PRIMAL Vengeance

Chapter 8



Kaljak Vilage, Abyei District



Sagrib lifted his pistol and shot the old man through the face. The body remained upright on its knees for a moment before it collapsed into the dust. The infidel had served his purpose. Now Sagrib knew why the village was almost empty. He knew why there were no cattle and he knew who had fired at them, killing one of his men.

The Dinka men had warned the villagers. A group led by the American no less. This was interesting news for Sagrib. The battered body his men had dumped outside Khartoum hardly seemed like a threat at the time. According to the old man, Sagrib had only just missed the foreigner and his band of would-be warriors. He hoped they would meet again soon.

The tall Arab surveyed the small group of prisoners his men had captured. Half a dozen old men and a few women was hardly the bounty he had promised them. Still the three American women would go a long way to easing their disappointment. The two young ones and the old lady were squatting in the dirt with the rest of the prisoners. Their capture had been the only highlight of an attack that had cost him the life of one of his men.

A single burst of fire from a machine gun had hit his lead vehicle, shattered the windscreen and almost decapitated the man in the front seat. It was the first casualty they had taken since commencing the raids. The first real resistance they had experienced. Still, the new Chinese weapons had quickly turned the battle in his favor. The mortars had proven themselves to be most useful.

"Bring her!" Sagrib pointed to the old woman. She had already attempted to sully his ears with all manner of infidel words.

He strode towards one of the village huts. The mud walls were scarred with bullet holes but otherwise intact. Two of his men dragged the woman behind him.

The protests of the two younger women stopped Sagrib in his tracks. He turned back to his men guarding the prisoners. "Those two are yours; share them with the others."

His men eagerly dragged the white women from the group. An elderly Dinka rose to protect them and was clubbed to the ground with the buttstock of a rifle. Sagrib grinned as he turned back to the clinic. The bitches had no idea what was in store for them, he thought.

As his men dragged the old woman Sagrib stopped to take a bag from the back of his open-topped jeep. In front of a hut he unclipped the bag and emptied the contents on the ground. He ordered his men to pin the woman against the mud-brick wall.

"Nothing you can do will scare me!" There was a look of defiance in her eyes. "The Lord is with me."

Sagrib picked up a hammer and a metal peg from the ground, one of three used to secure a long range radio mast. "Oh, he will be soon." He held up one of the sinister looking spikes. "They crucified your prophet, didn't they?"

The old woman gasped, her eyes wide with fear. She struggled against the guards but they held her firm, pinning her arms to the wall as they lifted her up.

Sagrib brought his face close to hers, his lips peeled back in a hideous leer. "You should have stayed in your own country, witch!"

"No, no, you wouldn't!" She shook her head in disbelief as he placed the spike on the back of her hand. He paused, savoring her fear, then smashed the spike with the hammer. The thin shaft of metal punctured her flesh, bones and tendons with a sickening crunch. She screamed in pain as he bashed the peg home, driving it into the mud wall. She continued to scream as he repeated the treatment on her other hand.

The Arab stepped back to survey his handiwork. The old woman was now suspended by the spikes in her hands, crucified. She whimpered and gasped for air as her feet scrabbled against the dry mud wall.

"Look how close you are to your God now, infidel." He spat on the woman's face.

The old lady looked at him with sad eyes. "I forgive you, my son," she whispered before the pain overwhelmed her and she passed out.

Sagrib stared at the woman in disbelief. He was no stranger to killing innocents but the women's deathly calm disturbed him. Usually they begged for their lives, right up until their last breath.

"Get the vehicles ready. We're leaving," Sagrib ordered one of his men as he turned his back on the woman. She would take hours to die. Suitable punishment for bringing her lies to his country, he thought.

He checked his Rolex. They had been in the village for a little over an hour. It was time to move. There was an ever so slight chance that the SPLA or the UN would send a patrol. So far they had seen neither the South Sudanese Army nor the peacekeepers but Omar had warned him that he was to avoid conflict with any offical security forces.

The shrill scream of one of the American girls pierced the air. Sagrib smiled. His men were enjoying themselves. No need to interrupt them just yet. He reached into his four-wheel drive and pulled out the satellite phone Yang had given him. The Chinese operative would want to know about the American and his men. Perhaps he would have some intelligence on their home base.