He was still a dozen paces from the next bend in the corridor when Bolan shot him in the back. There was no room for chivalry in combat, where you took the shots that came your way or died regretting it. His round went home between the fleeing gunman’s shoulder blades and punched his target forward, airborne for an instant before facial impact with the concrete floor. From there, it was a long slide to oblivion, oiled by the blood spray from a ragged exit wound.
BOLAN STOOD UP and moved forward, careful not to leave his footprints in the fresh blood of his enemies. It didn’t matter in forensic terms, considering the state of Guinea-Bissau’s scientific law enforcement, but a track indexed its maker’s height and stride, two clues that Bolan planned on keeping to himself if possible.
Granted, the women who had seen him and survived could tell police he was a white man, if they stuck around to speak with any officers. And if they were believed, considering the state of raw hysterics generated by the murder of their coworkers. On balance, Bolan thought he should be good so far, provided that he left no witnesses among the men who ran the cutting plant.
No problem there, since scorched earth had been the plan to start with.
Bolan hadn’t seen the last of his opponents yet. More voices told him that, before a grating order silenced them. By then, he knew approximately where to find them, though he couldn’t say how many rooms he’d have to clear beforehand. If the shooters who remained weren’t evacuating—and he knew damned well they wouldn’t call the police—he still had time. How much was anybody’s guess.
Sooner was generally best in battle. Find the opposition before they found you. Kill them before they could react. Get out before you had to deal with reinforcements or authorities off-limits to the use of deadly force. But haste made waste sometimes, and it could get him wasted, if he didn’t temper speed with caution.
Bolan moved with purpose, taking care to mask his footsteps, as he closed in on the enemy.
* * *
“BRUNO’S GOING TO BE ANGRY,” Kumba Mané said. “We’re late again.”
“Bruno can kiss my ass,” Fidelis Teixeira replied as he switched off the old Mercedes CL’s engine and palmed the key. “He’s never been on time once, when it’s his turn to relieve us.”
“I’m just telling you—”
“To hell with him,” Teixeira said, supremely indifferent to the moods of Bruno Cabral.
The new shift had arrived in two vehicles, Teixeira and Mané in Teixeira’s Benz, five others in a black Daewoo Winstorm SUV. All carried automatic weapons in plain view, secure in the knowledge that the cutting plant had no immediate neighbors and police patrols were nonexistent in the Zona Industrial.
Teixeira checked his watch and verified that they were, in fact, some fifteen minutes late to start their shift. Cabral might bitch about it, but Teixeira doubted that he would be fool enough to lodge a formal complaint with their boss. If he did...
“The door’s unlocked,” Mané announced, sounding surprised.
“Stupid bastards,” Teixeira said with a sneer. Now he knew there would be no complaint from Cabral, since he or one of his lackeys had breached fundamental security. In fact—
Mané opened the door, and Teixeira heard the sharp echo of gunfire coming from somewhere inside. In the space of a heartbeat, he raised his Kalashnikov, thumbed off its safety and shouldered past Mané to enter the plant.
“Call for backup,” he ordered, and moved on inside.
The place was under attack, but by whom? There were no police cars out front, and besides, they’d been paid to stay clear, hadn’t they? Who else would risk the wrath of Edouard Camara and General Diallo by staging a raid on the plant? Was it a move by someone from the navy or the air force, seeking to consolidate their hold over the drug trade?
If it was, they’d picked the wrong night for a raid. Fidelis Teixeira took it as a personal affront, and he intended to repay that slight in blood.
But he would not go rushing in and risk his life before he had at least some grasp of what was happening. Continued firing meant that some of Cabral’s men, at least, were still alive and fighting to repel invaders, but for all that Teixeira knew, they might be heavily outnumbered. Then again—
Not only were police cars missing from the parking lot out front, there had been no cars that Teixeira didn’t recognize. He could have named the owners if his mind wasn’t awhirl with doubts and questions, but the names were unimportant now. How had the enemies approached, if not on wheels? Had they parked elsewhere in the zone and crept up on the plant in darkness, hugging shadows, to avoid a premature collision with Cabral’s watchmen?
But if Cabral had lookouts in place, why were his enemies inside the factory? He should have held them at the doors and phoned for help, instead of fighting on alone against the odds.
What odds? Time to find out.
Teixeira glanced back, saw five men trailing him into the plant, while Mané talked on his cell phone at the threshold. It would take some time to pull another team together and get them on the road, but in the meantime Teixeira’s people might be able to surprise the sons of bitches who dared trespass on the Family’s turf. It would be good for Teixeira if he had the problem solved before more help arrived, proof of his skill and courage.
It would also work against Bruno Cabral, assuming he was still alive inside the plant.
And who said that the little weasel had to stay alive?
The rivalry between Cabral and Teixeira dated back five years or more. Teixeira had a chance to settle it this night, and who would be able to say which weapon had fired the fatal shot when chaos reigned?
Smiling now, Fidelis Teixeira moved more rapidly into the plant, tracking the sounds of war.
