And what of it?
This was a logical result of his decision to collaborate with Matt Cooper in a two-man war against Camara’s network and the army that supported it. Medina, at some level, knew that victory was hopeless. Had he simply reached a point in life where he had seen too much corruption and no longer cared what happened next? All that mattered was if he could strike a passing blow against the blight that stained his homeland’s honor. What had he achieved, in fact?
Nothing, perhaps—except to some extent the recovery of his diminished pride. And given what awaited him tonight, he would make do with that.
But his torturer...
If Medina saw a chance to sink his teeth into the captain’s throat, how sweet the blood from his carotid artery would taste. Now that would be a fitting final meal before his execution. Sadly, he reckoned that the prospect was a fantasy.
How long remaining now, before Cooper kept his rendezvous with General Diallo? Did he have some trick in mind, to shift the odds he faced? If they’d been able to communicate, Medina would have told Cooper to move on, forget about him and destroy the drugs they’d stolen from Camara. He could always try to kill the general another time, perhaps from ambush with a sniper’s rifle or the RPG.
It seemed a bitter waste for the American to sacrifice himself this way, when he had to know Medina’s time was nearly up. They might be comrades for the moment, but they weren’t relatives or lifelong friends. Their brief relationship, contrived by circumstance, demanded no self-sacrifice.
Medina wondered what he would have done for Cooper if their situations were reversed. Might he have risked his life one final time, certain of losing it, for someone he had known for barely two days’ time? What was the point?
Simply to be a man, perhaps. To keep his word and honor a friendship forged in battle.
Knowing that he would be responsible for Cooper’s death, and would end forever any hope of the American combating evil on some other front, Medina’s disappointment with himself increased. Whatever he’d accomplished since he joined forces with Cooper, he was a failure in the end.
Tears stung his one good eye and spilled over his cheek. Medina cursed his weakness—but his muttered words were lost as an explosion rocked Diallo’s camp.
15
Bolan dropped a second round into the E1 mortar, turned his face away and heard the pong sound as it launched, two more rounds ready in his hands. He figured four on one mark ought to get the party started, then he’d make adjustments as he went, marching a storm of high-explosive charges packed with pure cocaine across the length and breadth of General Diallo’s camp.
How much coke would survive each blast? He didn’t have a clue, but there should be enough flake mingled with the drifting smoke and dust down there to make his adversaries fuzzy-headed, at the very least. Toss in the shock waves and the flying shrapnel from successive shell bursts, and he had a fairly decent recipe for hell on earth.
Just what the doctor ordered for a general who’d run amok.
Nilson Medina would be in the middle of it, but protected somewhat by the prefab building that confined him if he hugged the deck. Bolan could do no more to help him at the moment, though he still clung to a slim hope that he might extract Medina once he got inside the compound. If he got inside.
Big if, and very premature.
With two more mortar rounds airborne, Bolan shifted the stovepipe weapon four degrees to starboard, braced it and grabbed two more rounds from the ranks on his left. Although mortars weren’t conventional firearms per se, their barrels still heated up during protracted firing. It was Bolan’s job, as gunner, to let the weapon cool a bit between four-minute salvos of eight rounds per minute, meaning that with downtime, his hundred hand-packed rounds should be expended within twenty-odd minutes.
A lifetime for many downrange—and time enough, perhaps, for General Diallo’s spotters to determine his location, if they kept their wits about them under fire.
No problem.
By the time his last shell left the mortar’s smoking tube, Bolan would be in motion, racing down the wooded hillside to retrieve his RPG and launch the second phase of his assault. How many of the hostiles would be down and out by then?
Enough, perhaps.
Besides the explosions downrange, he now heard screams and furious shouting. Diallo’s soldiers likely hadn’t known what to expect when they were rounded up for duty here. If any of the troops on hand were veterans of Guinea-Bissau’s civil war, the shelling might revive old memories, but no one who’d enlisted since the 1999 cease-fire would have been under fire by mortars. He heard panic in the camp, and knew that it could work for him when he went down to find the general.
