by James Steel
Inside is a wide low room with tables and chairs. It’s already getting busy with diners tucking into excellent Lebanese kebabs, fatush, falafel, and hummus. Two chubby Lebanese businessmen, smoking cigars and fiddling with their worry beads, look up as the army chief passes. He nods to them and they smile back nervously.
The commander sits at a reserved table near the back of the room and people begin coming up to him offering to buy him drinks and chatting. He drinks a Primus beer from a long glass and talks and laughs with various local businessmen and Lebanese comptoirs. The white NGO workers eye him nervously.
His wife drinks cocktails and goes for a dance with some friends; the music is a mix of Congolese and Western.
At one o’clock the commander and his wife leave the club and get back into their BMW. The two men in casual suits follow them out and one speaks quietly into his jacket lapel in the shadows. A passer-by neatly hands the other man a small rucksack and walks on down the pavement without any comment. Both men then get onto a motorbike and follow the convoy as it pulls out from the kerb.
The two jeeps and the BMW make their way back out of town; there is no traffic now, security concerns keep most people at home at night.
The Mitsubishi minivan pulls in in front of the convoy as it leaves Goma and heads out onto the deserted road by the lake.
Chapter Fifteen
Alex continues his talk to the Chinese, Rwandan and Kivuan audience in the small room in Kigali.
‘So what is the solution to the problem? How can we intervene successfully in a state to end an insurgency without at the same time undermining its government and provoking an uprising? We need to do a better job than in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
‘We believe that the solution to the problem lies in a strategy that we call partnership intervention. What this means is that rather than just being an invasion and a complete replacement of the existing institutions the military effort will simply support the existing power structures.
‘We have to be realistic in this operation; we are not a superpower and will not have many men. But we will have enough to give the new government the threat of credible force that it needs to make the insurgents come to the negotiating table, sign a peace deal and actually disarm. To use an African proverb, the new state will talk quietly and carry a big stick. The Kivu Defence Force will be that stick.
‘So how will this work in practice? There are around thirty different militia groups in Kivu but the biggest and best organised is the FDLR. They are the key to solving all the problems of the region because most of the other groups say they exist simply to defend against their destabilising presence. If we can demonstrate to these groups that we have destroyed the FDLR then their raison d’être will disappear and it will also be a very powerful military signal to them that we mean business and can easily take them out if they don’t disarm.
‘Although all the militias together have around forty thousand soldiers against our force of a thousand, they are fragmented and their troops are poor quality. Also, we will be prepared to work alongside the Congolese army and the UN troops. With the granting of sovereign powers to President Rukuba the Congolese army should obey him and the UN will at least remain in base even if they do not actively cooperate with us. The situation will be fluid and we will respond as it demands.’
Alex knows that is the understatement of the century.
‘The military phase of the operation will be an aggressive air assault campaign of the speed and scale that the UN has not been able to mount. It will begin with a surprise attack to seek a decisive break-in battle with the FDLR to decapitate their leadership. We will maintain the advantage of surprise, hitting the enemy hard and keeping them on the run until we have destroyed their command and control networks.
‘The attacks have to be swift because in the past the FDLR’s response has been to fragment into small groups, disperse into the bush and wreak revenge on the civilian population.
‘After we have broken the back of the FDLR we will move to the second, non-military, stabilisation phase. This hearts and minds operation will focus on negotiations with and demilitarisation of the remaining militias. It will also require cooperation with UN and civilian NGOs to get former fighters into civilian jobs.
‘In terms of timing, kinetic operations will commence in a year’s time next May, at the start of the dry season to allow three months of clearer weather for intensive helicopter operations. The standard mercenary contract is for six months, so by next November we envisage a substantial draw down of the Kivu Defence Force foreign troops and a handover to the former Congolese army soldiers under the command of the Transitional Authority.’
Alex deliberately left out any discussion of what the exact nature of the Transitional Authority would be: democratic or some sort of managed capitalist dictatorship. The Chinese have been very cagey on the subject – they are aware of Western and UN sensibilities on the subject of democracy but at the same time this is their state that they are paying a lot of money for and they have their own way of doing things.
Alex felt that Rukuba seemed prodemocratic but he had not been party to any discussions between him and the Chinese. Ultimately it isn’t his job to run the political system. He is a soldier and has enough to think about in winning the war.
He moves on quickly to wrap up. ‘This will be a tough and rapid operation but I believe that at the end of it we will have established a new country with the mandate of heaven.’
The driver of the Mitsubishi minivan is careful to keep well ahead of the jeep full of armed soldiers. The motorcycle with two men on it following the convoy of three vehicles also keeps its distance.
As Brigadier General Sabiti’s BMW approaches a section of road running along the lakeshore the minivan slows and the motorcycle speeds up, sandwiching the general’s convoy between them.
The minivan slews violently across the road right in front of the lead jeep, which brakes hard to avoid it and swerves into the drainage channel at the side of the road.
The BMW and the other jeep manage to brake in time and screech to a halt. The soldiers in the back of the jeep are thrown around and drop their weapons.
