Blue Warrior by Mike Maden Read Free Book Online Page B

to give him a chance to handle this problem. There was a gentle knock on the door.
    Zhao smiled. “I believe my token of appreciation has arrived for you, General.”
    Tolo chuckled, and set down his snifter and cigar. He turned heavily in his chair toward the door.
    “Come,” Zhao said in a language Tolo didn’t recognize.
    The heavy door swung open. Three Thai girls with tall drinks and short silk dresses entered, giggling.
    Tolo turned back toward Zhao, white teeth grinning. “You are a good man, Zhao!”
    “I knew you were a confident man, General.” He winked, and pointed at the three women. “Let’s see how far that confidence goes.”
    “Trust me, Zhao. I won’t disappoint them—or you.” He laughedagain. So did Zhao. If the fat man failed, Zhao would be the one still laughing when he put a bullet between those bulging white eyes. But that would be little consolation. It would be his neck on the chopping block if this mission failed.
    “If you’ll excuse me, General. I have some business to attend to.” Zhao excused himself with a wink and headed for his secure communications room to contact Dr. Weng. He’d give the general a chance to complete the mission, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t call in reinforcements, just in case.

8
    The village of Anou
Kidal Region, Northeastern Mali
    3 May
    C aptain Naddah rode in the old Baptist missionary bus with the new recruits, still in civilian clothes. He worried they might lose heart as they neared the village. Two weeks’ training was just enough to teach them to use their rifles and follow basic orders. But this was their first mission. In Allah’s sense of humor, he had chosen the right bus for them after all. The Toyotas carried his most trusted militia fighters, men with blood on their hands, like his.
    Naddah was a captain in name only. He didn’t belong to the Mali army, though they supplied his militia with weapons, food, and an abandoned camp for training. When the foreign jihadists and Tuareg separatists rose up to seize cities in the north, Naddah quit his job in the repair shop and joined Ganda Koy, and when the Tuareg jihadists Ansar Dine declared sharia law in Gao and began destroying his people’s sacred shrines, Naddah volunteered to fight them.
    It surprised Naddah how much he enjoyed killing the whites and the foreigners and how much skill he had in doing it, at first with only a machete and then a gun after he had taken one from a man he had killed.
    They gave him this mission because he had proven himself loyal toMali and his people, but also because he could follow orders and even read a little.
    The faded letters of the
akafar
Christians on the side of the bus were blacked out and
Ganda Koy
—“Masters of the Land”—painted over them. The Songhai Empire was the greatest of all African empires five hundred years ago, but invasions by foreigners had robbed his people of their land, wealth, and dignity for centuries. Black Africans like the Songhai were reclaiming their rightful place under the sun, and Ganda Koy was the tip of the spear in Mali.
    The windows were up but fine dust and sand somehow still creeped into the bus, and the overhead fans only blew the hot air and dust around. The recruits didn’t seem to mind. They had sung a few patriotic songs earlier and now sang Songhai folk songs, shouting over the roaring bus engine. His number two was his morale officer, a short, powerful woman from Gao like himself, though he never knew her until now. She had recruited seven women for this mission, three of them her nieces. All had been raped by Tuaregs in the past and all wanted bloody revenge. Number Two and her recruits would lead the rape gang, house to house, after first killing whatever men or boys they found.
    Naddah checked his watch, then stood. Number Two stopped singing and the recruits quieted down. Their earnest faces dripped with sweat, black skin glistening in the heat.
    “We are only ten minutes away. Squad