Mackey’s French was decent, but he struggled with the local French, which almost sounded like Patois, the Creole French on some Caribbean islands. When Julia told Mackey she spoke fluent French, he wanted to kiss her—more so than he already did—but he had conceded that to Cascaes. Julia, who spoke fluent Spanish as well as the Guarani language of the Paraguayan tribes, was a natural at picking up the sing-song French of the locals.
The team had arrived at the fishing village appropriately packed like sardines in three trucks along with their equipment. The drive had taken over an hour, following a worn path through the grass—nothing you would call an actual road. Had there been a road, they could have made it in fifteen or twenty minutes. The trucks pulled up in front of the small compound that was their new fish farm. Locals were standing around cheering their arrival. The villagers had brought gifts of local fruit and dried salted fish, one of their staple foods.
The team climbed down off of the trucks, now completely exhausted and so jet lagged they were almost hallucinating, but smiled and tried to communicate “hellos” to their new neighbors. Julia was quick to jump in with her French, and as soon as the villagers realized she could speak fluently, they surrounded her and started speaking a hundred miles an hour to welcome them to Buwali. She thanked them for the food and warm welcome, and explained that they would need a few days to get organized. Of course, there were dozens of offers of help with everything from cleaning, to cooking, to bringing more fish. They took her by the hand and led her down to the holding tanks. The holding tanks were five hundred gallon plastic tubs with water being exchanged directly from the lake through an extensive plumbing system devised by the previous fish farmers. The villagers were proud to show her all of the fish they had caught.
While she spoke with the villagers and looked at all of the fish, Mackey gave Cascaes and the rest of the team a tour of the buildings. There were several huts that would serve as their new homes. The huts had thick mud walls and thatched roofs, with several windows that had no glass, but did have wooden shutters that could be opened and closed. The floor was dirt, but had woven mats that covered most of it. A large clay fireplace in one corner served as a cooking stove, and provided light and heat. The men looked at each other and laughed. It was going to take some getting used to.
Jon and his three men went down to the main building where the fish packing supplies and other holding tanks were located. They had been fully trained to run the operation as a legitimate business, and were happy to find the generators filled with gas and operational. The generators ran several overhead lights, as well as UV sterilizers to treat the water before packing the fish and shipping them off. All in all, it was a well-organized place, and it was obvious the people there before them had known what they were doing when they designed the place.
By the time the team finished unpacking their equipment, it was near six at night, local time, and all of them were famished. The villagers made a wood fire and speared some fish they had caught that morning and barbequed them over the fire. The villagers were nothing short of amazed at how much the group could eat. They laughed and kept cooking until finally the bottomless pits had been filled. After dinner, the villagers headed back to their own homes, promising to return early tomorrow. Julia was having a hard time curbing their enthusiasm, and like the rest of the group, she just wanted to lie down and sleep.
The team split into three groups and headed off to their huts to sleep. Mackey, Cascaes, Moose, Theresa, and Julia would be sharing a hut. No one ever mentioned it, but the group was well aware that Moose and Theresa and Cascaes and Julia had something going on. Mackey came right out and asked if he was allowed in the honeymoon hut. Everyone laughed it off, but the four lovebirds really did wish they had their own little place. With the exception of Lance Woods, who drew first watch, the entire group was sound asleep in ten minutes. Lance sat outside by the small fire and watched his first African sunset, smiling as he watched the red fireball drop behind the mountains in the distance.
11.
The haunting singing of a lone African voice carrying through the village woke up the group. They were still somewhat comatose from their long journey, and had crashed hard that night. When they each opened their eyes and looked around, they had to remember what planet they were on. The single bass voice was joined by another dozen or so voices all returning his song. One by one, the members of the group sat up and walked outside. There were a dozen fishing boats, large canoes really, out on the lake, and the fishermen were singing their song to the fish. While the team couldn’t understand the words and had no idea why the men were singing, the group stood outside and enjoyed the beautiful sounds of the rich African voices in the otherwise silent morning.
Unlike an American morning, there were no car noises, no televisions or radios making background noise, not even a plane overhead. The quiet took getting used to, but the voices carrying across the lake were beautiful and something the members of the team would never forget. Once outside in the sun, the team realized it was time to start their day.
There was an outside latrine, which the men allowed the ladies to use first. There was a fifty-gallon drum that had been cut in half and filled with Lake water, then heavily chlorinated which was the ‘sink’ that they used to wash up with. The Canadians had devised a shower, but no one had heated up the water yet, which was done via the generator that had yet to be turned on.
Breakfast consisted of MREs and strong coffee made with water that had been boiled and treated with tablets brought from home. The team sat together outside on benches that were left over from the previous owners. The table was made out of wood, and looked to be about a thousand years old. The ants and termites had taken turns on it between insecticide sprayings.
