Sahara Dawn

by David F. Berens

  Abrax added:

  “We are not special. The desert holds a million corpses.”

  They walked and walked, again in silence, but this time the silence was an angry one. This man had brought Ned into the desert having told him he was the right man to be his guide. Now, he was dismissing his life like it was nothing.

  Ned was well aware that people die in the desert, and that it is a very easy place to die. That didn’t mean it was okay to talk to someone like Abe had because they couldn’t easily accept their fate. If Ned couldn’t get to his sister, it might also determine her fate too.

  Periods of delirium were beginning. Like so many people in this situation before, Ned was sure he could see things on the horizon. Things that would save his life and stop the intense agony he was feeling. The outskirts of a town, a water tower, or travelers who would surely have supplies. None of them were real. At times, it was like his thoughts became his visions. He imagined an opulent party with champagne fountains and dazzling 1920s attire, the guests twirling to big band jazz. It seemed to be happening all around him.

  Between these bouts, he found he was in phases of self reckoning. What he had chosen to do with his life? For all the people he had supposedly helped, there were many others who had suffered. He knew it had been right to spend his career defending his country the best way could; using his brains instead of brawn. But had his methods been right? Had he cared enough about the people who stood in the way of his missions?

  He had dismissed the importance of their lives on several occasions, just like his desert companion had been so dismissive. Maybe life was really not so special at all. Another night came and went. When Ned awoke, he still could not shake the feeling that life was insignificant. Meaningless.

  This uncharted level of mental defeat was the final blow. Ned stood then immediately fell to his knees. The heat seemed to be gripping him like a giant hand crushing him to death. He was sure his lungs were filled with sand. He closed his eyes but was too tired to weep.

  Abe turned and looked at him the way a parent looks at a child who has been pathetic and tiresome all day.

  “Stand,” the man said, his stern tone matching the parental expression on his face. Ned shook his head. Without any more attempts to persuade, Abe simply turned and walked away. When Ned found the energy to lift his head, he saw that Abe seemed to be almost sprinting. He is desperate to get away from me, that’s how pathetic I am, Ned thought. Even now, he can find the energy to run away from me.

  He knew he would be left alone in the desert, but he simply let the old man go.

  Then, Ned heard shouting. Abe was yelling. Through dry and tired eyes, Ned could still see nothing on the horizon. Then, it emerged. The silhouette of a camel. Surely it was another mirage?

  But if it was, then Abe was reacting differently to anything he had seen—or imagined he had seen—in the last few desperate days.

  “My God,” Ned said quietly, barely able to speak as his mouth was so dry. Could it be real?

  Strength, from somewhere, flooded into his legs. He stood. He could not run, but he walked as fast as he could towards what might be the most important life form he had ever encountered. As he got closer, more figures appeared, silhouetted against the magnificent Sahara dawn. Humans. Two men in front of a camel and two behind.

  Ned stumbled and fell several times as he made his way towards the group. Now, he could see more camels and more men, maybe fifty meters behind the first group. It seemed to be a nomadic tribe, maybe the Shanegia.

  Abe had now reached them. Ned could see that he was on his knees. The men were down on their haunches tending to him. A bottle was produced. Ned stumbled and fell, then stood and walked again. Soon, he was surrounded by men in turbans and robes. A bottle was held to his lips. He felt as if he was being tended to by angels. It was difficult to swallow much water, but the small amount he had taken in felt like life itself running into his body.

  One of the Shanegia men placed a large hand on Ned’s head. He felt like a child safely back with his family. He already knew he would love these men forever. Somehow, the survival instinct suddenly slipped away and he fell into a deep sleep, his head lolling onto his chest. When he came around several hours later, he was on a camel with his head in its long, coarse fur.

  28 A Long Slumber

  Haley felt like every part of her nervous system was flooded with some kind of corrosive acid. Her stomach was aching. She could not believe she had somehow wound up in the situation.

