My Friend The Mercenary

Product Description

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 & its tragic consequences led to Simon Mann & a host of celebrated guns-for-hire falling victim to their own avaricious plans, Machiavellian scheming & 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 & talented filmmaker, the war tested James's physical & moral boundaries to the limit
- & opened a door on to a dangerous world of mercenaries, spies & violent regime change. MY FRIEND THE MERCENARY recounts James's courageous journey into the Liberian war, & 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, & paints a moving portrait of an extraordinary friendship. It is a brutally honest book about what it takes to be a journalist, survivor & friend in the morally corrosive crucible of war.