Cascaes called Jon to sit with him, and they discussed what needed to be done to look like a fish farm. After their meeting, Cascaes had Moose and Ripper help prepare the SCUBA gear, including starting the generator which ran the compressor to fill their SCUBA tanks. After they finished their breakfast, Jon took his crew down to the building now dubbed “fish central,” and began cleaning and filling holding tanks. They would follow the same process as the previous owners: the fish would be caught by net, brought to the farm and separated by species and variety, then held and fed for a few days to reduce stress. When enough fish of a particular variety was collected, they’d be put in large clear plastic bags with chemically treated water, and then the bag was filled with pure oxygen, sealed, boxed, secured, put in an outer box, and then put in the back of the trucks to be transported to Luano Airport in Lubumbashi. None of them would ever look at a fish in a pet store again quite the same way.
While the four of them did actual work on the fish farm, Mackey and Cascaes set up shop in their small mud house. They had batteries for all of their computer and communication equipment that were rechargeable via the gas generators at fish central. Neither their compound nor the village of Buwali had any electricity.
Mackey, Cascaes, Julia, and Smitty (Joe Smith, who had been CIA for almost ten years) set up satellite phones and laptops and created a miniature secure office that could communicate with Dex Murphy and Darren Davis back in Langley via burst transmissions or secure encrypted phone. They could pull up satellite photos, maps and the most recent intelligence available through CIA right there in their mud hut. From outside the building, no one could see anything—there were no visible dishes or antennas.
The rest of the team used their first morning at their new home to clean and organize. They scrubbed, sprayed and swept everything as best they could, then unpacked their gear while inside one of the small houses. They uncrated the weapons and ammo, assembled and loaded their weapons, and then repacked them in locked boxes that would be easier to get to than the double walled crates. Each of the mud huts would have a store of weapons and ammo. While inside the compound, no one carried a weapon. They were wearing shorts and were supposed to be civ
ilians—with the locals dropping in all the time, they couldn’t risk raising suspicion. Night time was a different story. After dark, when everyone went to bed down for the night, everyone had a weapon within arm’s reach.
Mackey sent Dex Murphy an encrypted email, since it was five hours earlier in Langley, advising him that they were fully operational and preparing to start gathering information. The first orders of business would be to start building relationships with the local fishermen, and then a visit to nearby Buwali to meet the neighbors. As soon as it was practical, they would start snooping around to find the PAC and any leads on Nigel.
By noon, local time, they were all ready to eat again. Julia, having heard comments and rumbling stomachs, walked out to the shoreline of the lake and started screaming in French to the fishermen. They waved back and started heading in towards her. Cascaes followed her down and asked her what she was doing.
“We have a choice. Plastic meat-product in a sealed foil packet that requires hot water and Alka-seltzer, or, fresh fish right out of the lake. What sounds better to you?”
Cascaes laughed. “You know, the way to a man’s heart is through…”
She interrupted him. “That’s not how I got to yours,” she said and then quickly smacked his butt.
He turned red and looked around, praying no one saw that, and luckily they were alone.
“I can have you charged with striking an officer,” he said quietly, with a big grin.
“What if I let you spank me back?” she said in her sexiest voice. They started moving closer, dying to kiss each other, when the fishermen began calling out to them. Julia laughed.
“Just in time,” she said, and then began yelling back in French. They stood together, wanting to hold hands or something, but behaved, and waited for the boats to arrive with fresh caught fish. It was a nice moment, standing by the lake with a cool breeze blowing away the heat of the day, watching the boats come in silently. The men rowed to shore, holding up dozens of fish that were strung together. They were the blackest men either of them had ever seen, from years of working outside in the African sun. The men smiled, their missing teeth showing in the sun.
When the boats were close enough to the gravel shore, the men hopped out of their boats and pulled them in, walking to Chris and Julia with their fish in one hand, and the rope to hold the boat in the other. They were all speaking to Julia, each of them telling her how good his fish were. They chatted for a while, the fishermen’s good nature showing through their big smiles. They were obviously thrilled to have customers for their fish, and their smiles were contagious.
The three of them each gave Cascaes huge strings of fish, between twenty and thirty on each, with each fish being almost a foot and a half long. Julia spoke to them for a while and then they waved and hopped back in their boats to continue fishing out in the Lake.
“Don’t we have to pay for them?” asked Cascaes.
“Yes, but we have a ‘house account’ evidently. They said they’d be by every day and then come to see us one day for what sounded like a picnic.”
“A picnic?”
“I’m not really sure. It wasn’t exactly French, but it sounds like they are planning a party or something. Whatever it is going to cost, trust me, we can swing it. I think these people make fifty dollars a year.”
Chris and Julia walked back to the compound with the fish, stopping once for a quick check to make sure no one was around, and then sneaking a long kiss. Julia whispered, “Can’t you find a secret mission for Moose, Theresa, and Mac tonight that would get them the hell out of the house for a couple of hours?”
Chris laughed. “Yeah, well, actually, I think Mac is going out tonight. Unfortunately, I’ll be going with him.
12.
