Aishatu Ewaso ran past the other visitors to the end of the gallery, where she peered cautiously into the next exhibition space. An empty room with vitrines, but with no side entrances.
The sound of the display piece toppling over would draw attention, even if not immediately. Someone would investigate, and that someone would be impossible to disarm without killing them first.
The thought of explosives crossed her mind. Did any of the men look like they had explosives strapped to them? The thick belts? No. Probably no. But them having more weapons than guns was a possibility she shouldn't discard simply because she hadn't seen anything.
She needed an exit, and fast. Doubling back to the main entrance would be suicide; her only option was to work her way further into the museum. A fire escape, or a larger window without bars would do. She had no idea how large the museum was. Or where the other armed men were, for that matter.
She had the unsettling sensation of walking blindly into a trap.
At the entrance to the next gallery she paused to make sure the assault rifle was loaded and ready to fire.
For a moment, the subtle light of the gallery was replaced with an image of the red-dust road leading into her village. She was a small girl, hiding behind the corner of a mud-brick house waiting to ambush approaching mercenaries with a group of other young people, guns far too large for their thin arms clutched possessively to their stomachs.
"Forget your fear. Forget your family. Forget yourself. Keep your mind focused on one thing: the road." Old Bantantu's words came back to her and she knew he was right. There was nothing but the road. And it would lead her out of danger if she only keep her mind concentrated on it.
The dusty road was the life-line to the world. If it was cut-off, they were doomed.
Vaguely she was aware of the other visitors following on her heels. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw them grouped in a clump like a knot of startled sheep. An easy, wide target begging to be mown down from behind by insurgents. For a moment, another lava spray of annoyance flared up inside her and the skin on her legs and back remembered the beatings administered for such stupidity and lack of respect for the rules that kept them all alive.
Better to learn by the rod than the bullet.
The wave of determination pushed her to move her mind forward to the present and the battle ahead.
The only goal was to find and defend the road. That was all that mattered.
"Single file!" she hissed at the other visitors, and took off again, crossing the next gallery in a light jog.
YOU ARE READING
A Visitor to the Museum
Action*Action Short Story* Terrorists storm a Parisian museum taking the twenty startled visitors hostage. One woman refuses to cooperate. A fact the French police can't, or don't want, to believe. When politics, race, history and the War Against Terroris...
