The Insurgency: The Response Files, #3

By Rob Phayre

There is enough oil in the world for human needs, but not for humans greed.

The world's largest oil refinery is opening in the middle of a remote paradise in Madagascar. Vast resources were discovered in an area plagued by corruption and a growing insurgency.
The tinderbox of religious fundamentalism is being fuelled by The Associate. He's sent Abdi, his Somali henchman with nine lives, to wreak havoc. To attack, to destroy, to kidnap and kill.
Mike and Raj are there for the opening ceremony looking after their client, an oil Princess. When the storm comes, they find themselves under the ultimate test. Do they run? Do they hide? Or do they fight!

The last time Mike and Raj crossed paths with Abdi they were the hunters. But now, in an extraordinary quirk of fate, the hunters have become the hunted.

 

Awards and Reviews For The Response Files by Rob Phayre:

 

• Winner - Best New Author - 2021 - Audiobookreview.com
• International Runner Up – Best Thriller 2021 – IndiesToday
• Best Military Thriller 2022 – ABR Award
• "The award-winning Phayre is an exceptional talent." – 5 Stars – Readers Favourite
• "Vividly described... nail-biting moments." – 5 Stars – Prairies Book Review
• "A tight, heart pounding, page turner." - 5 Stars! - Jennifer Jackson, Indies Today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rob Phayre
• Release date: Nov 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223069188

Book preview

Chapter 1

February 2nd, The Indian Ocean.

The gunmetal grey Dutch warship was standing off from the large sailing dhow in a calm clear blue expanse. Abdi, sitting on the dhow, stared morosely at its angular pointed bow. The frigate’s forward deck gun turret was aimed in his direction and Abdi had visions of a spotty teenager, deep within the ship’s hull, testing theoretical firing solutions.

The ochre-red painted dhow was a deep-sea wooden cargo vessel with multiple decks, a wide sunshade over the stern, and two large masts from which flapped gigantic dirty white canvas sails.

The soldiers with their sniffer dog, had approached on a semi-rigid patrol boat and boarded the dhow about ten minutes ago. The coxswain, standing in the small cabin, skilfully kept the two vessels touching with gentle movements of some thrusters. In the bow, a Dutch marine manned a machine gun mounted on a metal frame. Its muzzle was aimed forward, and whilst the marine’s body language was nonchalant, his eyes were bright and alert.

Abdi on the other hand was trying his hardest to look like nobody. His filthy faded jeans, an arsenal football shirt, and his personal aroma were all part of the act. He sat on the deck cross legged with his grubby hands visible. Despite his appearance, Abdi was an important man where he came from. The son of a Somali warlord, a rising power on the Somali coast, his ambition was funded by his successes in piracy. If these marines only knew it, they had one of the most wanted men in the region, sitting docilely in front of them. His skinny frame, wide forehead and short curly black hair made him look like any other Somali fisherman. But one of those camel’s turds had a video camera and that worried Abdi. The cameraman had carefully taken video of all the thirty or so passengers on this dhow. The men could do nothing to hide their faces, but the women were all dressed traditionally in black with full face veils.

Abdi’s travelling companion was dressed in a burka and through the slit in her veil she was watching like a hawk, as the sniffer dog worked its way around the dhow. The spaniel was surprisingly thorough as it searched the boat. Cargo boxes, sail bags, lockers and people. All were checked by the shiny black nose with a billion sensors in it. Inevitably it approached Abdi and his travelling companion, who were sitting amongst all the other passengers under the shaded deck. It passed down the lines of people barely pausing, it passed Abdi and then in front of Azrah it checked itself. The dog sniffed twice and moved closer to Azrah, checking the folds of her clothing. It stepped back, cocked its head, looking quizzically at her. Then it sat, staring at her.

It was that movement that subtly changed the posture of all the marines on the dhow. Whereas previously there had been a more casual state of alertness, as the dog’s backside touched the deck the marines checked their positions. Any banter stopped, and things became very professional.

A marine, in clean, ironed combats, webbing and beret approached Azrah. He had his carbine on a sling around his back. His chest webbing had the grip of a pistol sticking out prominently, but he didn’t need that. With a Dutch accent he asked, ‘Do you speak English?’

Azrah remained mute. She did, and perfectly well too, having been raised in Pakistan but wasn’t going to let this infidel know that.

