Hostile Territory (A Spider Shepherd short story)

by Stephen Leather

  Geordie grinned. ‘That’s you sorted then, but what are the rest of us going to drink?’

  ‘Ask someone who cares,’ Jock said. ‘Right, shit, shower and shave and back in the bar in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Shepherd.

  Shepherd let himself into his second-floor room, trying hard not to speculate on how many people might already have slept in the bed since the sheets were last changed. There was a small balcony, but there were bullet holes in the shutters, which did not seem a particularly good omen. He dragged his bed as far from the windows as it would go, exposing a thick carpet of dust where it had been standing. The tiles in the bathroom were cracked and the walls mildewed, and when he turned on the light, there was a rustling sound like dry leaves stirring in a breeze, as streams of brown cockroaches scuttled across the floor and disappeared beneath the bath and into cracks in the walls.

  He turned on the shower, more in hope than expectation. To his surprise a stream of brackish water flowed, albeit erratically, and he took his first shower in more than a fortnight. He trampled his filthy clothes underfoot as he showered, killing two birds with one stone. He dried himself on a threadbare towel, hung his wet clothes over the balcony railing and put on some clean ones. Feeling human again, he went downstairs.

  The other three had got there well ahead of him, and were sitting at a table in the baffa - the outdoor, tin-roofed drinking area overlooking the beach. Geordie and Jimbo were drinking bottles of beer while Jock had sequestered the bottle of whiskey. It was Jamesons.

  ‘Thought you only liked Scotch?’ said Shepherd, sitting down at the table.

  ‘Whiskey’s whiskey,’ said Jock. ‘And the Paddys make a decent enough drop of the hard stuff.’ He poured a large measure into a glass and pushed it across the table towards Shepherd.

  ‘Got any ice?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘The ice out here’ll give you the runs for a week,’ said Jock. ‘But neat whiskey will do wonders for your digestion.’

  Shepherd picked up the glass. He sniffed the whiskey and then took a cautious sip. He felt a warm glow spread out from his stomach and he grinned. ‘Nice,’ he said, then emptied the glass with one swallow.

  Jock laughed. ‘A convert,’ he said, and refilled Shepherd’s glass.

  Shepherd looked around the room. Despite the mosquitoes fogging the air, the relative coolness of the evening breeze was welcome. There were another dozen or so people in the outdoor bar, the usual Third World mixture of local fixers in shiny suits, Western carpetbaggers, wheeler dealers, arms traders and other dubious types who were always drawn to troubled countries like flies to shit. As the four SAS men drank and joked, Shepherd saw two men paying them particular attention. One was Arab-looking, balding and overweight with a gold Rolex on his wrist, and the other a younger man in a linen tropical suit wearing what appeared to be an orange and yellow striped MCC tie.

  When Shepherd had walked in they had been sitting on stools at the end of the bar but after a while they moved to the next table and struck up a conversation with the troopers. The Arab-looking man introduced himself as Farid and described himself as a Lebanese trader.

  ‘And I’m Jonathan Parker,’ the other said, ‘I’m a Brit, out here looking at a couple of business opportunities.’

  ‘And what line of business would that be?’ Shepherd said.

  ‘Oh, import-export, that sort of thing,’ said Parker. ‘It’s not every day I get a chance to buy fellow-Brits a drink in this tropical hellhole, so what’ll it be? Same again?’ Shepherd couldn’t help but notice that Parker had cleverly managed to stop any further questioning of what he was doing in the country.

  As he went to the bar, Jock and Shepherd exchanged a look. ‘We should have asked for Six drinks,’ Shepherd said.

  Farid looked blank, but none of the SAS men needed the cryptic comment explained. They’d all reached the same conclusion: Parker was a member of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service.

  The sky was darkening into dusk and Shepherd could see lightning already flashing over the mountains to the east. A few moments later, the bats flitting among the palms disappeared and a curtain of rain began to fall. Within seconds it was drumming on the corrugated iron roof and sending torrents of water sweeping through the street in a foaming brown tide.

