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Musa Chastain had never been public about his wealth when he made it. He had begun by buying homes at tax lien auctions. He’d purchase and re-sell later. As he did so, he later began to fix them up first after a few profits. Then he began to buy only homes not even requiring any repairs. After finally acquiring a year’s salary, he invested part of it into a condominium and he sold his house. He began to write restaurant reviews for a paper and was paid fairly for it. Then he visited some nearby resorts and wrote reviews of them, which the editor loved. The reviews were always fair, so that no restaurant but two were ever completely slammed and no one could say he was playing soft ball.
When he wound up a writer for a travel magazine, he was envied. He was paid to go to resorts in foreign countries and write about it. He would get a week per country, two in a row, then two at home. With a $40,000 a year salary and some rental income, he didn’t hurt for money, but he had to be careful about he spent it as he expected to be questioned about all of it after he died. He would travel not just to Europe and the Caribbean, but also to Asia and to the Pacific Islands and South America. When he learned that at least ten countries in Africa had tourism indutries and very well-assembled infrastructures, he requested to be the first to go and write about them. The editor didn’t even show him any respect in the phone call.
"Africa?! What the hell are you talking about?! What will you write about? The different types of mud used to make huts? The lions that try to eat you? How to live in the trees safe from predators?"
"Why don’t you send me and find out? I go to Europe and I don’t write about the bodies of darkies they’re built on, do I? Or the cannibalism of the Irish as recently as the Roman occupation? Or the caves they just crawled out of? There’s nothing new to write about there anymore. But Africa has resorts in their stable countries and these resorts are just as nice as the ones in the Caribbean. British and German tourists like to go but it’s just not known to many of us. Didn’t you ever know this from being a travel magazine editor?"
"How would I? No one writes about Africa. Besides, they don’t give us the same kick-backs the European and Caribbean ones do. No one even wants to go to Africa."
"Then let me be first and we’ll grab that market while it’s good and no one knows about it yet. Come on, Delta flies into Liberia from Atlanta, it won’t be an issue. I can save you money on that trip."
"Look, Musa, all puns intended when I say it doesn’t make cents, so it doesn’t make dollars. Shut Africa out of your mind and book your next flight to Scotland."
So Musa booked his own flight to Senegal and changed his life unknowingly.
When the assignment he was on at the time ended, he flew from London to Dakar. The afternoon he landed, it was only 82 degrees and breezy. He was searched at customs but not harassed nor solicited for a bribe. He took a taxi from the airport to his resort without issue and he checked in. So far, no civil war, no oppressive heat, no bribes, and no lions. As he experienced Senegal over the next two weeks, only in the market place did people try to take him fast by jacking up prices, but he knew to expect that and he talked them down. But in restaurants and cafes with posted menus he was charged fairly and he paid accordingly with tips. He became loved at one when he went to the waiter and gave him his tip in his hand. He then went to Scotland for his next assignment and went to Luxembourg after that, then wrote reviews on all three locations and submitted them. That edition of the magazine sold like normal, but back issues were ordered more than normally once the next edition came out. The editor removed the Senegales review from that edition and then the back orders stopped.
The editor called Musa while he was on assignment in Bali and started to fuss at him. "I just submitted it, you’re the editor and you included it! Must mean you approved it."
"No, Musa! I overlooked it and then corrected that when I discovered it! Don’t write on African locations again!"
"The hell you say?! Exclude them, don’t publish them, but I’m writing on them regardless. I live there now! And love it! So much for your hillbilly stereotypes! Now excuse me so I can pack fr the next destination. Have a nice day!"
Musa eventually settled into Freetown, Sierra Leone. It was rebuilding from its recently ended civil war and its electricity plants were still out of commission, so generators ran everything in the city and the noise was deafening at night. In the day, the sound of Krio being spoken filled the streets. English was the official language, but Krio was the English actually spoken outside of business proceedings. As it was still a type of English, Musa could understand it slowly, but he couldn’t speak it. It was in Krio that a tragedy was relayed to him by some young orphans.
