CHAPTER 1

Sarah Lawson and her parents walked nervously down thecrowded streets as dozens of ragtag gunmen carefully scrutinizedthe crowd from both sides of the road. In the cool morning mistshe could feel the warm blood running through her veins. Herheart rate seemed to triple, and the muscles in her stomach andlegs grew tense. She was sweating heavily, the drops rolling downher skin under her jean jacket and pants.

In spite of her fear and discomfort, Sarah tried to lookcomposed. The traumatic experience of the previous night wasstill fresh on her mind; the deafening sound of guns and bombsstill reverberated in her ears, as if the action were taking placenear her. Never had she been so frightened and confused. Herthoughts ran randomly.

She had been begging her parents to leave the capitalamidst rumors of rebel advances toward its suburbs. The rebelswere reported to be extremely fierce and heartless, institutinga reign of terror in the areas under their grip. Everywhere therewas whispering about panic-stricken government soldiersdeserting their posts and fleeing before the advancing rebels.The rebels were tactically superior, physically strong, andwillfully courageous—qualities allegedly enhanced during theirtime of training abroad, when witch doctors injected powerfulcharms into their veins. This made them fearless, reckless, andunrivalled, especially before the poorly equipped and demoralizedgovernment soldiers. Such constant rumors created a forebodingatmosphere that dampened the hopes of even the most optimisticloyalist of the regime. Many residents were already evacuating thesuburbs for fear of being caught up in the web of events.

All this made Sarah nervous. She began to fear for the safetyof her family. But her father, Peter Lawson, was headstrong,presumptuous, and perhaps brainwashed by the waves ofgovernment propaganda that adorned every newspaper headlineand punctuated every radio and television broadcast. He wasconvinced that the rebels would never reach the capital andadamant that he would never evacuate just because of somebaseless gossip being spread by enemies of progress.

Sarah's mother, Decontee, was perceptive, calculative, andsober. She always looked at all sides of an issue before formingan opinion. Though she wasn't one who took things for granted,she was not one to easily cave in to panic. This pragmatism wasprobably due to her missionary background, which had givenher more than just faith and religion. She had been adopted andbrought up by missionaries who had visited her village when shewas only three years old. They had fallen in love with her oneevening when they were conducting an evangelistic service andlittle Decontee was moved to do a solo in her vernacular. Theyhad negotiated with her parents to be allowed to take her alongto the city so that she could go to school and further develop hertalent.

Like Sarah, her mother had taken a keen interest in thepolitical unrest around her and had some feelings of foreboding.But she knew that it was useless trying to change her husband'smind. She had been married to him for nearly twenty-fouryears and knew him too well. Once his mind was made upabout a particular issue, it would take nothing short of divineintervention to dissuade him. Decontee had often joked withSarah that her father's head was as hard as a steel wall. So whenSarah started becoming frustrated over his intransigence, hermother just patted her on the back and consoled her with one ofher religious sayings: "God is in control. Let's give it all to him."

Sarah had obeyed sheepishly. Somehow she had borrowedsome of her mother's faith. Decontee's words might have beenclichéd, but they were difficult to argue against. Perhaps I'm beingtoo hysterical, Sarah had thought. I am only twenty-one years oldand naïve. Perhaps my mind is needlessly manufacturing fear andanxiety. Sarah had promised herself that she wouldn't air herfears anymore. Not until the events of the previous night, andher family's forceful eviction from their home, did she finallyconvince herself that her fears were, after all, justified—and thather parents, especially her father, were fools.

Hell had broken loose exactly ten minutes after the Lawsonshad said their evening prayer. At first they heard the faint soundof bombs echoing in the distance. As the clock ticked, the boomsgot louder and louder, closer and closer. With every bomb blastthe earth shook, shattering windows and sending householdobjects crashing to the floor. Soon the sound of bombing gaveway to an exchange of gunfire coming from every direction.Empty bullet shells fell on the roof like rain. It seemed as thoughtheir neighborhood had suddenly turned into a war zone, andtheir house was at the battlefront. Pandemonium broke out.Sarah's father dove under his bed. Sarah felt like her bowelswere about to break loose, but she was too afraid to go to thebathroom. Instead she and her mother threw themselves downon the red living room rug to avoid being hit by stray bullets.

Sarah looked at her mother and was surprised to see thatDecontee wasn't as shaken as Sarah had expected her to be. Infact, her mother's eyes were closed and her lips were moving,noiselessly reciting something. She's praying! Sarah thought. Iwish I had her faith, she sighed to herself as her eyes filled withtears.

The shooting went on for what seemed like an eternity,until the Lawsons heard strange voices in the yard. Soon therewas a loud banging on the front door, followed by threateningcommands.

