Blue Warrior

Tolo shook his massive head. “We both know you are making promises you can’t keep. But what do I care for such things? Eggs must be broken in order to be eaten. Still, if you were to bring jobs to the Kidal, this would be a good thing for you.”

“But we can’t bring jobs until operations begin, and we can’t begin operations until the Tuareg problem is settled.” Zhao stabbed out the butt of his cigar in a crystal ashtray. “How do you plan on doing that?”

Tolo glanced at his empty glass. Zhao unstoppered the bottle and refilled it.

“The Tuareg problem now is simple. Always these ‘godforsaken’ have been restless and rebellious, but the desert grows hotter and they grow fewer. They are divided by clans and tribes, often fighting among themselves, at least until now.”

Zhao emptied the last of the Martel into the snifter. Tolo nodded his thanks. “Merci.”

“De rien,” Zhao said. “What is different now?”

“The whole of the Tuareg nation now looks to one man. He is called ‘The Blue Warrior’ by his people. His name is Mossa Ag Alla.”

“‘The Blue Warrior’?” Zhao sat back and let the image of a blue-turbaned desert warrior roll around in his mind for a moment, admiring its mythical possibilities. “Yes, that makes perfect sense. The Kel Tamasheq men are famous for wearing the indigo blue headdress and veil.”

Zhao had done his homework. Unlike other Middle Eastern cultures, it was the Tuareg men who wore veils, not the women. Often living as fugitives, the Tuareg tagelmust was the way the Tuareg fighters hid their identities as well as protected them from the violent sun and heat of the desert. The long garment that was used to wrap their heads and hide everything but their eyes was also considered a protection against the djinn of the desert, and when they sweated, the indigo dye bled onto their unbathed skin. The ultimate symbol of the Tuareg warrior was his blue tagelmust.

Tolo shrugged his sloping shoulders. “He is but a man, and the Tuaregs a plague. We’ll kill him, and that will be the end of the affair.”

“But how will you find him?” Zhao asked. The Tuareg were virtual ghosts when hiding in the desert.

“We don’t have to,” Tolo said. “He will come to us, like a fish to the net.”

“Why would he do that?”

“We will smash the Tuareg villages, one by one. And he shall hear of it, and he will come out of his lair and strike, and then we will spear him!” Tolo laughed. His people had fished the Niger River for five hundred years.

Zhao began to say something but held his tongue. The Malian’s confidence was evident. Perhaps it was best to give him a chance to handle this problem. There was a gentle knock on the door.

Zhao smiled. “I believe my token of appreciation has arrived for you, General.”

Tolo chuckled, and set down his snifter and cigar. He turned heavily in his chair toward the door.

“Come,” Zhao said in a language Tolo didn’t recognize.

The heavy door swung open. Three Thai girls with tall drinks and short silk dresses entered, giggling.

Tolo turned back toward Zhao, white teeth grinning. “You are a good man, Zhao!”

“I knew you were a confident man, General.” He winked, and pointed at the three women. “Let’s see how far that confidence goes.”

“Trust me, Zhao. I won’t disappoint them — or you.” He laughed again. So did Zhao. If the fat man failed, Zhao would be the one still laughing when he put a bullet between those bulging white eyes. But that would be little consolation. It would be his neck on the chopping block if this mission failed.

“If you’ll excuse me, General. I have some business to attend to.” Zhao excused himself with a wink and headed for his secure communications room to contact Dr. Weng. He’d give the general a chance to complete the mission, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t call in reinforcements, just in case.

8

The village of Anou

Kidal Region, Northeastern Mali

3 May

Captain Naddah rode in the old Baptist missionary bus with the new recruits, still in civilian clothes. He worried they might lose heart as they neared the village. Two weeks’ training was just enough to teach them to use their rifles and follow basic orders. But this was their first mission. In Allah’s sense of humor, he had chosen the right bus for them after all. The Toyotas carried his most trusted militia fighters, men with blood on their hands, like his.

Naddah was a captain in name only. He didn’t belong to the Mali army, though they supplied his militia with weapons, food, and an abandoned camp for training. When the foreign jihadists and Tuareg separatists rose up to seize cities in the north, Naddah quit his job in the repair shop and joined Ganda Koy, and when the Tuareg jihadists Ansar Dine declared sharia law in Gao and began destroying his people’s sacred shrines, Naddah volunteered to fight them.

It surprised Naddah how much he enjoyed killing the whites and the foreigners and how much skill he had in doing it, at first with only a machete and then a gun after he had taken one from a man he had killed.