By the Sword

Last fall after I had read Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father, I moved from one apartment to another in the complex where I reside. After I got a lot of stuff moved over including a couple of masks I acquired on a trip to Kenya in 1994, the movers sent two African American men to do the heavy lifting.

They asked where the masks came from and I told them Kenya and that Barack’s father was a native Kenyan. We talked briefly about Obama running for president, and one of them said “He doesn’t have a chance.”

After seeing the masks and the conversation about Obama, I felt a sense of pride well-up in both these men. They somehow knew that I respected them. As I type this forward on September 9, 2008, I dedicate whatever spiritual worth this piece of fiction has to those two men and to the millions of African American men and women in the U.S. and around the world who had their identities and heritage stolen from them.

Obama’s Dreams from My Father is his story of his search for his identity. We’re all faced with that search as we mature into adults. But for some of us that struggle is more challenging because we were not provided with a compass or its needle oscillated erratically.

For Obama, it must have been hell, his mother a white American and his dad a black Kenyan who abandoned Obama and his mother when he was just two years old. And it must have been hell for so many African Americans in our society, buying into the fiction of their inferiority, just as millions of white women did in this country, and the Mexican workers who came here to avoid starvation.

Myths can be terribly destructive of self respect. They can also be the foundation on which we build lives that reach for our potential. Our society’s imperative is to create that myth for all who live here.

I began By the Sword in 1995, and worked on it off and on for several years, finishing the rough draft I think in the summer of 2001. I never made any real effort to get it published. I looked at it a couple of weeks ago for the first time since February of 2002.

Because of the strong feelings I have about the abuses of Western Civilization as imperialists and destroyers of cultures, and because Obama’s campaign has embraced a non-violent strategy and respect for all including those with whom we disagree, calling for unity in tackling the threat to our very existence, and an agenda to rid ourselves of control from special interest groups (imperialists) who resist by violence the perceived threat to them, I decided to publish By the Sword on this blog one or several chapters at a time with the last chapter going-up on November 3.

When I was going through the novel after having ignored it for so long, I was astonished to see that my present view world view is pretty much the same as it was in 1994. The novel addresses the same dark forces that I believe are hard at work taking this world apart.

I hope you enjoy it.

Ridge Dickey

* * *

Chapter One

Lisa

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The cool morning of the Kenyan highlands, the faint scent of wildlife. Golden light from the sunrise casting a warm glow over the vista. The strange shape of acacia trees, sculpted by giraffes, icon of the sub-Saharan Africa savanna. Equatorial East African plains at 3000 feet above sea level, the altitude moderating the climate from a daytime high in the 80s to mid 90s, and some of the nights cool enough for blankets. In 1994, only the remnants remain of one of God’s Edens.

Sweat from the palm of Lisa’s right hand rolled onto the heavy rifle it clutched as she and Don traveled in the Landcruiser over the rutted red-dirt road. Her face was expressionless, but her green eyes were alert, scanning the unique beauty of the landscape. Her fear never overpowered her sense of wonder of this land.

Don steered the Landcruiser to keep it on top of the ruts, his hands gripping the steering wheel firmly. His nervousness increased the volume of his voice when he was in the bush. “This place is fascinating, but I want out of here as soon as we finish what we came here to do. Traveling tens of clicks twice a day to check the monkey traps is starting to get to me. I thought we would get to spend most our time in the lab.”

“Yeah, but I love it here in spite of the danger,” Lisa said. Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly as she glanced at Don’s profile He was six feet tall with black hair and dark brown eyes. His features were not of male model caliber, but most would describe him as handsome. He worked out and kept trim.

“I get a little scared out here myself,” Don said. “That’s one of the reasons I want to get this job done and get the hell back to civilization. The big animals are bad enough, but you never know when the natives are going to do a number on you.”

A fallen acacia tree fifty meters ahead, most likely uprooted by elephants, blocked the road. Don slowed the truck to navigate around the tree. Lisa caught a glimpse of a Cape buffalo calf in the bush a stone’s throw away to their left. She immediately began looking for the calf’s mother.

There was a crash at the right rear of the truck. The Landcruiser rolled over twice, skidded on its left side and came to rest in a cloud of dust. The force sent Lisa flying. She bounced slightly when she hit the red dirt. Dazed but apparently in one piece, she struggled to get her wind back. Her first reaction was to look for Don. She could see only the truck’s underside.

Lisa kept still. She hadn’t seen what had hit the Landcruiser, but it felt like a cement truck. She knew it was almost certainly the mother Cape buffalo. Lisa made a run for the truck and dived through the right rear window.

Don wasn’t in the damaged vehicle. Lisa grabbed her .300 Winchester magnum, threw the bolt loading a cartridge into the chamber. She stood on the left rear door of the truck and slowly raised her head out the opposite window. Twenty meters in front of her stood the mother Cape buffalo. The American buffalo was a sheep in comparison to its African namesake, which weighed in at over a ton.

Halfway between the Cape and the truck lay Don, face down and motionless. The animal glared at Don and then at the truck, snorting and shacking its head. Lisa’s breath came only with effort.

She slowly raised the rifle through the window and brought it to her right shoulder. She looked through the back sight, down the barrel, and aimed at a point between the buffalo’s eyes. She focused her attention on the front sight, a technique she had learned from taking handgun lessons back in the States for self-protection.

Don began to stir. “Don, don’t move!” Lisa shouted. His glazed eyes saw nothing, or if they did see, the signal got lost somewhere on the way to his brain. Neither did Lisa’s warning register with him. He wobbled back and forth as he got to his knees.

The buffalo charged the truck, its head down. Lisa lost her aim when the animal charged. She instinctively pointed the gun at the middle of the charging blur and pulled the trigger. The recoil of the monster firearm knocked her against the top of the window frame and her head flew back. The animal crashed into the Landcruiser. Lisa and her rifle went flying. She landed on top of the buffalo.

She leaped off the animal. Her bullet had entered the back of its neck and penetrated the spine. The Cape’s eyes were ablaze as it shook its head and its body remained motionless.

Don stumbled to his feet and shook his head as Lisa ran over to him. “You’re alive! Is anything broken?”

“I don’t think so. I have one hell of a headache and it seems awfully bright out here.” Don looked over at the buffalo and tensed up. The animal was still snorting and trying to lift her head. “Jesus! Is it still dangerous?”

“No. Her spinal cord is severed. She’s in terrible pain. I’ve got to finish her off.” Lisa picked up her rifle.

“I’ll do it for you,” said Don.

“No, I’ll finish it. I hate what I had to do, but I had to do it and I want to finish it.” Lisa threw the bolt, ejecting the empty cartridge and loading a live round into the chamber. She walked to a point three meters from the left side of the buffalo’s head, raised the gun to her shoulder, aimed at the brain casing, and pulled the trigger. The recoil knocked her back, as mother buffalo exhaled its final breath.

The truck’s engine had stopped when it rolled and landed on its side. They thought about figuring out a way to use the electric wench attached to the front of the truck to get it on its wheels. They decided to use two tree branches about four inches thick as a levers, stacking flat rocks between the truck’s left side and the ground as they pried the truck up off another stack of rocks. The process worked. It took Don and Lisa about twenty minutes to right the vehicle.

They worked up a sweat in the early morning sun. A typical balmy day in the East African highlands. Not the climate Lisa had expected so near the equator. And seeing snowcapped Mount Kenya, which is Mount Kilimanjaro twin, both rising over 17,000 feet at equator, had astounded Lisa and Don alike, even though they were scientists and understood how quickly the air becomes cooler with increasing altitude.

“Damn!” said Don looking at the Landcruiser. “That thing will never be the same again. The roof is about three inches lower than what it used to be. We’ll have to knock out the shattered windshield and back window before we can even try to drive it. I hope the drive train isn’t damaged.”

It didn’t take Lisa and Don long to knock out the windows with the butts of their rifles. Lisa’s door wouldn’t open. She got in on the driver’s side and scooted across the bench seat. Don followed. The keys were still in the ignition. He depressed the clutch, turned the ignition and the engine caught quickly.

“Let’s forget this morning’s round and get back to camp. I’m a little rattled,” Don said.

“Sounds good to me,” Lisa responded. “Besides that, this truck might conk out on us. We’ll be lucky to make it back.”

Don turned the truck around and headed back to the village. “What about the calf’? It won’t have much of a chance out there without its mother.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Lisa. “I thought about that and started to ask you to go ahead and shoot it. I wanted to save the poor thing from the predators. But somehow I don’t feel like that was the right thing to do. Maybe it will survive. I don’t think we should second-guess nature, cruel as she seems at times.”

A minute or so passed in silence as they drove back to camp. “So what are you going to do when we finish here?” asked Lisa.

“It depends on whether we are successful here. If we are, then I think I’ll do what I want to do when I want to do it. I’ve been disciplined all my life, and I crave the luxury of not having to be disciplined.”

Don had received his medical degree from John Hopkins a decade ago. After internship and residency at M.D. Anderson in Houston, he practiced there as a staff physician. His ego was too strong to allow him to settle for a routine of treating cancer patients. The money was great, but he was determined to achieve fame as well as fortune. He knew the odds of making a name for himself in research science were slim, but he was willing to give it five years. Nothing lost by trying. And everything to gain. He had signed on with Milestone for the five year stint. All expenses were paid while in the field, plus a $300,000 annual salary. He could save all of that. He also got stock options of 50,000 shares per year that expired at the end of his five-year gig. The stock options were better than a royalty for a drug that would successfully treat Aids, or even cure it. If the company didn’t develop such a drug, it might come up with another success as big as Viagra, and he would make tens of millions on the stock options.

Lisa hadn’t driven such a hard bargain, even though her credentials were every bit as good as Don’s. She was a Stanford medical student grad, had done her residency at St. Judes Children’s Hospital specializing in cancer treatment. She stayed on at St. Judes, and spent after hours in the research labs there. She had more research experience than Don, but she settled for half the salary and a fifth of the stock options when she signed up with Milestone.

“And what if we are not successful?” Lisa asked.

“Well, we’ve both got the stock options, and with any luck I’ll make a ton on them. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll go back to private practice and make as much as I can as fast as I can. I want to be in control of my time as soon as I can get there. What about you?”

“I really don’t know. I feel that even if I were rich, I’d be doing what I am doing right now. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. But that Presbyterian missionary we met in Nairobi. In the hospital there. He made a big impression on me.”

“Because he contracted Aids but didn’t know how?”

“No. I’m certainly interested in that. But he and I talked about his experience here. About his faith and how it changed because of being here. You know, I showed you the copy of the letter he gave me. The one to the American Presbyterian mucklededucks.”

