Cutting Edge pp-6 Page 22

  In a demonstration of its openhanded cooperative relationship with the Cangele administration, UpLink International has offered to defray a large portion of the highway’s construction cost with corporate funding. While no specific financial amount has been disclosed, its promised subsidy is rumored to be in excess of $10 million U.S., ensuring that no unfair tax burden will be imposed on residents of Port-Gentil and its surrounding districts.

  Shortly before this story went to press, President Cangele was asked about media stories of political opposition to his aggressive backing of the UpLink licenses. “The stories were classic sensationalistic exaggerations,” he told our reporter, adding, “It is praiseworthy that none such accounts appeared in L’Union, our national beacon of journalistic integrity and accuracy.”

  The president went on to explain that there has been no significant governmental dispute over the idea that UpLink International represents the nation’s telecommunications future.

  “Any divisions that may have emerged concerned minor timing and procedural issues and were settled by brotherly, well-ordered debate,” he said. “My appearance with the foremost members of all our coalition parties will show that, regardless of political or tribal affiliations, the Gabonese people are joined by common principle, and a wish to champion West Africa’s shift from continuous cycles of violence and revolution to progressive, harmonious evolution at the dawn of the twenty-first century.”

  From L’Union Online

  (limited content English version):

  CAMEROONIAN AND CONGOLESE LAWLESSNESS: WHO IS IN CHARGE NEXT DOOR?

  FRANCEVILLE — Before sunrise on September 25, Abasi Aseme, 64, left his home in the village of Garabinzam accompanied by his three adult sons and several carts packed with furs, ivory, and a modest quantity of panned gold bought from Minkébé camp diggers, their little mule train bound for a trader’s market thirty miles to the south at the northern edge of Djoua Valley. They had made the trip through the lower Minkébé Forest every week for decades and were welcome callers at supply outposts along their sparsely traveled path. One of these posts was owned by Abasi’s older brother, Youssou.

  When the Aseme family did not make their regular stop around noon, Youssou became concerned: in the remote bushland, a dangerous stalking ground for animal and human predators, locals know to travel by daylight or not at all. By early evening Youssou’s concern had turned to unease, and then to worry. The Asemes still had not appeared. Nor would they after darkness fell. Abasi did not have a telephone, and there was no way of contacting his brother’s wife to see whether anything might have occurred to delay his usual market visit.

  Early the next morning Youssou and a small party of friends went out in search of his relatives, striking out north toward Garabinzam. Two hours later, the missing traders were found murdered, their wagons and merchandise gone. The killings had been savage. All four victims had their throats cut, their bodies lined in a row on the trail, their legs hacked off below the knees and tossed into the nearby brush, where it must have been evident the body parts would be discovered immediately.

  Among Cameroonian bandits, mutilation of the lower extremities is considered a message to those who might be inclined toward pursuit, a well-known signal that they would best keep their own legs from leading them to certain death.

  The Asemes are but the latest casualties in repetitive waves of attacks on rural Gabonese by coupeurs de route, armed thieves who have fled from antigang crack-downs in Yaoundé and Ambam in Cameroon using graft to buy the cooperation of police and slipping easily through porous border checkpoints along the Minkébé wilderness’s mountain ridges. Once believed to pose a threat only at our country’s northernmost boundaries, these thugs have in recent months formed alliances of convenience with splinter guerrilla bands made fugitive by Congolese political conflict, and together staged raids on townships such as N’Dendé, deep in our country’s interior, with scattered incidents of road ambush reported as far south as the Iguéla, Loango, and Sette Cama Forests near the coast. The stepped up violence has led Gabonese law enforcement officials to ask their colleagues across the border when they intend to take responsibility for apprehending their vicious castoffs…

  From the Cameroon Tribune Online

  — Editorial

  (translated from the French):

  GABON’S NATIONAL CREDO: IF YOU CANNOT COMPETE, CONDEMN!

  by Motmou Benote

  Let us begin with the obvious: gang violence and brigandage are unacceptable wherever they may originate. But unless Gabon ceases it efforts to make others accountable for the outlaw problem in its northern districts, casting blame elsewhere rather than engaging in an aggressive pursuit of homegrown malefactors and tribal agitators, its police and military forces will soon be pointing their guns skyward to guard against menaces from distant galaxies…

  * * *

  They toiled in the steamy midmorning heat, a dozen men in jungle fatigues swinging their machetes through the parched brown sedge and waxy clusters of euphorbia beside the dirt road. They kept their sleeves rolled down and wore heavy protective gloves, taking care to cover their skin; the succulents were filled with burning latex juice, and had thorny spurs all along the ribs of their fat, tangled branches.

  The men thrashed at the dense vegetation. Their head wraps were drenched with sweat. The camouflage hoods they would put on were still stuffed in their pockets, unneeded as yet. There were no eyes about to see them, and they were not in any hurry to feel the heavyweight Nomex/Kevlar fabric slicken against their streaming wet cheeks and brows.

