Nigeria Meltdown

by Don Pendleton

“Man, I never thought I looked like a goat to you,” Ekwense muttered with a grin that was as much fueled by fear as humor, but he knew his task. He forged ahead at a quicker pace, wanting to get some space between himself and the enemy on his tail. At the same time he made sure that he beat down the path to make it look as though more than one man was walking ahead, making more noise than he would on his own to deceive those just out of sight.

  While he did that, the remaining men melted into the forest around the trail. It was densely packed in this part and provided enough cover as long as a person was able to negotiate the maze of branches, vines and roots that made for such a wall. Bolan picked his way through it, like all of them unwilling to make a path that was easily discernible. It did little to make their task simple, and it was a race against time to find effective cover.

  It was close and uncomfortable in the thick undergrowth that enveloped them. Bolan could not see any of his men, which was good, but by the same token left him uncertain to positioning in the event of a firefight. He would have to hope for the best, should it come to that. Sweat soaked his back and neck, and he wiped it from his forehead with a sleeve that was already damp in the humidity. Insects buzzed perpetually around him, and as he could not swat them, he could only hope that any bites were not toxic.

  The enemy approached at double time. They were making no attempt to recon, and that recklessness only puzzled the soldier. His puzzlement dissolved as the enemy came into view. Bolan recognized the thunder-faced Ehurie from a description Ekwense had given him.

  The solider had the gangster Brotherhood commander buttoned as a hothead, used to things going his way and inclined to fly into a rage if that was not the case. It looked like Bolan was proved right. He knew Ehurie was at least part of the high command, if not commander of the base, and for him to act like this was suicidal and stupid.

  So be it.

  As the detail Ehurie led hit the center of the path where Bolan’s men were located, they were suddenly hit by a volley of shots that took out three men immediately. Unable to risk rapid fire because of their own men located in the undergrowth opposite, the fighters had taken single-shot aim to thin the ranks and, before the enemy had a chance to react, had burst from their hiding places to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

  Bolan had fired one shot and seen it pluck at Ehurie’s sleeve, throwing the shaved-headed commander off balance, and make it impossible for Bolan to accurately sight and risk a second shot. Cursing, the big American made to break cover and take on the enemy leader.

  It was only at that moment that he realized that his attention had been too narrowly focused. He felt the sour breath on his cheek and the iron grip of the arm that encircled his chest before the blade of the knife settled at his throat. The soldier who had him in his grasp was pushed up against him, enabling Bolan to guess who he was from his height and body mass.

  “You. The only one?” he asked in a whisper that was far calmer than the adrenaline pumping through his system should have allowed.

  “Only me. Only need for one.”

  “You took your time.” Bolan wanted to keep him talking, each second allowing his mind to race, his muscles to instinctively flex and look for a weak spot in the grip.

  “Just need to be rid of you.”

  “What about the base?” Bolan asked.

  “What about it? Just a communications point. It can be sacrificed to the greater good.”

  “Those were your orders?”

  “If necessary. Not that it matters to you.”

  Bolan felt his grip tighten, the knife start to dig as the blade rotated ready to slice across his neck. It meant that the man behind him had raised his arm slightly, allowing just enough room for Bolan to act. It opened up the body of his attacker so that Bolan could flex the elbow that was not totally enclosed in a grip, driving it up so that it rammed into his opponent’s ribs and the hollow between the rib cage and the shoulder joint. At the same time he raked the heel of his combat boot down the man’s shin, weakening his stance on the opposite side.

  The knife raked up and across Bolan’s face, catching the top of his ear as he bobbed and weaved. He felt the air move as it crossed in front of his eye, the merest fraction from blinding him. It was enough of a margin. He pushed away and made some space, turning awkwardly while still in the man’s grip to come face-to-face with Saro Wiwa. The density of the woodland pushed them close together so that Bolan was looking directly into the cold, dead eyes of the Brotherhood traitor.

  There was no time, nor was there room, for him to draw a weapon. He would have to rely on his skills alone. He feinted and weaved as the military man thrust at him, adept enough to avoid any attempt at blocking or disabling his knife hand.

  As Saro Wiwa thrust at him, instead of feinting Bolan stepped into the blow, trusting his timing to duck beneath it. He slammed his hard-edged hand into the military man’s groin, following it with a hammer blow to the side of his head as Saro doubled with the sudden agony. The big American sank on top of him as he fell, delivering repeated blows to the head, pinning his knife arm beneath a knee. Saro Wiwa struggled, but was disoriented and wild in striking out. Bolan snatched the knife from his hand and with the same momentum thrust it into the military man’s neck. The cold, dead eyes were now just that.

  Breathing heavily, Bolan was aware that a pitched battle was still going on at his rear. Rising and gulping down air, he pushed through the undergrowth and into the fray.

  In the chaos, it was easy to note that his men had the upper hand. The only casualty was Kanu, who was on the ground. The man he had been fighting lay beside him. Bolan’s men had used their pangas and knives, and their superior numbers had allowed them to take out the Brotherhood men with some ease. Bolan left his men to their mopping up and moved over to where Kanu lay. The ground around him was soaked with blood from a gut wound that was deep and incisive. Bolan tried to make him comfortable.

