African Dragon (10 page)

20.

The early morning hours brought chaotic activity to the PAC “aid station.” The word was out that anyone who showed up would be guaranteed work building a road and entire nearby villages were showing up. Men, women and children arrived with primitive tools or nothing at all, anxious for a chance to earn “double rations,” as it had been explained to them.

The PAC soldiers helped organize the huge crowd into smaller work groups that would be led by either village elders or PAC soldiers. Shen Xun-jun and two of his officers had informally surveyed the fields around the base the night before. They had chosen the flattest ground and aligned the runway with the prevailing winds as best they could. Using diesel for the generators, they had torched the area in the morning and burned off as much of the brush, grass and trees as possible. With the thousands of workers they now had, leveling and clearing what amounted to a quarter mile road wouldn’t be an enormous undertaking. It also provided the PAC with another recruiting opportunity.

Shen Xun-jun was driven out to the huge crowd by Sergeant Major Han. When they had arrived near the center of the chaos, the general stepped out of the car and handed his bullhorn to Sergeant Major Han, who would translate into French. The thousands of Africans would in turn retranslate into another half dozen tribal languages—Swahili, Kongo, Lingala, Kingwana, Kikongo, and Tshiluba.

Shen Xun-jun put his hands on his hips and walked stiffly as he addressed the huge crowd, looking more like Hitler than a Chinese officer. “People of the Democratic Republic of Congo! The People’s Army of Congo is here to help rebuild your country. We will build an airport and bring in food and medicine for your children! We will build hospitals and schools and end the government corruption! Today, you will build a runway for relief planes to bring your people the help you need! Work hard! Work to rebuild your country!”

The people cheered and clapped, although a bit half-hearted. Many of them were still trying to translate from the sergeant major’s poor French. They understood “work,” “food” and “medicine,” and that was enough for most of them. Sergeant Major Han then began barking out orders to the PAC soldiers, who quickly began shouting at the huge crowd. Within moments, thousands of men, women and children began digging out rocks and stumps to clear the long runway.

The PAC soldiers had the huge crowd spaced out along one long end of the runway, and basically had the crowd work their way across the marked out area. Children pulled out small rocks and burnt wood while men and women worked like animals digging out rocks, some of which weighed hundreds of pounds. The most interesting obstacle was a seven-foot termite mound. Its hardened shell required dozens of strong men using hammers, sticks and rocks to break it apart. As the termites swarmed, women and children eagerly picked them up and collected them for later—they would add to the evening’s dinner—a local delicacy.

By noon, the temperature was over eighty degrees, and the villagers had stripped down to shorts or loincloths. The PAC soldiers wore their uniform pants and boots, something new for most of them, and they were having a hard time with the heat because of the extra clothes. The smallest children were used as water porters, and they moved through the huge crowd bringing water from a well the Chinese had drilled. For themselves, the Chinese treated the water; for the Africans, it was drawn and served right out of the ground, but it was a deep well, and the water was cleaner than what the villagers drank from the lake.

The workers sang African songs and worked cheerfully, even though the sweat ran down to their feet. The soldiers wearing boots sloshed in their wet socks. General Shen marveled at how fast they were working—as good as any Chinese work crew he had ever seen—and thought they would make good workers at their new uranium mines in the coming months. Shen Xun-jun walked to his truck and barked at Sergeant Major Han to drive him back to his office. Once there, he instructed Sergeant Major Han to take some PAC soldiers and a truck and drive out to one of the lake with some villagers to get some fish. He would feed these people well, and continue to build his army.

Sergeant Major Han snapped a salute and ran to find a few reliable PAC soldiers and a large truck. They would drive out to one of the larger villages on the lake, a place called Buwali.

21.

While Mac, Cascaes and the others sat around the morning campfire back at the fish farm discussing their next move, a Chinese Army transport vehicle rumbled into Buwali. Two Chinese soldiers and two PAC soldiers stepped out in the center of the village. Unlike the “Canadian” fish farmers, these men made no bones about showing off their new Chinese machine guns. The Chinese officers, in particular, looked about as much like relief workers as Nazi storm troopers.