“Yeah well, he’s an idealist and I’m not. I was interested in what’s going on with his blood, not his mind.”

“Don’t you ever think of anyone other than yourself?”

“Seldom but sometimes. Like right now I’m thinking of you. Not romantically, but don’t you want to get married and have a family? You are so attentive to the children in the village. And they are drawn to you and not just because of your blond hair and general good looks. You would make a great mother. But you’d be hard for a guy to live with.” Lisa’s expression did not change with Don’s remarks. Yet Don’s remarks brought up pain in Lisa, like ice in contact with a nerve in a broken tooth.

Lisa had a hard time admitting to herself that she wanted to have a family, but her hurt feelings let her know that she did. In the worst way. She had never let herself commit to a man or to fall in love, although she had been infatuated with several, including Don. It was easy for her to love the children and the animals. But people are complex and hard to control. Men had hurt her, including Don.

“I’m not going to marry a guy just to have a family, and I’ve never met the right guy,” Lisa said.

“You’ve met plenty of right guys in your life. Even your type, whatever your type is. I think you’re afraid of giving up control of your life.”

Lisa’s eyes narrowed and her lips became a straight line. She turned toward Don and said, “Who are you to criticize someone for wanting to have control of their life? You leave your wife and kid and turn your back on your commitments. Don’t chunk rocks at me.”

Don chuckled and said, “I’m not criticizing you. I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to have control of our lives. I found out the hard way that I couldn’t have what I want and also be married. Not now anyway.”

“Don’t you have any guilt about leaving your family? You can’t be that cold.”

“Yeah I had some. I know I used my wife to help get me through med school. I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, but that’s what I did. When I finally admitted the truth to myself, I felt bad about it for a while. But guilt is unproductive and doesn’t help my wife or my son, and it certainly does me no good.”

They discussed where they were on their research project for the remainder of the trip back to the Luo village, which was about 60 kilometers east of Lake Victoria. The one thing they agreed on was that it was going to be more difficult than either had thought to locate a specimen monkey that had survived the Aids retrovirus. They had trapped several with Aids antibodies. But when they made a concentrate from the blood, injected it into test monkeys, they all developed the retrovirus. Their conclusion was that either the captured monkeys hadn’t developed full blown Aids, or their immune systems suppressed the virus to such a low level that the tests couldn’t detect it.

Either way, they hadn’t discovered anything in monkeys’ blood that would help them in the fight against Aids, except that maybe there was something in their immune systems that suppressed the retrovirus, but didn’t obliterate it. It wasn’t an antibody in the normal sense of the term.
Milestone was seeking U.S. government approval for import of the infected blood samples so that it could use its most sophisticated labs in California to analyze them.

As they drove up to their tents, Margie came running to the truck. “The sick villager has gotten much worse! I’m afraid he is dying.”

“Shit,” Don exclaimed. “We’ve all been exposed to whatever he has. Contracting an Ebola type virus was my worst fear about coming over here.” Don had a frown on his face as he got out of the truck.

Lisa quickly scooted across the bench seat and exited on the driver’s side. Lisa turned to Don with a frown on her face. “Come on now. We don’t know if it’s that bad. Well, we must do what we can to help him,” she said. “We did take an oath to help the sick, whatever the circumstances. Even if it means putting our own lives in danger.”

“Yeah I know. That is a major shortcoming of this profession,” Don replied. “You’re always so self righteous. The world needs all kinds though.”

The villagers had placed the sick man under a shed structure with a thatched roof, open on all four sides and supported by four wooden posts. Lisa walked briskly to the shed, which was about 50 meters from the truck. Don tried to keep up.

The man’s glazed eyes moved from side to side like the empty eyes of a two-day-old infant. Sweat poured from his forehead as if he had just stepped out of a steam bath. The medicine man performed a ritual.

Lisa and Don had both examined the man recently when he complained of aches and pains, so they were both exposed to whatever he had. Lisa timed his pulse. It was fast. Don looked him over.

“He doesn’t have any skin blotches or lesions. We can continue the antibiotics just in case it’s not a viral infection. I don’t know what else we can do,”

“I agree, Lisa said. “Give him aspirin to keep the fever down. Maybe he’ll come out of it.”

The witch doctor didn’t mind the white doctors doing their medicine. If the man died, the witch doctor would blame it on the white man’s interference. If he lived, the witch doctor would take credit for it.

Most tribe people wore western style clothes- a shirt and trouser or shorts, and the women wearing a blouse and skirt. But in spite of the change in appearance, much of the old culture was still alive and well, including superstitions. The witchdoctor had on a drab-colored cotton shirt and trousers, while sporting various amulets around his neck and shaking a rattle.

Lisa turned to Margie “Is anyone else sick?”

“Not like this guy. But I feel like I’m catching a cold.”

“That’s how it starts out. There could be others in the same condition,” Don said.

“Yeah, and we didn’t come prepared for this sort of thing. Not that we could do much anyway,” responded Lisa. “Let’s get on the radio and let the home office know what’s going on. If this guy dies, the authorities are going to want to quarantine this place. And we’ll probably have some UN types in here trying to control the situation.”

“Le’em know we need a new truck. I’ll tell them some guy ran a red light and you didn’t see him coming,” Don said.

“You’re a riot, Don,” Lisa said sarcastically. “What else do we need? The air transport won’t be back for at least ten days.”

There was a dirt strip with a fuel dump at the village. Planes flew in from time to time to refuel, and a government DC3 transport restocked the fuel dump every few weeks, bringing it in 200-liter drums of aviation gasoline. The village sold the av gas for the government, and the village was allowed to keep 30 percent of the profit. Lisa and Don used the fuel in their Landcruiser.
Just then the familiar drone of the big radial engines of a DC3 overpowered the sounds of wildlife. “I think it’s early,” said Don.

Chapter Two

Wantobi

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“Stop the boat!” Sukki shouted. “I’ve got one!” The guide jerked the outboard motor into neutral. The water broke the speed of the seven meter fiberglass deck boat. It drifted in a light breeze under a cloudless sky. The early morning sun warmed the air at the surface of Lake Victoria.

Sukki jumped out of his seat and pulled hard. The lack of fight in the fish surprised him and dampened his excitement. “Maybe I snagged a log.”

“It is a Nile perch. They get big, but they do not put up much fight,” Wantobi said. In a couple of minutes, Sukki had the 20 pound fish to the surface. The guide pulled the perch on board with a grapple hook. He immediately returned to the helm and brought the boat to trolling speed as the large fish flopped in the bottom of the boat. Wantobi and Sukki cast their lures and let out about 50 yards of line. Ten minutes passed with no new action.

“We are confident that you will be able to succeed,” Sukki said in a voice loud enough for Wantobi to hear above the high-pitched drone of the large outboard motor.

“Yes,” said Wantobi. “We will succeed. It has taken time, but we will succeed.”

“We understand working for long-term goals. Ironically, we learned that from an American. Edwards Deming. We almost defeated the American industrialists because of their demand for immediate profits.” Sukki was referring to the American management consultant whom the Japanese had invited to help them in the fifties to regain their industrial strength. “We embraced Deming’s concept that in the long run, it is cheaper and therefore more profitable to build a reliable product. Japan gave the American consumer quality as a choice. Once having experienced quality, the American consumer demanded it.”

“You’re patience is most appreciated,” said Wantobi. He and Sukki were speaking in English. Wantobi had learned English when he was a child attending Presbyterian schools in Kenya. He spoke it fluently as a result of spending fours years at Oxford pursuing a liberal arts and political science degrees, and a year in the United States obtaining a graduate degree in Black History from Georgetown. He felt both irony and resentment that one of the many countries that enslaved Africans taught black history. What he learned at Georgetown had a liberal bent to it, but Wantobi knew that the curriculum had Western biases that could never be completely purged.

“Our Trade Ministry has never understood why your government will not allow us to set up manufacturing facilities here. We have secured oil fields in Malaysia, so we can provide the energy Kenya lacks. My company looks forward to a new government here. Even though the Trade Ministry doesn’t know exactly what we are doing, it will be of benefit to all Japanese business.” Wantobi nodded in agreement.

Wantobi and Sukki each boated another Nile perch. Sukki’s first one was still the biggest. Wantobi hooked what had to be a larger fish. He intentionally let the line go slack, and the fish escaped.

At noon, the guide dropped the twosome off at Pice, a small resort on a private island owned by an international hotel chain based in London. Lake Victoria, second only to Lake Superior in surface area, had numerous islands. This one was in the Kenyan part of the lake near its east shore. The vast majority of the lake lay in Rowanda to the west of Kenya.

“The Nile perch was excellent,” Sukki exclaimed as he and Wantobi sat under a palm tree transplanted from Kenya’s coast on the Indian Ocean. “Of course, the native cook did a fine job on it. I ate what was represented to be Nile perch at an expensive restaurant in Tokyo. It was not good. I assumed our meal today would be equally bad.”

“The Nile perch available on the world market are caught here by the indigenous people,” Wantobi replied as he leaned back in his chair and lit a Cuban cigar. “They are sold several times on their way to Nairobi. Even though it’s only 500 kilometers, it’s a two day trip over the dirt roads. The fish aren’t iced and they get thrown around every time they are sold. You will never catch me eating Nile perch anywhere but here.”

“Same here. I would like to come back, mainly for the lunch, and of course your company. It was most gracious of you to arrange this trip,” said Sukki.

“I will arrange it for your next visit.”

“I would be in your debt.”

Sukki changed the subject to business. “My company is most impressed by your exploits. You have gone from nowhere six years ago to a multimillion dollar business.”

“Yes. We have been most fortunate. The demand for up to-date-telephone systems in Nairobi continues to grow rapidly, even though the demand has slowed in the developed world.”

“Yes,” said Sukki. “And winning that seat in your Parliament two years ago immeasurably bolstered your credibility with my colleagues. Getting you established has been very good for all of us. You, my company and our Trade Ministry.”

“Yes, you have been good partners. I am confident that we will achieve our larger goals also.” Wantobi reopened the “larger goals” topic without waiting on Sukki to do so.

“We transferred $10,000,000 U.S. to your Swiss account four months ago. It’s down to $2,000,000 and you’re asking for another $5,000,000. That will exceed the budgeted amount for the current fiscal year by over 40 percent. You are now big enough to be a separate line item in the Trade Ministry’s budget. Our secret budget. We want to know where you are in your efforts.”

“You have been most generous the last five years. We will be taking action shortly. You will be reading about it in the Tokyo newspapers before the week is out.”

“What are you planning?” asked Sukki.

“The tourist business is very important to Kenya’s economy. That is a target. We are also going to cause problems for foreigners other than tourists. We will embarrass the government. Finally, there is the President himself.”

