by Ninie Hammon
“He won’t be hanging my pictures on his wall to commemorate his depravity.”
Then Ron lowered his head and told Masapha that he’d found Koto’s little brothers. In a cold, dead voice, he said that Faoud had them, they were his personal slaves and he’d castrated them both. The information made Masapha nauseous.
The rescue of his little brothers was to be Koto’s lion, but the young tribal was not prepared to fight a dragon. The hopelessness of the situation suddenly settled over Masapha like a choking fog. Those little boys were lost—lost! They’d been gobbled up by an evil of such monumental proportions it defied understanding, just like his blood brother’s son had been gobbled up all those years ago.
It was a long time before Masapha noticed that Ron had fallen uncharacteristically silent. When he asked the American what was wrong, Ron had a plausible explanation.
“Faoud said the vote on Dan’s bill will be Tuesday, in four days. The pictures we took, the video and the stories would have made a difference in that vote. I really believe that. Now, it’s too late. Not a thing we did matters; it was all for nothing.”
It wasn’t like Ron to be so negative, and after that, Masapha couldn’t get another word out of him. Something had happened to Ron during his encounter with the slave trader, but what it might have been, Masapha couldn’t guess.
When Idris came to after his beating, he told Masapha—who translated his Dinka for Ron—his story. He described the raid on his village, the death of his son and how his precious little girl was kidnapped.
“I buried my son and then went to find my daughter and bring her home,” he said simply.
Ron and Masapha exchanged a look; this man was certainly not your average Dinka tribal!
Idris told them about being swindled by Leo, and how his village had financed his second try. He wouldn’t tell them anything beyond that, but it seemed clear that he’d hired somebody else to look for his daughter, and that “somebody else” had brought him to Kosti. It was equally self-evident that the tribal would give his life to protect the identity of the “somebody else” he believed still could save his little girl.
When they heard the sound of a jeep outside late that afternoon, and the voices of Leo and Joak, Ron and Masapha knew what was coming. The duo had returned to ask the tribal more questions, and the tribal would die rather than answer them.
There was a wide grin on Leo’s face when the jailer let him and his partner into the jail cell. It was an evil grin.
“Tell him we have just come from a long conversation with a pretty little girl,” Leo told Joak.
When the words were translated into Dinka, Idris lifted his head off the floor where he lay in pain, a look of surprise and wonder on his face.
“Tell him the child had great big eyes—and dimples.”
When the word “dimples” was spoken in his language, a look of joy spread across Idris’s face that erased every hint of pain and suffering, and he whispered a single word, “Akin!”
“Yes, Akin,” Leo said. Idris ignored the agony in his back, sat up and looked at the two men who stood in front of him with shock, then joy, then fear.
“Ask him if he would like to see his daughter,” Leo told Joak.
A knot formed in the pit of Ron’s stomach. This was about to get ugly.
Idris, of course, responded, “Yes, yes! Please, take me to Akin.”
“You have something we want, and we have something you want,” Leo said. “We propose a trade. You tell us who brought you to Kosti, and we will take you to your daughter.”
Masapha started to say something to Idris, to warn him, but Ron shook his head no.
Idris was confused and stunned. This man had actually seen Akin! And he’d take Idris to her if...then reality settled in. He had known Leo was a bad man the first time he saw him. He had had no such intuitive response to Omar. Omar was dangerous; Leo was evil. There was no honor, there could be no truth, in this evil man.
Leo and Joak watched the emotions wash over the tribal’s face, watched his jaw set firmly and his gaze turn to steel. He said nothing.
The short fuse on Leo’s pent-up rage burned all the way down in an instant.
“Then tell him we will bring his daughter to him!” he roared. “Tell him we will bring her here, strip her naked and whip her as he was whipped.”
His voice grew cold and menacing. “Tell him Ahkmad will hit her again and again and again, he will beat her to death unless he tells us what we want to know. Who brought him to Kosti?”
