"But I still don't understand what the mission is?" Ed Kosciusko said.
"Ah, that's easy. We're going to invade somebody by sea, land, and air, destroy a small navy at anchor, maybe blow some bridges, smash a minor air force on the ground, and in general have the time of our lives."
CHAPTER SIX
We cannot blame colonialism and imperialism
for this tragedy. We who fought against
these things now practice them.
-Joshua Nkomo
D-150, Port Harcourt International Airport, Nigeria
The ambulance doors were open, showing one weakly thrashing body, with sweat simply pouring off of it, a clustering of vomit about mouth and chin, emanating incoherent moans. Even in Port Harcourt, the stench arising from the body was something noticeable.
To either side of the stretcher-borne young man, seated along the walls facing inward, were six other men, all wearing masks and latex gloves. Four of these were Labaan and his cousins. Their bags were piled toward the front of the ambulance. Labaan, seated at the right rear, passed over his and three other passports to a stout customs inspector wearing a green beret and a short sleeved, gray dress jacket with epaulettes and sundry insignia Labaan had not a clue to the significance of. He actually rather doubted the insignia had much significance.
The inspector fanned through the passports quickly. He couldn't, after all, so much as see the faces of those purporting to be their owners. As for the fifth man, the one on the stretcher . . .
"His is in his pocket," Labaan said. "We were afraid . . . "
The inspector's eyes darted to the softly moaning body. He answered, in clear, clipped Nigerian English, with just that trace of upper class British accent, "I understand completely. But you see, I'll have to explain to my supervisor . . . "
Labaan reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew an envelope. "This is a letter of explanation from our captain," he said. The envelope was much fatter than any simple letter needed to be. It was unsealed. The inspector handed back the passports and took the envelope.
The inspector opened the loose flap and ran his thumb along the top of the stack of bills contained therein. About two thousand Euros. Half for my boss . . . no, a quarter for my boss. After all, he didn't have to take his life in his hands getting close to this diseased creature. Then, too, my job is keeping undesirable things out of the country. This one wants to leave, or would if he were able, and so I am just doing my job in helping him, and them, leave.
The inspector glanced over the letter. Good, it says nothing about money. He then took the three quarters of the stack of bills he had decided were his due, stuffing the roll in his left trouser pocket and leaving the remainder for his boss. On second thought, no, if I leave five hundred he'll assume there's more. The inspector took another two hundred, folded that, and slid it into his right breast pocket. That way, when his boss shook him down for the rest he could produce that. His boss might even give him back a hundred.
"Everything seems well enough in order," the inspector said. "And your casevac flight to Cairo is standing by. Damned odd plane for a trip to Cairo, though."
"I'm told it's what was available," Labaan answered.
"Yes, well, not my problem. Enjoy your flight and"-again the inspector's eyes darted to Adam's body- "good health to you."
Unseen under his mask, Labaan frowned. Poor Africa, to have such servants.
The Kenya Airways Saab 340 already had its engines running. Not having a rear ramp, it was suboptimal for a medical flight. Nonetheless it had been available to Labaan's chief, Gutaale, at an acceptable price. What did the chief care, after all, about four men having to manhandle a stretcher up a narrow set of boarding steps?
The flight attendant was female, extravagantly so, and dressed in a striking red uniform, complete to scarf. Equal opportunity had not yet hit most African airlines and, given the typical quality of the service, it was generally felt to be a good idea to give the paying cargo something to think about besides the accident rate or the probability that someone in the maintenance crew had taken a bribe to accept inferior replacement parts.
Kenyan Airways was actually much better than the norm is this regard. Nonetheless, its reputation suffered for the sins of the rest, hence the perceived need for pretty staff. Like Labaan, his team, and Adam, the stewardess was the result of millennia of admixturing with the Arabs across the Red Sea, albeit to a lesser degree. Thus the light brown skin, softer than the African norm hair, and somewhat softer features.
If the woman thought it odd that an emergency medical flight had been contracted for nearly a month prior, she said nothing. Indeed, she was far too occupied in trying to back out right through the airplane's walls to think of much of anything. She didn't have a medical mask, and tried-quite futilely- to cover her mouth and nose with one hand. The other was busy scratching at the wall behind her.
Ignoring her, except for a quick and appreciative glance at her chest, Labaan led the others to the rear of the aircraft. "Get him out of the stretcher and into a seat," he ordered. "Don't clean him up yet."
D-149, N'Djamena, Chad
In fact, the inspector's observations about the aircraft chosen for a flight to Cairo were spot on. You just couldn't get there in a Saab 340, without at least three stops, one of which was guaranteed to be a rotten, problematic layover in either western Sudan or southeastern Libya. This would have mattered, too, had the plane actually been going to Cairo. It wasn't.
Labaan glanced out the window of the plane at the rows of military aircraft lining one side of the runway. French, he thought. The one European people which didn't give up its empire here. And, arguably, the controllers of the only "countries" in Africa that haven't decayed to complete ruin since decolonialization.
In his heart, Labaan knew that wasn't true. Were the "former" French colonies run a bit better than the norm? Yes, some of them, but there were a few decolonized African states that were doing well, for certain values of well. His own wasn't among them and that knowledge perhaps clouded his thinking on the subject. Conversely, the country they were in, quite despite-or perhaps because of-French tutelage, had the distinction of being rated as the most corrupt country in the world, some years, and never better than seventh from the bottom.
Of course "it's all the white's fault," Labaan thought. Isn't that what all the black studies people said at the university? Except it isn't. Though conquered once, Ethiopia was never really colonized. It's a mess. "The imperialists mixed up tribes and thus guaranteed conflict." Which would seem to be true except that Rwanda and Burundi have the same tribal mix they had before the Euros showed up. They're the very definition of a mess. And of my own "country," the less said the better.