Read African Dragon for Free Online

good. Like I said, I don’t think about that shit anymore. But when it’s shoved in your face, it comes back a little, you know? I was in Africa five times for five different missions, totally unrelated to each other. And every single one of them was a fucking disaster, including Mogadishu. I just hope this one goes better.” He faked a tight smile. “I’m good, Skipper.”
    Cory walked back inside quickly with Cascaes following. It was the most Cory had ever said to him at one time.

6.
     
    When they returned to the briefing room, one of Deirdre’s assistants was there. Jesse Daniels had worked for Deirdre for the past eight years, first as a field agent in and out of Africa, and then “inside” for the last four years after getting sick in-country. It was four weeks of intense drug therapy before the parasites that almost killed him were finally eradicated. He welcomed everyone back and had them get seated. As soon as all were sitting, he dimmed the lights and began showing photos of some of the contacts that Nigel Ufume had made before he disappeared. They took notes on names and locations as Jesse explained the network that Nigel had built over the years.
    The next slides were of press clippings from the last few months. One of them showed a statement from the DRC’s Mining Minister, Djumi Ofama, requesting help from the world community to help police the mining of uranium in the country. While the DRC had “officially” closed down the mines at bothShinkolobwe and Lubumbashi, over seven thousand miners still worked the locations by hand, selling the ore to private companies owned by Chinese and Indian “businesses.”
    One of Nigel’s contacts had talked about large numbers of sick children who had worked in the mines for a few months. Their low body weights made them the “canaries in the coal mine,” and they were the first to show signs of radiation sickness. Based on what Nigel had been told, the quantity of uranium must have been vast.
    Jesse handed out maps of local roads, rail lines and villages. Some of the villages had names penned beneath them of key contacts—some to use for help, some to stay the hell away from. After over an hour of detailed information, Jesse put the lights on and shifted gears to a more relaxed mood.
    “Okay—I know you’ve had a long day, and we’ll break for dinner in a bit, but ‘food’ is a good segue to my next topic, which is food.” He smiled and everyone groaned, having flashbacks to the Guaranis eating monkeys, caterpillars, and lord knows what else back in Paraguay. “I worked in and out of Africa for several years. I’ve covered Somalia, Angola, Uganda, Burundi, you name it. My last stint was in Somalia, and I ended up getting sick as hell. Almost died from some type of parasite that we never did figure out how I got. Might have eaten something, might have been bitten by something, who knows? Anyway—you don’t eat anything unless you see it killed and butchered in front of you. Vegetables and fruit are usually okay, but cook the hell out of them. Your best bets are your MREs. I know they suck—but you won’t die from them.”
    He smiled broadly. “Now I am going to tell you a true story.” That got a groan.
    “When I first started working in Africa, I was with one other agent—just us. So we positioned ourselves in a small town posing as businessmen looking for opportunities in metal mining. After we made some contacts, we spent a couple of months in a tiny shithole of a village near the mining operation, where we were trying to sort out who the players were. Anyway, I couldn’t eat anything except the local raisin bread. Anything else I ate made me sick. I lost about twenty pounds in two months. So every day, I’m eating raisin bread, baked fresh right there. Great stuff, except that I was getting pretty damn bored of it. Occasionally I would eat some porridge or shit with it, but honestly, everything turned my stomach other than the fresh