11:38 AM
He woke up to the stench of burning flesh and the taste of blood. The lids had thickened around his eyes, squirting hot fluid, and the tongue, unsure, ran slowly across gums on roll call for teeth. His head felt heavy against the left cheek, the left arm throbbed beneath the weight of his slumped body. A heaviness pressed upon him from waist down.
Somnolently lifting his cheek from the hard tarmac as the right hand shoved a corpse off his lower body, he pressed hard against the ground, turning onto his back so he could breathe properly.
“Aargh… Aargh… Wha— Wha— What is happen?” Alongu managed to say, after inhaling the smoke-dense air. Muffled shouts and thuds reverberated in his head. There was a high-pitched ringing in his left ear, burrowing deeper and deeper into his head. He laboured to open his swollen eyes and saw mist—a thick cloud had descended.
He blinked several times but the fog did not clear. Something was happening around him, but what was it? The howling wind carried with it screeches that filled his ears with distant chaotic murmurs. He couldn’t move his left arm. It lay limp beside his body, but the right one lifted to his face and on contact, it felt slippery against his skin. The thought of blood raced through his mind. His heart began palpitating.
The sound of thuds nearing in slow succession quickened the palpitations. It stopped at his right ear. A shadow loomed over him; a darkness surrounded by a wafting cloud through which bright light pierced, forming a shapeshifting silhouette. Its face was fluid—morphing into a different shape every moment he tried to focus through the thick barrier of tears obnubilating his vision.
“Wha—what is this?” Alongu croaked.His throat was desiccated by thirst. A knee fell to his side. The silhouette hovered its ear over Alongu’s quivering lips. He was starting to speak when the figure retorted.
“Sssssstttttaaaaaayyy wiii…”
The shadow trailed off as its ear-splitting voice probed Alongu’s head.
“What?” he asked.
“…tooooo moooovvvveeee nnoooowwww,” the shapeshifting blur mouthed. There was a lag in everything coming to him. Now and again he would catch pockets of pandemonium—wails, raging flames, hastened footfalls scurrying past, screams for help, sirens, shattering glass, heavy crashing objects, incomprehensibly incessant bangs—before they were dulled away by the throbbing in his head and the high-pitched knife cutting into his brain.
“What? Wha—why? Who are you?”
Fingers dug into Alongu’s shirt at the nape, pulling a handful of it such that his throat squished painfully into his neck. Soon he was gasping for air; his right arm grabbed at the firm wrist strangling him. Alongu gurgled a while as the wrist pulled hard on the collar of his shirt, schlepping him by the neck. He felt his bare back scrape against the tarmac. His skin was ablaze, sloughing off superficially at the touch of the scabrous ground on which it moved. The shadow dragged him over an edged rising and dropped him into what felt like grass.
“Stop. What are you doing?” Alongu tried to shout.
The shape-shifter fell beside him.Heaving, it mumbled something Alongu could not understand. Through narrowed eyes Alongu saw a dark shiny face, damp with sweat, staring into his chest. Calloused hands ravaged through Alongu’s torso, lunging underneath his clothes and dabbing his skin in a frenetic quest for something. They separated, spreading apart around his side as though to embrace, patting as they moved hastily and met at his back.
“…beeeeennnn injuuurrreeeddd…” it mouthed, looking Alongu dead in the eye. He did not understand what was happening. The hands lifted off Alongu’s body, one reaching slowly for his left eye as the other disappeared behind the shadow’s area of gloom. He felt fingers scratch against his left lower eyelid, attempting to be gentle, while the other hand appeared with a glistening object in its grip.
Alongu felt a jolt of electricity radiate from his spine. The Shadow was going to gouge his eyes out and there was nothing his insensate legs and limp left arm could do to stop it. His right hand rose in revolt but was quickly pressed down by a hard knee. All he could do was wriggle his neck and twist his head to keep his eyes away from meeting the knife. Hard fingers tightened around his neck. Alongu could no longer move his head.All was lost.
The knife fell slowly to his eye, digging gently and painfully into the lower lid and slicing to the side. He bit down hard, wheezing spittle through gritted teeth. The pangs reduced for a moment, before suddenly resuming at his right lower eyelid.Alongu shrieked.
The abrasive fingers drew closer, squeezing Alongu’s tumescent eyelids between them to ooze blood from the deep slit at the base of the eyelids. Wisps of darkness scudded behind the silhouette, momentarily dimming the glow. The silhouette mouthed something.
“I ca—I can’t hear you. Sto—stop, please. Stop,” Alongu shouted. The blur took heed and fell to Alongu’s side. A relief washed over him. His eyelids were now nailed shut, spurting a conflation of blood and tears.
Alongu heaved through clogged nostrils into hungry smoke-laden lungs, desperate to restore normalcy to a malfunctioning body. He coughed some of the smoke out, his frail lung feeling stabbed from inside as he spat a mouthful of blood.
When he opened his eyes, a thousand needles poked them, forcing them to shut again. The light exacerbated the torture. It felt like razors had been broken and shoved into his eyes. Cautiously, he opened them again; slowly letting in bits of the burning sun until they were habituated to the sting of its rays.
Tardily, his sight returned, Peering first at a smoggy sky beneath which dark clouds of smoke floated in several directions. Alongu turned his head to the man lying beside him. He was clad in a thick, dirty-green camouflage uniform.His chest—crossed by a thick, green ribbon-like strap—rose and fell rapidly as though he had been racing. His forearm was flung across an abdomen on which a black metallic contraption rested. Twisting his head to catch a glimpse of the face, Alongu saw a miniature black-yellow-red flag pasted on the man’s shoulder.
Who is this?
The man turned.His eye caught Alongu gazing at him in bewilderment. The man’s eyes hastened away from Alongu’s gaze, confounding him further with a hint of doubt, or was it fear? He had a firm jawline along which a tufted, ebony skin excreted greasy beads of perspiration. The dark skin stretched toward a neck engorged by throbbing vessels, and disappeared into the buttoned-up camouflage. His sideburns—infested with tufts of silver—rose anterior to his ear and vanished beneath a red cap, while ash-laden beards lidded darkened beefy lips smeared with the spittle which mingled with the man’s exhalations.
“Wewe ni nani?” Alongu asked of him.
His nostrils dilated, the mansimply stared at Alongu with eyes that bore resemblance to a cornered animal, scared but ready to claw its way to freedom.
He rose to his knees as Alongu’s watchful eye followed, keen to see what he would do. A dark metallic thingamajig was strapped to his chest, and the man tugged the strap lower across his torso and flung it to his back before scooping Alongu’s left arm over his low-craned neck.
Alongu felt his shoulder scream in pain, and he screamed with it. The man paused,then brought Alongu’s dislocated arm to his chest before pulling at it with great force. Alongu felt his shoulder explode. The man threw the arm over his neck and lifted Alongu off the grass. Alongu’s legs shuddered under his weight as they started to move.
“What happen?” Alongu stifled a cry.
“Tulifanikiwa sir.” Alongu heard clearly this time. His hearing was back despite the, sharp sting of the high-pitched ringing in his head.
“What?”
“Things didn’t go as planned,” the man said. “It wasn’t supposed to go off that early.” Alongu steered his head away from the man to see the mayhem.
“I don’t understand. What is happen? Why you calling me sir?”
“I’m very sorry sir. You were not supposed to be in range.”
“What range? What are you talk about?” Alongu growled. “Tell me what happen hiya.”
The man stopped and helped Alongu down. He bent one knee before Alongu and swung his M16 into Alongu’s view.
Alongu froze, mortified.
What lay before him was a catastrophe—hordes of bodies were scattered across the street, some charring, others missing limbs, blood snaking away from them; while some jigged their last pint of life away with the rising smoke. Many more writhed in death pangs, inching with each spasm to inevitable demise.
“What happened hiya?” he asked aloud.
Afar, vehicles were ablaze while bodabodas in the environs lay turned over riders contorted into impossible postures. And he finally realized where the muffled cries and scurrying footfalls had been coming from—injured people yelped, survivors ran into buildings, shattering glass and emerging with loot, while all around sirens blared but no cars moved.
Alongu saw a bleeding man convulsing under the weight of his motorcycle. A distance from him, a short woman was screeching and teetering.
“Omwana wange, woowee! Mutabani wange aliwa?” she cried. “Where is my baby?”
“You happened, sir. You happened here,” the man said proudly, ignoring the screams.
“Help dem… help dem.”
