On the riverside of promise (20 page)

The more you rush things, the more chances
there are for them to go downhill. And Ethan would prove it to
them.

When the radio crackled once more into life,
he heard a few short phrases and then he heard some numbers being
repeated. After a while, it sounded like Father Likembe had powered
down the radio set. Ethan waited for a few seconds before getting
up and casually walking straight through the half-open door with a
visibly forced grin.

“Evening, Father,” he said, even as his eyes
darted around the small, unremarkable room as if marveling at it
while in fact he was searching for anything that could be used as a
weapon. Father Likembe had barely began to conceal the radio under
a thick piece of red embroidered cloth used in the services. He
seemed confounded, surprised, almost embarrassed. He looked down to
his feet before he took off his glasses, folded them and placed
them in the rather large desk that was the single most dominant
feature in the room.

“Please, have a seat,” he said with disarming
mellowness, motioning Ethan to pull up an empty folding chair.

“I prefer to stand. You see, I’m kind of sore
from sitting around lately, ” replied Ethan with a calm,
conversational tone.

The priest nodded silently and produced a
bottle of colorless liquid from behind a stack of thick books,
scribbled papers and ragged notebooks. He offered the bottle to
Ethan whose mouth curled into a genuine smile before he asked the
priest:

“Is it malt?”

“The local kind.”

“Is it stiff?”

“It’s pretty bad if that’s what you
mean.”

“Can you spare a cup then, father?”

Father Likembe’s pearly teeth shined under
the lamplight as he smiled broadly. He made a motion to reach a
cupboard to his right. The move alarmed Ethan and made him reach
for the knife around his ankle. The priest gestured with one hand
for him to stop, and still smiling broadly he said:

“Always belligerent? I’m reaching for the
glasses. It would be sinful to drink whiskey from a cup.”

Ethan nodded while his face had become
suddenly stern. Father Likembe slowly opened the cupboard with one
hand, showed Ethan the glasses and picked them up. He made some
room on the paper-littered desk and set the glasses down. Ethan
noticed what seemed to be a one-time pad, used for sending and
receiving encrypted messages.

The priest didn’t seem to care; if anything
else his flimsy cover had been blown. There wasn’t really any
reason to hide anything else at that point.

Ethan picked up his glass and hesitated
before having a sip; he saw the priest gulp down a mouthful and
flinch. He followed suit but tried to savor the whiskey. He soon
understood it for the mistake it was; the burning and the acrid
smell of the drink hinted at battery fluid or something equally
awful; Ethan spat out the rest and put down the glass, wiping his
mouth in the process. He looked sick, his expression sour like
lemons.

“How can you even drink that?” he asked
almost accusingly. The priest laughed genuinely but politely before
he answered:

“It’s an acquired taste. As you should know,
we have to make do with what we can.”

“And who exactly are you referring to?” asked
Ethan leaning on the desk a couple of feet away from the priest.
Father Likembe replied with a serene yet prideful voice:

“The Republic of Biafra. I’m referring to all
the starving women and children, all the bloodied, fighting men.
All of the Igbo people, fighting for our freedom.”

“A patriot?”

“Are you not, Mr. Whittmore? There are many
ways to fight a war, I can assure you. As much as it pains me, I’ve
made my choice and let no-one but God alone judge me,” he said and
drank a sip from his glass, his red-shot eyes now staring at Ethan
intensely. Ethan sat with his back against the wall near the desk,
and focused on the papers and the notes that filled its surface.
Without turning to look at the priest, he said dejectedly:

“I thought meself as a patriot once. It
doesn’t pay off in the long run, not at all.”

“What kind of a patriot expects to be
paid?”

“What kind of a priest makes a deal with the
devil?”

“The ones that are only human.”

“Where is my brother?”

“I cannot tell you that. I will not tell you
anything about that.”

“So you do know he is alive? And you do know
his location?”

The priest remained silent for a moment or
two before answering flatly:

“I can only hope you will maybe
understand.”

“Understand that you don’t want me to find my
brother?”

“Please, you are not fooling anyone. This has
got to stop. I can play the part of the meek, I cannot be the
fool.”

“Well, isn’t that fresh? You’re accusing me
of trying to fool you?”

“You’d have me think you’re doing all this to
find your brother? And you’re telling me you just happen to be a
Captain in the Royal Marines, serving as a military advisor in
Lagos for the past two years? Posing as a journalist, running off
in the jungle setting off mines and getting shot at, with no other
purpose other than to find your brother?”

“She really filled in the gaps, didn’t she?
I’m not sure if family drama is your thing father, but Andy’s all
I’ve got left and by God, I’ll see this through.”

“Maybe you are telling me the truth, maybe
not. I’ve lost my way with people ever since I’ve had to bloody my
hands. But I can’t let you know.”

“Why the bloody hell not, father?”

“I’ve taken an oath.”

“Well, it seems you’ve broken a few before,
why are you being so picky with this one?”

“Can’t you realise, I’m only working with
Nicole and the French because there is no other choice other than
to be eradicated? They were planning a genocide and your country is
trying their best to help them commit it!”

“Listen, father,” said Ethan with a grin of
irony before he added, “I couldn’t care less. I’m only here because
I want my brother back. Dead or alive, I’m getting him back,
whether you like it or not. What were those numbers from the radio
chat? Coordinates? Some kind of deadline?”

“So much for being a patriot.”

“As I said, it doesn’t pay much. What about
those numbers?”

“That’s what the one-time pad is for,” said
the priest, his nostrils flaring. “I didn’t have time to decode it
just yet.”

“What about the rest of the message?”

