Warlord

by James Steel

  ‘Yeah.’

  Yamba and Col hand over control of Johnson’s entourage to the Unit 17 bodyguards, get back into the choppers and take off for Camp Heaven at 4.00 p.m. Johnson and her team load up into a convoy of Land Cruisers and drive up the hill. Carla Schmidt, Bill Jakowski and the rest of the press stand around waiting to be picked up in a second run. There is a press briefing scheduled after the meeting.

  At 4.10 p.m. Johnson and Ciacola are shown through the farmyard and greeted by Rukuba on the back veranda of the farmhouse. Standing in his white flowing robes and pointed sandals, Patricia thinks he looks like some sort of African mystic.

  Rukuba is all smiles and charm. ‘Secretary of State, how delightful to see you!’

  She can see what Ciacola means about his charisma: it is like being hit by the beam of a heat lamp and she cannot but warm to it.

  They pass through the house and out onto the lawn and she admires the view down the valley. ‘Mr President, this is beautiful.’

  ‘Well, I try to maintain a connection with the rural roots of my country. Please take a seat.’ He gestures to a smart set of hardwood garden furniture that has replaced the white plastic chairs. Johnson and Ciacola sit and after tea is served and niceties observed, Johnson gets down to business.

  ‘Mr President, as you know, I have a long-standing interest in Kivu and am very pleased with the progress that you have made in combating the FDLR and bringing peace to this country.’

  Rukuba smiles and nods. ‘You are very kind, my people appreciate the concern that you have shown for us.’

  ‘Thank you. How do you see the future of your people developing from here?’

  The smile continues unbroken. ‘My policy of Kivu nationalism is overcoming tribal divisionism. We are confident, we are strong and we will succeed.’

  He isn’t making it easy for her to approach the key issue obliquely so she has to do it directly.

  ‘Mr President, I listened to your independence day speech with great interest and I am keen to stress that the United States and our partners in the UN and the EU would all like to see that the wishes of the people of Kivu are reflected in their new government.’

  Rukuba’s smile is waning. ‘Well, of course and they will be. I am in constant communication with the general will of my people through my radio broadcasts and am in daily touch with the ordinary people. It is a direct democracy as outlined by Rousseau, the founding father of liberalism.’ Rukuba looks at her earnestly as if he cannot understand why she should be concerned about this.

  Johnson is thrown for a moment and then sits forwards on her chair. ‘OK, but what we are looking for in this scenario is a representational democracy with a choice of political parties.’

  Rukuba shakes his head, his smile now gone and a very grave expression in its place. ‘That will not be necessary. What you are talking about in Africa just produces sham democracies, like Congo, and ethnic divisionism. The people of Kivu have expressed confidence in me, and my system will work much better.’

  Johnson is getting tired of what she sees as his clever wordplay. Her neck stiffens and she places her hand slowly and firmly on the table. ‘Mr President, let me put this on the line for you. If a multi-party, representational democracy does not emerge in Kivu then the United States will be minded to veto any application for full nationhood in the UN Security Council and I know I speak for my counterparts in the UK and France when I say this.’

  Rukuba’s face takes on a withdrawn look and his eyelids lower. Johnson feels a shiver, as if someone has switched off the heat lamp inside him.

  There is a long silence.

  Johnson looks at him and is about to ask if he is OK when he finally replies in a whisper, ‘I will consider your proposals overnight and respond to you in the morning.’

  With that he gets up and signals to the staff on the veranda who have been watching. He pulls his robes around him, looking pained, and then walks off round the side of the house without another word.

  Ciacola checks his watch out of habit; it’s 4.25 p.m. The meeting lasted all of fifteen minutes.

  Chapter Fifty

  Alex is pacing up and down in the ops tent, his arms folded across his chest and his head down. He decided it would be politic not to meet Johnson at the airport because of his new pariah status but is still very much in command of First Regiment; no one has even questioned his authority.

  The atmosphere in the ops room is tense, with none of the usual chat. Everyone is listening in to the radio desk speaker as calls come through from Yamba in the helicopters as they pick up the entourage at Goma and then fly them to Mukungu.

