Hail Warning

Two Years Ago Lagos, Nigeria

The first time the Nigerian terrorist, Afua Diambu, saw the Russian 9K333 Verba man-portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile was in a warehouse. It was in an old building, hardly even a warehouse by Western terms. It looked more like a dilapidated wooden box with a few weathered wooden doors and a leaky roof. The few windows the building had were barred on the outside with rusty rebar. The windowpanes contained glass broken in several areas cheaply repaired with recycled Plexiglas now a milky-white due to weather, sun and time. In between the windows facing the alley behind them were two wooden garage doors. They did not slide on tracks. Instead, the two heavy doors swung open on hinges. Currently, both doors were closed and secured with a thick metal bar which slid between twin iron brackets. Inside the room, and nearer the windows, were a few large work tables hastily constructed using a few sheets of aging plywood and recycled two-by-fours. A dozen rotting mismatched chairs were scattered about the room.

Afua Diambu had been driven to the port city of Lagos, Nigeria by his leader, Mohammed Mboso. This was his point of embarkation for his long boat ride to Caracas, Venezuela. The missile retrieved from its hiding place had been packed in a case which previously had belonged to an expensive upright bass instrument sold for a fraction of its value to a street vendor. The case itself had been kept and molded to hold the large launch tube and its projectile.

“I didn’t think it would be this big,” Afua Diambu told his leader, Mboso, who was carefully removing the weapon from its new case.

Using both arms, he held up the 5.5-foot launch tube for Diambu to admire.

Mboso looked toward the muzzle end of the tube and scanned the weapon with his eyes, taking in every inch of the dark metal object, as if it had fallen from heaven.

“Is it heavy?” Diambu asked.

“Eighteen kilograms,” Mboso answered absentmindedly, still admiring the weapon.

Diambu didn’t think the older man could hold up a 40-pound object for much longer. The jihadi stepped forward and handed the missile system to

Diambu, who accepted the gift, bouncing it a few times in his arms, testing its weight and confirming its authenticity from nothing more than its existence.

“Is it armed?” he asked, certain it wasn’t. But it never hurt to ask.

“Of course not,” Mboso said curtly. “But it will be armed very soon. You need to know how to operate it. You will arm and disarm the device many times before your voyage. We only have one missile, so there will be no test firings. The first time you pull the trigger, you will be pulling it for Allah.”

It was Diambu’s understanding that his voyage would begin the following day, which meant his training would begin very soon.

Mboso nodded to one of his two armed soldiers keeping loose guard on the interior of the room. One guard was looking out the dirty front window. The other was standing with his back to the garage doors watching the two men with the missile. The guard by the door was dressed in jungle fatigues. He turned and pulled the bar from its anchors on the door, opening one of the doors wide enough to allow a person to enter. A tall, stocky white man with blond hair entered the dank room. He walked over to Mboso and Diambu and stood quietly, awaiting his introduction.

“This man’s name is Kornev,” Mboso told Diambu in English. “He is an expert in using this weapon. He will teach you everything you need to know to fulfill Allah’s divine will.”

Kornev held out his hand and said in Ibibio, “Nice to meet you.”

Diambu was impressed that the white man spoke his native language so fluently and answered in Ibibio as well, “The pleasure is all mine,” and he added, “As-salamu alaykum.”

The white man responded with the customary, “Alaykum As-Salaam.”

With pleasantries out of the way, Mboso said, “I will leave you to your work. My men will get you anything you need. Just let them know.”

Addressing Kornev, Mboso added, “Please make sure that my man, Afua, understands all the workings of this weapon before you leave.”

“It is very simple to operate,” Kornev assured him. “Of course, I will explain everything, as I always do.”

Mboso nodded and then exited the warehouse from the door Kornev had entered. The guard closed the door and sealed it with the bar.

Kornev turned to look at Diambu. The African was still holding the missile launcher in both hands which had sunk down to his waist level.

“Have you ever fired one of these?” Kornev asked the lanky man with skin black as coal.

