Sahara Dawn

by David F. Berens

  She waded through that disgusting swamp for what seemed like an hour, until she finally hit more solid ground. There, she collapsed and slept involuntarily.

  When she awoke, she was sure she had been beaten severely around the head. The throbbing pain in her skull was immense. She ached throughout the rest of her body too. She opened her eyes and saw that she was still in this desolate place with no sign of human life. She could not have been beaten. What was wrong with her? She was shaking and sweating, and she guessed she had a fever.

  When she tried to stand, her legs wobbled pathetically. She fell to the ground and tried to crawl. She covered only one hundred meters when she passed out again.

  Haley was completely exposed, and the unforgiving sun was once again shining down in a cloudless sky.

  When Haley finally came around, one of the most wizened faces she had ever seen was hovering above her. She was lying flat on her back on a hard surface, and behind the face she could see the underside of a thatched roof. There was a strong smell of wood smoke. The face smiled. Then, the old man shouted. A woman, equally ravaged by time and exertion yet strikingly beautiful, came to join the man. She also smiled.

  “Where am I?” Haley asked.

  “Itoophiyaa.”

  Somehow, she recognized this as the local name of the country bordering Okapi: Ethiopia. Was she really safe? No sooner had she felt the relief of not being in a hostile nation, she felt incredible pain throughout her body. She had thought it was just the aches of her ordeal, but it was worse than that. It was like her whole body was on fire.

  As a scientist, she could already make a good guess at what was wrong with her. There had been so many mosquitoes, and she had been motionless on the ground allowing them to have their fill. It was either malaria or dengue fever. That would also explain her sudden fatigue in the swamp,

  She knew she would need treatment, but this was definitely no hospital. It seemed to be a very basic farmhouse, more like a hut, made of mud. She tried to stand but she could not. She held her little finger and her thumb to her ear and said:

  “Phone. Please give me a phone.”

  The couple just stared. She made a ringing noise with the lips. Even that was too much exertion. The woman nodded then turned and walked away. Five minutes later, she came back with a mobile phone that looked like it was from the 1990s.

  “My son’s,” she said proudly. “You can use it.”

  Unlike the 1990s, her generation did not have a memory full of phone numbers. They just clicked a name on a screen. But there was one number she could always remember: Ned’s friend, Blake. He had a memorable one because he was into heavy metal music and his number contained three sixes.

  She dialed and called, trying to pass it off as a friendly social call even though the guy could obviously tell that her voice was shaking, and no doubt he had heard about her disappearance on the news. He duly gave her Ned’s phone number.

  Ned had kept his old phone with him, hoping that Haley may call. In fact, he had glanced at the screen many times since he returned to civilization. Hoping to get news that her release had been negotiated, news from Frank, or from Haley herself.

  As he glanced yet again, he sighed with the inevitable disappointment, then tried to sit up. He was in a hospital bed in Khartoum, surrounded by patients who stared at him most of the day. As he offered another weak smile to the latest starer, he saw an international number pop up on his phone screen.

  Haley could only manage one word, her brother’s name, before she exploded with tears. She tried to speak, but Ned could make no sense of it. However, he knew it was his sister, and he too began to cry. Finally, when Haley had pulled herself together, she told her brother she had escaped and was in a small village in rural Ethiopia.

  With difficulty, she had managed to ascertain from the farmer and his wife what the name of the village was. She also told Ned that she was very sick. The couple and others in the village seemed to want to tend to her, but she needed a real doctor. She told Ned she didn’t know if they had any transportation or if there was even a hospital within a hundred miles.

  Ned looked around the ward he was in. He had been tended to very well and was feeling much stronger. He thought for a moment, then said:

  “Haley, sit tight. I’m coming for you.”

  He unhooked himself from the medical machinery, then climbed stiffly out of bed and walked down the clean but dilapidated corridor as he put his phone to his ear.

  “Well I’ll be damned, you made it,” Frank said in his reassuringly deep voice. Ned realized he should have called him sooner. But he should have called a lot of people sooner.

  “Only made it so far, buddy. I need your help now.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I need transportation to rural Ethiopia. I need a plane from Khartoum to Addis Ababa then I need the fastest possible vehicle you can arrange. And I need a doctor to be inside it.”

  “Ned, I have to tell you: I still think traveling that close to Okapi on a commercial airliner is extremely risky. The Butcher has people on the ground in Ethiopia. Has done for years. The countries are sworn enemies. You know that.”

  “My sister is dying. She told me she thinks she has malaria or dengue fever. Without treatment, those illnesses can kill you.”

  “I understand. But know this. The only reason Haley was ever in that country is because they set her up to be there. They set up communications with her university and invented some bullshit project to entice her. They targeted her to target you. And Chris. You’re walking right into the lion's den.”

  “No, I was walking before. That didn’t go so well. So now, I’m flying right into the lion's den. Please, Frank. Get me those tickets.”

  32 American Zippos

  Ned’s stomach was in knots as he showed his passport at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. There were eyes on him from all sides. He had no idea if that was just because he stood out like a sore thumb, being so pale and round, or if there were spies everywhere. Nevertheless, he made it out to the waiting car without being apprehended.

