Conflict Zone

by Don Pendleton

  "I called you here," Yetunde interrupted him, "because I have new information."

  "Oh?"

  "It is ironic, don't you think, that I must give you leads to find the people who have set out to destroy me?"

  "Not just you," Mashilia replied. "There have been raids against the Russians and Chinese, against the Itsekiri and Ijaw."

  "I know all that!" Yetunde snapped. "And I may know how you can find the men responsible."

  "I'm listening," the captain said.

  "I'm a businessman, as you're aware," Yetunde said. "I deal with Afolabi and Ajani, on occasion. It's useful to have eyes and ears inside both camps."

  The captain nodded, hoping that Yetunde would get to the point.

  "Tonight, those eyes and ears tell me that someone has approached both sides, claiming to know the individuals responsible for all their suffering. And, by extension, mine, as well"

  "You have the name?" Mashilia asked.

  "If I did, the bastard would be screaming in a basement now, spilling the names of those who hired him to torment me," Yetunde said. "No. But I'm informed that Afolabi and Ajani will be meeting this informant soon, to meet his price and find out what he has to say."

  "When you say 'soon — '"

  "Midnight," Yetunde told him, "if my information is correct. And if it's not, someone will pay."

  "They've both agreed to meet this stranger, at the same time?" The captain thought that sounded foolish, even dangerous.

  "Who knows if one suspects the other may be there?" Yetunde said. "Who even cares? My point is that you should be there, to capture the informant and deliver him to me."

  "Snatch him from both tribes?" Mashilia scowled at that, envisioning a bloodbath.

  "Why not?" Yetunde asked. "You have the authority, the men, the weapons. You can field an army, if you need one. In the process, if you confiscate the cash earmarked for the delivery, well, who's to say that it won't be misplaced?"

  Mashilia saw the possibilities. He also saw the risks involved.

  "Where is this meeting being held?" he asked.

  "Ah, that's the problem. It remains unknown, at present."

  "So.....

  "You'll know as soon as I hear something, Captain. Be prepared to act upon a moment's notice."

  "If you're wrong.....

  "Then we'll try again," Yetunde said.

  Or I may have to find another partner, Captain Mashilia thought. And feed you to the wolves.

  Forcing a smile he didn't feel, the captain said, "I will be waiting for your call."

  * * *

  "So, you are dealing with the Russians now?" The tone of Ekon Afolabi's voice was stark, accusatory.

  "Dealings? No," Lao Choy Teoh replied. "We had a brief discussion of our mutual concern. If you are interested in hearing what I learned, so be it. If not..."

  Lao had risen halfway from his chair when Afolabi waved him back. "Sit down and tell me this amazing thing," he instructed, "by all means."

  "If I may have some tea.?.."

  Lao knew he was pushing it, but he refused to let a common thug from MEND dictate his actions when the bastard had his hand out half the time, begging for money. If Afolabi couldn't behave in a reasonably civilized manner, Lao would be pleased to abandon his cause on the spot and find someone else willing to help CNP reach its goals in Nigeria.

  Lao waited for his tea and took a sip before he spoke again. It was inferior, but what could one expect?

  "It seems," he said at last, "that your old adversary has received the same demand for money as you have. The same demand inflicted upon CNP and Uroil, for one hundred thousand dollars."

  Afolabi blinked at that. "From the same man?"

  "Perhaps. We don't have recordings of the other calls for voice comparison. But, at the very least, a single group attempting to profit from bloodshed in Warri."

  "The same group, you think, who protects Jared Ross and K-Tech?"

  Lao took another sip of tea, considering the question. "It is possible, of course," he said. "I have no great faith in coincidence."

  "I should have killed him while I had the chance," Afolabi said.

  "You have tried, if I recall, on more than one occasion. If you plan to try again, just now, I must advise against it."

  "Who needs your advice?" the warlord snapped.

  "In general," Lao said, "the same people who need my money to support their cause. If you were truly independent, self-sustaining, I wouldn't be here. In fact, we never would have met."

