Warrior's Edge

by Don Pendleton

There was much talk of standing by old friends, of shoring up democracy at every chance. The U.S. called for UN observers and a peacekeeping force to ensure fair elections.

  The movement spiraled, and an international body of statesmen and soldiers descended on Zandesi.

  Everything went smoothly.

  Until the election votes came in, ousting Emil Nashonge and turning the presidency over to Leopold Sabda, the FEP'S choice.

  That's when several UN observers were massacred, the small UN peacekeeping force was driven from the country and Leopold Sabda was taken prisoner by Heinrich Fowler and his embryonic democracy held hostage.

  And now Zandesi was a few steps away from anarchy. Fowler's Desert Knights were ready to give it the final push.

  It was up to Bolan and Martin Molembe to keep it from going over the edge.

  Molembe's deep voice tugged Bolan back to the present. "That's your final answer?" the African asked. "You're risking your life because a friend asked you to?"

  "Best reason that comes to mind."

  "You place a high value on friendship."

  "That's about all a man can count on these days," Bolan said. "And if it's good, it's about all a man needs. But it cuts both ways. Sometimes a friend will save your life… and sometimes he'll risk it."

  "I'll keep that in mind."

  3

  Heinrich Fowler's callused left hand gripped the razor-sharp veins of rock running down the cliff side, balancing himself as he nimbly circuited the slender walkway that led to the cave outlet halfway down the cliff.

  At times the trail was tightrope thin, passing beneath a series of handholds carved from the rock. But Fowler continued moving at the same pace, neither looking down nor back until he reached the mouth of the cave.

  He stepped into the dark shadows and walked softly over the shifting path of pebbles and stone that served as a perimeter warning.

  No matter how skilled a man was, it was impossible to enter the cave without disturbing the splintery carpet of rock.

  Cold, moist air coiled up from below as he moved deeper into the sloping cavern.

  Like many of the caves that honeycombed the mountains, this one had several passages that gently sloped downward and some that plummeted straight down like a subterranean express to Hades.

  As he moved along slowly and adjusted his eyes to the dimness, the musty smell of earth filled his nostrils. Despite his gloomy surroundings, Fowler carried himself as if he were still back in the marbled halls of the presidential palace, a mercenary maestro plucking the strings of Emil Nashonge's government.

  He was dressed in desert fatigues. His jaw was clean-shaven, and his longish blond hair was neatly tied back with a thong like those of Germanic warriors of old, a Teutonic knight reborn and ready for battle.

  Instead of sword and spear, he had a long-bladed commando knife sheathed at his side and a Skorpion machine pistol slung over his arm.

  But he didn't need to rely on the weapons.

  The notched short-sleeve shirt showed ribbons of vein and muscle. Despite the unlimited pleasures available to him back at the capital, he never let himself fade away.

  It was part family tradition, part necessity.

  Fowler had to stay in fighting form. That was the only thing that made the good things in life ready for the taking.

  The Fowler clan had ruled behind the scenes in Zandesi for decades, and it hadn't been by accident or by chance. They ruled by force and fear.

  There was no other way. And though it was inevitable that there were times the clan was eclipsed by rival powers in Zandesi, the Fowlers always planned for a victorious return.

  Which would be soon, he thought as he followed the steady descent of the cave floor.

  Ten steps later he turned a sharp corner and came to a complete stop, staring straight ahead.

  A short-barreled automatic rifle stared back at him, aimed right at his forehead.

  "Morning, Fowler," the guard said, nodding his head and lowering his weapon. He wore shorts, a T-shirt and had a bandanna wrapped around his head. Round spectacles gave the lean mercenary a deceptively owlish look.

  "Morning, Gauclere." Fowler glanced around the cave. "How's it going?"

  "Slowly like always. But time passes. Soon I'll have my reward."

  "A day at the beach?" Fowler asked. In his long shorts Gauclere almost looked like a lifeguard on one of Zandesi's beach resorts.

