Beyond was the mine proper, a giant semi-circular monster-bite taken out of the hills. A skeletal tower stood over the mineshaft, pricks of flickering amber light marking the pit entrance. Next to it, a giant brick chimney poured smoke into the evening sky.
“Check the gatehouse,” said Bytchakov.
Focussing my binos on the main gates, I saw two army pick-ups parked by a sand-bagged bunker. A gaggle of soldiers chatted, others in pairs walking the fence-line. They looked as bored as you’d expect from men guarding a mine in a desert. On cue I saw a flash, a giant mortar bomb exploding near the gates. A pick-up was thrown on its side like a toy.
“Go,” Ismael ordered, weapon raised.
The rebel technicals raced down the hill in an extended V-shape, weapons spitting tracer towards the mine buildings. Rebels whooped and yelled as another mortar bomb hit the blockhouse with expert precision, raining sandbags, limbs and chunks of concrete.
“Let’s go,” I said, starting the engine. Oz positioned himself behind the WOMBAT.
“I guess following up in the rear makes sense,” Bytchakov dead-panned, “crazy motherfuckers.”
We raced towards the perimeter road, another mortar bomb exploding near the gatehouse. Machinegun fire raked the low-rise admin building, windows smashing and guards ducking for cover. Over my shoulder I saw Ismael firing a machinegun at the gatehouse, cutting down a stunned Zambutan commando making for a tripod-mounted Dushka. We cringed as Oz fired the recoilless rifle behind us, the blast bursting in my ears. The 120mm round roared overhead, smashing into the front armour of a grey-green armoured car manoeuvring outside the admin building.
The familiar glow of incoming tracer danced between the technicals, the high-pitched screech of metal-on-metal as they peppered a rebel vehicle. RPG rounds flashed towards the doomed armoured car. It lurched to a halt, fire-tinged smoke billowing from its hatches. I saw the glare of brake lights at rebels began to dismount. Behind us technicals blazed, bodies scattered around them. To our front, the muzzle flash of small arms fire sparkled from windows and hidden sangars near the main admin building. A rebel croaked and half-fell, shaking and writhing as bullets shredded his body.
Bytchakov returned fire with short bursts from his AK. Oz fired another WOMBAT round at it, hitting the rim of the flat roof. The top of the prefabricated building began to sag, then slowly collapse as heavy machineguns, rocket fire and mortar bombs shredded it. A kinetic gang-bang with only one possible ending, the rebels whooped and shouted gleefully at the destruction. The technical next to us was spattered with incoming tracer, the rebel driver’s chest and neck torn open by machinegun fire.
Oz re-loaded the recoilless rifle, grunting as he slammed a shell into the weapon. “Where’s that MG?” he shouted.
I scanned the low-rise prefabs around the collapsed admin building. I saw movement and smoke from a sand-bagged position next to the rubble. I shouted a fire control order to the ex-SBS man. “LOOK LEFT – SANDBAGS BY GREY HUT - FIFTY YARDS - FIRE…”
“SEEN,” Oz replied, firing the WOMBAT. The low building shook as the HE shell detonated, and the MG was silent.
“Forward,” Ismael said calmly into his radio.
Dismounted rebels swarmed towards the mine, firing weapons from the hip. The remaining government troops were shown no mercy, gunned down as they staggered from the smoking wreckage of their bunkers. Their bodies were bayonetted and smashed with rifle butts. The rest of the rebels motored through the gate, towards the depot’s fuel point. The ragtag guerrillas started stripping bodies, friend and foe alike, of equipment and ammunition. I realised The Leopards were combat locusts, living from scavenging and stealing from the land as and when they could.
“Captain Winter,” called Ismael, “look over here.” He stood by a sullen Zambutan army officer wearing dusty fatigues, face streaked with blood. “This guy has an interesting story.”
“Has he seen the Puma?” I asked.
“This is more important,” said Ismael darkly. “We’ll find your helicopter later, Captain Winter.”
“The Chinese were here dealing with a collapse in one of the lift shafts,” said the Zambutan officer in good English. “There were miners trapped down there...”