  "You came to me, remember?" Afolabi challenged.

  "When I recognized your need for help," Lao answered Thinking to himself, And saw the possibilities for profit. "If the time has truly come when you no longer need assistance," he continued, "let me thank you for the tea and leave you to your planning for the days ahead."

  "Wait, wait! Why are you always rushing off?" the warlord asked, forcing a smile that never reached his brooding eyes. "So hasty, all the time. Tell me, what are you planning with the Russians, to destroy these people who would rob us blind?"

  "The payment deadline has been set for midnight, yes?" Lao asked.

  "So I was told."

  "It is the same for all of us. Myself, Uroil, Ajani and his people. We are waiting for directions to the payoff site."

  "And when they come?"

  "If we receive another call — and bear in mind, the whole thing may turn out to be a hoax — but if we are directed to a single meeting place, we may assume the plan is to ignite more violence among us. Rather than participate in mutual destruction, we must all collaborate to trap and punish our tormentors."

  "Are you telling me the Russians have agreed to this?"

  "They have," Lao said.

  "And Agu? What does he say?"

  Lao smiled. "I'm confident that he will see the wisdom of our plan before midnight."

  "I don't share your confidence," Afolabi said.

  "If I am mistaken," Lao replied, "then he will have to deal with all of us, including those he has betrayed at Uroil. Either way, we win."

  A brighter smile cracked Afolabi's face.

  "More tea?" he asked.

  * * *

  Taiwo Babatunde grimaced as the barmaid swiped a cloth moistened with alcohol across a shallow wound on his biceps. The bullet graze was painful, but he knew it wasn't serious.

  Nothing like his precarious position, if he tried to get in touch with Ekon Afolabi.

  His instructions had been simple and explicit: don't come back until he had destroyed Agu Ajani, or at least inflicted harm enough to cripple Ajani's army. The details might be open to debate, but Babatunde knew that getting ambushed, chased halfway across the city, and escaping only after he had lost two men would never be confused with victory.

  He felt stupid for blundering into Ajani's trap. The error had cost him two soldiers, some skin and three cars marked with bullet holes now, which he'd have to replace. Altogether, a blunder that Afolabi would neither forgive nor forget.

  The dead men, Sokari Tukur and Lawrence Ibeto, were simply unlucky, in Babatunde's opinion. Tukur had been in the third car, taking hits as they fled from the house of Ajani's mistress, and was struck in the head before traveling two blocks downrange. Ibeto had been riding in the backseat of Babatunde's own car, for God's sake, when a slug drilled the back window, halfway through their wild ride, and grazed his neck.

  A minor wound, it seemed — no worse than Taiwo's arm, he would have said — until the blood began spraying and gushing from a carotid artery. There'd been no saving him from that point onward, while they raced through the streets willy-nilly.

  And only luck had saved them in the end.

  Luck and a bus filled with nuns and young children, which struck the lead chase car broadside, then rolled over and blocked the advance of two others while Babatunde and his men escaped.

  To what?

  He was in exile from the ranks of MEND until he carried out his orders, and he still had no idea where t
hey could find Agu Ajani. Once the damaged, bloodstained cars had been replaced, he could attempt to snatch another of Ajani's men, obtain new information on his likely whereabouts and try again.

  And if he failed again?

  Was this his life from now on, wandering the streets of Warri, searching for a ghost who constantly eluded him? Would he stumble on Ajani sometime, weeks or months from now, by accident? And if so, would he still have any soldiers with him? Would it be a stupid waste of time, by then, to carry out the contract he'd been given?

  The barmaid was starting to bandage his arm when Babatunde's cell phone made its tinkling sound, like fairy bells. He snapped it open, checked the screen and was startled to see Afolabi's number displayed.

  "Hello? Ekon?"

  "Where are you?" Afolabi asked.

  "Following orders." He knew enough of cell phones not to broadcast what those orders were.

  "I need you back here now," Afolabi said.

  "Back where?" Babatunde asked, confused.