The marine switched to near faultless Arabic. ‘Well let’s speak something you do understand. What is your name?’

Azrah, not quite able to keep the surprise out of her voice, lied quickly using the name on her fake travel document, ‘Ameerah.’

The marine looked a little smug at the right guess. ‘Well, Ameerah, my dog tells me that you have explosives on you.’ Several of the other passengers on board the dhow looked concerned at this and started to edge away.

‘I don’t know what you mean, I am just a traveller!’ She turned to Abdi. ‘Jamaal, what is this man saying? How can I possibly have explosives? Tell him!’

Abdi, playing the game: ‘General, we don’t have explosives. We are refugees, and we left Somalia last week. We are simply looking for a new life.’

The marine corporal, who had heard it all before, said, ‘Jamaal is it? My dog is an expert at finding explosives and ammunition. So Ameerah here has either touched explosives or fired a gun recently. Which is it?’

As it happened, Azrah being the expert she was at using explosives had been creating a number of devices and had sold them in the market a couple of days before embarking on the Dhow. She wasn’t going to tell the marine that though.

Abdi came to her rescue. ‘I know what the problem is here. When we left Somalia, on our last night we were attacked by bandits. They were going to rob us. The guards we hired had to fire their weapons and scare the bandits away. I remember the smell now. Perhaps that is what your dog is finding?’

The marine looked at Abdi shrewdly. It was possible. Though for the cordite smell to linger for so long was a little touch and go. ‘I would like to request that your wife removes her burka. We need to search her.’

Abdi was about to complain, but then he saw the female soldier approach. Weighing up the dilemma between prolonging this interest, and letting them search Azrah, whom he knew had nothing on her, was relatively easy, even with her strong religious beliefs.  Pretending to be the husband and wife that they very definitely were not, he gave his permission.

When Azrah removed her burka, revealing a very faded and worn under suit, the marine saw a very plain looking young Arabic woman. Petite with black hair tied back in a plaited ponytail. Her grimy face was pockmarked from some childhood disease. It was the eyes though that caught the marine. For a moment there appeared naked hate. Mistakenly, he put it down to the search, which with the female soldier didn’t take long.

Not finding anything on Azrah, they continued their search of the boat for another twenty minutes or so, before they finally gave the grizzled old captain the all clear. As the marines left, the captain hawked loudly, phlegming over the side of the dhow, far enough away to avoid the marines, but close enough to express an opinion.

With the marines gone, and the dhow sailing again under a gentle breeze, Abdi and Azrah stood next to each other, leaning against the wooden rail whilst staring out to sea.  With all the other passengers on deck, they couldn’t talk openly.  ‘Let’s hope that is the only inspection. I worry that one of these days someone might recognise you.’

‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Azrah. ‘It’s people like you that they want to pick up.’

‘That will only happen if God wills it. Interesting that the dog could pick up the scent on you though. We were lucky that the infidel was so stupid.’

‘As you say, if God wills it.’ She left that hanging and paused before continuing, ‘How long before we get to the Madagascar coast?’

‘About another week. We should enjoy this pleasure cruise whilst we can.’

Chapter 2

February 7th, The Insurgent Camp. Northern Madagascar.

Early evening, and the bush camp pulsed with activity. The women, captured into servitude and raped into submission, worked hard to make the day’s main meal. A simple diet of tomatoes, rice, beans, and fish was stewing in large metal pots, that just rested on hot embers in the fire pits. The food, like the women, was the captured spoil of a conflict that had been raging for more than three years. Ten-year old girls and boys were already being groomed for their future roles. The boys carried a gun, the girls fetched water and wood, and did endless and thankless chores.

The camp was nestled in a depression of low ground in the forest. Its location, carefully chosen, helped keep light and noise from travelling. The dense grey green canopy blocked out the emerging stars but danced a little as it reflected the limited light from the fires. All around the perimeter of the depression, on the outer edges, bearded men were on guard. Some slouched against the nearest tree, some sat down in pairs chatting, some smoked, and some paced a little nervously. In the main, their lack of professionalism showed, a blend of cockiness and poor discipline.

