Read Online Spy Games by Adam Brookes - Free Book Online

foot or so, and Mangan opened the door, gingerly, got out.
    “Cigarette?” he said. He offered the pack. The soldier did not respond.
    “I want to go a little farther down this road. Can I do that?”
    “No, no. You go back.” The soldier gestured down the road the way he had come.
    Mangan smiled, nodded.
    “What are you guys here for? Is it dangerous down the road?”
    “No, no. Not dangerous. No problem. But not permitted. You go back.”
    “I just…” But the soldier was losing patience, stepped toward him, shoved him back toward the car, then leaned down and shouted at the driver in Amharic. The driver, very frightened now, nodded frantically.
    Mangan sighed, got back in the car. The driver, without waiting for instructions, turned it around and started heading back up the road, muttering to himself.
    Mangan lit a cigarette. Another pointless day, he thought. Another stretching of my reason for being here.
Hardened correspondent Philip Mangan makes insipid attempt to get story, fails.
    He looked out over a plain speckled with thorn bushes, the light lowering, turning to gold.
    Feels persistent regret at loss of other, less respectable, line of work.
    They headed back to Dire Dawa, Mangan stopping the car onlyonce, in the evening, when he caught sight of a vast construction project, Chinese engineers with theodolites, high-visibility vests and helmets, the yellow dust billowing skyward. The new railway, China inscribing itself into the very ground of Africa.
    That night, in the dim hotel bar, he made up his mind to take a run at the Americans. Just to see. They were sitting in a corner, the four of them. One had a laptop open. They seemed to be watching a football game. Mangan walked to the bar and ordered a beer, waited for a moment, then strode over to their table.
    “Hi, guys,” he said.
    They looked up at him blankly.
    “Sorry for interrupting. Just wondered what the game was.”
    There was a pause. Then the older man spoke.
    “It’s recorded. Nothing recent.”
    “Oh. Okay,” said Mangan, standing his ground. “Are you with the embassy?”
    The man with the gold chain had taken off his sunglasses and was looking at him hard. He had sun-darkened skin, sunken cheeks, Mangan saw.
    “Yes. We’re embassy. And you are?” he said.
    “I’m a journalist. British. Just wondered what brought you all to town.”
    “A little bit of official business,” said the older man, in a tone that said this conversation is ending. The two younger men had looked back down at the laptop and were murmuring to each other, pointing at the screen.
    “Only, I’d heard the US military had something going on at the old air base outside town, and I wondered if you were part of it. All off the record and everything.”
    “What’s your name, sweetheart?” said the man with the gold chain.
    “Mangan. Philip Mangan.”
    “Well, Philip, I’m sorry to say we have to draw our briefacquaintance to a close. We don’t mean to be rude, but we’re just not in a position to have that conversation right now. So, ah, goodnight to you.” He smiled and turned away.
    Mangan raised his hands in an I’m-just-trying-to-be-friendly gesture, then walked back to the bar, sat on a stool, pulled on his beer, tamped down his annoyance.
    “Interesting, aren’t they?”
    The voice came from Mangan’s right, quiet, accented.
    He turned. A man of Chinese appearance was sitting three stools away from him, holding a glass of whisky, looking straight ahead.
    “You see,” the man went on, “they come to Africa, and they bring drones and bombs and monitoring bases. But China comes to Africa and brings railways, phones and hospitals. Don’t you find that interesting?”
    “Have we met?” said Mangan.
    The man turned to face him, put his drink down, the
clop
of his glass on the bar. He wore a white shirt and gray slacks. His hair was to the collar. His face had a strange cast to it, wide, high cheekbones, eyes with no whites to them, immobile,