“Miners, you bastard?” snapped Ismael, cuffing the officer around the head. “Don’t you mean slave labour, kids?”
“Kids?” I asked.
“Yeah, twelve and thirteen year olds,” Ismael growled, spitting on the officer’s boot. “They take them from Marsajir’s slums and pay them fifty cents a fortnight.”
“Carry on,” I said to the wide-eyed officer, his forehead beaded with sweat.
“The Chinese… they worry about production targets,” the officer continued in English. “The miners were doing double-shifts when the shaft collapsed...”
Ismael’s fists were clenched. “They dynamited the lift shaft to clear it, and to hell with the children trapped down there. He says he released the rest of the kids from their huts rather than let them replace the others down the mine.”
“Yes,” the officer gushed, voice high with desperation. “I let the miners go! We gave them water and rations, you have my word.”
“Motherfuckers,” spat Alex.
The captured officer tried to look calm. Two rebels took him away at gunpoint.
“Tony, do you believe him?” said Oz.
“I’ll find out soon enough,” he shrugged. “We’ll radio our contacts and see if any kids were rescued. Our men are checking the mine now. Now, as for your helicopter, the prisoner claims earlier today Chinese marines arrived in a helicopter. Their officer ordered a platoon of Zambutans to join them in their search for you. They headed towards Afuuma. That’s a port east of here.”
“That Chinese colonel really doesn’t like you, does he?” said Oz.
“Cultivating enemies is my speciality,” I shrugged. “What type of helicopters were the Chinese in?”
Ismael translated. The army officer replied quickly, eager to help.
“He says there was only one helicopter, a big grey one. Thirty men left in APCs towards Afuuma.”
We waited by the smouldering admin building as the officer provided more information. Ismael translated that the Puma arrived after the Chinese had left, but no one had seen the crew. A rebel in his teens produced a small coffee machine. He built a fire so he could brew up.
“Good drills,” said Oz, pointing at the kid and producing a battered enamel cup from his kit.
“He’s a natural,” Bytchakov agreed. The big American also produced a mug.
“This is Zambutan coffee,” said the kid in good English, “the best. Do you have any cigarettes?”
“How old are you?” admonished Bytchakov.
“Old enough for this,” laughed the kid, pulling up his shirt to reveal a six-inch scar along his belly, “shrapnel from RPG.”
“Here you go,” I said, handing the kid a Montecristo. He smelt it and lit it, “for fuck’s sake don’t inhale.”
Of course, he did. We all laughed as he coughed his guts up. He got the hang of it eventually, posing like a clown with the Cubano to his mates.
Ismael appeared shortly afterwards. At gunpoint were three dishevelled Chinese engineers wearing boiler-suits. “It’s true,” he spat, pushing them to the ground.
The Chinese started babbling, but none of us spoke Mandarin. Ismael levelled his AK at the first engineer and emptied the magazine into him. The body spun like a top, bloody holes blossoming in his chest and guts. “They did it. They dynamited the mine-shaft. It’s full of dead kids down there.” He spat a gobbet of phlegm at the bullet-shredded corpse.
The two remaining mine workers started begging for their lives. Ismael calmly slid a fresh magazine into his still-smoking rifle and snapped back the cocking lever. His eyes flashed with hate. I’d seen that look before, the one that says a man hasn’t had his fill of killing.
Sometimes I see it in the mirror.
“Wait,” I said. “I need to as
k questions.”
“Better make it quick,” said Tony Ismael quietly. Right now, I couldn’t imagine the man was a teacher, looked after kids with learning difficulties.
“Do you speak English?” I said to the two Chinese.
“Yes, my English is good,” chattered one of them. “Don’t let them kill me. We didn’t give the order to set the explosives, it was the Zambutans.”
“Who did?” I grunted. “Tell me quickly and you might live.” It was a lie, of course. He’d rolled the dice and got snake eyes.
“The Zambutan trade ministry,” he stammered. “We told them over the satellite radio we had problems. We asked for more men and equipment, to excavate the collapse. They said just dynamite it, that’s what they would do. We’d never do that. We’d use earth movers and specialist equipment, but the Zambutan foremen used dynamite. It was crazy.”
