Mercy Mission

A group of American medics and dozens of refugees are held captive after a Janjaweed war band takes control of their camp in Darfur. With the president’s hands bound by political red tape, Mack Bolan launches a rescue mission using his own team of mercenaries.

But there is more to the terrorists than guns and violence. With the Sudanese government’s support, the Janjaweed group has become an unyielding force in the region. As the enemy troops close in, Bolan soon realizes he could be leading his men into a death mission. But there’s no turning back. Without him, the captives have no chance of survival—and the Executioner will not let them down.

The tank rumbled on, seemingly unstoppable

Bolan pulled the pins on a pair of grenades and charged the armored vehicle.

As he ran into range, his progress was noted and the tank’s turret spun to put its gun on him. Bolan threw a grenade. The white phosphorus charge hit the tank square on its slanted front. The vehicle’s prow was immediately enveloped in white smoke and streamers of metal skyrocketed. Bolan took a hard left and threw himself down as the tank fired blindly at him. The sonic crack of a shell passed two feet over him, and coax fire followed, but it was scything in the wrong direction. Bolan rose.

Again he sprinted toward the tank. Waves of heat rolled off it from the burning phosphorus on the front deck, but the warrior paid no attention. He jumped and hooked an arm over the 100 mm barrel, letting it carry him toward the bow. The turret continued to turn, and he dropped onto the tank’s blackened back deck. A scorched dent the size of a trash can lid cratered the steel, and a smoking hole the size of a fist marked where the grenade had penetrated. Bolan could hear men shouting below, and chemical fire extinguisher squirted out of the opening.

The Executioner unclenched his fist and dropped his second grenade down the hole.

Line of Honor

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

If honor calls, where’er she points the way, The sons of honor follow and obey.

—Charles Churchill

1731–1764

The Farewell

Where there are people in need of my help, I will go. Because it is only in keeping up the fight against those who do evil against the innocent—no matter where on this planet they may be—that this war can be won.

—Mack Bolan

The Mack Bolan Legend

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Charles Rogers for his contribution to this work.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

1

The Sudan

The wind roared through the open door of the helicopter cabin. Mack Bolan’s knuckles went white on the grips of the M-134 minigun as he watched the armor-piercing incendiary cannon shells streak past the cabin like green laser lines in the predawn. He shouted into his throat mike to reach Jack Grimaldi in the cockpit. “Jack! Do something!” The Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot close air support jet was flying right up Dragonslayer’s rear and seemed intent on ripping the girl a new one.

Dragonslayer screamed into emergency war power in response.

The Executioner’s stomach dropped as Grimaldi hauled back on the stick and the helicopter went nose vertical. The Sudanese jet streaked past underneath. The Stony Man pilot shoved the stick forward and kicked the collective. Bolan swung on his chicken straps like a hammock in a gale and caught sight of the glowing red lanterns of the Su-25’s twin Tumansky turbojets. He brought the minigun around and squeezed the trigger. The weapon’s motor whined, and the six barrels spun in a blur. Bolan’s own red laser lines scored the night, and he saw bullet strikes sparkle on the Frogfoot’s fuselage. The minigun could fire up to 3,000 rounds a minute as the electric motor whirled its six barrels at dizzying speed. The problem was that the Executioner was firing .30-caliber rifle bullets, and the boys at the Sukhoi Design Bureau sheathed their attack planes in titanium.

The Su-25 was firing 30 mm cannon shells and just one would light up Dragonslayer like the Fourth of July.

For this particular mission, Dragonslayer was stripped to pass foreign inspection and speed; her mission was search and rescue. Bolan’s gun station was a last-second add-on for hostile-landing-zone suppression.

They had never made it to the landing zone.

The Su-25 fighter pair had dropped out of the sky on them like God’s wrath. Fortunately these Sudanese fighter pilots had no experience in dogfighting. The Sudanese air force had spent the past two decades mostly strafing defenseless villages and refugee camps. The lead Su-25 had made the lethal mistake of trying to go low and turn and burn with Dragonslayer. Grimaldi had simply spun the chopper on its axis and given Bolan a lane of fire. The Executioner had ripped about three hundred rounds right up the Frogfoot’s port-side air intake and put paid to the Sudanese pilot’s account.

Wingman wasn’t having it.

He had intuited the situation. His plane could approach six hundred miles per hour. His 1990s vintage Russian Doppler radar was a joke, but helicopters weren’t exactly stealthy. Dragonslayer was a nice vibrating blob on his screen and the sun was coming up. The Su-25 was twice as fast than his prey and taking advantage of that fact. The Frogfoot pilot was climbing high and then screaming down for gun runs and zooming away before Bolan’s ineffectual return fire could have any effect.

The soldier watched the Su-25 bank hard around in the purple light. “Jack, we’re going to have to do this the hard way!”

“What are you suggesting!” Grimaldi shouted.

“Let’s surrender!”

Bolan could almost hear Grimaldi smiling into his mike. “Okay! Let me see, Su-25, export version, his stalling speed has gotta be, what? Eighty-five? Ninety klicks per hour, give him a nice comfortable…”

Dragonslayer dropped altitude and noticeably began slowing as the pilot throttled back. The Su-25 continued its hard turn in the distance to come up on Dragonslayer’s six again. Sunlight began to pour over the Nuba Mountains to the east. Grimaldi held the aircraft in suicidal-level flight as he continued to drop speed. Bolan had a nice visual on the Frogfoot as it began to close.

“You want me to turn belly-up, as well?”

“No! But let’s lose the ordnance!”

“Right!”

Grimaldi flipped a switch and the explosive bolts holding the M-134 on its mounts snapped like firecrackers. He tipped Dragonslayer just slightly to be helpful, and Bolan shoved the minigun out the door. The soldier hoped the enemy pilot was paying attention. Grimaldi held Dragonslayer steady at six hundred feet and 150 miles per hour. Bolan leaned back in his straps and lodged himself behind the cabin door frame. He reached back and slid his hand around the grips of his grenade launcher.

Bolan waited for the Russian 30 mm gun to blow him and Grimaldi to hell.

Even over the thunder of Dragonslayer’s rotors he heard the roar of the twin jet engines. The Frogfoot attack fighter pulled up alongside Dragonslayer like a traffic cop pulling over a vehicular offender. Morning light continued to spill over the mountains, and Bolan could see the Su-25 pilot pointing at Grimaldi and then pointing down at the ground.

The Stony Man pilot was waving back and grinning in a friendly fashion.

Bolan swung out on his straps. The M-32 Multiple Grenade Launcher was a 6-shot weapon. The soldier put the reflex sight slightly in front of the Su-25’s port-side air intake and fired. The fragmentation grenade hit the Su-25 wing about six feet back and detonated harmlessly. Bolan dragged his sights forward to increase his lead and fired again. His second frag grenade detonated against the pilot’s armored cockpit glass. Its only effect was to make the man nearly jump out of his seat. Bolan split the distance as the pilot yanked on his stick and fired the launcher four times in rapid succession. The soldier had front-loaded the M-32 with four frag grenades followed by an antiarmor round and white phosphorus.

The third frag missed.

His fourth bomb, the antiarmor and the incendiary grenades arced in the flight and were sucked up by the turbojet one-two-three like golf balls being eaten by a wet-dry vacuum. The Su-25 pilot had the unwitting decency to dive for the deck and take Dragonslayer out of collateral-damage range. Bolan had seen more explosions in his life than most men had had hot dinners. His eyebrows rose slightly as the Frogfoot shot a fifty-yard tongue of white fire from its port-engine nacelle.

Seconds later the Sukhoi disappeared as 3,000 liters of jet fuel came into violent contact with superheated gas, molten metal and a cloud of burning white phosphorus expanding in her belly to fill every internal crevice. Bolan watched as a ball of orange fire and white-and-black smoke fell from the sky like a slow-motion meteor. Bits of jetfighter with less drag fell from the fiery mass in little smoldering black streamers.

