester’s voice from the front of the car.
“What’s wrong?” Justin asked.
“Our driver’s dead,” Lester answered. “He’s been hit by those snipers.”
“You have enough to grieve over today,” Justin said to Usman. “Your high officers have killed your assistant.”
Lester opened the door beside the dead man. He pushed Ahmad’s body off the seat to the road. He made the sign of the cross in the air over the body as he moved into the driver’s seat. He started the car and began to move.
“Soon as we get near a town we’ll drop the two of you to go your way,” Justin said to the prostitutes. I don’t think you know something worth taking you all the way to the United States,” he added sarcastically.
“Take us to Dauala,” the eldest of the commercial sex workers who sat in the middle of the three demanded.
“You are lucky enough to be demanding for that,” Justin said. “We’ll be letting you off as soon as we get to a road where you can get a cab.”
“Thank you,” said another of the three who sat closest to the rear door. She was the youngest and it told in her soft watery and lascivious voice.
Justin remembered that he had put off his laptop before they entered the camp to rescue the girls. He felt for it at his waist and unhooked it. He opened its cover and looked at the small screen to check if there had been a call. There had been none. But before he could close the cover and return it to his waist a red dot showed on the screen below the sign of a receiver to indicate that there was a call presently. The multimedia laptop did not make a ringing sound since Justin had turned it off. He touched the keys on its small keyboard and said, “Justin and Lester.”
“U.S. President Lionel Waters,” came the response. “Glad you found the girls?” the voice was loud enough for all in the car to hear. The president sounded elated
“That is what we promised, sir,” Justin said. “Mission accomplished.”
“How are they?”
“In good health – as far as I can tell.”
“My compliments to you all. We are watching the live transmission of the satellite-surveillance here in the White House. I must let you know that we are all impressed. The explosion of the camp was fascinating. That is one camp gone.”
“Do you think the rest of the world is going to be equally impressed by the explosion?”
“I understand that you were more interested in destroying some major structures at the camp and the explosion was not planned to be as extensive as it was, but it seemed that other explosives kept at the camp took over when the original explosion began. Don’t worry about it. We’ll explain that to the world.” He paused momentarily, then, in a less exhilarated tone: “But God knows what the world would have suffered from the explosives and the men trained at the camp – it seemed a few of them escaped out the gate before the big blast.”
“We’ve been very busy, Mr. President,” Lester said from the drivers seat, “too busy to listen to news. What’s happening on the other side of the world – I mean in the Middle East?”
“The Iranian government kept his promise to raid the fundamentalist hideouts in Iran. Unfortunately, the leader of the organization called Baddil, though found alive, while he was being taken away by the police, one of his men shot him in the forehead. The Iranian government said that the organization is the same as the Princes of the Middle East and that Baddil is a cover name.”
“Do you believe them?” Lester asked. “Their story about Baddil being a cover name?”
“I don’t – at least not officially.”
“We have with us the leader of the camp in Cameroon,” Justin said. “He has admitted, too, that the organization he worked for was not actually headed by the leaders of Middle East countries, and in fact, they wanted to assassinate some Middle East presidents and to try and install theirs in power in a least five countries before beginning the war on the United States. He is willing to talk more if there is guarantee that his judgment will be lenient.”
“That will depend on if what he says is useful in the fight against terrorism and leaders of nations that aid their activities.”
Justin was not sure he understood exactly what Lionel Waters meant. “This camp leader also said the threats in the book, The Final World Order, were meant sort to give members the feeling that something was about to happen – at least that’s how I understand what the camp leader meant to imply – because their members were tired of hoping in vain.”
“Will these new discoveries about the Princes of the Middle East and their book lead to the reverse of the war?” Lester asked as he drove.
“I knew right from the start that the plans of the organization were two sudden to be true,” Lionel Waters answered. “But the declaration of war has helped a lot. Many camps have been raided within a very short time. I can predict a drastic fall in their activities, at least temporarily. The kidnap of the girls has also shown to the world how unreasonable extremists could be in using innocent lives to make political statements, all covered in the guise of religion. And to answer your question, Lester, the declaration of war will stand for a while. It’s doing some good.”
