Bolan was here, heading up this five-man team, because a minor royal from a European house was also a serving marine, and in the course of doing his duty, he had found himself targeted by the Taliban, a small faction of which had decided that a plan to behead the royal and his bodyguard, to be filmed and uploaded to the YouTube website, might just cause a whole load of embarrassment.
So it would. That was why the President of the United States had personally requested that the soldier step in. He was the man for the job, and he was discreet.
Recon had told him that the royal and his bodyguard were kept in the farthest building, shackled and under armed guard by three men. There were three others in the closest building who were resting while their comrades took watch. Two men were on foot patrol. They had been watched for three circuits and timed. They were now at the optimum distance for the attack force to move.
The landscape was flat and arid. In the distance, low hills rose, goats rested for the night. There were no other dwellings, no other people, in hearing or sight. The Taliban faction had deliberately chosen the location. If they’d sent Bolan a text message asking him what he wanted, they couldn’t have done better.
Bolan detailed Symons and Prentiss to keep the base secured. Hillier was the senior officer on the mission, and to him Bolan entrusted the advance. He was to scout the area around the far building and act as watch. While he did that, Bolan and Frewin, a saturnine marine with few words but the eyes of a man who had seen much, would take the secondary building and eliminate the sleeping Taliban. They were outnumbered three to two, so they would need speed to gain the advantage.
Hillier moved off at Bolan’s prompting, and they gave him a two-minute start. Frewin watched through his night vision monocle, grunting when Hillier reached the first of the occupied buildings.
Following the soldier’s lead, Frewin followed as they tracked in Hillier’s wake, their earpieces alert to any word of change from base. It was clear: the patrol was nowhere near.
While Hillier established watch on the second target building, Bolan and Frewin took in the first. There was only one doorway and two windows that were covered with plastic sheeting, which would probably make a noise when cut. They couldn’t afford to rouse those inside. Bolan took a chance and tried the door; it gave easily. Three shapes huddled on the floor, covered in blankets.
Nodding to Frewin, the Executioner drew the Gillette stainless-steel knife that he had honed earlier in the day. The marine did likewise. They moved inside and took the two nearer figures, bending and executing them each with a simple clinical stroke. The third man was awakened by the faint sound and was rising, his mouth open to cry out, when Frewin’s boot caught him in the face, strangling any cry at birth. The marine followed the blow by pinning the man and finishing the job.
Bolan and Frewin moved toward the main target. Hillier saw them approach through his monocle, reporting in a whisper into his mic.
“Objectives one and two on the left hand from the door, far wall. Targets at seven o’clock and eleven o’clock.”
“Launch cover now,” Bolan replied.
As Hillier fired a smoke grenade through the sheeted window, Bolan and Frewin slipped masks into place and broke into a run, taking the door with a crash, one man turning to each side. The confusion generated by the smoke had slowed the Taliban fighters’ reactions. Short bursts from the infiltrators’ machine pistols took out the two guards before they had a chance to recover.
Bolan and Frewin took a shackled man each and pulled them through the choking smoke. As they did, they heard an exchange of fire cut the night air. Looking across quickly, Bolan could see that Hillier had taken out the two foot patrol guards as they rushed back toward the buildings.
The solider took the gag and blindfold from the royal and his guard.
“Can you walk?” he asked them, indicating their shackles.
“More like hobble, but bloody quick,” the royal replied with a grin. “Just show me the way so I can get these cut off.”
“We have two men with tools a few hundred yards out,” Bolan replied.
“Thanks... That was a bloody good show,” the royal said as they started to move. He indicated his bodyguard. “I think we could both learn a bit from you lads.”
Chapter Four
“I hope you enjoy your stay with us, Mr. Cooper, and that it proves to be a productive visit.”
The customs officer grinned broadly as he closed Bolan’s case, returned the passport and visa in the name of Matthew Cooper and slipped the buff envelope into his hip pocket. It contained three hundred USD and had been advised as the best way for any businessman to get through customs and into Lagos without any undue worries. And so it had. Bolan figured that if this was any kind of indication, then it was going to be one hell of a trip. Frankly he would be relieved as soon as he could get away from so-called civilization and out into the field.
It would have suited him better if he could have come straight from Afghanistan, with Stony Man forwarding the relevant papers to a military base along the way and a phone call briefing from Hal. But the big Fed had determined that it would be better if he returned to the U.S. and met with Benjamin Williams and Adam Mars-Jones face-to-face.
The prospect of some serious jet lag on the round-trip journey from the east to the west and back again had not put him in the best of moods. This was something that had hardly been improved by hearing from Williams about the state of Nigeria and the problems within its borders. In truth, negotiating his way around the issues struck him as something that was better suited to a diplomat who could fire a gun rather than a soldier.