I shook my head and looked at Ismael. Around me prowled more rebels, loathing etched on their faces, “so you let them do it anyway?”
“We had no choice, we have targets to meet,” said the engineer simply. He looked at his feet.
“Hold on,” I said, “Tony, do you have a video camera?”
The Londoner barked an order in Swahili and a few moments later a rebel arrived with a Sony Handycam.
I took it and switched it on. “Tell your story, in English,” I said to the engineer. It took five minutes for the Chinese mining official to repeat his account, blaming the Zambutan Government for ordering the dynamiting of the collapsed tunnel at the Buur Xuuq manganese mine, killing dozens of young labourers.
“Get footage at the mine, show exactly what happened. We’ll get that uploaded onto YouTube when we get the chance,” I said, pocketing the camera.
“Why?” said Bytchakov.
“If I was at Staff College, I’d say we were dominating the information battle-space,” I shrugged. “Anything that puts the spotlight on Aziz, and not us, helps SIS. Maybe the African Union and UN will intervene.”
“They drop poison gas on Syrians and nobody gives a shit,” spat the American. “The Kremlin’s lapdogs shoot down airliners and nobody gives a shit.”
“The Syrians don’t sit on East Africa’s largest Manganese deposit,” I shrugged.
“Figures,” he replied.
I ran a hand through my cropped head, felt dried blood and grit. “Besides, it’s just the right bloody thing to do,” I said, nodding at the faraway mine.
“I make you right,” said Oz.
“Fucking A,” said Bytchakov.
As we got into our vehicles, the Leopards went about executing the remaining mine engineers. I couldn’t put my hand on my heart and say they didn’t deserve it. The dead mine staff were hung on the barbed wire fence, like crows nailed to a barn door.
I shrugged. I’d seen, and done, worse. I ground out a cigar stub under my boot, “that’s just Karma as far as I’m concerned. Speaking of which, let’s go and find our old friend Colonel Zhang Ki.”
The rebels buried their dead. Behind us, the Buur Xuuq mine burnt. Stinking black smoke spiralled skywards as the rebels sang dirges for the dead.
“Let’s go,” I said, hefting my rifle. “We need to find the Puma.”
We formed up and patrolled deeper into the mining camp, trying to ignore the cries of prisoners being crucified.
Oz nodded towards the torture. “You should put that up on YouTube too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The trembling officer, before he was executed, told us the Chinese landed beyond the giant chimney stack. As we approached I saw it was encircled by rusting warehouses.
“There,” said Oz.
The tiger-striped heli lay riddled with bullet-holes. The canopy was shattered, engine fluid staining the sand. The churned trail of earth behind the airframe suggested an emergency landing. There was no one inside, although the cockpit was spattered with congealed blood. The radio was smashed, door-mounted machineguns hanging limply.
“So the bird gets damaged, makes it this far and crashes. Zhang Ki takes the rest of the team prisoner and here we are,” said Alex Bytchakov, shaking his heavily-scarred head.
“Possibly,” I replied. “Let’s take a look around.”
The route to the nearest warehouse was marked by a blood trail. Boot prints led to an abandoned bottle of mineral water and scraps of first aid stuff. Switching on my Maglite, I scanned the gloomy interior. Long-abandoned, it contained little but rusting mining equipment surrounded by piles of discarded of wood and plastic. Then I saw it, the shape of a booted foot emerging from a pile of junk. We dug the bodies out with our hands.
Idris, our pilot, had been executed with a single pistol shot to the back of his neck. So had Steve Bacon, the engineer lying face down in a fly-blown puddle of blood.
“The Chinese?” said Alex.
“Maybe,” I replied. “What better place to commit murder than the middle of a warzone?”
Oz examined some spent brass. “These are 9mm cases, Winchester Silvertips. They came from one of our pistols, Cal.”
I checked the bodies. Both had facial injuries consistent with the crash, but hadn’t been beaten or tortured. Their deaths had been straightforward executions, clinical and precise. I wondered if the rest of the CORACLE team were buried nearby, brains blown out by the traitor.