Sergeant Major Han spoke to his PAC soldiers in French. “Tell them we need as much fish as they can provide. We have rice, corn, flour and powdered milk. We also have Congolese francs if they want cash. We will buy their cattle, too, if they will sell them.”

The PAC soldier translated to one of the village elders who had come out to speak with them. The old man was more cautious with these men than he had been with the Canadians. These men were armed, and the village elder vividly remembered the last Congo war. The armed Africans were scarier to him than the Asians. The old man smiled and told him their fishermen would love to sell them fish. He didn’t mention Canadians visiting the day before.

The chief of the village, Ma-fafe, approached the men with a cautious smile. He too, saw the weapons and was worried. Whole villages had disappeared during the last war between the Hutus and Tutsis, and men with weapons were a scary sight in Africa. Ma-fafe greeted the guests and spoke with the other elders about their request to buy fish. The chief was very pleased—two new customers in the same week, this was big. He asked how much they needed, and through the translators was told “all they could catch, as fast as possible.” The chief tried to explain that there were more fish in the lake than would fit in the truck, but the Chinese man in charge said they would get more trucks if needed. They had many mouths to feed.

The chief asked when he wanted the fish and was told “now.” He smiled and started speaking out loudly to his people. Word traveled fast, and within moments, every able-bodied person in the village was getting into a boat. The entire village was singing and preparing to fish while the PAC soldiers were unloading the bags of supplies. Buwali was a busy place.

***

Jon Cohen and his three divers were north of their fish farm looking for Frontosas. While it really didn’t matter what kind of fish they caught, after all, this was just a cover story, Jon really liked the big striped fish with the huge bumps on their heads. They hadn’t traveled this far north before, and were surprised by the number of fishing boats.

“Looks like the whole village is out today,” said McCoy.

“Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing,” said Jon. As they moved further north, more and more of the small boats appeared until there were hundreds out on the lake.

“Damn, man. I didn’t think there were that many people in the whole
village
!” exclaimed O’Conner.

Jon watched and turned his boat towards the fishermen. Buwali was off in the distance, visible along the dry rocky shoreline less than a kilometer away.

“You going to the village?” asked McCoy.

“Let’s just go check it out,” said Jon. “If these guys bring us all these fish, we’re screwed. We can’t handle this kind of quantity.”

Jon revved the outboard and skipped over the small chop towards the old village, fishermen waving as they cruised by. As they neared the village, they had to slow down to avoid upsetting the small canoes that were everywhere. Villagers used nets as well as hand lines and were pulling up fish everywhere. As they passed one small dugout canoe, a young boy held up a giant carp almost as big as he was. The men slowed down and applauded the boy, who was smiling ear-to-ear and puffing out his chest proudly. He was maybe eight years old.

Jon slowly maneuvered their boat through the canoes as they approached the shoreline. It wasn’t a sand beach, more like gravel and hardened earth and rock. McCoy hopped off the bow into the water and grabbed the bowline to lead the boat into the shallow water as Jon killed the engine and raised the outboard.

Jensen was the first to see them. “Hey, Skipper—be cool, but there are two guys up there with machine guns. Shit—make that four. Two Chinese with the Africans.”

Jon’s stomach dropped. “Shit,” was all he could muster. “We can’t split without raising suspicion. We’re Canadian fishermen here to buy some fish for our camp, that’s all. Try not to talk too much. O’Conner, your French is better than mine, you do the talking.”

All four of the men were trying to be cool, but none of them had weapons, unless you counted fishing nets. McCoy pulled the boat in until the bow brushed the grassy bottom, and then he threw the anchor off into the water and pulled it tight into some rocks. The other three hopped into the water, wearing only shorts and swim shoes, and walked up the shoreline to where dozens of women cleaned hundreds of fish of every shape and size. The fish guts and scales were collected by small children for use as fertilizer in their small home gardens. The cloud of flies that followed them was proof of the wonderful aroma.