  They worked in the heat, worked ceaselessly, creating clear fields of fire for their ambush. Their shoulder-slung Milkor 5.56-mm semiautomatic rifles were of South African origin, as were the lightweight 60-mm commando mortars and multishot barrel-loaded grenade launchers hidden farther back in their 4×4. Two Shmel RPO-A infantry rocket tubes rounded out their arsenal of heavy weapons, the “Bumblebee” variants designed to fire fuel-air explosive warheads.

  A Russian military specialty used to devastating effect during their Chechen campaigns, man-portable thermobaric hardware cannot be purchased cheaply on the black market.

  The job’s sponsors had been anything but close fisted.

  Although some members of the band had equipped their mortar tubes with reticulated, microprocessor-controlled electronic sights, most felt the attachments were burdensome and off-balancing to their aim. Kirdi and Kulani bushmen from northern Cameroon, they had been raised with the bow and arrow as rural Americans might be with the hunting rifle. Where seasonal drought defeats cultivation of food crops, live game is a vital source of protein, and the need to kill or go hungry does more to perfect one’s weaponry skills than gun sport. For these men, the ability to acquire a target was basic to their survival, and they were masters at calculating range and determining projectile trajectories.

  Five hundred feet ahead of them, the dirt track plunged eastward into a thick, shaded grove of mixed okoumé and bubinga, where a smaller group chopped at the tree trunks with axes, perspiration glistening on their muscled brown arms, their blades snarling in epiphytic vines that coiled up and up around the bark into the leafy green crowns.

  The trees crashed down one by one and were rolled across the road. Then branches, brush, and pieces of slashed vines were strewn over the felled trunks to lay a screen of foliage over the ax cuts. Obscured from sight by broken patterns of shadow, the treefall blended into the overgrowth from a distance, and to the drivers of the line of approaching vehicles, would appear to be a natural phenomenon. Long before they might inspect it closely enough to learn otherwise, their convoy would be surrounded on all sides.

  Another indispensable survival tool of the hunter is his knowledge of how to exploit the terrain for camouflage and concealment.

  The group’s construction of their road block took a little under two hours. When they were satisfied the job was done, several of them went over to join their fellows in the copse of t
all grass and succulents, while others spread out amid the trees. A single man scaled up a bubinga to saddle himself in a fork of its widespread limbs and find a comfortable position for his Steyr SG550 sniper gun, custom-railed with an AN/PIS thermal, day/ night sight.

  The men in the copse had also finished their preparations of the area. Their gloves and uniforms tacked with spines and dripping the pasty, whitish secretions of the euphorbia stems, they had cut fire lanes that were as unobtrusive as the log barrier.

  Now the band of hired jungle fighters would plant their mortars, and rest, and wait.

  It would be a while yet before the UpLink convoy reached them.

  * * *

  A few minutes before the outset of the Sette Cama supply and inspection run, Pete Nimec stood talking with Steve DeMarco, Joel Ackerman, and Vince Scull at the airport parking area where their UpLink team had gathered. Nimec was leaning back against the driver’s side of a modified Sword Land Rover, elbows propped on the hood. The other three faced him in a close ring. Their tight little huddle around Nimec, and the 4×4’s bulking frame behind him, would make it tough for anyone watching from out of sight to monitor their speech.

  “The company execs ready over there?” Nimec said, and nodded toward a nearby line of Rovers and trucks.

  “Tucked into their seats nice and comfy,” DeMarco said. “And actually glad to be headed into the jungle after finding out about the termites.”

  Nimec couldn’t say he blamed them. “Freight loaded up?”

  DeMarco gave an affirmative nod.

  “Okay,” Nimec said. “It’s a broiler today, but let’s be sure we wear our vests. No exceptions. There should be extras stowed in the Rovers for the execs. We all know our jobs. Stay alert.”

  “Knowing we’ve got the crawling eye on us,” Ackerman said, “it sort of comes easy, chief.”

  Nimec looked at him. “I’m just being careful,” he said. “The bugging surprises me, but it doesn’t knock me out of my socks. After Antarctica, our base getting hit hard on a continent where there isn’t even supposed to be guns, I half expect anything. You need to remember where we are. This country’s surrounded by other countries where nobody’s in charge of the farm. Or everybody claims to be. I can imagine how some of the authorities here just might feel threatened by foreigners.”

  “Even ones bearing gifts,” DeMarco said. “You think that could be the reason we’re being scoped? Some eager-beaver gendarme trying to impress his bosses?”

  Nimec shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to downplay the seriousness of it. My gut tells me there’s a better than even chance we’re onto something else. But until we firm up our information, we should be careful about what we assume.” He paused, then shrugged again. “My point right now’s really that for the past week or so you’ve been protecting material assets. Ground freight. Everybody here knows it can put you into a certain mode. Today, with the VIPs going out, things are different. What we need to watch out for is different. There are human beings to protect. And I want to make sure we don’t let our guard down for a second. That we do what we always do when there’s more than the usual set of considerations about the safety of our personnel.”

  The men were quiet.

