Conflict Zone

by Don Pendleton

  "And so?"

  "If we support their opposition, we support the present government- When MEND collapses — and it will, taking the Russians with it — China fills the void."

  "While I admire your confidence," Chan said, "I do not understand how you can guarantee that Uroil will be driven out, along with MEND."

  "I still have friends inside the Ministry of State Security," Lao said. "They have prepared back-dated documents on Uroil stationery that will indicate financial and material support for MEND's outrageous criminal activity. The locals could arrest Arkady Eltsin, but they'll probably expel him and his people from Nigeria."

  "Which still leaves the Americans," Chan said.

  "Already shaky, following attacks on Jared Ross, his daughter and their various facilities throughout the state. If they're convinced the government supports Agu Ajani and his Ijaws.....

  "Who, in fact, the Russians have supported, have they not?" Chan interrupted.

  Lao waved his words away. "No one knows that, except the Russians and ourselves. Ajani will defect from the Russians soon enough, if we adopt him as a special friend."

  "And if your plan succeeds?" Chan asked.

  Lao shrugged. "We have no further need for him or his guerrillas. I predict a brief but thorough internecine conflict that will decimate Ajani's ranks. He'll likely be among the first to die."

  "I thought these days were over," Chan observed. He sounded weary, looked exhausted.

  "Subterfuge and scheming have no end, sir."

  "No. It seems you are correct. At least you'll never want for work."

  "No, sir."

  A momentary silence hung between them, broken when Chan cleared his throat.

  "We have another matter to discuss."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "The phone call I received, demanding money."

  "Yes. Sadly," Lao said, "I was unable to identify the telephone. It is a satellite model, meaning the man could have called from Beirut or Bombay."

  "But he didn't. We know that," Chan said.

  "Probably not," Lao granted "But the caller blocked his phone number from caller ED, and we cannot triangulate on his location unless he should call again."

  "In short, you failed," Chan said.

  "You are correct, sir."

  "If I approve the plan you have explained to me," Chan cautioned him, "you must not fail again."

  "No, sir. We won't."

  "Not we," Chan said, correcting him. "It's your plan, and its execution is your sole responsibility. If you fail, expect no mercy or consideration."

  "Understood, sir."

  "Good. Then, I suggest you get to work."

  * * *

  "We did the drug thing last time," Bolan told Umaru. "Now, Ajani needs a wake-up call."

  "I still think it's too dangerous," Umaru said.

  "Don't worry. All you have to do is drive around the block and be there when I need you for a lift out."

  "I meant dangerous for you."

  Bolan had already considered that. It was risky, but it would also be the last thing that his Ijaw enemies expected. With a bit of luck, they might relax enough on their home turf to let their guard down just a little.

  He could work with that.

  "Just work the plan," Bolan replied "We'll be all right."

  "And if you don't come out? What then?"

  "You drive away. Simple."

  "Drive where, in this?"

  The second car they'd stolen, from another shopping center, was a four-door Subaru Impreza, five or six years old.

  "You could try reaching out for your contact," Bolan said. "I mean the Agency, not locals. If you'd rather not try that, it's about two hundred miles from Warri to the U.S. consulate in Lagos, maybe three hundred to Abuja and the embassy. Or you could keep on going to the border, if you have your passport with you."

  "Always."

  "The flip side of it is, I may get lucky at Ajani's, and your worry's all for nothing. Either way, you won't be on the inside when it hits the fan."

  "Of course. You will be careful, yes?"

  "Count on it," Bolan said. "I've still got miles to go before I sleep."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Agu Ajani's walled estate on Ward's west side was spectacular by postcolonial Nigerian standards, but it would have been considered small and somewhat shabby in various parts of California, Nevada or New York.

  And it wouldn't keep Mack Bolan out.

  The eight-foot wall was topped with broken glass instead of razor wire or something more elaborate. Bolan beat that obstacle with a blanket he found in the Subaru's trunk and dropped into the grounds that could have harbored guard dogs, but didn't.

