Hail Warning

Snake Island, Nigeria

Kara couldn’t sleep either. Diambu had, of course, provided her and Kornev their own bedroom, which had a king-size bed. Kara had laid next to Kornev for a short time, but now the charade was over. She had no need or desire to be near the Russian. On the contrary, she wanted to be as far from Victor as possible. After about fifteen minutes wondering if Kornev was sleeping or faking it, she slid out of bed and left the room. Initially, she didn’t know where to go, but all the hallways seemed to lead to the big open living room. She was pleased to see the room was empty. Kara found the TV remote and figured out how to turn on the massive flat-panel set. She flipped through a few channels and saw nothing that interested her. She turned off the TV and checked the time. It was 3:00 a.m. There was a bright moon outside the sliding glass doors, so she decided to go out on the deck to kill some time. She walked over to the railing and looked out across the jungle and the serene water.

Three stories below, she saw a guard down at the base of the stairs. He had an assault rifle and was smoking a cigarette. At least it looked like a cigarette. She also saw a guard walking on the beach a good hundred yards away. The silhouette of the man clearly indicated he was armed.

On the far side of the balcony was a hammock tied between two wooden posts holding up the deck. It was one of those wide hammocks made from thick rope that was spread out with the help of two stiff wooden slats at both the top and the bottom. The hammock was woven through the wood, creating a wide area that two or more could comfortably lay on. Kara carefully sat down on the thick webbing, making sure it didn’t shoot out from under her rump. She then kicked up her feet and did a quick 45-degree twist and fell onto her back, landing in the middle of the hammock.

The moon was bright, but Kara could still see a universe full of stars above her. Somewhere under those stars was Marshall Hail. Kara wondered if he was thinking about her, or if he was fast asleep. Maybe he was dreaming about his family. Kara felt bad keeping Hail in the dark. But he should know better than just about anyone that trusting people was a bad habit. Still, she felt guilty leaving him, leaving his ship, all the while knowing that she was never going to return. Well, never was a very long time. She wouldn’t be returning any time soon, if she lived to make that decision.

It was now time for Kara to move forward with her own plans. All the pieces had fallen into place. And if she didn’t act now, the opportunity would never

materialize again. All she had to do was put some heat on Kornev, and she would have everything she needed to pursue her main purpose in life. And that didn’t have anything to do with Marshall Hail or any of his amazing drones.

Kara was awakened by a smiling Diambu. She immediately knew it was not Afua, because she had never seen him smile. Instead, it was his brother, Baako. She couldn’t remember a time during the last twenty-four hours when she hadn’t seen Baako smiling.

“Good morning,” Baako said, his smile wide and gracious.

“Good morning,” Kara responded, trying to sound just as chipper as the man looking at her.

“If you are not too tired, I have arranged for us to have breakfast on the deck out here. Or would you like to wait for your boyfriend?”

Kara sat up in the hammock and stretched.

“No, that won’t be necessary. Let him sleep. Jet lag bothers him more that it does me. That sounds wonderful. I am so hungry for some reason,” she said, although she wasn’t at all hungry.

Knowing Afua Diambu would be neutralized this morning had her nerves on edge, and her stomach was a little upset.

About fifty feet away, nearer the kitchen’s sliding glass doors that emptied out onto the deck, two women were setting a table. One of them draped a yellow linen cloth over the tabletop, and the other was setting down plates and glassware. The silverware tinkled, sounding odd against the sound of the waves that were rolling in at high tide.

Baako left Kara and walked over to the table and took a seat. A moment later, Kara rolled out of the hammock, and she sat in front of the only other place setting.

She was wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt; she didn’t feel very pretty. But then she wasn’t there to impress anyone, so she didn’t feel guilty about it. Once she had been seated, Baako nodded at her and held up a pitcher of orange juice.

“Would you like some juice?” he asked.

“Sure, that would be great.”

Baako poured some juice in one of Kara’s empty glasses and then poured himself a glass. She drank while he watched her. After a few big gulps, she set her glass down and smiled politely at the man.

“Do you know what Baako means in my language?” her dining companion asked.

Kara smiled, shook her head. She said, “No.”