“So where is the money going?”

“Mostly to equip our soldiers we have been recruiting and training. All clandestine of course. The cost or arms, of all types of military equipment, is very expensive.”

“No one knows of this military?” asked Sukki.

“That is correct. At least as far we know. None of my people know your identity. Not even my generals. You and your people are protected. And no one knows my identity except my generals.”

“We will be glad to see something tangible,” Sukki said. “My colleagues will be more inclined to approve additional funding.”

Thirty minutes later, the two were in the twin Beech Baron at the north end of the runway that had brought them to the resort. The island was only large enough to accommodate a 700 meter landing strip. Sukki had not enjoyed the landing on arrival, but let no one know it. He blotted the thought of the afternoon takeoff from his mind. The air would be hotter and thinner, reducing lift. Lake Victoria was 3000 feet above see level, so the air was already thin without the afternoon heating. Sukki wish had hadn’t eaten so much.

The pilot revved the engines to full power and released the brakes. The plane accelerated quickly down the runway. Sukki had his eyes on the wind sock. It was limp. No head wind to shorten takeoff. Sukki tensed his chest and arms and clenched his fists. He looked out the windshield and could see the lake approaching rapidly. The plane lifted off hundred meters from the lake’s edge. Sukki exhaled slowly.

The pilot had no headsets for his two passengers. Without the aid of the intercom, carrying on a conversation above the engine noise was difficult at best. That pleased Wantobi. He did not like to deal with Sukki any more than he had to. Or any other foreigners for that matter.

The plane leveled off at 5000 feet above ground level, or 8000 feet above sea level. Even at that altitude, the two hour fight would be bumpy in the afternoon thermals.

As Wantobi looked out over the vista, it saddened him that the haze obscured the horizon. Bush fires set by the indigenous people caused the haze. Commercial agriculture, owned by multinationals and wealthy descendants of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century colonial settlers, forced the indigenous people into smaller areas. And so the indigenous people had much less land to support their old way of life. They overgrazed the savanna. They burned the bush to kill the ticks that ravaged their cattle. These practices were rapidly turning their remaining lands into deserts. That is what civilization brings, thought Wantobi. The exchange of nature’s gifts for the false promise of a better life. Better for the privileged few and even for them, not for very long.

The indigenous people of East Africa had been at one with nature for countless centuries. They had altered the landscape but that hadn’t destroyed it before the Europeans arrived. The ways of western civilization now forced them to treat nature as their enemy. It was hard for Wantobi to control his rage when these thoughts came to him. Capitalism. Communism. Bullshitism.

Wantobi’s rage against the West began when he was about five years old. “Mau! Mau!” Wantobi’s mother and the other women shouted as they ran into the Kikuyu village. The British soldiers thought that the women were calling the warriors out by their tribal name. But they were telling their men to “Come out! Come out!” of their huts so that they could hide in the forest. The warriors fled the village.

A British soldier fired and Wantobi’s mother fell at his feet, her eyes wide open. Blood oozed from her mouth. Her breathing stopped and her eyes dulled in the midmorning light.

Wantobi’s older sister scooped him up on the run and dived into the nearest hut. Wantobi remembered hearing the commotion outside. And then the silence. The sounds of the forest returned. The villagers began to come out of their huts. Later in the day, they took his mother’s body into the forest and left it for the hyenas.

The year was 1958. The British killed his father the year before. The Freedom Fighters, whom the British called the “Mau Mau,” prevailed in the guerrilla war. The British never acknowledged the legitimacy of the Mau Mau and labeled them terrorists. In 1963, Kenya achieved autonomy, one of the last British colonies to do so.

The children of Wantobi’s village attended a Presbyterian parochial school. Wantobi excelled with quiet resentment. He was graduated from Oxford on a Kenyan government scholarship, with a political science degree. He spent two years in the U. S. attending Georgetown University, earning a graduate degree in African Studies.

An essay Wantobi wrote for one of his graduate courses criticized the basic tenets of Western civilization. It was entitled By the Sword. Those who live by the sword die by it. And what is the sword? He argued that antibiotics were an example. This Western creation produced the environment for the evolution of more resistant strains. That sword produced short-term victories, but mankind may be worse off in long run. And a short-term result was overpopulation, which caused more ills than Western science has cured.

But the most deadly sword, Wantobi pointed out in his essay, is the Western fundamentalist belief that mankind can control nature. Inherent in that concept is that mankind is separated from nature, and that some aspects of nature, including some aspects of human nature, are evil. Wantobi did not adhere to this view and argued the point in his essay that the attempt to control nature will be mankind’s destruction.

Wantobi would have not been able to consolidate his views without studying African history. His studies convinced him the Europeans were responsible for the devastation of sub-Saharan Africa. Before Columbus stumbled on the Americas, the Portuguese in the fifteenth century developed a fast cargo ship called a caravel that could tack hard into the wind. Prior to that innovation, the prevailing winds along the West coast of Africa prevented European navigators who sailed too far south from returning. These prevailing winds, along with the vastness of the Sahara dessert, kept sub-Saharan Africa beyond Europe’s reach.

After Columbus’s discovery, the European powers parasitically went about the business of exploiting America’s resources and its indigenous peoples. Sugar cane grew well in the tropical and sub-tropical areas. Europe developed an insatiable sweet tooth. Sugar production was labor intensive, and the indigenous population was insufficient to meet demand. Disease brought over by the Europeans nearly wiped out the Native Americans.

And so the West African slave trade began in earnest, an aspect of globalization that began long before modern times. Slavery was a part of the African culture, and the Europeans turned that practice to their advantage. In some tribes, you either owned slaves or you were a slave. And so kings of West African tribes were willing to trade slaves and gold for European goods.

Europe exported Christianity to Sub-Sahara African contemporaneously with exploiting its resources. Christian Europe viewed the blacks as inferior and their enslavement to be in keeping with the natural order of things.

Most European countries outlawed slavery and the slave trade prior to the American Civil War. Prior to its onset, at least 20 million black Africans, mostly from West Africa, began the trip to the Americas under conditions that would make the Nazi and Japanese camps seem like American extended-care facilities

The slave trade peaked in the eighteenth century, with over 60,000 beginning the trip from West Africa each year. Half were destined for the Caribbean sugar producing islands. Twenty percent or more of those who began the voyage died in route and were thrown overboard.

Cuba, a colony of Spain, quickly became in essence one big sugar plantation. The slaves worked 18-hour days and were allowed only four hours sleep a night. In the refineries, overseers with sharp sabers stood ready to whack a slave’s hand off if it got caught in the machinery. Life expectancy for a slave wasn’t long, and thus the need for the continuous replacements for those who died.

In the sixteenth century, the Portuguese were the first to navigate around the Cape of Good Hope. They established a coastal outpost on the shores of what became Kenya. The Europeans didn’t take many slaves from East Africa because of the much longer voyage to the Americas. Muslim Arabs traded for black slaves in East Africa over inland routes. Like the Europeans, they exported their religion wherever they went.

Long before the Europeans made landfall in East Africa, the major indigenous tribes had been in existence for centuries. The ancient peoples were hunter-gatherers, and they were displaced by nomadic pastoral types who raised cattle, such as the Masai, and by farmers, the Kikuyu being a prime example.

When the Europeans arrived in the nineteenth century, the inland tribe peoples knew neither the wheel nor the plow, but they did work iron. It produced superior weapons. The displaced hunter-gatherers retreated to the forests, which were cleared either for farming or to provide fuel for the production of iron. Iron production was a major contributor to deforestation. It is estimated that the smelting of enough iron to make three hoes took one metric ton of charcoal. Iron production may have been the major cause of the felling of forests throughout the iron-producing world.

Before the arrival of the Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa, disease was the primary factor that kept the size of the human population in check. The tsetse fly, which carried a microscopic parasite that produced sleeping sickness in humans and cattle, infested much of sub-Saharan Africa, rendering it uninhabitable by humans or their domesticated livestock.

Prior to the late-nineteenth century, rough terrain and fierce tribes such as the Masai, thwarted European attempts to penetrate deep into East Africa. Europeans were almost universally susceptible to malaria infestation while black Africa had developed immunity. In the 1850s, the discovery that quinine would control malaria cut European malaria deaths by eighty percent in Africa.

European colonialism was nearing its apex by the mid-nineteenth century. In 1885, they carved up among themselves much of Africa. Belgium got the Congo and East Africa went to Germany and England. Kenya was England’s.

Great Britain’s first major export to Kenya was its protestant missionaries, with the Presbyterians predominating. Christianity was not a hard sell to the Kikuyu and other tribes for several reasons. One is that the indigenous people believed that a higher power created their world, so they could relate to the one-god concept. But possibly the primary reason was that for these people, everything in the world had mystical qualities. In simplest terms, they believed in magic. The Europeans brought bigger magic, and this superior magic validated all other European institutions.

Jomo Kenyatta, the first President of independent Kenya, had been Wantobi’s hero. Had been, but was no more. Although Kenyatta may have secretly supported the violent methods of the Mau Mau, he advocated change by peaceful means in the same vane as Mohandas Gandhi. In the early 1950s, the Kenyan Colonial government in a kangaroo court trial convicted him of being the head of the Mau Mau. He was jailed and later isolated from his people for almost a decade. Kenyatta was the indisputable political leader of black Kenya when he was finally released, although there was fighting among the various tribes both before and after Kenya’s independence.

Kenyatta was born a Kikuyu in the late 1880’s or early 1890’s- neither he nor anyone else knew his year of birth for sure. He was an adolescent when he first encountered Europeans. Kenyatta was in awe of the European’s ability to write. He knew this was bigger magic than any black African possessed. He began his education in a Presbyterian mission school and went on to become educated in England. He spent much of his life as a colorful character in Europe prior to his return to engage directly in the struggle for Kenya’s independence.

That Jomo Kenyatta used his energy to bring about change by peaceful means marks him as unusual. He witnessed the British settlers displace his people and the establishment of a British-staffed Kenyan colonial government administered almost entirely for the benefit of white settlers. White supremacy was in its heyday. The whites referred to the native population as “kanners” or “niggers.” Instead of giving in to humiliation, Kenyatta felt he was called to bring about change that would respect the dignity and needs of all races.

While retaining his tribal ties, Jomo Kenyatta embraced most everything Western, including Christianity. But westernization had repulsed Wantobi ever since he was old enough to think for himself. And when Wantobi learned how the Europeans in less than 100 years had ravaged a whole continent in self-righteous arrogance, his rage became almost uncontrollable. But he had a plan, and he was channeling all of his energy, intellectual and emotional, into the execution of that plan. After his meeting with Sukki, he was assured of having the financial resources required to implement the plan.