  ‘Black Hal, this is Loyola, departing Mukungu now and returning to Heaven. ETA ten minutes.’ Yamba’s callsign is from Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, a former soldier whom he has always admired.

  Alex confirms, ‘Roger that, Loyola.’

  Yamba and Col touch down at 4.10 p.m. and drive fast in a jeep over to the ops tent.

  ‘How was it?’ Alex asks as they duck in through the tent flaps.

  Yamba nods. ‘Fine, it all went smoothly. We just wait for the press conference this evening and then pick them up tomorrow morning.’

  A soldier manning the satellite communications desk calls over to Alex, ‘Satellite phone call for you, sir.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s Miss Cecil-Black, sir, says it’s urgent.’

  Alex shoots a look at him. ‘I’ll take it in my office.’

  He hurries into the sectioned-off area, his heart pounding. The phone on the desk blares and he grabs it. ‘Sophie?’

  ‘Alex, I’m scared.’

  Her voice has an edge of barely controlled hysteria and she gabbles, ‘They’re making howling noises in the bush around the village here; I think it’s the Kudu Noir. There’s a few mai-mai troops in the village but they’re as scared as I am. Alex, get here fast, please!’

  ‘OK, OK. I’ll scramble a chopper straightaway; I’m coming to get you. I’ll bring a platoon and pull you out of there, OK?’ He forces himself to think about the distances and flight time: it’s seventy miles to Bahomba. ‘We’ll be thirty minutes, I promise you.’ He glances at his watch – it’s 4.30 p.m. and it gets dark at 6 p.m.

  ‘OK, OK.’ She is sobbing on the phone now. He hears a sound in the background and she cries in fear and sobs, ‘Jesus! Alex, they’re close, please.’

  He is torn momentarily between wanting to stay in communication with her and needing to leave immediately. He blurts out, ‘Stay in the village. I love you, I’m coming!’

  ‘OK, I love you too.’

  ‘OK, bye.’

  ‘Yes, bye.’ Her voice sounds forlorn.

  He hangs up and races round his desk and into the ops room.

  ‘Yamba! I want you to stay here and hold the fort. She’s got Kudu Noir approaching the village, I’m going out with a platoon to bring her back.’

  ‘Shit,’ mutters Col. ‘Right, I’ll come with you.’

  Alex looks at him. ‘Thanks. OK, let’s go!’

  They rush out, jump into the jeep and race down to the flight line.

  Alex screeches to a halt. Jean-Baptiste looks up in alarm, he has never seen Alex look so hasty.

  ‘Major Delacroix, I want a platoon in that chopper now! We’re going to Bahomba.’

  Jean-Baptiste nods. Echo Company are on standby as the rapid reaction force for Mukungu and there is a chopper next to them on the pad, fully fuelled and with its engine turning over ready to go. Its wipers flick back and forth as a rain squall comes in off the lake.

  Jean-Baptiste bellows to his men, ‘Two Platoon, load up now!’

  Stein has been promoted to Sergeant after Matt Hooper’s death and he in turn gets the men on their feet and they run over to the chopper.

  Alex and Col both grab rifles, webbing and flak jackets off other soldiers waiting nearby and run up the ramp with Jean-Baptiste. The chopper roars, goes through a rapid liftoff, darts away west, rising steep
ly to clear the mountains overlooking the lake, and disappears into the rain clouds.

  In the ops room Yamba rapidly takes charge of the situation, barking out orders and the well-oiled machine goes into action around him. ‘Mordechai, get me satellite shots of Bahomba! And where’s Major Bizimani?’ He needs Zacheus’s expertise on the local mai-mai group.

  ‘He left about ten minutes ago, sir. He had a satellite call from President Rukuba and said he had to go and get something urgently.’

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Carla Schmidt and the other journalists are still waiting in the stadium to go up the hill to the farm when a Unit 17 officer with a walkie-talkie comes over to them.

  ‘Press conference is cancelled.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Press conference is cancelled,’ he repeats. ‘You must leave now.’ He turns and shouts to the drivers of three dark green army trucks parked at the side of the bowl and waves them over.

