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Mysterious ‘Red Mercury’ Was the Shadow World’s Answer to a Mad Scientist’s Dream

by Susan Katz Keating The promise of Red Mercury infiltrated the underworld of gullible would-be tyrants, despots, and autocrats, sparking imaginations and a frenzy of deal-making. But what was this mysterious substance? It was the ultimate black market sensation. A substance so powerful it could transform even a lone terrorist …

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Deadly Venom: I Was Bitten by a Black Mamba Snake in Africa

by Gatimu Juma Publisher’s note: Gatimu Juma, who reports from the Horn of Africa, told me he was working on a story about the Al-Shabaab terror group. Nearly a year went by, and I couldn’t reach him. Finally he surfaced to tell me where he was all that time: convalescing. …

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The Sands of Agadez: Where a Woman Knows More Than She Should About Gun Lords and Mercenaries

by Carl Hancocks For the past four years, the city of Agadez has been what could barely pass as home for a woman without a name. Nigerian, she fends for herself as a sex-worker, but that was not how she arrived in this place. Her story is that of a …

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MiG Pilot Viktor Belenko: ‘I Am the Luckiest Man Alive’

by Susan Katz Keating In retrospect, it seems fitting that I met Viktor Belenko in Reno. He was a gambler hanging out in a gambling town, surrounded by pilots in their fast moving aircraft, barreling wildly around pylons. I went there many years back, looking for stories to be found …

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Special Forces at War: A Deadly Firefight in Iraq

by Alex Quade Diyala Province, Iraq — Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (A-Team) 072 rolled into the village. It was dead quiet. Nothing moved. Suddenly, “squirters”—people running away from the village and cars leaving at a high rate of speed. Clearly, something of interest was in that village. A-Team Commander …

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‘The Phantom’ Fouled the Latrine; We Had to Find Him Before Sarge Flushed Us All Down the Toilet

by Heath Hansen It was 0530 hours the morning our first sergeant kicked open the door to our tent, and told us to “get the fuck outside and form it up!” Late the previous night, we returned to base from a 10-day mission in Afghanistan. I could see through a …

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Arizona Border Recon: We Watched From the Mountains While Cartel Gunbattle Erupted

By Heath Hansen Wedged between rocks, I scan with my binoculars and notice a bunker complex built into the top of theopposite hill. I keep observing and see three men, wearing green fatigues, walking between eachfighting position. All three are armed with AK-47’s. That isn’t Afghanistan. It’s Mexico. I had …

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