My Friend the Mercenary
James Brabazon
Grove Press
In a fly-blown bar in West Africa, British war reporter James Brabazon found himself being briefed on covert military plans to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea by one of Africa's most notorious mercenaries - his friend Nick du Toit. The Byzantine plot, its farcical execution and its tragic consequences led to Simon Mann and a host of celebrated guns-for-hire falling victim to their own avaricious plans, Machiavellian scheming and ruthless double-crosses. In a twist of fate, James Brabazon remained free. His mercenary friend wasn't so lucky. Nick du Toit was sentenced to serve thirty-four years in Black Beach prison, Africa's most notorious jail - a sentence which James could have been serving alongside him. Their unlikely friendship began two years earlier on the bloody battlefields of the Liberian civil war. With Nick as his bodyguard, James was the only journalist to film behind rebel lines. Establishing him as a brave and talented filmmaker, the war tested James's physical and moral boundaries to the limit - and opened a door on to a dangerous world of mercenaries, spies and violent regime change. MY FRIEND THE MERCENARY recounts James's courageous journey into the Liberian war, and tells the inside story of the most infamous coup attempt in recent history. Through this gripping narrative, James Brabazon explodes the myth of the modern mercenary, and paints a moving portrait of an extraordinary friendship. It is a brutally honest book about what it takes to be a journalist, survivor and friend in the morally corrosive crucible of war.