“Gosh…” Grimaldi observed. “Nice shot.”

“Thanks.” Bolan leaned back in his strap, broke open the smoking grenade launcher and reloaded. “I don’t suppose we have a fix on our target anymore.”

“No.” Grimaldi sighed. “We lost our window. We’re going to have to wait until target reestablishes contact.”

Bolan snapped his weapon shut on a loaded round. Odds were they weren’t going to get too many more chances. “Take us home.”

“Copy that.”

The Executioner glanced backward and watched the molten mess that had once been an airplane become a smoking hole in the dust of the Sudan.

All of this begged the question of just how exactly two Su-25s had gotten the jump on them. The Sudanese air-defense grid wasn’t exactly state-of-the-art. Grimaldi had flown them in out of Uganda well under their 1980s vintage Soviet radars. For that matter, Dragonslayer had the most sophisticated electronics suite of any helicopter in existence. If the Sudan had been hammering the sky with their radar, Grimaldi would have known it. They hadn’t detected anything until the Su-25 duo had suddenly swooped out of nowhere. Bolan and Grimaldi had been caught flatfooted. There was really only one explanation and it wasn’t a happy one.

Someone had tipped off the authorities.

Lokichogio Airport, Lokichogio, Kenya

GRIMALDI WAS INCENSED. “Okay, someone tattled!”

Bolan pulled a sweating brown bottle of Tusker lager out of the ice chest and wiped it across his own sweating brow. The U.S. Military General Purpose Tent didn’t have climate control. He cracked the bottle and shrugged. “Wasn’t me.”

“Somebody did.”

“You checked her for bugs?”

The pilot scowled. He had gone over every inch of the aircraft before takeoff and triple checked after the Sudanese dogfight debacle. “Nah, you’re right, I should have thought of that.”

Bolan tapped the sat-phone icon on his tablet. He had already given Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman a debriefing and was hoping for some follow-up.

“Bear, what have you got for me?”

Kurtzman came on the line instantly from the Computer Room at Stony Man Farm, Virginia. “Not much. That was a very interesting story you told me. I’d have to say the most interesting development is that there have been no new developments.”

“No reaction from the Sudanese?”

“Not a peep. Nothing about unauthorized incursions into their airspace, much less any fuss about losing two of their attack fighters.”

“So the question is, who knew about us?”

“Someone tattled!” Grimaldi muttered.

Kurtzman had clearly heard the pilot. “Striker, unless you think Farm security has been compromised, I’m putting tattling on the low-order-of-probability list.”

“Then we were spotted, raised red flags, and someone put the tell-tale on us,” Grimaldi stated.

“That’s the way I see it, too, but I’m finding it kind of hard to fathom. Did you check Dragonslayer for bugs?”

Grimaldi reddened. You didn’t see the man lose his cool very often. However, the Stony Man pilot was nearly always the ambusher rather than the ambushee. He had flown into suicidal situations and threaded the eye of the needle more times than Bolan could count. Getting ghosted and jumped out of the blue, or in this case the black, was an infrequent and unwelcome experience. Grimaldi glared at Bolan and raised his hands heavenward.

“Copy that, Bear,” Bolan acknowledged.

“Then let’s break it down. Who would have noticed you?”

Bolan grabbed his tablet and his beer, and stepped outside the tent. Grimaldi followed. Lokichogio Airport was a small facility and also extremely busy. It had become a hub for international and private aid and mercy missions in heartbreaking numbers. A small city of tents, container-unit shelters and prefabs littered the grounds around the main airport. Bolan and Grimaldi were posing as a private courier operation for a Farm-fabricated nongovernmental organization, or NGO. The tent they had brought with them. Dragonslayer’s landing pad was a mostly level square of ground that someone had packed down with a lawn roller. Amenities were few. Bolan wanted to stay out of town, but the ad hoc city of aid workers was serviced morning, noon and night by roach coaches and street hawkers of all descriptions.

The fact was, between the humanitarian crises in the Congo, South Sudan, Darfur, as well as Ethiopia and Somalia, dozens of nations and NGOs were in a constant flux of representation. With that many interests, and that much money and aid flying in from all over the world and flying out in all directions, the city had also become a hotbed of smuggling and international intrigue. Kurtzman was right. Bolan’s two-man team and Dragonslayer had attracted attention. They had barely been in Kenya more than forty-eight hours and had hoped to be out in the morning, long before any interest they attracted could materialize into anything.

The next question was how had they been tracked.

Anyone stupid enough to walk up to Dragonslayer to try to put a GPS tracking device on her would have set off her security suite, incurring Bolan’s and Grimaldi’s immediate wrath. Assuming someone with ninja-quality skills had succeeded, Grimaldi’s pre- and postflight electronic security sweeps would have detected any invading electronic device.

Bolan considered how he would have done it.

“Bear, can you get me some satellite imaging?”

“What are you looking for?”

“I want some high-magnification infrared on Dragonslayer,” Bolan replied.

“Well…” Kurtzman considered the weird request. “She isn’t moving, is she?”

“No.”

“Well, what I’m most likely to see is a pair of glowing exhausts.”

“Run a full infrared spectrum analysis,” Bolan ordered.

“Okay…that’s going to take a few minutes.”

“Fast-track it if you can.”

“All right.” Far off in Virginia, Kurtzman clicked keys and made the magic happen. “The Pentagon has two birds that have a window on your position. You officially have high priority, but it’s going to take a few moments to receive the command codes. Hold on. Syncing in your tablet…”

Bolan’s tablet peeped at him and he touched an icon. The farthest flung, northwest corner of Kenya appeared in infinite shades of gray. The view plunged down through the atmosphere as the satellite locked on to his signal and began increasing its magnification. The haphazard mess that was Lokichogio resolved into a city and then an airport. Suddenly, Bolan found himself with a top-down view of Dragonslayer.

In the infrared imaging, her engine cowls still glowed a dull bone-white against the green-gray of the fuselage from the evening’s earlier excursion.

“Tracking is locked and imager is calibrated, Striker. We looking for anything in particular?”

“Just a hunch. Let’s start from the bottom and take it through the spectrum.”

“That’s not exactly this bird’s job, but let’s see what we can do. Starting at 0.7 micrometers.”

A micrometer was one millionth of one meter, and it was often used in measuring infrared wavelengths. Point seven micrometers was the nominal edge of visible red light, and the spectrum extended out to 300. Such measurements went far beyond the ability of the human eye. Dragonslayer’s engines were one-offs, custom built specifically for a single aircraft, and powerful out of all proportion to her size. Like staring into the sun, most minor fluctuations in her infrared signature would be impossible for most instruments to detect. However, the right instrument using the proper filters could stare directly into the sun and detect heat variations all over the sun’s surface as well as within it. Bolan was looking for a fluctuation that a high-intensity infrared imaging satellite, most likely a hostile one, would detect. Particularly a satellite that was on station, for that purpose, and that knew exactly what it was looking for and had a good idea where.

Bolan was looking for a cold spot.

The image of Dragonslayer slowly changed like a black-and-white photo polarizing. “There,” Bolan said.

“I see it,” Kurtzman acknowledged. “Increasing magnification.”

The corner of Bolan’s mouth quirked as his hunch was vindicated. The back slope of the main rotor housing was spackled with mysterious spatters of glittering white light.

“Man!” Grimaldi was incensed. “Someone done gone and gooed my girl! Rat…bastards!”

