New Cameroon Views Blog: FLASH OF THE SUN (Sample Chapters of an international thriller on France, Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Cameroon, World War Two, Cold War, Social Engineering, Geo-political Engineering

My unremitting love to Christopher Nkwayep-Chando, for helping me to rise above myself and for honoring me with his legacy, and to Salomon Muna Yakana for being that sorely missed friend.

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it—always.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”

― Robert A. Heinlein

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

― Oscar Wilde

“The use of political assassination against liberation movements has changed the course of history in a number of countries in Africa and continues to devastate the Middle East. The current power relations between the Third World and the dominant Western and imperialist powers, are a product of the war of attrition which the West has waged, particularly by political assassinations, which have robbed Africa and the Middle East of some of their great leaders, and weakened their important political organizations.”

― Victoria Brittain

Chapter 1

New York, Spring 1958

Renault's "princess"—the 1956 Renault Dauphine—made René Roccard proud, a feeling that millions of his French compatriots also shared. So, when he bought a Dauphine sedan from the first consignment that the auto manufacturer shipped to the United States of America, his co-workers were not surprised at all. However, people started raising their eyebrows when he made it a point of intoning stanzas of France’s national anthem La Marseillaise or honking whenever he saw a Dauphine or drove past one.

The patriotic Frenchman regarded the car as a testament to France's recovery after its humiliating defeat and four-year occupation by Germany during the Second World War.

The automobile did not make René feel proud or concerned as he navigated the streets of New York City that afternoon. The expression of grim determination on his face relaxed only a little as he left East 48th Street behind him and joined the crawl of traffic through Broadway. The Frenchman’s preoccupation with the details of his self-assigned mission made him completely oblivious to the skyscrapers on both sides of the road and even distracted him to the point where he was just inches away from hitting the back bumper of the blue Ford Fairlane sedan right in front of him when he reacted swiftly by stepping hard on the brake pedal. The Renault Daphne jerked to a sudden stop, thrusting his body forward and bringing his head close to hitting the steering wheel. Infuriated with himself for almost screwing up his mission with a stupid accident had he not snapped back in time to prevent it, he hit the steering wheel repeatedly, gritted and then dropped back in his seat.

“Merde…merde, les salopards!” René cursed and didn’t cease until the cars hooting from his rear alerted him that he was lagging behind the flow of traffic.

René moved the car forward, in rhythm with the other vehicles in front of him and then looked at his perspiring palms one after the other. He sighed at the irony of his nervousness and then narrowed his eyelids even further. The contorted expression on his face only eased a little as he drove into 1st Avenue/United Nations Plaza, steering the vehicle through a variety of residential neighborhoods.

“Cette circulation est agaçante,” he hissed under his breath.

True he hadn’t anticipated the heavy traffic at that hour of the day and never imagined the temperature could hit ninety-seven degrees Fahrenheit that afternoon. Nothing should mess up my plans, he thought.

The Frenchman looked less agitated when he parked the car in the Turtle Bay neighborhood, got out, opened the trunk, and then pulled out a guitar case with hardly recognizable rifle parts inside. Even though the thought of “La Bastringue” by the chansonnier Mary Rose-Anna Bolduc crossed his mind as he shut the trunk with a bang, he started humming the Quebecer’s song under his breath only after he locked the driver door and pocketed the key.

“You have a nice baby there,” a voice with a distinct Boston accent sounded from behind René, sending a chill up his spine.

The Frenchman froze for a moment and then turned around with a half-angry and half-surprised look on his face. “What did you just say?” he asked with a sneer.

“It is a beautiful piece of machinery. Oh yes! As a matter of fact, my wife is buying one tonight,” the smiling American replied and then ran his hand on the hood of the Renault Daphne as if caressing it.

“Thank you, Sir! Believe me, your wife will love it,” René retorted, making no effort to disguise his thick Gallic accent. Then he regarded the man for a moment with narrowed eyelids before turning around and adding in a monotone, “Excuse me, Sir! I must leave now.”

The Frenchman did not even dart a look at the man he addressed the words to as he waved the American goodbye and walked away. He hurried across the park with quick steps in the direction of the Tudor City apartments, conscious of the dampness on the back of his shirt.

“Ignore it,” he hissed as he tried to shake off the sudden upsurge of the irritation plaguing him.

René increased his pace as he approached the apartment block situated directly opposite the impressive complex that is the United Nations Headquarters, situated right across First Avenue. He even covered the remaining twenty yards to the apartment door with half-running steps.

“What am I doing to myself?” he mumbled, mindful of his panting and the slight trembling of his hands.

The Frenchman pulled out the bunch of keys from his back pocket, picked out an inconspicuous silver key, inserted it into the keyhole and then unlocked the entrance door. He pushed it open, muttering a torrent of curses under his breath as he stepped inside Giuseppe Matteotti’s two-bedroom apartment. Then he locked the door behind him and hurried to the casement window.

It was just a month ago that he made the Italian painter’s acquaintance in a bar, got his invitation to his apartment to see his paintings and then decided to copy the painter’s key after he told him he would be away in his old country for half a year.

René took less than three minutes to assemble the sniper rifle and then set aside fifteen minutes for his high level of adrenaline to subside while he waited for his target. But the target did not show up until forty-three minutes later, and even when he exited the United Nations building, he did so with a crowd. Furthermore, the man never stayed for more than a second or two in the crosshairs of René’s rifle scope, a development that agitated him even further.

Even though the target appeared bearded, he was certain it was Ruben Um Nyobè, the energetic six-foot leader of “The Union of the Populations of the Cameroons (UPC)”, the civic-nationalist political party that morphed into the Cameroonian Underground Organization by taking up arms against France in French Cameroun after the French Trusteeship administration banned it in 1955. And he was talking and gesturing to the five men and a lone woman around him with an air of confidence and a smile on his face that triggered a flow of bile up René’s throat. He swallowed it back and licked his lips.

René’s heart skipped a beat when the diplomats started walking with the French Camerounian away from the building. His cardiac turmoil was followed by an ache in his stiffened trigger finger as he focused his aim and waited for the moment to deliver the shot that would avenge the death of his brother. However, just as he was about to press the trigger, his target stopped, held the shoulder of one of the foreign diplomats and then moved away. The unexpected movement made René gasp without intending to. Now, his view of the target was almost completely blocked by the burly diplomat, a development that infuriated him even further, leaving his nerves more overwrought than before. The Frenchman bit his lip as he watched the other diplomats encircle the target and then walked him to the waiting car. Then the grey sedan drove away seconds after the French Camerounian got in.

Rage swept over René, making him quiver, so that he buckled under the weight of his failure, slumped to the floor, and then rolled over. He hit his thighs with both fists, emitting a series of grunts that seemed to give a peculiar rhyme to the vocal manifestation of his tribulation. The Frenchman hardly knew what he was doing when he leaned backwards on the wall and closed his eyes, muttering barely audible curses as he banged the back of his head on the partition.

René Roccard’s lip movement stopped for a moment, followed by a deep frown, an unconscious facial movement that created a look of extreme rage on his face. Then without even opening his eyes, he nodded to himself several times as if acknowledging an inner voice. Yes, it was his inner voice all right. He would try again for the third time, and if the next attempt turned out to be unsuccessful too, he would make the journey to French Cameroun and finish the job there.

René closed his eyes again and tried to shake off the haunting Monday, January 6, 1958 headline in the New York Times, but it kept imposing itself on his mind.

France Sends Troops to Crush Red-Led Uprising in Cameroons; Acts to Prevent New 'Algeria' in African Territory Where Rebels Burned 60 Villages.

“Les idiots, les imbéciles!” he growled and pulled his hair, “The rebellion in our Cameroun isn’t different from the one in Algeria. That’s why Marc is dead,” He quivered this time around in an inaudible voice, ruffled his hair and then closed his eyes.

A moment of silence ensued before he buried his head in his hands and started weeping. His weeping had subsided into a snivel when the first humming sound of "La Complainte du Partisan" (The Complaint of the Partisan―"The Partisan") escaped his lips, He did not stop shedding tears until he came to the end of the first stanza, when he growled the lyric “… I took my gun and vanished.”

René was angry with himself when he went to bed that night and woke up the next morning feeling dejected. He was brushing his teeth grumpily when he recalled the song about the French Resistance against Nazi Germany and started singing it for no apparent reason. He sang it again to the end as he took a shower and as he ate breakfast. The song must have had a palliative effect on him that morning because he looked more solemn than sad when he made it to work that day. However, that emotion did not last for long because news from Paris reporting General Charles De Gaulle’s return to power in France reached the consulate hardly an hour after he got there. The afternoon report brought a genuine smile to his face for the first time that week.

**************

The month of May 1958 is remembered in the annals of French History as the month of the second and most important Algiers Putsch—an attempt to overthrow the reigning government in Paris that was launched from the capital of French Algeria.

This was after the French populace grew tired of governments that were plagued by recurrent cabinet crises that in turn increased the misgivings of the French Army and the French settlers in the colonies, especially in Algeria. The plotted revolt of these French soldiers was a culmination of years of political instability originating from the shortcomings of the parliamentary system of the French Fourth Republic, which saw twenty prime ministers govern France within eleven years, the vast majority of them coming from parties on the left of the political spectrum.

