Place of Bones by Larry Johns

country. But where one was possible before, it would be again. I said, “What’s the name of that cook?”
    “Dondo, sir”
    “Have him brew something hot for the men, then break out some rations. After they’ve eaten give them some exercise or something. They’ve been sitting like that for thirty-six hours.”
    Augarde nodded and glanced around at the men. “Special breed, I reckon, sir. Christ alone knows where the Chink dug them up...”  He waved at one of them and rattled off a burst of fairly fluent Swahili.” I was impressed.
    “Where did you pick that up?”
    “Oh,” he said, smiling, “Here and there. Mostly here...” Then he added, “I was with Cassidy’s mob, sir. Back in eighty-five. Craig Mellor used to talk about you. He was 2 i/c.”
    I thought briefly about Piet Vryburg, but didn’t dwell on it. He either would, or he wouldn’t. “Mellor was a good soldier. Is he still around?”
    Augarde shrugged. “Don’t know, sir. Probably. We lost touch after Angola. “Sweep” Cassidy is still at home...”  That was a trite mercenary term for “still in Africa”. “Up north somewhere, someone said. Morocco or Algeria, I think. Did you know Cassidy?”
    I didn’t, though I had heard the name. “Nope.”
    He grinned. “Bastard, that man. Gave fourteen of our wounded the bullet...”  His gaze wandered off to the middle distance for a moment, and then he came back to me. “What’s the gen on this operation, sir?”
    “What have you already been told?”
    “Not a lot, sir. We know it’s something for the Chinks...you’ve only got to look at the crates to see that. But that’s all.” He saw the look on my face, which was nothing more significant than clawing tiredness, and he misinterpreted it entirely. “Sorry, sir,” he snapped, stiffening almost to attention. “Me an’ my big mouth!”
    One of the things I liked about Augarde was his lack of the customary swearing. There were not too many of his kind on the African circuit. Mercenary NCOs  - he wore sergeant’s stripes on the arms of a uniform that had obviously been with him since regular service -  would be the brash, over-bearing, bullying kind; a by-product of mercenary warfare, obeyed by the rank and file but mostly uncommanding of any real respect. Of course, it remained to be seen how this man would turn out. But, on the surface, he seemed okay. The two other whites I had hardly exchanged two words with. One of these was a Swede, the other a Londoner. I avoid making snap decisions where possible, but I had the feeling that I was not going to like the Swedish contingent one little bit.
    “Forget it,” I said. “In any case, if I told you what I know, you still wouldn’t be that much further forward. The big cheese is flying in later; I guess we’ll all be fully briefed then.”
    Again, it seemed to me, Augarde failed to recognize the truth in my eyes. And it was the truth, in a perverse sort of way; I really did not know what I was going to do.
    “Right, sir,” he snapped crisply. “I’ll see to the men, then...” He turned.
    “Augarde,” I said quietly.
    He hesitated. “Sir?”
    “It’s no big deal, you know. Just another job.”
    I don’t know how he took that but, outwardly, he smiled. “Right...” He added, “Exercises, you say...”
    “Why not?”
    And it was exercise that the men aboard the tug “Fat Annie” received, the shallow drafted vessel rocking noticeably as forty grinning mercenaries, packed like tuna fish on the forward deck, jerked left and right, up and down, to Augarde’s commands and over-stressed example. I knew then that of all the decisions I had ever taken in my life, the impending one would be the hardest. Could I believe that Brown would really hurt Karen? Or was he relying on the mere threat of it? Could the S.I.S. - the bloody British, or chrissakes! - could they, would they spray acid in her face? The mafia, yes. Blackmail and extortion were tools of their trade, murder