Rogue

by James Swallow

‘Of course I agreed,’ continued Solomon. ‘If I had not, Barandi would have slit my throat and taken the offer in my stead. I could not have allowed him to give rise to the worst traits of our people.’

  ‘So Lau gave you, what? Hardware? Weapons?’

  Lucy looked distant, as if she was trying to picture it in her mind’s eye.

  Solomon gave a nod. ‘Soon we had bricks and cement to rebuild houses and construct hospitals. Machines to help us open up the mines. And we had the guns we needed to ensure we kept them. Our territory grew and we became almost respectable.’

  Marc looked back at the painting on the cabin wall.

  ‘How long was it before Beijing started asking for something in return?’

  ‘At the time . . .’ Solomon frowned. ‘They were far away. And in our arrogance, Lau and I believed that we could stay one step ahead of them.’

  *

  He chose the name because of a story he had known as a boy.

  Before the dissolute priests at the orphanage sold him and the other children to the local warlord as fresh cannon fodder, Solomon had learned to read.

  What drew him back time and time again to the orphanage’s meagre library were the tales of ancient civilisations that had become dust and old stone. In a book about the Roman Empire, one story captured his imagination: the tale of how Julius Caesar, when commanded to disband his army and return to Rome, instead marched across the dividing line of a river in north-eastern Italy and committed himself to an act of open rebellion.

  Caesar refused to accept the orders of weaker men, choosing a path that would lead to civil war because he knew it was for the good of the empire. He declared alea iacta est – the die has been cast – and ignited the fires of a revolution.

  The name of the river was Rubicon. And that strength of character, that will to defy all in the name of what was right – it was everything young Ekko aspired to be.

  When Solomon and Lau made their pact, both men knew that, like Caesar, they had crossed a point of no return. There could be no turning back from the choice, and they had no intention of doing so.

  Solomon wanted the power to bring peace to his embattled country, and Lau wanted purpose. In Rubicon they found it, giving a shape to something that would one day grow from a collective of mines and farms to an international megacorporation.

  But that was in the future. In the beginning, the story was very different.

  Barandi and some of the others resisted until they saw the benefits of Chinese assets making real differences in the poverty-stricken villages and outlying hamlets. The rising tide lifted all boats, and for a while it seemed that all was well. But as the months drew on, Solomon saw tension among Lau’s men, a conflict that crystallised in disagreements between his new comrade and Zheng, Lau’s second in command.

  Lau was adaptable and intelligent, and he adjusted quickly to life in their country, but Zheng railed against it. He detested the food, the weather, the people, and he resented the orders that had forced him to come to Africa.

  Solomon disliked Zheng as a matter of course, and the two of them kept a wary distance from one another. He learned from Lau that the man was the son of a highly placed official in the Chinese Communist Party, sent on this mission as a punishment for his indolent, self-interested manner. Zheng was a disappointment to his father. He was a spoiled child of a man accustomed to getting what he wanted without working for it, dispatched to Africa with the intent that the bush would teach him some humility. But all Zheng did was complain and scheme, his arrogance hardening as he was forced to live alongside foreigners he considered to be little better than animals.

  Zheng’s attitude had its roots far away, in the corridors of power in Beijing. The men who commanded Lau’s mission grew dissatisfied with progress in Mozambique, seeing too little return for what they considered to be too much investment. Their long view began to shorten, turning towards Nigeria, Chad and Uganda, nations they considered more easily manipulated to follow China’s ends. Lau wanted to build real and genuine connections with Solomon’s countrymen, but gradually Beijing’s hunger for resources overcame other concerns.

  Even as they worked to build a better future, as possibilities rose of new deposits of coltan and rare minerals in the mines near the River Lugenda and Corte Vermelho, Solomon sensed time falling short on a clock he had never set running.

  *

  Lau remembered most clearly the earth around the mine works.