“No,” said Diambu without further elaboration.

“Do you have experience killing people?” the arms dealer asked.

Diambu was shocked by the bluntness of the question. He wondered what significance it made if he had or hadn’t killed someone.

“Of course,” Afua responded.

“Good. Because with one squeeze of this trigger you will kill hundreds. Make sure you have your mind in the right place.”

Diambu didn’t understand what the white man was talking about. As far back as he could recall, he had been killing people. His mind had never been in the right place. Did a place such as this even exist?

Afua Diambu was unlucky enough to be born on a Friday. Afua means Friday-born child in his native tongue. He was born in Katsina State of Nigeria in a dirty little town named Batagarawa. Luck didn’t come easy to those born in the northern part of Nigeria. Whereas, most of the country was covered by a thick mass of green vegetation, Batagarawa and the Katsina areas were located on the outskirts of the Sahara Desert. The State of Katsina, located in north central Nigeria had the highest poverty rate among all States within that region.

Little could be grown in the arid climate and lifeless sand, and, therefore the sensation of hunger was something Afua had grown up knowing. Thus, as a child, his friends and family had gone hungry. That wasn’t to say he enjoyed having an empty belly.

At the age of twelve, Afua Diambu began making trips into southern Nigeria. He walked to the Kano-Kankia-Katsina road, where he would catch a ride on any truck or vehicle that would stop for him. He was always amazed to see the land change as each mile clicked by. At first, there would be a green bush here and a healthy green tree there. But the further they distanced themselves from the harsh Sahara, the greener vegetation became more abundant. Afua always knew this was the best time to get off the truck. He waited until everything around him was green to disembark at the next town to seek work.

Green was Diambu’s favorite color. It was the color of sustenance; it was the color of life. Green meant people could plant seeds in the ground and eat whatever wonderful edible crops sprouted from the rich soil. Green symbolized to Afua a full belly and work for those who didn’t mind helping the farmers rid the ground of all those tasty plants. He would work and steal until he had enough food to provide for his family in Batagarawa. That cycle continued for years and had become Afua’s way of life. That is until his nineteenth year when he met Mohammed Mboso, better known as Iniabasi.

Afua had been young and naive, but still old and wise enough to know right from wrong. Although his family had been very poor, his mother had taught Afua and his siblings the difference between right and wrong. “It is wrong to steal,” she had told them. And Afua thought that made sense, unless you were starving to death. Since his family was always on the verge of starvation, stealing became a way of life. Food could be acquired through work, begging or thievery. But thievery was always easiest, and it certainly was the fastest. Begging took less energy than stealing, and when one lacked food, it took more energy. Then stealing trumped begging. At first, Afua didn’t steal huge amounts, just an apple or a potato. But when he was harvesting the farmer’s crops, Afua would hide food in the jungle. He would then return at night to fill his sacks and drag them to the road headed north. He never told his mother that he had stolen the food. He told her he had worked for it and he had. Just not all of it. A little white lie. Who could it hurt?

He could still remember the day he had met Mohammed Mboso. Afua had been stealing food at the time. He had worked his way to the end of a large cassava field. Afua would periodically look up to see if he was being watched by the farmer or any of the other workers. When the farmer was far enough away, the Nigerian took his huge bag of cassava and emptied it a few steps into the thick jungle. As he was admiring his haul, he was startled by several guns racking shells into their chambers. He looked up to see a group of men brandishing AK-47s. The black guns were all pointed at him. The men were dressed in clothing the color of the jungle, and their faces were obscured by scarves tied behind their heads.

The only man that did not have a gun or a mask smiled at him. Afua did not know what to do so he nervously smiled back at the man.

“Do not be afraid,” he told Afua in his native Ibibio language. “We are not here to hurt you. We are here to help you.”

