“You stand at a critical crossroads, Obe Belewa, one where many have stood before you. You have a choice. Out of stubbornness and pride, you may allow yourself to slide down into total defeat, taking all that you have built with you. Or you may lift your head again and begin this new and greater battle.”
A grudging smile touched Belewa’s face. “Someone told me once that I was a man cursed with excessive pride.”
Vavra Bey smiled back as she might have at one of her own sons. “With pride, it is not a matter of too much or too little. More it is a question of how it is used.”
Belewa smiled again, more freely, and returned to stand behind his desk. “Then tell me, how should I use mine?”
“By being willing to consider other options, both for the Union and for the region. You are right, General Belewa. West Africa has indeed been ignored by the world for far too long. But you have our attention now.”
The U.N. representative rose to her feet. “I journeyed here this day to extend you a personal invitation, General. Let us resume formal talks to seek resolution in the Union’s conflict with Guinea and in the matter of dealing with the refugee crisis. Let us end this war, so that we may begin the greater battle.”
Belewa rested his hands on the back of his chair, his face impassive, his eyes downcast in thought. Vavra Bey stood by quietly, listening to the cry of the cormorants from beyond the empty patio door frame. Finally Belewa looked up.
“I hear your words, Madam Representative. You will have my answer by this time tomorrow.”
The heat of the day had long since settled upon the little hut on the airport road. The Special Forces trooper fiercely resisted the lassitude the growing warmth carried with it. Kneeling in the dust by the boarded door, he ignored the sweat trickling down his back and peered between the slats, watching the highway. He must be ready. He would have only one chance and only a single second in which to act.
He set the detonator down and wiped his palms dry on the seat of his shorts. The mine lay fifty yards down the road beneath a pothole in the incoming lane. The powerful Italian antitank weapon was potent enough to destroy the heaviest of armored fighting vehicles. It would totally disintegrate the representative’s car, but only if the vehicle was directly over the shaped charge when it was fired.
Dust rose down the road. Hastily the trooper snatched up the hand detonator. Yes, it was the motorcade! They were coming! Again the Land Rover in the lead, trailed by the Mercedes.
The detonator’s safety pin pulled free with a sharp metallic click. The trooper had carefully paced off the distance to the pothole when he had come on station and had noted a stunted eucalyptus tree growing beside the road, opposite the mine. That was his mark.
The army vehicle rolled past, the limousine coming on.
The trooper found himself regretting that the limousine’s driver had to die as well, but this was war. Prices had to be paid if the Union was to triumph. The shadow of the eucalyptus tree fell across the Mercedes, and the trooper’s hand closed convulsively around the firing lever.
As he climbed the hotel stairway, Dasheel Umamgi silently cursed the bite of the prickly heat beneath his robes, then cursed again because he could not bring himself to scratch in the presence of his soldier escort. Admitting to such human frailties would be an act unworthy of a holy man, especially in front of these black swine.
He targeted yet a third curse at General Belewa for summoning him here at this hour and yet a fourth for the West African Union as a whole. This had been a most promising operation in the beginning. An opportunity for Algeria to establish a radicalist Islamic power base on the African Gold Coast. When the Council of Mullahs was ready to strike southward into Mali and Niger, such a base in the infidels’ rear area would prove most useful.
The establishment of such a beachhead had seemed a simple matter. Take in a monkey republic general that everyone else had turned out and buy his allegiance with promises and a few shipments of obsolescent armament. Then support him in his struggles, as long as the cost was not too great, and manipulate him to Algeria’s advantage.
All the while, agents could be inserted into his territory, beating the drum for Islamic radicalism. Weak points and weak men within his own government would also be sought out, preparing for the time when a puppet leader totally obedient to the Algerians could be installed.
Simple matters all, and yet it had not worked out as planned. Belewa turned out to be strong and a most unwilling subject for manipulation. The General was popular as well, and Algeria’s plans for subverting the Union populace had faltered.
All was not quite lost, however. The plan for finding weak points within the Union government had at least borne some fruit. For the glory of Islam and Algeria, as well as for himself, Umamgi had pressed on, seeking to further isolate Belewa from the world and from his own people. The Union government now stood on the brink of collapse, and sometimes much can be gained out of chaos.
Yet it would pay to be cautious. Sometimes Umamgi had the uncomfortable suspicion that Belewa understood far more about Algeria’s plans for the Union than the Ambassador might have liked. And today, something had gone wrong. Very wrong.
Reaching the floor that held Belewa’s office, Umamgi’s guide opened and held the stairwell door for the ambassador.
Just beyond the door stood Brigadier Sako Atiba, a military police escort standing watchfully at his side. One look into the Chief of Staff’s face told the Algerian that indeed something had gone very, very wrong.
“Good evening, Ambassador,” Atiba’s escort said politely. “General Belewa wishes to meet you and the Chief of Staff.”
Umamgi and Atiba were not given a chance to speak together, the guards ushering the two men down the hallway toward Belewa’s suite. The floor seemed exceptionally quiet, the usual bustle of staff work suppressed. Men could be sensed behind the office doors, however, quiet men, waiting men.
With the coolness of the instinctive conspirator, Umamgi gauged the situation. Brigadier Atiba still carried his side arm. He was not yet under arrest. And he still carried a look of defiance and not fear. A confrontation was coming with Belewa, but the possible outcome was far from a foregone conclusion.
The Algerian pressed a discreet hand against the slit pocket in his robes, feeling for the outline of the silenced Beretta .22. The little automatic had served him well during his climb through the ranks of the Algerian revolutionary party. Perhaps tonight it might fire the first shot of a new revolution.
The MPs ushered them into Belewa’s office, then fell back outside the door, closing it behind them.
The General waited. Sitting behind his great desk, he afforded Umamgi only a brief glance, but he studied Sako Atiba’s face for long silent moments. Some large round object lay on the desktop, shrouded under a burlap sack.
Belewa let the scene drag out wordlessly for almost a full minute. Then he straightened abruptly, his left hand coming from behind the desk to sweep aside the burlap, revealing the dirt-encrusted metal bulk of a disarmed antitank mine.
“Our sappers made a surprise security sweep of the airport road at first light this morning, before Representative Bey’s arrival.” Belewa’s voice was little more than a whisper. “And the Military Police established a stake-out on the firing point. The young soldier who was supposed to detonate this mine was very disillusioned to learn that his orders did not, in fact, come from this office. He has cooperated fully with our investigation.”