  The ground beneath his feet was rich and heavy, a dense red the colour of the terracotta warriors he had once seen in Xian. When the rains came, that earth became mud carved by sluggish trails of water the shade of arterial blood. And when blood was shed across it, the colours merged into cloying, thick matter that stained his clothes and his skin.

  Zheng Ma died there, choking out his last, weeping in agony with Lau’s bullet in his belly. His blood seeping through his field shirt, mingling with that of the men he had killed. The metallic stink of death rising despite the damp air.

  Looking back at that moment, it appeared that Zheng’s death was the inevitable endpoint for all that had come before, but at the time it seemed impossible.

  The day started badly. For weeks, the miners at Corte Vermelho had been deliberately slowing their work after word got out that there might be new deposits of mineral wealth beneath the ground. The men wanted more money to go deeper, work longer hours, and take the risks that came with it.

  Always angry, always spoiling for a fight but sly with it, Zheng made sure that Solomon’s comrades were miles away when he took a truck full of armed men to the mine. He left word for Lau that he was going to ‘correct’ the lazy natives and put them back to work. He took only Chinese men, with rifles and the heavy machine gun from the encampment’s armoury. He was tired of pretending to be a partner to these foreigners. He wanted to put terror in their hearts, to remind them how little their lives mattered and who was in charge.

  Zheng had not known compassion in his life, or grown up in a place where his wants and needs had not been immediately met. The seething resentment churning inside him at his father’s refusal to let him return home found expression in acts of cruelty. He was careful to conceal these thoughts, taking it out on raiders or thieves. But on that day, he no longer cared enough to hide it.

  Solomon took jeeps loaded with his men to the mine, racing at dangerous speeds along the waterlogged roads. Lau was at his side, silent and fearing the worst, fears made real as they crested the ridge near the mine and heard the popping of pistol shots on the wind.

  When they reached the pithead, there were already dead mineworkers lying in the mud. Each had fallen from a kneeling position, shot through the skull in the manner of military execution taught by the army of the People’s Republic. Zheng screamed and berated the rest of the workers, his mask of apathy dropping away to reveal the loathing he had for the Africans.

  He turned that rage on Lau, screaming at him, calling him a traitor. The heavy machine gun was unveiled and drawn on Solomon and the workers. Zheng declared that Lau was unfit to lead the mission any longer.

  For months now, Lau had been stalling commands from Beijing to abandon operations in Mozambique, ignoring his recall orders.

  The Dragon was far away, he told himself, and I am too small to matter.

  Zheng knew this. The demonstration taking place at the mine was his coup d’état, his way to take control and remove Lau in one action. He had no interest in Lau’s attempts to defuse the situation. Zheng wanted it to escalate. He was counting on it.

  One detail Lau had never been certain of was the identity of who fired the first shot. It might have been one of Solomon’s men, pushed to rage by the shouting, braying little man standing in front of the truck. Or it could have been one of the Ma Feng team, encouraged to violence by Zheng’s bombast.

  The wet air was suddenly filled with the fizzing shriek of weapons, drowning out Lau’s cries to cease fire. The machine gun opened up and so did the rifles in
the hands of Solomon’s men. The brutal crossfire took lives on either side, cutting down the workers pinned out of cover between them. Lau saw unarmed civilians shredded by the heavy RPK in the truck, and cursed Zheng’s luck as the little man found protection behind a mine cart piled high with ore.

  Until that moment, Lau’s oath had always been loyalty to China, to the Party and the People, even if the love of his nation had been withheld from him, like the cold regard of a distant, unfeeling parent. To go against that, to put the life of any foreigner before one of his own, was a line that could never be crossed.

  Lau took his pistol and charged through the chaos, finding Zheng where he cowered in the mud. The other man seemed confused as Lau aimed his gun at him, and he took that emotion to the grave.

  The shot was a sudden crack of thunder among the commotion, bringing everything to a halt. Zheng cried and wept and died. It was an act that could not be undone.

  The die was cast.

  *

  Solomon’s men secretly buried the dead in unmarked mass graves near the mines, in fields where debris from the works scarred the earth.

