* * *
The torrential rain had turned into a constant drizzle, an all-encompassing wet curtain. Andy had been leading their way to the extraction point - several kilometers southwest - in an almost complete silence. Ethan knew it all had to do with Nicole, but he felt there was little he could say or do at that moment. It would take time; he had learned that the hard way.
The dense vegetation, the rain and their exhaustion as well as the wearing-out of the adrenaline meant they were taking their time. Still, when Andy looked at his watch, it seemed that they would be there on time: it was dusk. Ethan then asked Andy:
“How close are we?”
Andy stopped for a moment, said nothing and pointed to a clearing up ahead. They were walking down a small bluff, with the river on their right, overlooking the rest of the forest, a veritable sea of greens and browns with a misty fog in place of a sky.
Ethan was trying not to think about anything else other than a hot shower and a round or more of drinks. But he couldn’t stop bringing up Nicole’s image in his mind; her face all pale and Andy’s cries piercing his ears. He knew it was the only way, it was just that he also felt Andy might never see it like that. And that hurt.
He kept his silent council and moved on. After a few minutes, they had arrived at the clearing with time to spare. Ethan sat down on the ground to rest his legs and feet, while Andy kept looking at the sky, as if searching for the helicopter.
“He’ll be here, alright. Don’t worry about that. There’s no one following us, at least not close enough. Plus, with that kind of explosion, I’m pretty sure half the 3rd division is rushing towards that place.”
“How can you be sure? How can you know?” snapped back Andy with a furious stare.
“Look, you’re right. I can’t. I’m just guessing, just like everyone else. But he’ll be here. I trust James.”
“That friend of yours? You could’ve trusted me, damn you, couldn’t you?”
“I did, Andy. That’s why I did it. You heard her, she wouldn’t have come. She’d shoot us both dead when she felt like it. I just saw an opening and did what I had to do. I felt you’d-”
“You thought she’d work her charm on me and then kill me? She could have done it a thousand places, Ethan! In my sleep, in my food and drink. When we were making love, when we were out there, killing in the name of… Fuck me, I don’t know anymore!” cried Andy before falling down on his knees and sobbing quietly. Ethan remained silent, unable to say anything of value. Andy went on after a few moments, his voice trembling, rising and falling with each word:
“There are things you need as a constant. Things to make sure you’re still sane, things that you can look back and remind you who you are. Faces, places from your past, before you went into the field. They told us about it, how to handle it, how people fought it off during and after the war. But when you take that away from a man… When you find out what that single point of failure is, then…”
His voice trailed off with a miserable echo of finality. Ethan was trying to find words, any words to make his brother feel that not everything was lost, that he was there to stand by him. But it felt pretentious and lacking. Ethan knew then he had gone through all this to find his brother, and now even though he was standing a couple of feet away, he was losing him anew. He couldn’t allow that, so he told him:
“I can’t bring her back. I was wrong, Andy. But there’s nothing any of us can do now. Forgive me. That’s all I’ll ever ask of you again.”
Andy looked up at Ethan with a hint of tears welling up in his eyes. It was as if he was looking through a mirage at someone very familiar yet strange to him. He cleared his throat then and told his brother:
“I can’t find it in my heart now Ethan. I just can’t. But I can promise you we’ll always be brothers. I hope I’ll find the time,” he said and lowered his head in contemplation once more. Ethan bit his lips and nodded silently.
Then he heard a pulsating, faint thumping noise that grew louder every moment. It was the sound of helicopter blades swooshing through the air; to Ethan, it sounded like trumpets from heaven. Despite all the guilt and the uneasiness he felt, it brought a thin smile to his lips. Andy took notice as a light troop transport helicopter appeared over the treetops through the thinning fog at a distance, crisscrossing the river as it kept a northerly route.
“Hey! Hey! That’s James, always on time!” said Ethan as he started flailing his hands wildly and jumping up and down. Andy stood up and had a better look. The helicopter swung towards them after a few seconds, circled up above and began a slow, careful descend right in the middle of the clearing.
Ethan could see James through the cockpit, grinning. As the helicopter began touching down, both him and Andy crouched low and tried to shield their faces from the updraft of the rotor blades that sent sand and mud flying towards them.
The helicopter touched down with closed side-doors. Ethan noticed the engine pitch was going down as well; the rotor blades were spinning to a halt. James had powered the helicopter down for some reason.
Andy was looking at James warily, while Ethan shook his head to reassure him. He himself though, was feeling something was amiss. James opened the cockpit door and jumped off the helicopter. He was wearing the standard issue flight suit, complete with helmet which he promptly removed and let the rain wash over his face. He blinked and tasted the rain for a moment, before he smiled at Ethan.
Ethan smiled back somewhat awkwardly and told him:
“We can’t thank you enough, James. Is there some problem? Why did you power down?”
James took his handgun out of his holster casually, while his face became contorted, as if suddenly angered or threatened.
