As to what would happen next, well, that was anybody’s guess.
Engagement with civilians, as appeared to be the case here, was a dicey situation for neutral peacekeepers. Using deadly force, even in last-ditch self-defense, caused problems that subsequent negotiations might not be able to neutralize.
Would the victors double back toward Merca now, or would they press on in the same direction they’d been traveling before the trouble started? If the former, Bolan and his team had to make some effort to avoid detection while the troops were agitated.
But if the latter, they should still be able to drive on and find Guleed’s arms depot.
“They are checking for survivors now,” Mironov said, as she peered through the small binoculars. “It doesn’t seem they’re finding any.”
Was that good or bad?
Bolan did not wish death on strangers, but he knew that if the AMISOM convoy found living adversaries, the commander was more likely to reverse direction, seeking medical attention for the wounded. That could cost his team hours of looking for another route, assuming they could find one.
Or begin a hot pursuit with soldiers chasing them until Mironov’s car ran out of fuel or armor-piercing rounds disabled it.
In this case, then, he had to hope that none of the guerrillas who’d apparently ambushed the convoy would be found alive.
And it appeared that none would be.
“They’re packing up,” Mironov said, and handed him the glasses.
Bolan watched the AMISOM soldiers climb aboard their APCs, leaving a row of bodies lined up on the highway’s shoulder, soon to ripen in the sun. He waited to discover whether they would turn or pass on from the killing ground toward the horizon.
“Here they go,” he said to no one in particular.
The APCs rolled forward and kept going, northward. In another moment they were almost lost to sight.
“Okay,” Bolan announced. “Looks like we’re clear.”
Mironov started the sedan, pulled back into her lane and powered toward the line of bodies ranged at roadside. Bolan scanned them as they passed, and, as expected, recognized no one.
Another moment, and the nameless dead were dwindling in the rearview mirror. Within seconds, they would disappear entirely.
Gone, but not forgotten.
“How much farther?” Waabberi asked.
“Five, six miles,” Bolan replied.
Unless Hassan had been jerking them around before he died.
Bolan could not afford to grant that possibility. Not when they had come so far.
“We’ll need a place to hide the car before then,” Mironov said.
“Your call,” he said. “First spot that looks convenient, and we can walk the rest of the way. Ideally, we’ll arrive just after dark.”
And then, he thought, the killing would begin in earnest.
THE HELICOPTERS WERE A mismatched pair of venerable war-birds. In another life, they might have passed each other in the sky above a battlefield, serving opposing sides. On this day, they sat together in what once had been a supermarket parking lot in Mogadishu and waited for Musse Guleed.
The larger of the whirlybirds, at close to sixty-five feet long and nearly seventeen feet tall, with a rotor diameter approaching fifty-four feet, was a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. Americans had flown them when they came to “save” Somalia in the 1990s, and some had stayed behind after the Yankees left. In addition to its two-man crew, the ship could carry from eleven to fourteen soldiers, cruising at 173 miles per hour with a combat radius of 320 miles and a ferry range of 1,380 miles.
The second ship was Russia’s Mil Mi-8, or “Hip,” a medium transport chopper that could double as a gunship if required to do so. Although smaller than the Black Hawk, at four inches under sixty feet and less than ten feet tall, the Hip seated twenty-four passengers besides its two pilots. Its rotors measured seventy feet in diameter, and they propelled the Hip at 156 miles per hour, over a maximum range of 280 miles.
The Black Hawk pilots would have to restrain themselves, allowing the Hip to keep up, but it hardly mattered. They would travel less than sixty miles from takeoff to landing, hardly a challenge for any experienced man or machine.
Guleed had chosen his thirty-seven men with care, selecting ruthless veterans who had survived at least two years in his service. Each was a proven killer, devoid of conscience as the West defined it but obedient beyond the shadow of a doubt to any order from Guleed. The men he’d chosen would kill anyone Guleed selected, without thinking twice about the target’s age, sex, race, or any other factor but the need to carry out Guleed’s commands at once.
They were exactly what he needed.
Guleed had already replaced Hassan, assuming that his former second in command was dead, or soon would be. His new lieutenant was Faadumo Haweeya Khalid, a twenty-year-old cutthroat who enjoyed young women and khat, but who could also keep his wits about him in a fight. Guleed had seen him use a panga to attack and kill four enemies carrying automatic weapons. Afterward, Khalid had paused to taste the blood of his first kill.
A young man to reckon with—and to dispose of, if he started showing any signs of personal ambition. In the meantime, though, he could be useful on a night like this.
Guleed was last to board the Black Hawk, having supervised the loading of his soldiers and their weapons. With everyone ready, he took his seat, strapped in and gave the signal for takeoff.
If he was right, if Hassan had betrayed him, then his enemies were on their way to Merca. Might, in fact, be there already. Waiting for him.
He did not intend to keep them waiting long.
11
Shabelle Hoose
They got lucky, finally, with the terrain. Four miles out from their destination, as the sun was dipping lower in the west, Mironov spied a dry creek bed where she could pull off-road and turn her car around. The soil had baked nearly as hard as asphalt, but it still supported spindly weeds that hid the small sedan unless a passing driver turned to look directly at it. After nightfall, on the night of a new moon, it would require a spotlight, in addition to a roving eye.
