Armed Response

by Don Pendleton

  “You hurt me,” she said, rubbing her wrist.

  “Sorry. There’s no time to explain.”

  Her eyes widened as Bolan removed the pistol and the spare magazines.

  “Oh, no! No guns! Why are you carrying that with you?”

  Bolan turned to her as he tucked the pistol into his waistband, pulling his shirt over it. He pushed the magazines into his rear pockets.

  “Again, sorry. Now listen. You have to stay here, no matter what happens. Close and lock the door. Only open it for me. No one else. And keep the porthole closed, as well. No matter what you hear, stay here!”

  Bolan left her, pulling the cabin door shut behind him. He hoped that Clayton would be sensible enough to lock it. He charged down the corridor and found an open door that led him onto the deck. He could clearly hear the helicopters, the thunder of their engines and rotors getting closer. Then they were over the ship, flying no more than fifty feet above the funnel. Two gray Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk helicopters roared overhead. Bolan could clearly see the door gunners gripping their General Electric GAU-17A miniguns, a six-barreled Gatling gun that was capable of firing up to six thousand rounds a minute. Several of the deck crew fell to the ground, clutching their ears, expecting to be shot at any minute. Bolan scanned the horizon. Where was the terrorist strike team? He’d have a better chance at locating them from the bridge.

  He ran back, retracing his steps, taking ladders and stairs quickly upward where he found Abu, Grubby and a couple of others looking decidedly nervous. Bolan grabbed a pair of binoculars and proceeded out onto the flying bridge, a tiny piece of superstructure that afforded the captain an outside view of his ship and the sea. The Seahawks were peeling off, heading toward the starboard horizon. Bolan followed them with his binoculars. Then he saw the tiny boats in the water, charging at high speed toward the Cape Faith. He nodded to himself.

  The attack was on.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The murder took place seven yards from where Peter Douglas stood, staring out of his first-floor bedroom window, watching with horror and feeling powerless to prevent it. The skinny black guy had come out of an opposite building, holding aloft what appeared to be a chicken leg, brandishing it as if it were a sword captured from an enemy on the battlefield. Douglas had no idea what the building opposite housed, but he suspected that it was being used by black marketers selling food and other items at overinflated prices. And this guy, pleased as punch, waved his expensive piece of chicken around for all the world to see.

  It caught the attention of three punks, all hungry, who demanded that the chicken be turned over along with anything else the skinny guy had—at least that’s what Douglas assumed they were saying. Punks were the same the world over. The skinny guy refused, was about to take a bite when the punks lunged. There was a scuffle, a flash of a knife, and the skinny guy relinquished his chicken, falling into the grime of the gutter.

  The punks laughed, one of them clutching the chicken leg, and together they ran down the litter-strewed street, fading into the darkness. Nobody approached the dying man, whose blood was spreading through the filth. Nobody cared. It was just another death in Djibouti. The corpse, when found, would be taken to a mass burial pit outside the city to join the growing pile of dead.

  Douglas let the black curtain fall back into place. He sat heavily on the corner of his single bed, its worn springs protesting. He rubbed his eyes with his bandaged hands, thinking of the madness of the world, of the dead body under his window, of Saint-Verran blown to pieces, of Peter Davies lying in intensive care at Camp Lemonnier, unable to be moved due to the severity of his injuries. How was it possible that Davies was knocking on death’s door when he had only cuts to his hands and a few bruises to show? Davies had been standing right next to him when the car bomb exploded. It was madness.

  After his discharge from the military hospital, he had been debriefed by the station chief, who wanted to know how he could have allowed this to happen. Why hadn’t he foreseen an assassination plot against Saint-Verran? Did he know that French Intelligence was up in arms about one of their own, an ex-employee but a very useful ex-employee, being murdered just after he had a chat with the CIA? And just what was the chat about?

  Douglas had wearily relayed all that he could remember, but no, he didn’t know how many mercenaries there were or even if there were mercenaries; no, he knew nothing about American oil prospectors being in the same area. And what about the factions in the local government, demanding the removal of all foreign troops from their soil? Did he know anything about that? No, Douglas had answered, wasn’t that a task of one of the other agents on the ground?