“It means the firstborn. My brother and I are identical twins, but I was born first. I was the first son in our family, and that is significant in my country.”

Kara took another sip of her orange juice and let Baako talk.

“Even though my brother, Afua, is well respected, I am older and have a great deal of influence in his life.”

Kara was confused about where this conversation was headed, but she was very interested in what the brother of a Top Ten Terrorist had to say.

“I have a question for you, but I don’t want to be too forward,” Baako said, in almost an apologetic tone.

“That’s OK,” Kara said, assuming it was going to be something about her and Kornev’s relationship status. She was accustomed to being asked if she was single, attached, or in love, but mostly men wanted to know if they just might be able to score with her.

But Baako surprised her by asking, “Do you know what your boyfriend does for a living?”

Kara didn’t know how to respond, but she felt that yes was a safe answer. Because as far as he knew, Kornev could have lied to her and told her that he was a carpet salesman.

“Yes,” Kara said, and then waited patiently for the follow-up question.

“What do you think he does?” Baako asked, probing for a response that he expected Kara already knew.

“Sales,” Kara said.

“What kind of sales?” he inquired, at this point, relentless for a direct response.

“Sales of things that are expensive and hard to get.”

Kara watched Baako to gauge his reaction. She was now very interested in where this was going.

Baako took a sip of his orange juice and was quiet for a moment.

After a spell, the Nigerian said, “I wanted you to know that I’m not a person who is interested in expensive and hard to get thing, unlike my brother.”

Kara said nothing. She gave Baako a puzzled look.

“As a matter of fact, I hate expensive and hard to get things. And I also hate that my brother likes them. It puts everyone — all my family in jeopardy.”

Kara pretended not to understand what Baako was talking about, but she dared to ask the common-sense question, “Then why don’t you all leave?”

Baako flashed her his amazingly wide smile before his face returned to normal. “We don’t really have anywhere to go. Our wonderful brother has given us everything we have.” Baako held his arms out to his sides, gesturing at the entire compound.

Kara remained silent, but smiled cajolingly, nonetheless.

Afua’s brother appeared to have run out of words. He looked at her as if he had made some sort of point and was simply waiting for Kara to understand what he was saying.

“Why are you telling me this?” Kara asked. Her smile was gone, and there was an intensity to her.

“Because I don’t buy Victor’s story about who you are. I don’t trust what he told us.”

Kara looked upset, and Baako continued.

“I am a good judge of character, and everything about you says you are someone else.”

Kara was almost afraid to talk for fear that she was undoing herself with every word she spoke. But she had gone this far, so she might as well listen to him.

“Why don’t you believe I am Victor’s girlfriend.”

“Lots of reasons,” Baako said. He steepled his fingers under his chin. “You are way too pretty to be with someone like Kornev. He doesn’t fly first class or hang out in exotic places. He’s all about work, and you don’t look like a person who would put up with that.”

Kara looked at the man blankly, and asked, “Anything else?”

“In the time I’ve known Victor Kornev, he has never had a girlfriend. He is a loner. Girlfriends represent a security risk, and they are a liability to him. I have never known Kornev to risk his life for a woman.”

Baako said the word woman, as if it was a word that shouldn’t be spoken in public.

“What else?” Kara said, hoping that was all.

Baako smiled again, placed his hands in his lap, leaned back in his chair and told Kara, “Yesterday, while you were in the living room walking around and looking at things, I noticed that you spent some time looking at the keys hanging on the pegboard. This might sound odd, but I have never known a woman so interested in keys. You were also trying to act nonchalant while you were checking

out the video cameras. I watched you from outside the glass doors, while you were looking closely at all those things.”

Kara smiled innocently, not knowing what to do or say.

Baako waited for Kara to respond.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. She left her rebuttal there, hanging in space, a phrase that could be interpreted in the manner he chose to take it.

Baako smiled back at her. But now, his joyful carefree grin was tainted by something more serious. It was something a little more threatening that lurked just under the surface.

“If you are not who you say you are then that means my family, rather my brother, could be in danger. And I want to tell you something about my brother. Something that you could tell your people.”

Kara said nothing. She looked past Baako with a blank expression, as if she were looking at a passing ship out on the distant water.