“Sir?”
“I say help dem,” Alongu barked, taking advantage of the mysterious titleand hoping he effused command.
“But—”
“Now!”
The short woman, dressed in a red Uganda Cranes jersey and a pitch-black skirt, had toppled over a corpse. She rose up, crying still, and the man obediently scampered toward the dying cyclist and wailing mother. Alongu looked on in horror.
The woman was turning in search for her child when she locked eyes with Alongu. She stopped. A chill of recognition invaded his marrow. He cudgelled his feeble mind for a link, but it was irretrievable—far from his present phantasm. He had seen this woman before but couldn’t place her.
Her eyes begged Alongu for help. They rattled him.He shifted his eyes to a suffering cyclist and noticed a slimy fluid seeping from the bodaboda, onto the tarmac, and snaking toward the raging flames of the vehicles.
“Stop.”
A whisper.
“Stop.”
Alongu was trying to warn the man zooming toward danger, but his shouts were strangled by the commotion. He gathered strength, wobbled onto his quaking feet and limped after the man, staggering in his gait. It took only the blink of an eye for the man reach the distressed cyclist, but an eternity for Alongu to take a step forward. The fuel slithered hastily toward the fire, but the man seemed to be pacing at twice the speed.
“Run!Tis going to blow!Run,” Alongu shouted his lungs out.But his weak warning found only wind. The fluid had reached the burning cars.
A namber flame rose and bolted excitedly backwards along the meandering path curved by the fuel, to the cyclist and his unfortunate helper. Petrified, Alongu spied the man rising to escape the rapidly approaching flame a little too late.A deafening explosion sent parts of the motorcycle shooting in different directions.
Alongu ducked, falling to the ground and crushing hard against something on his hip.
The blast echoed in his head. A scream lodged in his throat and tears gushed out of his bruised eyes. Alongu teetered on all fours and craned his neck to peer through blurring tears at the calamity — an image of helplessness and terror effusing from the eyes of people who knew they were going to die rattled his brain. He felt a malaise seize him as he lay whimpering.A siren blaring in the distance drew closer, arriving fast toward him. He rose to his feet and reached for his sore waist to massage the palpitating pain in his side.
He felt cold metal.
Alongu looked down and saw the culprit behind the ache. It was wrapped in a leather holster strapped to his belt. He was flustered. He reached for it and lifted it out into the open. Just then, the revving engine of the police pickup stopped a few feet behind him. AK47-wielding constables dismounted, shouting at Alongu as they marched toward him.
“Weka bunduki chini, NOW!”
He understood them.
“I don’t kno—”
Warning shots in the air cut him short.
“Weka chini sasa!”
Alongu trembled and threw the handgun to his side, then threw his hands into the air. The constables circled around him like hyenasgoing for the kill. One swung his rifle to the back before twisting Alongu’s arms behind his back and slapping handcuffs onto his wrists.
“Nimefanya nini?” he asked shakily.
“Shut up. You know what you’ve done,” the constable shouted to his face. Two of them tucked their fingers into Alongu’s trousers, dragged him to the pickup, lifted him onto its trunk, and shoved him into the claustrophobic space under a cushion-padded metallic bench.
A radio crackled, and all the five constables paused, listening intently.
“Contr— spec— co—” the signal kept going on and off.
“Come in control, over,” one of the constables spoke into the black plastic box in his hand. “Suspect detained. Repeat, suspect detained. Over?”
No response. They shared a confused look and waited.
Gunfire and screams shot out of the walkie-talkie, startling them. They froze like mannequins waiting for a static-laden voice to tell them what to do.
No voice came.
11:03 AM
He knew such places. He had used them once before—rooms with soundproofed windows and bulky metal doors, where only slits of light from tiny ventilator holes slice through the pitch-black darkness, casting treacherous shadows onto walls. In such places, you were disencumbered of all the superfluities of life and reduced to choosing between an easy death and a torturous one.
His was the latter.
At first, mundane things like social status, wealth, and influence, would matter to you; but after losing a few teeth and getting habituated to the metal taste of your own blood, such trifling things waned into oblivion. They did not matter to the plain-clothed men who brought you here. When they started their work, you would sob, kick, beg, pray, and scream your lungs out through the first day; sob and beg some more through the second, and on the third, you would sing your whole life story to them.
It had been almost eleven days now, but then no one—not even you— would be able to keep track. Most of you — in fact, all of you — would be seesawing in and out of consciousness. You would slip into the comfort of darkness, dreams, or even hallucinations, only to wake up to noodles for limbs, needles for hair, whetted daggers for a palpitating heart, ferocious infernos for lungs, and clouted drums for a head.
Your bowels would pour their contents onto the cold floor over which your agonizing body hangs. If you happen to be male, like your tormenters, your testicles would retract into your groin, and your bladder would empty into an amalgam with the faeces. Vapours from your excreta would billow throughout the room, priming the air with a fetid stench, and such air would suffice to thwart sleep.
If you are female, there is legroom for your imagination to roam.Picture all the worst possible things you can think of—things involving breasts as a lucrative path to motivating confession; and seeing as you were brought here by men, and your naked body sways in front of them, you may ideate the rest.
Such places are normally used by military intelligence, and most recently—in the public eye—by the Special Operations Unit of the police. This is where enemies of the state are taken to disappear. If you were lucky enough to abscond its jaws, you would fear death more than you do God.
Musinguzi was in such a place.
His unclad body gyred slow and pendulous at the end of a rope tautened from lugging at the handcuffs sundering his wrists and chafing his hands. His shoulders—dislodged from their sockets, and from which the rest of him gently spun—stood above a stooped head owing to a bleary neck, and lobbed pain into his torso. In the dark, he slipped in and out of consciousness, circling the drain and feeling each harrowing sensation from his mangled flesh.
He heard the muffled clang of the metal latch. His torturers were coming in for another session of poking, slicing, pounding, and charring his excruciated body. The plopping of thick claret droplets of blood from his mouth and nose waned as the schliking of metal against metal crescendoed.
Then nothing.
Warmblood flurried in his ears. A hammer thumped in his head. The struggling of the strained rope overhead chinked the handcuffs against each other. He took paltry sips of the algid air that sluiced over his hollowed hematic gums, dispelling relentless ripples of cold pangs throughout his head.
Reeeeeekkkk, the rusty hinges of the heavy metal door slowly squeaked open. He could hear the slathering of fluid as boots crushed into the urine-drenched floor. A switch was clicked, and a moment later, metal thwacked metal in one tumultuous clack, and the brattle that ensued reverberated through the room, dissipating with each second.
Musinguzi was now fully conscious.Chills of horror walked down the stairs of his spine. The hiatus from agony had come to an end.
“Wewe.Amka.”
Musinguzi blinked his bruised eyes open.Light seared into them. In the thick brume, he saw a long clammy nose and tired eyes inhumed by slouchy eyelids. Adumbrative doom flitted across the eyes like the ruddy scales of something lurking underneath the surface of the murky water. Calloused fingers held up his head by the chin, squeezing it. Thorns behind Musinguzi’s eyelids clawed into his eyes as he blinked. He willed his mouth to open, but his jaw had been beaten shut.
The fingers let go, and his cumbrous head fell, straining his spine and sending a fulmination of pain throughout his body. Musinguzi screamed but couldn’t hear himself. His heart had not stopped stabbing his chest since the night he was caught. His lungs laboured to expand against the broken ribs pressed around them. And to prevent him from biting his tongue, or as motivation to give information, his torturers had dug out all his teeth from their gums using a magalo.
“Your leader lost the election.”
Commingled with the hoarse sound, Musinguzi felt the warm air from the torturer’s foul breath crash against his brow. He opted to brave the pain a bit longer till the Major General completed the operation. By then, the information they required would not matter.
“Wake him up,” the foul-breathed man said to the other.
Frigid water was poured onto him. It felt like several thousand needles piercing his body simultaneously. Jabs of ice punctured Musinguzi’s body and darted along tortuous paths into bleeding lacerations, cooling the pangs of heat. He was now fully awake.
“You should’ve chosen our side. We won, but bodies of our generals have been appearing in ditches and trenches. We know your group is planning something,” Foul Breath said, moving calmly around Musinguzi’s dripping body.
The thrust from the icy water weighed heavy on Musinguzi’s dislocated shoulders. His tongue, tasting bile, pushed out mouthfuls of blood from gushing gums, and his broken nose, upon inspiration, afforded the putrid mixture of the stench of metal and that of his excrete.