Following years of chafing against the incompetence of different French governments to quell the rebellions in Algeria and French Cameroun, the army became convinced that even the current right-wing government of the ethnic German and Alsace-born Pierre Eugène Jean Pflimlin was about to act out of political expediency and order another precipitated pullout from the territories, just like the previous center-left government of Pierre Mendès France left French Indochina in 1954, thereby sacrificing French honor in the process.

That was why from the balconies in Algiers in Algeria and Yaoundé in French Cameroun to the corridors of power in France itself, patriotic voices were heard calling for the return to power of General Charles De Gaulle. The cry for the return of the towering French warrior and statesman to the political scene carried with it a fervor that felt like some sort of religious zeal.

The people had every reason to seek political salvation from their hero of the Second World War. It was Charles De Gaulle who saved French honor during the four years of Germany’s occupation of France, but then surprised the nation by resigning from public office in 1946, decrying the weaknesses of the French Fourth Republic, its constitution, and the parliamentary system of government. Now, he was vindicated.

Just like millions of discontented and despondent French citizens, René Roccard regarded the French legend as their only hope in rallying the French nation again. He believed General Charles De Gaulle was the only person capable of giving a sense of direction to France’s relationship with its evolving territories and colonies and saw the general as the only French figure capable of making France highly respectable in its affairs with the rest of the changing world. What is more, René was convinced that France was entering a new era in its history, a phase that would allow patriots like him to accomplish their self-assigned missions for the fatherland and be acknowledged at the same time as French heroes who saved France from irrelevancy.

Chapter 2

René Roccard was in a state of heightened anxiety the night after the French consulate in New York granted his request to travel to France. He barely had enough hours of sleep to keep him alert the next day. With his anticipation fueled and kept high by his constant thoughts on French Cameroun, he had every reason to dwell on some of his doubts. There was much about the territory to keep abreast of—a lot to learn, personalities to know and strategies to devise.

He arrived in Paris that late spring without letting his friends, family and relatives know about it and then reported the next day to the Ministry of Overseas territories for a meeting with the new minister. The appointment was set for Thursday.

René was in high spirits when he showed up at the former Hôtel Majestic in central Paris, once a massive luxury hotel that politicians decided to transform into a hub for diplomacy. He was even more effusive when a secretary ushered him into the minister’s office. But the meeting was a flop even before it ended, or so he concluded prematurely. The new minister’s partial grasp of the situation in French Cameroun left René infuriated to the point where he almost called the man a moron, a concern he thought of informing his superiors about.

A faint expression of suppressed rage at the lack of substance of the meeting could be seen on his face as he rose to leave. But then André Colin rose too and extended his hand to him. René hesitated for a moment before shaking it, musing at the fact that he stood a head taller than the minister. But then, André Colin made him smile for the first time that afternoon as he walked him to the door.

“I don’t think you know about this, but Monsieur Pierre Messmer is eager to meet you. In fact, he asked me to schedule a rendezvous with you for Tuesday next week, right here in my office.”

“Messmer?” he exclaimed, dimming his eyes suspiciously.

“Oui, Roccard! Pierre Messmer himself.”

René smiled, shaking his head in acknowledgment. “I will be here next Thursday; that’s for sure. At what time is the rendezvous?”

The meeting was scheduled to take place at three o’clock that Tuesday. But René was at the imperial building half an hour early. He was eager to meet his former commander again. Their last encounter was during Pierre Messmer’s first year as the High Commissioner of French Cameroun. So, when five months ago, the new government acknowledged Pierre Messmer’s impeccable grasp of the developments in French Africa by promoting him to the strategic post of High Commissioner of French Equatorial Africa, René Roccard was not surprised at all about it. His former commander was the right person to talk to.

A secretary ushered him into the office a minute early. And there at the window was Pierre Messmer. André Colin was nowhere in sight.

“René, René Le formidable,” Pierre Messmer bellowed, opened his arms wide and approached René Roccard with a warm smile.

“Mon Commandant,” René muttered with a smile spread across his face.

“Look at you. You haven’t changed much,” Pierre Messmer chuckled.

The two men had little to say to each other for the next couple of seconds as they clung to one another in a bear hug.

“I feel extremely honored by the fact that you set aside some of your precious time to see me. Especially with the busy schedule you have to keep up with,” René said, looking satisfied.

“What are you talking about? If I can’t be available for someone like you, then who else is out there for me to accommodate with my worries about France.”

“I guess there is much we need to talk about.”

“I am at your disposal. We have all the time in the world. Monsieur Colin made arrangements for some brandy to keep us going while we grapple with the problems haunting France.”

“Magnifique! Cognac?”

“Bien sûr que oui! Now, if my memory isn’t playing games with me, then I remember you as someone with a particular fondness for brandy. In fact, your taste buds for the drink were good back in the day. You might not have known about this, but you amazed me with your ability to distinguish the different qualities of brandy without blinking an eye.”

“What a drink!”

“Excellent! Mon Dieu! You and I loved brandy back in the day! Huh! Brandy was so scarce back then in Indochina,” Pierre Messmer offered.

René grinned at the mention of Indochina. Like Pierre Messmer, he too was sent to Indochina right after the Second World War to help restore complete French control in the colony after the departure of the Japanese invaders, and to eliminate the influence of the Marxist Vietminh forces of the Vietnamese revolutionary and liberation leader Ho Chi Minh.

It was René’s first posting to Asia and there were few distractions in the jungle to make Indochina interesting. That is until he developed an extreme fondness for oriental women and brandy. It was in Southeast Asia that he discovered his strong attraction for women with a high degree of pigmentation.

“Brandy is still my thing,” he said to Pierre Messmer with a smile.

René Roccard listened to Pierre Messmer as he small-talked. He never took his eyes off his former boss as he picked up two glasses from the open cabinet and poured them both a drink. Then Pierre Messmer handed him a glass.

“Vive La France,” Pierre Messmer toasted.

“Vive La France,” René repeated and clinked glasses with Pierre Messmer before bringing his drink to his lips.

“Well!”

“Merci!” René responded after a good gulp, “C’est merveilleux!”

“Certainement! It tastes better than the ones we had over there. You won’t believe it, but I experienced an unusual craving for brandy during those two months that I chaffed in Vietminh captivity.”

“I understand,” René said with a nod, locking eyes with Messmer’s in reaffirmation of their mutual trust.

“I know you understand because you also suffered the same indignity.”

“Five months,” René muttered and closed his eyes for a couple of seconds at the recollection.

“I take it you know what it means for you, for me and for our other compatriots who made it to glory in Paris with Parisians lining the streets cheering us for restoring their honor that Hitler’s men trampled upon during those four years of German occupation of our holy city and sacred country. We didn’t stop at Paris but went on to sweep through the rest of France, achieving one victory after the other in battles buoyed by the spirit of Paris’s liberation. And the glory and vindication that came with chasing the Nazis all the way to Germany after liberating our land.”

“Merveilleux!”

“And what happened a few years after our glorious ride to victory?”

“Well!”

“I am talking about the humiliation of finding ourselves in bamboo prisons controlled by swarthy dwarfish illiterates whose concept of war belongs to the dark ages. Hmm! And then we ended up losing Indochina to the savages after that because our politicians lacked the will to fight. Humiliating!” Messmer growled.

“I understand.”

“I knew you would understand. We fought side by side in France, Germany, and Indochina. We returned home after those wars only to find France gripped by chaos. Yes, René! I took the diplomatic post as an escape from France that I have always loved because I could no longer tolerate its squabbling politicians, especially those of the left.”

“I also did the same thing,” René interjected.

“Hmm! So, you sought peace of mind in America. Hmm! But it is obvious you never stopped worrying about our beloved France; you never stopped grappling with the challenges confronting this beautiful country.”

René Roccard nodded his head several times in acknowledgement. “Certainement!” he mumbled with half-closed eyes.

“René, Le Formidable! I’ll go ahead with the purpose of our meeting.”

“Bien sûr!”

“When I learned of your request to go to French Cameroun, I said to myself— ‘Here is the man we need.’”

“I don’t want to recall the number of times I made that request.”

“René, René, René! Your kid brother was serving in French Cameroun! How much sacrifice could France demand from a single family at a given time?”

René shook his head but said nothing in reply.

“I am sorry about Marc.”

“He is dead, and we have a job to do. Those bandits should not be allowed to succeed.”

“I am glad you are committed to the land your brother sacrificed his life for. The New France won’t be led to flee French Cameroun or Algeria as left-led France abandoned Indochina to Ho Chi Minh’s red bandits. Général Charles De Gaulle is back, and so too is our glory.”

“I like your language,” René said, sipping his brandy and licking his lips.

“You won’t believe it if I tell you that the first native we put there as prime minister wanted me to authorize the army to use Napalm on Um Nyobé’s people. He wanted us to ‘wipe the Bassa people out’, as he puts it.”

“André-Marie Mbida is a moron. His utterances against Um Nyobé and the UPC partisans the fellow is leading make our campaign look bad.”

“Good, you understand the liability we created. He certainly is a bad son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch for all I know. The Americans have a better way of phrasing it, don’t they?”

René nodded. “My experiences in Cameroun taught me that Mbida’s ethnic group is not fond of the Bassa people. So, you understand why I think getting rid of this Mbida guy was the right thing to do. All the same, we must not ostracize the Beti people in the process. They are a strategic asset in our control of that land.”

“You are right about the Beti factor. Andre-Marie Mbida is gone, and now we have our prime minister there, someone who is of a lot better use in accomplishing our designs. If you ask me, getting rid of André-Marie Mbida was the only good thing Jean Ramadier did when he replaced me as the High Commissioner of French Cameroun.”

