Rebel soldiers gathered around.
“I am General Alad Humar Adan. You are terrorists, mercenaries, taken into custody by the People’s Liberation Army of Malawi.”
The general, if he really was a general, looked to be no more than twenty years old, although it was never easy to tell the age of an African. He was thin and tall. His dark skin glistened with natural oils, while his curly hair was shaved on the sides, rising a few inches above his head, accentuating his height.
He was smiling, gloating. There were at least fifty other rebels milling around. Some of them had their AK-47s shouldered, others held their rifles casually, waving them about as though they were toys as they joked with each other. They were smoking, but Bower doubted they were smoking tobacco. There was a glazed look in their bloodshot eyes.
“Do you not know me?” the general demanded, putting on a theatrical pretense at their lack of acknowledgement. “To you I am Will Smith, and this is my Independence Day.”
The soldiers behind him laughed.
“You see, I have done more than your Hollywood actors ever could. For me, this alien invasion is no fantasy, no movie full of special effects. I have faced the demon and defeated him. I have brought down the alien. He has bowed before my feet. Soon, all nations will come to me to learn how to defeat this alien terror.”
Adan strutted before them. His accent was clipped, betraying his local pedigree.
“To you, I am a hero. I am Laurence Fishburne. I am Denzel Washington. To you, I am Samuel L. Jackson, and do not forget the L, it is very important: L is for Leroy. You see, I am Jamie Foxx. I am all your heroes rolled into one.”
Adan marched back and forth with a small white cane hooked under his arm. He was wearing riding boots, like those Bower had once worn when conducting dressage in England, only her boots had been scuffed and worn. Adan’s knee-height boots were polished with a brilliant black shine. The medals on his chest looked like they were made from plastic, not that she was going to point that out.
“I am Caesar. I am Alexander the Great. I am Napoleon. I have defeated the United Nations. I have defeated the United States. And now I have defeated monsters from another world. I am invincible.”
Bower averted her gaze, looking down at his boots as he turned before her.
“What are you looking at?” Adan snapped.
She looked up.
Adan was facing Bosco.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” Adan demanded, pulling the white cane from under his arm and pointing it at Bosco. It was a riding whip.
Adan flicked the whip through the air.
In that instant, Bower could see the flex in the whip. From her short stint assisting vets as a teen, Bower knew the kind of injury riding whips could cause a horse. In the wrong hands, they were instruments of cruelty. On the soft skin of someone’s face they were criminal.
Blood sprayed across the wall as Bosco’s head reeled to one side.
“I asked you what you were looking at,” Adan demanded.
Bower tried to make herself as small as possible, with her head bowed and her shoulders hunched. She could hear Bosco choking on blood.
“You think you can disrespect me?” Adan cried. “You think you Americans can come here and kill our people with impunity? You think you can get away with these crimes? You murder our women. You kill our children.
“Ah, but you no longer hold a gun. No longer can you bully us, push us around. Now, we hold the guns.”
Adan turned back to his troops, holding his hands out wide as he spoke to them.
“You see, there is no land of the free. There is no land of the brave. The only bravery these men know is when they are holding a gun. They are cowards. The only justice they know is the justice that comes out of the end of a barrel. But there is no justice in Africa, there is just us.”
He laughed cruelly, turning back to Bosco.
Adan used his riding whip to raise Bosco’s chin.
“And we will have our justice. You will pay for what you have done to our land. You will pay with your blood for what you have done to our women and children. You will—”
“Stop,” Bower cried, knowing it was a mistake as the word left her mouth. She couldn’t help herself. She had to say something.
“And what have we here?” Adan asked, his theatrical anger subsiding for a moment.
“I am Doctor Elizabeth Jane Bower, with Médecins Sans Frontières. These soldiers were escorting me to the UN compound when we were ambushed.”
Adan crouched down in front of her, moving her face around with his bloodied whip.
“Look at you. Look at your skin,” he began. “Why do you side with the white-devils? Why do you turn your back on your own people?”
Bower didn’t want to reply. She knew that would play into his hands, but she couldn’t help herself.
“You asshole.”
Adan laughed, “Is it only your women that can speak? Are you not men who can speak for yourselves? Has the US Army been castrated?”
The African rebel soldiers laughed at the Rangers.
“Leave her alone,” Bosco said, and Adan wheeled to face him again.
“So we have an American hero here after all. Who are you? Are you Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone? Or are you an old-fashioned hero? From the days when everything was black and white? Are you John Wayne, or are you Ronald Ray-Gun?”
Again, the soldiers laughed on cue.
“Get them up.”
Soldiers grabbed them, pulling them to their feet and gripping them by the arms and shoulders. On the periphery of her vision, Bower could see Elvis grimacing as he was pushed forward. He staggered, his feet barely able to carry his weight, his boots dragging on the ground.
Adan led them over to the edge of the gaping hole in the concrete floor. Chunks of concrete hung from reinforced steel bars around the shattered edge of the dark hole. Below them, on the ground floor, Bower could see a series of double bed mattresses piled up haphazardly on top of each other.
“This is the colosseum,” Adan proclaimed as Bower, Bosco and Elvis were pushed toward the edge.
The rebels were excited. They were talking rapidly with each other as they spread out around the edge of the broad hole.
Bower didn’t understand what was happening. Adan must have guessed at her confusion, as he added, “They are taking bets on how long you will last. So far, no one has survived more than five minutes against the beast.”
Looking down into the devastated lower floor, Bower could see dark stains on the concrete. Blood splatter marred the mattresses. Some of the blood was dry, but one patch looked wet as it still had a slick sheen.
“You, who are condemned to death, you will fight this day for your lives. As Caesar, I hold the power of life and death in my hand. You gladiators, you will fight, and if you win, I will grant you your freedom.”
Elvis staggered and almost fell forward into the hole. Bower grabbed at him, putting his good arm over her shoulder.
Bower still didn’t understand what Adan was asking of them, were they to fight each other to the death? They simply wouldn’t fight. She wouldn’t, Elvis couldn’t, and she doubted Bosco would buy into Adan’s madness.
“Where are you my beauty?” Adan called out. “Where is my lion? My tiger?”
One of the soldiers struck out with the butt of his gun, striking at a loose clump of concrete dangling from a reinforced steel rod running through the crumbling remains of the floor. A whip lashed out from the darkness below, cracking in the air just inches below the butt of the rifle. The motion was smooth, surprisingly quick.