Excerpt of The Warrior by Ty Patterson

Zeb calm, allowing his presence to fill the room. This will end in only one way.

Stark limbers up smoothly and a FS– MK II knife appears in his right hand. Brink pauses from his book keeping to watch Con take out the intruder. He loves a good fight and Con is the best he has seen with a knife. The book keeping can wait for a few minutes. Or maybe not... The intruder moves from still to attack in a nanosecond, a blindingly silent high leap from standing. His left leg takes out Con's knife arm. Brink can hear the bone snap, even as his right leg collapses Con's throat. Zero to dead in less than a second Brink thinks dimly as the intruder lands smoothly and faces him. Not a glance to Con who is in his death throes.

Even as Zeb launched his Kalari Payattu strike on Con, he is aware a third had entered the room, uttered something in astonishment, grabbed the duffel back lying near Brink and escaped out. Once Stark is out of the equation he turns his gaze on Schulte. Answers. Schulte has them. Zeb wants them. Schulte will give them. He hasn't a choice.

A long hour later Zeb comes out of the hut. The Jeep is gone, presumably taken by Holt. It was he who had come into the room during the fight. Carsten Holt. Unofficial leader of the Rogue 6. Rogue 3, he corrects himself. Ex–Seal, used by the Agency for wet work, expert in close protection work and explosives. Quit the army to go freelance and earned a reputation for not being particular how he earned his money. Now running a mine hijacking and mineral trading racket in the Congo. The Agency had him on a watch list for some time and was in the process of blacklisting him and his closest associates when Congo happened. The surviving two with Holt are Quink Jones and Pieter Mendes. Both of them Ex Rangers.

He powers up his satellite phone and wakes up Andrews. Over 200 women raped, some of them young girls, some children and infants killed, by about 40 FDLR soldiers and 6 Agency mercenaries. The Rogue 6 headed by Holt were involved in mine capturing, smuggling of drugs, ivory, gold copper and cobalt. Many of the villagers in the DRC who worked in the mines, had a private stash of the ore which they used to trade and it was in search of such homes that Holt and his band had come to Luvungi for. The men in the village had been working in the mines and yet to return when Holt and the soldiers had arrived. Cobalt ore and pebbles were what Stark and Schulte were weighing and recording when Zeb had rudely interrupted them and helped them on their way to their Maker. Rape and killing was part of instilling fear and cooperation. Schulte knew that Holt was working with someone in the States for mine capturing and selling the minerals but did not know who that was.

Andrews goes Chernobyl, his tirade lasting a good few minutes, burning the air. Andrews calms down a long while later. ‘You have to come back immediately. We need you to meet the UN and depose. You are the first eye witness account of this horrific... this atrocious... this sickening... whatever one calls it.'

Zeb is silent.

‘I know you want to track Holt, but that can wait. I guess Schulte, Stark and Boulder are in no position to embarrass the Agency?' Andrews, knowing fully well what the answer is. Zeb doesn't answer.

‘You should come back immediately. Once the news breaks out that FDLR soldiers and some mercenaries who seem to be American were involved in mass and multiple rapes in the Congo, the shit will not just hit the fan, it will create a mushroom cloud over Washington and the New York. The White House will be brown. I need you back with your photographs and your record of the events to prevent collateral damage here. Your being there, we could spin it that you helped stopped the most horrific abuse in Africa in history. I can see the headlines now.' Collateral damage. Andrews speak for covering his and the Director's ass and playing the D.C. game.

‘I know you want to track Holt, Jones and Mendes, but this is more important than them. I will put them on an international black list and get international warrants issued on them. In any case Holt and the other two have left and will likely disappear now that you have located them.'

‘I just realized there is another reason for you to return immediately. Given what has happened, the villagers there may not be able to distinguish you from the rogue soldiers. Tempers are no doubt going to be high there for some time. I also don't want to explain your presence to the authorities there right now, even if you are guised as an aid worker. You are not exactly unknown to some intelligence agencies around the world. It's best you disappear from there.'

Zeb looks back at the hut which has the girl with the vacant eyes and makes his mind up. Holt is on a countdown. He just does not know it.