Death in the Congo: Book 5 in the Dan Stone series Read online

  Death in the Congo

  Book 5 in the Dan Stone series

  A Novel

  By

  David Nees

  Copyright © 2020 David E. Nees

  All rights reserved

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by electronic, mechanical or any other means, without the express permission of the author.

  Death in the Congo, Book 5 in the Dan Stone series is a work of fiction and should be construed as nothing but. All characters, locales, and incidents portrayed in the novel are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  To keep up with my new releases, please visit my website at www.davidnees.com. Scroll down to the bottom of the landing page to the section titled, “Follow the Adventure”.

  You can visit my author page here. Click the “Follow” button under my picture on the Amazon book page to get notices about any new releases.

  For Carla

  Your love, support, and encouragement are so precious.

  Many thanks to Eric who not only encourages me but gives me critical feedback that makes a rough text shine. Your generous gift of your time and attention is very much appreciated.

  Thanks to Jim and Dale for your first-hand insights into Africa. You helped make the story more genuine and accurate.

  A special “Thank you” to Sandy, one of my ARC readers. She caught some embarrassing proofreading issues and called them out to me. You made the book better.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Epilogue

  Death in the Congo

  "Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt."—American poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

  “Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.”—Miriam Makeba

  “One cannot resist the lure of Africa.”—Rudyard Kipling

  For more information about my writing, please visit my website at http://www.davidnees.com

  Chapter 1

  ___________________________________

  T he heat hit him like a body blow as he stepped out of the plane and descended the steps to the tarmac. It clung to him, made sticky by the humidity. Immediately he broke out in a full body sweat. The next thing that hit Dan was the smell; a heavy mixture of exhaust fumes, diesel fumes, and burning, as if fields were on fire. The odor seemed almost palpable, carried by the thick, humid air. It seemed to physically cling to his limbs and clothing.

  Dan Stone followed the line of passengers to the terminal. He felt the cooler air of the air-conditioned interior, which gave some minor relief, even if it didn’t seem to be properly working. The N’djili Airport was the site of one of the major battles of the Second Congo War. The building Dan entered was the new international terminal, a statement to the new DRC, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

  He had a stash of five-dollar bills for various unofficial taxes and levies. It was a small price to pay for not being hassled. Dan made his way to the baggage claim area, fending off offers from locals to help him. The help usually proved ineffective and always required a five-dollar fee. Good work if you can get it, Dan thought. The average income in the country was less than five dollars per day. He imagined that positions inside the terminal were jealously guarded and fought over.

  When he was back outside, Dan hailed a taxi and headed to the Memling Hotel. It dated back to 1937 and had been started by Sabena, the former national airline of Belgium. It was a five-star hotel when it began and had remained one ever since. The name came from a 15th century Belgian painter, Hans Memling. It featured many of his striking paintings on its walls.

  The driver wove his way through traffic on the wide, yet crowded avenues to the hotel. It was located some nine blocks from the U.S. Embassy, which Dan figured was the reason Jane could get Henry, her boss, to pay for the luxury accommodations. Still, at $170 per night, it was a bargain compared to any quality hotel in the States or Europe.

  After paying the driver and passing on the offer to help with his bag, Dan registered and went up to his room. He put his suitcase on the floor, adjusted the air conditioning in the room and lay back on the bed with a long sigh. His body began to relax for the first time in days as he went over the events leading up to his arrival in Kinshasa, DRC, or DROC as those in Washington, DC called it. They always have some clever acronym to use. I wonder if there’s someone paid to come up with them?

  After his last mission, Dan had spent some time with his sister, Lisa, in Montana. She lived with her husband, Rob, and two enthusiastic ranch dogs. Lisa worked in the courthouse in Big Timber, about forty miles away, to help add to their income. She and her husband ranched cattle along with raising chickens and a few goats to supplement their food supplies. It was a simple but hard-working lifestyle. Dan found it therapeutic to spend time there. Lisa and Rob enjoyed his company, put him to work helping with chores, and didn’t ask prying questions.

  While there, he’d gotten the call from Jane. She wanted him to come to DC immediately. There was something big brewing. Dan didn’t like DC. He knew there were people within the CIA that knew bits and pieces about a black ops center that might be connected to Henry Mason, Jane’s boss. Very little hard information got out, but the hints were enough for some in the Agency to not like what they heard.

