The Warrior (Warriors Series Book 1) Read online

  He tucks this mystery at the back of his mind and concentrates on the Jeep and the huts in its immediate vicinity. After clearing the huts in his row, he lies prone in the deepest shadow and looks at the Jeep from the corners of his eyes to see if he can detect any movement. He takes a risk and runs at a half crouch toward the Jeep, keeping out of its windshield’s sight line. The Jeep is a standard FDLR vehicle, battered but serviceable, with its keys still in it. He is tempted to pocket the keys but squelches the thought. Not knowing the strength of the soldiers left in the village, he doesn’t want to give his presence away.

  He looks across the driver’s seat towards the other row. He thinks he hears some murmuring above the women’s anguish, but he isn’t sure.

  He crouches and runs towards the row of huts. The first of the four is empty. The next one has a woman facing the door, and when he peeks around the opening, her eyes widen and her mouth opens. All she can feel is a rush of air as he flows across the hut, clamps his hand over her mouth, squeezes a pressure point on her carotid, and renders her unconscious. He gently lowers her into a shadowed corner and moves on to the next hut.

  This is where he can hear the murmuring louder. He goes around the rectangular hut to see if he can peer through a crack in the wall, but there is none. The hut has two windows on the two opposite walls, and peering through them would illuminate his face.

  Over the years of working as a PMC with the agency, he has amassed exotic gadgets, from shoe-heel cameras to bug-sized remote-controlled robots. He unsheathes a meter-long slender cable from the leg of his fatigues. One end of the cable has a USB plug and the other end a self-focusing twenty-megapixel camera. The iPhone is its power source. He plugs the cable into his iPhone, loops the camera through a corner of the window, and watches its feed on his phone.

  Two white males, one with his back to the door, the other sideways, are squatting beside an almost naked woman. She is still, and he can’t tell if she is unconscious, dead, or too frightened to move. The men are counting something. One of them is stuffing what looks to be gravel and large pebbles into pouches, and then packing those away into a duffel bag. The other is making notes in a dirty folder.

  He turns the camera 360 degrees to get a full view of the hut.

  No one else. Good.

  He slips the camera out, disconnects it, and puts it away. He makes tracks to the back of the hut and slips across to check the last one. It’s empty, though shows signs of having been ransacked, with clothing and utensils strewn across the floor.

  He goes back to the hut with the men. No camouflage, no way to get in stealthily, so he just slips inside the door, moves to its side, and stands with his back to the wall.

  * * *

  Sideways is still counting when he feels the weight of Zeb’s stare and looks up. His face goes slack with astonishment, and then he blurts out, ‘Who the fuck are you, dude?’

  Zeb is impassive. He recognizes Sideways. Conley Stark, thirty-five, ex-Rangers, served twice in Iraq, likes knives, dishonorable discharge for raping a woman.

  Stark makes another attempt. ‘Qui vous est?’

  Zeb has never believed in pleasantries.

  Backside turns around to see what the fuss is about. Brink Schulte, ex-Rangers, served with Conley in Iraq.

  ‘Who the hell is this dumb fuck, Con?’

  ‘Whoever he is, and he’s certainly dumb, he’ll be dead in a second.’

  Zeb remains calm, allowing his presence to fill the room. This will end in only one way.

  Stark rises smoothly, and a Gerber Mark II knife appears in his right hand.

  Brink pauses from his bookkeeping to watch Con take out the intruder. He loves a good fight, and Con is the best he has seen with a knife. The bookkeeping can wait for a few minutes.

  Or maybe not…

  The intruder moves from still to attack in a nanosecond, a silent high leap from a standing position. His left leg takes out Con’s knife arm. Brink can hear the bone snap, even as Zeb’s right leg collapses Con’s throat. Zero to dead in less than a second, Brink thinks dimly as the intruder lands smoothly and faces him.

  Not even a glance to Con, who is in his death throes.

  * * *

  Even as Zeb launched his Kalaripayattu strike on Con, he was aware that a third person entered the room, uttered something, grabbed the duffel bag lying near Brink, and made good his escape.

