Genocide of One: A Thriller (45 page)

Oneka shut his eyes, but even with his face down, he could hear his brother’s screams
and the sound of his still-living body being cut apart.

Oneka was sobbing when he felt a heavy knife in his hand. That devil’s voice again
spoke. “Rape your mother and slash her throat. Otherwise we’ll kill you like we did
your brother.”

Through eyes clouded by tears he saw his brother’s mutilated torso. Oneka didn’t want
to die. He turned to his mother and saw she’d turned pale.

“Do it,” the devil said, yanking down Oneka’s pants and rubbing his little penis.

His mother kept on sobbing until her son had finished the brutal acts he’d needed
to do to save his life.

When it was all done, Oneka had become a different person. It felt like he was watching
this world from another. They loaded him onto the truck, and as it sped down the dusty
road he saw his father writhing on the ground, crying his heart out. I’ll never come
back here again, Oneka thought.

Along with ten other children from the village, Oneka was taken to a training camp.
And he was made into a soldier and dragged into a war. Several hundred children were
gathered in rows of simple tents in a corner of a grassy plain. Since they were not
allowed to bathe, an awful stink hung over the area.

When training started, children who made even the smallest mistake were killed on
the spot. Children who tripped and fell were beaten to death, and some children had
kerosene poured over them and were set on fire, screaming like animals as they died.
Oneka didn’t want to be killed, so he silently set about every task he was given,
from cleaning dismantled rifles to practicing charging the enemy. Three months later
he was sent out to participate in actual fighting, in which he attacked a village
just like his own and helped steal food, fuel, and women. The devil who kidnapped
him, their leader, who had the jungle name Bloody General, tied the captured villagers
to trees and then, saying he wanted to train the children to be brave, had them run
these people through with bayonets. Oneka killed several of them.

“Now we just need to be patient.” A boy named Rokani in his group kept saying this
in the evening after they had killed people. “The American army will come soon and
rescue us.”

“The American army?”

“Yeah. American soldiers will punish bad people. Also, do you know the words ‘The
pen is mightier than the sword’?”

Oneka shook his head.

“Newspaper reporters are stronger than any army. The power of the pen will surely
save us.”

But the American army did not come, and the pen was unequal to the sword. Unable to
wait any longer, one night Rokani tried to escape from the camp, was caught, and the
leader called Oneka over and ordered him to beat this escaped soldier to death with
a club. Oneka smashed his friend’s head in and killed him. Oneka no longer trusted
anyone, no longer had any feelings. He didn’t care anymore. This was Oneka’s war.

In the attack two days ago he didn’t hesitate to kill the villagers who had gathered
at the church. The child soldiers were ordered to cut open the people they’d killed
and eat their hearts and livers. The young women were taken away to the jungle as
playthings of the leaders. But this morning something totally unexpected happened.
Shells started to fall from far away, and battle helicopters had attacked them. Oneka
and the others were ordered to take down the tents they’d set up in the village square
and escape into the jungle. Once they withdrew, the killing of the village women began.
The five leaders seemed panicked. Oneka had a sudden thought. Maybe this was the American
army attacking. If it were, wouldn’t they kill an evil person like himself? Because
they were even shooting at the women who were crying and begging for mercy.

“Battle formation!” the Bloody General suddenly shouted.

Oneka realized for the first time that they were directly under attack. His comrades
nearest the square were being shot down. Oneka turned to the direction of the attack.
A handful of people on the roof of the church were shooting at them.

“Attack the church! Kill every one of them!”

The children loaded their assault rifles and lined up in battle formation facing the
church.

The Bloody General lowered his raised arm. “All troops—
charge!
”

The two hundred yelled as one and began racing toward the church across the square.
Oneka was in the lead group. As always, he felt no fear. All he had to do was kill.
As he ran, spraying the roof with his AK-47, the sweet odor of gunpowder faded and
the scent of soil came to him. It made him think of his hometown. Memories of his
family that he’d tried to recall but couldn’t up until now opened the lock on his
heart and rushed back to him.

