Mike Maden: River of Gods

A yellow tag pinned to its ear.

The ranger tossed his battered rifle and bolted away, shouting for help in his tribal tongue as the other rangers open fire. Dozens of steel-jacketed 7.62mm slugs slapped into the thick gray hide. Hawkins hit the dirt at the first shot, but Pearce stood firm, mesmerized. The animal’s front legs gave out first and its heavy, ruined head hit the dirt with a grunt, followed by the rest of the shredded torso. The rhino corpse kneeled there for a second before it crashed over on its side. The rangers finally stopped firing. The gunfire echoed into the distance, then finally faded away. The air still buzzed with flies.

Hawkins stood and dusted himself off.

“Congratulations,” Hawkins said. “You just witnessed the killing of the last rhino in Limpopo Park. Hell, in the whole damn country.”

Pearce turned around and watched Dignam and the other park rangers gently lift the body bags.

“I should’ve been here,” Pearce said. He glanced at Hawkins.

Hawkins’s pitying eyes agreed.

Pearce snatched off his hat and crushed it in his hand as he trudged behind the corpse of his friend back to the helicopter, its turbine slowly spinning up.

Zhao private residence

Bamako, Mali

3 May

To Zhao’s dismay, much of the new construction in the capital city was in the current pseudo-modernist style now in vogue throughout the Middle East. Zhao found the sharply angled cement and reflective glass structures to be distinctly childish and unsophisticated, if not pathetic. But this was the trend all over the developing world, including the new Sino-Sahara Oil Corporation building rising up on the bank of the Niger River.

Zhao witnessed the rise of such monstrosities in the pleasure capitals of Dubai and Doha. He’d even stood on the heli-deck of the soaring Burj Khalifa, soon to be the not-tallest building in the world thanks to the towering ambition of his own proud nation. Pounded by ninety-kilometer-per-hour winds and clutching his safety helmet, Zhao had struggled even more with the blustering of the emir’s nephew, who proclaimed with wild gesticulations the Burj as proof of a new Arab renaissance. Zhao bit his tongue to keep from laughing in the young fool’s face. Didn’t he realize the soaring Burj was designed by Americans and constructed by Koreans using cheap imported Indian labor? The only thing “Arab” about the building was its location. Even the money that paid for it was Western, technically, from oil discovered, exploited, refined, and shipped by the Western powers themselves.

So when Zhao was given the choice, he located his personal residence in Bamako in one of the city’s old quartiers , in a refurbished French colonial compound. The pink and white nineteenth-century Beaux Arts building and its furnishings were perfectly anachronistic and, like him, sophisticated, refined, and decadent. As the vice president of Sino-Sahara Oil Corporation, he was expected to entertain prominent officials, none more important than the minister of internal security, General Abdel Tolo, second only to the Chinese-installed president himself. Tonight’s debauch was in General Tolo’s honor.

The heads of the ministries of mines, natural resources, energy, and trade were also in attendance, along with a wide selection of the finest Thai and Ukrainian whores that Zhao kept under contract. For appearances’ sake, Zhao invited the Chinese ambassador to the evening’s event, but dismissed him immediately after dinner. The prudish and inefficient party bureaucrat frowned on Zhao’s famously lavish sex-and-drugs style of diplomacy and, no doubt, would have reported the abundant presence of prostitutes and cocaine in Zhao’s residence had he remained for the festivities. An even greater liability, as far as Zhao was concerned, was the fact that the ambassador possessed the complexion and deportment of a small toad wearing an ill-fitted suit.

Zhao and Tolo had retired to his private study and indulged in snifters of Martel X.O. cognac and Cuban cigars. The corpulent African was clearly enjoying the cohiba he was puffing with relish. Zhao lifted the distinctive arch-shaped bottle and refilled Tolo’s glass. Heavy techno beats thundered on the other side of the thick wooden doors.

“Thank you, Zhao,” the general said. “You are a gracious host.” He lifted the glass to his round face, admired the copper-colored liquor, then took another sip, followed by another long drag on his cigar. Zhao studied the general’s medal-clad dress uniform. He wondered if any other armchair general in history had ever acquired so many pieces of spangled baubles in just one lifetime. “I am a humble guest in your country, General, and your servant.”

The African roared with laughter. Blue smoke billowed out of his wide mouth. “Bullshit! Don’t pull that ‘Mandarin servile’ act with me.” The general pointed the smoldering cigar at him. “I know you, Zhao. I’ve even seen you with your pants down around your ankles.”

“Indeed, you have.” Zhao first met Tolo at a military trade show in Paris the year before. Zhao not only threw an infamously raucous bacchanal that week but participated vigorously in the festivities. “So you also know why I’m here.”

“We have everything under control in the Kidal,” Tolo said, referring to the region of Mali where the REE deposits had been discovered earlier.

“I should hope so, now that your security forces have been amply resupplied by my government.”

“It’s not guns that matter. It’s guts,” the general harrumphed. He tapped his temple with a thick thumb, the smoldering cigar dangerously close to his bald scalp. “And brains.”

“Yes, of course,” Zhao said. He leaned forward and lifted his snifter toward Tolo. “To guts and brains.”

Tolo smiled and gulped down his cognac. Zhao sniffed his, savoring the aroma.

“My company is concerned about the safety of its workers,” Zhao said. “There are rumors of Tuaregs in rebellion all over the Sahara.”

“Rumors only. The ‘godforsaken’ are like dried grass. A small puff of wind and—” The general pursed his lips and blew. “They disappear.”

“We have a saying, too. When a little grass catches fire, the whole village is in danger.”

The African belly-laughed again. “You Chinese and your proverbs! Enough. The Tuaregs are easily dealt with.”

“The Tuaregs have traversed the Sahara for nearly three millennia. They are superlative desert fighters. No one has ever found them easily dealt with. I’ve read recent reports that they are rising up again in Niger.”

“Yes, around the uranium mines you Chinese are operating there. And do you know why? Your operations are draining away all of the scarce water in the region, robbing the Tuaregs of grasses to feed their precious camels, sheep, and goats. You’re polluting the land, and worse, you import cheap labor, so you don’t even give those poor bastards jobs in those filthy mines while you’re starving and killing them.” Tolo set his snifter down.

Zhao nodded. It was true. His countrymen were often worse colonialists than the British and French they had displaced. But then again, Zhao reflected, these were only Africans they were talking about. If Africans weren’t meant to be skinned by the Chinese people, then history would not have made them rabbits.

“Mistakes have been made, and they are being corrected. I assure you no such abuses will occur among your people,” Zhao said.