THE BUYERS

PROLOGUE

His war name was Thunder. He no longer remembered the name his parents had given him. In truth, he no longer even remembered his parents. Yes, some blurry, irritating family images still drifted through his mind, especially when he got high on that excellent stuff General Vincent gave all the most deserving fighters upon returning from raids. But he paid no attention. He was a warrior, and for warriors, the only family is the unit they belong to.

Thunder was very proud of his name, just as he was very proud of being a commander at only seventeen. Under his direct orders was a platoon of ten individuals, all between seven and eleven years old, all trained to kill. His only problem was having to personally replace any combat losses, but in this, Thunder was a master. Every time one of his soldiers was killed, he immediately organized his unit for a sortie to one of the nearest villages, descended upon them suddenly, kidnapped the children they needed, and returned to camp. In a couple of weeks, he taught them—with savage brutality—how to use a Kalashnikov, take drugs, get drunk, and forget their previous lives until they became killers without a past. The few who didn't adapt he eliminated personally. He was so meticulous about this that General Vincent considered him one of his best commanders, and Thunder was flattered.

They were now returning from an intimidation raid on a village about thirty miles from their base camp. They hadn't suffered any losses and had slaughtered thirty-two people—everyone who hadn’t managed to escape before their arrival. They had also captured two little girls, five and nine years old, after he himself had slit the throat of their mother, who had tried to protect them by hiding them in a stupid basket inside their hut. As soon as they reached the camp, he ordered one of his men to pump them full of drugs so they would stop crying—he would deal with them later. He planned to rape only the older one because the younger ones were too small to excite him.

The camp housed about sixty people, most of them fighters. There were fifteen females, all between six and sixteen years old. Their sole duties were to prepare food and satisfy the sexual needs of the males.

Nasiche was the oldest and would turn seventeen in a few months. Her job was to supervise and make the others work. The girl had a scar running from her temple to beneath her left jaw—fortunately, a glancing machete blow she had taken when they captured her almost seven years earlier. Nasiche was reserved for the commanders—that is, Thunder and the two others of his rank who lived in the camp.

She approached him as soon as he had set aside his weapons.

“Kissa is sick,” she said in a flat voice, handing him a beer.

“She just doesn’t want to work or get fucked. Bring her here,” he replied before popping the bottle cap off with his teeth.

“She can’t. She can’t get up. I think she has a fever.”

Thunder glared at her without a word and went to the shack where Kissa slept with five other girls.

He found her lying on one of the fetid straw mats, her face drenched in sweat, her eyes swollen and bloodshot. Nasiche followed him inside and stepped closer.

“I told you she was sick. And look at this,” the girl said, pulling back the filthy blanket covering Kissa’s body.

Thunder grimaced. The stench coming from the small body was unbearable, and her thighs were soaked in blood mixed with pus.

“She’s diseased,” Thunder said without a trace of compassion.

“How long has she been like this?”

Nasiche shrugged.

“She’s been complaining for a week that she was afraid to pee because it felt like knives in her belly. But she got worse two or three days ago.”

“Find out who she’s been with in the last ten days. I need to know how many of my men are infected.”

Thunder left the shack and called one of his men.

“Kissa’s rotting. Kill her and bury her deep in the brush, far from here. And dig deep—I don’t want animals prowling around.”

With that, he called Nasiche and took her to his hut. He needed a warrior’s rest.

ONE

Rebecca Robson sat at a table in Balthazar’s on Spring Street in New York, waiting for her husband. Rebecca was thirty-nine and had worked at the New York Times for ten years. She was one of the most respected journalists in the United States, and her investigations—meticulous, thoroughly documented, and impossible to refute—were the crown jewel of the foreign policy section of America’s most famous newspaper. Her father, a prominent Las Vegas lawyer, was Nevada-born, while her mother, a former internationally famous model, was from Porto Alegre, Brazil. Rebecca was the eldest of three children born into a very wealthy family. Her brother Mark, a relentless womanizer, three years her junior, had followed in their father’s footsteps, becoming an excellent lawyer and working at his father’s firm. Her sister Jennifer, thirty-four, had married the arrogant heir of a billionaire New York dynasty after earning a degree in English literature.

