“They’ll kill us before we’re halfway to them,” a Guardsman standing beside the point man added.
“No, they won’t. They’ll think we’re fellow revolutionaries.
Just follow me and act like you’re FLA.”
“What about President Aineuf?”
Yosef looked back at the milk truck.
“I know. I thought about it, but Corporal Ghatan is right. If we do nothing, they’ll kill the hostages. President Aineuf will be okay for the few minutes we need.” He started to move forward, then turned and spoke.
“If something goes wrong, all of you get back here and get him away. Sergeant Boutrous, take four and flank me.”
Yosef straightened and began marching confidently up the left side of the street, his head held high. His men glanced at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and then spread out on both sides as they nervously followed the colonel. Sergeant Boutrous paralleled Yosef on the other side. When they were fifty yards away, the rebels saw them and raised their weapons.
“My brothers,” Yosef shouted, “to whom am I speaking?”
He hoped his voice sounded stronger than he felt.
“Who are you?” the rebel leader shouted, moving cautiously to the front of the vehicle.
“I am Colonel Safir. What is going on here and who are you?” Colonel Safir was a senior officer in the Algerian Liberation Front.
Hearing the name, the FLA commander stepped in front of the truck and saluted.
“I am Kafid. Kafid of Altamira,” the rebel leader replied, identifying himself with a small farming village southwest of Algiers where two years ago the FLA killed and dismembered every one of the three hundred inhabitants — women, children, and babies included.
One of the worse acts of terrorism that Yosef had ever witnessed. His hand unbuttoned the holster as he remembered walking between two rows of heads impaled on stakes, lining the one dirt street that ran through the middle of the village.
“We are rounding up infidels — the Westerners.” Kafid patted his bleeding cheeks again with the scarf.
“Damn bitch,” he mumbled, glancing at the blood on the scarf.
Kafid noticed the Algerian Army uniforms, but many of the rebels were members of the Algerian Army.
The Guardsmen closed the gap. Yosef hoped his men could control their anxiety until he gave the signal.
“I had not heard that we were going to round up the Westerners. What are you going to do? Shoot them like you did this woman and those two? And how many have you killed in the back of the truck?” Control your anger, Yosef said to himself. “She was an infidel, and a woman,” Kafid said. He spit on the street.
“She interrupted men talking, she was too old to bear children.” He laughed.
“She was too ugly to copulate with and she was an American.” He held the bloodied scarf for Yosef to see.
“What more excuse do I need?
See what she did! She attacked me. Yes, Colonel, I am going to kill them — every one of them. Kill them all as a warning to the West.”
Behind Kafid the rebels bunched together, shouting chaotically in agreement. Their weapons were held at their sides.
“Kafid, you hear the sound of fighting coming from over there? That’s our force capturing the Algerian traitor Aineuf. By tomorrow, Algeria will be ours. Allah Alakbar!”
Kafid and the rebels raised their guns above their heads and fired into the air as they shouted, “Allah Alakbar!”
Yosef pulled his pistol and fired. The shot blew a quarter-inch hole in Kafid’s forehead and took the back of the head off as it exited, spraying red and gray matter over the rebels around him. The bullet knocked the dead terrorist backward into two rebels standing behind him, knocking them down. A dying twitch caused Kafid’s gun to go off.
The bullet nearly hit Yosef; he felt the wind and the heat as it passed by his left ear. Gunfire erupted as Guardsmen fired into the packed group of rebels while on the truck the captives’ screams and cries grew in intensity. Yosef calmly stepped forward and shot the two rebels wriggling free from beneath Kafid’s body. He leaped over the dead and dying to reach the back of the truck. A rebel appeared around the tail at the same time as Yosef. Yosef ducked back and shot him. On the other side of the truck. Sergeant Boutrous stepped around the edge of the tail and shot another rebel.
The shooting stopped. The entire action took less than twelve seconds. Yosef peeped around the tail edge and looked up at the packed truck. The burly Bedouin sergeant did the same from his side. Seeing the two faces, the captives shoved and pushed each other as they fought to get as far into the military vehicle as possible.
“You’re safe!” Yosef shouted in English and then in French. He stepped around the edge and faced the Westerners.
“We are Algerian soldiers. Who is in charge here?” When no one answered, he continued.
“Okay, if no one is in charge, who knows how to drive this vehicle?”
Michael, the British man beaten a few minutes ago, edged forward, dabbing blood from the top of his head, the red easily discernible in the white hair.
“At the risk of volunteering again, I do. I was in the Sixteenth Lancers years ago, before the bloody Tories did away with the regiment.
I suspect I can acquaint myself quickly, considering the alternatives,” he said in a shaken voice. Tears made his eyes shiny.
“Then I guess you are in charge. Please listen, everyone.
Algiers is gone. I cannot tell you what to do, but we are unable to stay and provide protection. Unfortunately, you are on your own. The embassies are surrounded and there is fighting to the west. Eastern Algeria has already fallen.” Yosef shook his head. A fat lot of good that did!
He had rescued them; they were alive; but he could offer no hope. Still, they had a better opportunity to survive than they had two minutes ago. He had his own concern and that concern was hiding in a milk crate on a damn slow milk truck and he still had three miles to go. Yosef motioned to his men and turned to leave.
The British gentleman eased himself down from the back of the truck and took several steps to where the body of the American woman named Veronica rested. He lifted her body gently, getting blood on his suit coat, and kissed her cheek before carrying her to the back of the truck. Two of the men in back helped lay her body in the center of the truck bed.
“You can’t leave us!” cried one of the women.
She moved forward, clutching a baby to her breast while her other hand gripped tightly the small hand of a young child. In the dark, Yosef could not tell if the toddler was a boy or girl. They reminded him of his wife and children killed in a market bombing nearly ten years ago. He’d never forget. That bombing shattered his life, leading him to where he was tonight. When this was over, if he escaped, he would return to their graves and sit among the rocks and olive trees…. Yosef realized he was staring at the woman.
“I’m sorry,” Yosef stammered, followed with a cough to clear the lump in his throat.
“Leaving you is not something we want to do, but what you see here is all that remains of free government forces in Algiers. We can’t help you. I’m sorry.”
“What are we to do?”
“You could try to get through the lines to one of the Western embassies. I don’t think the rebels will bother you if you can get in sight of them. It’s one thing to kill with no witnesses. The last thing they’ll want is to give your countries a reason to intervene. No, you’ll be safe if you reach Embassy Row.”
“Come on, sir,” Yosef said. Two Palace Guards gently turned the British veteran toward the cab of the truck.
“Are you okay, sir?” Yosef asked softly.
“Yes, quite okay, now.” He looked at Yosef.
“She was a good woman, you know.”