In a room at the Holiday Inn Express in Washington, Gabriel, lay on the bed, hands behind his head. Solomon was working on a laptop.
"Try Bill again, Sol."
"There's no reply."
"You checked the bank? The money from Steve Kendrick?"
"It's in. Two million dollars."
"Good man. What about Temple?"
"Temple wants money before he'll ship the mobile clinic. You know that."
"What about the convention in Birmingham. We still on?"
"I'm organising it right now. You still want to use the Fela theme?"
"Yeh. Give me the phone, Sol. Let me try Bill again."
Solomon tossed the phone over without looking. Gabriel pressed the number he'd already tried until his fingers were sore. Yet again it went dead. "Fuck."
"Told you so. Why don't you go out, Femi? You driving me crazy. Leave me in peace. You're meeting that friend of Mark's in half an hour. Fuck off."
Gabriel grinned at the back of Solomon's head, stood up from the bed, pulled shoes on and passed a hand across his hair. "Have a nice day, Sol" he said going out the door.
He'd arranged to meet Craig Donovan at a Starbucks and was already there when Donovan arrived. Donovan easily picked him out - the tall black guy in the corner with the neat moustache, blue, open-necked shirt, arms stretched across two chairs. And Gabriel knew it was Donovan - a big, burly guy with a confident, military stride and a baseball cap fixed with a tuft of grey hair protruding at the back. They shook hands and organised coffees.
"So, a friend of Mark Dobson," Gabriel said as Donovan removed the baseball cap and somehow fixed it across his knee.
"We met in Beirut. But I know Nigeria. I was at the US Embassy in Abuja a while back."
"Paper pusher?" Gabriel's mood was still not good.
"Everything's paperwork, Gabriel. Even the CIA."
Gabriel sat up straighter. "So, time to serve the arrest warrant and deportation papers?"
"I'm retired, OK? And I hate fucking paperwork."
"Good news. Mark brief you?"
"Yep."
"So, what can you do?"
"I know how some things work." Donovan took a sip of his latte. "Sounds like you got some bright ideas, Gabriel. Christ knows, we need them. I watched one of your videos - the World War Three one - the one that got you some attention in the LA Daily News and the London Daily Telegraph. I noticed the Washington Times didn't pick it up."
"You think World War Three is inevitable?"
"Not inevitable but we sure gotta deal with the problems you talk about: Poverty, unemployment, resource depletion, food, water, mass migration, population growth, living space, the conflict and terrorism that arises from all of that. Jesus, there's no space even to stand up in places."
They talked on for a while, Gabriel slowly beginning to like the burly, grey-haired American whose baseball cap kept falling off his knee. But he still couldn't see where Donovan fitted in.
"Mark's looking at the legal and commercial side," Donovan said at last. "I'm more of a military man. Daniel Bakare's an old buddy of mine."
"The bastard. I've been waiting for him all fucking day."
"I know. He told me. But he's also been sat around waiting. Waiting for his boss, the Defence Secretary, Douglas Martin. Martin got diverted from Saudi Arabia to Johannesburg after the bombing at the Crown Plaza hotel,"
"Fucking voyeur," said Gabriel with a distorted smile. "Thirty killed and a hundred injured. What did Martin do? Watch the last of the smoke rising? Denounce the atrocity? Very useful."
Donovan nodded, smiled.
"It's a sign of trouble ready to erupt, Craig. The softening up phase."
"Funny. Bakare used the same expression. Softening up."
"Bakare steals all my fucking phrases because he hasn't got any of his own. By the time he gets here we might be gone."
"What do you want him to do?"
"Help the Project along. Endorse it."
"Does he understand it?" Donovan certainly didn't, but he waited for a reply. When he got nothing, he went on. "Even if he did he's limited to what he can do."
"Limited by what?"
"His political masters."
"A plausible excuse. But what the fuck can you do? Even less."
"I can pull a few strings. Find out stuff."
"What stuff?"
"Did you know they've spotted a British flag painted on the roof of a building in what looks to the Americans like a military camp somewhere over the Nigerian border?"
Gabriel looked up. That was news. "Bill must have been feeling patriotic or homesick. What else?"
"Explain why politicians aren't decisive like you."
"Go on, then. Explain."
"They're shit scared."
"I've noticed."
"Scared of making mistakes. Getting it wrong. Upsetting the electorate. Losing face. Going down in history as failures."
"That's what Mark said."
"What was his solution?"
"To use consultants. I thought he was joking. Politicians and bureaucrats love consultants, he said. They like the jargon and the use of ten words when one will do. They like the cut and paste charts and tables, the references and the recommendations. Mark was cynical, called most of it crap and said most of the shit was to win more consultancy work."
"But Mark's right. Politicians like someone else making recommendations. If things go wrong they've got someone to blame. But they particularly like it if someone goes ahead and tries something first. Proves it works. They'll sneer and point fingers if it fails, but they'll jump on the train if they see it leaving the station."
"And politicians see problems coming down the line, problems the consultant doesn't always see because he's not a politician. Right?"
"It's not more politicians we need, Gabriel. It's leadership."
"OK, but what the fuck are you getting at, Craig?"