  In the car, he found a thin man with a very serious expression and round spectacles. He reminded Ned a little of Mahatma Gandhi.

  “Doctor?” Ned asked.

  The man simply nodded.

  The driver stared straight ahead and said nothing. Frank had informed Ned he was ex-Ethiopian special forces, and there was no doubt the guy had a military air about him. A grim expression and total focus. That worked just fine for Ned right now.

  In the heavy traffic of this jam-packed Ethiopian city, it was impossible to know whether they were being tailed. When they finally made it out of the sprawling capital, they were on open but very bumpy roads. They were driving through endless dry plains with brittle grass and short shrubs. There was a heat haze in the road up ahead as well as behind, which made it difficult to know if any traffic was around. They hadn’t seen a car for quite some time, but if they were being tailed then Ned knew the distance between the cars would have been kept at slightly more than current visibility whenever the road up ahead was straight.

  Right now, Ned could live with being tailed. Being taken in, however, was not an option. He had to get the doctor to his sister and save her life. He would deal with whatever came next when it came.

  Those were his thoughts during the three-hour drive away from the capital. After miles of monotonous landscape, he looked once again over his shoulder to see what was behind. This time, something caught his eye. He thought he could see the sun shimmering on metal. He waited for a vehicle to emerge from the haze, but it did not. But he was sure he could see the metallic curve of a hood. Was he imagining things again? It was an experience he was becoming used to.

  They passed through the city of Awassa, taking the beltway to avoid the center. There was now too much traffic around to know if they were being followed. They reached the other side of the city and the roads were once again clear. This time, there was no doubt. The silver car,
whose driver had been waiting to get away from the city and out in the open, was suddenly bearing down very quickly.

  “Oh, shit…,” Ned declared. He glanced at the doctor, whose eyes were almost as wide as his spectacles. The car was coming at them like an express train.

  The driver, who had spoken very little, told Ned the village they were looking for was nearby. Ned couldn’t take the thought that they would be apprehended so close to reaching his sister. The quiet man of the Ethiopian special forces was suddenly animated. This was exactly the sort of situation, clearly, that he had been expecting. He handed Ned and the doctor each a cigarette lighter.

  “Wait,” he instructed.

  From under the passenger seat, he pulled a can of gasoline. He hung it out of the window, pouring it on the road and the dry grass around the verge as he sped along. Then, he handed it to Ned.

  “Spread on the road. Back of car.”

  Ned did as he was told, sloshing the gasoline out of the back window and across the road. He only once allowed himself to glance up and see how close the vehicle was getting. Very close. The car was packed with four men, all of them broad-shouldered and dressed in black. Ned could see the expression on the driver’s face, and the man looked like he wanted to wipe out lives as soon as possible.

  “Wait,” Ned’s driver said again. “Throw, when I say.”

  The chasing car was now barely twenty meters behind. Ned turned and looked again. The muzzle of a semi-automatic weapon appeared out of the passenger-side window. The sound of gunfire filled the air. Ned whipped his hand back into the car, dropping the can on the road.

  The noise was overwhelming. Bullets were hammering into the car, ripping through metal. The window next to the doctor shattered. The man yelped and cowered, burying his face in the backseat.

  “Throw!” the driver yelled.

  Keeping his head down, Ned tossed his lighter out of the window.

  “I said, throw!” the driver shouted again. Without looking at the road, the doctor threw the lighter over his shoulder through the gap left by the shattered glass. These were trusty American Zippos and the flames stayed lit. The doctor’s landed in dry grass, and Ned’s in the road, right in the center. It was a great shot.

  He waited a few seconds then watched as the gasoline lit up. The flames spread quickly. There was no time for the chasing car to stop. It plunged into flames growing higher in the grass and on the road.

  A bullet hit the side of Ned’s car, then another one. If any bullet caught the engine, it would be the vehicle Ned was traveling in that would be blown apart first. The doctor had his hands on his head and his head between his knees.

  The chasing vehicle smashed into the back end. Ned’s driver tried to straighten the car, but it was spinning in the road. They were rammed again. Ned put his head between his legs, bracing himself. He heard a massive explosion. He waited to feel the terror of being engulfed in flames or thrown into the sky.

  But he felt nothing.

  Through a small portion of the rear window, Ned could see a plume of smoke and flames. That’s when he knew it was the tank of the other car that had been set alight. The next thing he saw was silver metal, as the vehicle behind was flipped into the air, spinning front over back.

  Mr. Special Forces was as calm as you like. He had one hand on the wheel and no expression on his face. As Ned heard the crunch of the attackers’ vehicle landing roof-first on the road, the driver simply said:

  “We shall arrive soon, sir.”

  When they entered the village twenty minutes later, it seemed as if the entire population of the place was waiting for them. Ned and the doctor were out of the car immediately, ignoring the glances at the bullet holes in the vehicle. Several people pointed them into a farmhouse, and Ned had no idea which of them was the farmer who had helped to save Haley‘s life.