  Zeb gazes impassively at Schulte. Answers. Schulte will give them. He has no choice.

  An hour later Zeb comes out of the hut.

  The Jeep is gone, presumably taken by Holt. It was he who had come into the room during the fight.

  Carsten Holt. Unofficial leader of the Rogue Six. Now Rogue Three, he corrects himself. Ex-Seal, used by the agency for wet work, expert in close protection work and explosives. Quit the army to go freelance and isn’t particular how he earns his money. Now running a mine-hijacking and mineral-trading racket in the Congo. The agency had him on a watch list for some time and had blacklisted him and his closest associates when the Congo happened. The surviving two with Holt are Quink Jones and Pieter Mendes. Both of them ex-Rangers.

  He powers up his satellite phone and wakes up Andrews.

  Over two hundred women raped – some of them young girls – some children and infants killed. The perpetrators – about forty FDLR soldiers and six ex-agency mercenaries. Many of the villagers in the DRC who worked in the mines had a private stash of ore, which they used to trade, and it was such homes that brought Holt and his band to Luvungi.

  The men in the village had been out working in the mines when Holt and the soldiers arrived. Cobalt ore and pebbles were what Stark and Schulte were weighing and recording when Zeb sent them to their Maker. Rape and killing was part of instilling fear and cooperation. Schulte knew that Holt was working with someone in the States for capturing mines and selling the minerals but didn’t know who that was.

  Andrews goes Chernobyl, his tirade lasting a good few minutes, burning the air. Andrews calms down a long while later.

  ‘You have to come back immediately. We need you to meet the UN and depose. You’re the first eyewitness account to this horrific…this atrocious…this sickening…whatever one calls it.’

  Zeb is silent.

  ‘I guess Schulte, Stark, and Boulder are in no position to embarrass the agency?’ Andrews asks, knowing full well what the answer is.

  Zeb keeps his counsel.

  ‘I want you back here immediately. Once the news breaks that FDLR soldiers and some mercenaries who seem to be American were involved in mass murders and multiple rapes in the Congo, the shit will not just hit the fan, it will create a mushroom cloud over Washington. The White House will be brown. I need you back with your photographs and your record of the events to prevent collateral damage here. Your being there, we could spin it that you helped stopped the most horrific abuse in Africa in history. I can see the headlines now.’

  Collateral damage.

  Andrews-speak for covering his and the Director’s ass and playing the D.C. game.

  ‘This’s more important than those three. I’ll put them on an international blacklist and get international warrants issued on them. In any case, Holt and the other two will likely disappear now that you located them.

  ‘And there’s another reason for you to get the hell out of there. The villagers won’t be able to distinguish you from the rogue soldiers. Tempers are no doubt going to be high there for some time. I also don’t want to explain your presence to the authorities there right now, even if you are listed as a charity worker. You aren’t exactly unknown to some intelligence agencies around the world. It’s best you get out and come home.’

  Zeb looks back at the hut where the girl with the vacant eyes lies, and makes his mind up.

  Holt’s lifespan can be measured in hours.

  He just doesn’t know it yet.

  Chapter 2

  New York – a maelstrom of people and energy. Zeb has spent a day sleeping off his mo
nths in the Congo. When he rises after a tabla-playing session, he heats up some soup, opens the windows overlooking 77th Street, and lets the world wash over him.

  His second-floor two-bedroom apartment is adequate for his needs. No, it’s too big, he thinks. Maybe he should downsize further. He looks back towards the tabla resting in the corner of his lounge, the shells dark and gleaming from the streetlights.

  He had been walking around in Jamaica, in New York, many years back when he heard the tabla being played in an Indian music school. The taals had stirred something in him that no other instrument had done, something that he thought was dead. He went inside the school and watched a white-haired elderly teacher demonstrate the instrument to a bunch of kids. There were a few drums hanging on the walls of the school. He went closer to view them.

  They were strange instruments to him, the curved wooden shell with ropes to tighten the skin, very distinct from Western musical instruments. He ran his palms over the skin of the drums, felt the texture of the black spot, and behind him, he heard the teacher launching into a taal. He lingered around till he heard the students leaving and turned to the teacher.