Two hours after leaving Pice, the Beech Barron touched down at Nairobi International. Sukki’s flight left for Tokyo in three hours. Wantobi looked forward to the absence of Sukki’s company. He was anxious to report to his generals and to start the events in motion.

“May I buy your dinner?” asked Wantobi.

“No thank you. They will be serving a fine meal on my flight back. You are very kind to offer.”

“Very well. I hate to leave you here for such a long wait.”

“That is fine,” said Sukki. “I can take care of some business while I wait. I have a report to write.”

Wantobi pulled a folded, letter sized envelope from the right rear pocket of his trousers and handed it to Sukki. In one movement, Sukki took the envelope and placed it in his shirt pocket.

Wantobi said, “The names of my five generals are in that envelope, and how to get in touch with them if something happens to me.”

“If something happens to you, we may discontinue our efforts here,” Sukki said.

“Yes. But you now have the contacts you will need if you do decide to continue.”

The two exchanged departing pleasantries. Feigned pleasantries for Wantobi. He took an old Mercedes to the meeting place in a village 30 kilometers southeast of Nairobi. He entered the thatched roofed, two-room concrete block structure. All five generals already there.

Chapter Three

Ben

(Return to Table of Contents)

Ben Sanguinet looked down at his right wrist for the metal bracelet the curio salesman had given him. It wasn’t there. The bracelet had little monetary value. It was made out of different kinds and colors of wire. Copper, stainless steel and black. Twisted together into a cable about a quarter inch thick. It reminded Ben of a snake. Maybe a coral snake or king snake.

Ben checked his left wrist and the bracelet wasn’t there either. He thought it might be in the pocket of his windbreaker. But where was the windbreaker? He hoped it was in the back of the plane.

“You look like you’re lost,” Sandra said. Sandra had the window seat next to Ben in the ancient airliner. The plane was one of two DC3s in the Kenyan National Airlines equipment inventory. The pockets on the seats contained a history of the planes on letter size paper. Both planes had been produced during World War II as C-47s, the military transport variant of the commercial DC3.

Ben had designed and built a house for Sandra and she had suggested the Kenya trip to Ben. He decided to go, but with some trepidation about taking so much time away from his work.

“I was lost. Kinda,” Ben said. “And I think I lost that bracelet the curio salesman gave me.”

“Oh well, you bought a dozen of them. Set you back a whole ten dollars. But that one being a gift, I guess it does mean something to you,” said Sandra.

“Yeah, it does. A friend made something for me once as a gift. It was worth about as much as the bracelet dollar wise, but it meant a lot to me at the time. That was what I was lost in thought about just now.”

A few seconds passed, and Ben said, “I apologize for getting mad this morning. There is no good excuse for that.”

“It’s OK,” Sandra said. “It hurt me, though. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”

“You didn’t. It’s just that I didn’t want to go on that balloon ride, and you and the others wouldn’t leave me alone about it. But that’s no excuse for me getting mad at you.”

“Aren’t you glad you went? It was exciting.”

The past summer, Ben found a Casio watch in a jewelry store in San Francisco that had an altimeter on it. Ever since, he was obsessed with checking the altitude wherever he went. “Yeah, I’m glad I went. In a way I’m glad I went. We got to over six hundred feet. I bet we could see a hundred miles, except that it was so hazy. I asked the balloon captain what all the haze was from, and he said it was from the indigenous people burning the bush to kill the ticks.”

“Why do they want to kill the ticks?” Sandra asked.

“Because the ticks kill their cattle.”

“Didn’t you like seeing the animals? That was neat seeing those elephants and giraffes in the woods trying to hide from us. Why didn’t you want to go?” asked Sandra.

“Flying in a balloon over the Masai Mara. It seems to have arrogance about it. An insult to nature. Like how we consider ourselves above nature and look down on it.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re usually fun. Now you’re sounding cynical.”

“Right now I am being cynical,” said Ben. “I guess a lot of people come here thinking Africa’s like a big zoo or something. This trip means more to me than a trip to the zoo.” Ben had confided in Sandra about the problems his 20-year old son was having. That and the divorce five years ago had hurt a lot. He had since read about rites of passage in primitive societies. He felt that the world he grew up in could benefit from adopting an unambiguous concept of separation of children from their parents. He was amazed that some American kids have no problem growing up in spite of their parents. But sometimes one or both of the parents won’t let go and the child takes advantage of it. His son had bombed out of school and Ben and his now ex-wife couldn’t agree on how to handle things. That was the final blow to the marriage.

Ben looked down at his right wrist and the bracelet was there. It gave Ben a funny feeling. I know it was there all along, probably under the cuff of my sleeve.

The plane made its first approach to the airstrip near Mount Kenya. As it banked, it lost altitude. Sandra had the window seat. Ben leaned over to look out. To the east, Mount Kenya rose to over 17,000 feet. How in the hell can a mountain at the equator be snowcapped, Ben thought to himself.

He looked down and saw that the asphalt airstrip was as bleak as the dirt strip at the Mara. No buildings. Just an airstrip. Landing and taking off at the Mara, they had seen herds of wildebeest and zebra. Ben saw no animals here.

The plane made its final approach and touched down. It rolled to a stop.
The pilot made a one-eighty and back-taxied to the opposite end of the runway. Modified minivans with pop-up tops and the Abercrombie & Kent logo waited on the dirt road that led to the far end of the strip. The London based Abercrombie & Kent had been putting Africa trips together for almost a century.

DC3s and an airstrip. A strange way to travel to a world class country club, Ben thought to himself. He hadn’t come to Africa to spend the night at a country club resort either. He and most anybody else could go to a country club back in the U.S. anytime they wanted to.

Ben hadn’t been in a DC3 since college more than 25 years ago. The flight attendant was an attractive black Kenyan lady about 30 years old, tall and thin. She willingly let Ben take her picture and gave him her address so he could send her a print. He wanted to think that she was attracted to him. Ben fantasized a lot.

All 22 members of the safari group got off the plane Sharon, the black
professional safari guide with A & K, was busy accounting for all the luggage and talking to the new drivers, hoping for a smooth trip to the Mt. Kenya Country Club 15 kilometers to the east. She was a member of the Kikuyu tribe and grew up in one of their villages in a transition sort of life. Her family practiced the old ways, but she and her siblings had attended parochial school. Sharon had spent 13 years with A & K as a professional safari guide after receiving a bachelor degree from UCLA on scholarship. She spoke English more fluently and with better diction than any American on the trip. She seemed impressed with Western ways and was headed to the top of A & K or a high position in some other multinational corporation.

Ben found the windbreaker in his luggage. He shot several more pictures of the flight attendant in the bright sunlight with the plane as a background.

“What the hell!” exclaimed Dave. Dave was in his early seventies and still going strong. He was one of the several entrepreneurs on the trip old enough to retire. None had done so.

Dave stood a head above Ben. He looked up at Dave and followed Dave’s stare. It led to a line of armed black men wearing camouflage fatigues. The line was horseshoe shaped, enclosing the end of the strip. They were armed with AK47 type automatic rifles pointed at the group of tourists and the attendants. The two ends of the horseshoe began to trot across the strip to meet each other. In seconds Ben and the others were encircled. All that Ben could hear were the sounds of the birds coming from the bush.

One of the armed men, wearing sunglasses and an olive green beret, approached the group, sporting an automatic pistol in his right hand. Maybe a Glock nine millimeter, Ben thought. Ben wasn’t into guns, but he had heard of the Glock.

Two others with automatic rifles followed the leader at his flanks three paces back. “Who can speak for the group?”

“You can speak to me. What do you think you are doing!” Sharon screamed with her arms straight to her sides and clinched fists, as she approached the black leader.

“We will harm no one unless there is resistance. We are going to take the plane and two of your group with us.”

“You are crazy. I will not stand for this affront! Who are you?”

“You can call me captain, ” the black leader said as he raised his pistol, aimed it at Sharon’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Several members screamed. Ben and Barbara hit the ground.

“Thank you for volunteering to go with us.” The captain directed his comment to Ben and Barbara. Ben’s stomach disappeared. Barbara was about ten feet from Ben. Their wide eyes met, their mouths agape. All was quiet again.

“Is there any one else who can speak for you?” No one came forward. “Very well. You two on the ground. Get on the plane.” About fifteen of the soldiers trotted up behind the captain. “Go ahead. Get up an get on!”

Ben and Barbara got on their feet, walked over to the rollaway ramp and boarded the plane. An armed contingent of fifteen followed close behind, led by the captain.

Barbara Hudson was in her early sixties and a widow. She looked like a golfer, thin and athletic with weathered skin, and hair the shade of blond hair you get by dyeing graying hair. Her husband, a heart surgeon, died of a heart attack three years ago and left her financially secure. Ben had several conversations with Barbara, and found her to be down to earth and good company. She acknowledged the irony of the circumstances of her husband’s death, and enough time had passed to where she could even see some humor in the irony. Ben felt this woman had strength. That gave him a little comfort. He was afraid that he was more likely to go to pieces than she.

“Go to the front,” the captain ordered. Ben had no intention of doing anything other than what these people told him to do. Barbara was not putting up any struggle.

The captain pushed Ben into the right window seat on the second row. He shoved Barbara into the opposite window seat. He went to the front of the cabin, turned and faced the rear. He looked for an instant at Ben, then Barbara. He remained standing and motionless, his gaze fixed toward the rear of the cabin.

A soldier occupied the seat next to Barbara. The captain and another soldier entered the cockpit. Ben could see some of the dials and other instrumentation on the panel. The soldier-pilots were going through an abbreviated preflight checklist.

The right engine fired and caught, growling like a huge Harley Davidson and puffing blue smoke. Then the left engine fired and caught.

Ben was numb. He looked over at Barbara. She was motionless, gazing straight ahead, and seemed to have lost her tan. The remaining soldiers had taken their seats.

The plane made a 180-degree turn on the asphalt with its left wheel fully braked and the right engine revved. As the plane came about, Ben could see that the remainder of his group had been herded to the edge of the landing strip. He saw no more bodies. The whole experience had a feeling of unrealness to Ben, like a bad dream and he knew it was only a dream while the dream was unfolding. God, please let me wake up from this one.

The pilot kept the plane rolling and brought the engines to full rev. In less than 15 seconds, the DC3 was airborne. It banked right and headed east toward Mount Kenya. Ben looked out the window and saw that the pilot had leveled off low, maybe 400 feet. Two soldiers at the rear braced the door open with a stick about two inches thick and three feet long. One of the soldiers held a handheld radio to his ear. The other picked up a heavy suitcase and made ready to toss it out the open door. The soldier with the radio raised his right hand, spoke into radio and then put it to his left ear. A couple of seconds later, the soldier quickly lowered his right arm, and the other soldier threw the suitcase out the door. He kept looking out the door, following the descent of the suitcase. After about a minute, the soldiers repeated the process.