  Ned was overcome with emotion when he entered the bare room where Haley was lying unconscious. This was not the reunion he had hoped for, and he longed to see her smiling face. The doctor got right to work, opening up a small leather satchel and pulling out a syringe. Haley had no color in her face, and her breath was short and sharp. Ned put his hand gently to her cheek.

  “Hey, sis. I’m here,” he said. Haley did not move or open her eyes. Ned was welling up with tears. “Will she be okay?” he asked the doctor.

  “I don’t know,” the doctor replied. It was an honest answer, but far from the one that Ned wanted. “She needs to rest,” the doctor told the small crowd that had gathered in the room.

  “What did you give her?” Ned asked.

  “Quinine sulfate,” the doctor replied.

  “Is that enough? Doesn’t she need something else?”

  This time, the doctor said nothing. He gave a brief but sympathetic look. He had previously answered the question. In truth, he did not know if anything would be enough.

  The next few hours were torture. Ned paced the ground outside the hut, his gaze pointing down towards the dirt. As the sun set, the woman who he had now ascertained was the farmer’s wife ran out of the hut. She grabbed Ned by the arm.

  “Sir, please, come inside.” Her tone was urgent. They went inside, and this time there was nobody else in the room. The woman turned and left. Ned gasped with joy when he saw that his sister’s eyes were open.

  “I knew you would come for me,” Haley told him as she smiled weakly. Ned clasped her hand. It was cold and sweaty.

  “Are you okay? How do you feel?”

  “I think I’m okay, but I don’t know. I have felt better before, but it comes in waves.”

  “I’ll go get the doctor.”

  “No, wait. There’s something you need to know.”

  “You need treatment first.”

  “The Butcher has a secret escape tunnel that leads from his bedroom,” Haley continued despite her brother’s advice. “It comes out far from the palace next to a lone acacia tree.”

  “Haley, that’s good to know. But please, just rest and concentrate on getting better. “

  Haley took some deep breaths.

  “Yes, I know. But something big is going to happen soon. This is not going to end with the release of hostages. When he starts killing them, all kinds of countries will be on the attack. That is how he will escape the palace. Satellite imagery will not help you.”

  Ned realized that as he held his sister's hand, his little finger was on her wrist. Even though he hadn’t been paying attention before, he suddenly noticed that the pulse had just slowed considerably. It was as if passing on the information was the only reason she had kept her body going.

  Her eyes roll back in her head.

  “Oh God, no!” Ned yelled, then ran out of the room and shouted for the doctor. When they returned, Haley’s eyes were closed and she was not moving.

  The doctor began CPR. Ned had his fingers intertwined and his hands clasped tightly together, pressed to his mouth.

  “Please, Haley, please,” he repeated over and over. The makeshift drip that the doctor had hooked up was out of fluids.

  “Fill it up!” Ned instructed as he pointed.

  The doctor had ceased CPR.

  “There’s nothing left,” he replied. “Do you know how difficult it was for me to get even that amount?”

  Ned was brutally reminded that people die in Africa all the time due to a lack of basic supplies that people from other nations take for granted.

  He held his sister’s hand and began to sing the song that had been the soundtrack to so many memories.

  Haley died, and Ned hoped with all his heart that she had died with a peaceful soul.

  He fell to his knees. He wept uncontrollably, his head in his hands. The doctor simply left the room. It was not his job to console. For now, Ned felt no guilt. Not that he had done anything to put his sister in danger, but self-recrimination was inevitable for anybody in a situation like this. All he could feel in that moment was sadness. There was nothing else to feel except the overwhelming pain of loss. />
  33 Into Hell

  Voices on the iPhone recording could just about be heard over the noise of the club. Chris and Tsu had to sit through several hours of boring conversation, with men trying to charm women with words that in truth were vulgar and thoughtless. There was a lot of talk of physical exploits. Who had recently won a brutal street fight, or which military officer had drunkenly used a homeless person for target practice. Violence going down like caviar.

  Finally, Chris and Tsu got something useful. There was to be a meeting of several of The Butcher’s senior military staff at a rugby club on the outskirts of the city in two days. It was a prestigious social event, and there was talk of the dinner and the fine foods that would be eaten. There was more posturing about how much would be drunk and who would be the last one standing. The women clamoured for an invite.

  In the dark, depressing hotel room that stunk of cigarette smoke and stale sweat, Chris and Tsu were trying to come up with a plan. During a period of mental rest, most of which was spent trying to fix the clunking ceiling fan, Chris decided he would try calling Ned. Frank had informed him that Ned was crossing the desert, but if Ned wasn’t out of the desert by now and back within cell phone range, he was never getting out.

  Chris felt a surge of joy when he heard his friend answer. But it was short-lived. Ned was sobbing.

  “Chris. Buddy. She’s gone.”

  “Ned, what happened?”

  “Haley. She’s dead. Those evil bastards!”

  Chris’s throat was tight and his fists clenched. He was devastated and enraged.

  “They killed her?”

  “She died of an illness. Dengue fever. Because she was on the run from them. Got lost. Because they took her. It wasn’t the mosquito that killed her. It was them.”

  “Ned, I am so sorry.”