Kang Shikun sipped a Highland single malt scotch as he sat at his desk looking out the open balcony door, his eyes on the city to the south. The darkness was profound; a light rain continued to fall, and the clouds blocked out the moonlight.
Hajj Zahedi’s people had been fighting across Accra for over three hours, and Kang could see fires burning in various parts of the city. He’d received reports from his people that the police were fighting defensively, not offensively, that the streets were all but empty, and that the extremists had inflicted damage on troops from Southern Command, as well.
In contrast to nearly everything that seemed to be going wrong for Kang’s plan at the hydroelectric dam, everything seemed to be going right on the road to Accra. Kang had just received a series of shortwave messages from his Chinese operatives in the field, reporting that Sentinel and the Dragons of Western Togoland were moving south in two columns on two highways and meeting little resistance, owing principally to the lack of effective communications throughout the nation.
He took another sip of the single malt, and Chen Jia came into the office and brought him a report that he’d asked for earlier. It was just a single sheet of paper, but he did not take the time to read it, he just put it on his desk.
She turned to return to her workstation, but he called out to her. “Miss?”
“Xiansheng?”
“Are you ill?”
She turned back to him, avoiding eye contact. “No, sir. I am fine.”
He looked at her a moment more. She appeared drawn, pale. “Are you taking your malaria pills?”
She nodded nervously, her eyes still averted from his. “Every morning, sir.”
“And your yellow fever vaccination?”
“Received in Beijing two weeks before I flew here, sir.”
He continued evaluating her for a moment more.
“Is…is there something else?” she asked.
The satellite phone rang on his desk. “No. Thank you,” he said, looking down at the number on the screen.
Jia left the room as Kang answered the phone with a statement. “I want to hear that you have taken care of your problem, and you are now back on course, moving towards Accra.”
Conrad Tremaine, however, had his own demand. “I need you to tell me about the attacks going on in the city.”
Kang furrowed his brow. He wondered how Tremaine knew and, more importantly, just what Tremaine knew. He said, “I am hearing the same reports. Some sort of a violent demonstration, obviously brought on by the power outages.”
“A violent demonstration? Those are jihadists.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“From the CIA.”
Kang took a slow sip of his scotch. “So…now you are in communication with the CIA?”
“Of course not. But I talked to Duffy. He says the Agency knows about Sentinel, about China’s involvement, and about the Nigerian extremists in the city now wreaking havoc.”
Kang said, “If the Agency knows about Sentinel, then it knows, or will eventually know, that your force is made up primarily of former Wagnerites. Russians attached to the Ministry of Defense. Everything that points them towards China, the social media campaigns, the jamming, the hacking…we’ve left Russian forensic fingerprints. Moscow will take the fall, not China.
“Now,” Kang continued, “if they know your name…then that is a problem for you. So if there is anyone who can prove you are here, then you might want to make sure they don’t live to tell.”
Tremaine did not respond to Kang’s advice. Instead he said, “Don’t bullshit me, mate. You…you knew about these attacks in the capital. No…you planned this.”
Kang replied coolly. “General Boatang will be here in the morning. If Southern Command hasn’t completely routed these fighters by then, Central Command will do so when they take the streets.”
“Why didn’t you bloody tell me there was another front to this coup?”
“I needed you to focus on your job. Apparently, even without the knowledge of the additional activity down here, you are having trouble with your mission.”
Tremaine said, “You’re using jihadi savages? Indiscriminately killing?”
“I’m not using them.”
“Bullshit. You control my force, you control Addo’s force, there is absolutely no way you can convince me that the other force that just happens to be attacking at the same time isn’t under your control.”
Kang shrugged, bored with the conversation. “I can’t convince you, fine. Perhaps they saw the opportunity arise once they found out about the assassinations of the EU personnel.” With a little smile, Kang said, “So maybe it was you who brought this on.”
“Bullshit. Ghana doesn’t have an armed extremist force in their Muslim population. Those motherfuckers came from Burkina or Nigeria.”
“Well…if you run into one of them on the street, why don’t you ask him for his passport?”
“You knew I wouldn’t agree to work with you if I knew we were in bed with the jihadis.”
Kang remained unfazed. “We are both committed to this now, Mr. Tremaine. I suggest we work together to see this through.”
The South African sighed into the phone, then said, “Did you get me the information I asked for?”
Kang reached to his desk, picked up the single sheet of paper Jia had just left, and lowered his reading glasses down over his eyes. Looking it over a moment, he said, “The State Department employee you referenced. Duffy, Joshua. He has been here in Accra just two weeks. Previously, he worked in the Washington, D.C., area. His wife, Nichole Duffy, is a Foreign Service Officer at the embassy, as well.”
“What else?”
Reading down, Kang said, “He has a prosthetic limb. His left leg below the knee was amputated six years ago.”