Idris heard the words translated and terror leapt into his eyes. He had not been afraid when he was taken to the slave trader. He had not been afraid when they whipped him. But he was afraid now. Whip Akin? No! But if he told, she would remain in bondage, would remain a slave...
“Idris, if you won’t tell him, I will!” Ron blurted out. He knew the tribal couldn’t understand what he said. He turned to Leo and spit out two words: “We did.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I said we did,” Ron lied as smooth as a satin pillow. “We brought him to Kosti, Masapha and I. He was trying to go north by himself, and we found him collapsed on the side of the road. We took him to a missionary doctor outside Lusong. He was half dead, hadn’t had anything to eat or drink.”
Ron glanced at Masapha, and his friend took the lateral pass from the American like an expert rugby player, and headed toward the goal line with it.
“The doctor wanted him not yet to leave there because his body was not healed,” Masapha continued the story. “But he would go north if it meant to crawl, and we were headed this way.”
“And we felt sorry for him so we said he could come with us,” Ron said. “Soon as we got to the dock in Kosti, he vanished and we didn’t see him again until you guys brought him in here this morning.”
There it was, the line in the water. Would Leo bite?
“If that’s true, why didn’t he just say so?” Leo asked warily.
“You got me, pal. Why don’t you ask him.” Ron cocked his thumb at Idris, then winced in pain from the movement. “Come on, he’s just a dumb tribal. He’s probably so stupid he actually thinks we could get out of here alive, and he didn’t want to get us in trouble. Blacks may not be real smart, but they’re loyal as hound dogs.”
The American certainly got that right, Leo thought. Joak was a prime example. The mercenary’s face suddenly lit up in a wide smile. He had known all along the American was tied up in this somehow! And he, Leo Danheir, had solved the mystery! Faoud would be delighted with the information, thrilled that he had all the rats in one trap and could snap it shut on them once and for all in the morning. They would die, and Faoud’s problems would die with them.
Idris had watched the exchange in perplexity. He guessed they were talking about him and had no idea what they’d said. But none of that mattered to him. All he cared about was Akin, all he wanted was to protect her from harm.
“My little girl...” He looked at Joak “Please do not...”
Leo didn’t even wait for Joak to translate what the tribal said. He knew. His smile took on a cruel edge. He enjoyed suffering, felt powerful when he inflicted it. And he was about to cut this man’s heart right out of his chest.
“Tell him what we found out at Sulleyman’s camp,” he told Joak. “Tell him his precious little girl won’t be a little girl anymore after tonight.”
Masapha groaned and translated for Ron. The two of them watched Idris, saw the shock, the revulsion, the horror. They saw more pain in his eyes than the jailer had been able to inflict with 16 lashes from his vicious whip.
“Tell him Master Sulleyman is notorious for his taste for young girls,” Leo said. “And when he’s finished with her, he’ll give her to his men, and they will...”
“That’s enough!” Ron told the smashed-nose mercenary. “Leave him alone.” But it was obvious his body could not deliver on the promise of menace in his voice.
Leo took two steps toward him and buried
his boot in Ron’s belly. The blow knocked all the air out of him in a whoosh, and he instantly doubled over. “Don’t tell me what to do, you American swine!” Leo roared. “I’ll be there in the morning when Faoud chops your head off, and I’ll spit in your face then just like I’m spitting in it now.”
He spewed a gob of saliva at Ron, curled in a ball at his feet, then turned and stomped toward the door with Joak on his heels. He stopped before he left the cell and turned to his partner. “Tell that tribal if his precious Akin is still alive when Sulleyman and his men get through with her, she won’t be when I’m finished.”
Joak spoke in Dinka, then slammed the door shut and left the three men locked in their pain.
Ron suspected Leo’s boot had cracked a rib.
Masapha scrambled to wrap his mind around “chop your head off.”
And Idris’ heart cried out in agony, “My little Akin... No!”