“The people who work for my brother are not nice people, but I think you know that. My brother is not like the previous boss of his company. Afua wants to make some positive changes. For example, there was a school full of girls who had an unfortunate experience. My brother wants to help right that wrong to make sure they find their way back to their homes.”

Baako stopped for a moment and stared at Kara, trying to discern if she understood or knew anything he was talking about.

“So, you think that Afua will make the company a softer and gentler organization?” she asked, not sure how far to go with this.

“I don’t know if you know this or not, but my family is Christian. Afua is a Christian.”

Kara didn’t know whether to laugh or call him a liar. Her face must have given something away because Baako said, “I can tell that this information surprises you.”

He took in Kara’s look and continued, “You may not know this, but more than half of all Nigerians are Christian, and as a Christian, Afua wants to make it a much better company.”

Kara said nothing.

“All I’m asking is when you return, please tell your people that Afua is not like his predecessors. He is all about family, and our family will turn him from what he is now into a much better person. We will turn the company around. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?”

The smile returned to Kara’s face and she said, “I’m sorry, I just don’t follow or know what this has to do with me?”

This time, Baako didn’t return her smile. This time, he looked every bit as serious as his twin brother.

“I think you know what I mean, and I don’t have anything else to say on this subject.”

The rest of the meal was forced and uncomfortable. After a few bites of toast, Kara excused herself to use the bathroom, and then she sat on the couch. She turned on the TV and pretended to watch a soccer game.

Twenty minutes later, Afua emerged from his room. He was dressed in loose-fitting gray gym pants and an orange tourist T-shirt that read JAMAICA on the front in bright bold letters.

Afua nodded at Kara (his form of a morning greeting), and then he walked over to the sliding glass doors.

He slid open the door, stuck his head out and yelled to his brother, “I’m going to work out in the gym. I will see you after your morning swim. Maybe we can play some tennis.”

Kara heard him yell back to Afua, “Sounds good.”

Kara’s heart jumped, and she didn’t know what to do, but doing nothing was not an option.

Afua closed the sliding glass door and went into the kitchen. Kara pretended to watch the soccer game. She heard the refrigerator door open and heard glassware being set on the counter.

Her exchange with Afua’s brother had somewhat rattled her. If Baako thought that she was a spy, did Afua also? Had they compared notes? It was hard for her to understand how they could allow her to walk around their compound, free to go anywhere she wanted if they suspected she was an agent. But then there were security cameras in every room. She suspected that there were cameras in the bathrooms as well. After all, a lot of nefarious stuff can go on in a bathroom. They also knew that she was unarmed and didn’t have a communication device which further reduced her as a threat while she was on an island and inside a hardened compound. If they suspected she was a spy, at least for the time being she was no more of a threat to them than a snake without fangs. Kara guessed they had very little respect for women to begin with, so that might be a factor in this very weird scenario as well. There was not much she could do to cause them problems. It

wasn’t as if they left blueprints of their next terrorist mission laying out on the dining room table or had unsecured weapons laying around.

Afua walked by the couch behind Kara. From her peripheral vision, she saw him walk down one of the wide hallways and disappear.

Kara began to analyze the conversation she just had with Baako. It seemed nonsense Baako trying to convince her that his family were Christians. If he was serious, then she had entered the frickin’ twilight zone. Muslim terrorists did what they did because they were Muslim. She had never heard of a Christian terrorist leading a jihadi sect. And really, what difference did it make what religion Diambu practiced? He had killed innocent people. Why he did it was of little importance. Even if Baako could ensure Kara that his brother was going to change his ways, Afua was still a serial killer. Afua’s life was not dependent on what he was going to do in the future. His life, or termination of it, was dependent on what he had done in the past. Even if Afua became a monk and moved to a remote monastery, they would still track him down and take him out.

Kara heard the sliding glass door open and saw Baako walk into the living room. He walked up and stood behind Kara until she acknowledged his presence. Kara looked back over her shoulder. She noticed that Baako was wearing swim trunks and no shirt.

“Would you like to go for a swim?” he asked.

Kara smiled pleasantly and said, “No, but I would like to see the beach. I’ll walk down with you.”

Baako replied, “Very good. Let me get a towel, and I will be right back.”