Thread: A Nurse's Nightmare [DeRe & Celebstars]

The red broken land along the KenyanSomali border was a barren place, usually reserved for hunters or scavengers of both animal and human kind. But as the situation had deteriorated in Somalia over the years, a refugee camp had grown from the hard rock like the acacia trees which abounded in the area. It had been named Tumaini, from the Swahili word for hope. This had become a cruel irony as the multitudes arrived, and the supposedly temporary tent camp became a wretched permanent city of misery and apathy. It now numbered nearly a thousand desperate folk, scattered among habitation of plastic and canvas, scratching for a new life among the refuse and dust. In among the hardly locals was a very small band of foreigners committed to improving things. The UN and the US Peace Corps both maintained small operations the former with a few hassled Nigerian peacekeepers, the latter with a modest medical base. Despite the overwhelming difficulties they faced they had begun to make life more bearable at Tumaini, and won the grudging respect of the wary and exhausted people they tended. This little ray of light in an otherwise gloomy sky was not welcomed by all. A local cadre of Somali militiamen from Al-Shabaab ran some operations from the camp, including slavery and drug-smuggling. The fact the camp was a Christian outfit irritated them immensely and they had brooded for weeks on what reprisals to take. In the end, they decided the abduction and murder of the most popular foreign medical staff would send a very clear message to the refugees about who was in charge here. Another scorching dusty day faded away, the neon blue sky seeming to catch alight as the scarlet-colored clouds billowed across it. Activity in the camp was quietening down as families prepared the evening meal and everyone sheltered from the oncoming chill of the night. Only a few campfires and lamplights flickered in the deepening velvet darkness of the oncoming night. They were visible as blinking pinpoints to the four militiamen approaching the camp in speedy silence. Each was heavily armed and prepared for a shootout, but their main goal was only a quick snatch-and-run. They made their way through the tents like shadows, meeting their secret contact in his tent on the edge of the camp. Muktar had been a doctor in Mogadishu once, long along. But that had all been blown away like the dust. Now he was forced to help the far-less qualified Westerners who ran the clinic in this cursed hellhole. His dreams of success and heading his own hospital were long gone and he was deeply bitter for it. Worst of all, he was forced to be an orderly and servant for an American woman who was barely half his age - and not even a proper doctor. As a fundamentalist and fiercely hypocritical Muslim he was appalled to be helping the unfaithful. The outrage burned him every day, hotter than the sun he was usually toiling in. The scorching lust he felt for the pretty blond and the guilt it fired in him multiplied things even more. Eventually he decided to make contacts with a cousin in Al-Shabaab, and offer to hand the foreigners over to them in exchange for a false identity and passage to Nairobi. They eagerly complied, and now Muktar found himself facing the four cruel-faced terrorists in his tent.