The mission to hijack the British petroleum truck had been surprisingly, almost laughably, simple.
In 1968, the British Empire still operated under the arrogant assumption that the locals of Zambura were too uneducated and docile to orchestrate a coordinated heist.
They had left a massive, commercial fuel transport idling outside the central commercial depot with nothing but a single, bored colonial guard smoking a cigarette near the rear tires.
Captain Elias and his men had quietly neutralized the guard with a swift blow to the head, hot-wired the ignition, and driven the heavy vehicle directly to the abandoned eastern docks.
Now, parked beneath the iron cranes of the shipyard, the stolen diesel engine hummed.
This port used to be the beating heart of the country's export economy, back when the local farmers actually owned their own cocoa yields.
Then, the foreign conglomerates had moved the shipping lanes down south, effectively bankrupting this entire district to centralize their power.
Every cracked stone under Benjamin's expensive leather shoes told a story of financial subjugation.
"Mr. President," Captain Elias called out. "We found them."
Benjamin turned. He walked over to where Elias and his ten disguised guardsmen were standing in the shadows of a massive, dilapidated warehouse.
In front of them sat a dozen heavy, unmarked crates, sealed tightly with iron bands.
Elias used a heavy iron crowbar to snap the bands on the first crate.
As Elias pried the lid off, the dim moonlight caught the gleam of perfectly oiled, cold steel.
The crates were packed to the brim with Soviet AK-47 assault rifles, rows of RPG-7 rocket launchers, and heavy wooden boxes of 7.62mm ammunition.
"Beautiful!" Benjamin murmured, stepping forward.
Elias pulled an AK-47 from the straw packing, checking the heavy curved magazine.
"You are quiet, sir. Does the sight of the weapons make you nervous? Your father always hated the docks. He said this place felt like a graveyard."
He reached into the crate and pulled out one of the heavy, olive-green RPG-7 warheads. He ran a hand over the cold metal.
"Captain, tell me about General Mbeki's armored vehicles currently sitting on our front lawn," Benjamin commanded.
"What model are they?"
Elias blinked. "They are British Ferret scout cars, sir. Light armor. Armed with mounted machine guns. They are fast, but their plating is designed to stop pistol rounds, not anti-tank rockets..."
"Exactly!" Benjamin nodded. "But Mbeki expects us to cower inside the palace walls. If we fire an RPG from the roof, we will destroy one vehicle, but the other two will scatter, flank the building, and tear the masonry apart with heavy machine-gun fire. We cannot let them maneuver!"
Benjamin placed the warhead back into the crate and pointed toward the tank of stolen diesel attached to the truck they had hijacked.
"I want you to drain half of that stolen British fuel into the heavy canvas sacks from the warehouse," Benjamin instructed.
"When we return to the palace via the servant tunnels, I want your men to quietly douse the main cobblestone avenue leading to the front gates with the fuel. We will create a kill zone. When the sun comes up, if Mbeki's men try to advance, you will fire a flare into the street. The fuel will ignite, trapping the armored vehicles in a wall of fire.
Then, your men can take their time destroying the immobilized targets with the RPGs."
"Sir, setting fire to the main avenue will destroy the historic cobblestones and severely damage the palace gates," Elias pointed out.
Benjamin let out a chuckle. "Captain, I do not care about historic cobblestones. I care about breathing tomorrow. Burn the avenue!"
Elias did not argue further. The captain immediately turned to his sergeants and began relaying the orders.
A fierce debate instantly erupted among the guardsmen.
Some of the older soldiers whispered that destroying the palace grounds was a terrible omen, a desecration of the late president's home.
The younger soldiers argued that the old president was dead, and if they didn't follow the new president's tactics, they would all be joining him in the grave...
Elias quickly silenced the murmurs with a harsh reprimand, reminding them that democracy was suspended and they were currently operating under the authority of the Commander-in-Chief.
The debate ended abruptly, and the men began siphoning the diesel into canvas bags.
While the men worked, Benjamin turned away from the weapons and walked toward a small, half-collapsed concrete building attached to the side of the warehouse.
A faded sign hung above the door by a single rusty nail: Colonial Customs and Maritime Excise.
Benjamin kicked the rotting wooden door open and stepped inside.
...
Twenty minutes later, Captain Elias approached the customs office. The truck was fully loaded with the Soviet arsenal and the makeshift incendiary traps.
They needed to leave before the British noticed their fuel truck was missing.
"Mr. President, we are ready to move!" Elias said, stepping into the doorway.
Instead of keeping watch or reviewing the tactical map, Benjamin was standing in the center of the filthy room.
He was holding a massive stack of moldy ledgers, stuffing them into a canvas duffel bag.
"Sir, what are you doing?" Elias asked. "We have the assault rifles. We have the rockets. Why are you digging through garbage?"
A few of the other guardsmen gathered behind Elias, peering into the room. They looked deeply confused.
They were in the middle of a military crisis, surrounded by enemies, and their leader was hoarding ruined administrative paperwork.
It looked like the actions of a madman...
"You think this is garbage, Elias?" Benjamin asked.
He marched toward the door, holding up one of the moldy ledgers so the guardsmen could see it.
"This is a weapon far more dangerous than any Soviet rocket sitting in that truck!"
The men stared at the moldy book, entirely unconvinced.
"These are the original shipping manifests and tax ledgers from 1963, before the British officially handed over the government," Benjamin declared.
"For the last five years, Ambassador Sterling has claimed that our national treasury owes the Bank of London thirty million pounds in infrastructure loans. It is the core excuse they use to control our economy. But these ledgers... these beautiful, rotting pieces of paper contain the documented proof that the British colonial governor illegally embezzled fifty million pounds worth of raw diamond exports just months before independence!"
Benjamin shoved the ledger back into the duffel bag and zipped it shut.
"Do you understand how the global economy works, Captain?!" Benjamin demanded.
"If Mbeki kills us tomorrow, Sterling covers this up forever. But if we survive the morning, I am going to place these ledgers on the desk of the Soviet Ambassador, the French Ambassador, and the American press corps. I am going to legally prove that we do not owe the British a single penny. In fact, they owe us!"
Elias and his men stood in silence.
"Get in the truck, Captain..."