  Countless families were destroyed by the killings, lost in a few seconds of fire and madness. The horror of it sickened Solomon to his core, and in his shame he knew that he bore much of the responsibility for what had happened.

  The first shot had been his.

  For one furious moment, as he stood there in the mud and the hissing downpour, Solomon’s control slipped from him. He saw Zheng, a weak and venal man concerned only with what benefited him, threatening to destroy what Rubicon could become. The AK-47 in his hands bucked hard as he pulled the trigger, but the accursed maggot moved too fast and the round missed its target.

  The shot was the signal for hell to be released, and the air became thick with death. Solomon wanted to believe that he had shouted out, desperate to call back what he let loose, but that would have been a base lie.

  In truth, he fired until the slide on his Kalashnikov locked open. He spent his ammunition on the men who had stood with Zheng, heedless of the innocents in the way. So great was his fury in those seconds that he could not control it, nor did he want to. It tapped into something dark within him, back to the empty place where his soul had faded during his life as a child soldier.

  It would have been easy to march into that abyss once more, and if he had, Ekko Solomon would not have dragged himself out a second time.

  The shock of that realisation brought him stillness, and in that silence one more gunshot sounded. Zheng perished at Lau’s hand and the madness was at an end.

  The cost of that day’s work came at a price Solomon had no choice but to pay.

  A week passed after the disposal of the dead, and as night began to fall the mutter of insects was cut by the heavy whirr of rotor blades. From out of the western sky came stocky Russian-made helicopters in olive drab, military transports with no visible insignia. One of the aircraft put down outside Solomon’s encampment and disgorged squads of soldiers in helmets, body armour and savannah-coloured camouflage, while the second orbited away, heading in the direction of the nearest township.

  The soldiers carried the same weapons that Lau’s contacts had provided to Solomon’s militia, but where the guns given to the Africans were used and battle-worn, those in the hands of the soldiers were parade-ground clean. These were elite warriors, killers of a breed far removed from the bush-hardened fighters Solomon stood with.

  Their commander removed his helmet and, despite years of age between them, the resemblance to Zheng Ma was unmistakable.

  Which of you killed my son?

  He asked the question in flawless Portuguese. His name was Zheng Ko, and he knew far more than he should have. The man showed no emotion as he made his threats. The Dragon had come to claim what belonged to it, in blood and treasure, and the transaction was brutally simple.

  Zheng Ma’s murderer would pay, and Solomon would pay, and Solomon’s people would pay, and this would be allowed to happen or worse would come to pass.

  To accept that demand is to willingly place chains around our own necks.

  Solomon drew his pistol and his men brought up their guns. The Chinese did the same, the moment echoing what had taken place at the mine.

  What was the stronger pull? Solomon wondered. To friendship and to a kindred spirit, or to home and nation?

  He and Lau had become brothers, after a fashion, their bond forged by shared adversity and shared vision. Solomon was born in this land and he had shed blood for it all his life. To give it up now to a coloniser power would betray everything he believed in. But to challenge these invaders could spark a bloodbath that would end the lives of countless innocents.

  So he surrendered Lau, knowing full well what the alternative would bring.

  He told Zheng Ko the truth about his son’s killing, showed him the gun that had fired the shot. Simbarashe brought Lau to them in chains, and Solomon did not meet his gaze as he gave him up.

  He expected to see Lau die then and there, but whatever anger Zheng Ko might have had was shuttered away and controlled.

  Lau will pay for his defiance, the soldier told him. Dying here will mean nothing. He will be taken home to be made an example of.

  The other helicopter returned, and Zheng Ko allowed himself a smile.

  There will need to be reparation, he noted. You took our benevolence and abused it. Someone will have to pay.

  Solomon shook his head, knowing that only strength would rule this moment. There would be no obedience here. There was only defiance.

  The second helicopter landed, and from it spilled a squad of Zheng Ko’s men in disarray, under the guns of Barandi’s war band. Wounded, disarmed and humbled, they had come to his township to teach a lesson and in turn they were taught not to underestimate Africa. Barandi’s men hijacked the helicopter, captured the men and brought them back, to set an example of their own.

