Pornov spun around and strode back toward his cluster of men and vehicles with the stiff military bearing of the parade field.
The Libyan officer mounted his steed. He whipped the horse into a gallop, retracing his approach already obliterated by the shifting sands.
Colonel Shahkhia did not look back.
As the rider in shepherd's clothing, and the gray charger beneath him, topped the dune and put the scene of the confrontation behind, Colonel Ahmad Shahkhia exerted all of his self-control at calming a mind still in turmoil from the scene with the Russian.
Shahkhia understood that it might become necessary to kill Pornov. This would be a most delicate matter, indeed. But Ahmad Shahkhia would not be stopped. Not this close to attaining all of his lifelong dreams. When he obtained what Jericho now had, the power would truly be his.
Nothing shall stop me, thought Shahkhia, except Death itself. It would take a mighty executioner to get his head to roll.
There was another element to consider in addition to Pornov; an occurrence, mentioned in Leonard Jericho's last communique to Shahkhia, that Pornov seemed not to be aware of.
The coded communique had carried vague reference to an attack on a yacht owned by Jericho in the Bahamas. It was the vessel aboard which the American end of this operation had been initiated.
Jericho's representatives had finalized the arrangement with the American general, Thatcher. The shipment had immediately left ground at Houston International Airport in Texas, America, and was now in Libya, according to Jericho. Along with the "gift" Jericho had promised.
The human gift.
A woman.
But what of the assault on Leonard Jericho's yacht? Was it related to Shahkhia's business with Jericho?
Colonel Shahkhia felt a premonition.
It gave him a creepier feeling even than the knowledge of General Pornov's damnably correct Intelligence.
Only thoughts of Jericho's flesh gift could relieve his queasiness. Yes, having his way with her would be of supreme interest. How thoughtful of Jericho to feed his tireless appetite for the unusual...
Thoughtful enough to earn him Shahkhia's alliance. So a curse on this nefarious attack on the other side of the globe. What foul surprise would beset them all next?
7
The temporary command post for the mission was an office barrack at the north end of the courtyard of Jericho's villa.
The low building was equipped to function as base headquarters for Lenny Jericho's far-flung operation whenever the big man stayed there.
The building was deserted now except for the quarters that were Kennedy's office and orderly room.
The topkick merc stood at the window that faced north from the villa. He watched the sky fade from deep purple into night as the sun disappeared behind the rocky silhouette of the Jebel el Akdar mountain range.
The hot Sahara winds of daytime had already died down. The temperature would now drop abruptly into the mid-fifties.
Kennedy understood the desert very well. The love of his life was soldiering, and this was his seventh assignment in North Africa. Yes, he knew the desert. He knew it and he hated it.
After tonight, he thought, I'll never walk on sand again.
He glanced at his watch. He wondered when he would be hearing from Leonard Jericho. He was tired of waiting.
Doyle was in the office with Kennedy. Doyle was second in the chain of command on this mission. Right now he appeared to read Kennedy's mind.
"The call should have come by now, don'cha think, Top? The men are starting to get restless."
Kennedy turned impatiently from the window.
"They're paid to hurry up and wait, and they know that. Tell 'em to stow it. We'll be lifting off soon enough. I got other things on my mind."
"Such as?"
"That new guy."
"Rideout?"
"What'd you think of him, Doyle?"
The second-in-command lit a cigarette thoughtfully. "Funny you should mention the guy. I've been thinking about him too."
"Like, what?" asked Kennedy. "You drove him out here from Benghazi. Did he talk much?"
"Like a clam. So what's with this job anyway?"
"Knock off the questions," growled the topkick. "The headshed screwed it up, as usual. I don't like it either. But we work with what we got.''
Doyle got thoughtful again.
"If we're talking about Rideout, I don't know what we got, exactly. I couldn't read the guy worth a damn. There's something about him. It's in the eyes. Cold eyes, Top, like chips of blue ice. The guy looks like he can handle himself."
"Maybe that's it," nodded Kennedy. "He's too cool. Showing up here late. And looking like he's got ice in his veins."
"I thought that was the kind of man we wanted here. What is it? You got a gut feeling about the guy?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I got a gut feeling that the guy's a pro all right. But not the kind of pro we want. I got the feeling I was being handled out there when I met him."
Doyle eyeballed Kennedy keenly.
"So what do we do about him? Jericho might not like it if we don't have proof."
"We'll give Jericho the next best thing, if I'm right," grunted Kennedy. "What have you got on the other thing?"
"I think we got what you wanted," replied Doyle. "It was the guy you had tagged, just like you said. I had two men on his ass and they took him right to the doorstep of a woman we know works for Mossad."
"Your men should've dusted him right on the spot and those others with him," grunted Kennedy. He was pacing the office floor restlessly. "Now we've got to deal with him here. Tonight."
"My men didn't know they were trailing an Israeli spy," Doyle bristled mildly. "Those were your orders."
Kennedy suddenly snapped his fingers, stopped pacing.
"Wait a minute. There's a way we can tie these two things together."
"I don't get you, Top."
Which is why you'll always be a dumb ass kisser and nothing more, thought Kennedy. His response was interrupted by the shrill ring of the phone on the off ice desk.
