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’ m still feeling generous. First, you
are going in alone at the specific request of the client. They
decided it ’ s
better to send one man instead of four--- “
     
    “ Why, because
it ’ s
cheaper? ”
     
    “ Yes. Welcome to
the world of military on demand, boy. We ’ ve got half a dozen suspected
weapons stockpiles headed for Nkunda ’ s men on the Zambian border. The
client is willing to hire a full fire team, but
they ’ re insisting
on hitting all six sites at the same time. They
don ’ t want to set
off any alarms and risk losing the weapons in the mountains.
That ’ s where you
come in. Do you know why they sent you and me down here to fight
their little war? ”
     
    “ Because
we ’ re so hard up
for work we ’ ll
take whatever scraps we can get. ”
    “ Because
we ’ re both black
enough to blend in with the locals and because
you ’ re supposed to
be some kind of special operations super ninja. ”
     
    Trent stole a
glance around the room to make sure they weren ’ t being watched. “ We
don ’ t exactly
blend in with the Bantu. ”
     
    “ Fuck the Bantu.
And fuck the bright white, no neck Klansmen Trident normally loves
to hire. The fact of the matter is if you do your job right, it
will only take one person. You get in, you do the deed and you get
the fuck out. You don ’ t need four people for that. ”
     
    “ Yeah, I got
it. ” Trent stood
up from the table, leaving his whisky untouched.
     
    Tolbert leaned
back with a confused look on his face. “ Don ’ t you want me to deal with your
other important concerns? ”
     
    Trent imagined
grabbing the sweaty man by his lip and his cheek and dragging him
across the table and out of the bar. Then he remembered the shit
list. “ No thanks.
I think I understand how deeply you don ’ t give a fuck. ”
     
    “ Good, ” Tolbert stood as if he had achieved a moral victory. “ I need to take a piss
anyway …”

Chapter Two: The Road to Hell
     
    The trip to the CNDP camp took
three days, which gave Trent plenty of time to think about his
mission, his life and the ironic futility of both.
     
    Kolwezi was an
industrial river town in the Democratic Republic of Congo and about
as far from his old stomping grounds of Iraq and Colombia as you
could get. But Trent went through great pains to ensure no admirers
from his previous missions followed him. Before arriving, Trent
wandered through several cities in Europe over a period of two
weeks pretending to be a tourist. He took three indirect flights to
Congo under two separate identities. He ’ d shipped his gear separately from
Sali, Morocco under a dummy corporation Baker set up years earlier.
He didn ’ t rent a
car and he paid for his modest hotel room in Congolese
francs.
     
    Trent had no
reason to suspect surveillance, but he still left his hotel after
the sunset, going through and extensive SDR through the streets of
Kolwezi to ensure he wasn ’ t being tracked before he left town.
Who knows what men like Tolbert would reveal while having
operational meetings over a few beers at the local
bar.
     
    The details of
his mission would be interesting to several dubious parties.
Laurent Nkunda was a former DRC Army commander who left government
service to become a Tutsi warlord. Now, he led the CNDP against the
government ’ s FDLR
forces and the United Nations to take towns on the DRC Zambian
border. No one in the real world cared which African factions
fought each other or why, but they did care about the economic
impact.
     
    Nkunda ’ s war
made mining diamonds and coltan difficult in the disputed areas.
Several Chinese mining companies lost money because of Nkunda. They
decided he needed to be stopped. But they couldn ’ t call in the Chinese military to
solve their problems. That would be a breach of national
sovereignty and diplomatic protocol. They hired Trident Security to
do the job instead. Tolbert set up the operation, sent Trent into
the wilderness and then went back to