  The press pack is outraged that they haven’t had their chance to put questions. ‘Look, we’ve come all the way from the United States!’ Bill Jakowski remonstrates with the officer who brushes him aside.

  ‘Maybe the President will say something to you in the morning, but now you must leave for your quarters!’ The officer points west towards a hilltop half a mile away, where there is a prefab camp put up to house the large Rwandan delegation during the peace conference.

  The press don’t like it and there is a lot of complaining but more Unit 17 men walk over and stand with their hands on their rifles across their chests, glowering at the journalists. The crowd of KPP youth wing members stop singing on the terraces as they see the altercation going on. They stare and some jump down and gather next to the trucks, pushing and shoving and trying to see what the argument is about. Murmurs of disapproval come from them as the journalists continue to argue with the soldiers as they are loaded onto the army trucks.

  Carla Schmidt glances at the crowd and then mutters to her cameraman. ‘Mike, this is not good.’ He nods and quietly picks up his camera gear and swings up into the truck.

  Once they are in, they can see Patricia Johnson’s bodyguards and staffers driving back down the hill in the convoy of Land Cruisers. Carla glimpses Johnson sitting in the front seat of one, looking stony-faced as she passes. The trucks follow them and they wind along a road through open land covered in waist-high grass, that dips down and then rises up again to the hilltop encampment.

  The Rwandans were keen on their security and there’s a high razor-wire fence around the collection of single-storey, white, rectangular prefab buildings. There is a good view from the hilltop all around them.

  The cars and trucks drive through the gate into the compound and KPP staff come out. Again their mood appears sullen and hostile as they show people to their dormitories and escort Johnson to a separate building. The KPP staff get back into the trucks and Land Cruisers and drive off back to Rukuba’s base, leaving the Americans in their isolated encampment.

  Johnson dumps her briefcase down and looks at Ciacola and Major Reilly as they come in.

  ‘Shit,’ she says quietly. The men look shocked – it’s the first time they have ever heard her swear.

  She presses her knuckles against her mouth and stares at the floor thinking.

  ‘OK, so what now?’

  ‘Well, he says we resume talks in the morning when he’s thought about …’

  Reilly interrupts Ciacola. ‘Secretary, I have been in a lot of tense public order situations in Iraq and I see combat indicators here, the atmosphere is not good. I recommend we call in the choppers and return to Goma.’

  ‘And stay where? Or what, get back on the plane and leave?’ Johnson snaps. ‘We cannot just walk out of this one – if we do that it will blow the situation completely. Imagine what the press are gonna say.’ She gestures towards the journalists’ huts. ‘Secretary of State has ten-minute meeting and runs for it. God, we’d look total asses! We’d be backing down in front of the Chinese, they’d laugh their heads off at us!’

  Reilly nods, acknowledging the wider picture she has put to him. ‘OK, well, I’ll set up a security perimeter and secure our communications.’

  ‘Thank you, Major.’

  Reilly leaves and Johnson looks at Ciacola who just shakes his head.

  ‘What is that noise?’ Johnson cocks an ear back towards Mukungu and they both go outside and walk round the huts, looking back down the road towards the farm. Journalists and staffers are gathering there as well and they can all hear the sound of an amplified voice booming. They can’t make out any words as it’s distorted by the distance and is accompanied by the shouting of a crowd in response.

  Major Reilly walks up next to Johnson and they both stand listening for a moment. An angry bellow comes from the PA system. The words are garbled but the tone is clear.

  Johnson’s face stiffens and she goes pale.

  She turns to Reilly. ‘Major, I think you are right, I think we do need to extract – get the choppers back here now.’

  Zacheus is in such a hurry he nearly misses the turning. He brakes the Peugeot jeep hard and then swings left off the N2 main road along the edge of Lake Kivu up the steep track into the mountains.

  The jeep bounces on the rough surface and the engine roars as he revs it hard and forces it up the gradient. He hasn’t got long.