  Nimec watched a jet make its takeoff from the runway, gain altitude, and bank in their direction, its airframe reflecting the high sun, a silvery flare of brightness rushing across the open sky. The shoom of its turbos grew loud as it flew overhead and then began to fade.

  Nimec turned toward Scull.

  “What’s on your docket while we’re gone, Vince?”

  “I want to follow up on the business with those French divers,” Scull said, and motioned with his chin. “We know the Rover’s clean?”

  Nimec glanced toward DeMarco for an answer.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I wouldn’t advise you to make any deep personal confessions in standard-issue vehicles like the one I’ve been driving around town, but these modified babies are checked for bugs at least once a day. Besides, they haven’t been anywhere except here at the airport, or over at the HQ site, where we’ve had men posted around the clock. Nobody besides our own’s gone near them.”

  “What about guides and workmen?” Nimec said.

  “They ride in the trucks or the standards. This vehicle’s okay, rest assured. If you don’t trust me, you can count on its intruder shock or bug detection systems. Take your pick.”

  “Intruder shock?” Scull said.

  “Anybody lays a hand on it who shouldn’t gets hit with fifty thousand volts, the same as with a stun gun. The zapper’s set every night.”

  Scull nodded.

  “Good enough, I just found myself a phone booth,” he said. Then he stepped past Nimec to the driver’s door and pulled it open. “You guys chill out a minute, I gotta make an important call.”

  * * *

  “Hello, Fred Sherman—”

  “Sherm, it’s Vince,” Scull said into his secure cellular. It was much cooler inside the Rover than out on the blacktop, its mirrored windows blocking the sun’s powerful rays. “Since when do you personally answer your phone?”

  “Since my receptionist left for the day along with everybody else who works sane hours,” said Sherman at the other end of the line. He was one of the top data hounds in Scull’s risk-assessment office at UpLink SanJo. “How’s it going?”

  “Don’t fucking ask.”

  “Nice to hear you sounding happy.”

  “I try to be consistent,” Scull said. “Look, I need some info.”

  “Sure. Tell me what it is, I’ll get on it first thing tomorrow.”

  “I mean I need it right now.”

  “Vince, it’s almost seven o’clock at night—”

  “Not here in Africa, it isn’t.” Scull glanced at the dashboard clock. “Here in Africa, where I happen to be, it’s still before ten in the morning. The day’s young and the sun’s shining and it feels like a goddamn furnace.”

  “Vince, come on. Another ten minutes, five minutes, I would have been out the door—”

  “Good I caught you when I did, then,” Scull growled. “Is it a fluke or miracle of God, I wonder?”

  “Ah crap, Vince, don’t do this to me—”

  “You know the submarine cable maintenance outfit we contracted for our Gabon operation? Nautel?”

  “Of course, I did most of the research on it—”

  “Which is why I don’t have to explain how it’s the same fleet owner that was doing the job for Planétaire… and why I called you and not somebody else,” Scull said. “I want to see records from both companies about the African fiber outage back in May…”

  “Oh. Well, that ought to be easy enough. I already have scads of them in my files…”

  “And everything they’ve got on the accident that killed those two Nautel divers. Everything, Sherm. Internal review documents, too.”

  “Different story there.” Sherman’s tone had lifted and sunk. “Nautel’s almost sure to cooperate, especially since we still haven’t inked our contracts. But it’s hard to get through to anybody who’s upper rung at Planétaire right now. With the company going bust, and those irregular accounting practices, quote unquote, being covered in the media, their top execs are all bolting down into hidey-holes. And taking their paper shredders with them.”

  “More reason to pull the slimebags out by their necks,” Scull said.

  “Just like that, huh?”

  “Right. You figure out where we’ve got leverage. And use it.”

  A prolonged sigh of resignation over the phone.

  “Okay, I’ll try my best,” Sherman said. “Where do I fax the docs?”

  “You don’t. Send them by ’crypted e-mail,” Scull said. “You need to talk to me about anything, dial up my cell. And from now on, don’t forward any messages to me at the hotel. Not even a hi-how-are-you from my kids. Or that brunette I’ve been seeing.”

  “The rac
ked stripper?”

  “Amber’s a sultry erotic dancer,” Scull said. “But, yeah, she’s the one.”

  “Christ, this does sound serious.”

  “I said it was important shit. What the hell, you think I just got an urge to jerk your chain?”

  “Christ,” Sherman repeated. “I’ll get back to you fast as I can.”

  “Do that,” Scull said. “I’m gonna be waiting at my computer.”

  “Look, rush job or not, this could take a while—”

  “I’ve got a while. In fact, I’ve got all day. Send me what you can, and make it plenty. Meantime, I need to find an Internet café and plug in.”

  “You sitting with a crowd of backpacking hipsters at a cyber café? Somehow I can’t picture it, Vince.”

  Scull shrugged in the driver’s seat.

  “Why not?” he said. “If a guy’s main goal is to be an anonymous nobody, there’s no better place for it in the whole stinking world.”