  "Headquarters. Hurry!"

  "But you said.....

  "Forget that, now," his old friend said. "I need my strong right arm."

  "You have it," Babatunde answered, beaming like a child on Christmas morning. "I am on my way."

  * * *

  Another safehouse, this one used to stash weapons, along with shooters in hiding. Umaru had fingered it as one of Agu Ajani's holdings, but Bolan didn't really care which side claimed ownership.

  If he could take guns out of circulation, maybe even score some extra ammunition for himself, so much the better. It was all in a night's work.

  Bolan surveyed the target, another anonymous house in a poor neighborhood, with no guards visible. That might mean the place was deserted, or that his watchmen were keeping themselves out of sight. Either way, Bolan knew he would have to approach, if he meant to find out.

  With the Kia hot-wired, Bolan had to leave it running or risk critical delay if they were in a hurry taking off. Therefore, he didn't ask Umaru if he minded staying with the car, just said, "I'll be back soon," and cleared the driver's seat.

  Umaru covered him, crossing the street, but lost him, as Bolan passed along a shadowed strip of dirt between the target dwelling and its neighbor to the west. He ducked below dark windows, heard no challenge raised from either house and reached the tiny shared backyard without incident. There, he found a back door facing onto a porch lined with abandoned, rusted-out appliances.

  The door was locked.

  Bolan considered picking it, but first peered through a window to the left side of the door and saw a laundry room of sorts. Old sink against one wall, a metal rack for drying clothes directly opposite, peeling linoleum and wallpaper. No sign of life within.

  Bolan retreated twenty feet into the yard, drew his Beretta from its shoulder rig and sighted on the back door's knob. The first round from his silenced pistol dropped the shattered doorknob to the wooden porch. He aimed another at the door's dead bolt, squeezed off — and staggered, as the world exploded in his face.

  Some kind of plastic charge, he reckoned, wired to the door with a trigger set to blow if it opened. Maybe a mercury switch, or something as simple as a steel ball bearing in a plastic pill bottle, with needles through the lid, wires leading to a battery and blasting cap.

  It wasn't just the first charge, though. That should have killed whoever had come prowling, but it would have left the arms stash in the house unguarded if the thief had backup standing by outside the first blast's lethal radius. Ajani or his armorer had thought of that, and opted not to leave their arsenal intact if it was breached.

  The secondary blast caught Bolan crouching in the yard and slammed him over backward through a rolling somersault. In front of him, the little house appeared to swell, walls straining, roof trying to levitate, before it came apart and showered rubble for a hundred feet in all directions. Bolan missed the worst of it as he fell prone, but still sustained a bruise across his left calf when a smoking piece of lumber struck him there, then bounced away.

  He was already up and running in a crouch as flames began to spread, consuming ammunition stashed within the house. Bolan could hear the rounds cooking off in the midst of the fire, bullets sizzling and hissing around him as he sprinted for the waiting car.

  Umaru had the Kia moving as he got there, opening the door for Bolan's leap, then gunning it away from the demented sound of small-arms fire that popped and rattled in the night.

  "A trap?" Umaru asked.

  "It nearly worked," Bolan replied. "With any luck, Ajani will believe he bagged me."

  It would be some time before firefighters could approach the blazing wreckage, search for bodies and report that there were none.

  Meanwhile, the Executioner was blitzing on.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The satchel — more of a small suitcase, really, made from old, cracked leather — sat in the middle of Agu Ajani's small desk. He walked around it, studying the object as if it was foreign to him, something that had suddenly materialized from out of thin air.

  "There it is," he said at last. "One hundred thousand American dollars."

  Standing on the sidelines, Taiwo Babatunde frowned. He was relieved to be present, forgiven for all of his failures, but a question still nagged at his mind.

  "It's a trap for the blackmailer, yes?" he inquired.

  Ajani nodded. "That's correct."

  "Then, I'm afraid I do not understand, Agu."

  "Understand what?"