“That’s nothing but chatter to have the
cryptanalysts working on it for no reason. It’s just the numbers
and the one-time pad.”

“Smoke and mirrors? That simple?”

“People doing this kind of job tend to become
paranoid after a while. Think of it as hiding in plain sight.”

“I think you’re pulling my leg, that’s what I
think. Get back on that radio.”

“It’s no use. There will be no-one to receive
until the next transmission.”

“Well, go on, try it out,” said Ethan and
drew his knife in one swift motion. Father Likembe did not seem
impressed at all and replied flatly after downing the last mouthful
in his glass:

“Do it if you think you must.”

“I’ve done worse.”

“It will get you nowhere.”

“I never said I’m as smart as people might
think I am.”

“Go on then,” said the priest with an
unnerving serenity drawn across his face.

And then they suddenly heard a thin, rising
wail that rapidly cascaded into a shrieking cacophony that seemed
to pierce the skies. Ethan’s eyes searched sideways through the
window for a moment, and barely said to himself:

“Bloody jets.”

In the flick of an eye, Father Likembe sprang
up from his chair like a coiled snake and threw himself against
Ethan, both his hands aiming for the Englishman's knife. The sound
of jets screeching overhead blanketed everything else, including
Ethan’s shout of surprise and the priest's anguished cry of
effort.

Half the camp was practically on their feet
the moment the jets clearly passed overhead, their engines leaving
a white hot flare in the now murky dark sky.

Ethan’s blade flashed steel-white as he
struggled with the priest. He could hear the gasps and the
instinctive shuffling of feet from the still groggy crowd.

The priest kicked him hard against the ankle,
forcing him to fold his leg. Trying to compensate for the loss of
balance, Ethan swerved low and punched Father Likembe in the
stomach.

As the thundering roar of the jets seemed to
grow distant, a small moment of shocked silence preceded the
dazzling explosion that threw them both off their feet and across
the room, through the flimsy wall.

Ethan’s ears rang with a high-pitched buzz
and he felt his heart thumping in his head. An excruciating feeling
of pain ran down his left side.

As he struggled to get back on his feet, his
eyes caught the jarred glimpses of pure panic: mothers screaming
and dragging their children alongside with them, men craning their
necks to find the next trail or engine exhaust in the night sky. A
fire had started out somewhere nearby, smoke and the smell of
burned flesh being carried aloft into the night.

He looked around then for Father Likembe and
out of the corner of his eye he barely had time to see him before
the priest knocked him in the head with something blunt and heavy.
Ethan felt his head was about to crack open when he blindly threw a
couple of quick jabs. One of those connected and made the father
stumble before taking a step back to have another swing at him.

Ethan drew his wits about him and saw the
opening, lunging head first with the knife in his hand. He swung
the knife and fell forward, knocking the priest down on the ground.
Father Likembe tried to squirm away, in an effort to avoid getting
pinned down by the more heavy-set Ethan.

The priest was bleeding either from the
blade's cut or the lacerations from the explosion. The blood on his
body made him slippery enough and while Ethan was forcing most of
his weight on top of the priest, he was slowly inching his way
towards the base of the hut.

Ethan growled and punched him in the face.
Then Father Likembe threw a handful of dirt right into Ethan’s face
and in that split second of disarray and blindness, he freed
himself away from Ethan and leaped with what seemed to be his last
vestiges of energy. Ethan went right after him, blinking furiously
and crying, trying to clear the dirt from his eyes.

The priest was frantically searching the
ground for something, when he upturned a stone and drew a shiny,
metal object from inside the ground. A gun creche; Ethan swung the
knife up high and as he forced it down on Father Likembe, the
priest rolled on his back and sent a couple of shots into the
air.

He missed wildly, while Ethan's swing had
teared open his neck. Women’s shouts and children’s cries could be
heard anew. Father Likembe was vainly trying to plug his gushing
wound with bare hands. His body was sagged and a small pool of
blood had already formed around his buttocks. His vestments were a
blood-soaked ruin.

As he spent a moment catching his breath,
Ethan saw Nicole smudged and tarnished, her clothes a ragged mess,
rushing towards him through the thinning smoke. She saw them lying
down on top of each other and went inside the nearly destroyed hut
without so much as a word. Ethan’s instincts sprang into action and
he rushed right behind her, grabbing her from the waist only a few
inches away from the cot.

“I need a towel, you moron!” screamed Nicole
while Ethan tried to tie her hands behind her back. Without letting
go of the knife he fumbled and swerved this way and that without
really grappling her. They both fell awkwardly on the cot’s torn
mattress, and Nicole found the opportunity to drive a hell of kick
with her bare-footed heel on Ethan’s foot. Flinching from pain, he
loosened his grip involuntarily and allowed her to spin around and
punch him hard in the face.

Ethan staggered for a couple of moments and
saw her indeed grab a towel from the cot and completely ignore him.
She hurried close to Father Likembe who was trying to breathe
through sputters of blood. He kept opening and closing his mouth
aimlessly as if trying to speak but no sound came out of him other
than a shallow, hollow roar, like a deathly snore.

“Hang on father, don’t try to talk, just
breathe. Let’s stop the blood, ” said Nicole in an impossibly calm
voice, even as she tied the towel around Father Likembe’s neck as
tight as possible without choking him.

A few of the braver men that had remained in
the camp, were trying to evacuate the women and children without
anyone getting trampled. Some were trying to put out the
surrounding fires before they became a real threat for the church.
They saw them then near the body of the priest and shouted
something in Igbo. Ethan looked their way with a puzzled expression
as he felt the first drops of rain fall on his face.