If anyone was searching for them that determinedly, Bolan thought, they would have bigger problems than losing their ride home.
Before starting their hike through the dusk, into darkness, they double-checked all of their gear. Guns loaded. Ditto all spare magazines. Safeties off. Grenades clipped to belts. Suppressor in place on the muzzle of Mironov’s GSh-18 autoloader.
“Ready?” Bolan asked his two companions.
“Ready,” Mironov said.
“I, too,” Waabberi echoed.
From the creek bed, it was gently rolling ground with no pitfalls, no major obstacles. They walked it three abreast, keeping the highway on their left and moving parallel to it. Bolan took the side nearest the road, watching for vehicles approaching from the front and listening for any that might come along behind him.
So far, he and his companions had the wasteland to themselves.
When they had covered roughly half the distance to their destination, cloaked at this point in near-darkness, Mironov said, “I have decided that you are correct.”
“About what?” Bolan asked.
“My orders to retrieve the Vasylna’s cargo are not practical. Someone behind a desk imagined this.”
“It happens all the time,” Bolan replied. “So-called great thinkers, half a world away.”
“But still, we serve them, eh?”
“You having second thoughts?” he asked her.
“No. By now, it’s all I’m fit to do. When there are no more missions…”
“You’ll find something else,” he said.
“Will you?”
He hadn’t thought about retirement, either as a concept or real-world possibility. In fact, Bolan had never thought he’d live that long.
“They’ll put me out to pasture someday, I suppose,” he said, playing the game.
“And then? Will you try garde
ning? Perhaps raise bees?”
“You’re getting me confused with Sherlock Holmes,” he answered. “What, then?”
He told the truth on impulse. “I suppose I’d find another war.”
“We’re more alike than you suppose,” Mironov said.
“I guess it’s true, then. Wonders never cease.”
She changed the subject, asking him, “Do you believe we can destroy the weapons?”
“Tanks are tough,” Bolan replied, “but if we catch a break it’s possible. Assuming that we find the place we’re looking for. And all the merchandise is there. And we can get in, past the watchdogs.”
“Are you trying to discourage me?” the Russian agent asked.
“False hope breeds overconfidence,” he said. “And that can get you killed.”
“I never plan an action based on hope,” she said.
From Bolan’s right, Waabberi said, “I hope to see another sunrise. Is that wrong?”
“We all have hopes,” Bolan replied. “No harm in that. Just don’t confuse them with reality.”
“I understand.”
Bolan hoped that was true. If not, it was too late for him to educate Waabberi on the difference.
Ahead of them, still two miles distant, he made out the glow of bright lights on the plain. Something was waiting for them there.
Would it be victory or death?
He realized the two could not be separated.
Grim-faced in acceptance of that fact, the Executioner moved on toward the light.
JIDDU BASRA CHECKED HIS Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch and cursed as it confirmed what he already knew. The man he was supposed to meet was running late. As usual.
Basra despised the sort of bureaucrat who thought the world should stop and wait for him, whenever he deigned to arrive. It was the ultimate in arrogance, deserving of a whipping at the very least.
Or something more, perhaps.
In other circumstances, Basra might have driven off and left the man who’d telephoned him to request the meeting. After all, he had a war to fight and enemies to slaughter. As far as Basra was concerned, sitting in a car, exposed, and waiting for a pencil-pushing slug with little real authority simply wasted precious time.
But since Dualeh Awrala had called him, professing some knowledge that might assist Basra in routing his foes, Basra felt he could spare the man…what? Two more minutes?
If Awrala had not shown by then, Basra would leave. And he would place Awrala’s name upon the mental list of those whose day was coming, once Basra seized control of Mogadishu from Musse Guleed.
When that day came, he wouldn’t keep the bastard waiting. Not a moment longer than it took to hunt him down and cut his throat.
Awrala made it with seconds to spare, arriving in a chauffeured car that could have used a wax job and some touch-up paint along its left-rear fender. Basra watched the man hurry toward his vehicle and made no move to help with the back door.
“I thought I might have missed you,” Awrala said, as he plopped into the seat beside Basra.
“You asked to meet me,” Basra said. “So, here we are.”
“Yes, yes. I have some information which I thought you might find…valuable.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Indeed, yes. It concerns your enemy.”
Basra surprised Awrala with a laugh. “Which one?” he asked.
“Musse Guleed, of course.”
“Ah. That one.”
“When we spoke this morning—” with a sly look on his face, Awrala hesitated “—but, perhaps you aren’t concerned?”
“How would I know unless you tell me?”
“In return for some consideration,” Awrala said.
“What is it you want?”
Awrala almost seemed embarrassed by his question. “Why, whatever you think fair,” he said at last.
“All right, then. Hurry up and spill your news, then I will set a price.”
Awrala forced a smile. “This morning—”
“When you spoke to Musse. Yes, get on with it!”
“He asked me to arrange for AMISOM to help protect a compound north of Merca. I believe that he has something of great value there.”