  A chill lingered in the air from the cold mountain night, but Fowler guessed the man wore such light garb to help him stay awake. The field jacket he'd worn during the night stood guard next to him, hanging from a stake like a scarecrow.

  "The hell with a day at the beach," Gauclere growled. "A night back on the strip, now that's worth thinking about."

  "You can have a month of such nights when we take back the capital. That I promise you."

  The mere's eyes flashed brightly for a moment, but then his nonchalant gaze returned once again. A hard war awaited them first. He leaned back against the hollowed-out side of the cave and rested his foot on a small rocky perch. He lighted a cigarette, then as an afterthought tilted the pack toward his superior.

  Though Fowler preferred a pipe, he took one of the offered cigarettes and fired it up.

  Despite Gauclere's casual manner always a nod instead of a salute, always a familiar tone of address he was one of the best soldiers Fowler had. Years of living under the African sun had made his skin bronzed, weathered and leathered. Years of soldering with Fowler had hardened his soul just the same.

  Gauclere was much more than just a guard.

  He was whatever Fowler needed. He'd demonstrated that time and again, most recently when one of the captured bodyguards became too much of a nuisance to Fowler.

  It was Gauclere who staked him to the ground, Gauclere who commanded the firing squad.

  Fowler finished his cigarette, then stubbed it out in the dirt at his feet.

  "Now tell me," he said. "How are our distinguished dignitaries?"

  "They're alive." Gauclere shrugged. "Mostly."

  "Any trouble?"

  "Nothing unexpected. One of them tried to make a break for it a few hours ago and was taken care of."

  Fowler nodded.

  From the next chamber he could hear the other guards talking. He'd detailed enough men to handle Leopold Sabda's captive cabinet and defend the cave from attack. The escape attempt was prepared for as a matter of course.

  Men who thought they were condemned had little to lose.

  Fowler spoke with his man a bit longer, discussing whether Sabda's people should be moved again.

  Gauclere counseled against the move. "Too many of them, and too many risks. It doesn't pay to shed herd them around so much."

  "On the contrary," Fowler said. "It pays quite well. At least for a man of your experience."

  "Of course. Whatever you wish."

  "I wish I was back in Zandeville," Fowler said. "In control again. Can you grant that wish, my friend?"

  "I can follow your orders. Wherever that leads, I'll give you full credit or blame. Rest assured, if it leads to my death instead of the capital I'll come back and haunt you."

  Fowler laughed. "An admirable trait, but you're beginning to sound like a goddamn Zand. It's here and now that counts. And the only spook we have to fear is the American they've brought in." Thanks to his man in Serpentine Force, who'd dropped his chopper down in the desert for a rendezvous, Fowler knew all about the pursuit and the pursuer.

  "What's his name?" Gauclere asked.

  "His cover name is Michael Belasko, but I'd say it's an alias. Regardless, he'll die just as easy as any man if he gets into our gun sights." Fowler dropped his hand onto the mere's shoulder. "And don't worry about logistics for the prisoners. Perhaps there won't be as many of them by the time we're ready to move."

  Fowler headed for the next chamber, walking past a mixed force of European hardguys and Zandesian loyalists who were sipping tea and water. A few of them who wer
e obviously drinking something stronger discreetly moved their tin cups out of his view.

  He knew the drinkers among them and knew how to deal with them. They were controllable drunks who kept themselves on a steady keel.

  No critical missions or covert ops for those soldiers. But these men of the grape and wards of whiskey had their uses, carrying their courage around with them so they'd stand firm during battle.

  The important thing was that they were loyal to his payroll and allergic to the law like most of the Desert Knights.

  By and large the Zandesians fighting for him were the ones who'd be hanged by their countrymen for crimes and atrocities committed during Nashonge's reign.

  Fowler continued moving downward, walking the same path as exiled kings had done a millennium ago. It was no accident that the Desert Knights had fled to Mont Bataille.

  It wasn't just a haphazard flight into the desert. He'd planned for his stay in the rocky fortress long ago. Fowler had known that revolt against Nashonge's rule was inevitable, and he'd prepared well for the occasion.

