Joint Task Force #4: Africa Page 6

  Abu Alhaul—father of terror, Mohammed’s chosen one, Abdo’s brother—followed.

  Abdo wiped his forehead and thought of how truly blessed he was to have a brother such as Asim—born again as Abu Alhaul. Behind Abu Alhaul followed less than thirty of the Islamic Front for Purification remaining with the Jihadist leader. Two years ago they numbered in the thousands—Africans, Arabs, Pakistani—so many, and now so few. Success had been great two years ago with them overrunning Guinea and Liberia before Allah decided to test their faithfulness again. The defeat at the hands of the Liberian president, Thomaston, caused the growing dissension between the Africans and Jihadists to burst like rotten fruit. The Africans shoved aside the teachings of Mohammed, and now followed this charismatic African, Fela Azikiwe Ojo, shunning religion in favor of nationalism.

  “What is it?” Abu Alhaul asked as he approached Abdo.

  Abdo knew Abu Alhaul both loved and hated him; he who was his bigger brother. It frustrated Abdo to know his brother fought his own internal arguments because Abdo failed to appreciate that Abu Alhaul believed Allah had much bigger plans for him.

  “The path splits, my brother. One goes north and the other continues west.”

  “We go west.”

  Abdo shook his head. He turned and faced his brother. The loyal ones who remained reverently gave the two brothers distance. “It is over, Abu Alhaul. It is time to retreat, reassess, and decide a new direction.” He pointed north. “We turn north, toward civilization, and an aircraft ticket to Egypt.” He sighed. “Ojo is following, and it is only a matter of time until he catches us—unless we leave. There is no ‘if’ in this statement, only a ‘when.’”

  “The children of Islam should be available now.” Abu Alhaul motioned to the man immediately behind him. The thin, young man stepped forward pushing the flowing robe of a desert Bedouin out of the way. In many places the robe was torn and stained. A dark red patch showed where someone had bled. A dirty white patch covered a wound on the man’s cheek. “They are the weapons we have built through years of prayer and study. Let me see—”

  Abu Alhaul snapped his fingers. The man handed his leader a thick notebook. Abu Alhaul took the notebook and as if he had all the time in the world, he thumbed through page after page of Arabic script, stopping every so often to run his finger along a line. Abdo stood silent as his brother, once again, tried to identify the locations of Jihadist schools where his followers took children as students and turned them into future martyrs for Allah.

  “So many,” Abu Alhaul muttered.

  “So few,” Abdo corrected. “Everywhere you worked these past five years to turn Africa into a Muslim continent is being eaten by this General Ojo. Religion and politics can never defeat nationalism regardless of how hard we try. Abu Alhaul—Asim, my brother—it is time to leave this dark—” He slapped his fleshy upper arm, glancing to see what had bitten him. “—insect-ridden country to those who want it. We never should—”

  Abu Alhaul held his hand up. “Enough. Don’t say it. We came here because Allah commanded it.”

  “Then Allah must have seen the consequences, and His greater plans call for you to fail. Your failure is Allah’s victory,” Abdo said, his tone sharp. “I’m telling you as one who loves you. Now, let’s go home and celebrate His wisdom.”

  “The problem is not Allah’s. It is ours. We who lead the holy jihad expect instantaneous results.” He threw his arms apart as if simulating an explosion. “What we needed was to increase our patience to reap a bigger result that takes more time for the enemy to realize he’s been attacked. But, I failed Him. Instead of concentrating on the jihad, I allowed personal vengeance in seeking out the American who killed my family to shadow my true purpose. I have failed Him, and to fail Him is to die in his service.”

  “Do you think He can wait until we’re close enough for a proper funeral? Ask Him if it is possible for you to stay because your brother wants you to live because he loves you. Tell Him you are prepared to serve Him another day but right now you’d like to have a hot bath, return to Egypt, sit at the sidewalk café near home, and watch the tourists being fleeced of their dollars. I think He’d understand.” He pointed north and sighed. “I have always done what you asked. Now, you will follow me. Your safety is my life, and to live we take the northern trail. For the time, you will have to abandon the dream of an Islamic Africa.”

