"There are thousands of square miles of jungle in this part of Africa practically unexplored," she said. "What's underneath it is mostly limestone, but the strata are crisscrossed with unconformities and there are igneous, that is to say volcanic, intrusions everywhere. Probably mineral veins, too. It is a most interesting area."
Bolan was feeling much better. Not quite back to his normal coiled-spring alertness, but totally human again. He said, "Surprisingly few rivers, just the same, considering how rich the vegetation is right here. According to the map I had..."
"Ah, that is because they all run underground," Trudi interrupted. "The limestone is riddled with potholes and caves and subterranean channels. Most of them drain finally into the Bahr el Arab, the Bahr el Homr or the Soeh River — and so eventually into the Bahr el Ghazal and the White Nile."
That night, over a surprisingly elaborate meal — they even had ice for the drinks from a portable gas-operated refrigerator — Bolan embroidered the story of his own supposed photographic excursion. He was more than grateful to Trudi Finnemann and her companions, but he knew nothing about them and he certainly wasn't going to tell them the real reason for his presence in this part of the Sudan.
There were five blacks with the expedition and two white men: a bearded, bespectacled surveyor named Hans Voigt, and Jochen Kraul, a pale, balding thirty-year-old. Kraul was a botanist whose task was to relate the forest vegetation and the creatures living off it to the rock formations that might lie beneath.
Voigt was an extrovert, a big man with a big voice he was always ready to use. Kraul contributed little to the conversation. The blacks shared the same table and the same food, but it was clear that they were no more than the hired help.
All of them, Bolan noted, treated the leader of the expedition with a great deal of respect, and he sensed that beneath that affable manner and bandbox appearance there was a determination and force of will equal to his own.
To firm up his story, he cited the fictitious companion he was slated to contact there in the forest, and added, "If you've been traveling across the province, you, uh, you wouldn't by any chance have come across my buddy?"
Trudi Finnemann shook her head. "Nobody but refugees from the burned villages. The jungle's full of them, trying not to starve, wondering all the time what's going to happen to them and their families, whether to risk trying their luck in Uganda or Chad."
"Where exactly was the rendezvous with your partner?" Voigt asked.
"That's the trouble," Bolan said. "Someplace between Ouad Faturah and that so-called forbidden city, Oloron. But we were to fix the precise place of the meet by radio, and mine was taken from me on the other side of the desert by an irregular leader named Mtambole."
"You can raise him on ours," Trudi Finnemann said.
"Yeah. Sure. Thanks." Bolan edged away from the subject. He could go through the pantomime of calling the mythical Courtney only so many times. Apart from which, they might know the real one. "In any case," he said, "I kind of blew it. I lost my camera."
The blonde smiled. "The Hasselblad? I should have told you before. We recovered it from the Land Rover. It seems to be undamaged. You take it when you want it."
"Why, that's great. Once I locate my partner I have to make it fast to wherever he is. I was hoping maybe I could rent a mule, a horse or even a camel at Ouad Faturah."
Voigt laughed. "Forget it," he boomed. "Ouad Faturah is a six-hundred-year-old mud fort with one street of tumbledown hovels leading up to it. If the inhabitants saw a spare beast any time in the past ten years, they would have cooked and eaten it!"
Bolan shrugged. "I might as well try. Are you going anywhere near the place?"
"We're heading northeast," Trudi told him. "We could take you within ten miles, fix you up with a few supplies and point you in the right direction."
"Or maybe Oloron? It wasn't on my map, but they tell me that's an interesting site, like so many of these holy places. Maybe you could explain how I would get there?"
The conversation suddenly died.
Voigt's rumbling laugh preceded an order to one of the porters: certain supplies should be replaced in the Toyota now, since they had an early start in the morning.
Trudi Finnemann's responses to that point had been crisp and precise. Now she appeared suddenly to suffer an attack of vagueness. She wasn't quite sure, she said, where the place was. If indeed it existed at all. As far as she knew they had been nowhere near it.
