They rode down in the elevator, hogged the whole car for themselves with no one else complaining, then stepped out into the dusk of early evening. Camara’s car was waiting, engine idling, and a sense of sweet relief washed over him as he approached it. Getting out was wise. Whatever happened next, he would respond from safety. From his fortress.
Sudden moisture sprayed Camara’s face, a drop stinging his left eye. Was it raining? No. The soldier on his left had fallen, gasping, and Camara realized that it was his blood in the air. His ears picked out the chugging sound of silenced gunshots as more bloody rain descended on him, bodies tumbling to his left and right.
Camara hesitated for a heartbeat, then spun back toward cover, breaking for the tall revolving door of his apartment house. A bullet clipped his earlobe, made him bleat with pain, just as a voice barked out in English, “Freeze!”
Edouard Camara froze. He was afraid to turn and face his killer, but the gunman came to him. He was a white man, tall, athletic in appearance, with a grim set to his face. Camara closed his eyes and waited for the end.
And then his eyes snapped open as the gunman clutched his arm, turned him, propelled him farther down the sidewalk, telling him, “Don’t say your prayers just yet. We’re going for a ride.”
* * *
GENERAL ISMAEL DIALLO glowered at the captain standing rigidly before his desk. The young replacement for Major Ocante looked queasy and nervous, as well he might be at disturbing the great man’s repose.
“And this stranger said what?”
The lieutenant cleared his throat and answered, “That he would call back within ten minutes, General. To make sure that you were available.”
“He gave no name?”
“No, sir. Although he sent regards from...from...”
“Spit it out, Lieutenant!”
“From Major Ocante, sir. And from Edouard Camara.”
Diallo ground his teeth together. “So, a man with no name sends regards from a corpse and Camara? What else?”
“Nothing, sir. The rest, he said, would be for your ears only.”
Diallo considered dismissing the call as a hoax, then decided against it. “In that case,” he said, “I will listen, if he should call back. In the event that it is not some stupid prank, make arrangements to trace any incoming calls.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Dismissed.”
Diallo’s phone rang seven minutes later. He delayed responding until it had rung three times, giving the tracer mechanism time to activate. Prepared to speak in English, then, Diallo lifted the receiver to his ear and said, “Hello?”
“Who am I talking to?” the strange voice asked.
“I am the one you seek,” Diallo said.
“I understand your people have a friend of mine in custody,” the caller said.
“It’s possible,” Diallo granted, smiling to himself.
“Just possible?”
“I could not verify it absolutely without making inquiries.”
“So, make them. Then we’ll talk about a trade.”
“What do you have that I might want?” Diallo asked.
“Your partner in crime,” said the caller. “He’s still in one piece, but I’d need my friend back the same way.”
“I’m confused,” said the general, playing for time. “This so-called partner—”
“Or puppet, whatever,” the voice interrupted. “One Edouard Camara.”
Diallo lost his smile, considered hanging up the phone at once, then stayed his hand and asked, “You have him with you?”
“Safe and sound. For now.”
The plan came to Diallo suddenly, ideal and irresistible. “I fear,” he said, “that you’ve been misinformed. I am the chief of staff for Guinea-Bissau’s army, and I have no partners, as you put it.”
“I’m not taping this,” the caller said, “if it concerns you.”
“Nothing that you say or do concerns me. As for Edouard Camara, he is well known as a common criminal.”
“Funny no one has managed to arrest him.”
“You may be aware of our peculiar system,” Diallo said.
“So you’re saying—”
“Kill him if you like,” Diallo said, “and do us all a favor.”
There was fleeting silence on the line, before the caller said, “I’ll pass your sentiment along. Should I just go ahead and torch your cocaine, while I’m at it?”
Diallo felt a dull pain start to throb behind his left eye. “I’m afraid—”
“Five hundred kilos,” the caller said. “Lifted from Bubaque earlier this afternoon. I’ll light it up, if that’s your pleasure. Would it be another favor?”
“We should not be too hasty,” Diallo said.
“Right. I’ll call you back for details on the swap in...shall we say an hour? And I’ll be expecting proof of life.”
The line went dead. Diallo cursed the silent telephone, then urgently began to dial an number drawn from memory.
* * *
ROLLING NORTHEAST ON Avenida di Cintura, with his cell phone switched off to frustrate any trackers, Bolan pulled the strip of duct tape from Camara’s mouth and listened to him splutter, cursing what he’d heard when Bolan put the call on speaker.
“So, Diallo wants you dead. What should I do?” he asked the narco-trafficker.
“Kill him, the fat picada. Or, you let me go and I will kill him for you.”
“It’s a thought,” Bolan allowed, “but based on past performance, I doubt you could do the job.”
“At least untie my hands,” Camara said. “They’re growing numb.”
“You’re all right for a while yet,” Bolan said. “It may not matter, anyway.”
The mobster swiveled in his seat to stare at Bolan, wide-eyed. “You intend to kill me as he said? A favor to the general? I thought—”
“Consider it a favor to the country you’ve been looting, while your people live from hand to mouth,” Bolan replied. “I wouldn’t give your general a glass of water if he was on fire.”