It was a trick Bolan himself had used. You could design chemicals to give off infrared light at specific wavelengths, suspend them in a clear, fast-drying gel and use them to mark objects or even people for unwitting targeting or tracing. If Bolan had to bet, someone had unloaded on Dragonslayer with a silenced, high-powered air rifle loaded with the equivalent of paint balls filled with infrared-emitting gel. It wasn’t the sort of assault that would have triggered any of Dragonslayer’s security sensors, and if Bolan was the shooter he would have timed his shots to the nearly constant 24/7 roar of takeoffs and landings.

The soldier glanced over at the fuel truck and found his spackle-sniper’s position. It was currently parked fifty yards away and serviced the helicopter park. Bolan looked out across the shelters and prefabs to the airport proper.

He had a very strong feeling he was under surveillance.

“Bear, I’m calling this mission FUBAR. We’re marked and can’t operate out of this theater.”

“So the whole thing is a wash?”

“No—” Bolan stared northeast toward the cauldron that was the Sudan “—we’re just going to have to do it the hard way.”

“We’re running out of time, Striker.”

“You said Able and Phoenix are currently operating?”

“That is their status.”

“I can’t use blacksuits for this gig. I need mercs.” Blacksuits were the military and police personnel who rotated onto the Farm to provide security duty for a period of time.

“Oh…my…God…”

“Find them for me, Bear. Break into databases and find me some reliable men.”

“I don’t know if I can get that authorized by—”

“Don’t authorize it. Just do it.”

“And to finance and equip this little jaunt I am…” Kurtzman’s voice trailed off.

“I’m going to give you a password and an account number and authorize your access to an account a friend opened for me in Labuan. I had to stash away someone’s ill-gotten gains.”

Kurtzman paused a moment. “In Malaysia.”

“Yeah. Malaysia.”

“What will you need?” Kurtzman asked.

“About a squad, a lean one. Like I said, I want you to hack the databases, deal with each individual directly.”

“Anything specific you’re looking for?”

Bolan considered the Sudan again. “Any experience in the desert is good. Some French or Arabic is a plus, so would being able to ride a horse.”

“What’s the pitch?”

“I’ll make the pitch. You offer them a first-class round-trip ticket and ten thousand euros to hear me out.”

“Some of them might think its some kind of trap. I think you need to give me a little more.”

“All right, we’ll lead with the truth. Tell them it’s a rescue mission that’s probably suicide, and tell them to meet me in Chad.” Bolan smiled tiredly. “Then let’s see who comes.”

2

CIA safehouse, Abeche, Chad

Bolan regarded the files in front of him. He had turned his back on whatever flapping and squawking was going on in Washington and charted his own course. He now found himself in Chad. He trusted Kurtzman and the Stony Man cyberteam implicitly, but privately even Bolan had been forced to wonder what kind of men would fly halfway around the world on twenty-four hours’ notice to hear a suicide proposition in Chad. Bolan had his answer, and he had his men.

And his woman.

Kurtzman spoke from four thousand miles away over the tablet’s sat link. “So what do you think?”

Bolan swiped his finger across the tablet and flipped the files back to the beginning. He had been expecting to see mostly Americans. Bolan looked at the sole Yankee on his team. Yankee was a loose term. Corporal Alejandro “Sancho” Ochoa wasn’t exactly a Yankee. In his mug shot, the corporal was built like the light-middleweight boxer he had been. The tattoo of an outrageously buxom Latina in a sombrero and peasant dress covered his right arm from shoulder to elbow. A similarly shaped woman dressed like an Aztec priestess covered his left. An Aztec pyramid with the sun rising behind it covered his abdomen from belt line to sternum. Above that, San Jose 408 designated his hometown in California and its area code across his pecs.

Ochoa was grinning and throwing gang signs at the photographer. The only thing even vaguely military about the man was his high and tight haircut. Bolan shook his head. The jailhouse mug shot was hard to reconcile with the Army file photo of a grimly determined young corporal in dress uniform with the ranger tab on his shoulder.

“What happened?”

“It’s hushed up, but basically his unit was involved in a bad civilian casualty situation in Iraq. He was individually cleared, but…”

“But his unit was made an example of. I remember something about it.”

“His unit was sent home, then he had some brushes with the law,” Kurtzman stated.

“Tell me he wasn’t dishonorably discharged.”

“Corporal Ochoa was given the opportunity to take an early discharge rather than face trial. He took it.”

“And?” Bolan prompted.

“Our boy turns right around, joins Blackwater as a private contractor and heads right back to Iraq. He distinguishes himself and—”

“And Blackwater gets thrown out of Iraq for a civilian massacre.”

“So Sancho went south and was doing bodyguard work in Central America, and, can you guess?” Kurtzman asked.

“He shot some people he shouldn’t have.”

“Well, rumor is they needed shooting, and rumor is a cartel down there wants him dead. Regardless, his privileges below the Rio Grande have been revoked.”

“What’s he up to now?”

“He’s eking out living as a bounty hunter in the L.A. Latino community. His name is in every private security database in the U.S., but his record and his brushes with the law have him kind of blackballed.”

Bolan sighed.

“You gave me forty-eight hours and some very interesting recruitment parameters, Striker.”

Things looked a little better with the next two. Both men were South African National Defense Force, 44th Parachute Regiment, Pathfinder Platoon and had made warrant officer. The pair currently worked for Transvaal Security Incorporated. TS Inc. provided security for African VIPs and were widely reputed to have supplied mercs during the Diamond Wars. The similarities ended when you looked at the picture of the two grinning men arm in arm holding up steins of beer. Gus Pienaar looked like a 1980s vintage Clint Eastwood with a mild case of albinism. Tlou Tshabalala bore a disturbing resemblance to a young Bill Cosby except with a shaved head and shrapnel scars on his left cheek and neck.

Bolan blinked at their bios. “They both married the other one’s sister?”

“So it seems.”

“Well, racial harmony is a good thing.” Bolan had fought alongside and against South African mercs. They just didn’t come much tougher.

He glanced over the recruit that came straight out of left field. Togsbayar Lkhümbengarav was Mongolian. It was a little known fact that Mongolia was a nearly constant provider of forces to United Nations peacekeeping missions. Sergeant Lkhümbengarav had been serving nearly continuously from Kosovo to Afghanistan. The previous year he had been right there in Chad. His specialty was a small arms instructor for indigenous peoples forming their own security forces. “Definitely keeping him.”

“Thought you’d say that.”

Bolan examined the one commissioned officer in the group, 1st Lieutenant Tien Ching from Taiwan. He had been a demolition man in the 101st Reconnaissance Battalion, better known as the Sea Dragon Frogmen. He had transferred to the 871 Special Operations Group and twice gone to the United States to cross-train with the Navy SEALs. He held numerous Republic of China army medals and citations but nearly all of his deployment records were redacted. “Anything else on Ching?”

“Just that the rumor that he has engaged in some very black operations in Mainland China. Then he went private in Japan. He seemed eager for work outside of Asia when we contacted him. I think the PRC may know who he is and is gunning for him.”

Bolan dragged his finger across the screen and flipped open the next file.

Colour Sergeant Scott Ceallach had been one of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines of 3 Commando Brigade. His individual formation in the Royal Marines had the name 30 Commando Information Exploitation Group. That meant the colour sergeant’s job was to move ahead of the main marine force and find out information about the enemy, by fair means or foul, and exploit it as imaginatively as possible. It seemed he’d done some exploiting in Afghanistan before he had gone private.

“You like him?” Kurtzman asked.

“Royal Marine. What’s not to like?”

Bolan looked wonderingly at the absolute wild card of the bunch, and askance at the baggage she had brought with her.

Elodie-Rousseau Nelsonne had been an agent for the French General Directorate for External Security, Action Division. Female DGSE agent spoke volumes.

“You sure about this, Bear?”

“I know, Action Division has a cowboy reputation, but you know what else they’re also famous for?” Kurtzman queried.