  The teacher was much older than he thought, in his seventies, but still strong of body, bright eyes peering at him through his spectacles. He grasped Zeb’s hands without a word and ran his fingers over Zeb’s calloused palms, all the while looking into Zeb.

  ‘You will not find forgiveness in the tabla. But you will lose yourself in the drums.’

  Zeb started training that day.

  Pounding on his door startles him from his reverie.

  Andrews. Distinctive and impatient.

  ‘You know the phone was invented for a purpose.’ He strides inside, looks around, and finds Zeb’s phone on the dining table. ‘Twenty calls. Twenty fucking calls and messages from me.’

  Zeb shrugs.

  ‘Have you seen the news? Luvungi is front page and has been on TV all day.’

  ‘I don’t follow the news, and I don’t have a TV.’

  Andrews shakes his head in exasperation. ‘Tomorrow is your big day. You’re meeting the Secretary-General of the UN, who wants to hear about what happened over there,’ he says, waving in the direction of the ocean.

  Andrews, being Andrews, is pointing to the wrong ocean. ‘The book deals and movie rights will start pouring in now.’

  Zeb is amused. ‘Is that what you drove through rush-hour traffic to tell me?’

  Andrews hesitates, his manic energy subsiding. ‘No, I wanted to see you, to see if you were okay. That girl you mentioned…’ He trails off and looks searchingly at Zeb.

  Zeb ushers him towards the door, saying, ‘Pick me up tomorrow,’ and shuts the door on Andrews.

  He hears Andrews cursing. ‘Prick! Why do I bother to be sympathetic? I must need a shrink. You had better be ready at eight sharp tomorrow. I’m not going to take any shit about your waking up late.’

  It’s cold, crisp, and sunny the next day when Andrews arrives driving an agency car. He’s dressed to the nines and drives off without a word as soon as Zeb is seated. Andrews drives with utter disregard for the traffic, honking wildly, sticking his finger out at every opportunity, as he cannons across Roosevelt Avenue and then Queensboro Bridge toward United Nations Plaza.

  ‘Andrews, are you from New York?’ Zeb asks.

  Andrews flips the bird again as he overtakes a blonde applying lipstick. ‘Bronx born and raised. Doesn’t it show?’

  ‘Who would have guessed? Hasn’t anyone shot at you, the way you drive?’ Zeb is unruffled as Andrews overtakes and nearly sideswipes a cab.

  ‘Once this guy chased me all the way from Central Park to Wall Street, waving his handgun. I pulled over and stuck my AK-47 out. He went from Mighty Mouse to Minnie Mouse and drove away.’

  Andrews pulls into UN Plaza, the utter professional now. The massacre has made the news, and there’s a throng of protestors opposite UN Plaza, many of them holding placards either shaming the UN or urging it to do more. A few news stations have their broadcast vans outside, providing live coverage.

  They are whisked upstairs after passing through security, and ushered into a boardroom.

  Andrews steps to the window overlooking the plaza and immediately steps back as a few TV cameras train their lenses on him. ‘Vultures,’ he mutters.

  They don’t have long to wait. The door opens, and the Secretary-General enters.

  ‘So, Mr. Andrews, we meet again. Never at happy moments, should I say? This is a shameful episode for us,’ he says in his dry, precise voice.

  He looks at Zeb. ‘Major Zebadiah Carter, I have read your file, what little of it Mr. Andrews gave me. I think we owe you thanks for recovering some warheads.’

  ‘I am no longer a major, sir. And I don’t know anything about any warheads.’

  ‘Quite. You’re the first Western eyewitness to what happened in Luvungi. I want to hear what you saw.’

  Zeb recounts without emotion.

  The ensuing silence is loud and heavy.

  ‘You’re sure about these numbers? No, I take that back; it’s a stupid question. The scale of what has happened makes an exact number quite irrelevant.’

  ‘These mercenaries you came across…they were capturing mines and selling the ore to unknown parties? And the FDLR was helping them in this? Or were they helping the FDLR in this?’

  ‘The mercenaries had access to buyers for the ore. They recruited the FDLR to help them hijack the mines,’ Zeb replies.

