Chaos

Chapter 1

Chapter One

The Mission

           Amina watched as her friends studied for their last paper, the atmosphere was tense, here and there one could pockets of students immersed in intense whispering.

For in the last couple of weeks’ insurgents loyal to the Boko Haram sect had infiltrated schools and public gatherings, more than 8O students had either being killed in an attack on a government unity school a few weeks ago, the government only until a few days ago had directed the closure of all schools in Bornu state.

       Amina tried to read but all she could see was a blank book, her mother had cried when she insisted on going back for her last SSCE paper,

"It's just one paper Hadjiha" she had insisted, now the mood was so tense she wished she'd stayed at home, they'd heard loud g*n reports throughout the day. The sounds were menacing, yet again and again their principal had assured them that it was the Nigerian military chasing away the insurgents with their superior firepower.

She sighed and looked around, a few vigilante's Todd's inside the school about an hour ago all dressed in military fatigues and carrying dangerous looking guns which was a comforting sight amidst the chaos and rampage that was happening in other parts of Bornu state where the Nigerian army was locked in b****y struggles with various elements of the Boko Haram sect.

*                                                        *                                                               *

             Sadiq sauntered lazily towards a shady tree, he eyed a group of school girls perched on classroom windows pretending to be reading when he knew in fact that they were embroiled in the usual petty gossips and endless shenanigans typical of that gender.

He wanted to spit, but remembered the mission and swallowed the thick blob which had begun to form in his throat.

Allah forbid that he should be the one who ended with a fist sized hole for blowing the mission. He grinned, at least he’ll get the chance to teach these foolish infidels what it meant to go against the will of Allah the terrible, Insha Allah!

He half-chuckled as he strengthened to take a piss against the now blooming mango tree.

*                                                        *                                                               *

Kabiru shifted uneasily, for three days they had toured this misbegotten route and its neighborhoods searching for insurgents, they’d tracked some to a shanty village on the outskirts of Chibok only to find that they had come and gone leaving behind a trail of blood, pillage and destruction. They’d stayed on their trail for almost a day, today they had been receiving reports of terrorist ambushes on their troops since dawn, the air inside the army patrol van was very tense.

Every trooper of taskforce 32 was sharp and alert, rifles locked and loaded, Kabiru swayed as their patrol van hit a pothole,

‘’ Damned cursed roads,’’ someone muttered,

Kabiru was about to agree when the explosion when off, a carefully placed mine had just exploded.

            Unknown to the counter-insurgency taskforce, terrorists had begun placing landmines near artificial portholes to cover their retreat. A team had the task of digging out a portion of the road to make it look like a pothole, of course this was not out of place nor strange to anybody who was familiar with the general state of Nigerian roads, this they did at tight corners which were impossible to escape, another team placed the mines

Carefully just where a van’s tire would emerge from the screech to get out of the pothole then they covered it with mud in order to blend with the dilapidated state of the rest of the road.

The blast was deafening, the patrol van lunged to the left, there was pandemonium, troopers cried out curses on curses on the daring terrorists, cowards they called them.

Kabiru who had been thrown from his sit at the side of the van now slowly rose only for something to whizz past his heard, before his mind fully registered what it was, his mouth had yelled,

 ‘’Ambush!’’

There was pure Chaos.

Hundreds of bullets rammed into the sides of the now smoking armored patrol van, but the first troopers were ready for them even as the rest scampered out of the van,

‘takum’ answered ‘takum’ as troopers fired in return at the unseen yet approaching enemy, the atmosphere was thick with dust from the explosion.

 The Beauty and deadliness of ambushes are in their element of surprise; one had to ensure in that the distraction was well and taken advantage of giving the enemy little or no time to recover. In this the attack failed because it too the terrorists nearly five minutes after the initial mine explosion before the full assault began, by this time men of the joint task force 32; elite combat veterans well drilled on the techniques of combat had their weapons ready before they even began to recover from the shock of the explosion, the result being that the slowly receding cloud of dust became a two-sided advantage to both the attackers and the army defenders.