A group of more experienced men, sitting around a fire pit, were discussing tomorrow’s attack. Abacar, the slightly potbellied, democratically-elected leader was holding court. He was democratically elected if you included the fact that the last leader had been killed in an ambush with the military. No one else had had the balls to challenge Abacar for the leadership role at the time. It wasn’t the kind of job for which you interviewed. ‘The village is half a day’s march from here and we last raided it about eight months ago. They have now had plenty of time to rebuild and restock the pharmacy.’ He spoke in French, a result of trade and conquests hundreds of years ago. In this part of Madagascar, with the varied Malagasy tribal variations, it was a middle ground for communication. He stroked his unkempt, dark beard as he continued. ‘We do it the same way, depart at three in the morning, and rest when we get nearby.  Then we spread out and enter from the South and the East. We leave the villagers the chance to run out to the North. The aim is the pharmacy. We take what we need, then we burn it down.  Once we have done that, and only then,’ he looked sternly around the fire, ‘well, then you can have ten minutes to get food, women, and whatever valuables you can carry.’

Abacar paused as he let the thought of pillaging sink in. It was scant reward he thought, for risking their lives for the cause, but he certainly didn’t have the money to pay them. He looked across to the thin, spectacled man to his right. ‘Tsane, what else should we be discussing?’

Tsane, a former low level government administrative official pondered the question. His bookish nose supported his thick glasses and as he looked around the group of men crouching in a circle, the fire’s sparkle added to the fervour in his eyes. Tsane was one of the most devout of the group, he led the prayers when they were out in the bush. Whilst he was respected for that, he also had experience in planning and management. He wasn’t a leader at heart, but his ideas were good, and the group trusted him. He spoke gently and calmly, ‘Brothers, we have very little ammunition. We need to keep what we can, so don’t waste any. Remember, this attack is all about the pharmacy. We need bandages, antibiotics, and vitamins. If we don’t succeed here, we won’t have what we need for the next attack. And that one is vital for our guest, who will be arriving soon.’

‘What is so important about this guest?’ asked one of the men around the fire pit.

Tsane answered patiently. ‘Our guest is a big man, an important man. He is the personal representative of… The Associate.’

Even the man with the question was awed by that. The Associate was not someone whose real name was known, but he was a whispered legend of the insurgency, the man behind the money, one of the catalysts of it all. The fact that a personal representative was coming meant great events were unfolding.

‘Tsane, don’t tell these dogs too much yet. They need to earn the information first with success tomorrow!’ Abacar interrupted the idolisation. ‘We move at three o’clock. Get some rest!’

Chapter 3

February 7th, The Indian Ocean.

Later, in the middle of the night, Abdi was sitting on the rough wooden deck with his back to the gunwale of the dhow. The gentle roll meant that as he looked forward across the deck, the dark star-studded line, where the night met the sea, rhythmically swept in and out of view. The half-moon, yellowed and bright, was low in the sky and it peeked out from behind a taut sail. It was a rare stationary point in a moving, creaking world.

Abdi pulled out his satellite phone and powered it up. He had used it once before whilst on board. It was an object completely out of place amongst the refugees and he had received suspicious glances ever since. As the phone booted up, its face glowed briefly. He extended the slightly chunky antennae, cradling the phone between his bent knees as he sat there.  It took a few moments, but the chirp of a text message told him when it had registered with the nearest satellites. He stabbed some buttons with his grubby thumbs and read the message from an unknown sender.

Call me.

There was only one person in the world who had the phone number for his satellite phone and Abdi knew that person’s number by heart. It wasn’t saved in the phone though, there was too much risk in that. Abdi knew that the other person’s phone was probably a burner, but you couldn’t be too careful. He looked at the time and date of the message. A couple of days ago. Oh well he thought, let’s hope it wasn’t urgent.

It rang four times before it was picked up. ‘You took your time.’ It was a statement, delivered in a reptilian fashion, by a voice that sounded uneducated. An extraordinary accent that was a mix of Nigerian and Japanese.

Abdi knew from bitter experience though that you underestimated The Associate at your peril. It was the Associate who had loaned Abdi the money to get on the ladder, literally, of his piracy business. The Associate had made Abdi into the man he was today. Surely, a masters from a good London university had helped, but you couldn’t start a business without a little bit of money, and The Associate had loaned him a lot.  With his millions now safely invested, and a team that was successfully terrorising the Indian Ocean, Abdi had been given another job.  That job was in Ghana, and that time Abdi had failed miserably. Or rather, Abdi had assumed that a corrupt Minister for Mines would be competent enough to help him pull off the largest gold heist ever. As it turned out, being good at being corrupt didn’t qualify you as competent. The former Minister had found that out when he had woken up dead one morning with a gold bar rammed so far down his throat that he had suffocated. The bar that had been rammed up his arse had come first, but that one probably wasn’t fatal.