  Caches of weapons and food had been flown out to the fortress of rock. Caves had been widened and their courses altered, like stone-banked rivers drifting throughout the canyons and ridges of the mountain.

  Hillside crevices were shielded with natural-looking rock formations to provide hiding places, as well as sniper positions for the desert meres.

  Fowler had selected several outposts for his outcast army, zigzagging up and down the canyons. He'd also established a line of battle through which he'd lead the enemy stage by stage until they besieged Mont Bataille an impossible task.

  And while the enemy forces were tied up in the mountains, Fowler would strike back at the capital and take back what was his.

  The rule of Zandesi.

  * * *

  President elect Leopold Sabda looked over the members of his cabinet, sprawled in battered heaps throughout the wide, high-roofed cavern.

  Like him they were thirsty. Their lips were parched, their stamina sapped. They were given just enough water and food to maintain life.

  Tattered suits hung on the beaten frames of the men, illustrious scarecrows who were testament to what happened to those who defied Heinrich Fowler.

  The one woman among them was also dressed in rags. She was the wife of one of Sabda's wealthier backers, but now she looked like someone who lived in the streets. Her dress was torn in several places, as was her soul. Every time the guards entered their chamber she cringed, as if imagining what horror was in store for her.

  There was little that Leopold Sabda could do for her. Or for any of them.

  Except perhaps to die well.

  He choked back the tears and the anger. The others had practically stopped listening to him.

  Blank gazes met his eyes when he spoke to them. Or sometimes they looked away, worn down by his unfounded optimism.

  Sabda had almost stopped listening to his inner voice, which said they'd somehow survive this ordeal, that he could get them out alive.

  It was hopeless. His small band was beaten.

  They were scattered around the spiny contours of the cave, huddled in small pitiful pockets.

  Withdrawn from one another, withdrawn from him.

  Their leader had led them into despair.

  His first official act as president of Zandesi was to be captured, to bear mute witness to the slaughter of his people as Fowler's gunmen mercilessly cut down anyone in their way. Like cattle no, like sheep they'd been herded from the speaker's platform in Capital Square during Sabda's first address to the Zandesian…

  He'd been cut off in midspeech by a volley of automatic gunfire that scythed through the crowd, the first of many as Fowler's men began firing from every direction. Then came the blood, the screams and the chaos, the indiscriminate slaughter that had led to his capture.

  The slaughter hadn't ended there.

  Fowler had demonstrated how tenuous their hold on life was while they were under his control. The trek to Mont Bataille had taken its toll, leaving more of Sabda's followers dead in the sand. Most of the presidential bodyguards had been killed in the early stages of captivity.

  A future they all shared, he thought. They were all under death sentence.

  The cabinet members spent their time sleeping, hatching improbable escape attempts or, in the case of his defense minister, Stephen Ward, mumbling and ranting.

  At the moment Ward sat some twenty feet away from him, first looking his way, then looking wildly around the cavern as if his tormentors were hiding in the crevices.

  He was delirious, half-dead. He was covered with bruises, his eyes were nearly swollen shut and his broken ribs made breathing an absolute agony.

  This human wreckage had made a bid for escape during the night, attacking one of the guards while he'd been making his rounds.

  Almost as if it had been rehearsed, the guard turned at the sound of his rapid approach and caved in the side of his face with his rifle butt.

  Teeth cracked and cheekbone imploded, blood sluiced from his mouth and he dropped to the dusty floor like stone. Then the guard casually kicked Ward's ribs in while the other guards who had poured into the room kept Sabda and the others at bay.

  It wasn't the first time they'd battered Ward.

  Ever since their exodus began, the guards had arbitrarily chosen Ward as the butt of their brutality. Any time the prisoners committed an infraction, Ward was the one who was punished.

  He was beaten and mocked until the fear and rage had driven him out of his mind. And though the treatment seemed irrational, it was a very calculated terror that drove a wedge between Ward and the other prisoners.