  The lanky fighter’s eyes were glassy and faraway, finding it hard to focus on Bolan as he leaned over him. The Nigerian’s voice was likewise distant, words coming faintly and as though through fog.

  “Don’t worry, Cooper. I’m done. So’s that bastard. Look after my boys, let them get home.”

  There was nothing Bolan could say to him. He nodded, promised to look after Kanu’s family and watched the light fade from the man’s eyes.

  An exchange of gunfire up ahead distracted him. Ekwense. The cab-driving fighter had not tracked back but had taken cover to stop any of the enemy who escaped the ambush. A look around showed Bolan that Ehurie—the man he should have taken out if Saro Wiwa had not distracted him—was not among the casualties.

  Bolan cursed and set off at a run toward the sound of gunfire, racking his SMG in readiness. He could feel, rather than see, the cab driver’s fellow fighters at his heels.

  The overgrown path twisted and turned, and they could not see what had happened until they were virtually on top of where Ekwense lay. He was twisted, with his SMG laying just out of reach, stitched from shoulder to groin by gunfire. His eyes were staring wide, and his lips curled back over his teeth in the rictus smile of death.

  “That bastard will pay for this,” Samuel breathed, stopping abruptly behind Bolan as the soldier leaned over their dead comrade.

  “He may already have,” Bolan commented, indicating the trail of blood that led away along the path. “Victor wasn’t the only one hit.”

  “Let him stay alive long enough,” Samuel snarled. He leaned over Ekwense, closing his eyes. “Goodbye, old friend. I will look after Charity for you.” He looked up, along the path. “Let’s get the son of a bitch.”

  Bolan laid a hand on his arm. “Not at our own expense. Stay calm, Samuel, especially if you want to look after his family. Okay?”

  The fighter looked at Bolan, for a moment his eyes far away, before he snapped back to th
e present. He nodded with a grunt before getting to his feet. He looked around. “Who else have we lost besides Victor and Kanu?”

  “Saro Wiwa,” Bolan said quickly. “Stray shot got the poor bastard. Didn’t have a chance.” He did not want to explain what had really happened and risk dissent or disillusion among the remaining men. “We do this for the three of them, okay?”

  The assembled men agreed, and Bolan led them off at double time, headed toward the base camp and the final encounter. So far they had seen off around twenty men. How many were left for them to fight?

  * * *

  EHURIE LIMPED, STUMBLED and ran the rest of the way back to camp. He had nailed that bastard who had stepped out on him, but not before he had taken shots in the left shoulder and arm, which now hung helpless at his side as he approached the first guard post.

  Two men rushed out to greet him, supporting and half carrying him the rest of the way back. The guard he had left in charge saw them approach and came running with a medical kit. Dragged into the shelter of a hut, Ehurie was laid out by his men, and had to gasp for breath and to speak as his wounds were dressed as well as possible.

  “They’re on their way,” he croaked. “Pull all remaining men back to this circle. Go call Abiola. Tell him to put contingency plans into operation as communications may go down. Tell him his planted man was shit. The American is still alive. He can get back to Lagos in time, if we don’t stop him, but they must be ready.”

  He fell back, the effort and the pain exhausting him. He was aware that the guard he had made officer-in-charge had rushed out to fulfill his orders. The other two guards hovered over him. A burst of anger fueled him enough to rise on his good arm.

  “What the hell are you doing here? Get out—you have a base to defend...” He sank back with the effort, almost sobbing as he sucked in breath. The two guards saluted him and hurried out.

  Ehurie had a sinking feeling that the revolution was going to go ahead without him. After all that work, he would miss out. It was one of the few things that could make him cry. He could feel the tears of self-pity and frustration well up.

  They did not come.

  The brace of explosions, so close together that they were almost as one echo of another, jolted him out of his slough of despondency.

  The American was here....

  Chapter Eighteen

  As they approached the base, the track opening out, Bolan and his men were brought up short by volleys of fire that raked the dirt before them. They were fortunate that the men before them were nervous and jumpy, firing just a fraction before their enemy came into range and so giving them the early warning necessary to duck back and take cover.

  The forest on either side of the hacked-out path was still dense, but a little thinner than where they had mounted the ambush, making it easier for them to take some kind of cover. While four of the men set up a covering fire, Bolan indicated that he would undertake a recon. He did more than that. As he moved forward through the undergrowth, he could see that the base—a cleared area that lay only a few yards from his position—was in chaos, with men running around trying to mount a guard, secure huts that presumably housed ordnance and equipment of some kind and find cover as they were spooked by the sudden flurry of fire.

  It was evident to Bolan that the ranks of Brotherhood fighters at this base had been thinned considerably. Rather than return to his men and waste time briefing them, he opted to act and trust that they would have the sense to follow. He took two grenades and launched them from where he stood, having adjusted his position to give him the necessary space for throwing. He didn’t worry if that attracted attention. It would only add to the imminent confusion.