It was only when Mars-Jones had made his point that Mack’s view had changed. “Mr. Cooper, at present the whole continent of Africa is in flux. It is not just about religions, it is about the political ideologies that are attached to those religions. If the unrest that is sweeping across the Arabic regions of Africa comes toward the south, it could set off a tidal wave of disturbances that would engulf the continent as a whole, and set up conditions for power struggles that could affect Europe, the Americas and even spread across the states of the old USSR. Vast political bases could change. The world could change and probably not for the best.”
In a time of economic upheaval and turmoil, there was always a political flux and the chance of a sudden void being filled by something that used hate and fear to achieve its ends. This was what had blighted the middle of the twentieth century. Could it happen again?
“Why is taking on the Brotherhood of the Eagle so important?” he had asked. “Are you telling me that they’re Christian? Then by your terms, they’d be up against the forces you see as destabilizing.”
“They say they are Christian and perhaps they are,” Mars-Jones mused. “Or perhaps they have an agenda that we have not, as yet, quite worked out. Our informant discovered that they have men in the Muslim factions in north Nigeria. Whether these men are spies, or whether they have some other function...”
The unknown enemy was always more dangerous, simply for that reason. There was no time to work out their motives; there was only time to root them out and destroy them.
That was why Matt Cooper, representative of a U.S. chemical corporation negotiating a lucrative contract for pesticides with the Nigerian government, had landed at Murtala Muhammed International near Lagos with a letter in his billfold arranging a meeting with Wole Achebe, the minister for agriculture.
The airport was crowded and hot, despite the air-conditioning that was running full blast.
Exiting the building, the only real difference was the heat that hit like a wall of fire as Bolan stepped out into the middle of the day. There were several cab drivers vying for his attention, and as soon as he had calmed them down enough to actually get into a cab and issue his destination, he was being assailed by a hail of questions from his driver. How lon
g was he staying, what was he doing, did he need a guide, was this his first time here, if he was meeting the minister then he had to be an important—rich—man, and he would need a driver for his stay, wouldn’t he? All of the questions were delivered as one stream, without much pause for Bolan to answer, even if he had been inclined.
His head began to throb in time with the deep funk beat of the old Fela Kuti track thumping from the antique cassette player wired into the battered cab. It was a song from the days when the singer was beaten by the then-regime, and to even listen to him marked you down as a dissident. The military had ruled the country with an iron fist in those years. Looking at the driver in his own rearview mirror, Bolan could see that he was lined and scarred, showing years of hard life.
“You have to have a lion’s heart to live in this country, I hear,” he said, breaking across the man’s stream of questions. “Only if you do, can you have the wings of an eagle and soar free.”
The driver stopped dead in the middle of his monologue and studied his passenger shrewdly in the rearview mirror, his eyes off the road but never deviating in his swerving path between the cars, motorbikes and pedestrians with little to do but follow their own individual sets of rules.
“That is a very strange thing to say, my friend,” the driver murmured in a surprisingly soft voice. “Have you been here before?”
Bolan inclined his head. “No, but you hear things. Word gets out.”
The driver leaned forward and switched off the cassette player. “You should be very careful how you speak. I remember a time when the military ruled this land, and a man could die for saying the wrong thing.”
“And now?”
“A man can still die for saying the wrong thing. If you wish to play with the Brotherhood of the Eagle, be aware that they take their games as seriously as life and death, my friend. You are a businessman, yes?”
“I’m here on business,” Bolan replied in a circumspect manner.
“Then you know that in order to get business done, it is necessary to be careful about what you say and who you speak to.”
“I do. But I also know that there are people you can talk to, and you don’t always have to question them first. You just need to be able to read the signs.”
He saw in the rearview mirror the cab driver break a crooked grin. “You are a smart man, and I think you are in more than one kind of business. Forget all that I asked you before. I ask you just the one question. But not yet. Look first out the back window and tell me what you see.”
As much as the narrow seat and slitted back window of the cab would allow, Bolan did as he was asked. Weaving through traffic, he could see four young men on motorbikes. They were keeping an equal distance from the cab, never coming any closer despite gaps in the flow that would allow them to speed past.
“Muggers,” the cab driver said. “They like to come through the traffic and attack tourists. Usually, they come for those stupid enough to leave windows open, which most do in the heat. You haven’t. I wonder if they are expecting you. You know, I once had a woman in my cab—a black British woman—whose family came from here. She had come back to find her roots. She found they were not here— She did not listen to me and was stupid enough to put a camcorder out the window and have it snatched from her hand. They nearly broke her wrist. I think she soon got a flight back to London. Do you think you were expected?”
“I shouldn’t be. How about we turn the tables, ask them a few questions?”
The cab driver chuckled. “You are mad, my friend. I might be setting you up...but then, I think you are confident you could take me down, too.”
“Let’s not put it to the test,” Bolan replied.
Another chuckle was his only answer before he was thrown across the seat by a sudden maneuver.
