where we thought it would be, ten meters from the loading dock. The machine was a thirty-year-old monstrosity of Soviet engineering, and our source had reported that it went out constantly.
More soldiers, if you could use the term for a group this disorganized, were watching our big white truck with mild curiosity. Many of the local peacekeepers moonlighted smuggling munitions, so our presence was not out of the ordinary. I opened the door and hopped down. “Wait for my signal,” I said before slamming the door.
Carl put the truck into reverse and backed toward the loading dock as a pair of soldiers shouted helpful but conflicting directions at him. The truck’s bumper thumped into the concrete. The tarp covering the rear opened, and a giant of a man stepped from the truck and onto the dock. My associate, Train, spoke in rough tones to the thugs on the dock, pointing to the waiting crates of mortar rounds. They began to load the truck. The rebels paid him and Carl no mind. The various UN peacekeepers they had on the take changed constantly. Only the officers, like I was pretending to be, actually mattered.
The guard at the entrance held the door open for me as I walked up the steps. The building had once been part of a rubber plantation, and this had been a reception area for colonial-era visitors. It had been rather nice once but had slid into the typical third world shabbiness of faded paint, peeling wallpaper, and spreading stains. The air conditioner had died sometime during the Vietnam War, and giant malarial mosquitoes frolicked in the river of sweat running down my back. There was a man waiting for me, dressed nicer than the others, with something that casually resembled a uniform. The guard from the door followed me inside, carelessly cradling his AK as he stood behind me.
“Good evening,” the warlord’s lieutenant said in heavily accented English. ”We were not expecting you so soon, Captain.”
“I need to speak with your commander,” I said curtly.
He looked me over suspiciously. I had practiced this disguise for weeks. The fake beard was perfection, my coloring changed slightly with makeup, my extra inches of height hidden with thin-soled boots and a slight slouch, and my gut augmented with padding to fill out the stolen camouflage uniform. I had watched the Pakistani captain, studying his mannerisms, his movements. I looked exactly like the fat, middle-aged, washed-up bureaucrat hack from an ineffective and corrupt organization.
Since the receptionist didn’t pick the AK off his desk and empty a magazine into my chest, I could safely assume my disguise worked. I watched the guard over the tops of the Pakistani’s spectacles. I had replaced the prescription lenses with plain glass after murdering the real captain this afternoon. Finally the lieutenant spoke. “Do you need more money?”
“Those border checkpoints won’t bribe themselves open,” I responded, my accent, tone, and inflection an almost perfect impersonation. I made a big show of looking at my watch. Carl and Train had better be loading that truck fast. “I must be back soon or my superiors will suspect something.”
“General is busy man,” he said, the sigh in his voice indicating what a bother I was being. He gestured toward his subordinate. “Search him.”
I raised my arms as the soldier gave me a cursory pat down. I was, of course, unarmed. I couldn’t risk the possibility that one of these amateurs might take their job seriously. Bringing a weapon into the same room as a rebel leader was a good way to get skinned alive. The search I received was so negligent that I could have smuggled in an RPG, but no use crying over spilt milk. I lowered my arms.
“Let’s go.” The lieutenant motioned for me to follow. The three of us went down a hallway that stank of cigarette smoke. The light was provided by naked bulbs that hummed and flickered with a weak yellow light. We passed other rooms flanked by soldiers. Quick glances through the windows showed village laborers, mostly old women and children, preparing narcotics for shipment. Revolutions need funding too. Finally we reached a set of double doors with a well-fed guard on each side. These boys were bigger, smartly dressed, wearing vests bristling with useful equipment, and kept their rifles casually pointed at me as we approached.
The general’s personal bodyguards and the lieutenant exchanged some indecipherable dialog. I was patted down again, only this time it was brutally and invasively thorough, making me glad that my weapons were in the truck. The guard pulled my radio from my belt, yanking the cord out from under my shirt. He started to jabber at me.
“Regulations require me to have it at all times,” I replied. The guard held it close to his chest, suspicious. “Fine, but I need it back when we’re done here.” The two led me into the inner sanctum while the lieutenant and the first guard returned to their post. That just left me with two heavily armed and trained thugs to deal with. The odds were now in my favor.
Now this room was more like it. Most warlords learned to like the finer things in life. While their army slept in mud huts and ate bugs, they lived plush and fat. Being the boss does have its perks. The furnishings were opulent, but random and mismatched, a shopping trip of looting across the country. It was twenty degrees cooler as a portable AC unit pumped air down on us.
The warlord was waiting for me, reclining in an overstuffed leather chair, smoking a giant cigar, with his feet resting on a golden Buddha. This man had spread terror over this region for a generation and grown obscenely rich in the process. He’d also become soft and complacent, which worked to my benefit. He was grizzled, scarred, and watching a 56 inch TV on the wall, tuned to some situation comedy that I couldn’t understand. The volume was cranked way too high. “You want see me, Captain?” he grunted, puffing around the cigar. “What you want?”
He was ten feet away. I had a guard standing at attention on either side of me. “If I am to continue smuggling ordnance for you, I will need more money.” I put on an air of meekness, of subservience, while in reality I was taking in every detail, calculating every angle. My pulse was quickening, but I gave no outward indication. I coughed politely against the cloud of Cuban smoke.
“Eh? I already pay you. Pay you good. Maybe too good . . .”
“They set up another checkpoint just north of the river. I’ll need cash to pay off the garrison commander there.”
The warlord sighed as he stood. “UN troops so greedy.” He limped over to the wall and pulled back a tapestry, revealing a vault door, just where the informant had said it would be. “Old days, we just kill each other. Peacekeepers make it so complicated now. Peacekeepers . . .” He snorted. “No better than my men, but with pretty blue hats.” No disagreement from me on that one. The UN was less than useless, though their ineptitude created plenty of business opportunities for men like me. “Maybe someday my country not have war. Then my men get pretty blue hats, and we can go to other countries and rape
I waited patiently for him to spin the dial. That vault was state of the art, rated TXTL-60, and would have required quite some time and a lot of noise for me to defeat on my own. Better to just have the man open it for you. I glanced over at one of the waiting guards. He had a Russian bayonet sheathed on the front of his armor. He smirked, taking my look to be one of nervousness. After all, what did he have to worry about from a middle-aged Pakistani who was just padding his paycheck? The guard turned his attention back to the TV.
“How much you need?” the warlord asked. The lock clicked. The vault hissed open.
The man at my right snickered along with the laugh track as my hand flew to his sheathed bayonet. “I’ll be taking all of it.” Steel flashed red, back and forth, and before either guard could even begin to react, they were dead. I jerked the knife out from under the second guard’s ear and let the body flop.
“Huh?” The warlord turned and saw only me standing. His bleary eyes flicked down to see his men twitching on the ground, then back up at me, dripping bayonet in hand. Then he said something incomprehensible but obviously profane as understanding came. The general’s pistol started out of his holster. I covered the distance in an instant and ran the knife up the inside of his arm before driving it between his ribs. I removed the gun from his nerveless fingers and left the old man tottering as I went back for my radio. The warlord went to his knees as I hit the transmit button.
“I’m in.”
Carl came back before I even had the earpiece back in place. “Truck’s loaded. Status?”
Stepping over the dying warlord, I glanced inside the vault. It was about the size of a walk-in closet. Rebellions ran on cold, hard cash. There were stacks of money inside. A quick check revealed that much of it was in euros and pounds, which was good, because many of the regional denominations weren’t worth the effort to carry out.
“Status? Filthy rich. The intel was right on. Train, bring three of the big packs. You’ve got two guards in the entrance, three more in the hallway. Carl, you got a shot at that generator?”
