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Chickasaw
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The Enemy
Gawaine Caldwater
Ross
“I love killing gorillas,” Roger Lee Carter said to the Inspector. They
were in an interrogation room somewhere, Roger was
sure, in the
“I must remind you,” the Inspector crowed, “that lying to an officer of
the law is a felony. Tell me again why you love
killing gorillas?”
Roger was 40 years old with a balding head of short brownish hair and a
body hardened by many years of long hikes. “I am a founding member of the
National Christian Gun Owners Association. Our headquarters is in
This means that
Instead the Inspector whacked him across the mouth. (Roger barely noticed the pain. He got calmer
as experience grew more intense.) “This is garbage! Somebody must be paying you
to take such risks. I can put you in prison for the rest of your life. You're
really here as a spy, aren't you?”
“No, I am not a spy. I do collect intelligence, but it's not the kind of
information you'd be interested in. I'm interested in finding out what
percentage of the population here is Christian, or Muslim, or Animist, and so
on. I also track the activities of the UN, as the UN has a sinister plan to
establish a world government that aims at disarming all Christians. Already the
Zionist conspiracy has developed radio tracking devices that are inserted just
under the skin of those they wish to track. It's starting with criminals, but
it will expand to the whole population. We cannot allow this to happen, as this
will be the mark of the Beast.”
“I still don't believe you. The information you seek is public
knowledge.” He considered for a time.
The air in the room was fetid, and exotic tropical insects walked over everything.
“I know a few things about
Roger did, but admitting this could get him killed, so he decided to be
evasive. “I belong to many groups. I am, for instance, a Knight of the Order of
Christian Justice. The Order tracks down pedophiles.” (He didn't mention that
they also executed them.) “We also are very active in the Right to Life
movement. We target doctors who perform abortions and harass them with
continuous lawsuits until they move to another state or renounce the practice
of medicine altogether. We also support
eugenics programs. Certain people have no right to reproduce, because they
haven't got the faintest idea about how to raise children. People need a
license to drive a car. It is much more difficult to raise a child, and yet
anybody can get pregnant and raise criminals and lunatics. I do believe in
keeping races separate, in the interests of peace.”
There was much more, including the Order's secret campaign to murder
prominent gays in any country.
“You love killing, and yet you speak of peace. Something tells me you
are not being sincere.”
“Look,” Roger replied, “I don't believe in race wars, if that's what
you're getting at.” He began to fear
that he was going to spend a long time in this prison. He was hesitant to offer
a bribe, as the last time he offered a bribe was to the sergeant who had just
arrested him. That man had simply swallowed the bribe and then pretended that
it hadn't existed.
Roger had
another passport, a fake British one, hidden behind some loose
bricks in an alley close to his hotel room. He also had a large amount of cash
hidden near the same location, and credit cards with substantial limits. He
guessed that the Inspector had a yearly income of less than $5,000, which was a
lot for this part of the world, but even so, not very much. “I know I committed
a crime. How much was the gorilla worth?”
The Inspector leaned back in his chair and swatted at a huge mosquito.
“Our wildlife is priceless, you should know that.”
“Would a donation of $50,000 cover it?”
The Inspector smiled. “You have this kind of money?”
“Yes, in various accounts.”
“Then we shall see.” He glanced at the guards. “Seko,
give him the routine treatment and afterwards put him in cell number 81.”
As he left the guards lifted their truncheons. Prisoners were beaten on
a daily, or nearly daily basis, to soften them up and
to break their spirits. Few people can be beaten for a month without cracking.
He was tossed into cell # 81,
quite bloody and dazed. There were six other men in the cell, one of them an
American hippie. Except that Jason didn't use drugs and was straight as a drop
of rain. He knew first aid and could tend wounds, but there was nothing here to
treat the new arrival with, not even clean water for washing. The other men
were Africans who didn't speak much in the way of English. The cell was located
in an ancient French prison. There was no toilet except for a bucket, which
always overflowed before the guards would take it. Jason resumed meditating.
After a time Roger came around. He spat out the fragments of his front
teeth and felt his jaw for fractures. He was still dizzy from blows to the
head, and his ribs ached from the pounding they'd taken.
He looked at Jason with his long
hair and groaned. “Am I in hell?”
“Yes, you're in the hell of the DRC. What were you arrested for?”
“I was poaching. Is there any water here? I need to wash my mouth out. And yourself? Why were you arrested?”
“I'm a Quaker. There's water here, but it's got tropical parasites.”
Roger groaned. This was almost worse than he could imagine. “They arrest
Quakers here?”
“Most definitely. I'm also a member of Amnesty
International, which is the real reason they arrested me.”
Roger regarded him with contempt. If he'd been in a better mood, he
might have been more polite, but he snarled, “You're a naïve, mindless,
spineless mass of quivering jellyfish. How the hell do you think we can make
anything better without war?”
Jason smiled. “I've been called worse. As for war, I think violence is
the entire problem.”
“You would. I suppose you've never even owned a gun.”
“Why would I? Guns are evil. Look at what they've done to this cursed
country. Over 4 million dead since WW II, which makes it one
of the worst conflicts in human history. I came with a group of Quakers
to help bring peace, and all you can do is salivate
over violence.”
They stared at each other tensely. Roger decided to shift tactics. “What
part of
“
“You would be,” Roger muttered. “I assume you're a Harvard grad?”
“Yes, with a doctorate in theology,” Jason said with pride. “A fat lot
of good it does me here.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Too long. Five months, at least, and no one
knows I'm here. They've got a great racket going here: kidnap foreigners, call
it arrest, keep them in a secret location, and collect bribes until they feel
like releasing you. The only thing is, the American
Friends Service Committee doesn't have much money to pay bribes with.”
“That's too bad,” Roger remarked, wiping blood off his face. “You should
join a Christian militia. We take better care of our own.”
“That would be quite impossible,” Jason answered. “I despise you guys.”
Due to his pain Roger could barely sleep. There was nothing but the
stone floor to sleep on anyway, and the stench of the cell made him miserable.
He drifted off about
Jason rolled over. “That would be the daily execution. At least, I think
that's what the gunfire is for. I haven't been able to see the courtyard for a
long time, but that is what I hear.”
Roger gulped.
Breakfast was half a bowl of millet with some weak tea. After gobbling it down, Roger began to notice
all the lice. “Can't anyone bathe around here?” he growled. “These Africans
stink.”
Jason hated racism. “I'm in hell with a Fundie,”
he groaned. Aloud he said, “I don't know if you've checked in the markets
recently, but soap around here is fantastically expensive. Hot water is a real
luxury. I'm telling you, you have to be a foreigner to afford it. They don't
give us enough drinking water – what are we supposed to bathe with?”
“They could give us cold water showers,” Roger insisted. “After all, one
of the world's biggest rivers is within spitting distance.”
“Making people filthy is part of the process of humiliation. The lice
give most of us typhus, which kills off a lot of prisoners. It saves the army
ammunition.”
“I suppose we should pick the lice off each other, “
Roger proposed.
“That would be the
primate thing to do,” Jason answered. “As one primate to another,
who should go first?”
“You've got the most,” Roger answered. “Let's start with you.”
That evening the guards came for Jason. “This is your last night on
Earth,” one of them declared. “Say goodbye to all your friends.”
Jason turned to Roger. “You'll be bribing your way out, I assume?”
“As soon as possible,” Roger confirmed.
“Can you call the American Friends Service Committee's office in
Roger nodded. “It's the least a Christian can do for his enemy.”
The
Chickasaw
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