by Gar Wilson
The man muttered contentedly. He became so preoccupied with his pleasure that he never felt the sheath being opened, the knife being drawn from it.
Nemtala adjusted, sought greater leverage. One chance was all she had. And when the knife was poised to enter just beneath his right shoulder blade...
It took all the strength she could muster to clasp her left hand behind Ochogilo's head, drag his lips down to hers. He groaned with pride as she crammed her mouth to his in sham ecstasy. Then the knife slammed down. Simultaneously her lips closed on his with sucking greed, her teeth clamped, clung to his lips for dear life in attempt to stifle his scream.
The knife rose and fell, rose and fell. Her teeth tore and lashed, the taste of his blood in her mouth sweet beyond description.
Ochogilo was released, allowed to flop off her body with a bubbling, sighing grunt. She wanted to shrill her joy as she heard the air hiss from that human balloon.
For a long time she sat over the man, regaining her breath, the smell of his puddling blood — a coppery, metallic odor — seemingly everywhere.
It was at that moment she heard a discreet rapping on the door. "Major Ochogilo?" the male voice called softly. "Almost through? We are waiting. Let us know when you have had your fill."
"One moment," she called in Arabic. "We will be finished shortly."
"As you say, miss."
Instantly she was up, her eye plastered to the hut's loosely hung door. She was chilled to the heart by this near-fatal mistake. She had never dreamed there would be more of the scum so close. In the half darkness she saw two men huddled in patient vigil just outside the door.
Moving decisively, realizing that delay could spell disaster, she managed to roll Ochogilo's body to one side, covering it with a blanket. She went to the door and stood behind it. "Major Ochogilo asks that one man come in now," she said in quavery, yet enticing voice.
The soldier came into the dark room, closed the door behind him quickly, paused to let his eyes become accustomed to the gloom. "Over here," she slurred softly.
The man was too busy opening his clothes to notice her evasive action. He advanced with a rush. When her fingers fluttered seductively upon his lips, he was further taken in. But then, the hand closed over his mouth, the knife slashed upward in swift, corkscrewing stroke, taking him full in the belly.
He tried to moan, but the hand tightened, and the knife plunged again, higher now, penetrating his heart. With a glug-glugging sound — combined croak of dismay and death rattle — he slumped to the floor.
Shortly he, too, was snuggled up next to his mate beneath the blanket.
Nemtala let an appropriate period of time pass, hoping that her faked murmurings of sexual delight would lull the remaining soldier. Finally she moved to summon the last man.
She chanced an outcry this time. The man was hardly inside the room, the door closed behind him, when she flung herself from the shadows like an avenging angel.
He went down with a ragged grunt, flopped, rolled. His mouth opened wide, a hoarse shout beginning to build. But the knife sang a hissing death song.
Five minutes later, all the bodies concealed beneath blankets and bedrolls, Nemtala was ready.
When she finally slid out into the night she wore a black, baggy uniform, boots, a Black Cobra cap. She began moving through the dense darkness. When a staggering soldier appeared, she ducked back. As he passed she scuttled forward again.
She cursed the weight of the two AK-47s she carried, the added burden of two cartridge belts. But they were essential. If she was ever to avenge herself on the Black Cobra general who had defiled her. And avenge herself she would. She swore it by all that was sacred to her.
Not now, perhaps. But, somehow, one day.
She darted from hut to hut, working her way toward the outskirts of Ai-Rashad. Dogs barked, sniffed her heels, but the soldiers, the animals' owners, paid them no heed. From a distance the rumble of male voices — laughing and singing — carried. The pomba— native beer — was doing its potent work. Nobody would be alert for runaways this night.
She came to the last hut, took swift fix on the diamond-glittering stars. She was cold, deathly weary. Suddenly she was terrified of the trek that lay before her. But she shrugged away despair and doubt, somehow put tiredness aside. Doggedly she forced herself out into the desert, moving as fast as her wobbly legs could carry her.
Nemtala knew she had to be many miles away from the camp by dawn when the slashed bodies of the terrorist trio would be discovered.
She found a road and picked up her pace, hewing to the hardpan so her tracks would be difficult to find.
