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‘It’s ambitious,’ Captain said. ‘But I agree with Casino and all the other leaders. This is the best chance our forces have had in six years of war.’

All the fighters were gathered outside the main hut. I’d been married about eight hours, but it was like nobody else even remembered.

‘Tonight, we’re beginning our most ambitious operation ever,’ Captain continued. ‘Most army command posts are down from ten or twelve men, to three or four. Headquarters is down from three hundred to less than sixty. With those sort of numbers, we can launch an all out attack. We’re going to set off before sundown and destroy two command posts. Three other rebel units will do the same in their areas. Afterwards, all rebel units will converge on headquarters. We reckon we’ll be evenly matched in terms of numbers, but we will have surprise on our sides. If this mission is a success, we’ll gain complete control over this region.’ ‘What’s to stop the government sending in reinforcements?’ Jesus asked. ‘The government has already sent everything it’s got spare to the front,’ Captain said. ‘I expect a few units have stayed back to police the capital, but that’s all. All we should have to do is hold this territory until the rebels advance this far. We’ll block every road and stop any government supplies getting through.’ ‘How long will we have to hold the area until the advance gets this far?’ Sami asked. ‘Always my daughter with the difficult questions,’ Captain said. Everyone laughed. Captain continued, ‘We don’t know exactly where our forces are and we don’t know how fast they’re advancing. All we can do is assume it won’t be long, based on the desperately small number of troops the government has left around here.’

Captain divided us into three groups. Two were attacking command posts. Me, Desi and Jesus were in the third. We had to sneak inside headquarters and soften it up before everyone else arrived a few hours later. It was the first time I’d been on a mission without Sami, but girls didn’t blend in around headquarters.

Adam was torn up. He seemed proud that I was a fighter, but he kept asking if I was likely to get hurt. He was also concerned about Sami, which made me happy because it showed they were getting along. When Adam saw Beck dressed up with his camouflage and gun, Adam was wildly impressed. The idea of a kid only four years older than him with a pocket full of grenades flipped his lid. Captain took me off to one side. ‘Young Adam seems like his head is pretty together.’ I nodded, ‘He’s a bright kid. You don’t want him to fight do you?’ No,’ Captain said. ‘He’s too little. But you reckon he could watch camp for a few hours? It would free up somebody else to go on the mission.’ I thought for a few seconds: no enemy had ever ventured up the path to camp and if they did, Adam

would be safer standing behind a gun than sleeping. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll show him the ropes.’ Adam was grinned his head off when I told him. ‘Does this mean I get my own gun?’ ‘You won’t be much use without one. I’ll show you how to use it so it doesn’t knock you off your feet.’ I found an AK47 with a short stock, then took Adam out to the little shelter at the top of the path and

showed him how to use the it. ‘Don’t ever fire unless it’s an emergency,’ I said. ‘The noise echoes and it could give our location away

to the army.’ Adam nodded. ‘Everyone in camp knows the password. If you don’t recognise someone coming up the path, hide in the bushes and shout,
Password
. If they shout back
Captain
, you know it’s OK. If they don’t shout back, or they say any other word, start shooting. ’ ‘Should I wake up the others?’ Adam asked. ‘No. As soon as you fire the gun, the noise will warn everyone.’ ‘I can’t believe I’ve got my own gun,’ Adam grinned. ‘Can I just fire one tiny shot to try it?’ ‘If you fire an unnecessary shot, or you fall asleep, Captain will whip you. Remember the scars you

asked about on Sami’s back?’ ‘Shit,’ Adam said, looking at the gun like he wished he’d never seen it. ‘What if it’s an accident?’ ‘You’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘It’s only for about three hours anyway.’

It was my first trip back to headquarters since my very first mission, when we robbed the store room and bluffed our way out of the front gate with a truck load of goodies. That time, I went out without even having fired my gun. Now I felt like an old hand. The grit in my mouth on the walk out didn’t bother me, I knew how to ration my water and I’d grown tough patches of skin in all the places where my pack used to rub. I still wasn’t as fit as a lot of the others, but when bullets start flying around, it’s your brain not your muscles that get you out of trouble.

The watch tower at army headquarters was unlit and unmanned, as usual. We crept in, using the hole Sami tore in the fence with my Dad’s knife. The fact it was still there after eight weeks showed how ineffective the government troops were, even when it came to arranging simple perimeter security that might stop us creeping in and killing them.