The aroma of soil changed into the aroma of his sweet, gentle mother. Oneka felt as
though his mother were holding him. Enveloped by her softness and warmth, he found
it strange that she wasn’t angry. I raped her and killed her, but does she still love
me?

Oneka started to cry. The tears flew away as he ran.

If only I hadn’t been born a human being.

I wish I’d been a bird or an animal so Dad and Mom and my brother and sister and I
could snuggle up and live happily together.

The enemy was shooting back. A man on the roof was shooting at them, full auto. To
his left Oneka heard a bullet, at tremendous speed, shatter a skull. Out of the corner
of his eye he saw children around him being cut down, and he thought: I am going to
die, too.

The muzzle flash from a gun aimed at him. After that he saw nothing, felt nothing,
as his head flew off and he died.

Mick aimed his rifle at the mass of children and began neutralization fire. The front
row of children was mowed down, blood spraying in the air. The group behind them tripped
over the bodies of their comrades and toppled over.

“Cease fire!”
Yeager yelled into his headset.

But Mick ignored the order.
“Come on, you motherfuckers!”
he shouted angrily, and continued to gun them down. When he was out of ammo he yelled
“Reloading!”
and rammed in another clip. As he was doing this, the children who had stumbled over
the dead bodies managed to scramble over them and began charging again. Garrett and
Meyers were compelled to keep on firing, though both of them fired warning shots.
The bullets landing at their feet formed a line the children couldn’t cross, and their
advance finally ground to a halt.

“Hold your fire!”
Yeager ordered, and he pulled the pin on a grenade. Checking the kill zone, he tossed
it ahead of the children. The child soldiers hit the ground at the explosion, but
he figured it was far enough away to prevent their getting hurt even if some of them
remained standing.

The younger children’s crying and screaming reverberated throughout the square. Yeager
hoped the terrifying experience would make them quickly withdraw. For Yeager’s plan
had already backfired. The Pakistani army had intentionally overlooked this company
of child soldiers. They couldn’t count on the PKO’s help. If the battle went on much
longer it would turn into mass extermination.

As if responding to his thoughts, several of the children got up, turned around, and
were heading back to the jungle. Yeager had the faint hope that the whole force of
soldiers would withdraw, but this hope was soon crushed. Tracers flew out of the jungle,
downing the retreating children. Yeager could barely keep from vomiting at the awful
scene.

Realizing that even if they retreated they would be killed, the child soldiers roused
themselves to another desperate, disorderly, banzai-like charge. As they rushed toward
the church they became a moving target in the square, where there was no cover. Though
the soldiers were children, the weapons they carried were real, and the random fire
from their AK-47s became overwhelming as it rained down on Yeager and the others.
Hundreds of rounds slammed into the edge of the roof where they were crouched, steadily
ripping it away. And then the last row of soldiers came to a halt; several of them
shouldered antitank rockets.

“RPG!”
Meyers yelled as he scrambled to the back of the roof. Rockets sped straight for
them, landing on the left side of the roof. The ground shook as shards of brick exploded
into the air, and right at Meyers’s feet a section of the roof collapsed. Meyers nearly
fell to his death, but he managed to cling to the remaining section of flooring with
his upper body. An awful stink of dead bodies rose up from the chapel below. Meyers
somehow hung on, and he clambered up and crawled over to Yeager’s side.

“If we don’t do something we’re gonna die!”
Meyers yelled.

Across from Yeager, Mick was shooting his captured RPG back at the children. It exploded
in the midst of them, sending severed heads and organs flying in all directions.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!
” Yeager yelled, but Mick ignored his order, relentlessly blasting the enemy with
his AK-47.

“Come on, you bastards! I’m going to blast every one of you to pieces!”

Mick’s voice sounded choked up with joy. His brain was secreting stress-relieving
neurochemicals, producing a combat high. He screamed obscenities at the African children
as he sprayed them with bullets.

A burning liquid rose up from Yeager’s stomach. The child soldiers had advanced to
the middle of the square, but nearly half of them had been gunned down by Mick.

