Oath of Office

11

Crescent wrench in hand, Sarah Porter stood up from a vain attempt at repairing the leaky pipe under the sink and watched her cell phone buzz across the kitchen countertop. She looked outside in time to watch three armored personnel carriers roll down her street — Cougars, they called them. She knew this because Rod had pointed it out to her during a Cameroonian military and police parade in downtown Yaounde the weekend before.

She shook her head as the heavy vehicles clinked and rumbled by. No wonder their roads were so crappy. She’d seen plenty of military vehicles over her husband’s twenty-one-year career as a foreign service officer. But she’d never been told they were called Cougars, at least this kind. She chalked it up to her “Learn something new every day” list, which grew exponentially each time Rod bid on a new country assignment.

Cameroon was a promotion — at least on paper. Rod was the DCM — deputy chief of mission, second to the ambassador. He’d run the political section in Croatia during the last tour. There had been a lot to love about that posting — delicious food, the Adriatic, no cobras. But that’s how Rod’s career had worked out, bid on and get a great post, then promote to one that was… slightly less great. As a trailing spouse — the common term for following your diplomat other half around the globe — Sarah was used to it. Sort of.

The clatter outside stopped, but Sarah caught a glimpse of another Cougar between the houses on the next street over. She’d accidentally driven up on protests before, when the kids were little, and wondered if this was one of those.

“Are you seeing this, Rod?” she muttered under her breath, happy to have the comfortable heft of the crescent wrench in her hand as she leaned closer to the window to try and get a better look. The doorbell nearly caused her to pee her pants.

She held the wrench behind her thigh and peeked out the front curtains to find June Kim, one of the spouses from the South Korean embassy. The Bastos district of Yaounde was a mini — United Nations, with diplomat families from the many embassies to Cameroon living and working in the area.

June’s pleading eyes darted from Sarah to the armored vehicles that now sat eerily silent at the end of the street. “Does your phone work?”

Sarah put the wrench on the counter. Normally an introvert, she was suddenly happy to have company. “Come on in and I’ll check. Any idea what’s happening?”

“I do not know,” June said. “I was on the phone with my husband and it suddenly stopped working.” She looked toward the street. “That’s when I saw the troop carriers. I do not like this at all.”

“The embassy will know.” She looked at her watch. “Rod’s in a meeting right now. I’ll call Post One and see what I can find out.” She punched in the speed-dial number for the embassy’s main security post. Rod had told her and the kids early on that this was their version of 911 when they were overseas. She smiled as she waited for it to connect, hoping to calm her friend. “Sometimes it’s good to be married to the deputy chief of mission.” A fast busy. She tried the speed dial again. Still nothing.

Kim turned for the door. “I will go to our embassy. It is probably nothing.”

“Probably,” Sarah said. “But I’ll walk with you anyway.”

The two boys ran at the first sound of approaching Army vehicles, diving between two houses, seeking cover behind a tattered boxwood shrub. They’d been watching a football game through the fence, unwilling to cross General Mbida’s men, who were posted at the gates. The U.S. embassy was across the street to the northeast. The embassies of South Korea and Tunisia were a few houses away behind them, the Saudi embassy across the street, half a block to the west of the U.S. compound. Jean-Claude was not quite sixteen, Lucien barely a year older. Stains of chicken blood and the preparation of a recent meal provided the only camouflage on their bright yellow T-shirts.

The stucco houses on either side of the narrow alley would have been considered middle-class in the United States, but here in Yaounde, where many Cameroonians earned less than $2,000 a year, they were palaces.

“Bientôt,” Lucien whispered.

Jean-Claude strained his ears. The rattling armored personnel carriers had stopped, leaving it quiet but for the periodic cheers and groans from the nearby football pitch and the cluck of a hen with her peeping chicks scratching in the dirt behind him. The air seemed heavy, charged with static. Lucien was right. Something was going to happen—soon.

The military trucks started up again, rattling their way toward the football pitch. Across the way, on the other side of the embassy fence, a Cameroonian man in a loose white shirt swept the sidewalk. The chancery was open now, receiving those who wanted to fill out paperwork for American visas. Jean-Claude watched the peeping chicks as they disappeared around the back of the house — and thought seriously about joining them.

He watched the two U.S. Marines standing behind the embassy fence. They were young, perhaps just a few years older than he was. They looked more scrubbed than they did treacherous, though they stood ramrod straight and there was an intensity in their faces that made Jean-Claude’s stomach churn. He crouched lower, making sure the stubby palm tree hid his silhouette, checking quickly for any green mambas or button spiders — only slightly more frightening than the U.S. Marines.

