He could tell that she wasn’t happy about the way the conversation had concluded, but she nodded and curled up on the ground next to Knight. Bishop continued to watch her until she was snoring softly.
The glowstick eventually faded to a dim green stripe, barely visible in the darkness, but Bishop did not sleep.
25
When King and Asya had first arrived in Kinshasa a few hours earlier, they had seen a city poised on the brink of chaos. At some point during their captivity, someone gave it a push.
Mabuki brought him up to speed as their convoy rolled back toward the city. “Shortly after you left the assembly, Army troops loyal to General Velle launched a coup from within the Palais de la Nation itself. They waited until I was away from the palace, looking for you, to make their move. They have taken several hostages, including President Okoa, your Senator Marrs and that woman, Favreau.”
Asya let out what sounded like a strangled laugh. She had recovered from her near drowning, but still looked like a drenched rat. Both of them were soaked through, and coated in a thin film of mud.
King accepted a canteen from one of the soldiers and drank a mouthful of lukewarm water. He swished it through his teeth to dislodge the muck, then let it dribble out unswallowed. A little more water spilled on his clothes wasn’t going to make much of a difference, but drinking water from an unreliable source was a good way to get the runs, and that was something he definitely didn’t need right now. Too late, he saw Asya guzzling from another bottle.
Oh well, he decided. Can’t be any worse than what we were just swimming in.
The thunderstorm had moved on, but it was still raining heavily. The streets were ankle-deep in water, and it was still accumulating faster than it could drain away. The rain kept most people inside, which was good, because there were soldiers everywhere — their red berets marked them as members of the Republican Guard, loyal to Mulamba’s government and under Mabuki’s direct command. This part of the city was controlled by pro-Mulamba forces, but if Mabuki’s report was correct, several divisions of the army had openly declared their support for General Velle, and now occupied more than a third of the city, including the important Gombe commune, where the Palais de la Nation and numerous other government buildings and foreign embassies were located.
King explained Asya’s reaction. “Favreau organized this. She’s the one giving them their orders.”
Mabuki’s brow furrowed. “This is a very serious accusation. She is here as a guest of the government, helping negotiate an end to this crisis.”
“Yeah, well I think she’s been negotiating a lot more than that. She’s a mercenary, working for an outfit called Executive Solutions.”
“Oui,” said Mabuki. “I have heard of them. They were in Angola. Very brutal men.”
“And women. She’s only interested in what’s best for her employers — which in this case is probably Consolidated Energy.”
The general considered this for a moment. “You told the assembly that President Mulamba is still alive. Is this true?”
“Last I heard. Favreau took my phone, so I haven’t been in contact with my team.” King thought Mabuki looked like he needed more convincing, so he added. “I would assume he’s on his way.”
“His return might not be enough to turn the tide,” Mabuki said. “Now that General Velle has made his move, there might be no way to prevent civil war.”
For the first time since he’d been given them, King found himself wishing for the instantaneous connectivity of the q-phones. The situation had moved beyond the point where he could advise the government forces on the best way to maintain stability. Now, every choice he might make was fraught with the potential for blowback. That however, was only one of the troubling thoughts occupying his mind. There was something else bothering him, a detail that seemed at first glance like a jigsaw piece mixed up with the wrong puzzle.
His mind kept turning over the moment where he had fired on the soldiers with the MP5 taken from one of the steroid twins. The mercenary, along with everyone else in the truck, was now dead. Mabuki’s Republican Guard forces had opened up on the army truck, strafing it with rounds from the turret-mounted DShK 12.7 mm machine gun, and setting the truck on fire in the process. King had lost the MP5 during the plunge into the drainage ditch, but he still recalled how it had felt in his hands, especially when he’d pulled the trigger. It had been heavier, with a lot more recoil than it should have had. He also remembered how it had devastated the bodies of the soldiers.
Bullets killed; that was their job, and they did so in a way that usually wasn’t pretty. Even so, some types of ammunition seemed designed to accomplish that grim purpose in a way that was almost sadistic. Overpressure rounds, like those he suspected had been in the magazine of the MP5, contained particles of heavy metal, loosely packed in the hollow core of the bullet. When the bullet was fired, the acceleration would compress the powdered metal against the rear of the hollow core, and then on impact with the target, the powder would be catapulted forward, creating a catastrophic shock wave that caused massive destruction at the cellular level.
Aside from their perceived inhumane effects, overpressure rounds were usually disdained by military forces for purely practical reasons. To accelerate the heavier payload to lethal velocity, the bullets needed more explosive force in the firing chamber. The added recoil not only made the weapon harder to use, but reduced its effective lifespan, and this was particularly true of semi-automatic weapons like the MP5. Firing overpressure rounds in a machine pistol was analogous to putting nitrous oxide in the carburetor of a sports car. You went faster, but at the cost of burning up your engine.
King wasn’t surprised that the mercenaries were packing overpowered ammunition. It was entirely consistent with their testosterone-fueled lifestyle. What bothered him was the sense that he had seen something like this before.
Still pondering the significance of this troubling detail, King turned back to the general. “Can you get me to a telephone?”
Mabuki smiled and produced a slim mobile unit that looked about ten years old. “Will this suit your needs?”
King took it and thumbed the power button. The backlit monochrome LCD display showed a strong signal. “I apologize in advance for the long distance charges.”
Mabuki waved a hand dismissively. “Let the government pay for it. That way, even if General Velle succeeds, we will still be able to stick it to him.”
King laughed and dialed a number.
There was a brief pause between the click of the connection being established and the mumbled greeting. The voice was groggy and irritable, not surprising since it was the middle of the night at the other end of the call, but the voice was still instantly recognizable.
“It’s King.”
The bleariness — an act, Deep Blue wouldn’t be sleeping much with the team in the field and under fire — was completely gone when the response finally arrived. “King. Thank God. What’s your situation?”
“For starters, I don’t have secure communication.”
Silence. The transmission lag was maddening. Carrier pigeons would be faster, King thought.
“I kind of figured that,” Deep Blue said. “Go on.”
“Pawn and I are fine, but things here have gone sideways.”