Ivory Nation by Andy Maslen (free children's ebooks online txt) 📕

car and round to hold the door open for Eli before she could reach for the handle.

‘There you go, my lady,’ he said with one of his trademark, gold-flecked grins.

She winked at Gabriel as she got in. To Gabriel, the meaning was clear: as with gate guards at MOD Rothford, so with drivers in G-City! Gabriel followed her into the car’s chilly interior.

‘Strapped in, Sir, my lady?’

‘We’re good,’ Gabriel said, nodding to Phefo in the rear-view mirror.

‘Where’s the Kagiso Group compound?’ Eli asked as Phefo powered away from the hotel gateway, accelerating steadily down Chuma Drive, another tree-lined boulevard.

‘About twenty-three kilometres. We own the land to the northwest of Mokolondi Nature Reserve,’ he said. ‘There’s heavy traffic on Willie Seboni, so I’ll take you the direct route, on the A1. Normally it’s way slower but, man, the jam’s a G-City special. That’s what we call them, you know?’

As they left the downtown area, the flashy modern buildings and gaily painted villas in peach, lemon-yellow and sky-blue, gave way to a few straggling kilometres of corrugated-iron shacks and food stands, and then nothing but Botswana’s beautiful countryside. On both sides of the road unbroken prairie-like flatland was punctuated by stands of broad-leafed trees and thorny scrub. Distant blue-tinged mountains promised cooler, higher ground.

For the next twenty-five minutes, Phefo acted as combination tour guide and acclimatisation specialist. Finishing a story about where to get the best barbecue chicken in G-City, he turned onto a red clay back road. Even with the Merc’s superior suspension, the ruts and potholes made their presence felt.

After a couple of juddering miles, he rolled to a stop in front of a pair of tall steel gates, topped with razor wire. More wire stretched left and right, before disappearing into the trees. A sheet metal sign bolted to the bars read:

KAGISO GROUP

PRIVATE PROPERTY

NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT

ID OR AUTHORISATION

Another read:

!WARNING!

!LIVE FIRING EXERCISES AT ALL TIMES!

!DANGER OF DEATH!

Phefo punched a code into a stainless-steel box mounted on a post to the right of the gates. With a clank from their well-greased hinges, the gates slid open on runners set flush with the red earth.

Gabriel rolled his window down. Hot air gusted into the car’s cool interior. He listened carefully and, yes, there it was. The distant but unmistakeable sound of small arms fire. His heart thrilled to it and his right index finger twitched involuntarily.

Ever since leaving the SAS, he’d had occasional invitations to join outfits like Kagiso Group. Either directly from their owners, always ex-military men, or indirectly, from former comrades or ex-soldiers tapping into veterans’ networks.

He’d always said no. Partly because his job for The Department kept him occupied. Partly because some of the private security firms weren’t too choosy about their clients.

Brutal dictator putting down an uprising with government troops and mercenaries? Of course, Sir! Yours for a cool couple of million. Unscrupulous energy firm suppressing local protests at chemical spills? We have the men, the muscle and the motivation. Sign here.

But here he was, about to accept logistical support from one of those self-same operations. Yes. To find the killers of a bunch of Paras. My conscience is clear. On this one, at least.

The car pulled up in the centre of a tramped-flat red earth square. A white-painted single-storey building occupied the whole of one side. Its double glass doors and etched Kagiso Group logo – an eagle clutching a rifle in its talons – suggested this was the HQ. On the adjacent sides, more white buildings, some with windows, some blank-walled: stores or training rooms, Gabriel guessed.

The fourth side was empty. The red track they’d arrived on stretched away through the bush.

Gabriel and Eli climbed out of the car and accepted their daysacks from Phefo, who’d gone straight to the boot. They both stuck bush hats on and donned sunglasses.

‘Greetings!’ a male voice shouted. ‘Welcome to Mokolondi.’

Gabriel and Eli turned. A tall, thickset white man was striding towards them, hand outstretched. No hat, just a sun-browned scalp bisected by a jagged silver scar from crown to forehead. Deep fissures in his cheeks and radiating from the outer corners of his eyes gave his complexion the look of a dried-out river-bed. He wore camouflage fatigues and sand-coloured combat boots, laced to mid-calf.

‘George Taylor, at your service,’ he boomed as he arrived, and grasped first Gabriel’s hand then Eli’s. ‘Late of Hammersmith, London, and the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Now a proud resident of Mageba and CEO of Kagiso Group. Means “peace” in Tsetswana, by the way.’

Gabriel and Eli each shook his hand and introduced themselves.

‘Do you live out here?’ Eli asked.

‘Part of the time, dear lady, yes,’ Taylor said. ‘Home’s a delightful little villa on Nelson Mandela Drive. Come on, you must be thirsty after the drive.’

He led them over to the building bearing the Kagiso Group logo. As Gabriel had guessed, it was the HQ, complete with receptionists, a waiting area, an IT suite, and a variety of conference rooms.

‘Impressive,’ he said, as Taylor showed them each function housed within the building, from telecoms and briefing rooms to lecture hall and guest rooms.

‘Thanks. We like to think so. We get heads of state, generals, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies coming through here. It projects an air of competence. Reassures them their dollars are going to be well spent.’

‘How many men do you have under your command?’ Eli asked.

‘In total, nine hundred. We have deployments that could call for anywhere from a team of four to a couple of hundred. Right now, we’ve got three hundred and seventy-five on call. The rest are in the field.’

‘All based in Botswana?’ Gabriel asked.

‘No. We have twenty here right now. The rest are based at other locations. But this is our African operational base. As I’m sure you can imagine, most of our work is somewhere on this wonderful continent.’

He took them out to the back of the building. A sweeping deck looked out across the countryside. Wicker chairs and a glass-topped table sat beneath a huge triangular canvas