line of view. He had a hard face and a short, compact build. In his right hand was a white mug of steaming hot coffee. In his left was a high-standing wooden stool. He wore thick olive-drab trousers, a black turtleneck, and a brown bomber jacket. Most of all, the Jesuit noted his captor’s black Desert Eagle .50 handgun, which hung heavily in its right hip holster.
“My name’s Benjamin Truitt,” the man said as he set the stool down and gave him a guilty smile. “Please let me start by apologizing for bringing you here like this.”
“Uh … that’s quite all right,” Jaisalu anxiously replied. The last thing he had remembered was having a glass of goat’s milk while grading a stack of papers in his bed. They must have drugged him. It would explain why he felt so –
“You’re probably curious about why you’re here,” Truitt’s words interrupted Jaisalu’s thoughts.
“You could say that.”
Truitt set his cup on the stool, pulled Jaisalu’s thick glasses from inside of his jacket and then gently affixed them to the priest’s face.
“Better?”
“Much,” Jaisalu nodded as he blinked rapidly and took in his surroundings with a clearer gaze. The place had the feel of a storage room, with no windows or signs to indicate where he was. Truitt picked up his cup and sat down.
“I’m here about a small tribe called the Mikutu,” Truitt stated as he first blew on the hot brew and then took a long sip of coffee. “I’m sure that you remember it, yes?”
Were Father Jaisalu white, he would’ve gone pale.
Mikutu was a small, remote village in the Horn of Africa, which had been the scene of a brutal massacre over twenty years ago. Almost every man, woman, and child had been systematically slaughtered. Of the 164 villagers, only three of them survived. Jaisalu had been delivering books to a nearby school when the trio stumbled out in front of his jeep – a man (with a leg wound) being helped along by his wife and eight-year-old son. They begged him for a ride. Naturally, Jaisalu gave them a lift.
He drove them to the nearest clinic and contacted the authorities. By the time the local police arrived at the village, a full day had passed. All of the other villagers’ bodies had been piled into a mass grave and burned beyond recognition. The perpetrators of the massacre left few clues behind – only the three surviving witnesses. When asked about the crime, none of the three villagers dared to say anything, terrified of retribution. After the man could safely travel, they fled.
Their whereabouts were unknown.
Eventually, the land was purchased by an American company called Randallson Oil. Soon after that, the corporation started drilling and “just happened” to discover oil there. An oil refinery was built on the Mikutu’s tribal lands and ended up becoming the source point of a lucrative pipeline. When Jaisalu contacted the Vatican about this horrid transgression, the Pope became personally involved.
The villagers of Mikutu had converted to Catholicism about thirty years ago. While the government didn’t seem to care about punishing those responsible, the Catholic Church was. In time, what little evidence could be gathered pointed toward Randallson as being behind the massacre and that officials in the national government had been bribed to look the other way. However, their corporate lawyers successfully thwarted all attempts to bring forth criminal charges, especially without any witnesses to testify.
In time, the case was closed and life went on.
“You work for them? For Randallson?” Jaisalu asked.
Truitt nodded.
“What is this about?”
“Eighteen years ago, someone began killing off Randallson employees. Each of the murders was … ‘unique,’ bloody, and perpetrated by the same individual.”
“How many?”
“One hundred and five,” Truitt stated.
Jaisalu’s jaw dropped at the number.
“You’re saying that one person killed all of those people?”
“Correct,” Truitt grimly nodded. “Eighty of them had a military background. Most of them were warned to watch their backs. Some even hired bodyguards to protect them. But they kept dying.”
“What about the other twenty-five victims?”
“All high-level members of Randallson Oil: including the board of directors.”
The lone Mikutu eyed the target area through the night vision scope of a suppressor-capped Dragunov sniper rifle from within the cover of a leafy tree. A plastic camouflaged mask concealed the Mikutu’s deep-brown skin as he counted the number of Truitt’s guards. His clothes were also camouflage-patterned. In addition, he wore an assortment of explosives, bladed weaponry, and infiltration gear.
Three hundred yards away, there was a small refrigeration plant where Truitt had taken refuge. One of the complex’s four buildings was a small storage warehouse. The largest building used to manufacture cheap, compact refrigerators. A three-story building, designed much like a motel, housed Truitt’s mercenaries. Covered with broken windows, the one-story, U-shaped office buildings had seen better days. Less than a month ago, Truitt had purchased the remote Nigerian facility and had secured it with best security systems money could buy.
The Mikutu saw twelve exterior guards, five of whom were accompanied by leashed Dobermans.
“Go inside,” the Mikutu commanded in a low voice, in the tongue of his dead tribe. “Tell me where the priest is.”
The underbrush below him parted, as if an invisible being was running off to comply with the Mikutu’s order. He waited patiently. When one of the Dobermans stopped and began to bark, the Mikutu knew that his spy had crossed over onto the complex. The Doberman’s handler stopped, raised his submachine gun, and looked around. Dressed in sand-colored fatigues, the white mercenary carried a light assortment of weapons and op tech. He looked competent and dangerous. It didn’t matter, though. As far as the lone Mikutu was concerned, this mercenary would die tonight, as well any of his comrades … and especially Truitt.
But the priest had to be accounted for first.
Jaisalu had tried to see justice done for the slaughtered Mikutu and had thus earned mercy. When the old Jesuit was safe, he could complete his blood vengeance.
“Those murdered Randallson employees were behind the massacre of the Mikutu, weren’t they?” Jaisalu asked with open contempt.
“Yes,” Truitt regretfully sighed.
“How many of you are left?”
“Just me,” Truitt replied. “I was one of the mercs who torched the village. I was just 23 at the time. Our orders were to hit the place from all sides and quickly eliminate everyone. I’m amazed those three villagers slipped past us.”
“Oh God!” Jaisalu whispered with abrupt realization. “You think the boy is behind this?”
Truitt nodded.
“And you’re going to tell me where he is, Father. After that, my men will deliver you home safe
