The Smilodon

Chapter 2

PART ONE

Jonathan Matiku, like many typical young boys growing up, adored his father. Michael Matiku was his hero - the embodiment of what he aspired to achieve and be in his life. He was a kind, loving, intelligent, and very knowledgeable man who worked for a "very good" and "very big" company called BP or British Petro-something Jonathan had heard. He drove a nice big car called a Toyota Land Cruiser, a machine Jonathan never ceased to admire.

Michael and Jonathan’s mother, Joyce were married when Michael was twenty-eight, immediately after returning from his graduate studies in the United Kingdom. She was twenty-one at the time. Michael had met her at a friend’s wedding. She was a bridesmaid and one who caught every potential suitor’s eye that day. His attraction towards her was only exceeded by her attraction towards him. He, attracted by her astonishing beauty and she, attracted by what she had heard of him. Michael was considered somewhat a catch by most in their social circle, because of his education and accomplishments. He was determined to start a family before he was thirty so that he could ‘grow up’ with his kids and be involved with them as much as he possibly could.

As a devoted father, he would always find time to spend with his beloved son Jonathan. They were inseparable. Even as an infant, his father would take Jonathan on adventurous drives and have him sit in the back seat marveling at the world outside. They would explore different destinations every week on Saturday. Saturday lunch was also special - ugali and beans. Ugali was a blue-collar dish made from maize flour cooked with water to porridge until stiffened. It was an African staple, called Sima, Sembe or Posho in other countries across Africa. Jonathan fell in love with it as soon as he was old enough to eat it. Michael would take over the kitchen and prepare ugali and beans. It was their thing. On Sundays, they would have matching outfits to church or at the very least, matching shirts.

All this attention from his father, however, did little to conceal the aloofness and distance from his mother. It was as if the conventional African parental roles were reversed. Although a housewife, Joyce kept away from the house a lot. She would spend a lot of time at her friend’s hair salon nearby leaving Jonathan with a maid. This distressed his father a great deal and was the cause of many arguments in the house but his apparent displeasure did not seem to sway Joyce. It was as if her goal was not to be a mother but…to be married, and that was a goal she had already achieved. She was married to someone who was going places, who worked for a multinational conglomerate, they had two cars, they lived in a nice house and all her friends envied her. She had made it.

Jonathan felt the distance even more after his brother Richard was born when he was seven years old. He would come back from school and find the maid neglecting "little Richie" and so he would inevitably take the maid's role or his mother's role some would argue. His brotherly instincts to protect Richie were greatly heightened as a result. After school, Jonathan would immediately take the 30-minute walk back home to give his brother some much-needed company while most children would spend an extra 30 minutes playing and talking in the school playground.

When Jonathan was ten years old, Richie was taken to a nursery school a stone's throw away from his school so that he could look out for his brother, and that he did. Richie's school day ended at 2 pm while Jonathan's ended at 4 pm so their mother would pick Richie at 2 pm and drive him home while Jonathan would walk back at 4 pm as usual. She was, however, often late. Jonathan could see the nursery's parking lot from his classroom and so would always know if their mother was late or not. After a few instances of his mother's tardiness, he decided to sneak out of the school compound just before 2 pm and sit with Richie waiting for their mother while other children slowly emptied the school compound. This got him into trouble with his mother, Richie's teachers, and his teachers but he kept repeating it until his mother learnt to pick Richie up on time. She also made sure Michael never heard of it.

She was late again, however, about a week after their father had gone on a trip to the United Kingdom for work-related training. She was late. She had not shown up until 4 pm when it was time for Jonathan to go home too. To his surprise, it was their father's younger brother, Uncle Brandon who came to pick Richie up in their mother's car. He had never done this before. He looked rather distraught and it scared Jonathan. Richie seemed more confused than anything and kept looking up at Jonathan for some sort of explanation. Jonathan eventually asked about his mother.

“She is not feeling well, Jonathan. You’ll see her in a bit” he said.

What is wrong with our mother, Jonathan wondered silently as they drove back home. When they got home, they found several cars parked outside their house and a crowd of familiar and unfamiliar faces seated outside on plastic chairs. The crowd stared at them with sympathetic faces as they walked towards the front door. As they got nearer, Jonathan could hear what sounded like people crying inside. The crying got louder as they got nearer and nearer to the door. At this point Jonathan was panic-stricken and his eyes had already started to tear up. He was shaking. Richie looked up at him in terror and also started crying. Uncle Brandon continued to walk in silence leading them into the house.

As soon as their faces popped through the door, their sobbing mother started wailing loudly. Some of her friends who were sitting with her tried to comfort her and calm her down but their efforts were futile. She beckoned her sons to her as she cried. Jonathan and Richie rushed to her and cried with her not knowing fully, the reason for this outpouring of anguish.

“You…your father’s plane…. has had…an accident!” she said, “It…crashed into the ocean!”

