Aswan Hellbox

by Gar Wilson

  What the hell? Why worry? He would get the real story soon enough. As soon as Jibril and his boys coaxed the details from their hostage.

  Blackwell stormed back to the command car, confronted Lieutenant Malwal. "Anything?" he spat.

  "Nothing, General. Their radio is definitely out of commission."

  The haunted-eyed black broke into a fresh stream of cursing. How much had the phantom army learned from their inside man? How vulnerable was he? How soon before they alerted the Sudanese government, and their troops were on the move? Air cover, AWACS from Egypt, the whole smear?

  The CIA force? How long before they were breathing down his neck?

  Blackwell's heart rolled over. His crusade to consolidate the black masses of Africa. Would it die aborning?

  No, he vowed. He would show the arrogant white bastards. He would give them a fight they'd never forget. And in the end he would prevail. The Blood Doctor would prevail. The Aswan would go down.

  Though they still had miles to cover before reaching the staging area, starting the missile into Egypt, it could be done. They had a decided time advantage on the American attack force. Somehow they could manage to slide by whatever President al-Nemery was calling an army these days.

  All-out effort. That's what it would take.

  And Blackwell was equal to that.

  "Try to get DeRosa on the radio," he barked. "Keep trying until you raise him. Call me when you do. Maybe we're gonna need them Ethiopian soldiers after all."

  Then he was racing up and down the convoy, winding his arm in universal crank-up signal. "Wind them up, you bastards," he roared, a frantic, paranoid edge to his voice. "Move out. Keep up, damn you. We're gonna roll like we never rolled before. Double-time, you hear? Double-time."

  Five minutes later the string of seventeen vehicles was under way, lurching itself deeper into the Nubian desert.

  14

  Dawn was painting its first metallic luster on the edge of the world when the men of Phoenix Force finished burying Nemtala. They dug a deep grave, then piled a high cairn of rocks over it to keep desert scavengers from disturbing her body.

  There were no words, no prayers.

  All hearts ached, went out to Manning and to Salibogo, who had lost so much already. They agreed that the brief idyll with Nemtala had changed Manning. He would be hurting for many and many a day. He would need all the support his comrades could give him.

  When Manning and Salibogo left the grave site, they busied themselves with the final pack-up routines.

  Keio Ohara, withdrawn, sulking over being left behind at Munzoga, huddled in the Land Rover, put the ARC-51 portable field communicator through its paces. Though he was well versed in radio technology, this was the first time he had patched into the Defense Satellite Communication System. So he was careful in mental recovery of the info provided by April Rose, inserting the codes, punching in frequencies, getting proper synch on the high-speed scrambler the Stony Man electronics wizards had insisted upon.

  Receiving from a small dish antenna Keio erected atop the LR, the DSC's satellite would relay Katz's message via computerized technology — intricate patch-ins that boggled even Keio's mind — transmit it to the National Security Agency in Washington. The final relay would slice ozone between there and Stony Man. Once the message had been received and unscrambled, the answer would start back in reverse order.

  As it turned out, setup alone consumed the best part of an hour. Now, finally, the frequency was right, the scrambler-tape recorder rolling. Yakov's conversation would be compacted to a near-instantaneous burst of radioelectronic energy, transmitted from Sudan to Washington in the same form. Stony Man's reply would arrive in the Nubian desert in the same compressed blurt.

  Yakov pressed the mike close to his lips, began his update on progress thus far. When he came to Ibrahim's blockbuster breakthrough regarding the missile involvement his voice became very agitated, the words pouring forth.

  "We must have air recon to find that launch site," he said. "So get Grimaldi over here. Our window is narrowing rapidly. I estimate flashpoint within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. If we cannot take out the launch site, we need backup who can."

  As he handed the mike back to Keio, the radio whiz said, "Give them ten minutes, Yakov." He began flipping switches, twisting dials, programming the receive-record mode.

  Ten-point-six minutes later, an LCD meter flashed; the recept console automatically began to roll. As quickly as it began it turned off. "Is that it?" Yakov said.

  "Yes," Keio replied. "The wonders of science."