Once we were through the fence, I immediately got the sense that the camp had fallen on hard times. Last time there were over a hundred large tents. All that was left were dusty outlines and holes in the ground, as if the circus left town the night before. The troops that were left lived in three metal sheds, packed close together on the far side of the camp.

The trouble was, when there were hundreds of troops you could walk around and everyone would assume you were someone new, or someone they hadn’t seen before. Now there were only sixty, we had to be more cautious. Jesus was in charge. He looked at me. ‘Jake, you take the trucks out of action. I’ll try and see if there’s anything in the stores that will help us out. Desi, I want you to try and find any heavy weapons they have and make sure they’re not in working order when the cavalry arrives. We’ll meet in ninety minutes by the hole in the fence.’

There were a couple of trucks parked in odd locations. I went to these first. Normally we slashed tyres to disable a vehicle without making a noise, but our chances of controlling the area depended on us capturing and using the vehicles. By letting the air out of tyres, we’d be able to pump them back up later on. The disadvantage was that I had to stand by each tyre for several minutes, pushing the point of my knife into the valve to let out the air.

I crouched by the first tyre and unscrewed the valve cap. The air made more noise than I’d expected. I had to stare down at the valve and concentrate on what I was doing. If someone came up behind, I wouldn’t see or hear them and there was no quick way to grab my gun from such an awkward position.

I did the a tyre on two odd trucks and a Nissan with a little flag on the front that belonged to the base commander, then I walked to the line of trucks parked near the store room. While I was working on the second truck out of six, a drunken voice roared from behind me. ‘What are you doing?’ I sprung up quickly. The huge soldier thumped his fist on the metal. He was close enough to grab my

gun if I tried to use it. ‘Who said you could touch my truck?’ he shouted. ‘The commander told me to check all the tyre pressures,’ I said, backing away. ‘Looks like you’re letting the air out to me,’ the soldier roared. ‘Who put you up to messing with my

truck? Was it that arsehole Nero?’ ‘That’s right,’ I lied. ‘He told me to do it.’ The soldier grabbed my jacket and slammed my back against the metal. Guns are great equalisers, but face to face I was no match for a grown man. As the soldiers boozy breath washed over me, I tried to think of a way to talk myself out of trouble. ‘Do you want to get Nero back?’ I gasped. ‘He always forces me do crap like this.’ The drunk loosened his grip a bit.

‘How?’ ‘Nero’s going out with a convoy tomorrow,’ I said. ‘He’ll be furious if all the tyres are flat, not just

yours.’ The drunk’s expression changed into a smile. ‘Nero will go crazy,’ I said. The drunk set me free and gave me a friendly thump on the shoulder. ‘I like your style, boy,’ he giggled. ‘I’ll give you a hand. But first you have to take this.’ The soldier reached inside his truck and pulled out two banana beers. ‘Be merry my friend,’ he boomed. ‘Beautiful,’ I said, grabbing one of the beers. The drunk laughed, ‘They’re both for you. Put one in your pocket for later.’ I grinned, ‘Cheers.’ I was thirsty from the walk. I twisted the top off a beer and drank half straight down. I walked back to the tyre and carried on letting out the air. My new friend staggered off and started letting down a tyre on another truck. He was so pissed, he took twice as long as me to do each tyre. When I crept off to meet Jesus, he carried on doing my job.

The three of us met up by the fence. Jesus had killed the storekeeper and hidden his body so that everyone thought he was skiving. He’d stolen loads of grenades and walked around camp rolling them under the raised buildings. If we got a single grenade to explode in any of the buildings during the assault, it would set off all the ones underneath, creating a massive explosion. Desi had packed dirt and stones inside heavy machine guns and grenade launchers, so they’d jam up or explode if anyone tried to use them.

Our final task was to neutralise the roadblock a kilometre from camp. The three of us crawled through the jungle. It was the kind where there are no tall trees, with really dense undergrowth. There wasn’t any moon, so it was pitch black and thousands of insects and stuff kept buzzed past right next to my ears.

As we walked, I felt a sharp pain in my wrist. I was scared it might be a snake, but I ran my finger over the painful spot and only felt a little round lump, which I realised must be an insect sting. The pain was quite bad, but I carried on. Then I felt the same stabbing pain, only this time it was up around my elbow. Something was crawling inside my uniform. Jesus realised I had a problem and stopped walking, but it was so dark he couldn’t do anything to help.