Leo and Joak chuckled as they left the jail cell.
“Let’s go tell Faoud his troubles are over,” Leo said, and the two men headed toward the gate in the rock wall.
Omar watched them go. He had spent the day observing the jail— who came, who went, what time. He’d seen the American taken to the house and dragged back out. He watched Idris’s kidnappers leave and then return. He had seen all there was to see here and understood it as well as he could. Now, it was time to go back into Kosti. He needed to find out who owned the big stucco house on the edge of town. He needed to rent a jeep. And he needed the boy. Omar got up silently and melted into the woods as the sun left its last tracks in the evening sky.
The sun set. The jail cell grew steadily darker. Idris’s mind, heart and soul were consumed with the fate of his daughter; he didn’t give a moment’s thought to himself.
But as the room sank into the deepest ditch of the night, Ron and Masapha grasped that they were not alone with Idris in the featureless gloom. Like a bloated, hairy-legged spider, its fangs dripping, Death had crawled into the dungeon to keep them company. They recognized his face, looked him in the eye, sat in the sightless oblivion and waited for him to come for them.
A portion of Ron’s agony in the dark of the jail cell was ragged grief for Dan. Watch somebody cut your little brother’s head off—what do you do with a thing like that? Where do you put it? How do you cope? And Dan’s would be a very public grief. The broadcast death by beheading of the brother of a U.S. congressman—a well-known congressman who had launched a personal crusade against the atrocities in Sudan—would grab international attention, center stage in the world arena, front-page news from Bangor to Bangladesh.
Ron marveled that the stupid slave trader had no idea how such an act would backfire, explode in his face. If there was any way to galvanize grassroots America, to launch them into a holy war of their own against Sudan, chopping the head off the brother of an Indiana congressman in front of the whole world was a good place to start.
And in that way, Ron made his peace with dying. He would give his life to show the world the horror of slavery in Sudan. Ron’s death would be the best story he ever wrote.
Faoud stood on the porch that encircled the front side of his house. He was deep in conversation with one of his soldiers when he spotted Leo and Joak coming toward him across the lawn.
Most of Faoud’s men lived in a compound on the other side of the road about half a mile from his house. The stables where Faoud kept his prize horses were located there, and the pasturelands around the cluster of buildings provided grazing for Faoud’s Arabians, as well as for his men’s horses and camels. Four of his most trusted guards lived downstairs in his rambling two-story home.
On this particular evening, about 15 of Faoud’s soldiers from the compound had been invited to join him and his guards for the evening meal, served on a large veranda on the side of the house.
Faoud dismissed the soldier as the mercenary and his monkey approached. “Good evening. You have good news for me, I trust.” The slave trader’s smile never quite reached his eyes.
Leo began to babble, gave Faoud far more information than he needed or wanted. But the fat man waited patiently for the mercenary to finish, satisfied with the report.
“The American, huh,” he mused. “Makes sense. Those fools operate their lives on sympathy.”
He shifted gears. “Excellent. When they all die tomorrow, my problems die with them, and their deaths will send out a message to the meddling American imperialists. You have done well, Leo Danheir.”
He gestured toward the veranda where the soldiers were lined up for dinner.
“You may eat with us,” he said, then turned and walked away.
“We’re in,” Leo whispered to Joak. “We’re in!”
Seated at a table in the small room with a cot that served as his bedroom just inside the front door of the jail, Ahkmad was playing Solitaire in the glow of a lantern when someone knocked on the door and called out his name.
He did not recognize the voice.
He picked up his semiautomatic rifle, went to the window slit in the door and shoved it open. Outside stood a huge Arab and a tribal boy. The boy’s hands were bound tightly, and the Arab held the end of the rope.
“What do you want?” Ahkmad asked.
“I picked up this runaway.” Omar gestured to Koto. “Faoud said to put him in jail for the night until he can decide whether to kill him or keep him.”
Ahkmad was wary.
