Task Force Intrepid (The Gold of Katanga), page 4
Near the end of their rotation cycle they took part in Operation Anaconda, the mission becoming more aggressive. Colin’s gift lay in patiently stalking his prey and ending the life cycle of bad men with long range rifles. He put up 23 kills in a ten day period.
In 2003, the SASR once again sidled up with the Americans and penetrated through western Iraq securing strategic objectives. In the tradition of the Long Range Desert Group of World War Two, they scavenged the desert in their modified Long Range Patrol Vehicles. The Australians pulled their army out after President Bush declared victory but a cadre of men returned to theater working with the American Joint Special Operations Command. They were tasked to Long Range Reconnaissance Patrolling activities and again Colin racked up his kill count during contacts.
A free spirit at heart and a keen surfer since his youth, he noticed some of his mates leaving the unit and working for PMC’s. They earned much more than a SASR operative and worked as much or as little as they pleased. Lured by the money and the freedom to work when he wanted, he decided to leave the military.
After rotating back to Australia, his commitment ended in 2005 and he put his skills to use as a contractor. He met Kruger on a job in Liberia and Kruger recommended him to Hadley. In between jobs, he could be found anywhere the surf was up.
“Alright brah’s, follow me to the Armory,” offered the Head of Security. The vault was opened and inside was a treasure chest for the soldier. The walls held racks of enough rifles for an entire platoon. Besides the R4s, there were AK-47’s, R4’s with the M203 grenade launcher and two M-40 sniper rifles. Exact replicas of the standard Marine Corps sniper rifle platform. Racked along the back wall was a rifle that immediately caught everyone’s attention. The Barrett M107 .50 Caliber, Semi-Automatic Sniper rifle.
Major Dell walked towards a crate on the floor and flipped the top open. “I also brought one of these. I’m sure you will like this as well.” There was the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. “I’m a big fan of these.” The next crate he opened was full of various grenades.
Mike Simmons voiced his pleasure with the SAW. “I’ve spent a lot of time behind this one.” Former Petty Officer First Class Simmons had served with Force Recon as a corpsman. He had joined the Navy hoping to be a SEAL but had been medically dismissed after a broken ankle during Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Hell week. He would likely have to wait an entire year before he could go through the class again. Rather than take a ship bound billet, he rashly decided to go to the Fleet Marine Force as a Corpsman. The Marine Corps fit like a glove. He made his way into Battalion Recon then Force Recon. Serving in Afghanistan and Iraq he found himself on more Direct Action missions than extended reconnaissance. In Force Recon, a Corpsman was a shooter first and a Corpsman second. He had deployed constantly from 2002-2006. Medics were in short supply for the Force and he volunteered to go back. He had grown up wanting to fight for his country and he wasn’t about to let himself get sidelined. The fact that he was also a life saver doubled his commitment to the war.
In 2005, his marriage to his high school sweetheart ended during the relentless deployments. She had found another man to be with. A Marine. Dear John letters came in the form of emails during this war and after a day that found his uniform bloodstained and his nostrils full of gun powder, he read her letter asking for a divorce. He stared blankly at the screen and his faith in God, Country, The Corps, The Navy and apple pie died. Something changed in him that day. Knowing he was loved and that someone was at home waiting for him carried him through some dark days. This was the woman that he had fathered a baby boy with. His parents had died in his senior year of high school and she and their son were the only family he had. His emotions went numb and his morale plummeted.
In 2006, his enlistment was up and the fact that the Marine Corps was now folding Force Recon into the newly created Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC), that would be under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), he decided that he would find his war elsewhere. A huge wave of political wrangling entered his beloved Force Reconnaissance community and nothing felt the same. He would finish out his enlistment and then take his skills elsewhere. He was immediately scooped up by a major Private Military Company and found himself with a lot of money and all the action he could want. He had done his bit in the sandbox and didn’t care to go back. He chose contracts that landed him in South America chasing Narco-Terrorists through the mountains of Colombia and Venezuela. He had crossed into Venezuela after being strictly forbidden to do so and knew that if caught, he could ignite an international crisis. The band that he pursued had killed one of his teammates and they were going to die that day or the next. He determined that if he was caught, that last bullet would be for him. Justice was executed with bullets to spare.
Juan Salvador was his team leader and when he made his way back to friendly territory, he was first thrashed and threatened to be blackballed from every company Salvo could contact. After that, he was congratulated on a gutsy call and became Salvo’s right hand man.
Major Bell was satisfied when he saw that the men were at ease with the weapons available. “Most guys operating over here use the PK’s and AK’s. Every kid has one. I know the obvious thing to do would be issue you guys the same weapons but besides the Barrett, these all use 5.56 NATO rounds. For what you guys are doing, knowing who is firing what will help. You’ve got plenty of ammo in the caches and if all else fails, there will be plenty of dead gooks to take weapons off of.
“This is a fine line between American involvement and the speech we got in Kinshasa.” Juan said.