Perhaps somehow, The Associate had realised that Abdi wasn’t at fault for that cockup and so he had been given one more chance. It wasn’t quite as easy as that though. The Associate had made it very clear that with success came power and more riches. With failure came an ignominious end and likely a painful death.

With all that in mind Abdi replied carefully in English. ‘I couldn’t call. We were boarded by a naval vessel. I have had to be careful.’

‘Hmph. How far are you from your destination?’

‘We should get there either tomorrow or the day after, if the winds hold true.’

‘Fine, your contact will meet you on the beach. I will send you a precise location through the phone, so you can make sure you connect with him. After that, whilst you are still in deep water, I want you to drop your Satphone over the side.’

‘OK,’ said Abdi. ‘Is everything still according to plan?’

There was a pause. ‘Yes, and if it isn’t then you will have to solve the problem. That is what I pay you for. Don’t fail me again.’

As the Associate hung up the phone, Abdi swore softly to himself, almost as though he was worried the Associate could still hear him. What do you mean, that is what I pay you for? he thought. He wasn’t getting paid anything for this one!

Chapter 4

February 8th, Inland. Northern Madagascar.

The march through the forest to the village had been uneventful. Uneventful but never simple, especially when the army was somewhere out there hunting insurgents. The conflict had escalated considerably in recent years. Now there were military patrols, ambushes and foreign assistance which had brought technology to the conflict that most men didn’t really understand. If you let it, your imagination ran riot with rumour and fear. Apparently, the government now had special machines that flew high and looked for the heat of a person or a fire. Once found, they could direct artillery, or worse an attack. Initially the men had been sceptical, but over time they had heard more, and they had all watched the movies and googled the videos of strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

If the men hadn’t had the help of Allah, the fear of a simple man armed with a machete against the unnamed government forces equipped with unlimited ammunition and technology, could lead to failure or desertion. People were always deserting the cause. That was one of the reasons they were also going to recruit some new fighters tonight if they got the chance.

In total the group consisted of fifteen men. Rather, twelve men and three boys. For those three it was a night for blooding. Their first combat. They stood there now, eyes wide, weapons by their sides, their ragged and dirty clothes hanging off their childish frames. Abacar had gathered his people together as dawn appeared. The village was less than five hundred metres away now and it was time to begin.

The fighters thinned out amongst the trees, boys in the middle, each being mentored by one of the men. They held their weapons tight, heads jerking to the left and right as the adrenaline pumped. The men, more experienced, but also wary, wore their expressions of sour determination, none wanting to be unmanned in front of their peers.

The village was becoming more obvious ahead now, there were even some morning cooking fires burning. The smell of smoke and early breakfast drifted through the trees towards the fighters. They continued their approach. They crept through the shadows of the trees, trying to avoid making noise. Ahead was the clearing with the ramshackle mud huts on the periphery of the village. Closer to the centre though, in the prime real estate, the buildings changed to stone and cement construction.  A battered, poorly-surfaced and potholed road passed through the village. It ran east to west, and its alignment helped the fighters position themselves as they approached from the south. There was no electricity, no streetlighting, just a few simple fires, that had probably been burning slowly all night to keep the guards warm.

Where were the guards? Abacar thought to himself. The fighters to his left and right were approaching the first huts now, still silent, moving carefully. They paired off outside different buildings, looking up and down the line as best they could, waiting for the signal. Tsane followed Abacar closely. As per their previous agreement, Tsane kept lookout whilst Abacar prepared to enter the nearest hut.

It had mud and wattle walls, a simple door made of sticks, and a thatched roof, covered with a huge UN Refugee Agency plastic tarpaulin. Breaking the door and shattering the silence took just two brutal kicks from Abacar’s size-ten boots and a blood curdling yell. As the door collapsed, he was quickly into the dark interior, weapon raised.

Across the village, the cries and screams lasted for ten minutes or more. Only a couple of shots were fired, and the rest was machete work. Most of the hundred or so villagers were allowed to escape, ancient men, old and middle-aged women, and young children. A few of the young men tried to be brave, but were either hacked to pieces where they were, or they were dragged onto the road. There, battered, rigid with fear and laying in heaps, they were put under the watchful but wide eyes of the three boys.