Time for another pause, Bolan wearing a pair of work gloves as he moved the stovepipe once again, targeting new coordinates. His next rounds would be lofted toward the compound’s motor pool, depriving panicked soldiers of escape by any means but running for their lives. If he could detonate the fuel tanks of their cars and trucks, so much the better, spreading chaos and the stench of burning fuel along with drifting clouds of smoke and powder.
He had another twist in mind for the Diallo team, but wasn’t activating it until his mortar rounds were nearly spent, when he was ready to approach the camp on foot. Whether it would assist him or rebound disastrously was anybody’s guess, but Bolan felt obliged to try it anyway.
The Executioner was pulling out all stops against an army, wondering if it would be his last go-round.
And he was living large—like every other day.
* * *
THE DETONATION OF ANOTHER mortar shell—was it the eighth or ninth, so far?—knocked General Diallo sprawling with its shock wave. Cursing, lurching to his feet once more, he felt a wetness on the inside of his thigh and feared he might have soiled himself, then was relieved to see a crimson stain instead. No blood was jetting from the wound, so his femoral artery hadn’t been sliced, and he could still walk well enough despite sharp stabs of pain.
It was better than crawling, when his troops were running aimlessly about the camp, squealing like children, others stretched out on the ground wounded or dead. If their commander crumpled, how could they recover from the first shock of bombardment to redeem themselves? More to the point, how would Diallo himself manage to escape?
The damned American had tricked him after all. Weighing the odds, he had decided not to face Diallo like a man, but rather hang back at a distance, wreaking havoc on the compound where Diallo’s soldiers couldn’t reach him with their small-arms fire.
Another mortar shell exploded in the camp, this one between two trucks parked in the motor pool. A storm of shrapnel ripped through both, and one truck’s fuel tank detonated in a ball of oily fire that lit the night. A man caught in the blast went reeling toward the fence line, swathed in flames and screaming on his jerky run to nowhere.
Choking on a cloud of smoke and dust that drifted over him, Diallo noted that his head was swimming, as if he’d drunk too much coca-leaf liqueur. Smoke inhalation might have that effect, he thought, and coughed to clear his lungs. It helped a little, but Diallo stopped when something else distracted him. Oddly enough, the leg wound seemed to pain him less the more he walked on it, so he kept moving, shouting at his frightened men to rally.
And all the while, the shells kept falling, ripping through his trucks and staff cars, shattering their bodies, twisting frames, spreading a lake of burning fuel that lit the camp nearly as bright as day. Diallo viewed the wreckage, understanding that their only hope of getting out now was to kill the man responsible for all that havoc, to erase him from existence as if he’d never been born.
“To me, men! All of you, to me!” he bellowed, moving through the heady haze.
* * *
ABDOUL LOUA DUCKED AND DODGED his way across the compound, covering his nose and
mouth with one hand as he ran through swirls of battle mist, feeling peculiarly light-headed and yet oddly energized, somehow. He’d been awake for nearly twenty hours, first tracking and capturing Medina, then securing him for Diallo and delivering him to the general’s forest camp, but now he seemed to be escaping the fatigue.
If only he could keep his eyes in proper focus, stop their random blurring.
Never mind. He had the prison shed fixed in his sights, no more than fifty yards ahead of him. The guard he’d left outside its padlocked door was gone, most likely frightened by the shelling, but Loua could deal with him later, assuming the negligent soldier survived. First, though, he needed to release the hostage and employ him in a bid to halt his friend’s bombardment of the camp.
For who else could it be, lobbing those mortar shells? An army weapon used against the army, and Medina’s cohort had already proved himself a more-than-able soldier. Somewhere in the days ahead, Loua would find the dealer who’d supplied him with the mortar. Possibly he’d taken it during the raid on Edouard Camara’s private arsenal, but Loua didn’t care about the weapon’s source just now. He had to stop the damned incessant march of high-explosive shells around the camp, while there were any soldiers left inside with wits and will enough to fight.