“I see you don’t want to give the impression that the kidnap of the American girls led to the declarations of war on the entire Middle East.”
President Lionel Waters did not react to Lester’s comment. “There is a U.S. helicopter with a U.S. pilot coming to take you and the girls. It’s from a U.S. base in Nigeria. It will take you to Lagos, Nigeria, where a U.S. Air Force jet is waiting to bring you back to the United States.”
“What happens to the jeep which took us into Cameroon?” Justin asked.
“I am told by CIA Director Max Kinsley that the jeep is old fashioned. It has a self-destructive capacity which I believe you and Lester are aware of. The jeep is an intelligence car and must not be allowed to fall into the hands of other intelligence organizations. When you have touched the necessary keys on the laptop with you, the jeep will explode in exactly a minute. Hope you don’t feel much about the jeep?”
“No,” Justin said.
“You shouldn’t,” said Lionel. “It’s much more colorful for you to be taken up in a helicopter while the whole world looks on. It reminds me of a movie I watched sometime ago, only that in it the world was not watching. You are lucky.”
“You sure know how to win to the very last,” Justin complimented.
“Patricia and Pamela Carl,” Lionel waters called out. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” the girls answered in unison. They sounded happier and safer now.
“I hope it was not all that a bad experiences,” Lionel said.
“Not very bad, but scary,” Patricia responded. “We were not so sure we would see today. Thank you for your concern.”
“You are welcome,” Lionel said. “Can’t I hear you laugh Pamela?”
Pamela giggled she was not just granting a request, but was amused by what the president asked for.
“That’s charming. You parents cant wait to see you. They’ll be at the airport to welcome you back here in the United States. I’ll let them know you are safe and sound.”
“I never knew politicians could be so humane and considerate,” Pamela said.
“Now listen,” Lionel said in a counseling voice. “If you girls are smart enough you are going to make money from your story. Don’t blurt it out to the press the moment you arrive. Keep them in suspense. Get a renowned writer to put your story down for you – that is if you are not interested in writing it yourself. There should be many international publishers eager to publish your story. You’ll sell it to the highest bidder. When the story is out on the sale the papers and the media in general will be crazy about it.”
“I know a writer who can put down the story for us,” Patricia said. “And I already have a title for the book in mind. It will be titled The Final World Order.”
“Very good,” Lionel said. “See you back in the States, the twins who began the Third World War.”
The girls laughed at President Lionel’s sense of humor.
“Beginning the detonation of the jeep,” Justin said as the call from Lionel ended, pressing various keys on the laptop.
“Can you remember the twenty digits you have to touch before the explosion is possible?” Lester asked.
“Yes,” Justin said, still taping keys, “but after getting the digits right it then depends on if the process has been activated at the CIA headquarters – looks like it has been activated back there in Virginia. It’s going to explode in a minute.” He folded the laptop and put it on the seat, between himself and Usman Awide.
Lester stopped the car just as it got on a tarred road.
“Time for the harlots to drop,” he said as he opened the door and got out and began to unbutton the light brown uniform he had taken from the dead men at the camp.
Justin unlocked the door for the three prostitutes to get off the Landrover. He stepped down, too, carrying his gun with him. He had noticed Usman looks at the carbine and was making sure it did not fall in his hands.
The harlots got off the Landrover. One after the other they said, “Thank you,” as they began to walk down the road together.
Justin kept his car on the asphalt and, like Lester, began to pull of the brown uniform he had worn over his T-shirt and jeans trousers as a guise to enter the camp. They both flung the brown clothes on the mountainside beside the road.
They were about to re-enter the car when they saw a bright light in the sky in the distance. It came closer and closer as the light enlarged. From the sound it was making they soon discovered it was a helicopter. Justin and Lester could tell that it was a Blackhawk helicopter before it landed on its wheel a few yards away from the Landrover.
Justin and Lester held their guns; they were making sure they were not surprised by an enemy from the black-painted helicopter with tinted glasses. The flag painted on the starboard with U.S.A. written below it, was not enough proof that this latest version of the Blackhawk was piloted by an American.
