An African Affair (22 page)

Lindsay and Vickie turned around, trying to locate the speaker. The sun baked down and they squinted through their sunglasses at the tiers of seats leading to the balcony, but every row was full, and people were standing in the aisles, so their vision was obscured. They heard a commotion above them, but it was not easy to decipher what was being said. Suddenly, they saw a large bundle being passed down, like a sack of potatoes from row to row until it reached the edge of the balcony. At that point it was heaved over the edge. People screamed as it crashed with a loud thud onto the pavement thirty feet below.

“Oh my God,” Vickie said, under her breath. “It’s a person.”

They looked up as another body was handed down, screaming and kicking, and finally hurled onto the cement pavement with that same terrible thud. Vickie grabbed Lindsay’s arm.

J.R. began to shout into the mike, “Please, people, you are playing into the hands of our enemies. Control yourselves. This solves nothing. These are your brothers and sisters. Save your anger for our enemies.”

Another body crashed onto the pavement, as the crowd roared. Police cars, sirens blaring, surrounded the stadium. The soldiers drew their guns and pointed them at the crowd. They charged up to the balcony and pulled people indiscriminately out of their seats, shoving them down the stairs and into waiting vans.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Vickie said.

They edged out of their seats and headed for the gate, where Vickie spoke to someone with a walkie-talkie.

The stands started emptying. The rally was aborted, but the violence wasn’t. People surged toward the exits in a mad rush to get out. They were elbowing each other, pushing, kicking until, inevitably, some people stumbled and fell and were trampled.

Lindsay, Vickie, and Dave Goren watched from the safety of the gate near the exit. The military police were concentrating on Next Step supporters, rounding up organizers of the rally and ignoring everyone else.

“Do you see what they’re doing?” asked Lindsay. “It looks like organized provocation from Olumide’s thugs. And they’re going to blame it on The Next Step
.
The evening news will tell how Next Step activists killed innocent bystanders and fomented riots that killed even more.”

“I know. But who started it?” Vickie asked. “Olumide’s thugs? Or just mob hysteria?”

Lindsay felt sure it wasn’t members of The Next Step. She approached several people as they emerged from the stadium. One man just pushed her aside and started running as soon as he passed through the gate, another continued walking without answering her. Lindsay approached a woman who was crying as she staggered out. The woman steadied herself on Lindsay’s arm. She was a biology teacher, she said, at a local high school.

“They threw out those people like trash,” she moaned. “Like trash. They are animals. No, worse. Animals don’t kill for pleasure. Only people do that.” Lindsay scribbled the quote in her notebook. A few more people stopped to talk to her. She jotted descriptions to jog her memory, and when she felt she had enough quotes, she looked around for Vickie and Goren to get a ride home. She had promised James she wouldn’t write a provocative story, but even he would agree this was an exception. All the other journalists would cover the rally. Olumide and his thugs were unlikely to single her out. Still, she felt nervous. Pushing her way through the crowd, she spotted Vickie and Goren in the distance, near their car. She was about to call out to them when she saw two men advancing toward her. She started to bolt, shouting for her friends, but in the chaos, no one could hear her. The men grabbed her and one crammed a rag into her mouth. Her nostrils filled with a strong chemical odor and she struggled for breath. A moment later, they threw her into the trunk of their car. Before losing consciousness, she had the absurd thought that James had been right and wondered how she would ever be able to tell him.

When Lindsay awoke, she was lying on the floor of a large tin shed. She lay very still, struggling against panic and trying to think clearly. She could hear voices and laughter outside and every few minutes something crashed against the wall, emitting a shattering noise that reverberated on the tin. She was still a little drugged and it took her a few minutes to realize that she was not tied up. She got up slowly, painfully stretching her cramped muscles, and attempted to peek out the door. She squinted through a crack and saw the two men who had kidnapped her. They were drinking beer, throwing the empty cans against the shed. She scanned the room, looking for something to use as a weapon. All she saw were cardboard cartons, piled against the far wall. She reached into her pocket and found her keys. The key ring, a present from Maureen, was a tiny sterling silver pocket knife. It made a pathetic weapon but there was nothing else. She heard a radio outside blaring high-life and peeked out again. The taller man threw another beer can and she jumped back. She didn’t know if he heard, but he went over to the door and pulled it open. He walked menacingly toward her, drunk, swaggering.

