WHERE’S THE PLANE?” asked Ellen Friedman, Rathbun’s personal assistant, as she stepped down from the bus.
“Good question.” Rathbun turned to the commander of the escorts and inquired, “Shouldn’t the plane be here by now?”
“Sometimes it’s late,” the bodyguard replied.
“Sometimes?”
“Most times,” the bodyguard amended with a careless shrug.
“We have a flight to catch in Brazzaville,” Rathbun informed him, fudging in an effort to communicate a sense of urgency.
“No problem, sir.”
Turning to scan the airstrip, Rathbun noted that a Jeep had reached the scene ahead of them, bearing four gunmen to the site. With those in the following Jeep and their escort, that left his small party outnumbered.
“Are you expecting trouble here, today?” he asked.
“Always expecting trouble, sir,” the bodyguard replied. “Prophets have many enemies.”
“I see.” Rathbun glanced pointedly at his wristwatch, then saw the gunmen stepping from their vehicles. They didn’t wear their rifles shoulder-slung this time, but carried them as if prepared to fire.
“This stinks,” said Andy Trask, the cameraman. “I don’t like this at all.”
“Relax, will you?” the congressman replied, but he was having trouble suiting words to action. There was something in the way the gunmen watched him now….
“Put down your bags,” their escort said, no longer sounding affable. When Rathbun turned to face him, he discovered that the man had drawn his pistol from its holster.
“What?”
“Put down all bags,” the bodyguard repeated. “Leave them where you stand and line up there.” His final word was punctuated with a gesture from the pistol, indicating open grass beyond the blunt nose of the bus.
“Now wait a minute,” Rathbun said. “What’s going on?”
“I only follow orders,” said the bodyguard.
“And what, exactly, might those orders be?”
“I must protect the master and Obike at all cost.”
“You still aren’t making sense.” Rathbun was striving for a tone of indignation, trying not to whimper. Even here, it was important to save face.
“All threats must be eliminated.”
“Threats? What threats? We’ve spent the past three days among your people, with consent from Mr. Gaborone. Now we’re leaving, as agreed. There’s no threat here.”
“I follow orders,” the bodyguard said again.
Rathbun felt the vicious worm of panic twisting in his gut, gnawing his vitals. It would break him if he faced the others, registered the sudden terror on their faces.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” he said.
“Step into line. We have orders and a schedule.”
“Just think it through,” Rathbun pleaded. “If Mr. Gaborone is worried about bad publicity, what does he think this will accomplish? You’ll have troops, police, God knows who else, if we don’t get to Brazzaville on time.”
The escort shrugged. “We’re ready for the day of judgment. It will come in its own time.”
It was a sob that broke the last thin shell of Rathbun’s personal composure. Ellen Friedman weeping like a child. Rathbun hardly knew what he was doing when he shouted, “Run!” and drove his right fist hard into their escort’s startled face.
He missed the bastard’s nose but felt the lips mash flat beneath his knuckles, twenty years or more since he had swung a punch that way, at some forgotten enemy from John Wayne Junior High. It staggered his opponent, gave him time to turn and flee.
Too late.
A voice behind him shouted something Rathbun couldn’t understand. He heard the first gunshots when he was still some thirty paces from the trees. Rathbun was the last American to die.
“MY CHILDREN! Harken unto me!”
Ahmadou Gaborone occupied his favorite chair, a throne of woven cane planted atop a dais in the central plaza of Obike. Nearly all of his disciples were assembled on the open ground in front of him, summoned by the clanging of a triangle to hear their lord and master’s words. His bodyguards were shooing stragglers in from here and there, to join the tense, expectant throng.
“My children,” Gaborone repeated, “we have reached a perilous, decisive moment in our history. For three days, enemies have dwelt among us. They conspired with enemies outside to fill the air with lies about Obike and myself. Unchecked, they would have turned the governments of Brazzaville and Washington against us.”
Murmurs from the audience. Quick glances here and there from nervous eyes, as if his people thought the enemies might suddenly appear beside them.
“I have acted as a leader must, to spare his people,” Gaborone continued. “On my order to the guardsmen of Obike, the intruders have been neutralized. They are no more.”
That sent a ripple of surprise through the assembled crowd. Some of his followers were clearly frightened now. The master raised his hands, then stood when the familiar gesture failed to silence them.
“My children! Hear me!” he commanded. “Have no fear of those outside. You know that Judgment Day must come upon us in its own good time. Nothing we do can hasten or delay the hour of atonement. We shall someday face the test against our enemies. Whether tomorrow or ten years from now, I cannot say until the word is given from on high.”
“Master, preserve us!” someone cried out from the audience.
“I shall,” the prophet replied. “Fear no outside force or government. No man can harm us unless God permits it, and He never leaves His faithful children to be slain unless they first fail in their duties owed to Him.”
“What shall we do, Master?” another voice called from his right.
“Stand fast with me,” he answered. “Do God’s bidding as it is revealed to you, through me. With faith in Him, we cannot fail. His grace and power shield us from our worldly enemies and all their schemes. While we are faithful, those who threaten us are vulnerable to God’s holy cleansing fire.”
“Amen!” a handful of his children shouted, others taking up the chant until it seemed to echo from a single giant throat.
“Amen!” he thundered back at them. “Amen!”
Nico Mbarga stood beside the dais, waiting for Gaborone to step down and retreat from his throne. The chanting of “Amen!” continued even after he had left the audience, continued until he was well inside his quarters with Mbarga, just the two of them alone.
“Tell me