The terrorists had no accurate citing of the enemy patrol van, although the dust and haziness made them unseen to their would-be prey, it also meant they too could not fire accurately without knowing correct enemy positions. To the troopers, this gave them ample time to take defensive positions, terrorist fire came from the left which fortunately was the wind direction hence under cover of the slowly rising cloud they scampered to the right in other to use the armored van as cover.

Someone had mounted the turret and was spitting machine g*n fire in the general direction of attack, Kabiru dodge to the front of the van, he saw leaves patting vigorously, fired and a round into them, there was a yelp and scampering as the wounded terrorist rose and too to his heels, bad mistake; he’d made himself a big target and Kabiru finished him off and moved to the next target.

Total visibility had almost returned, private Collins raised his head over the side of the van only to receive a targeted fire,

‘’bang, bang, bang!’’ he slumped back down, dazed having only his tactical helmet to thank, the terrorist, probably a fresh recruit thinking that he had successfully killed a target raised his hands to scream their well-known war mantra,

‘’Allahu Ak...’’ … bang! Bang! Someone quickly cut him down, private Collins righted his helmet. Fog of war.

‘Advance! Kill these bastards.’ came the command from his squad leader, more and more of the attackers were going down and the rest were fleeing in to the jungle.

The attack had lasted for nearly fifteen minutes, four soldiers had been wounded in the attack, but it seemed more of the attackers had g*n down to meet the Holy prophet, kabiru smiled wickedly and checked is magazine count,

‘That was fast!’

*                                                        *                                                               *

Pockets of vigilantes had continued to enter the premises of the federal girl’s college, by 5pm all the girls had been asked to remain indoors on the order of their principal, everywhere had calmed as no more gunshots could be heard around the village.

Suleiman hated his job, the pay was bad, working conditions were dangerous at best and meant death at worst; slow and painful death.

He was part of small body of local mafarauci(hunters) who had answered the government’s call and banded together to form a local vigilante force as the threat and destruction of the Boko Haram sect became more and more daring and devastating.

In its early year’s members of the sect were content with just planting bombs in public places mainly markets, churches and mosques, small scale kidnappings and arson. Then as the need to get into the big leagues increased they began to expand their ops; large scale kidnappings, multiple bombing attacks on police stations, government schools and radical takeover of villages and even local government areas in furtherance of their Ideology.

They favored night raids, when all was calm and peaceful and nature had resigned to heal and repair, they struck! Fast and deadly, killing, r****g, pillaging, razing down buildings and government facilities, their pattern was the same; get in, kill all the fore-scouted would-be resistors, render the host community or village incapable of fighting back and taking control.

At first their weapons were mostly locally manufactured rifles and pistols then fighting the terrorists was easier because they were more or less matched in firepower by the local vigilantes until recently, increased funding from high scale kidnappings and funding from unscrupulous persons meant that terrorists now brandished dangerous looking Ak-47’s which had much larger clip sizes, must faster firing rates, longer ranges and which could be reloaded at a fly, were better trained and all the more deadlier.

Suleiman sighed, every vigilante knew that the first thing to do was run from this terrorists, you just couldn’t afford to be caught napping and it was far better to commit suicide than to be captured by them, it was bad that you were not one them, what was worse was that they considered you a Muslim worse than an infidel for daring to oppose their self-styled, ‘Jihad’, death was slow and painful.

Suleiman had had two close encounters with terrorists, he could recognize the, pretty good, their extraordinary sluggishness which they countered with more than natural shifty eyes, like the one dressed in black overflowing kaftan next to that mango tree.

Sadiq stood at his new post, a few meters away from the mango tree and watched as two obviously real vigilantes sauntered through the school gates,

Trouble!

There was no way to alert the other brethren without giving away the fact that they were fakes, he had to think. And fast.

He began to walk towards them, thinking to approach and lure them away to a more secluded place than to challenge them openly and blow the mission.

The could-be terrorist began walking towards Suleiman, it was way too obvious, the nervous smile, the uneasy way he walked, the way he kept trying to conceal his g*n, this wasn’t a member of any vigilante group.