The door opened and a man in a pilot’s outfit stepped out. He lifted the glass of his white helmet as he walked over to the Landrover, his green uniform disturbed by the swirling air. He looked thoroughly American through the night-vision Justin still had on.
“Evening,” he said, giving his hand to Justin. “Are you Lester Milawski or Justin’s Friend?”
“I’m Justin Friend. And who may you be?” he shook hands.
“I’m Mark Nigel from Army Ranger.” He pulled out an identity card from his breast pocket with his gloved hand and passed it to Justin.
Justin looked at the card and then handed it to Lester who came round the car to join them. Lester and Justin knew this was a man who deserved respect. The U.S Army Ranger were a Special Operations unit prepared for all kinds of missions, the most dangerous that required near-suicidal minds to undertake. They went through rigorous and tough training and were always on alert, ready to be deployed to any part of the world on eighteen hours’ notice.
“Patricia Pamela,” Lester called out as he returned Mark Nigel’s identity card back to him, “please, move over to the helicopter.”
“Usman,” he turned to the camp leader, “get down, too, and move to the helicopter.”
As Usman Awide stepped down from the Landrover, Mark Nigel produced handcuffs from his hip pocket. “Turn around with your hands at the back,” he commanded in a deep tigerish voice. “Move,” he said after he had fastened the man’s hands together. “He won’t be going to the United States on the same plane with you and the girls – for security reasons.”
Mark turned around to go back to the plane as Justin and Lester followed him. “I hope you have not left anything in the car that is of value.”
“Nothing,” Lester said.
“Then let’s leave heroically for the sake of the spy in the sky and the world that wants to watch the movielike reality,” said Mark Nigel. “The girls look very tired. There are refreshing drinks for you on board to keep you in form until we get to Nigeria. The plane that will be taking you back to the United States is first class. You’ll find all the comfort you need on it.”
EPILOGUE
Bradford Waters felt a sense of fulfillment when his father finished reciting the oath of office at the inauguration taking place on the East Steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. The words had been: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States.”
The crowd gathered in front of the balustraded podium clapped and Bradford observed cheerful faces all around as he joined in the clapping. His father, the first black president, was re-elected President of the United States and he had played an elaborate part in the campaign as he had promised his father.
As he sat facing the multitude gathered to witness, he squeezed Jacqueline’s hand; she was sitting on his right. To his left sat his sisters, Cathy and Cheryl, and next to them their mother, Eve. Bradford was in a black two-piece suit and his mother and sisters were in simple colorful gowns. Leonard, dressed like his father, was also present.
Apart from the Vice-President who had just taken his oath of office, there were a lot of dignitaries present on the platform to grace the occasion.
Looking across, down the assembly of Americans, Bradford could easily pick out some familiar faces in the front. Patricia and Pamela were standing next to each other in identical chocolate brown skirt suits to indicate that they were twins. His eyes kept locking with theirs from time to time. He was sure that if their parents who had gone back to Nigeria to continue with their jobs were in the United States they would have been present at the ceremony.
Not very far from Pamela and Patricia was a group of two pairs. Justin and Lester were standing in the company of two ladies who were intended spouses. Bradford prided himself for being able to tell who and who were looking forward to a serious lasting relationship and looking at their pairs he could perceive the matrimonial rings around each.
The two ex-CIA men, who had gained something of worldwide popularity, were now working under the Defense Secretary. A censored book about their CIA careers they had jointly written was expected to be out in May.
Bradford could make out another face in the gathering; it was that of former Ambassador Owen Quentin. He was with his pretty wife Monica. Soon after the cancellation of the war he had returned to Nigeria, but only to work for a short time. President Lionel Waters had needed him for the eleventh hour campaigns in Owens’s home State, Arizona. To Bradford’s hearing, Lionel Waters had promised Owen Quentin that after the elections he would appoint him as Secretary of State.
Craig Mbatu was also in the crowd somewhere behind Patricia and Pamela. Bradford had invited him to come over from South Africa to attend the inauguration. Craig who enjoyed being in the United States had been around for some days, waiting for this day.