  Thirty minutes later the storm ended as suddenly as it had begun, the floodwaters ebbed away and the evening chorus of frogs resumed. Clouds of mosquitoes again filled the air and the bats resumed hunting for moths drawn by the flickering glow of the lights. Street traders emerged from the doorways and shacks where they’d been sheltering and set up again around the hotel, lighting candles to illuminate their threadbare selection of goods.

  The lights in the hotel and in the buildings across the city flickered and died in one of the frequent power cuts, but after a few seconds of silence there was a rapidly growing noise of generators being fired up all over the city, a metallic chorus counterpointing the incessant croaking of the frogs.

  Parker returned from the bar with a second tray full of beers and, Shepherd noted with a smile that he had brought another soft drink for himself. Parker settled himself in his chair, raised his glass to them. ‘Cheers, lads,’ he said.

  ‘How long have you been in Sierra Leone?’ asked Shepherd. Parker had put a beer down in front of him but he was sticking to the Jamesons. He was rapidly acquiring a taste for the Irish whiskey.

  ‘Too bloody long,’ said Parker, neatly avoiding the question.

  ‘What can you tell us about the place?’ asked Jock, ‘other than the fact that it’s a shithole.’

  Parker smiled. ‘The infrastructure is rudimentary. Sierra Leone doesn’t even have a railway system. There was a single line with a couple of side-branches but it was only narrow gauge and in any event it closed twenty years ago. However, it does does have the third largest natural harbour in the world, and is one of the world’s biggest producers of bauxite and rutile…’

  ‘Rutile?’ Jimbo interrupted. ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘Titanium ore,’ said Parker. ‘The country is also a major producer of platinum, gold, chromide, iron ore, coffee and cocoa, but its greatest sources of wealth are the diamond fields. That’s why this little piece of Africa has been hit by a succession of coups, countercoups and civil wars. The diamond fields are what they call alluvial, which means they’re accessible to anyone with a shovel and a sieve and so there’s large scale illegal mining.’

  Jimbo grinned. ‘I can lay my hands on a shovel or too, lads? What do you say?’

  ‘Sierra Leone should be one of the richest countries in the world and yet by whatever yardstick you choose, it’s pretty much the poorest ,’ continued Parker. ‘Sierra Leone’s assets and the national wealth are all owned by foreign corporations or lodged in the Swiss bank accounts of politicians and generals. Bribery and corruption runs right through the government here, no matter what their politics. Civil servants and teachers go unpaid, so everyone has to steal in one way or another, just to survive. And since the government has no foreign currency reserves it’s still handing over what’s left of its dwindling stock of assets at knockdown prices. Even the mercenaries fighting here are paid in mineral rights, so all they’re interested in doing is protecting their diamond concessions, not fighting the rebels.’

  ‘And what about the diamonds?’ Shepherd said. ‘Who makes money out of them? The government?’

  ‘The trade in them is controlled largely by Lebanese traders like Farid here, and Israelis with connections to the international diamond markets in Antwerp,’ said Parker.

  Farid nodded eagerly. ‘I’ve been buying diamonds in Sierra Leone for more than twenty-five years,’ he said. ‘And even while the Civil War has been raging, I’ve still been able to buy a few carats here and there. But every year, even though the mines’ production remains much the same, there are less and less for sale.’

  ‘Because they’re being smuggled out of the country?’

/>   ‘Exactly,’ said Parker. ‘Liberia, just to the east of Sierra Leone, is one of the biggest diamond exporters in the world. There are even more diamond merchants in the capital, Monrovia, than there are in Antwerp.’

  ‘So what?’ Jimbo said. He was frowning and clearly having trouble following the conversation.

  ‘Just this: there are no diamond mines in Liberia,’ said Parker. ‘Every single one of the gemstones that are traded there every year has been plundered from Sierra Leone. The official figures say that two million carats of diamonds are produced for export from Sierra Leone every year, but unofficial figures suggest that at least twice that number are smuggled over the border. They’re known as “blood diamonds” for the obvious reason that an awful lot of blood is spilt in obtaining them.’