  ‘They told you all this? Just like that?’ asks the Secretary-General.

  ‘I did say pretty please,’ replies Zeb.

  A long pause. ‘Quite.

  ‘You could have done more to stop the soldiers,’ the official says with the mildest of reproof.

  ‘That’s on my head,’ Andrews butts in. ‘I was the one who asked Zeb not to engage with the soldiers. There were a couple of reasons for that. First, there were about forty of them, and Zeb was alone. He wouldn’t be here if he had engaged. Secondly, I had contacted their embassy over here and ours over there to raise hell. Did I do enough? Would Zeb have made a difference? Those questions will haunt me for a long while. I have seen some shit in my life, sir, excuse my language, but this is on a scale that I have never come across.’

  ‘Sir, may I ask a question?’ Zeb asks finally, breaking the silence.

  The UN official nods.

  ‘Why did you want to meet me? In your position, you will be surrounded by people who can give you the most detailed information; you will have men on the ground or those working with the UN who can give you hourly updates on this. Why me?’

  The head of the UN Secretariat smiles humorlessly. ‘I wanted to feel what it was like out there.’

  On that, his aide steps into the boardroom, signaling the meeting is over. He clasps Zeb’s hand in a warm handshake; then they leave.

  Andrews is silent as they descend in the elevator.

  He is silent as he gets the car on 1st Avenue heading downtown.

  ‘Don’t feel guilty. Don’t ever feel guilty,’ he says suddenly, fiercely, and pounds his horn at a garbage truck, getting the finger in return.

  Andrews parks in the basement of a drab-looking building near City Hall.

  ‘The Director wants to meet,’ he explains.

  Zeb recognizes the building from one of his previous visits as an office frequently used by the agency in New York.

  The basement has men in suits at the perimeter, one of them stopping them to see their pass, radioing ahead.

  Zeb raises his eyebrows at Andrews, who shrugs and mouths, I don’t know.

  They go up the elevator from the basement to the fourth floor and step into a tightly wound world.

  At the elevator they are greeted by another couple of clean-shaven, neatly dressed men who frisk them, check Andrews’ identity again, and have whispered conversations in their mics before directing them to a receptionist.

  There aren’t many people around – the recep
tionist, a few people hurrying about – but a palpable tension is in the air. He senses Andrews has noticed the charged environment too.

  Zeb takes a step back from Andrews, an idea forming in his mind, scans entry and exit corridors, and spots more suits there. The receptionist steps out from behind her desk and leads them to an unmarked meeting room, where the Director awaits. Zeb trails a few steps behind, his senses on full alert.

  She regards them calmly, brushes aside Andrews’, ‘What’s burning?’ and motions them to sit.

  ‘Andrews has briefed me on the Congo, Zeb. I sent all we know about these military contractors to the FBI and have suggested they get international arrest warrants issued. I should hear from them shortly. I have also asked them to put an alert out on all incoming and outgoing flights. It’s possible the remaining three will return to the US. Andrews, will you…’ She stops as an inner concealed door opens and the President of the United States enters.

  Chapter 3

  Zeb rises instinctively, Andrews doing the same with his jaw dropping open. The Director clears her throat, breaking the spell over Andrews.

  The President says, ‘Clare, I’m sorry for interrupting. I wanted a word with you on that dossier before heading off to Washington. Sorry, guys, I have to kidnap your boss for a moment.’

  The Director says, ‘Sir, this is Andrews, my right-hand man, and this is Major Zebadiah Carter. I have mentioned the Congo to you. Zeb was there.’

  The President sizes up both of them. ‘Andrews, Major, there are many of you who work unsung and unheard in protecting our country and often safeguarding global security. Some of you work within the remit of the government and’ – he focuses on Zeb – ‘some outside.’

  He looks old and weary as he addresses Zeb. ‘Major, we have let down that part of the world badly. I’m glad that you were there to raise the first alert, though Clare tells me that you did quite a bit more than that – that you have done things I’m not supposed to know about. Know this, that I am very grateful for the work of people like you and Andrews.’