“That doesn’t help me.”
Kang did not know exactly what Tremaine was looking for, but as he kept scanning, he found the part of this file on the new assistant regional security officer the Sentinel mercenary would be most interested in.
“I have his home address in the Cantonments neighborhood. And I see that he has two dependents.”
One word came over the satellite connection. “Kids?”
“Yes. A girl, aged nine. Name, Amanda. And a boy, aged six. Name, Harold.” After a pause, Kang said, “But if you have any illusions about—”
Tremaine interrupted. “I will get back on mission, Kang. Right now. I’ll leave this platoon up here to finish the job, and I’ll be on my way to the capital.”
Kang made a face of annoyance, a rare show of emotion from the man. “I do not need any more setbacks.”
Tremaine ended the call; Kang sat there with his scotch and stared out at the black night. Flickering sparkles of light three kilometers to the southwest hinted at a furious gun battle between Zahedi’s proxies and some police or military unit near Burma Camp, the main installation of Southern Command, but Kang looked away and turned his head to the north, waiting for his rebels to arrive.
And then for Boatang’s soldiers from Kumasi to come down and slay them.
For the first time in the past several hours Josh Duffy realized he wasn’t worried about getting shot.
Drowning, breaking his neck, getting lost in the jungle till he starved, leading a group of individuals, including the wife he loved, to their doom…these were all his concerns now.
A bullet to the brain seemed almost inconsequential to him.
He lay on his back as he floated down the swift stream, the pack he took from the dead Russian in the dam providing him some measure of buoyancy, aiding him as he tried to hold the flashlight with the same hand that covered the lens.
He slowed a moment following the course of the water, but soon his legs brushed rock, and he heard the sound of crashing farther down. He realized he was heading for some rapids, so he just tucked tighter and prayed.
A flash of lightning showed him he was surrounded on both sides by thick jungle, but he couldn’t see around a bend in the stream just below him.
His body followed the flow, then went over a small ledge, dropped no more than five feet, and at the bottom of it Duff went under.
The rifle on his back slammed into rock below him, and his left forearm got snagged by a branch, slicing a three-inch gash.
He screamed in pain and inhaled a gulp of the cool water, then began tumbling down another set of rapids, only his waterproof backpack keeping him up near the surface.
As scary as all this was, it was all the more terrifying because he knew eighteen people would be coming this way in moments, and many of them had horrible injuries.
He rolled himself onto his back again, clutching the pack on his chest, his rifle now dragging on the bottom of the stream, held to Duff only by the end of a broken sling that had gotten caught in the buckles of the pack.
Rain poured on his face, and he squinted into it as he continued to sail downstream.
And then he saw a light.
He’d been in the water no more than three minutes when the bridge appeared; the headlights of a vehicle somewhere on the road off to his right illuminated the top of it, but he saw no one standing there, nor could he even see Isaac’s truck.
He began trying to position himself so he would float nearer the eastern bank on his left; he went under the bridge and, just on the other side, he flipped onto his stomach and began kicking furiously for the shore, trying to find something to hang on to.
Twenty yards south of the bridge he made it to slower water near the bank, and here he pulled himself ashore. He found his footing on his good leg, then picked his way quickly out of the current, pulling out the nylon cable as he did so. He found a sturdy branch by feeling around in the darkness, then put the end of the rope around it, just above where it emerged from the rocks and mud. Softly he spoke to himself as he tied the bowline knot. “Rabbit comes up out of the hole, runs around the tree, back down in its hole.”
The end secure, he went back into the water and lost his footing quickly; his right knee jabbed a sharp stone, and then he tumbled. Swimming as hard as he could, he still floated over twenty yards downstream before he reached the other side, but here he grabbed onto a boulder, pulled himself out, and found another strong limb to tie around.
When he was finished, he had a diagonal line just inches above the water; anyone passing would be able to grab it, and even if they didn’t, they likely could not avoid getting stuck on it.
Then he put his hand over the lens of his light, turned it on, and pointed it upstream.
Stepping back out into the water he waved it back and forth, and in seconds he saw the first two people come under the bridge and grab hold. They were both plant workers, and they appeared frazzled and waterlogged but otherwise uninjured. He held the line as he walked out into the center of the stream to guide the pair to shore. This done, he remained in the heavy current, ready to grab anyone who somehow slipped past.
In under a minute he had everyone, although there were new injuries to deal with. Cuts and bruises were evident; Mensah told Duff he thought he’d sprained his ankle when it was momentarily caught between some rocks in the rapids. Further, everyone who’d been on a stretcher had fallen out of it, but all five non-ambulatory survivors were held on to by the able-bodied as their empty ersatz litters floated past. Isaac went off after the litters, thinking they would be useful for getting the wounded up to the road, and he managed to retrieve two of them just before they spilled down a waterfall and into a cluster of shallow rocks.