“But you assist him by eliminating me!” Camara blurted out.
“How’s that?”
Camara thought about it for a moment, then suggested, “He knows I would testify against him, for betraying me.”
“What good would that do?” Bolan asked. “Your country doesn’t even have a prison that could hold him.”
“But they’re building one,” Camara answered. “And the charges might not be confined to Guinea-Bissau.”
“Meaning what?”
“Aside from smuggling the drugs, Diallo is responsible for various...atrocities, as you would say it...against rural villages and activists who have opposed him. And crimes committed in our civil war, before he rose to chief of staff. He could be tried before the World Court, yes? I have the evidence!”
“You say that now.”
“It’s true! I’ve planned against the day when he would abandon me. I never trusted him.”
“And once they’ve packed you off to Holland or wherever in protective custody, then what? You change your tune and blow the case?”
“Why would I?” Camara asked. “I would then have nothing left.”
“Except whatever money you’ve got stashed in banks around the world to tide you over,” Bolan said.
“You would have me starve?”
Bolan shot him a glance that made the mobster turn away, developing a sudden interest in the flow of traffic that surrounded them.
“There’s someone I can call,” he said, after another mile. “I don’t know whether he’ll have any interest in your offer, but I’ll pitch it to him.”
“And if he rejects it?” Camara asked.
“Then you’ll be of no further use to me,” Bolan replie
d.
“I will convince him.”
“That’s your problem. And another one,” Bolan said. “If he takes you up on it, and you decide to pull the plug before the case has run its course—”
“I’ve promised I will not!”
“And I trust you as far as I can throw this car one-handed,” Bolan said. “Word to the wise. Renege, and I’ll see to it that you don’t live to enjoy those offshore bank accounts.”
* * *
CAPTAIN MANSARÉ RECKONED he would have to spend another night at headquarters, waiting for the reports of bloodshed to come in. Perhaps one of the bodies found would be Nilson Medina’s. There was nothing that Mansaré could do about it, no realistic way that he could hope to find or punish any of the perpetrators, but he felt the call of duty to remain and make the wasted effort, anyway.
His first call of the night, therefore, surprised him.
“Any word about Medina yet?” the now-familiar voice inquired, after Mansaré’s curt “Olá?”
“Nothing,” Mansaré answered. He had entertained a fleeting hope that the American might find his missing officer, but dared not say as much.
“I had a word with General Diallo,” said the faceless stranger.
“What? Have you completely lost your mind?”
“You’re not the first to ask me that,” the caller said, a trace of wry amusement in his tone. “Let’s say the votes aren’t in.”
“Why would you call the general?” Mansaré asked.
“To see if his men had Medina.”
“And he said?”
“Nothing, at first. He played dumb, but I got him with my second offer of a trade.”
“A trade? Did you say second offer?” Suddenly, Mansaré felt as if he’d lost his place within their conversation.
“Right,” the caller said. “He wasn’t interested in my first bid, which is why I’m calling you.”
“First bid?”
“I offered him Edouard Camara for Medina. Had him on the speaker phone. Camara was surprised to hear his buddy tell me I should waste him.”
“Wait. You have Camara with you?”
“That’s affirmative. And since he got the brush-off from Diallo, he’s decided it might be a good idea to turn state’s evidence.”
“You mean, to testify?” Mansaré asked.
“That’s it. He’s talking drugs and international connections, murders, war crimes, take your pick.”
“He’ll testify against Diallo?”
“Against anyone he’s ever worked with, from the way it sounds. If there’s a court that you can trust, he’ll give you evidence. And if there’s not, he’s willing to go elsewhere.”
Mansaré knew that could only mean the International Criminal Court, established in 2002. Guinea-Bissau wasn’t a signatory of the statute that had established the court, but if Mansaré could place his evidence before that tribunal somehow...
“Camara will surrender? To me?”
“You pick the time and place,” the caller said, “and I’ll deliver. Make it fairly soon, though. I still have to call Diallo back and set up our exchange.”
“The second bid, you mean. What did you offer him?” Mansaré asked.
“A planeload of cocaine,” the caller said. “After the stash he lost the night before last, he was bound to go for it.”
“And you will trade these drugs for Nilson’s life?”
“Diallo thinks so,” the American replied. “I’ll have to wait and see how it shakes out.”
“You plan to double-curse him, then?” Mansaré asked.
“It’s double-cross,” the caller said, that note of levity again. “I wouldn’t want to telegraph my punches. Let’s say that the general should trust me just as far as I trust him.”
“You don’t expect to get Medina back,” Mansaré said, his sense of dread returning.
“Stranger things have happened, but I wouldn’t bet your pension on a happy ending.”
“No,” Mansaré said. “I’m not sure I would recognize one, as it is.”
“Well, tell me where to drop Camara. Maybe you can work one out, yourself.”