“Sasa,” said Foul Breath, now in front of Musinguzi, spreading out an open palm.A shadowy figure placed a thick truncheon in it; then he smiled at his dangling victim. “The old-guard is obsolete in this new era.”
The stout cudgel crashed into Foul Breath’s free hand playfully with a slapping sound. This was something meant to scare him into confession but Musinguzi wasn’t going to betray his leader.
“Pia,” the man said, inching closer to Musinguzi, slapping the baton into his hand and speaking portentously into his ear, “you are going to tell me where your fellow conspirators are.” He raised Musinguzi’s head by the chin with the stumpy ferule and stared at his tumid face.
Warm and feculent vapour billowed, further befouling the air.
“You rejected the offer to join us. Tunajua wewe ni askari tu.” He paused. “Unajua nini tunataka.Give us the information we want.”
Bile itched at the back of Musinguzi’s throat. He swallowed hard. Jolts of horror strewed his trembling body. His dithery knees knocked against themselves and his lips quivered in endless convulsions.
But he remained silent.
“Uko tayari kufa kwa ajili ya hii?” warm air thrust against Musinguzi’s ear in a whisper. His heart sank. This is it. Time to die.
Foul Breath heaved inches from his ear and Musinguzi could hear the rage spurting like magma from a fierce volcano about to erupt.
He readied himself.
For an eerie perpetuity, a palpable silence filled the sordid room. Musinguzi could feel the interrogator’s ire tearing into him, his sweltering wrath flitting beneath the reticent demeanor. Musinguzi wheezed into agony-stricken lungs jostling against a shrunken ribcage. Perspiration salted his wounds and blood welled into his philtrum. It coalesced into thick droplets that sloshed onto the floor in successive plips.
“Mimi ni mwanajeshi kama wewe,” Foul Breath broke the silence. “So … from one soldier to another, I know what will make you talk.”
Musinguzi froze.
“Corporal, bring in B.A.”
Boots squashed the fluidic miscellany of faeces, blood, and urine, making their way to the heavy door and vanishing. Foul-breath dragged the filth beneath his boots as he moved.
“Meanwhile,” he raised Musinguzi’s head with the gelid baton, “I’ll enjoy watching you suffer.” His voice was thick with malfeasance.
The icy truncheon crushed against Musinguzi’s right temple, causing blood to spurt to his far left. High-pitched ringing drilled into his head—an eternal explosion of pain. His arms, pulling further out of his shoulders, ricked around each other as his body spun. His wrists cracked. Musinguzi’s eyes disappeared into their sockets and what was blurry suddenly became dark.
The same baton jabbed into his side repeatedly, knocking air out of his pain-tormented lungs and driving his ribs further inward, leaving him apnoeic. Musinguzi fought for air in a stridor. The poking of his heart only exacerbated the chest pain.
“Is this what you want? Niambie!Tell me what I want to know.”
Musinguzi coughed a mixture of sputum and blood onto the man’s feet, and said, in a croupy voice, “Umechelewa sana. I will die before telling you anything. You chose the wrong president.”
A severe pummelling ensued.
The metal door clacked closed. Musinguzi knew the Corporal had returned.
“Ahhh… Vizuri.Set it up.”
Cold hands tucked into Musinguzi’s joined thighs, furcating them such that his contracted scrotum appeared under a bobbing phallus. He fought to keep them abutted, but the fustigation using the baton upon his knees sent seismic waves of pain up his thighs, causing his lower limbs to hang in torpor.
“Hii inaitwaB.A—Balls Answer!”
A cold, thin string was narrowed at the base of Musinguzi’s doughy member, such that his scrotum filled with testicles below its hoop. His body shivered and ached in expectation of the pain he was to receive.
“Squeeze balls.Mouth answers for balls. Balls Answer,” Foul Breath bragged.
Musinguzi felt a fear he had never felt before. His body teemed with adrenalin and shook in convulsions.
“Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha-ha-ha-HA-ha,” watching Musinguzi’s reaction, Foul Breath guffawed, and the Corporal joined him with short intermittent chortles. “Kwa nini unaogopa mister Swazniga?Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha… ”
“Tayari BwanaLieutenant,” the corporal said.
It was ready.
Balls Answer is a flat circular pan, with two stout wires slanting upwards from opposite ends, soldered together to form a tiny loop above the centre of the pan. From the loop rises a tenuous, flexile, metal string whose free end is wound into an adjustable hoop: wide diameter for a breast, or narrow diameter for… cullions.
Everyone has a pain threshold. No matter what you think, yours is lower than Musinguzi’s. So how does it work? In this case, squeeze balls, mouth answers for balls.
B.A is light.Harmless without weights.With the diameter adapted only to grant slight movement of the loop down the unfortunate scrotum, and the empty pan swinging freely between ramified thighs, you won’t feel anything except the torture of expectation. Your heart will leap in its fractured ribcage. Your weary lungs will still suction diminutive amounts of blood-tinged air and start to intumesce before they are lacerated by bone.
“Who gave the order to kill the generals?” the Lieutenant will yell into your benumbed ear, in Swahili. “This is your last chance!”
But a loyal soldier stays silent.
Corporal will load the first brick and the metal string will tow your scrotum, forcing your balls down into it. Your answer will refuse to escape your determined mind.
The second brick is added and the constricted hoop slides lower, causing the balls to rub on each other, crowding the scrotum. Strings of pain cut into your groin and rise into your abdomen. Still, you remain quiet.
“So you think you are strong eh?” the Lieutenant will say. “Weka matofali mawili mara moja.” Two bricks are then piled onto the pan and the strings of pain would morph into goads of agony-prodding pangs that climb up your groin into the spine. Your scrotal skin stretches thin over ovoid testis haled out of their sac, threatening to tear out.
“Are you ready to talk?” Foul Breath asked. Musinguzi whimpered, tears gushing from his eyes and saliva oozing, along with blood, from the corners of his lips. He felt the thin wire slice through his skin when the fifth brick was added, his testis on the verge of rupturing. The lieutenant threw his weight into his baton and bunted Musinguzi’s abdomen,then butted his chest and thrashed his face. Balls Answer weighed down his groin, vacillating. The room grew darker. Musinguzi screeched through aching jaws. His testicles throbbed.
“Alongu,” Musinguzi heard himself say. “Major Alongu ith tha mathermind…” he trailed off.
“Who killed the generals?” the lieutenant held Musinguzi’s chin up. “Tell me who killed the generals.” Musinguzi had crossed his pain threshold. His mind—broken—let secrets flow out from memory.
“GeneralAlonguith tha one… Prethithen… prethithen… kill prethithen,” Musinguzi slurred and lisped.
The lieutenant and corporal glanced at each other affright.
“Today is swearing-in day,” the lieutenant’s voice quivered.
11:13 AM
So, there you are, standing in the middle of it all, at the epicentre; the eye of the hurricane. You are bombarded by clamorous chants and sudden bursts of vuvuzelas, whistles, and trumpets. The sun too—floating in a clear sky—is shouting at you. Beads of perspiration roll down your face, your arms, your back, everywhere. A swarm of people gather around you like flies on hot faeces, buzzing, smearing their sweat on your already moist body as they shove themselves past, toward the man they now call their president.They call him “Our man” but you know they are wrong. That is the title of the man who served them well for thirty five years. Not this imposter they’re celebrating.
It was almost a year ago when this plan was hatched. First, all those in your ranks who opposed would die the month before the presidential election, and just disappear. The country would be scared. But that’s what you want. Then you would make each body appear in clogged trenches, rubbish pits or ditches, one day at a time; each riddled with bullets, head bashed to minced flesh, body stabbed and charred.You make them as horrifying as possible.
And when prominent politicians start appearing in the ditches of unfinished pit latrines, or in sewerage trenches, the government would quake ahead of elections. A state of emergency and curfew would ensue. Tension and fear would fill the city.The public would be afraid to sleep; the police would roam the street, social-media would flood with conspiracy theories. And you? You would roam Kampala freely.
No one would question military presence in the premises of strategic structures of power: the parliament, court houses, ministries, embassies, and others. No one would give a second glance at huge trucks parking around unfinished buildings all around the city, concealing ammunition.
The last bit of the plan is only known by you and your right hand man, Twinematsiko, who is supposed to be killed after his role in the operation, tying off loose ends.
Before the elections, your president was under a microscope and the international community gazed down the lenses. When the election came, it was practically run by them, the foreigners. You are the contingency to ensure he remains in power.