  When playback was ready, he clicked a braking switch, commenced the rollover. "Message received," came the clanky, echoing voice. "Report to be digested. Prepare for reply at 1200 hours EST this date. Out."

  Katzenelenbogen sighed heavily, still upset over breaking silence, signaled for McCarter to start the LR. Keio moved into the back seat, fell beside Manning. The FAV was in tow again. Encizo and Salibogo were in the Unimog.

  Even though it cost him considerable pain — his burns medicated, his chest bandaged — Manning still turned to steal a last glance at Nemtala's resting place. The command car lurched forward, headed toward Munzoga. Manning kept looking back until the misted rise between the two brooding buttes finally faded out of sight.

  "What about our little buddy, Dembo?" McCarter finally asked.

  Yakov smiled softly. 'Til always remember him. I have a stash here that will set him up for life. He'll probably own half of Munzoga next time we see him."

  "Feisty bugger," McCarter chuckled. "I wouldn't doubt it for a sec, mate."

  The Land Rover picked up speed. Manning stared straight ahead now, the bleak desolation in his eyes painful to see.

  15

  Thirty-six hours passed, and by pushing forward day and night, Phoenix Force managed to cover four hundred miles. Only a hundred miles remained between them and the Red Sea. Somewhere in that ever-narrowing corridor they would meet Jeremiah Blackwell.

  Evidence that they were closing fast became more abundant with each passing hour. Blackwell, too, was moving at breakneck pace; it was apparent that he knew he was being pursued, that he was hellbound to achieve his mission, no matter what the cost.

  Phoenix Force had found three abandoned vehicles — two Unimog personnel carriers and an antiquated WW II German halftrack — victims of the relentless heat and dust. Later they found a half dozen blacks, stripped of their uniforms, all shot in the back of the head. The men were deserters from Abu Darash or Al-Rashad — pitiful beggars who had been a mere five miles on their way when Blackwell's recovery squads had caught up with them, made bloody example of them.

  Bivouac areas became more easily identifiable, the desert turned into a vast dumping ground. Again there was no attempt to police the area, to conceal their route.

  Thus far the coordinates provided by Abdel Ibrahim had proved to be dead-on.

  Another Unimog was discovered. And with it two unburied bodies. Black Cobra was moving even faster, was running out of fuel and water. If Phoenix could just engage them before they reached their rendezvous — where fresh supplies would be waiting — they would acquire decided leverage, inflict punishing losses. And stop the Black Cobra attack on Aswan cold.

  Katz pushed them even harder, all hands — even a rapidly recuperating Manning — taking turns at the wheel, otherwise doping out whenever and wherever they could. Though they had bogged down twice, had lost six hours to a tricky Land Rover clutch adjustment by McCarter, they could still roll faster than Blackwell's men. Only two vehicles to keep pace instead of the fleet of disintegrating vehicles up ahead. Six men who were vastly more dedicated to the mission at hand than the two-hundred-fifty-odd pickups left in the renegade camp.

  The terrain got rougher by the hour. In the past eight hours the elevation had risen sharply; they had to be traveling at two thousand feet now, which made for slightly cooler weather by day, but took savage toll on rolling stock. The strain of the rugged incline
s, the zigzagging climbing of steep hillsides were raising hell with the rubber and with the transmissions of both vehicles.

  More worrisome was the fact that there had been no sign of the air cover promised by Stony Man in subsequent transmissions. Launched from a U.S. carrier based in the Gulf of Aden, their attack would carry heat detection devices, rocket cannon and HMGs. Once activated, Grimaldi presumably at the controls, it would make mincemeat of Blackwell's ragged-ass army.

  And though Mack Bolan's ace marauders resented having to call in outside firepower, they realized time was working against them.

  Where in hell was that plane?

  It was dusk of their fifteenth day in Africa, the mountains to the east looming, when they received the definitive signal they had been waiting for. In the distance, not more than three miles off, they saw a whitish gray smudge rising from the mountain coulees — the smoke of dozens of campfires.

  The Black Cobras in bivouac. Within striking distance.

  Hearts revved up. Adrenaline began punching its way through each man's system. Guts tightened in apprehension, natural byproduct of body and intellect facing stress, coming to grips with the realization that by tomorrow at this time each commando might well be buzzard bait.

