by Bill Brewer
“And to that cradle, we bring the certainty of death,” said Diegert scanning the eyes of his two companions. Panzer held Diegert’s gaze just long enough so that the younger man saw him press a button on the armrest of his chair. A soft buzz emitted from the forward service area. Amber left the front of the plane, passed through the cabin, and entered the aft bedroom. Panzer rose from his seat. “If you gentleman will excuse me,” before he too entered the bedroom locking the door behind him.
Diegert’s skin turned red as his jaw muscles nearly cracked his teeth.
Tiberius leaned over. “Looks like your Old Man’s got your woman.” He pulled back quickly, throwing his arms up in defense as Diegert lunged at him, casting a lethal glare.
Back in his seat, Diegert’s anger boiled for having been usurped by power again. He and Amber were not in any kind of a relationship, but it was the arrogance with which Panzer flaunted his position of superiority that pissed him off. Could he have pressed a button to get her to service him? Would he have done that to her, if he could? She was special to him, but he realized now the feeling was his alone.
After about fifteen tense minutes, “Aah, Aah, Aah!” came the rhythmic grunts from the bedroom. Tiberius giggled while Diegert wanted to jump out of the plane. The auditory sex went on for much longer than Diegert imagined it would. There were no sounds from her, just the forceful grunts of the Old Man.
CHAPTER 21
The deep voice of Captain Edward James reverberated through the speakers as he disturbed his slumbering passengers with the announcement that they would soon be landing at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos Nigeria.
Panzer and Amber exited the bedroom to return to their seats. Panzer made a point of tucking in his shirt as he passed the seat of his son. Buckling up his pants, he strapped into his seat for the landing.
The wheels of the G650 were engineered to already be rolling before touching down, which made for a very smooth and gentle landing. Captain James taxied the powerful luxury jet to the Ikeja Air Service terminal. Private jet customers entered the country with a minimum of inspection. The man who owned and operated the jet service was also a certified customs inspector. He made certain his customers were never delayed or inconvenienced with intrusive inspections or insistent questions. In fact, they were regularly welcomed with broad smiles and the utmost hospitable cooperation. After using the bathroom, the three passengers found that their baggage had already been unloaded and transferred to a dark red Toyota Sienna minivan. Standing next to the driver’s door, a tall thin young man with an eager smile stood ready to assist his new guests. Pressing the button to automatically open the sliding door brought a beam of pride to his already happy face. Shaking the hands of each of his esteemed passengers as they entered and took a seat, he introduced himself as Felix. They began the thirty-mile drive west along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway. The divided lane road was paved, but that was where comparisons to American and European expressways stopped. L-B, as it was referred to, bore no paint stripes, guardrails or controlled entrances and exits. People’s homes were mere yards from the edge of the road, which was shared with pedestrians, donkey carts and bicycles. The center median was flat dirt, which could be crossed at any point.
Police were on patrol, which the group witnessed when a thirty-minute traffic delay held them sitting still due to an accident between a truck and a passenger bus. The crash blocked both lanes of traffic as the drivers argued and the police struggled to reach the scene.
Looking out the window at the homes along the highway, Diegert felt like these people lived within the same economic conditions in which he was raised. The houses were sturdy but dirty and in need of paint. Old cars, in various states of disrepair, occupied many of the front and side yards. Kids played amongst cast off debris and odd collections of junk. Further back from the expressway Diegert glimpsed homes, which seemed much more refined and well kept. For sure, the better off people lived farther from the edge of the expressway. Diegert realized if he grew up outside Lagos, he would have been a roadside resident.
When the lanes were finally cleared, the traffic flow returned, and Felix was not shy about using speed to make up for lost time.
The ebullient and informative Felix told them Ozinwa’s compound was five miles south of Ado Odo and about a half mile east of the Yewa River. After the traffic delay, it took sixty minutes to reach the one-mile dirt road, which led to the facility. As they turned, Panzer pulled out a satellite phone and sent a text message. Diegert’s curiosity was easy to see. Panzer said, “As the crow flies it’ll only take forty-five minutes. Time for them to fly.”
