Rebirth: President Fatah Escapes 53 Return

They'd flown fast and high, everyone with two working eyes kept a lookout for the Jeep Alban had mentioned. Meanwhile, he only pretended to search, his mind was clouded with so many conflicting thoughts. Thoughts of the state of his last surviving companion, Marina.

Despite the both of them receiving the best first-aid treatment the troops could provide, she hadn't woken up all the while thy flew, and it'd been a minute. He was also worried for his saviours; they'd spent some time searching for the vehicle behind enemy lines, he didn't know how they could afford such at all, so he asked.

"How are we still behind enemy lines? The Malagasy will surely be on our tail by now." He questioned the Captain.

The man shrugged, taking a moment to give Alban a look before answering, "It's all on the President's orders. Some minister had us drop some large device at the frontlines before we left. It rendered all sensors and communication devices dark, except for these archaic Nokia phones."

He pulled out the phone and pa.s.sed it to Alban who inspected it, "Ha, I remember these, hard as a rock and almost never broke." He pa.s.sed it back to the waiting hands of the Captain who nodded with his quick evaluation of the device.

"Yes, I'm guessing that was the point of it all. We avoided contact with enemy combatants in the air thanks to this. The President himself called on it and directed us…somehow. He said he'd call again and direct us if we were about to come across the enemy." Again he shrugged, "I don't have all the answers and I'm quite nervous about everything myself, we are flying blind as bats here but then again, I also don't know much about what the higher-ups have in mind, but they haven't let us down so far," Admiring his full body armour and rifle, he added, "Not one bit in fact, so I'm gonna put my faith in the President."

Alban nodded, looking back out to the rapidly moving ground, he hummed in deep thought at what he'd heard. For some reason it made him feel a bit ashamed at doubting his Country during the trying week that the mission took place. A lot of things were different between Schelar and Madagascar, despite sharing the same culture and languages the two countries hated each other's guts with a pa.s.sion, hat alone was clear by how much hate was put into conversations where Schelar was concerned.

He'd found a few sympathizers to his Nation and its terrible history, but not enough to not feel justified in saying the entire population of the country had been brainwashed one way or another into hating Schelar. Not that Schelar was innocent of brainwas.h.i.+ng either, as far as he knew, the moment Hasina Fatah had become President, his entire propaganda campaign was centred around blaming the Malagasy for most, if not all of the country's problems. Even going as far as branding what he knew were rebellious Schelarian citizens, some even members of his previous cabinet, as Malagasy sponsored terrorists.

Alban couldn't blame the President for controlling the narrative, he was good at it, after all, his narrative was the only narrative the country had access to. If he didn't, more rebellious wannabes would rise up and destabilize the country, better for the citizens to have one enemy at a time.

As a Schelarian citizen, even though he knew at the moment and for a very long time to come his opinions on the politics of his country didn't matter, he thought the President was doing a good job…well, as good as any nineteen-year-old could anyway.

"I think we've found something!" someone called out from the pilot's cabin.

The Captain tapped Alban up, bringing him along with him to see what was found. They entered the cabin and took a look through winds.h.i.+elds and there it was.

"Yeah! That's the Jeep. That's our car." Alban confirmed for them. The Captain nodded to the pilot and their descent began.

Alban and the Captain jumped to the ground and approached the still burning armoured jeep, it'd been turned over and the backside had been blown to bits, they walked past some parts of it even as they approached.

The Captain carefully scanned the area, looking for the package that was according to Alban, wrapped in brown packaging and filled with bubble wrap on the inside. Alban had taken every precaution to secure the small chip. Not simply holding it in his pocket.

As the Captain searched, Alban was more focused on finding Daniels remains.

No, he wasn't dumb, he knew quite well that what he would discover wouldn't be a pleasant sight, it wouldn't be the man he bonded with lightly sleeping instead of snoring like a hippo as he did in the dorms. He knew he would be disgusted, his captors had told him that there was nothing left of his friend to retrieve, nothing to bother stuffing in a body bag, nothing to piece back together.

But still, he searched.

