Two large army transports followed closely behind the first. Bodies splattered under the large trucks following the carved path of the first. They appeared even older than the original truck; perhaps left over from the Belgian colonial period.
Gunfire sprayed into the people in the streets from the back of the trucks. Guns rattled the bullets point blank into their faces, exploding the heads of the attackers into the street. The scene went beyond horrific. So much death. When will it end?
Blood-spattered people climbed onto the back of one of the transports. Bullets punched through their bodies with no effect, spraying their insides all over the other rioters. Some fell down, never to get up again, but many others stood back up with gaping holes in their bodies. Men screamed piteously as they had nowhere to run but were forced to face the jaws of death.
The remaining Marines retreated to the front of the embassy. Using doorways and concrete pillars as cover, they fired at the infected protestors that flooded into the compound from the street. Constant gunfire did nothing to deadened their mad rush. This fight will be over quickly, thought Joseph.
The lead transport turfed the once-beautiful lawn as it spun its wheels in reverse speedily backing into place between the compound and the infected. The Marines’ stopped firing as the trucks physically blocked the people on the street from entering the compound. Men dressed in faded camouflage hastily replaced the infected.
The Congolese Army had come to rescue them. “The Army,” he said aloud affirming his belief. A ragged cheer went up from the begrudged Marines. One Marine strode forward waving at the Congolese soldiers. The staff could escape in those large trucks. A glimmer of hope shone through the most depressing of events.
A door swung open on the lead truck and a soldier leaned outside popping a sidearm. The Marine fell backwards clutching his neck. He writhed in pain as Congolese troops jumped down from their trucks, guns blazing, but instead of shooting the infected, they attacked the Marines.
The soldiers bolted toward the main embassy building firing their guns on full auto, spraying bullets everywhere. The glass next to Joseph shattered inward. He fell awkwardly, trying to get out of the way, glass landing all around him.
Joseph crawled back into his office on his hands and knees, hastily shoving thumb drives and more books into his satchel. His hands continued to shake and his heart beat feverishly. The booms of gunfire echoed in the courtyard. Using his hands as earmuffs, he covered his ears and pushed his back against the wall.
Closing his eyes, he prayed for everything to stop. When he opened them, Agent Nixon’s beet red face hovered next to him. His mouth moved, but Joseph couldn’t make out the words. Nixon’s mouth moved furiously and he looked around urgently. The agent hauled him up and pushed him toward his office door.
Joseph tripped as he tried to get to the door, the satchel of materials and briefcase tangled in between his legs an albatross around his neck. His mind ran blank unable to think straight. Like a painting of himself, he froze in time while everything around him moved in fast forward.
Bullet holes drilled through the wall next to him as gunfire banged down the hallway, and Joseph stood frozen in the doorway. People are shooting at me? How can we escape now that the enemy soldiers were here and the infected loomed at the gate? Dread settled upon him. Gunfire sang out its staccato tune in one of the stairwells.
Nixon dragged him back inside the office by the collar of his shirt, poking his head out into the hallway and quickly slamming Joseph’s office door. “I know that sound anywhere. It’s an AK-47, a Kalashnikov,” he said.
Joseph didn’t want to hear that. “What does that mean?” he asked.
“It means there are men in the building that don’t belong,” Nixon said, pulling the metal top piece back on his weapon, making a clinking sound. Joseph didn’t have any understanding of how guns worked. They made him uneasy, at best, and the fact that there were men in the building that wanted to use them on him, made his bladder want to release.
“Stay quiet,” Nixon breathed, holding a shaky finger up to his lips.
Joseph’s breath came out raggedly and loudly, with his heartbeat resounding in his head. The silence made his breathing seem all the louder. He knew that the anticipation of what was to come was always worse than the actual act; that fear always made actions so much worse. Joseph couldn’t handle the anticipation.
He stood unsteadily and opened the office door.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Agent Nixon called out hoarsely. The agent reached for Joseph, but his hand missed, not quite quick enough to catch him.