  It’s your own stupid fault, a voice inside her head told her.

  The footman who had escorted her to The Butcher’s bedchamber knocked twice on the door, waited for a very short time, and then entered without being invited. No doubt, she had been taken to The Butcher’s room at the exact time he had instructed. It was one o’clock in the morning.

  The room was surprisingly small and very plush, with deep-red decor and intricate floral wallpaper. It would have been a lovely, cozy place to be in circumstances very different from these. The Butcher was sitting on a chaise longue with a crystal glass in his hand. He was wearing a white-silk robe. Haley was wearing something very similar, and had been dressed in it by Lysha who had worked silently, presumably through sorrow for what Haley was about to face or nervousness for what she was about to do. Haley and The Butcher were dressed like a newly married couple in their honeymoon suite. It was disgusting.

  The leader seemed to be very drunk. His eyes were half closed. Haley hoped it might make her task easier, but those hopes were quickly dashed. When The Butcher saw her in that robe, his eyes widened. The footman swiftly left.

  The Butcher looked Haley up and down. She felt sick. She was also very, very scared. Not only for what The Butcher might have planned for her, but also for the contraband that she had smuggled into the room. The robe offered very few places to hide such contraband, small though it was. In fact, the garment was no use at all. She had the sleeping pills tied up in her hair. She had always felt lucky to have thick, full hair, and now it was luckier than ever.

  The pills were taped to the back of her neck and covered by a good length of hair. The most terrifying thought was that The Butcher would soon have his hands in her hair in an act of supposed romance.

  The Butcher patted the seat cushion beside him. Haley thought it would not be at all good to seem reluctant. She walked over and sat. He looked deep into her eyes, his face very close to hers.

  “Are you okay, my love?”

  Haley could not believe he was pretending to be concerned for her, or that he had called her “my love.”

  She did not know how to respond.

  “We will not sleep together tonight,” The Butcher said. Haley failed at trying to hide her relief. “I do not think you are ready.”

  Haley nodded.

  “Tonight, we will sleep beside each other. We will feel each other‘s breath and heartbeats.

  Haley silently imagined her answer:

  I gotta tell ya, buddy, I’m not ready for that either.

  Instead of declaring her thoughts, she simply nodded again.

  “If your body is speaking to me. If our minds are intertwined, we shall make love.”

  Haley felt sick to her stomach. She was confused by The Butcher’s mixed messages. Most likely, he would try to sleep with her as soon as he could while pretending the act was mutual. It never would be anything close to mutual, but he had an erratic mind, and no doubt believed that anything he said automatically became the truth.

  “But first, we drink.”

  The Butcher handed Haley a crystal glass similar to his. He picked up a bottle of Louis XIII Black Pearl Cognac and poured Haley a very large measure.

  “Do you have ice?” she asked. She had to try everything she could to keep a clear head.

  The Butcher seemed disappointed. He shook his head.

  “This liquor should not be watered down,” he said sternly.

  Most of the brandy was drunk in silence. The incident
with the ice appeared to have upset The Butcher. It was easy to do.

  After a time, The Butcher put down his drink. He took Haley’s away from her even though she had not finished. She was taking it slowly.

  He put his hand on her cheek. He was moving his mouth towards hers. Before he reached her, she could smell the scent of brandy and cigars on his breath. It was strong enough to strip paint. His lips were on hers. She prayed his tongue would not enter her mouth. The kiss was mercifully brief. For some reason, he was making an attempt at gentlemanliness. She felt violated nonetheless.

  After a moment of unbearably awkward silence, at least for Haley, The Butcher said: “Excuse me, my dear.”

  He stood and walked towards a closed door on the other side of the room. Haley hoped it was the bathroom. But at the same time, she hoped it was not. That would mean she now had to put her plan into action. She did not know if she was mentally ready.

  The Butcher pushed down on the handle and walked into the bathroom. He did not fully close the door, and Haley cursed her luck. She desperately wanted to be separated from him.

