Dawn of Hope- Exodus

by Dobrin Kostadinov

  All media and TV channels were at the site to broadcast the events as the planes flew undisturbed towards their targets. The channels covered the happenings and ran the news one after the other, exposing human cruelty. Omar saw everything on the screens in front of him. “It shouldn’t have happened this way, God dammit!” That is what he repeated a few times aloud. He gnashed his teeth, but did not let his emotions loose. The culprit responsible for that wasn’t there for Omar to vent his anger on. The weight that suddenly lodged in his throat like a lump made him restless. But that burden was yet to weigh on his shoulders.

  At the same time the planes circled around the airport, situated immediately by the German supply warehouse. The operation was on. The first plane landed successfully, the others stooged over, preparing to do the same. The team of forty people, armed as if for an airborne paratroop landing, dropped out of the plane and headed off for the barn the size of a few football fields. Scarface came at the front. He was carrying a device which operated with a few-mile range jamming all sorts of communication networks. Even the cameras failed to record what was happening because they were temporarily disabled and could not directly upload video footage wirelessly into the archives of NATO’s security headquarters. It was as though a veil had descended over the area; the security agencies were to discover the uncovered events long after the invaders were gone.

  There were only ten guards keeping watch in front of the gates of the warehouse and one person who defended the barrier gate at the entrance of the thoroughfare that poured into the highway. They were the only ones left to watch over the place. Short on manpower and shocked by the recent incidents, they stood no chance. The mercenaries blew up the barrier gate along with the sentry responsible for it with a grenade launcher. Right after that they opened fire on the guards. Scarface’s men carefully approached the gates of the warehouse half-crouching and burst-firing. They quickly managed to force the poor souls to give up even the tiniest bit of resistance they barely caused. Three were killed, one was severely injured. Six came out of it without a scratch and together with their wounded compatriot went into hiding behind a concrete blockade.

  The shooting died down and a voice shouted out.

  ‘Surrender right now! Surrender or suffer the concequences.’ That was the voice of the offense leader.

  Terrified, bodies shaking, the men stretched their arms up high over their heads.

  ‘Don’t shoot, we surrender! Don’t shoot!’ a voice rang out from behind the hiding. Then they came out with their arms up in the air. Two of the attackers handcuffed them and the rest headed towards the barn. Who would have suspected that someone would dare rob a military warehouse? When they opened the doors Heffer went to his team.

  ‘Load only the best!’ he called out. ‘Apart from the ammunitions and the arms, the General also wants the suits you’re supposed to find around here. You’ll know them when you see them: they’re designed for air offensive,’ he instructed while the other three planes had just touched down. ‘Load fast, you have less than twenty minutes, after that we leave.’

  They quickly regrouped into a team of fifty people and started loading the planes immediately. The other ten men were relocated around the planes to defend the aircraft from anything and anyone who might endanger the mission. Thousands of boxes brimful of cartridges and ammunitions as well as submachine guns and rifles filled up the cargo holds of the planes. Due to the large amount of the cargo, some of the men in charge of the loading activity jumped in motocars, thus managing to speed up the process significantly. They put inside even the metal pallet boxes they had left behind in the beginning. They contained the suits for air offensive–at least three hundred of the overall number, and that was the General’s main target. Aside from them, they piled in other outfits for attack by land, plus heavy weapons, such as rocket launchers, submachine guns, mortars and a few APCs. A great deal and variety of weaponry was boarded and once they were ready, they got onto the planes and left the airport. They flashed away like a thunderbolt splitting the sky. The six surrendered soldiers and their wounded comrade were packed aboard the plane together with the useful cargo. The mercenaries wondered what to do with the captives as they were engaged with the operation and in the general haste they could not come up with a better option than to kidnap them. Only after they took off and left the country did Heffer manage to spare some of his time for the newcomers . . .

  ‘What should I do with you?’ he asked the captives, standing among the cargo in front of them. No one dared say a word. Their eyes bore holes in the floor and their wounded friend was sitting on the floor next to them. ‘You’re victims of the war, there’s nothing I can do. You just were at the wrong place in the wrong time, I’m sorry.’ After these words that lacked even a shred of regret, he ordered four sturdy men of his team to get rid of the unnecessary pounds on board. Attempts of resistance on the part of the poor souls followed, bodies squirming on the floor and cries for help and mercy, but none of the men present felt any pity. Two of the captured soldiers were shot, but one way or another, all of them were thrown out of the plane. The wounded one came last. He raised his hands before he was grabbed by two tough men. He wanted to make the jump unassisted. He summoned what little strength he had left, stood up and went to the door through which strong and humid wind blew in. It was growing slightly dusky outside. He looked down and without wasting any time jumped down towards the ground with eyes wide open. He had come to terms with the inevitability of his death . . . The wind was roaring in his ears, giving him a sense of freedom. In the last moment of his life he turned his head up glancing for the last time at the plane that flew past on its way to enter a heavy storm. He had time only for a little dream that some deity or destiny will avenge his murder. Ready for meeting death, he accepted it and she took him in her embrace.