  ‘However,’ Farid said, ‘for the last twelve months, the flow of diamonds through Liberia and Sierra Leone has dropped dramatically. Yet production from the mines has actually risen slightly.’ He spread his hands, palms upwards. ‘What conclusions can we draw from that other than that somewhere in Sierra Leone there is now a large cache of illicit diamonds which everyone - governments, rebels, mercenaries and yes,’ he said with a smile, ‘traders like me, are trying to get their hands on.’

  There was a silence while the SAS men digested this. ‘Farid,’ Parker said eventually. ‘I wonder if I could have a private word with these gentlemen?’

  Farid pursed his lips in annoyance. ‘Do you not trust me, my friend?’

  ‘Of course I do. It’s just that this is…’ He paused as if groping for just the right word. ‘It’s… well it’s a delicate, personal matter.’

  ‘Very well, then. I have some calls to make in any case,’ Farid said, though his expression showed his annoyance. He prised himself out of his chair and lumbered off towards the lobby.

  Parker glanced around, making sure that no one else was within earshot. ‘Gentlemen, may I speak frankly for a moment? We are, are we not, in a similar line of business, and I’m guessing that you are at something of a loose end at the moment?’ He waited for a nod from Shepherd before continuing. ‘Then perhaps we may be able to help each other out a little.’

  Jock’s hackles were up at once. ‘Helping out Six has cost us a lot of men in the past, including friends of mine.’

  ‘Just hear me out, that’s all I ask. In theory the government controls the country but in practice it’s barely in control of the capital. The president is still only in his twenties and heads a military junta that has suspended the constitution, political parties and freedom of speech, and rules by decree. However, they’ve proved rather more successful at repressing their own population than at fighting the rebels. The RUF - the Revolutionary United Front - led by a former Army Corporal called Foday Sankoh, controls much of the country, including large parts of the diamond producing areas.’

  ‘Those army corporals can be bastards,’ Geordie said. ‘Just look what Hitler got up to.’

  Parker’s smile remained fixed. ‘The RUF’s first wave of recruits came from among the 80,000 refugees who had spilled into Sierra Leone, fleeing Liberia’s civil war. In a country in which almost every service had broken down and where there was virtually no paid work at all, many people joined the rebels willingly, hoping to be fed and to have some chance of grabbing a share of the loot being plundered on all sides. Those who did not volunteer were either forcibly recruited or killed. The RUF are backed by Liberia. They have no shortage of AK-47s and RPGs, and a few heavy machine guns, but they’ve no armoured vehicles, just Landcruisers, and though they’re usually too strong for the Sierra Leonean Army, they are poorly trained and ill-disciplined and no match for professional troops.’ He paused. ‘However if you should encounter them, you need to be aware that they are absolutely fearless. A mixture of narcotics and juju makes them feel they are invincible and unaffected by bullets, so you’ll have to kill plenty to stop them.’

  ‘We’ve met some already,’ Shepherd said. ‘They didn’t give us too many problems.’ His three colleagues nodded in agreement.

  ‘Are you also aware that many of the rebel fighters are boys, some as young as eight or nine?’ said Parker. ‘And young or not, they’re killers. One other thing, almost uniquely among rebel movements around the world, the RUF have no discernible ideology at all. They’re neither right wing nor left wing, they’re not fighting for a better world or to repel invaders or to overthrow the government, they’re just fighting for control of the diamond-producing areas. It’s all about money. Correction. It’s ONLY about money. The RUF have been in control of large parts of those areas for over a year and have used the revenues to buy more and more weapons, fuelling the civil war here and Charles Taylor’s brutal rule in Liberia. And in Sierra Leone, if you control the diamonds, you control the country.’

  Shepherd sipped his whiskey and wondered where the conversation was heading.

  ‘The SLA - the Sierra Leonean Army – are just as bad as the rebels,’ continued Parker. ‘They’re of almost no value to us in counter-insurgency. They’re not trained, they’re rarely, if ever, paid and even their rations are inadequate. They live with their families in what are called barracks, but most are just a collection of mud-walled, one-roomed houses, built by the soldiers themselves. They have to use money from their wages - if they’ve been given any - to pay for the corrugated iron sheets for the roof. In some barracks, they’re so short of space that two soldiers and their families share each tiny house. They’re supposed to get a uniform, a gun and one bag of rice a month. The senior officers have just cut that allowance in half, so that they can sell the surplus on the black market. It’s not only corrupt but very dangerous, because the last such cut in rations led to an uprising in which 6,000 people were killed in Freetown alone.’