“I’ve been given strict orders to be an Advisor to the Commando’s. It was Kinshasa’s call. As unstable as things are, they need to get their boys up and running. The weapons belonging to AFRICOM, I’ll expect them cleaned and in operating condition when I get them back or Katanga Resources will cover the cost,” Major Dell said heartily and slapped Salvo on the back. “If you don’t mind me asking, who did you serve with?”
“The 75th Ranger Regiment, then onto the 7th Special Forces Group. A lot of tours in Latin America. I fit in if you can’t tell,” he joked about his obvious Spanish accent and Hispanic looks. “I became a D boy and went Narco hunting for a few years. Did my twenty and went private.”
“First trip to Africa?”
“Third.” Salvo didn’t elaborate. Members of SLEW rarely discussed their jobs for the company to outsiders. They didn’t mind discussing common service stories but the code of silence was mandatory and strictly enforced. More than one operator had lost his place in the fold for telling war stories. Their continued employment depended on being off the radar. The fact that the Major was there made them all feel ambivalent.
Juan ‘Salvo’ Salvador had lived a lifetime of secrets. Coming to the US from southern Mexico across the Rio Grande River as a youth, his mother and father took up residence in Houston, Texas as low wage laborers and lived with other family members who were illegal. Learning English at school and helping work jobs with the family left little time to enjoy a traditional American childhood. They always maintained a low profile and paid handsomely for forged documents. They were living a lie but there was hope of a better life.
It came to pass when President Ronald Reagan declared a general amnesty for illegals in 1986. He was 19 years old and the first thing he did after his paperwork was complete was to join the United States Army. Driven to prove that he deserved a place in America, he became and Airborne Ranger. He saw action in Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia and then South America as a Special Forces ‘Advisor’. His skill set and background kept him in a compartmentalized section of Delta Force that trained and led Colombians in their war against left wing extremists and other the Drug Cartels. Always providing for his family, he retired from the Army and entered the PMC world. He left a string of dead Narco-Terrorists and a lot of heart broken Latino women over the years.
SLEW specialized in South America and Africa. The big contracts were in the Middle East and the nature of their work was best suited in off the radar hotspots. Salvo was happy to make serious money and work half the year and the other half party wherever he pleased.
“Blake, come here, Bru,” Kruger said. “You got some toys to choose from.”
“I think a simple R4 will do for me, and lots of ammo,” said Blake. “I know that there has to be quite a bit of Demo here but I don’t want to lug it around unless we have a need, right.” McGee was the teams Demolition and Engineer specialist. He was also an expert in breaching and land mines.
Blake McGee was the only UK member on the team and the newest. Brought up in a wealthy family in Ireland, he had attended private schools and then studied at St. Andrews College. His father was an investment banker. The youngest of five children, he reaped the rewards of his family’s wealth. Vacations all over the world, polo and all the other fine things young wealthy UK men did. When he matriculated to University he became his own man, much to his parent’s dismay. He boxed, played Rugby and partied. No slouch in academics, he studied Classics at St. Andrews and had a fine command of Ancient Greek and Latin. His studies allowed him to read the classics of Greece and Rome and he was drawn most to the military histories of Thucydides ‘ History of the Peloponnesian Wars’ and the works of Vegetius and Julius Caesar.
A strong athlete with no interest in the family business, he shocked them by joining the Royal Marines as an officer. His mother wept and his father threatened to cut him off. He went on and excelled as a Royal Marine Infantry Officer. He made it through Selection for the Special Boat Service after his first two years as an officer in 1998. His first taste of Africa was in Operation Barras. The SBS had inserted his team ahead of the other units for a recce. He also served two tours as an advisor to troops of Botswana. He was posted to the UK’s new X squadron in 2004, a combination of volunteers from the SBS and SAS who formed a task force to hunt High Value Terrorists globally. The unit specialized in small boats and canoe insertion for sabotage and reconnaissance missions moving up to 60 kilometers inland.
With the changing GWOT, they focused more on dry land missions and direct action. He had deployed to Afghanistan three times, working side by side with the Americans in Delta Force and SEAL units. He had proved a thorough knowledge of explosives in the use of sabotage and anti-personnel tactics. The Brits loaned him out to the UN for a short mission to get rid of land mines in Cambodia.
After thirteen years in the Royal Marines he needed a change. Well connected socially due to his family, several of his father’s friends who invested heavily around the world in oil, diamonds and precious metals asked him to consult on security matters in trouble spots around the globe. He traveled to West Africa, several Sub-Saharan countries, South America and South East Asia assessing the quality of security at mines, oil exploration areas and offshore platforms. His name had come up to Hadley through a business associate. His initial contact with him was abrupt. McGee thought Hadley to be a hack. After doing some research of his own, he decided that he had no desire to run a growing business and preferred soldiering to supervising and socializing with men whose idea of adventure was an exotic prostitute on a multimillion dollar yacht. He sold his business to two solid Former SBS men who had families and deserved a chance at the good life and decided to throw his lot in with SLEW on a case by case basis.
