The First End

  Chapter 10

  “Okay, first we need to figure out who Korfa is before we go looking for him,” Bill said. “There must be hundreds of Korfas in this city.”

  “It’ll take forever,” Lorna said. She sat back in the seat of their jeep, filing her nails. It was such a feminine thing to do that it looked completely out of place in their surroundings. At the same time, it helped to put him at ease. She had wrapped a Hijab around her head some time ago, least someone take offence in the predominately Muslim nation.

  “Perhaps,” he agreed. “Still, these scavengers wouldn’t have dealings with just anyone. My guess is they would only deal with someone in two categories.”

  “Yeah? What two?”

  “Food and junk.”

  She frowned, thinking. “Makes sense. They would scrounge up things dumped in the landfill and then try to pawn it off on a junk dealer, who would then try to pawn it off on some ignorant sod looking for souvenirs.”

  “I doubt there is much of a tourist industry here. But that is a possibility. The other one is food. They would know all the places where they could scrounge for food, restaurants, hotels…things like that.”

  “But as you just pointed out, there probably isn’t much of a tourist industry here. Just how difficult would a restaurant or hotel have it here in this town?”

  “Pretty rough I would imagine.”

  “No matter what, we should help this country.”

  “I guess that leaves the junk dealers.” She pointed towards the city. “Driver! Tallyho!”

  Bill smirked. “You’re the driver.”

  She glanced at the steering wheel in front of her. “So I am. Imagine that.” She threw him a distressed look. “Chivalry is dead. Where is a gentleman to chauffer me around?”

  He shrugged, and settled more solidly in his seat as if he intended to stay there forever. “Not so easy to find, preciosa. Just drive, please!”

  She shook her head. “Isn’t that the truth.” Starting up the jeep, they began driving towards the center part of the city. Behind them, Luk Bol and his men piled into their own jeeps and followed. So far the mercenary captain had been content to leave them alone and let the two Americans conduct their investigation. Whatever he may have thought about the entire thing was beyond Bill, but he did notice that the man took care to report to his superiors—whoever they may be—only out of earshot of either American.

  Bill wanted to wrap this entire thing up quickly. He had a bad feeling. Over the last couple of days, Lorna and Bill had taken to sharing a hotel room—perfectly platonic, of course—solely for safety reasons. Both slept with loaded side-arms they had managed to smuggle in with their luggage.

  As the three jeep convey snaked through the city, he noted that their surroundings didn’t get much better. In fact, the main city looked and smelled better than the landfill only if you were generous. Trash still littered the roads and walkways, but here and there someone made an effort to either organize the trash or remove it. The street gutters were open sewers. Chickens wandered freely throughout the main street and couple of goats even trying to climb trees to snatch the few remaining leaves. Difficult for all to live in such hostile place ravaged by nature and war.

  Any working vehicles were owned by armed men, and at several junctions in the pock-marked road they had tense moments where their convey had been intercepted by another band of armed mercenaries. Each time Luk Bol had roughly pushed his way to the front and ordered the men to stand down. Every time, they listened. Bill didn’t know who Bol really was, but it was becoming obvious that the pirates and mercenaries in the country were afraid of him.

  Lorna tuned a corner, and without warning, a throng of people dancing, laughing, and clapping their hands surged across the road. Lorna slammed on the breaks, barely able to avoid running over a pair of grinning men. They slapped the hood of the jeep and laughed before moving along with the crowd.

  “What in the world?” Bill muttered. He stood up and tried to peer over the crowd. “We’ll never get through this. What’s going on do you think?”

  Lorna leaned out carefully. “A party?”

  Bill listened, and suddenly his eyes grew wide in wonder. “It sounds as if Merca has a new Mayor.”

  “A Mayor? When did this happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was he elected, or did the provisional government send him down?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, isn’t it dangerous to be a government official down here? Who is this guy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She threw him an irritated look. “What do you know?”

  “About this?” he gestured with his chin to the crowd of happy people. “It looks like Merca has a new Mayor.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “Well so is this crowd. We’ll never get anywhere and I don’t want to turn our pic commandos loose on this crowd. Someone will wind up dead if we try to force our way through.”

  As if verbalizing the possibility conjured the actual, Luk Bol seemed to materialize next to their jeep. Four of his men lingered behind, fingering their weapons. “Why you stop?” he demanded.

  Bill pointed to the crowd. “That. What’s going on? Seems like their celebrating something.”

  Bol studied the crowd of people, listening to the cheers and chants. Suddenly his eyes tightened noticeably. “Come,” he ordered. “Follow me.”