But the man Afua was looking at was scary looking, and Afua was afraid. He knew about the group known as the Boko Haram. He had never known anyone who belonged to the organization. Considering the number of guns pointed at him, he immediately assumed the man smiling at him was the leader. After all, they certainly wouldn’t have sent this number of officers to arrest him for stealing food. “My name is Mohammed Mboso,” the large man told him, “but everyone calls me Iniabasi.”

Afua nodded his head, smiling graciously back at the dangerous-looking man. In his native Ibibio language, Afua knew the name Iniabasi meant in God's time.

Iniabasi was older and his skin was marbled with large white and pink patches. The man’s hair grew in patches as well. There were crusted areas of curly gray hair that sprouted like tortured weeds from atop his scarred head. Afua had seen black skin badly burnt before, and this man was covered with it. Afua thought he looked like a monster.

The burned man took a moment to look over the pile of cassava Afua had harvested. He looked back up at Afua and asked, “Do you believe in God?”

It was a simple question, but for some reason, Afua felt any answer he offered would be the wrong one, so he said nothing. His mother had raised him as a Christian although most of their neighbors in northern Nigeria were Muslims. Little known fact, but sixty percent of all Nigerians are Christian. But religion didn’t take a front seat to starvation, and religion was not the center of his family’s universe. God had never showed up to their dinner table to bring them a chicken, goat or even a large bag of cassava.

The Boko Haram’s leader didn’t press Afua for an answer to his peculiar question. Instead, he simply changed tactics and asked, “Are you stealing all this for your family?”

Afua’s smile faded, and he nodded his head once.

“I thought so,” Iniabasi said, like he possessed supernatural powers of deduction. “But this is so little. How many mouths do you have to feed?”

Afua’s father had been dead for three years. He had endured the pain of an infected tooth, only to have the infection turn septic and drop him to the dirt weeks later.

Afua counted the people in his family on his hands.

“Eight, including me,” he said.

When the terrorist leader heard the number, he shook his head disapprovingly.

“No, no,” he said adamantly. “This is not enough food for eight people. You need much more. Come with us, and we will give you enough food to feed your family for two weeks.”

Afua looked the man over, trying to decide whether the man was trying to trick him. He knew better than just about anyone you didn’t get something for free. He glanced nervously at the dozen men surrounding him. They had all lowered their weapons.

A few of them had pulled down the scarves from their sweaty faces, either to personalize themselves to Afua, or possibly to breathe easier. Detecting no deceitfulness in Iniabasi’s demeanor, Afua dropped his empty canvas bag to the jungle floor. Iniabasi turned and began walking deeper into the jungle, and Afua fell in line with the other jihadis.

They walked a long, long way on paths in the jungle made by animals. Eventually, they came to a little town that was a large encampment in the middle of the dense forest.

Iniabasi took Afua over to a well and offered his new friend a cool drink of water. Afua drank his fill, returning the ladle back into the wooden bucket.

“You must be hungry,” Iniabasi said to him.

Afua didn’t know if that was a question or a statement. He assumed that most of the people Iniabasi found stealing food were indeed hungry, but he remained silent.

Iniabasi began walking toward a large tent about 100 meters away in a sunlit clearing. Afua followed. When they reached the tent, he held open the tent flap and gestured with his arm for Afua to go inside. The smells were the first thing he noticed, even before his eyes adjusted to the dim light. There was an infusion of aromas in the air from baskets of beans, sesame and maize. There was also a sweetness that hung in the air of cocoa beans, groundnuts, melon and ripe yams. Afua looked around at the piles and piles of food. There were bushels of millet, palm kernels, sorghum and rice. To his left were dozens of 50-gallon drums of palm oil, and to his right were thousands of canned foods. He looked at the pictures of the food on the outside of the cans. Much of it he had never seen before. Next to the cans were bottles of colorful liquids. Some were dark brown, some clear and many were either orange or blue.

Iniabasi was smiling at him.

“You see,” the leader told him, waving his outstretched arms at the stockpile before them. “We have everything your family could ever want.”

Iniabasi walked over to where the bottles of liquid were stacked. He grabbed one of the orange bottles, and using a tool at the end of his keychain, he popped the top. He handed the opened bottle of orange soda to Afua.