"Here come the orders," said Doyle.
Kennedy palmed the receiver.
"Yes?" was all he said.
"Relax," a voice said. "I've got a scrambler on the line. How are things going there?"
The question was asked in an authoritative tone that made it anything but polite conversation.
"My men are ready and waiting to move out, Mr. Jericho," said Kennedy crisply. "Waiting on orders from you."
"Very good. What about our Israeli problem?"
"We've got the man tagged, sir. I'm making plans right now to take him out."
"Good. About goddamn time. New developments?"
Kennedy was aware that Doyle eyed him closely from across the office. But Kennedy saw no reason to bring up his suspicions concerning Mike Rideout. Kennedy would deal with Rideout at his level.
"No, sir. Nothing new. I've got security airtight. It's all running good like I said it would."
"Then set a course for the Aujila oasis. That's about thirty minutes flying time. Be there in one hour."
Kennedy glanced at his watch.
Perfect, he thought.
"One hour. Yes, sir. I'll brief the pilots immediately."
"I will see you in one hour then, Mr. Kennedy."
"Yes, sir. Goodbye, sir."
Kennedy replaced the receiver. He turned to confront the open question marks in Doyle's eyes.
"Aujila oasis," Kennedy told him. "Keep everyone at their post for right now. We'll have a quick pull out in twenty minutes."
Doyle was on his feet. He started from the office, but paused with his hand on the doorknob.
"You didn't say anything about Rideout."
Kennedy's eyes narrowed. "You haven't figured it out yet?"
"I guess I have," said Doyle. "I'll set that up too, then."
Kennedy nodded.
"Use Bruner and Teckert. Tell them to watch their asses. I got
that damn feeling."
"I wonder if we're right. About Rideout, I mean."
"Either way we'll find out soon enough."
"You want it, you got it," said Doyle. He snapped off a curt salute and left the office, closing the door behind him.
Leaving Kennedy alone to his thoughts.
The boss merc turned to stare out the window. It was too dark to see anything out there except his own reflection in the glass. But it would give Doyle a few minutes in case the guy came back with any last-minute questions. It would do no good for Doyle to return and find Kennedy gone, with no one having seen him emerge from the office out front. That would not do at all.
I've got to be real careful now, thought Kennedy. This damn thing has been like walking on eggs. But these final minutes are crucial...
The world looked at Kennedy and saw unlined, youthful features that he knew were attractive to most of the women he came in contact with. His eyes sparkled. His smile could dazzle.
In other words, the horrors that he had perpetrated, and the hellzones — Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Rhodesia, Chad, Libya — where he had spent his career soldiering amid the harsh realities of a world he never made, could not be imagined from his outward appearance.
Kennedy was willing to concede that a few people over the years might have guessed at the true limits of behavior that he was capable of, but not many.
Even some of the men in his outfit here in Bishabia would be shocked to know about the locked and boarded schoolhouse full of rebel kids near Gatooma that Kennedy had burned to the ground some years ago. The job had been on orders, sure, but some of the mercs here tonight would damn sure have blanched at a thing like that and refused — because they never had Kennedy's ambition and drive — to do anything that would establish him as the toughest, baddest, best merc in the business. It was too bad about those kids in Gatooma. It was too bad about a lot of things. But no, it was not a world that Kennedy had made, to his way of thinking. It was a world that he was trying to get ahead in. To accomplish that, you needed ambition and drive and the knowledge that winning was everything.
It worked for Kennedy. It got him qualified enough to honcho a mission like this for no less a vip than Mr. Leonard Jericho himself.
Kennedy smiled at the reflection in the dark glass.
Yes, it worked and here you are. You're sitting on a cargo worth enough to get you into a life of comfort forever.
Enough time had passed.
Kennedy stalked across the office and locked the door from the inside. Then he went directly toward what appeared to be a bare niche in one wall.
He was thinking that there was one man, a newcomer, here tonight who might understand the truth about what kind of a man Kennedy really was. If such was indeed the case, then that man might have ideas of his own. The thought did not sit well with the boss merc.
Kennedy stepped up to the niche in the wall, then stooped down and used his right-hand thumb to press on a part of the floorboard where wall met floor.
The wall section slid sideways to reveal a steep narrow flight of stairs.
Movie stuff, smiled Kennedy.
The wall slid noiselessly back into place behind him. Kennedy briskly continued down the stairs.
He was thinking about the big, quiet man with the steely blue eyes.
Kennedy knew that a direct confrontation between himself and Michael Rideout could only end in death. They were equals with regards to capabilities. The big man had a look of deadly competence, the quiet look of a true hellgrounder.
Kennedy had convinced himself that "Rideout" was not the guy's real name. And that a confrontation with the big guy was somehow inevitable. It was coming soon.
Tonight.
Along with everything else.
8
Mack Bolan, on combat duty in Vietnam, led his Penetration Able Team on many successful classified missions behind enemy lines. Bolan was a penetration specialist, a penetration master.
That was how he appreciated immediately, by taking position in the background from where a soft surveillance could be maintained, the interesting information that security at the Jericho villa in Bishabia was very tight.