  The grenades went off almost simultaneously, followed by the dull whump of fuel igniting as one of the trucks was caught by the blast, fire spreading across the dry tarp on its flatbed and reaching drums of fuel stored beneath.

  Some of the enemy had been taken out by the double blast, but those who had remained on their feet had more resilience—fear-fueled adrenaline, perhaps—than he had hoped. He had to move through the bush quickly to avoid the fire that raked the foliage around him, diving low and rolling painfully over roots and branches to get beyond the trail of raking slugs.

  He came up onto his feet, second nature guiding the SMG to his hands, set to burst mode. He moved forward to engage, knowing from the sound of fire that came from back of him that his men had taken their cue without needing to be told.

  In the center of the base camp, the few men who remained from the Brotherhood details had regrouped and were taking cover where they could, returning fire and consolidating rather than taking the fight forward. Two of them were frantically trying to extinguish the fire around the truck, intent on preventing it from spreading to one of the huts. Bolan realized that that had to house ordnance, fuel or something else of an explosive potential. Let them deal with the fire; they could wait.

  Moving from cover to cover, Bolan edged forward, exchanging fire, taking one yard, two yards at a time, forcing the enemy back farther until they were clustered around the base of the trees that housed the treetop huts. It didn’t take much to realize that this was where the communications were based.

  Risking attracting gunfire to make a head count of his men as far as he could see, he noted that Emecheta and Obinna were missing, as was Samuel. He could see one man—military by the fatigues he wore—lying half-concealed in the bush. He could not tell which of the men it was.

  The enemy, on the other hand, was being thinned out rapidly. Their orders had made it necessary for them to retreat into a position that left them with little option except to keep firing and praying that they would run out of opposition before they ran out of allies.

  As Bolan watched, astonished, Ehurie reeled from one of the buildings. He was swathed in bandages, stumbled and staggered across the open ground between the hut and the area where his men were clustered. He carried an Uzi, which he balanced awkwardly in one hand, the other hanging limp at his side. He fired random bursts of fire that knocked him farther off balance than he was already, the fire going wide and spraying around the edge of the compound clearing.

  He lasted a few seconds, probably because the sight of him was so arresting that it took that long for his enemies to take in what they were seeing. Once they had snapped out of it, a hail of fire was paid to the deranged commander. Bolan figured that the members of his Lagos team were the primary shooters, extracting revenge on the man who had killed their friends.

  The fight might have gone out of his men as he fell, but in a perverse sense, Ehurie’s death just spurred them on. He may be gone, but they could not let down the Brotherhood in which they believed. The hail of fire increased in intensity, and Bolan wondered how long it would take to crack them. Time was not something he had on his side.

  His question was answered sooner than he expected. Obinna and Samuel appeared from behind the trees at the far side of the compound. Any guards that had stayed back there had evidently been no match for their determination, and they were unexpected by the men who were concentrating on the enemy before them. Making little effort at concealment, concentrating on rapid fire and movement, the two men moved across the space, cutting down the Brotherhood fighters before they had a chance to react and return fire.

  When it was over, there was a moment of silence before Bolan’s men realized that they were the only ones left standing; they had won.

  But there was no time for celebration. Work remained to be done. The two men who had been attending the fire had now put it out, and were standing with their hands aloft. Without weapons, they had decided that discretion was truly the better, if not only, part of valor. Sosimi and Ken grabbed them, pulling them over to Bolan.

  The fight had gone from them. They answered his questions without hesitation, and before long, he was up in the tree hut that housed th
e communications center. Samuel stood beside him as he looked over the equipment.

  “I expected more fight, more men,” Samuel murmured.

  “This is a front,” Bolan said as he carefully disconnected the network, leaving the Brotherhood a web with no spider in the center. “All communication is filtered through here, but the idea that this is the headquarters of the organization is a crock of shit.”

  “Like a card trick. Find the lady and watch the wrong hand... Then where is the leader? You know.” The last was not a question.

  Bolan looked Samuel in the eye. “You know I checked my smartphone before we entered the forest? I was given intel that the leak that nearly stopped the mission had been traced. When I saw who was responsible, then I understood. But we had to take this base down before I could cut the head off the Brotherhood. I didn’t lead you wrong.”

  “Then where do we go from here?”

  “We need to get back to Lagos.”

  “We have the chopper,” Samuel interrupted. “Lagos? All this time? We will take you.”

  “When we get there, it might—”

  “When we get there, then I will come with you, Cooper. Do not argue with me.” There was something about Samuel’s tone, and the look in his eye, that convinced Bolan it would be pointless to try.

  He thought he knew why, and the lanky fighter’s next words confirmed it. “Victor and me were children in the area. I knew him since we were both young boys. I will grow old without him. Someone will pay for that.”

  Bolan nodded slowly. “I understand. But you have to understand that this is about the country, not just Victor. Let me lead the way, and we’ll see justice served.”

  Samuel was impassive. “It had better be.”

  The two men, having disabled and destroyed key components in the system, went back to ground level, where they found that their men were clustered in the center of the compound, making use of provisions they had found, the two prisoners shackled in the middle of the group.