"Think we'll find snakes under those rocks?"
"Snake eaters, maybe. If Fowler has special-forces types working for him, they could be dug in there and we wouldn't know it until we walked right in the middle of them."
"They took the time to do it," Molembe stated. "But that would mean they've been setting this up for days now and we've been dancing to their tune."
"That sounds like the Fowler I was briefed on," Bolan said, remembering some of the mere's operations contained in his dossier.
"Yeah, it does," Molembe conceded. "If he could help it, he never left anything to chance. Nodding to ward the rise again, he said, "Maybe that's the minefield you were talking about before. A human one."
"We'll find out soon enough."
The African signaled the rest of his men, gave them a quick briefing and then moved toward the rise.
* * *
The Zandesian commandos crept over the sandcolored rise slowly, the barrels of their automatic weapons nosing every square inch, probing the shadows behind rock formations and lingering over the scattered rocks that lay in their path.
Many of the rock piles were large enough to conceal a man.
The body of commandos grew considerably smaller as they moved farther uphill. At several stages along the way, Molembe's men dropped back to cover suspicious-looking areas.
Bolan was halfway up the rise when the first of the enemy showed.
It was almost an imperceptible movement. A lid of what looked like solid rock was actually broken into two separate pieces, almost like a window. The uppermost section of rock tilted back, and the snout of a rifle poked out.
The Executioner spun to his right, instinctively homing the M-16 in on the small opening. He squeezed the trigger and hammered away at the gunman's perch.
There was a short cry of pain, and then like a jack-in-the-box, the man's spastic motion knocked over the top section of rock. He tumbled out, an uneven line of red bullet holes blossoming across the whiterobed warrior, marking where he'd been struck.
At that first burst of gunfire the hill came alive.
Rocks toppled free and rifle barrels nosed out into the open as the hidden gunmen prepared to slaughter the Zandesians. But instead, the ambushers found themselves at the wrong end of a shooting gallery.
Zandesian commandos opened up on the ambushers with everything they had, strafing their hiding places with automatic fire, grenades and flamethrowers.
The commandos had carefully set up their own positions, zigzagging a string of three-man teams up the rise so they could cover all directions.
They didn't take any chances, unloading on all of the sites they'd previously picked out as possible hiding places.
Smoke and cordite clouded the rise, adding a ghostly backdrop to the bloody stage the panicked ambushers suddenly found themselves upon. Their role as shock troops had been changed at the last moment.
Now they were quickly becoming corpses.
Crumbling rock cascaded down the rise as death cries echoed from their shallow caves and old weapons dropped at their feet.
A burning gunman fled down the hill, his robes torched by the flamethrower. As the fiery tendrils chased after him, his robes consumed, a Zandesian commando fired a single mercy shot that silenced his scream and punched him to the ground.
One after the other the gunmen were forced from their ambush positions. Staying in their dugout positions while grenades and rifle fire blasted away at them was the same as committing suicide.
Several gunners came out firing and ran into a wall of lead. The others tossed their weapons out first, following with their hands up.
Soon only a handful of «ambushers» were left alive.
A Zandesian rifle team herded the survivors into a small circle where they stood quietly awaiting their fate.
While Molembe stayed behind to deal with the captives, he sent his subordinate officers forward to secure the rise and position snipers to greet the rest of the Desert Knights.
The long robes, Readdresses and their light tawny complexions identified the new captives as Maska rat, desert tribesmen who'd long stayed out of the affairs of the warring Zandesian factions.
But the war had come to their territory and they'd chosen sides. For this group of tribesmen it was obviously the wrong side.
Molembe approached the tribesman who looked to be in command. He was the tallest and the calmest. His grey brows came to a sharp peak like small lightning bolts, and his eyes were equally fierce.
The bronzed Maskarai warrior wore the look of a man who had conquered death long ago and had accepted it as part of his calling. The only question that remained was the manner of his passing.
"Tell me your name," Molembe demanded.
The man considered, then responded in a proud voice. "I am called Zhoave," he said.
The name obviously struck a chord with Molembe's men, many of them shifting their stance for a better look at the desert chieftain.
And it also had plenty of currency with the security chief, who raised his eyebrows and stepped closer to the man. "I've heard that name often," he said. "Enough to be surprised that you and your men travel with Fowler's people."
"There was little choice in the matter," Zhoave replied. "We only want to live our own lives freely. When the German told us of your plans, we decided to help him stop you."
"What plans?"
"To lay waste to the desert. To poison the wells and the waters and make sure no one could live out here. To kill everything in your path." He recited the parade of atrocities like a mantra that had been repeated to him several times over.
"What we do depends on the path we must take and the path chosen by others," Molembe told him. "If you choose to fight us, we can't walk away. But we never planned on destroying the desert as you claim. Such things are the province of Heinrich Fowler."
Zhoave folded his arms in front of him.
"Four of our families were massacred by your soldiers…"
"'It wasn't us. Perhaps you should look closer to home for the killers."