Bolan did. “International rescues.”

“That’s right, and I have it on very high authority she’s been involved in some of their more recent high-profile success stories, as well as some that never made the papers. She’s been in Africa, and is currently doing work with Groupe Belge de Tour.”

Belgian Tower Group was one of the premier European private contractors. That said a lot about Mademoiselle Nelsonne, as well.

Nelsonne had drafted two men of her own choice to fill out the squad. Valeri Onopkov was Russian and Radomir Mrda was a Serb. According to Nelsonne, both men were veterans in their own lands and had seen service in Africa. To Bolan that meant the wars in Chechnya and Bosnia respectively, and Russians and Serbians serving in Africa usually meant war crimes that could appall even the native militias that considered atrocity a national sport.

The phrase “beggars can’t be choosers” came to mind. Bolan was running out of time and running out of options, and Kurtzman had delivered. Counting himself, it was a lean squad, and along with the target, if Dragonslayer was stripped for transport and they stacked everyone like cordwood, Grimaldi just might be able to extract them.

“What’s the team’s status?”

“We tried to make their flights coincide. No one has been waiting at the airport more than four hours. Ochoa’s ETA is fifteen minutes from now. Then the shuttle will pick them up as a unit and bring them to the safehouse.”

“I’ll put out the welcome mat.”

* * *

BOLAN AND GRIMALDI STOOD on the inner upstairs balcony of the safehouse and watched the team file inside. The house followed the general urban geometry of the Sahel and consisted of an almost featureless, two-story brown cube. The thick clay walls insulated against the heat of the day and the often bitter cold of the night. Being a CIA establishment, Uncle Sam in his mercy had installed air-conditioning. The climate control hit the mercs coming in off the street like a hammer, and they gasped and shuddered like people who had just plunged into an unheated pool. Bolan hoped no one had a heart attack. Abeche was in the running for the hottest major city on Earth. Three hundred and thirty-six days a year it was always over 90 degrees Fahrenheit. This day it was 115.

Scott Ceallach dropped his bags and tilted his head back in near ecstasy. He was a big, sleepy-eyed man. The Brit had grown a short mustache and beard since the photo Bolan had seen. He opened his eyes and looked up at the big American. His cockney accent was thick enough to cut with an ax. “Have a pint about?”

“Lager or stout?”

Ceallach raised his hand. “Bloody hell, squire, forget the sales pitch, I’m all in.”

Ochoa grinned up, as well. The sport coat and mock turtleneck he wore hid his tattoos and his high and tight was freshly buzzed. “Yeah, me, too. Whatever it is, I’m down with it.”

Bolan was pretty sure Ceallach was joking. Ochoa seemed in earnest. Lkhümbengarav and Ching were glancing around and talking to each other in low-voiced Mandarin. Lkhümbengarav looked nothing like his military photo. He had grown his hair out so that it could be pulled into a short ponytail, and he was cultivating a Fu Manchu mustache. If you closed your eyes and thought “Mongol,” you would most likely picture Lkhümbengarav in a fur hat on a horse. He noticed Bolan’s gaze and gave back a grin and a head bob. Ching regarded Bolan in open scrutiny but inclined his head.

Pienaar and Tshabalala stood as a unit.

“Lager,” Pienaar stated. His accent told Bolan he was a South African of English descent.

Tshabalala grinned. “Stout for me.”

Bolan examined former DGSE agent Nelsonne, and the woman regarded him back. She had an aquiline nose, widely spaced eyes, a generous mouth and a firm chin. Along with Tshabalala she was the only one who hadn’t sweated through her clothes already. If someone had told Bolan she was a French movie star he would have believed it. Grimaldi clearly liked what he saw. She quirked an eyebrow at Bolan. “Bonjour!”

“Bonjour,” Bolan replied. Onopkov and Mrda flanked Nelsonne like bodyguards. They looked to be very hard men. The Russian was tall enough to look Bolan in the eye but lanky to the point of looking cadaverous. Pale eyes measured the soldier out of slightly sunken sockets that seemed to have permanent dark circles. The Serb was a head shorter and built like a fire hydrant. His flat-topped brown hair stood up out of his head like nerve endings.

One look told Bolan that Nelsonne and her entourage had somehow acquired sidearms after landing.

“Leave your bags.” He jerked his head. “C’mon up.”

Grimaldi opened a tote bag as they filed up the stairs. “Phones and all electronic devices.”

This was met with some grumbling, but phones, tablets, laptops and other devices were handed over.

The largest space upstairs had been converted into a conference room. Two folding tables had been pushed together, and ten chairs surrounded it. Bolan took the seat at the head of the table. Nelsonne took the foot and her two recruits flanked her. Everyone else filled in the sides. Without being prompted, servers entered, bringing roasted lamb, couscous, kebabs of vegetables and buckets of beer.

“That’s the ticket!” Ceallach announced, and immediately began tucking in. The rest of the team attacked the spread like a wolf pack. Bolan waited until the first plate and the first beers had been consumed. He glanced behind him and a server brought in a covered dish. It was uncovered with a flourish to reveal banded stacks of euros.

Eating and drinking around the table ceased.

Five thousand euros had been wired to each individual when they accepted their plane ticket. The other half had been promised on arrival. Bolan took a bundle and tossed it at Lkhümbengarav. The Mongol grinned and snatched it out of the air. Bolan tossed bundles of cash around the table like a cash machine with a throwing arm. Mercs grinned and riffled the stacks.

“May I have your attention?”

Ceallach cracked open a Heineken beer and grinned. “All ears, guv.”

“We’re going into the Sudan, and the Sudanese government won’t be pleased if we are discovered. We aren’t officially sanctioned by any government. No one will come to save our asses if we get in trouble.”

“Where in the Sudan?” Ching asked.

“Can’t tell you.”

That was met by a genuinely inscrutable look.

Tshabalala cocked his head. “What’s the objective?”

“Can’t tell you just yet.”

The majority of the faces around the table went flat. Pienaar scratched his thin platinum hair and spoke for everyone. “So, we’re just supposed to follow who knows who to who knows where to do who knows what? Sounds like shit to me, china.”

“Sounds like kak,” Tshabalala agreed.

Bolan shrugged. “Finish your beer, finish your food, take your money and walk.”

Lkhümbengarav turned his gaze on Bolan. “Okay, GI, you saying I can drink my fill, eat my fill, take this money and go home? Five thousand euros?”

“At this point it’s ten, but yeah.”

“Round eye?” The Mongolian snorted. “You fascinate me. Uncle Sam just tossing his money away these days?”

“It’s not Uncle Sam’s money. It’s mine, and I want you all in or on your way. It’s going to get rough and mean really fast.”

Nelsonne laced her fingers together and made a hammock for her chin. She smiled demurely. “Why all the secrecy?”

“We already made one attempt on the target. We got compromised and got jumped by Sudanese fighters.”

“Sudanese fighters?” The Serbian spoke for the first time.

“A pair of Su-25s.”

The Russian’s eyes locked on Bolan. “And?”

“We shot them down.”

Nelsonne kept smiling. “I have heard nothing about this.”

Bolan nodded. “Yeah, funny about that.”

Ochoa leaned back in his chair. “Jefe, I don’t care if we’re marching to Mars. I need the job. Ten thousands euros is a nice fat chunk of change, but you can’t retire on it or start over. I’ve got no prospects and I got mi madre and nine brothers and sisters who really need a cash infusion. What’s the pay?”

“Fifty thousand euros or its equivalent in any currency you want wired to the accounts I set up for you as soon as we deploy.” Every face around the table save Grimaldi’s and Nelsonne’s went flat again. “Fifty thousand more to anyone who makes it out alive, success or failure.”

Jaws dropped.