The motorbike pulls up alongside the rear jeep. It is open-topped and the man riding pillion leans across and shoots the five soldiers with careful double shots from a silenced submachine gun.
The sliding door of the minivan whips open and four men dressed in civilian clothing and black balaclavas jump out and spray the lead jeep with silenced gunfire. The windshield shatters and the soldiers are riddled with bullets.
At the same time a group of black-clad Unit 17 commandos wearing balaclavas rise from the drainage ditch by the lake and fire on the lead jeep and the army commander’s car. The tinted side windows of the BMW spiderweb with the impacts.
Two pairs of commandos run forward, assault rifles aimed at the car. One pair pull open the front door and shoot the wounded driver dead. The other pair pull open the rear door.
Mrs Sabiti has taken the brunt of the gunfire. Her neat hairdo is askew from bullet wounds in her head and her white silk blouse is soaked red from shots to the body and neck.
Her husband has been winged by a bullet across the forehead and blood pours over his face. He cannot see and his hands scrabble frantically for the door handle.
A burst of bullets hit him in the back of the head and he slumps into the door.
The commandos check that all the occupants of the three vehicles are dead, pull the drivers out of their seats and hurriedly restart their engines.
The drivers of the minivan and the motorbike start up, load their passengers and drive away from Goma. A petrol tanker passes them on the other side of the road, its diesel gurgling and grinding in the quiet of the night. It pulls up fifty yards in front of the scene.
A commando quickly restarts the first jeep and backs it up out of the drainage ditch. The BMW is also restarted and straightened up on the road so that it faces the tanker, the handbra
ke is put on and the other jeep is driven up behind it and braked. While this happens other men swiftly check around the scene of the shooting to collect empty cartridge cases.
When they are ready, a quick radio order is given and the tanker driver accelerates forward and crashes into the BMW, crushing its bonnet under the front of the cab. He jumps down and the first jeep is driven up alongside the huge petrol tank.
A commando sets a device under it and the whole group then race back down the beach towards the two waiting speedboats.
As they head off into the darkened lake a flash of light and a huge blast behind them rips the night apart.
The head of the Chinese delegation, Mr Cheng, the Rwandan president and his chief of staff all applaud and nod appreciatively as Alex finishes the Q&A session.
There were a lot of tough technical questions from the Rwandans about timings, weapon systems and numbers of troops and helicopters. Mr Cheng was much more focused on the money: how much was it all going to cost, what were his budgetary assumptions and what was his contingency planning? Would the Kivu Investment Corporation get the return on capital required?
With the aid of his team Alex fielded the questions successfully. Arkady was authoritative, and surprisingly diplomatic in explaining the helicopter leasing deal. Yamba covered recruitment and training of the officers, NCOs and men, and Col did weapon systems and air assault tactics.
The meeting has gone well and all sides are satisfied with the plan. The five men in the audience stand up and start chatting to Team Devereux or moving forward to have a closer look at the various maps and charts on easels at the front of the room. Alex is now in full diplomatic mode, circulating, shaking hands and chatting with his employers. He has got to know the Rwandan Chief of Staff well and they have a strong mutual professional respect. The Chinese team have kept more distant and he has clashed repeatedly with Fang over budgets. Alex wants more helicopters but Fang thinks he has enough already.
After a certain amount of confused simultaneous bowing, back-slapping and handshaking, the meeting breaks up and Team Devereux head off back to their hotel. Alex nips back into the meeting room, past the armed guard on the door, to get his laptop.
He stands and looks at the charts and plans pinned up around him. He is coming down from the adrenaline high of the presentation and feeling tired after long hours of staff work in the months leading up to it. It was a bravura performance; he can hear his voice in the room, he sounded so authoritative and confident. But now the tension of the presentation has gone, the room feels empty and the animus of his ideas is absent. The maps and charts proudly proclaiming his grand plan look flat and insignificant, just bits of paper. He stands and looks at them and thinks, ‘Have I got this right?’
He glibly castigated the British and American commanders for the mistakes they made in Iraq and Afghanistan, but is he guilty of the same? There are so many variables that are just way beyond his control, things that are completely off the radar, out there in the darkness, areas he knows nothing about.
Could operational security on a project of this scale really be maintained? Kinshasa’s elite are notoriously fickle – could they be counted on to keep their mouths shut? At least they had played their part after the assassination of Sabiti, proclaiming it a tragic accident and appointing the more compliant Brigadier General Oloba to control the whole of Kivu.
But will he really be able to recruit a thousand good-quality soldiers from many different countries and train them into an effective, highly disciplined fighting force in the space of a few months?
And what will happen when they actually go over the border and begin combat operations? Despite what he said in the presentation it is going to be a messy, bloody battle. The FDLR has six thousand men based in difficult terrain and has been fighting in the province for nearly twenty years. They are not going to go quietly.