“Faoud didn’t send me word anybody else was supposed to be locked up tonight.”
“Of course he didn’t, you desert jackass!” Omar sneered. “I just got here with the slave a few minutes ago. Faoud didn’t expect me to track him down so fast.” Ahkmad could hear the cockiness in his voice. “But no one is a better tracker than Omar Hassan!”
The jailer still wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before.”
“Are you deaf as well as stupid?” Omar’s voice had a hard edge now. “I said I just showed up five minutes ago. Faoud hired me to chase runaways and this is my first catch, which I am tired of looking after. Open up so I can dump him in there and go get something to eat!”
“I’m not supposed to...”
“I said, open the door!” Omar exploded. Then he grabbed hold of his temper with great effort and continued, intense and menacing. “You don’t want to make me angry. And you definitely don’t want me to go back, get Faoud and make him angry. I’m a dangerous man when I’m angry. Faoud is deadly.”
Without another word, Ahkmad reached up and took the key from the peg on the wall. He opened the door to the Arab and the tribal, picked up the lantern off the table and led them down the hallway. It was not totally dark; two small lamps cast dancing yellow puddles of light separated by stretches of darkness.
“He can sleep in here with the others,” Ahkmad said as he got to the last cell.
He set the lantern and his rifle down on the stone bench beside the door and fit the key on his key ring into the lock.
“They’ll all be gone tomor--”
A thin wire pulled tight around his neck. Before he could make a sound, the wire sliced through two layers of muscle and his carotid artery. With only a slight gurgle, his life spewed out on the front of his shirt.
Leo pushed his chair back from the table, stood and let out a loud burp. Joak had just sat down to eat, with his plate on his lap on the veranda steps. Tribals didn’t eat at the table with Arabs. They had to wait until all the Arabs had eaten their fill, and then they were given the leftovers. Leo wondered if it had ever occurred to Joak that he could just as easily be a slave as any of the unfortunates they had sold over the years. No, probably not; the toothless cripple was too stupid to make the connection.
Leo picked chicken out of his teeth as he wandered over to where Joak was seated.
“I’m going to get the jeep we left parked by the jail and take it back to Faoud’s garage,” he said.
Faoud kept several personal vehicles parked in a building next
to his house. All his other vehicles—trucks and the jeep—were housed in a garage at the soldiers’ compound down the road. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
He turned and headed around the side of the house toward the stone pathway leading to the gate in the back wall. When he passed a table where the soldiers had been eating, he spotted a half empty bottle of rice wine. He picked it up and took it with him.
The prisoners had heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway and Ahkmad’s voice. It was totally dark in the cell, and they could see the glow of a lantern through the window in the cell door.
Ron was nauseous with a fear that had grabbed hold of his guts when Faoud said the word, “beheaded,” and had gripped tighter and tighter as the minutes of his life ticked away in the darkness of the cell. Now, terror clenched so hard he couldn’t breathe. Had the slave trader’s techie friend arrived early? Was it showtime already?
Lantern light spilled into the cell as the door opened and into the light stepped Koto.
Ron would not have been more surprised if Elvis had hip-twisted his way into the dungeon singing Blue Suede Shoes. Masapha could only whisper, almost reverently, “Koto!”
The hulking form of Omar appeared one step behind the boy. Idris’ face, expressionless from the moment Leo and Joak had left hours ago, came back to life. Ron and Masapha instantly made the connection; this muscular man was “somebody else”—a really big somebody else!
Omar set the lantern on the floor and began to untie Koto’s hands. He looked at Idris and motioned toward the door. “Let’s go. We don’t have much time. We’re getting out of here.”
He knew Idris couldn’t understand the words, but was certain the tribal could figure out what he meant.
Ron’s voice came from just outside the lantern’s light. “Is this party invitation-only, or can anybody come?”
“The door’s open,” Omar said off-handedly. “All I’ve got’s a two-man jeep, and there’s only room for...”