“The bastard! I heard he was planning to lift the ban on the UPC and make it legal again.”

“Had Jean Ramadier succeeded in doing that, it would have spelt an end to our project in the Central African region. He took us years back during his three-week tenure in office over there. Allowing the UPC to operate as a legal entity would mean allowing our enemies to take over French Cameroun. Believe it or not, we found out shortly after the bastard got there that he was on very warm terms with Sekou Touré during the time that he served as the High Commissioner of Guinea. So, you understand why we had to get him out of there without delay.”

“I never trusted our left-wing politicians. My mistrust of them dates back to our days in the Resistance in France. And in a way, Jean Ramadier is like his father. They have proven to be more committed to their socialist agendas than to the interest of France.”

“Like father like son!”

“Like father like son!” René affirmed.

Pierre Messmer thought for a moment and then shook his head. “The son to all intents and purposes is more to the left than the father. Paul Ramadier’s decision to end his party’s alliance with the Communists while he was the Prime Minister of France in 1947 still intrigues me.”

“You have a point there, Mon Commandant.”

“As I was saying, pulling the rug under the Mbida fellow’s feet was the only good thing Jean Ramadier did, but implementing our long-term plans for French Cameroun and the rest of Francophone Africa is a task we still have to accomplish.”

“How is Ahmadou Ahidjo doing?”

“Good! I see you are versed with the fellow. So far, he has been fulfilling his purpose.”

“Good!”

“I am glad we are on the same page on so many things. Hmm, René! We are about to enter a new era in our relationship with the colonies and territories, with those lands that we adopted. They have a sense of the direction they want to go. But where they actually head to depends on how we want our future ties with them to look like.”

“It shouldn’t be in the direction Indochina took. The communists are roaming all over Vietnam today,” René said tersely.

“I agree with you, René. Général De Gaulle is of the same opinion. We are at the doorsteps of a new age in our history as we embark on a strategy to loosen our grip on our overseas backyard. We will relax our control, but we won’t let our colonies and territories go the way the British allowed theirs in Asia and Africa to wander off. Yes, the British are turning their backs as if it is of no consequence, even as their former colonies go about embracing the Soviet Union and Marxism. India and Ghana are with the East, Nasser hates the West and U Nu is about to deliver Burma into the arms of the Russian bear.”

“Our politicians must have copied the British policy by letting Indochina go the way it did,” René said with a sigh.

“I agree with you. We also risk the complete loss of our colonies and territories in Africa if we lose our nerves and allow France to be swept off its feet by the decolonization wave. It is a small wave now, but I see all the signs of a tidal wave developing there in the coming months and years if we lose French Cameroun and Algeria. We have vital interests in Africa, René! There is no way we can defend those strategic interests after the decolonization process unless we completely defeat the Algerian and the Kamerunian nationalists.”

“You are right,” René said with a nod, “I lived in America and learned something very important during my stay there. The heartland of capitalism thrives on interest. Wealth, power, and glory stem from the ability to procure, secure and defend your interests; and ultimate power lies with those who are most effective in guarding their interests and spheres of influence. We have a huge interest in Africa and losing or maintaining it is our decision alone to make. That decision should not be based on righteousness but on the wisdom to accept the fact that we have a collective destiny with the francophone territories because we are their mentors.”

Pierre Messmer nodded, a slight smile corrupting the sides of his mouth. “I agree with you, René.”

“Through the scheme of things beyond the understanding of our mortal minds, France was given a responsibility to be involved in the destiny of peoples it managed to bring into the fold of humanity, into modern civilization as we all know it. That is why shying away from those lands now is an option that would only haunt us tomorrow.”

“René, René! You said it beautifully. I like your philosophy,” Pierre Messmer enthused and raised his hands in the air.

René nodded with a smile. “Merci, Mon Commandant!”

“I want you by my side in French Cameroun,” Pierre Messmer began, cracked his knuckles, and then continued, “I need someone who can direct the wind while I am away as my duties expand to French West Africa. I see a lot of political developments taking place in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa by the end of the year. Général Charles De Gaulle, you, I, and a host of other like-minded patriots think we should have the right order and the right Africans in place before we allow the colonies and territories there to become members of the United Nations Organization.”

“You are right.”

“Our purpose should be for the new France,” Pierre Messmer intoned and rested his hand on René’s shoulder.

René nodded. “I agree with you.”

“That’s why I think you have a strong shoulder to lean on,” Pierre Messmer said, dropping his hand and caressing his chin. Then he nodded and added, “I see your focus is on French Cameroun. I cannot count the number of times I told the buffoons who were in power in Paris that the war in French Cameroun is winnable. Very few of the leftist sissies in the past governments believed me. Oh! They disheartened me. I am glad they are gone.”

“I understand your position. Believe me, I do.”

“I have devised a strategy,” Pierre Messmer said and emitted a light guttural sound, “In fact; I am looking forward to working with you and other like-minded patriots in perfecting and implementing this plan of action. Bear in mind that we are being presented with a very rare opportunity to practice all the theories of counter-revolutionary warfare that we devised in Vietnam.”

“How?” René asked with dimmed eyes.

“This is how it is going to work. We shall create pacification zones throughout our French Cameroun. And after doing that, we shall separate the civilian population there from the rebels in the bush. We shall relocate these civilians from their scattered villages and hamlets to roadside settlements in those pacification zones. The civilian population would be guarded by our troops, and also by French Cameroonians who accept our rule. That’s how we shall alienate the guerrillas from their support base. The zones I am talking about shouldn’t be more than two percent of the territory of French Cameroun.”

“We must not lose again,” René whispered.

“Believe me, victory is ours and losing isn’t an option. René, I am choosing you for many reasons, but the most important one is your determination to see France win in French Cameroun. There is a divine scheme in our involvement in Africa. It goes beyond tradition, human comprehension, and national conscience. It is based on a belief, René; it is based on a belief that cannot accommodate doubts.”

“I agree with you, Mon Commandant!” René said, picked up the bottle of brandy and refilled their glasses, “Vive La France,” he toasted, making it sound like a battle cry.

“Vive La France,” Pierre Messmer echoed, emptied his glass of drink, and then started humming Anna Marly’s LE CHANT DES PARTISANS―Chant de la Libération (THE SONG OF THE PARTISANS ― Song of the Liberation), which was the most popular song of the Free French and the French Resistance during the Second World War. René joined him as they articulated the lyrics:

Ami, entends-tu Mate, do you hear

Le vol noir des corbeaux The dark flight of the crows

Sur nos plaines? Over our plains?

Ami, entends-tu Mate, do you hear

Les cris sourds du pays The muffled clamor

Qu'on enchaîne? Of enchained countries?

Ohé! partisans, Hey, partisans,

Ouvriers et paysans, Workers and peasants

C'est l'alarme! This is the signal

Ce soir l'ennemi Tonight the enemy

Connaîtra le prix du sang Will know the price of blood

Et des larmes! And tars...

Montez de la mine, Join the sabotage,

Descendez des collines, Get off the hills,

Camarades! Comrades!

Sortez de la paille Get out of the straw

Les fusils, la mitraille, The rifles, the grape-shot,

Les grenades... The Grenades…

Ohé! les tueurs, Hey, killers,

A la balle et au couteau, With a bullet or by knife,

Tuez vite! Kill swiftly!

Ohé! saboteur, Hey, saboteur,

Attention à ton fardeau: Pay attention to your burden:

Dynamite! Dynamite!

C'est nous qui brisons It's us who are smashing

Les barreaux des prisons The prison bars

Pour nos frères, For our brothers,

La haine à nos trousses, The hatred at our heels,

Et la faim qui nous pousse, And the hunger that drives us,

La misère... The misery…

Il y a des pays There are countries

Ou les gens au creux de lits Where people deep in their beds,

Font des rêves; Weave dreams;

Ici, nous, vois-tu, Here, we, you see,

Nous on marche et nous on tue, We march, We kill,

Nous on crève. We die.

Ici chacun sait Here everyone knows

Ce qu'il veut, ce qui'il fait What he wants, what he does

Quand il passe... When it takes place…

Ami, si tu tombes Mate, if you go down,

Un ami sort de l'ombre A mate out of the shadows,

A ta place. Takes your place.

Demain du sang noir Tomorrow black blood

Séchera au grand soleil Will be drying under the sun,

Sur les routes. On the roads,

Sifflez, compagnons, Whistle, companions,

Dans la nuit la Liberté At night, freedom

Nous écoute... Is listening to us…

“Merveilleux!” René said at the end of the song and shook his head repeatedly, “How it inspired us. It drove us to get back our honor from the Germans.”

Pierre Messmer nodded too, his hand tightening around his glass, straining the muscles. “They are beginning to call themselves Maquis, just like our rural guerrilla bands of French Resistance fighters during the German occupation of France.”

“As if there is anything in common between them and us,” René growled.

“The vermin!” Pierre Messmer snarled too.

“Merde!” René growled again.

Pierre Messmer nodded but did not utter a word for a moment, “Damn the UPC. Damn Um Nyobè! Damn Moumie! Damn Kingue! Damn Ouandie!” he exploded.