A second RPG exploded on the left side of the church, convulsing the floor of the
roof. One more hit and the whole building would collapse.

Mick exchanged his AK-47 for a grenade launcher.

“Damn it, Mick, don’t shoot!”

“Shut the hell up! This is war!”
Mick yelled back, and fired the grenade launcher. The grenade exploded at the feet
of the front line of troops, killing or wounding seven children.

I have to shoot, Yeager decided. I have no choice. Even if it means eternal punishment,
I have to pull the trigger.

“This is war, all right,”
Yeager yelled. Then he pulled out his pistol and shot Mick right through the temple.

The 9mm bullet didn’t go all the way through. It ricocheted around his cranium, completely
destroying his brain. Mick, half seated, was instantly killed, and he fell down, face-first.
Darkish blood flowed from his head and nostrils, even after he was dead.

Meyers and Garrett stared, dumbfounded, at the body of their comrade. Yeager’s right
hand, which had pulled the trigger, felt as if it were splattered with Mick’s brains.

“Garrett, fire warning shots to get them to stop. You can use grenades, too, if you
want.”
Yeager shouted out one order after another.
“Meyers, fire the grenade launcher.”

The grenade launcher was passed to Meyers, and he frowned and stared at Yeager.

“Fire at the back of the jungle. Flush out the commanders who are hiding there!”

“Roger that!”

Meyers checked the angle and shot off a 40mm grenade. Yeager picked up the Dragunov
sniper rifle they’d captured, squinted through the optical sight, aimed at a large
tree on the edge of the jungle, and fired. He lowered the rifle, checked where his
bullet had struck, and adjusted the sight.

The surviving children were inching toward the church, their eyes glistening malevolently.
These were the eyes of children who had witnessed unimaginable violence and loss,
and Yeager saw in them broken spirits, utterly unrecoverable.

Several of the child soldiers starting throwing grenades. They didn’t reach the roof,
though the explosions right below them further weakened the walls of the church, already
on the brink of collapse.

As they desperately continued to return fire, Garrett yelled,
“We can’t stop them! Do it now!”

Meyers changed the point of impact of the grenade he launched from deep in the forest
to just in front of it, but the hidden officers still hadn’t shown themselves.

Perhaps sensing that their enemy wasn’t planning to kill them, the children steadily
ran faster. Thirty more meters before they reached the church. One child shoved his
way through the mound of dead bodies and came up with an RPG launcher. One blast from
that and the mercenaries would be destroyed. Yeager reluctantly hoisted the sniper
rifle, ready to shoot the boy’s leg at any moment.

Yeager sensed someone beside him. He looked up, startled, thinking that Mick, who
should be dead, might have started moving again. A grotesque-looking child was standing
there. Akili had come over to his side without his realizing it and was staring at
the ground below. His face was just like that of the child soldiers, twisted in hatred.

Yeager, in prone shooting position, yelled, “Get down!”

Akili didn’t obey, but knelt down beside Mick’s corpse and took something out of his
backpack. The roll of ten thousand dollars that was his spending money. Akili broke
the band with his tiny hands and scattered the two hundred fifty-dollar bills off
the roof.

The shower of bills floated on the wind and fluttered down from the church to the
square. The children cowered when they first saw something falling down on them, but
when they understood it was money they began scrambling to collect it. With a faint
smile Akili watched as they threw aside their weapons and fought each other for the
cash. He looked as if he had seen through human greed and was mocking it.

“Yeager!”

At Meyers’s shout Yeager quickly aimed his rifle again. The officers, who were letting
the child soldiers kill each other, had finally emerged at the edge of the jungle,
driven out by the continual explosions. Five men, all wearing berets. One of them
was covered in blood, no doubt wounded by the grenades.

Yeager didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger, and one of the men’s heads slammed
backward. Before his listless body hit the ground Yeager squeezed off a second shot
on another man. It was too bad he had to administer a fatal blow with a single shot.
He wished there were a crueler way of making these devils suffer.