  “I can never do that! You make small talk of Allah and His wrath is something to behold, for I am the wielder of His wrath.”

  Fierce eyes stopped Abdo for a moment before he turned his head away from his brother. “Have you thought that maybe one of your sons is to finish what you started?”

  “I have no sons.”

  He faced his brother again. “And you won’t, if we don’t turn north and leave the battlefield to the Africans. Let them rid the continent of the Westerners, which will make your son’s job easier.”

  Abu Alhaul weighed his brother’s words as if weighing his thoughts.

  “Maybe Allah is speaking through your brother, telling you to live to fight another day.”

  “This is a test by Allah to see if I will follow His word even when my family attempts to sway me in another direction.”

  Abdo shook his head. He wanted to reach out and slap his brother, but even he had doubts if being blood kin would stop this man he once chased through the streets of their village when they were young; when they laughed and played. It had been many years since laughter had enveloped them as if the Allah that Abu Alhaul followed demanded stern visages and contemplative thoughts.

  “We have time. For four days we’ve been running from the pursuing Africans. There are no more villages; no more of our schools. Village after village where we set up schools to train the children of Africa have been decimated. No one left alive. Heads shoved atop stakes in the center of the village as a warning to others to remain Africans.”

  Abu Alhaul jumped as his brother’s strong hands grabbed him by the upper arms and shook him. “Do you understand that you may die out here. There are no more villages!”

  “Release me!” Abdo’s arms dropped to his sides.

  “Some will have survived,” Abu Alhaul said, his voice soft. “Some always survive.”

  Abdo turned his back to his brother, unsheathed his machete, and returned to the bushes in front of them.

  Abu Alhaul had never known his brother to be this anxious. Sure, they have had their setbacks, but Allah was forever testing His followers. The Africans may be searching and killing His followers, but they aided Allah’s words by escorting Western missionaries from the jungles. His sources told him that Ojo had warned them never to return. But for his villages, they killed the teachers and the children. It was the children who were the future of Jihad. It was the children upon whose blank slate of life was written the future, teaching them the honor of martyrdom, making them willing to strap bombs to their chests and die, taking the enemy with them. To build such weapons meant teaching them the purity of such acts while young. As they grew older and more mature, the lure of life outweighed the purity of sacrifice.

  Abdo stopped chopping and turned again to face him. “My brother, we can’t wait for you to make a decision. Even Allah takes a rest. We are going north to safety and someday you may return, but I think your life here is done.”

  “Only for a short time, my brother. Only a short time. You are right in that you can never succeed if you are killed.” He couldn’t believe he was agreeing to flee. It was better to die for Allah than to flee for another day.

  “Sometimes you say the right thing.”

  Abu Alhaul opened his mouth to object, his lips opening and closing several times before he shut them and nodded. For once his younger brother was right. What right did he have to die when his service to Allah remained unfulfilled? Or, was it fulfilled? It was something he and the mullahs could argue, balancing successes and failures against the teachings of the Koran.

  “Okay, we go north to see if w
e can lose those who are following.”

  Abdo nodded. “We should discard those weapons that are too heavy and too useless, such as those Russian missiles. They are antiquated. We have no aircraft upon which to use them and they are slowing down all of us.”

  “No! We may need them.” They were the only weapons they had other than the automatic AK-47s everyone carried.

  “Yes, we may need them, but right now we need to escape more than we need the surface-to-air missiles. Look, my brother, we can hide them along the path and when we return—”

  “Abdo, you have told me you think we won’t return. Why do you say such things if you think we won’t return?”

  Abdo shrugged. “Because I want to convince you that all may not be lost. There no longer exists an Islamic Front for Purification. It is dead, and with it the glory of the victory you so desired has died. There will be no Shara in this part of Africa for a long time. Instead, African barbarism will triumph until you return.”