The pharmacy building was a brick-built, single-story one-roomed shop. It was painted white and had a painkiller brand painted on the front wall. The shop sat back from the dusty road by about twenty metres, but it was pretty unremarkable. The fact that it was the main objective of today’s attack said more about the scarcity of the medical supplies available to the insurgents than the monetary value of what they needed to steal. The shop had a simple light blue thin metal door and an oversized padlock. The doors hinges were secured with only a couple of dollops of mortar, and it took Abacar only a few moments with a large log to smash the door down.

Inside, it was no Walmart, but after a quick glance and the odd rummage on some of the shelves, Abacar and Tsane were happy that they had struck gold. As they emerged from the shop, their attention shifted to some high-pitched shouting a hundred metres or so away.

The boys who were guarding the few captured young men were shouting. One of the men had just stood up and was making a run for it. As the man started to sprint down the road, his sandals flapping on the surface, two of the boys just stood there and shouted.  It was the third boy though who acted. Raising his AK47 with his scrawny arms extended, holding an unsteady aim, he fired a long burst. He hadn’t been given a full magazine, but the fifteen rounds in it were fired before the boy even blinked. As the barrel moved up and right whilst firing, he mostly hit trees. As the brutal echoes ended, the running man almost couldn’t believe his luck. He hadn’t been hit once. He ducked left and looking behind him, to see if he was being chased, he passed the open doorway of a house. The insurgent that stepped out from that dark hole, machete already blooded, made a single hack to the man’s face. The blade struck true between the man’s mouth and nose and sank into the sinus cavity beyond. The man’s momentum kept his legs running a moment longer, before they too got the message that they were officially dead.

With the first phase of the excitement over, and after making sure that the stores from the pharmacy were secured, Abacar as promised released his men to their rewards.

He and Tsane sauntered towards the six remaining men that were sitting on the road. Abacar silently squatted next to them, staring at the men. They were startled when it was Tsane, the reedy-looking, bookish-faced man that spoke to them. His voice was quiet and educated. ‘You.’ Tsane pointed at what looked to be the oldest of the group, perhaps thirty years old. ‘Why have you not joined our cause? Why do you not fight against the infidel?’

The man, wide eyed, looked down at the ground. Desperately trying to think of the right thing to say. ‘Because I am afraid.’

‘What are you afraid of?’ asked Tsane.

‘Pain, dying, leaving my family unprovided for.’

‘But those are material things of this world. What about eternity? Why do you strive for things in this world, when everything comes to the man who fights in the Jihad.’

‘I am afraid of the monster I would become.’

‘Monster!  Who is a monster?  We are not monsters!’ The few remaining women, screaming as they were being chased around the village, might have begged to differ if they had had the time. Listening for a moment, and perhaps recognising the irony, Tsane continued. ‘This? This is the reward that Allah gives his servants for Jihad. Not all rewards come in eternity. Men need food in their bellies, bullets in their guns and women on their cocks.’

‘But I have been taught the five pillars, I have studied the scriptures. I do not understand where this…’ the man gestured around the village, ‘plays a part in who I am as a man and what Allah wants of me.’

Abacar interrupted now, having said nothing so far and still squatting on his haunches. ‘The struggle is real. The infidels are relentless in their pressure. They destroy our way of life. They slowly but surely reduce our values to nothing.’

‘But with my whole heart, I do not believe that.’ The man appeared to realise that his words put him in jeopardy, and he sagged a little further, as he sat there in the dust of the road.

‘The rest of you,’ said Abacar. ‘What do you believe?’

To a man, they nodded, acquiesced, and pandered to Abacar and Tsane.

Abacar though,  like a switch being thrown was suddenly furious. ‘Listen to yourselves. In fear now you try to save your own skins. This man…’ Abacar pointed to the man who had been talking, ‘This man is brave. This man has the courage to stand up for what he believes in. This man will now be set free.’

The man didn’t understand, didn’t trust what Abacar was saying. ‘What? Free? I don’t understand.’

‘Yes, you are to go free. You will go and tell others that we are merciful. But there is a price for your freedom.’

‘What is that price?’ asked the man fearfully.

‘You will tell us, which one of these men will die, so that you may