LITMIR.BIZ

       Prologue

       15:00 Zulu. Friday, November 8. Ubasi Palace. West Coast of Africa

      “The American embassy is being evacuated—all

      U.S. citizens are being advised to leave the country at once.” The general paused. Silence permeated the room and hung heavy in the equatorial heat.

      Jean-Charles Laroque nodded at his aide and walked slowly over the vast stone floor of his war room, toward the long arched windows cut into the walls of the palace he’d called home since he’d taken Ubasi by force just over a year ago. His leather boots squeaked softly, and his black dog, Shaka, moved like a shadow at his heels.

      He clasped his hands behind his back and surveyed the dense jungle canopy that undulated for miles beyond the walls of his fortress, toward distant mountains shrouded in afternoon haze.

      Four Americans had been killed in Ubasi, allegedly geologists with a Nigerian oil concern.

      The killings had occurred simultaneously in different parts of Ubasi. The bodies had been gutted and strung from trees, left in the steaming sun for predators, exactly the same way his father used to exhibit his kills as warning to his foes.

      Laroque’s mouth turned bone-dry.

      This had clearly been a coordinated operation, and it had clearly been intended to frame him.

      As hard as he’d tried to shed the stigma of being the son of infamous South African-born mercenary Peter Laroque, the notoriety of his late father proved impossible to shake. And it followed him now with this gruesome display of bodies.

      He pursed his lips in concentration.

      On the heels of these murders had come even more disturbing news. His rebel allies who controlled the northern reaches of the Ubasi jungles had crossed into neighboring Nigeria, where they had raided the barracks of a U.S. oil corporation security outfit and captured five employees. Laroque’s rebels maintained these captives were the killers of the Americans. They also maintained that the four dead geologists were in fact CIA agents who had been poking around Laroque’s oil concessions in the north.

      Laroque had been given nothing to prove this, just the word of his rebel leader with whom he had now lost contact as the cadre had entered the dense jungle at the foothills of the Purple Mountains. When the rebels reached base camp in a few days, word would be sent to Laroque and he could go and interrogate the captives himself. But until then, he had nothing.

      He cursed softly in his native African-French.

      Ubasi had just been welcoming back tourists. The U.S. embassy had recently reopened with two officers offering basic emergency service. Foreign currency was trickling in again. Telecommunications were gradually being restored. Even the electrical supply was becoming slightly more reliable. The war-torn economy was actually picking up for the first time in fifty years.

      Now

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