Joseph gaped down the hallway, illuminated by red emergency floodlights. A large African man in an officer’s uniform strode brazenly down the middle, brandishing a handgun. Rough-looking soldiers in berets flanked him on either side like a gang. Joseph allowed himself to be pulled back into the room, and Nixon quickly closed the door before leaning his back against the wall.
“You idiot. We might have been able to hide,” he spat. Nixon glowered at him, daunted by the sequence of bad events. He wiped the matted brown hair sticking to his forehead, resting his gun barrel against it as if he were praying to his gun.
Joseph felt an odd surge of euphoria, as though he were sitting on a cloud; a sense of detachment from the events that were unfolding around him.
Nixon gripped his weapon with fierce hands that were white with the effort. Joseph wondered whether Nixon would fight. He pictured an unimaginable attempt at male bravado ending with Nixon going down in a hail of gunfire. Joseph could never imagine such a thing for himself. Living was just too preferable to death no matter the cause.
The loud, echoing footsteps slowed and stopped. A low-pitched, accented voice echoed down the hall: “Surrender and we will show you mercy. You have five seconds to make up your mind or we will kill you.”
Joseph desperately wanted to pass out.
NIXON
US Embassy Kinshasa, DRC
Nixon slid his SIG P229 and MP5 submachine gun into the hallway. He gave Joseph a shoulder squeeze. The doctor looked shell-shocked.
“Just do what they say. Okay, Joe?”
Joseph nodded slowly, his eyes vacant. Nixon knew he couldn’t win this fight, and if whoever was in the hallway wanted to kill them they wouldn’t have bothered negotiating. At least, he hoped not.
One of his greatest fears was ending up on some jihadi website in an orange jumpsuit reading a script written by an extremist nut job just before they hacked his head off with a machete. He prayed they would just shoot him before it came to that. Just one of the perks of being an American.
Quick-booted footsteps raced down the hall. African soldiers rounded the corner with AKs pressed loosely to their shoulders.
“Obtenez sur vos genoux!” the Congolese man screamed. Nixon had no idea what the scrawny man in the ill-fitting, blood-covered fatigues yelled. He resembled a little boy playing dress-up with his dad’s clothes.
A couple more AKs were shoved in his face to gain compliance. They didn’t even need to bother with Joseph. Nixon held his hands in the air.
“All right guys, take it easy.”
“Get down on knees! Get down on knees!” a skinny soldier screamed at him in broken English, with wide yellow-tinted eyes.
Nixon complied. He didn’t want to give the man an excuse to shoot him. “Just take it easy, now,” he said as they zip tied his wrists.
The soldier pushed his head. “Ta gueule.” The yellow teethed soldier smiled as he shoved a dirty rag into Nixon’s mouth. Did this come off the guy’s sweaty ass foot?
“You like,” the soldier mocked. Nixon turned his head away in passive resistance causing the soldier to smack the back of his head.
“Don’t be cowboy.” The soldier wrapped duct tape around his head. That’s going to be a bitch to take off. He preferred to keep what hair he had remaining on his head because he wasn’t getting any younger.
Nixon and Joseph were shoved along the plai
n corridor, their footsteps echoing off the tile floors. Gunfire bursts from outside the compound sounded like firecrackers on the Fourth of July. They were driven to the back of the cafeteria, now a detention center. A soldier indicated he wanted them to sit with the rest of the hostages by crosschecking Nixon with his gun across his spine causing Nixon to fall to his knees.
Nixon didn’t see Snow among them, which meant he either was dead or still ‘in the fight.’ Hopefully he waged a one man guerrilla campaign, inside the compound. With Snow free, they still had a fighting chance at rescue, albeit a slim one. Although Master Sergeant Snow wasn’t his supervisor, they had worked closely on the Post Security Team while they were running protection details for the Ambassador. If he were still alive, he would be fighting to the last man. Tough old bastard, thought Nixon, who had once seen him do a hundred pull-ups in three minutes at the embassy fitness center. That was about ninety-five more than Nixon could do. The man had the tenacity of a terminator and the heart of a commando. He was a total war machine.
