Then, just as suddenly as I had been thrown down, I was hauled to my feet. I was so weak my knees wouldn’t lock, but two men behind me had that covered. One still held his knife to my jugular, and the other gripped my arms so that I couldn’t slip to the ground.
A male voice with a trace of an English accent came at me from the street.
“Could this be Dr. Fitzgerald? What a fortunate surprise.”
Standing ten feet away, dressed in fatigues, with an AK strapped across his chest, was an average-sized man in his forties, going bald, with black-framed glasses and a beard giving cover to a double chin. He was backed by a half dozen Gray soldiers with clay-smeared faces, all of them heavily armed, and he radiated a powerful presence.
I’d never seen his picture, but I knew I was face-to-face with Colonel Dage Zuberi, a diabolic monster and one of the most terrifying people in the world.
Chapter 41
ZUBERI’S SMILE was way too familiar, and he spoke to me as if we were friends.
“Oh. I have wanted to meet you, Dr. Fitz-ger-ald. Brigid, correct? How interesting that we both had business here today.”
Zuberi didn’t know that I had set up this showdown. Or did he? My pulse boomed in my ears. I couldn’t swallow or blink or speak. I couldn’t even think. I just stared until he said, “You’re afraid? Why, Brigid? Did you do something wrong?”
I was twenty-eight years old, a city girl, a doctor with three years of work under my belt. I wasn’t a soldier or a spy. And yet, I had brought this upon myself.
Of course I was afraid. As Christ is the Word made flesh, Zuberi was evil in the flesh. And the reality of that was overwhelming.
I wanted to shout for help, but I didn’t dare. Instead I said, “Please ask your man to put down the knife.”
“Kofi is his own man,” said Zuberi. “Kofi, do you wish to walk away from Dr. Brigid?”
The man behind me scoffed.
I felt the edge of that blade cutting me, and my arms were pinned. I wasn’t going anywhere on my own power. I forced myself to say what I’d come here to say.
“Colonel Zuberi-yes, I know who you are. You have killed so many people. Your soldiers have killed mothers and their babies. You’ve slit the throats of little children and hacked old people to death. Doctors and missionaries who came here to help with food and medicine-you’ve murdered them, too.
“These terrible acts are an affront to humanity and to God. We are all God’s creatures, and He loves us all. How can you dare to take away what God has given?”
Zuberi flicked his eyes up and down, from my eyes to my boots, and when his inventory of my features and baggy clothing was complete, he said, “How do you know what God wants? He speaks to people differently. It’s too bad that you can’t hold conflicting thoughts in your tiny mind. I expected you to be-I don’t know. Smarter. More impressive.”
Sighing with disappointment, he pulled a long knife from a scabbard on his hip and walked toward me. It was only a few paces, and he took his time.
My reaction was born of pure, impotent fear.
“Stay where you are!” I shrieked. “I’m an American. Don’t you dare screw with me.”
The monster was very amused.
“Don’t screw with you? I’ll decide that. Let me see you first, Doctor. Don’t be shy.”
I imagined my face on the kill poster tacked inside the post office door. I envisioned my picture and a fresh red stamp across my forehead. DEAD.
Blackness swallowed me up, and I just let go.
Chapter 42
I HEARD that voice as if from a long way away.
“Wake her.”
I was slapped hard across the face, and then the blade was back at my throat. Blood seeped down my neck and mingled with the icy sweat rolling down my body.
Where is the damned cavalry?
I tried to pull away, but, as before, the men behind painfully gripped my arms as Zuberi slipped his blade into the flap of my coat and sliced through the fasteners as though they were made of cheese.
My arms were released long enough for one of the men behind me to yank my opened coat down my back, further pinning my arms to my body. When my upper arms were restrained again, he held his knife to my neck.
I saw deep pleasure on Zuberi’s face as he placed his blade precisely at the V-neck of my scrub shirt and cut straight down. Fabric parted with a whisper as the sharp steel divided my shirt, the center of my bra, the elastic of my pants, along with a layer of my skin from my clavicle to my belly.
I screamed with all the air in my lungs and struggled to get my arms free, but I might as well have been nailed to a wall. I knew what was going to happen to me. People were routinely beheaded in South Sudan. I’d seen the decapitated bodies outside the gates. I’d seen detached heads on the killing field.
I tried to send my mind to God, but I was distracted as the monster sheathed his knife and mumbled, “Now, let me see.”
He grabbed a fistful of my clothing in each hand and tore my scrubs apart in one movement.
The entire front of my body was naked and exposed.
The Gray soldiers laughed and hooted and gathered around. Instinctively, I tried to cover myself, but it was futile. The man behind me pressed his blade to my throat. I couldn’t move.
Zuberi laughed.
“You look better with clothes,” he said. “No. I don’t want to screw with you. I want whatever your stinking government will pay to get you back alive. A million dollars U.S., at least. Thank you, Brigid Fitzgerald, for coming to Magwi.”
“They’ll pay nothing!” I shouted into Zuberi’s mocking face. I was helpless. Humiliated. He had won. All I had was the spit in my mouth, a very poor weapon, but I let it fly.
My saliva hit Zuberi between the eyes.
It was a feeble gesture, but Zuberi went crazy, wiping frantically with his sleeve as though I’d flung acid in his face. He cursed me in a language I didn’t know.
And as I expected, the man standing directly behind me grabbed my hair and pulled my head back, baring my throat to the leaden, drizzling sky.
He growled, “Do you love life? Apologize to Colonel Zuberi or die.”
I had written to Sabeena, I’ll be back by dinner. That had been a wish, a prayer, and, although I had been bluffing, I had visualized my triumphal return.
I had thought too highly of myself. I had thought I could do the impossible. I saw that now. No more than three minutes had passed since Zuberi’s men had grabbed me from the line outside the post office. I’d accomplished nothing. I never had a chance.
Dear God. Forgive me my trespasses. I’m ready.
Chapter 43
I FLUNG the doors of my mind wide open to God and braced for death. But He didn’t speak to me. Rather, I heard pops of gunfire, and in a pause, a distinctly American voice shouted, “Drop the knife!”
The blade bit into my neck and I fully expected to feel it slide across my throat. Instead, there was more gunfire. The man with the knife grunted and fell to the mud at my feet. The one holding my arms also dropped, moaning and coughing out his last breath.
I didn’t hesitate.
I dove for the ground and covered the back of my neck with my hands.
There were more shots, and then a heavy-duty vehicle tore around the corner from the main street and braked within yards of me. I stayed down as bullets strafed the street. A third man, part of Zuberi’s armed guard, ran, and he too was cut down.
I lifted my face and saw Zuberi, along with several of his men, zigzagging around the bodies and running toward the odd assortment of vehicles parked across the street.