The phone rang in the warlord's car.
He looked at the screen. The general. Again.
He answered it on the sixth ring.
"General."
"Thank you for picking up." Nia's voice. The general's voice. Low and dry, He put the phone on speaker for the lead guard to hear . "There has been a second attempt on my life A few minutes ago. Three of my own men turned on me , I killed one and two are in detention for further questioning ."
"I heard."
"I am also told there is an army in the woods. The man who warned us is standing in my yard. He says he saw them gathering. He says they are coming for both of us."
"And."
"I want to send men into the woods to deal with them. I will need half of the escort that was assigned to you, we don't need that many for your escort because the people they love you and would be willing to die for you . I will send them ahead at your command ."
The warlord did not answer for a long moment.
"Say that again."
"I am going to send men into the woods. I will need half of—"
"I heard what you said." The warlord's voice had changed. It was the same voice from earlier, the one he had used when he told the general not to call him like a dog. "You are calling me to tell me you have been attacked, and the same call you are asking me for men."
"To protect you."
"To protect me." A pause. "General. I gave an order today. Do you know what the order was."
Silence on the line.
"I gave an order to three of your men. I told them to kill you and blame the rebels. I told them to bring your body back to the gate and tell the country the kidnappers had killed you before we could get to you."
Kin heard it through the earpiece. He was standing beside one of the guards, waiting for the general to be brought down so he could be taken to the third floor. He heard the words and did not move and did not let anything show on the face of Kwame Adjei.
Nia did not answer.
"So when you call me," the warlord said, "and tell me you have been attacked, and the same call you ask me for men, I am wondering how you are still alive. I am wondering why the man who warned you walked out of the woods today, and how he got to your gate, and who he is. I am wondering if the general I am speaking to is the general I know, or if the general I am speaking to is the man who took him out of his own office a night ago."
Long silence.
"I am not sending you my men," the warlord said. "I am not sending you anything. I am going to the stadium, and I am going with my own escort, and I am not stopping for you. If the woods are full of rebels, the rebels can have the woods. If the general is alive, the general can stay alive without my help."
"Then you will go alone," Nia said.
"I will go with my own men."
"The road to the stadium is not safe."
"The road to the stadium has been safe for eleven years, and it will be safe tonight." The warlord paused. "Do not call me again."
The line went dead.
Kin stood in the yard and listened to the silence in his ear. The guard was beside him, waiting to take him to the third floor. The two younger guards were still inside. The compound was settling back into itself after the gunfire, and the men who had taken the rogue guards to the guardhouse were coming back out into the yard with their rifles slung.
Odile came through a second later.
"He knows."
"He suspects," Kin said. "He does not know."
"He knows enough. He is not taking our men. He is not stopping for the general. He is going to the stadium with his own escort and he is not going to slow down for anything."
Kin looked at the screen in his vision. The convoy was on the eastern road, moving fast. Five SUVs, three armoured trucks, two motorcycle outriders, and a total of twenty six men. All of them paid by the warlord and none of them loyal to the general.
"Then we hit the convoy on the road," Kin said. "Before it reaches the stadium. Selah is on the rooftop. The counter force is at the stadium. We move them to the overpass, we block the road, we take him before he gets there."
"No," Odile said.
"Why not."
"Because you will lose. The convoy is armoured. The men inside are professionals. The road is open and the overpass is exposed, and the moment the first shot goes off the warlord will turn around and drive back the way he came, and he will be back at the residence inside fifteen minutes with his escort intact and every soldier in this city looking for us."
"Then what."
"Then we do it the other way."
***
Kin looked at the building. On the third floor, Nia(General) was still in the corridor. She had been listening to everything. She had said nothing.
"Nia," Odile said.
"I heard."
"You are still in the general's face. You are still in the general's uniform. The men in this compound think you are him."
"I know."
"You call the men together. You tell them the warlord tried to have you killed tonight, that the two men we took to the guardhouse were his, that he has been planning to replace you for months. You tell them if he will do this to a general, he will do it to a mere corporal like them, You turn them against the warlord to further divide the army so that each side taken adds to our forces and hightens our chances of success ."
Silence.
Then Nia laughed. It came out in the general's voice and it was short and hard.
"That," she said, "is a better plan than anything Kin just said."
"I know," Odile said.
Kin said nothing.
***
He walked with the guard to the residential building and up the stairs to the third floor, and the guards at the door let him through because the lead guard told them to. Nia was standing at the end of the corridor . The two younger guards from the gate were standing beside her with their rifles up and their eyes still moving.
"You," one of them said to Kin. "You warned us. What else do you know."
Kin looked at Nia. Nia looked at him.
"The warnings need everyone of your men here because its something secretive!"
The lead guard frowned.
"All of them."
"All of them."
***
They gathered in the hall on the first floor.
It was a wide room with a long table and a map of the district on the wall. The general had used it for briefings before. The men came in from the gate, from the motor pool, from the perimeter. Thirty-eight of them, in total, in the uniforms of the general's guard.
Nia stood at the head of the table .
She did not speak for a moment.
Then she said, in the general's voice, "Two of my own men turned today. They were sent by the warlord to kill me in my office and to blame it on the rebels. They believed the rebels had taken me, and they believed the warlord was the one who would protect the country when I was gone. They were wrong."
The room went very quiet.
"The warlord has been planning to replace me for months," Nia said. "He has been building his own guard, his own escort, his own men. Tonight he gave the order to have me killed because I asked him to divert to the residence. He has decided he does not need me. He is on his way to the stadium now with his own escort to give a speech that will put this country into chaos, and he does not care who dies in the streets when it happens. He has already decided that the lives of ordinary men are worth less than his own."
She looked around the room.
"If he will do this to a general," she said, "what will he do to a corporal. What will he do to a private. If the warlord can order the death of the man who has kept him alive for eleven years, he can order the death of any man in this room. You are not his soldiers. You are my soldiers. I have fed you and paid you and buried your brothers. And I am telling you now that the man you have been guarding is the man who tried to have me killed tonight and probably the previous night as well."
The lead guard spoke first.
"What do you want us to do , general."
"I want you to stand with me," Nia said. "I want you to help me take him before he reaches the stadium. He is on the road now. He has a few men with him . We have thirty-eight. We have the compound. We have the city. If we cut the signals and we move now, we can catch him before he knows what is happening."
The room stirred.
Then the lead guard put his rifle across his chest and said, "The general's orders."
And then the rest of them said it too.
***
"The counter force," Kin said silently in his earpiece.
"The veterans have the stadium surrounded. They will not enter. They will hold every road that leads to it. The rebels are on the eastern road behind the convoy. They will block it as soon as the convoy passes and cut off the retreat. The signals are going down now. The warlord will not be able to call anyone in fifteen minutes."
"And the general's men."
"Will infiltrate the suite as soon as the convoy is stopped. If the warlord tries to run back to the residence, the suite will already be occupied. There is nowhere for him to go."
"And me."
"You will be with the general's men when they reach him. When the convoy is stopped, you will find him. When you find him, you will do what you are made to do."
Kin walked down the stairs with Nia beside him and the general's men behind him, and the doors of the compound opened, and the vans were in the yard with their engines running, and the night was dark and the road was long and the warlord was on it.
Kin got in the first van. The lead guard stopped him.
"Must he accompany us Sir?" He asked
"He did save my life just then , he is an important asset as of now"
The lead guard moved back and let him in and Nia got in beside him. The lead guard got in the front.
The convoy of the general's men pulled out of the compound and turned east onto the road, and the signal went down across the district, and the phones in the warlord's escort went dead one after another as they drove.