“Enough time on the practice tee,” a soldier the cockpit entrance yelled to the soldiers by the rear door.

The soldier sitting next to Barbara stood up, grabbed her by her right arm and pulled her into the aisle. “Leave me alone, you piece of baboon shit!” Barbara shouted. The soldier pulled her down the aisle toward the open door.

Without thinking about it, Ben shouted, “Whatever you’re going to do to her. Don’t do it. Do it to me instead!” Ben’s bravado was a reflex action. It produced a momentary feeling of elation in him.

“We decide what is going to happen here. Keep quiet or you both go,” the captain said in a loud voice.

“Go where?” asked Ben.

“We want to make sure one of your group gets to the country club, though not by conventional means. Now shut up!”

Ben looked out the window and the pilots had maintained the low altitude. After three minutes the plane banked left and made a 180 degree turn to a west heading. Ben could see that they were over a golf course.

He looked to the rear of the plane and two soldiers were holding Barbara as she struggled to free herself. Another soldier strapped a canvas bag around Barbara’s waist, with the bag on her lower back. He then put duct tape over her mouth and around her wrists behind her back. Could civilization stay together without duct tape? Ben thought. He could hear muted screams coming from Barbara’s throat and his skin crawled.

The soldier with the handheld radio put it to his left ear. Ben could barely hear him telling the soldier who strapped the bag around Barbara to set the timer for four seconds. He reached in the bag and retrieved and set the timer, which had two wires leading into the bag. The soldier with the radio then raised his right hand. Ten seconds later his hand came down and in one motion, two soldiers threw Barbara out the door as one soldier tripped the timer. The plane immediately banked left, tipping the plane’s left wing. The soldiers on the left side of the plane followed her descent. The captain looked out a window and yelled, “Fore!”

Seconds later several of the soldiers raised their arms with thumbs up. And then the muffled sound of an explosion reached the plane. What in the hell have they got in store for me? Ben thought.

The plane came to a southwest heading and remained at low altitude.

* * *

A single bare light bulb hung from a black cord and cast a dim yellow light in the musty smelling room, leaving the corners dark. Wantobi and his five generals, dressed in casual civilian clothes, sat around a table playing poker. The poker game had been going on for three years. To the local villagers, there was nothing unusual about this group getting together once or twice a week.

The flat color display of the laptop computer lit the top of the wooden box it sat on next to the poker table. The computer was connected to a radio transmitter through a small interface device. The computer scrambled outgoing and unscrambled incoming audio messages. Sukki provided Wantobi with whatever electronic and computer equipment he requested.

The radio came on. “The Mount Kenya operation was a complete success. We have the plane, and it is in route to the Luo village for refueling.”

Wantobi picked up the mike and pushed the transmit button. “Excellent,” he said. “And what about the country club event. How did that go?”

“Very well. The President’s motorcade was in the parking lot. We missed his limousine with the tourist, but we got an airburst over the parking lot. Quite a mess. They’re still looking for pieces of her body. Not much to find.”

“Good. The election is two weeks from now. The President has no suspicion that my candidacy is serious. With his death, my election will be assured.

Chapter Four

Lisa Meets Ben

(Return to Table of Contents)

Don got into the truck on the driver’s side. A villager named Jomo slid in feet first through the right front window. They were headed to meet the DC3.

Lisa and Don enlisted the help of Jomo when they first arrived. They wanted a liaison with the villagers, and Jomo spoke English. He learned some in school, and got to practice fueling the planes that stopped for gas. Jomo accompanied Don and Lisa from time to time on the rounds to check the monkey traps. He helped them with some of the routine tasks in the lab. Jomo provided a useful extra pair of hands. His Luo mother named him Jomo out of a sense of irony, because her birthing him was difficult and painful. His namesake, Jomo Kenyatta who was the great leader

As the truck came out of the woods along the river, Don could see that the markings on the DC3 were different from those on the freight transport that showed up every week or so. This one had Kenyan Airlines painted in red on it.

The truck was still a hundred meters from the plane when its rear door opened and two black soldiers jumped out. They hit the ground, rolled, and came to their feet with weapons to their shoulders.

Don saw the flash from the muzzle. The bullet hit the left headlight before Don heard the shot. Without stopping, he made a 180 degree turn and headed the truck back to the village. More bullets hit the truck before Don got to the forest. Jomo kept tall in his seat, seemingly oblivious to the deadly bullets. Don was crouched down as far has he could and still see over the hood.

The truck sped into the village. Don caught a glimpse of Margie and headed straight for her. “Get in the truck! Now! Quick!” Margie tried the left rear door and it wouldn’t open. She dove through the left rear window.

“What the hell is going on? What’s all this shooting about?” Margie asked.

“Later,” said Don. “We need to get Lisa and get the hell out of here.”

“Lisa’s still with the sick man,” Margie said. The words were no sooner out of her mouth than three soldiers began firing at the truck from the edge of the village. Ten meters in front of the truck a young village child fell in a lifeless heap. Don put the gas pedal on the floor and sped out of the village and into the bush. “We’ll come back and get her later.”

“I don’t know,” said Margie. “Those guys weren’t giving us a chance. They might do Lisa in right quick.”

Don kept the truck at speed. He slowed down after a couple of kilometers. With an angry look on his face, Jomo said, “That child was the son of my sister. We go back to help my people.”

“Yes,” said Don. “We will go back. But let’s go and get help before we go back.” Jomo responded with a slight nod of his head.

“Where is the nearest village?” Don asked Jomo.

“Two days on foot that way,” Jomo said, pointing to the northwest. Don figured it to be at least sixty kilometers. He headed in that direction. Five minutes later, the Landcruiser engine sputtered and then stopped.”

“Oh no! Now what?” Margie exclaimed, her voice shaking. Don looked at the gas gauge and it was on empty. “Damn! We’re out of gas. I filled it up yesterday or the day before.” Don got out of the truck, went to the rear and looked under it at the fuel tank. “They hit the gas tank.”

Jomo said, “They will see sign that the truck leaks fuel. They will come after us. We must hide.”

“Let’s get the rifles and any ammunition and anything else that looks handy,” Don said as he jumped out of the truck. They got the guns and a couple of other things. Jomo headed for the river, which was only a couple of clicks to the south.

“They know we will go this way because of the water. We’ll head a little to the west. I know a place where we can cross. There is rock on the other side so we’ll lose them for a while there.”

“Then what?” asked Don.

“We go back to my village. See what we can do.”

“Why not go to the next village?”

“I can sneak into my village and get help. That’s all we could do at the next village. I don’t want to carry sickness to next village.”

“How are you going to fight machine guns? Sounds like suicide to me,” replied Don. Jomo said nothing and kept walking.

* * *
Lisa heard the shooting. She knew it came from the airstrip but had no idea what could be going on. She heard the Landcruiser as it headed toward the village. Then the shooting began again. Closer this time. She heard the truck speed off. She didn’t know whether to run or hide or what. The sick man did not react to the gun shots.

She saw three soldiers coming toward the shed. She remained motionless. As they entered, she asked, “What do you want?”

“We want you,” said the one closest to her. She looked at all three and said nothing, struggling to keep her composure.

The one in front, a lieutenant, looked at the sick man. “What is wrong with the villager?”

“He has Ebola. Two others have already died. Now you are exposed and you will die,” Lisa shouted. The leader’s head raised and went back ever so slightly. After a few seconds, he said something to one of his men in Swahili. The man stepped forward, pointing his rifle at Lisa from his waist. The lieutenant then turned, and trotted toward the landing strip.

“There is Ebola in this village,” the lieutenant yelled to the captain, who was standing in the door of the plane. “Two have died. We are now exposed. We will get no closer to you.”

“That does change things. We will let the Ebola do what we had come to do.” The leader turned his head to the right and looked up the cabin at Ben. Then he turned his attention to the lieutenant, who was now close to the plane. “We will leave the tourist here with you,” the captain said. “Make sure that he gets to know the sick villager.” The captain motioned to the soldier next to Ben. The soldier got up, grabbed Ben by the arm and pulled him down the aisle toward the door.

“Throw him out,” the captain said in a voice that sounded to Ben like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s.

Ben was no athlete, and he had never been in the military. He had a vision of paratroopers hitting with their feet and then rolling across one shoulder. That’s what Ben did. It seemed to work. He got to his feet and nothing hurt much.

“Get over to the others,” the captain ordered Ben with a threatening gesture of his rifle. Ben walked over to the lieutenant, occasionally looking back over his shoulder at the captain. I’d like to kill that sonofabitch, Ben thought.

“I’m afraid that you and your men are going to have to stay here, lieutenant.”

“I understand. What are our orders while we’re here?”

“Don’t let the foreigners escape. Report to us daily. Maybe you will survive the sickness. If you get sick, kill the foreigners even if they are sick.” The captain disappeared into the darkness of the plane’s cabin. Ben and his captors watched as the DC3 fired its engines and back-taxied downwind to the far end of the grass runway, dust streaming behind it.

The lieutenant said something in Swahili and started toward the village. One of the other soldiers shoved Ben forward.

The lieutenant led the group straight to the open-air hospital, which was isolated from the village. One of the soldiers pushed Ben inside the shelter.

“Madam,” said the lieutenant, “meet a fellow American. You will have another patient very soon.”

He then barked an order in Swahili to his men. Two of them grabbed Ben, pulled him over to the sick man, and forced his head down into a lip-on-lip kiss with the sick villager.

Ben threw up, vomit spewing all over the sick villager and onto the boots of the soldiers. One of them pulled Ben’s head up and the lieutenant hit him across the face with the butt of his rifle. Ben fell to the dirt floor, blood spewing from his mouth. Lisa gagged.

The lieutenant and his men conversed in Swahili among themselves for a few minutes, trying to determine how best to contain their prisoners. Lisa washed Ben’s face off with a wet rag. He came to a sitting position.

“We would go ahead and shoot you, but we don’t want you to die an easier death than us.” With those words, the soldiers grabbed Lisa and Ben and forced them into the village. Ben’s feet were heavy and he couldn’t hold his head up. The lieutenant found the village chief. After a brief conversation, the chief led the group to a hut. The lieutenant motioned for Lisa and Ben to get into the hut.

Ben came around a few minutes later in the dark hut. “My name’s Ben. Who are you? Where are we?”

“I’m Lisa. You’re in a Luo village. I’m here doing HIV research. Who are you?”

