“I’m confident of it.”
“So, it won’t be an issue. And if you’re still hunting them...well, it is best if you focus on that.”
Ialá clearly wanted to respond, even to argue, but he held his tongue. A quarter of the twenty-kilo cases were already stacked up at the far end of the pier, two of Ialá’s shooters opening one at a time, removing packets wrapped in oilcloth, stuffing them into the first of several duffel bags that lay beside the crates. Herrera marked the nearby plane, assuming that the drugs would be flown inland from Bubaque.
He raised the briefcase slightly, told Ialá, “I’ll just stow this on the ship,” and showed the African his back, climbing the gangplank while his soldiers covered the retreat.
Enough small talk with the native villagers. Mauricio Herrera wanted to go home.
* * *
IALÁ FELT HIMSELF RELAX a little as the last crate left the Southern Star. He cleared the dock and watched a couple of the old ship’s crewmen hoist its gangplank. From the bridge, Herrera and his four machine-gunners still watched Ialá’s men repacking the cocaine, placing the first fat duffel back aboard the Beechcraft Model 99.
The sons of whores, Ialá thought, had left him with the task of passing the bad news about the interruption in supply on to his superiors. The cartel’s leader could have done that with a phone call, but he’d chosen to avoid a quarrel with Camara or the general. If Diallo was enraged and chose to kill the messenger, it cost the cartel nothing.
Even now the Southern Star was moving out to sea, starting its homeward run. A few more moments and it would be out of rifle range, not that Ialá seriously planned to fire on the retreating ship. He had the cargo, and would soon be back in Bissau. That would please Camara and Diallo, even if the news he brought from the cartel didn’t.
And he already knew what he’d be told after his masters heard the ultimatum from Colombia. Get out and find the man or men responsible for their embarrassment. Try harder than he had already, leave no stone unturned, squeeze every informant in Bissau for the smallest shred of information that could put him on the trail of those he hunted.
All of which Ialá’s men were doing now. He frankly didn’t know what other avenues of inquiry they might pursue—though he would never say that to Camara, much less to the general. The one survival tactic in a situation of this kind was self-abasement, abject groveling replete with promises to do more, even if, as he suspected, there was no more to be done.
Ialá feared the only way that he would ever find the men he sought was if they struck again and walked into a trap already waiting for them. Then, if they survived with strength enough to speak, Ialá would discover who they worked for, and he could repay the individuals or agencies behind the series of attacks.
But first things first.
The plane was nearly loaded, one more duffel bag remaining. All the crates unloaded from the Southern Star stood empty by the dock. Ialá spit in the direction of the fast-receding ship and turned toward the plane. He flinched as gunfire stuttered from the tree line on the far side of the airstrip, while his soldiers ran for cover.
* * *
NILSON MEDINA SAW THE PILOT duck behind his plane at the first sound of gunfire, but the man made no attempt to go aboard or start the engine. Worried that he might try to escape on foot, Medina circled toward the runway, jogged behind the squat control tower and came up on the far side of the plane. Too late, the frightened pilot saw him coming, drew a pistol from beneath his baggy shirt, then saw Medina’s submachine gun zeroed on his chest and reconsidered.
“Do you want to die?” Medina asked.
The pilot thought about it for a fraction of a second, shook his head and tossed his gun away.
“Good choice,” Medina said, holding the Spectre steady in his right hand, while his left found handcuffs in a pocket of his slacks.
“Sit down,” he ordered, “and scoot back against the landing gear, both hands behind your back.”
A moment later, he had snapped the cuffs on and secured his man. The pilot wasn’t going anywhere unless the plane took off with someone else at the controls and dragged him down the runway. Leaving him, Medina flashed a smile and said, “You should be safe, unless a bullet hits the fuel tank.”
“Wait!” the pilot cried.
“Consider prayer,” Medina said, running back to join the fight.
His partner, Matt Cooper, had taken down two of the plainclothes gunmen by the time Medina reached a decent vantage point, and he was coming under fire from the remainder of Camara’s men, together with the six soldiers in uniform. Medina was behind them, sheltered by the northeast corner of the airfield’s control tower, when he took them by surprise.
His first shots dropped a burly first sergeant armed with a Kalashnikov, the soldier dead before he knew he had been ambushed. Tracking on, Medina stitched three rounds across the torso of a private as he turned to face the unexpected sounds of gunfire at his back. The dying man triggered a long burst from his FAL rifle, ripping holes across the control tower’s plywood facade.
The other four soldiers were running for cover by then, returning fire as best they could on the move, without stopping to aim. Medina ducked a shot that came too close for comfort, missed his running target with the next burst from his Spectre, then recovered his aim and put the next three Parabellum rounds on target, pitching the runner facedown onto the asphalt.
Three remained from the six-man party, and they’d reached their vehicle, an old flatbed truck with slats on two sides and no tailgate. They hid behind it, covered from Medina’s view unless he worked his way around behind them or devised some way to rout them from their shelter.