  Phoenix hunkered down in a well-concealed defile a mile farther on. Though the rest clamored for night action, Yakov Katzenelenbogen decreed bivouac of their own. Weapon maintainance, R&R. And though all knew there would be precious little sleeping done tonight, they realized that even fits and starts of sleep would make them much more efficient the next day.

  The FAV was stripped down, reloaded; extra ammo, grenades, grenade launchers were rearranged for quick access. Kevlar flak jackets were passed out despite objecting groans from the team. Assault rifles, the Mark-19, even one of the Goryonovs, personal sidearms were field-stripped, put into peak operating condition.

  Also, quiet talk. Energy rations forced down. Restless sleep. Grim, private reflections. While, less than two miles away... the enemy...

  * * *

  At 0430 hours, an eerie skrim of fog floating in the wadis, the temperature standing at fifty degrees, they moved out. Keio drove the fast attack vehicle. Salibogo and Manning rode shotgun. Yakov, Rafael and McCarter fanned out ahead, ran point. The Uzi, the Stoner and the AK-47 held at port, they loped carefully up the narrow camel trail that wound tortuously up the mountain.

  Fifty yards forward. A stop to wave the FAV forward. Another fifty yards.

  First contact with Black Cobra outriders was made fifteen minutes later. Waving the FAV to full stop, affixing silencers to the Beretta, the Browning and the Walther, Yakov went prone and began crawling forward toward the sentry outpost. On his left and right, McCarter and Rafael followed suit.

  There were four guards visible in a swale off to the right of the road. It would have been clever ambush if the soldiers, wearied by the long night of watching, had not built a small fire. Two stood warming their hands over the crackling flames, while two others slept beside the firehole. None had his rifle at ready position.

  As they slid closer the Phoenix trio paused more often, their advance limited to mere inches. Momentarily they lost sight of the enemy as they eased up a small dune and came within fifteen feet of the careless terrorists. As they poked their heads up cautiously, drew no glances, Yakov wordlessly pointed out a target to each man and indicated his own.

  At the last possible second, one of the Black Cobras heard a sliver of sound behind him, whirled, saw the three guns pointing down at him. He opened his mouth to scream a warning. Yakov's Beretta coughed, sent nine mills slashing through his throat. Even as he was flung back, dead before he hit the ground, Rafael and McCarter eased their rounds into soft, unsuspecting flesh.

  "Fish in a barrel," McCarter said, grimacing.

  They kicked the bodies over, made sure there were no survivors. McCarter jogged back to wave the FAV up.

  They then held a brief war conference. The enemy was within hailing distance; they must be supercareful from here on in. Katz and Encizo moved out to the left, while McCarter, paired with Manning, took the right flank.

  They heard random sounds ahead and to the right, the mutter of voices. Encizo surprised one groggy Cobra as he came over a dune, in the process of unbuckling his trousers. He punched out his brain with single .380 slug.

  When they reached high ground, stole furtive looks down into the main camp, their hearts sank. Blackwell had outfoxed them. His army was not clustered in one area. Bivouacked at platoon strength, they were scattered all over the landscape.

  There were only about twenty troops in this section. Some were awake, loading equipment into the single Unimog that was visible, but mostly they slept helter-skelter across the sandy floor of the wadi. Smoke to the right, climbing from deeper recesses and kettles in the craggy hills, indicated numerous pockets of Black Cobras. If they hoped to surprise them, open up with withering fire screen from all sides, take them all at once — forget it.

  "Shit-fire," Encizo muttered, "we gotta clean out one rat's nest at a time."

  "And once we start," Yakov sighed, "we'll alert the rest. Two hundred fifty soldiers. Even with the Mark 19 the odds are impossible. Eventually they have to overrun us."

  After a long, frowning pause, he sent Encizo after McCarter and Manning. "Tell them to recon the entire area. I'll take this end. Report back here as fast as you can."

  By now the sky was beginning to take on first silver sheen; more and more troops were beginning to stir.

  "Just like you said," Rafael reported as they regrouped perhaps ten minutes later. "They're in ten different groups. It'll be a hornets' nest the minute we open up."