  Whether the Lord’s or the nature’s wrath would seek retribution for him did not matter much in that case. But the perfidious weather met the passengers as they went into Iran. A powerful cyclone crossing the Balkan Peninsula hit them hard. Hurricanes and thunderstorms were threatening to shake them potently. When planning the campaign the heads of the operation had taken into account the events taking place between people more than the weather conditions. While the flying machines slowly got into the dense cumulous clouds, the people inside tried to fortify the cargo against the ever stronger turbulence. The rain showered the metal bodies of the planes and the wind tossed them in all directions. The worst came when flashes of lightning struck them. Their power was cut short for a second and then went back on and off several times. A truly inappropriate weather for travel. The aircraft carrying Heffer and the better part of his men got ahead of the other machines. They were travelling with a minimal cargo and his men were by his side. He did not know, though, that he was going to witness and experience something terrible . . .

  He could see the aileron of the left wing from his window. Two currents descended from the sky simultaneously and pierced the plane like a spear. One of them hit the aileron of the left wing, right in front of the seat of Scarface. He was dislodged and flew away due to the strike of the natural phenomenon. Out of stress and the instantaneous destabilization of the plane, Heffer disentangled himself from the seat and stood up to go inspect the condition of the other wing. The flaps and all the moveable mechanisms were stuck in different positions. Without coordinated maneuvering the plane was doomed. It slowly started to deviate from its trajectory, turning left and flying down to the ground nose first. The red evacuation light went on. The crew headed for the emergency parachutes set in immediate vicinity, but the cargo started rolling around the deck. Due to the lack of time it had not been strapped tightly enough to the floor and the sides, so it started flying around uncontrollably. The soldiers and everything aboard was thrown towards the door of the cockpit. Caught between the cargo and the cockpit and feeling the plane was falling vertically, General Saddi’s brother could taste his impending end. Utterly helpless he felt dea
th calling him, but he had surrendered into its embrace long before they met. The machine was out of the sight of the other two aircraft and for the time being no one knew it was already out of commission . . .

  In the early morning hours the cargo jets returned home. Omar was waiting for them at the barely lit airport, furious, having set made up his mind that someone was going to pay for the disobedience. He walked out of the room and headed with a fast pace towards the mercenaries that were coming down the airway.

  ‘Where’s my brother?! I want him here right now!’ Enraged, with bloodshot eyes and already out of his mind because of the casualties in the three cities, in his fury he failed to see how many planes landed on the runway. A man who had just stepped off one of the birds and who was in fact one of the leaders of the offensive went over to him.

  ‘There’s no trace of your brother, he was with us until we got into a storm as we entered the Balkan Peninsula. We’ve been trying to contact him ever since.’ the accomplice in the robbery reported.

  At first General Saadi could not process the last words the man spoke and for a few seconds a wave of fury and wrath surged through his mind and then melted into concern and anxious. Without uttering another word he rushed for the control room to search the radars for any trace of his lost relative. There was no distress signal, the only records were frozen onto the whereabouts of the plane right before it disappeared. He went through the footage, but found nothing. The only thing that the satellite images and the thermal sensors reflected was the concentration of people and cars over the northern parts of Serbia. He turned on the TV set, situated nearby, knowing that that had happened a few hours before he received the news and the TV channels must be already covering the accident from the scene where it happened. Unfortunately, he only had expectations confirmed. A plane with unidentified cargo and passengers crashed in one of Belgrade’s residential end-of-town neighborhoods, causing destruction and the death of 8,000 people. An enormous tragedy witnessed by the entire world at that moment. Omar had no idea what to do, he could not go see if his brother was alive as the plane crash investigators could identify his brother’s body and could link Omar to him. He was seized by sorrow, but there was nothing he could do. He could only sit and wait for more details about the accident. His last trump was to call the Iranian intelligence agencies and check if they do not link him to the event in any way. But because of the strong collision and the explosive cargo the precise number of the bodies could hardly be estimated. Some of the victims were completely burnt up, even cremated, thus many of them remained unidentified. That would complicate the investigation considerably.

  That whole day filled with blood-spilling, mainly caused by Scarface, was finally over. Although Omar took upon himself the cross of responsibility for what had happened, he failed to understand the motives that led up to the cruelty his brother inflicted. He wanted to mourn him like the person closest to him, but his consciousness did not allow him to. Despite their blood relation Omar knew that Heffer was bad in nature more than his was good and maybe he had finally gotten what he deserved. Probably he was harboring his grief in the deepest crevices of his humanity, but the feeling did not surface, at least for the time being. Over the past few years their brotherly bond had weakened, it was even almost forgotten, but Omar was going to shed his tears later on when the wrongdoings of his brother faded so much that he could feel the loss with his heart . . .