As Sadiq approached the intruders, his smile faded as he noticed the taller and not-so-smart looking one begin to raise his hand g*n.

‘Who are you?!’ he bellowed.

Suddenly, in what looked like a magic trick, an AK-47 rifle materialized from that flowing kaftan and Suleiman dived.

Mo fired, but the first rounds had already gotten to him, as he fell, he saw Suleiman dive and fire, saw the terrorist scream in pain and then all seemed to lose focus.

Suleiman fired two rounds at the terrorist, he fell, but more and more terrorists were pouring out from different corners of the school. He got up to run only to be rammed by a hail of bullets, Suleiman fell over by their force and fired at a terrorist who just rounded the gate house, he dropped. Another round hit his leg and side, he shuddered, it was an ambush, the damned terrorists already had the whole school. No one knew, all those girls, all those girls. He tried to get up, dozens of bullets rammed into him, his fell, his eyes for a moment focused on the setting sun then he died.

There was pandemonium!

                                    *                                                       *                                                        *      

For hours Alhaji Ibrahim Aliyu the principal of Royal girl’s grammar college Chibok, had been placed on orders to stay indoors by the vigilantes which now camped in his school, considering the fact that terrorists were targeting government schools and of course the loud g*n reports that had plagued the air throughout the day, it was the only sensible thing to do , he had been allowed twice to meet with his students; during roll call and later when he was made to instruct them to stay in their dormitories.

He tried to start a conversation with a sour-faced vigilante, no luck, he had concluded that as far as he was concerned, only their leader seemed to understand English. This was obviously why many Nigerians felt that the Hausa’s had the highest rate of illiteracy in the whole country, of course this was not necessarily a problem to the Hausa man.

The average Hausa man lived simply, only concentrating on his farm, marrying as many wives as possible and of course trying all his best to stay true to the words of the holy Quran and to the blessed prophet. Their only contact with outsiders was only when it was necessary which of course included times when they had to sell their farm produce, fortunately for the farmers nowadays their produce were generally sold to fellow Hausa middle men who in turn sold them to other middle men who finally sold them to the primary buyers. In fact, it was rare for a farmer to have direct contact with a primary buyer hence eliminating any need to learn the nation’s Lingual Franca, which one of the reasons Alhaji Ibrahim found it difficult to communicate with the local vigilantes.

Born in Kaduna state, his parents embraced Christianity almost a year after he was born, the young Ibrahim was then sent to live with his Aunty in Rivers state during the days of military rule, being a lecturer in the federal university of Portharcourt, she had cared less for Hausa as her whole family spoke predominantly English, this of course was worsened by the fact that she’d married an Urhobo man, the language difference meant that both sides communicated in mostly English, hence Alhaji Ibrahim had grown up to have a rather superficial knowledge of the Hausa language, in truth, he barely could hold a decent conversation with the natives In Hausa, he preferred therefore to speak through one of his teachers or in most cases his appointed student interpreter.

Alhaji Ibrahim boiled as he eyed the vigilantes who were pacing up and down inside his office, as the minutes turned into hours, he felt more and more like a prisoner, he was being held put without him even realizing, even his students were now f*******n from going outdoors, they too were now being confined to their dormitories,

‘Insane!’ he mused,

Not really that he and his students were being asked to stay indoors as if their school was under siege, hell no, he could stand that, but that the government in the notice for resumption sent to him had informed him that there would be a detail of troops to secure his school and his students, maybe its idea of soldiers was a crowd of half-baked illiterate local hunters turned vigilantes.

He shook his head,

‘what nonsense!’ and to think that human lives were at stake, he sighed again, shifting uneasily as his eyes focused on the school gate just in time to see the c*****e unfold.