“Any medical care needed afterward will be fully paid at my expense. If for some reason there are delays or we need to extract and redeploy, I’m willing to entertain bonus pay.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

Bolan shot a killer grin. “Who’s in?”

Pienaar whistled and stared down the neck of his beer. “Tentatively, china, but what’s the plan?”

“We’re going to deploy on the ground posing as an NGO humanitarian convoy and then take a very unexpected turn.”

Tshabalala visibly relaxed as he saw it. “And when we get close to the package we go low in the bush and acquire the package.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

The Russian lit a contemplative cigarette. “And we drive back?”

“Maybe.” Bolan nodded at Grimaldi. “Or he extracts us.”

“And if there are more Sukhois?”

Grimaldi sipped his beer nonchalantly. “We already shot down two.”

Bolan cracked himself another beer. “So, who’s in?”

Ochoa shot his hand up. “Me!”

“Sounds like a bloody movie.” Ceallach shook his head and raised his hand. “I’m in.”

“Sounds like shit,” Pienaar said.

“Sounds like kak,” Tshabalala agreed.

The two men grinned and spoke in unison. “We’re in.”

Ching finished his beer. “Well, I have never been to the Sudan, and I have no pressing engagements.”

Lkhümbengarav inclined his beer at Ching. “What he said, hot rod.”

Bolan looked at Nelsonne, who reached for another beer. “I was already decided in Bruges.”

Bolan didn’t bother to ask the Russian or the Serb. He was pretty sure Nelsonne had decided them in Bruges, as well. “All right, real quick. We can all get to know one another later, but our mission language is going to be English, and I need to keep things simple.” Bolan looked at Tlou Tshabalala. “You got a lot of la-la-las for tactical communications.”

“Call me T-Lo, everyone does.”

“Done.”

Gus Pienaar piped up without being asked. “Goose, been my name since I was kid.”

Bolan looked at his Royal Marine. “Ceallach?”

Scott Ceallach rolled his eyes and put the “lock” in Ceallach. “Cee-a-laaahckh.”

“How about we just call you Scotty?” Bolan suggested.

“And I’ve been living with you Yanks’ Star Trek fetish all my life, haven’t I, then? And I’m not even Scottish!”

“Good to know.” Bolan glanced at the Mongolian. “Luck-um-ben…?”

The former sergeant smiled like he’d seen it coming from a long way off. “Been ‘Lucky’ on the last three UN deployments, GI.”

Tien Ching raised his beer at Bolan. “T.C.”

Valeri Onopkov nodded at Bolan. “Val.”

Radomir Mrda grunted. “Rad.”

Bolan perked an eyebrow at Nelsonne. “Mademoiselle?”

She nodded. “Russo.”

Ochoa frowned. “Aren’t you going to ask me?”

“Ask you what, Sancho?”

“Hey! How did you— Oh, man, never mind, and what do we call you, Jefe?” Ochoa looked at Ceallach. “Squire?”

“You can call me Striker.”

Nelsonne made an amused noise. “Très Américain.”

“I am that,” Bolan admitted. “Last question. Who besides me can drive a Unimog?”

“Me,” Pienaar replied.

“We have two Land Rovers. Who’s volunteering to drive?”

Mrda and Lkhümbengarav raised their hands.

“Good enough. Everyone finish eating. Take a nap. I’ve got nine beds set up. We’re leaving at sunset.”

The team resumed tucking in. Nelsonne hadn’t taken her eyes off Bolan, and she was still smiling. There was a saying in the United States spook community that there was no such thing as an ex-CIA agent. Until they buried you, you were just on standby.

Bolan was pretty sure there was no such thing as ex-DGSE in France, either.

3

“I believe they call this flying by the seat of your pants,” Grimaldi said.

“That’s your job,” Bolan replied.

Bolan and the Stony Man pilot sat in the conference room comparing notes. The team had collapsed in their beds with mild heatstroke and food comas. Grimaldi gave his old friend an amused look. “I mean, did you actually look at these yahoos?”

“I’ll admit Sancho is a little squirrelly.”

“No, big guy, Sancho’s the only one I trust.” Grimaldi frowned. “Except for maybe the Brixton Bomber and the Mongolian, and the South Africans are okay, except every time I see them I hear the song “Ebony and Ivory” in my head, oh, and T.C. He seems like a stone-cold killer of men.”

That was two-thirds of the squad. “So…you don’t like Russo?” Bolan asked.

“Oh, I like her a lot, but she makes me nervous, and so do those ex-Communist-bloc savages she has with her.”

Bolan controlled his bemusement. “Bear picked her.”

Grimaldi made a noise.

“How we doing on gear?”

“I’ve got a Hercules on the airstrip with all three vehicles and all requested equipment stowed and ready to go. I’ll get you and the team on the ground and in the saddle. After that it’s up to you.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

The pilot shifted in his seat uneasily. “This is messed up. I should be going with you. I should be driving.”

Bolan kept his poker face. It was an interesting phenomenon that pilots automatically assumed they were NASCAR drivers in the making. In Bolan’s experience, “knight of the air” and “rubber meets the road” were two different sciences entirely and rarely mixed well. “I need you hot on the pad, Jack. Ready for extraction from a hot LZ at heartbeat’s notice.”

“Well, if you put it that way,” the pilot said, “I’ll drop you off and be waiting by the phone.”

Both men turned at a polite knock. “Come in,” Bolan said.

Nelsonne walked in smiling, went to the sideboard and made herself a whiskey and soda. “I have taken the liberty of acquiring us a pair of guides.”

Bolan regarded the French agent drily. “Where will they be guiding us to?”

“That is up to you, but they are men of Central Sudan, and have acted as guides and interpreters before. I think you will find them useful in a myriad of ways.”

“You vouch for them?”

“I have worked with them. They are good men.”

“Where are they?”

“Waiting outside.” Nelsonne batted her lashes at Bolan. “Would you like to meet them?”

“Well, it’s awfully hot outside for standing around.” Bolan leaned back and pressed the intercom button. “Two guests outside. Show them up.”

In moments two men in their early twenties appeared in the conference-room doorway and looked in shyly. Both were as tall as Bolan but stick-thin. Their skin was so black it almost seemed blueish. That told Bolan the two men were at least by blood from the South Sudan. Despite the heat they wore matching blue jeans, denim jackets and cowboy boots. They had identical huge brown eyes and even huger identical smiles.

“They are twins,” Nelsonne explained.

“Let me introduce Haitham and Shartai Kong.”

Bolan gestured for his guests to take a seat. “You gentlemen hungry?”

The Kong brothers nodded and sat.

“You guys drink beer?” the soldier asked.

“Yes.”

Bolan hit the intercom for the kitchen. “Could we get a pitcher of beer and some of that lamb up here for our new guests?” Bolan leaned back in his chair. “Kong…that’s a Dinka name.”

The brothers nodded, their shy smiles becoming slightly prideful.

“From Kurdufan?”

Kurdufan was smack-dab in the middle of what had once been the Sudan, and like the Sudan itself Kurdufan had been split into north and south. It was a bit of luck because that was exactly where Bolan was going. The Kong brothers nodded in proud unison.

“Mademoiselle Nelsonne says you’re both excellent guides.”

Bolan was fairly certain it was Haitham who answered. He had a Darth Vader–quality baritone. “Guides, interpreters.” He gave Bolan a sly smile. “Scouts.”

Bolan smiled back in suspicion. “SPLA?”

The Sudanese People’s Liberation Army had been fighting the government in Khartoum since the mid-1980s. Haitham’s chest swelled as he stood and pulled up his T-shirt to show a puckered bullet scar in his lower right abdomen. Both Bolan and Grimaldi’s eyebrows rose as Shartai stood, turned, unbuckled his pants and dropped his trousers to display a long pink scar creasing one buttock. Shartai slapped it for emphasis. Both men burst out laughing and sat again. “Since we were children.”