  But the place where The Butcher had been sitting was out of sight of the bathroom. With her heart racing so fast that she feared she might pass out, she shuffled along the edge of the sofa. She reached up into her hair, her fingers trembling. She couldn’t find the pills. There were just layers of hair. It should have been easy to find the package, but she was panicking. She heard the toilet flush.

  She fumbled again, panicking. Her fingers landed on the package. But she didn’t have time to slip the pills into his drink. She froze. Then, before she knew what she was doing, the pills were between her fingers. She slipped them into The Butcher’s brandy as he opened the door. Her hand was still hovering over his glass when he stopped in the doorway.

  Haley picked up the glass and held it out towards him.

  “Here you go,” she said with a smile. The Butcher just stared at her. Then, he smiled back.

  “Good girl,” he replied.

  Haley tried to take a glimpse at the glass to see if there were still any undissolved pills or bubbles. But brandy of that strength will dissolve anything pretty quickly. The Butcher knocked back his drink in one gulp. He must find pissing hard work, Haley thought.

  Relief flooded into her body. It was a wonderful feeling, if only temporary, but she felt for the first time in too long that she was in control.

  For the next thirty minutes, Haley felt a strange kind of smug satisfaction. Watching The Butcher sitting there, sipping his fine liquor, paid for with the blood and toil of his wretchedly poor population. Thinking that he held the balance of power, when she knew that he did not. Not total power. Not right now.

  And then, another thirty minutes passed. The pills should have been working. Haley began to wonder if this man’s constitution was so toughened up by his indulgent lifestyle that the sleeping pills barely had any effect on him. Not only were her plans falling apart, but she would have to sleep next to him and be expected to embrace him.

  The Butcher began to tell a story. It was the story of how his father used to take him hunting, and by the age of fourteen he had become the best shot in the entire country. Mostly, they went out trophy hunting. But one day, according to this rambling story, The Butcher got word that a servant walked out on his post having refused to serve breakfast to one of the generals. He didn’t like what he was being paid, and didn’t like being talked down to, so he simply abandoned his position and walked. The young Musa jumped onto a horse and rode it out of the palace grounds. He stalked the servant across barren land, knowing he would be headed for his home on the outskirts of the city. When he found him, walking by the side of the road, he took out his bow and arrow and aimed for the man’s head.

  Haley braced herself to hear the gory details of what happened when the arrow struck. But no details came. The Butcher’s eyes were closed. The empty glass fell from his hand and onto his lap. His head flopped backwards. He had fallen asleep instantly like a child does, not knowing they were even tired.

  Haley, on the other hand, felt very much awake. She had to remember the instructions, or more accurately the rumor, Lysha had told her. She stood and moved towards the fireplace. She ran her fingers along the stones. Everything seemed solid without any inconsistencies. She needed more information. Her mind was racing, but she had to find an answer. She went back to the sofa and picked up a crystal glass.

  As quietly as she could, she began to tap it on each part of the fireplace, listening for a slight difference in sound. As she continually looked over her shoulder to make sure The Butcher was still sleeping, she tapped away, desperately hoping to hear something different.

  She did.

  One of the stones sounded more hollow. She tapped it again to confirm, then pushed it hard. Nothing happened. So she pushed it even harder. Suddenly, she was falling. The floor of the fireplace had moved to one side, leaving a dark hole. There was a ladder leading down into the hole but Haley only saw it whizz by as she grabbed out at it, missed, and felt her shins slap against it.

  Her bottom hit hard ground. She wished she still had some of the padding she’d had before shedding the pounds during her suffering in Africa. But the pain was nothing. She was amazed that the plan had worked. So far.

  The tunnel was completely dark. She was sure there must be a way to light it, but she had no idea how to do it and no time to find out. She quickly climbed the ladder and pulled the stone back into position. There was a painfully loud scraping sound. Clearly, the mechanism was supposed to be operated by another button, not just by dragging the stone. She couldn’t believe she had undone all her hard work simply by trying to cover her tracks. She froze. She could hear The Butcher still snoring. It was louder than the scraping had been, and to Haley it was the most joyful sound in the world.