Swerving across the traffic and raising a cloud of dust from the dirt that swirled in the air then settled on the tarmac, the battered cab turned sharply on the corner of a side street, cutting across traffic that also screeched as straining brakes tried to prevent a collision. No vehicles hit the cab, which scattered pedestrians in its path, yelling and cursing. However, the taxi smashed a fruit stall with its tight turn. Some people threw the bouncing produce at the retreating car for hire. In its wake, those vehicles that had avoided a collision from the front were not so lucky from the rear, as those behind them failed to halt in time, careering into their back ends with a crunch of metal, a cacophony of broken glass and angry voices. Police whistles sounded as the military and civilian police rushed to stop the fights that were breaking out.
Under normal circumstances, it might have been expected that the chaos would also halt the bikers in their tracks. These were not normal circumstances, nor were they normal bikers. They were used to chaos—in truth, were usually the ones responsible for its cause—and so ignored the traffic and milling crowds, weaving between the two and kicking away those who strayed too close. It took them longer than they would have liked to navigate a path through the locked-together tangle of metal that was the traffic around the corner, but as they grouped together to take the turn and head down the road, they could see ahead of them that the cab had slowed, its brake lights glowing, as it waited for them to come in sight.
The four bikers exchanged glances. They had realized their mark had caught on to their plan, but could not fathom why, in that case, the cab would want them to catch up. All they knew was that they had a mission.
Bolan looked out the back window and saw them cluster at the head of the street. “Are you armed?” he asked the cab driver.
“I would be foolish if I was not, on these streets,” the cab driver said with a grin. “Did you pay enough to get any weapons in?”
Despite the situation, Bolan had to laugh. “This end may be fine, but I wouldn’t try my chances back in the States. No, I’m light.”
The cab driver slipped his hand into the glove compartment and pulled out an old revolver, handing it over the backseat. “Then in that case you take this, my friend. It will allow me to concentrate on my driving.”
Bolan took the revolver, an old British Webley service revolver. Bolan felt the heavy weight in his hands and quickly checked it over. It had been cleaned and oiled recently, and despite its age had been kept in good condition. It was fully loaded.
“Spare ammunition?” Bolan asked. But before the question had even fallen fully from his lips, a box was handed over the backseat.
“My father gave me that,” the cab driver said. “He was not in the British army, but he knew how to fight. He taught me. Do not waste the ammunition. It is bloody expensive, and I will charge you,” the cab driver said with a straight face.
By now the bikers had throttled and were catching the cab as the driver slowly stepped on the gas, keeping a good distance but allowing them to gain ground on him.
“Wait for the whites of their eyes, as they say in your old films,” the driver muttered. “And hold tight.”
The cab veered around another corner at the far end of the street, doubling back on its direction as it came out into a residential street, wider than the one they had just left, with low-level adobe houses that had front yards with some livestock and scrub grass. The road was quieter, the traffic coming toward them veering from their path as it noted the bikers now in their wake.
Bolan lowered the window on the rear door of the cab and leaned out, steadying his arm on the door frame. The Webley had a hell of a kick, and the erratic swerve of the cab’s balding tires on the road did not help him to keep an accurate aim. Regardless, although his first shot flew high, the second hit home. The bikers were fanned out, with the rider on each flank slightly in advance of the two in center. The man on Bolan’s right parted company with his bike as the heavy slug hit him in the center of the chest. He didn’t so much fly backward as stay still in the air while the bike beneath him moved forward, sudde
nly riderless and skittering across the rough road. If Bolan had been lucky, then the bike would have careered into one of the other riders. However, the bike skidded harmlessly to a halt at the curb.
The bikers responded by starting to weave, making it even harder to aim with any degree of accuracy. Two of them took out weapons of their own and returned fire. Fortunately for Bolan, they were not the best of shots, particularly when having to move in such an erratic manner. Their shots flew high and wide.
Hitting the cab was not their prime directive. As they provided cover, the biker on the far flank stepped up the pace, gaining on the vehicle. He would soon be at an angle where Bolan wouldn’t be able to get a shot off at him.
The cab driver realized this at the same time as the soldier and took his own action. He yelled a warning before stepping hard on the brake and turning the car into a skid that slewed it around, so that as the biker approached at full speed, he found himself staring head-on toward the hood of the cab. It was possible, for the briefest moment, to see the look of horror and resignation on his face as his bike hit the heavy fender of the old taxi with a jarring crunch. The lightweight Kawasaki bike the bandit favored was perfect for speed and maneuverability, but no match for the heavily reinforced fender at the front of a mule of a car. Bolan, who had pulled himself again into the cab as it began to turn, was thrown against the back of the driver’s seat with a sickening thud as the bike hit, but that was nothing compared to the flight the biker took over the car, coming to rest with an equally sickening thud on the road. He landed headfirst, breaking his neck.
“Hey, come on, my friend, quick,” the cab driver yelled as he recovered from the impact. The two remaining bikes were closing on them, and Bolan did not have time to draw a bead on either. He could see they had hit the brakes as the cab came to a halt but were skidding on the loose surface of the road, fighting to keep control and as unable to open fire as Bolan.
Nigeria Meltdown Page 4