Bolan glanced at Grimaldi.

“They have a good attitude,” the pilot admitted.

One of the staff brought in a mound of leftover sliced lamb on a bed of couscous and a pitcher of beer. The Kong brothers tucked into the food and greedily began sucking down beer. That told Bolan they were either Christians or animists. The fighting had driven untold numbers of Dinkas south as they had battled the government of the Muslim-dominated North. Christians were ruthlessly suppressed. The traditional African spiritualists were often annihilated out of hand. Nelsonne swirled the ice in her drink. “I have told them you pay well.”

Neither man stopped eating but their eyes snapped to Bolan as they kept shoveling it down. Bolan saw no need to be stingy and he wanted their absolute loyalty, and to him rather than Nelsonne.

“Let’s keep it simple. I’ve already hired nine team members. I see no reason to treat you any differently. As full members of the team I’ll give you ten thousand euros now as a signing bonus, and…”

The Kong brothers stopped chewing and food nearly fell out of their mouths as their jaws dropped.

“And fifty thousand more on completion, or to your families if you’re killed.”

Haitham wiped his chin with the back of his fist and leaned back. “You are serious?”

Bolan went to the safe in the wall, punched in his code and produced two bundles of euros. He sat back down and slid them across the table. “I’m deadly serious. This is going to be hazardous duty, and that’s why I’m paying hazardous-duty pay. I think the two of you will be invaluable members of my team. You in?”

“Oh, indeed,” Haitham said.

“Most assuredly!” Shartai was in full support.

Bolan raised his beer. “Welcome to the team. Jack?”

Grimaldi finished his beer. He knew what was coming. “Yeah?”

“Go get the plane ready.”

Darfur

VEHICLES ROLLED FROM the belly of the C-130. The two Land Rovers were loaded with crates, and the canvas-covered load in the Unimog concealed just under half a ton of fuel, supplies and ordnance. Everything was marked as humanitarian aid. The 4x4s were painted the same beige as the dust storm that was kicking up. The jump-off was auspicious. With a storm coming the landing strip was abandoned. Lkhümbengarav backed a Land Rover down the ramp. “Sancho! Scotty! You’re with me,” Bolan shouted over the wind. “And Lucky, you’re in Rover 1!”

Haitham shouted through the shemagh covering his face. “I am with you, boss!”

“Hop in!”

Everyone except Bolan grabbed his or her bags and clambered aboard.

Bolan made the backing out motion with his hands. “Bring it out, Goose!” The Unimog truck rolled out under Pienaar’s guidance. Tshabalala was already riding shotgun. An MZ 125 SX off-road motorcycle was mounted on brackets on the front and rear bumpers.

Bolan waved the last vehicle out. “Rad! Rover 2!”

The Land Rover whined in reverse as the Serb extricated the vehicle. Nelsonne and Onopkov jumped in as a unit. Shartai shouted out of his scarf-swaddled face, “Boss! With permission? I will go with the mademoiselle!”

“Go!”

Shartai clambered in to Rover 2. Bolan squinted into the wind and dust behind them and clicked the tactical clipped to his shoulder. “All units, hold up. We have company.”

Two vehicles were heading in their direction.

Bolan raised his binoculars and examined the vehicles. One was a Chinese-made military 4x4 and the other a flatbed truck. The back of the truck contained nine men in camo. They all carried Kalashnikovs and their faces were swaddled against the dust. Bolan squinted at the dust-covered windshield of the 4x4. The man in the passenger was wearing mirrored blue sunglasses and a black beret. Nelsonne appeared at Bolan’s side with Mrda and Onopkov in formation behind her. Bolan handed over the optics. “Any idea?”

“I believe it is Captain Osman Osmani.”

“You know this jack wagon?”

Nelsonne handed back the binoculars. “I do not know what a jack wagon is, but I strongly suspect that he is one.”

“So this is a shakedown?”

“Most likely. However, he is not some greedy, sitting-on-his-hands captain who just accepts bribes. He was very active in the fighting both in Darfur and South Sudan. It is very likely the United Nations will get around to trying him for war crimes. The information I have is that he has actually stepped up his strong-arming and extortion to build up his nest egg before he flees prosecution.”

Grimaldi spoke across the com link. “You want me to take off?”

“No, that’ll just make the captain suspicious. Come on out. Leave the ramp down, but be ready on my signal.” Bolan watched the vehicles approach. “Everyone out. Be friendly. Remember, we’re an NGO helping displaced refugees. I’m going to try to pay these guys and send them on their way. But be ready to take them down. Follow my lead.”

The rest of the team formed up. Ochoa took position at Bolan’s right hand. “Hey, Jefe?”

“Yeah, Sancho.”

“You said take these guys on your go?”

“That’s right.”

“These guys got AKs. I can see them from here.”

“It does appear that way.”

“Yeah, but, you haven’t given us any guns.”

Lkhümbengarav nodded. “What he said, hot rod.”

“We’re in an international group of doctors, drivers and volunteers. Osmani and his men don’t expect resistance. If it comes to it, we jump the sons of bitches, pound them like nails, confiscate their weapons and disable their vehicles.”

Ceallach cracked his knuckles with an explosive ripple of pops and cracks. “Right! The old-fashioned way, then.” He raised his hand and waved at the approaching vehicles in a happy fashion. One of the gunmen in the back of the flatbed actually waved back. The vehicles ground to a halt. The soldiers jumped down out of the flatbed, some with their rifles in hand. Others had them slung. Most had their folding stocks folded. They were in a low state of alert. The captain was more leisurely as he let his driver jump out and open the door for him. Two soldiers got out of the back. The officer wore a stainless-steel Ruger .357 Magnum revolver in a conspicuous gunfighter’s rig low on his thigh.

Bolan arranged his face into an obsequious smile and stuck out his hand. “Good morning…” He made a show of looking at the patch on the man’s shoulder and smiling hopefully. “Captain? I’m Dr. Cooper.”

Osmani barely acknowledged Bolan’s guess with a slight nod. He ignored the outstretched hand. The big American looked at his hand and lowered it sheepishly. The captain had the accent of a man whose primary language was Arabic. “I am Captain Osmani. I will see your manifest immediately.”

Bolan blinked in feigned surprise. “We already passed customs and inspections in the capital. Is there some kind of—”

“Your manifest, Dr. Cooper. Immediately.”

Bolan nodded at Grimaldi, who held out his clipboard. Osmani’s driver intercepted the clipboard and then handed it to his captain. Osmani flipped through the pages listing medicines, medical equipment, water purification gear and various aid-station necessities.

“Captain,” Bolan said, “I’m very sorry you had to come out in the middle of this storm.” Osmani inclined his head and gazed at Bolan over the rims of his sunglasses like a snake eyeing a not particularly fast or wily insect.

Bolan recoiled and let himself stumble on over his words. “I mean, Captain, as you may have heard, there has been an outbreak of dysentery in the interior. We need to get our water-purification equipment on-site as quickly as possible. Every second counts.” He stammered like a man who wasn’t used to these sorts of negotiations. “Is there any way we could…” Bolan made a show of swallowing a frog in his throat. “Expedite things?”

Osmani handed the manifest back to his driver, who handed it back to Grimaldi. The captain lowered his official hostility by a tiny increment. “I am aware of the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Rather than requiring you and your people to return to the capital and—”

Nelsonne gasped on cue and clutched Bolan’s arm. “Return? But, no! We bring—”

Osmani didn’t miss a beat. “But it would be better for you to continue your humanitarian mission immediately. However, since I have been dispatched in my official capacity, certain permits will have to be authorized.”