  There were two-legged watchdogs, but they didn't seem to take their duties all that seriously, wandering around the property without any apparent system, pausing often for impromptu conversations that were long on smiles and cigarette smoke, short on any evidence of focusing on business.

  All the better for an uninvited visitor.

  If Bolan had intended to assassinate Ajani, he would have been forced to penetrate the house. But since that wasn't his intention, he was free to strike at random, raise whatever hell he could within a short time and get out again while the getting was good.

  In a pocket, he carried one of Umaru's five hand-printed notes. It read: YOUR TIME IS COMING, MEND PREVAILS.

  Not subtle, but he wasn't dealing with Phi Beta Kappa types or code-breakers from Mensa. In the present circumstances, he was opting for the most direct approach.

  Like blunt-force trauma.

  He started with a gardener of sorts, lip-synching to the music from a personal stereo while trimming a half acre of lawn with a riding mower. The guy had an H&K MP-5 submachine gun slung across his back, but had no time to reach for it as Bolan appeared in front of him, drilled his startled face with a silenced round from the Beretta 93-R and left him slumped over the mower's steering wheel, embarked on a last ride to nowhere.

  Bolan jogged toward the house. He holstered the Beretta, palmed a frag grenade and yanked its pin as he closed to throwing range. The nearest window was, in fact, a sliding-glass door that opened onto a flagstone veranda, where someone had built a brick barbecue pit. The door stood open, sparing Bolan any need to smash it as he made his pitch, then he was off and running with the Steyr AUG in hand before the blast echoed behind him.

  That brought sentries on the run, and he was ready for them, firing 3-round bursts that should be enough for any target, unless he did his garment shopping at a Kevlar outlet. And Ajani's men weren't sporting body armor.

  Some of them weren't even wearing shirts.

  When he'd used half of his first magazine to drop five men, Bolan began retreating toward the point where he had scaled the wall His blanket from the Subaru was waiting for him, but he wasn't finished yet. He hadn't left Umaru's note, and if he didn't pass the word, he would be leaving the job incomplete.

  One of the sentries made it easy for him, springing from a bank of untrimmed shrubbery and brandishing a pistol If he'd thought it through, a shot from ambush would've been the way to go, but something made him think it was more manly to confront his enemy, give up the sweet advantage of surprise.

  Bolan was tumbling through a shoulder-roll before the guard triggered his first shot, high and wide. The AUG stuttered another triple burst, stitching his target left to right above the belt line. The guard was breathing when he fell, but he'd forgotten all about his gun and what he'd planned to do with it.

  Bolan stood over him just long enough to place the note dead center on his chest. By that time, respiration had already dwindled to a flutter, and it wouldn't last much longer.

  Bolan slung his weapon and hit the wall running, seized the dangling blanket in both hands and scrambled clear before his furious pursuers could respond. Once on the other side, he whipped the punctured blanket free and draped it over his left shoulder, covering the AUG.

  No sweat.

  The Subaru c
ame into view, with Umaru at the wheel. Bolan was in the shotgun seat before his wheelman finished braking. They were clear before Ajani's men got organized enough to scramble through the gate.

  "No problems, then?" Umaru asked him.

  "Nothing that I couldn't handle," Bolan answered. "Let's drop in and have a look at Uroil."

  * * *

  No building was impregnable, if a would-be intruder had sufficient time and money to invest in penetration, but the Uroil offices in Warri had enough security in place to make Bolan revise his plans. Instead of picking up a suit somewhere and trying to bluff his way past the armed guards with a bomb or whatever, he went back to his roots.

  He'd earned the "Executioner" nickname in uniform, as a U.S. Army Special Forces sniper with ninety-seven confirmed kills. He'd lost none of the skill he'd gained when his war turned private, and he'd often used it to reach out and touch someone, as snipers liked to say among themselves.

  Uroil's office block stood on a downtown street lined with similar buildings, none topping its eight-story height, a few shorter by one or two floors. Bolan chose a seven-story structure across the street and let himself in through the back, wearing a jumpsuit that would stall interrogation long enough for him to draw a gun or strike a blow, lugging a toolbox that contained his disassembled Steyr AUG.