Major General Alongu Michael stood outside Standard Chartered Bank, along Speke Road, looking up toward a concrete sculpture of a child—laughing, hands raised—lifted into the air by an adult. The adult, seeming pensive, was staring up — face hidden behind the child — and a sort of wrap was wound around their parted legs from the knees to just above the waist.
The monument stood outside the wall fence round Sheraton Hotel, looking down Speke Road and Nile Avenue. It had been fifty nine years since it was placed to commemorate independence from foreign rule, and Alongu, like most Ugandans, never knew its meaning.
It was a shame that such a beautiful historical landmark had become a hangout area for street children, beggars, idlers, and other city vagabonds. However, to Alongu it portrayed exactly what was happening: Ugandans — children — agog, celebrating triumphantly, hoisted into the air by an adult — their new president — whose legs are wrapped to prevent him from moving forward while he contemplates a future as a slave to whoever placed him upon that pedestal; the same white men who had placed a noose around his kin’s necks and sold them for metal coins.
Instead of a naked body and chafing leash, our man had a body shelled in black suits, legs wrapped in politics and invisible strings moving him. His puppeteers would bask in their slave’s sweat like they have been doing since the day they invented ships and sailed to your dark shores.
Alongu struggled to stay still as people horded down Nile Avenue. In forty seven minutes, suffering would ensue before peace and stability could be established, and the puppet with hismasters expelled.
There was a scuffle as a police pick up squeezed in and parked in the middle of Speke Road, in front of the monument. It was loaded with policemen seated on the cushion-padded metal benches welded onto the vehicle’s trunk. Two of them alighted and immediately started scanning the vigorous crowd. They pushed through the crowd, descending Speke road, their heads swaying to every side in search for something. Alongu studied them, intrigued.
One of them, a light-skinned, long-necked and narrow-faced man, looked toward the bank and saw Alongu. He turned and called out to his colleague before pointing to the General’s direction.
For a moment, he thought; maybe they’re looking for someone else. But when Alongu moved, their gaze followed. Then he knew — he had not completely eliminated the new president’s military faction. He was compromised. Someone had betrayed him. If the mission failed, he had no option but to go to the Thobani Centre construction site along Kampala Road for secure transport to the safe house. Or for ammunition, if it came to it.
Alongu quickly snaked through the crowd down Speke Road, past Kasalina restaurant, past Amber House, and joined another multitude of people on Kampala Road. The crowd there was twice what it had been on Speke Road. He turned his head and found that his pursuers were still in sight, chasing him through the oblivious crowd.
He squeezed through to his right along Kampala road, past the Statue of Leadership—a Buganda King gazing into space like an ancient sage —and took a left to climb up Pilkington Road. The chasers were still after him. Feeling his chest pound, and more sweat coalesce underneath his uniform, Alongu took off his nkofiira and momentarily fanned himself. A couple of policemen were sloping down the road, engaged in conversation, with guns swinging from shoulder. Alongu immediately turned and acted as though he were going to enter Tropical Bank.
“Excuse me Ssebo,” the askariseated by the bank’s entrance said. “Bank is closed today.”
Alongu held his breath, kept his head down, and prayed his uniform did not betray him. The two unwitting policemen passed the bank and turned along Kampala Road toward Colville Street.
He hurried back onto the road and moved through the crowd. His chasers—soldiers, disguised as policemen—had drawn closer and were now only a handful of people away. They too were clandestine in the way they pursued Alongu. He noticed with minor relief that they never screamed, nor did they wave their AK47s at him threatening to shoot.They need me alive.
Debating on whether to take the first right or the second, Alongu heard a woman cry out, “Ayii…afande, onnyigga.” He chose to run to the second turn, and pushing people aside as he bolted, Alongu took a right onto Portal Avenue. There were fewer people here, which allowed hastening, and soon he reached Colville Street. Alongu fought through the congeries of people, descending the street till he reached Diamond Trust Building. He crossed the street and butted through the roaring crowd, dashing onto Parliament Avenue, toward Thobani Centre. Behind the taxi stage facing Uganda House, at the point the avenue snakes away from Kampala Road, Alongu decided to call Twinematsiko — to prepare him in the event that he was captured.
Shoving hard through the loud multitude, he reached Eco Bank, opposite Cargen House, dug out his walkie-talkie and hailed his second-in-command, “Beta Red-letter, this is Alpha. Respond. Over.”
He spoke in Swahili.
“Hii ni Beta. Over,” the response came almost immediately. Relief washed over Alongu. Twinematsiko can finish the job.
“Rats have killed the cat.”
“Panya hula mayai. Over.” The soldier urged him to follow protocol.
“I am going there,” Alongu paused, starring across Parliament Avenue to Cargen House. “I have an idea. Contact me after five minutes. Over out.”
Tucked behind the crowd, leaning against the stone hedge of Flavour Town, was a woman, peeping from under her MTN umbrella, and shielding a child from the scorching heat. Alongu beamed. This is the perfect escape. Snapping a child’s neck and that of its mother could easily be done from where she is secluded. She would do whatever he asked of her.
11:17 AM
Awa man…
Bzzzzz… Bzzzzz…
Awa man…
Bzzzzz… Bzzzzz…
Great Wall Chinese restaurant sits over Plot 21 Kampala Road, facing Aristoc bookshop, Bata shoe store, and the expanse where Entebbe Road limbs off Kampala Road, descending deeper into the city. Twinematsiko was their only customer. That day, the road was devoid of its usual bustle of cars honking and driving past, beggars tailing weary uncompassionate passers-by, and street preachers seeking lost sheep.Instead, it was filled with a horde of people, leaping in joy for their new president:
Awa man…
Bzzzzz…. Bzzzzz…
Awa man…
Bzzzzz… Bzzzzz…
Flags were hoisted in honour of the ‘liberated’ country.Fists and vuvuzelas swung in the air, totting up to the thick sheath of noise that blanketed the city. Throngs of vivacious people filled Kampala Road from as far as Centenary Park up to City Square and all the way down Entebbe Road and Luwum Street. The whole country was there. They riddled it with the colours of the flag and an infectious excitement. They had painted faces, clothes, masks, and handkerchiefs with the Black-Yellow-Red of the Uganda flag.
Twinematsiko stared, awed by the spectacle of men and women throwing arms around others, daubing their sweat upon each other in useless jubilation.
Following deaths of prominent military leaders and boisterous politicians, an imposed curfew and state of emergency, the election itself had been uneventful — conducted under the keen eye of election observers demanded for by the United Nations, the Commonwealth community, and other international political organizations.
The ousted president had been a thorn in their side. He had used his presidential powers to march into every conflict in the region and sided with failed, incompetent presidents. He had also aggravated ethnic tensions in and around his country, and bodies mulched the land wherever he sent his army. The International Criminal court wanted him. So a coalition of forces had teamed to make sure he didn’t rig the election.The dictator’slandslide loss was a victory many had waited for for decades…
The rabble, blowing into miniature trumpets and vuvuzelas, chanted:
Bzzzzz… Bzzzzz…
Awa man…
Bzzzzz… Bzzzzz…
Awa man…
Twinematsiko, clad in the green camouflage uniform and red cap typical of military police, sat alone in one of the many plastic chairs in the outer section of the small restaurant, watching the explosion of happiness. His radio stood beside the cup on the plastic table, silent, set to the Major’s channel.
They had not anticipated such a multitude. Many are going to die.
He recalled the night the plan was set into motion. It started on a roundtable. Army commanders sat around it, sipping liquor, puffing smoke into the air, laughing at old military jokes, and filling the dim-lit room with thunderous cachinnation. Major General Alongu—behind whom he stood—sat among them; silent, frigid to their jests, shifting his gaze from one commander to the other; cogitating, guesstimating how many among them had sold themselves to the opposing faction.
“Gentlemen,” Alongu had called out. The men fell silent almost immediately. “Let us begin.”
“The election is a year away, and our commander-in-chief is under scrutiny. He must stay in power. We must make sure it happens.” Alongu spoke in thick Swahili.
Muttering had bubbled up, the men whispering to themselves; some shifting uncomfortably in their seats, and others taking sups of their alcohol. This was a conversation none of them had wanted to have. They responded in a mix of English and Swahili.