Entering the compound, the van traversed the single red dirt road, which they had seen on the map. Total drive time, including the delay, two hours and forty-five minutes.
Felix leapt from the driver’s seat having activated both automatic doors as he exited. Panzer was first out, and he strode straight over to the largest building. A group of four young women approached the van. Carrying baskets of fruit and bottled water, they cautiously came forward. As they neared, Diegert sensed their apprehension. They seemed frightened, hesitant and fatigued. They did not speak or smile. In spite of her dark skin, the tallest of the group bore the bruising from a black eye. Diegert was hungry, but he couldn’t ignore the condition of these women and the suspicion they were not being treated well. Pressing Felix he asked, “What’s with these women? They don’t seem very happy.”
Felix’s normal high wattage smile dimmed. Reluctant to comment, he withered under Diegert’s insistent glare. Looking left then right he whispered, “Under Ozinwa, the women suffer.”
The large building, which Panzer was approaching, looked like an airplane hangar with a wide overhead door across the front and a normal entrance door to the right. With twenty yards to go, the overhead door began to retract. The wide metal panels bent at their hinges as they rose from the ground. Like a mechanical curtain on a workshop stage, the door revealed Chibueze Ozinwa, dressed in black boots, olive green khaki pants and a short waisted military jacket festooned with medals, ribbons and gold braided sashes encircling his shoulders, which were topped by embroidered epaulets. Panzer could see it was all fake. The mix of military insignia and awards made no sense and signified no actual accomplishments. Ozinwa’s long hair, braided into locks, fell beyond his shoulders while a maroon beret sat atop his head. Upon his hip, a 357 Magnum occupied his holster. In spite of the warrants for his arrest, this self-proclaimed man of military might had no hesitation about appearing before his guests.
As outrageous as Ozinwa’s appearance was, Panzer couldn’t help but feel satisfied to see the absolute look of fearful astonishment spread over his face when he realized the man he would be negotiating with was the owner of the company he had been shorting.
“Chibueze Ozinwa,” said Panzer as the two men shook hands. Panzer’s four-inch height advantage and jackhammer handshake did nothing to relax Ozinwa’s nerves.
Extricating himself from the third-row seat of the Sienna, Tiberius stepped out of the van. Rising to his full height he was astounded by the young woman who dropped her basket of mangoes and trembled before him. It looked to Diegert like she was going to faint, but instead she took three awkward steps forward and fell into the arms of Tiberius.
“Nikea,” he said.
Hands still held firmly, Panzer walked Ozinwa past his two AK armed guards into the recesses of the hangar. “I appreciate that you recognize who I am, and I hope you realize that this process of negotiation, will not be what you might expect.”
“Please, I am honored that you are here, Mr. Panzer.”
“Not for long you won’t be. I can understand that you may want to resell arms that you purchase from me. It’s a free market and the merchandise is yours to do with what you want, once you pay me.”
“I… ah…um.”
Losing patience with the stammering, Panzer blared, “Not paying me and underselling to my other customers, that’s very
bad for business. And in the business of death, a transgression like that can be fatal.”
Ozinwa’s apprehension forced a smile on his lips as an awkward laugh relieved a bit of his tension.
Panzer’s lips curled slightly, but it wasn’t a smile.
Diegert looked at Tiberius, whose eyes were as wide as old DVDs. “She’s my sister,” he said.
When the other women heard this, great wales of happiness erupted from the previously constrained young women. They jumped up and down, stamping their feet, dancing to a drumbeat of freedom. Their joy burst forth in a cacophony of ululations as they all rejoiced that they might now be freed.
Nikea looked up at her brother through her tears with a hopeful expression she had not felt for some time. “Tiberius, I am so happy to see you. So many terrible things have happened and so much death has surrounded me.” Intensifying her gaze and clutching at his thick arms, she implored him, “You are going to get me out, aren’t you?”
Tiberius, still reeling from holding someone he had mourned as lost forever, nodded his head. “Yes, I’ll get you out of here. Is Althea here?”
