WAR: Intrusion (41 page)

The men muttered in agreement.

Lachlan pretended that he hadn’t just heard a member of his team threaten to take justice into his own hands. Not only did he agree with the sentiment, but after what he’d just done to the rebel leader, he wasn’t one to be passing judgment. “Lars, I’m going to call Rene’s mystery caller back via the encrypted communications program. Dev, call Kris. Warn him about the impact of the video and suggest that no one at WAR watch it unless there’s an urgent reason. Ask him to work some of his magic and get any images from the attack pulled from the media if they haven’t been already.”

“Right.”

“The rest of you, I want the perimeter guarded and two men keeping an eye on the road.”

When his men were in position, Lachlan took a deep breath and placed the call.

CHAPTER THIRTY

HELEN
REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS coughing and fighting to breathe. She opened her eyes and found herself lying along the back seat of a vehicle.

“Ah, you are awake.” Natchaba turned his head from the passenger seat. The look he gave her was devoid of any human warmth.

A chill snaked through her. He’d looked at her with the same lack of emotion after his men had forced her to kneel in front of him. When he’d ordered his men to cut her arms with the tips of their machetes. And while he’d circled her neck with his hands and squeezed until she blacked out.

Her heart started pounding with remembered terror. Acutely aware of her vulnerable position, Helen struggled to sit up but found that her hands and feet were tied and the seatbelt had been fastened around her legs and torso to hold her in place. She still wore her lab coat and the cool air from the car’s air-conditioning slipped through the slits left by the machetes, making her shiver.

“Do relax, Dr. Kirk. You are not going to escape justice this time.”

“Justice?” she croaked, barely able to force the word out through her abused throat. The force from Natchaba’s fingers had further damaged her vocal chords after she’d screamed herself hoarse back at the hospital. Not that screaming had helped. Nothing she or any of the other staff members had said or did had succeeded in diverting the rebels from their grisly course.

Natchaba didn’t answer. Just tilted his head to one side and studied her as a scientist would a specimen on a slide. “You do not seem surprised to discover my involvement, doctor. I suppose your bodyguard figured it out?”

“Yes.”

“A pity. It would have gone much easier for you if you had simply died during the festival day attack.”

Helen wished she had a tape recorder so the entire world could later hear his confession. “Were you the one behind the vandalism at the clinic?”

“Of course. I needed a way to step in and show the villagers that they owed their continued good health to my generosity.”

“Why?”

“Why do I hate them? Or why did I choose you?”

“Both.”

He just stared at her in that impersonal way for a while before answering. “I can see that understanding my motivation is very important to you. Why do human beings always want there to be a direct cause and effect? Why does randomness bother us so much?” He gave her a parody of a smile. “I don’t believe I will answer your questions.” He turned to face the front of the vehicle.

Helen blinked in surprise. Was he implying that he’d chosen the targets at random? Because they were convenient? That was almost more cold-hearted than orchestrating the attacks out of a need for revenge. Yet he’d completely fooled her into believing him to be a kind, thoughtful man who only wanted to help improve the lives of the villagers. What a fantastic actor he was.

Or had there been evidence that she’d overlooked? Had she been so focused on restoring the clinic that she’d seen in Natchaba the type of savior she needed him to be and ignored signs to the contrary?

No. Thinking back she remembered seeing warmth and amusement in his eyes. He might have been faking those emotions, but she knew she hadn’t imagined them. He’d simply played her for the fool.

When she realized that he wasn’t going to say anything more, she closed her eyes in exhaustion. But images from the hospital immediately assailed her and she opened her eyes again. Were any of her staff alive? Or was she the only one?

She considered asking Natchaba, but immediately discarded that idea. Let him keep his focus on her, without being reminded that her staff could be used as leverage to gain her cooperation. Because the only reason she could think of for Natchaba kidnapping her rather than leaving her with the rebels back at the hospital was that he had his own plans for her.

What she had to do was survive. And hope that Natchaba would in the end kill her quickly, instead of by pieces.

The
Greater Niger Republic

West Africa

JONATHAN
MORENGA STOOD at the window of the four-room bungalow he claimed for his private quarters. Yet instead of the lush green valley below him, what he saw were the mutilated bodies of his fellow Africans. He thought he had witnessed the worst that human beings could do to one another during the riots of 2005, but the photos that had been broadcast on social media proved him wrong.

He had no qualms about killing foreigners or even other Africans if they stood in the way of West Africa becoming a region free of oppressive foreign influence and corrupt local officials. That was why he’d thrown his lot in with the rebels at the beginning, offering them weapons at reduced rates in order to help them achieve their military successes. But over the past year he’d been forced to watch as the rebellion splintered. Too many groups calling themselves rebels were in fact no more than thugs seeking an outlet for unrestrained violence.

With this latest attack that the media was calling the Hospital Massacre, the entire rebellion was now on the defensive against a population horrified and outraged that such heinous acts had been committed in the name of economic and political freedom. Governments who had previously been content to let the rebels kill off foreigners or opposition groups that posed a threat to those currently in power had now been mobilized into taking decisive action against the rebels.

Despite the horrors of what had been done, the damage might have been contained except that several of the rebels, drunk on the power of thoroughly destroying other human beings, had sent photos and video to the internet and social media sites. Public horror and outrage had resulted in the images being pulled from legitimate sites within minutes, but the damage had already been done. Under normal circumstances, Morenga would have dealt with the situation by canceling any upcoming weapons deals with those rebels.

Unfortunately, those rebels had recently announced that they no longer needed his services. Yet his spies reported that they had received a shipment of top-of-the-line weapons recently. The exact same make and model as a shipment of weapons that had been stolen from Morenga’s warehouse.