“May I speak freely?” General Arinaitwe, a light-skinned rotund and bald-headed man seated across from Alongu, had said. He received tacit permission and continued, “The commander-in-chief has made blunder after blunder leading us into other people’s conflicts and causing us losses. He did all this against our advice. We were all there.”
The men had grumbled, nodding their heads in assent.
“Now the international community wants answers. Everyone hates him. There’s no way he’s going to win this election,” General Oryong said, getting confidence from Arinaitwe.
“Do you hate him?” Alongu asked, gazing into Arinaitwe’s eyes. Arinaitwe evaded the question saying, “That is beside the point. Look at the state of our army.”
The commanders had been divided: all fallen to Arinaitwe’s side rather than Alongu’s. “He is finished. Thirty-five years are enough.” The discussion turned to scrutinizing their chief’s shortcomings.
Alongu never spoke again. He noted those who had crossed to the new faction. All would be killed.
Bzzzzz… Bzzzzz…
A blustering vuvuzela went off, bringing Twinematsiko back to the present. He rose from his seat and edged to the guardrails at the restaurant’s veranda, staring into the uproarious crowd. He bent forward and spied the convoy slowly making its way up Kampala road.A dark-skinned man was waving from the roof of one of the cars.
Our man.
The radio crackled. Twinematsiko turned swiftly.
“Beta Red-letter, this is Alpha. Respond. Over,” static roughened Alongu’s voice. Twinematsiko lunged for the black Retevis H777 walkie-talkie, surprised by his commander’s contact.
“Hii niBeta. Over.”
“Rats have killed the cat.” Alongu said in Swahili, with a tinge of botheration. Something was terribly awry. His commander had just used the code red phrase.
He is compromised. Twinematsiko’s heart started pounding. Now it would fall upon him to complete the operation. Without the general. Without complete knowledge of the plan.
“Panya hula mayai. Over,” Twinematsiko’s voice shook, reminding his commander of their protocol for such parlous situations.
“I am going there.” The general was to hurry to the safe house. “I have an idea. Contact me after five minutes. Over out.” With that, the radio fell silent. Twinematsiko, fraught, held the walkie-talkie to his face. He stood frozen.
The capture of the Major General would put everything in jeopardy.He would be hunted down and killed; or worse, incarcerated as a traitor to a country he has bled for. A country he must shed more blood for.
Twinematsiko reached into his front right pocket and felt the cold sting of metal from the orthogonal electronic device. Punctiliously, he lifted it out, slow and shaky. Any engagement too early, or even too late, would put his comrades in peril. He placed the walkie-talkie onto the table to dedicate both hands to the device —a black katochi-sized contraption with a series of smaller buttons and a big red one at the bottom.
Twinematsiko looked at the LED screen.It beeped 11:18 am. It was twenty seven minutes before he could use it according to the scheduling of the plan. Twinematsiko looked into the crowd, at the people whose lives he had in his hand. Gently, he placed the detonator back into his pocket, sat in his chair, and counted five minutes before contacting his commander.
11:20 AM
“Oyagala wameka ssebo?” Namukasa Topister gazed up from the shade of her MTN umbrella, squinting at the man who was looking around like a fugitive. He had appeared in front of her as she placed a grey shroud over her sleeping child and reached for the bundle of mobile credit.
“Ssebo? Sir, I have only for one sousand airtelo ne MTN.”
“Give me MTN,” the man boomed.
She looked down coyly, fumbling with the zip of her purse which doubled as an airtime scratch card store, and a sanctuary for her monetary harvest. She stretched across the wide shallow box of chewing gum, lollipops, wallets, and other commodities arrayed in an uncluttered manner—the airtime scratch card in her palm—to give the man his purchase, but he had turned again; his head was darting about in search of something in the crowd.
“Ssebo?”
Peeping from underneath his red cape was a melange of silky black and silver hair abutted to his perspiring ebony skin from which beads of sweat slinked downward, vanishing into his collar. The soldier towered in front of Topista, casting a shadow onto her Ongwen. He held a black miniature radio in his right hand, and her pay in the other. His stalwart arms were doodled with glutted veins, and swelled in his folded army-green camouflage shirt sleeves — as though ready to burst.
“Ssebo? Sir?” she called out again. The man spun around abruptly to find her hand outstretched with a slip of MTN airtime lying over its creases.
“Eh, sorry,” he said, slipping the airtime out of her palm and a moment later, slapping a pinkish note into it. He held her hand for a split second, grinning, before she jerked it out of his sudoriferous grip and plunged it into her purse where her shy eyes had once again fallen.
“Ono baby linya ye ani?” the soldier asked, attempting to thwart the awkwardness. Now squatting at her sun-baked feet, the man—using the walkie-talkie’s long aerial— lifted the leesu over the child’s face to the side revealing a peaceful visage oblivious of the beasts it would undoubtedly grow to affront. Namukasa raised her head and her eyes levelled with his. She sensed a tinge of agitation lurking deep in his eyes, interred beneath decades of witnessing men do horrendous things to each other.
She saw the disquietude when his head—each eye wedged into the corner of its socket—moved slightly to the side to peer at something, or someone,over his right shoulder and turned back abruptly hoping no one, not even Namukasa, had noticed.
“Ye Ongwen,” Namukasa said blithely, turning to smile at her child.
A short distance behind the uneasy soldier, amidst the multitude of shouting and merry people, some blowing their lungs into vuvuzelas and others chanting in antiphon to them, she spied the likely cause of the man’s paranoia.
“Ongwen?”
Two black-capped men clad in camouflage uniforms similar to that of the soldier, but of a blue hue, weaved through the crowd; skimming through faces, looking over heads, through raised arms, through waving flags and cacophonous vuvuzelas, toward Namukasa and her customer.
She gazed at the soldier after inspecting the rout. The man had turned to see her, his face contorted in confusion.
“Kitaawe mucholi,” she said, watching his puzzlement dissipate.
The two policemen wriggling through the crowd were panting and rubbing sweat off their brows with their sleeves, drawing closer and closer to Namukasa. One of them spoke into a black box much like the soldier’s. Namukasa craned her head slowly, looking at the soldier’s walkie-talkie and expecting it to burst with static voices.
The ka black boxstayed mute.
Her heart thumped rapidly, suspicion racing through her veins. What did the police want with a redtop soldier?
“Ooh… eno mwana kalungi,” he said. “Ongwen ya mwezi meka?”
“Kumpi mwaka kati.”
The soldier glanced at Namukasa, who beamed to feign ignorance of the man’s plight. The man smirked. Namukasa knew her face betrayed her.
A brief silence ensued.
“Alpha Red-letter. Jibu Alpha. Over,” the walkie-talkie crepitated, startling them both.
Namukasa stared as the soldier hastily squeezed the crackling box into his left armpit such that its sound waned, disappearing in the shouts around them. His sweat coalesced into translucent beads, cascading. His nostrils danced, expanding on inhalation and normalising upon expiration. She could see the engorged veins on his neck and temple throbbing, almost as fast as her heart was. Lips sealed, he looked into her eyes while gyrating his—a signal for her to look behind for him. She stared at him blankly.
Under the guidance of the soldier’s probing eyes, her gaze fell upon his leverage, and all muscles tensed. Namukasa’s heart dropped into the depths of her stomach. She was benumbed. The sight strummed a roulade of horror from her taut nerves.A furnace began to form in her eyes and hot tears amalgamated in it. Screams coalesced into a heavy knurl that lodged in her throat. She stifled a sob before it found ground in her voice.
The soldier’s thumb brushed over her child’s fragile neck, tracing circles where his Adam’s apple would be, while the other fingers lifted it at the nape and swaddled it in a loose fist.
Namukasa immediately focused into the crowd to trace the policemen, who were now about eight metres away, swivelling as they had been, looking for the soldier who squatted in front of her with his grip around her baby’s neck. They stood there a while, asking if anyone had seen a soldier pass by. People pointed them to different directions. There were many redtops in the area.
Go, please go, Namukasa prayed. She feared for her child.
One of the officers saw her and for a moment held her gaze, debating on whether to approach her or not.
She froze.
All her senses bombarded her distraught mind. Time warped into an indolent haze. The clamouring of the crowd slaked into widely sundered thuds conflated with the warm blood bustling deep in her ears. The hairs on the nape of her neck tautened into needles, pricking her sweaty skin and sending tremors down her stiff spine. Namukasa saw blurry figures dart in front of her tear-laden eyes, smelling the sweat and excitement emanating from them. She tasted bile burbling in streams of despair inside her throat.