“Who does he fear will spoil it for him?” Basra asked.
“Well, I assumed…”
“Too much, perhaps,” Basra suggested. “And were you successful?”
“Hmm?”
“In sending the AMISOM troops to help Guleed?”
“I spoke to the commander. He appeared to be amenable.”
“And how much were you paid?”
Awrala swallowed hard. “I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”
“You’re right. And for your kindness, here’s a little something extra.”
Basra produced the knife from his left sleeve and thrust its four-inch blade into Awrala’s throat. He left it there, to minimize the bleeding on his seat covers. If the late deputy’s chauffeur should choose to follow, it would be his last mistake.
“Let’s go,” Basra snapped at his driver. “We have much to do, and little time to spare.”
Shabelle Hoose
MUSSE GULEED FELT AS IF the Black Hawk was trying to shake him apart, piece by piece. The earphones that he wore, to stay in contact with the pilots, barely muffled the hellacious noise from the helicopter’s twin T700-GE-701C free-turbine turboshaft engines.
Only a cheekful of well-chewed khat kept the lid on his simmering anger, impatience and need to lash out at someone—anyone—for the losses he’d suffered and those that he still might incur.
Awrala’s last-minute phone call, confirming the AMISOM detail’s cooperation, had helped Guleed relax a bit, but only slightly. His suspicion that Hassan had to have betrayed him had advanced to a conviction in the past few hours, gnawing at his gut until Guleed wondered if he might have an ulcer. God knew that he had enough problems to warrant one.
But all of that would change this night.
He had customers coming to bid on the Russian equipment his men had procured on their latest adventure, and that meant tens of millions for his war chest—tens of billions, if the dollars were converted to Somalian shillings. Guleed would be rich beyond the wildest dreams of his impoverished youth.
And better still, it would be payback time.
If, as he now suspected, the white bastards who had killed his men in Mogadishu tried to penetrate the Merca compound, they would die. Slowly, if he had anything to say about it. But if they were spared a week of agony by someone’s lucky shooting, Guleed would not let the disappointment cripple him.
Beyond eliminating the specific shooters who had caused him so much trouble, he still owed a special payback to their patron, Jiddu Basra. Guleed intended to repay that debt himself, in person, without delegating it to any of his men.
And Basra’s dying would take time.
While he was at it, Guleed thought he might as well clean house across the board. There were a number of small-scale competitors he could eliminate without breaking a sweat, and Guleed thought it might be time to scrutinze some of his so-called friends, as well.
Awrala was a case in point. Although he’d served Guleed this time, his influence seemed to be dwindling with the passage of time, as the Transitional Federal Government failed to cement or expand its authority. It governed in name only, and Guleed suspected he could find a younger man to do Awrala’s job at half the price.
Something to think about, in any case.
“Approaching, sir,” one of the pilots told him, sounding like a robot through the helicopter’s earphones.
Guleed shifted in his seat, adjusting his grip on the Chinese QBZ-97 assault rifle that lay across his lap. The weapon closely resembled Britain’s L85A1 bullpup design, and fired the same 5.56 mm NATO cartridge at a cyclic rate of 650 rounds per minute on full-auto. In place of the rifle’s standard 30-round box magazine, Guleed had loaded his piece with a 75-round drum.
He was ready to kill and anxiou
s to start.
The sooner the better.
CAPTAIN ABASI BOIPELO was pleased by the outcome of his roadside skirmish with the local bandits. But his positive outlook diminished as his small convoy approached the fenced compound he’d been dispatched to guard.
The camp sprawled over several acres, ringed by chain-link fencing with coils of razor wire on top. Men armed with automatic weapons lolled inside the double gates, and smoke rose from the chimney of what Boipelo took to be a mess hall, set well back from the entrance.
He saw immediately why the camp might be at risk. Inside the wire sat row upon row of battle tanks, their armored hides marked with the Kenyan flag, depicting a Masai shield and crossed spears on a field striped with black, red and green.
Boipelo knew well enough where the hulking vehicles had come from. As an officer of AMISOM, he kept abreast of major incidents involving crime and piracy throughout the nation, ready to respond as might seem suitable if he confronted some illegal act in progress.
Still…
Boipelo’s superiors had sent him to guard this place, filled as it was with contraband and obvious outlaws. What would it profit him to radio his findings and request further advice? He might insult Colonel Kenyangi, make himself look foolish in the process, and thus jeopardize his own assignment.
Not that Boipelo felt attached to AMISOM, by any means. He would prefer to be at home, doing the work he had enlisted for, but any black mark on his record here—particularly if it smacked of insubordination—might affect him when he landed back in Kenya.
It was a bizarre dilemma. To protect himself, he had to obey his temporary leaders, to the possible detriment of his homeland. And what if it came out, once he returned to Kenya, that he’d played some role in helping these Somali pirates guard the tanks and other gear hijacked en route to Nairobi?
Muttering a string of bitter curses, Boipelo lowered himself through the APC’s hatch, scanning the sweaty faces of his soldiers lining metal benches to left and right. All unscathed by the recent skirmish, they revealed no great interest in what might come next.
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