  Henry’s direct boss, Roger Abrams, knew what was going on. It was Roger who gave Henry the green light to form his small group. Roger helped set up the funding to keep the operation hidden, even from others in the agency. No one examining the Agency’s books would find reference to the center. But beyond that, Roger didn’t involve himself in the details of any operation.

  Roger’
s boss, Garrett Easton, the Deputy Director of Operations or DDO, knew less, giving him plausible deniability. The ability to deny knowledge increased as one worked up the chain of command. If things went sideways, it was only Henry and those below him, Jane and the operatives, whose heads would roll. Roger might escape having his career ruined, but that wasn’t certain. Above him, all were reasonably safe from repercussions.

  The very human desire for CYA, and Dan’s suspicion of elements that might be working against Henry’s operation, made it uncomfortable for Dan to be in DC, let alone spend any time at Headquarters. He had insisted on meeting Henry and Jane outside of Langley and, despite Henry’s objections, carried the day on that issue.

  Dan met them in a coffee shop in Bethesda, the Town Diner. It was a favorite of Henry’s. They sat in a booth in a back corner. Dan took the side facing the door as usual.

  “You said something was brewing. What’s up?” Dan asked.

  “We have a new mission. It’s off the beaten track and you’ll need time to get prepared,” Jane responded.

  Dan looked from her to Henry, waiting for someone to continue.

  “Our government is pulling back from our engagements in Africa,” Henry said. “At least as far as our troop presence.”

  “We’ve had some casualties,” Jane continued. “Some special forces, sent there for training the local military, were attacked in the sahel. Two men got killed. The president doesn’t want more casualties and doesn’t want to get stuck in another third world muck-up.”

  “And this affects me, how?”

  “It’s a bit of a story,” Henry said.

  “Tell it now…or tell it later. I’m guessing you need to tell it.”

  “Well, you always seem to need convincing of the necessity for each mission.”

  “I do, Henry. Since my ass is on the line, I think it’s the wise thing to require.”

  Henry took a sip of his coffee. “Over the years, China has been making inroads into Africa. They’ve been loaning money to governments under their ‘Belt and Road’ initiative.”

  Dan gave him a questioning look.

  “It’s a loose term for a program of loans, purported to help improve infrastructure and invest in local industries. The aim is to create trade links between China and the developing nations. Tie them to China with golden handcuffs, so to speak. China also gets control over ports, key mining concessions, and railways. The major concern centers on the mining interests. Africa possesses some of the largest deposits of key elements to our modern technology. In particular, the DRC…Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DROC as it’s called in the State Department.”

  “And that’s a problem…”

  “It is. DROC holds the world’s largest supply of coltan and sixty percent of the supply of cobalt, of which the Chinese buy ninety percent. Most of the resources are located in the Eastern Congo.”

  “I know what cobalt is, but what is coltan?”

  “It’s the ore from which one gets tantalum and niobium.”

  Again, Dan gave him a questioning look.

  Jane held up her cell phone. “Tantalum makes these work,” she said. “Niobium is key to making super alloys of steel and superconductors.”

  “And we don’t have access to these?”

  “Not like the Chinese. And they’re gaining more and more control,” Henry said.

  Dan leaned back in the booth and looked at both Henry and Jane.

  “This sounds like an administrative problem. I’m not the solution to this. You’re talking policy here, overall foreign policy.”

  Henry put up his hand as if to say, ‘hear me out’.

  “There’s a Chinese general, Zhang Jian, highly placed in the army. He’s over in DROC posing as a mining executive. He’s buying up mining rights to the coltan deposits. We think he’s also working with a high-level official in the Interior Ministry, which includes mining. The man is the Regional Deputy Minister for the Eastern Congo provinces of North and South Kivu. He’s corrupt, and we think he’s helping General Zhang. In addition, the general may be working with some rebel groups—we’re not sure which ones, and we’re not sure why.”

  “We guess it might be to destabilize the region in order for him to exert more control,” Jane said. “The central government still doesn’t have full control over some regions, especially in the east, and also the south where the cobalt mines are located.”

  “So how do I come in? Again, this sounds like macro policy issues.”

  “We’re backing away from engagement in Africa at precisely the wrong time,” Henry said. “Roger, my boss, tasked me to send a team to DROC. He got a generalized suggestion to consider a black op from his boss, Garrett Easton.”

