Dirty Diamonds Of Boko Haram Part 1 (19 page)

Her lovely dark eyes stared at him and she
shook her head.

Alex already had his commando knife out in
his hand. He took her hands and carefully cut the nylon ropes
binding them tightly together. She winced as her hands came free,
and then started rubbing the wrists gingerly like she was in some
pain. The ropes had bruised her delicate skin but it didn’t look
too bad.

Alex put away the knife quickly and took her
hands. He examined them carefully then reached up to lift her head
by the chin with his fingers.

“Look at me” he said quickly but gently.

The girl looked at him, her lovely dark eyes
stared into his.

“Are you really alright?” he asked in a very
serious voice.

Her full red lips moved slightly as she spoke
in the most beautiful soft voice Alex had ever heard. “Yes, I’m
fine”

Alex saw Samuel bring up a chair, and then
Rufai was suddenly there by the girl, the folder he had been
carrying around with him in one hand.

“I’ll take it from here, Mr. Okoye” said
Rufai coldly as he caught hold of the girl’s arm and dragged her
roughly off towards the offering box where Samuel had now set up
the chair.

The girl winced in pain at the powerful grip
on her arm.

“What’s going on?” demanded Alex then saw the
girl’s pain. “Take it easy you are hurting her”

Rufai glanced at him. “You stay out of this,
Mr. Okoye. Your full payment and the nice bonus is already
guaranteed. Come and sit down here, Aisha. For the first time in
your life you are going to do exactly as someone tells you”

Rufai dragged the girl to the chair and
shoved roughly down into it. He got the folder open and placed it
on the box before her.

“Now this is a simple document and all I want
you to do is
sign
it
” said Rufai forcefully and
placed a pen on the paper.

The girl stared up at him. “You wouldn’t dare
lay a hand on me if my father was here”

“You father can’t be here or anywhere else
right now because he is very dead. Get that into your stupid head”
growled Rufai harshly and tapped his head emphatically. “Your uncle
who cared enough to pay the heavy ransom for your freedom, despite
the fact that you got into this mess by disobeying him, is now the
head of your family and you will show him due respect from now on
by doing exactly as he wishes” Rufai pointed at the document. “Sign
that paper and the next one under it,
do it now
!”

The girl glanced at the document a moment
then spat disdainfully on the floor. “You can take your documents
and run right back to your master. I will never sign anything”

In a flash, Rufai slapped her hard across the
face. It was more a heavy blow that knocked her right out of the
chair to send her sprawling on the floor.

Alex started to move forward but Samuel
stepped in his way with a raised hand.

“Cool it, Alex. It’s his call, we were
told”

Alex forced himself to stay under control.
“We don’t have time for this, Rufai. We need to get out of here
right now” he said urgently.

Rufai didn’t seem to hear. He was like a man
possessed as he dragged the girl roughly back into the chair,
pulled her head cruelly back by the hair and hajib and leaned down
until his face was right in her upturned face.

“The time when you talk to me anyhow and get
away with it is now over, you spoilt bitch” he snarled with pure
hatred. “I can kill you here right now and nothing will happen”

The girl spat right into face.

Rufai drew back sharply in shock and wiped a
hand across his face. Alex heard him let out a deep bellow of rage
and in a flash, he slapped the girl hard yet again, with all the
power in his arm this time. The powerful blow knocked both the girl
and the chair backward to the floor.

Rufai kicked the girl viciously with his
booted foot.

“
Stop it
!” shouted Alex angrily and
started forward again.

Samuel made the mistake of stepping into his
way again in a bid to stop him and in one swift movement, Alex
knocked aside his outstretched arm with one hand and hit him in the
throat with the curved open palm of the other hand.

Samuel staggered backward as white stars
exploded in his brain and before his eyes. He clutched desperately
at his throat as breathing became difficult and went down on his
knees.

Rufai saw Alex coming and clawed for the big
revolver in his side hostler but froze as he saw that Alex already
had his own gun out and pointed directly at him. He lifted his arms
out to his side and up.