  Solomon had the Chinese soldiers released, and out of the night came more and more of his militia, drawn to defend the encampment. Zheng Ko found himself outnumbered with twenty fighters to each of his elites. He looked into the eyes of the fearless.

  Leave with what you carry, Solomon told him. And do not return. Others may give you what you want, but not us. Not here.

  You are one man, said the soldier. You are not Africa.

  No, admitted Solomon, as he stood at the head of two hundred rifles. But I am enough.

  *

  The air in the conference room had become arid, and Marc felt a tension across his shoulders as he gripped the glass in his hand too tightly.

  Of all the possibilities he had wondered at, this was not what he had expected. Ekko Solomon, the man he had come to trust and admire, was guilty of everything he had been accused of.

  ‘In the months after, as we solidified control, I learned that Lau had secretly surveyed the mines. They were richer than we could have hoped for. With that wealth, Rubicon was given life. And I vowed that I would use it for a just cause.’

  ‘No wonder he hates you.’ Marc let his reply come unfiltered. ‘You gave him up. And when the men in Beijing realised they couldn’t hit back at you, they took it out on him. They turned Lau into a walking warning – someone they could point to and say this is what happens when you defy the Dragon.’

  ‘I did what I thought was right,’ said Solomon.

  It wasn’t lost on any of them that he was echoing what he had said about Delancort hours earlier.

  ‘They didn’t give you a choice,’ said Lucy, with an abrupt nod. ‘There was a hard call to be made, and you didn’t flinch. Lau would have done the same thing.’

  ‘No . . .’ Solomon shook his head. ‘No, he would not. He was different from me. And I took that away from him.’

  ‘This is why Rubicon is your penance.’ Marc fixed him with an unflinching, accusatory glare. ‘I always knew you were trying to atone for something.’

  Solomon’s eyes flashed, a mote of anger cutting t
hrough the haze of his remorse.

  ‘I am born from blood and war,’ he growled. ‘And I have done much that I regret! But I do not seek forgiveness, Mr Dane. I strive to rebalance the scales.’ Then the moment passed and he broke Marc’s gaze. ‘One does not escape guilt – one can only hold it at bay. I know you both understand that.’

  Marc reached for a retort but found nothing. The rawness of Solomon’s revelations, of his confession, were difficult to process but it rang true. And with the cold, unflinching clarity that came in its wake there was nothing left to do but focus on the here and now.

  ‘To survive this, we must trust in one another,’ said Solomon.

  Lucy looked towards Marc, searching his face.

  ‘Like you said, we’ve got nothing else left.’

  SEVENTEEN

  ‘When will I be allowed to leave?’ Delancort glared at the sullen young police officer. ‘I have been here for over a day!’

  He gestured around the office where the black-jacketed ALEPH thugs had installed him in the aftermath of Solomon’s escape.

  After the power failure, the corridors of the Rubicon tower were empty, echoing spaces. Most of the staff had been processed out through police interviews and discharged. Whole sections of the building were dark and sealed off with security tape. Henri was forbidden to venture up to the crisis centre levels or the executive quarters, and he wondered what was going on there.

  ‘This is intolerable!’ he began again. ‘If I am a suspect, arrest me and charge me with something! If not, let me go!’

  ‘I have orders to keep you here,’ said the policeman. ‘You want me to put the cuffs back on? Sit down and be quiet.’

  ‘I refuse!’ Delancort’s voice rose to a crack-throated shout. ‘You have no right . . .’

  He trailed off as a by-now familiar clicking sound signalled Lau’s appearance, the older man leaning heavily on his walking stick.

  Lau looked tired, but his eyes were clear and hard. He was being driven by a will that gave him energy beyond his years. He dismissed the police officer with a flick of the wrist and closed the door. He stood, rail-thin but still imposing, preventing Delancort from leaving.