A frenzied determination on her face, she headed due west, toward what was left of Abu Darash.
6
Salibogo was the first to hear the noise. His hearing was amazing for a man of sixty-five. He abruptly lurched up beside Keio Ohara in the FAV, strained his neck, almost as if sniffing the air.
"Hey, old man," Keio said, instantly alerted. "What's up?"
"Guns. I hear shot. Far off."
It was 1030 hours, and Phoenix had been slogging its way deeper into Sudan since 0600 hours. Already the heat was climbing to new, insufferable highs. Keio flung himself from the dune cart and raced up beside the lumbering Land Rover.
"Kill the engine," he yelled at McCarter, who was playing chauffeur this morning. "Someone's shooting out there."
McCarter flipped the key, touched the brakes. Instant silence.
Each man at battle alert, swiftly transformed into a superb fighting machine, Phoenix became coiled steel. Eyes darted.
The rattle of rapid fire carried clearly in the sterile, arid atmosphere. It died momentarily, then took up. Again it died, leaving them with only the sound of their harsh breathing and the moaning of the wind.
"Damn," Encizo said, "don't tell me we got lucky. Have we found the bastards already? How many do you think, Yakov?"
"Hard to tell. Could be a rearguard group. Could be the main force. There's only one way to find out.
"Keio," Katz snapped. "Unhitch the FAV. We finally get to see what that albatross can do. Well, gentlemen. Whenever you're ready."
The men of Phoenix Force did not have to be told twice. They scattered, slapped on cartridge belts, personal leather and unlimbered SMGs from every available nook and cranny in the Land Rover.
There was even an extra M-16 for Salibogo, who, under McCarter's tutelage the past two days, had become an excellent marksman. The old man's eyes sparkled, his face wrinkling into a grin as the rifle was thrust at him.
The FAV key was turned over. The fast attack vehicle lurched forward, accelerated to forty in as many seconds, a phantom wraith streaking along the rutted, steeply canted camel trail.
They were doing sixty before they had covered a mile.
"Hang on, you goldbricks," Keio hooted, ripping the wheel back and forth viciously to avoid the worst potholes. "The Marines have landed."
Shortly the headlong pace was tamed. A fresh tattoo of rifle fire echoed among the dunes, then died out. The racket was closer, and a feverish, gut-tightening tension infected the attack force.
"Hold her down, Keio," Yakov snapped. "No telling what's around that next bend." As they approached a last sandpile detilade, Katz instructed Keio to pull over. "Recon, guys. On the double," Katz said to Manning and Encizo.
The two flung themselves out of the FAV, slogged down the right side of the trail. As they neared a fifty-foot-high dune that flanked the ragged-ass excuse for a road, they made last-minute adjustments to their rifles — Encizo on the Stoner M-63 A1, Manning packing a Heckler & Koch G3 this mission. Satisfied with their at-ready status, they began climbing the dune.
The rest of the team watched intently as they climbed.
Encizo and Manning paused beneath the lip of the dune. With slow, careful scoopings they began forming a notch in the ridge before them. For long, frozen moments they stared out at the trackless wastes below them. Satisfied, they began slidin
g back down, setting off sand avalanches on their way.
"They're back in the dunes about a half mile away," Rafael reported. "I saw about ten of them, but there has to be more back in there somewhere. What they're shooting at, I don't know. I didn't see anything."
"Blackwell's boys?" Yakov snapped.
"Seems so. Tan camos, black caps. All holding AK-47s."
"Two Unimogs alongside the road about a thousand yards ahead," Manning interjected. "Stupid apes left them totally unprotected." He grinned. "Spoils of war."
"So it's not the main force apparently," Katzenelenbogen said. "We can take them."
"We've still got road cover for another half mile," Manning continued. "There's a hard ridge that follows the dune line we can use if we like. We'll be up their asses before they even know we're on the scene."
"Sounds good," Katz said. "Keio. Move this baby buggy."
As they eased out, the gunfire built up again. Now everything fell silent. "They've got somebody pinned down back there," Encizo said. "I pity the poor bastards. Who, I wonder."
"We'll soon find out," Keio muttered, slowly edging the FAV another two thousand feet down the narrow ruts.