As for her, after earning her journalism degree from Columbia, she had begun traveling the world with the determination to become an important, well-prepared foreign correspondent. Starting as a freelancer, she had immediately found modest success and would have reached top-tier journalism much sooner if she hadn't met at twenty-seven Charles, the owner of a small candy factory in New Jersey. Charles was different from anyone she had known. Sweet, attentive, and sensitive, he had almost immediately broken through her defenses. They had lived together for a year before marrying. Rebecca had decided to give up her dream to have children and devote herself to family life. But her passion for exploring the world was only dormant, and just as she was trying to get pregnant, she was unexpectedly called by the Times, which offered her a position as a correspondent in the foreign policy section. Rebecca found herself at a crossroads and discussed it with her husband to find a solution. Charles supported her, and she took the job. For a while, things seemed to work, but after three years, her travels became increasingly frequent, and their marriage was irreparably eroded. Eventually, by mutual agreement, they decided to separate, waiting for a change that never came. In the end, Charles had met Donna, a woman better suited to his lifestyle, but they had continued to see each other occasionally because their friendship remained unchanged.

The waiter had just served Rebecca a martini when Charles entered and, after waving at her, made his way over.

They hugged, and he ordered a drink as well.

“You look fantastic, Reb! That tan really suits you,” he said.

“I spent three weeks in Cyprus for work. Winter doesn’t exist there. How have you been?”

“Good, good. Business is holding up despite the crisis. I guess people drown their sorrows in candy.”

They laughed together, then ordered.

“So, Charlie, why did you want to see me?”

Charles seemed embarrassed.

“Well, you know… Donna and I have been talking a lot lately, and… well, we want to get married.”

Even though Rebecca had expected this news would come sooner or later, she still felt a pang in her heart. A shadow of sadness crossed her eyes as she stared at her glass, but then she smiled.

“I think… I think that’s right, Charlie. Donna is a wonderful person, and you… well, you know how I feel about you. Ask Matthew to prepare the papers, and I’ll sign them as soon as they’re ready.”

Matthew was a capable lawyer and a good friend to both of them.

Charles took her hand and looked into her eyes.

“I need you to tell me you’ll always be my Reb, and that if you ever need anything, you’ll ask me before anyone else.”

Rebecca caressed his face.

“You know it’ll always be that way. You’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever known, and if things didn’t work out, it was only my fault. But promise me you’ll treat Donna the way she deserves.”

“I will,” he replied, kissing her hand.

They ate with lumps in their throats, trying to stay cheerful, but after saying goodbye, Rebecca Robson struggled hard to hold back tears.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

THOSE TOYS CALLED KALASHNIKOVS

There are at least 300,000 child soldiers in the world, forced to fight horrific wars at the whim of men without scruples. But the responsibility for this horror belongs to all of us.

New York, December 18

According to estimates from the Child Soldiers Global Report, there are seventeen conflicts worldwide where child soldiers are deployed. The report notes, with absurd relief, that in 2004 there were twenty-seven conflicts involving minors on battlefields, and this decline seems to hearten analysts. But what should give pause is not so much the number of wars as the number of child combatants, which has only increased over the years. According to the same estimates (which remain purely indicative and are accompanied, almost as if they were mere production forecasts, by a ±20% margin), at least three hundred thousand children are forced to kill and be killed for the power-hungry ambitions of unscrupulous individuals. And at least eighteen countries deploy underage troops to support or overthrow this or that government. The efforts of the international community—such as the creation of the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, ratified by 120 governments—appear more like PR maneuvers for media consumption than a genuine will to stop this horror. In reality, if we also account for minors currently enlisted in armies not engaged in active conflict, the total number of child soldiers stands at around one million. Roughly 40% of the world’s armed forces deploy them in their ranks. But what is the main reason for recruiting and deploying them in war operations? The answer is both simple and chilling. Children are, by and large, loyal, vulnerable, and easily manipulated. In combat, they are often fearless and tenacious, especially when under the influence of drugs or motivated by political or religious zeal.

Moreover, thanks to advancements in weapon manufacturing technology, a ten-year-old child can learn to assemble, disassemble, and fire an AKM-59 [a lighter and cheaper variant of the Kalashnikov AK-47, widely distributed across nearly all Third World countries. —Ed.] in under two hours. Another advantage not to be overlooked is the ability of underage units to confuse enemy troops, slowing their advances, since professional soldiers generally hesitate to engage in firefights with armed children. As evidence of this, we need only recall that the first American soldier killed in Afghanistan was shot by a fourteen-year-old sniper. Furthermore, child soldier units are versatile. Their members can serve not only as combatants but also as scouts, messengers, suicide bombers, or minefield clearers. During the Iran-Iraq War, Iranian commanders equipped entire regiments—composed of soldiers aged twelve to sixteen—with plastic keys to wear around their necks, the so-called “keys to paradise,” before sending platoons from each regiment to blow themselves up on enemy minefields, clearing the way for armored divisions. But child armies are not exclusively male. It is estimated that one-third of these combatants are girls, who, in addition to fighting, are often subjected to sexual abuse by their comrades and commanders. One girl freed shortly after the Liberian civil war recounted being sexually assaulted by three of her commanders from the age of ten. After becoming pregnant and giving birth, she was forced to fight with her weeks-old child stuffed into her backpack alongside ammunition reserves.