  ‘And we bitch about our wages,’ said Geordie.

  Parker ignored the comment. ‘The civilian population is preyed on both by the rebels and by government troops, and for every soldier killed there are ten civilian deaths. Many local people call the SLA “sobels” - soldiers by day, rebels by night. The fighting often forces villagers to abandon their crops before they even have time to harvest them and some think that it’s a deliberate policy by the SLA; they collude with the rebels to terrify the villagers until they flee, then harvest the crops for themselves, either to eat or to sell on the black market. Many SLA soldiers have even been known to sell their arms and munitions to the rebels and some find they can do better by defecting to the rebels. Whether they do or not, they are often as brutal as the rebels and as prone to theft, rape, murder and looting. For protection, the civilians have increasingly turned to a grass roots militia called the Kamajors, though they can often be just as corrupt.’

  ‘Sounds like a bloody nightmare,’ said Shepherd.

  Parker nodded. ‘So to sum up: the entire country is up shit creek, in a barbed wire canoe, and without a semblance of a paddle. The rebels are probably only waiting for the end of the rainy season - any day now - before launching another offensive. The Nigerians and their allies have shown no interest in advancing beyond the airport perimeter and the South African mercenaries that you gentlemen ushered into the country a couple of weeks ago have, it seems, ignored their orders to engage the rebels and drive them back from the outskirts of Freetown, and abandoned any pretense of intervening on behalf of the government. Instead they have simply driven the RUF out of some of the most productive diamond mining areas and seized them for themselves.’

  ‘That’s what you get for using mercs,’ Jock said. ‘There is no task in this shithole of a country that the SAS couldn’t have done for you and it would have been equally untraceable back to HMG, but instead you chose to bring in South African mercenaries. Any one of us could have told you that they’re about as unsavoury and unreliable a bunch as you can imagine, a ragbag of thugs, renegades, soldiers of fortune, deserters from other armies and “kaffir-killers” from South Africa’s apartheid era bush wars.’

  Parker shrugged. ‘Our m
asters had their reasons,’ he said. ‘You know as well as I do that decisions are always made way above our pay grade. Anyway, mercenaries have been a fact of life in Sierra Leone for centuries. Slave traders used them, so did Western traders, but so too did tribal chiefs. The Mende tribe would rent themselves out to anyone, black or white, for a few pounds of tobacco, though they took their real rewards in the plunder they stole and the women they raped, and they grew so powerful that they were beyond the control of any government or army. The situation hasn’t changed, just the identity of those doing the raping and plundering.’

  ‘Hell’s bells,’ Jimbo said. ‘What a pit of vipers. So why would HMG use these bastards in the first place?’

  ‘Because they thought they were our bastards, of course,’ said Jock.

  ‘Little did they know,’ said Jimbo.

  Parker’s expression didn’t change. ‘Arguing about the rights and wrongs is pointless. We have to deal with the situation as it is, not as it was or as we’d wish it to be, and in the here and now there are two major problems to deal with. The RUF rebels remain in control of much of the country and continue to threaten the government, but we now also have another rogue element, the mercenaries. They are now in control of the richest diamond mine in the country and since they must know that their position will become untenable in the medium to long-term, we must assume that they are planning a fast exit, taking a fortune in diamonds with them.’ He paused, looking around the circle of faces. ‘So, assuming that you have no current designated tasks and that you’re free to take on targets of opportunity should they arise, there are a couple of ways in which you might be able to assist. As I said, the rebels comfortably outgun the SLA and they also have access to enough weaponry to discourage the ECOMOG troops from taking them on, but we have intelligence about a large RUF arms dump in the interior of the country. It is well protected, both by rebel troops and by natural features - it’s located on a large, lowlying island surrounded by a swamp. We don’t have the air assets available to take it out and nor do the Operational Squadron have the resources to attack it. They have their hands full with their own tasks, but if your patrol could find a way to do so, you would be rendering an invaluable service to the Sierra Leonean population as well as your country’s interests.’