It had been a busy day, breaking once for fish roasted over the fire for lunch, and then again for a dinner of MREs. They all sat around the big campfire together to have dinner and relax. Everyone agreed they’d rather eat the same kind fish every day for a year rather than the MREs.
Mackey laughed when they complained about the MREs. “Oh, quit your bitching. When I was in Vietnam and you either weren’t born yet or were still poopin’ in your diapers, we had to eat C-rations. I swear to God, they were left over cans from the Korean War. If you think vacuum-packed steak is lousy, try eating twenty-year-old shit on a shingle. We ate the dead dogs we found rather than that shit.”
“Oh nice,” said Theresa.
“You think I’m kidding? We used to go down to the river and pick up the dead dogs after the river boats had gone by and wiped out the shoreline. Then we’d bring them over to Mama-san and she’d cook ‘em up with these little bottles of hooch she made. She’d bring us these little green coke bottles filled up with some kind of sake or something that would take the paint off the trucks, and we’d eat the dogs and drink until we passed out. The dog was better than the C-rats, trust me.”
“Oh man, that’s just wrong, dude,” said Earl Jones with a groan.
“No, man—I’ll tell you what was wrong. I was in a little shop near Saigon once buying some food that was actually edible. So I go in, and there’s a little old lady sitting with a puppy in her lap in the front of the store. I made the mistake of telling her I liked her dog on the way in. By the time I was walking out, the dog had been skinned, filleted, butchered and put into brown paper for me to take home. That was wrong, man.”
The entire group was silent. Finally Theresa said, “Please tell us you’re kidding.”
“I wish I was,” said Mackey.
“Well there goes my appetite,” said Theresa.
“Yeah, well you already ate about ten fish anyway,” said Moose with a laugh, which got him a shot in the ribs from Theresa.
The group continued to swap stories and enjoy a moment of relaxation together until Mackey put on his game face. He leaned closer and lowered his voice, and everyone immediately stopped speaking.
“Tonight, after dark, we’re doing a little recon. About four miles back towards Kalemie the Chinese have set up an ‘aid station’—more like a large military base. The place is guarded by a few thousand PAC guerrillas being trained by Chinese advisors. Of course, they’ll tell you that they are just security guards for the food being shipped in by the Chinese, but that’s a crock of shit. They have brand new uniforms and Chinese automatic weapons.”
“Don’t forget about the cute yellow berets,” added Cascaes.
“Right,” said Mack. “So at least you can spot them easily. There is a very minor possibility that Nigel may still be alive. If he is, and he’s still in Africa, that’s most likely where he’s being held. We’ll take a midnight stroll tonight and check it out. Everybody carries heavy, but we are recon only tonight. Get some sleep. We’re up at midnight and traveling on foot.
“It will take an hour to get there. I figure we snoop from one to three and get back by four. We’ll break up into smaller teams once we get there. Jon, you’ll stay with your dive buddies—McCoy, Jensen and O’Conner plus Woods and Koches. I’ll take Moose, Ripper, Hodges, Stewart, and Theresa. Chris, you take Jones, Jules, Smitty, and Ernie P. I don’t want any contact tonight, but if something goes wrong and you have to take somebody out, do it silently and bring the body out with you. Somebody goes missing, they’ll probably assume it was a deserter. They find a body and we’ll have a war started out here. Any questions?”
There were none, so everyone finished eating and headed back to their huts to grab some sleep. Mackey, Cascaes, and Cohen went back to the “command hut” (Mackey and Cascaes’ residence) and opened a laptop. Mackey had already marked the location on the GPS map, and they pulled up a satellite photo of the area. With the photo zoomed up tight, they could make out rows of long cabins with a fence around the rectangular camp that included towers in the corners.
Cascaes laughed at the picture. “Yeah, looks just like an aid station. And the
government doesn’t do anything about this?”
“They can’t unless they are prepared to commit to a full scale war, which they can’t afford. They’ve been begging the UN, but the UN says there are no reports of hostilities, which is true. There never are—right up until the genocide begins. This government is pretty broke. Their entire army isn’t much bigger than the PAC, and their weapons aren’t new. I saw border guards carrying bolt action rifles that were older than me—probably from the first Congo War. They wouldn’t fare so well against the latest Chinese Type-81 assault rifles.”
Mackey explained their approach through a grassy area where they’d have to watch out not only for sentries, but for cheetahs and other animals that might want to eat them. They would get close enough to look at the camp from all sides, taking pictures and gathering whatever information they could, and then reassemble and leave the same way they had come.
When they were satisfied that they knew their way around the camp as well as their route from their home base to the target location, they called it quits. Jon returned to his hut, and Mac and Cascaes lay down on their sleeping bags and tried to sleep.
13.
Mac’s alarm went off on his watch a few minutes before midnight. They were up and dressed in camouflage fatigues within five minutes, then used black and dark green grease paint on their faces and hands. Weapons were checked and loaded, and they walked outside to gather with the rest of the team. Moose handed out coffee that he had been kind enough to make a few minutes before everyone else was awake.
African Dragon Page 6