Somewhere down in the dead ground in front of us there was an old plantation, abandoned when the Belgian colonials finally did a runner in the sixties, and inside the gated walls a cavalcade of Mercs: it had been heading west to rendezvous somewhere along Zaire’s thirty-six kilometres of South Atlantic coastline with a fast boat from the American Third Fleet. They’d got this far, but couldn’t go any further. Rebels – nobody knew how many – were blocking the only road out.
The int we’d been given was sketchy. All we knew was that the limos had stuff in the boot that nobody was telling us much about, and three officials from the British High Commission were stranded alongside them. Their job had been to liaise with the Zaireans and supervise the handover to the Americans.
‘Politically sensitive material,’ was all Captain Standish, the team’s rupert, was telling us. ‘Important to the West’s relationship with Mobutu.’
The joke going round the team was that the most sensitive material of all was the stuff covering Annabel’s tits; she was one of the three from the High Commission and Standish had been shagging her from the day we’d arrived. He was stupid enough to think we didn’t know.
2
We’d been in Zaire a month, training Mobutu’s military to fire their weapons and use explosives without killing themselves – or us. We’d put all that on hold for a day or two when trouble brewed in the capital. Our students were needed to quell opposition on the streets.
Mobutu had been calling the shots, controlling a country the size of Western Europe for nearly two decades now. He was supported by the West, who saw him as a counterbalance to Soviet influence in the region, but that still didn’t make him the sort of guy you’d want marrying your sister.
He had consolidated his position in the early days by publicly executing anyone who even looked like they might become a political rival. Pierre Mulele, a rebel leader, was lured back on the promise of amnesty, but was tortured and killed by Mobutu’s boys. While he was still alive his eyes were gouged out, his bollocks were ripped off, and his limbs were amputated one by one. You could see where our machete-wielding mates got their ideas from.
Mobutu had nationalized foreign-owned firms and forced European investors out of the country. His favourite trick was to hand the management over to relatives and close associates; theirs was to plunder the companies’ assets until the pips squeaked. It caused such a slump that Mobutu was forced to try to reverse the process. He’d needed Belgian aid to help repulse an attack by rebels based in Angola, and he needed us to help him out now.
Despite everything, he’d been re-elected – but that’s not so difficult if all the other potential candidates are just too scared to stand.
His minister of information did the rest. The evening news was trailed by an image of the Father of the Nation descending through clouds from the heavens. It was our favourite moment of the day. There were more portraits of the Saviour of the People than you could shake a machete at – every public building had a dozen of them, and government officials even wore them in their lapels.
It wasn’t altogether surprising that the natives were getting a bit restless. Most were living in mud huts and dying of starvation, while our new best mate Mobutu had tucked away nearly five billion US in numbered Swiss bank accounts. This was almost equivalent to the country’s total foreign debt, but we, the US and even the IMF were still giving him loans.
He was pro-Western, anti-Communist, and since chaos seemed to be the only alternative, he was worth a bung or two. Without Mobutu, Zaire would disintegrate into ethnic violence and civil war – and so would the export of its vast mineral wealth to the West. So there we were, getting burned to a crisp, maintaining what our government liked to call ‘the UK’s interests overseas’.
My only concern was making sure my gun was free of grit. Because as soon as Davy reported back, we were going to have to drive down into the valley and make like the Seventh Cavalry.
3
Annabel and the other two had satellite comms, which was how they’d managed to send a may-day from the bush about sixteen hours ago when the rebels had blocked the road and they’d taken refuge in the plantation house. There was no power, so to save battery they were just calling in every two hours with a sit rep. They also had no water or food, so the haphazard band of Mobutu’s troops who were supposed to be looking after them sounded as though they were only a couple of steps short of doing a runner.
The US Third Fleet’s carrier task force were stationed permanently off the west coast of Africa so they could keep a friendly eye on their Nigerian oil assets, but their Marine Expeditionary Force were still going to be out of range until tomorrow. By the time they arrived on their helis, it might be too late.
Our little gang, on the other hand, was only about two hundred Ks up the road. Downing Street had picked up the phone to the head shed at Hereford and now we were all set to escort the limos to the port. If the worst came to the worst, we’d keep off road and head cross-country, which was why we needed the trucks.
We’d made ourselves sterile of any ID and borrowed civvies from our Zairean students to try to blend in – as you do in Africa, when you have red skin, a peeling nose and a government that wants to maintain its interests but doesn’t want to be seen doing so.
Before I’d joined the Regiment, just over a year earlier, I’d assumed that every mission would be run to detailed planning and precision timings. But for most jobs I’d been on, we’d had less time to grab our kit and come up with a plan than fire-fighters on a call-out – and this one was no exception. We’d stripped down the Renaults, loaded them with two GPMGs, some AK47s, some crap trauma kit, and as much water and ammunition as we could lay our hands on, then headed east into the badlands, stopping only to refuel and nick the odd Yamaha.
Even so, this should be a good day out; it sure beat potty-training Mobutu’s sidekicks. Judging by the look on his face, Standish certainly seemed to be relishing the challenge. Then again, maybe he was just looking forward to his next shag.
He was sitting behind us now, crashing about with sat comms the size of a suitcase, fanning out the big mesh dish, trying to set it up, trying to get the right angle of dangle.
Sam glanced round from the wheel to see what all the commotion was about. I leaned into the footwell to lace up my Reeboks. They were the only things I was wearing that were mine. I had a borrowed football shirt – the Greek national strip, apparently – and Sam was in jeans two sizes too big and a thick wool shirt that made him sweat like a pig.
He gave his head a shake. ‘It’s pointless, boss. We’ll be there soon. She won’t be opening hers up for another hour anyway.’
Standish wasn’t listening. ‘Hello, Annabel? Annabel?’
Sam and I exchanged a knowing glance. I liked him a lot. Maybe it was because he was a Jock version of me. He’d also been shoved from one set of foster-parents to the next, and only really found a home when he’d joined the army. The rundown, gang-ridden housing estates and crap schools he’d been brought up in sounded just like mine. The only difference was that his local chippie used to sell Mars bars deep-fried in batter.
I opened the glovebox and tipped some brown Milo powder from a tin into a plastic mug, then splashed warm water over it from a well-used one-litre bottle that had once been full of Orangina. Milo was a nightmare to mix unless the water was boiling but I had grown to like it, lumps and all. I offered some to Standish; the look on his face cracked me up.
The day-to-day nitty-gritty really wasn’t his style. Standish was basically the link with the embassy, and spent as little time as possible with the team – which was why he looked set for a night at the opera and was getting to shag Annabel while the rest of us had a month’s facial hair and peeling noses.
The man really running the job was Seven Troop’s staff sergeant, Gary B. Originally from the Royal Engineers, Gaz was a man of few words: ‘fuck’, ‘fucking’ and ‘fuck you’ pretty much covered it, as far as he was concerned. I
