by R E Kearney
“Some officers in the US military are reportedly saying the same thing, Dag. In fact, it’s all over social media that many in the military assume that Abaddon had him killed, because he had joined a group of other officers criticizing him. Abaddon is calling them the treasonous ten. Rumors have the remaining nine either hiding or trying to leave the country since Blodmann died,” Amesha concludes.
“Disloyal, deceitful dogs! Our enemy within. That’s what our military has become. They’re all weak and cannot be trusted. If President Abaddon ordered the elimination of Blodmann, then he deserved it.” Evoil points his index finger skyward, as he preaches, “For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. Wrongdoers will be completely destroyed; the offspring of the wicked will perish.”
Loudly clearing his throat, Amesha breaks in again, “Mugavus, I have some more bad news. Venus is being blockaded by sea. More US Navy ships have arrived and are blocking the sea routes stopping and searching every ship. Also, it’s unconfirmed, but the US is reportedly missing three of its submersible drones. The US Navy task force’s commander is demanding to enter SPEA territorial waters to search for their missing drones. Gutefrau is refusing and threatening defensive actions including…”
“Do you actually think you scare the Navy?” Evoil screams, “We will destroy you!”
Abruptly, the Rover swerves and screeches to a halt, slamming Dag into the door and Komfort and Robert into each other. Evoil’s head bangs against his door’s window. Behind them the freight trucks slam on their brakes skidding into a sliding stop. Balaam pounds the horn and curses in Amharic at the bus that pulled out in front of them.
After recovering her balance, Komfort scans their surroundings. “Where are we?”
“Welkite,” Balaam mumbles.
“Very beautiful. How high is it here Amesha?” Komfort lowers her window and leans out for a better view. She sucks in a deep breath of air, as much to clear her head as to inflate her lungs.
“A little higher than six thousand feet. Are you stopping there? If you do, you should know that their Kitfo is famous.”
Loud, simultaneous groans from Evoil and Robert clearly indicate that Kitfo is no longer on their menu.
“Any more bad news, Amesha, or can we take a breath and think about some of this?”
“If I hear anything new or different Mugavus, I will signal you. Until then, I will be working in my office.” Amesha de-energizes and departs.
After several minutes, Balaam maneuvers clear of the bus and its unloading and loading passengers. But, their return to the road does not last long. Less than one half mile later, Balaam enters a fueling station. Everybody piles out. It is time for a break.
After relieving himself and buying a snack, Robert returns to the Rover to find Dag grooming himself in front of the vehicle’s side mirror. As Robert walks by him, he jokes, “I don’t think it’s going to help. You can only do so much with what you’ve got.”
Without looking away from the mirror, Dag reaches out and grabs Robert’s arm to stop him. “I believe we have somebody watching us. Don’t stare. Act like your stretching or something. I think there is a drone hovering at about two o’clock high.”
Entwining his hands behind his head, Robert stretches and raises his eyes to the two o’clock altitude position. “You’re right. I see it. How long do you think it’s been there?”
“No idea. Not certain that it’s watching us. But, it seems suspicious to me.”
“What seems suspicious to you?” Komfort inquires as she returns.
Robert finishes his lengthy stretch. “Dag spotted a drone that he suspects may be watching us. It’s hovering at about two o’clock high.”
Komfort scans the sky over Robert’s shoulder. “Well, I’m certain that it’s not ours. I don’t know who it belongs to, so I don’t know what we can do about it. We’ll just have to watch it closely. It may be innocent. You know, they are using drones to deliver medicine around Ethiopia, these days.”
Turning to Robert, she grows serious. “Well, Robert. Are you leaving us here? Heading home?”
Robert rubs his upper lip with his index finger, while gazing at the ground. He listens to Evoil grumbling about the lack of hamburgers in Ethiopia while he climbs back into the Rover. Now, he knows Evoil cannot hear or interrupt him. Dag joins Komfort, as she waits for his answer.
“An American mathematician named Sean Simmons once said that there’s something wrong with your character if opportunity controls your loyalty.” Glancing briefly at Dag, he continues, “Also, a Russian I respect, recently told me that we’re in a situation where we either survive together or we’ll perish separately. So, although this is an excellent opportunity to leave the aggravating Evoil far behind, I fear you and Dag are stuck with me.”