He reached the shed and pulled a key ring from his pocket, found it strangely cumbersome and awkward as he grappled with the padlock. Three tries got it done, by which time Loua had begun to curse his hands for joining in the plot against him. Finally, he tossed the lock aside, opened the corrugated metal door and stepped into the shed.
At a glance, it seemed to be empty. For a heartbeat, Loua thought his prisoner had fled, but then Medina charged him from his left, a corner that he would have checked immediately if his brain was functioning at full capacity, propelling Loua to his right, against the nearest wall. The shed vibrated from their impact, but its rattling noise was lost as new explosions rocked the camp.
Medina kicked at Loua, aiming for his groin, but Loua turned in time to save his future progeny and took it on the hip, then lashed back with his automatic rifle, hammering Medina’s face. The battered officer collapsed, lay moaning in the dirt while Loua kicked him twice, trying to crack his ribs, rewarded by dull grunting sounds of pain.
Submission, finally.
Cursing Medina and his ancestors, Loua reached down and hauled the stunned policeman to his feet, propelled him through the hut’s exit and out into the thunderous night. “Your friend’s come calling, Nilson. Do you hear him? Are you idiot enough to think that he can save you?
Half-turned toward him with a bloody grin, Medina said, “Not save me. Just kill you.”
“We’ll see who gets killed,” Loua raged. “If your boyfriend keeps firing, you’re next on the slab.”
“Let it be, then!” Medina replied with a wild whoop of laughter. “As long as you die at my side.”
* * *
BOLAN DROPPED HIS LAST two rounds into the E1 mortar, one behind the other in a rapid-fire sequence, and sent them arcing over treetops before plummeting to detonate in General Diallo’s camp. The compound’s motor pool was burning fiercely, lighting up the sky before him like a small town in the middle distance. Bolan sniffed the breeze and caught the faintest tang of fuel in flames.
Round one was finished. While survivors in the compound scrambled to right fires, collect their wits and rally to defend their site, Bolan reached out for his sat phone, tapping out a number from his memory.
The voice that answered was familiar to him now. Without preamble, Bolan asked, “You know Diallo’s country place outside Ponta Gardete?”
“I know where it is,” Mansaré answered.
“If you want to see some action, drop on by. They’re having fireworks, and you might find somebody you know.”
“Medina?”
“One way or another,” Bolan said. “It may not be too late.”
“I don’t have men enough to fight the army,” Mansaré said bitterly.
“There shouldn’t be too many of them left,” Bolan said, then he cut the link.
He left the mortar standing where it was, no danger now that it had sent its last round lofting toward Diallo’s forest hideaway. Bolan retrieved his FAL assault rifle and left the high ground, slide-stepping down the west slope of the ridge toward the tree line below him. Firelight was his guide now as he made his way through clingy undergrowth to reach the forward spot where he’d stashed his RPG-7 and cache of rockets.
Diallo’s troops had suffered through one taste of hell. They had another coming, and the Executioner wanted this one to be up close and personal.
In fact, the launcher could have reached Diallo’s camp from where he’d been, atop the ridge, except for trees that blocked his line of fire downhill. Phase two of Bolan’s strike was riskier, in that the RPG’s back-blast would make him visible to soldiers in the target zone, inviting hostile fire. Bolan would have to duck and run while he completed his dismantling of the compound, all the while keeping an eye out for Medina in the midst of chaos.
Simple, right. Like falling in an open grave.
He found the spot that he was looking for and slung his rifle, hoisted two fat satchels bristling with rockets that weighed nearly five pounds apiece. Say a hundred pounds even, before he lifted the fifteen-pound launcher and struck off again toward the camp.
