Risking All for Love (Wattpadprize14)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Within ten minutes they were standing in a small office with Abed Aziz and two armed men. Another stood guard at the entrance to the office door. He stood in a black uniform with pistol belt and holster with a nine-millimeter pistol holstered. He looked like the hawk that was chosen to guard the hen house.

With a sinister look Aziz stepped up to Margaux and Gary, who held each other tight.

"My, My," he said. "I must congratulate you two lovebirds on your imaginative efforts to fool me. I was so impressed with your bravado, Gary. You really stood up to me. I was so impressed that I decided not to kill you on the spot. I had a gun in my drawer, and I have certainly used it whenever it suited me."

Abed strutted around, lit a cigarette, and blew smoke rings in his captives' faces.

"You two are very clever, but you underestimated me. I regret not having gotten the drop on you in my office. But it would not have served me well to have shot you to death in Monrovia. There were too many people around."

Margaux stepped forward. "Remember my promise, I'm your whore." She stepped backward.

"Are you sure you are? Do you think that I live in a round hut and go barefooted?" Abed turned around and brought the back of his hand hard against Margaux's face. "You think that you can run out on me? Nobody quits on Abed Aziz!"

His smirk became more pronounced. "Look at my lovebirds." He turned to Margaux. "Margaux, I salute your self-sacrifice for a lover." He turned away from her. "Here's Gary, your man at last that loves you even more than your body."

Abed pulled out a memo book. "Interesting, want to know how many times you had sex at her house. Gary?'' His laugh was ugly. "Want to know how many times she had sex with her customers?"

He stood back in front. Self-satisfied. "Gary, want to know how many times your loving Margaux had sex with me? A lot."

"You might kill Margaux and Me, Aziz, but you cannot kill our love for each other. Marge is the most lovely person to come into my life. If fortune smiles on us during this horrific night, and we survive, we will marry, and love each other always."

"My, my," Abed was milking this moment for all it was worth. "Well, well, here is your chance to say over and over again just how much you love your sweet Margaux, my heroic Gary."

Abed looked around to see if his cronies were laughing along with him.

"Okay, bring the girl here and lay her on the desk, Morgan." He turned to a uniformed African guard, who stood guarding the others. "Come on, I said. Pull up her skirt and get her ready for me to fuck her."

Morgan stood there eyeing Abed and the other guard.

"You heard me, you son of a bitch!"

Morgan then swung his rifle around at the unsuspecting guard next to him. He took the other guard by sudden surprise. His rifle came crashing down on his jaw while he shouted to Gary to take Abed, who had waited precious seconds too long to draw his weapon. "Take him, Gary."

Realizing that his unknown benefactor was in earnest, Gary's shoved his fist into Abed Aziz's stomach. He knocked the gun from the man's hand and came up hard on the underneath side of his jaw.

At that moment Morgan motioned for Gary and Margaux to step aside and he approached the door to the room with care. For some reason the guard did not enter the room upon the first sign of trouble.

Morgan opened the door. There stood Vice President Moniba and an American in a dark suit holding a Mack Ten Submachine gun. Two other armed men stood with automatic weapons ready, and more guards surrounded the building.

After the guards handcuffed Aziz and the other two guards, Gary reached out to Margaux. They stood for five minutes holding on tight to each other.

"Oh, Gary." Margaux again came to tears. Tears of relief that her years-old nightmare had come to an end. There she held in her arms the only person who had ever loved her for herself. Who wanted to be her husband. Who looked beyond her helpless situation and loved her above all. She had loved Gary above all else.

Margaux had risked her very life for love. Gary was likewise willing to lose his life for her sake.

The nightmare was over.

At last they turned to the vice president and to the man in the suit.

"Margaux."  The Vice President turned to Gary. "And you, Gary, meet Agent Roscoe Smalls of the American FBI."

Agent Smalls extended his hand to both Gary and to Margaux. "I regret that you have been so inconvenienced by all of this. We have had Aziz, you, Gary, and others under surveillance for weeks now. We contacted your father, Sam Eliot. That was how he was able to get the passport."

Agent Smalls turned to Morgan, the guard. "Meet Agent Morgan, the only Liberian-born FBI agent available. We sent him to penetrate Abed Aziz's criminal operation. Any questions? We need to debrief both of you over the next couple of days. For this we have a safe house in which we can question you in order to get all information useful to us."

"For openers," Gary said, "how did you come to watch Margaux and me?"

Agent Smalls said, "We owe it to the courage of one of Aziz's victims. Yeah, we know you two are engaged now. But we were aware of scams going on, but we only had leads with fictitious names until one day Margaux here gave her real name to one of Abed's victims. Giving her name was the break we needed. That allowed us to watch her. The more we watched, the more that we were convinced that she was forced into prostitution. Then we tracked Gary to verify his innocence. We are pleased to say that we find both of you to be totally innocent. As a matter of fact, your courage has been so refreshing for us, who had to watch everything you did for weeks. We have been quite impressed by your devotion to one another."

Over the next few days, Gary and Margaux remained in a safe house while Vice President Moniba, the FBI agents, and the Liberian security forces conferred. It was learned that Abed Aziz had managed to escape into neighboring Guinea. This upset Margaux for a bit, but they convinced her that Aziz had his own problems with staying a step in front of authorities. Liberia had an extradition treaty with Guinea but not Sierra Leone. So he would have to keep running, they said. Nevertheless Margaux and Gary felt safe enough to resume normal life.

"Normal life," Margaux said. "I have been wanting that all of my life." She turned to Gary. "Now I have my man in order to share my normal life."

Margaux did not get her American passport. Vice President Moniba had conferred with President Doe and declared Margaux an Honorary Citizen of Liberia with all the rights and privileges that were attached to it.

Vice President Moniba brought them into President Doe, who handed her a Liberian Passport. Margaux was no longer a foreigner in the land of her birth.

"What are you going to do with your new citizenship, marry this fine young man and live with him in the United States?" President Doe asked Margaux and he gave her kisses on her cheeks.

President Doe, I want to return and live up in Lofa County--with my family. The Order of the Holy Cross.

"I want to return to the place where people loved me first."

"Holy Cross Mission in Bolahun, Liberia."