“I’m a tourist. Or was.” Ben went on to explain about the attack and the soldiers killing the safari leader and then throwing his companion out of the plane.

“Who the hell are these guys? I can’t believe they’re government troops.”

“No,” said Lisa. “They aren’t government troops. I’m at a total loss. The Kenyan political situation has been relatively stable for several years. That’s one of the reasons my employer chose Kenya.”

“These guys aren’t too stable. They’re nuts. They’ll kill you for no reason.”

“They’re two other Americans with me,” Lisa said. “I’m an MD and so is Don. He and Margie took off in our Landcruiser.”

“Who’s Margie?”

“She’s a psychology prof at Berkeley. She’s seeking an advanced degree in anthropology. Doing a paper on something about the psychological difference between tribal people and us civilized guys.”

“Sounds real academic,” said Ben.

“Maybe she and Don can get somewhere and get help.”

“So what if they do? I’ve literally had the kiss of death.”

“Maybe not,” said Lisa. “That villager is very sick but we don’t know that he has Ebola. In fact he probably doesn’t. No villager has died. The soldiers weren’t really exposed either. That takes direct contact. I told them all that to buy some time.”

Ben was impressed. An attractive, bright, adventuresome and resourceful lady. Late thirties?

Ben studied her for a moment and said, “I’m an architect. I came here with a bunch of other people armed only with cameras. This kind of activity is not my bag.”

“I didn’t bargain for this either. I haven’t the foggiest what to do. I’m scared shitless.”

Ah, thought Ben. She’s not perfect. She uses profanity. “What about the villagers. Will they help us?”

“I think they will if they can. They’ll be deliberate in their moves.”

“What about we try to escape? Maybe tonight?”

“I don’t think that will do us much good,” Lisa said. “We have no weapons. I doubt we can survive in the bush.”

“Maybe we got only a two percent chance in the bush. We have no chance here. Their leader ordered that jerk who hit me to kill us if they got sick. They’re going to see us dead one way or another.”

Lisa thought for a minute. “You’re right. But how’re we going to get out of here?” She went over to the door of the hut and looked out. One of the soldiers was sitting under a tree about ten meters away, using its trunk as a backrest. “They got a guy out there guarding us.”

Ben explained a plan to Lisa. He still had his pocketknife. Lisa was willing to give it a try. They would wait until dark.

Five minutes later, a soldier escorted Lisa to the lieutenant who was in the lab tent. “We found your log by the uplink equipment. You will make your scheduled report to your control tonight. Your report will be routine.”

Just then, one of the lieutenant’s men entered the tent. “We hit the gas tank. They can’t get far.”

“Okay. You and another take a day’s provisions and go get them. We don’t need any more prisoners. Present the lions and hyenas with an easy dinner.” Turning to Lisa, he said, “I’ll see you back here at 21:00 hours.” The lieutenant dismissed the soldier, and Lisa was on her way back to the hut before she could say anything.

“Maybe we should wait and see if your guys can get help,” Ben said to Lisa. Ben had been rethinking his plan while Lisa was gone with the soldier. It would be less risky for the moment to do nothing. But Ben knew that to do nothing would mean certain death.

“They won’t be getting any help. The soldiers hit the gas tank of the truck. The lieutenant sent two of his men out to find and kill them.”

Ben grimaced. “I guess I’m getting cold feet. That soldier guarding us is twice as strong as I am.”

“We’ll get it done. If we can take out this soldier, then there’ll be only two we’ll have to deal with to get out of here.”

“Ok,” said Ben. “We better make our move just after dark. Let’s get out of here before the other two get back.”

“I do a routine report back home each night at 9:00. That’s what my little visit with the lieutenant was about. They’re making me do it tonight. There’s a code word I use to let my people know there is something wrong. The word is ‘pink.’”

“Well, then,” Ben said. “We can sit back and wait for the Calvary to arrive. Quick as a wink, we’ll be in the pink.”

“Real funny. All my guys will know is that something’s wrong. They’ll contact the Kenyan government. We aren’t a real high priority with the Kenyans. It’ll be at least a week before anybody shows up.”

“Okay. I guess we go right after you get back.” Ben said.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

A few moments passed. “Maybe we ought to pray,” said Lisa. “Are you a religious type?”

“Not really. I don’t do well with mainstream Christianity. That’s what I was brought up on.”

“Yeah, well I start praying and I get kinda confused. I mean, why does God want me dead? I did yoga for a while and sorta learned how to meditate. It does me good while I’m meditating. I think I’ll try meditating for a while.” Lisa got into an imperfect lotus position with her eyes closed. That gave Ben the opportunity to keep his eyes on her. Ben was a part of the majority of men who are visual when it comes to romance. He was grateful to have the opportunity to experience a little joy in this hell he found himself in.

Ben lay back and ruminated over the plan and the various moves. Fear flooded his mind. He could feel his concentration slipping. I will not let fear consume me. Keep thinking this thing through! Beads of sweat accumulated on his forehead.

“Damn, this meditation thing never did work for me,” Lisa said. “I do better by keeping busy. But there’s nothing to do ’til dark.” Ben thought of something they could do. Ben might be 51 years old, but he still had a few hormones left.

“I’m going to sharpen my knife,” was all that Ben could come up with. He took out his pocketknife. His son gave it to him a decade ago. It had good metal that kept the single blade sharp, which folded into the composite handle. It would already shave the hair off the back of his wrist. Even so, Ben stroked the knife’s blade on his leather hiking boots.

They decided to take a nap, or at least try to. They would be up all night if they made their escape. Both were able to get to sleep, and Ben woke up first. Just before dark, one of the soldiers brought some food. Lisa recognized it as something Jomo might have put together.

Shortly before 9:00 p.m., Lisa was taken to her tent and she made the report. As soon as she got back, Ben asked, “Did it go okay with the report?”

“Yeah,” said Lisa. “The soldiers that went after Don aren’t back.”

“Okay. I’d like to put this off. But as they say, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Chapter Five

Refuge in the Bush

(Return to Table of Contents)

Two hours of sun remained when Don, Margie and Jomo reached the river at a point where it made a bend. Don figured it to be about 70 meters wide. The current was slow, not even two knots. A sandbar extended at an angle from the near bank to within 20 meters of the far bank. “We cross here, ” said Jomo.

“That’s a big one over there,” Margie said, pointing to the far shore where a crocodile over 4 meters long lay basking in the late afternoon sun. “How’re we going to do this?”

Jomo said nothing and walked out onto the sandbar in his normal stride, signaling Don and Margie to follow. Don and Margie followed with quick steps.

Jomo reached the end of the sandbar. The water ran clear over a shallow gravel bottom. The croc rested with its eyes open 10 meters from the point where the three would exit the river. Jomo waded out in the river, the water rising to just below his knees. He gained the shore and faced the crocodile, and then waved to Margie and Don to cross. The big reptile didn’t move. “You go,” said Don. “I’ll shoot the fucker if it moves.”

“I’d rather you go first.” Tears began to fill Margie’s eyes.

“O.K.” Don waded into the river, moving slower and more deliberately than Jomo, his eyes searching the water for crocs. He was across in less than half a minute. The big croc remained still.

Jomo and Don waved Margie to come across. Finally she entered the water.
The croc slid off the bank and disappeared beneath the surface of the river. Jomo yelled, “Get back to the sandbar!” Margie turned and made it back.

The croc came out of the water and onto the sandbar in one quick move. Margie froze as the huge lizard lunged for her leg. Don raised his rifle and fired as the croc imbedded its teeth in Margie’s flesh. Her scream muffled the crack of the gunshot. Her blood mixed with the dead crock’s as it’s reflexes caused it to wreath, throwing Margie to the ground.

Don and Jomo ran across the shallows to Margie, oblivious to danger. The jaws of the dead animal were locked onto Margie’s leg.

“How do we get this thing off her? Jesus. He’s torn her leg up.” The rifle bullet hit the crocodile just behind its jaws, blowing most of the reptile’s neck away.

Jomo took his knife and cut the crocs head off. He then used a rock the size of a coconut to knock out its teeth between its snoot and Margie’s leg. Jomo stood on the reptile’s lower front jaw and pried the jaws open with his rifle. Don pulled Margie’s leg out.

“No bones broken. Some really ugly gashes.” Don said.

Jomo nodded. Don wrapped the wound with a piece of his shirt. Jomo saw no evidence of other crocodiles. They carried Margie across the river.

Jomo fashioned a crutch out of a piece of driftwood. Margie tried it, and she could walk with a limp. “I can put weight on it, so I ought to be able to get around. How far is it back to the village?”

“Less than a half day,” said Jomo.

“Why don’t we hike ’til dark and then make camp?” Don suggested, turning to Jomo.

“That means I’ll have to go into the village tomorrow in daylight,” Jomo replied. “Maybe that’s good. The soldiers don’t know me, and to them, I’ll be just another villager.”

The three climbed the low bank of the river. Just ahead rose an escarpment of about 3 meters. Jomo led them up and onto the exposed rock strata that stretched for miles in all directions. He took a route ninety degrees from the river. Don and Margie followed, Margie limping badly.

Lisa stuck her head out the door of the hut. “We need water.” The soldier made no move. She waved for him to come over. The soldier got up slowly and strolled over to the hut. “My friend is very sick. He needs water.”

“Too bad, ” the soldier responded in a sarcastic voice. He turned to go back to his resting place and Ben leaped out of the hut, jumped on the soldier’s back and slit his throat. The soldier’s muffled scream bubbled through his severed windpipe as he fell to the ground, blood spurting from his jugular, gurgling and then gasping his last breath through his severed windpipe. Two villagers witnessed the event with expressionless faces; they made no move.

Lisa grabbed the soldier’s automatic rifle. Ben jerked the ammunition belts and pistol from the corpse. Lisa removed his canteen, and then she and Ben ran into the night.

Ben knew nothing about combat or the marshal arts. He had been in a few fights in his adolescence. He knew that surprise and speed were the keys to winning in a street fight, especially if you were average size.

His heart pounded as he ran through the bush with Lisa in the lead. A half moon lit their way in shades of pearl and midnight blue.

“I’ve got to stop,” Ben gasped. Lisa slowed to a fast walk. They had been running for less than ten minutes. “I’m winded. Let’s drink some water.”

“OK. Let’s be totally still so we can hear them if they are coming after us.” Lisa and Ben gulped from the canteen, and then sat still. Ben figured out how to fire the rifle and pistol. After a few minutes, the insect sounds from the surrounding bush returned. They waited another five minutes. The sounds of the bush persisted.

“Maybe they’ll wait ’til morning to come after us,” said Ben. “What do we do now?”