René exited the imperial building that evening with a smile on his face. From the time he left the United States of America right up to the moment he showed up for the meeting, he had been wondering whether the Overseas and Defense Ministries would transfer him to fight in French Cameroun. And just when he was becoming desperate about it, Pierre Messmer showed up and offered him a high-profile assignment in the United Nations Trust territory of French Cameroun. He had not expected things to work out so well.

Chapter 3

Even though Clement Coulther slept through most of the transatlantic flight to Paris, he was half-awake just seconds before the air hostess announced that the plane was about to land. Clement opened his eyes, yawned, and stretched his body. At least, I feel better now, he thought. He sat up in a lackluster manner, turned around and then smiled at the elderly English lady by his side.

"You have slept very well. Do you feel refreshed?" she said and smiled back.

“I feel great! I am glad I’m up just in time.”

“Did you say just in time?”

“Uh-huh!”

“Oh, you mean for the landing?”

“Yes, Mrs. Moore. I can’t think of a sight better than an aerial view of Paris.”

“It is marvelous. Call me Barbara.”

Clement nodded. “It certainly is marvelous. All the more reason I wouldn’t miss the opportunity of catching one for the sake of the best treasures in this world,” he muttered and smiled wider, but with a mischievous glint in his eyes that was aimed at an approaching flight attendant, “Even for that woman who could break my heart,” he added in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Hasn’t it been broken already?”

“Huh! Never! What are you talking about?”

“I heard you mutter her name in your sleep.”

“Really! Who?”

Silence reigned between the two for a moment before the English lady said in a forthcoming tone, “you repeated her name a couple of times. It could have been Helen or Elaine or something similar.”

“What else did I say besides a name?”

“I am hazy about it, but this one stuck out,” she said with a flush and then put her hand over her mouth.

“It is okay, Mrs. Moore! Go ahead and tell me?” he urged with a smile.

“Call me Barbara! Well! You said her name and something like ‘lost treasure’ afterwards. There were other things in-between.”

“Lost treasure?”

“Uh-huh! There was more.”

“What else did I say?”

“Did you kiss and embrace others in front of her?”

“Damn!”

“You must be in love with her.”

“Uh-huh!” Clement said and sighed, “I still think of her even as I kiss and embrace other women. Perhaps that’s what I was trying to say in my sleep.”

“I am sorry.”

“Huh!” Clement grunted, turned his face away from the old lady and frowned.

“Forgive me for poking my nose. I couldn’t help listening.”

He nodded but did not turn around to face her again. Instead, he dropped back into his seat and shut his eyes. “I was tired; I was truly tired,” he said, more to himself than to the lady by his side.

Clement placed the source of his listlessness with the disorientation that started haunting him a couple of months ago. It was sapping his energy and the will to carry on with life the way it was before he lost his bearings in life. But he was determined to overcome that—first by getting over the bitterness of his divorce from Helen and then by dispelling the haunting memory of the loss of his son.

Even though some of his friends marveled at his newfound freedom and thought he had so much to look forward to, he alone knew the turmoil in his soul. The return to a life of full-time bachelorhood quickly lost its appeal as he became a jaded womanizer who even feared to be there for the woman expecting his child. His image in that regard was not helped by the parties, nightclubs and one-night stands that followed his divorce. That is, until the phone call less than forty-eight hours ago sent him packing his bags for Paris.

“See how beautiful Paris looks from above,” he mumbled with a darting glance at his neighbor.

“I love it,” she replied with a warm smile.

“I can’t wait to walk its streets,” he half-whispered, fixing his eyes again on the city they were wafting over.

The lady said something in reply, but Clement did not pay attention to her words. His mind had drifted again, back to a yesterday that held so many fun memories.

The last head-wrecking drama began at a party organized by his friend Peter Miller in a suburb of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He had consumed more than his fair share of drinks; he had danced with more blondes, brunettes, and redheads than he could care to remember; and he had not closed his eyes long enough afterwards, thanks to the effort of an energetic twenty-three-year-old that made him doubt his vigor for the first time.

Fate appeared to have been on his side the next morning when his host told him that Jason Montgomery, his pal from the News Syndicate, wanted him on the phone.

“Tell him I will call back,” he had responded and then went about nursing his hangover with the blonde nibbling his ear.

Peter Miller had returned a couple of minutes later with a smile on his face.

“Jason said you will like this one. The assignment involves Paris.”

“What the hell,” he had wheezed.

“He said it has something to do with Charles De Gaulle and ‘The French Rooster’.”

“Yeah!” he had added and continued kissing the blonde’s hand in a disinterested manner.

“He said ‘The French Rooster’ has already left America and returned to Paris.”

He had thought about that last piece of information for a moment and then sat up abruptly. The blonde was startled when he tossed her hand off his thigh as if she were an itchy blanket and then jumped out of bed and hurried to the phone.

Jason had to be right. Something was brewing in France. Charles De Gaulle, the French hero who saved France’s honor in the Second World War by championing French resistance against the German occupation of the country and by leading the liberation of Paris; Charles De Gaulle, the statesman who distinguished himself as France’s greatest post-war hope, but then shocked the world in 1946 by quitting the French political scene, was back in politics as the new Prime Minister of France. Also, the fact that René Roccard, alias “The French Rooster”, hurriedly packed his bag and returned home, buttressed Clement’s suspicions even further that monumental developments were afoot in France and its overseas possessions.

The New York Times needed a correspondent in the field right away, and Clement’s bosses thought he might want to do the job.

Of course, he wanted to do the job. Paris happened to be the one place on earth that never failed to pull him from the downside of life into making a fresh start, like a phoenix rising from its funeral pyre. He had made his debut there as a journalist working for the Air Force magazine, using the print media to report the excesses of the Free French Forces against the former supporters of Marshall Petain and his Vichy regime whom they accused of collaborating with the German military during the years that Nazi Germany occupied France.

Clement thought it was ironic that the first time he met René Roccard was on his first day in Paris. The French capital became his favorite city in Europe and inspired him to return home and finish his journalism program at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

The drive to New York was a long one, but he stopped only twice to relieve his bladder and get something to eat and drink. Coffee and Coca-Cola kept him awake throughout the drive and sandwiches did a great job of keeping his digestive juices at bay. He reported upon arrival at the New York Times building on 42nd Street when dusk was on the horizon. The process went faster than anticipated. He even signed his contract with a smile on his face and then picked up his plane ticket and left the building.

Clement looked out of the window of the airplane just in time to spot the shining River Seine snaking its way through the city. His eyelids narrowed a little as he marveled at the rows upon rows of classic buildings that swept past his eyes. The beckoning Palace of Versailles and its beautiful fountains rolled from his view to reveal moments later the imposing Eiffel tower.

He took a deep breath as he prepared to disembark.

“What else do you have in there,” the customs officer asked pointedly, never taking his gaze off Coulther’s eyes as he rested a hand on his luggage.

“Nothing! Nothing to spoil my first night in Paris in two years and nothing to stop me from having a bite of one of your famous Parisian croissants,” he beamed.

The official let Clement through without a fuss.

It was easy to find a taxi to the center of the city, so he was en-route to the St. Petersburg hotel hardly fifteen minutes after going through the inspection. Even though he felt tired as he leaned back in his seat and avoided a conversation with the driver, he could not shake off his excitement.

Clement often wondered why the city of Paris stirred his instincts, accelerated his impulses, and warmed his blood so much, filling him with ideas and memories of a past he seemed to love and hate. Yet, the answer was simple. Paris epitomized the essence of beauty, freedom, liberty, and hope. Paris was the place that provided him with so many answers to some of life’s deep questions since the first day he walked its streets following the liberation of the city in August 1944. It was in the French capital that he first unleashed his passion for publishing and broadcasting the war, first as an amateur military journalist and later as a professional who covered Europe, Asia, and Africa—reporting on war, terrorism, revolution, uprisings, and coups. The city also made it possible for him to meet all sorts of fanciful women.

The exhausted Clement heaved a sigh of relief when the taxi stopped in front of the hotel. He stepped out of the car, stretched his body, and then pulled out his wallet and paid the fare. The driver helped him to take out his luggage but did not follow him inside.

He felt a pleasing sense of change when he finally settled into the comfort of his hotel room. There was so much to do, so many people to get back in touch with and so many places to visit. But first, he needed water on his body.

The shower had its desired effect. It calmed him down. Clement walked out of the bathroom and flung his tired body onto the bed. He dozed off right away and did not wake up until it was already nightfall.

Clement left the hotel at 19:53 hours for the Cafe Zinc district and chose to settle in Jacques Melac’s famous Bistrot Melac. To some of the diners there, he looked like the average American exploring the city’s cuisine. But he felt like he was reliving his past as he ordered a Southern French menu with the air of confidence of someone who knew exactly what he was leaving out. He even gave an acknowledging nod when the waiter told him that it came from Jacques Melac’s native Aveyron. Clement ate quietly, absorbing everything around him—from the staff to the customers and even the scenes outside. A glass of wine from Jacques Melac’s stockade off Rue de Charonne spurred him on his feet again.

Clement intended his next stop to be Grand Boulevards where he sang a ballad at a popular bar during his previous visit to Paris, but he found himself at Boulevard des Italiens instead. He wanted to walk a little; he wanted to put his subconscious mind to work for tomorrow and the days after because he would have to get on René Roccard’s trail, get into the recess of plots by men of the former Free French Movement who were bent on creating the new French Republic. He was determined to be on top of reporting Europe’s next big story.

He acted out of an impulse and made a left turn into Rue Louis Le Grand. The street, though quiet and less crowded than Boulevard des Italiens, was picturesque in its own right.