“You no good for be quiet,” he said. “Dat no good fo you, but dat be good fo me.”

He withdrew a switchblade knife from his pocket, pressed a button and brandished the blade at her. He stood in front of her, so close she could smell his stink, alcohol mixed with sweat. His knife hand darted quickly toward her and, almost playfully, he nicked her shoulder. She jumped back, covering the cut with her hand as a thin trickle of blood seeped through her fingers. Her tormentor laughed. He placed the blade of the knife under her chin.

His partner entered. “Not yet, brother,” he said. “We go have fun first, like we say. No one go know. She don be talking no mo.”

Lindsay was too stunned to think. She backed away as they moved forward, unable to speak. As they edged her closer to the wall, some instinct for survival broke through her fear.

“I will give you money,” she said hoarsely, her mouth dry. “Much money.”

The big man shook his head. “Too late, sistah. Dey go for know. Dey wan’ you be dead.”

The fact that he stopped advancing on her in order to answer gave her hope.

“I could disappear,” she said quickly. “Leave the country. You could say I was dead.”

The big man laughed. “No for worry. We no be liar. You go be dead. But not yet.”

He walked outside and returned with the radio, turning up the volume. As he approached, she tried to dart away, running toward the door. He grabbed her by her hair. She tried to concentrate on the beat of the music, to stare at the wormholes in the floor, to think of anything but what was happening. When the big man pulled her to him, she came alive, screaming, clawing, kicking. She put her hand in her pocket and closed it on the small knife. She withdrew it slowly and jabbed it with all her might into his neck. He jumped back and she could see a trickle of blood ooze down his neck. Enraged, he seized the little knife, threw it across the room, and twisted her arm behind her. The second man held her while the first slapped her hard across the face and then reached over and ran his large, fleshy hand over her body and squeezed her breast so hard she cried out. He tore open her slacks, pulled them to her ankles and undid his belt. His pants slid down. He breathed heavily.

Suddenly, the music stopped and a military march blared from the radio. The men released their hold on Lindsay and exchanged worried glances. The big man hesitated, his pants down at his ankles, unsure what to do. They heard an excited voice announce that rebels had seized control of the government and taken over the radio station. “This is Army Colonel Abdul Murtalla of the Northern Alliance. I bring you great tidings. The oppressive Olumide government is overthrown. We have secured the government. We will apprehend and execute the criminal Olumide and his henchmen. Stay in your homes. We will broadcast further information and instructions later.” More military music followed.

The big man backed off, pulled up his pants and buckled his belt. He grabbed Lindsay’s bag and rummaged through it, finding her money, which he stuffed in his pocket. He threw her wallet with her identification across the room, and then ran off, followed by his partner, leaving her lying on the ground.

She could not seem to move or feel anything and she wondered, without emotion, if she was paralyzed. She didn’t know how long she lay there—fifteen minutes, maybe longer—but finally, she moved her hands and her legs and, after what felt like a long time, she managed to get up, her whole body shaking, and slowly pull her torn pants back up. The button was gone, but she rolled up the top until it felt relatively secure.

Dazed, she retrieved her bag, found her key ring and started to look around for her wallet. She didn’t see it. Warily, she approached the packing crates that were stacked in the far corner. The topmost carton was open, and she rifled through stacks of blank paper. Then she saw something red that had fallen behind the box. She moved the carton to pick up her wallet. As she turned to walk away, she noticed another open carton filled with small statues. She picked one up and saw that it was an exact replica of the one Mike Vale had in his apartment. Looking further, she saw that all the statues were alike. She was confused. The statues suddenly assumed a new importance. They were clues, but pointing to what? She couldn’t make sense of them in her current state, but she slipped one of them into her bag.