  Steyr made a sniper's version of their classic assault rifle — the AUG HBAR-T — with a universal scope mount cast into the receiver, supporting a Kahles ZF69 6x42 optical sight, but Bolan would make do with the standard-issue AUG. Its topside carry handle contained a 1.5x telescopic sight made by Austria's Swarovski Optik, which featured a simple black ring reticle with a basic range-finder, designed so that a man of average height — say, five foot ten — completely filled the reticle at three hundred meters.

  In fact, he'd be firing from less than one-tenth of that range, no sweat for the Steyr's standard sight. And no problem at all for the armor-piercing 5.56 mm rounds he'd loaded in the rifle's plastic see-through magazine to pierce Uroil's "shatter-proof windows.

  All security was relative.

  Bolan made it to the roof and was relieved to find he had it to himself He knelt, opened his toolbox and assembled the Steyr within seconds flat. Crouching behind the building's parapet, he scanned Uroil's facade and found the corner office he was seeking on the top floor, where Arkady Eltsin could look down and watch the people whom he bought and sold each day scurry along the street like insects, chasing meager paychecks he would never need.

  Eltsin was at his desk when Bolan spotted him, telephone receiver wedged between his right ear and shoulder, saying something that seemed to amuse him. Bolan put his crosshairs on the Russian's smiling face and felt the Steyr's trigger start to move with gentle pressure from his index finger.

  It would be so easy, but it wasn't Bolan's plan.

  Not yet.

  Sliding away from Eltsin's moon face, Bolan sighted a photo of a dour-looking woman that was planted on a corner of the Russian's desk. Clearly, whatever he might do in private, Eltsin hadn't bothered to collect a trophy wife.

  "Say cheese," he whispered to the woman he would never meet.

  And fired.

  * * *

  "I would have liked to see him dance," Umaru said. "That must have been a sight."

  "Not much to see," Bolan replied. "He dropped behind the desk after the first three rounds, and that was all I saw of him. I used the rest to renovate his office."

  "And you left the note?"

  "Anchored with empty brass, across the street."

  The Russian's men or local cops would find it soon enough, a simple matter of calculating where the shots had come from and tracing them back to their source. Unless it rained before they found the note, whoever spotted it would see the message Umaru had printed in big block capitals: YOUR TIME IS FINISHED IN NIGERIA.

  It was direct and to the point, but still unsigned. Enough, in short, to keep the Uroil honcho wondering who hated him enough to spoil his penthouse view of downtown Warri.

  "Yetunde next, is it?"

  Nodding, Bolan replied, "But not another boiler room. He's got some other operations on your list, there."

  "Yes, indeed," Umaru said. "Two brothels, a casino, an opium den.....

  "Now you're talking."

  "Which one?"

  "Let's start with the dope," Bolan said. "Point me toward it."

  Umaru gave directions, and in twenty minutes they were parked outside a shabby hotel, standing three-quarters of a mile from Uroil's downtown headquarters.

  "Which floor?" Bolan asked as he primed the Steyr with a fully loaded magazine.

  "The basement," Umaru said. "But, in fact, we have two targets underneath one roof. The addicts go downstairs. The other floors are filled with prostitutes."

  "Two targets for the price of one," Bolan replied, smiling.

  "If you have time," Umaru said.

  "I'll make time. Where's the note?"

  Umaru passed it to him. Bolan read: YETUNDE, YOU ARE FINISHED.

  "He shouldn't have a problem understanding that," Bolan observed. "I'll see you in a bit."

  Umaru shifted to the driver's seat as he got out, propping the Daewoo rifle between his left knee and the door, where it was out of sight but easily accessible.

  Bolan jogged across the street, holding the Steyr against his right leg, scanning in both directions as he crossed. A few pedestrians were visible, but none appeared to notice him. He guessed this was a neighborhood where turning a blind eye to strangers qualified as a survival skill.

  The entrance to Yetunde's opium den lay below street level, accessed via steep concrete stairs in an alley west of the hotel. Bolan descended, knocked, then kicked the door in when a shadow blocked the peephole set chin-level in front of him.

