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Ella Mamedov completed the two-hour drive from Zaqatala to Ismailly and spent most of the time tearfully mourning the loss of Tafar and thinking about how she will avenge his killing and destroy anyone or anything that gets in her way.
She finally pulled up to the checkpoint building in Ismailly and was greeted by the two guards.
“Is Tariq up there?” she asked pointing up to the mountain cave area.
“No, he and Max are gone to Baku with Abdula.”
“I can’t get through to either of them on my cell phone, let me use yours,” Ella said.
“That’s not the problem,” the first guard said, “Max has us on communications silence until he and Tariq get back from Baku.”
“Damn, how long ago did they leave?” Ella asked concerned that she might be too late to warn him.
“Only a few hours,” the guard said.
“Did Max put the camp on elevated alert?”
“No, ma’am, if he did, we didn’t get the order down here.”
“You just did, I’ll tell everyone on the mountain that we are on red alert, if anyone comes near this area, shoot first and ask questions later.”
Ella left a plume of dust in her wake as she spun the car around and proceeded up the mountain road to the cave area and military compound.
At the cave area, the guards quickly opened the gate and waved her onto the plateau area. Ella rolled down the window and said, “As soon as I leave the mountain, I want you to barricade this road and defend the cave and compound area to the death.”
The guards saluted her and she drove down to the military compound and stopped at the garage where she had a soldier fill the car’s tank with gas. She ran over to the barracks and into Tafar's office, slamming the door behind her and leaning back against it. She stood there with her face in her hands, afraid to remove them and see anything that would remind her of Tafar. She took a few deep breaths before she removed her hands and looked around the room. She shook her head and couldn’t believe that he was gone and wouldn’t be coming back. She started sobbing and lied down on the bed and cried uncontrollably for a few minutes. ‘Why did this have to happen?’ She kept asking herself, knowing that there was no answer. She started to feel guilty about crying, knowing that Tafar would have wanted her to be brave. She got off the bed and walked over to the gun cabinet, pulled out a small pistol, and slid a clip of bullets into it. She put the pistol in her coat pocket along with a spare ammo clip and she walked into the bathroom and rinsed her face with cold water. As she looked in the mirror, she thought about how good it would feel to put a bullet in her head and join Tafar on the other side. She shook off the morbid thought and checked around the office to see if she would need anything else before she went to Baku. She saw a picture of Tafar and herself on the wall that was taken right after the camp was built and Tariq Amin had made them the commanding officers. It was the happiest moment of her life, they both commanded well-deserved respect, and were doing what they loved to do. Now she had to live with the regret that Tafar wanted more than what they had together. ‘Why wasn’t he satisfied with what they had?’ She had to regretfully ask her self over and over again, for an answer that she may never know.
Further down the wall she saw a picture of Tafar and his uncle that further inflamed the hatred she was feeling. ‘Maybe it was him?’ She couldn’t help but think that it was the greedy old bastard that caused all this trouble. If he didn’t put such far-fetched ideas in Tafar’s head, he would have been more focused and this would not have happened. Why was he obsessed with finding the Christian coat and becoming rich? Tafar was Muslim, he didn’t give a damn about Christ or his coat.
Ella pulled out her knife and out of sheer anger she slashed at the picture cutting Tafar’s uncle in half.
As soon as she composed herself, she went over to Tafar’s desk, picked up the microphone for the public address system and made the announcement that the base was on red alert and that all soldiers were to remain in the compound until further notice.
She stormed out of the barracks, got into her car and was on her way to Baku to find Tariq Amin.
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