The journey from the capital city, Kinshasa, to the North Kivu district was by private plane. A twin-engine Cessna that belonged to a UK mining corporation. They let him use it from time to time. They had little choice; if they wanted to pursue their mining operations unhindered they had to make certain concessions. In Kinshasa, Clement had attended to business matters. For these he wore a dark-blue Armani suit and cream shirt, which he changed several times a day to stay fresh. He liked to upset the preconceptions of the people he did business with, the Chinese and Indian businessmen who expected him to arrive in military get-up, greasy from the jungle, bandoliers swung over each shoulder.
Once the air-conditioned Mercedes reached the airport he’d changed into combat fatigues, ready to assume the role of commander over the forces that kept control of over half of the region’s coltan mines. Most of the area was under his command now, and the miners who weren’t knew they had to expect him to interfere with their exports, seize control of their shipments.
Clement pulled a small velvet jewellery bag from his top pocket and spread the blue-grey metal out on the tray in front of him. Columbite tantalite. Known to everyone in the Eastern Congo as coltan. You never knew what would become valuable, what mineral the rest of the world would suddenly decide it couldn’t do without. Rubber in the previous century, then industrial diamonds, gold for fillings and cables. Tantalum extracted from coltan. Its chemical inertness, high melting point and superb conductor qualities meant it was highly sought-after for capacitors in mobile phones and personal computers. Weapon technology too. Any kind of complex circuitry.
Clement shook his head. It was also extremely rare. Only one area in the world produced the metal in sufficient quantities and he had most of that area under his command. He didn’t care what they used it for, as long as the money ended in his Swiss bank account he was happy to keep control over the supply chain, disrupt the efforts of his competitors, use whatever means necessary.
He looked out the window at the lush green of the vegetation below. One of the most fertile countries on the planet, rich in mineral resources, but saddled with successive governments that were too weak, too fractured by infighting and ethnic wars to impose any kind of order. And the UN had spectacularly failed to prevent the fighting. It was a country where ruthless and uncompromising men like Clement could flourish. You either took control of that world, or it took control of you, he had discovered at an early age.
Monsieur Blanc was scheduled to arrive that afternoon. Flying into the same airstrip he was using. The unapologetically overweight Chinaman had provided him with a steady and reasonably priced supply of AK47s for many years, and had even supplied some of the larger American-built anti-aircraft rocket launchers they could bolt to the back of Toyota jeeps. He drew the line at landmines, which had surprised Clement, but he understood that every man had his limits, regardless of how illogical they might seem to an outsider.
It was Monsieur Blanc who had first mentioned the Internet bomb to him. Told him about a source he had in British intelligence who was developing a very particular type of remote detonation device, something to turn the virtual world on its head. Clement had listened politely, a patient smile on his lips. He had no interest in the devices themselves, in his world they would have little practical application, but he was at heart a trader, and he identified quickly the potential profit for such a device on the open market. His contacts in the Islamist militias knew people across the seas, Afghanistan militants with access to oil money, people who could use the technology and were prepared to pay a high price for it. So he had made some inquiries and agreed to meet the fat little Chinaman. He was confident he could secure a good price in the Middle East, whatever the capabilities of the device itself.
The plane tilted, signalling the start of its descent, a downwards swoop towards the runway that brought the lush green landscape closer to the window. His stomach lurched. The part of the journey Clement hated the most. There was always a chance a goat or chicken might wander into the path of the plane, get caught up in the wheels and send them careening into the undergrowth. The pilot held his line. A strip of pristine concrete a mile and a half in length, not the usual make shift jungle airfield of felled trees and flattened grass, reared up in front of them. It had cost Clement a small fortune to build, but when you were in the business of securing yourself a large fortune several times over it was well worth the investment. The wheels touched down with a jolt, the sudden deceleration, the pilot bringing the plane to a standstill, taxiing towards the soldiers grouped around an army jeep.
Clement let out a deep breath. If God had intended him to fly he would have given him wings, as his mother used to say. Instead he had given him a large and powerful frame, hands big enough to wring to the neck of a gazelle and an exceptionally high pain threshold. God had intended him to be a leader, a warrior. His feet should remain on solid ground. He resented having to put his fate in the hands of pilot, even for so brief a flight, regardless of the skill of the man. One of these days he would learn to fly himself. He would make the time.
“Welcome, our leader.” His second-in-command, Uko Nbochigando, addressed him in the local Bantu dialect, their mother tongue, as he climbed down the steps of the plane. The languages and dialects of the region were splintered into as many fragments as the different villages and traditions.
“I trust you had a good flight?” Uko asked, smiling broadly as he removed his aviator sunglasses. The deep scar above his left eye pulled the skin downwards, giving him a quizzical air. Clement didn’t offer any reply other than a grunt. The air was thick with humidity and he could already feel his army shirt sticking to his back.
“Let’s get going. I don’t like hanging around in the open,” he said as he climbed into the back of the jeep. His second-in-command nodded and signalled to the driver to move out. He knew Clement well enough to understand that flying put him in an irritable mood.
The jeep set off down a make-shift track toward their military camp, built in the grounds of a Colonial mansion that had once belonged to a Belgian rubber baron. An hour or so from the runway, depending on the rain and the number of holes that opened up in the dirt road. The Belgians were the first Colonial force to exploit the region’s resources, and they were certainly not the last.
The house the rubber baron built was an anathema in the eastern Congo, no sooner was it finished than the heat and humidity began to peel the paint from its walls, to fracture the elegant stucco and plaster work with unsightly cracks. Despite himself, Clement admired the spirit of the people who had insisted on imposing their will on this environment, forcing the jungle to retreat, cutting back the creepers and the vines, transporting tonnes of raw material along the river to build the place.
It was in a sorry state now, but some of the colonial grandeur remained. The white veranda with its stately columns intact, the tennis court just visible under the moss and tree roots that burst through the asphalt, the piano that played discordantly in what had once been a ball room, its wires rusted and sprung, wooden hammers warped.
Clement cast a glace about the courtyard, taking in the groups of children sitting smoking on ammunition crates, their eyes cold and empty as a spent cartridge, dulled by the work he made them do, the routine killing. They barely registered his presence; they were too busy cooking up bush meat on small fires. There were no salutes in this army. Enough order to ensure they followed commands, enough food to ensure they didn’t steal, and enough of the powerful jungle brew to ensure they didn’t feel. At least not for now. Most of them didn’t think to question his orders. By the age of ten or twelve they’d already been killing for too long.