Less than a hundred yards of walking brought him a couple of feet away from the door to the apartment of Emilie Villiers, his ex-Franco-Cambodian girlfriend. He stopped for a moment but then steeled himself from knocking on it. His recollection of their first encounter on her twenty-fourth birthday made him wince a little. Emilie found the door into his life at a time when she was still reeling from the stigma of being the former lover of a Vichy minister and for having had an affair with a German soldier.

He smiled without intending to as he recalled some of the games they played with each other’s hearts. His affair with Emilie had boosted her self-esteem to overcome her humiliation, but he didn’t think he had much of a future with a woman who drank champagne almost every day, glowed in the presence of the rich and the famous, and who seemed to enjoy her frequent mood swings. All the same, he could not stop himself from wondering about her as he walked past her door, six years after he slipped out of her life, and five years after her childhood friend Marie Rocheteau updated him on her unstable life.

A half-oriental herself, Marie suffered a similar humiliation when a Parisian mob shaved her head and paraded her half-naked in the streets with other women accused of sleeping with German soldiers. Marie’s older full-blooded Vietnamese half-sister, Christelle Nguyen was dating René Roccard back in 1953.

Clement was about to turn right at the next intersection onto Place D’Opera when a figure jumped in front of him, brandishing a knife.

“Ton portefeuille...ton wallet...Vites, vites, vites,” the intruder said rapidly and approached Clement with a menacing look on his face.

Clement disarmed the fellow even before he said the last words. Quick karate kicks knocked the knife out of the mugger’s right hand to the point where the man had no idea of what was coming when Clement twisted his arm hard and flipped him crashing down on the cobblestones.

“Watch out who you run into,” Clement warned as he kicked the miserable-looking thief repeatedly in the abdomen, forcing the guy to curl over. Then he spat on the groaning man, turned around and started walking away without even looking back, but conscious of the fact that the mugger got up and ran away in the opposite direction.

Clement felt irked by the incident. He figured me out as a foreigner, probably because of this Levi jeans and flannel shirt. Hmm, I need to get new clothes tomorrow to fit into the Parisian crowd, he thought.

But his attacker never imagined he was confronting a decorated ex-soldier and a winner of black belts in judo and Isshin-ryū karate.

With the surge of his adrenaline subsiding, Clement sank gradually into a pensive mood, unconscious of the reduced pace of his strides. He stopped suddenly in front of the gigantic Second Empire Style Paris Opera building for no apparent reason and then shook his head repeatedly like someone pondering a puzzling phenomenon. His countenance changed moments after as he peered at the building with an enigmatic expression on his face. The structure always seemed to be revealing something new and exciting each time he visited.

The deep brightness of his eyes made it plain that he was seeking deeper meaning in the green cupola and the winged groups of sculptured figures. What did the architects and builders have in mind when they created these expressions of life or the gargoyles in the neighboring buildings? He wondered.

“Exultation, exaltation, uplifting flight of the spirit to the highest pinnacles of joy and happiness?” he mumbled to himself.

Clement stuck his hands deep into his pockets but did not take his eyes off the building, oblivious to those by his side or those walking past, as he sank deeper into his memories. It was in this building that he watched his first opera and fell in love with Charlotte Aglionby, one of the opera’s divas who opened his eyes to the world of classical music and made him appreciate French composer Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen” and the hedonistic “La Traviata” by his Italian counterpart Giuseppe Verdi. She was the one who spurred him to become a connoisseur. A rueful smile caressed his lips as he dwelled on his past with Charlotte.

Charlotte Aglionby, the vivacious diva who strove to live her life like Violetta Valery, the heroine in the opera “La Traviata”. She must have fancied him to be her eternally loyal and understanding lover like Alberto, Violetta’s admirer, because she brought more men into her life than he could stomach, and she made him weep several times in jealousy until the day he almost choked the life out of her in a brief moment of insanity that never failed to leave him with a residue of bitterness and rue each time he recalled it. The act had left him quivering in remorse as he watched her get up from the floor, stagger to the sink and drink a glass of water still holding her throat and gasping for breath. She had laughed at him afterwards, taunting him for not being as brave as Othello and for failing so miserably in sending her to her grave.

“You are my damnation, bitch, but I love you,” he had told her.

“I love you too, Clement,” she had cooed, pronouncing his name in that sweet French manner that he liked so much.

He had avoided her kiss that night, left her home without looking back and then asked the next day to go back home to the United States of America. Hardly a month after he returned home, he met Helen Alston, the southern belle, and convinced himself shortly after that he could become a gentleman after all. Still, the memory of Charlotte’s voice producing melodious sounds of Brindisi—The Drinking Song, from “La Traviata”—clouded his mind.

The rueful expression on Clement’s face turned into a reflective smile of sweet reminiscences as he started singing “Brindisi” with closed lips, not articulating the words until he got to the second stanza.

‘Let us drink from the goblets of joy…

…In life everything is folly which does not bring pleasure.

...Life is nothing but pleasure, as long as one is not in love.

...That’s my fate...

Be happy... wine and song and laughter beautify the night;

let the new day find us in this paradise.

Clement took a deep look at the building, cocked his head, turned around and started walking away—destination Le Cafe Rive Droite where he would find someone to put him on René Roccard’s trail, drink some nice French wine, sing a little and find a woman for the night that would be a song for his ears.

Chapter 4

The sun seemed to have cast a warm spell on Paris that day, bringing out the brilliance of the city’s magnificent structures in ways that gave further credence to the position the metropolis held in the eyes and minds of connoisseurs, travelers, and revelers as the most beautiful city in the world. Clement Coulther was not the only person the comfortably high temperature enlivened that day. The balmy day stirred the zest of life in the majority of Parisians, stirring most of them to go outdoors in the parks, restaurants, cafes, streets, and other relaxing spots of the city. However, Clement decided to make it the day to close in on René Roccard after an exhausting time getting on the path of his trail, a task that began with the mutual contacts they once shared.

The prospects of finding the French enigma first gained traction only after he contacted Marie Rocheteau the day before. Marie did not know Christelle Nguyen’s new address, but she knew where her friend lived. She helped him to find Christelle’s friend that morning, and she did not disappoint as the link that helped him finally close in on René.

Clement was surprised to find a large and boisterous crowd carousing in Bar Chantellier that night when he walked in. Jokes, laughter, and shouting mingled in the air, giving the place a liveliness that he liked in an instant. However, he was quick to observe that not all the customers in the joint were affected by the merry atmosphere. The English tourists who made up the majority of the crowd were upbeat, but most of the French customers there looked like they did not welcome their rowdiness.

Clement spotted René at the far end of the bar but decided not to approach him right away. Instead, he walked up to the counter and ordered a glass of wine, sharing words and smiles with some of the English revelers while he kept an eye on René. He observed a waiter bring René a plate of a hero sandwich and he even thought of ordering one for himself but changed his mind when the bartender failed to respond to his first call. However, he would have missed seeing another waiter refill the Frenchman’s glass with red wine had he not turned around again just in time to see the action.

“Wondering about that bloke over there?” one of the Englishmen with a high accent muttered, regarded Clement intensely for a moment and then fixed his eyes on René before turning around again to Clement.

“He aroused my curiosity. I mean, sitting there alone as if nothing is going on around him.”

The English guy chortled for a moment and then cleared his throat. "Won’t have believed it had I not seen the whole thing with my own eyes. One of my friends invited him to join us, but the guy made it known in no uncertain terms that he prefers to be alone,” the English guy said, shrugged and then extended a hand and added, “My name is Jerry, Jerry Parker.”

He shook it. “I pass around as Clement Coulther. So, what brings you guys here?”

“Huh! Nothing in particular.”

“I see quite a jovial atmosphere around me.”

“Hah! You can tell from our language that we are nothing but a bunch of old vets who wore down their boots while treading the beaches, mud paths and streets of the mainland during the last days of the war. One of my pals came up with this brilliant idea that we take a tour of the continent, get to appreciate these countries in peacetime, relax and have fun. And as you can see, we all went for it.”

“I can see what you mean. I observed your friend over there guzzling beer like someone in a contest.”

“Nah! Can’t say that much,” Jerry said and chortled, “Blimey! Todd is a fine lad, but his binge drinking is something I sometimes find worrisome. The guy tends to spoil for a fight whenever he compromises his sobriety. I won’t say he has reached that level already.”

“Spoils for a fight all the time?”

“Often, I would say. But not all the time.”

“Just out of curiosity, you know! You guys are in wine country, yet you carry on drinking beer as if you don’t want to discover anything new about the traditional French alcohol.”

“I am drinking wine,” Jerry said and raised his half-empty glass.

“I know. I mean your buddies.”

Clement and Jerry carried on with their conversation as low-pitched and high-pitched voices mingled in the air. Clement had to bend backwards several times to catch a glimpse of René who kept looking at his watch every so often after he finished his sandwich, like someone expecting a visitor.

Todd attracted Clement’s attention again when he held his bottle of beer above his six-foot-two frame and roared, “To show my gratitude to you dear English gentlemen for providing me with such wonderful company, I am making an offer to pay for one round of drinks for our thirsty throats. Breakfast will be at my expense too…but …” Todd stopped in mid-sentence and stared wide-eyed in the direction of the main entrance.

