African Dragon (11 page)

23.

Shen Xun-jun sat in a chair sipping tea, watching thousands of Africans clear a long stretch of ground that would be his runway. Nigel Ufume sat next to him drinking a gin and tonic.

“You should try one, general,” he said, feeling slightly buzzed. “The quinine in the tonic fights the malaria. The Brits figured this out a couple of hundred years ago. And if it doesn’t, who cares? It tastes better than tea.”

The general looked at the American traitor with disgust. As soon as his usefulness was gone, he would be disposed of. “Tea is an honorable drink. It doesn’t cloud one’s mind like alcohol, Mr. Nigel. There is work to be done. It is not the time for drunkenness.”

Nigel got pissed. “General, lemme tell you something—unlike the Chinese, Americans can drink without getting all fucked up. You want tea? Drink your fucking tea. I’ll stick to my Tanq and Tonic, thank you very much.” He was slurring slightly. “I’m gonna’ help you build this country into a modern nation. China is gonna’ make us rich, and the world is gonna’ stop shittin’ on Africa.”

The general was growing impatient, and would have been very happy to put a round through Nigel’s forehead, but grimaced and held his tongue. The black man would be needed in the months ahead as they rebuilt the Congolese government—a Chinese satellite that would provide the resource-hungry mainland with so much of what it needed to continue on its path towards world dominance economically, politically, and militarily. As the general looked at his traitor ally, he thought it appropriate that an American would be the one to help China become the next supreme superpower.

Shen Xun-jun stood up and called out to the PAC soldier that stood guard by Shen Xun-jun’s truck. He would rather stand in the heat and dust than sit with this drunken fool another minute.

The soldier ran to Shen Xun-jun and saluted. He spoke no Chinese and Shen Xun-jun spoke almost no French. Instead, Shen Xun-jun merely pointed to the truck and the soldier ran and opened the rear door for Shen Xun-jun to sit in the back. The general sat and pointed to the workers, and the soldier drove him out to inspect the progress. Back on the porch, Nigel raised his glass to the departing general.

“Here’s to you, you fucking chink. You are gonna’ make me rich—king of this fucking shithole. And the minute you fuck with us, we are gonna’ throw your asses out of here.” Nigel poured another couple of shots into his glass, spilling some on his hand, which he licked off. His heavy drinking had started shortly after he arrived back in Africa and saw the living conditions of people who all could have easily been him.

As Shen Xun-jun pulled out of the compound towards the workers, the truck rumbled in from Buwali with Sergeant Major Han behind the wheel and Major Wu in the front seat next to him. Two PAC soldiers stood in the back, literally up to their waists in fish. Between the supplies on hand and the fish, Shen Xun-jun would easily feed his army and keep it loyal to him. It wasn’t much different in the old Chinese army—provide food, shelter, clothing, discipline, and fear, and your army would do anything for its leaders. The Congo would be much better off under Chinese influence, of that, Shen Xun-jun was sure.

The truck squeaked to a stop in the center of the compound, near the large open tent where the cooking was done each day. Sergeant Major Han hopped out and started screaming in French to the nearest men he could find, who quickly ran to get wheelbarrows and begin the process of unloading several thousand pounds of fish. The two miserable PAC soldiers in the back were soaked with fish blood and skunked water, and trotted off to bathe in the lake and find new uniform trousers. Sergeant Major Han recruited several women and children from the other side of the compound who were performing other duties, and had them join in the daylong process of preparing fish for a meal. The cloud of flies surrounding the tremendous pile of fish guts and scales was so thick an hour into the cleaning process that Sergeant Major Han ordered holes dug and the mess buried as the people worked, rather than wait until the end of the chore. As Sergeant Major Han jogged off to find General Shen, he cursed this continent under his breath.

Shen Xun-jun was sitting on the hood of his truck watching the progress on his airstrip when Sergeant Major Han and Major Wu arrived on foot. They were both amazed at the number of workers and the amount that had been accomplished.

Major Wu snapped a salute. “Beg to report, General Shen, we have returned from Buwali with the fresh fish. The village can keep us supplied indefinitely. We did make contact with caucasians.”