The four men walked up towards the village and saw Chief Ma-fafe walking towards them. He looked a little nervous, but smiled and greeted his friends from Canada.

O’Conner tried his best.
“Bonjour, je voudrais acheter les poisson
.”

Jensen looked at McCoy. “What did he say?”

“I think he tried to ask him to buy some fish,” he whispered back.

The chief spoke too quickly for O’Conner to understand, but he was pointing at the Chinese men up the hill and sadly shaking his head at the request. O’Conner listened for a while and finally turned to Jon and said, “I think the Chinese guys are buying all the fish. Sounds like he already has a deal to sell them and can’t spare any. But honestly, Jon, my French is so bad he might have just asked to marry your sister.”

Jon laughed. “Which one?” he asked. Jon smiled at the chief and said goodbye, then started to move backwards towards the boats, but it was too late. The Chinese officers and their two PAC goons approached them with their weapons slung under their arms. The uglier of the two Chinese men spoke first to the four white men, first in French, and then, when they gave no sign of understanding, in English.

“What you doing here, American?” asked the pug faced man.

Jon smiled and extended his hand. “I’m Canadian, actually. Name is John Murphy. You speak
Engrish
?”

The Chinese man didn’t shake his hand.

“We run the fish farm down the river. We export tropical fish. Live fish, not the kind you eat.”

“What you do
here
?” he repeated, sounding more than slightly menacing.

“We were trying to buy some fish for dinner,” said Jon, dropping his hand.

“You said you fisherman. Why you come here buy fish?”

“Like I said,” repeated Jon, “We catch tropical fish to export
alive
as
pets
. We don’t have fishing hooks and gear for larger
food
fish.”

The two Chinese men spoke to each other quickly in Chinese, perhaps deciding whether or not to make fish food out of the four visitors, while the four SEALs stood, feeling helpless in front of the men with the assault rifles.

“Well, if you guys need all the fish, I guess we’ll try and figure out something else,” said Jon. He turned his back and started walking back to the boat waiting for bullets in his spine.

The Chinese men continued speaking to each other and ignored the dive team as they went back to their boat. They ordered the villagers to just throw the fish into the trucks without bothering to clean them. They were in a hurry. McCoy walked quickly next to Jensen and O’Conner and whispered, “Just keep moving…”

22.

The dive team did twenty-eight knots—top speed—for the entire trip back to the fish farm.

“Last time we go anywhere without packin,’” said Jensen. “I hated standing there while those fuckers decided whether or not to kill us.”

“I hear ya,” said Cohen. “We’ll run it past Mackey.”

They arrived back at the farm in almost half the time of the trip out and tied off at the rickety wooden dock. The four of them jogged up the small hill to where the campfire was usually burning. Sure enough, Mackey and Cascaes were chatting by the fire. They spotted the foursome running up the hill and stood.
Something
was up.

Jon spoke first. “Hey, Skipper—we made contact with the PAC today. By accident.”

Mackey raised his eyebrows. “What happened? Where?”

“We went north to fish and saw hundreds of little fishing boats out of Buwali—”

Mackey interrupted him. “Hundreds? Slight exaggeration?”

“No, sir. Hundreds. I think the villagers had everything that could float out on Lake Tanganyika. So we went to Buwali to see what was up. The Chinese are what was up. Two dinks, maybe officers—they had that sort of look, and two Africans, PAC, I assume. All four were carrying Type-81 Assault rifles.”

“And they saw you?” asked Cascaes.

“Hell, yeah. We talked to them. We went into the village and saw the chief. We were going to ask him what was up when these four thugs come down with guns out. The head Chinaman wanted to know what we were doing there…assumed we were Americans, but we stayed with our story. Anyway, it was hairy for a couple of minutes. We weren’t armed.”

“But we will be next time,” said Jensen, still looking pissed.

“Easy there, Sergeant Rock,” said Mackey. “You are a Canadian dive team catching fish, not American SEALs, remember?” He looked back at Jon. “So what happened?”

“Well, after we insisted we were just there to buy fish, they told us they needed all of the fish for themselves, and we split.”