Nixon and Joseph sat uncomfortably with their backs against the wall, in a long row of hostages beneath the panoramic window. Nixon struggled with his bonds, the hard plastic ties cutting into his wrists. Stupid zip ties. He couldn’t move his wrists at all as they were pinned together in a tight embrace.
Nixon racked his brain. There had to be a way out of these things. He thought he had seen an online video on how to break a zip tie, but he couldn’t remember how the Internet phenomenon broke free.
A rough-looking soldier glanced his way as he struggled with his ties. They locked eyes briefly. The man’s eyes were bloodshot and almost the color of egg yolk. His skin dark like the night. Nixon broke his eyes away, looking deliberately downcast. He made sure to slump down on the wall, his chin tucked low, trying to appear pathetic. To his surprise it came rather easily, given his current state of affairs.
When the guard lost interest, Nixon nudged the doctor with his shoulder, trying to reassure him, but the doctor just gave him a blank stare from behind his glasses. There’s no fight left in this guy. If they’d come here to kill us, they would have done it by now. This isn’t Benghazi.
He tried to get a glimpse out the window. Tough to see because of the angle, it looked as though the heavy truck still blocked the smashed gate entrance. The rat-a-tat-tat of AK-47s sounded off, bodies piling up around the truck. There were no crowd control techniques here, only the brutally effective methods of murderous violence.
The gate. The hostages. It dawned on Nixon. These weren’t the actions of an assault; this was an occupation. These men were here to stay.
The doors to the cafeteria – once a place for people to go for a pleasant social exchange, but now a prison – were thrown open.
The large African officer, who had demanded their surrender earlier, treaded through the door, his tightly laced boots clicking the floor. A few people begged for mercy. Although he wore camouflage, no DRC military insignia decorated his uniform, but these people wouldn’t know the difference. In fact, he isn't wearing any insignia. Just a uniform. Keep it together.
“Hello, my friends. I am Colonel Jacobin Kosoko.” He beamed a sinister white-toothed smile off set by the darkness of his skin. Well over six feet tall and with a good deal of muscle, he wore blood-decorated fatigue pants and jacket, with a black tank top underneath. Gold sunglasses dangled off the front of his shirt. On his hip he wore a Western-style gun belt. A machete handle poked up over his shoulder. The machete seemed to be the melee weapon of choice for people in this part of the world, and sure enough this big bastard has one. Here we go. Fire up the video cameras. Shit is about to go crazy. Who would he choose to chop up first? The lady crying in front? No, too easy. He would pick one of the toughest ones to pacify the entire group. Standard kidnapping protocol. Kill the most likely to present resistance first.
Colonel Kosoko knelt down in front of a woman sobbing. “Shhh, you are safe. Everything is fine,” he said, brushing a sweaty strand of hair off her cheek. Judas, he is going to kill her first. Nixon wrenched his wrists and the zip ties cut him keeping him restrained. He was no hero, but he couldn’t sit by while this massacre took place.
Nixon strained his legs upright making his knees feel like they were going to pop. He must do something. What do I do now? He let out a muffled cry through his gag trying to look fierce with his hands tied behind his back. He took a step forward getting ready to throw himself at the man. Kosoko didn’t even release the woman.
A wood stock cracked into his belly. The air rushed from his lungs and he fell back on his ass. Its where you belong, he told himself. The soldier with the yellow eyes stared down at him and Nixon stared up through the eye of a long grey metal AK-47.
“No, no John Wayne,” the soldier grinned yellow-stained teeth.
The woman stopped sobbing sniffling back her tears as Kosoko pet her face. “Good. Good my pretty lady,” Kosoko said, rising.
Nixon’s hope faded as the goateed officer paced in front of him stopping. Looking Nixon in the eyes, he stared with no remorse. Kosoko ruled the roost. The leader of the pack. Nixon bowed his eyes. His pathetic fight lost. What could he possibly do?
Kosoko continued to pace. His right cheekbone was sunken in as if it had been broken and never properly fixed. He eyed them all. Kosoko sniffed out the poor in spirit; those who would give him what he wanted.
“There is nothing to fear. I assure you that you are safe for the time being. Please cooperate with myself and my men, and we will have you out of here in no time at all.”
