4. Gray Retribution Read online

  Once they reached their staging position, Smart focused his binoculars on the building and saw a dozen alert Malundians training their eyes in his direction. He signalled for Sonny to kick off the attack, and as soon as the automatic fire began drifting from the other side of the compound, the guards began to drift away from their posts. He was about to give the go signal when Sergeant Okeke’s head appeared over the edge of the roof.

  Smart couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was clear from his gestures that Okeke wanted his men to remain in place. An argument ensued, and the Malundians reluctantly did as they were told. A minute later, one of them stuck his head around the corner and obviously realised that there were four weapons firing at them. He waved a derisory arm in Smart’s direction and gestured for the men guarding that side of the building to follow him.

  ‘Clear,’ Smart whispered into his throat mic, and two of his men hurried forwards at a crouch. After twenty yards they dropped to the ground and kept watch while Smart and Sonny leapfrogged them. They maintained this discipline until the first group were within forty yards of the low outer wall.

  ‘Wait!’

  Levine’s hissed command made sure they all kept their heads down as Okeke’s head once again appeared on the roof. The man was apoplectic, shouting commands that could be heard over the gunfire as he urged the men back to their posts. When he disappeared again, Levine ordered them to go in for the kill.

  The result was a technological bloodbath.

  Smart threw a flash-bang onto the roof and Sonny was up in seconds to mop up the dazed soldiers, their vests screaming with each virtual hit. Smart and Levine ran to the left while Campbell covered the right, and their guns blazed as the stunned troops tried to work out how their enemy could be in two places at once. Their rifles were quickly rendered useless as the instructors taught the Malundians a clinical lesson in how to clear a hot zone.

  Once the last of the alarms was neutralised, Smart singled out the soldier who had ignored Sergeant Okeke’s instructions to cover the rear.

  ‘Hansi, you were doing fine, right up to the point where you left your post.’

  The man threw his rifle to the ground and squared up to Smart.

  ‘You cheated!’ he snarled. ‘We were only expecting four of you!’

  Smart was unfazed, having faced down far more intimidating men in his time.

  ‘And that was your mistake,’ he said, his voice even. ‘You’ll never be able to accurately predict enemy numbers, so if you are told that ten men are approaching you should assume that there are others. That’s rule number two in how to stay alive longer than a week.’

  ‘So what’s the first rule?’

  ‘Rule number one is to turn around and walk away, right now.’

  Hansi looked Smart in the eye but saw nothing to suggest the instructor was joking, and all of a sudden the Malundian’s confidence drained. With his bald head and bushy moustache, Smart knew that he looked more like a salesman than a fighter, but his authoritative voice and hard stare made it clear that he wasn’t a man to mess with. He could see that Hansi was by no means a coward and seemed grateful when Sonny trotted up and offered a distraction.

  ‘Meet your enemy,’ Sonny said, placing two of the sentinel units on the ground.

  The men gathered round as he explained how they worked, and Hansi took the opportunity to ease away from Smart on the pretence of getting a better view of the devices.

  Okeke took his place, putting his head close to Smart’s ear.

  ‘Don’t be hard on him, Mister Len. He lost a son recently.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  Okeke nodded. ‘It happens more and more these days. His son went to school in the next village and never came home. He was only twelve.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Smart said, suddenly feeling sorry for the man. ‘Shouldn’t he be out looking for him?’

  ‘They are never found. In the last six months, eight boys have vanished from his village alone. It is happening all over the region.’

  ‘Always boys?’ Smart asked, as a possible explanation popped into his head.

  ‘A girl was taken a few months ago, but her body was found soon after. She had been raped. But mostly they are boys.’

  This suggested to Smart that someone was recruiting boy soldiers. It was not a new phenomenon, especially in Africa. For years, militias and even government forces had been known to recruit children as part of their fighting force, sometimes enticing them, often through abduction. Once enlisted, the boys would frequently be treated to drugs intended to addict and enslave them. One drug that Smart had heard of was the particularly nasty whoonga: a combination of heroin and the anti-retroviral AIDS medication Efavirenz—usually cut with detergent or rat poison—that was so addictive that people sometimes infected themselves with AIDS simply to gain access to the much sought-after key ingredient. Although treaties had been signed outlawing the practice of creating child armies, Smart had recently learned that nearly a quarter of a million boy soldiers still served throughout the world.

  He shared his thoughts with the sergeant.

  ‘I thought so, too,’ Okeke said, ‘but there is no-one in this country that would have a need for them. The army doesn’t use them, and there are no guerrillas in Malundi.’

  ‘What about neighbouring countries?’

  Okeke shook his head. ‘There have been no major conflicts in the region for some time. All of the abductions have been in the south of the country, which points to Kingata, but that would make no sense. Why give us our own land and independence if they plan to do this?’

  As with every assignment, Len Smart had done his homework prior to deployment, and the recent history of Kingata hadn’t given too much cause for concern. The crime rate was actually lower than most African countries, but one name had cropped up again and again in news reports.