                                                             *                                    *                                         *

       Nasir El Abib aka the doctor glanced at his watch, they were running right on schedule, all he needed to do for the next two hours was to stop his men from blowing the whole damned operation. He sighed and rechecked is watch, already his men were getting the more restless and bloodthirsty,

‘walahi’ he swore, he barely managed to stop his so-called second in command from forcing himself on one of the girls, the brainless i***t had chosen one of the more robust ones and had lured her to one of the empty classrooms in company of four other fellows. He winced she recalled the expression of mingled wrath and surprise on their faces when he tore her away from them, there was going to be the time for such things but not now, the mission was far more important and he didn’t want to resort to shooting his own men but he was ready to do so without even the slightest thought if at any point he felt that anyone of them was about to compromise the mission.

     He stopped pacing and peeped into the infidel-principal’s office to see the man trying to interrogate one of his men, he checked his clip size and made a mental note to shoot the bastard in the head before the mission was over, stupid infidel. If he had his way he and his like-infidels would suffer the most painful deaths, his train of thoughts was suddenly derailed by the sound of simultaneous rifle fire,

‘walahi’ he cursed, there was commotion, his first thought was to run towards the principal’s office.

Alhaji Ibrahim was no i***t, he had been trying to put two and two together since he became suspicious of the so-called vigilantes, the sudden appearance of two vigilantes and the shooting followed were the catalyst his thoughts needed,

‘My God!’ he suddenly screamed, the realization of the precariousness of the situation hit him and jerked him to his feet, he started running towards the door, his two guards had run off at the first gunshots.

Nasir barged in as the infidel was about to run out of his office, the bastard was trying to escape. He just fired point blank, one loose end tied, is men were running here and there, they were under attack. As he ran, he shouted orders, some men were shooting sporadically at nothing in particular, others were shooting at windows, doors and school properties, he could see no enemy rather he just ran towards the general direction of the shooting.

One of his men lay a few yards from the gate, dead. Others had gathered around two dead bodies, apparently two vigilantes had strayed into the school to burst the operation, s**t!

‘Adib, take ten men, secure the generators and bring the buses in’ who knew how many more had been drawn by the sound of gunshots, or if there were more than two, he couldn’t risk having to face those army bastards,

‘five of you, make sure that anything through that ate that is not ours is shown the wrath of Allah, the rest of you with me’

Men scampered helter-skelter, the commander had just advanced the time-table by two hours, electrical appliances, power generating sets and computers were being carted into one of the buses, food supplies, first aid kits, drugs from the school clinic, whatever else was of value or thought by the terrorists to be of value was carted away and loaded in those buses.

Within ten minutes, all the girls had been lined up in front of the school assembly grounds, well, most of them anyway...

                                                  *                                      *                                   *

 Like most public schools, Government Girls Grammar School Chibok had originally been established as a missionary school, this meant that it was located on a large expanse with current boarding facilities able to accommodate up to 5000 students in dormitories in a single school year, of course initially it was built to house far less number of students but the missionaries had rightly envisioned that over time interests and awareness into Girl-child education would greatly increase with exposure, more and more girls would be sent to school which meant that the school will have to undergo gradual expansion. As the years rolled on and awareness on Girl-Child education increased in Northern Nigeria as was correctly foreseen by the Mission, more and more classrooms, dormitories where added to the school.

Soon the Federal Government became interested, took over the school as a federal public school, more classrooms, more staff buildings were included. But the school still had quite a lot of land, so much that each teacher had their own garden where it was mandatory that students commit their house of manual labor.

The school had 8 dormitories, each dormitory was a long rectangular building with rooms facing each other in an aisle-like formation, school authorities had decided that for the sake of extra security each dormitory included a lavatory and a bath-house which were usually the last rooms in each dorm. The last building opened up to the nearest garden, students could go directly from the gardens to their dormitories and vice versa, this proved disadvantageous for teachers during the hours of manual labor, students only had to sneak into their dorms from the garden to avoid labor, the school security men also had their hands full, it was not uncommon for students to sneak out of the school during the night via the gardens where they only needed to scale the broken down perimeter fence and be on their way, which was going to save the lives of a few of them.

