about?
Seeing this, living it, breathing it, Djemma Garand intended his rule to be something more. Though he traveled in an armored Rolls-Royce, flanked by Humvees with machine guns, Djemma vowed to be more than a despot. He desired a legacy that would leave his people better off for all eternity.
But to do that would mean more than changing his country; it would require changing Sierra Leone’s place in the world. And to do that he needed a weapon that could reach beyond African shores and shake that world, a modern version of Hannibal’s elephants.
And that weapon was almost in his grasp.
Taking a seat behind an imposing mahogany desk, Djemma carefully placed his sunglasses on one corner and waited for the phone to buzz. Finally, a light illuminated.
Gently, without any rush, he lifted the receiver.
“Andras,” he said quietly. “You’d better have good news.”
“Some,” the salty voice replied.
“That is not the kind of answer I expect from you,” Djemma said. “Explain.”
“Your weapon didn’t work as advertised,” Andras said. “Oh, it damaged the ship all right, but it did no better than last time. Took out the navigation and most of the controls, but she kept steaming under partial power, and half the crew survived, those trapped deep inside. This device of yours is not doing what you expect.”
Djemma did not like the sound of that. Little else could so easily send him into a rage as to hear that his project, his own Weapon of Mass Destruction, had yet again failed to perform up to standards.
He covered the phone, snapped his fingers at an aide, and scribbled a name on a piece of paper.
“Bring him to me,” he said, handing the scrap to the aide.
“How many of the crew lived?” he asked, returning his attention to the call.
“About half,” Andras said.
“I trust they no longer survive.”
“No,” Andras said. “They’re gone.”
A slight hesitation in Andras’s voice concerned Djemma, but he pressed forward. “What about the cargo?”
“Off-loaded and on its way to you,” Andras insisted.
“And the ship?”
“Rusting on the bottom.”
“Then what is it you’re not telling me?” Djemma said, growing tired of having to pry information from his most highly paid asset.
Andras cleared his throat. “Someone tried to stop us. Americans. I would guess a SEAL team or two. Makes me think your secret has leaked out.”
Djemma considered the possibility and then rejected it. If information had leaked, they would have been stopped before the attack commenced. More likely a simple rescue party with a few guns.
“Did you deal with them?”
“I escaped and covered our trail,” Andras said. “There was nothing else I could do.”
Djemma was not used to hearing that someone who’d tangled with The Knife had survived. “I hate to think you’re going soft on me,” he said.
“Not on your life. These men were tough. You’d better find out who they were.”
Djemma nodded. For once they agreed.
“And what about your operation…” Andras said. “Python, is it? Will that still be going off?”
Operation Python was Djemma’s masterstroke. If it succeeded, it would bring his country endless wealth, stability, and prosperity. And if it failed… Djemma didn’t want to think about that prospect. But if his weapon did not work as planned, failure was a real possibility.
“It cannot be delayed much longer,” Djemma said.
“Want me to come lend a hand?” Andras offered. His voice dripped with cynicism. He’d made it clear earlier that he thought Djemma was mad for attempting what he was about to do. Even madder for trusting his own army to do it. But Andras was an outsider, he didn’t know Djemma’s troops the way their general and leader did.
Djemma smiled. By using Andras’s services, he was making the man incredibly rich, but if there was a way to get even more wealth and power Djemma expected Andras would follow it. There was no filling his insatiable pockets.
“Where I grew up,” Djemma said, “the old women had a saying. A snake in the garden is a good thing. It eats the rats that devour the crops. But a snake in the house is a danger. It will kill the master and eat the baby, and the house will ring with sorrow.”
He paused and then clarified. “You will get your money, Andras, perhaps enough to buy a small country of your own. But if you ever set foot on the soil of Sierra Leone, I will have you killed and your bones scattered to the dogs in my courtyard.”
Silence rang across the phone line, followed by soft laughter.
“The UN is wrong about you,” Andras said. “You are ruthless. Africa could use more men like you, not less. But in the meantime, as long you keep paying, I’ll keep working. Don’t run out of money like the papers say you’re about to. I would hate to extract my fees in less pleasant ways.”
The two men understood each other. The Knife was not afraid of Djemma, even though he should be. He was not afraid of anything. This is why Djemma had chosen him.
“Get yourself to Santa Maria,” he said. “I will give you further instructions once you arrive.”
“What about the
“I have plans to deal with that if it occurs,” Djemma said.
Andras laughed again. “Plans for everything,” he said sarcastically. “You make me laugh, Garand. Good luck with your mad plans, fearless leader. I will watch the papers and root for your side.”
The phone clicked, the line went dead, and Djemma placed his receiver down on its cradle. He sipped water from a glass of fine crystal and looked up as the doors to his office opened.
The aide he’d sent running out came back in. Two of Djemma’s personal guards followed, escorting a white man who looked less than happy to be present.
The guards and the aide left. The twelve-foot-tall doors closed with a thud. Djemma and the Caucasian man stood facing each other.
“Mr. Cochrane,” Djemma said officiously. “Your weapon has failed… once again.”
Alexander Cochrane stood like a scolded child might, staring with insolence at his would-be father. Djemma did not care. There would be success or there would be consequences.
9
ALEXANDER COCHRANE WALKED toward Djemma’s desk with a sense of foreboding far beyond anything he could recall. For seventeen months, Cochrane had been toiling to construct a directed-energy weapon of incredible power.
This weapon would use superconducting magnets, like those Cochrane had designed for the Large Hadron Collider what seemed like several lifetimes ago. It would accelerate and fire various charged particles at almost the speed of light in a tight beam that could be rapidly “painted” over a target, destroying electronics, computers, and other circuitry.
If tuned correctly, the weapon could act like a giant microwave beam, heating organic matter, cooking its targets from the inside out, setting them afire, even if they took cover behind steel-and-concrete walls.
Through the skies, Cochrane’s weapon could shoot down attacking aircraft at ranges of two hundred miles or more, or it could wipe out approaching armies by sweeping back and forth across the battlefield like a garden hose aimed at approaching ants.