Even though he had served as an officer, he had no problem fitting in and bonded quickly with the team. He knew that the men he worked with were combat seasoned and in Africa, Kruger was the man among boys. Strict military hierarchies were gone. They relied on each other and each man had his strengths. They did not fight for political objectives or nationalism. They fought for legitimate people in need of their services and for money. They fought to win. In this line of work, second place was dead.
Chapter 7
“Why do you come to Africa? You come to spread your Christian filth? You are a dirty whore and my men will use you until you die!” shouted a large well-muscled black man in French and Lingala accented English. He took a leather strap and whipped the woman causing welts to rise immediately.
The small group of missionaries was being held in a blacked out room of a building that had no airflow and was stifling and smelled of vomit and human excrement. They had been taken by the Rebels in a lighting raid that killed all of the local people at the clinic seeking medical attention and rounded up the whites and drove them away gagged and bound.
He moved onto the husband of the woman he was beating. “So you a big time fancy doctor, eh? You use your medicine to preach your shit to the Congo people,” he taunted and kicked the man repeatedly in the stomach. He began to cry.
“You whites are a weak people. You come here for hundreds of years stealing the wealth of this land and bring your religion. You will pay. You will pay money to leave this place or you will pay with death from a machete. Hand by hand and then your flesh will come off. It will be a slow death. After we have raped your women while you watch, you will scream to your God. Can he save you?” the torturer took a machete and lifted the man’s chin and made a quick cut of the skin.
“Ah Colonel, these women, I think they like us,” said one of the Rebels. “They didn’t say anything. All the men have a good time.” Two naked women were brought into the room and kicked down to the floor by henchmen who had obviously finished raping the women. “We will be back white women,” they all laughed as they left.
“There isn’t much time left for you. If the money doesn’t come, you are of no use to me.” The butcher made a slicing motion with his machete across his own neck letting them know he intended to carry out his threats, then left.
Dr. Doug Hanes was in charge of the New Life Evangelical Mission in Kolwezi. They ran a mission center and made rural treatment circuits to the outlying areas. His wife, Samantha, was a nurse and helped run operations. Each year volunteers came and worked for the mission. Some stayed for a month, some for a year. Some were medical students and others helped with the spreading of the Gospel. Carol, Ruth and Sharon were huddled in a corner dazed and bleeding. Steven, David, James and Christopher tried to console the women. David and Sharon Stein were newlyweds from Canada who had decided to spend a year in Africa after graduating medical school. Their worst nightmare had come true. They had chosen the area because it was far away from the Eastern Provinces where most of the fighting took place.
The Hanes couple’s three years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had been hard but rewarding. As Doctors, they had pioneered a medical mission along with spreading their Gospel message. They treated sickness and disease for anyone who needed it, even the people they knew were criminals. They had treated rape victims as young as two years old. The wars in the Eastern Provinces pushed throngs of people into refugee camps all over the DRC.
Soon a church planting team had come over. Steven, James, Christopher, Carol and Ruth. Young people who had a passion for preaching to the masses and humanitarian relief. Over ninety percent of Congolese professed Catholicism, Protestantism and Pentecostalism as their faith. It was deeply rooted in the country due to the influence Old Colonialism. A minor percent were involved in the old ways of witchcraft and animism.
Yet with these statistics, it was obvious that violence and greed were the religion of a large portion of the people. Though invaded by outside groups and nations seeking the wealth of the Congo, much of the fighting and killing were done by native Congolese.
They had been at their mission hospital and church the same day that the mines had been taken over. It had started like any other day. A morning sick call. Food and medicine. A sermon from the young graduates of Bible colleges and Seminaries. The young and unmarried Christians were on short term missions trips, exploring the option of serving long term in Africa. They had committed six months to help with the functions of the mission and build on the medical work by creating a church. A romance had sprung up between Carol and Steven. They were even talking about marriage the night before.
After the mid-morning sermon, given in French, the trucks of armed men had pulled up to the compound firing their automatic weapons into the air. The locals, many who had fled war torn areas began to scream and run. They ran directly into the fire of the Rebels. Their machine guns cut down everyone from women with babies to old men. Blood started to coat the ground inside the compound.
They had felt safe before this. They had the support of the local police force, there was a UN compound not far from Kolwezi and Katanga Resources had always looked in on them. Like the men who worked at the mines, they were taken by surprise. The Toyota trucks crashed into the gates and sprayed the area. But they were not here for the locals.
Their commander had called a cease fire. Several of them marched into the church and pointed their rifles at anyone with white skin. The men had told the women to flee out of the back door but they were met with rifle butts and fists. The grounds were searched and the white missionaries were rounded up. They offered no resistance, fearing that they would be shot immediately. Prayers were uttered by each and every one of them. Besides being totally over powered, their faith did not encourage them to fight back. They were to trust in God alone.
All of them were bound and gagged and thrown into the back of the trucks. They were attacked, rounded up and taken in less than five minutes. They were told to lay down face first on top of one another so they could not see where they were going.
