Warlord. James Steel

looks at Rukuba across the table from him.

      Chapter Thirty-Eight

      Alex looks at Rukuba reclining in his hammock in front…

      Chapter Thirty-Nine

      The two helicopters wind up their engines on the new…

      Chapter Forty

      Up on top of the bluff in Tac’s position, Sophie…

      Chapter Forty-One

      Alex looks at Sophie.

      Chapter Forty-Two

      A week after the battle at Violo, on 21st June,…

      Chapter Forty-Three

      Secretary of State Patricia Johnson has expensive blonde hair, shrewd…

      Chapter Forty-Four

      Joseph and Simon are bursting with excitement as the bus…

      Chapter Forty-Five

      The helicopter skims low over Lake Kivu. It disappears behind…

      Chapter Forty-Six

      Sophie turns and looks out of the rear window of…

      Chapter Forty-Seven

      Sophie is sitting on Alex’s lap after dinner. He has…

      Chapter Forty-Eight

      Joseph stands laughing on the roof of the cab of…

      Chapter Forty-Nine

      The Fadoul refinery on the outskirts of Goma is a…

      Chapter Fifty

      Alex is pacing up and down in the ops tent,…

      Chapter Fifty-One

      Carla Schmidt and the other journalists are still waiting in…

      Chapter Fifty-Two

      Joseph and the crowd of young men watch the American…

      Chapter Fifty-Three

      Alex leans over the shoulder of the door gunner and…

      Chapter Fifty-Four

      Joseph is near the front of the mob charging towards…

      Chapter Fifty-Five

      One thousand kilometres away to the northeast, night has just…

      Chapter Fifty-Six

      Joseph has his face pressed down into the wet grass.

      Chapter Fifty-Seven

      A shout comes through the trees to Alex’s right.

      Chapter Fifty-Eight

      The second rifle grenade smashes through the windscreen of the…

      Chapter Fifty-Nine

      Yamba pours water from his canteen over Alex’s face and…

      Chapter Sixty

      The helicopter settles down gently on the lawn and sinks…

      Epilogue

      Author’s Notes

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Other Books by the Same Author

       About the Publisher

      Map

In the Beginning

      Chapter One

      KIVU PROVINCE,

       DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

      Eve Mapendo sees the figure lit by moonlight.

      It has the body of a muscular man stripped to the waist and the head of a kudu, a dark antelope head with two heavy horns spiralling out of it like madness.

      The creature stands in an opening in the forest on the hillside above her, at the front of a file of soldiers. They wear black cloth hoods over their heads with ragged holes cut for eyes and mouths. They stand in complete silence; the silver light frosts the surface of every leaf around them.

      The horned head turns in her direction, the large eyes darkened by the shadow of its heavy brows.

      Her pupils dilate wide as the adrenaline hits them. She clenches her throat muscles and painfully chokes off a scream. It cannot see her in the shadows of the doorway of her shack but she feels its gaze bear down on her like a hard hand gripping her shoulder, pushing her until she crouches on the ground.

      The creature unslings the assault rifle from its shoulder, cocks the weapon and gestures to the soldiers to fan out and move down the hill towards the refugee camp. They disappear into the trees.

      A whimper of fear escapes her and the baby stirs inside the shack.

      She knows what the creature is and she knows what it wants.

      Joseph bares his teeth and screams at his enemy.

      It’s his first proper firefight and he wants to prove to his platoon leader, Lieutenant Karuta, that he can fight. He’s fourteen or fifteen, maybe sixteen – he doesn’t know. He was born in a refugee camp during a war and he never knew his parents.

      He sees the enemy soldiers darting in and out of the trees across the small valley, a hundred metres from him now, firing wild bursts from their AK-47s and shouting insults. They are wearing a ragtag of green uniforms and coloured tee shirts. The bushes next to him twitch and shudder with the impact of their bullets, cut branches and leaves tumble down around him. The men in his platoon fire back with a cacophony of gunfire.

      He glances across at Lieutenant Karuta who is yelling away and firing his rifle in long bursts, spraying bullets. Joseph brings his AK up to his shoulder and squints through the circular sight on the muzzle. The rifle is old and heavy, its metal parts scratched and its wooden stock stained a dark brown by the sweat of many tense hands that have clutched it during the decades of Congo’s wars. He’s often cursed its weight as the platoon trudged up and down the countless hills in the bush, but now it feels light and vital in his hands, an extension of himself growing out of his shoulder.

      He pulls the trigger and the gun chatters, slamming back hard into his collarbone. It clicks empty and he quickly ducks down, presses the magazine release, yanks it out, flips it over and shoves the spare one, strapped to it with duct tape, into the port. This is his first big firefight but he’s practised these moves over and over again.

      He doesn’t know who the enemy are: one of the poisonous alphabet soup of groups in Kivu – PARECO, AFL-NALU, FJPC, one of the government FARDC brigades, even a rival FDLR battalion or one of the many mai-mai militias from the different tribal groups: Lendu, Hema, Nandi, Tutsi. No one knows what the hell is going on out in the bush.

      This lot look like a local mai-mai militia. Joseph’s platoon of soldiers are from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, more commonly known by their French acronym, the FDLR. They bumped into the mai-mai by accident as they were coming down the valley side into the village and the fighting broke out in a confused way.

      An RPG whooshes off near him, the white fire of the propellant shoots across the valley and the rocket explodes against a tree. The enemy gunfire slackens and they begin to withdraw. This is subsistence warfare and no one actually wants to get killed – what’s the point? You can’t steal, eat or rape if you’re dead.

      The FDLR soldiers that he is with start yelling and cheering. Lieutenant Karuta is next to him and Joseph looks at his excited face, eyes filled with laughter. The lieutenant is his father figure. His own father was an FDLR soldier killed when he was a baby, somewhere in the middle of the