farming tribes, such as the Zaghawa. In response, the farmers had banded together, forming militias of their own. The Zaghawa tribe belonged to the Sudanese Liberation Army and had formed ostensibly to take the fight to the Sudanese government for the perceived injustice of the government’s lack of effort to stop the Janjaweed from raping and pillaging. The plan had backfired. Instead of stopping the Janjaweed, the government, fearful of the threat, began arming them.
As has happened throughout history, the conflict had escalated out of control until it was genocide, with civilians bearing the brunt of the damage.
Brett knew all of this, but he wasn’t emotionally involved in any way. He was simply, as Clausewitz said over a century ago, the continuation of politics by other means. In this case, Chinese means.
Over the past decade, China’s appetite for resources had grown along with its economy, until it was now a rapacious beast. China had begun pouring money into Sudan, becoming the largest investor in Sudan’s petroleum industry, and the largest consumer of Sudanese oil. Thus, China had more influence in Darfur’s war than perhaps any other country.
Unfortunately for the victims of the genocide, China had little interest in Sudan’s conflict. Chinese arms kept the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed fighting, and because of it, a symbiotic relationship had been created: Sudan favored the Chinese for their support, and China used its sway within the UN Security Council to prevent any meaningful UN action.
Brett hoped to change that equation, if he could keep these backwater natives focused on the mission.
He patted the rucksack again, ensuring the device was with him, then crouched next to the cab of the pickup, hearing the tick of the engine and the clink of weaponry around him as the men deployed in a half-assed tactical manner. Eventually, he heard the groan of the Janjaweed vehicles, steadily growing louder.
The Zaghawa tribesmen had tucked inside a small wadi, preventing him from seeing the approaching vehicles, which was the only tactical thinking that Brett could spot. There was no security to the flanks or rear, no discernible ambush line, and no way they would ever know if anyone escaped. He sighed.
He prayed the Janjaweed were just as bad. He pulled on a pair of night observation goggles, the darkness immediately replaced with an eerie green.
He saw the glow of headlights against the brush on top of the wadi, bouncing in and out and growing stronger, along with the Zaghawa tribesmen waiting to ambush the convoy in a formation that guaranteed failure. The lead Janjaweed truck reached the edge of the wadi and stopped, its headlights silhouetting the Zaghawa formation. He heard the shouting of the men in back, then the night erupted into gunfire.
It seemed that the Zaghawa had surrounded the trucks and were now firing wildly into them, regardless of the friendly men on either side. Tracer fire arced through the air, most of it harmlessly over the heads of the Janjaweed. Miraculously, they began pouring out of the trucks unscathed, shooting just as wildly as the Zaghawa tribesmen.
Brett threw his AK-47 to his shoulder and began firing controlled pairs, dropping everything he aimed at in the dim glow of the headlights, his NODs giving him an unbeatable edge. An RPG sputtered through the air and managed to find the lead Janjaweed truck, exploding the gas tank into a fierce ball of fire and throwing Brett backward.
He rolled to the rear of his pickup, still snapping rounds, then realized he no longer had the rucksack. No way could he allow the Janjaweed to get it. If they lost this fight, he needed to ensure it was destroyed.
He sprinted bent over, losing the depth perception in his NODs, forcing him to pat the ground until he hit the rucksack. He snatched it up and continued forward, climbing the wall of the wadi. Rounds were blasting from all sides, going both in and out, the tracers and the fire from the exploded truck causing his NODs to white out. He ripped them off and surveyed the damage.
He was outside the ring of the fight and saw his intrepid Zaghawa tribesmen leaping forward, spraying rounds, then leaping back again. From all sides.
The Janjaweed were more disciplined, controlling their fire in a synchronized manner. And they had an edge: Using their trucks for cover, they could fire indiscriminately out three hundred and sixty degrees without worrying about hitting anyone friendly. With the Zaghawa’s poorly chosen formation, the fire would devastate any ability to mount an assault. In an instant, Brett saw they were going to lose. They had maybe a minute to gain the upper hand before the Janjaweed men began a systematic attack on a flank and rolled up the entire crew. Brett knew his men would either die or throw down their weapons and run off into the darkness.
The second pickup of Janjaweed militia shifted attention to his side of the perimeter, the flames from the burning vehicle negating any edge his NODs would have provided. He could hear the second truck yelling to the third truck, and knew the assault was close. Rounds ripped the air around him, forcing him to push his face into the desert floor, worming backward for any low ground that would protect him. Bullets snapped through the fabric of the rucksack on his back, causing him to freeze and wonder if he would even feel the devastation should the device go off.
The shooting shifted to his right, and up the line, he saw the men from the third truck massing to flank, unmolested because of the protection provided by the fire from truck two.
He jumped up and raced through the darkness, screaming at any man he saw to follow him. None did
He reached the apex of the perimeter just as the men from truck three began to move. He had run far enough to put the assault element from truck three between him and the covering fire from truck two. He dropped to a knee and began pulling the trigger, his aim much, much more devastating than any of the tribesmen around him. He hit five before the assault was broken, the men retreating back to the safety of the vehicles, unsure of who was killing them.
He followed at a sprint, needing to finish the job before they could regroup. He reached the trucks in the confusion of the enemy running back, with nobody realizing he was among them. He dropped the AK and pulled out his Glock 19, firing so close to the men that they didn’t realize he wasn’t shooting out. Within seconds, truck three was dead.
Not wanting to lose momentum, he grabbed a PKM machine gun and sprinted the forty meters to truck two, mowing men down from their unprotected rear like he was working a scythe. The last two men realized that someone other than a jittery tribesman was after them, and turned to face the threat just as the belt ran out on his machine gun.
Brett threw the heavy weapon into one man, knocking him to the ground, while he dove into the other. He grabbed a fistful of hair and pounded the man’s skull into the rocky ground until he felt no resistance, then turned and jumped on the other Janjaweed recruit, using his knee to crush his face. He rolled off and drew his Glock again, looking for another threat. None came, and the fire had slacked off to nothing from outside.
Slowly, men came forward, looking incredulous at his actions. The English speaker found him, his eyes wide.
“You are truly a lion among men.”
The adrenaline still burning, Brett spit on the ground and grabbed him by the chest. “Get me the leader.”
He saw that the tribesman’s grasp of English wasn’t strong enough to follow, so he got belligerent, like an ugly American tourist. He raised his voice, speaking slowly and distinctly.
“Get. Me. The. Fucking. Leader.”
Forty-five minutes later, he dropped down from the bed of the pickup truck, the land around him glowing from the myriad of lights emanating from the refinery. The tribesmen themselves were milling about with little thought to security, making Brett antsy.
This refinery was built with Chinese dollars, manned by Chinese engineers, and guarded by Sudanese government troops. He had no doubt they were better than the Janjaweed he had just fought, which meant they were exponentially better than the men who accompanied him. He needed to find the critical components of the refinery and trigger his device, then get the hell out. If the tribesmen here wanted to continue attacking, so be it. He wasn’t going to stop them, since it would help him escape to the south, where his exfiltration vehicle was
