The Operative by Andrew Britton Read Free Book Online

that human nature is the ultimate technology, that will be the key to releasing their ancient manacles, and the beginning of their modernized advancement.
    When the deployment of a thousand South African troops to the western front of Sudan had been delayed due to elaborate passport and visa oversights—allowing the Janjaweed militia to raid a dozen more villages, killing hundreds more residents—Kealey was redeployed to inspect, scrutinize, and inform Washington about the sufficiency of the refugee camp outside the North Darfur city of Al-Fashir, which housed more than fifty thousand expatriates. Reporting first to the South African National Defence Force, to comply with their awkwardly strict regulations, Kealey observed firsthand the SANDF’s vast gaps of inexperience in dealing with the fallout of these radical wars, realizing further that foreign assistance was going to be insurmountably crucial to the survival of these people and their region. Being short on supplies and munitions notwithstanding, the numerous Islamic taboos and the South Africans’ critical views toward refugee women only increased tensions among gathering allies, which split the allied tribes into even more jagged, irreparable shards.
    But Kealey was not prepared to just sit on the bench and watch his side, the reasonable side, continually lose lives and ground. He had been trained to do far more than the SANDF even knew to ask for. In the mentally tormenting months he was out there, Kealey ran personally sanctioned special ops—planting perspicacious residents across enemy lines to filter critical intel back to the good guys, or vriende, as it had to be explained to the locals—and Kealey used the information to personally direct small bands of troops to several previously undisclosed mass graves containing nearly five thousand African corpses in various states of butchered decay.
    Despite Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal’s and President Omar al-Bashir’s repeated admissions that death was merely the path that war took, genocide was still the only word for it. And even the windblown sands couldn’t cover the killers’ scent. Kealey only wished he could follow the tracks all the way back to the maniacs’ doorsteps, kick in the doors, and do the same to their testicles. If they even had any .
    Those intense desires to right terrible wrongs didn’t diminish easily, not without help. Giving it “time” didn’t relieve a warrior’s hardened beliefs; it only made them swell like a corpse left neglected. Some sights, some smells, some instincts weren’t meant to go away that simply. If ever, at all.
    After returning home and renting a small house in Jesmond the previous winter, Kealey started to think about teaching again, about taking a break from conflict. Certainly, there was something about conveying critical information that was a passion of his. Besides letting him ventilate some of his painfully accrued wisdom, he liked the way people, especially students, reacted when their minds opened in new directions. Like the snaking vines that were steadily making their way up the sides of his rented quarters, he enjoyed watching them make progress, grow up, grow stronger .
    And dealing with unfamiliar people was constantly a challenge for Kealey. People always asked questions and made him reassess his easily slung answers into more exigent responses. In a classroom setting, despite his deeply sympathetic almond-shaped eyes, he couldn’t get away with just surveillance; he had to inspire students, push them, make them understand ideas outside their assorted upbringings. And students often required from their teachers what they could not get from their parents. They needed a scholar, someone who had all the answers, or knew how and where to find them quickly. Someone who could keep all the blank, staring faces separate but could still get them to work together, no matter what the course, no matter what the assignment. No matter what the