Alex jerked the gun. “Move away from her”

Rufai smiled a thin smile. “What if I don’t?
Are you going to shoot me?”

“No, but I will physically restrain you”

“Perhaps you had better think carefully now
before you actually do something that will rob you of forty million
naira”

“Having you assault and brutalize a
defenseless woman was not part of the agreement”

“The agreement was very clear” said Rufai in
open anger. “I take charge from here and do with the girl as I
please”

“We will have to revisit that agreement again
but at a safer location” said Alex firmly. “We need to get out of
here right now before those terrorist return in numbers”

“Those terrorists have taken their money and
gone, they are not coming back. And we are not going anywhere until
I say otherwise and that’s when this bitch signs these papers or
dies here”

“That girl is now under my protection” said
Alex in a hard voice. “If you touch her again I will hurt you
badly”

Rufai smiled an ugly smile. “Really? Perhaps
you should look behind you first?”

“Put the gun down” came Efosa’s voice from
behind him.

Alex didn’t move. He kept his gun pointed at
Rufai as his brain swiftly tried to calculate Efosa’s position
behind him, but then he noticed a movement upstairs and saw Garko
too with his rifle aimed at him.

“I know you are capable of crazy things but
the man behind you is a sharp shot and he’s got a rapid fire
assault rifle pointed right at you” Rufai smiled and jerked his
head upstairs. “So has the one above. They won’t miss. Put down
your gun”

Alex abruptly lowered his pistol and put it
back in his hostler. “Seriously speaking, Rufai, we need to get out
of here right now. El Soldat will be back for this girl, look at
the nice way she’s dressed! He plans to keep her!”

Rufai jerked out the big revolver from his
hostler and pointed it at Alex. “You are a pompous Igbo fool who
doesn’t know how to shut up and mind his own business even when
he’s paid handsomely to do just that. You never should have crossed
me”

Rufai fired three times.

The first bullet took Alex full in the chest
and the force of it knocked him backward several steps. The second
bullet took him in the stomach and the third following swiftly into
his chest again, knocked him off balance and off his feet. His body
hit the floor with a heavy thud and lay still.

The girl’s high pitched screams slit the air,
and then was cut off as Rufai kicked viciously at her again with
his booted foot.

Samuel struggled to his feet, breathing
heavily and still with a hand to his throat. He had only been
incapacitated briefly not permanently hurt. Breathing was becoming
easier now. He stepped over and stared at Alex lifeless corpse on
the floor.

“You shouldn’t have done this, for Christ
sake” said Samuel angrily. “He was no real threat to any of us”

“He was in my way and that’s what happens to
people who get in my way” snapped Rufai harshly.

Samuel stared at him then turned away with a
dismissive wave of his hand. “Get done with your business quickly
and let’s get out of here”

“We have some new visitors, sir” called Garko
urgently from upstairs. “Two Pickups full of armed men are
approaching fast from the town. The Cherokee and Helix are now
coming back up the road too”

“
Shit
!” cursed Samuel and glanced down
at Alex’s corpse again. “He was right after all. He was always
right and you killed him for it.
Back to the bus!
”

Samuel and Efosa started to move quickly
away.

“
Help me with the girl
” yelled Rufai
urgently as he gathered up the folder.

“Help yourself, you stupid fool!” shouted
Samuel angrily as he picked up his rifle from the floor and stated
to run. “I wasn’t paid enough to come here and get my head chopped
off by religious zealots”

Garko having rushed down the stairs from the
top floor, leaped clean down from the balcony of the second floor
and landed perfectly on the ground floor. He rushed over and
dragged the girl up from the floor.

“Come on, run for your life” he told her
urgently.

They all ran for the side door by the alter
area which was the closest route to the bus parked out back behind
the cathedral. Efosa took point, he was the first man out into the
courtyard and he was expecting trouble from the front gates not
from the rear so he wasn’t looking that way.