Jochen Kraul said nothing.
A few minutes later the leader of the expedition rose to her feet and clapped her hands. It was time to bed down for the night.
Bolan was intrigued.
It was perfectly clear that there was something mysterious about Oloron. And that the members of the geological party knew about it. Why were they not prepared to discuss it?
Was the scientific story a cover, like his own photographer pose? He didn't think so. He had already seen enough notes and charts and readings to substantiate the story. But even if that was all a carefully worked-out blind, possibly with real scientists taking genuine readings, what could be the hidden purpose of the expedition? Whom could they be working for? He had deliberately trailed a couple of leading questions about radioactive ores, the possibility of deposits in the region.
The response had been genuinely negative. No deposits, no chance of ores in these particular rock formations, no interest.
On the whole the Executioner had decided to accept Trudi Finnemann and her colleagues at their own face value. But there were, nevertheless, a couple of things — apart from the evasions on the subject of the forbidden city — that he found disturbing.
He knew from certain indications — minor techniques of fastening straps, preset tolerances and other personal routines — that the Hasselblad had been stripped down and thoroughly examined before it was returned to him.
Secondly, there was the question of the firearms.
Trudi Finnemann and her two scientists each carried small-caliber automatic handguns. The headman in charge of the porters wore an old-fashioned Colt revolver in a I leather holster at his hip. In a dangerous region teeming with half-starved refugees that was normal practice, if only for self-protection.
Equally acceptable were the three hunting rifles — two Mannlichers and a Husqvarna — strapped in custom-built canvas gun cases in back of the Range Rover. There would be enough big game in the forest, as possible food supplies or simply as an ever-present danger, to make the inclusion of such weapons a must.
But what was he to make of his accidental discovery in the forward part of the luxurious vehicle?
He had gone, at Trudi Finnemann's invitation, to get his camera and saw them stowed in the wide elasticized pocket on the driver's door: two 9 mm mini-Uzi machine pistols.
What did such supercompact and deadly weapons have to do with geology?
Bolan was in a thoughtful mood when he crawled under the mosquito netting that night in the one-man tent allotted to him.
Before he went to sleep he dismantled, checked, reassembled finally reloaded the AutoMag. He slept with the of the big gun nestling in his right hand.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bolan remained with the geological expedition for most of the next day.
The forest grew denser and steamier; the hills became higher. Progress was slow until, at the foot of the fifth steep-sided valley, instead of climbing the far slope the trail turned and followed the dried-up riverbed along a twisting defile that finally opened out into a shallow depression perhaps ten miles across.
The Range Rover and the Toyota, heavily laden with stores and equipment, increased speed until the top-heavy bodies were bouncing uncomfortably, bottoming on the suspension with each fresh hole in the stony track.
Sitting between Trudi and Voigt in the Range Rover, Bolan saw a trickle of brown water appear in the deep wadi. Birds flapped into the air and a herd of deerlike creatures — there had to have been several hundred — galloped off in
a cloud of dust as the vehicles approached. They were the first signs of animal life he had seen since he entered the country.
On the far side of the depression the topography was different, the slopes gentler, the vegetation lusher and greener. To balance this advantage, the trail was frequently hidden by the dense undergrowth. Several times the convoy had to stop while the porters cast around, beating the brushwood down before they could identify the route.
Toward the end of the afternoon, they emerged from a dense tract of forest into a small glade floored with bright violet flowers. The trail vanished among trees on the other side of the open space. But a gorge across the center barred the way.
They pulled up again and Voigt, Bolan and the woman went to the edge of the fissure. Kraul remained behind the wheel of the Land Cruiser.
Some gigantic upheaval eternities ago had split open the earth as though it had been cleft with a mighty ax. Trudi at once started to explain it in geological terms, but the warrior was not listening.