"Who's here? Open up or I'll burn the house down!"

Sarah froze, not knowing whether to answer or run for cover.There was a brief silence followed by another bang and morethreatening commands. Decontee answered in a clear, calm tonethat told Sarah that her mother was not a bit scared.

"We are in here. Just wait a minute. I'm coming to open the door."

"Hurry up!" the person outside yelled.

"I have to find the keys. I'm coming," she replied. She pickedup the keys from a nearby table and started for the door, but thenshe hesitated. "Go get your father," she said to Sarah.

Sarah could not understand. Why had her mother askedher to go and fetch her father? Decontee obviously knew thatthe people outside were rebels who wanted nothing but to seeblood. She wanted to argue but thought it wasn't the proper timeand place. So she reserved comment and only shot her mother acutting glance before heading for the room where her father was.

"Daddy?" she half-whispered as she entered her parents'room. She got no response. A sheet was still neatly spread on theking-sized bed, over which hung a white night curtain to preventmosquitoes. The room was cold even though the air conditionerwas turned off. The scent of pineapple air freshener infused theair. Sarah called to her father again and peered underneath thebed. He wasn't there.

She opened the door to the master bathroom on the southend of the bedroom, but he was not there, either. Sarah wasnervous. She called to him again with a trembling voice.

"Shhh!" Her father gestured to her with his finger againsthis lips. "Where is your mother?" His voice was shaking too ashe emerged from the closet where he had taken refuge behind acluster of coats.

"She wants you outside," Sarah said straightaway.

"Outside?" he asked nervously. "Is there any trouble?" Helooked bewildered and visibly overwhelmed by the sudden turnof events.

Sarah was trying to remain calm. She began to answer whena loud, uncouth voice came from the direction of the living room.

"Who all here?" the man voice thundered in Liberian pidgin.

"Only my husband and my daughter and ..." Deconteestuttered. She was uncertain about the houseboy, and so she didnot mention him. He had vanished from the living room after thefamily prayer and did not say whether or not he was going home.

"You sure?"

"Yes, I think so. Only my husband and daughter."

"Where them er?" the man demanded.

"Peter, Sarah!" Decontee called out toward the bedroom.

"Someone wants to see you." She smiled at the fellow and gavehim a wink, which had no effect on his hostile posture.

In the bedroom, Sarah looked up at her father and saw fear inhis eyes. His hands were trembling and his knees were quivering.After a brief while, he managed to ask in an unsteady tone, "Wehave to go outside, don't we?"

She nodded and led the way to the living room, her fatherfollowing close behind.

The man with an AK-47 was standing before Decontee. Hehad the gruesome appearance of a sorcerer. He wore a wig firmlyheld to his head with a red piece of cloth. His face was paintedlike a warrior's, half charcoal-black and half chalk-white. Itwas evident from his sunken, red eyes that he was addicted tomarijuana.

He swung his small, sinewy body around as Sarah and herfather entered the living room. "Who es inside?" he demanded.

"No one else is inside," Sarah answered.

"Okay, if I fin anybody there, I kayy you," he threatened, hiseyes fastened on her suspiciously.

Two other gunmen joined them, looking equally frightening.

They began asking what Sarah thought were silly questions:they wanted to know the family's tribal background, politicalaffiliation, occupations, and so on. Sarah's mother did most of theanswering.

Everybody jumped when Sarah's alarm clock rang. Itsounded six times. The man who had come in first becamenervous.

"Wha tha?" he demanded, shuddering.

"That's the alarm clock in my room," Sarah replied.

"Wha thin call alarm?" he asked.

Sarah suppressed a chuckle. He doesn't even know what analarm is.

"The clock in my room rings after every hour. It's now aboutsix o'clock," she explained.

"You lie," he shouted, looking toward the bedroom. "If I finought somebody there, you die." With that he ordered the twoother gunmen to search the house.

The Lawsons held their breath as the men started for theinterior of the house, taking cover at every step like professionalcops on a mission to nab a hardened criminal. None of theLawsons knew for sure whether the houseboy had left. Peterwanted to tell them they'd made a mistake—that there was a boyworking for them, that they were not sure if he left the house,that maybe he was in one of the rooms, hiding. But somethingtold him that it was too dangerous to start giving conflictinginformation.

The gunmen returned to the living room with a clean sheet.Nothing suspicious. Each of the Lawsons took a deep breath ofrelief.

"Okay." The first man on the scene, who was apparentlytheir head, spoke. "This place da war zone. We still carrying outmopping up. It too dangerous to stay. You gat to leave."

"We understand that this place has become a war zone andit would be dangerous for us to stay," Decontee said gently. "Butwhere are we going to go, my son?"