Robert smiles broadly, “Besides, I don’t have enough Birr to buy the bus ticket back to Addis Ababa.”
“Oh get with the times Robert. Electronic banking and bill paying exists all over Ethiopia. That weak excuse won’t work. Are you in this fight with us or not?” Komfort demands.”
Robert snickers, “I’ll stay just for an opportunity to aggravate you, Mugavus. But, about that fighting thing…”
“Then I believe it’s time to return to the road, don’t you?” Expressionless, Komfort returns to the Rover.
Robert chuckles to himself. She had reacted just as coolly and unemotionally as he had expected. Except for flashes of intense anger at Evoil and his cohorts, she rarely cracks her shell.
A few miles south of Welkite, the extremes of Ethiopian life blossom before them. Unexpectedly arising out of the brush, a village of small tukals, the traditional circular, woven-wood houses made of acacia branches covered with layered grass mats forming conical tops, cling to the roadside. Construction techniques thousands of years old exploiting modern society’s unwanted waste to craft these simple homes for people time seems to have left behind. Yet, they are not totally antiquated. Electricity producing micro-solar panels occasionally hug a grass roof. Casting a shadow across the center of the hamlet is a communications cell tower. Incongruity is the rule of Africa.
Crossing the Omo River, a few miles later, reveals the ravages of global warming heat and drought. Instead of flowing, the Omo trickles. Brown reeds and rushes rattle in the breeze, with their thirsting roots deserted high and dry by the receding river. The river’s fish and turtles that once fed hundreds of villagers are dead and gone. Without food and water, the villagers abandoned their ancestral homes in the river valley to crowd into the shanty towns and slums of the towns and cities. Instead of hunters and gatherers, they are now beggars and scavengers.
Winding deeper into the mountains of the Ethiopian Plateau, the road climbs and drops, twists and curls. Scrub and grass chase away the trees. Weaving and zigzagging to the escarpment at the edge of Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley before the road loops into the tiny village of Abelti. After Abelti, a straighter road meanders mile after empty mile.
With a wide, loud yawn, Evoil ends the silence. “Can your communicator pull in anything other than your Embassy in Addis Ababa?”
Slowly, Komfort opens her eyes and stretches. “It’s a satellite receiver. So if the mountains don’t block the signal, I may be able to pull in something. What do you want?”
“We’ve watched your SPEA propaganda this entire trip. Why don’t we watch some good old American news? Get the true story for a change.”
Komfort scowls. “Do you mean Abaddon’s US propaganda from Fox? No. I don’t think so. I might pull in BBC or al Jazeera, but not Fox. No, that’s nonsense.”
Dag cackles, “Oh yes, it is nonsense. They are funny. We watch Fox News in Russia to learn jokes. That comedy show starring the foolish clown trio always makes me laugh. We named the three comedians Idiotic, Insipid and Ignorant. Do you laugh at them too, Evoil?”
Evoil does not know how to react. Is Dag mocking him or being honest? Either way, he does not find h
im or his tone humorous. Grumbling, Evoil returns to staring through the windshield.
“Do you laugh at them too, Evoil?” Robert verbally jabs him.
Komfort laughs.
“No, I don’t!” Evoil snarls. “And I don’t appreciate your constant insults. I promise that before this is all over, you’ll be very sorry. I guarantee you. I’ll make you regret your smearing of President Abaddon and me. I will not forgive and I will not forget, and you all will suffer painful consequences. I promise!”
As an experienced psychologist and therapist, Komfort understands that when someone unstable as Evoil is teetering on the edge of insanity, you do not push them over it. In her opinion, Evoil is struggling to exist in this world that is so unlike the US that he, Abaddon and science denying, fundamentalist, religious radicals created. She had read about Religious Trauma Syndrome, but she has not witnessed it before now.