Shen Xun-jun’s eyes narrowed. “Americans looking for us or Mr. Nigel?”

“We do not believe so, Shao Jiang. The locals in Buwali report that Canadian fish farmers have worked on the lake for several years. They catch fish to send back to Canada as pets. They supply fish for fish tanks, not for food. They were in the village trying to buy food fish, same as us. We sent them away.”

Shen Xun-jun mulled it over. “And do you know where these men are located?”

Major Wu fudged his answer a bit. “We can easily locate them, Shao Jiang. They are not far from Buwali.” Sergeant Major Han was making a mental note to find the damn fish farm as he listened to Wu Liling answer the general.

Shen Xun-jun slid down from the hood of the car and walked towards the thousands of Africans, sweating under the bright orange sun.

“We will have an airstrip by tomorrow,” said Shen Xun-jun quietly. “And then we will have our weapons.” He turned back towards his men. “It doesn’t matter if they are Canadians or Americans or Russians. In a week, China will be running this country. We will return home as national heroes and spend the rest of our careers on assignments anywhere we choose. That includes you, Sergeant Major Han.”

The sergeant major bowed politely. “Thank you, Shao Jiang. You are most generous.”

Cascaes was on his stomach next to Mackey, using an extra high-powered sniper scope. They were both invisible, wearing ghillie suits that made them both look like clumps of dried grass that mimicked everything around them.

“Road or airstrip?” asked Cascaes to Mackey.

“Airstrip. Think about it—they’re working across the length of a finite piece. If it was a road, they’d be working towards some direction of travel from the compound. These guys are just making an airstrip. Even have it set up for wind direction.”

Cascaes nodded. “Yeah—wind direction. I forget you’re a pilot. Good catch—I would have missed that, too. Okay, so they are building an airstrip. What for? Bringing in Chinese troops? Moving PAC troops around the country? Any guesses?”

Mackey kept watching. “We should have brought Jon with us. He could have ID’d the guys from the village. Damn. Look at the little guy by the car. Bet ya the farm that he’s the ring leader.”

“Yeah. Look at how the others two bow and salute and shit. Aid-station my ass. They don’t even try and hide it anymore. How many you figure they got recruited out there?”

“Been trying to count, but damn, there’s a shit-load out there. Could make three regiments out of that mess easy enough. Langley predicted five or six thousand, but there has to be almost double that out there. And that’s only
here
—what about in the rest of the country?”

“We better get the hell out of here. I only have about a hundred rounds. Definitely can’t take the rest of them in hand to hand,” said Cascaes dryly.

Mackey smiled. “I am way too old for hand to hand, brother. These days I prefer calling in an airstrike.”

“Yeah, well don’t get your hopes up. Like the man said in Virginia, we’re out here without a safety net. The Marines offshore are not coming to bail us out. Come on, let’s split.”

Mackey and Cascaes, almost a mile out from the compound, packed up their scope and slowly crawled through the grass until they were in heavier vegetation. They worked on the assumption that someone in camp had a scope as well, and was trying to find them, so they moved methodically until they were comfortable that they would be concealed to even a heavy telescope. Once they were in the forest, they jogged back to their waiting truck, where they stripped off their suits and hid them along with their scopes, under some boards in the back of the truck. If they were stopped, they were merely Canadian fish farmers looking for game. They did have a shotgun in the cab.

Cascaes drove the truck back towards their fish farm, and Mackey called ahead to Moose on his radio.

“What’s up, Skipper?” asked Moose from his end.

“Get our com equipment set up and ready to go. I want to call the company when we get back right away. Looks like our buddies are ahead of schedule. Out.”

24.

By the time Cascaes and Mackey drove into the fish farm, the team had finished setting up motion sensors in a hundred yard perimeter around the compound. Weapons and ammo were concealed, but easy to reach, in Fish Central, the huts and the boat. The team had split into two-person teams and spread out to keep watch in all directions. They felt a little bit like George Armstrong Custer.

Mackey and Cascaes went right to their hut, where Moose was ready with the secure burst satellite phone. Mackey grunted a hello and called Langley, where Dex Murphy picked up on the third ring. It was early morning back in Virginia.