"Listen. There are senior military guys out there who would agree with using private defence forces if they had good reasons for them. Maybe they don't understand why you need a private army. Maybe you need to explain it better. If they understood it, and were convinced, they might help. But they're usually hamstrung by the system and by politicians. If you agree, let me talk to a few of them. Start the persuasion job."
"You're only talking about the defence side of the Project, yes?"
"Sure," Donovan admitted. Frankly, he was still struggling to understand the Project. The social and economic argument that Mark Dobson had tried describing had left far too many questions unanswered.
"Because you're an army man, right?"
"Yup."
"But it's not just military support I'm after, Craig. Are you sure Mark explained everything?"
"I understand it's some sort of alternative economic idea, community based, but one that needs security to encourage investment. Am I right?"
"A reasonable summary."
"Then why not let me have a word with a few guys I know."
"You mean start again? I started years ago. Bakare and others said they'd do it. I'm still waiting."
"Daniel Bakare wants to keep his job. He'd like someone of influence to make a recommendation - a strategy - that imitates yours, but he can't even find the support to appoint someone. It's blocked. Support for what you want would require a massive policy shift. That's dangerous for a politician. What if it fails? It would tarnish reputations. Mistakes get written into history.
"And, anyway, even if a strategy document was produced that recommended a massive shift away from conventional defence thinking can you imagine how much discussion would start? The controversy? The disagreements? It could take years. How many public leaks would there be? How many anti-interventionists, make love not war sympathisers would stifle progress? Politicians would stumble from one indecision to the next indecision. It's the world we live in."
As he was speaking, Donovan knew he was still looking on this as a defence project. That was wrong.
It was not just defence. Gabriel was really after a radical shift towards a new style of economy - for Africa, for Christ's sake - an experiment. Jesus, it was complicated. He blew some air out of frustration.
"You know, Gabriel, I just got back from England. They just sent three jets in to help bomb some terrorist targets. You should have heard the objections, the public outcry. Why? Because the UK Parliament hadn't ratified that sort of air strike. Jesus, man, do they want a fucking referendum every time someone has to make a decision?"
Gabriel nodded. "Democracy is OK until you need a decision."
"Elected politicians do not always make good leaders," Donovan said. "Dictators are far better at it but the West then calls them despots. Why do we have Islamic terrorism, mass migration, unemployment, refugees, economic failure? Many argue it's because we got rid of a couple of hard men, decision-makers - the dictators."
Gabriel nodded but looked at his watch. "I know. Where do we take this, Craig?".
"Let me talk to some folks I know. I'm asking for your permission. They are not politicians and one or two can pull very long strings. But they will, I'm sure, ask for evidence. Yes, they know all about multinationals needing defence rings for vast oil and gas and minerals extraction, but doing it for poor, subsistence farmers just to prove that small, self-sustaining local economies work? How long would that take?"
"It works, Craig. I'm not going to blow any victorious trumpets just yet but who the fuck do you think helped drive that bunch of COK fanatics out of Burkina Faso three days ago? You hear about that? And Burkina Faso's nowhere near our patch of land."
Donovan's eyes widened. "That was STA - Specialised Tasks Africa? Bill Larsen's group? Operating out of your land?"
Gabriel nodded. "Yep. Bill's got an unwritten arrangement with Burkina." he said. "Vital support, specialised ops, and no risk to Americans, Brits, French, Australians, Canadians or anyone else with an aversion to dying in combat. Bill's team consists of Africans, hand-picked, trained by him. Africans defending their own way of life and freedom in the same way that US citizens once helped defeat Nazism. We could match the COK man for man if we recruited as many as they do.
"The difference is, Crag, that we won't kill innocents, we won't abduct, we won't try to instil our beliefs other than the one that says people can chose. And we won't rob, rape, steal, bribe or corrupt. Neither will we invade and take over assets. All we'll do is defend innocent, hard-working Africans in numbers and encourage the investment needed to provide them with jobs and a brighter future. The Project is a testing ground for a completely new strategy. Got it? But we still need money. The COK are flush with money from crime and corruption. Meanwhile, I struggle to persuade the US, UK and other governments to contribute a single dollar. Bill Larsen is far too busy running STA and hasn't got the credentials or patience to spend half his time crisscrossing the world trying to convince politicians. So, if nothing's forthcoming, we'll move on."
Watching Gabriel's increasingly angry face, Donovan picked up on that last remark. It looked like a threat.
"What do you mean, move on?"
"We'll move to Plan B. And this lot won't fuck about with Parliaments and Senates and referendums. You really want to see sparks fly?"
There was a pause before Donovan muttered, "Mmm. I see. And you told Mark that the US and others were not taking the COK seriously. That it was not just a lingering faction of Abubakar Shekau's Boko Haram, that it......"
Gabriel interrupted. "It's not just me saying that, but I'm not close enough to state security. Your CIA guys should know. Ask them."
Donovan nodded thoughtfully.
"Meanwhile," Gabriel went on. "I'm being falsely accused of fraud, corruption, money laundering and God knows what else on a fucking Interpol notice. So, you Craig, you'd better be quick as well. Politicians and bureaucrats sit around talking while their pension pots grow. So, in fact, do retired soldiers. Leaders don't. They just get on with it. This one can't wait much longer."