"Manning," Katz said as they reached maximum penetration into enemy territory and made a move to veer into dune country, "take charge of the Unimogs. Blast them with their own MGs if they come your way. Don't let any of them escape."
Manning nodded, then cautiously began working his way toward the deserted assault vehicles.
Phoenix Force started the slow climb into the dunes. Salibogo proved invaluable. With lifelong knowledge of the terrain, he was able to point safe passage through the sand and keep the FAV from being bogged down.
At the base of another towering dune, the FAV hummed to sudden halt; Phoenix Force began hasty deployment.
Katz ordered McCarter and Keio to disengage the Mark 19's pintle from the pedestal mount and to haul the seventy-six-pound piece, along with two fifty-pound magazines, up a lower dune to the west. Mounting the MG on an independent tripod, McCarter was assigned to waiting detail.
"We'll be flanking them," Katz explained, "driving them in your direction. So don't go falling asleep, my friend."
"That'll be the flaming day," he retorted.
Next, following a terse strategy briefing, Katz led Encizo, Ohara and Salibogo to the south. Each man maintaining a hundred-foot interval, they began a wide sweep of the cluster of dunes. Keying on the sporadic gunshots, the long scarrings in the sand, which Blackwell's troops had left behind, they converged on the main force. Finally — the four-man team dispersed to murderous advantage — Katz waved them forward. Legs pumping, sand sliding, fighting for balance, they began clawing their way up the steep incline.
Upon nearing the top they stopped and again carved a peephole into the edge, silently observing the bewildering scene below.
There were approximately twenty Black Cobras sprinkled across the sun-glared desert. Even as Phoenix Force watched they saw the Cobras shooting at random — into the ground, against the opposite walls of the concave arena.
Katz's dismay grew. What were the silly asses shooting at? Snakes? Sand ants?
The black troops paused in their efforts and began working their way up the next hill. Katz, hoping perhaps to acquire interrogation material, chose to challenge them. "Wakkif," he roared in Arabic. "Halt! Drop your arms or die.''
There was no way the hardened mercs were going to surrender without a fight. Instantly the desert was a fire garden, the men whirling, falling sideways, the Kalashnikovs baying sharp, metallic chants, 7.62mm deathmakers whining through the air above Yakov's head, hammering the sand embankment before him, jetting clouds of sand into his face.
On each side of Katz, the remaining Phoenix warriors opened up, pouring a deadly, withering rain of hot lead into the enemy, almost immediately reducing the number of the Black Cobra squad by half.
One terrorist, hammering his boots into the sand, almost made it to the top of the dune. But a 5.56mm bullet from Encizo's Stoner homed in on the back of his skull. He flung up his arms, threw his AK-47 over his head, then slid down the incline.
Another hardguy, zeroing in on Yakov, took a hot kiss from the Israeli's left, as Salibogo stitched him across the throat with three deadly accurate rounds. He lurched upright, executed a quick pirouette, then pounded his face into the ground.
A Black Cobra hardman flopped, rolled and hysterically stuffed great handfuls of sand into his gut where Keio's M-16 had nearly disemboweled him.
Another of Blackwell's elite bullies ran in quick, manic circles, his eyes gone. Another burst from Yakov's Uzi, and he was suddenly beyond pain.
Another six bodies lay motionless in the large sandbox. All had checked out during the first lead raindown.
Yakov signaled his men to hold their fire and again offered amnesty to the hard-core cases. "Throw down your guns," he roared. "You still have a chance to live."
Apparently surrender was a dirty word to the remaining Black Cobras, and they still kept clawing the walls of sand, hoping against hope that somewhere there was a hiding place for them. Salibogo and Keio, firing in tandem, spurred them into a spastic African death dance.
Those who made it to the top of the dune to the far west also might as well have saved themselves all that work. They had no sooner scrambled over the top of the hill than they were immediately propelled backward as McCarter opened up with the Mark 19. The cartridge grenades chopped holes in their backs big enough to accommodate a man's fist.
