From the Pulpit, Chapter 1

I would like to introduce to you my third thriller novel, "From the Pulpit". 

 It will be posted here on Gather in chapter installments, one to three chapters a week, as it is being created.  What is posted here will be the draft of the completed version much like I did with my other two novels, "Karl's Last Flight" and "65 Below" both of which are now under consideration by a publisher.  Due to the fact that it is a draft, you will probably see some spelling and typing errors as it goes along, please don't hesitate to point them out.

Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think as the story goes.  If something just doesn't seem to work in the telling, please comment me on it and I will try to fix it.

Have a great read.         Basil

Chapter 1
Khat Village
30 miles west of Mogadishu, Somalia
March 3rd, 1995

The heat had been unrelenting in this east African desert.  For all the months that Captain Farris had been in this land the temperature had hovered near one hundred degrees or higher every day.  He had often wondered how in the world a society could possibly have existed for so many thousands of years in such a desolate place. 

Maybe, he thought to himself, it had not always been so desolate.  Perhaps eons ago, it had been a jungle, with trees and grassy fields.  For the present though, as far as he could tell, Somalia showed no signs of anything that was in his opinion even remotely comfortable.  He now sat on the dirt floor of a mud hut eyes closed, leaning back against the wall praying silently in his mind that he would be able to get out of here alive, and if not to be able to die quickly without having his body dragged through the streets for his parents to see back home.

Just before this deployment he had received an acceptance letter from Fuller Theological Seminary at which he planned to attend graduate studies after his active duty service was completed.  His paperwork to transfer to the reserves for the completion of his required eight-year commitment to the Marine Corps had been accepted too.  It seemed that his life had taken a new track and he was on the way to fulfilling his dream of becoming a Pastor, following the footsteps of his father and grandfather, and using the experiences of the Marines to teach other young men, and now this. 

While it looked as though his dreams may all be spinning down fast, he still wasn’t ready to give up hope.

The door to the small mud hut he had been imprisoned in opened with a jolt, startling him out of his meditative state. The tall thin militia lieutenant named Akbar Usein stalked into the makeshift cell and kicked the Captain in the chest with a sandaled foot.

“Get up pig!”  he bellowed through rotten green tinted teeth spitting the thickly accented words, “The commander wants to see you, pig!”

At that he yanked Farris by the back of his collar and dragged him to his feet. The Marine was suddenly dizzy as he rose from the ground and stumbled out the door.  With his hands tied behind his back he could not control his balance and toppled forward, falling face down in the hot hard dust.  Akbar kicked him in the ribs again then grabbed the back of his clothing and lifted, letting him choke as his bodyweight hung against the collar that closed around his neck until the Somali slowly lifted him back to his feet.

“I hope he lets me torture you to a long slow death American.  Your people should never have come here, you should not ever have set foot in our country.”

Akbar pushed the Marine into the open door of a large mud brick building.  The interior was dark but even with the shade it was only slightly cooler than it was in the stifling heat outside.  It took several seconds for his eyes to adjust to darkness.  Once they did, he was able to make out the shapes of several men with AK-47’s standing behind another man who sat like a wanabe emperor in a large wooden chair that vaguely resembled a throne.

The warlord General Alef Muhammad Bin Ahmet was in his mid-thirties, tall and muscular.  He had dark brown skin that glimmered with a sheen of oily sweat that beaded across his broad intense face.  His lips curled into the beginning of a snarl at one side as the American stood before him.  Ahmet, the Captain knew, was a rival of the more powerful warlord General Mohamed Farrah Aidid who had been the cause of the defeat of American forces during the first battle of Mogadishu.  Ahmet had a big ego and had felt slighted that the Americans had chosen to go after Aidid instead of him and that his rival had caused such an impact with the world media, propelling him into hero status instead of Ahmet.  Since that time, nearly two years earlier, he had made every effort to poke his finger in the eye of the Great Satan in retribution for not recognizing him as the more worthy opponent.

Now was his chance, he felt, to get back at them.  As the UN forces prepared to pull out of his country US Marines had been sent back in to cover their withdrawal.  Last week a patrol of Marines had been sent out to convince several European NGO workers who had been running a health clinic that had been under threat to leave with the others.  During the discussion with those leaders the clinic was attacked with rockets killing two of the workers.  The Marines returned fire and a running battle ensued to get the survivors out of the area.  During that fight Captain Farris was knocked unconscious and one of his Marines was killed in a rocket blast as they tried to rescue one of the workers who had fallen in the street.

This Marine Captain would pay the price for all the pain his tribe had suffered and the indignity of Aidid being given all the media coverage instead of Ahmet.  And the entire world would see what happens to those who cross the Great General Alef Muhammad Bin Ahmet.

“What is your name?”  grunted Ahmet.

“Farris, Michael, Captain USMC.”  Replied the Marine officer.

“Captain Farris, your people have humiliated me too many times.  And now you are going to pay the price.  Does this frighten you?”  asked the General.

“No.”  came the blunt reply. 

The General flipped his finger, pointing at Akbar.  The tall man reared back and punched Farris hard in the kidneys, sending him to his knees.