“It doesn’t matter how far we go, they’ll be able to track us, so maybe we should lead our trail out a kilometer or so and then double back and ambush them along our trail.”

“If there are only two of them, we might have a chance. If all four come.”

“Yeah, there are some low hills over there.” Lisa pointed to the northeast. Ben could make out their dark silhouette in the moonlight.

Ben and Lisa hiked until midnight. They passed around a low hill on its east side, and continued northeast a half a kilometer. Then they circled back and came up the west side of hill. They stopped at the top. The full moon was straight overhead.

“They’ll probably go around this hill out of range. They know we have guns.”

“If they do, we will hot foot it back to the village,” said Lisa. “Maybe the villagers will be able to help us.”

“The bad guys are going to have radios. They’ll let the other two know we’re headed back,” said Ben.

“Then what the hell will we do?”

“I guess we still head back. Those guys killed that child and the villagers are going to make a move against those shitheads sooner or later. I guess we’ll have to count on it being sooner.”

“Okay. That’s the plan. I’ll stand watch first and you can sleep,” said Lisa.

“I don’t think I can sleep. Tell me about your companions.”

“As I said, Don is an M.D. He is good at what he does. Margie spends most of her time with the villagers and her computer. She tapes stuff. Jomo has become a good translator for all of us.”

“Jomo?”

“He’s a villager who’s been helping us since we’ve been here,” Lisa said.

“You guys get along?”

“Yeah. We’ve been here for four months. We work well together. Margie and I talk about girl things. She has a boyfriend at home and they’ve been together three years. She decided after this trip, she wants to go back home and get married and have a family.”

“You got a guy back home? I don’t see a ring on your finger.”

“No. And I’m not gay, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“What about Don.”

“He’s divorced.” Lisa said nothing more and a silent moment passed.

“I’m divorced,” Ben said. Lisa looked up at him, encouraging him to continue.

“It all happened a few years ago. Hurt me badly. We’d been married for 25 years.”

“That’s a long time. What happened?” Lisa asked.

“A lot of things. I didn’t want the divorce. I was a jerk, but my wife wasn’t perfect either. We’ve got a couple of kids. They’re grown. I didn’t want to see the family break up.”

“Did you love your wife?” Lisa asked.

“Very much. Much more than when we were first married.”

“Maybe you guys can get back together.”

“Not much of a chance,” said Ben. “I’m not counting on it.”

“Do you have anybody now?”

“No. I’ve been in a couple of relationships that lasted a year or so. I thought I wanted to get remarried. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Why’s that?” asked Lisa.

“Things were simple when I was young. I got married because that was the thing to do. My wife provided me with emotional support like my mother had. She provided me with sex, which I liked a lot. I provided her with children. I did okay as a provider, financially wise.”

“That didn’t sound like an answer to my question.”

“I’ll shut up if you like. I have to lay some background to explain why I’m not sure I want to get remarried.”

“I’m sorry. Please continue.”

“Okay. Like I said, motives for marriage were simple. As time went on, our relationship became more complex. It didn’t survive the growing complexity.”

“That sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. If you loved each other, it would’ve survived.”

“I agree, so I can only conclude that my wife didn’t love me.”

“But that still doesn’t answer why you’re not sure about getting remarried?”

“Well, it’s the complexity thing. It’s like the laws of the universe. It started out with little bitty shit, then hydrogen, then more and more complex elements. Then organic compounds. Then life itself. And so it seems with relationships. At this stage of my life, I want more out of a relationship than just sex and a mother substitute. There are too many great things to experience in this life. A bad relationship can screw all that up.”

“That’s fair. I can see your point. Sounds kinda selfish though.”

“Yeah, I know. What about you? You ever been married?”

“No,” Said Lisa in a calm voice.

“Don’t you want to get married and have a family?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t met the right guy.”

“I’ve heard that excuse a lot,” said Ben.

Lisa responded in a curt tone, “I’m going to try to sleep if you’ll stand guard.”

“Ok, but I’m going to sit instead on stand,” said Ben. Lisa lay down, trying to get comfortable. “You can use my leg for a pillow,” Ben said without thinking. Lisa looked up at Ben for a second, and then accepted his offer.

* * *

In the moonlight, Jomo could see two soldiers closing in on Don and Margie. He made the jackal-like noise that was a signal to them.

Don readied his rifle. Margie lay still. Jomo sighted in on the one in the rear and pulled the trigger. The moonlight disappeared in the flash. So did both soldiers.

Jomo moved to his left in an arc behind where the soldier had dropped. The soldier in front rose up and opened fire on the point where Jomo’s gun had flashed. The dark figure pulsated from the strobe effect of the automatic rifle fire. Don and Jomo both fired once at the silhouette. The silhouette disappeared.

Jomo moved to his left again, stopped and listened for sounds. He heard nothing. Jomo waited five minutes and then crawled slowly to where the first soldier had fallen. He lay face down in a pool of blood, black in the moonlight as it soaked into the sandy soil. Jomo looked at the soldier’s automatic rifle,

He crawled on to where the second soldier had fallen. He wasn’t there. There was no sign of blood. In the moonlight, Jomo could make out a track through the grass and dirt. Jomo crawled after it, pausing often to listen for sounds.

The soldier raised up and he and Jomo fired simultaneously as Jomo rolled to his left. Dirt flew where Jomo had been. Again there was silence. Jomo crawled to the fallen soldier, who was lying on his back, arms outstretched and eyes wide open.

Jomo walked over to Don and Margie, crouching low. “Are you OK?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yeah,” said Don. “We’re OK. Are there any more?”

“I don’t know,” said Jomo. “I only saw two. They’re both dead. There could be others.”

“What do we do,” asked Margie. The whites of her eyes seemed to cover her entire face in the moonlight.

“We sit still and listen,” said Jomo.

* * *

“Wake up!” Ben shook Lisa. He looked at his watch. It was a little after 2:00 a.m. There were no clouds to dim the moonlight, which seemed to produce only the colors of soft white and midnight blue. Ben was not used to being out in the open at night, and it seemed to him like they were on another planet.

Lisa stirred. “What is it?” she asked. And then she sat up wide awake with a startled look on her face. “Damn! It’s not a dream.”

“Not a dream. A nightmare. I heard gunfire. Some of it was automatic rifle. It was a long way off. I don’t know if it was in the village or where.”

“Jesus. I hope they didn’t get Don. And Lisa and Jomo.”

“That gunfire makes me want to move outa here. I guess we ought to stay put though.”

“Yeah,” said Lisa. “Do you want to sleep?”

“I’ll try.”

“You can use my lap for a pillow.” Ben did as she suggested. He went to sleep with tears in his eyes.

Chapter Six

Still on the Run

(Return to Table of Contents)

“Lisa dropped the “f” word in her last message. We got it at ten o’clock this morning.” Bill Fowler had a transcript of the message in his hand. He was briefing project chief Evelyn Chease at the main offices of Milestone Pharmaceuticals in San Francisco.

“What do you mean the “f” word?” asked Evelyn.

“You know. The code word that they’ve got a serious problem. Like in ‘Oh fuck!’”

“So ‘fuck’ is the code word?” asked Evelyn.

“Of course not!” Bill replied with a frown on his face. “The code word is ‘pink’. Lisa said ‘His arm has a pink lesion on it.’ She was talking about this sick indigenous guy they think might have Ebola.”

“She’s probably upset about the Ebola thing and forgot about the code word,” Evelyn said. “I mean ‘pink’ makes sense in the context she used it.”

“If it hadn’t made sense in the context she used it, it would arouse suspicion. You may be right, of course. But I think we have to treat it as if she meant to use it as an alarm.”

“Okay. So what do we do?”

“A word in the sentence that may be a clue is ‘arm.’ Like in arms. You know. Guns and shit like that. ”

“I’ll ask again. What do we do?”

“I checked out our protocol,” said Bill. “It calls for us to contact the Kenyan government and get them to check it out. They want to see us be successful, so they agreed before we went over there to provide help if trouble came up. There’s one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I was checking the news summaries on the Internet this morning. Some terrorists attacked a planeload of tourists in Kenya yesterday. They hijacked the airplane and took a couple of the tourists with them. Then they threw one of the tourists out of the plane over a resort. She had a bomb strapped to her, and there ain’t much left to bury. Bizarre.”

“So you think there’s a connection?” responded Evelyn.

“There could be. Armed terrorist attacking foreigners. And they bring in DC3s to refuel at the village where Lisa’s staying.”

“How long do you think it will take them to get somebody to the camp?” Evelyn asked.

“Who knows? Their military is going to be busy with the hijacking.”

“Let’s go ahead and contact the Kenyans,” Evelyn said.

“Okay. We’re trying to reach Lisa or Don on the radio now. If we hear something bad or hear nothing, then I don’t know what we do. The protocol doesn’t provide for alternative measures.”

“I’ll take it upstairs. But I can tell you that Lisa and Don and Margie are going to be on their own. This chicken shit company isn’t going to pull a Ross Perot. You know, like when he got his people out of Iran when the Ayatollah took over.”

Bill left to call the prearranged contact with the Kenyan Embassy in Washington.

* * *

“Yes, Mr. President. It is embarrassing to be bombed with a tourist,” President Moi’s chief of staff said over the phone. “We have scrambled helicopters, but we don’t know where to search. The DC3 is flying below radar.”

“I’ve been shot at and had my house bombed. But who has the audacity to pull such a stunt? Find these people. We’re going to kick their butts!” President Daniel Arap Moi yelled and slammed the receiver down.

* * *

“The Americans escaped and killed your man,” the Luo chief said to the terrorist lieutenant.

“How could they do that? There were no shots.”

“They had a knife. They slit his throat.”

The lieutenant paced the tent. “We can’t go after them now. We will wait until the other two get back,” the lieutenant said, directing his comments to his companion. Turning to the chief, he said, “Thank you for informing us.”

“You are welcome. We do not like the foreigners here. We are glad you are here,” the chief said as he turned and exited the tent.

It was 10 p.m., the night of their arrival at the village. The lieutenant ordered his remaining man to stand watch while he got some sleep and to wake him at 0200 hundred hours.

An hour later, the chief and three of his warriors surprised the guard. Three of them held him and kept him quiet as the chief ran him through with his spear. They entered the lieutenant’s tent and easily subdued him. “What is wrong?” he demanded.

“You killed our child. You are no friend of ours,” the chief responded.

“What do you intend to do with me. If you are going to kill me, make it quick.” The chief said nothing as his warriors grabbed the lieutenant and dragged him out of the tent.

Several more warriors carried iron chains and the bodies of the two dead guards as they followed the chief’s group into the moonlit bush. About a kilometer out, they stopped. A couple of the warriors quartered the dead soldiers with machetes and scattered the remains.