           As soon as the first g*n shots were fired, terrorists who were assigned to the respective dormitories had run out to challenge the attack, so had some of the bolder students; although theirs was only to see the intruders, the principal’s office was in front of the fourth building and was visible from at least four Dorms, behind it were more farms and it was quite impossible to go that way as the fastest route to the school gate was in front of the principal’s office, as the girls burst out of their dormitories their eyes were immediately assaulted by the sight of their principal in on the floor, with a bullet hole on his forehead, dead in a pool of his own blood, his head and shoulders just sticking out of his office, there was outrage!

The discoverers spread the news like wild fire, within moments all the dormitories had been plunged in a panic frenzy, students scampered up and down, others wailed loudly for their parents, the smarter ones ran for their usual escape routes, others ran into their rooms and bolted themselves in and some, in the frenzy of the situation ran straight towards the now retreating terrorists and were not much help to their course.

                                              *                                          *                                                 *

              Mahmud had recently joined the sect, formerly an activist against the negative influence of westernization, he was recruited from the internet this was his first mission since coming back from weapons training. He had been itching all day for a chance to shoot something so when he saw the girls come running from their dormitories shouting wildly in a frenzy, he simply opened fire.

It was gory, as if waiting for the cue, more and more terrorists began firing, pouring deadly semi-automatic fire into the scattered group of running students cutting them down in cold blood.

Nasir screamed in rage, his voiced as if magically enchanted bellowed louder than the excited screams of a dozen Ak-47’s as the cut down their terrified prey and anything that stood in their line of fire and the shooting stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Girls scampered back into their dormitories, others lay on the ground shaking with fear, crying helplessly, others crawled in pain as they sought for cover away from the raging demons, many lay still, dead, cut down in the prime of their youth.

The whole school echoed with the sound of gunshots, windows hung limply by only a few nails, torn by rifle fire, walls punched clean by bullet holes, the school library was already on fire.

‘We had just one mission, ONE!!’ He began in a deadly calm, the nearest man drew away from the murderously glaring eyes,

‘just one; get in, extract the girls alive with the supplies, alive brothers, alive, breathing well for the greater course. That was the mission, not dead girls, do you all know what this would mean for our brethren’s locked up in infidel prisons?’

Mahmud turned away as Nasir stood in his face with the question, ashamed, alarmed, annoyed, hands trembling.

‘They would die, killed by the infidel government in retaliation for the heads of this shamefully raised girls...’

He hung his Ak-47 and un-holstered his Walter P5 and checked its mag for a few seconds, as if considering his next words carefully,

‘…And dead men do not matter to the course’

Mahmud snapped erect only to see the g*n cycle to his forehead and the fingers squeeze the trigger, the bullet went right through his forehead and lodged deep in his brain. Death came instantly, he died without any idea of the expression of mingled surprise, disbelief and fear on his dying face.

‘All of these’ Nasir nudged towards the dormitories as he returned his g*n into his holster,

‘Are brothers and faithful’s waiting to be liberated.’ He moved away from the dead terrorist on to his neighbor who physically withdrew in fear, but this was not his day.

‘I cannot keep this mission on course if my men chose to disobey my orders, I cannot afford to lose more men whether from infidel bullets or my own, Walahi ‘

‘Now round up every one of them and let’s get the hell out of here.’ He said in a matter-of-fact way.

Terrified girls were rounded up and shoved into buses with the inscription, ‘School’ boldly inscribed on them.  A couple more terrorists stayed behind, they were to leave 20minutes after the main column had left.

                                                  *                                       *                                              *

Lieutenant Hammed started as the sound of sporadic gunshots interrupted his report,

‘Ak-47 fire’ he mused as he awaited his orders from his superior officer, could it be one of the patrol teams battling insurgents? No, his patrol team was the only team assigned with the route from Dalwa west down to Chibok and all his units were accounted for, those shots had to come from south of his location.