A wondering expression crossed Clement’s face as he tried to figure out the cause of Todd’s sudden silence. He was not the only person there who thought Todd’s unexpected muteness was strange. However, he completely understood what was going on when he found the object of the cheerful Englishman’s fixation.

An oriental lady in her mid or late thirties, whose beauty would have made her the perfect image of the princess in Turandot, was at the door, looking around the place wonderingly. It was Christelle. Aging appeared to have made her even more beautiful. She was trendy in her dressing too—spotting a silhouette with a pyramidal trapeze outline crossed high with wide sashes, narrow strips, drawstrings and slanted high-to-low lines.

Her face alighted when she spotted the person she was looking for. Clement followed her with his eyes as she picked her way through the tables and approached the seated René. Then a figure hurried in her way. Clement held his breath when Todd intercepted her, positioning himself between her and René’s table.

“Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, please honor my invitation and join us over there. I might be known for coming across as a blabbering fool, but I have great respect for beauty and sophistication. I even make it a point of saying so whenever I see a woman with those qualities,” he said and bowed.

The confused Christelle opened her mouth to say something, but the words couldn’t come out. All she did was shake her head no.

“I don’t mean any harm,” Todd said and offered her his hand.

“The lady doesn’t want to be with you,” René said emphatically and rose to his feet.

“Jesus Christ, Todd again!” Clement heard Jerry mutter under his breath, as he put his drink down on the counter.

Clement looked at Jerry for a moment and then turned around again just in time to see Todd shove René aside. It did not have much of an effect, but René staggered backwards a little, knocking down some chairs in the process. He quickly steadied himself on his feet again, advanced at lightning speed and aimed a jab at Todd that sent him sprawling to the floor. Christelle screamed and backed away.

“No! Goddam it! She is his woman,” Clement shouted at the top of his voice as five of the revelers jumped to their feet and approached René menacingly.

Clement made it to the scene a moment too late after one of the men had lunged at René’s waist, crashing him to the floor while another kicked him on the back. Jerry was shouting now, ordering his buddies to end the fighting, holding the other two who were trying to surge forward to join in the melee while the fifth helped Todd up to his feet. Clement forced himself in front of the kicker, urging him to stop.

Everything seemed so normal a quarter of an hour after Christelle walked in, making it hard to tell that a drunken brawl had taken place in the bar that night. Jerry even jokingly intoned that the fight was so foolish that he would instantly become ashamed of himself the moment he moved his lips to tell his sons about it.

“Aren’t we all former soldiers who not long ago prided ourselves as comrades in arms fighting Nazi Germany in a war to build a new Europe? So why fight one another when our politicians with a reputation for squabbling are making the modest effort to create the structures of a European community,” Jerry pointed out.

“Because of a dame?” one of the guys who didn’t get involved in the altercation shouted.

“An oriental dame to be precise,” the guy next to him said in a monotone.

“And a beautiful one at that,” Todd added in a raucous voice.

René smiled, smoothened Christelle’s hair and then looked at his watch. “I must leave you guys now,” he said in English, got up and shook Todd’s hand, “I am sorry for knocking you down.”

“It is okay, man. Didn’t know the dame was here to see you. You are lucky, pal!” Todd said with genuine admiration in his voice.

The war vets exchanged more pleasantries before René bade them goodbye and then walked out of the bar. Clement joined him before he stepped on the street.

“I didn’t offer my special thanks to you for coming to my rescue,” René said.

“No problem. I did what I had to do.”

“I received a surprise phone call from my sister today. She told me Clement has been looking for you,” Christelle interjected.

“D’accord!” René intoned with dimmed eyes, indicating that she could go ahead with her account.

“I told her you are about to leave for French Cameroun,” Christelle blurted out with a ring of excitement in her voice.

René plastered her with a hard look and then turned to Clement again. “What are you here for, Clement?”

“I had this strange idea that you could feed me with some news about the political developments in France from the day your hero General Charles De Gaulle returned to active politics.”

“Is this one of your little games again?”

“What exactly do you mean?”

“I don’t like your reputation, Clement. You have a nose for smelling trouble, but your mind is unreliable, and you have a mouth for reporting things the wrong way. You never seem to get it. The great powers have interests to defend, and obligations to fulfill. The responsibility for humanity’s survival rests on their shoulders. Your journalism or reporting fails to recognize that fact.”

“I beg we differ on that.”

“What do you want, clement?”

“I am chasing the news, that’s all.”

“Then you are in the wrong place.”

“You are news, René. Wherever you go, whatever you put your foot on, whatever you stretch your arms at or whatever you hold becomes news. What are you aiming at, René?”

“You got all the news you want here, Clement. We are back. You will find enough news in France to keep you busy for the next decade. The Gaullists are back in Paris.”

“You put it perfectly, René!”

“What is perfect about it?”

“I have a trail to follow.”

“What trail?”

“You are the trail, René. You will lead me to all the good stories in France.”

“Hah, hah…hah, hah, hah!” René chortled, “France isn’t where the action is, Clement. Go to Algeria. Go to Africa.”

“You can say that only if you are going there yourself. Is that what you really plan to do?”

René Roccard was quiet for a moment. “I don’t need you breathing down my neck again. France is without doubt where your buddies need you.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You Americans have no taste for news from places you had no clue existed in this world.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Leave me alone, Clement!”

“Huh, René! I am glad I returned to France.”

“Stay away from me.”

“I am your friend, René. You make the news, and I report it. Our symbiosis is perfect for everyone. You see why there is no point threatening your friend here!”

“You heard me,” René gritted, glared at Clement for a moment and then turned to Christelle. “Let’s go,” he said with a jerk of the head and a wave of the hand and then started walking away.

Christelle wrapped her right arm around her lover’s elbow, looked back fleetingly at Clement and then batted her eyelids as if to say, ‘he is like that’. She had come to perceive the world as a place where men fight to make a point while having peace of mind as their ultimate goal.

Clement Coulther smiled back as he watched the pair fade away into the Parisian night walking arm-in-arm. He wondered at the back of his mind what he could do next. He didn’t feel like rejoining the carousers in the bar, and he didn’t have the urge anymore to get someone to keep him company for the night. Just then the thought of Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train” crossed his mind and he winced with half-closed eyes. It had been a while since he last heard the song; it was years probably―five or six at least. He started humming the lyrics softly as he stretched his arm for an approaching taxi. But even as he tried to be upbeat during the ride to his hotel room, the revelation Christelle made about René’s intention to go to French Cameroun and René’s discomfort about it lurked at the back of his mind as a puzzle he could not shake off.

Chapter 5

It was a half-moon night, dark enough to hide a lot in the forest, but light enough to distinguish the outlines of everything that it cast a shadow over. Crouched behind two rocks with a little gap between them was Clement Coulther. He smiled as he peered at the boy dancing around the campfire, his arms stretched out like a glider. Clement had to catch his breath at the boy’s remarkable agility as he watched him leap about five feet high in the air. He even stopped himself from running out to give a helping hand when the boy somersaulted over the fire. Then the kid turned around and looked in his direction.

“The face; there is something about the face; I know that face. Michel Villepin?” Clement wondered.

The flashback took him to Northern France five years ago, to a Bretagne village where he had to step in on behalf of the boy being chased by a bunch of kids who kept chanting Fils d’un Boche (Son of a Boche)—a derogatory French term for a German soldier. He had taken the boy home to his grandmother Solange Villepin and visited them a couple of times afterwards. He even met the boy’s French mother Marie-Blanche Villepin the third time he went there. She was visiting from Nantes where she worked at a garment factory. Perhaps he would have loved to maintain that level of communication with the family had Michel Villepin not asked him to become his father right there in the presence of his grandmother and mother. The women had nodded in acceptance. When he promised the family that he would think it over before making a decision, he knew they would be getting nothing more than his financial support for Michel’s education. And that’s what they got. He wasn’t prepared at the time to become a father figure to the boy.

A sudden flash of lightning gave a moment of brightness to the forest, revealing a silhouette figure brandishing a sword behind a tree half a distance away to the left, between Michel and Clement. Michel certainly saw the figure too because he started running away. The man got on his heels, prompting Clement to emerge from his hideout in hot pursuit of them.

Michel was running frantically now. He tripped twice but got up quickly and was on his heels again, running like someone being chased by the devil. Another flash of lightning caught Michel just as he looked back at his pursuer. An expression of dread on his face turned into a sweet enigmatic smile and then he was Michel no more. It was his son Jason Coulther—slightly bigger and looking like a ten-year-old.

“No, no…no, no―” Clement screamed.

His screams seemed to have alerted the pursuer who became relentless in his chase—jumping over brushes, fallen trees and a log. Clement continued screaming as he ran after the two at a pace that seemed unreal. But they too were running in a ghost-like manner, a point he made a mental of when another flash of lightning revealed the face of the pursuer. It was René Roccard.

“No, René. Not my son…Never my son—” he cried, tripped, and fell. He got up to his feet again in an instant only to find that René was holding his son’s outstretched hand, with Jason tipped over a cliff and with the tip of René’s sword on the boy’s throat.

Clement calculated right away that René held the aces. He could let go of Jason’s hand and his son would find himself in a free fall down the cliff or he could make Jason’s death less painful by sticking the weapon into his throat.

“Please, René…please, René,” Clement pleaded helplessly but with an underlying determination to save his son.

“I warned you, Clement. Stay away from me. He is not your son.”

“He is my son. I won’t let you take him away from me again.”

“Stay away, I am warning you for the last time.”

