12-10-2013, 08:24 PM
Maiduguri, Nigeria, 22 May, 0515hrs
Fires still burned in the now gutted regional headquarters of Dangote Industries, one of the largest industrial and mining companies in northern Africa. Jacques stood in the middle of the street assessing the situation, as Nigerian soldiers and emergency services picked through the rubble. Dozens of body bags lay in orderly rows as a pair of Légion Première soldiers walked the line, pulling ID tags from some of the charred corpses, taking stock of their dead.
"Have you found the CEO yet, provost?"
Jacques stood at the lip of a sizable blast crater and eyed the charred ruins of concrete Texas barriers. Terrorists had hit the building with two large suicide-vehicle-born IEDs (SVBIED), one mere minutes after the other. Half the block had been leveled, and the dead was expected to be in the hundreds. Worse still, the CEO had been present, meeting with Dangote Industry's regional head, and both men had brought quite the impressive entourage.
"No, Capitaine."
The provost held out a license plate, which Jacques accepted and eyed it a moment to make out the numbers that were stamped on it. "From the CEO's motorcade. Sapper Aberash found what is left of the Panhard in the Dangote basement."
The five story office building was little more then a skeletal facade; most of the building had been destroyed by the dual explosions, and what had survived that had been lost to the fires that had raged in the aftermath. An open pit led to the basement, where soldiers with dogs poked through the rubble, searching for more bodies.
Jacques nodded and handed the plate back, then turned back to his own Panhard Mk3, a four-wheeled light armoured car, "Consolidate Légion Première forces at the airport. We will charter a plane and return to Morocco as soon as possible. Our contract here is done."
With the CEO and the board dead, he was the senior most member of the company in the region, which placed him in command for the time being. The first order of business then was to return to Casablanca and take stock of the damages; Mr Dangote had already informed them their contract was null and void. Legal and financial repercussions would surely come in the following days. He really hated reading those contracts...
Within minutes, nine Panhards rolled away, as well as two locally chartered trucks carrying the bodies of their dead and what gear they had been able to salvage from the wreckage.
Maiduguri International Airport, Nigeria, 22 May 1310hrs
"Capitaine Danjou."
A Légion Première soldier handed over an outdated military-grade data-pad after saluting.
Jacques accepted it and looked at the displayed information while sipping some tea, then sighed and glanced out the airport window. Columns of smoke rose from the not so distant Maiduguri city; insurgents had launched a coordinated attack on the city shortly before noon, and the highway to the airport was choked with people fleeing the fighting. Nigerian military forces had so far been successful at keeping the airport secure, but it was obvious the situation was getting out of hand. "Any idea how Mademoiselle Brown knew I was even here, Private?"
He had dealt with Samantha Brown before. He had made the mistake of doing one charity case for her, for free, and the woman had been hounding him ever since. He'd arranged for a convoy escort of Red Cross assets in the Sudan a few years ago, and had maybe saved her life because of it. Ever since, she'd seemed convinced that he was actually a good person.
"You were on the local news this morning, Capitaine. At Dangote Industries. Perhaps she saw you on the television?"
The young soldier shrugged, "Your orders, sir?"
Even before the attack yesterday night that had claimed the CEO, it had been readily evident to those paying attention to such things, that the local Nigerian military commander was in cahoots with the Boko Haram, the local breed of Al-Qaeda aligned extremists. That suspicion had become more and more obvious in the early hours of the attack on the city.
Jacques shrugged slightly and glanced at the soldier. "She wants me to set up a defensive perimeter of a womens college, in the midst of an Al-Qaeda-aligned insurgency that is probably backed by the local military commander? We would have to shoot our way off the airport, fight our way down the Kashim Ibrahim Road to the Mai Ibrahim traffic circle? Two blocks from the State Secretariate where the fighting is especially thick, then try to secure seven walled compounds that make the Government Women's College?"
Jacques typed away at the dataslate, laying waypoint markers, penning orders, assigning secondary routes and fall-back points. He handed the datapad back a moment later and downed the last of his tea in one gulp, "Sounds like fun, soldier. And like some very good press."