Orphaned children abounded and many of them had been forced to fight in the civil war. They had been orphaned, kidnapped, raped, drugged, and forced to commit atrocities on others. Every now and then, Musa would see amputees of different ages and he learned that many times children had been drugged and ordered to do these choppings or even threatened with death if they did not. One orphan had cut off so many hands of others so that his commander would spare his toddler sister, only to have the commander sell the sister to a village before it was overrun by rebels. These kids were not told for whom they were fighting or for what cause, just to fight. Now, they were free but with no direction and no one to care for them. Girls and boys alike had been child soldiers, but Musa only met the boys as they were the ones who would wait at the airport ferry dock to be hired as guides by new arrivals to the city. Most of them were twice orphaned and now in their teens.
One named Ahmed was hired by Musa to show him where to find a good barbershop. To be generous, Musa paid him half a day’s wage on condition that Ahmed never tell anyone. Ahmed then stuck to Musa for the morning, insistent on earning what he was paid. After leaving the barber shop, Ahmed said to him, "You are really a nice man. You haven’t asked me for my body and you pay extra."
Musa innocently misunderstood. "Your body? Why the hell would I want you dead? You haven’t provoked anything like that!"
"I mean you have not asked to penetrate me."
This threw Musa for a loop. And as he asked in outrage and shock, so Ahmed answered him, telling him how he had turned down four proposals in one year, two from one man and two from two different men. Musa learned what he could from Ahmad, then he took the one name Ahmad could give him of one of the men. Musa later learned from other "guides" by questioning them intentionally. He asked them in plain terms if any men had offered to do wrong things to them for money. Almost all had been offered, most had refused. Many had been molested as boys in the armies by older boys or they had witnessed molestations of boys and girls alike. Homosexuality and pedophilia alike were foreign to Africa as a whole, but to this generation they were imposingly familiar even though they weren’t at all seen as right. But the boys who admitted they had accepted had done so because they had sick siblings for whom they could not afford any medicines otherwise. Musa gleaned from them all that the police had been notified but had not moved on them because these pedophiles offering money to boys for sex were all wealthy expats and they required absolute proof before making arrests. They were hesitant to arrest rich white men, even for a crime this horrible, without it. Any locals who did such a thing would have been doused with gas in the market place and set on fire, but it took a lot of nerve to do this to expats.
From 26 guides, Musa got only 8 names and where they were living, as these expats had gotten relaxed in their solicitations. It appeared only a handful of them were doing this, but too many guides knew of them and many had been molested. Most of the teens had not been, but some pre-teen boys admitted they had been, and they usually cried when they told this. More had denied what happened to them but betrayed themselves by crying just as hard. Musa had almost had a heart attack when he had listened to the sixth boy cry. He was an orphan, only 8 years old. He didn’t get drafted into any army but he had seen killing and he couldn’t remember much about his mother, only a picture of him smiling at her one time and that she would hug him a lot. He knew she had been shot in their home when he was three and all he could remember after that was being a refugee and hungry. He had lived in the woods sometimes, escaping leopards often times by staying close to a cliff so that they dared not get too close to it to get him. He had escaped rebels a lot more times by hiding. His story was the straw that broke Musa’s back so to speak.
Piet Ruutgart was at home for the evening in his villa when Musa just walked in on him. "Who are you?" he’d asked. Musa showed a detective badge he’d bought from a police officer for a bribe. Then he showed his nine millimeter, which was not standard detective issue for Freetown detectives.
He went to the bank Piet had, then he showed his badge and withdrew the equivalent of 30,000 US dollars. He then requested the rest to go to an amputee shelter. Musa laid low for a month after this, going on his regular assignments and then returning. After a week at home, he began to publish an online magazine about life in Africa, starting with Senegal and Sierra Leone. Online membership was cheap in dollars, but in leones it would be nice pay to him.
Just before his next departure, he went and hit up a German target, the second name he had been given. He wasn’t sure of the spelling, but it sounded like the German last name Kniche. Musa had Kniche’s victim in the car with him, and he identified him as surely as he could have recognized his own face. This was all Musa needed. He asked the boy to crawl into the back seat and duck, then he started up the car and drove up by Kniche’s limo as they awaited the gate to open. He opened fire on the limo as he slowly drove past and he was satisfied to see that the windows were not bullet-proof. The back window shattered amidst much blood spray coming from where Kniche’s head had been. All the du’a Musa had been making were paying off. Allah had granted him two victories. Musa got out of the car and held the gun on the startled driver and gate guard. "Don’t move, I’m not here to hurt you!" he told them as they put up their hands. "He molested some boys in this country and hid behind his money to escape the police. Where is his safe?"