  Abu Alhaul pushed his brother, barely moving the man, a surge of anger bursting forth. Who was he to argue with Abu Alhaul? “You will shut up and do as I command,” he said, his voice low, his tone hard. “We will take what we have with us because we are going to return, and when we return we will need such weapons.” He saw the red in his brother’s face, and he realized he had both angered and humiliated him in front of others.

  Abdo stepped forward, and Abu Alhaul prepared himself for the verbal sparring he expected, but his brother turned abruptly, his face still red with anger, and like a huge clearing machine, his younger brother raised his machete. The arm moved in a blur as Abdo chopped and wracked the bushes apart in front of them, raising huge clouds of insects and filling the air around him with fresh leaves. Abu Alhaul watched as his brother broke the trail ahead, aware the path headed north.

  Abu Alhaul handed the notebook to the young man. He told himself he had time to change his decision to flee. Those who followed would stay with him, but would his brother? He followed along the path, his brother farther ahead. First, the Americans chase him out of Liberia. Within two weeks of loading a merchant vessel with a deadly cargo to avenge the death of his family and watching it sail from a little-used port in the Ivory Coast, the French mounted such massive searches for him, searches so intense, he was forced to flee north to Guinea.

  Six months in Guinea, Abu Alhaul was reconstituting his army when he encountered this makeshift, ragtag gang of Africans chasing him—him; the true savior of Africa—calling themselves the African National Army. Instead of trying to find and kill him, this African National Army should be focusing on the white men who have ravaged this continent for centuries. His thoughts never equated the origin of enslaving Africans to the Arabs from North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The Africans and Arabs were brothers, he thought. Together we could do so much, but if I stop to talk, they’ll kill me before we could agree on consolidating our forces. It is hard to discuss logically together the better path when false ideology clouds the true path of Jihad.

  Behind this leader marched remnants of an army that two years ago numbered in the thousands. In the middle of the thick, bush-ridden jungles of Guinea, they fled from an army made up of thousands of native Africans whose only thoughts were to find and kill him. After what he had done for this continent, they treat him as if he was scum. They should be fighting the Americans and the French. Free Liberia and Ivory Coast from the western powers, and the rest of Africa would rise to support you. Whoever this General Ojo was, the man had no grasp for reality.

  An hour later, the man with the books closed the gap with Abu Alhaul. “Master, the men are tired. Several have the surface-to-air missiles and—”

  “Abdo, we’ll take a break here!” Abu Alhaul shouted.

  The remnants of his army squatted where they were, a few quietly exchanging words. The noise of the jungle could be heard again.

  Abdo turned and rejoined his brother, who was still standing. “Sit, my brother,” he said softly to Abu Alhaul, reaching up and touching the terrorist leader on the shoulders. “Sit and rest. We are free from our pursuers. They won’t follow us out of the jungles because they would run into the Ghanaian Army. We are small—”

  “Abdo, I would feel better, if you wouldn’t remind me of our size. We used to be so many.”

  Abdo nodded. “And we used to be feared by so many, but now we must reconstitute ourselves; return to where the fields are ripe for your picking; and, if you so desire in a few years, we can return and pursue your guidance from Allah.” He pushed down again on Abu Alhaul’s shoulders.

  Abu Alhaul nodded and squatted on his haunches. No one sat on the jungle floor where so many things could craw upon you to eat.

  Abdo squatted beside him, pulling his backpack off and tossing it in front of them. He opened it and rifled through the stuff crammed into the back, pulling out an American energy bar. “Here, eat this.”

  Abu Alhaul took it, turned it different ways, looking at the English printed on both sides, and then handed it back. “It is Western. It is not fit for the lips of Allah’s prophet.”

  Abdo handed it back. “All the Allah’s prophets in the world are useless if they die.”

  “We can make Him happy by dying.”

  “We make our enemies happier, so eat.” Abdo unwrapped the bar and shoved it back into Abu Alhaul’s hand, forcing his brother’s fingers around the bar. A few seconds later Abu Alhaul was eating the energy bar.