‘Yes sir’ He snapped erect as he answered his CO,

‘we are receiving gunshots reports from what I think could be south of our current location’ he glanced at the piece of paper that he had just been passed and frowned,

‘Yes sir, my men are reporting that it could be possibly Chibok’ his frown got deeper as he listened to the command phone,

‘And we were not informed, sir?’ the question hung on his lips’ possibly more than two hours before,

‘Yes sir, Task force 32 will rally all available units to the location,’

‘Yes sir, Bravo out’

He paused for a few long seconds and considered the news he just received,

‘Attention Soldiers, We are to move out South towards Chibok, Word is that there may have been an attack on a public facility maybe two hours before or not but that intel had been available for that long. Why it took them just now to pass on this piece of intel is beyond me, but we have a mission’

‘We are to proceed towards Chibok to verify the accuracy of this intel and possibly disrupt any terrorist activity in the area, we will proceed in two teams of two units strong. Teams 3 and 4 will head towards Chibok market, you will flush whatever resistance you meet all the way to the central mosque and regroup on the outskirts of Chibok town.

Teams one and two will head towards the local government, flushing out any threat, you will take a detour through any places of importance and then you will regroup with the rest of the team on the outskirts of the town.’

‘Gentlemen, need I remind you of the need to maintain core professionalism and tactical efficiency, avoid civilian casualties but only to the extent that is does not pose a threat to your own safety.’

‘What are we waiting for? Move!

                                                    *                                   *                                  *

Aisha fumbled clumsily in her shorts for her inhaler, she was asthmatic, the conditions in the bus were quickly becoming unbearable, the heat, the stench of blood, both the injured and uninjured girls were packed in the same space, students were crying helplessly, some like her had used up their fountain of tears for the time being and were now gently sobbing or staring ahead hopelessly, seemingly insulated from the chaos that reined around them, some were busy muttering prayers, one girl was telling another that the army would come for them, a group of catholic girls were seen counting rosaries and apparently muttering the words that accompanied such recitations, the sight was indeed horrible. She had cried until they were no more tears in her eyes of course, all she could do now was gasp as the stuffiness 80 students packed in a bus that was originally meant to contain less than 35 students filled her lungs slowly, she began to retch and feel drowsy, she felt her pockets frantically, she always made sure to carry spare inhaler on her.

 She pulled it out, she had started wheezing, shook it rapidly, took off the cap and inhaled deeply, she allowed her breath to steady as the effects of the attack began to steady,

‘Are you ok?’ the girls who had been watching her asked as her breathing began to steady, she allowed her voice and breathing to steady further before she replied,

‘Yea, I think I’m good.’  The girl studied her for a bit as if to satisfy herself that she was indeed truly ok, she was obviously uncomfortable, now she fidgeted with her hair, now she cast nervous glances at other girls who were not an encouraging sight either,

‘Do you know where they are taking us to?’ Aisha considered carefully, two students had fainted at the back, a few girls close to them were trying very hard to resuscitate them amidst the tears and chaos, she could tell that they had just passed a junction as she sat facing the front and like many of the other girls who unlike her were standing could see through the front wind shield, they could hear gunshots coming from behind them, maybe the army was coming, maybe someone was going to rescue them, maybe the army was right now searching for them, they did not know, many of them did not even care presently, the shock from all those gunshots, the sight of their friends and classmates dead or writhing in agony, the pain, the fear of dying, the anxiety of not knowing what would happen next had rendered them helpless, defeated and incapable of making any forward thoughts.

‘I don’t know, but I do not think they are taking us to the police station or to an army barracks’ she pointed out thoughtfully,

‘it has to be to their hideout or camp wherever that may be,’ She sighed and adjusted herself to replace her inhaler, there was just no room for any movement, the girl was still staring at her,

‘And why are you so calm about this?’

‘well, because I’m done crying; that only exposes me to attacks, plus I plan to escape once we arrive at our destination wherever that may be. Also because there is practically nothing much we can do right now, not with all this stern looking guys and their guns. We have no idea where they are taking us to, we have no Idea where we are right now only the direction we are headed and I do not think it is towards Maiduguri. I guess that is why they painted these windows, our best and only option is to pray they realize we are missing pretty soon’

She sighed again and sniffed into her shirt,

‘My mum had warned me to stay at home and re-sit this exam,’ the girl stared into the blue painted windows as if hoping to find a solution in them,

‘But I didn’t want to hear it, I wanted to go to the university with the rest of my mates, I did not plan on sitting at home while my mates matriculated, neither had I any plans of undergoing a second time the ordeal of writing WASSCE and neither did I plan on getting kidn*pped either.’