"The house servants might know, sir! We do not!"
"All right, instead of reporting him dead I want you all to hide his body and take the time you need to break the safe. Split whatever is in it among your selves. If anyone asks, say that he told you he was going to the airport and you dropped him off there. But if no one asks, then just crack the safe and split his money. And one more thing. If I give you the name of one more European that has molested boys in this country, will you make sure that everyone knows he did it?"
In Sierra Leone, an Islamic revival was taking place as they rebuilt, and many people were taking the practice seriously and casting aside liberalism broadcast on satellite television. Hijabs were the order of the day among the Muslim residents of Sierra Leone in general and Freetown specifically. Wearing gold was customary for African men, but was being replaced by silver among the Muslim men. But due to the poverty of the region, the Sierra Leoneans did not control much and money talked still. This was why the foreigners weren’t brought to justice for a lot of things. Even Lebanese who lived in Sierra Leone were rarely arrested for crimes, though they were also fairly law-abiding. This was why Musa, who had never been violent before, would make it a point to strip the dead molesters of their money and distribute it. He wanted to make sure the families of the molesters didn’t get a dime and some locals did, since the lack of money was what was oppressing them in the first place.
When Musa got to his fifth victim, it was half of a year later and the police were wondering who was executing expats like this. Musa had taken out his third and fourth in the night time. The fourth he had taken to the Freetown Zoo and thrown into the lion exhibit so that the next morning, the body would be eaten. It took them a week to identify the body after they realized what the lion was munching on. The big cat had eaten much of the neck and chest by that time. When Musa shot the fifth expat coming out of his home to attend his employer’s birthday party, he also shot two of his bodyguards. The only reason they had not shot him was because they were all caught off-guard and had not heard the shots picking them off through the silencer. Musa went into the house and searched for the safe and any bank statements. He found the guy’s wife in the bedroom, watching TV. "Open the safe," he told her evenly before she even realized he wasn’t one of the servants. When she saw the gun she froze and began to hyper-ventilate until he told her forcefully, "Get a grip and open the safe. You’ll be safe so long as you follow those orders. He couldn’t fake a Sierra Leonean accent, but he could fake a West African accent in general and with his face partially covered, he could afford to let her go if she didn’t resist. He got out with 874 euros. She had been surprised to find out her husband had harmed some boys, but she was a young and new bride and really didn’t know him that well. She was just a trophy wife.
After this, he recorded himself on a camera with his face covered and his voice altered, explaining that the five dead expats had been executed for molesting young boys and the police had refused to make arrests because they were white and had money. He exorted the Muslims in Sierra Leone to take matters into their own hands and kill those who they knew to be doing this. "If they harm no one, we shouldn’t harm them, but if they harm anyone and we know it, we should never again let them get away with it. If the police won’t take them to jail and bring them before a judge then we shall kill them ourselves and take all they have to spend with each other. You have allowed them to get away with evil because they have money, and this is why we should never let them have more than us once they are openly corrupt. I am the one who killed them, and I will kill the others who have raped our children just as well. Those who avoid corruption are the safe ones. Salam aleikum, Sierra Leone."
The tape was on the local news the next morning and the reporters said a warrant was out to arrest whoever had been killing the expats. The police were taking the vigilante seriously and it was too early to gauge an opinion of the people yet. But Musa was angered that the police still weren’t after any of the expats for child molestation. He had three more left to kill and rob, but those were the only three he knew by name. There were others who had been reported before he ever set foot in Freetown and they had never been arrested except one. He had been convicted and only had to pay a fine. A fine! Not death, just some money that totaled out to be 3,000 dollars when converted.
The victims he had met knew he was the one doing it, and they hadn’t yet reported him to the police. But he knew it was a matter of time before he was discovered. He had often said as a boy that he wanted to die in Africa, but he was sure that he’d die from resisting arrest or he’d die in prison there now.