I frantically unbuttoned my jacket and threw it off. The insect managed to get a couple more stings in before I flicked it off. ‘You OK?’ Jesus whispered, trying not to giggle at my frenzied state. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think it was a wasp.’ ‘That’ll hurt,’ Desi said. The wasps in Africa were black, evil looking, things, about the size of a small car. My arm burned with

the most staggering pain. I slipped my jacket back on. Jesus started walking again. We got up close to the guard hut at the roadblock. The fingers in my right arm were locked up and my

wrist was all tingly and swollen. I could hardly hold my rifle. Desi crawled around the side of the hut and peered in the window. He raised four fingers, to indicate the number of soldiers inside. There were two others outside. One in the road by the line of spikes and one standing behind a big machine gun. We had to do a neat job. Too much noise would put headquarters on alert and the mission to take it over would be hopeless.

I couldn’t shoot straight, so Jesus pointed me towards the guy manning the machine gun. It was the closest target and the only one I stood a chance of hitting with arm in agony.

‘I’ll do the one in the road,’ Jesus said. ‘Desi, you point your gun in the window of the hut and start blasting. We roll on three.’ Me and Desi nodded. ‘One… Two… Three.’ I fired two quick shots into machine gun man. Jesus ran in the road and shot the guard, before spinning and blasting the only soldier who managed to run out of the hut before Desi got him through the window. We killed all six men in about five seconds.

Jesus dragged the chain of metal spikes out of the road. Then he dumped some of the sandbags packed around the machine gun a few hundred metres down the road. These were an arranged signal, to tell our people that the roadblock had been dealt with.

We hid near the guard hut and waited for the others. My wrist was swollen to about twice it’s normal size. Jesus and Desi said it was nothing to worry about, just a mild allergic reaction that most people get the first time they’re stung by a wasp. They both giggled about my performance throwing off the jacket and said I was soft when I moaned about the pain.

The first truckload of rebels was from a unit I’d never seen. Within fifteen minutes, there were twelve vehicles stuffed with rebels lined up in the road. The reports were good. Every command post in the area had been taken without much difficulty. Sami and Captain jumped out of a freshly stolen Nissan. Captain went off to organise the final assault on the base. Sami spotted me, lit up by the headlamps of a truck and came over. ‘Oh my god,’ Sami giggled, looking at my arm. ‘I’m married to a freak.’ A couple of people standing nearby started laughing. She kissed my cheek and grinned at me. ‘It’s not funny,’ I moped. ‘It really hurts.’ ‘Hurts even more when you do this.’ Sami grabbed my swollen wrist and squeezed it. I screamed out loud. ‘You’re such a baby, Killer. It’s only a wasp sting.’ ‘I love you too,’ I said. I was getting fed up with everyone taking the mickey. ‘OK,’ Captain was shouting. ‘I want an advance party of ten to go in through the fence and start

attacking the front gate from inside. The rest can ram it in trucks as soon as the fighting starts.’ Sami gave me a quick kiss and got back in the Nissan. We had plenty of troops and I could barely pull a trigger with my swollen arm, so I waited by the guard hut, telling any late arrivals that the party had started without them. I heard some explosions and a few brief bursts of gunfire. A big fireball shot into the air when a fuel tank got hit. The whole sky flashed orange.

When everything quietened down, I began walking up the road. I passed through the main gates and looked around. Things had gone well for us. The grenades under the huts had gone off and most of the government troops didn’t even get out of bed.

Loads of rebels were celebrating by climbing up the watch tower and screaming off the sides. As a rebel, quiet became second nature. Even in our own camps we never spoke loud in case there was an army patrol nearby. Now we had 250 square kilometres of our own and there were no soldiers left, except a few manning obscure roadblocks, who’d be in for a nasty surprise when they finally got fed up waiting to be relieved and wandered back to base.

Sami and me crashed together in the back of a truck for the last few hours before sunrise. I woke first and gently rolled her head off my chest, without waking her up. I stepped over a couple of sleeping rebels and jumped off the back of the truck, into the white glare of the day’s first light. Nobody else was awake, except a few poor souls who’d been ordered to stay sober, guarding the main gate.