∞∞∞∞

After a weeklong management training session at British Petroleum Headquarters in London, Michael Matiku was scheduled to fly to Nairobi for an interview with the Managing Director of BP Kenya, where he had been shortlisted for the now vacant position of Sales and Marketing Manager. This was a fantastic opportunity for Michael that would better position him for growth opportunities at British Petroleum. As Sales and Marketing Manager, he would be handling retail business development, business-to-business sales, credit control, and the overall commercial function of BP Kenya. He was still skeptical, however, because he came from a country where BP operations were relatively smaller and he was only handling supply and distribution, not sales per se. He attributed the vote of confidence and shortlisting to the current Managing Director of BP Kenya, Andrew Otieno. He was Jonathan’s immediate Boss for 3 years when he was Supply Manager at BP Tanzania. They had an extremely good working relationship that left a lasting impression on Andrew who went on with BP United Kingdom and eventually returned to Kenya as Managing Director two years later.

Michael was booked on an Ethiopian Airlines flight that would take him from London straight to Addis Ababa where he would connect with another flight, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 to Nairobi the following Saturday morning. His interview was on Monday. They arrived a little late, delaying Flight 961 so that it could be fed with passengers who were headed to Nairobi, Brazzaville, Lagos, and eventually Abidjan. Jonathan boarded the plane completely immersed in his thoughts of the Nairobi meeting with Andrew and his team, and ultimately seeing his boys on his return to Dar Es Salaam. As he walked to his seat in the business class section, he noticed a familiar face seated in one of the window seats of the first-class section but he just couldn't place it yet. He was a bold, bespectacled Indian man in his early fifties clad in a dark blue cotton shirt, a khaki journalist jacket, and khaki slacks.

He must be some journalist, Michael thought.

Michael settled in his chair, leaned back, closed his eyes, and tried to relax as other passengers slowly settled in their seats. Eventually, the plane was on the runway taking off and Michael watched through his window as Addis Ababa and it beautiful hills slowly faded away beneath the aeroplane. Once in the air, he started to drift off to sleep when he suddenly heard noises and scuffle at the back of the plane. He opened his eyes and looked around and saw three Ethiopian men in the mid-twenties running towards the front of the airplane. Everyone was taken aback. What was going on? As they pushed passed air hostesses towards the cockpit, Michael decided that this must be a hijacking. He was hoping against hope that it wasn't but it sure looked like it. He couldn't see the cockpit door but he heard them opening it and knew that they were now in direct contact with the pilots. It all happened very, very fast.

Uncertainty ensued for about thirty minutes before one of the hijackers went on the public address system and confirmed everyone’s worst fear.

“Ladies and gentlemen. We have taken over control of this plane. Do not try to be heroes and you will be fine. We have a bomb on board and we will not hesitate to use it,” he said.

The announcement was made in Arabic, French, and English so that everyone was clear.

Michael, much to his surprise, was not worried. They probably want asylum somewhere, he thought.

Thereafter, Michael would see two of the hijackers walk up and down the aisle visually inspecting the passengers but not inflicting any harm and then return to the front of the plane. After a while, they would repeat this exercise.

There was surprisingly calm in the plane, perhaps because everyone much like Michael, assumed it would all end well. After all, they really didn’t seem to want to harm anyone, despite their threats of bombing the plane. Practically no one had been touched.

They continued flying, but eastwards into the Indian Ocean and not towards Nairobi.

What country are we going to end up in, thought Michael, I guess my interview will have to be rescheduled. Maybe this incidence will work in my favour and get me some sympathy votes.

Passengers were left to speculate on what the hijackers wanted and where they were going. After what seemed like an eternity, Michael heard what sounded like the right engine shutting down leaving the deep sound of the left engine, which remained running.

What is going on?

The plane then seemed to descend to lower altitudes. After a few moments, the Captain went on the public address system and explained the shutting down of one engine.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot,” he said. “We are running out of fuel and have lost one engine already. We are going to make a crash landing”

What? We run out of fuel!

Screams and gasps could be heard in the plane indicating an appreciation of the level of danger by other passengers

"I would like all passengers to react to the hijackers, please. Thank you," added the Captain.

Michael was not sure what the Captain meant by that last sentence. React? Did he want to them to attack the hijackers? He looked around and no one seemed to want to do anything. There were only 3 of them, why was everyone so paralyzed?

Maybe trying to be a hero will cause more damage than good, thought Michael, they had mentioned a bomb after all.

The familiar-looking Indian man walked through the business class section towards Economy. Michael looked at him and noticed his left arm was prosthetic. Then it hit him, it was Mohammed Amin, the famous photojournalist who, through his photography and film, had brought the world's attention to famine and hunger in Ethiopia in the early 1980s. Michael remembered watching a documentary about the famine and about Amin losing his arm in a bomb blast in Ethiopia. This was not how he had hoped to meet this amazing man.