When he went after his sixth victim, the police were surrounding the man’s villa. It was a British man judging from his name, and he had been smart. But when Musa saw that the police were surrounding the villa, he parked his motorcycle away and peeked around the corner of the block to see why they were surrounding it without arresting the expat. To request protection, the Brit would have needed to say he had been a molester or was afraid of being accused of the crime just to rob him and kill him. Either way, it was unjust that the police were surrounding his place to protect him and not to arrest him. It was possible they were awaiting him so they could arrest him, but at that nighttime hour it was likely that the Brit was already at home.
Musa had a decision to make. He had income and not a lot of hours to work, so life was easier for him than it was for many others. But he didn’t care about it if it didn’t benefit anyone else at all. If only he enjoyed his God-given resources, it was fruitless. So he went to his own flat and made out a will. He had no children, so he left his money and future residual income to his parents and to Ahmad Ijan of Freetown. He signed it and took it to a lawyer the next morning.
The next night, he drove by on a motorcycle again in front of the Brit’s house. Police had still surrounded the place. He parked around the corner and then snuck up under cover of darkness. He could probably sneak into the house, but not back out so easily. He understood this, but someone had to remove the corruption. As he came up behind the house from the other block, approaching the fence, he snuck up on a cop stationed there. He put the gun to the cop’s head and a hand over his mouth and asked him, "Do you want to die to protect a child molester?" Ironically, the cop didn’t try to shake his head no, he just shrugged his shoulders. "Then take off your shirt and lay on your back. The cop quietly complied, at which point Musa put the silencer in his mouth and asked him again, "Do you want to die to protect a child molester?" The cop wouldn’t answer, and Musa couldn’t understand why the cop wouldn’t just say no or shake his head no to save himself, but he didn’t ask, either. The cop was looking at him with such hatred that Musa knew the cop would merely kill him should he get the chance. He couldn’t just let the cop go if he wanted to. "Unaffordable," his dad would say about showing mercy to the wrong people. He squeezed the trigger and shot him in the mouth so that the medulla oblongata would be squished and the body wouldn’t twitch and make noise among the leaves lying around it.
The Brit, Allistair Worth found that the house was growing more silent and wondered why. He had a TV on, but one of the police officer’s radios was also in the house at a low volume. The cop stationed inside was taking liberties with his food as he maintained radio contact with the officers outside. Allistair was getting aggravated seeing his Oreo cookies and his milk dwindle slowly by the minute. The cop had even microwaved some of Allistair’s meal from the previous night left over. But after a while, he heard nothing. No chewing, no radio, no microwave bell going off. Only the TV and nothing else. His servants had just retired to their quarters in the compound for the evening, so he expected no noise from their activities, but almost wished they hadn’t. He just noticed it all of a sudden. So when he went to look in on the officer stationed inside, he merely wasn’t there. There was no hint that he had been there except the radio on his kitchen table and the dirty dish left in his sink. Next thing he knew, his window shattered, startling him and making him duck. He was then lifted from his crouching position and bodily thrown back. He saw a man standing above him with a pistol pointed at him with a silencer on its muzzle. The police had failed. "You know why I’m here," the intruder said to him.
"To take my money, to rob me, that’s why!" Allistair said in outrage. "I heard about expatriates here, all white, getting killed and their safes open or something. Then you say that you’re doing it because we’re doing horrible things! I could never hurt a child, but you want to kill me and take my money! That’s why!"
"No, you did. And now I’m going to make sure you pay for it."
"POLICE!" boomed a voice from outside as a spotlight shone in through the shattered window. "You are surrounded! Exit the home with your hands up!"
Musa didn’t flinch or look away, he continued looking at Allistair and told him, "I’ll even leave your money here. You’re being executed, not robbed and murdered." Then he shot him in the head.
Musa was adamant that he was right in doing what he did, so he refused to be taken in alive to a prison, especially a Sierra Leonean prison. "No way will I let you all win like this!" he screamed outside from next to the door. Then the phone rang. He ducked and crawled towards it and picked it up. Before he could even say anything, someone spoke.
"Yes, this is the police, Captain Kissee speaking."
