When the men were out of sight, some of the soldiers remained and went about their business of torching the homes, laughing as they did. Beatrice managed to ease into the darkness with Angelina, James, and Chol, who tripped over a dead body and shrieked. “Hush!” his mother warned. Other women and children were looking for places to hide and somewhere to run. For a moment they stopped and listened to the horror of popping fires, Kallies, and the screams of their neighbors.
At the church, the men were ordered inside, and when it was full the rebels kept packing in more men and boys until they were pressed together so tightly they had trouble breathing. More kept coming and when they could no longer fit inside, the commander ordered them to lie down, outside, in the dirt around the church.
Two soldiers opened fire on the wide-screen television and destroyed it. The gunfire rattled the men inside and they cried for help. On cue, incendiary bombs were tossed through the four windows and the front door and three hundred prisoners screamed in blazing agony. One man, his clothing on fire, jumped through a window and was met with a hail of bullets. Other men jumped too and were easily gunned down in target practice. Ayak made it to the front door and was killed on the steps under the remnants of the television.
Outside, some of the men lying facedown in the dirt broke and ran, only to be slaughtered. The killing was for sport and thoroughly indiscriminate. Flames and thick black smoke poured from the windows as the dying prisoners continued to scream, their voices fading.
Beatrice and her children crept in the black darkness and found a pig trail that led out of town. Hundreds of other women were moving and whispering. The lights of a troop truck washed over them and they hid in a patch of thorns. Suddenly there was gunfire nearby and the voices of angry guerrillas. A woman screamed as she was shot. The women saw the silhouettes of more soldiers on foot behind them, coming, looking for them. The children followed Beatrice through a thicket away from the road and were soon lost in the blackness. In a small opening they stopped and looked down at their village. Dozens of fires were raging and the guns were still rattling away. James and Chol were crying and Angelina hushed them into silence. They eased on, always aware that others were nearby, moving as quietly as possible, going somewhere. They stumbled into an opening and came face-to-face with a squad of guerrillas guarding a group of women and children. They barked at Beatrice and her children to sit down and they did.
“Where are you going?” the leader demanded.
She was too traumatized to respond and had nothing to say anyway. A teenager with a gun walked over and told Angelina to stand up. Another joined him and they stripped off her clothing.
“Please, no, please!” Beatrice begged, and one of them kicked her in the face.
Another teenage girl was stripped, and she and Angelina were led away, naked. Minutes passed as Beatrice tried to breathe and fight back the tears as she wiped blood off her forehead. Without a word, the guerrillas disappeared into the darkness, and the women scrambled away with their children.
* * *
·?·?·
At noon, Monday, July 20, the players met in the hotel conference room for their scheduled calls home. Using Ecko’s cell phone, Samuel punched in the number of the lieutenant’s satellite phone. There was no answer. He tried again, and half an hour later tried once more. This was troubling but not terribly disturbing. All communications in South Sudan were unreliable.
CHAPTER 14
Game Six: South Sudan versus Newton Academy
The Nukes, as they were known, had become one of the more noted basketball factories in the country. Nestled in the Smoky Mountains north of Knoxville, the school had only a hundred students, half boys, half girls, all serious and talented basketball players. Tuition was low, scholarships abundant, academics touted but not stressed, and admission was impossible unless a player had the skills to play in college. Virtually every student signed a scholarship at some level. Few public schools would play them, and so they feasted on other like-minded sports schools and travel programs, like Houston Gold, a team their U18 boys had beaten a month earlier in another showcase.
With redemption on their minds, not to mention a painful trip home that would be far earlier than expected, Ecko’s players took the floor with determination and resolve. In the first period, Dak Marial lived up to his hype and dominated the inside on both ends. He scored 12, blocked three shots, and led his team to a 10-point lead. Samuel played the second period, and though he didn’t score, he blocked two shots, stole the ball twice, and had two perfect assists to Abraham Bol deep in the corner. Ecko got every player in the game, but with five minutes to go, and their lead down to 7, he reinserted Dak, who, along with Quinton Majok, shut down the Nukes’ inside game. Samuel reentered with three minutes to go and promptly drained a long three that put them up by 15.