  “The higher it goes, the vaguer the order is…deniability,” Dan said. His tone didn’t hide his disdain for the bureaucrats and directors that seemed to run the operations he had to carry out.

  Jane nodded her head.

  “So, what do the big poohbahs at Headquarters want done?”

  “Find out who General Zhang is working with, both in the government and rebel groups. Then take out Zhang.”

  There it is, Dan thought. Henry never sugar-coated things. Always to the point.

  “Take out a Chinese general? You want me to start World War III?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “Nothing will be traceable back to the U.S. There will be lots of speculation, but as far as anyone knows, it could be a rebel group. There’s enough of them to go around in the Eastern region.”

  “Most will guess that a rebel group—one that competed with whichever group Zhang is talking to—killed him,” Jane said. “They all have their fingers in the mining pie at this point. They seem to have put whatever politics that had been driving them on hold for the money.”

  “How do they get control over the mining? Isn’t it capital intensive?”

  Jane shook her head. “Not the coltan mining. Even with DROC holding most of the world’s reserves, the bulk of it is extracted by artisanal mining. There are vast fields of holes dug into the ground with a few men working each of them. They’re individually owned. It’s like our gold rush in the 1800s. What General Zhang is doing is buying up those rights, out from under the locals. He’s working with a rebel group as well, since they’re also involved in trying to get control over these miners.”

  “Damn. You’ve got a mess going on there,” Dan said.

  “Yeah it gets complicated.”

  “And you think taking out one general will fix that?”

  “No,” Henry said. “It may actually cause more chaos, but it will set the Chinese back. Buy us some time to get the administration to rethink their involvement in this region.”

  Dan shook his head. “I think you’re both dreaming. And so is Roger and his boss.”

  Dan took a sip of coffee and put his hands on the table. “Look, even if I could pull this off, get dropped into a county I know nothing about, find the general, eliminate him, and get myself out without getting killed, it won’t stop what’s going on. Wouldn’t the deputy minister just continue with whoever is under Zhang? And wouldn’t the rebel leader do the same?”

  “We’re just trying to buy time,” Henry said. “These alliances are fragile. There’s so much corruption, partners can change overnight. Money is driving it all. The Chinese will suspect the rebel leader and the deputy minister will have his hands full trying to convince General Zhang’s successor that he can deliver on his promises, which now might include protecting him.”

  “I can’t do this alone. I’ll stand out like a sore thumb. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not black. I can blend in over in Europe, but not in Africa. I know enough to know that there aren’t a lot of white people there, especially outside the larger cities.”

  “We’re going to put together a small team,” Jane said.

  “And who might that include?” Dan was wracking his head to think of any brothers he knew who could go on a mission like this.


  “Marcus and Roland,” Jane said. “You three work well together and you trust them.”

  Dan almost laughed. “So, to solve my problem, you’ll add two guys who are even whiter than me?”

  Marcus and Roland were two ex-Delta Force soldiers who Jane had recruited. Dan had met them in Europe three years ago and they had worked together on several missions. They were large men, military-types who didn’t easily blend in with civilians. But they were consummate fighters; men Dan trusted with his life.

  “I think this is crazy” he said standing up.

  “Give it some thought. Marcus and Roland are here in town,” Jane handed Dan a hotel name. “Sit down with them and talk it out. I’ll get some more information for the three of you to go over.”

  They got up and left.

  Chapter 2

  ___________________________________

  G eneral Wu Li-qiang stepped out of the briefing room. Senior staffers to President Xiong had just met with him and two other generals. Wu was the senior general in charge of the army, the two other generals were the senior officers of the air force and navy.

  He walked down the corridors of the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing—Zhongnanhai, the former Imperial Garden, next to the Forbidden City. He took his time. He needed to think. He had prepared for this moment his entire career, but now that it was going to become a reality, he had to compose himself and reflect.

  General Wu was a proponent of China’s destiny to rule the world. In the thirteenth century, the famed Admiral Zheng had set out from China in accordance with the emperor’s edict and reached Africa. He believed Zheng also reached North America, although many scholars rejected that theory. Wu dismissed them as western propagandists who couldn’t stomach that fact that China beat Europe to the New World. But when Admiral Zheng returned, the politics had changed and China turned inward. No more fleets were sent out and Africa was left for the Europeans to colonize, along with the New World.