Bolan looked at the captain like a deer in the headlights. “I understand completely. I was given some money for…discretionary expenses.”

“Excellent.”

“How much do you…?”

Osmani sighed tolerantly. “How much discretionary income do you have?”

Bolan very reluctantly produced a money belt from under his shirt.

Osmani’s driver leaned in and whispered something in Arabic. Both men looked at the Kong brothers. The driver whispered urgently. Osmani went reptilian once more. “Who are these men?”

“They are Abdullah and Salva. Interpreters recommended by the Red Cross in Nyala,” Bolan explained.

“I am reminded of a story about a pair of twins I have heard. Rebels and war criminals who are wanted in Khartoum.”

“Captain, I assure you—”

“I am taking these two men into custody. You will submit to a full inspection of your cargo. You will mount your team into your vehicles and return with me to town where the matter will be investigated further. Your passports and all currency both foreign and domestic will be temporarily held. You will button up the plane, leave it here and the pilot will come along, as well.”

Bolan let his jaw drop and made a show of failing to draw up some dignity. “Uh…team? This must be some kind of mistake. We’ll get it cleared up back in town. In the meantime, I want you to obey the captain’s every order and assist him and his men in all ways.” Bolan turned back unhappily. “Will that be sufficient?”

“For the moment.”

“What would you like to inspect first?”

“You will show me—”

“This?” Bolan’s sucker punch snapped the bridge of Osmani’s sunglasses and the septum beneath. The right uppercut lifted Osmani onto his toes and sat him down. Pienaar and Tshabalala exploded into synchronized flying rugby tackles that pushed two of the men holding their rifles into the dust. Bolan spun 360 degrees and his spinning back-fist clouted Osmani’s driver like a ball and chain. Nelsonne’s leg flew upward in a goose step from hell and her savate kick toppled a man, spitting teeth as he fell to the ground. Bolan looked for his next opponent.

His team had the situation well in hand.

The Executioner turned his head just in time to see Tien Ching relax his hands. Three men lay fallen at his feet in moaning ruin. Ochoa stood over a man who clutched his groin and vomited. Mrda had his man in a stranglehold and was easing him down to the ground. Onopkov rubbed his head and lit a cigarette. His man lay on the ground with an egg-size lump between his rolling eyes. The Kong brothers gleefully stomped the truck driver who lay in a ball trying to cover himself.

Bolan watched with admiration as Ceallach pressed his opponent over his head and hurled him against the grille of the truck. “That’s for you, wee man!” he roared. Wee man bounced brutally off the bumper and fell fetal into the dust.

Bolan waved the Kong brothers off. “Enough.”

Shartai gave the truck driver a last kick for good measure, then the brothers began walking up and down the line of violence, collecting weapons.

Bolan looked at Grimaldi. “Where were you?”

The pilot waggled the manifest. “Someone had to hold the clipboard.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

“No problem.” The pilot looked meaningfully into the mounting storm. “Can I go now?”

“Yeah, you’re out of here.” Bolan turned to his team. “Haitham, Shartai, load their weapons into the back of our truck. Speaking of weapons, Lucky, break ours out. Goose, T-Lo, burn the command vehicle. Who here is good at tying up people?”

Nelsonne smiled winsomely. “I am quite talented at securing men.”

Bolan grinned. He bet she was. “Secure the prisoners. Rad, Val, help her and then load them in the back of the truck. Leave them any water they brought. Confiscate any phones or radios. Sancho, disable the truck engine, and I mean permanently, then help Scotty get the canvas top on over the prisoners. Once you’ve finished your jobs I want everyone to go to the Mog and Lucky will issue you weapons.” Bolan watched as his team set about their tasks with well-oiled precision. “We’re out of here in twenty.”

4

The Sudan

The dust storm died at dusk. The team set up camp for the night in a dry creek bed and strung camouflage netting across the three vehicles to form a covered camp. It was a cold camp, as well. They kept no fire, and the heating elements of the MREs were used in the back of the truck. Bolan walked over to the Unimog. Nelsonne sat in the cab monitoring the radio. Everyone was bundled against the sudden chill. “Any chatter?”

“Nothing on the captain, but I suspect his superiors keep him on a loose leash. He has carte blanche to commit his crimes, and they demand their cut when he reports in. I don’t think anyone will go out looking for him until tomorrow, perhaps the day next.”

“You think he’ll come after us?”

Nelsonne sighed. “You should have killed him.”

“That would have drawn the wrong kind of attention. He was humiliated, and he’s going to have to explain how he got his ass kicked to his superiors. I’m betting he won’t. He’s going to pay off whoever pulls him and his men out of that stalled truck. If he tries to come after us, it’s going to be a private vendetta. I’d like to think I forestalled any official notice of our departure.”

“You have a gorgeous mind.” Nelsonne sighed again longingly. “I would still like to have seen you kill him.”

“It may still come to that.”

Ceallach appeared at the other cab door. He held a couple of steaming coffee mugs and passed them out. “Bit of all right this morning, then.”

“Yeah, you gorilla-slamming one of Osmani’s men was pretty impressive.”

The Briton made a self-deprecating noise. “Call that a ‘potato toss’ back home.”

Bolan knew Ceallach hadn’t come to reminisce about the morning brawl. “What’s on your mind, Scotty?”

“Been talk among the lads.”

“What kind of talk?” Bolan prompted.

“Well, we’re feeling a bit like mushrooms, then, aren’t we?”

It was a mantra invented by U.S. Special Forces during the Vietnam War.

Mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed on shit.

Ceallach sipped coffee and turned a contemplative eye to the Sudanese night. “Well, you wouldn’t hear me saying it… .”

Bolan decided to give a little. “The target is a high-value individual, and may require forcible extraction out of a refugee situation.”

Ceallach nodded knowingly. “You know, Striker? I’ve seen this movie. Wrong part of Africa, but in the end everyone dies but you and the sexy bird.”

“I saw that movie, too.” Bolan nodded. “Wasn’t bad.”

“Is there a sexy bird, then?” He gave Nelsonne a wink. “Besides the one we already brought along?”

“There is,” Bolan stated. He slid out of the cab. “I’m going to check the perimeter.”

“I’ll stay here and guard Russo.”

Nelsonne smirked.

Bolan scooped up his rifle.

Lkhümbengarav had issued weapons just before the convoy had headed out, and grumbling had ensued immediately. Ceallach went so far as to give it the raspberry. Bolan’s team were all spec ops or at least elite-unit veterans. It had been some time since they had seen wood-and-gunmetal-blue weapons rather than black plastic and matte-black Parkerized steel. That wasn’t quite true. They saw it often, but almost always in the hands of the hapless people opposing them.

The Chinese Type 81 rifle looked like a stretched version of an AK. The one nod to the twenty-first century was the forward-mounted optical sight that John “Cowboy” Kissinger, Stony Man Farm’s armorer, had mounted where the rear iron sight used to have been. In its favor, the rifle could fire the ubiquitous Russian .30-caliber ammo littering the Sahel, it came equipped with rifle grenade-launching rings, and Bolan’s team was currently dripping in them.

Mrda was on sentry duty. The Serb spoke quietly across the link. “Striker.”

“Yeah, Rad?”

“Contact.”

“All units, arm up. Prepare to break camp. Everyone get your night-vision eyes on. Drivers, get behind your wheels but do not start your engines. Sancho! Haitham! With me!”

Ochoa appeared at Bolan’s elbow in an eyeblink. He had volunteered for the role of the soldier’s right-hand man, unasked for but with admirable will. Haitham loped out of the darkness. “Striker-man!”

Bolan put a finger to his lips. Haitham fell into formation and the three warriors jogged toward Mrda’s position. They stopped running and quietly climbed the ladderlike clay side of the arroyo. They stretched out on either side of Mrda. The Serb was staring intently through the scope of his Dragunov sniper rifle into the wasteland. “They’re coming straight toward us, Striker.”

