Broken Jewel

Background In Zimbabwe, commercial farming was almost exclusively owned by several generations of White Farmers until the controversial 'Land Redistribution Program' where farms were seized by Mugabe's armed 'Veterans' from white owners. It was justified by President Robert Mugabe on the grounds that it rectified generations of colonial inequality. White Farmers were not compensated, neither were they allowed to take possessions other than what they could carry. As the forced land redistribution took place, African Neighbor countries and the wider World watched aghast, as 98% of Zimbabwe's land went fallow and agricultural production decreased steeply to starvation levels. Part 1 A number of powerful politicians and entrepreneurs from several governments and countries decide to intervene, and a mercenary force is activated to bring down President Robert Mugabe and insert a 'puppet' Head of State in his place. Vastly experienced former Professional Soldiers travel to Zimbabwe, collect prearranged armaments, and proceed to execute a COUP D'Etat. The COUP fails and the mercenary force are incarcerated in Zimbabwe's notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison while an international political storm rages. Jake Bummigan, former professional soldier, veteran of several wars, now a hired mercenary, is second in command of the international team of mercenaries. In Chikurubi, Jake meets Mickey Van Deeren and his wife, Sally-Anne. Mickey is the Leader of the Zimbabwe White Farmer Alliance, a pressure group dedicated to protecting the white farms from Mugabe's Land Redistribution Programme. Jake and Mickey become friends, both in their own way trying to survive violent insanitary and horror of Chikurubi and its abusive regime. In an intense storm of international political maneuvering, Jake is released along with a number of his British colleagues, but Steve Mainwaring, Jake's friend and Commanding Officer of the Mercenaries is left behind. Part 2 Jake is back in UK, trying unsuccessfully to hold a disintegrating marriage together. 2. He is contacted by Mickey and Sally-Anne who have now migrated to UK, and are running a semi-precious stone import business in Hawkestone, a North Yorkshire village. The business is a cover for smuggling White Farmer's wealth out of Zimbabwe in the form of diamonds hidden in the imports of semi-precious stones. Jake has an illicit love affair with Sally-Anne, and they conspire to steal the diamonds from Mickey. President Mugabe, suspicious that wealth is being bled from his grasp, sends a hit squad to UK to assassinate Mickey and recover the diamonds. Jake and Sally-Anne's plan goes disastrously wrong. Part 3 As Jake's life disintegrates, he is forced to draw on his his former mercenary persona's deadly skills. The hunted becomes the hunter, as he takes a viscous uncompromising battle to Mugabe's veterans. In this deadly process, Jake accepts his fate and finds his redemption in the sweeping grandeur of the remote Yorkshire fells.