* * *
BOLAN REACHED ANOTHER CORNER, paused and listened, then peered around it. Twenty feet in front of him an open door revealed long tables in a spacious room, with jumbo plastic bags of powder waiting to be cut and parceled out into tiny envelopes for maximum returns. Shadows of movement under the fluorescent lights told him the room was occupied, but Bolan couldn’t tell by whom or by how many.
Four guns down, so far, and six cars parked out front. How many guards were likely to be overseeing operations on the graveyard shift? From what he’d heard on his approach, at least two or three more.
With hostages?
It was a toss-up, Bolan thought. There might be workers in the room before him, but their masters had no reason to believe that they were dealing with police. A rival syndicate wouldn’t care whether cutters at the plant survived or not, so they’d have no value as human shields. Clearing them out was still a problem for the Executioner, however, and the only answer he could think of at the moment was a stun grenade.
Voices stopped Bolan with his right hand in his jacket pocket, cradling an M-84. The startling part was that the noise came from behind him, where he’d thought that there were only corpses left. Two possibilities immediately registered: either police had been called in somehow, against all odds, or reinforcements for his adversaries had arrived.
Bad news, in either case, but one scenario still gave him room to fight. The other limited his options to the stun grenade and blind luck, or surrender. Call it nearly certain death.
He waited long enough to hear one of the new arrivals shouting out a question, and what sounded like an answer came back from the cutting room. Not cops, then. So his only worry was the fact that they’d surrounded him with unknown numbers, cutting off retreat.
Okay. Plan B.
He pulled the stun grenade out of his pocket, freed its pin and pitched the bomb underhand through the open doorway to the cutting room. Excited voices came from there, but Bolan was already turning back in the direction he had come from, putting space between himself and the concussive blast that he expected within five...four...three...two...
Not much.
The major threat to his survival lay in front of Bolan now, blocking his exit from the factory. He didn’t know how many reinforcements were advancing toward him, but it would take only one shooter—good, or simply lucky—to take Bolan down.
His edge: he knew that they were coming, while the opposition still had no idea exactly what was going on. It wasn’t much, but he’d made do with less in other situations where the outlook had been bleak. Audacity had served him well before, when adversaries thought they had the upper hand and couldn’t lose.
When trapped, he always came out fighting. Giving up had never been an option in the warrior’s heart or mind.
Whatever happened in the next few moments, he would face it as the Executioner.
* * *
NILSON MEDINA HADN’T COUNTED on a firefight when he drew the short straw for guard duty at the cutting plant. It was supposed to be another boring graveyard shift, watching the women mix and package the cocaine without incident, unless Teixeira saw a woman that he liked and took her in the back room for a little relaxation. Nothing new or unexpected, thank you very much.
Now, here he was, creeping along with Kumba Mané and the others, trailing Teixeira as they homed in on the sounds of battle echoing from somewhere deeper in the factory. Medina clutched the dual pistol grips of his Spectre M4 submachine gun with sweaty palms, bemused that his mouth, by contrast, felt painfully dry. He recognized the nervous symptoms, tried to keep a straight face, hoping his anxiety wouldn’t be visible to any of his comrades.
In the present circumstance, a doubt concerning his ability to fight could get him killed.
And if he had to kill, what then?
Cross that bridge when you come to it, he thought, which could be any minute now.
The Camara Family had accepted him based on his record: five arrests and one detention at First Squadron, where he had escaped his second night in custody. His third arrest included a charge of suspected murder, discharged without trial. Medina had a story for that case, as with the other charges he had faced: a gambling debt unpaid, resulting in a scuffle that had ended when he drew a knife and sank its blade between the debtor’s ribs.
It was a lie, but no one bothered checking, since Guinea-Bissau had the highest per capita murder rate in West Africa. Medina’s story of the slaying had been satisfactory, the real-life victim gutted in an alley by some killer still unknown to the police—and, more important, to his employers.
If they knew the truth...
Medina heard more shooting, and their leader moved more quickly, clearly anxious for the battle to be joined. Teixeira would be glad to rescue Cabral and his men from danger, just so he could rub Cabral’s nose in it till the end of time.
But they were already too late for some. Medina grimaced as they passed the corpses of three women barely dressed in bloodstained underwear. The cutters had been shot at close range, and Medina saw their likely killers as he stepped around the corner, following Teixeira. One of them he recognized, Francisco Gomes, staring at the ceiling overhead with lifeless, dusty-looking eyes. His killer had been firing past the fallen women, after Gomes and his fallen comrade shot them, facing death head-on.
A moment later, two more bodies. These, it seemed, were taken down with some kind of explosive charge. Their ragged wounds, and the erratic bloodstains on the wall and ceiling, told the grisly story without words. Medina had seen worse, but he hadn’t been forced to step in it before. He nearly gagged, but caught himself in time and swallowed back the acid rush of bile.
What next? Who was responsible?