Bolan brought up his binoculars.

It was a scene he had seen more times than he could count. The people walked and limped in a small mob. Everything they owned they carried. The lucky ones had blankets wrapped around them against the evening cold. There were far too many women, children and the elderly, and far too few men and boys. They hunched and searched the sky for the sound of jets or rotors. They cast fearful looks behind them for the terror that had driven them into the desert night. Bolan saw no weapons beyond walking sticks and crutches.

“Jesus,” Ochoa muttered. “‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…’”

“‘Yearning to breathe free,’” Bolan continued. “‘The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.’”

Ochoa turned to Bolan. “Jesus, Striker! You gave me goose bumps!”

“You been to the Statue of Liberty, Sancho?”

“No.” Ochoa grinned beneath his night-vision goggles. “But I’ve been to the Rio Grande.”

Bolan snorted. “You’ll do, Sancho.” He clicked his com link. “Scotty, bring up the SAW. I also need a canteen of coffee. Put a lot of sugar and powdered cream in it.”

“Roger that, Striker. On the double.”

Mrda’s sniper rifle never wavered from the refugees. “How do we play it?”

“Me, Sancho and Haitham are going to go talk to them. You and Scotty are going to cover us.”

Ceallach trotted up the arroyo with his Type 81-1. It was simply a Type 81 assault rifle with a longer, heavier barrel, a bipod and a 75-round drum. The Briton handed Bolan the canteen, then snapped open the legs of the bipod and took position next to Mrda. “Bob’s your uncle, Striker!”

Ochoa sighed. “I don’t understand a word he says.”

“Let’s take a walk.” Bolan walked out into the night flanked by Ochoa and Haitham. They covered about a hundred yards and stopped. Bolan watched the mob blindly approach through his night-vision goggles. At fifty yards he pushed up the device on top of his head and took a glow stick out of his web gear. He gave the stick a bend and a shake and a green glow filled the night. The platoon of refugees immediately came to a halt. Several individuals bolted from the group in random directions. Bolan stood with his rifle slung and waved in a friendly fashion. Haitham called out in Arabic. An old man and an old woman detached themselves from the group. Each wore a gray humanitarian-relief-issue blanket like a shawl and each leaned on a stick. The two came forward warily. The old man had an ancient-looking Sudanese arm dagger strapped just below his shoulder. Haitham nodded to the elderly couple and exchanged quiet words with them.

He turned to Bolan. “They are Sirel and Mina. They are Christians, and displaced farmers.”

Bolan uncapped the canteen and held it out. Sirel caught the smell of coffee and insisted that Mina drink first. Sirel waved his arms and spoke rapidly. Haitham translated.

“They say bad men attacked their camp, though they got warning across the missionary radio and managed to leave. They fear the bad men are still looking for them.”

Ochoa rolled his eyes. “What do they have that anyone would want?”

“Women,” Bolan said. “And children. They’re commodities around here.”

Ochoa turned his head and spit. “Christ wept.”

“Haitham,” Bolan said, “ask them if it’s Captain Osmani they’re afraid of.”

Mina spoke for the first time. She started speaking low, but she began waggling her stick and speaking in greater and greater outrage. “Mina says that Osmani is bad. Everyone knows who he is. He comes and he takes any gold or silver or medicine, but these men are worse. They come on horseback. They take everything, and they are led by a terrible individual called Yellow Mnan. They say he keeps hyenas in his main camp and feeds people to them.” Haitham stopped translating. “Something about him being an…evil ghost?”

Bolan considered that. “Ask her if Mnan is black like you but has skin like me.”

Mina nodded and made the sign against the evil eye.

“He’s an albino.” Bolan knew how much of a badass an albino had to be to rise to a position of leadership in a genocidal civil war.

Mina continued.

“Anything Mnan does not want, he burns,” Haitham said. “Anyone Mnan does not want, he kills.” He frowned. “And Mina says when they kill they take their time.”

“Sound like some real loco hombres, Jefe,” Ochoa added.

“Janjaweed,” Bolan said.

Sirel and Mina flinched in unison.

Ochoa brightened. “Ganja weed?”

“Janjaweed, Sancho. It’s an Islamist militia. They were originally drawn from the nomadic tribes in East Darfur. The Sudanese government used them to try to pacify the rebelling farming tribes who were mostly Christian and Native African animists. The lines got blurred pretty quickly. At one point it was rumored the government in Khartoum was emptying the prisons, giving each man a horse and an AK, saying, ‘Go west, young man.’ They were widely accused of genocide.”

“Jesus…”

“Jesus is right, Sancho. They’re real bad hombres, and loco.” Bolan did a quick head count and clicked his com link. “Russo, I need thirty-seven protein bars and the same of the bottled waters.”

“Sacre bleu!” The French agent sounded bemused. “Do I detect a big, fat heart in that American chest?”

“Just do it.” He turned to Haitham. “Ask them how far behind Mnan and his Janjaweed men are.”

Sirel spoke for long moments. Haitham looked as if he might cry. “Sirel says his people are the dead, walking in dust. They leave little to follow unless one of them dies. He says Mnan probably does not know where they are, but he will be roaming for his next prey.”

“Jefe?” Sancho asked.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t like this Mnan. I don’t like him at all.”

“Me, neither, Sancho.”

Nelsonne walked up with Onopkov behind her. The lanky Russian carried a big box. The refugees were scared of Bolan and his group, but they recognized international aid immediately and swarmed forward for food and water. Nelsonne smiled, chucked chins and passed out food and water and hugs like a pro. More than the concentrated calories and desperately needed hydration, the woman was passing out empathy, and hope. She was also quickly interviewing each person she fed. The French agent was also cataloging interviews as she distributed aid. When the last elderly person had cracked the cap on his water bottle and the last child had crinkled open the wrapper of his food bar, Nelsonne rose and leaned in to Bolan. “Tell me.”

“What?”

“Tell me we’re going to wipe the Sudan with this Mnan.”

“The French do have the term ‘mission creep,’ I assume?”

Bolan had to factor in the fact that Nelsonne was an intelligence agent and quite possibly had her own agenda, but the woman seemed to be getting genuinely worked up about the refugees. “Then why did we stop and give them food? We fatten them up for slaughter?”

“To get intel? Because we couldn’t have them walk on top of us and set up camp?” Bolan suggested.

“We’re going to kick Mnan’s ass.”

“We just might teach him not to go our way.” Bolan watched the refugees as they finished their rations. They sat huddled together, literally leaning against one another to hold themselves up. Half had already fallen into exhausted sleep. Some couldn’t help themselves and tore into the rations Nelsonne had issued for the morning. “Or theirs.”

“So we kick his ass?”

Bolan considered the geometry of horror in sub-Saharan Africa. Sirel and Mina’s people had left tracks. The only reason they hadn’t been ridden down already was that Mnan and his cohorts had probably found something else to temporarily distract them. Sirel and Mina’s little band had women worth raping and young girls to be sold in the slave trade. They also had young boys who could be used the same way or turned into child soldiers; and when all was said and done, Yellow Mnan would be very interested to hear about a heavily loaded convoy headed into the interior.

Bolan nodded. “We’re going to kick him in the nuts and see how he likes it.”

Nelsonne rose up on her toes and kissed Bolan on the cheek. He smiled as his right cheekbone tingled pleasingly. The soldier clicked his com link. “Lucky, put the Rovers into gun-jeep configuration and prep the cycles.”

The Mongolian grinned. “You got it, hot rod.”

Nelsonne stood on tiptoe and breathed in Bolan’s ear. “Hey, soldier. You want to get laid?”

“In Bruges,” Bolan murmured back. “And only if we win.”

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