  Sese Obi, a self-proclaimed warlord, was thought to be behind a string of high-profile robberies and murders. It was reported that he had a following of between thirty and seventy men, though no-one knew the exact figure. He was said to be less than pleased with the president’s decision to grant the Agbi people their own land in the form of Malundi, and was suspected of being behind several subsequent attacks on government targets.

  Smart asked Okeke if Obi could be behind the kidnappings but got a snort of derision in reply.

  ‘Obi is a thug, nothing more. He would have no need for boy soldiers.’

  Well, someone has. Smart made a mental note to fire off an email to Tom Gray to see if he could shed any light on the matter.

  Once Sonny had finished demonstrating the new equipment, Smart told everyone to head back to the barracks in preparation for the next phase of the training.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll show you how to set up an ambush.’ He smoothed his moustache while creating a dramatic pause, then smiled. ‘Then you’ll see how effective the sentinels really are.’

  Chapter Seven

  Thursday 3 October 2013

  Sese Obi drove into the camp just as the sun reached its zenith, and his men immediately dropped what they were doing and gathered near his Land Rover. One of his lieutenants, Baako, rushed to open the door and Obi climbed out of the vehicle.

  ‘Everyone is here, sir, as you asked.’

  Obi nodded and walked to the edge of the clearing, a hundred armed men trailing in his wake. He stopped under the shade of a tree and used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow as he mentally recited the speech he was about to deliver. When he turned to face them, he could see that he had their complete attention.

  And so it should be, he thought. It wasn’t often that he got to address them in person, one of the drawbacks of being the most wanted man in Kingata.

  He got straight to the point.

  ‘The Agbi people think they can take our land and we’ll just sit back and accept it. But they are wrong!’

  A huge roar erupted from the crowd, and he savoured the moment.

  I
t had been a long, frustrating year, and he’d been tempted on more than one occasion to kick his plan into motion early, but he was glad he’d taken the time to build up his formidable force. Each of the men before him had been displaced as the country was divided, and all wanted to reclaim what was theirs.

  For Obi, though, the land he’d lost was not the most important factor. It was worth a few thousand dollars at best, a trifling amount in the grand scheme of things. What he’d needed was a common grievance to act as the catalyst for building his army, and playing on his men’s anger over their lost tribal land had proven a masterstroke.

  His days of car-jacking and robbery were now a thing of the past. He’d made enough money to buy all the guns and ammunition he needed. No more hit-and-run attacks on minor government targets, or pointless assassinations, either. Those acts had served their purpose: to cement his reputation as a man fighting a worthy cause. His followers, too, had swallowed the lie, though he would not disappoint them. His men would have their land back, but he would rule it once the Malundi government fell.

  ‘Our attacks so far have been nothing but pinpricks on an elephant’s arse. They think we are ineffectual, but we will soon show them that Kanto land belongs to Kanto people, and we will not give it up until every last Agbi has been banished!’

  Another roar came from the crowd, this time more sustained. It took a while to silence them so that he could continue.

  ‘Tonight, we strike!’

  As the soldiers celebrated, Obi called over his lieutenants and walked them to a quieter area.

  ‘Are you sure none of these men have connections to the target?’ he asked.

  They shook their heads. ‘We double-checked,’ one said. ‘None of them have any association with the village. They will do what is asked of them.’

  ‘They’d better,’ Obi warned them. ‘This attack must go to plan.’

  He looked over at the dancing crowd. Six months earlier he had commanded barely fifty people, but these hundred men now represented just ten per cent of his own private army. It was a formidable number, but he still needed more to crush the tiny Malundi forces. The next stage of his plan would see that following increase dramatically.

  ‘Kgosi, let me see the Agbi prisoner.’

  He was led to a wooden shack, and walked in through the open door. A soldier dressed in camouflaged fatigues was chained to the back wall. Congealed blood caked his mouth and nose, and his right eye was swollen.

  ‘What is this?’ Obi roared.

  ‘Sese?’ The lieutenant didn’t understand his concern.

  ‘How are we to make the world believe that he attacked the village if he looks like this? What happened to him?’

  ‘It happened during his capture,’ said Themba, the man who’d been guarding the prisoner inside the building.

  Obi could see that the wounds had been inflicted more recently than that. ‘Do not lie to me!’ He swung a solid arm and caught the guard on the side of the head, knocking him into the corner of the small room. Obi stood above the cowering figure, his two-hundred-pound frame blotting out the sunlight streaming in through the door.

  ‘Some of the men started the khat early, sir,’ Kgosi tried to explain. ‘They got a little carried away.’

  Obi had arranged for a consignment of the drug to be delivered to the men. When chewed, khat imparted a feeling of euphoria and excitement. The idea was to have them in a frenzied state when they launched the attack, but some had seen fit to start early, which further enraged him.

  ‘You will guard this man with your life,’ he yelled at Themba, as he lay on the floor. ‘If I see another mark on him before the end of the day, I will leave your sorry carcass in the village, too!’

  He turned and stormed out of the shack, astonished at their inability to follow simple instructions. He had wanted to be a long way from the imminent massacre, but with the mission being so crucial to the overall plan, that clearly wouldn’t be possible. He would have to lead it himself.