Wait a second. Where do I know that name from? Nixon had heard it before. It had come up during some stuffy briefing he had probably nodded off in. Think. Think. It was during a country briefing. Yes, a country briefing on rebel groups. The caved in side of his face, that was very distinctive. Jacobin. Kosoko. Kosoko, Jacobin. Hmmmm.
It struck him like a bolt of lightning. Jacobin Kosoko was the military chief of the Free Congolese Brigade, a rebel group based in eastern areas of the DRC. That was it. The Free Congolese Brigade had been added to the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in November 2012 for beheading forty captured DRC soldiers. Kosoko had denied accusations that the Free Congolese Brigade had conducted such heinous crimes, until a video popped up on online showing him hacking off the head of a soldier with three mighty swings. Three powerful machete swings. Probably with the same damn machete that hung menacingly on his back.
We’re fucked. I tried to stop him. I’m fucked. This was one mean hombre. His faction had broken away from the other political leader, Jean David Kapeni, which had led to tremendous suffering and bloodshed among the local population of the North Kivu province. He was a long way from there. Kinshasa must be over fifteen hundred miles from North Kivu.
“But if you do actually resist.” He paused as if to mock Nixon in his effort. “Like your Sergeant Snow has, I have no problem feeding you to those who hold no breath outside. Please stand.”
“Stand up! Stand up!” shouted a guard, gesturing wildly.
People cried out as the soldiers lashed out with the wooden stocks of their assault rifles.
Nixon helped Joseph up with an elbow. They faced the panoramic window. Was this it? Was the plan just to capture them and then shoot them in the back? The diplomats of the world’s greatest superpower - helpless, and with no aid or succor from their government - were to be executed for the whole world to see. He had never thought it would be like this. He also never thought he would have to shoot his partner in the head because he was eating their interpreter. Alas, he was not in control of his own fate.
Every second ticked by like an hour. People sobbed in their pathetic line, faces red with pitiful dismay. Nixon would leave them to their last moments, not judging how they spent their last seconds on earth. Nixon steadied his breathing, saying a quick prayer in case the big man upstairs was listening. He tensely awaited the hot rounds from an AK-47 to rip through his back and explode out hi
s front, like mini mushroom clouds of pink mist. Any moment now he would be riddled with bullets executed in a cowardly fashion. Thirty seconds agonizingly ticked by. The air stuck in his chest as if his last breath hid from the outside world. It was as if his body were greedily hoarding the air waiting for the bullets to present the escape route. Cries filled the room. What were they waiting for?
Nixon saw them below. A group of Congolese soldiers led a man in Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform toward the courtyard. He could make out the gray hair and the chevrons on his sleeves. The man marched erect toward the fence with his chin upward unafraid. It was Sergeant Snow; no one else at the embassy was like him. He was alive, and had been captured.
Snow’s hands were tied, preventing any sort of aggressive action. “Ah yes. There is your hero, Sergeant Snow,” Colonel Kosoko said in his bass voice. “He was a difficult man to capture, but his detainment was inevitable.”
The group stopped near the fence. One of the soldiers turned around looking up at Kosoko for approval. Come on Snow do something. Kosoko nodded his head giving his men the signal.
“Watch carefully my friends,” Kosoko commanded.
Snow wouldn’t go down without a fight. Not the old war machine himself. As the soldiers pushed him close to the fence his posture changed dramatically. He dropped his weight low and drove his shoulder up into a rebel soldier, knocking him backward into a truck. The embassy staffers cried out as the battle unfolded. Snow front-kicked the other guard, sending him flying onto the lawn. Atta’ boy, give them hell.
Snow turned to the fence, scanning for an escape route, but the only reprieve offered were infected hands that reached for him. Their faces pressed through the bars, mouths clamping together like an ocean of land piranhas. He spun away and made a run for the heavy troop transport truck. Two more soldiers emerged on the scene swinging their rifles. Snow juked back and forth bringing the heel of his boot into one of their knees sending the soldier screaming to the ground. Yes, the war machine strikes again. Nixon couldn’t hide his excitement, standing up on his tip toes to get a better view of the fight.
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