The young Nigerian looked apprehensive, so Iniabasi told him, “It’s OK. You will love it. It is called Fanta orange soda.”

Afua put the bottle up to his mouth and took a small sip. His brain almost exploded from the euphoric rush. He had never tasted anything like it before. It was the best thing he had ever eaten or drank. And, just like that, Afua was hooked. He was hooked on the orange soda. Soon he was hooked on the lifestyle of the

modern Nigerian terrorist and all the nastiness that accompanied it. After he finished his soda, Iniabasi had asked him if he believed in Allah.

Sure thing. If it meant Afua could get food for his family and more orange soda, he would believe in anything Iniabasi wanted him to believe in. Allah, Jesus, Buddha. Hell, Afua would believe that Iniabasi himself was a god if it meant more food.

So Afua told Iniabasi he believed in Allah. After that, his life changed. He could provide food for his family. However, the tradeoff was increasingly becoming more violent. Stealing food became kidnapping people. That soon transitioned to torturing those he kidnapped. Eventually that translated to killing them. The final evolution was senseless killing, and Afua was at the forefront of all the action.

Ten years after meeting Iniabasi, Afua moved his entire family to a four-bedroom apartment in the port city of Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria. Afua praised Allah, prayed regularly, and did Allah’s will. This, in his mind, ensured that his family remained well-fed and well-housed. Now, life was so easy.

As Afua stared at the 9K333 Verba missile in his hands he wondered if, after completing this mission, his life would remain the same. Other than going on missions to expand Allah’s influence into Chad, Niger and Cameroon, he had never been away from his family. Iniabasi had told him that Allah would reward him with his own men and his own territory. Afua would have his own land and be a king in his own region of Nigeria.

Tomorrow, Afua Diambu would embark on a twenty-day boat ride to a country he had never heard of. He was excited, like the day he had tasted his first orange soda. But this was going to be a very different experience. This would involve killing. Afua had become so accustomed to killing that it had become akin to the sin of stealing. In his mind there was little difference between stealing and killing. People had been reduced to nothing more than the bland cassava roots he had pulled from the soil a decade ago. He was so desensitized that he felt no remorse when he took a life. If his mother knew this, she would be very distraught, and she would tell him that killing and stealing was incongruent with Christ’s teachings. But at least she would be lecturing him from her air-conditioned kitchen while cooking a big feast for her extended family.

His mother didn’t know what her son did to put food on the table or what he had done to move his family into better housing. As far as Afua knew, she thought he was working on a farm, but then she also believed that he was still a Christian. She would be happy to know at least one of the two was correct. Diambu still believed in Jesus. Christianity was the only religion he had known during his impressionable childhood years. His mother and the rest of his family still prayed to Jesus. Each time Afua found himself on his prayer mat next to his jihadi brothers, he secretly prayed to Jesus to keep him and his family safe so he could continue to provide for them.

The Muslim stuff that Iniabasi had been cramming down his throat was just gibberish to him. No religion told their followers to kill other people of other religions. It was all a big joke. It was a big farce that allowed Iniabasi’s thugs to do the bad things they did in the name of their God — Allah. Deep down, Afua understood the sinful things he did were wrong. He also knew, as plain as the nose on his face, that he would pay for his sinful actions in Hell. But for the time being, he had successfully moved himself and his family out of their personal “hell” on Earth into an air-conditioned apartment with fully stocked shelves. He had lived in “hell” most his young life, and he was pretty sure he could tough it out in the afterlife.

The big blond Russian man lifted the missile launch tube out of Afua’s hands and started his training with the phrase, “This is the front, and this is the back.” The training got a little more difficult as the arms dealer proceeded to show Afua Diambu how to arm and fire the weapon. Considering how much Afua already knew about all types of deadly weapons, it wasn’t difficult to learn. Put a giant bullet into a giant gun and pull a giant trigger. Nothing to it.