“Because you’re not leaving,” James said and pointed the gun at Andy who had precious little time to remember that he had heard James’ voice somewhere before. And then Andy was already lying on his back; the power of the shot had sent him flying a couple of feet away, his shoulder a torn mess. His vision became blurry from the pain, the wound feeling hot like molten iron. Ethan instead of rushing towards James had remained stunned, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
“Jesus, you shot Andy. Why the fuck did you just shoot Andy?” cried Ethan, as he tried to tend to his brother, who was rolling around the muddied ground, bleeding, and in pain. Ethan took out what few things remained from the medical kit to at least stop the bleeding. James replied then with a deep, sombre voice:
“Because I want you to feel the pain, Ethan,” he said and took another clear shot at Andy. Andy’s body stopped moving as it jerked once and then became limp. Ethan looked at Andy: his eyes stared vainly at the sky and an entry wound adorned his forehead. Pieces of skull and brain matter were lying on the mud near his slightly deformed head. Andy was dead.
He felt he was going to go mad at that instant, blood rising up in his head which throbbed like it was about to explode. James' voice made him turn around and face him with the simple intent of killing him.
“Look at your dead brother, Ethan. God smiled upon you today. Because you had time to see him one last time. I never did,” he said, shaking his head slowly, coolly.
Ethan cried out in anguish and slumped himself besides his brother’s body, unable to even stand upright. The upheaval of feelings was tremendous. Ethan felt everything all at once: infuriated and cheated, guilty and beaten down, ready to kill and simply waiting to die. He merely found the strength to ask with a crippled voice:
“Why? Whatever for?”
“For Enkele, my brother. My flesh and blood. My only hope in this world,” said James through grating teeth.
“I don’t… I don’t understand,” said Ethan with a terribly confused voice, his face utterly broken. James swallowed hard and wiped some of the rain off his forehead. He almost shouted rather than talked:
“Kenya! It was you. The freedom fighters. It was your long range patrol, Ethan! It wasn’t about the lives of your men, though. You had a choice, and yo
u still pulled the trigger. You killed my brother in cold blood. It was you!” he cried, the gun not waving an inch from his hand, aimed straight at Ethan’s chest.
Ethan stammered, barely able to find the words: “I didn’t… I didn’t know. It was war, James, for God’s sake! How could I’ve known!” he yelled indignantly.
“But I did. I learned. Normally I could never have hoped to find out, but fate chose otherwise. And then I had no choice: I had to kill your brother. An eye for an eye, Ethan!” he cried with misplaced fervor.
“You mean, you knew? What did you know?” asked Ethan with a deep frown and a hint of fear in his voice.
“Everything!” cried James and laughed bitterly, tears running down his maddened eyes before he continued:
“I was their source inside Lagos, Ethan! And I knew things about them. What I didn’t know, I learned in the process. And so it came that I knew your brother wasn’t really missing. I wanted you to go after him, find him for me. Do all the dirty work.”
“Revenge? This was all about fucking revenge?” asked James with an angry cry. James replied calmly, with a seemingly ever-widening grin attached to his face.
“No. You’re right, you’re a smart man. It couldn’t be just about a feeling now, could it? A simple, pure feeling? There was more, I’ll admit. I saw the flames on the way here. A job well done. With Andy and Nicole dead, the French organization’s almost wiped out. The Biafrans will not hold out for long. Playing both sides will make me a rich, black man in a poor, African country.”
“Money and revenge? Is that fair game for the death of your brother? Of my brother?” asked Andy with real anger and fear stressing his voice further.
“No, I try to think about it as compensation. My brother cannot return from the dead, but I’ve avenged him, wiping any trace of my involvement with the Biafrans in the process.. And all that money will go a long way into making his dream come true, Ethan. A free Africa, a free Nigeria.”
“And you’ll do that by making a deal with the British? Isn’t that the devil?”
“Whoever I need to, Ethan. Even the white elephant will rot away and leave only his tusks behind,” he said as he pointed the gun squarely at Ethan’s head, ready to take a final, murderous shot.
“I thought you were a friend,” said Ethan who suddenly got up and started walking towards James, the gun still trained at him.
“Whatever gave you that impression?” asked James with a hushed laughter, the gun steady in his hands; his face determined, still.
“I don’t know, at least we might have been,” said Ethan as he stood right in front of James, no more than three feet away from the gun.
“It’s all happenstance, Ethan,” said James as he momentarily shrugged, the gun looking slightly away from Ethan.
And that was when Ethan sprang at him, swiveling his torso sideways. James’ gun went off with a clamor, but Ethan was already pushing the gun away with one hand and aiming for his neck with the other. James’ gaze went wild as he realised he had missed, but it curiously enough settled the next moment in a calm, peaceful stare; his carotid was shattered and he was drowning in his own blood.
James fell face down in the mud, the colour of his blood lost in the reddish brown mud. Ethan took a moment, sighed and looked at James body with a peculiar mix of disdain, surprise and sadness. He then took another look at his brother and saw his vacant stare as rain kept falling on him. He sat down in the mud, and began to cry as if the rain that fell from above burned him. After a few more minutes, he came to grips and quietened down.
He took a deep, long breath and looked at the bodies once more. He saw the helicopter idly sitting by and started laughing and crying, without being able to control himself; he felt he had finally let go. He didn’t know how to fly; he suddenly realised he was still alive and couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdness of it all.
THE END
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