"Watch it, Katz," Encizo bellowed as a pair of Black Cobras abruptly popped up on the battlescape's northern periphery. The terrorists blasted on full automatic and pulverized the comfy pocket where he had just been. Even as the stunned Israeli rolled down the incline, fighting for purchase every foot of the way, the hardmen tried for killing shots, oblivious to the others zeroing in on them.
Three SMGs opened up at once. The terrorists executed a sideways shuffle before going down, literally torn in half at the middle.
There were still survivors. Three Black Cobras miraculously fought their way from the desert Dunkirk and somehow managed to topple over the crest of the dunes to the south. Katz fought to his feet and tried to stop them, but his shots went wide. "Down, Yakov," Keio called. "I've got a shot here."
For the second time Yakov ate dirt as the M-16 tumblers sliced the air three feet above his head. The hardmen managed to put another dune between them and Phoenix's main contingent.
They were home free. Or so they thought. Emerging from behind dunes a thousand feet away, they broke for the waiting Unimogs. Keio could hear their jabber as they raced toward the transport vehicles — and deliverance. Once they got behind their own heavy guns...
Manning moved up from his hiding place behind the cab, swung the Russian Goryonov MMG down on the sprinting terrorists. They saw him too late. They swung up their Kalashnikovs and tried to get shots off. The muzzle-flash was blinding, even from a distance, and as the supervelocity 7.62mm rounds connected, the Cobras were stopped in their tracks, blown backward a full five feet, parts of them sent flying over the desert.
A long, stunning silence hit the desert, and up in the dunes the men of Phoenix Force sank to the ground in momentary collapse. Sweat streamed in buckets, drenching them; they fought for breath, their intake hoarse, sucking. The damnable heat. They stared around them, regarded the newly created human garbage with haunted eyes.
But finally the spell was broken. And hearing McCarter's voice, they stirred up. "Is everything all right up there? Do you guys give up?"
"Yeah," Encizo called. "We give up. Spare our women."
Still none of them moved. It had all happened so swiftly. Just what had those guncocks been doing there?
A jarring rifle crack jolted them back to reality, and all swiveled, rifles poised. They saw Salibogo walking from terrorist to terrorist, sending a final round into each man's brain. A curse in Arabic, a gob of spit in each face. On to the next man.
The wizened Arab stared back at Rafael, sincere dismay in his eyes. Reading the fury in his friend's eyes, he shrugged and quit his cruel sport.
But Salibogo was nothing if he was not practical. His eyes glistening with savage satisfaction, he trudged from fallen soldier to fallen soldier, retrieving AK-47s, cartridge belts, until he nearly staggered under the load. Modern weapons were worth their weight in gold in the desert. They meant the difference between slavery and freedom.
Katz, Keio and Encizo shook their heads patronizingly. Let the old man do his thing.
They started from the pit of death. "Hold your fire, McCarter," Encizo bellowed as they climbed up the western side of the swale. "We're coming over."
There was a slight plateau at the top of the dune, a miniature depression.
They turned back to watch Salibogo divest himself of the weapons, immediately facing east, prostrating himself on the sand. Rafael rolled his eyes. Prayers?
Salibogo commenced a muffled, chanting prayer.
They were totally unprepared for what happened next. In a ruffled, uneven spot in the sand, the ground actually opened up, and a figure — covered with sand, sweeping away a head-wrapping, spitting and blinking — sat up before their eyes.
Their assault rifles came up, but they managed to hold their fire. Eyes bulged. Jaws fell in silent gape.
As the slightly built Black Cobra flung himself toward Salibogo, fell upon him, wrapped his arms lovingly about the old man's back.
"Tshar-raf, ya abui," the apparition in black wailed, the voice definitely female. A wailing, sobbing, totally distraught female. "Most honored father. I have found you. Your dishonored daughter has returned at last..."
Salibogo straightened from his prayers, stared at the dirty, bedraggled creature, searched the desperate eyes. "A miracle," he gasped, his voice cracking with emotion. "Mahboob, ya bint... ya tifii... Nemtala, my beloved daughter, my child... returned to me. Allah is good."
While the two figures clung in embrace, rocked and sobbed, the members of Phoenix Force stared at each other in utter astonishment. Just what in hell was going on, their baffled eyes demanded.