  After three hundred feet the track levels out and he drives parallel to the lake for a minute before he sees the back of the battered old truck in a copse of trees. He’s radioed ahead and they’ve had the GPS coordinates for weeks now so they should be ready to go.

  He brakes hard again and the jeep skids to a halt on the mud. Unit 17 soldiers emerge from the trees on either side of the road with rifles and beckon him forward. He runs around to the truck’s cab. It’s pointing south towards Camp Heaven, three miles away, easily in range.

  He talks briefly with the artillery officer and then jumps up onto the back of the lorry to inspect the forty long barrels that are raised and swung out slightly to the left of the truck body.

  He jumps down and then grabs the command console on its long wire and they all run fifty yards in front of the truck and take cover on the side of the track.

  Under his expressionless exterior, Zacheus has long been a member of the Kudu Noir with its links through the charcoal burners to the KPP and President Rukuba. He has been passing on information from First Regiment’s ops room ever since operations started.

  He rests the command panel on his knee, casts one last quick glance at the BM-21 launcher and then looks towards Camp Heaven.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Joseph and the crowd of young men watch the American convoy drive away towards their camp and then turn and watch a pickup truck full of Unit 17 men driving fast down the road from the farm.

  It bounces across the little bridge over the stream at the bottom of the hill and then the troops jump out in front of the crowd. An officer yells at them through a loudhailer, ‘Go to the stage now, the President will address you!’

  The men all cheer and run over to the stage waving their beer bottles. They are all drunk by now and Joseph and Simon race each other to get to the front. They look up at the farm with its Kivu flag flying, the symbol of their new identity that has given meaning to their lives, and see the bright white figure striding down from the hilltop.

  A huge cheer goes up as Rukuba walks on stage, his head high and proud. He takes a radio mike from an official and walks right up to the front of the stage – no stately podiums now.

  The sound system crackles and booms and then his voice bursts over them, the tone urgent and dangerous. ‘Men of Kivu! My men! Have I brought you peace in this land?’

  ‘Yeeeesss!’ they roar.

  ‘Have I brought you prosperity in this land?’

  ‘Yeeeesss!’

  ‘Do I have the right to rule this land as a free nation?’

  ‘Yeeeesss!’

  ‘Well, that bitch says I don’t!�
� He jabs an accusing finger towards the American camp, half a mile away. ‘And that we do not deserve to be a free country! She has said that she will stop us becoming a free country in the United Nations!’

  Howls of rage rise up from the crowd.

  ‘Well, that’s what she says she is going to do! But I will not have it. For too long the foreigners have told us what to do here in Kivu, for too long we have been the plaything of the Rwandans, the Congolese, the Ugandans, the United Nations!’ He starts punching the air with his free fist. ‘Now we are masters in our own house! Kivu has stood up! Kivu for Kivuans!’

  The crowd start shouting. Joseph and Simon in the front are chanting ‘Kivu! Kivu!’

  Rukuba is ranting at them, jabbing his arm towards the American compound with each statement. ‘We are the future, we are the new way, the way for Kivu, nothing will stop us!

  He begins marching back and forth across the stage clutching the microphone. His skill with oratory begins getting the better of him; the words start tumbling out without thought, old slogans from the genocide coming back into his hate-filled mind.

  ‘Raise your voices to protest to them! Get the foreigners out! Uproot the weeds in our field! Kill the cockroaches in our house!’

  The crowd erupts; all around him Joseph sees fists raised and faces inflamed with beer and anger, eyes staring, pink mouths open and white teeth bared.

  Rukuba gives one final, ‘Go!’ and they turn and run towards the American compound.

  At 4.52pm the remaining one hundred men of Echo Company are waiting to be scrambled to the choppers. A rain squall is blowing up from the lake and they pack into the large green, open-sided tents along the edge of the flight line. They sit on the ground and lean back on their bulky webbing packs, stuffed with ammunition and grenades. They’re used to this kind of hanging around in the army and chat or doze off.

  The nine remaining transport helicopters and the two gunships are all sitting on their concrete pads next to them and the large fuel depot, screened off by high, bulldozed earth banks.