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“So would I,” Juan muttered to himself, knowing he had just a few moments to come up with something. “First let me ask you: Do you have any rocket-propelled grenades?”
“Old Russian RPG-7s left over from the war.”
Juan groaned. Zimbabwe’s revolutionary war had ended twenty-five years ago.
“Do not worry,” Mafana added quickly. “They’ve been tested.”
“What about rope? How much rope do you have?”
Mafana asked one of his men for the answer and translated for Juan. “A great deal, it seems. At least two thousand feet of nylon line.”
“And one final question,” Juan said, looking back at where his cut-up parachute fluttered in the wind as inspiration hit him like a thunderbolt. “Any of you guys know how to sew?”
21
THE constant backdrop of insect noise almost made Daniel Singer miss the ring of his satellite phone. He groped blindly for the instrument amid the damp tangle of his sheets and mosquito netting. He’d slept with it close by, not trusting one of the mercenaries he’d hired not to steal it while he slept. Money could buy only so much loyalty.
“Hello,” he said thickly.
“Dan, it’s Nina. There’s been a problem. Someone tried to rescue Merrick.”
Singer came fully awake. “What? Tell me what happened.”
“There were four of them. Three of them were captured and a fourth escaped on a motorbike. Susan shot Merrick in the chest. That’s how we knew they were here. The guards watching over Moses Ndebele found parachutes on the roof.”
“Wait, Susan shot Geoff?”
“Yes, in the chest. She pretended to be a kidnap victim and when she had the opportunity she grabbed a gun and shot him. We’ve stopped the bleeding and dosed him with some heroin from Jan’s stash. And don’t worry, I confiscated the rest.”
Drug abuse among his people was the last thing Singer worried about. “Who are they, the men who came for Merrick?”
“They claim they were hired by the company to save him and Susan. They won’t tell us anything else. The captain of the guards wants to execute them at dawn, Danny.” There was horror in her voice when she delivered this last piece of information. “Everything feels so out of control. I don’t know what to do.”
“First thing is to calm down, Nina.” Singer took a breath to steady his own nerves and think through how he wanted to handle the situation. Vapor rose from the mangrove swamp outside the open-sided shed where he slept. Nearby, one of the African mercenaries grunted in his sleep while in the distance flare stacks from the numerous oil facilities belched so much flame that it looked as though the whole world was burning. The sight of such environmental devastation sickened him.
“What do you want me to do?” Nina asked.
Singer studied the luminous dial of his watch until he could see it was four thirty in the morning. Before falling asleep he’d checked the latest meteorological reports. They showed that the storm building over the mid-Atlantic would likely become the tenth named storm of the year, and all indications pointed to it growing into a monstrous hurricane.
Using the Devil’s Oasis to lock up his former partner, and messing with his mind a little bit, had only been phase one. They were just biding their time until a big storm came along and Singer implemented the second part of his operation. With Mother Nature being so cooperative, albeit with a little help from the heaters he’d placed off the coast of Namibia back in ’04, he could have Merrick flown here to Cabinda first thing in the morning.
“I’m going to send the plane to get you tomorrow morning,” he said.
“Um,” Nina started then fell silent.
“What is it?”
“Dan, they are going to execute the three commandos at dawn. We’ve all talked about it and none of us want to be anywhere near here when it happens. The mood is really ugly. The guard commander still thinks there’s a group on their way here to rescue Ndebele and none of the women, myself included, feel comfortable around these men, if you know what I mean.”
Singer thought for a moment. “Okay, there’s a place about forty miles east of you. The pilot who first took me to the Devil’s Oasis told me about it. I can’t remember its name but you’ll see it on a map. It’s a ghost town now but there’s an airstrip. I’ll call the pilot in Kinshasa and have him take off at first light. Take one of the trucks and wait for him there. He should arrive sometime before noon.”
“Thanks, Danny. That’ll be perfect.”
Singer cut the connection. He knew better than to try to fall back asleep. Years of careful planning were coming together. How much easier it would have been if he hadn’t given so much of his fortune away after forcing Merrick to buy him out. He could have simply paid for what he needed outright and negated the necessity of so many difficult steps.
But as he stood leaning against a pole watching the oil field’s hellish glow he knew that the difficulty of this operation also made its success that much sweeter. There was no substitute for hard work. And maybe that was why he had given away most of his billions. They had come too easily. He and Merrick were barely into their twenties when they patented their coal scrubbers. Sure, there had been a lot of long hours to perfect the system, but nothing like the lifetime needed to understand and appreciate that much wealth and success.
Because he had had to work so hard to put this operation together he could savor it that much more. The sacrifices, hardship, and privation made his ultimate victory more precious than all the money he’d accumulated in his previous life. And that it was all for the good of mankind made it even better.