He made a lightning visual recon of the site. On either side, jungle trees closed in and lined the gorge as far as he could see. Two hundred feet below a thread of water glistened in the shadows, and among the smooth rocks he could make out the splintered remains of what had been a plank bridge. The sheer faces of the cleft overhung at the top, leaving a gap no more than ten or twelve feet across where the bridge had been. A high-school athlete or any man in shape could have leaped it after a running start. But for the two vehicles it was an impassable barrier.
'The Arabs!" Trudi exclaimed angrily. "They think they can hinder the black guerillas by destroying the bridge! But there are dozens of places farther down where they can cross."
"That doesn't help us, Fraulein Finnemann," Voigt said. "We can't get the vehicles down there. We shall have to backtrack ten miles to the fork by that water hole, and then take the other trail that leads around the head of this gorge."
Trudi compressed her lips. "And that is at least fifteen miles upriver from here. We'll never make it by nightfall. We'll have to make camp this side of the stream. Really, it is too bad. It will delay us a whole day."
Bolan saw an opening... and took it.
"I really am rather anxious to locate my partner," he said. "Since we can't contact him by radio..." they had tried twice, not surprisingly with no success "...I reckon I'd better make it to Ouad Faturah in case he left a message there. The place shouldn't be more than ten or twelve miles ahead, and if I left now..."
"You mean you want to go ahead on foot? To jump the gap and take it from there?" Trudi asked.
"If you wouldn't mind. You said you'd be dropping me off ten miles short of the town anyway."
She nodded. "That is true. You would gain a whole day by going ahead. We'll do what we can to help."
They fixed him up with new pants, a bedroll, a water bottle and several other necessities. He slung the camera over his shoulder and walked back to the Toyota to say goodbye to Kraul.
The botanist leaned out the vehicle's window. "I don't know what your motives are," he said in a low voice, "but if you really want to make it to Oloron, it lies no more than a dozen miles due northeast of here."
"I don't know what your motives are," Bolan replied, "but I sure appreciate the information. You know the place yourself?"
Kraul glanced quickly at the porters in back of the Land Cruiser and then at Voigt and the woman, who were discussing something by their vehicle. "We have been near there," he murmured. "We have looked down upon the place. But it is necessary to go damn carefully. The town — it was originally only a religious settlement — is tucked away at the bottom of a steep gorge. It is impossible to climb down the cliffs behind it and on either side. The only entrance is along the valley floor that leads directly to the gate, and that is too well guarded to force."
"I'm not aiming to storm the place." Bolan smiled. "Only take pictures."
"Just so. It is well to be forewarned just the same. Oloron is the headquarters of the Anya Nya guerilla forces. There are hundreds of them there, and there seem to be assault courses, training grounds, shooting ranges, lecture theaters — the whole organization and equipment for a military academy — inside the walls."
"Very interesting," Bolan said casually, trying not to reveal the extent to which he was interested — and excited — by the intel. "I don't know why you want to tell me..."
"Sometimes it is a fault to be too cagey," Kraul replied enigmatically. And then he clammed up as Voigt and Trudi approached.
The young woman took Bolan's hand in a firm grip as they said their farewells, and seemed reluctant to let it go. "I wish you luck, my friend," she said huskily, "and I ask you to take care. This can be a dangerous region. Remember that if you have need of help, you can always come back to us. We'll be mapping and taking readings for several days about thirty miles north of here." She smiled. "In any case, I have a feeling that we shall meet again."
"Don't get your pictures developed in Africa," Voigt quipped with his rumbling laugh. "They charge far too much and the color processing is hell!"
Trudi ignored him. She stared full into Bolan's eyes for a moment and then, abruptly releasing his hand, turned and strode back to the Range Rover, the switch of blond hair with its black bow bouncing up and down on her shoulders.
Bolan tossed his bedroll to the far side of the gorge. He moved back twenty paces, dashed forward and launched himself over the gap. He was glad to see, as a yardstick of his return to fitness, that he landed on the other side, several yards beyond the edge.
