“The next thing we know, however, is that you come staggering out of the jungle as one of Belewa’s displaced political enemies. If you wouldn’t mind talking about it, we’d like to know what happened.”
McAndrews grimaced. “There is no reason not to speak about it, Miss Rendino. I made a cardinal error. I became an inefficiency.”
“An inefficiency?
“Quite so. I elected to disagree. To have a differing opinion. And that brand of inefficiency is a grievous offense within the West African Union.”
“Inefficiency. That’s an interesting way to phrase it, Professor. Just what did you do that was so inefficient?”
McAndrew cocked one frost-colored eyebrow. “I endeavored to reintroduce politics to the West African Union. Since the establishment of the Belewa regime, we’ve only had ‘government,’ and the two are quite different affairs.”
“I understand that concept. What kind of reintroduction did you try?”
The old man smiled gently. “Liberia was a democracy once. Perhaps not the best of democracies, but a democracy nonetheless. I found that I rather missed it, and so I attempted to found a political party.”
“A political party?”
“Yes. Such things are outlawed currently, and that was one of the things I wished to change. I even had the opportunity to discuss the matter quite extensively with General Belewa himself on one occasion.”
“What did he have to say about it?”
“I received a nod of the head and a ‘someday when times are better.’” The old man’s expression hardened. “I was not willing to wait for ‘someday,’ Miss Rendino. I felt there were issues within the Union that needed to be addressed immediately.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, I think you can make a fair guess. Our acts of aggression against our neighboring states. The disenfranchisement and banishment of entire blocks of our population. Our belligerent confrontation with the United Nations. The restoration of a democracy was, in a way, the least of our concerns. Yet there were those of us who thought it might be the first step in addressing the rest of these problems.”
“And so you formed your political party.”
“Quite so.” Another sad smile crossed McAndrews’s face. “My idea was to organize the party covertly at first. When we had gathered a degree of strength, we would then go public as a ‘loyal opposition,’ as it were, and commence a dialogue with the Belewa government, promoting reform and a gradual integration of democratic principles into our society, as well as calling for debate upon the course our international affairs were taking.
“It was quite magnificent, really. We named ourselves the ‘United Democratic Party of the Union of West Africa.’ We had a signed membership of twelve people from within the educational community, a most impressive letterhead, and fully half a manifesto drawn up… Then the Special Police came for us.”
“That’s how you became a DP.”
“Indeed.” Bitterness crept into McAndrews’s voice. “In the Union under Belewa, you are not lined up against the wall and shot for being an enemy of the State, nor are you thrown into a dungeon or tortured. That wouldn’t be ‘efficient.’ Instead, you are just thrown away, like a used cleansing tissue.”
“And yet, Professor, you have to admit that you voluntarily went back to Liberia and that you worked with the Belewa government for a period of several years before you attempted to start this political rebellion of yours. You had to know what you were getting yourself into.”
“This is very true, Miss Rendino. But you see, in my own folly, I elected to put stock in a myth.”
“A myth?”
“Yes, the myth of the benevolent dictator. I have since learned that there is no such creature. There is only ‘dictator,’ period.”
The professor lifted his head from the pillow, his eyes intently studying Christine’s expression. “Now you tell me something, Miss Rendino. What do you feel about General Belewa? Not what your government’s policy is, but what you, yourself, feel about him and what he has done.”
The intel had to pause and consider for a moment. “Well, fa’sure he’s flat-out wrong in launching a war against his neighbors and in causing all of this mass suffering on the part of the DPs. But on the other hand, I have to say it seems he’s also done a lot of good.”
“Exactly, Miss Rendino! And there lies the great tragedy of the West African Union and of the man who leads it. Obe Belewa has indeed done a great deal of good. Of him, it may honestly be said that he is a great man and leader. Yet each of his accomplishments is tainted by the fact that he is still an ironhanded tyrant! For each life he has made better, a myriad more have come to suffer.”
“Say what you like about Mussolini,” Christine murmured. “At least he made the trains run on time.”
“A very apt quote, Miss Rendino. Currently General Belewa has a dream of a united, peaceful, and prosperous West Africa. No man can argue with that goal. But he made room in the Union for only his version of that dream. If any one else has a dream of their own, they are cast out! There is only one straight line drawn. His way! His concept! His ideal! And in the end that will lead to the downfall of both Belewa and the Union.”
Drained by his burst of emphatics, the elderly professor’s head sank back to the pillow. “No man can be right all of the time, Miss Rendino, and a dictator has no one who can tell him when he is wrong.”
POM! POM! POM!… The platform’s deck Klaxons bellowed their metallic call to arms.
Blasted awake out of a rare and precious night’s sleep, Amanda stared bleary eyed at the luminous hands of her wristwatch. “Not again!”
The interphone shrilled on her desk in counterpoint to the clamor outside of her quarters. Rolling off the cot, she stumbled to the desk and clawed the handset out of its cradle. “Garrett here.”
“The Union Express is coming out, Captain,” the platform duty officer reported. “Their heavy gunboat squadron has sortied from Port Monrovia and is closing with us at twenty-two knots. Commander Gueletti has taken the platform to battle stations as per SOP.”
“I concur. Do we observe any additional activity?”
“Negative, ma’am. Just same old same old.”
“Let’s not take that for granted. Carry on and stay alert.”
Amanda yanked on shirt, shorts, gun belt, and battle vest. Slinging a set of low-light binoculars around her neck and donning her command headset, she slipped her feet into her sandals and exited into the night.
The platform was alive with shadowy forms moving through the low bloodred deck lighting. Marines and Navy hands streamed from the housing modules, scrambling half dressed and half awake to the gun towers and bulwark emplacements. Amanda headed for Starboard 4, one of the gun towers assigned to the Little Pigs support personnel.
Scrambling up the tower access ladder, Amanda found the three-man, or rather two-man-and-one-woman, weapons crew already at their stations on the gun platform. With the nylon cover stripped from the Mark 96 over and under mount, they fed the ready-use belt of 25mm rounds into the Bushmaster autocannon and socked a fresh ammunition cassette into the stumpy 40mm grenade launcher superposed beneath it.