Chapter #15Cabindan People's Front? by: imaj   “Yeah sure Nick,” you reply. “That’s me.”
“My name isn’t Nick Mr Bredon,” states your tail, his accent thick. “It’s Zaire.”
“Huh, fitting,” you mutter. “But if I say your name’s Nick, Nick, then your name’s Nick.” You pull your knife away, slotting it back into your coat pocket.
Zaire lowers his hands slowly. “You greet everybody this way Mr Bredon?”
“Ain’t dead yet, am I,” you snark back, channeling your one time mentor’s personality with ease. “And you can call me Rick. Gonna tell me what’s going on Nick?
Your contact shrugs expansively. “Someone shot a rocket at the Presidential Palace on Avenue Leopold last week. Nzinghe called in the army from all over the country. He is a rat coward of a man who hides in his bunker rather than face us. It cannot continue.”
“Someone that wasn’t you,” you ask, niggling at the details.
“Many people want the man dead,” Zaire shrugs again.
“I’m not keen on walking into the middle of someone else’s firefight,” you explain. “This just got a whole lot more complicated.”
“But you can still do what we agreed, Mr Bredon... Rick…”
“Didn’t say I couldn’t,” you answer. “But you gotta get me outta here first. What’s a man gotta do to get a drink round here?”
*****
Zaire turns his truck off the muddy road. The sudden jolt as the truck hits tarmac again wakes you from your half asleep dozing. You peer out the rain splattered window to spot a series of squat concrete structures rising out of the dense jungle.
The truck pulls to a stop at a makeshift checkpoint. Zaire rolls down a window to reveal a scrawny boy - no older than sixteen you guess - on the other side. The boy is wearing piecemeal camouflage and has an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. His wide brimmed floppy hat is doing a poor job of keeping the rain out his eyes.
You peer past the teen soldier to spy another two who are, if anything, even younger and even more malnourished looking. They huddle by a concrete sign that reads “Babylonian Group - Cabinda Laboratories”. The buildings seem more like a fortress than a lab complex though.
“This your American Zaire,” asks the boy in Portuguese. “He doesn’t look like much. Looks like a waste of time to me.”
“Not a waste of time,” you mumble in English, watching the boy’s jaw go slack. Zaire smirks at the cocky young soldier.
“Yeah, well, we picked up one of our own,” continues the young soldier trying to recover his swagger quickly. “Sneaking round like. Got him tied up inside.”
“Yeah? Can I see him Nick,” you ask Zaire, rather than the boy. You take another look at the sign. “Got a few things I’d like to see here in fact.”
Zaire nods in reply, but speaks to the young soldier. “Open the barrier Ayo.”
The young soldier - Ayo - steps back from the truck, giving you an ugly look as he does so. The barrier in front of the truck slides back when he hits a button at its side. Then Zaire drives into the complex, right up to the largest building where he parks under an awning.
The inside of the complex is a wreck. If the posters and other wall displays are any guide, it was abandoned years ago. It’s been looted and re-looted many times since, though the odd piece of broken lab equipment has escaped notice. The larger machines are still in place too, though gutted.
Zaire leads you to the top of the building, where the thick concrete walls give way to glass that affords a panoramic view over the surrounding jungle canopy. At the centre of the room, a dozen men in combat fatigues pour over some makeshift tables. You catch muttered snatches of conversation, evidently discussing the disposition of the Cabindan Army in the city.
Zaire coughs loudly. “Sir.”
A large man, with a barrel chest and huge bristly beard, turns round to face you. He pulls a soft cap off his head and uses it to mop his brow before taking long confident strides towards you.
“This is your assassin,” he asks Zaire in Portuguese. “I was expecting someone more impressive looking.”
“You gonna tell him I speak Portuguese Nick, or will I,” you ask Zaire in the same language.
The big man laughs and thrust his hand out for you to shake. He makes an attempt to crush your hand with his grip. Squeezing his hand back only results in another staccato burst of laughter. “Colonel Kasongo, Front for the Liberation of Cabinda” he introduces himself in English. “Zaire tells me you can get to Nzinghe and his harlot for us.”
You can. Easily, but you don’t want Colonel Kasongo to know that. You let the space where your severed ousiarch would be tie itself to Viritrilbia. “Might be tricky, way the city’s buttoned up tight now,” you lie smoothly. You’ve been practising the quicksilver tongue the ousiarch grants you since Macau.
“So what are you saying,” asks the colonel, eyes narrowing despite your adopted prodigy.
“I need a distraction,” you reply, pushing Viritrilbia as hard as your limited connection allows. You need a patsy and the colonel is almost convinced. “Do you want Nzinghe dead or not? I can get to him if you clear the way for me.” You pause for a second, but the colonel still isn’t quite all the way there. “Listen, the kid at the gate told me you caught someone snooping around. Let me talk to him. I can get the information we need to do this.”
“You a torturer too, assassin,” asks the colonel.
“When I need to be,” you shrug.
He stares at you hard for a moment. It’s posturing - you can tell he’s going to accept your offer already. “Be my guest,” he grunts, poorly attempting to feign reluctance. “If you find anything useful, you’ll get your diversion.”
Zaire leads you back down into the bowls of the building, into a windowless room somewhere at basement level. The prisoner is a ruddy skinned man, his head lolling as he sits awkwardly in the chair he is tied to. Two guards - one barely in his teens, the other much older - stand bored nearby.
“Wake him up,” orders Zaire.
The younger guard hits the prisoner in the stomach with the butt of his gun. He jerks awake, his body spasming against his restraints. “I’m going to fucking murder every last one of you kaffir shitheads as soon as I get loose,” he snarls in a thick Afrikaaner accent.
“Very bad word, Mr Bredon,” murmurs Zaire.
“Kid at the gate said he was American,” you say, moving closer to the prisoner. You can get all the information you need with a touch. You just can’t let anyone know that’s how you got it.
“Ayo thinks all you people look alike,” shrugs Zaire.
You grab the prisoner by the head, hauling it up to look him in the eye. He spits at you, and you let him go to wipe the phlegm off your face. It doesn't matter though, you grabbed his imago as soon as you touched him.
You dive in, surfing the absorbed memories: Casper De Vries, South African mercenary. He works for some outfit you’ve never heard of called Diamond Security Solutions. Dozens of grubby operations across Africa flash through your mind: Regime changes, targeted killings and border wars. The signs are all there, and even if Casper doesn’t realise it, his true employers are Fane.
You fight to suppress a smile.
The obnoxious Mr De Vries is here to support a Fane backed coup within the next two weeks. A coup with the backing of the Cabindan army. A plane of mercenaries, alongside a load of weapons arrives tomorrow. All you have to do is persuade him to part with just the right bits of information. Then you can get Fane and these rebels to do half your work for you
Well, isn’t that what Lurga is for?
You grab hold of the mercenary’s head again and hold your knife to his throat. He screams as you bind to Lurga and immediately press as much of the ousiarch as you can down on him. You aren’t just going to make him sing, you’re going to make sure every single word comes from your song sheet.
To stop reminiscing, attend to Fi's reports in "A Short Hop" 
 You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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