Fire Force(21)

‘This is Guy Wallace,’ said Tokley. ‘Some of you might have heard of him. He’s been knocking around Africa for years, involved in different coup attempts and working for different dictators. For the last two years, he’s been a senior military adviser to Kapembwa. The way I heard it, he was in a jail in the Congo, and Kapembwa cut some deal to get him out. He’s the guy who brings in the foreign fighters they need to keep the regime in place. If you want to take out Kapembwa, then you’re going to have to figure on getting past Wallace as well.’

‘So how exactly are we going to get through to the President?’ asked Steve. As he glanced around the table, he could see that everyone was thinking the same thing.

Some jobs are impossible.

Even for Death Inc.

Except Bruce, noted Steve. Dudley was looking as inscrutable as ever, but there was a hint of a smile in his eyes, enough to tell you that a scheme had already been cooked up.

‘We’ve thought of something,’ said Archie. ‘I’m not a military man, so I’m not qualified to say whether it will work, and it’s your lives that are on the line, but the plan is there if you want it.’

Tokley pointed. On the screen, he’d now flashed up a map of Batota. With his finger, he gestured at the north of the country. ‘This is Talabeleland,’ he said. ‘And the people there have never liked Kapembwa, right from the start. There’s a renegade military commander up there called August Tshaka who’s raised his own army and effectively declared UDI against the government in Ibera. He’s tough and he’s resourceful, and the official Army is in such a bad state they can’t do anything about him. He’s been holding out in a guerrilla war for more than a year now, and his prestige and his forces are growing by the day. Kapembwa is starting to get worried about the man.’

Dudley stood up, standing next to Tokley. ‘The President has vowed to execute Tshaka, and to do it before the elections, which are scheduled for a few weeks’ time. Elections are a sham in Batota, as we all know - but there is still an issue of prestige. Kapembwa has pledged he’ll capture Tshaka and kill him with his own hands, and if he doesn’t make good on that pledge he’ll lose respect. In African politics, once that happens you’re already dead.’

‘Wallace is out recruiting,’ said Tokley. ‘He’s looking for a bunch of hardened mercenaries who can get up to the north of the country and capture Tshaka.’

‘So here’s the plan,’ said Dudley. ‘You boys get yourself recruited by Wallace. You take the job to go and capture this Tshaka bloke, then once you’ve got him, you deliver him precisely where the President wants him. That gets you into the country, and it gets you armed, and no one over there will suspect anything. When Kapembwa comes down for the execution, you turn the tables on him, put a bullet through the bastard’s head, then you make your escape over into Tuka or Botswana.’

He looked around the table, his eyes settling briefly on each man in turn. ‘Job done.’

‘It’s crazy,’ snapped Steve. ‘We shoot the President and the whole sodding Army will descend on us.’

‘We need a decent chance at getting away,’ said Ollie. ‘This mob might be known as Death Inc., but we’re not laying down our lives that cheaply.’

‘It’s a suicide job,’ said Ian sourly.

Archie had already walked around the side of the table. He rested his hand on Newton’s shoulder.

‘Why don’t you tell them your story,’ he said quietly.





Nine

NEWTON TOOK A SIP OF coffee before starting to speak. He still looked skeleton thin, and his eyes were hollowed out but some colour was returning to his face. ‘I was born in Southern Batota, in a town called Khalaki - part of the Nshani tribe - the same as President Kapembwa,’ he stated. ‘Our father worked on a tobacco farm, but both my twin brother and I wanted to be soldiers. When we turned eighteen, we joined up with the Batotean Army, and we told the Recruiting Sergeant we wanted to be posted with the Corto Scouts.’

‘What the hell are they?’ asked Nick curiously.

‘The Batotean SAS was closely modelled on the British Special Forces, but it was called the Corto Scouts,’ Archie explained. ‘The name was taken from the explorer Courtney Macdonald Pantlin. Within the Scouts there was one black unit, which was used mainly for ambushes and for missions behind the lines.’

‘Sounds like they were on the wrong side,’ said Nick.

‘There’s always guys like that,’ said Ian. ‘In Ulster, there were good Catholics who didn’t mind fighting for the British.’