He looked over at the folding knife now lying on the table beside him, a unique-looking and lethal piece. He remembered it sticking in the chair. It seemed like a taunt, a calling card and a slap in the face all at the same time.
Kurt thought about the arrogance of the man’s words, and the voice itself. It hadn’t been the voice of some poverty-stricken West African pirate. And stranger still, Kurt had the oddest feeling that he’d heard that voice somewhere before.
8
THE CONTINENT OF AFRICA sits at the oceanic crossroads. But despite this position, it has always been more of a roadblock to trade than a thoroughfare. Its sheer size and inhospitable habitats — from desert sands in the Sahara to the dark impenetrable jungles across its vast central region — made it impossible to cross profitably.
In the past, ships that wished to swap oceans were forced to sail on a ten-thousand-mile journey that took them around South Africa, into some of the most treacherous waters in the world and past a point wistfully named the Cape of Good Hope, though its original name was the more accurate Cabo de Tormentas: Cape of Storms.
The completion of the Suez Canal made the journey unnecessary, but did little to bring Africa into the modern world. Quite the contrary. Now ships had only to cut the corner, slip through the Suez, and they were soon on their way to the Middle East and its oil fields, Asia and its factories, Australia and its mines.
As world commerce boomed, Africa rotted like vegetables left unclaimed on the dock beneath the withering sun.
Inland could be found genocide, starvation, and disease, while along the African coasts lie some of the most lawless places in the world. Somalia is for all intents and purposes a land of anarchy; the Sudan is little better. Less well known but almost as forlorn are the West African countries of the Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Liberia’s troubles were well chronicled, as leader after leader fell amid scandal and corruption, and the country lurched toward anarchy and mayhem. The Ivory Coast was much the same.
And for much of its history, Sierra Leone had fared even worse. Not too long ago, the country had been considered a more dangerous place than Afghanistan and had a lower standard of living than Haiti and Ethiopia. In fact, Sierra Leone had once been so weak that a small group of South African mercenaries had all but taken it over.
The group, operating under the “invite” of the existing regime and calling themselves “Executive Outcomes,” routed a much larger group of rebels who threatened to take over the mines. The nation’s only real source of wealth at the time.
The mercenaries then proceeded to protect and control these assets, quadrupling production and taking a large cut for themselves in the process.
Into this world of instability came Djemma Garand. A native of Sierra Leone but trained by these South African mercenaries, Djemma rose to power in Sierra Leone’s military, making important friends and ensuring that his units were trained, disciplined, and ready.
It took decades, but eventually the opportunity presented itself, and Djemma took power in a bloodless coup. In the years since, he had consolidated his position, raised the nation’s standard of living, and earned the grudging approval of the West. At least his regime was stable, even if it wasn’t democratic.
As if to show their approval they’d even stopped asking about the welfare and whereabouts of Nathaniel Garand, Djemma’s brother and a robust voice for democracy, who had been rotting in one of the country’s prisons for the last three years.
Djemma considered imprisoning his own brother both his darkest moment and also his finest. Personally, it sickened him, but the moment he’d given the order any fears he’d had about his own ability to do what was necessary for his country vanished. Places like Sierra Leone were not ready for democracy, but with a strong, unquestioned hand they might rise to that point someday.
Standing on the marble floors of his palace, Djemma looked like any other African dictator. He wore a military uniform with a pound of medals dangling from his chest. He shielded his eyes with expensive sunglasses and carried a riding crop, which he liked to slam on flat surfaces when he felt his point was being taken too lightly.
He’d seen the movie Patton several times and admired the general’s way. He also found it interesting that Patton considered himself a reincarnation of the African Hannibal. For Hannibal’s legend and his exploits held special interest to Djemma Garand.
In many ways the Carthaginian general was the last African to shake the world with his sword. He went over the Alps with an army and his elephants, ravaging the Roman Empire on its home soil for years, defeating legion after legion, and failing to bring it down only because he had no siege engines with which to attack the capital of Rome.
Since then, amid wars and coups and everything else that occurred on the African continent, the rest of the world only watched with disinterest. They worried about the flow of minerals and oil and precious metals, but even a temporary stoppage or civil war or more starvation had little effect on them.
After a little saber rattling, new dictators would eagerly agree to the same terms as the old. Most for them, and a few pennies for the poor. As long as business was conducted this way, what did the world have to worry about?
Seeing this, living it, breathing it, Djemma Garand intended his rule to be something more. Though he traveled in an armored Rolls-Royce, flanked by Humvees with machine guns, Djemma vowed to be more than a despot. He desired a legacy that would leave his people better off for all eternity.
But to do that would mean more than changing his country; it would require changing Sierra Leone’s place in the world. And to do that he needed a weapon that could reach beyond African shores and shake that world, a modern version of Hannibal’s elephants.
And that weapon was almost in his grasp.
Taking a seat behind an imposing mahogany desk, Djemma carefully placed his sunglasses on one corner and waited for the phone to buzz. Finally, a light illuminated.
Gently, without any rush, he lifted the receiver.
“Andras,” he said quietly. “You’d better have good news.”
“Some,” the salty voice replied.
“That is not the kind of answer I expect from you,” Djemma said. “Explain.”
“Your weapon didn’t work as advertised,” Andras said. “Oh, it damaged the ship all right, but it did no better than last time. Took out the navigation and most of the controls, but she kept steaming under partial power, and half the crew survived, those trapped deep inside. This device of yours is not doing what you expect.”
Djemma did not like the sound of that. Little else could so easily send him into a rage as to hear that his project, his own Weapon of Mass Destruction, had yet again failed to perform up to standards.
He covered the phone, snapped his fingers at an aide, and scribbled a name on a piece of paper.
“Bring him to me,” he said, handing the scrap to the aide.
“How many of the crew lived?” he asked, returning his attention to the call.
“About half,” Andras said.
“I trust they no longer survive.”
“No,” Andras said. “They’re gone.”
A slight hesitation in Andras’s voice concerned Djemma, but he pressed forward. “What about the cargo?”
“Off-loaded and on its way to you,” Andras insisted.
“And the ship?”
“Rusting on the bottom.”
“Then what is it you’re not telling me?” Djemma said, growing tired of having to pry information from his most highly paid asset.