“You won’t dare do it, René. I will chase you to hell and make you pay for any further harm you do to my family.”

“To hell, we go then. Dive, Clement. He is going to hell, and you alone can save him,” René said and let go of the boy’s hand.

“Jason, no…no, Jason…, Jason, Jason, Jason!” Clement screamed and jumped down the cliff to rescue his son. But he couldn’t reach the boy whose face changed from Jason’s to Michel's and then to that of an oriental boy and finally to an African kid.

Clement was still screaming when Lisa Muriel, his new girlfriend, shook him awake. He continued whimpering his son’s name minutes after, as he sat propped up in bed.

“You just had a bad dream,” Lisa offered.

“It is okay Lisa. It could be more than a dream. Oh, it is a nightmare I have been trying to run away from all my life. Don’t worry. I will take care of it.”

Lisa sensed right away that he did not want to talk about it. She too did not want to dwell on it because she needed some more hours of sleep before dawn to keep her alert at work the next day.

“Bonne nuit, Mon Chéri,” she whispered and dropped her head back on the pillow.”

“Goodnight, Darling Girl. Sleep well. And don’t bother to wake me up in the morning.”

Clement waited until Lisa was snoring before he got out of bed and walked up to the window. He draped the blind a little and rested his eyes on the crimson night. His nightmares had started after his return from Vietnam. It always left him exhausted, but he had never felt so tired of life before as he was feeling now. Helen, his ex-wife, had promised him damnation for failing to be there for her and Jason.

“A curse? What is the penance?” he whispered helplessly and slumped to the floor like a man indifferent to the use of his legs.

And truly he was tired in spirit, wearied like never before by a southern belle who told him at the start of their relationship that she loved him for his ruggedness, natural soul, and indefatigable spirit.

He had fallen in love with Helen Alston the first time he laid eyes on her, professed her his love like a babbling fool and then led her to the altar and made her his wife a quarter of a year into their relationship, much to the amazement of his family members and friends.

“How did she settle Clement down?” he too had asked himself afterwards.

But Helen Alston had settled him down all right. She somehow managed to tame the maverick soldier in his blood, chiseled a courteous journalist out of the daredevil he was reputed to be, and made him understand that life was not only about keeping others abreast of the miseries of this world. But above all, she made him the father of a beautiful baby boy; and she helped him become a writer who created wonderful characters, weaved fantastic plots, and wrote fast-paced stories that made readers smile and be endeared to his name in the process. He became stable; he became famous as a writer, but he was restless all the same.

Helen wanted him around all the time. And he hovered around her as a devoted husband was expected to do until he volunteered to cover the September 1957 crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas. That was the forerunner to their problems. Helen didn’t want him to go, but he went there despite her emotional appeals.

History was being made in Little Rock, he wrote for the attention of Americans and the rest of the world. The American establishment was finally making the effort to integrate its Negro minority by forcing a white school to comply with judiciary decisions to admit Negro students.

Only, he did not write about his encounters in Little Rock with Vera Hilton, his high school crush who suddenly appeared in his life twenty years after. Vera never left his memory as the girl he was enamored of in the tenth grade. She was the first girl he kissed. So, when she left New Jersey with her parents on a federal assignment to Alaska hardly a year after they met, the separation almost tore his heart apart, to the point where it took him another year to feel like he was in love again.

Vera had always been his type—fire with fire that led to explosions and explosions until they became oblivious to the open nature of their affair. Or perhaps they just didn’t care. She was working for the federal government on a mission to Little Rock to enforce Washington’s decision in the school debacle and he was working for the biggest media company in the country. She claimed she was in the process of seeking a divorce from her husband while he was trying to find accommodation with his stifling wife. The lovers even consoled themselves that they were doing well complementing one another in their tasks.

But then, he grew tired of the Little Rock story when it dragged on for too long and became less sensational. He sought some space away from the wearying Vera and looked back to the gentle life he had known with his wife. However, he never reckoned that a yesterday missed can never be found even in a fine tomorrow.

He started feeling restless again hardly a month after he returned home to Philadelphia. Something was tearing him apart that he could not figure out. That was why when his boss asked him if he wanted to report on the increasing American military involvement in Vietnam, he jumped at the opportunity without thinking twice about it. Helen did not like it, but there was nothing she could do to stop him. Nobody could stop him.

He wondered what he was doing again in South Vietnam right after he got there. However, that discomfiture did not last for up to a month as the maverick in his soul resurfaced and he was back in the jungle, away from civilization as most of his American compatriots knew it, and into a hell that was close to Dante’s Inferno.

“We got ourselves into one big hole that has quicksand underneath,” were his words to a French journalist after a three-week stint in the jungle with American Special Forces.

He admitted to himself not long afterwards that he too didn’t know he was in a bigger hole when he accompanied American troops into the jungle for a month and failed to get Helen’s telegram expressing her rage following her discovery of his affair with Vera. Then there was a second telegram about Vera’s pregnancy and a third hardly a week after, reporting the death of their five-year-old son from an unknown infection picked up at his kindergarten. He got the last two telegrams on the same day.

“Unknown infection?” He had raged, wept, and despaired.

No answer.

“Haven’t we just invented antibiotics? Didn’t the medical authorities declare that they have eradicated polio and all the other fatal childhood illnesses?” He had posed the question several times to whoever cared to listen.

Still, there was no clear answer.

He had returned home to find a desolate and inconsolable wife who didn’t want him anymore, who blamed him for her grieving and cheated soul, and who openly declared that she too started an affair with a southern writer and real estate millionaire three weeks before the death of their son. The divorce was quick, final, and difficult to swallow, but he was determined to carry on with life despite the heartaches. After all, he was only thirty-seven years old, and he still had a lot of punch left in his system.

But nothing could replace the loss of Jason and the broken ties with Helen. Then as if to trick his senses even further, the recurring nightmare featuring Jason and Helen began and kept haunting him ever since. A week ago, before he got the assignment to France, the bad dream featured Michel Villepin for the first time. But not until recently did René Roccard get into the picture. He wondered what it all meant. He searched for other answers but the few he could get as a consolation were in the words of an elderly Gypsy woman who had told him ten years ago that he had the gift to see his future if only he focused on it.

Clement regarded the sleeping Lisa and sighed. He would follow his instincts and look for Michel. And after that, he would get on René’s trail again. He could be the cure to his nightmares after all.

Chapter 6

The African Pearl

If you board a plane or ship plying any of the international routes and ask to be taken to the heart of Africa, do not be surprised to find yourself disembarking in Cameroon. It is a beautiful country per se, situated opposite the middle portion of Brazil, on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean. Bordered by six countries of which Nigeria is the most prominent neighbor, Cameroon appears on maps like a heavily pregnant mother carrying a baby on her back.

This peculiar geopolitical entity was created by accident and apportioned to Germany during the 1884 Berlin conference that carved up Africa. Thereafter, Berlin treated German Kamerun as its treasured colony for thirty-two years until Great Britain and France captured the land during the First World War, partitioned it into British Cameroons and French Cameroun and then went on to lord it over the people for four decades. However, they too were challenged by Cameroonian civic nationalists who campaigned for the divided territory’s reunification and self-rule. Today, English and French are the country’s official languages, mirroring the dominance of the two Indo-European languages in Africa.

They say the gods have a design even in the most outrageous acts of mortals. If that is the case, then it also applies to Cameroon. The country has defied so many odds in its history that the people now pride themselves on the saying that “Impossible isn’t a Cameroonian word.”

Renowned voices tend to call Cameroon “Africa in miniature”, not only because of its fanciful shape and turbulent history but also because of the physical and human aspects of its geography. It is the point in Africa where the East meets the West and where the North meets the South. It is a country that features plains and mountains, plateaus and valleys, rivers and seas, lakes and waterfalls, as well as other landmarks that mirror the rest of Africa. The south is dominated by equatorial and tropical rainforests, the north is covered by Sahelian vegetation, and the middle portion of the country is graced with high savannah of mixed grassland and forest. In fact, all the different flora and fauna in Africa can be found in this carelessly-drawn triangle called Cameroon.

The curious eye is apt to notice varying statures, facial types, and shades of complexion as it travels throughout Cameroon—the result of the territory’s history as the crossroads of African migrations. Anthropological linguists hold that all of Africa’s four major language groups converge in Cameroon.

The southern portion of the country is the base from where Bantu speakers spread to southern and eastern Africa. The furthest spread of Afro-Asiatic peoples is in the north of this territory, featuring groups like the Semitic-speaking Arabs, Berber-speaking Tuaregs, Chadic-speaking Hausas and Batas, and Fula or Fulfulde-speaking Fulanis or Peuls. Nilo-Saharan speakers dominate the north of the country in their furthest spread to the west of the African continent. Also present in Cameroon are small ethnicities of the fourth major subgroup called Niger-Congo-A that occupy the southwestern border regions with Nigeria. Settled in the northwestern portion of the country that looks like the pregnant part of Mother Cameroon is the fifth and unique indigenous group that you will find only in Cameroon. Named semi-Bantu, Graffi or southern Bantoid, this group has characteristics of all the four major language groups or sub-races in Africa. Legends and lore hold that semi-Bantu people are originally of Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan descent and that they assimilated all the peoples they encountered in the course of their migration. The Bamileké people are the dominant ethnicity in this group.