  The chief didn’t answer him. Instead he went on about how important Djibouti was to the United States, how important it was to the French. Didn’t the locals understand that without the French, the country would financially fall apart? The only other source of income they had was the large harbor and its single railroad line to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.

  Douglas was sent on his way, instructed not to return to his own apartment—the French were probably watching it—but instead to a safehouse on rue de Londres. Once there he was to type up his report, submit it, then wait for further instructions. Douglas could read between the lines on that. He was in the doghouse. An agent under his care had been gravely injured, an important source was dead and a hotel was half blown to smithereens, killing and injuring a load of journalists and aid workers, not to mention the locals who had jobs there.

  So there he was, stuck. The apartment was tiny. A single bedroom, a tiny bathroom where the shower sometimes allowed a dribble of yellow water to seep out of its head, and a living room cum kitchenette, which did admittedly have bottles of water and enough packaged food to last a week. The living room was dominated by a threadbare orange sofa, a computer desk in one corner where an old laptop and a printer were located, and a locked gray metal cabinet that Douglas knew contained various weapons. He hadn’t opened it yet, didn’t feel the need. He didn’t expect to be there long. The transfer orders to Greenland were probably being drawn up at that very moment. He found his coffee, lukewarm, on the scratched table and took a sip. Even cold coffee was better than what some of those unfortunate bastards outside were drinking.

  The printer started to rattle. The laptop was permanently on. It had a live VPN link to Lemonnier, and Douglas had no idea how that had been installed with nobody noticing. Internet was virtually unheard of for individual citizens. The printer heads slid back and forth, slowly spewing out a single sheet before going silent. Douglas observed the paper from across the room. There it was, orders to go to Greenland or Antarctica or back to Langley for “training.” He didn’t want to pick it up, but he did. And what was on it stopped him in his tracks.

  It was indeed orders, but not a transfer. He was instructed to report to the harbor in the morning, to be at Wharf 16 when a ship, the MV Cape Faith, docked. He was to meet with a male passenger, an American named Mike Blanski, and escort him to Lemonnier, where he would board a military flight. Journalists—if there were any—were to be kept far away from Mr. Blanski. The whole transfer to Lemonnier was to be hush-hush, no fuss, use a nondescript vehicle as transport. Destroy this document. End of message.

  Douglas frowned. There was no signature, no other name apart from this Mike Blanski. The message was in plain language, not in a form of code that was normally used, and in any case, any message would come from the station chief, having been passed down the chain of command. Something was highly unusual about this message. Nobody, apart from the CIA, had access to this computer or its printer.

  Douglas sat on the desk chair, logged into the network at Lemonnier and navigated to a secure web portal at the CIA. He typed in his password and jumped through several virtual hoops before entering the database to perform a search. He typed in the name of the ship. Not much information was returned: 4,000 ton displacement, tramp freighter, operated in the Middle East and around the Horn of Africa, suspected of being
sometimes involved in the black market but nothing proved.

  Next he entered the name Mike Blanski. And he waited. And waited a little more. Something was wrong. Usually when something took a long time, it meant that the computer had crashed. Or other departments were being notified of the search.

  Information finally appeared on the screen, a few lines, written in red. Douglas frowned as he began to read. The text stated that the information was locked. No access was permitted. The request had been flagged. Cease the inquiry. The hair on his nape and arms stood up. He had seen something like this before. A long time ago, a lifetime ago. It spelled trouble. It spelled deep black ops.

  Whoever was arriving the next day specialized in one thing: death and destruction. What had he gotten himself into now?

  * * *

  MACK BOLAN OBSERVED the helicopters circle the tiny speedboats. He could make out five, possibly six, low in the water. A drone high overhead had to have spotted six wakes heading in the direction of the Cape Faith. The boats were getting closer. Abu and Grubby joined Bolan on the flying bridge, pressing a little too close. Bolan wondered if they or other members of the crew were in on the plot. But if they were, then why hijack the ship to start with? No, these men were not in with the terrorists, of that Bolan was certain. Or he’d be getting a knife between his ribs, he thought.