The familiar faces around reminded Bradford of the kidnap of the twins, which had led to the declaration of the war against Middle East nations. Usman Awide, the leader of the Cameroonian camp had been found guilty at the end of the trials, which lasted for two months, and he had been electrocuted. He also remembered the momentary scandal he and Jacqueline had experienced. The allegations were serious and would have meant greater disservice for someone other than the first son and his wife.
After weighing the pattern of votes, Bradford decided that if it were not for his campaigns, his father would not have won the second term. His campaigns had led the youths to accept Lionel for a second term.
THE END
AUTHOR’S PERSONAL NOTE
The clock on the wall has just struck twelve midnight and a new day is beginning. I have just finished writing the epilogue to my second novel THE FINAL WORLD ORDER, most of which has been written here in my bedroom in my home in Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria. The work on the book began on 17th February 2002 and has ended a few minutes ago on the 30th of April 2002 (HEARTS OF PATRIOTS written in 1999).
With the conclusion of The Final World Order, I feel a stronger strength of faith in me which assures me of my future as a writer. I am contented with my speed of writing for now which is seriously affected by my academic pursuit now that I am in my final year in the University. My project topic is GLOBALIZATION: ORIGIN, METAMORPHOSIS AND EFFECTS ON NIGERIA, which I feel is synonymous to The Final World Order.
One of the challenges of writing stories involving characters that are world famous is that if they are not derived from real life, the reader will be wondering why he or she has never heard of such a character, especially if the actions of such characters are public. To solve this problem I decided to choose a future date for my story. Upon doing this, I encountered a new obstacle: There are world leaders that are permanently in office, kings, queens, and life presidents. I wondered if I should predict them dead or alive, but upon beginning the story I discovered my story could stand without much involvement with such leaders. I had thought obscuring the date of the story was the solution.
But what if the time in which The Final World Order is set comes and the events do not take place? This was one of the questions on my mind while I wrote. After thinking about it I can confidently state that a story coming true in the exact way it was told is not what gives it its power on the mind of the reader.
The book of Revelation in the Bible uses symbols to make predictions which different Christians interpret in different ways. In my story I’ve not exactly made use of representations – at least not deliberately – but I am sure that as the time approaches, even if it is not at the very same time, I have no doubt that presidents and various individuals will play roles in real life which will fit into the models of this story. Similar situations will arise not very different from those I have described.
One of the effects of a prediction is that it may tend to gear peoples mind for it, preparing them for it and the preparation itself tends to be the factor that brings the situation into existence. I am not trying to suggest that my story will play such a role; I will rather believe it will play a confirmatory part in the future. The predictions of Nostramus could be responsible for the upsurge in religious wars today and the expectation of a world power from the Middle East. The prophesies of Karl Marx gave the peasants of Russia a dream to live for. It only needed a slight push by Lenin who was a strong believer of Marx to make it take place.
The inspiration to write this story was very much derived from the September 11th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. As a history student I felt very much in the capacity to handle such a tale after considering the trends of world affairs. It was a renaissance period in my life being of the Tiv tribe, I likened the World Trade Center attack on the violent invasion of Tiv villages in Benue State in October 2001, leading to the massacre of hundreds.
After starting this story, there were days I did not have the opportunity to lift my pen to write and yet some of my friends who think a writer should drop from the sky and be a Martian are finding it difficult to believe I have written a story. It makes my feel great. Some of them are asking me how many years it has taken me to write it. I will keep surprising them. I have more stories coming, including my autobiography.
At the time of writing THE FINAL WORLD ORDER the Embassy of the Republic of the United States of America was located on Walter Carrington Crescent, Victoria Island Lagos, and the Abuja office on Manbilla Street, Maitama. For the convenience of the story I chose the Diplomatic Zone to locate the Abuja office. Union Stadium in this story does not exist; I got the idea from present day Union Square in New York City.
Toward writing the last part of this futuristic story, I discovered that there was a presidential candidate in France by name Lionel Jospin, but as I finished the story Lionel was knocked out in the first round of elections. The name of the U.S. president in my story is Lionel Waters. I am still wondering what this discovery would mean to my readers.
I wish all my readers, no matter the nationality, or ideological background, great and adventurous moments as they delve into the not-very-distant future of the world.
Joseph Terna Wanshe
Benue State, Nigeria
1st May, 2002
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