The Executioner felt a respect for Kennedy in the manner in which Jericho's top merc had deployed his manpower to guard this villa. Subliminal quivers in the psyche called Bolan to quick-pass a number of emplacements that were planned to bite inward as well as out. This was the whole nine yards here. It tickled something in his combat instinct, he felt the tremor of the game now.
The death look they wore indicated that the soldiers in this base were lethal even if they were also non-notable, the wolf pack fit to devour at any moment, savages in every respect.
After he outfitted himself in the armory in desert camouflage fatigues, and armed himself with a Galil, some grenades and a holstered Browning hi-power, Bolan made his way across the villa's courtyard, past the Hueys and up the tall ladder to the parapet, toward the villa's southeast corner. Mike Rideout was obediently following Kennedy's orders.
Bolan eyed Kennedy's heavily armed troops as he did so. In addition to a few AK-47s, Galils and Largos, he also noted several new Beretta Model 70 assault rifles that Bolan knew to be capable of spitting out 5.56mm death-dealers at a blistering 700 rpm.
Some of the mercs wore munitions belts heavy with grenades. Two men seen by Bolan wore .357's on their hips Western-style, the way Bolan now wore his Browning hi-power.
The only other small arms he could see were several SIG 9mm Parabellum P210 autos. Some of the mercs carried these in underarm shoulder holsters.
"Rideout" had drawn duty with a U.S. merc named Teckert, who sat perched behind a belt-fed Cartouche light machine gun, tripod-rigged atop the wall's ledge. A sheet held up by four posts protected each of these gun posts from the sun.
Teckert was a man of few words.
So was Bolan.
They got along fine.
Nothing moved beyond the villa walls. Utter stillness reigned.
At one point a Swede merc named Hohlstrom came along the parapet. Teckert introduced Hohlstrom to Bolan. Hohlstrom barely nodded. His eyes were dark marbles. His expressionless face was hard beneath a high intellectual brow and a pate of thinning hair.
Hohlstrom said nothing to Bolan.
Hohlstrom and Doyle exchanged grunted monosyllables, then Hohlstrom lumbered on. This was a world where a man kept his counsel unless he knew well the man to whom he was speaking.
A few minutes later another merc approached along the parapet. Apparently, Kennedy had roving sentries in addition to those at set stations, like Teckert and Rideout.
This merc was a German national named Bruner. Teckert and Bruner knew each other; there was a brief, low-keyed exchange between the two mercs as Bolan eavesdropped.
"So what do you think of this scene, Teckert? Easy money so far?"
"So far."
"Reminds me of the time we took Brother Khaddafi's wages at Aozou in Chad. Remember?"
Teckert spat over the wall.
"I remember. I hate these frigging desert jobs."
"But do you remember the women of Aozou?" prodded Bruner with a guttural laugh.
Teckert grunted. "Yeah, I remember. Too bad we had to torch that village."
Bruner snorted. "You should not think, my friend."
And he moved on.
Yeah, thought Bolan. These are the bad ones. These are the purest enemy.
Don't think, huh? Very soon, Mack Bolan was going to force them to think, even though it would be their last lesson.
He was going to teach them an essential paradox of warfare. He was going to show them that men are never more in danger than when they believe themselves secure.
And that they — or rather he, Mack Bolan — would never be more secure than when in the very greatest danger.
That required some thought. Mack Bolan's kind of thinking.
"Be right back," grunted Bolan to Teckert. "Time for a pitstop."
Teckert said nothing to stop him. He continued gazing out from behind the Cartouche machine gun at the dark wasteland beyond the villa walls.
Bolan kept his easy pace until he had climbed the ladder to a point out of Teckert's line of vision. Once he could not be seen, Bolan moved with speed and economy of movement.
Even in the light-hued desert camo fatigues, Mack Bolan was a wraith in the darkness as he descended to the base of the wall. He carried the Browning and, on its strap over his shoulder, the Galil assault rifle.
This corner of the villa was removed from the hubbub in the courtyard. Bolan found himself in mottled shadows. He melded with the lighter shades, reversing the tactic he used with his skintight combat blacks. His movements were of silence and cunning, pure stealth in the pale night.
He strode along the far end of the courtyard, toward what looked like the main residence.
He turned right at a generator shack that was feeding power to Jericho's villa.
It would have been a pleasure to plant some plastique in the generator shed. But Mike Rideout was not in a position to be carrying that kind of material.
Bolan moved on, angling toward the part-time residence of Leonard Jericho.
Bolan figured the odds were as good as not that Eve was being held in this villa outside Bishabia. Therefore an intel probe was required.
He cut into the shadows under a stone arch. He was near a side door to the private residence. He could see a faint light glowing from a window along the wall.
Bolan tried the door handle. The door was unlocked, as he had expected it to be. Security around here came from guns, not locks. What could not be contained by heavy guard deserved to be trapped into temptation.
Bolan slipped soundlessly into a darkened foyer.
His every sense was alert as if to sniff out a trap. The only light in the hallway was a rectangle of illumination midway down the corridor, coming from a half-open door that corresponded with the light Bolan had seen from the outside.
The Libya Connection te-48 Page 4