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Alex had not meant to be intrusive; he was just grateful to be back in work and was trying to show willing. He was in a much better mood than he had been lately. His restless mind needed to be constantly engaged, and sitting around at home fretting about bills had been driving him mad. With his first two months’ pay in advance in his bank account, and the promise of a lot more to come, he had been able to arrange for some builders to do the roof. Lavinia, his neighbour, was speaking to him again and had called off her lawyers.
However, he had also had a call from the bailiffs in Herefordshire saying that his father would be evicted in a month if bills for services and debt interest weren’t paid. Alex had handed over enough cash to fend them off for a while but he was anxious to get the project completed so that he could pay them in full. Despite everything, he was not going to see his father turned out onto the street and, strangely, now that the responsibility was his, he didn’t want to see his ancestral home lost either.
Apart from helping with his domestic problems, the project was also his chance to prove himself; to throw something to the dark wolves of self-doubt that had been biting him for so long. I can’t be a failure if I am responsible for all this? he thought.
It was the biggest thing he had been called on to organise — his own private army. Finally, his own independent command, the chance that had been denied him by the army. He furrowed his dark brows and concentrated on what Kalil was saying.
‘So, the mining goes on up here in the volcano. They have also built a little hydroelectric plant here, in this break in the crater wall, where the lake overflows. Smart way of getting power. The mine seems to be a pretty primitive setup, though: just shafts dug into the side of the crater by hand. We assume they must be using slave labour from somewhere as there is almost no local population in the immediate area apart from some Pygmies.
‘The ore from the mine gets dumped into a system of chutes down the side of the volcano here.’ Kalil traced a blurry line cut through the dense jungle on the mountainside. ‘Alongside them there seem to be ladders that they use to get the slaves up and down the slope. They then truck the ore along the road about a mile west to this complex here on the flat ground. This will be the actual focus for the attack.’
The photo showed a collection of buildings on the south shore of a small lake, which was fed by the stream flowing from the hydroelectric plant.
‘We’re not quite sure what all these buildings are — probably barracks for the slaves and soldiers.’ Kalil pointed to a series of evenly spaced long buildings. ‘There are two key areas for the assault — this factory structure here is where the power line comes in from the volcano plant and is presumably where the ore refining goes on.’ He turned back to face the two soldiers and raised an index finger for emphasis. ‘It is essential that this is seized intact at the first opportunity.’
Alex and Col nodded and noted this on their pads.
‘The second focus of the assault must be on these houses along the lake shore, where we guess the command and control element live.’ Kalil paused. Then:
‘I must emphasise to you that the cartel requires that you neutralise this command and control element permanently.’ He looked at Alex for a long moment.
Alex looked him straight in the eye and then nodded.
There was no point in being squeamish about it; killing people was his job. What else did he expect if he agreed to start an illegal private war?
Alex stood up and tapped the map with his Biro. ‘It’s got to be a helicopter assault.’ He stepped back and crossed his arms. The three of them looked at the detailed satellite photograph.
‘Hmm, I don’t fancy dropping into that lot with a parachute.’ Col pointed at the dense jungle foliage around the mine. ‘Might catch me bollocks on a palm tree.’
Col Thwaites was in his mid-forties and had been working with Alex through all his operations in Africa. Sharp, tough and a stickler for military professionalism, he was the mainstay of the group of freelancers that Alex was currently assembling for the job.
Like many Paras he was short, stocky and wiry; aggressive energy making up for what he lacked in size. He was balding on top, with close-cropped grey hair, a coarse-boned face with gimlet eyes, and a small moustache. Tattoos of Blackburn Rovers on his right forearm and the Parachute Regiment badge on his left completed the picture of a Northern hard man. Wry comments and an endless stream of poor-taste jokes were delivered in a harsh Lancashire accent.
He had been born on a council estate in Blackburn with a restless natural intellect that failed to achieve anything at school. Drifting into a life of glue-sniffing and petty crime, he had signed up for 2 Para with a mate one day because they had been watching The Professionals the night before and knew that the lead hard man, whom they worshipped, was a TA Para.
As with many wastrels before him, the strictures of army discipline had provided the channel to focus his energies. He had fought in Northern Ireland, the First Gulf War and Bosnia. He had risen to be a sergeant-major in the Pathfinders, the Para’s élite reconnaissance unit, and done stints all over the world, training and advising Special Forces.
Alex and Col had been through a lot of combat together in Africa. Ordinarily toff officers from posh cavalry regiments were not respected by hardened Paras; ‘Ruperts’ was the standard dismissive name they used for them.