  “What is it? What’s happening?” Abu asked nervously.

  “Watch,” Bolan replied. “You’re about to see some action.”

  There were flickers of light from the speedboats. Muzzle-flashes, Bolan knew. The two helicopters responded in kind, but the flashes came not from small arms but Gatling guns. Two boats disintegrated. Brief blazes of flame from the gas tanks, and they were gone. There would be no survivors. Both Abu and Grubby gasped. The remaining four boats split away from one another, all keeping their vectors on the Cape Faith. The two helicopters swooped again. Except this time the terrorists retaliated harder.

  A contrail shot away from one of the boats, heading toward a Seahawk. The helicopter pilot saw the approaching RPG rocket and jerked the helicopter aside but not quite quickly enough. There was an impact and a bright flash. Bolan heard the boom a second later. The helicopter had been struck on the underside. The rocket-propelled grenade had bounced partially off before exploding. The damage was severe enough for the Sikorsky to break off the attack and limp eastward, trailing a black stream of smoke. Bolan focused on the second helicopter. Another RPG shot upward, this one missing. No second chance was given. The helicopter fired its Gatling gun and another boat disappeared.

  “Then there were three,” Bolan muttered.

  The Seahawk rose higher and turned slightly to bring its nose to face the closest two speedboats. There were more muzzle-flashes from the terrorists, but they were unable to hit anything due to the wild bouncing across the waves. The gunfire and the buzz of the outboard motors could now clearly be heard. There was a whoosh from the Seahawk and two heat-seeking Hellfire missiles shot away, targeting the outboard motors. Both boats exploded within a second of each other.

  The last boat was the farthest away from the remaining helicopter, and it was the closest to the Cape Faith. The helicopter pursued, but Bolan realized that they would not fire if the speedboat got too close. The terrorists would almost certainly try to board if they didn’t break off their attack. And with the latter option a suicidal one, Bolan knew that he would have to join the action. He drew the Beretta from his waistband and faced Abu, pistol pointed skyward.

  “Stay on course, and whatever happens do not slow down or stop. Do you understand?”

  Both Abu and Grubby nodded, their eyes fixed on the pistol that Bolan wielded. He pushed past them and ran through the bridge. Seconds later he was on deck, brushing past gaping crewmen who had come out to watch the action. The speedboat was close; he could hear it. The helicopter was also close, the rotors thundering, a loudspeaker blaring words about surrender and slowing down. The words were meaningless to terrorists.

  Bolan ran to starboard and looked down the hull. The speedboat was alongside, four terrorists: one operating the outboard, two more pointing grappling hooks up at the side, the fourth firing potshots at the hovering helicopter, which was keeping its distance at one hundred yards. Bolan drew back as the grappling guns fired, the hooks flying up, then landing on the deck. He waved the crew back, not wanting them to interfere. Let the terrorists come to him. What they were attempting was incredibly dangerous. There was a good chance they would fall into the sea before they reached the deck. The grappling hooks were pulled back and became stuck and taut on the railing. Bolan heard the men clambering up the side. He looked over to see they were almost level with the deck. He took two steps back and brought his pistol up as the first terrorist popped his head up over the side.

  “Surprise,” Bolan said as he fired. The terrorist’s head snapped back and disappeared from view. The second terrorist appeared a moment later, unable to comprehend why his companion had fallen. The Executioner offered an explanation by firing a second round. The terrorist also dropped back, eliciting angry cries from the speedboat.

  Bolan approached the railing, pistol leading the way, and looked down. One body was lying in the boat, the two remaining terrorists looking upward to see what had gone wrong. Bolan took the one armed with the AK-47 first, firing three shots at him. The terrorist shuddered and toppled backward into the churning water. Bolan brought the remaining terrorist into the pistol’s sights, even as the guy was getting to his feet, shouting insults.

