As Stomique fell more and more into ruin, Anin was forced to pay his followers in shiny ingots until his gold stocks began to dwindle.
Now, three years after the Americans had left, Mahout Feroze Anin realized there was no percentage in being Supreme Warlord over a smaller and smaller corner of lower Stomique if in the end there was no country left and, in consequence, no place to hide.
So it was time to play his last card.
"Why are you calling, General Anin?" the American ambassador asked in a cool voice.
"Our fight has not yet been decided."
"You won."
"I do not agree. Tell your President I am prepared to give him the rematch he secretly covets."
"The U.S.," the ambassador said patiently, "has no interest in a rematch."
"Cowards! You run away at the merest casualties."
"We entered to feed your people, disarm all warring factions and restore peace, and your particular faction turned it into a shooting gallery. Fine. Now it's your private shooting gallery. Best of luck with it."
"I will not be trifled with in this unseemly manner. It is an insult."
Anin cringed from the sudden thoom and crump that came through the French colonial windows of his office.
"Is that mortar fire I hear in the background?" the ambassador asked pointedly.
"Firecrackers. We are celebrating our glorious triumph over the cowardly US."
"Three years later?"
"It is a victory that will reverberate down the ages," Anin said in a grandiose voice from the well of his bulletproof steel desk. "Unless you move swiftly to reengage on the field of honor."
"What do you know about honor? You called yourself a patriot of Stomique while you pillaged the relief food that poured in to feed your own people."
"My people do not need food. For their bellies are full of victory. Hah. How do your citizens feel?"
"Stomique is last year's news. They're already onto something else."
Mahout Feroze Anin made his voice wheedling. "Do you not desire to occupy your luxurious ambassadorial residence once again?"
"Absolutely. When there's a stable country surrounding it. In the meanwhile, Washington will do just fine."
Anin pounded the floor in anger. "There will never be stability while I am Supreme Warlord. You must know this. You will have to dislodge me if you wish to enjoy stability again."
"Do I detect you angling for something?"
Anin took a deep breath and threw down his cards. "I will agree to surrender to the despised US. in return for guaranteed safe passage to an exile country of my choosing-provided, of course, a lifetime stipend comes with it."
"Sorry. We have no vital interests in Stomique."
"Did I mention my nuclear reacting? I will soon be in possession of many kilograms of enriched helium. Weapons grade, of course."
"Nice try," said the US. ambassador just before the line went click in Mahout Feroze Anin's ear.
"Idiot!" said Warlord Anin, throwing the receiver against his official presidential portrait, puncturing the black velvet.
The tapping of shod feet came from outside the heavy mahogany double doors of the presidential office. They were not the heavy clump of boots, so it couldn't be his personal guard or the rebels. Since almost no one else owned shoes in post-UN-occupied Stomique, Anin knew it had to be a relative.
"Father! Father! The enemy approaches!" came a husky voice.
Anin looked up from under the desk. It was his eldest daughter, Persephone, her dark face a sheen of sweat.
"How did you get past my personal guards?" Anin demanded.
Persephone looked perplexed. "What guards? There is no one here."
Anin leaped for the door and looked out. The corridor was bereft of guards.
"Who guards my gold?" he demanded hotly, wiping his high balding forehead.
"Eurydice and Omphale."
Anin nodded. "Excellent. If a man cannot trust his daughters, who can he trust?"
Persephone took hold of his chest, which rattled from clusters of medals he had awarded himself for every engagement in his military career from shooting rival foes in the back to surviving a six-year drought. "Father, we must flee. The rebels have secured their hold on the main roads and are now advancing on your palace."
"I will not leave my gold behind."
"But who will carry it?"
"You and your wonderful and loyal sisters, Persephone. Of course."
"We are not strong enough. The gold will slow us down."
Anin ripped his daughter's hands from him and turned away in disgust. "Bah! I curse the day I had daughters instead of strapping warrior sons. Sons would never fail me as you three have."
Persephone sank to her knees, taking Warlord Anin's legs in her tapered brown fingers and pressing her strong cheeks to his knees. "I do not want to die, father. You must save me."
"Your sisters, they have good weapons?"
"Oh, the best. Soviet-made Kalashnikovs. Not those shoddy Chinese ones."
"And the basement vault door, it will withstand mortar and grenade attacks?"
"Just as you decreed it should."
"Then go to the basement vault and shut yourself in until I come for you and the gold."
"How long will that be, Father?"
"Until I have vanquished the rebels."
"You cannot fight them single-handed."
Anin shook a defiant fist like mahogany. "And I will not. The Americans will fight them for us." Persephone stood up. "But the Americans are our enemies."
"In the past, yes. In the future, absolutely. But for this crisis, I will inveigle them into siding with me. For they are fools who are easily hoodwinked. Now, go shut yourself in. Be certain you have food and water to sustain you, for it may be two or three days."
"You expect to defeat the rebels in so short a time?"
"Yes," said Mahout Feroze Anin, guiding his flesh and blood into the secret trapdoor in the downstairs kitchen and into the underground vault room.
Pushing the ponderous door shut, he waved farewell to his smiling and tearful daughters, who blew him kisses and swore undying love.
With the door closed, Anin activated the time lock, after first setting it for the year 1999.
By that time, he reasoned, the revolution should have settled down. The heat would be off, and Mahout Feroze Anin could reclaim his gold unchallenged.
And bury his long-dead and useless daughters, as well. He cursed their mothers, all of whom had promised him a male heir and every one of which were ceremoniously beheaded when they failed so simple a task.
Throwing a lever that caused a thick wall of rough boards to drop into place before the great stainless-steel door, Anin went to the trapdoor in the floor-which he had kept secret even from his trustworthy offspring-and slipped down into his cool, roomy burrow.
From here it was a simple matter to walk the three or four miles to the secret boat house on the water, from which he would escape to a safe haven.
What safe haven, he didn't know, but Africa was full of safe havens for brave and cunning men like Mahout Feroze Anin. Perhaps there would be a place for him in Rwanda, he thought as he walked along. There was always someone to be slain or relief food to be pilfered.
As he moved through the insect-ridden tunnel, he wondered if Rwanda was accessible by boat. He had no idea. During his brief regime, Anin had the official Stomique map of Africa redrawn so that it appeared to occupy eighty-six percent of the continent.
It seemed only fitting that the unconquered and unconquerable defier of the United States of America should govern a nation as vast as his ego.
THE LANDING at Nogongog Inter-African Airport was smooth, considering the cratered condition of the single runway.
The plane didn't come to a full stop. Engines spooling down, it trundled past the terminal and the door was flung open by stewardesses in flak jackets.