From a cargo pocket on his pants, he took one of the hand grenades he’d liberated from Storm Transport’s arsenal. Medina pulled the pin and made his pitch, saw it fall short, landing within the truck’s bed, where it detonated seconds later. One soldier immediately bolted, and Medina cut him down before he’d traveled twenty feet, leaving the dead or dying man to twitch his life away, no longer part of anything that mattered.
Still, the other two remained in place, not firing back, but staying out of sight. Medina palmed a second grenade, let it fly, and this time his pitch was on target. It struck the roof of the truck’s two-man cab, then bounced out of sight on the far side, where one of the soldiers yelped as he saw it. Both uniformed men tried to run, but the blast caught them first and they died on their feet, torn by shrapnel.
Done.
Medina turned back toward the dock to help Cooper.
* * *
BOLAN HEARD THE SECOND hand grenade explode and flicked a glance in the direction of the Beechcraft, glad to see that it was still undamaged. He had eight or nine guns ranged against him, adversaries short on cover as they formed a skirmish line between the dock and the airfield’s runway, but they seemed intent on bagging him regardless of the cost. One in particular was shouting at the rest, berating them in Portuguese and driving them ahead of him, to the attack.
Bolan aimed past the men in front, framing their rear guard “leader” in his rifle sights and squeezing off a double-tap that stole the shouter’s breath and voice with a pair of NATO manglers ripping through his lungs. The mouthpiece lurched, dropped to his knees, then toppled over on his left side, while the others ran ahead without him. If they missed his driving voice, it didn’t show.
Still sheltered by the tree line, Bolan set about the bloody business of demolishing his enemies. He worked from left to right along the skirmish line, firing short bursts of three or four rounds each, toppling the runners as they came to him, holding his aim despite a storm of automatic fire that raked the trees above him. Tattered leaves and shredded bark rained down on top of Bolan, but he lay unflinching, squeezing off at each of them in turn, resolved to finish it.
Along the line, they dropped and died,
traces of crimson hanging in the air for seconds afterward, before it settled over them like grisly rain. Bolan supposed his magazine was close to empty as the last two charged him, screaming incoherently. As he fired, another weapon caught them from their left side, stuttering through what he recognized as the suppressor on Medina’s SMG. Converging fire nearly prevented those last two gunners from falling, but his magazine ran empty, then, and finally released them to collide with the earth.
Medina crossed the battlefield, scanning for stray survivors, as Bolan emerged from the trees. No one remained to challenge them, and when he looked to sea, the Southern Star had vanished from his sight. With no one left to kill, he turned back toward the plane.
“You got the pilot?” Bolan asked Medina.
“Waiting for us,” his companion said.
“Okay.”
Camara’s men had dropped one duffel bag of coke when Bolan started firing at them. He retrieved it from the tarmac, lugging it along to put it in the Beechcraft, while Medina freed the pilot from his cuffs and walked him back to Bolan.
“You speak English?” Bolan asked him.
“Yes.”
“So, here’s the deal. You fly us and the cargo where you’re told, no funny business, and we’ll let you go, together with the plane.”
The pilot frowned and asked, “What is this ‘funny business’?”
“Truques ou problemas,” Medina said, translating.
“Ah. No tricks or trouble. I agree, most certainly,” the flyboy stated.
“We’re good to go, then,” Bolan said.
He turned to Medina. “Will you give him the coordinates?”
Medina nodded, rattling off their destination in his native Portuguese. The same spot where they’d caught the charter flight from Bissau to Galinhas, where his car was waiting. And from there...
Well, they would have to see what happened next.
9
Headquarters of the Forces Armées de
Guinée-Bissau, Bairro Militar
“You have something for me?” General Ismael Diallo asked his caller.
“I do,” Pascal Kinte replied, “although I’m not sure if it helps you.”
“I will be the judge of that,” Diallo said.
“Of course.” Kinte cleared his throat, then said, “The man you’re looking for, I’ve learned, was working under cover for the Ministry of Justice. More specifically, the Judicial Police.”
Diallo clenched his teeth, squeezing the telephone receiver in a death grip. “You are certain?”
“There’s no doubt,” Kinte said.
“How long?”
“I have no date, precisely, but if he attached himself to the Camara Family, we may assume it was a plan to infiltrate the operation.”
Diallo snarled a curse. “Who does Barbosa think he’s trifling with?”
“Don’t jump to any rash conclusions, General,” Kinte said. “Nothing I’ve learned so far suggests the Minister of Justice authorized this plan, or even knew of its existence.”
“He’s supposed to be in charge, goddamn it!”
“As are you,” Kinte said. “Does that mean you’re aware of everything your sergeants do, around the clock?”
“It’s not the same!” Diallo snapped. “If he attacks Camara, he’s attacking me!”
“Which leads me to believe that he was kept in ignorance by one or more of his subordinates.”
Diallo thought about that for a moment, then said, “Very well. I need to know who authorized the infiltration.”
“I know that, as well,” Kinte replied, stretching it out. “A captain of the Judicial Police, one Joseph Mansaré.”
“He’s assigned to headquarters, I take it?” Diallo asked.
“I assume so,” Kinte said.
“All right, then. I’ll take care of it.”