“It should.”  Said Ahmet.  “The price I will charge your country will be slowly paid, one layer of skin at a time.  And I will put it all on videotape to send out to your news agencies, and all of the news agencies in the world so that they can watch a warrior of the Great Satan scream for my mercy.”

He flicked his finger again and Akbar pounded the side of Farris’ head with his knee, sending him straight to the ground, tearing a two in long gash in his cheek from which blood was now running onto the dirt floor of the hut.

“Take him out into the sun and tie him to the post.”  Ordered Ahmet. 

The men on either side of his throne chair moved forward and roughly dragged the semi conscious Farris out into the courtyard in the center of the small village.  They tore the clothes off of his body, using knives to cut them from around his bound wrists.

The two men then briefly unbound his hands to move them from the back of his body so as to re-attach them above his head.  His toes barely touched the ground as he dangled from the hook that jutted out from the grotesque wooden torture post.

Once bound, Akbar stepped close again holding his face only inches from Farris.  His body odor filled the air around the Captain’s only being over powered by breath that stunk of the khat weed that he chewed to keep himself powered up.

Khat weed is an evergreen shrub that when chewed fresh produces a powerful high similar to cocaine.  It is a staple crop throughout the Horn of Africa nations as well as Yemen and several other areas.  In most of the world it is either controlled or completely criminalized due to its narcotic potency.  To signify the importance of this drug, the very village Ahmet’s army lived in was named after it.

The Muslim regime of Southern Somalia had outlawed it, but many of the militia’s ignored this ban as the drug was what fueled their armies.

Akbar obviously was feeling very good on it, a vicious, hateful smile spread crookedly across his face revealing green khat stained teeth and unhealthy orange looking gums.  Farris watched a large ragged looking scar in the shape of a starbust on that stretched from the Akbar’s right temple to the edge of his forehead.   The African Lieutenant’s heartbeat pounded thickly in the blood vessels around the scar, making the whole mass of tissue pulse heavily almost as if it had life of it’s own, as if the scar were a living creature controlling the man.

Akbar silently leaned even closer to the Captain then reared back and drove a head butt directly onto the bridge of Farris’ nose.  Captain Farris grunted in pain as blood spattered across his chest, and dripped from Akbars own face his crooked smile widening in derisive pleasure.

The gang of men standing in a circle around them laughed riotously and urged Akbar on to more.  The tall thin man punched Farris several times in the stomach, then brought his knee up hard into the Captains private parts.  Farris grimaced from the blow and then vomited what little contents were in his stomach onto the ground between him and Lieutenant.  He began to pray silently in his mind, asking God to grant him a quick death so that he would not cry out, so that he would not satisfy these beasts by begging for mercy.

Akbar backed up from his victim and drew a long sharp knife from a leather sheath on his belt raising it high above his head dramatically letting the blade catch the bright afternoon sun.  He stepped close again and the cheering of the other men grew silent as he raised the knife to Farris’ throat.  Two of the men in the crowd had finished setting up a video camera on a tripod.

“Now, Marine,” growled Akbar, “I am going to skin you alive.  I am going to take your skin from head to toe and while you are still alive I am going to wear it like a shirt.  I will not be fast.  I will take my time.  And the entire world will see you scream for mercy when they watch the video tape of it.”

Farris could not reply with anything more than a grunt.  The horribly broken nose had caused his entire face to swell tremendously.  He looked hard into Akbars eyes and prayed again, this time instead of asking for mercy from God, he asked for revenge. 

“Father God,” he prayed silently, “whether I live or die, I ask that you see to it that this man does not live to do this again.”

As if he could read the Captain’s mind the African smacked him hard across the cheek, sending explosions of pain through the shattered framework of Farris’ face.

Akbar pressed the blade of the knife slowly into the top of Farris chest, barely slicing into the top layers of skin with excruciating slowness as the Marine braced himself against the burning pain of the steels razor edge.  Captain Farris refused cry out, instead trying to relax his body as much as possible and stifling the cries the welled up inside his lungs as the blade was drawn over his body from right to left across his collar bones.

There was a sudden commotion among the men.  Two seconds later the thunderously loud WHUP WHUP WHUP of two Apache attack helicopters deafened everyone.  Bullets ripped into the men who encircled the Captain and Akbar.

Two Blackhawk helicopters zoomed in fifty feet above the buildings and more than a dozen Marines fast roped to the ground, firing their weapons as they dropped from the sky.  Akbar spun and tried to run but his tall frame suddenly convulsed spasmodically as several rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition punched into his body.  He turned back reaching out with the knife and started towards Farris in an attempt to kill him before he could be successfully rescued but was stopped only a step away by a bullet in the back. 

The African Lieutenant crumbled to the ground, barely missing Farris’ body as he swung the knife towards him.  A Marine ran forward and cut loose the Captain’s bonds.  He hoisted Farris onto his shoulder and started for the helicopter firing his rifle one handed into a cluster of militia that attempted to rush him and the others as they made their retreat.

“We’re getting you out of here sir,” shouted the man carrying him, “don’t worry. Hogan and Company is on the job!”

Click on the Chapter link you would like to go to:

Check out all of my writing athttp://basilsands.gather.com