  Manning was even more troubled. "Something's screwy here. I count a hundred fifty, hundred sixty soldiers, maybe less."

  "Strange," Katz said. "We were getting estimates all the way up to three hundred. Ibrahim gave me that figure, also. Deserters, maybe. But that many?"

  "I don't like the looks of it," Manning persisted.

  The Phoenix headman cast a wary eye skyward. "It'll be daybreak soon," he said. "We can't wait much longer. If we're going to surprise them at all, we had best be getting at it."

  "Take them out one hole at a time?" Manning asked. "Use our silencers? Man to man?"

  "Can't risk it," Yakov replied. "Someone raises an alarm, and we're caught without the tactical cover the MK-19 provides." He fell into deep thought.

  They withdrew to where Keio and Salibogo waited in the FAV. Katzenelenbogen outlined a battle plan in which they would take out the first three pockets of Cobras in swift west-to-east with the motor mount, McCarter lobbing in 40mm grenade cartridges as fast as the Mark 19 could spit them out. Once the troops were thrown into demoralized panic, Phoenix would bore in, commence selective hunt-and-peck with its SMGs.

  "Manning and I will take the first pocket." He pointed right. "Rafael, you and Salibogo take the middle one. By then McCarter should be working on the far left. We'll leapfrog you guys. Then you join in as soon as you can."

  "What then?" Keio asked from behind the FAV's wheel.

  "The main force will be scrambling by then," Yakov said. "We'll make for that hill over there." He indicated a high outcropping located to the right and deeper into enemy country, which was ringed with natural rock palisades at least thirty feet high. "We make our stand there, nickel-and-dime them to death.

  "Move on position, Rafael and Sahbogo," Katz commanded. "Manning, this way. McCarter, when you see us hit the ground. Indiscriminate fire. Ten rounds. Then move on to the middle pothole." He regarded each with quick, proud glance. "Good luck, men."

  Boots thudding a dull tattoo on the hardpan, each duo broke for the lip of its assigned witch's caldron. McCarter slanted up the Mark 19's barrel, slapped the cocking handle. "Reveille, you bastards," he muttered.

  In the first swale the Black Cobras were caught totally off guard. The rain of 40mm cartridges came in faster than the human brain could count. The first explosive roun
ds hit rock or screwed into human flesh, detonating with ear-shattering impact, sending screaming shrapnel in all directions, trapping the terrorists.

  The concussive effect of the minitorpedoes, the ripping hail of pellet-sized shards froze them where they stood or lay. They were caught in a deadly corn popper, maiming flesh-shredders coming at them from every direction. The eardrum-popping explosion at close hand was punishment enough, and some were killed by concussion alone. They stood in swaying, dazed pose, blood pouring from ears and mouths, from a hundred other gougings in their flesh.

  Three rounds careered into a Unimog, reduced it to rubble, sent larger-sized shrapnel shrieking back into the screaming, milling terrorists. The fuel tanks went up with a muffled boom, spraying flaming diesel across the death arena.

  A Cobra ran blindly back and forth, gaping, empty holes where his eyes once were. Screams rupturing his throat, he ran directly into a flaming river of fuel, fell and quickly turned into a human torch.

  Across from him a comrade had taken a direct hit from a grenade cartridge. He disintegrated, pieces of his body flying in all directions, reduced to human garbage. Next to him, another Cobra, receiving spinoff effect of the blast, doggedly fought to stuff his guts back into place.

  Those not killed outright by the swift, in-and-out bursts were methodically offed by Yakov and Manning, each man firing single shots at survivors.

  When the platoon was eradicated, nothing left but shattered, charred corpses, a black cloud of smoke coiling savagely upward, Yakov and Manning sprang up and raced full tilt for the third battle area. As they ran they saw the FAV streaking ahead of them with unnerving, silent speed, the Mark 19 in full bay. To the right Encizo and Salibogo were determinedly finishing off their terrorist complement.

  As they pounded up to the lip of the third hellhole, they heard the stutter of Kalashnikov assault rifles building deeper within the bivouac where the rest of the Cobras, jarred from sleep, hurried to get into the act. A Goryonov SG34 opened fire directly up front, the high-velocity rounds shrieking as they hurtled overhead.