Free Joint Task Force #4: Africa by David E. Meadows

return, and when we return we will need such weapons.” He saw the red in his brother’s face, and he realized he had both angered and humiliated him in front of others.
    Abdo stepped forward, and Abu Alhaul prepared himself for the verbal sparring he expected, but his brother turned abruptly, his face still red with anger, and like a huge clearing machine, his younger brother raised his machete. The arm moved in a blur as Abdo chopped and wracked the bushes apart in front of them, raising huge clouds of insects and filling the air around him with fresh leaves. Abu Alhaul watched as his brother broke the trail ahead, aware the path headed north.
    Abu Alhaul handed the notebook to the young man. He told himself he had time to change his decision to flee. Those who followed would stay with him, but would his brother? He followed along the path, his brother farther ahead. First, the Americans chase him out of Liberia. Within two weeks of loading a merchant vessel with a deadly cargo to avenge the death of his family and watching it sail from a little-used port in the Ivory Coast, the French mounted such massive searches for him, searches so intense, he was forced to flee north to Guinea.
    Six months in Guinea, Abu Alhaul was reconstituting his army when he encountered this makeshift, ragtag gang of Africans chasing him— him; the true savior ofAfrica—calling themselves the African National Army. Instead of trying to find and kill him, this African National Army should be focusing on the white men who have ravaged this continent for centuries. His thoughts never equated the origin of enslaving Africans to the Arabs from North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The Africans and Arabs were brothers, he thought. Together we could do so much, but if I stop to talk, they’ll kill me before we could agree on consolidating our forces. It is hard to discuss logically together the better path when false ideology clouds the true path of Jihad.
    Behind this leader marched remnants of an army that two years ago numbered in the thousands. In the middle of the thick, bush-ridden jungles of Guinea, they fled from an army made up of thousands of native Africans whose only thoughts were to find and kill him. After what he had done for this continent, they treat him as if he was scum. They should be fighting the Americans and the French. Free Liberia and Ivory Coast from the western powers, and the rest of Africa would rise to support you. Whoever this General Ojo was, the man had no grasp for reality.
    An hour later, the man with the books closed the gap with Abu Alhaul. “Master, the men are tired. Several have the surface-to-air missiles and—”
    “Abdo, we’ll take a break here!” Abu Alhaul shouted.
    The remnants of his army squatted where they were, a few quietly exchanging words. The noise of the jungle could be heard again.
    Abdo turned and rejoined his brother, who was still standing. “Sit, my brother,” he said softly to Abu Alhaul, reaching up and touching the terrorist leader on the shoulders. “Sit and rest. We are free from our pursuers. They won’t follow us out of the jungles because they would run into the Ghanaian Army. We are small—”
    “Abdo, I would feel better, if you wouldn’t remind me of our size. We used to be so many.”
    Abdo nodded. “And we used to be feared by so many, but now we must reconstitute ourselves; return to where the fields are ripe for your picking; and, if you so desire in a few years, we can return and pursue your guidance from Allah.” He pushed down again on Abu Alhaul’s shoulders.
    Abu Alhaul nodded and squatted on his haunches. No one sat on the jungle floor where so many things could craw upon you to eat.
    Abdo squatted beside him, pulling his backpack off and tossing it in front of them. He opened it and rifled through the stuff crammed into the back, pulling out an American energy bar. “Here, eat this.”
    Abu Alhaul took it, turned it different ways, looking at the