The Freedom Broker (Thea Paris #1)(47)

Then I heard five big bangs. I almost jumped out of my skin. There was loud music and four Jeeps. All the villagers ran away. The General grabbed me and ran for the Land Cruiser, shoving me onto the floor. He picked up one of the rifles.

I peeked out through a rusty hole in the door. A tall man wearing a red bandanna stepped off one of the Jeeps. His name was Oba. The General shouted at him that he needed to go away, leave the villagers alone. But Oba didn’t listen. He made his men load the grain bags onto his Jeeps and walked over to the Land Cruiser. I was really scared. The whites of Oba’s eyes were yellow and red, like fried eggs cooked in blood. His pupils were huge.

“Get the kid,” I heard him say to Kofi. Was Kofi working for him now?

Another loud bang made my ears hurt. Kofi shot the General in the leg. He said Oba paid better; then he laughed like a hyena. They opened the door to the Land Cruiser and grabbed me. I screamed and kicked, but it didn’t matter. The General tried to stop them, but three of Oba’s men held him back.

Kofi threw me over his shoulder and carried me to one of the Jeeps. I couldn’t believe it. This crazy man Oba was going to kill me for sure.


NOBO

Bad news. Oba’s camp was worse than the General’s shed. Four mattresses full of lice, eight boys on each, their skinny legs all tangled. I huddled in a corner ’cause I couldn’t sleep. This little kid Nobo curled up beside me at night, maybe to stay warm. I kinda felt sorry for him ’cause he was tiny and his two front teeth were missing. I shared my blanket with him because the other boys had stolen his.

Lice dug into my skull. My fingernails were bloody from scratching my head. Flies kept buzzing on my face and crawling on my arms. I’d given up batting them away. And the mosquitoes left blood marks and big bumps. The driver ants on the beds bit me when they weren’t attacking each other. I itched everywhere.

I wanted to hide from Oba and Kofi and escape, but I was scared of the jungle more than them. One kid left, and they brought back his dead body, all torn up by lions. I could hear animal cries in the night, horrible sounds that kept me awake. I hoped Papa would find me, but as the days passed, I was giving up. Maybe he was too busy with his work to come. That made me mad.

I heard the bell. The boys ran for the outdoor shower, where the water was brownish. Nobo followed me everywhere. We had a quick wash—if you could call it that—and everyone lined up at the fire pit for breakfast. A large pot of the villagers’ grains bubbled on the fire. I followed the crowd of boys, wanting to fit in, knowing I couldn’t. They called me Mzungu. White boy. My skin color made me stand out like a zebra on a grassy plain. The boys always stared at me.

I dreamed of home, clean sheets on my bed, the smell of Cook baking fresh bread, the view of the gardens. I even missed Hakan’s son, Rifat, who Papa said I had to play with because his father worked for him. Anything was better than this place.

One day, Kofi told all the boys to sit on the wooden picnic benches. Every boy got a rifle. He told us it was our new best friend and to keep it with us all the time. Oba stood in a corner watching. I didn’t look at him. The guy was scary.

Kofi held an AK-47 in his bony hands and showed us how to take it apart and put it back together. The rifle was kinda cool. A big kid named Blado was the fastest. Poor Nobo wasn’t good at all, his small hands too weak. I snuck a quick look at Oba, but his black eyes were all weird. I didn’t want him to notice me, so I worked on my AK-47. But I was good, so Oba came over and watched me work.

Then he saw that Nobo had barely started. Oba grabbed the tiny kid by the ear and screamed at him.

“Five weeks, and you still can’t do this?” He was so mad.

Nobo shook all over.

My mouth opened before I could think. “He’s too small to do it. Why don’t you get him to count bullets instead?”

All the boys were quiet. I knew I had made a mistake.

“Do we accept weakness in this camp?”

No one said anything.

“I asked if we accept weakness.”

Total quiet.

“The answer is no.” Oba pulled out his gun, lifted Nobo into the air, and shot him in the head. The loud bang made me jump. Blood splashed my face.

I felt sick. My heart skipped a few beats. I couldn’t move.

Nobo lay on the table beside me, his mouth open, showing his two missing teeth.

“Get to work. Now!”

Oba hit me hard on the back of the head with the rifle. I saw stars, wanted to puke. My hands were covered with Nobo’s blood, but I started working on the rifle. I didn’t want to be the next person shot. Still, I felt bad. I could have stripped Nobo’s AK, tried to teach him. I showed Thea how to do things at home. But I was too scared to help. I had to do everything Oba said if I wanted to live. And the things I did were bad.





The yellowed pages of Nikos’s story trembled in Thea’s hands. She sucked in a deep breath. Every benign thing she’d been told about her brother’s kidnapping had been a lie. Ripples of shock reverberated down her spine. Who else knew what had actually happened to Nikos? Hakan? Rif? Was she the only one who’d been kept in the dark?

When Nikos had been held hostage, Papa had met with countless experts behind closed doors. A grave hush had fallen over the household, as if no one could take a full breath until Nikos came home. She remembered those long months when he was missing, his kidnapping a tangible presence at every meal. Still, she’d never fully understood what her brother had endured, because Papa had always stuck to the same myth of where he’d been—held as a bargaining chip between rival African tribes, a little hungry and dirty but relatively safe.