“Why not the old American embassy?” Mansaré suggested. “On Avenida do Agosto. Shall we say one hour?”
“We’ll be there,” the caller said, and cut the link between them.
* * *
“TIME TO GO,” a voice said, coming to Nilson Medina from a distance, through the crimson fog that filled his skull like cotton batting.
Did he mutter something in response? Medina wasn’t sure and frankly didn’t care. The pain was everything, all he could think about, if this could even qualify as thinking. Time to go? Go where? Was it the voice of Death informing him that he had suffered amply for one lifetime, and was now released?
If so, it might be worthwhile to respond.
Medina opened his right eye a little, squinting through a film of blood. His left eye was too swollen to respond. No matter. One eye was enough to recognize the scowling face of his interrogator and bring back the memories of all that he had suffered here—wherever here might be.
“You hear me?” asked the leader of the men who’d snatched Medina from his flat hours or eons earlier.
Medina answered, or believed he had, but got a stinging slap as his reward. Compared to the pervasive pain that throbbed and radiated through his body, that blow barely registered.
“You speak when spoken to!” his captor ordered.
But Medina coughed instead, spraying the surly face with bloody phlegm.
He could see the fist draw back, prepare to strike, but someone on the sidelines gripped the rising arm and muttered that the general said no more.
Medina wondered what he’d done to earn the great man’s favor, then decided that he didn’t care. It hardly mattered now, in any case. If he wasn’t already dying from his injuries, Medina knew that they wouldn’t release him.
Hurried hands unbound Medina, caught him when he slumped and would have fallen from his chair onto the concrete floor. They got him on his feet and kept him there, though every aching bone and muscle in his body answered to the pull of gravity. Medina’s clothes were all in tatters, but they forced his arms into a raincoat’s baggy sleeves, then cinched its belt around his waist. Medina thought he had to look like a scarecrow, but there were no mirrors in the warehouse to confirm it for his single blurry eye.
His captors led him toward the exit, nearly dragging him because his legs had turned to rubber, hoisting him across the exit’s threshold and propelling him toward one of several waiting cars. No blindfold, which confirmed Medina’s first suspicion that he wouldn’t be released alive.
And what of that? Did any of it matter now? As best he could recall, Medina hadn’t spilled the only secret that his captors seemed concerned about. He hadn’t named Matt Cooper, and couldn’t have revealed the tall man’s whereabouts even if he had been inclined to do so.
It was enough to know that Cooper was still at large, still fighting.
He would make the bastards pay.
* * *
“YOU PLAY YOUR CARDS RIGHT,” Bolan told Camara, as they rolled northeastward toward the former U.S. embassy, “and you should come out of this thing in decent shape.”
“I doubt it,” Camara said, sounding glum.
“Consider the alternative,” Bolan suggested. “You’re still breathing. Count it as a bonus.”
“But for how long, eh? Diallo has long arms. He’ll stop at nothing to eliminate me when he realizes that I’ve turned against him.”
“How’s that any different from him telling me to kill you?” Bolan asked. “He’s finished with you, either way. Your job’s to get him first, or help the law take care of him.”
“The law!” Camara s
coffed. “What law? Suppose that he allows himself to be arrested, rather than dispatching troops to overthrow the government. Suppose, also, that the Supreme Court Justices agree to hear his case, and they convict him. What becomes of our Diallo then? Do you think the First Squadron will hold him? That his troops will let him spend a single night in custody?”
“Just take it one step at a time,” Bolan suggested. “Tell your story to the captain, listen to his plan, see what he has in mind.”
“It all comes out the same,” Camara answered. “With my death.”
“This deal was your idea,” Bolan reminded him. “Remember the alternative.”
“Of course. Death now or death tomorrow, possibly next week. I should be thankful, I suppose.”
“We’ve got a saying in the States. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Gift horse?” Camara wore a puzzled frown.
“Because he might just bite your head off,” Bolan finished with a stinger of his own.
“I know you want to kill me,” Camara said. “You believe I am an evil man.”
“Belief,” Bolan replied, “doesn’t enter into it. It’s not an article of faith for me. You deal in drugs and human misery for profit. If you’re not an evil man, who is?”
“The general!” Camara said. “At least I never swore an oath to God and country, as he did. You ask too much of me, a simple man raised in poverty.”
“Keep playing that tune,” Bolan said. “Maybe, if you can make it out the other side of this alive, you’ll find a new job as a televangelist.”
Camara shifted gears and asked, “Will you return the cocaine to Diallo, as you said?”
“I’ll play as straight with him,” Bolan said, “as he does with me.”
“You think he means to cheat you, then?”
“Don’t you?”
“Of course,” Camara said. “I have no doubt of it.”
“Well, there you go.”
“What if your friend is still alive?”
“My worry,” Bolan said. “Just concentrate on holding up your end of the agreement with the men who plan on keeping you alive.”
“I will,” the mobster said, “if they can find a court to listen.”
“Have a little faith,” Bolan told him, hearing it ring hollow even as he spoke the words.
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