  Curious to know what was going on, and seeing few other options, Bill and Lorna hopped off of the jeep. Bol began shoving his way through the crowds, three of his men fanning out to assist and one followed close behind the Americans. Bol wasn’t gentle. He shoved, kicked, and used his rifle like a club to clear a path. Some tried to protest, but either one look at the mercenary’s face, or a solid punch sent the objector fleeing in any direction that would get them away from the cold faced man.

  The two Americans followed in his wake. Bill wanted to protest such treatment and he could tell that Lorna did too, but they dared not say anything. Not now, at least, the ex-marine vowed silently to himself.

  Eventually, they came to a large square jammed with people cheering. In the center of the square, a wooden platform had been raised and a man stood atop it, holding an ancient looking microphone and energetically haranguing the people.

  “The new Mayor, I take it,” Lorna whispered.

  “Yeah. Luk Bol doesn’t seem none too pleased, though.”

  Lorna chanced a glance the mercenary’s way and saw the most vengeful face she had ever seen. “That’s the truth.”

  Bol grabbed one of his men and yanked him near. He whispered something to the man who nodded, grabbed another of the armed mercenaries, and then trotted off. The pair of them cutting through the mass of people much like Bol had done.

  “What do you think that was about?” Lorna asked softly.

  “No idea. But, I don’t think the new Mayor will like what’s about to happen.”

  “Think they’ll arrest the man?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Stop that,” she muttered.

  He grinned tightly at her and turned back to the situation at hand. Bol didn’t have any room on his face for a grin. He stared menacingly around him and soon the crowd drew back from him, leaving the mercenary as the only island of humanity in the entire square.

  The man with the microphone hadn’t noticed the new arrivals, or if he had, he was choosing to ignore them. From the limited bit of Arabic Bill understood, he knew the man was appealing to the people to rise up and fight for their freedom. The people cheered, but the lawyer wondered if they even knew what the man was saying. Music was blaring across the square, and the large number of people were dancing and laughing.

  Bill said, “Looks like the people are using the new Mayor’s arrival as a reason to celebrate.”

  “What exactly are they celebrating?” Lorna asked. “They don’t seem to be paying the Mayor any attention.”

  “Noticed
that too? I bet they just want to celebrate. I don’t think this city has much to laugh about normally.”

  “That’s probably true for the entire country,” Lorna agreed.

  “True.”

  One of the soldiers left behind with Bol pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. He quickly grew frustrated when he couldn’t get the lighter to produce a flame. With a curse, he threw the lighter into the ground.

  Gardner’s attention was instantly riveted to three children who appeared seemingly from out of nowhere and dived to the ground in an effort to retrieve it. One girl of around eleven years of age came up with it. She tried to dart away but ran face first into one of Bol’s soldiers who cursed, grabbed her by the hair, and delivered a stunning slap to the side of the girl’s face. He drew his hand back for another blow when Bill intervened.

  He took two steps and caught the soldier’s wrist as it descended, stopping it cold in his vice-like grip. The soldier’s eyes widened in surprise when he discovered he couldn’t move his arm at all. Bill stepped into the man, his eyes boring into the black irises of the Somali mercenary. “Try to hit her again, and I will kill you,” he said calmly.

  The man released the girl, who fell heavily to the ground and lay there blinking in confusion. The soldier used his free arm to try and draw a pistol, but Bill jabbed a finger into a nerve cluster at the man’s shoulder and the man lost all interest in his gun as severe pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He gasped and fell to his knees, doing his best not to scream.

  Looking around, the lawyer noted that Bol was observing him with a look of interest. He had not moved to interfere, or Bill would most likely be dead, but his eyes had lit up in a way that made Bill uncomfortable. It was the look of a predator who had caught the smell of another predator in his territory. Bill said, “I need to talk to the girl. I think she has information I need. Tell your man to back off.”

  Bol regarded the ex-marine steadily. Finally he nodded.

  Bill still had the soldier by the wrist. He let go and shoved the man away. Turning, he found Lorna already assisting the girl up from the dirt. He knelt down and turned his most disarming smile on the girl. “Don’t worry. We aren’t going to hurt you,” he said in his best Arabic. She looked quizzical at first, and then repeated what he had said, correcting his grammar. He nodded. “Thank you. What is your name?”

  “Marwa,” she said shyly. She didn’t look as frightened now. He judged that to be a good thing.