The policeman started strolling toward her. Her lungs gasped for air but Namukasa could not breathe.
This was it.
The soldier was going to snap Ongwen’s neck and everyone would be too busy celebrating their new president to notice.
She narrowed her eyes at the fast approaching afande, trying to blink away her tears, and shook her head—no—then turned to show the soldier the same. His suspicious eyes punctured into hers, effusing distrust.
The red-capped soldier twisted his neck and looked over his shoulder to confirm Namukasa’s claim.
The crowd roared. Hot, sweat-drenched air floated by. Namukasa’s heart crashed against her ribs. Tight knots formed in her stomach. Her lungs rushed to drink in the heavy air.
One of the policemen stepped into within arm’s length of the soldier’s slouched back, facing Namukasa.
Don’t turn, please don’t turn, her mind screamed. She squeezed her eyelids shut and waited.
For an eternity, she waited.
11:26 AM
Cargen house, at Parliament Avenue, is a place only perfumed potbellied men with equally scented women by their side, or broke boys trying to impress paupers of girls, can patronise. The top floor, formerly Mateo’s Bar and Lounge, is where Café Javas has sat for four years now, and below it is Flavour Town—cordoned from the avenue by a short stone hedge sloping downward toward Kampala Road.
Thirst-inducing and hunger-rousing fragrances streaming from the two places filled the air despite its blighting by the loathsome stench of sweat rising from the drenched bodies of the crowd outside. You could hear cutlery chink against glass if you listened closely. Customers sat at the balcony of the café, sipping hot drinks, eating pricy snacks, and watching the procession of the convoy and supporters of the new president creep past Orient Bank. People swarmed around the vehicles, all leaping to touch the hand of their saviour. The cars laboured to move through the horde of people that filled the road.
When Namukasa Topister finally opened her eyes, the dark brawny soldierwas still there, gazing at her. Once again his eyes stabbed into hers, barking for her to take another look for him. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she saw the blur of Ongwen slumbering despite the clamouring of the rout. She turned to the soldier, eyes begging as a limpid bead rolled down her sweaty cheek. He remained cold to her orison. Losing hope in her supplication, she turned and focused into the crowd.
The policemen had vanished.
She twisted and turned, eyes perusing through faces, skimming the spaces between moving bodies. They were gone. She quickly turned to the man and nodded yes, yes.
She saw a sigh escape his lips a brief moment. Her own would never come until the lump clogging her throat melted away. The knots in her intestines would only loosenwhen the threat to Ongwen was no more.
“…letter, over,” the walkie-talkie came out of the armpit, still crackling. Namukasa watched as the soldier responded, lips to speaker.
“Alpha Red-letter. Ripoti. Over,” he said, his left index finger now stroking Ongwen’s chubby cheek. Relief washed over Namukasa.
“Ndege iko kwa mkono. Over?” the voice, seeking permission, came with a delayed chant similar to that of the jubilant hordes.
“Kusubiri amri. Alpha ova en out.”
There was a silence between them, besieged by the deafening ululations of the city. She had heard Swahili before but this contained incomprehensible gibberish—code?
Namukasa thought she had seen—before he transformed —the amicable admiration of a father in the soldier’s interest in her son. But that was a façade. Now she saw danger.
“Nyabo,” the soldier spoke, turning to her. “Eno mwana twala waka.”
“Ku … Kulwaki?”
“Siyagala kintu mbbi kumukwata ne katini. Ka—”the man paused, calculating his next words. He lowered his voice to a whisper—one she could hear over the commotion around them—and said, “something wrong can happen at any time. Twala waka.”
There was an urgency to him that shook Namukasa: his eyes—pink like those of Ongwen’s souse of a father—stabbed into hers, commanding that she heed his dank caution. She felt it again.Fleeting instinct screaming. That aura.The agitation in him she had felt earlier. The man was rattled by something.
His gruff voice, Namukasa now realised, held a tincture of premonition to it, as if he knew the exact bad thing that may happen to her son.
Another brief period of silence ensued before the tooting of vuvuzelas broke in. She nictitated, the soldier broke eye contact and stood up, stared at Ongwen a brief moment then shifted his radio into his right hand and turned, jostling into the crowd.
“Ssebo, liinda balance wo,”Namukasa shouted, rising, determined to give him his change. She searched the crowd and saw him meandering through the commotion. “Ssebo.”
Taking advantage of her short stature, she slithered through the crowd with aplomb and left her child behind.
11:28 AM
“Ssebo, liinda balance wo!”
Alongu turned his head and saw the short slim lady slip into the crowd after him.He now noticed that she wore a red Uganda Cranes jersey and a large black velvety skirt. A stripped black-grey lessu acted as a head wrap.
The woman vanished among the people and Alongu stood on his toes, peering over heads and shoulders in search of her. His earlier threat against her child’s life to coerce her into aiding his escape from his pursuers still rankled, bit the infant Ongwen had slept through the turmoil, purblind about the horror about to befall his nation and its oligarchy.
Alongu turned to push through to Thobani centre, to safety. He immediately locked eyes with four policemen he hadn’t seen before, digging through the crowd toward him, spreading out. Alongu turned back toward Parliament Avenue and saw the long-faced pursuer, with Ongwen’s mother at his side, advancing toward him.
Alongu was boxed in: a mural of people eating pizza and sipping fizzy drinks behind him, enemies approaching from the left, from the right and absolute death along Kampala road, in front of him.
He looked at his watch and noticed the walkie-talkie in his hand shaking. 11:28 am. Seventeen minutes early.
He called into the radio, “Beta Red-letter, hii ni Alpha. Jibu. Over.”
“Hii ni Beta. Umefika? Over.”
“Kapa ni katika sanduku. Maliza Red-letter bila mimi. Over.” Alongu scanned the site before him, contemplating an escape route. There was only one—just a lane away from him, pushing through the multitude of people was our man and his convoy approaching Orient Bank.
“Fungua Red-letter. Call sign: Alpha—Alpha—Romeo—Lima. Confamason code: Six—Eight—November—Alpha—Juliet—Six—Two—Sierra. Confirm.”
“Sir?”
“Confirm code,” Alongu growled. His subordinate stayed silent. Alongu tightened his fist and ground his teeth.
“Code confirmed,” he heard the voice quiver. “Nitakuweka chini na mashujaa. Imekuwa heshima, bwana.”
“Finis it. Alpha Red-letter over en out.”
Alongu then marched toward his death.
****
Twinematsiko was sweaty with anxiety. He kept on checking his watch. He had called the General five minutes later as instructed, after the commander had told him that he was compromised and that he was headed for the primary extraction point at the Thobani Centre along Kampala Road. I have an idea. Contact me after five minutes. Those were his last words before going radio silent.
He could not help but wonder what the General had in mind. When he contacted him five minutes later, the general had told him to await instructions. He fidgeted in his seat, his hand shaking the radio. He stared into the crowd, searching it for any suspicious-looking individual aware of his intentions, who might be snaking his way toward the restaurant. Torrid chants filled the air. The people only looked esurient for more claxoning of vuvuzelas and trumpets.
He put the walkie-talkie down and reached for his cup. The tea had cooled. He replaced the cup, rose to his feet, and walked to the guardrail to do a more thorough search of the fervent rabble.
That was when the walkie-talkie crackled with the General’s voice. In a swift motion, Twinematsiko picked up the black vibrating radio. They spoke Swahili. Twinematsiko asked if he had made it to the extraction point. Alongu replied that he was cornered and that Twinematsiko had to complete the operation on his own. He sensed fear in the general’s voice. Twinematsiko froze. There was a rumble in his stomach, pins on his skin and a weight tugging at his heart.
The General recited the call sign and execution code. Twinematsiko checked his watch. 11:28 am. He was seventeen minutes early.
“Sir?”
“Confirm code,” Twinematsiko heard the General growl.
The timeline of the plan had changed. He lifted the katochi-shaped device from his pocket and punched in the execution code. His hand shuddered. He stared at it, reminiscing over the events that had eventuated to this final day. Everything would rest on the shoulders of he who held the detonator. The green LED screen beeped: ARMED.
“Code confirmed,” Twinematsiko voice quivered. He promised Alongu he would lay him down with the heroes.
“Finis it.Alpha Red-letter over and out.”
The radio fell silent for the last time. Twinematsiko walked down the short flight of stairs from Great Wall Chinese restaurant onto Kampala Road. People pushed past him. He switched the channel on his radio to broadcast the last order of his commander to team leaders stationed at various targets of attack.