Finally, he knows that it is easier to start a war than to finish it. What is going to happen in the peace? Will the UN and US accept it? Will he be able to get the civilian NGOs to cooperate and help in the demilitarisation of the FDLR and other militia soldiers? Can he really trust Rukuba? He likes the man but really knows nothing about his past and the extent of his rumoured links to the Kudu Noir.
He collects his laptop and stands for a moment longer in the silent room.
Will this work?
Will it?
Chapter Sixteen
Gabriel is stuck in the narrow tunnel, underwater and in darkness.
He can’t see anything, he can’t breathe and he can’t move. The earthquake has compressed the tunnel on top of him.
He panics.
He thrashes around, pushing the sack of ore out of the way in front of him, trying to work his way forward.
His air is going, he can feel his lungs shrivelling inside him, gripping the remaining oxygen until they scream with pain.
Two hard hands grab his forearms and pull him forward. He twists his head sideways and it squeezes under the obstruction. Cold mud scrapes into his ears.
Another powerful pull from the hands and he pops up above the sump like a tight cork being pulled out of a bottle. It’s pitch black and he whoops in air. It’s foul and cold but tastes sweet to him.
‘You OK?’ says a face right in front of him.
He coughs mud, spits and grunts.
It’s Patrice, the FDLR soldier who went down the tube before him. In the Rift Valley area there is a lot of volcanic activity and Patrice is used to small tremors so when it hit and he felt the tunnel compress, he didn’t panic but managed to get out the other end, then turned round and dived back in to grab the person coming after him. He grips Gabriel’s arms and the men behind him holding his feet give another big heave and drag the two of them further out.
That night Gabriel lies in his rough wooden bunk in a hut in the manoir and tries not to think about the horror of the tunnel. But he can feel the cold clammy embrace of the mud squeezing his body.
He pulls his little stack of cash out from the slit in his thin mattress and counts the tatty dollar bills. He still hasn’t got enough yet to pay his family back for Eve’s treatment. He thinks about her and wonders how she is getting on after her operation. The last message he had from her family’s friend in the manoir said they won’t know for a while if the sutures have held.
He thinks about his narrow escape in the tunnel today and rolls the notes into a bundle and secures it with a rubber band. He says to himself, ‘There has got to be an easier way of making money than this.’
Sophie Cecil-Black puts down her mobile phone and turns to Natalie, her American colleague sitting behind her across the office. They are in the Hope Street headquarters at their youth training facility outside Goma.
‘That’s the third person I’ve talked to today who thinks something is up.’
Natalie is engrossed in typing a tricky bit on a Gantt chart to organise a community action project and ignores her for a moment until she has finished it.
‘Uh-huh.’ She swivels her chair round to face Sophie. ‘Something like what?’
‘Well, no one believes that Sabiti died in a tanker accident. I know Kinshasa says that but it’s just too convenient that Sabiti and all his bodyguards could die in one go with no witnesses.’
It’s been two days since Sabiti was killed and the province is buzzing with fearful rumours about what might be happening. People have seen many outbursts of violence in the past and they fear this might herald another one.
Natalie shrugs. ‘OK, but why would the government want to kill its top soldier in North Kivu?’
Sophie shakes her head, ‘I don’t know … but that was Félicien on the phone from Shabunda outstation and he says that all the government troops are very edgy and that FDLR soldiers have been on the move in the area.’
‘Well, what’s new about that? This is Kivu.’
‘Hmm.’ Sophie scratches the back of her head, gets up and walks over to the window. She stares at the view up into
the hills for a moment. ‘I just sometimes wonder if we actually know anything about what makes this place tick.’
Natalie picks up her coffee cup and comes to stand next to her.
Sophie continues angsting. ‘What I’m trying to say is, do we know what really makes things happen here? Nothing is as it seems in the Congo. You always know that someone is bullshitting you about something and I don’t think we ever really get a grip on what the dynamics are behind the scenes.’
Natalie sips her coffee thoughtfully. ‘Just the way it is.’
Sophie rounds on her in exasperation. ‘But that’s just not good enough! I mean, there were a lot of rumours in Rwanda before the genocide that something big was going to happen but none of the expats bothered to find out what was really happening! They did nothing!’
Natalie knows the anger isn’t directed at her, it’s just Sophie’s way. She shrugs. ‘Yeah, but come on, nothing like that is going to happen now in Kivu. The UN’s here and besides no one really gives a shit about Kivu. It’ll just moulder away for decades like the Palestinians, nothing’s gonna change that.’
Alex is sitting in a meeting room in a cheap furnished office, rented by the day, near Heathrow.
Yamba dishes out copies of a brief summary he has typed up of the next candidate they will interview in the session. They started at eight o’clock and it’s now mid afternoon. It has been a packed day so far and they still have eleven more people to see.
The candidates for the company and platoon commander posts in the Kivu Defence Force are all from personal contacts and have been coming in from all over the UK, Europe and North America. They need to get their officers in place quickly before they can then recruit their NCO cadre. It’s July, three months after Alex’s first meeting with Fang, but they still need to get on with it in order to allow enough time to get the troops selected and the whole unit trained up together in Rwanda to an operational level for the assault next May.