However, Col had grown to respect Alex as an intelligent and focused commander. He realised that he had some personal demons, whatever they were — and Col had never asked — but they never got in the way of his work. Rather they were controlled by his upper-class English reserve, so that they fulminated under his black brows only emerging through his vigour and intense looks.
The Lebanese turned to Alex now. ‘You think helicopters would work?’
The tall major nodded. ‘Hmm, we’ll probably need about a hundred men altogether. Insert them here, here and here.’ He pointed to landing sites around the complex.
He looked at Col, who stood next to him with his arms folded, staring hard at the photo.
‘Aye, it’s double all right. Yeah, get some Mi-17s, twenty-two blokes in each, say …’ he cocked his head on one side, ‘… five? Bit of an air force but …’ he shrugged.
Kalil turned to Alex. ‘Whatever you think is necessary to get the job done, Alex — the cartel will pay for it. We just want that mine.’
‘Hmm,’ Alex nodded thoughtfully. ‘We’ll need a gunship as well to suppress ground fire when the troops land.’
‘I’ve heard there’s a Shark going in Transdneister,’ said Col chirpily.
‘A what?’ Kalil frowned.
‘A Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark — NATO codename Hokum. Fooking beast of a thing: 30mm cannon, rocket pods, automatic grenade launcher, you name it — it’s got it. Evil-looking, an’ all. It’s got two contra-rotating main rotors on top of each other so it don’t need a tail rotor.’ Col made excited twisting actions with one hand over the other. ‘Russian Army uses ‘em. Heard about it from Arkady — a mate of ours what works for a Russian transport outfit. The Fourteenth Army Group in Transdneister …’
Kalil had obviously lost him here so Col broke off, realising that the enclave was not well known outside the mercenary community. ‘It’s a little strip of land on the border between Ukraine and Moldova — the Russkies have been there since some dodgy deal that Yeltsin did, and sort of run the area as a criminal country, like. They don’t get paid much so the general keeps “losing!” kit.’ He wagged his fingers to indicate the irony.
‘Anyway, Arkady reckons he could get it for one and a half mil US, plus parts and ammo — fooking bargain. He ships stuff out of there the whole time to Africa in them big Ilyushins — no questions asked. They’d sell their granny for a pack a fags, they would.’
‘OK, sounds good.’ Kalil nodded uncertainly; he could only understand half of the words in the heavy Lancashire accent, and his American English meant he was confused by the expression ‘pack a fags’. However, at the same time he was impressed by the detail.
‘Yeah, you’ll have to come shopping with us there sometime. It’s sorta like a military Dubai really,’ said Col enthusiastically.
Kalil laughed nervously.
Alex chipped in, ‘Pretty much all the kit we’ll use is Russian.’
‘How so?’ Kalil asked.
‘Because it’s cheap, it’s robust and it kills people. It’s the standard equipment used in Africa, so we won’t need to train the soldiers to use it. But we’re going to need to do a CTR first,’ he continued, before they got too carried away; he knew it was not going to be that simple.
‘A what?’
‘A close target recce, mate,’ Col filled in for the Lebanese’s lack of British Army jargon. ‘That means me and ‘im doing the sneaky-beaky bit on foot round the mine.’ He made wiggly motions with one hand to indicate creeping about. ‘You know, like carrying our own shit and not farting for a week in case we make a noise. Fooking love that, me.’
Kalil looked at him confused; he didn’t get the standard-issue British Army sarcasm either. ‘Erm …’
‘We’ll have to do it.’ Alex folded his arms authoritatively. ‘There’s no way we can stake this much on some maps and satellite shots.’
‘Well, they’re pretty good, aren’t they? It took a lotta trouble to get them for you guys, you know.’
‘I’m sure it did, but success in these operations is all in the detail. I mean, what’s this?’ He traced a blurry line around the edge of the complex with his finger.
‘Perimeter fence?’
‘Yes, but is that all? There’s a large cleared area either side of it that could contain a lot of nasties. There are also these checkpoints on the approach roads and these little covered huts dotted around the perimeter; we don’t know what’s under the cover. I’m not going to risk this many blokes on it; we’re going a hell of a long way from anywhere safe and if we mess up we’re all dead.’ He paused. ‘Plus you said you wanted to come on the op,’ he smiled.
‘OK, OK. You’re the experts; I’ve never been to Africa. You do the C-whatever,’ Kalil smiled and capitulated. ‘Just don’t get fucking caught! I don’t think they like visitors.’
He picked up the projector remote control again. ‘Right, so that’s the target set up then. Let me just take you through some of the background on Central African Republic.’
The other two sat down and resumed taking notes. Kalil clicked up a map of the country and its neighbours on the screen.