At the sound of her sister’s name, the tears, which had built up in Nikea’s eyes, flooded her face. She shook her head and pressed her head against her brother’s chest, taking refuge in his arms. The songs of the other women, elevating their celebration of emancipation, alerted the whole compound that something was going on.
The singing and rejoicing of the women penetrated the hangar, turning the heads of both Panzer and Ozinwa. The self-styled military man stepped away from the tyrant as he headed out the wide doorway, seeing all the activity at the van. Panzer, looking forward, could see Tiberius holding a tearful woman in his arms. Using his satellite phone, he texted Diegert. “Get the gray duffel out of the back of the van.”
The tallest of the women, the one with the black eye, ran over to Felix. “Come on, brother, we need to make our escape.” Indecision and confusion played across the face of the happy van driver. To Diegert it seemed like a facade was falling apart, and Felix was being forced to do something he should’ve done some time ago.
Diegert’s phone buzzed in his pocket. As he pulled it out, he saw a man approaching wearing an overdressed military uniform. Panzer was close behind, followed by four men armed with AK-105s. On his screen he read, Get the gray duffel out of the back of the van. Hustling to the rear of the Sienna, Diegert opened the liftgate.
Quickly surmising that the man with the supercilious military costume was Chibueze Ozinwa, Diegert dropped the duffel on the opposite side of the van.
“What the hell’s going on?” shouted Ozinwa.
The women stopped singing and stood defiantly, facing their tormentor.
“You don’t look me in the eye,” bellowed the overbearing military costumed clown.
Diegert stepped behind the van, unzipping the duffel. He was immediately joined by Panzer.
“Who the hell are you,” asked Ozinwa as he stepped over to Tiberius, whose sister crept behind him.
Positioning her safely, Tiberius answered, “I am the Evil Prince you were unable to kill.”
Panzer said to Diegert, “The drones will be here in five minutes.” Unzipping the bag, Panzer extracted an MP 9 Vector submachine gun. Grabbing a belt of extra magazines, Panzer threw the loop over his head, securing the belt to his shoulder. Setting a thirty-round magazine in the pistol grip, Panzer racked the slide, chambering the first round and opened fired on the guys with the AK’s. Diegert scrambled to keep up, readying his weapon as he had just watched his father. Rising from behind the van, Diegert saw the women scattering, Tiberius walking backward, pushing his sister behind him. Ozinwa, caught in the midground, held a ready stance with his head on a swivel. Panzer kept firing until all four guards lay on the ground, their lives bleeding out through fatal holes. Diegert realized he was too late to shoot anyone.
Pointing his weapon at Ozinwa, Panzer said with annoyance, “Hands up.”
As Ozinwa moved to draw his Magnum, Panzer sprayed the ground with half a clip. The general’s hands slowly rose. Panzer removed the big gun from the holster, stepping back with his Vector trained on Ozinwa.
Placing Nikea on the far side of the van, Tiberius ran straight at Ozinwa, striking the man’s exposed ribs like a linebacker, knocking the medals off the man who killed his family.
Red dust coated Ozinwa’s face as he lifted his ringing head to see Tiberius towering above him. Flecks of spit clinging to his beard, Tiberius snatched the front of the general’s coat and hauled him off his back.
Nikea bolted from the van, streaking across the compound in the direction of the large hangar.
As he was pulled up, Ozinwa kicked Tiberius in the hip, forcing the bald man forward at the waist. He then hammer fisted the back of Tiberius’s head, sending the big man tumbling to the ground. Kicking dry red dirt into Tiberius’s face, Ozinwa shouted, “You fuckers are going to die.”
Coughing and spitting dirt, Tiberius tried to stand, but Ozinwa delivered a roundhouse kick to the sternum, driving the bigger man to his back. The general’s medals shook as he stomped his boot on Tiberius’s abdomen. The compression forced the air from his lungs which Diegert saw as red dust erupting like a volcano from Tiberius’s beard. Rolling to his side, struggling to breathe and desperately trying to regain his footing, Tiberius saw his sister approaching Ozinwa from behind.