  After he watched the reporting of the crash, he went out of his room and headed to the people who were already unloading the arms from the barns. He tried to find their leader with whom he had a conversation a few minutes later. Omar found him in the room with unloaded boxes and saw him instructing his people. The Iranian approached the man.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Phillip Mirkovich, sir! How can I be of assistance?’ the mercenary of Croatian descent stood to attention.

  ‘First, I’d like to inform you that the plane has crashed in Serbia and there are no survivors. I’m sorry for your comrades, you’ll have time to mourn their deaths.’ The Croatian felt bad when he heard about the tragedy that had befallen his colleagues. ‘The second thing I want to tell you is that now that we’re left without some of our friends, I’ll need more men. My brother was there, now you’re left without a commander. I’ll go straight to the question at hand, can you take over the control and be under my direct command?’ Omar asked laying his cards on the table.

  ‘I can, but it depends on how much you’ll pay because from what I see, your endeavors are quire hazardous,’ Phillip answered, shortening the distance between them which made the difference in the heights of the two men obvious. The man was gigantic compared to the Iranian General. He was a head taller, simply out of Omar’s league. But, alas, despite his size and musculature their roles were reverse. The mercenary was a typical European citizen with fair skin and fair hair. He executed orders irreproachably and as long as he was paid well, he would have carried them out thoroughly.

  ‘Take it you’re starting tomorrow. Money is the least of your problems. I want you to organize the recruiting of the entire army. The more men you gather, the better. They’ll get a good remuneration, not counting the possibility to come with us. In the meantime I want you to start meddling indirectly into strikes and demonstrations. I want to see reinforced actions. I want the members of small groups from all over the world to be provided with arms and finance. We have to attract the public attention to these places as much as possible and divert it from us to the utmost extent. Casualties should be avoided, if possible, but do not let that stop the wave of obedient men employed in the successful propaganda that we intend to impose. Extreme situations call for extreme decisions. It’s too late to express any weakness. You understood me, I hope?’ Omar laid out.

  ‘I did. What I did not grasp, though, was where we are going so I can instruct the men I’ll gather,’ Mirkovich asked.

  ‘Come with me in the control room and I’ll explain everything.’

  They left the team to do their jobs and went into a more private place. The General explained everything to the Croatian soldier. Over the next few days the same man started recruiting fresh blood for an entire war while at the same time he also took up helping the hundreds of rebels waiting to go out on the streets and secure with their blood the freedom they had long been deprived of. A little aid that was going to subordinate the police and even the military in some regions.

  Omar had noticed Phillip’s diligence and had decided to make use of it. He somehow sensed his responsibility and loyalty to his job and decided to let him unleash his abilities to the fullest over the next two months and a half. In the meantime the officer had time to draft the attack plan and while he was working on it, dolor and sorrow often visited . . .

  And while some lost brothers or simply comrades, others were on their way of taking up arduous tasks they had to seek the answers to for the first time. Investigators arrived at the scene of the accident in Belgrade. The showers died out and the wind dropped. After they had subdued the fire that had raged all night and after they had helped those in need, the commission set up by NATO to determine the causes for the crash arrived in the morning. Major Ben Robinson was the head of the three-member team. He was one of the few people who could untangle even the most complicated plane crash accident. An Englishman in his late fifties who had retained the desire and dash of a 25-year-old youth. His grizzled hair and prescription glasses did not stand in his way of competing with his younger colleagues and of him being an example for them. He was of short stature, slightly stout and with belly that all the men his age could boast with.

  The first thing they set off searching for was the plane’s black box. The local precincts and agencies helped them separating and sorting out all shreds of evidence from the scene of the accident. They loaded everything into a truck and headed for their laboratory located in Berlin, to conduct the analysis of what they had gathered. The transportation of the materials took
a few hours and then they proceeded to a thorough examination of the parts they had found and the black box recordings. After the full inspection of the evidence and everything they were able to retrieve they came to a definitive conclusion. The aircraft was part of their flying machines. It had a North Atlantic Treaty registration number. That was the first thing they discovered with astonishment, but it was not the most interesting. The Major called his most trusted men so they would assist him and provide him with information from different sources. Little by little, piece by piece they started putting together the puzzle of the mystery at hand. The German warehouse that had been robbed was included into the case as well. They had neither names, nor numbers at their disposal that could lead them to a particular person. There was no clue as to where they should begin and that left Robinson restless. Fifteen days after the crash everything related to the causes for the failure seemed to be clear, but there was more to it. Ben studied the remains from the cargo painstakingly every day and noticed that it consisted only of offensive military equipment. Half of it was suits for air attack manufactured by a company that was engaged in aerodynamic research. And that very firm was one of the dozens in the field, but what was special about it was that it was headed by an old acquaintance and friend of his. A really mighty man with much money and power. That was Konrad Radeberg. They had met in primary school which was one of the most expensive private schools in contemporary London, then the two friends went their separate ways in the high school years, but they nevertheless retained their cordial relations well into maturity. There were no occasions for the two comrades to see each other over the years prior to the plane crash due to their busy schedules, but that was about to change . . .