She left the shed and looked around. She was in a semi-industrial area. There was a warehouse across the street, some empty lots, a garage with several beat-up cars and an old truck. She started to walk, hoping to find someone to ask for help. A few cars passed, but she didn’t hail them, and they didn’t stop. After about twenty minutes she reached a sparsely populated neighborhood. She saw a woman selling beer and cigarettes and stopped to ask for some water. She had no money, but the woman, surprised to see a disheveled white foreigner without a car or cash, understood that she was in trouble. The woman reached under her table and brought up a coconut, which she split in half with a large knife. She kept half for herself and, silently, handed the other half to Lindsay, who received it gratefully and gulped down the tepid milk. The woman asked no questions. She turned up her radio, which was still blaring out military music. Just then a middle-aged man and woman in a Peugeot pulled up to the curb to buy a pack of cigarettes. Impulsively, Lindsay asked them if they were going downtown and if they would be kind enough to take her home.

The couple hesitated briefly—Lindsay knew they were wondering whether befriending her might be dangerous—but they reluctantly agreed and she climbed into the backseat.

“Are you all right?” the woman asked kindly. “Are you in trouble?”

“I was attacked by two men,” Lindsay answered. “They stole my money and ran away when they heard about the coup. I’m an American journalist and I need to get back to my house in Ikoyi.”

The woman reached over and squeezed Lindsay’s hand. Her face registered concern and sympathy.

“Oh my dear, did they . . .” She stopped, looking for a delicate way to ask.

“No,” Lindsay said abruptly. “The coup saved me.”

“It may have saved all of us,” the woman said, but her husband frowned and interrupted her.

“We don’t know what is next,” he said, angrily. “It is not wise to talk rashly.”

As they approached the center of the city, they noticed how quiet it was. There was no one on the streets and very few cars. She knew this was the moment every journalist in Africa hoped for and feared, a coup that would change the government and propel the story, usually of only minimal interest to most Americans, to the front page. But Lindsay didn’t care. Something was broken inside her. She just wanted to go home and sleep. Still, she was enough of a professional to know that she had a job to do and asked her new friends to drop her at the Reuters office.

Richard McManus, the new Reuters man, was running out the door as she came in. He said he was heading for the airport to see if it was closed and barked at Lindsay that she ought to try calling the British High Commission. She saw how Richard looked at her and knew what he must be thinking. Her pants were torn, her face smudged with dirt, her hair wild.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll be okay,” Lindsay answered slowly. “I’ll explain later. Let’s just get something on this story. I don’t have a car. Can I use one of yours and take one of your staff with me?”

“Yeah, sure. Take Joseph. We’ll share on this one. I’ll meet you back here to file.”

Richard rushed out the door. Lindsay stopped in the restroom. She felt sick and heaved into the toilet. Then she rinsed her mouth and washed her face, running her fingers through her hair to get out the tangles. She smoothed her clothes as best she could and breathed deeply. Then, motioning for Joseph, she set out for the High Commission. The mood there was grim. Henry Bryan, the press attaché, a timid, narrow-boned man with wire-rimmed glasses, told Lindsay that the Brits had no knowledge of either the Northern Alliance or Colonel Abdul Murtalla. They were checking their files. In the meantime, he said, they had reports of tanks moving into central Lagos, probably from the barracks stationed about ten miles north of the airport. Roadblocks were being set up at all the arteries entering and leaving the city and at the airport. Bryan offered to check to see if he could turn up any new information about Murtalla. While he was gone, Richard showed up, announcing that the airport had indeed been closed. He was followed soon after by the
Guardian
’s Ed Courvet, and Lindsay briefed them as best she could. Lindsay borrowed a notebook and pen from Richard, but her hands shook too much to write. Her script was illegible, even to her. Henry returned in about half an hour with some news. Murtalla was indeed a Hausa who was camped near the airport, at the head of a company with a high number of Hausa soldiers. He was thought to be leading an armored brigade taking control of the airport. His barracks were believed to be the center of the rebellion.