In her hand, Nikea held a large, dark machete. Without breaking stride, she swung the weapon high above her head and drove it down onto the epaulet of Ozinwa’s shoulder. The edge of the blade tore through the fabric into the underlying skin, muscle, and bone. A geyser of blood shot from the wound, showering Nikea with crimson rain as she retracted the weapon.
Arterial blood pulsed from the shoulder as Ozinwa turned to face his attacker. The machete had cleaved the clavicle, severing the skeletal attachment of his right arm, rendering the appendage useless. Dazed into staggering silence, Ozinwa’s life was spraying out second by second.
“NO, NO, No,” shouted Nikea. “You’re not going to die that easily.”
Nikea looked into the eyes of evil, framed in a face covered in his own blood. “You are not leaving this world until you have suffered what you did to all of us.”
Unbuckling his pants, she pulled them and his underwear down, exposing his genitals. With uncaged fury, Nikea proclaimed, “You destroyed our pleasure, robbing us of a lifetime of joy, leaving us in eternal pain. Now I chop off your dick as I watch you die.”
Slashing the blade at the base of his penis, the machete cut through the flesh, severing both the shaft and the balls from his body. Blood gushed from the wound. Ozinwa’s cries rose in pitch as he collapsed to the ground where he lay screaming in the dirt. With his face lying in the bloody mud, Ozinwa’s cruelty had returned to him.
Tiberius wiped the dust from his face as he got up to embrace his exhausted sister.
The sound of engines could be heard coming up a rutted path west of the big hangar. Panzer got on his satellite phone. “Land the drones to the east of the biggest building on the map.” He then ushered Tiberius, who brought Nikea with him, to the clearing on the eastern side of the hangar. Three drones hovered above the clearing. Panzer motioned to the drones, knowing the video feed was going directly to the pilots in his Innsbruck, Austria mansion. The first drone lowered to within twelve inches of the ground. Panzer stepped into the center circle as the drone rose to knee height. In front of him, he extracted a strong strip of nylon webbing from a compartment in the drone’s frame. Passing the webbing between his legs, he clicked the buckle into a receptacle on the opposite side of the frame. He repeated this action with a second strip of webbing perpendicular to the first. The crossed webbing created a seat upon which Panzer could sit as the drone rose. He pulled additional web strapping crisscross over his shoulders, securely fastening him for flight.
Diegert ran into the clearing to see Panzer eight feet off the ground. Tiberius had the second drone low
and was helping Nikea step in. He set the web seating as Panzer had done, securing Nikea with the shoulder straps. The drone elevated as the young lady’s astonished face showed fear and joy.
“You take the next one,” said Tiberius.
“No way,” said Diegert. “You’ve gotta help your sister. Hurry up.” He waved his hands.
Panzer was now above the forest canopy, once he cleared the trees, Diegert saw his father’s drone take off to the east. Nikea hovered at eight feet as Tiberius strapped himself in. Both drones rose rapidly, banking to the east when they reached safe height.
Diegert turned back toward Felix and the other women. Passing the edge of the hangar, he heard the engines of approaching trucks grow louder. Sprinting across the open space where Ozinwa’s mutilated body lay in the dirt, he motioned to Felix and the three remaining women to meet him on the opposite side of the van. From the duffel, he handed Felix an MP 9.
“Have you ever fired one of these?”
Felix looked anything but comfortable as he shook his head.
“Well, it’s survival time.” Diegert racked the first round. “Just point at the enemy and don’t shoot us.”
The three women huddled by the front end of the van trying to take up as little space as possible.
Into the clearing in front of the hangar pulled two pickup trucks. The green Chevy had a 50-caliber machine gun mounted on the bed. The yellow Ford had a roll bar in the bed that ran across the back of the cab. Each truck had two men in the cab and two more in the bed. The trucks stopped, and the driver from the green one stepped out, moving forward to inspect Ozinwa’s body. Realizing who it was, he shouted for one of the men in the back of the green truck to come forward. He shouted again, motioning for the yellow Ford to pull up next to Ozinwa’s body. The grisly wounds on the remains of Chibueze Ozinwa held the attention of all the men.