  Entering the drug parlor, he found its first guard struggling to rise from the floor, multitasking as one hand groped for a holstered sidearm. Bolan drilled the shooter's forehead with a single 5.56 mm round and stepped across his twitching corpse as half a dozen of Yetunde's workers panicked, breaking for a hidden exit while their groggy customers examined Bolan through a drifting haze of smoke.

  "The party's over," he informed them, causing two or three to lurch out of their bunks. When no more showed an inclination to get moving, Bolan sprayed the ceiling of their smoky cave with automatic fire, rewarded with a scramble toward a door somewhere in back and distant screams from somewhere overhead.

  Leaving a frag grenade behind to aggravate the damage he'd already caused, Bolan retreated to the alleyway and double-timed around the corner to the hotel's main street entrance. He'd reloaded by the time he reached its dingy lobby and was ready for the two gunmen who met him there, cutting them down with 3-round bursts before they had a chance to fire.

  More women's screams at that, and male voices shouting in anger or panic, he wasn't sure which. Bolan shouted back at them, mounting the nearby stairs as females dressed in next to nothing started rushing past him, trailed by Johns who clutched their pants and shoes in shaky hands.

  The whorehouse madam met him on the second-story landing, hands on chubby hips, showing more nerve than anyone he'd met so far that day.

  "What in the hell you think you're doing?" she demanded.

  "Burning down the house," he told her as he primed a fat white-phosphorus grenade, then tucked its pin into her ample cleavage with Umaru's note to Idowu Yetunde. "Give that to your boss, with my regards."

  "He's going to kill you, man!" she shouted after Bolan as she headed for the street.

  "Tell him to get in line," the Executioner replied, and pitched his smoking canister into the stairwell overhead.

  * * *

  "I want him dead!" Ajani stormed. "I want him dead today, before another hour passes!"

  Daren Jumoke watched Ajani circling his desk, resembling a hungry panther in a cage. "Of course," he said, eager to please. "But... who, again?"

  Ajani rounded on him, his lips drawn back from teeth
that could have been a snarling animal's.

  "Who? Who? Who do you think I mean, Daren?" Before Jumoke could respond, Ajani answered his own question. "Afolabi, damn you! Who else could I mean?"

  "Yes, sir." Meek, now, when it could save his life.

  "His pigs came to my home, Daren. You understand? They might have killed me, just as easily as those baboons I pay to guard the house. How many dead, was it?"

  "Seven, so far. Dr. Bassir can't promise that Hakim will live, with so much shrapnel in his guts."

  "Hakim? Who's this Hakim?"

  "One of the men, Agu. It's not important."

  "Idiots! They let this white man climb the wall, attack my house? They're lucky I let any of them live."

  "As I informed them."

  "Good. And this." Ajani dropped the crumpled note into Jumoke's lap. "It seems that Afolabi signs his work now."

  Jumoke read the note again.

  YOUR TIME IS COMING. MEND PREVAILS.

  "He didn't actually sign it, Agu. Have you thought that possibly, just maybe, someone else wrote this?"

  "One of his men, you mean? What diff.....

  "No, no." Jumoke knew that interrupting could be dangerous, but he was anxious to communicate his thought. "I mean, someone outside MEND who wants you hunting Afolabi when you should be looking elsewhere."

  "What are you saying, Daren?"

  "Someone who would profit from a war between yourself and Afolabi, without risking anything himself."

  "Such as?"

  Jumoke shrugged. "I don't know. It's a thought, Agu. If I knew who it was, I would be handing you his liver on a plate right now."

  Ajani thought about it, for perhaps a second and a half, then shook his head.

  "No, Daren. It is good to have imagination in the bedroom, or when playing with your children. In the real world, we rely on facts. That note from MEND tells me all that I need to know."

  "If it was sent by MEND," Jumoke said.

  "And you can't tell me who this someone else might be. Someone who has a white man do his killing for him?"

  "Put it that way, and it doesn't sound like Afolabi, either," Jumoke said.