The leader of that rebel group had neither the intelligence nor the contacts to have planned or completed such a theft. That alone had made Morenga suspicious. But it was the portion of the video that he had not sent to Dr. LaSalle that proved that his greatest fears had come true. The video had shown his son dragging one of the limbless, faceless bodies out of the hospital and tossing it into the yard which had by then resembled nothing more than an abattoir.

Morenga had known since his son was a small boy that there was something not right about him. He had no empathy for other people, yet could manufacture emotions that he used to manipulate those around him. The boy’s only good trait had been the protectiveness he showed toward his mother. She, in turn, had doted on him. She’d refused to hear even the hint of criticism against her precious boy. Morenga had divorced her over her inability to accept that their son might have deliberately killed a playmate. He still believed to this day that she had bribed the officials to rule the death an accident.

So when, after years of estrangement, his son had suddenly been mentioned as an up-and-coming leader in the rebellion, Morenga had taken notice. He’d attempted to get spies close to his son but until recently, they had always disappeared. Yet Morenga had managed to gather enough evidence to suggest that his son was attempting to create his own army and form his own alliances with the various rebel groups. The spy who had succeeded in penetrating the organization warned that his son had grand plans of destabilizing all of West Africa at once through a series of increasingly vicious, large-scale attacks.

Morenga wondered if the massacre at the hospital had been part of that plan. If yes, had his son never considered that instead of cowing the population with fear, the attack had instead turned people firmly against the rebels?

Whatever his son’s motivation, based on the latest report from his spy, Morenga had already decided to contact WAR even before today’s attack. The attack just gave him a more legitimate reason to make that contact.

His secure satellite phone rang.

Ah. Now it begins.

He waited a moment before answering. Was he certain he wanted to do this?

Did he have another choice if he wanted to see West Africa live up to its potential?

The answer was “no” to both questions.

He picked up the phone. “Good day,” he said. “With whom am I speaking?”

“You know who I am.” Morenga had an excellent ear for languages, but he still would not have been able to identify Lachlan MacKay’s accent as Scottish if one of his business partners had not played him a tape and explained the differences between Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and the various English accents.

“Who are you?” MacKay demanded.

Morenga’s lips twitched in amusement. Ah, these foreigners, blunt to the point of rudeness. “You have watched the video?”

“Yes.” MacKay’s voice vibrated with outrage. Although Morenga shared the feeling, he could not afford to reveal such emotion or risk being labeled as weak by his rivals.

“I assure you that I had nothing to do with that attack,” Morenga said. “Had I known such an atrocity was planned, I would have taken steps to stop it.”

“So you say.”

“True. You have no reason to trust me. However, I have put myself at great risk in contacting you.” Now that he’d taken over Dietrich’s supply routes his operation had come under even more pressure from WAR’s forces.

“What information do you have for me?” MacKay asked.

“The rebel convoy that your team and the government forces took down held several foreign prisoners. But Dr. Helen Kirk was not among them. I believe I know where she is being taken.” He closed his eyes briefly against the ache in his heart. “And by whom.” Despite everything the boy had done, he was still Morenga’s son. He loved him. Or at least, he loved the remnants of the boy he’d once been.

“Why are you sharing this information with me? Why not go to the government?”

“Because I wish there to be justice, not slaughter. Your organization has a certain reputation for honesty and fairness that the national government lacks.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because the man who took Dr. Kirk is my son.”

“Ah.”

“Yes. You understand my dilemma. I am a wanted man. Even if I trusted the government, it would take too long to convince them that I am being truthful. But you and your team have a better understanding of the threat my son poses. To that I will add this information. The place where my son is taking Dr. Kirk is the same place where he is storing the missing mini-explosives. My spy informs me that my son intends to use these weapons to launch multiple attacks against the capitals of the region within the next two weeks.”

MacKay made a sound of disbelief.

“Do not be fooled by the lack of full success of my son’s recent attacks. He has been stockpiling weapons and gathering men for months. He has been experimenting. Searching for the most successful methods to achieve his goals and the most effective allies. I believe that his core troops are more than capable of planting these explosives and achieving destruction such as this region has never seen.” He stared at the map of West Africa on the wall behind his desk. “You must stop him. I will give you the location of his military base. My spy will let you inside. Then I trust that you will retrieve the explosives and avert a disaster that would throw this region into such chaos it would never recover.”

“Is that not what you have been trying to achieve?”

“No, Commander. I want peace and stability for my people. But foreign corporations and financial institutions have our countries in a stranglehold. I have no objection to breaking that hold with targeted violence. Mass destruction that kills our own people, or acts of butchery such as seen on that video, do not work in our favor.”

“And by taking down your son, we rid you of a primary business competitor as well.”

“I do enjoy speaking with an intelligent man.” He glanced at the clock. “Do we have a deal?”

MacKay didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Excellent. Now listen closely.”

Eastern
Region

The Republic of the Volta

West Africa

“
DOES
MORENGA THINK we’re fools?” JC asked later that evening.

From a wooded ridge above the road, Lachlan stared down at the concrete and metal bridge that spanned a deep chasm. On the other side of the bridge the road ended in a narrow patch of dirt just wide enough to turn a lorry around without running into the cliff face.

“No,” Levine answered. “Just desperate enough to grasp at his offer without thinking through his possible motivations.”

“I suspect that Morenga truly does have a spy within Natchaba’s organization,” Lachlan said. “That’s good business practice. But even if Morenga has ordered the man to help us, do I trust that Natchaba’s security will be so lax that Morenga’s spy will be able to let us in? No.” Morenga had sounded sincere in his desire to see his son brought to justice, but between WAR and the government forces, WAR posed the greater danger to Morenga. If their positions had been reversed, Lachlan would have dangled this location as bait, then set up an ambush.