“With circumspection, eh?” the Minister of the Interior suggested. “We already have the world’s eyes watching us. The last thing that we need is the appearance of another coup.”
“I don’t need a coup to deal with one police captain,” Diallo said. “Much less his sneaking stooge.”
“The bad publicity—”
“Is my concern,” Diallo said, cutting him off. “I’ve noted your opinion. Don’t belabor it.”
“In that case,” Kinte answered stiffly, “if there’s nothing else?”
“Nothing,” Diallo said. “Goodbye.”
Diallo would have slammed the old-style telephone receiver into its cradle, but he had been working on his self-control of late, aware that blinding rage wasn’t productive. Later, if he still was in a mood, Diallo reckoned he could slap around one of his wives as a release of pent-up tension. Or perhaps he’d simply take the youngest pair of them to bed, if the distractions of this endless day allowed him to perform.
Meanwhile, he had the names of two men who had plotted to destroy him, and he meant to punish both of them. The captain should be easily locatable. As for his agent who had dropped from sight, perhaps Joseph Mansaré had some means of reaching out to him.
If so, the captain would reveal it. General Diallo had no doubt of that. His men were most persuasive when they put their minds to it, and in the present case they would apply themselves with special zeal. If need be, they could make a stone recite the Lord’s Prayer.
Diallo thought he might enjoy watching them work this time.
In fact, he might invite an audience, as an example to subordinates who let a stray thought of disloyalty linger in their minds, to nip it in the bud.
For the first time in what felt like days, Diallo smiled.
* * *
THE AIRSTRIP AT MINDARA was located near Estrada da Granja do Pessube, northbound into central Bissau. Bolan and Medina cuffed their hostage pilot to the plane’s control yoke while they shuttled its illicit cargo into Bolan’s rented car, parked out of sight from the Beechcraft’s cockpit. The flyboy could take off from there or radio for help, whichever he preferred, but they were off and rolling into town without allowing him to glimpse the Peugeot or its license plate.
“No second thoughts about this stash?” Bolan asked as they turned off onto Avenida de Centura, rolling northeastward.
“It is my last safe house,” Medina said. “I rented it under another name. No one else knows that I’m connected to the property.”
“Sounds like you planned ahead for trouble,” Bolan said.
“In Guinea-Bissau, one must always plan for trouble,” his passenger replied. “The military might depose our president tomorrow or the next day, and disband the Ministry of Justice. Who can say? It’s best to be prepared.”
“Who do the neighbors think you are?” Bolan asked.
“No one,” Medina told him. “They don’t care, don’t think about it. They have problems of their own.”
The house was small, squatting behind a square of dead grass masquerading as a lawn. Bolan followed a double set of tire ruts to a frail carport in back, surveyed the homes to either side and saw no evidence of anyone observing them. It took two trips for each of them to clear the Peugeot’s trunk of duffel bags stuffed with cocaine.
Inside, Medina led him to a closet door, as it appeared, which opened onto stairs descending steeply. An unfinished basement lay below, its dirt floor boxed by walls built out of cinder blocks. There was a table, maybe once intended as a work bench but ignored while it collected dust. They placed the duffels there, instead of on the floor, and left them in the dark when they were done.
“No burglars in the neighborhood?” Bolan asked as Medina locked the basement door.
“I’ve had no problems in the past.”
“Okay, then.”
“You will reach out to Camara? Or Diallo?”
“Let them st
ew a little, first,” Bolan replied. “We have some cages left to rattle, yet.”
“They will be searching for us,” Medina said.
“I’d expect no less. How badly are you compromised, back at the ministry?”
Medina thought about it. “I don’t believe my captain will betray me.”
“Don’t believe it, or don’t want to?” Bolan asked.
Medina shrugged. “Of course, it is a question of the pressure brought against him. He could lose his job and benefits, such as they are, for trying to protect me. Still, I trust him.”
“Fine. But is there anybody else?”
“Captain Mansaré kept my mission to himself for just that reason,” Medina replied.
“Nobody else knows you were under cover?”
“No.”
“Where do they think you are right now?” Bolan inquired.
“I doubt that many think of me at all,” Medina said.
“Well, someone will,” Bolan replied. “Camara must be wondering what’s happened to you at the cutting plant. He’ll start to ask whoever he can think of, if he hasn’t yet. And if he has connections on the force—”
“He does,” Medina granted.
“Well, then. You know the saying that you can’t go home again?”
“I understand it.”
“So,” the Executioner told him, “we may as well go make some noise.”
* * *
THE MAN STANDING before Edouard Camara’s desk was clearly frightened, and with reason. He had lost five hundred kilos of cocaine and had watched fifteen of Camara’s best soldiers gunned down, including his second in command, without lifting a finger to stop it. Now he begged for mercy, rheumy eyes welling with tears.
Camara, seated with the desk between them, glared holes through his unexpected visitor. “You’re certain Aristide is dead?” he asked.
The pilot bobbed his head. “Sir, there is no doubt. I saw him fall, shot down.”
“And all the others,” Camara said.
“Yes, sir.”
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