  She began moving very quickly in the opposite direction to the bedroom. There were creatures in that tunnel, she could feel them all over her. Insects, spiders, rodents. She could hear footsteps along the walls so loud it sounded as if the rodents were wearing jackboots.

  It would have been terrifying, but excitement and adrenaline drove her on. She would have been far less excited if she had known what was happening in a room directly above the point she had just passed. Lana had been dragged from the cells and taken to one of the generals for his entertainment. As he sipped whiskey and invited her to do the same, he told her with a smile:

  “Soon, they will burn you. Burn you with American weapons. They will bring you all together and roast you alive. Your skin will melt from your bones.”

  29 Smuggler’s Blues

  It was quiet along the Ethiopian border. The country had been an arch enemy of Okapi for decades, but a few trucks still trundled across the border even this late at night. Despite being mineral-rich, The Butcher’s country had not built a strong economy and lacked a lot of basic goods that had to be imported. It also lacked a lot of very non-basic goods, such as the fine coffee that was ordered into the palace from the neighbor to the north.

  Chris and Tsu were wasting no more time. After Hawkins had betrayed them, and having read that no progress had been made on the developing hostage situation in Okapi, they couldn’t waste any more time. They had to help their friend.

  Now, they were crouched in bare, sharp bushes with insects yet again crawling on their skin. The situation would have been reminiscent of the Amazon except for the fact that the lush and sweet smell of bountiful nature had been replaced by the stench of human shit.

  Clearly, this place was where the truckers went to relieve themselves before crossing the border. Chris and Tsu planned to smuggle themselves onto one of the trucks. They knew that refugees tended to go the other way, escaping The Butcher’s brutality, and they hoped searches of the trucks would not be too stringent on this side. The other side, however, would be a different matter. They had no doubt that The Butcher would be paranoid as all hell and make sure to check everything coming into the country. DVDs
containing foreign movies or TV shows that might paint his regime in a bad light. Even Ethiopian special forces trying to smuggle themselves in for an assassination attempt.

  Through the dust and darkness, Chris and Tsu saw one of the drivers approaching them. They quickly realized what his intentions were. It was time for relief. They crawled through the spiky bushes away from the disgusting area and left the man to it. He glanced over in their direction, thinking the movement in the bushes was made by an animal that might either interrupt his business or attack him. Chris and Tsu stayed in the shadows. Having taken note of which truck was his, they emerged from the bushes and got down on their bellies, crawling across hard ground until they could smell gasoline from the aging engine. They rounded to the truck doors at the rear. The doors were locked.

  Chris glanced across the parking lot and could see the driver was already making his way back out of the bushes. He tapped Tsu on the arm and pointed towards the next truck. It had an open back with only tarpaulin covering the goods. It was clear the driver was in the front as his hand was hanging out of the window holding a glowing cigarette. They would have to be extremely quiet.

  Chris went first, taking one step to mount the truck with a deftness a ballerina would have been proud of. Tsu followed with equal poise. They found themselves among commercial refrigeration equipment. Some of the chest freezers were large enough to contain a person, but they were all strapped up.

  They searched around in the darkness for a solution. One of the appliances seemed old and battered with jagged edges at its base. Chris looked at Tsu, and she knew what he was thinking. She saw over his shoulder that a truck some distance away was about to start up. She held up her hand telling him to wait. When the engine started, she nodded. The truck was old and the engine was loud.

  Chris dragged the fridge towards one of the chest freezers and used the sharp, damaged edge to cut one of the straps. Knowing it was only big enough for one person, he nodded to suggest that Tsu should get in. She appeared to be done with playing the hero for now, and she climbed inside. Chris closed the top. He had to be fast. The driver could have a final inspection of his goods at any time.