  Abdo looked at his watch.

  “How long?” Abu Alhaul asked.

  “Ten minutes.”

  They had been resting and now even he didn’t feel like starting again. Were the Africans still pursuing them or as Abdo said, they have stopped or lost our tracks? Were they truly safe for the time being? He lifted his head, twisting it from side to side. What is that noise—that buzz?

  Several seconds passed as Abu Alhaul listened to the noise, trying to separate it from the mix of jungle sounds. Whatever it was, it was growing in sound. He recognized the sound.

  “Airplane,” he said.

  Abdo lifted his head.

  Abu Alhaul stood. Abdo followed. “Looks as if you will get your wish, Abdo. Have our warriors with those obsolete surface-to-air missiles prepare themselves.”

  “I did not mean to say they would not work.”

  “I know, my brother, but you are right sometimes and when you are right, it is hard to admit it.”

  “We don’t know whose aircraft it is.”

  Abu Alhaul shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, does it? If it’s flying, it can’t be a loyal warrior. We have no aircraft, just the foot soldiers of Allah.”

  Abdo hurriedly moved past Abu Alhaul, and seconds later he had the four men with the missiles lined up, the barrels pointing upward toward the unbroken canopy of vegetation that covered them from the sky.

  “HERE HE COMES, CHIEF,” PETTY OFFICER LACEY SAID, slapping Razi on the shoulder.

  Coffee spilled over the top of the cup, splashing across Razi’s hand and onto the small mess table. “Hey, watch it, clown.” He winked at Lacey as he eased by the two sailors from the Naval Research Laboratory. Down the aisle came the new ensign. Razi slipped the half-full cup of coffee into a metal holder attached to the side of the bulkhead, leaned around the edge of the half-wall that separated the operating part of the aircraft from the mess area, and watched the ensign work his way aft. He’s heading to the head or back here. Razi’s fingers slipped into the flight-suit pocket on his right leg and found the peanut-butter packet. He laughed. He couldn’t help thinking of the expression on newbies’ faces when he did this.

  He pulled the peanut-butter packet out, ripped the top off, and with his left boot crossed over his knee, he squeezed the mixture along the edge where the sole met the heel, using the empty packet to smooth the stuff down.

  Lieutenant Reed, a mission evaluator, stood near the coffee urn. Razi put his flight shoe down and smiled at the officer.

  “New meat,” Razi sai
d.

  “New meat,” the lieutenant acknowledged, turning to watch. The officer sipped his coffee with his free hand while the other held on to the safety bar overhead.

  Razi walked forward, eased past the two sailors from the Naval Research Laboratory, and sat down on the arm of one of the passenger seats mounted along the starboard side of the aircraft.

  Lacey took his earphones off, pushed himself out of his seat and directly in front of the ensign so that he led the way aft.

  Razi lifted his flight boot and crossed it over his right knee. Behind the ensign, the new female flight engineer followed by a few paces. Razi’s eyebrows rose and fell several times. Pits must have given up and taken his seat back. A little fleshy, but she looked scrumptious.

  “Chief,” Lacey said, stopping a couple of steps from Razi and causing the ensign to stop behind him. “Someone must have stepped in dog shit.” Lacey wrinkled his nose as if trying to trace the smell.

  “Lacey, what the hell are you talking about?” Razi said, his mind coming back to what he was doing. “No one steps in dog shit without knowing it.” Razi stood and tapped the two aircrew members sitting directly across from him. “ Either of you two step in dog shit?”

  “Not us, Chief,” they said in unison, small smiles crossing their faces.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Razi saw the two sailors from Naval Research Laboratory turn to watch.

  “I don’t believe you. Check your flight boots.” He pointed at Lacey. “You too, Lacey.”

  “Chief, I’m the one who smelled it—”

  The ensign stopped, unable to get by because of Razi and Lacey.

  “Which means you’re the one most likely to have it on your shoe. Quit arguing and check.”