Cameroon’s human and physical wealth has indeed been the source of its turbulent history, its pride and the ingredients that give its people a unique flavor. The flavor has produced colorful Cameroonian characters that the curious eye and mind are likely to enjoy by hating or loving them, pitying or angrily denouncing them. These characters provide insights into human nature and the African continent that is haunted by leaders with the evil disposition.

While other African peoples have picked up arms and warred among themselves to have their country split up, Cameroon is the only geo-political entity in the continent whose inhabitants went to war to reunite its people separated by the legacy of the Anglo-French partition of the former German colony of Kamerun. It is the only country where those who fought for its reunification and independence are yet to assume political power, as they continue to languish from the defeat suffered at the hands of the French overlords and the puppets the French political establishment installed in power in Cameroon. It is the land where you will find Africa’s biggest political deception and sleaziest mafia. It is the country in Africa with the lowest number of heads of state in its history, yet it is a country that is unlikely to engage in internecine war to get rid of the suffocating system.

Now that you have disembarked on your journey into the heart of Africa, where do find yourself? You are certainly at the doorsteps of the city of Douala.

You are stepping into Douala because it is also the gateway to Cameroon. In the distant picturesque background is the Cameroon Mountain, an imposing volcanic outcrop from the Atlantic Ocean that features layers of forest, grassland, and rocky desert at its entire altitude. You will also find beautiful creeks, rivers, and streams that crisscross and surround Douala. These unique features give the area its beauty and lustrousness—something admirers of nature always marvel at whenever they view the city from the air, the sea, or the land.

Now, brace yourself for the challenge of walking into a unique unknown by opening the gates of Cameroon through the soul of Douala.

Douala is the city where the German colonial administration sought to build a cross of Berlin, Leipzig, and Hanover in Africa, leaving behind an impressive array of architectural monuments as a stamp of their presence in the land, an exploit that lasted three decades and made Douala the melting pot of multi-ethnic German Kamerun.

The French also embarked on an ambitious project of making Douala a sub-Saharan Paris after they kicked the Germans out of the city in 1916. After all, the machinery of the Free French forces in Sub-Saharan Africa was molded here and Jacques-Philippe LeClerc made his debut in the city, eventually becoming the finest French general in the field during the Second World War.

Now that you have walked into Cameroon, what do you find going on inside the heart of Douala? If you perk your head a little higher, you will find a modest one-story building standing in the northwestern portion of the neighborhood of Bali, close to Akwa.

They say the Akwa neighborhood has been popular for over a century now. It hosts Douala’s popular waterfront and main thoroughfare where you will find some of Cameroon’s famous restaurants, bistros, bars, hotels, coffee houses and French-style bakeries and nightclubs—all within commanding view of the sea, creeks, and swamps. It is the part of the city frequented by the city's large expatriate population and tourists, and those Cameroonians with a taste for contemporary trends. They say the city’s inhabitants regard Akwa as their mirror to the rest of the world.

Now, let's go back to the one-story building that borders the Akwa neighborhood. It is April 1958 and Joseph Nkabyo Njike is the owner of the modest structure in this part of French Cameroun. He resides on the ground floor with his family of a wife and five children, while two young families occupy the apartments above. He has tried to give some sense of security to the building by erecting a five-foot-high fence of concrete blocks with broken bottles on it, all pointing upwards. He has also built a gate to the yard from corrugated iron sheets that creak each time someone opens it, proving to be a source of alarm in itself. They say the owner of the building erected the fence and gate to keep undesirable elements out.

But coming from a man with two teenage sons and a stunningly beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter, the fence and the gate could also be construed as a measure to keep his family away from the bustling Douala nightlife considered by many to be the most vibrant in Black Africa.

However, another element has just cropped up—the sense of insecurity pervading the city after the French mandatory government banned the UPC (Union of the Populations of the Cameroons), the most popular political party in French Cameroun that along with its sister parties in British Cameroons, have been advocating for the reunification and independence of French Cameroun and British Cameroons.

Still, there was dancing in the streets, a fact not lost on the children of the Njike family and household who were barred from venturing out that night by their imposing father. So, even as he snored and rumbled that late evening, Joseph Njike knew his children were safe and asleep in their rooms. His wife also shared that thought as she stared into the night, wondering why she was having a hard time falling asleep like her husband.

The Njike mother was half-asleep when she thought she heard a sound that she could have sworn sounded like something in her dream. She half-opened her eyes and listened. It was a slight creak all right and she was not dreaming about it.

Maria Meunjeu Njike, née Njomo, quietly got out of bed and hurried to the window to find her youngest child, the eight-year-old Gavin Nemafou Njike sneaking out.

Joseph will kill him if he finds out, she thought. Without hesitating for a moment, she grabbed a cape, tied it above her breasts, covering the greater portion of her gown and then tip-toed outside.

The sound of traditional music celebrating the end of the year for a meeting group was in the air, giving the night a festive spirit that Maria found alluring. She could hear the drums, rattles, and hissing sounds from other percussionists who certainly knew what they were doing. Maria stopped herself from shaking her head to the rhythm.

She didn’t have to think hard to figure out that Gavin was having a hard time resisting the musical sounds and the performers whose activities had animated the atmosphere in the neighborhood. Her son’s love for music was extraordinary. Maria felt a twinge of pride at the thought that Gavin must have inherited much of his musical genes from her. The boy often delighted in testing his vocal cords by singing familiar lyrics, and he equally enjoyed wriggling his body and moving his legs around in peculiar dance steps to both local and foreign dance tunes. She suppressed a smile at the thought that Gavin reacted to music in the same animated manner that she was known to react as a young girl.

The night was slightly dark, and Maria could not understand why her fears kept growing with every passing second. Now she was afraid, afraid for her son, afraid of so many things. Her second cousin had uttered his death scream on a similar night three weeks ago, only for family members to find his lifeless body moments after with gunshot wounds that proved the high price he had to pay for his involvement in protests against French rule in the land.

However, as Maria looked skywards and spotted the crimson moon on the horizon, she felt slightly comforted by it. The moon exposes evil lurking in the darkness, and nobody can hurt my son, she thought.

Maria arrived at the celebration grounds to find Gavin articulating the lyrics of a song, stamping his feet, and twisting and shaking his body in a serious but comic manner as he sang and danced with a crowd in the circle, receiving cheers and applause from the adult dancers for his performance. But she was not amused at all by the spectacle in front of her. She went straight for her son, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him out of the circle, threatening and scolding. She even shoved aside a dancer who was slow in getting out of her way.

The initially stunned Gavin had nothing to say for a minute or two as he listened to the scolding words of his mother.

“Mama, the only thing I wanted to do was dance. Didn’t I tell you already that I want to become a musician? I need the practice,” he protested.

“Shut up and say nothing anymore…until...until,” she said and left the words hanging. Then she took a deep breath and shook her head in exasperation.

“Mama!”

“I said shut up.”

“Okay, Mama!”

“I’m taking you back home to your bed; do you understand? And I want you to go to sleep and do nothing else until tomorrow morning. That’s when we shall talk about this.”

“Please, don’t tell Papa,” Gavin pleaded.

“Why shouldn’t I tell your father that you want to become a bad child like those street children who steal around?”

“Because I promise I won’t do it again.”

“Shut up!” Maria snapped again.

Gavin did not utter another word. Just then, an owl howled in the darkness, sending a shiver up Maria’s spine. She did not like the bird at all. She, like so many of her fellow compatriots, was also convinced that the owl’s cry spelt a bad omen.

Mother and son walked the remaining half of the journey in silence. At the gate, they heard the sound of distant gunshots that grew louder and more frequent with every passing second. Maria hurriedly closed the gate, ran with her son into the house, locked the entrance door and led him to his bed. The sound of shootings outside did not last more than five minutes, and the noise did not wake Joseph Njike and his boys up from their deep slumber compromised by corn beer supplied by his neighbor that afternoon. Maria hung around Gavin and made sure her son was asleep before she walked back into her room.

It would be almost dawn before she fell asleep, as tormenting thoughts kept her awake, leaving her staring sightlessly into the Douala night. She had every reason to worry about her ingenious son whose love of life had exposed him to danger so many times. She was also worried about the growing insecurity in Douala where French and local forces were bent on suppressing and repressing the banned UPC (Union of the Populations of the Cameroons) through a campaign that risked sucking his other sons into what her husband called the madness of war. She feared they too could be caught in the middle like her deceased second cousin. Besides, he was convinced the UPC would never relent in its campaign to achieve reunification and independence for British Cameroons and French Cameroun, the territories that emerged from the partition of German Kamerun by Britain and France.

Before she fell asleep that night, Maria came to a decision that would alter the course of her family’s destiny. She would send her children to their uncle in Victoria at the foot of the Cameroon Mountain in British Southern Cameroons. She was certain they would be safe in the hands of her favorite brother Julius Wakam Njomo for the entire duration of the long holidays. And if the security situation in Douala failed to improve in the next couple of months, then she would convince her husband to move the entire family back to their ancestral homeland where they could be assured of peace and security.

By Janvier Chouteu-Chando, author of Flash of the Sun amazon.com/Flash-Sun-Comp

Flash of the Sun (Compradors Series)

Book 1 of 2: Compradors Series | by Janvier Chouteu-Chando,

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Wednesday, October 2, 2013

FLASH OF THE SUN (Sample Chapters of an international thriller on France, Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Cameroon, World War Two, Cold War, Social Engineering, Geo-political Engineering

Flash of the Sun (Compradors Series)

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