She kept staring at those windows, shaking visibly as hot tears began to flow freely from her eyes,

‘What if they demand a huge ransom? Where will my parents get the money from? They can barely afford my fees,’ her crying had gotten intense,

‘what if we die here? I’m not particularly Muslim and I’ve seen what they do to those ones who are not like them….’

Aisha had to squeeze her close to avoid her totally breaking down,

‘they need us alive’ she spoke softly but with a confidence that surprised even her,

‘that’s why they haven’t killed us yet right, that’s why they even took those girls who were wounded, maybe they need us to get a ransom from the government, in which case they government will have to pay, or they need us in exchange for their arrested people, like in the movies right.’ It had to be either of this two, she agreed with her own words, but in her hearts she prayed and willed them to be true, this was not how she saw herself leaving this world; shot in the head or beheaded for some stupid course she cared nothing for, no, they had to need them alive.

The girls had sobered up and was now sobbing gently like the rest of the girls, Aisha stared around. The Bus was a standard Toyota coaster bus B50, it looked old, most of the seats had foam sticking out of them, the bus creaked as it moved and the seats also creaked as though they had seen years of hard service, some girls sat on attachments sits which were really stools placed between the middle of each row of seats, the ones standing had to squeeze between this ones sitting on this attachment seats, one terrorist stood on each row wielding dangerous looking guns, they did not fail to swear and curse at any of the girls who proved to be too unruly. Two more sat on mount behind the driver’s seat facing the students, these too did not fail to hurl insults or threats at any student who they deemed as stubborn or restive, it didn’t matter that there were up to 80 students packed in a bus which was supposedly designed to carry between 30 and 35 occupants’.

Three of such buses conveyed the students with the last one conveying both loot and the severely injured, apparently Nasir El Abib had no second thoughts about sacrificing this last bus in the event that his convoy was to be intercepted, in addition, each convoy was rigged at least 8pounds of synthetic explosives as a fail-safe against interception and also as a bargaining chip should they run into any uncalculated situation.

                                                                *                                    *                                         *

It was going to be a very simple procedure according to the commander, wait for a few minutes, according to him up to twenty minutes after the main body had gone and then follow behind.

‘Commander, I see troops approaching, I think that we have been spotted.’ They were waiting at a somewhat T-junction, just were the school road emptied into the highway, which was exactly were the commander had directed them to be at and which was the least conspicuous location they needed to be at the moment. He glared, so much for the simplicity of the plan, hanging us here to confront those bastards.

‘s**t, take the market road, we have to draw away their fire.’ He yelled to the driver, the car screeched as he geared and went and steered right, the patrol team had spotted them, his men opened fire immediately.

Kabiru docked as the oncoming terrorist vehicle started firing, the bastards, his unit returned fire, the chase was on, terrorists were coming directly at the patrol team, their IVM G-12 was armored, yet the shower of bullets threatened to break the wind shield, but theirs wasn’t. Every round of automatic fire ripped through the soft windshield, tearing away glass into bits, He fired in their direction as they took left into the market,

‘Go left! Go left!’ but the frenzy of an imminent head-on collision with the patrol cars and the confusion of the shootout had seemingly deafened his driver, and he sped past the left turn, ‘s**t! I said left you i***t!’ and he went left but not where he was supposed to be, instead he drove into the market area, one of his men ha been shot and feel over the side, his men were firing away at the pursuing troops.

The Chase entered the market, but the market area was empty, the market had specific days on which it sold, which was a great relieve as the pursuit broke into the market area, the truck skied into an array of stalls, narrowly avoiding a ditch until its tires lunged in mud, terrorists jumped down and began shooting.