"Jus pac few tins and fallow the people you see outside," theman replied, a little more polite now.

The family obeyed, packing a few personal things andwalking outside.

Sarah surveyed the sidewalks, scanning left and right fromthe corner of her eye, and saw corpses littering the roadside.Most of them appeared to have been soldiers killed in combat;their green camouflage uniforms were soaked crimson withblood that still oozed from their bodies. Sarah also noticedgunmen picking individuals out of the fear-stricken multitudethat swamped the street. Many of the people were begging as theywere being led away. She did not fully understand what was goingon, but something told her that those individuals were victims ofcollective guilt and that their friends and relatives would neversee them again.

Suddenly Sarah heard someone behind her calling her name.Her knees nearly buckled before she realized that the voicewas a familiar one. She turned and saw Musu, a classmate andfriend since childhood. Musu was sobbing—a reaction to thegeneral state of affairs, Sarah assumed. But then Musu drew closeenough to be heard. "They killed my father!" she said, her voicehalf-choked with tears. "All they accused him of was being part ofthe government."

She began to explain more, but Sarah's mother stopped herand patted her on the back.

"God will see you through, child," Decontee said to her.

Sarah felt a crushing fear that was immediately subdued byempathy for her friend. She was particularly afraid for her ownfather; her sense of foreboding made her heart beat even faster. Shethought that if the rebels killed Musu's father, who only workedwith the government but held no political office, how much worsewould it be for her own father, a senior government official?

"Daddy, I am really afraid for you!" she said, voicing her fear.

"Shhh, don't talk too loud! Some of the men among us mustbe listening," her father cautioned between clenched teeth.

"Don't forget what we discussed in the room, honey,"Decontee whispered. "If they ask your name—and I mean yourtribe—just say you are black American and you've been here withyour family for a long time, okay?"

"I haven't forgotten, Deck," Peter assured her, "even thoughmy heart is still in my throat lest someone recognize me."

"Let's leave it to God. I know he won't let us down," Deconteesaid firmly.

"I have faith, Daddy," Sarah said, buttressing her mother'sencouraging words.

"Well, I hope it works in wartime, my child," her father said.

"It works all the time," her mother said.

Decontee's words echoed in Sarah's ears for a long time asthey walked. There was something peculiar about her mother'sstatements that always put Sarah in an uncomfortable situation.She welcomed and appreciated the reassuring confidence withwhich her mother spoke, especially when uncertainty loomed.But then there was the guilt it brought—not guilt about someterrible sin Sarah had committed, but simply guilt about her ownshaky faith, or perhaps lack of faith.

It works all the time. Sarah repeated those words to herself.They sounded very profound. She thought about stories shehad read from the Bible, stories about mighty men of faith likeDaniel, Elijah, Meshach, and Abednego—men who held totheir convictions even during times of threatening calamity. Sherecalled the words of Jesus from Mark 11:23: "For verily I sayunto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thouremoved, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in hisheart, he shall believe that those things which he saith shall cometo pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith."

Now she wished she had such faith: she would havecommanded the nightmare unfolding before her to cease. Hereshe was with her parents and friends, going through this mentalanguish, consumed by fear of the uncertain. No, she thought, shewas not an apostle or a prophet at all. She was faithless.

Sarah awoke from her reveries when a gunman ahead of herroared a command at the approaching crowd.

"Everybody single-file!" The man was wearing a mask andbrandishing a dull machete.

The crowd had come to the notorious Zimbabwe checkpoint.No one knew why or how it came to be called that, but one thingwas evident about the place: it was manned by heartless rebelsknown for their swiftness in slicing the throats of many civilians.They scrutinized every soul passing through the gate. Thosesuspected of being sympathetic to the government or any othermember of the president's tribe were taken aside and executed.Others were taken to an unknown destination to face Some kindof justice.

The crowd formed two queues. Two gunmen meticulouslyscanned them, shouting at the crowd and hurling profanelanguage at them, and brutalizing those who, due to paralyzingfear, struggled to give appropriate answers to the gunmen's sillyquestions—questions that had no foundation in logic. Sometimesif the interviewee was particularly unlucky, he was branded andgiven to another group of bloodthirsty gunmen to be executed.

Sarah could hear her own heartbeat as the distance betweenher and the checkpoint narrowed. She was third in line; herfather was right behind her. Her mother and Musu formed partof the other queue and were also close to the two misanthropesmanning the checkpoint. Sarah turned and briefly studied herfather. His countenance had rapidly degenerated. There appearedto be no hope left in him; he knew that he was going to diebut for some miracle he did not believe in. He had never beena deeply religious man, even though he held top positions onchurch committees.