Week 5 Summaries
Episode 4 and 5 Summaries:
Episode 4 (Warrior) saw Yugos fate decided at last. As the sun rises, Yugo is taken out of his cell (without Laila) and led to the rock in the middle of the town square. There Lall, the officer who found him in the last episode and Alis second-in-command, chains him to the rock and tells him in wonderful detail all the things that will happen to him as the sun bakes the flesh off of his body. Yugo acts tough and tells Lall that if their positions were reversed, he would remove his prisoners shirt. Lall does so and the waiting game begins.
Lets make a long story short: its really, really hot, Yugo gets cooked, his skin starts tearing off when he moves, the dacoits bet on how long hell last, and Layla starts digging an escape tunnel. Yugo remembers the words of old Dr. Yamashina and begins to recite the Koran to himself, shocking the soldiers checking to see if hes still alive. Yugos attempt to achieve that fusion of religion and self succeeds, his eyes begin to glow red, and the dacoits begin to wonder if hes actually a hero of the faith. One of them decides to test Yugo by emptying a jar full of weaver ants on his face. If Yugo really is favored of Allah, the ants will not enter his ears and eat his brain, reducing him to a dribbling madman before he dies. Otherwise well, they will. As the ants crawl over his face Layla manages to crawl out of her cell and sneaks towards Yugo. Just as one of the ants seems ready to enter his ear, Layla throws a bucket of water over Yugos head and gives him a sup to drink. Immediately Yugo uses his new strength to shout that Yusef Ali Mesa is a coward who tortures his prisoners and wont even do some harmless negotiating. Ali, watching from a building above, gets sort of mad. After destroying a good deal of furniture, he grabs Yugos head and begins to crush it inbut Yugo points out the medallion on his neck that Haji Rahmani gave him, and declares himself a Hero of the faith and the man who will restore Hajis honor.
Ali backs down and Yugo has a meeting with the dacoit leaders. Lall is astonished to find out that Haji is still alive, and begins to doubt that Haji really begged Ali for his life. But the dacoits still have no real reason to trust Yugo, so they demand that he and Ali prove that they are heroes: each man will jam a knife into his arm, and if they are favored of Allah He will not let them feel the pain. Yugo asks that they do this in front of the entire village, and that night he recites the Koran, makes his eyes glow red, and takes his knife like a man. Actually, not only does he impale his arm on the table, he keeps on wiggling the knife until an appalled Lall forces him to stop. Ali is about to stab his own arm when Yugo asks him to stop: Yugo is not there to replace Ali, or to challenge him, but simply to negotiate for the release of a prisoner. He hails Ali as a fellow hero and the Dacoits begin chanting their leaders name. Ali laughs and admits that Yugo has outclevered him: he will agree to negotiate.
Meanwhile, a military convoy has delivered the new leader of the Pakistani army forces in the region: Lieutenant Colonel Shadle! Apparently the Pakistani army loves to put complete psychopaths in positions of power OK, I cant think of a clever ending for this description, so Ill just go on to the next episode.
Episode 5 (Trust) kicked off the real negotiating. Yugo demands to see the prisoner but Ali refuses to comply; instead, he offers to have his men ask the captive something only he would know. Yugo tries the name of his daughter, and after Ali flashes a message at a distant mountain in Morse Code the response is correct: Mayuko. Yugo lays out his plan, which is somewhat complicated and involves a lot of place names Im afraid I cant remember: all of the dacoits will leave the village and hide in the mountains. Yugo will then transmit a request for the money to Mayuko, and they will make the transfer of money and hostage at the place where Iwase is being held (an abandoned mine in the mountains). The request will be transmitted in code and from the abandoned village in an attempt to lure the military off-track.
The next day things start well: Yugo uses Reiichis cool remote-control device to send a message from his radio in the village long after hes left, and when the army hears the transmission they misinterpret the code to mean that the transfer will take place at Quetta Airport. Back in Japan Mayuko gets the transmission and intelligently decides to ask Rashid, Yugos informant, about its contents. Rashid notices that Yugo has mentioned Haji and declares that hell fly to Pakistan with the money and meet Haji personally. To everyones surprise and secret delight, Mayuko cuts her hair and announces that shell join Rashid on his trip.
Meanwhile Lieutenant Colonel Shadle, who is never referred to by any other designation, has shut down the whole Balochistan area, closing the Quetta airport and putting roadblocks on all the mountain passes. He has also dispatched some Cobra attack helicopters to Alis village, and we are treated to some pretty explosions as they decimate the town. But thats all they do: Lieutenant Colonel Shadle is none too happy to discover that his men have been attacking an abandoned village. He orders them to fan out and search for the dacoits. Yugo is all for moving on under cover as quickly as possible, but Ali still feels threatened by him or something since he finds it necessary to attempt to take down one of the Cobras single-handedly. With some minor assistance from Yugo Ali uses a rocket launcher to destroy one of the helicopters, and thanks to the short range of the rest the gang makes good their escape.
Mayuko and Rashid arrive in Pakistan and speak to Haji, who properly interprets the transfer location and declares that he will accompany them. (I think that Ahmed said hed come along too, but I may be misremembering that.) But Yugo and the rest have run into trouble: theyve hit a roadblock on the main pass, overseen by none other than Lieutenant Colonel Shadle himself. They must get through quickly, and Yugo has an idea: taking Laila with him, and asking Ali to trust him, he heads down to the roadblock on his own
Tune in next week for the conclusion to the Pakistani chapter of Yugo the Negotiator!