‘OK, so as you can see the country at the heart of Africa is roughly triangular, with the Democratic Republic of Congo running along its base here, the Ubangi River forms much of that border,’ he traced it with his finger, ‘Sudan up here to the northeast, and Chad over there to the northwest. We’re going to be here in the southeast bit in Mbomou Province.
‘Now, as I am sure you are aware, like a lot of failed states, CAR is not so much a country as a platform for criminal activity. It is completely wrong to apply the idea of a nation state to it because the central government has virtually no control outside the capital and a few of the main towns. The rest of the country is controlled by rebel groups, criminal gangs and tribal militias.’
He looked down at his notepad to check his facts.
‘So, in the shitty country stakes CAR is right up there with the best of them: the IMF ranks it a hundred and sixty-eighth poorest in the world, out of a hundred and seventy-five. A lot of that is due to there being either civil war and no government, or peace and a government that steals everything.’ He shrugged at the irony. ‘Total population of about three million and a lot of them are around the capital, Bangui, giving the country a very low overall population density. To put that in context for you Brits; it’s five times the size of England but with fourteen times fewer people living in it.’
‘So basically, what yer saying is that it’s a whole lot of fook all,’ said Col, scratching his jaw thoughtfully.
‘I guess that’s right.’
Col wrote something down on his pad.
Alex kept his face straight but winced internally. He valued Col for his direct nature but he wished he wouldn’t let it rip during their client’s introductory briefing.
Kalil got going again.
‘The terrain is mainly flat with semi-desert in the north, then savannah and finally dense rainforest in the Ubangi River basin in the south. That’s us,’ again he smiled at his audience, ‘nice and hot and humid.
‘Economy is nearly all subsistence farming although it does have a lotta diamonds, gold, uranium, and other minerals, but these are largely unexploited because transport links are so poor … apart from our friends here.’ He tapped the area of the map where the mine was.
‘And finally, some relevant recent history: French Equatorial Africa got its independence in 1958 and then there was the usual story of one crappy dictator replacing another, although,’ he held up an index finger to mark the point, ‘from 1965 to 1976 they did succeed in having one of the more entertaining guys — Emperor Bokassa — saw himself as an African Napoleon — spent twenty-two million dollars on his coronation, including twenty-four thousand bottles of champagne.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Some party.
‘Eventually, even the French got pissed with him and pulled their troops out, so he turned to Colonel Gaddafi for money and military training — the Libyans themselves were after his uranium deposits.
‘After Bokassa was overthrown there was a long civil war with heavy fighting, diseases and banditry spreading across the country. Troops from Libya, Chad and rebel groups from the Congo all got involved. Ended up with General Bozize toppling Ange Patassé and declaring himself President,’ he shut his notebook decisively, ‘of what was left.’
Alex leaned back in his chair and looked at Kalil. ‘So, what you’re saying is it’s a bloody mess?’
Kalil was suddenly ashamed of his flippancy. He nodded. ‘Ya … it’s a mess. OK, that’s enough to start planning the campaign on. Let’s take a break there.’
The other two nodded. Col needed a cigarette and Kalil had declared the office no smoking. Alex didn’t smoke but wanted a chat with him so they went out into the narrow mews.
‘Col, can I just have a quick word?’ Alex asked as they moved away from the office to confer. ‘There’s something Kalil said that’s bothering me.’ He looked at the short sergeant quizzically. ‘If he’s running diamonds out of Africa for his job, how come he’s never been there?’
17 NOVEMBER, MBOMOU PROVINCE, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (#ulink_e0893191-76dd-51f9-a244-7adf32983b5c)
There is no more mournful scene than the aftermath of a fire.
The morning air was still. Wisps of smoke twisted up into it from the ashes of the torched village. Everything was burned black and white: the stumps of the hut walls, the kapok tree in the centre, the men and women who had resisted the attack the night before.
Colonel Ninja looked at the burned-out village but was no longer capable of feeling anything for it. He took a slow drag on his cigarette; the sound of a child crying was coming from somewhere nearby; there was a burst of machine-gun fire and it stopped.
His real name was André Kakodamba but that belonged to a person who was no longer alive. He was eighteen now but André had died aged ten when his home village in Congo had been raided by MLC militia. They took away all the children and brutalised them into soldiers; forced to mutilate and murder; each action a blow falling on his soul until it was numbed and his eyes frozen into blocks of ice.
He had killed his own soul. Now all he knew was how to force others to do the same. He had learned that fear was the key to life: fear of being hungry, beaten or shot. Gradually he had learned that it was best to be feared — fear gave you first pick of the food, the drink, the drugs and the girls. Fear was now his friend — the more the better.