The mounted heavy machine of the Toyota Helix
Pickup Jeep now parked outside the back gates opened up at once and
its big high powered bullets cut Efosa in half, scattering the
bloody pieces of the corpse in different directions. Samuel skidded
to a halt just in time and scrambled back into the church as
high-powered bullets sprayed the doorway, tearing chunks of
concrete off the walls. There was a terrible crashing sound as the
powerful Pickup Jeep smashed into locked gates with its solid steel
crash bars like a battering ram but the gates held fast.

“
God
!” breathed Samuel as his brain
fought desperately to find a solution.

The four other Jeeps were suddenly speeding
in through the front gates. Armed men were leaping off them and
firing spontaneously at the cathedral.

“
Take cover! Take cover
!” yelled
Samuel and dived for a pillar.

Rufai did the same and Garko dragged the
frightened girl down protectively against a wall.

The terrible crashing sound came again.
accompanied by the loud roar of a powerful engine and the rear
gates exploded open with another terrible crash. The dusty Pickup
Jeep tore into the compound and came to a halt close to the church.
More armed men poured out of it and spread out fast.

Heavy gunfire started coming from every
direction, keeping Samuel helplessly pinned to the pillar. Rufai
too and Garko with the girl were no better off. Rufai looked openly
tariffed and Samuel hated him for it. He was the cause of the whole
fuck up,
the
fool
!

The first of the insurgent started coming
into the cathedral through the big double doors to the front and
Samuel seeing he was completely exposed moved out to engage them.
Firing his rifle at full automatic, he killed only two before his
body was riddled with bullets from different directions. He tumbled
to the floor and lay still in death.

Garko instantly went berserk at the sight of
his commander’s dead body. He tore loose two grenades, tossed one
through the near window at the exposed shooters out in the compound
and hurled the other at the advancing terrorists at the big double
doors across the cathedral. The insurgents saw the bombs come and
scattered for cover but the grenades exploded too quickly and
killed a few of them. Garko was instantly on his feet, screaming
like a mad man and firing his rifle spontaneously at everything
that moved.

“
Come and get it, you bastards!
” he
screamed as he gunned down two men trying to get in through the
doors.

A volley of automatic rifle fire from the
widows and the door behind him blew Garko half way across the
cathedral. His bullet mutilated corpse hit the floor and began to
bleed pools of blood.

Rufai lifted his arms high in the air as the
terrorist surged through the door and overwhelmed him. He never
fired a shot and his big revolver never came out of its hostler, he
didn’t have his rifle with him.

*******

Tariq offered a final prayer to Allah as he
mounted the sweeping steps to the big double doors of the church.
This ‘simple' operation had cost him eight good men but that wasn’t
what he was worried about, the men could always be replaced, there
were so many willing recruits now. What worried him was the girl.
El Soldat had made it perfectly clear that he wanted that girl back
alive and unhurt. Tariq had given the corresponding order to the
men to be careful not to shoot her but somehow the trigger happy
illiterate fools had gotten carried away, particularly that
motherless imbecile Ibrahimo who had been made unit commander by
mistake. The fool had brought his unit in through the back gates as
ordered, and then opened fire on the church with the truck’s
mounted
heavy machine-gun
!

Tariq felt the coldness of forbidding in his
heart. He knew that if anything happened to this girl he would be
lucky to keep his head on his shoulders. He had never seen El
Soldat so worked up about any woman before but then, when one
considered the incredible beauty and rich freshness of this
particular woman, it was very understandable. And she was Arab like
him too, wasn’t she?

As soon as Tariq reached the big double
doors, he saw two of his men hurrying forward with the girl and he
sighed with relief. At least she wasn’t dead.

“Is she hurt” he asked as soon as they came
up.

“No, she’s fine” replied one of the men.

“Good, take her to El Soldat at once”
commanded Tariq.

The two men hurried out the doors with the
girl and down the stairs. Tariq watch them hurry across the
compound to the Cherokee Jeep, El Soldat himself got out to meet
them and looked the girl over carefully. He seemed satisfied, made
the girl get into the Jeep ahead of him, and then got in himself.
The Jeep started up and drove off followed by one of the Pickups
full of men for escort.