The Insurgency by Rob Phayre

Author:Rob Phayre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 44

February 25th, The Refinery. Northern Madagascar.

‘Azrah, have you got what you need?’ Abacar asked.

She looked at him, thinking that he had actually sounded liked he was genuinely interested. She stopped herself and was a little more gracious. Some of his men had died today and whilst he had achieved part of what he wanted, the main event was still to come, and for that he needed her expertise. ‘Yes, I think so,’ she replied. Less than twenty metres away, in the back of her pick-up truck, were more explosives than she would possibly need.

The radio clipped to Abacar’s belt squawked at him, ‘Abacar, we can see lots of people escaping through the fence line. What do you want us to do?’

Abacar kept his frustration in check as he pulled up the small black handheld device. ‘Are they armed?’

‘No.’

‘Are they in a vehicle?’

‘No.’

‘Well chase after them, you goat’s turd!’

Abdi who was standing next to him interjected. ‘Alive, we want them alive!’

Abacar acknowledged with a grunt and spoke into his radio again. ‘Catch them and bring them back alive. We need all of them alive!’

‘Yes Abacar!’ came the reply through the static.

Abacar turned to Abdi. ‘Allah be merciful. It doesn’t matter how much you practise, sometimes people just don’t listen.’

‘Today is going OK, I have seen a lot worse,’ answered Abdi. Abacar didn’t know it but that was about as complimentary as Abdi ever got. It just wasn’t in his surly demeanour to give any better.

‘What the fuck are you lot doing now?’ shouted Abacar to a group of insurgents about a hundred metres to his right. He had just looked across the open area to where all the seating stands were. One of his men was supposed to be sorting the survivors into groups but was busy beating the crap out of an obviously wounded soldier. Abacar started walking across the field, careful to avoid stepping in any obvious human remains and gore.

Azrah turned away to start work on cracking open the strong room. She jumped in the front of her pickup truck and told the driver to move. Abdi followed Abacar, deeply interested now in the survivors. He walked the hundred metres or so to where the survivors of the attack were all being gathered. The stadium-style temporary terraced seating looked like it could hold four or five hundred people. The scaffolding was hollowed out underneath but above the seats it supported quite a large sunshade roof. Off to the right, sitting on the dusty ground and surrounded by half a dozen insurgents, were all of those survivors that had been rounded up so far. Abdi did a rough count, about sixty or so people were on the ground. He looked at them coldly, with little recognition in his mind of them as individuals. He hardly recognised the sociopath in him, evolved from his years in Somalia where life was fragile and cheap. One of his last projects, where he kept many sailors hostage for months, had reinforced this character trait.

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