Oath of Office

“I do not know,” June said. “I was on the phone with my husband and it suddenly stopped working.” She looked toward the street. “That’s when I saw the troop carriers. I do not like this at all.”

“The embassy will know.” She looked at her watch. “Rod’s in a meeting right now. I’ll call Post One and see what I can find out.” She punched in the speed-dial number for the embassy’s main security post. Rod had told her and the kids early on that this was their version of 911 when they were overseas. She smiled as she waited for it to connect, hoping to calm her friend. “Sometimes it’s good to be married to the deputy chief of mission.” A fast busy. She tried the speed dial again. Still nothing.

Kim turned for the door. “I will go to our embassy. It is probably nothing.”

“Probably,” Sarah said. “But I’ll walk with you anyway.”

* * *

The two boys ran at the first sound of approaching Army vehicles, diving between two houses, seeking cover behind a tattered boxwood shrub. They’d been watching a football game through the fence, unwilling to cross General Mbida’s men, who were posted at the gates. The U.S. embassy was across the street to the northeast. The embassies of South Korea and Tunisia were a few houses away behind them, the Saudi embassy across the street, half a block to the west of the U.S. compound. Jean-Claude was not quite sixteen, Lucien barely a year older. Stains of chicken blood and the preparation of a recent meal provided the only camouflage on their bright yellow T-shirts.

The stucco houses on either side of the narrow alley would have been considered middle-class in the United States, but here in Yaounde, where many Cameroonians earned less than $2,000 a year, they were palaces.

“Bientôt,” Lucien whispered.

Jean-Claude strained his ears. The rattling armored personnel carriers had stopped, leaving it quiet but for the periodic cheers and groans from the nearby football pitch and the cluck of a hen with her peeping chicks scratching in the dirt behind him. The air seemed heavy, charged with static. Lucien was right. Something was going to happen—soon.

The military trucks started up again, rattling their way toward the football pitch. Across the way, on the other side of the embassy fence, a Cameroonian man in a loose white shirt swept the sidewalk. The chancery was open now, receiving those who wanted to fill out paperwork for American visas. Jean-Claude watched the peeping chicks as they disappeared around the back of the house — and thought seriously about joining them.

He watched the two U.S. Marines standing behind the embassy fence. They were young, perhaps just a few years older than he was. They looked more scrubbed than they did treacherous, though they stood ramrod straight and there was an intensity in their faces that made Jean-Claude’s stomach churn. He crouched lower, making sure the stubby palm tree hid his silhouette, checking quickly for any green mambas or button spiders — only slightly more frightening than the U.S. Marines.

Jean-Claude peeked around the edge of the shrub. If the Marines saw him, they ignored him — and these men did not look like the type to ignore anyone. He wished he’d worn a better shirt.

“What do you think will happen?”

“I told you,” Lucien said. “My brother’s company will arrest General Mbida and he will stand trial.”

“But the Americans are right there,” Jean-Claude said. “If Mbida is so friendly with them, will they not come to his aid?”

“Perhaps,” Lucien said. “But my brother does not think so. He says they will be too worried about their own skins to face our military.”

Lucien’s elder brother was a Fusilier, Cameroon’s version of the Marines across the street. He was loyal to the president, and well paid because of it.

“The Americans can’t help but stick their noses where they are not welcome. The U.S. President is siding with Mbida to overthrow our elected president. My brother saw the video with his own eyes.”

Jean-Claude scrunched up his nose in thought. “If the general was going to mount a coup, why would he be on the football pitch with his sons? It makes no sense.”

Lucien cuffed his younger friend on the side of the head. “Stop thinking so hard. Maybe we can see my brother arrest the traitor.”

A woman’s terrified scream came from around the corner, followed by another, this one higher. Jean-Claude’s sister had cried like that when a passing taxi had broken her hip.

Lucien’s shoulders began to tremble with excitement, so much so that Jean-Claude was afraid the Marines across the street would see the boxwood leaves shaking.

Loud cracks and snaps filled the air as the armored vehicles drove directly through the wooden fence and onto the field. A voice boomed over a loudspeaker, ordering Mbida’s men to lay down their weapons. The boys duck-walked between the houses, closer to the demolished fence, so they could get a better look.