He cultivated it in the gang he led: the Muti Boys.
Muti: La Science Africaine, Black Magic. His child soldiers were captured on raids like this and forced to murder their relatives to make them complicit in the gang. They dreamed that in their sleep they would travel to a demi-world to kill and eat human flesh. Awake they were not much better.
He shouted in Sango at a boy dawdling under a tree smoking a joint. ‘Hey, hurry up! Get in the ute!’ and pointed him over to the Toyota that was waiting to drive out of the village ahead of the truck with the prisoners.
The boy was sixteen and dressed in combat trousers, dirty white singlet, round mirror shades and a woman’s curly blonde wig. Muti charms and amulets hung around his neck — Colonel Ninja had told him that the bullets of their enemies would flow off them like water. Ammunition belts for his light machine gun were wrapped around him. He hefted the gun on its sling and stumped over to join his eight friends in the back of the truck. Its windscreen was shattered by three bullet holes and the bonnet had a collection of filthy teddy bears strapped to it as charms.
The boys sat in the back with their legs sticking out over the side, displaying a collection of bare feet and flip-flops; they bristled with RPGs and AK-47s. Tired after their night of destruction and slaughter, they slumped against each other and passed round a plastic bottle of home brew.
Colonel Ninja was tall and heavily muscled; he deliberately fought stripped to the waist to show off his physique to the younger boys. As he slung his PKM machine gun over his shoulder the veins stood out on his biceps. He flicked his cigarette away, scratched his head and walked over to the blue truck behind the Toyota.
It was a battered container lorry specially adapted for its new job with the addition of airholes shot through the sides. They didn’t want anyone suffocating on the way back home. The Boss had said that they needed more labourers; for some reason they kept dying in the mine; coughing up blood and wasting away.
‘They all in?’ he asked the boy standing at the open rear doors, pointing his rifle at the prisoners inside; the terrified faces of the men and women stared at him out of the dark.
The boy nodded.
‘Bon, allez!’ Colonel Ninja swung the heavy door shut in their faces and locked it.
SATURDAY 22 NOVEMBER (#ulink_dc48975f-cc40-5118-9bcf-beb16a5a2978)
Here we go again, Alex thought as the plane swept in over the rusty iron roofs and palm trees of the shantytown around the Aéroport de Bangui-M’poko in the capital of Central African Republic.
It was midday and as soon as the door opened, hot African air swept into the cabin like a slick of warm oil. By the time their Air France flight from Paris had disembarked and they had walked over the burning tarmac to the arrivals shed, Alex’s shirt was plastered to him with sweat.
The 1960s terminal was dilapidated and filthy. Windows were broken and chewed sugarcanes, nut husks and litter were piled in corners. The noise from the press of people battered him. The air was thick with the strong smell of body odour.
When he got to the customs desk the uniformed officer looked at him with the quiet stare of a hyena eyeing a gazelle on the savannah.
He tapped the table in front of him with the end of his large truncheon and Alex dutifully dumped his rucksack down. He glanced across to where Col was getting the same treatment at another desk.
Welcome to Africa, he thought, as his baggage was unpacked and items of interest removed. The new MP3 player and bottle of whisky that he had deliberately placed at the top disappeared behind the desk; then Alex accidentally dropped a fifty-dollar bill out of his breast pocket and was through.
‘How’d ya get on?’ said Col as they met up on the other side of customs.
‘Didn’t get anything we need.’ The important kit for the mission was buried at the bottom of their bags.
They scanned the brightly dressed scrum of Africans milling around them.
‘Bienvenue à Bangui, Monsieur Devereux.’
A large black face with three tribal scars cut down each cheek emerged out of the throng. A gigantic hand extended and gave him a soft handshake. ‘Je m’appelle Patrice Bagaza.’
A huge man with an understated manner, as if he was embarrassed by his size, he averted his eyes as he shook Alex’s hand. He was wearing a long red and green print shirt, jeans and flip-flops.
‘Bonjour,’ said Alex carefully.
‘Monsieur ‘Waites.’ Patrice didn’t attempt to pronounce the ‘Th’ at the start of his name and shook Col’s hand as well. He then turned and shouted in Sango to make a path through the crowd.
Patrice’s bulk forced a way and the two men followed in his wake, loaded down with rucksacks. Their visa said they were here to go big-game hunting and they were dressed in lightweight outdoor gear: boots, walking trousers, slouch hats and tan waistcoats with lots of pockets.
Once they were through the chaos of the terminal, Patrice led them across the road to an old yellow Peugeot estate in the car park.