  “He says you are the son of a whore,” Grubby said from behind him.

  “Does he, indeed?” Bolan fired the pistol twice more, not at the remaining terrorist but at the outboard motor. The engine coughed, as smoke began to pour out of it, then gave up entirely. The speedboat immediately lost its way and was soon drifting in the wake of the Cape Faith, its lone survivor waving frantically.

  “Why you not kill him?” Grubby inquired.

  “Because the Navy can pick him up and question him. Ask where the mother ship is, how many crew on board. Things like that.” Bolan ejected his partially spent magazine as he spoke, slapping in a fresh one. Grubby nodded and moved back, no longer wanting to stand next to the American, in case the earlier misunderstanding over money was suddenly remembered.

  The helicopter moved in closer, until it was flying no more than ten yards above the deck. Bolan ducked from the heavy rotor wash, the whirlwind whipping up all manner of dust, dirt and rust. The crew cleared the deck, disappearing down open hatchways. Two polyester lines dropped from the helicopter, followed by two men who fast-roped down to the ship. Once on deck they released their harnesses, one man signaling the helicopter. The aircraft banked away, heading east toward the speedboat. The two men, dressed in black combat fatigues, bristling with weaponry, approached Bolan as the racket of the Seahawk decreased. The Executioner tucked the Beretta away under his shirt and extended his hand. He had them pegged as SEALs. One commando shook it as the other scanned the ship for possible threats.

  “Are you Blanski?” the man asked.

  Bolan nodded.

  “Yeah, we were told that you would be on board. I’m Linck. That’s…well, that’s someone else,” he said, indicating the other man. “Is there somewhere we can go?”

  “Follow me.” Bolan led the way into the superstructure to the galley. Several crewmen were present, animatedly discussing the attacks. They went silent as soon as Bolan and the two heavily armed SEALs entered. Bolan indicated with his head that they should clear the room.

  As they scuttled past, Linck asked, “Is one of them the ship’s master?”

  “Abu,” Bolan called after them. “Send Abu here now. Only Abu!” Bolan wasn’t sure if any of them spoke English, but the message should be clear enough.

  “Thanks for your help, Blanski. I understand that the intel came from you?” Linck believed Bolan to be a spook, probably CIA. The Executioner didn’t say anything to contradict that mistake.
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br />   “I was never here, Mr. Linck,” Bolan said softly. “What’s the status of the other chopper?”

  “Understood, sir. Last I heard Buzzard One was limping back to the coast. No fatalities. Just a lot of shaken-up guys.” He grinned. “Serves them right for getting too close. Buzzard Two has gone to pick up that lone survivor. Unless he decides to play games and take potshots. Then he’ll be vaporized. The mother ship has been located and will be intercepted by a French frigate. Scuttlebutt is that Zaid abu Qutaiba has been killed in Yemen. Was that you?”

  Bolan said nothing.

  “Just asking. The Yemeni army can’t shoot for shit.”

  Linck fell silent as Abu scurried in, looking anxious. The SEAL turned to face him. “Are you the ship’s master?”

  Abu nodded, eyes wide.

  “Sir, on behalf of the United States of America, I wish to thank you for your assistance in the interception of these notorious pirates. I understand that the Secretary of State will be in contact with the ship’s owners, praising you and your crew’s bravery. Maybe your boss will inform Al-Jazeera of your actions. You may even get to be on TV.” Bolan smiled slightly as Abu’s face lit up. Whether or not any of Linck’s praise was true or not, it had certainly bought Abu’s full cooperation.

  “You stay for party? We have party on ship for brave American soldiers!” Abu’s smile spread from ear to ear.

  “No, sir. We will, however, be staying on board until the ship reaches Djibouti. You do not need to arrange quarters. We’ll be on deck. You may also hear other helicopters buzzing around during the night. They will be assisting in your protection. We will leave you now, to your party. Mr. Blanski, what will be your role when we enter Djiboutian waters?”

  “I’ll be first to leave. No fuss. Somebody should be around to get me through customs.”