“Kapa ni katika sanduku,” Twinematsiko said into the walkie-talkie. “Dakika tatu.Call sign: Tango—Bravo—Romeo—Lima. Code: Six—Eight—November—Alpha—Juliet—Six—Two—Sierra.” He repeated the codes a second and third time.
In three minutes, the attack would begin.
The device filled his right fist. He looked down at the timer.
11:29 am.
He had two minutes to reach the planned location for detonation.
****
Time froze for Alongu. Nothing moved except him. He heard chants and blaring instruments muffled as though he were listening through a thick mattress. He could hear the incessant hum of blood rushing in his ears. Daggers twisted in his chest. His skin itched with pricks. His lungs suctioned air with difficulty. Expand, relax. Expand, relax. Sweat skidded across his neck and face and disappeared into his chest.
He took a step onto the road.
Memories flashed before him. None were beautiful. The only happiness he saw was on the faces of his men, those he had bled with. There was no one to go home to. No family. They had all been butchered. Their limbs strewed his father’s compound; blood seeped into soil, roasting flesh vitiated the cold morning air with the stench of death and the grass-thatched mud huts roared in fervid flames. He was a man who had run for his life and left his family to die. All in one night.
I was a coward, he thought.
He saw his life in the army; a private at first, a man without reason to live, one looking for a painful death by those who had given it to his kin. But death never came. Somehow bullets always missed him, taking those closest to him. His friends. His men.
He saw memories of himself and his squad rain bullets upon the rebels he had vowed to take his vengeance upon. He remembered the disappointment he felt when he held the rebel commander’s head in a plastic bag: the loss of purpose. He remembered the meet with the commander-in-chief. The man who had armed him with the tools to avenge his family. In him, he had finally found purpose.
And now, his death in defense of that man was going to serve the ultimate purpose.
Alongu stepped onto the grass separating the two lanes of Kampala Road, into the shade of a tree just across from Nkrumah Lane. He turned and saw the policemen close in. Namukasa stood afar, away from her child, away from the policemen.Alongu closed his eyes and took a step toward the convoy. People gave way to the Red-top soldier.
A heartbeat later, an intensely bright flash blinded him. That was the last thing he saw.
11:38 AM
Twinematsiko sat in the back of the black TX Land Cruiser with tinted windows, stationed in the dark parking lot on Nkrumah Road, just behind Uganda House. He still held the detonator in his hand.
After confirming the execution code from the Major General, Twinematsiko had squeezed through the crowd in front of Great Wall Chinese restaurant, crossed Kampala road and headed toward Cham Towers Shopping Mall, passing by Aristoc bookshop and Bata. He had then slopped via Russel Road, past Mirembe Arcade onto Nkrumah Road then immediately taken a left, running along Nkrumah to meet Nasser Lane behind Uganda House that led to his destination—Public Car Parking. He unlocked the car, sat in the back and readied himself to execute his orders.
A few breaths later, Twinematsiko had pressed the red button of the detonator.
It was ten minutes since he last spoke to his commander, and four since carrying out his last order. The small screen of the device glowed in the dark, illuminating his face with the word: EXECUTED.
He had set the nation back on track with just the push of a button.
Twinematsiko was paralysed with a mix of horror and joy. He remembered his promise to his fallen hero, his commander; the man who had practically pulled him from the tight grip of death — the man he had vowed to follow to the death.
He jumped out of his reverie, grabbed the M16 tucked under the car seat and opened the door to chaos. Car alarms blared in the dim-lit parking lot, their headlamps blinking on an off. Dust-laden smoke floated into the hemmed-in parking lot, misting the space. Twinematsiko squinted, trudging through the dark with his free arm across his nose to prevent inhalation of dingy air. He followed the dim light to its source. Soon, he was exiting the parking lot onto Nkrumah Lane.
Bedlam.
People, in their multitudes, scurried down the lane in a frenzy, stomping away from the flames raging on Kampala Road. A miscellany of horrified yells filled the air; everyone seeking help. Twinematsiko sought to help only one.
Cars parked along the lane had their window glasses shattered, doors ajar and tires hissing from puncture.
Twinematsiko climbed against the tide of people pouring down Nkrumah Lane, a few dodging him and the rest bumping into him. The excitement that had blanketed the city minutes earlier was supplanted by horror. Those who had fought to reach the convoy were now scuttling away. He tightened the grip on his gun and climbed up to Kampala Road.
The lead car of the convoy, ablaze, was piled onto charred bodies while the second had toppled into Orient Bank. The tree separating the road lanes had been felled by the explosion, crushing a few people under its weight. The once ebullient crowd, chanting and waving flags in the air, had transformed into muted corpses and injured bodies screeching in trepidation.
The flames danced on the burning cars, licking higher, leaping in huge hot tongues such that the mixture of sounds around Twinematsiko communicated in one language — pain.
Smoke unfurled from the apexes of the flames and from roasting corpses, billowing, blacking out the light, imposing shadows around the exploded convoy.Above the sounds of raging flames and shrieking Ugandans was that of shattering ceramic and glass kitchenware from Cargen House, Café Javas, and Flavour Town.The surviving customers were dashing out, and several bodies were hunched over seats or covered under debris on the floor.
Twinematsiko searched the corpses littering the street but could not see the General. He remembered the commander was headed to Thobani Centre, but a glance in that direction was enough for him to conclude that the general couldn’t have gone there. There weren’t any Redtop-uniformed bodies in sight.
He walked into the middle of the road, coughing from the inhaled smoke. He was determined to check each corpse until he found his leader, his saviour. He stepped over torn limbs and puddles of blood, kicking prostrate bodies supine.
“Aargh… Aargh… Wha— Wha— What is happening?” Twinematsiko heard someone groan. He turned, in the voice’s direction, labouring to focus through the thick haze of smoke.
A few corpses away from him lay his commander, dazed, turning onto his back. Twinematsiko hurried to him.
Reaching him, the younger soldier threw the strap of the M16 over his shoulder and bent down as the gun swung onto his back.
“Wha—what is this?” Alongu croaked.
“Sir, niko hapa. Stay with me. Have been—”
“What?” the general asked, confused.
“Tunapaswa kuhamia.We have to move. Now.”
“What? Wha—why? Who are you?” General Alongu asked.
Twinematsiko realised that his commander, from a concussion, had temporarily lost his memory. He grabbed a fistful of Alongu’s collar and wound the cloth around his hand, almost strangling the commander. He pulled hard, his left hand closing onto his right wrist in support as he dragged the General off the tarmac and onto the grassy traffic island between the lanes.
“Stop. What are you doing?” Alongu croaked, short of breath.
“Samahani, have you been injured anywhere?” Twinematsiko asked, searching Alongu for wounds. The general’s eyes were swollen shut such that Twinematsiko could see nothing of the eyeballs. He reached down for one of the eyes while drawing out a knife strapped to his leg and made shallow lacerations just above the lower border of the eye socket, below the tumescence. He squeezed them, and thick blood oozed out. Alongu screamed, but Twinematsiko kept squeezing until the swelling subsided.
“Wewe ni nani?” Alongu inquired, upon focusing on Twinematsiko who rose and tried to lift him by the shoulders but soon learned that one of them was dislocated. Twinematsiko snapped the shoulder back into its socket. The general screamed, cursing.
“What happen?” Alongu asked, moments later.
“Tulifanikiwa, sir.”
“What?”
“Things didn’t go as planned. It wasn’t supposed to go off that early.”
“I don’t understand. What is happen? Why you calling me sir?” the commander was still confused.
“I’m very sorry sir. You were not supposed to be in range.”
“What range? What are you talk about?” Alongu asked. “Tell me what happen hiya….”
A woman screamed behind Twinematsiko.
“You happened, sir. You happened here,” he said, smiling, proud.
“Help them… help them,” Alongu whispered.
“Sir?”
“I say help dem,” Alongu barked. Twinematsiko was bewildered. He looked around and saw a woman, clad in a red Uganda Cranes jersey and black skirt, blood trickling down her neck from underneath a head wrap. She had tripped over a rider who legs were buried under his motorcycle. She was calling out for her child. He saw no child about.
“But—”
“Now!” The commander ordered.
Twinematsiko obeyed. He rose to his feet and walked to his death.