Nichole did a head count and confirmed to Duff that they had all of the entourage on the western bank, some twenty-five yards south of the bridge that loomed above them.
Conrad Tremaine walked over to Copper’s vehicle, the rain pouring off his bush hat. The Liberian stood at the hood, a raincoat on now although he was certainly soaked to the bone. He held his walkie-talkie in his hand as he waited for an update from the men on the hill.
The eight men of Delta squad remained on the road pulling security around the five vehicles, and Tremaine thought Copper was doing a good job keeping his rebels organized, especially considering one fourth of their number had apparently just been killed.
To Copper, Tremaine said, “Change of plans. Me and the boys are leaving. Heading to the N2, then south to Accra. You mop up here with Second Platoon and then get on the road.”
“Understood.”
“You’re looking for a white male, thirty-six years old. He’s missing his left leg below the knee, I assume he has a prosthesis. He should be in possession of a Getac tablet computer. I need a photograph of his dead face and that physical device, both brought to the safe house in Accra by dawn.”
Copper said, “I’ll go up there personally as soon as they have bodies for me to check.”
“Good.”
A radio transmission came over both men’s walkie-talkies.
“Alpha squad to Copper, over?”
The Liberian clicked his mic. “Copper to Alpha, go ahead.”
“We’ve lost them at a stream.”
“Did they go to the other side?”
“Maybe. We’ll have to cross to find out.”
Copper barked back into his radio. “Well? What are you waiting for?”
“Yes, sir. Stand by.”
Looking back to Tremaine, the Liberian saw his team leader already heading back to his Toyota pickup in the rain.
Duff helped all the noncombatants behind a cluster of boulders that hid them from the road. The wounded were moved as carefully as possible, but the conditions were difficult and Duff’s prosthetic foot slipped on a mossy rock while he was carrying Chad Larsen and fell into the water, dropping Chad’s bad leg in the process and forcing the injured ARSO to stifle a bloodcurdling scream.
As an apology Duff offered him a shot of morphine, but the ARSO again declined.
Just seconds after finding cover, everyone down by the stream heard an engine rev, and soon the lights on the bridge increased.
A pickup with its headlights shining rolled into view; it moved slowly around the parked RIVCOM truck just on the other side, but once it did, it raced off with a throaty howl from its V8 engine.
Malike and Ben held their rifles up towards the bridge, but no other vehicles passed. Still, light to the west told them all that there were more vehicles, and likely more people here.
Duff crawled up the bank, pushing through mud, clinging to rocks with his free hand, always keeping his rifle up and at the ready.
When he made it to the southwest corner of the bridge, he looked back and saw Isaac’s truck on the right, its taillights illuminated by the headlights of a vehicle to the left. Duff knew that if he tried to make it to the truck, he’d be in full view of anyone providing security on the road.
He chanced a look to the west and saw headlights some thirty or forty yards away, but he didn’t know if there were other vehicles behind this one that he could not see.
He crawled back down the bank and made it back to the others.
Nichole knelt next to Ben and Isaac, an AK-47 pointed up towards the road.
“Listen up,” Duff said. “We know there are at least eight up on the hill looking for us, but I don’t know the strength on the road. It could be another eight, or multiples of that. No matter how many, we’re going to have to go through these guys if we’re going to take their vics to get out of here, and we have to do it before the enemy on the hill comes back down.”
Ben said, “How do you want to do this?”
“L-shaped ambush. Ben and Malike, go through the trees on this side. One of you go ten meters, the other fifteen. Find an angle on the road. Initiate on my fire.”
The two Ghanaians were both injured, but they hefted their AKs and began pushing into the thick trees, disappearing in an instant.
Now Duff looked to Isaac. “You stay on this side, fire down the road towards the lights. I’ll go back under the bridge and do the same from the north side.”
Nichole said, “What about me?”
Duff wiped rainwater from his face, and with an expression of pain, he said, “Okay.” Reaching into his pack, he handed Nichole two extra AK magazines and a hand grenade. “You come with me, we’ll both go under the bridge and fire from there.”
He gave a pair of grenades to Isaac, and he kept two for himself, and they all moved out.
Copper stood in the darkened road conferring with the squad leader from Delta when his walkie-talkie came alive.
“Copper, this is Alpha. We aren’t finding any trail here on the east side of the water. I think they might have gone downstream. What do you want us to do?”
And with that, the Liberian looked up in front of him. Fifty meters away he saw the bridge and the RIVCOM truck just beyond it. He raised his rifle quickly in that direction, then shouted over the sound of the jungle rain to the men maintaining security around him.
“Charlie squad! Get lights down in the water off that bridge! Everybody!”
Rebels began running past him, their guns up as they closed on the bridge using the headlights of the lead vehicle.