This didn't go unnoticed to the Captain; Alban could feel the man's gaze on his back as he shuffled through the arid lands of the Malagasy border. But the man knew to give a grieving man his s.p.a.ce, the President hadn't called so that meant they were safe and still had time to spare.

Time equates hope to Alban and he'd use it all dutifully.

It didn't take as long as he'd thought to find something. Something horrible, disgusting, scarring, and all he'd come to expect when he began his search.

With his face a paragon of shock and grieve, he picked up what was Daniels's arm, and for a full minute staring and crying over it, Alban couldn't tell whether it was his left or right arm.

There weren't any complete fingers on it.

***

Against the protests and objections of many, Alban brought along the Daniels arm on board. The Captain had sympathized with him, silencing his troops and siding with Alban, a commanding glare kept everyone shut throughout the flight back to Schelar.

They had retrieved the package, it was in the middle of burning along with the rest of the vehicle but was miraculously preserved long enough for them to arrive and pick it up.

Once they began to enter the range of the frontline, the sound of battle intensified greatly and on cue, the Captain received a call from the President, personally directing the pilot past the lines, past the enemy's aircraft and even past their own forces, to land in the Sofia Border Base or Head Quarters.

As they land and step out of the chopper, it isn't like the movies at all, there was no clapping, no saluting, no comrade-in-arms waiting to cheer their arrival. Only nods of acknowledgement and a clear path for them to walk through.

They'd wheeled Marina to the med bay where they rea.s.sured him she'd be taken care of. They'd also ripped the dead, stiff arm of Daniel from his grasps. Truth be told, he nearly cried and lunged at the men. But the strong arms holding him on either side told him his paltry resistance would mean nothing, not to him and definitely not to them.

"We can't have you reporting to the President cuddling a dead man's arm for f.u.c.ksake!" the Captain yelled at him, his eyes burned with a fury he hadn't seen in the man since he scolded his men on the craft, "Keep your PTSD episode for later, d.a.m.nit." The Captain's eyes soften looking at Alban and he couldn't place the emotion he saw in his eyes. Empathy? Sympathy? Plain old pity? Alban didn't know what it was, but he knew he didn't like the way it made him feel about himself.

He was marched off to a secluded, heavily protected part of the base. The building was small, painted black and obviously heavily reinforced with steels of the strongest kind.

There was a moment wait before the door was opened from the inside, cool air blew out from the building, refres.h.i.+ng Alban's sun-scorched skin as he stepped in.

The inside of the building was dark, purposely so perhaps, the only source of natural light came from the large window behind a desk. Everyone was required to take off whatever footwear they had on before stepping on the black-purple carpeting that covered the entire floor of the place. It had designs of panthers, flowers and the Schelarian coat of arms.

Once all procedures were obeyed, Alban was helped to his seat in front of the large mahogany desk, on it were several doc.u.ments, two laptops and phones. If he took a closer peek at the contents of the doc.u.ments he could read all about something called RDOS. But his eyes were solely focused tall man whose back he was facing.

His hair was rowdy and unkempt but his suit was laced to his figure, comfortably fitting the man's hands behind his back without any creases.

"Alban Bezara," the man speaking his full name caught him off guard. His voice was young, plainly so, with little depth or gravel to it.

He turned around and Alban, despite the shadows cast over the man's face, could see that he was just as young as he sounded. Little to no facial hair.

"I am very sorry for your loss," he pulled his seat back and sat, "I have been briefed prior to your entry of the ordeal you have pa.s.sed through to complete your mission. But if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to hear it all, start to finish from you."

Alban was tired. His mind had a hard time reconciling all the rumours, opinions and so-called facts about the man he now sat in front of with the man he was seeing.
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THIS? Was Hasina Fatah? The man the Captain had placed so much confidence and trust in? The man that commanded the entire war?

Unbelievable. This was the man that commanded the mission…the mission that put his mind in the most deplorable state he'd had it at yet.

This was the man that got Daniel killed.

Alban smiled a weary smile, his mind racing and his thoughts conflicting one another. Not being himself, whatever that was, he didn't hold back when answering.

"Well, you f.u.c.king ordered us to get a chip and we got it. You G.o.dd.a.m.n b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"