Boot camp and Special Forces training had conditioned Bolan to living, working and fighting in conditions that would have made most men collapse. His life since the army, including a daily exercise routine during his “down” time, had kept him in top fighting form. Still, to slog through an African forest while laden with hardware was taxing, straps chafing his flesh, muscles aching from strain, his lungs fighting for each humid breath.
Never easy, but worth it. That was, if he won.
And behind it was the knowledge that winning was never a permanent thing. Every battle would be fought again and again, for as long as he lived. New terrain, perhaps. New faces on the enemy, maybe some variation in their motives.
But it all came down to mud and blood and guts, survival instinct taking over in the crunch.
The best man might not win, but he would damn sure do his best.
* * *
CAPTAIN MANSARÉ KNEW he was embarking on a fool’s errand—a suicide mission, perhaps—but he couldn’t stand idly by while another of his men was murdered by the same men who had dragged his homeland’s reputation through the muck of narco-trafficking. For years, he’d told himself that there was nothing to be done. Now, with a glimpse of something forced upon him, it would mean the death of soul and self to close his eyes and turn away.
Mansaré’s choice, but he wouldn’t compel his officers to share the risk against their will. Accordingly, he wasted precious time explaining what had happened—what was happening, that very moment, less than ten miles from their headquarters—and called for volunteers.
Of eighteen men on hand, only one slacker shook his head and left the rest, walking slump-shouldered under their collective glare of raw contempt. The rest rushed to the armory, retrieving automatic weapons that they rarely used, stuffing their pockets full of extra magazines.
Arming for war.
How many of them would return alive? Mansaré’s phantom caller had seemed confident that they would face no major opposition, but was he correct? Would he be dead before their convoy reached the camp outside Ponta Gardete? Was he even there, or was his last call some kind of elaborate trick designed to spark a battle to the death between Diallo’s soldiers and the Judicial Police?
No, Mansaré thought. Whatever the American had in mind, he had worked with Nilson Medina and had shown no hostility toward other members of the force. If not a friend, precisely, at least he seemed to be an ally of officers sickened by crime and corruption. Cleaning up the city—much less Guinea-B
issau—might be a futile endeavor, but what good were they to anyone if they never even tried?
When his men were armed, Mansaré led them to the motor pool. Eighteen men, including Mansaré, packed themselves into three Land Rover Defenders and rolled out of the ministry’s fenced parking lot with a snarling of 2.5-liter I4 turbo diesel engines. The captain double-checked his AK-47, making sure its magazine was seated properly and that he had a live round in the chamber, with the safety on. His sidearm was a Czech-made CZ 75, with twenty 9 mm Parabellum bullets in its magazine.
Mansaré hoped that it would be enough.
* * *
BOLAN REACHED THE TREE LINE twenty yards from Diallo’s command post, noting shrapnel damage to the prefab building from the mortar rounds. Smoke from the compound wafted his way on a vagrant breeze, and Bolan took time to slip on his gas mask, adjusting the straps that held it in place for an airtight fit. The goggle lenses made it slightly awkward to aim through the RPG’s UP-7V telescopic sight, but he managed, fixing its red dot on the south wall of the CP.
The HEAT round struck home, pierced the thin metal wall, then detonated into smoky thunder. Bolan had a second rocket loaded by the time the CP’s roof took flight, hoping the compound’s occupants were too disorganized and frightened to mark his first back-flash. That wouldn’t last long, though, and while he had a bit of breathing room, he sighted on the only truck still standing in one piece, at the far end of the motor pool.
Round two punched through the truck’s grille, detonating when it hit the engine block, and knocked the truck off-kilter; oily smoke and drugged fumes roiled from beneath the peeled-back hood. The fuel tank blew a moment later, by which time the Executioner was up and running with his slightly lighter burden, sprinting thirty yards along the camp’s perimeter before he stopped to aim and fire again.
Rogue Assault Page 17