“Morning, Boss,” said Mackey. “I bring you greetings from the Congo.”

“Happy to hear your head isn’t on a pole,” said Murphy.

“No, that was the last assignment, remember?” said Mackey, thinking about his last gig in Paraguay where there actually
were
some cannibals.

“Yeah, I remember. What’s going on out there? Any sign of our missing person?” he asked, concerned about Nigel.

“Not the first clue,” said Mackey. “But I think our Chinese friends are way ahead of schedule. They’re building an airstrip at the aid station and they have quite an army out there, boss. I’m guessing close to ten thousand of them now. And that’s only at this location. Not sure how many other aid-stations the Chinese have out here.”

“Ten thousand? Damn. I’ll send that up the chain. If they fly in more advisors or artillery support, the Congolese president is going to be out of a job real fast. They know you’re out there yet?”

“Well, that’s not a hundred percent clear yet. We’ve had contact with advisors and PAC soldiers at Buwali, but they may have bought the cover story. So far, they haven’t come sniffing around, but we are preparing.”

“Preparing
how
?” asked Murphy, sounding concerned.

“Well, they only know about four of us, as of right now. Those four are staying in the compound and the rest of us will be patrolling outside. If it gets ugly, we have a boat and will head east across Lake Tanganyika.”

“That’s fine. Remember, I’d rather you just split without shooting if you can. Stay with your cover story. We’re waiting to see what political solutions can be tried before we start another Congo War.”

“We aren’t starting it, boss—we’re trying to prevent it,” said Mackey.

“Yeah, well if you get jammed up and United States Marines end up shooting at Chinese Nationals, we have World War Three on our hands.”

“I thought you said the Marines wouldn’t bail us out?” asked Mackey.

“I said don’t count on them, but they’re off the coast now, and the president has been taking a hard line at the UN. The chief has called on the General Assembly to step in and put down the PAC forces to assist the legitimate government of the DRC, and of course the UN says there are no reports of violence. China has been ‘blocking US interference’ and criticizing more US intervention around the world. Shocking, huh?”

“Yeah, great humanitarians, those Chinese.”

“Anyway, the president has stated publicly that the United States will not allow guerrillas to overthrow the DRC, and has acknowledged US forces are offshore in the region. That went over real big with China at the UN, who came out and said it has humanitarian relief efforts going on in the DRC and will protect its people from any outside violence. To the UN, it sounded like protection against the PAC—to the president, it sounds like protection against us.”

“And what about the Congolese president? What’s he saying?”

“Both President Kuwali and Prime Minister Gugunga have made public statements that they believe the Chinese are meddling in the DRC’s governmental affairs and said they would expel any Chinese supporting the PAC movement. Of course, they have no way of doing that unless they go to war with the PAC right now, which they aren’t ready to do without foreign aid. So, as usual, everyone will watch and do nothing unless the president sends in the Marines. Interesting little powder keg you all are sitting on.”

“No kidding,” said Mackey. “Does President Kuwali know that the US has friendly forces here?”

“No,” said Murphy. “You guys don’t exist.”

“Okay, so President Kuwali and Prime Minister Gugunga will keep begging for help from the UN that won’t come, while the Chinese prepare to overthrow them and set up their own little government to have access to the raw materials they want, and we are going to sit back and do nothing?”

“As of this moment, I have no idea what we’re going to do. Like I said, POTUS has announced to the world that the Marines are nearby. The problem is China may now move troops into the area to protect its ‘relief workers.’ We aren’t sure how fast they’ll do that, but if they move quickly, we’ll have our marines looking down gun barrels at Chinese troops. That’s a scenario that no one wants. Ever hear of the Korean War? For now, I think you guys should sit on that airstrip and see what’s going on. We need to know what they’re bringing in. We’re realigning spy satellites to try and monitor the area, but it will take another couple of days. By then, they could have a tank division flown in.”

“Roger that. Okay, we’ll pull shifts and sit on the airstrip. We did ask about your missing agent in Buwali, but the folks there don’t know what happened to him. He’d been there before—they ID’ed him, but they either don’t know or they won’t say where he is now.”

“Poor bastard. If the Chinese have him, for his sake, I hope he’s dead.”