The two men shared a grin then strolled out of the airport's VIP lounge.
Fires still burned in the now gutted regional headquarters of Dangote Industries, one of the largest industrial and mining companies in northern Africa. Jacques stood in the middle of the street assessing the situation, as Nigerian soldiers and emergency services picked through the rubble. Dozens of body bags lay in orderly rows as a pair of Légion Première soldiers walked the line, pulling ID tags from some of the charred corpses, taking stock of their dead.
"Have you found the CEO yet, provost?"
Jacques stood at the lip of a sizable blast crater and eyed the charred ruins of concrete Texas barriers. Terrorists had hit the building with two large suicide-vehicle-born IEDs (SVBIED), one mere minutes after the other. Half the block had been leveled, and the dead was expected to be in the hundreds. Worse still, the CEO had been present, meeting with Dangote Industry's regional head, and both men had brought quite the impressive entourage.
"No, Capitaine."
The provost held out a license plate, which Jacques accepted and eyed it a moment to make out the numbers that were stamped on it. "From the CEO's motorcade. Sapper Aberash found what is left of the Panhard in the Dangote basement."
The five story office building was little more then a skeletal facade; most of the building had been destroyed by the dual explosions, and what had survived that had been lost to the fires that had raged in the aftermath. An open pit led to the basement, where soldiers with dogs poked through the rubble, searching for more bodies.
Jacques nodded and handed the plate back, then turned back to his own Panhard Mk3, a four-wheeled light armoured car, "Consolidate Légion Première forces at the airport. We will charter a plane and return to Morocco as soon as possible. Our contract here is done."
With the CEO and the board dead, he was the senior most member of the company in the region, which placed him in command for the time being. The first order of business then was to return to Casablanca and take stock of the damages; Mr Dangote had already informed them their contract was null and void. Legal and financial repercussions would surely come in the following days. He really hated reading those contracts...
Within minutes, nine Panhards rolled away, as well as two locally chartered trucks carrying the bodies of their dead and what gear they had been able to salvage from the wreckage.
Maiduguri International Airport, Nigeria, 22 May 1310hrs
"Capitaine Danjou."
A Légion Première soldier handed over an outdated military-grade data-pad after saluting.
Jacques accepted it and looked at the displayed information while sipping some tea, then sighed and glanced out the airport window. Columns of smoke rose from the not so distant Maiduguri city; insurgents had launched a coordinated attack on the city shortly before noon, and the highway to the airport was choked with people fleeing the fighting. Nigerian military forces had so far been successful at keeping the airport secure, but it was obvious the situation was getting out of hand. "Any idea how Mademoiselle Brown knew I was even here, Private?"
He had dealt with Samantha Brown before. He had made the mistake of doing one charity case for her, for free, and the woman had been hounding him ever since. He'd arranged for a convoy escort of Red Cross assets in the Sudan a few years ago, and had maybe saved her life because of it. Ever since, she'd seemed convinced that he was actually a good person.
"You were on the local news this morning, Capitaine. At Dangote Industries. Perhaps she saw you on the television?"
The young soldier shrugged, "Your orders, sir?"
Even before the attack yesterday night that had claimed the CEO, it had been readily evident to those paying attention to such things, that the local Nigerian military commander was in cahoots with the Boko Haram, the local breed of Al-Qaeda aligned extremists. That suspicion had become more and more obvious in the early hours of the attack on the city.
Jacques shrugged slightly and glanced at the soldier. "She wants me to set up a defensive perimeter of a womens college, in the midst of an Al-Qaeda-aligned insurgency that is probably backed by the local military commander? We would have to shoot our way off the airport, fight our way down the Kashim Ibrahim Road to the Mai Ibrahim traffic circle? Two blocks from the State Secretariate where the fighting is especially thick, then try to secure seven walled compounds that make the Government Women's College?"
Jacques typed away at the dataslate, laying waypoint markers, penning orders, assigning secondary routes and fall-back points. He handed the datapad back a moment later and downed the last of his tea in one gulp, "Sounds like fun, soldier. And like some very good press."
The two men shared a grin then strolled out of the airport's VIP lounge.