She imagines that Evoil is at the point where fear and panic is setting in. He is lost in an environment totally alien to him. Due to his inability to cope with the real world, he is stressed and scared. The foundation of all of his superstitious beliefs where religion rejects reason and religion rejects responsibility is crumbling beneath him, dissolving into dust. She privately, diagnoses his constant anger, outbursts and violent tendencies as symptoms signaling a nervous breakdown or worse.
Having already survived one brutal and unanticipated attack from Evoil, she recognizes how unstable and unpredictable he has become. He is a stick of dynamite and his fuse is lit. Her only question concerns how much time they have before he explodes, destroying himself and everybody near him.
Leaning close to Robert, she points toward her eyes with the first two fingers on her right hand and then forward toward the back of Evoil sitting sullenly in front of them. Robert nods his head signifying that he understands her signal to watch him. He turns and silently repeats her motions to Dag.
“Do not do anything to upset him,” She whispers into Robert’s ear. “He is not stable. Very scary. Extremely dangerous.”
As before, Robert repeats her message to Dag. Dag nods toward Evoil and while circling his ear with his index finger, says in Russian, “psikh.” Robert does not speak Russian, but he assumes that he is calling him crazy.
Out of the mountains and into the Gibe River valley, the convoy rumbles. Years of infrequent rain and hot temperatures shrank the Gibe River and parched the fields it feeds. The lake behind the Gibe Dam festers in a cracked and dusty bowl of powder. Abandoned fields and crumbling tukals line the roadside. Once called the bread basket of Ethiopia, the few remaining Oromo herdsmen and farmers living in the valley now struggle just to feed themselves.
Rounding a corner, they enter Karsa, a dry and destitute village longing for the return of regular rains where villagers too poor to leave, stay and starve. The road narrows and fills with people. There is little room. The convoy slows to a crawl. Lean and hungry adults step aside and study the passing trucks. Guardian men cradling rifles and AK-47s glare, sullenly, from the shadows at the outsiders. Boney, young boys and girls run alongside the trucks chattering and pointing.
With a jerk, the Rover stops abruptly. Two, rail-thin, shirtless boys standing in the middle of the road, point at the sky, blocking their path. Balaam lowers his window and yells for the boys to move. Shouting excitedly, they hop and shake their fingers skyward.
“They say they see a machine flying in the sky,” Balaam reports to his riders.
“Well, apparently our drone is still with us. I wonder whose it is and what they want,” Robert ponders aloud.
“We’ll arrive in Jimma soon. It’s a decent sized town, so we’ll stop and investigate our flying follower,” Komfort directs.
“Let’s stop now,” Robert gestures toward the two boys blocking their road ahead, “Those boys are starving. Everybody in this village is starving. Can’t we share some of the supplies we’re transporting?”
“I agree. I would enjoy stretching my legs,” Dag adds with a groan and yawn.
Evoil twists in his seat, shouting, “No! We don’t have time and they’re Muslims. Let them starve. The fewer Muslims in this world, the better. They don’t deserve our food. They’re god-less savages.”
Robert notices for the first time since they departed the Merkato, Balaam switching his attention from the road to Evoil. He turns and glowers at him. His eyes stab daggers deep into him. It may be his imagination, but Robert thinks the kill scars on Balaam’s face are swelling.
Although, increasingly concerned about exacerbating Evoil’s deteriorating mental condition, Komfort concurs with Robert and Dag. “Balaam, stop the convoy. We need to lighten some of these trucks’ loads.”
As soon as the trucks halt, a crowd of hungry villagers gather. Komfort, Robert and Dag spring out of the Rover and jog back to the trucks to coordinate distribution of some of their food and medical supplies. Evoil reluctantly slides out of the Rover and ambles toward the queuing villagers.
Perhaps because they did not expect it or possibly because they appreciate the charity, but they do not push or shove each other as they approach the trucks. Instead, they courteously assist each other. When the trucks’ drivers proffer a large, heavy container to a woman, young men arrive to carry it for her. Even some of the armed sentinels set down their rifles to assist. After each person receives their allotment, they offer profuse prayers and thanks. They cannot be more grateful.