Waving to the members of the expedition, he set off along the grassy trail, staying with it for half a mile in case he was being watched. After that he plunged in among the forest trees in the direction indicated by Kraul. He was playing a hunch, but what the hell — a fighter's hunches had saved his life before now.
Thirty minutes' hard going brought him to another narrow track running roughly northeast. He spread the bedroll beneath a rock shelf that was canted up through the carpet of brushwood and creeper, ate some of the dried food he had been given and prepared to sleep.
He awoke before dawn into a heavy, humid darkness pulsating with the thrum of a million insect wings, rank with the odor of jungle vegetation. There were louder noises, too.
The shifting of birds, perched among the interlaced branches far above the forest floor; a scuttle, from time to time, of small creatures hurrying through the undergrowth; a distant chattering — of monkeys, perhaps, angry at seeing their domain invaded by an alien biped.
Just below the threshold of sleep, the Executioner had subconsciously been aware of these sounds throughout the night. His jungle fighter's sixth sense, recording the impressions and finding them inoffensive, left the alert signals nonoperative.
The noise that woke him was not loud, but it was different. Two noises, actually: a dry twig snapping; a clink of metal on metal, or metal on hardwood.
He was awake in an instant, on full red alert with the alarm bells ringing and all defense systems go. There were no animals in a forest this dense that were heavy enough to snap a twig if they stepped on it. He had yet to hear of a monkey carrying a rifle equipped with a webbing siing and metal D-rings.
The sound, all too familiar to a Vietnam veteran, was definitive. A sniper, less professional than he should be, unslinging his weapon.
Bolan was out of the bedroll and flattened against the rock in seconds, the AutoMag ready in his hand.
Neither of the sounds was repeated.
He had no idea how far away the unseen rifleman might be. As both noises were initiated while he was asleep, it was impossible for him to orient their source, and in any case leaves, branches, creeper and liana were so thickly intertwined that it was a no-go situation, trying to vector in on any specific sound.
He would have to wait for the hunter to make the next move.
The bedroll site was well chosen. From above and on one side it was protected by the rock shelf; the other open side was no
more than three feet from a thick screen of mucuna and nettle trees. The trail was ten yards away, on the far side of the rock. To sight directly on the bedroll, a sniper would have to be a considerable height from the ground, lodged in a tree.
Bolan froze in the vibrating dark, every sense on full alert. He had made no more noise leaving the bedroll than a restless sleeper might make changing his position.
While he waited, he ran over a list of questions he couldn't answer. Had the unseen gunman located the place where the Executioner was sleeping and was he simply waiting for first light to make sure of his aim and rake it with a hail of death? Or did he, alternatively, know only that there was somebody, someplace, that he could only finger when it was light enough to see? Was the guy a guard? Part of a patrol? A detail sent specifically to waste Bolan? If so, was the planned assault directed at Bolan as Bolan, or would it have been unleashed against any stranger wandering into an area that was clearly "sensitive"? Finally was there a chance that the sniper was not hostile at all, that it was a coincidence, that the Executioner had been woken by an innocent hunter stalking some jungle game?
Bolan didn't think so.
Every instinct in his battle-trained mind, every pulse of adrenaline that sent the blood coursing through his veins, told him that he was in danger.
In mortal danger.
The velvet forest blackness thinned imperceptibly. Very slowly, the limestone face of the rock shelf emerged as a paler blur against the dark. High up in the treetops, a tropical bird uttered a harsh call.
The gunfire, when it came, was deafening.
Three shattering bursts from a high-power automatic rifle that echoed thunderously among the forest trees and startled an angry chorus from a family of monkeys somewhere on the far side of the rock.
Bolan heard the stream of slugs thwack into the bedroll, shriek away among the trees in ricochet, splat against the rock. One passed so close to his cheek that the shock wave fanned his ear.
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