  The constant mistreatment made Sabda look even more ineffectual in the eyes of his cabinet, and it made him a pariah in the puffed and closed eyes of Ward.

  "Don't come," Ward was saying now. "Don't come… I'm not ready." It was like a chant, a page from the Book of the Dead. The defense minister trembled, groaned in pain, then descended into a drone of incoherence.

  There was nothing more Sabda could do for him. He'd demanded medicine for the man and had been refused. The countless times he'd tried to go to him had only made Ward hysterical. Now Ward's state of mind and weakened body matched each other in the rate of their decline.

  Sabda heard voices in the gallery outside.

  A few moments later Heinrich Fowler bowed his head and stepped through the entrance.

  The mercenary captain looked fresh, happy, as if he were attending a social function rather than stepping into a dungeon.

  "Mr. President," Fowler said, his voice echoing in the room as he approached.

  "What is it?"

  "Please stand so we can talk as equals." He spoke in measured, formal English, the language in which all were fluent.

  When Sabda got to his feet, it was apparent that they were hardly equals. The mercenary had several inches on him and had an impressive physical bulk. Sabda's strength was mainly intellectual, and at the moment even that was in doubt.

  He felt the eyes of his people upon him, and from the corner of his eye he saw the defense minister freeze, not daring to move an inch while the predatory mercenary was about.

  "What is it, Fowler?" Sabda repeated. "What do you want?"

  "I want a bipartisan government. You and I working together to prevent a civil war and restore law and order to the country."

  Sabda laughed. "Like the law and order you've established here?" He gestured around the cave, pointing out the sorry condition of the other prisoners.

  Fowler gave them a cursory glance. "If you're really concerned about their plight, perhaps it's time you joined me in hammering out an agreement."

  "We can hammer out nothing."

  "I see." The mercenary leader reached into his pocket and removed a slim voice-activated tape recorder. "Would you care to say that for the benefit of the Zandesian people? I plan on issuing a statement on my position I think the people would like to hear yours." H
e held out the recorder. "Is there anything you wish to say?"

  Sabda kept silent.

  Fowler nodded. "Yes, this often happens in the early stages of negotiation. One side doubts the other's sincerity. Let me show you how sincere I can be." He spun around and stalked across the dusty cavern floor toward the fallen minister. Ward pushed himself away from the crevice in a desperate lunge, but Fowler hurtled in front of him and sweep-kicked him off his feet.

  At the same time he upholstered his Skorpion machine pistol, pointed it at Ward's head and fired a burst, the jackhammer slugs echoing in the confines of the cave.

  Ward collapsed, face forward.

  The rest of Sabda's people moved forward as if they were going to rush the mere. But they stopped, frozen in place, aware that they were no match for the man even if he didn't have the gun, let alone the guards who were already on their way.

  And then they gasped.

  The defense minister came back from the dead. The dazed man pushed himself up onto his hands and stared at the bullet holes studding the ground in front of him.

  "My aim gets better each time," Fowler stated, glancing at Sabda. He held the machine pistol aloft. "What do you think? Shall I try again?"

  "No."

  "Excellent decision," Fowler replied in a casual tone as he walked away from the man who'd just been granted a stay of execution. "Very presidential. Now we can work on a message together. I want you to say something like "in the interest of democracy, I'm going to establish a bipartisan government with Heinrich Fowler and his party.""

  "That's impossible!"

  "I understand," Fowler said. "You're a man of conscience. So am I. We both must do what we think best for the country." He headed back toward Ward and lowered the Skorpion until the barrel touched his forehead. "There will be no missing this time."

  "Stop!" Sabda shouted. "Stop this madness. I'll talk to the people."

  Like a reporter who'd just snared a rare interview, Fowler hurried over to Sabda and once again held out the minirecorder. "Very good, Mr. President. But before you speak, remember one thing. Don't cross me in any manner. Say nothing that might alert anyone to my whereabouts. After all, we need each other. I can't rule without you, and you can't live without me. But the others…" He looked at the cabinet members.