Slinking through the excited, waiting villagers, Evoil slithers toward a rifle left resting against a post by a sentinel assisting a pregnant woman. Thinking that nobody is watching, Evoil snatches it. Attempting to hide the rifle by pressing it close to his body, he hustles back toward the Rover.
Hollering and pointing, the owner of the stolen rifle charges after Evoil. Evoil stops, turns and aims the rifle at his pursuer. Within seconds, AK-47 and rifle armed men surround him. Keeping his rifle aimed at its owner, Evoil backs toward the Rover. The circle of village sentinels tightens around him like a noose. As he concentrates on the rifle’s owner and his friends edging closer, he fails to notice the gunman sneak in between him and the Rover. Cut off and surrounded, Evoil swings the rifle back and forth, aiming at one man after another. They do not back down, but continue inching forward. Realizing his is a lost cause, Evoil rests the rifle on the ground, thrusts his hands into the air and drops to his knees. Tears of frustration roll across his cheeks.
Oblivious to Evoil’s failed theft, Komfort, Robert and Dag happily hand food and medical supplies to villager after villager, until a fusillade of AK-47 bullets are fired into the air above them. The villagers plunge to the ground. Komfort, Robert, Dag and their truck drivers freeze. Nobody move.
Silently, with his hands raised and six sentinels surrounding him, Evoil stumbles toward the back of Robert’s truck. After he is yanked to a halt, a gunman smacks him in the back of his knees and he collapses onto the street. Pointing and shouting at Evoil, the group’s leader strides toward Robert. Robert shrugs his shoulders signaling that he does not understand. Turning to this truck’s driver, Robert asks for him to translate.
“He says to take this thief and leave immediately or he will kill him and you.”
Evaluating the situation, Robert decides that he has no choice, “Tell him yes. We will go. Then close up your truck and get ready to go. I will go and tell Komfort and Dag.”
“What about him?” The driver points at Evoil just as one of the sentinels put his foot in the middle of his back and kicks him face first into the dust.
Robert sighs, “I would like to leave him with them, but I suppose I can’t, so ask them to take him to the Rover.”
The driver shouts Robert’s message to the sentinels. They nod assent, grab Evoil by his shoulders and jerk him to his feet. Robert trots to the other trucks.
Ten minutes later, the last truck of the convoy rolls out of Karsa. Children sprint beside the trucks cheering and waving. Women and men toting home their prov
isions set their burdens down to bow prayerfully, as they pass. Occasionally, a sentinel raises and shakes his weapon in gratefulness. Carefully maneuvering through the crowd, the broadly smiling truck drivers shout goodbyes.
In the front rider’s seat slumps Evoil. Riding behind him, Komfort, Robert and Dag guardedly watch him. Whispering questions to each other, they learn that none of them know what had caused the sentinel’s seizure of Evoil and his demand that they leave. Silently, both Komfort and Dag appoint Robert as the one to ask why?
Robert clears his throat and hesitantly quizzes the dangerously, volatile Evoil, “So what happened back there in Karsa? What caused all of that commotion and their threats to kill us? If you don’t mind telling us?”
Evoil straightens and emits a low, rumbling growl. “I was doing what you three should have been doing. Instead of consorting with our enemies, I was preparing myself to battle them. I was following the decree of my God. For it is written in Deuteronomy that I sharpen my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold on justice, I will render vengeance on my adversaries, and I will repay those who hate me.”
Robert and Komfort and Dag exchange quizzical and concerned glances.
“What enemies? I didn’t see any enemies. I saw hungry children, women and men. That’s who I saw.” Robert warily offers. “And besides, I believe it is written in Proverbs that if your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink and the Lord will reward you.”
“That’s because you have been blinded and fooled by their lies. You haven’t learned the teachings of the founder of our Righteous Rightists movement. The most reverend Pat Robertson declared that Americans should fight Muslims in the same way the country fought Nazi Germany.”
Evoil turns toward the back seat. “Unlike you three, Reverend Robertson was never fooled. God spoke to him and delivered to him the truth that Islam is not a religion, but a political system bent on destroying all the world’s governments. He preached that it's a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world, and world domination. Muslims want to rule the world. They want to take over the whole world. That's their evil purpose.”