Jean-Claude peeked around the edge of the shrub. If the Marines saw him, they ignored him — and these men did not look like the type to ignore anyone. He wished he’d worn a better shirt.

“What do you think will happen?”

“I told you,” Lucien said. “My brother’s company will arrest General Mbida and he will stand trial.”

“But the Americans are right there,” Jean-Claude said. “If Mbida is so friendly with them, will they not come to his aid?”

“Perhaps,” Lucien said. “But my brother does not think so. He says they will be too worried about their own skins to face our military.”

Lucien’s elder brother was a Fusilier, Cameroon’s version of the Marines across the street. He was loyal to the president, and well paid because of it.

“The Americans can’t help but stick their noses where they are not welcome. The U.S. President is siding with Mbida to overthrow our elected president. My brother saw the video with his own eyes.”

Jean-Claude scrunched up his nose in thought. “If the general was going to mount a coup, why would he be on the football pitch with his sons? It makes no sense.”

Lucien cuffed his younger friend on the side of the head. “Stop thinking so hard. Maybe we can see my brother arrest the traitor.”

A woman’s terrified scream came from around the corner, followed by another, this one higher. Jean-Claude’s sister had cried like that when a passing taxi had broken her hip.

Lucien’s shoulders began to tremble with excitement, so much so that Jean-Claude was afraid the Marines across the street would see the boxwood leaves shaking.

Loud cracks and snaps filled the air as the armored vehicles drove directly through the wooden fence and onto the field. A voice boomed over a loudspeaker, ordering Mbida’s men to lay down their weapons. The boys duck-walked between the houses, closer to the demolished fence, so they could get a better look.

Jean-Claude heard a commotion and turned to see Mbida walking out of the chancery. That made more sense. His children were playing football across the street while he plotted with the Americans.

“I think your brother did not have all the information about the general’s whereabouts,” Jean-Claude said, still smarting from the early smack to the side of his head.

Lucien cursed. “It does not matter. He will come out. They have his children.”

Sporadic gunfire popped and cracked at the football pitch. Women screamed, men shouted, as more orders boomed from the loudspeaker.

An instant later, three young women tore around the corner, running toward the embassy gate. Arms flailing, knees pumping, they ran as if chased by a wild beast. And indeed they were. A squad of about a dozen men ran after them. One of the men moved to shoot, but another swatted the rifle away. Jean-Claude was not a Fusilier, but he was smart enough to know that firing at someone running toward the American embassy would be the same as firing at the American embassy — bringing the wrath of the U.S. Marines posted there.

General Mbida had run from the chancery steps to the gate and waved the girls forward, beckoning them to hurry inside with him. All three of them were young, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, and all wore T-shirts and shorts, tight to their bodies. Boko Haram used children as suicide bombers along the Nigerian border. Even with the general standing right here, the Marines would never have let these girls near the gate if they’d had on clothing that could have hidden a bomb. The one in the lead was bleeding from a wound to her shoulder. As she ran closer, Jean-Claude could see her T-shirt was ripped. This was Mbida’s eldest daughter.

One of the Marines dropped to a knee and aimed his rifle at the pursuing Fusiliers, while the other waved the girls through the gate.

Lucien pounded his fist on the ground, cursing again. “Americans must always play the hero.”

One of the two armored MRAP vehicles rounded the corner now, and came to a stop facing the embassy. A man in a colonel’s uniform stood in the top hatch and spoke into a megaphone.

“General Mbida is a criminal and a traitor wanted for crimes against his people. Send him out at once.”

The Americans did not respond, so the colonel repeated himself. The Marines at the front post had moved behind a colonnade now. Their rifles were still at the ready, though not aimed at anything.

The colonel surveyed the embassy with a pair of binoculars for a moment, and turned to someone inside his armored vehicle before putting his hands over his ears.

An instant later the M2 .50-caliber machine gun mounted on top of the Cougar fired three short bursts at the embassy roof, destroying the antenna arrays.

The colonel spoke into the megaphone again. “You are harboring a known criminal. Send him out at once and we will stand down.”

Jean-Claude heard women’s voices next, yelling in angry English and something else, maybe Korean. A man barked orders, doors slammed. The colonel ducked into his MRAP for a moment, before stepping back up with the megaphone. “I say again — you must send out the traitor General Mbida without delay.” He paused for effect, gloating as if he now held the winning hand. “And please pass along a message to Deputy Chief of Mission Porter. His wife is being well taken care of. For now.”