Chapter Eight, Episode One
935 Words
After One Month...
Scene One
Imam sat behind his wide desk, scattered papers and carefully folded road maps covering its surface. The yellow lamp light fell across his stern features, sharpening the hardness in his gaze.
Suddenly, his mobile phone rang, slicing through the heavy silence of the office. He reached for it quickly and saw the caller: Ghali. With a press of a button, he brought the phone to his ear.
Imam: Hello…
Ghali (firmly): The men in Sudan are ready. The handover will be at dawn tomorrow.
Imam (calm, cautious): Good. I’m ready as well.
He ended the call slowly, lowering the phone and placing it on the desk in front of him. For a moment, he stared at it with unblinking eyes, as if piercing through an invisible wall. The spark that flashed in his gaze was not mere thought—it was the silent outline of a carefully drawn plan.
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Scene Two
In the darkness of the night, along an endless desert road, twenty massive trucks stood lined up one after another. Steel containers locked tight, each hiding within them enough weapons to ignite a small war.
Behind every wheel sat Sudanese drivers, their faces tense, eyes darting nervously through the gloom. Beside each driver, another man waited in silence, his fingers restless, unconsciously reaching for a weapon.
Imam left nothing to chance. He had arranged a convoy of small sedans for his own men, followed by two trucks for camouflage—one loaded with children’s toys, the other with food supplies—ensuring the scene looked ordinary to any passerby or security patrol.
Stepping out of his car with measured confidence, Imam turned and took in the sight: rows of trucks standing like a silent army awaiting his command. He raised his voice, firm and resolute:
Imam: Move it, men… quickly. Time is not on our side.
His men obeyed with discipline, leaving their sedans and climbing into the weapon-laden trucks. At the same time, the Sudanese drivers vacated their vehicles, heading toward a large empty truck. They climbed inside its container; the heavy iron door slammed shut behind them, and the truck rolled away, vanishing back toward Sudan as though it had never been part of the mission.
Imam returned to his car, his eyes following the last of his men as he slid into the driver’s seat of a truck. With a subtle signal of his hand, the entire convoy began to move.
The trucks rolled forward, followed by the decoy vehicles and Imam’s sedans, all advancing in tense silence toward the border crossing—where a new chapter of the adventure awaited them… and perhaps, their unknown fate.
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Scene Three
Imam’s car led the convoy, cutting through the road like the tip of a spear heading into the unknown. He sat firmly behind the wheel, his eyes fixed on the distant checkpoint that loomed on the horizon, growing clearer with every passing second.
His face betrayed no sign of fear—only a cold confidence, the kind forged through years of confrontation.
He lifted his wrist slightly, glancing at his watch. The hands pointed to three o’clock in the afternoon. A faint smile curved his lips as he whispered to himself, his tone calm yet heavy with meaning:
Imam (whispering): Three o’clock sharp… that gives us three more hours. More than ten soldiers today… good. No problem—we have more men.
His eyes studied the road ahead, where the soldiers moved in disciplined patterns around the barrier, the metallic clatter of their rifles echoing like a warning to anyone approaching. Yet Imam did not falter. His grip on the wheel tightened, as if daring the unknown itself, certain that his men would render the numbers meaningless.
Behind him, the vehicles advanced in silence, orderly as shadows, while clouds of dust rose from the tires, painting the sky in pale streaks.
The air grew tense, the moment sharpened to a knife’s edge… either they would pass in silence, or the storm would break without warning.
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Scene Four
Right behind Imam’s car, a dusty black sedan followed closely, like a shadow glued to its path. Behind the wheel sat Rabee, his hands gripping the steering wheel firmly, his eyes scanning the road ahead with caution. Beside him was Rami, one of the organization’s men, his body leaning slightly forward, as if ready at any moment to intervene or give a signal.
In the back seat sat three men: Saber, Helmy, and Karim. Pressed together on the narrow bench, their faces were grim, their eyes shifting nervously between the side windows and the windshield. Anticipation was written clearly across their expressions, as though they could already sense that the next few minutes might decide everything—success or failure.
A heavy silence filled the car, broken only by the steady hum of the engine and the occasional thud of tires striking potholes in the road. Every breath inside seemed weighted with tension, yet all their gazes converged on a single goal: crossing the checkpoint at any cost.
Rabee slowly lifted his right hand to wipe the sweat trickling down his forehead, then exchanged a quick glance with Rami. The latter gave a slight nod, a silent agreement that they needed to be ready for whatever was coming.
In the back, Saber clenched his fist tightly, Helmy stared rigidly ahead, and Karim—by far the most anxious—kept tapping his foot restlessly against the floor.
The car felt like a sealed container, pressure building inside it, waiting only for the first spark to explode.
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