Not the police. There would be vehicles out front, with flashing lights; they would have heard the agents shouting for a cease-fire and surrender. And police wouldn’t be here, in any case. The Special Intervention Force supported the Camara Family, while the Judicial Police were spread too thin to mount a major raid without sufficient preparation to allow for crucial leaks.
So, someone else.
Medina felt a little better now. If he was forced to use his weapon, it would be against a gang of thugs much like his own companions. He could justify it to himself, live with it, hopefully without losing what little sleep he still enjoyed. If it had been police...
They’d nearly reached the cutting room. One final turn and one more stretch of corridor to go. Teixeira called to Cabral from concealment, “What’s going on?”
Cabral didn’t have a chance to reply. Teixeira’s question was still hanging in the smoky air when an explosion rocked the plant, its shock wave feeling like a pair of hands slapping Medina’s ears. He winced, sidestepped to give himself an open field of fire, but there were still three men in front of him. They’d have to move or drop before the Spectre M4 did him any good.
“We’re going,” Teixeira said, glancing around with hard eyes, making certain everyone was with him. Nodding like the rest, Medina braced himself to charge around the corner, facing God knew what, and prove himself once more to these men whom he called his brothers.
Time to do or die, he thought.
* * *
BOLAN RODE THE SHOCK WAVE of his stun grenade toward the enemies moving to cut off his line of retreat. He couldn’t say the cutting plant was out of business, but he had disrupted it at least, and likely ruined most of one full shipment from Colombia or Mexico. His next priority was getting out, to carry on the battle in Bissau and teach his targets that they weren’t invincible.
Which meant staying alive.
His one advantage now would be uncertainty among the reinforcements. Whether they’d been called specifically to help the team already under siege, or they were just arriving to begin their shift, the shooters couldn’t have much grasp of who or what they were confronting. Any hesitancy on their part could only work in Bolan’s favor, but the window of opportunity wouldn’t stay open for long. Learning that only one man stood against them, they would be emboldened and determined to eliminate him.
And they just might pull it off.
He heard them coming now, feet double-timing on concrete, just past the point where he had taken down two of their cohorts with a frag grenade. The bloody tableau hadn’t stopped them, much less turned them back. A few more yards and Bolan would be facing them, with no place for anyone on either side to hide.
But then the sounds of footsteps paused. A voice called out to him—to someone, anyway—asking, “Quem é você? O que você quer?”
He took a chance, calling back. “Try English.”
After momentary hesitation, the commanding voice replied, “Who are you? What do you want?”
Easing his last grenade out of a pocket, Bolan couldn’t think of any reason not to answer honestly. “I’m taking down the plant,” he said. “I’m taking down your Family.”
Another hesitation then, before the voice asked, “You are not police?”
He pulled the pin but held the arming spoon in place as he replied, “Not even close.”
Arm back, ready to make the pitch, he heard the disembodied voice ask, “Were you sent by General Sanhá? By Admiral Pires?”
“You’re getting cold,” he said, while edging forward, nearly close enough to make another bank shot with the frag grenade.
Bolan nearly pitched it when the firing started, but he quickly realized the ripping slugs weren’t aimed his way. Short bursts of automatic fire sounded like 9 mm Parabellum rounds, and garbled cries came from the men receiving them. It lasted six or seven seconds, then the corridor was silent but for muffled voices from the cutting room behind him.
Then a voice in front told the Executioner, �
��The rest are dead. May I approach you?”
Frowning, Bolan thought about it. If it was a trick...
“Slowly,” he said, still clutching the grenade, his rifle’s folding stock braced tight against his hip for single-handed firing. “You’re covered all the way.”
He heard the shooter’s footsteps edging around obstacles before a slender man stepped into view. He stood five nine or ten and might have weighed 160 pounds. A submachine gun dangled from his right hand, smoking muzzle pointed toward the floor. He studied Bolan for a moment, checking out his weapons, then looked past him toward the cutting room.
“You have unfinished business,” he observed.
“I’m taking one thing at a time,” Bolan replied.
“Of course. Perhaps the pin for that grenade?”
“It’s safe, for now,” Bolan assured him. “You are?”
“Nilson Medina,” the shooter replied. “On assignment with the Judicial Police.”
4
Cupelon de Cima, Bissau
Edouard Camara didn’t appreciate bad news. His second glass of Agwa de Bolivia liqueur, distilled from coca leaves, helped moderate his temper, but he felt rage simmering behind his sternum like a savage bout of heartburn, anxious to explode.
“Explain how this could happen,” he demanded of the messenger, his second in command.
“I only know what I have told you,” Aristide Ialá replied, his tone cautiously neutral. “It appears that one man was responsible.”
“One man,” Camara repeated. “Against...what was it? A dozen?”
“That’s right. Except that one of them is missing now.”
“One missing, and eleven dead,” Camara said and sipped his drink.
Ialá nodded silently.
“And so,” Camara pressed, “we know it was a single man because...?”
“The cutters,” Ialá replied.
“Of course. They described him?”
Rogue Assault Page 4