  “Hello Marwa.” He nodded to the lighter which she clutched tightly to her chest. “Do you plan to sell the lighter?” She nodded slowly, suddenly suspicious. He laughed. “No, sweetheart, I’m not going to take it from you. It is yours to sell.” She relaxed again. “I have some things to sell too,” he said. “I hear that a man by the name of Korfa is a good man to do business with. Is this so?”

  Her tongue flicked out to moisten her lips. She nodded. “Korfa doesn’t cheat us as badly as some of the others do. But he doesn’t always buy everything. He only wants the good stuff. You have good stuff?”

  “I have some good stuff,” he assured her. “Where can I find him.”

  She pointed in a generally easterly direction. “Two streets over. Look for a shop painted blue. It’s the only one.”

  He nodded. “Thank you, Marwa. Where are your parents?”

  Her eyes shifted off to one side. “Dead,” she said in a half whisper. She turned and darted into the crowd, moving in the direction of the platform.

  “Well,” Lorna said, moving next to him. “We now know where Korfa is.”

  “Better than nothing,” he agreed. For a few seconds he watched as the girl expertly dodged around the revelers, making fast her escape. He silently wished her luck.

  An explosion rocked the ground under Bill’s feet. He staggered and then fell over as someone in turn fell into him. He landed hard, but shot to his feet almost the instant he hit the ground. His ears rang from the explosion, so everything seemed muffled by the high pitched ring.

  Where the platform had been, a large plume of black smoke rolled into the air. People were screaming, crying, and shouting. Those at the fringes of the explosion stood for a few moments in stunned disbelief. It wore off quickly, and suddenly the entire square became a sea of chaos as people panicked, running any which direction in their efforts to get away from the source of the explosion.

  As people cleared out, Bill could see people lying on the ground. Some rocked back and forth in obvious pain while others lay perfectly still. Too still. The smell of blood and mud mixed with the smoke, searing his nostrils with the foul odor. He glanced around for Lorna and found her climbing shakily to her feet. She yelled something, but the lawyer shook his head, pointing to his ears. She nodded, but Gardner felt tremendous relief that his partner was okay.

  Then he remembered the girl, Marwa. She had run towards the platform just before it exploded. He started to move into the sea of destruction, desperately hoping he would not find her among the wounded and dead. He stepped over one woman, who grabbed feebly at his ankle, her other hand missing and blood pulling around the wound. Bill defied the rules and traditions to rescue the lady. He knelt and ripped off part of the injured woman’s skirt and quickly bound the wound lest she bleed to death.

  Several bodies lay nearby, pierced through with wood fragments from the platform. And then he saw her. Marwa’s body rested near a man’s body. Blood ran in a thin trickle from her mouth, and her eyes looked surprised, as if death hadn’t been part of her escape plan when she had run from the strange American. In her hand, she still clutched the useless lighter.

  Bill sat back and pulled his knees up to his chest. An unbidden tear escaped one eye and traced a dirty track down his cheek. He had seen death and destruction before…more than he ever wanted to relive. But he could never get used to sights like this—children, their lives cut short to further the selfish and greedy ends of wicked men. He stared at the motionless body for long moments, until a dirty and blood stained hand fell on his shoulder.

  He looked up into Lorna’s concerned face. “Are you alright?”

  He blinked. His hearing had returned and the ringing had faded into a small irritation. “I got out of the military because of things like this,” he said softly. “I don’t understand it.”

  She sat down next to him, watching as men and women started to pick their way through the death and destruction. Some were clearly there to help the wounded, while others took advantage of the situation to scavenge the dead. Bill didn’t have the energy to help the first or run off the second. He felt little comfort in Lorna’s presence.

  “This is why I stay in,” she said at last. “Someone has to try and stop this madness.”

  Bill shook his head. “Why? Why do this?”

  Lorna’s voice lowered. “I think Luk Bol did it.”

  The lawyer’s head snapped around. “What?”

  “Remember? He sent two of his men off towards the Mayor. He didn’t look too happy with what the Mayor was saying.”

  Gardner surged to his feet, murder in his eyes. Luk Bol had wondered off to the edge of the square where he now sat on a short wall, watching the results of the carnage his men had created—and no doubt to keep an eye on the two Americans. Bill took one step before Lorna jerked hard on his arm, pulling him around.

  “Don’t,” she snapped. “If you attack him, his men will kill us.”

  The only thing that stopped Bill from jerking his arm out and heading over to break Bol’s neck was that Lorna would surely die along with him. He stood, trembling as adrenaline, anger, and helplessness warred in his body and heart. Finally, he relaxed and nodded once. “Let’s find Korfa and get this over with.”