Singer wished they could blow out the sides of the massive storage tanks, but they were situated in an earthen redoubt that would keep the oil contained. For the oil to properly evaporate he needed it spread over as large an area as possible. He turned to Makambo. “For every hour they hold the terminal and oil’s pouring into the sea, one million dollars will be automatically transferred into your Swiss bank account.”

“That money will go a long way to funding my revolution and improving the quality of life of our people,” the guerilla leader said with a straight face. Singer knew the lion’s share of the cash would remain in Makambo’s account. “I made this bargain and call upon our soldiers to fight for the greater good of us all.”

When searching for his mercenary force Singer had thoroughly investigated Makambo and his Congolese Army of Revolution. They were nothing more than savage butchers who used torture and the intimidation of defenseless civilians to keep themselves supplied. While there was a tribal element to the conflict, human rights groups estimated that the CAR had killed more of their own people than the government they opposed. Makambo was just another example of the despotic nature of African politics.

“Very well,” Singer said. “Then it’s time for me to leave.”

He had planned on leaving Cabinda a day before the attack, but he’d remained as long as he dared, hoping against hope that he’d get word from Nina Visser. She and the others hadn’t been at the rendezvous site when the plane arrived, although tire tracks next to the runway indicated someone had been there recently. The pilot managed to follow them from the air, but only for only a couple of miles. The relentless wind had scoured the desert floor. He’d circled the area until he had just enough fuel to return to Windhoek, failing to find any sign of them.

Singer had ordered him back to Cabinda so they could fly to the port city of Nouakchott, Mauritania, where the aged hundred-thousand-ton tanker he’d secretly purchased from a Libyan company waited. She was named the Gulf of Sidra and had spent her career plying the Mediterranean, ferrying Libyan oil to Yugoslavia and Albania.

When he’d toured her with Susan Donleavy she said the vessel’s tanks would make perfect incubators for her organic flocculent. The marine engineering firm Singer hired to inspect the ship signed off on her hull being able to withstand a sustained thermal load of a hundred and forty degrees, although they said in their report they were unaware of any oil terminals in the world where crude retained that much of the earth’s heat. Singer had closed the deal, obtained a Liberian registration for the ship, by far the easiest to get in the world, and hadn’t bothered to change her name.