“They know where you were coming from?” asked Cascaes.

Jon grimaced. “Yeah, we had to stick to our story, so I played it like a regular event, ya’ know? Like it was no big deal, but yeah, they know where to find us now.”

Cascaes nodded. “Okay, you did the right thing, but we have to rethink what we’re going to do now. We’re not set up to defend this position against a few thousand armed guerrillas.”

Mackey made a face. “You think they bought your story, Jon?” he asked.

“I have no idea, Skipper. They didn’t shoot us, which they could have done, but I guess that would have tipped off the villagers that they aren’t ‘the knights in shining armor here to save the country’ that they say they are.”

“Damn,” said Mackey under his breath. “If we split, they’ll know something is up. If we stay, they have the option of killing us whenever they want. Here’s what we do: starting now, the fish farm is run by you four. They saw you guys, but that’s all they saw. As long as the villagers don’t go blabbing, they won’t know about the rest of us. Hell, if they were to come here and ask about us, you could just say we were bringing fish to Luano Airport in Lubumbashi. We’ll set up defensive perimeters and begin night watches from outside the compound. Sorry to say, you four get to stay as cannon fodder.”

Jon nodded. “No problem, Skipper. What do you think if we sleep out by the dock? If the shit hits the fan, we can always boogie to Tanzania or something.”

Mackey looked at Cascaes. “Not a bad idea. Okay, fine. You guys can set up down at the lake, keep plenty of extra ammo down with you and make sure the boat stays gassed up with extra fuel, secure coms and weapons on board. We’ll be camping out in the bush outside the compound and setting motion detectors for night time security. Everybody takes turns on watch—two hours intervals. We’ll take another poke around Buwali and see if the PAC is staying there, or just looking for food. Maybe their MREs suck as bad as ours do.”

Cascaes laughed. “Hard to fuck up rice.”

“You never tasted my ex’s cooking. She could fuck up water,” said Mackey. “Okay, get everybody to the campfire and we’ll brief the rest of the crew. I liked this better when they didn’t know we were here yet.”

“Sorry, boss,” said Jon, “My fault.”

“No, it’s okay. I would have gone to the village if I was there with you. Don’t sweat it. All you did was push our schedule up a day or two. They would have found out we were here, anyway. Let’s just hope they bought the story and are busy with other things.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Cascaes.

***

Sergeant Major Han watched as the endless line of Africans filled the back of their truck with fish, some of which were still gasping. Major Wu, not an officer to usually ask the opinions of NCOs, walked over to his sergeant major and spoke quietly.

“Sergeant Major Han—do you think they were Canadians or Americans?”

The sergeant major, surprised to be asked for his opinion, bowed politely and thought about his response for a moment.

“Would not Americans have been armed, Shao Xiao?” he asked. “They looked frightened, not cocky like the Americans I have seen on television.”

The major scowled and thought it over. “I will report this to General Shen. Perhaps the local chief can tell us something.”

The sergeant major bowed, snapped a salute, and ran off to find Ma-fafe with his two PAC soldiers right behind him. Ma-fafe wasn’t far away, watching his people unload basket after basket of fish. The village would be very rich if this customer returned regularly.

Sergeant Major Han approached the chief and asked him in French if he knew the white men. The chief said, yes, and explained they ran the fish farm down the lake. His men brought them live fish for pets in Canada, not the big fish for eating. Sergeant Major Han thought about it for a moment and asked how long the fish farm had been there. When the chief, not fully understanding what he was being asked, responded that the farm had been there for many years, Sergeant Major Han felt relieved. He ran back to the major and spoke quickly.

“I am pleased to report that the men have been there for many years and do, in fact, run a fish farm for exporting fish back to Canada. They are fish the Canadians keep as pets, not food.”

Major Wu smiled, something rather out of character for ‘His Grouchiness’. “Good. We can continue our work without interference for the time being. Get these fish loaded and we will return to base.”

Sergeant Major Han watched as the endless line of Africans filled the back of their truck with fish, and smiled.