“We need to bury these guys,” said Bytchakov. “I’ll go get shovels.”
Oz watched the American leave. “What’s going on?” he said finally.
“SIS think there’s a traitor in the CORACLE team,” I replied. I knelt and took a wedding ring from Steve’s finger. Maybe he had someone back in the UK to give it to.
Oz grimaced. “How long have you known?”
I gave him a look and shrugged.
“So we flew into this knowing the shit would hit the fan?” he snapped.
“I didn’t have a choice. None of us did. If I told you then I’d be dead.”
Oz spat on the ground.
“I’m sorry,” I shrugged. “It’s not like The Firm is big on risk assessments, is it?”
“I’m sure you had your reasons,” he snapped.
“Yeah, to get us out of this shit alive.”
“Or is it your crazy vendetta against The Firm?”
“Leave it,” I glowered. That was too near the truth for comfort.
Bytchakov returned with shovels. We buried Idris and Steve on the perimeter of the mine, their graves unmarked. We returned to our jeep, the rebels waiting impatiently in their technicals. As ever, they were drinking coffee and smoking like it was going out of fashion.
“So, your friends ain’t here,” said Ismael. “Where do you want to go next?”
I walked over to his vehicle and took the offered coffee, gulping it gratefully. “The prisoner said the Chinese headed to Afuuma. Where’s that?”
Ismael unfolded his map, pointed at a coastal town a hundred miles to our east. “Afuuma is a port,” he replied. “It’s in the disputed zone between Somalia and Zambute. It’s protected by government troops and the security police. The Chinese warships sometimes use the docks there.”
“Is there a garrison?” I asked.
“Yeah, there’s an armoured unit based there. It’s why we don’t raid that far, but we’ll need to take Afuuma soon, to cut off supplies headed for Marsajir. That was Colonel Murray’s view as well.”
“A strategic objective,” I said. Marsajir, the capital, was the only big city in Zambute. It relied on Afuuma as a logistic artery. And now the Lion’s share of the Zambutan airforce was burning on the runway at Quaani, air supply would be increasingly perilous.
Ismael nodded. “Sure, Marsajir is our next big offensive.”
“Do you have sympathisers there?” said Alex.
Ismael smiled. “Of course, but the 21st Brigade has its HQ northwest of town. It’s Aziz’s best-equipped regiment, apart from the Presidential Commando. My men are brave, Cal, but they ain’t crazy.”
“General Abasi said he wants
to help get Murray back,” I replied. “He needs to commit forces to Afuuma now.”
“We don’t know if Murray’s there, or any of the others,” said Oz. He pulled me to one side. “If you’ve got an inside man at Vauxhall Cross, you might as well use him. Don’t let these poor bastards start a battle they can’t win. Not on our behalf.”
I nodded. Oz was right. I pulled out the satellite phone and checked the power indicator, which blinked orange. I guessed I had less than thirty minutes battery life left.
Marcus replied immediately.
I explained that we’d found the crashed Puma and two bodies. “The rest of your team, along with Murray and Dancer, have vanished. We think they might have been taken by the Chinese to a place called Afuuma.”
“Do you still have the device I sent you?” said Marcus, “the decryption for the CORACLE radio nets?”
The device was still with my radio at the bottom of my pack. “Yes, I’ve still got it.”
“Check it,” he sighed impatiently. “When you switched it on it would have recorded their comms whether you were listening in or not. It’s a failsafe the boffins programmed into the receiver.”
“It didn’t come with bloody instructions, did it?” I snapped. “What if their radios were damaged or dumped?”
Marcus sighed, “you won’t know until you check, will you? What happened in the minutes after that Puma took off from the prison might be crucial.”
“I’ll listen to it,” I grunted. “It doesn’t help me deal with the fucking tank battalion between here and their likeliest location.”
“I’m working on it. The Foreign Office is in free-fall. You’re The Firm, remember? You don’t have rules like we do. Get on with it.”
The Devil's Work Page 18