  "Why we're taking the money. I mean, since it's a trap, and all we plan to do is catch or kill these cockroaches, why take the payoff money in the first place?"

  Ajani blinked as if the question hadn't occurred to him. He hesitated for a moment, frowning, then explained, "The others will be bringing money. If we don't, the others may suspect something is wrong."

  "I see. But none of them intend to pay the blackmailer, correct?"

  "Yes," Ajani answered. "Sidorov says they are all agreed on that."

  "I still don't understand, Agu. If none of them intend to pay, why take four hundred thousand dollars to the meeting place?"

  Ajani's frown revealed a hint of anger now. "In case something goes wrong," he said, "and we are forced to pay up, after all."

  That made no sense to Babatunde. If the trap failed, he assumed their quarry would be running for his life, not dallying around the place to pick up four bags filled with cash. It seemed ridiculous, even to his distinctly limited imagination, but he dared not press Ajani on it any further and risk falling out of his old friend's good graces once more.

  Instead he simply nodded and replied, "I see."

  "You understand," Ajani said, "that many things can happen in a situation of this kind We must be on alert, not only to the blackmailers, but also to our allies of the moment."

  Thai made sense to Babatunde, absolutely. He had hated Ekon Afolabi and his Itsekiri brothers for as long as he could remember. Being thrown together with them now, if only for an hour, felt bizarre and absolutely wrong. He would most certainly be on his guard against betrayal by the MEND warlord and his Chinese associates.

  "It is possible," Ajani said, "that once the trap is sprung, there may be some confusion. Ideally no one will be injured but the thieves who plan to rob us, yes? But there's a chance, however small, that some mishap may be upon our friends, as well."

  When he said "friends," Ajani curled his lip into a sneer, his eyes glittering.

  "It's possible, of course," Babatunde replied.

  "If something should happen to Afolabi, for example, it would be our duty as his allies to protect the money that he carried to the meeting. We must guarantee that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands."

  Babatunde was slow, and always had been, but he saw where this was going and it made him smile. "As you command, Agu," he said. "I will defend their fortune with my life, as if it was my own."

  "I would expect no less," Ajani said, wearing his own smile now. "Of course, t
his accident — in theory, mind you — must be absolute. False accusations sully friendship. If the Itsekiri claimed we tried to steal their money, it would place another obstacle between us."

  "I wouldn't attempt to guard their money while they lived," Babatunde replied. "No doubt, they'd be insulted."

  "But if they were all dead, well..."

  "There'd be no other honorable choice."

  "Exactly. So, we understand each other, then?" Ajani asked.

  "Beyond a doubt," Babatunde said, hoping he would have the chance to kill Ekon Afolabi himself.

  * * *

  "Do you believe that anyone will actually bring the money?" Obinna Umaru asked.

  "It doesn't matter," Bolan said, "as long as they show up."

  "With men and guns," Umaru said.

  "Let's hope so."

  "All prepared to kill us."

  "All prepared to kill someone," Bolan replied. "Remember, two of them are mortal enemies. The other two are rivals and outsiders who've been making tension worse between the tribes, whether they planned on it or not. Put them together, it's a jug of nitro, waiting for someone to tip it over."

  "Meaning us," Umaru said.

  "It doesn't have to be," Bolan reminded him. "I told you once already, you've gone well beyond the call. You want to split right now, I'll help you bag a ride for old times' sake."

  "Old times," Umaru said. "It hasn't even been two days."

  "It feels longer," Bolan said, "when you're living large."

  "It's all a blur, right now."

  "Maybe that's better," Bolan told him. "Get out while you can, before it hits you."

  Umaru shook his head. "No, I will stay," he answered. "To the bitter end, as you Americans would say."

  "I'm hoping that it won't be bitter," Bolan said. "For us, at least."

  "What if some of them actually bring the money?" asked Umaru.

  Bolan shrugged. "It's fifty-fifty that we'll never even see it," he replied. "But if you get your hands on some, consider it a bonus for a job well done. Like overtime."