Despite the information circulating about this enormous problem, the stance of the Western world is, to say the least, ambiguous. Although the International Criminal Court has issued dozens of arrest warrants against various warlords from multiple countries where child soldiers are deployed, none have ever been prosecuted or captured due to a lack of cooperation from local governments. In Afghanistan, coalition forces frequently rely on local militias whose ranks include dozens of minors ordered to carry out full-fledged military operations. And finally, both the U.S. and British governments have refused to endorse the UN-proposed protocol setting the minimum age for combat troops at eighteen. Given these premises—and the endless rhetoric spouted by politicians from so-called industrialized nations—the solution to this problem seems little more than a mirage. AIDS in Africa has, to date, left nearly forty million orphans. It is to that continent, then, that warlords turn their morbid attentions, tapping into the world’s largest reservoir of “expendable troops.” Perhaps, when we buy our children a new toy, we ought to pause and reflect on that.

Rebecca Robson

Rebecca entered the office of her boss, Mike McKenna, and sat down at his desk with a vacant expression.

The Foreign Policy editor at the Times was fifty-eight years old and something of a guru to all journalists covering that beat. For over twenty years, he had traveled the world, often risking his own safety to document conflicts and dig into international power intrigues, then reporting the truth to his newspaper's readers. McKenna was particularly fond of Rebecca, perhaps because she shared his tenacity and courage in pursuing the truth. He shifted his gaze from the computer screen to her, removing his glasses.

"Did you get hit by a bus?" he asked.

Rebecca shook her head.

"Just... personal stuff. Charles is getting remarried. I saw it coming. Or maybe not. I'll get over it."

McKenna furrowed his brows and lifted a sheet of paper toward her.

"By any chance, does the request you made yesterday have anything to do with this... personal stuff of yours?"

Rebecca grimaced.

"Hey, no! Not at all! Didn't you read my latest article?"

"Rhetorical question. But researching in the field is one thing—walking into a hive of killer bees covered in honey is another."

"There are over seventeen thousand UN soldiers in that hive, Mike. It's the country with more Blue Helmets than all other countries where they are deployed combined. And there are plenty of journalists too."

"Maybe, but I don’t recall Western journalists being that numerous. And Goma? Forget about it."

"Mike, 10% of the world's child soldiers are concentrated in that place. I want to find out if anyone's actually doing anything about this problem—or if the UN and all those local politicians spouting bullshit even have a plan to solve it. Goma has a MONUCbase with a large contingent of troops. I won’t be taking any unusual risks. Plus, I’ve got a couple of NGO contacts who also operate there. I just want to talk to people who’ll give me the unvarnished truth. Ten days is all I need."

McKenna rubbed his face.

"Goma only. No personal initiatives like, ‘There’s a quaint little village nearby where kids play peacefully under the watchful eyes of Jungian psychoanalysts.’ No jungle strolls, even if you’re escorted by a battalion of Marines. Understood?"

"Well, but if I moved with the Blue Helme—"

McKenna raised a hand.

"Goma only!"

Rebecca nodded resignedly.

"Goma only."

"One week. Not a day more," he pressed.

"Okay, one week. Obviously, excluding travel days to get there," she clarified.

McKenna smiled.

"Don’t provoke me unless you want me to reconsider. When do you want to leave?"

"I found a flight to Kigali, Rwanda. From there, I can hitch a ride on a UN plane to Goma. The earliest slot is the day after tomorrow."

McKenna put his glasses back on and started typing.

"Okay. Knowing you, you’ve already sorted out visas and vaccinations. Am I wrong?"

Rebecca half-smiled and nodded.

"You’ve become too predictable for me, Robson. Not sure if that’s a good thing or something to worry about. I’m sending the flight request now. You’ll get the e-ticket in your inbox. Ask the newsroom for a sat phone—I want to be able to talk to you while you’re down there. Now go home and rest until departure. You’ll need it."

Rebecca stood and said goodbye. At the door, McKenna called her back. She turned with a questioning look.

"I’m sorry about Charles—but I think he deserves his own life, just as you should start thinking more about yours." And going to Goma isn't the solution. -

She nodded sadly and left.

"I have a contact."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm certain. It's not UN-related."

"Did they give you numbers?"

"Not yet, but I'll have all the details within the next three days."

"Let me know as soon as possible. I need to arrange transport."

"I know. Oh, remember to tell your boss the orders must be sent where I indicated. I'll call him as agreed."

"Fine, but negotiate hard. We want numbers."

"Relax. I know these people and how to handle them. We'll talk next week."

"I'll wait for your call. Good luck."

1. 1: MONUC: United Nations Mission in the Congo