Saldanha, Cape Republic, October 2035

  Andries Meijer’s eyes stay fixed on my hands as I fumble with a cigarette, struggling to roll it. My war injuries had come up earlier during dinner, but now we’re outside on the patio of his 2,000-square-foot home, overlooking Saldanha Bay.

  "So, it wasn’t the United Nations paying you guys directly?" I ask, passing him a cigarette.

  He lights it, exhaling slowly as he looks out over the water.

  "Loans to the Congolese government for our services. Then they paid us. There’s no way to officially prove it was for that, but every man flying in knew that when the battle was over, we’d get a cut of the profits from the mines we were about to ‘liberate.’"

  "Why ‘liberate’?" I ask.

  "As everything crashed, aid to Africa went down with it," he says. "Maybe it’s an oversimplification—there are plenty of geopolitical and African experts who’d correct me—but that’s how they sold it to us. Some militant group, PRC323 or something, had taken over Kindu. The mines there were critical for electronic manufacturing. Their asking price was absurd, and they’d already burned down the town—killed a good chunk of its people too.

  "And with no one else having the manpower to take back Kindu, let alone the other twenty or so contested mining towns and settlements in the Congo, the company I worked for got the contract."

  "We flew in on Mi-17s, a mixed bunch—South Africans, Zimbabweans, Kenyans, and a few Algerians. All ex-military. Every one of us had fired a weapon in anger before, but this time, we were calm. Focused. We’d gone over the plan enough times.

  The local Congolese militia we’d paid off was attacking from the south, buying us time to take the town from the north and kill anything in our way. We all wore tiger-stripe uniforms with red electrical tape—our only way to tell friend from foe once we hit the ground. That was running through my head as we landed and I jumped out, gripping my SAR-58. Same model my grandfather used in Angola, though mine had an Aimpoint optic, polymer handguard with a foregrip, an extended magazine, and a polymer stock.

  We barely had time to move before the news hit—the militia in the south was routing. Their job was to keep 323 busy, but the fools had overextended, launching an attack on the town only to get chewed up and pushed back. God knows how many men they lost. That left fifty of us against an estimated four hundred.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Still, we did well at first. Secured the north side of town where the national highway cut through. Locked it down, fortified, and waited for 323 to come.

  Meijer pauses as his son appears, carrying an ashtray.

  "Orders from Mom!" he grins, ruffling the boy’s hair before the kid waddles back inside.

  He takes a slow drag of his cigarette before continuing.

  "First guy I got wasn’t with that slick rifle I told you about. Had to stab him in the neck."

  I say nothing. He exhales, eyes fixed on the horizon.

  "The bastard was in a hut, abusing some teenage girl while his friends fought on the other side of town. Guess he found a way to skip the queue. He came out naked and sweaty—I thought he was a civilian at first, till he reached for my rifle. I kept hold of it with my strong hand while my other went for the knife, holstered at stomach level under my vest."

  He taps some ash into the tray before continuing.

  "Don’t have to draw you a picture, but you’d be surprised how tough a jawbone is against a knife. Teeth, too. Third stab got him in the neck, and he ran. If I hadn’t shot him in the back, he’d have bled out anyway."

  He exhales slowly.

  "Made sure the girl didn’t have any weapons. Not that she had the strength to stand. My squad and the others had orders to hold the highway—the one splitting our side of town from the rest. Like lambs to the slaughter, we cut them down as they tried to push north. Our MAGs shredded them as they tried crossing. Must’ve been twenty of them gone in a few bursts."

  He flicks his cigarette, watching the ember glow.

  "Then the potshots started. We let them gather on the far side of the road, keeping their heads down with mortar fire. Let them mass up nice and tight. Then came the last part of the plan—our Mi-17s strafed their position with rockets.

  "Deafening. Took five minutes for the dust to settle. Their limbs only took ten, maybe twenty seconds to hit the ground."

  He shakes his head, a dry chuckle escaping.

  "I was lying next to my mate Bakari, Kenyan lad, had a MAG. A foot landed right on his head. Good thing he was wearing a helmet."

  Less than an hour later, we were south of town. Only ten injuries, one critical. A good day.

  That militia I told you about? The ones who survived were already giving us trouble. Complaining that the guy we paid was dead, so there was no way to collect their funds or some nonsense. We had the Mi-17s circling overhead, fully reloaded, just in case they got any ideas.

  "How did you calm them down?" I ask.

  "Simple," he smirks. "Told them to drop their weapons at the south exit. In exchange, they had one hour to loot the town.

  "Better than paying them in a crypto wallet, I swear. They laughed, danced, dumped their rifles, and ran in. You could see them drinking anything they couldn’t carry, hauling ceramic toilets and microwaves. A few busted TVs here and there.

  "My mate Johan shot one when he refused to drop the AKs he looted. His friends barely noticed—just kept looting.

  "Then, when the hour was up, we had to chase them off with cane sticks."

  A few hours later, the Congolese arrived. We weren’t supposed to leave until the government army officially stepped into town—that’s why that damn journalist caught us on camera sprinting for the Mi-17s. Not that anyone cared.

  Thousands were dying every day in Europe. Who gave a damn about some Congolese town? Even before the war, nobody did. And now, with rooineks dropping by the ton, Africa had become a free-for-all for anyone who hadn’t been conscripted.