  Chapter Eight

  Thursday 3 October 2013

  Sese Obi ordered the trucks to stop a mile from the village of Zamwetta, much to the disappointment of his men. Their grumblings were in vain, though. If he was going to make this attack look like it came from Malundi, he could hardly drive straight up to the village. Instead, he would lead his soldiers north until they reached the border, and then traverse it for a few hundred yards before advancing south to the target.

  After distributing the remainder of the khat, he took point and began the trek into the darkness. Although there were no border guards anywhere near the area, he demanded silence throughout the march. The prisoner was bound and gagged, just in case he tried to raise the alarm at any point.

  After forty minutes they could see the silhouettes of shanty houses on the horizon. Obi ordered them to stop, gathering the lieutenants around him.

  ‘I want this to be quick and brutal. The people of Kingata must be outraged at the carnage and demand action against the Agbi. Spare no-one, and I mean, no-one!’

  The men nodded and split up to spread the word among their respective teams.

  At precisely two in the morning, he waved an arm and the group covered the last three hundred yards to the village, an almost complete circle of huts with a central communal area. The buildings were constructed of whatever material had been available at the time, and while most had mud walls over a wooden frame, a few were constructed of timber oddments, with bits of corrugated steel filling the gaps.

  As Obi and his men reached the outskirts, a dog started barking at their approach, and one of his men silenced it with a burst from his AK-47. On that signal, the rest opened up, automatic fire raking the fragile buildings. Bullets shredded the walls of every dwelling as screams began to pierce the night. Obi’s soldiers kicked down doors and dragged the hysterical occupants out into the darkness. Most were females and children, the majority of the men elderly, infirm, or both.

  A fire was started in the centre of the community and Obi’s army began lighting torches, which they used to set the roofs alight, most of which were thatched and caught quickly. One hut was spared and the Agbi prisoner dragged into it. Obi joined them inside and pushed the bound man into the corner. He staggered to his feet and tried to plead with them through his gag, but Obi wasn’t in the mood for listening and unloaded half a clip into his chest.

  ‘Remove his bindings,’ he said, ‘and bring me one of the male villagers.’

  An old man was brought in moments later and Obi ushered him into the centre of the small room before shooting him once in the head. He placed the Kalashnikov in the old man’s dead hands and walked out of the hut and into the communal area, where the carnage continued unabated.

  Bodies littered the ground and blood soaked into the dirt from a thousand wounds. His men had abandoned their rifles and were finishing the job off with machetes, hacking at the helpless victims. Several women were in the process of being raped, as was a girl who appeared to be no more than twelve years of age. It didn’t seem to matter to his men that these were Kanto, the very tribe they were supposed to be fighting on behalf of.

  Obi lit a cigarette and let the men have their fun for another ten minutes before ordering the last of the villagers to be dispatched. Some men wanted to take female prisoners but one look from Obi soon changed their minds, and they finished them off to bring an end to the massacre.

  The night took on an eerie feel following the transition from slaughter to silence. Even the night creatures held their counsel, as if afraid to draw attention to themselves.

  Less than half an hour after the attack began, Obi ordered everyone to make their way back to the trucks, and they followed the route they’d taken on the way in. He had to remind them to maintain silence on the return journey, but only until the bloodlust and effects of the khat had worn off.

  Once they reached the vehicles, he ordered his men to disperse and told his driver to take him back to the training camp. It was just a few m
iles from Zamwetta and he wanted to make an early start on the next phase of the plan. His lieutenants already had instructions to visit the neighbouring villages to inform them of the attack and stir up as much anger and resentment as possible.

  In a couple of days’ time, his men would lead a march into the capital, demanding action against Malundi, though he knew his government would resist all calls for an outright war. While the politicians stalled and sought a diplomatic resolution, Obi would continue to rally the people. Several of his men had ties with Kingata’s armed forces and they would intensify their lobbying to convince as many soldiers as possible to join the cause.

  Three weeks, he told himself. Three short weeks, and he would take his place as the leader of a nation.

  Chapter Nine

  Friday 4 October 2013

  Tom Gray checked the CCTV and saw Andrew Harvey’s car parked outside the gate to his house. He hit a button on the panel to allow his friend access.

  ‘Come on up, Andrew,’ he said through the intercom, and the gates slowly opened. Harvey eased his Ford Saloon through and up the short drive to the front of the house, where Gray was waiting at the open door.

  ‘No date tonight?’ Gray asked.

  ‘Sandra had to work.’ Harvey shrugged and seemed to be doing his best to sound convincing. ‘She was called in at the last moment. That’s the trouble with dating a doctor.’

  ‘I’m sure Vick will be disappointed,’ Gray said, holding the door open for his friend.

  It turned out that his wife was closer to annoyed.

  ‘I wish you could have let me know,’ she grumbled. ‘I hate it when food goes to waste.’

  ‘There’s little chance of that,’ Harvey said, as a wonderful aroma drifted through from the kitchen. ‘Even if I’d known sooner, I wouldn’t have told you. It just means more for me.’