"You're saying the German would kill some of our own people just to enlist us against you?"
"He believes in tactics," Molembe replied, "not people."
"It could be so," the nomad admitted. "But who can we believe in time of war?"
"You can believe me. Our fight isn't with you, but with Fowler. Tell us what we wish to know and you're free to go."
"It's a trick," one of the Maskarai warriors warned.
"If it is," Zhoave said, "then it's one more jest before we die. Ask what you will. We have no reason to lie. The truth is very simple. We will fight who we must to remain free."
One by one the Maskarai tribesmen were separated from the others for questioning.
Their stories coincided. The Maskarai and the main body of Desert Knights had been there well ill advance, digging themselves in and waiting for the Zandesians to be drawn there.
There were no civilians or hostages kept by the meres.
The smaller group of Desert Knights who now shared captivity with the tribesmen had no idea about the presence of another body of well-armed meres. Like sacrificial lambs, the smaller group of mercenaries had been used as a snare to bring in Molembe's people.
Then the Maskarai tribesmen and the rest of the Desert Knights would down the helicopters and destroy the strike force.
The Maskarai were out of it for now, but the rest of the Desert Knights were still in good position. They controlled the area to the right and were slowly closing in on the Zandesian strike force. With their superior numbers they could either eliminate them by attrition or kill two birds at once and knock out the choppers when they came to airlift the commandos.
After the interrogation was over, two of Molembe's men gathered the weapons of the prisoners, unloaded them and then dropped them at their feet.
It was a random collection of semiautomatic MAS 1949 rifles, M-l Garands and U.S. M-l carbines that were postwar standard issue in
the French army, rifles that inevitably made their way throughout the African colonies.
"You're free to go," Molembe said to the leader of the tribesmen. "As long as you go that way," he added, pointing back down the way they'd come.
Zhoave spoke quickly to his men, then bowed slightly to the tall Zandesian. The tribesmen picked up their weapons and under the eyes of a wary escort went back down the hill, away from the war.
While some of the security force grumbled about the release of the tribesmen, most of them went along with their superior's decision.
"Nice gambit," Bolan said as he watched the tribesmen depart.
Molembe shrugged. "If they come back to fight us, it's only a few more soldiers we face. But if they spread the word among their people… that might be one less army we have to fight."
"What about that army?" Bolan asked, gesturing toward the Desert Knights.
"They wanted to take on our air force. Soon their wish will be granted. If we can hold out that long."
* * *
The steady drone of Spectre gunships and two resurrected German bombers of World War II vintage grew louder as they flew low across the Harana Desert. There were only five aircraft that were serviceable, five crews that could be trusted to carry out the attack.
By the time the Zandesi Air Force reached the stronghold of the Desert Knights, the mercenaries had formed a half circle around the rise.
Soon they'd overwhelm it.
But the Zandesian strike force was no longer there. It had withdrawn slowly, filing toward the desert lowlands. Only a small group remained on the rise, making a lot of noise and marking the enemy position with smoke and flares.
They, too, pulled back suddenly, scrambling down the rise as the planes streaked across the sky.
The first Spectre swooped low and opened up with 20 mm Vulcan cannons, chewing up the granite formations that hid the Desert Knights.
While lead rain poured down on the mercenaries' position, the two attack choppers flew into position for a follow-up run, launching their last missiles in an explosive volley that thundered across the mountain.
Two other gunships roared past the enemy, firing 105 mm howitzers. The armor-piercing blasts punched holes in the cliff sides, sending an avalanche of rock down upon the defenders.
While the Desert Knights were stunned by the explosions, the bombers made their runs, slowly flying overhead and dropping a string of CBU-55 cluster bombs. The one-hundred-pound canisters drifted toward the Desert Knights on parachutes, a gentle drop with a hellish payoff.
Bursting open on impact, the canisters spread clouds of ethylene oxide up and down the enemy position. Then the detonators went off, and the clouds ignited with an earth-shuddering blast.
With a blast effect of hundreds of pounds of pressure per square inch, the death cloud shredded every living thing it had settled on, practically obliterating the entire force of mercenaries.
Only a few dazed hardmen stumbled out of the rubble, firing their weapons in every direction.
Their gunfire came to an abrupt halt when they walked right into the line of automatic fire laid down by the returning Zandesian scouts.
And then a stillness fell over the desert as the Zandesian commandos saw up close what had happened to the foreign mercenaries and their own countrymen.
Civil war had happened, courtesy of Heinrich Fowler.
6
Zandeville, the capital of Zandesi, sprawled for miles, with open-air markets and shops standing in the shadows of modern office buildings. Small, thatched-roof houses and seaside villas zigzagged along the coastline, blending traditional with modern.
A bright jangling string of nightclubs and hotels flanked the coves and beaches.
Zandeville had returned to an uneasy normalcy since the inaugural massacre.
Life went on.
During the day it was business as usual.
Factories and farms outside the city proper were still operational, and in the city itself the usual horde of street vendors plied their goods.