Three others restrained the lieutenant while another warrior fastened a leg iron to him. A chain ran from the leg iron. The warriors secured the chain to an acacia tree with heavy wire. The chief handed the lieutenant a bladeless spear.

“The lions and hyenas will dine well by the moonlight,” the chief said to the lieutenant. “I hope you enjoy the meal.” With those words, the chief and his warriors turned and left the lieutenants fate to the laws of nature.

Sweat poured from the lieutenant. His fatigues were soaked in minutes. He heard a movement in the bush. The eyes of a hyena glowed yellow. And then several more pairs appeared. He sat still. The spotted hyenas began to move quickly with their noses to the ground. Two of them found the same body part and began a tug of war.

Then they all joined in. The melee continued for a couple of minutes as the lieutenant watched. He could control neither his bladder nor his bowels.

And then the lions showed up. A pride of seven females and one large male. A skirmish between the two species ensued. The male lion grabbed a hyena, broke its neck, and slung it into the bush. The hyenas retreated some distance while the lions tore into the human body parts.

After thirty minutes, the lions had their fill. They moved off and the hyenas moved back in. Two of them began to circle the lieutenant. Three more joined in an attack. The lieutenant was on his feet, thrusting wildly with his impotent spear. One of the hyenas grabbed him from behind. It was all over in a matter seconds.

* * *

Ben awakened to the sounds of birds praising the new day’s beginning. To be a bird. Maybe a bird’s brain is too small to worry about the future. Maybe it would be nice to be a bird.

“You got some sleep. You snored some.”

“Yeah, and I dreamed some. Thank God I can’t remember what it was about.”

“There’s been no sign of the bad guys,” said Lisa. “We don’t have much water, and it’s about four hours to the river. What do you think?”

“I think we head for the river. We can’t cross our old trail or they’ll come straight to us.”

“Yeah. Let’s head west of the camp.”

“Okay,” Ben said. “Right now, I’d rather have my toothbrush than these guns.”

Ben and Lisa gathered their few items. The dayglow-orange orb sat on the eastern horizon as they descended the low hill.

* * *

“It will be light in thirty minutes. Let’s get going,” Jomo whispered to Don and Margie. Margie had slept some. She now had a fever and was sweating profusely.

“We’ve got to get back to camp soon or lose Margie. She’s hotter’n a firecracker.”

“Yes, hotter than a firecracker. I have a firecracker,” said Jomo.

“That won’t do us much good,” Don said. The two got Margie to her feet. They started their trek, with Margie between the two men, her arms over their shoulders. “We can be at the village in two hours,” Jomo said.

The sun had been up for an hour when the village came into their view. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary to Jomo. “You stay here,” said Jomo. “I’ll be back soon.”

Fifteen minutes later, Don saw Jomo coming toward them. Two other villagers were with Jomo. They were carrying a litter. “Holy shit Marg! Jomo’s coming with help.”

“Good. My leg is going numb. I feel awful.”

A couple of minutes later, Jomo arrived with his friends. “All the other soldiers are dead,” Jomo said. ”Lisa and another American escaped last night.”

“Good. She’s not dead. Let’s get Margie back to camp. I need to take care of her leg.”

On the way to the village, Jomo explained that there had been five soldiers. Don and Jomo had killed two. Lisa and the other American killed one when they escaped. The villagers finished off the other two. “The lions and hyenas had a fine breakfast,” Jomo said.

“Who’s this other American?”

“The chief said that the soldiers brought him from the plane. That’s all the chief knows,” Jomo answered.

Chapter Seven

Enter the NSA

(Return to Table of Contents)

At the National Security Agency, the event in Africa required the application of strict procedures to determine the probability of whether or not the event, or those who perpetrated it, were connected with other terrorists attack around the globe directed at U.S. interests, which they called the “Adversary.” The facts were categorized using a checklist and then analyzed by human intelligence. The fed had spent tens of millions to develop comprehensive artificial intelligence software and databases for terrorist profiling. Neither the NSA nor the CIA was impressed with the results so far. Trying to use the program made simple scenarios more complex, and the complex arcane. Although the NSA as well as the FBI and the CIA used the program, none gave great weight to the results.

People who came on board with the NSA thought the checklist to be beneath their level of sophistication. However, they soon discovered that their brains did not always think of all the details, and so saw the checklist as more beneficial than the computer analysis.

Joe Dodger had been in charge of completing the sheet on the Kenyan incident. By noon Eastern time on the day of the attack, Joe had finished the checklist and looked it over:

Victims
                   Dead or injured:
                   Nationality                       (1)American          (1)Kenyan
                   Race or ethnic                 European               Black
                   Number and gender       1F                    1F
                   Ages                                64                         38
                   Relationship to event       tourist                   tour guide

                   Hostage or captive:
                   Nationality                     (1) American         (3)American
                   Race or ethnic                 Caucasian             Caucasian
                   Number and gender         1 male                 2F, 1M
                   Ages                              51                        36-42
                   Relationship to event       tourist physicians

Location of attack
Country                         Kenya
                   City
                   Facility name           Airstrip near county club.

                   Airplane                     DC3
                   Bus
                   Train
                   Other                       Lou village where hostages taken

Method of Attack
                   Car bomb                                         no
                   Truck bomb                                       no
                   Stationary bomb                               no
                   Guns                                                yes
                   Knives                                              yes
                   Rocket launchers                               no
                   Airplane- hijacked (type, nationality)  DC3, Kenyan Airlines
                   Airplane- other (type, nationality)       no
                   Missiles- conventional                          no
                   Missiles- nuclear (kind and yield)         no
                   Missiles- chemical (kind)                    no
                   Missiles- biological (kind)                  no

Other American thrown from DC3 at Mt. Kenya Club with bomb attached.

Kenyan government communicated to American embassy that American at Lou
Village sent out distress code.

Perpetrators

                   Nationality                     Unknown
                   Race                               Black
                   Number                          40
                   Attire                              Camouflage fatigues
                   Arms                              Automatic rifles and sidearms
                   Suicides                          None
                   Estimated Financial
        resources                       $1,000,000 plus


Narrative of events:

“US Male age 51 and US female age 64 (USF64) taken hostage aboard hijacked DC3 after terrorists killed black Kenyan female age 38 at airstrip. USF 64 thrown from DC3 at low altitude with high explosive bomb fastened to her that exploded airburst over Kenyan country club parking lot. Kenyan President at country club at the time.   Fate of USM 51 unknown. Three Americans, one male and two female, doing research at a Luo village northwest of Nairobi included a distress code word in transmission the evening of attack. There is an airstrip at the village that refuels bush planes. End”

Joe had a printout of a computer synopsis of the Kenyan political climate. The government in power was semi-corrupt, relatively stable with no known threat to its continuity, and friendly to the West but fickle. The U. S. provided Kenya with about $20 million in foreign aid annually.

Joe and two others spent a couple of hours going over the case, analyzing the facts. At the end of the meeting and after they had come to a consensus on the issues, they concluded that there was a strong probability that the terrorists were not connected with the Adversary but rather were autonomous and had only a Kenyan political agenda. The computer gave it a 50 percent probability that the event was linked to the Adversary.

Joe prepared a draft profile of the leader of the terrorists and his or her motives, which was adopted by the group with only minor changes:

“The leader is most likely a black Kenyan who wants to bring down European institutions and influences in his or her country. He is not prejudiced in his attacks, that is, he will kill blacks and whites alike who are connected with the offending institutions. America is not well liked by the majority of the population of sub-Saharan Africans, including Kenyans, and so his attack on the American tourist and the DC3 is meant to gain support for his cause. As has become the vogue, the U. S. is his or her scapegoat.

“The number of perpetrators involved and their armament suggests that they are well financed. The leader must have substantial wealth to finance this operation himself or herself, or money may be from a source foreign to Kenya. However, it is unlikely the Adversary would commit financial resources to this attack for three reasons: 1. An attack in Kenya is of no immediate strategic consequence to the Adversary; 2. The attack was directed at the Kenyan President and so indicates an internal political event; 3. The Adversary would not commit financial resources to military attire.

“We do not believe that the United States should commit significant resources to bring the perpetrator to justice, because he (or she) possesses no threat to a large number of Americans, nor does the United States have significant strategic material or political interests in Kenya. We recommend that a single agent be dispatched so that the U. S. government can honestly say to the American people that measures are being taken to bring the perpetrators to justice.

“Our executive branch should consider communicating our suspected profile of the terrorist leader to the Kenyan government. End.”

Joe delivered the memo to his superior. He was confident that this matter would play no important part in American strategic interests, but he did wonder what the perpetrator had in store for the DC3. Although the events themselves supported a conclusion that the Adversary was not involved, Joe and his colleagues agreed that the telling fact was fatigues. The Adversary spent money on necessities and not formal war attire

Chapter Eight

Stephen Mangee

(Return to Table of Contents)

“Yeah, I know. But I’ll be back in a couple or three weeks. Besides, I haven’t seen my family in over five years.” Stephen finished up the conversation with his wife. He dreaded the thought of getting on the two-legged 20 hour flight to Nairobi.

Stephen kept up with Kenyan politics after he decided to make his life in the U.S. Not really any worse than U.S. politics. His view was that about the only difference was that Kenya was behind in the number of presidents since 1963. The score was seven to two in favor of the U.S. Both governments best served special interest groups while paying lip service to the needs of the masses.

But Stephen Mangee was a pragmatic person. He realized that the unique set of skills he accumulated provided him a better life in the U.S. than in Kenya.

His secretary left him several files on Kenyan anti-government groups. Stephen put those in his brief case, got his pre-packed travel bag out of the closet, exited the government office building and caught a cab for Dulles International.

* * *

“Look at all those buzzards circling over there,” Ben said to Lisa, pointing southeast to where the village lay. The sun had heated the bush and the birds were riding the thermals.

“They’re vultures but not buzzards,” corrected Lisa

“Whatever,” responded Ben. “Maybe it’s the soldier I killed they’re after.”

“Do you feel any remorse about killing that guy? I feel kinda funny about it, but I don’t feel any guilt.”

“Me neither,” said Ben. “The second or third day we were here, we saw an injured zebra on our way to look at the animals. Our driver said he would be somebody’s dinner before we got back. Sure enough, there was nothing left but bones and a few scraps when we came back a few hours later. I felt some sympathy for the animal, but seeing this brought home an understanding. Nature has no compassion. Things die so other things will live. That’s the way it has always been and that’s the way it will always be, irrespective of how we feel about it.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it to

Dystopian Paradox

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By the Sword

Dystopian Paradox

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By the Sword