11:44 AM
Alongu’s lungs struggled to expand in a tightened chest, a sharp stab jabbing him each time the police pickup ran over a corpse or veered in attempt to dodge causalities. Major General Alongu—hands cuffed at his back and legs in a tight curl such that his knees rested below his chin —was wedged under the cushion-padded metal benches of the truck upon which the police constables rested their rumps.He could still hear screams over the incessant seething of the truck’s engine.
The 999 pickup was speeding along Kampala Road toward the Central Police Station — better known as CPS. The constables stared in horror as they passed wailing women, figures in varied states of injury crawling in pools of blood, and others madly stampeding away from the explosion at Parliament Avenue. Some were taking advantage of the pandemonium to pillage shops.
Reaching Crane Chambers, the car slowed to turn. The driver punched into the horn and the vehicle shook in a thunderous toot, but he honked in vain. People still scampered across the road, more afraid of another explosion than a few stranded policemen. The pickupidled awhile.
Finally, it managed to branch off Kampala Road, climbing toward East African Development Bank, then taking a left onto Buganda road from where it sped to the junction overlooking CPS.
There too however, people hurried out screaming.
Was CPS under attack?
Two army-green trucks were parked outside. The pickup rapidly crossed the junction and parked beside them.The constables leapt off, their AK47s shaking in their hands. One woman, probably the last survivor, ran shrieking down the flight of stairs leading into the police station. Gunfire erupted somewhere inside.
The men glanced at each other, debating who was to lead the way. One of them promptly announced that he would stay behind to watch the suspect.
The foyer was empty and the men quiet in their movements, careful not to alert the attackers. Wind rushed in through gaping windows, carrying with it shrill screams from the burning city.
But before they could proceed, a soldier, descending the stairs of the third floor, peeped at the policemen and swiftly jerked back before being noticed. Seconds later, the police constables were caught off guard.Bullets rained down on them, and before any could fire a single shot, they had become police corpses.
The soldiers descended the flight of stairs and exited the station. Upon spotting them, the constable who’d chosen, wisely, to keep watch over the arrested soldier jumped out of the pickup and bolted down Square 2, disappearing into the crowd.
A Private marched to the vehicle and on inspection, found someone cramped underneath the benches.
“Sir?” the private uttered, questioning the apparition before him.
They had received a coded broadcast that the Major General was compromised. That he was either captured or dead. But now here he was, struggling to breathe under seats like a petty criminal.
“Major Alongu is here!” The private shouted.
Alongu was pulled off the truck and helped to his feet. The handcuffs were broken off and, flinging his arms over their shoulders, the men carried him to the police canteen. A few remained to stand sentry at the entrance.
11:54 AM
The police canteen is at the bottom of CPS. It is a small, compact room with huge tables covered by thick, chequered table-cloth upon which the menus are pasted. Plastic chairs are arrayed along the tables allowing just a narrow gap for customers to squeeze through to their chosen corner for a meal. Just at the entrance is the counter, behind which stand stocked refrigerators and an LCD TV screen hoisted in the leftmost corner.
For the first time in hours, Alongu felt a cool breeze on his skin. The buzzing of the refrigerator filled the room, and the fragrance of food wafting in through the kitchen door behind the countersoothed him. A fluorescent tube overhead blipped on and off. The TV, muted, was playing images of the horror—women, and men wailing, smoke poisoning the air, others rising dazed and confused, searching for missing limbs. Shops by the roadside were being ransacked while people darted from a danger the camera hadn’t seen, or shown.
The image of a man with squinty, teary eyes and a face wetted by streams of sweat filled the screen. He held a microphone to his lips, mouthing something in panic. He turned continuously, signalling the camera to focus on the motile mural that stood behind him. And again, the screen showed a city in turmoil.
Alongu sat alone, lolling in a plastic chair and staring at the menu.His mind replayed the ordeal he had just witnessed. He had now calmed. He felt safe. He was among his own people. He wasn’t sure how he knew them, but they had freed him and treated him with the same deference as the man who had burst into flames before his very eyes. He tried to recall his life before his waking.Nothing returned.
“Sir,” a soldier called, walking in with a thick green block bearing a bent aerial and buttons. Alongu looked at the man, who was dressed exactly like him save for the two black Vs sewn at his upper arms. He was slim, with sinewy arms emerging beneath folded sleeves, cap loose on his head, and boots black and shiny. The soldier stopped abruptly, stamped his right foot and saluted Alongu. He waited for a reaction from the general but Alongu just kept on staring.
“You have a call on the secure line, sir!”
“Call? Why? Who call me?”
“The President. He asked to speak only to you, sir,” the soldier, standing stiff, said.
“Bring en I see.” Alongu reached out, and the satellite phone was placed into his hand.
“Allo,” he said into the SAT phone.
“My friend. I was told you had fallen, but I did not believe it. You are a soldier who never dies.”
The caller’s accent was infected with R’s where L’s should be. Alongu thought the voice and accent sounded familiar.
“I don’t remember what happen.”
“You don’t worry. Uuh—Uuh—” the caller searched for words, “We—we—we shall take you outside for treatment.” Alongu was now sure he knew the person at the other end of the line.
“You have done a very good job for your country. Uuh—Uuh— you shall be rewarded. You are a hero of the struggle.” Alongu closed his eyes and tried to summon a picture of the caller. Nothing.
“Thank you,” he responded.
“I shall be on television at exactly noon. It would have been very good if you had appeared with me, but I am very far away.” Alongu wanted to ask where he was but restrained himself. “I shall fly you here tomorrow and reward you in person. See you tomorrow my friend. Thank you once again.”
“Thank you.” The line disconnected.
Alongu’s instincts told him to flee, but he decided against it. He turned to the TV.
“Add volume,” he asked the soldier. Moments later, screams filled the room, and the news reporter’s voice shook.
“I repeat, there has been an attack on the president-elect this morning in Kampala. And as you can see,” the reporter signalled the camera, once more, to show the horrific scene around them, continuing, “there have been many injuries. Many people have lost their lives. People are crying and screaming for help but there isn’t any. We have been told that similar attacks have been carried out at major police stations, military barracks, and important government buildings. The various embassies are surrounded, the airport has been shut down. It seems like the whole country has been put on lock down.”
Alongu froze. If the president is dead, who did I just talk to?
The reporter pressed the earpiece to his ear, listening to something before he spoke to the camera, “We have received word that the former president is going to give an address. Back to you Sheila.”
The images cut to a neat room in which Sheila, a voluptuous, light-skinned lady with shiny lips, and a red dress, stood. She held a tablet in her hands and addressed the camera directly.
Alongu’s heart thumped. Was this why I was arrested?Did I have anything to do with these attacks?
“Thank you, George. Now the former president will be giving his address from his country home. NTV reporters are working round the clock to bring you more information about the tragedy that struck this great nation this morning,” the stunning lady said, revealing no emotion, and staring directly at Alongu.
The images cut to a man. He had a bald burnished head, saggy eye bags and wrinkled cheeks dotted with black spots. He sat in a big black chair above which were arrayed the Ugandan flag and pictures of himself when he was younger, stronger. He donned a black suit with a white shirt, and a yellow tie disappeared into his coat. His forearms rested upon a wide coffee-brown table on whose right was placed a miniature Uganda flag and another of the East African Community. A short pile of neatly organised documents were stacked on the opposite side.
“My fellow Ugandans,” he started. “The tragic events of this morning come to show that we are not safe in this vortex of national security. My sincere condolences go to those who have lost loved ones, and to those injured…”
Alongu stood up, kicking his chair against the wall. This was the caller. He had the same accent. The same voice. The same detached tone. The same speed of speech.
Alongu trembled, his heart drumming, his fingers twitching.
He looked at the young soldier, who was smiling at the TV.
“In light of the present crisis, I am resuming my duties until the criminals behind this barbaric attack have been found and brought to justice.I cannot just sit back and watch the progress we have struggled to attain spoilt by cowards—”
The soldier muted the TV, placed the remote on the table and turned to Alongu with a jubilant air in his manner.
“Congratulations sir. We have succeeded,” he said, beaming.
Alongu stared, wide-eyed. A mighty sense of foreboding came over him. And the sudden feeling of a pressing need to escape, he asked the soldier, “Weya is toilet?”
“I am very sorry sir,” replied the soldier, blocking Alongu’s path from the table, “there is nowhere you are going. You are a loose end that needs to be tied up.”
Alongu considered knocking out his lights, but as soon as the thought crossed his mind, more soldiers marched into the room with a purposeful grip on their guns.
He knew it was the end for him.