But at night a carnival atmosphere settled over the clubs and seaside bars, almost as if the people were forcing themselves to have fun, to spend their money while they could.
Beneath the sense of normalcy was the attitude that something was going to happen soon.
It was only a matter of time before one of the would-be rulers of Zandesi took control.
In the meantime the Zandesi Intelligence Service had assumed the dual role of police and defense force. Like the majority of the people, most members of ZIS supported the newly elected presidency of Leopold Sabda. This gave the ZIS officers a legitimacy in the eyes of the people.
And with the initial victories of Martin Molembe's troops against the Desert Knights, it gave the leader of the ZIS an equally solid currency with the people, convincing them they'd made the right choice in trusting him to caretake the government until the crisis was solved.
One of Molembe's first acts had been to attach former army personnel to police units in the street to maintain order and to maintain contact with the people. That way it wasn't a them-or-us situation. By integrating the army with the general population there'd be less chance of a military crackdown on the civilians.
At the same time the ZIS chief was in charge of all military operations, preventing the two formerly separate outfits from working against each other.
So far the war had been kept away from the cap right-brace tal, but that could change any day or any night.
That was why yachts and fishing boats in the Zandeville harbor were always kept fueled. Just in case. And that was why the civilians kept loaded shotguns and pistols at their sides.
Just in case.
Patrol boats with quick-reaction teams cruised offshore, now and then dropping off teams for random searches.
Despite the relative calm that settled over Zandeville, it was only a matter of time before Fowler moved against the capital.
* * *
The white-washed stone of the presidential palace was an architectural blend of the White House and Heinrich Fowler's personal version of Valhalla. Massive columns flanked a long promenade that led to the main entrance. Domed roofs and elaborately buttressed palace wings gave the complex the aura of power, the home of the Zandesian elite whose windowed offices and suites looked down at the streets of Zandeville.
But it was an illusory power.
Many of the offices were empty. With Emil Nashonge in hiding, many of his hangers-on had been swept out of the palace. Fowler's entire infrastructure of private guards and assistants had also been banished, although many of them had taken their leave the night of the inaugural massacre. Now they were underground in Zandeville or actively supporting Fowler at one of his desert strongholds.
Flags and banners hung from the roofs; sculptured eagles sat perched atop the sprawling palace grounds; the busts of warriors, knights and tribal chieftains gazed down upon the palace courtyard.
All the pomp and circumstance befitted the chivalrous retch of Heinrich Fowler and Emil Nashonge. It still would have been regal except for the most recent additions made by the security forces.
Fence shields had been erected on the balconies to deflect grenades; armed ZIS guards steadily patrolled the walkways around the palace grounds; sandbags lined the guardhouse by the main gates, which were always kept closed now.
The road leading up to the gates was blocked with concrete guiders that prevented vehicles from launching a direct assault.
Inside the presidential palace the mood was equally somber. Many of the current residents were Zandesian diplomats, businessmen and FEP activists who were considered particular targets of Fowler's Desert Knights.
Floodlights lit up the courtyard and the outer gates, casting an artificial dawn upon the convoy of Land Rovers and troop carriers that wound through the obstacles at three in the morning.
The convoy had met Molembe's troops upon their return to the airport, ferrying the wounded to the hospital before
delivering Molembe's most trusted men to the palace.
In the middle of the convoy was a truckload of prisoners under armed guard, who'd be quartered at the palace with the utmost secrecy and interrogated a lot more fully. Though they'd already answered a lot of questions, there was someone at the palace who could decide how truthful they were.
* * *
Janelle Vallois lay in her bed dreaming. Her legs kicked the silk sheets as if she were trying to walk away from the dream, but there was no escape.
Every night it was the same. A car pulled up at the edge of the crowd that surrounded the presidential platform erected for Leopold Sabda's address to the people. It was a long black limo with tinted windows that nudged the edge of the crowd. No one moved for it.
At first.
A huge throng had come to see democracy dawning over Zandesi and nothing could move them.
Nothing but bullets.
The doors to the limo sprouted open like wings. Two men on each side poured from the car and took cover behind the armor-reinforced doors. Then they opened fire. Not at the presidential platform, but at the people.
They mowed down the Zandesians in a relentless harvest that forced many of them toward the platform to escape the lead scythes.
Civilians were pushed against the picket line of security men in a tidal wave of humanity.
Men and women spilled up the stairs, and soon the entire platform was overrun, ready to collapse.
Sabda's presidential bodyguard had suddenly become a uniformed island at the center of chaos, and everyone headed for them. The human flood pressed in on them as they screamed for help, effectively immobilizing them.
Then flashes of fire appeared from several spots in the crowd as gunmen revealed their weapons and almost casually began firing.
Fowler's assassins were sprinkled all throughout the audience. En masse they aimed at the UN observers who'd stood at the front of the platform. They went down in waves, observing the fanatic lengths Heinrich Fowler would take to keep his candidate in power.
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