"Kissee, these men molested little boys, and the victims named them for me. Everyone I killed had at least two victims to name them, and I mean two who didn’t know each other. You all retreat and let me get away with this like I was right and they were wrong, or you’ll have to take me in dead and bury some of your own. I did this because of Allah, and this time I’m not surrendering."
"What do you ask of us?" asked Kissee. This then told Musa that Kissee was specifically a hostage negotiator. After travelling the world, even he was surprised to find that an African nation recovering from a civil war had hostage negotiators on its police force.
"You withdraw and leave me alone like there was no crime here. And you arrest and charge the next foreigner to be accused of this, just like you would if a local were accused. Stop refusing to make arrests because someone accused is rich and white."
"We can meet your second demand if you demand it or not. But your first demand we cannot meet. How will we know Mister Worth is safe?"
"He’s not safe, now withdraw before some of us meet Allah."
"So you have brought Islamic terrorism to West Africa? Is that your mission?"
"No, I merely brought some justice here, now you got ten seconds to start pulling away."
"Please give us at least half of an hour."
"Eight seconds, Kissee."
"We cannot get the first jeep in reverse in so short a notice."
"Then witness the courage only the Almighty can give a human being!" Musa said and then hung up. He was sure that it was a stall tactic and really just a refusal on their part to give up.
With resolve and no hesitation, Musa walked out and began shooting at the police officers. He caught the closest one in the chest, before he felt a few ant bites on his body amidst a deafening sound of gunfire. He knew he was being shot at, but he was amazed that he wasn’t being hit at first. When he felt the minor discomfort of ant bites in multiple places he realized he might have actually been shot, but he was thrown onto his back. He did not feel himself thrown back, he just saw the night sky and side of the house in his view.
Then he saw one of the stars grow in brightness until its light separated the sky into two. No more itch from the ant bites could he detect anymore. He could no longer hear any gunfire or feel the gun in his hand, he could only see someone approach him from that bright break in the night sky. She had abnormally large and bright eyes, but not at alien-looking, and she was running to him with a smile. "Musa, Musa! Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu! Good news! The best news! Come see!"
She reached him and shook his hand and then embraced him, and he smelled her perfume, better than any he had smelled before. She introduced herself to him and informed him that he had been forgiven, redeemed, and successful. "Allah has given us to each other," she told him. He realized that he was now standing up and facing her, and he couldn’t feel his own weight, but he felt more healthy than ever. The surroundings had now changed, a warm and soft light coming from far, far, overhead, and greenery surrounding them. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the location in which he found himself reminded him of some idyllic countryside locations he had seen in the South Pacific. But now he was already being handed a goblet full of some sweet-smelling beverage, by some servants that he had never even seen approaching them. He began to perceive his own body odor, one of a very unique cologne he had never known before.
"Did I die?" he asked her.
"You died, but you are no longer dead. You’re alive again."
"But I was in a shoot-out, and I didn’t feel the bullets. Just some itching. Was I just dreaming about it?"
"The martyr in the way of Allah feels the pain of death like an ant bite. You fought in Allah’s way and remained steadfast on the covenant you made with Him. You ran to fight where others run away to save themselves. You ran for Jannah when others run to hold on to the earth. So, you won’t be questioned in the grave and the Last Day will be quick and easy for you. You’ll wait in Jannah in the meantime, then when you return on the Last Day it will be even better for you."
"All I did was go out and face them, I didn’t feel any pain yet! If success is that easy then let me go back and do it again!"
She took Musa’s hand and walked with him towards a valley with everything in bloom and smelling sweet. "Let’s see what awaits you! You must experience it as it cannot all be described!" Musa found that that was indeed true, his reward could not be described to us if he had wanted it to be, but he soon began to not even care about describing the fun he was having.
I could describe to you what was said about him after he was dead and buried, but what would it matter? Musa had advantages in life and yet he still gave it all up to fight a corruption, finally sacrificing his life altogether to protect his relationship with Allah by refusing to submit to a man-made and corrupted government. What would it matter what others said about him when he was finally redeemed by his Lord and freed from all problems and worries? And not just for a day, or a week, or a year, or a decade, or a lifetime, or a century, or a millenium, or even for just a million years... but forever!
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