by Joshua Hood
10
ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST
General Joseph Dábo was sitting at the breakfast table with his wife, half listening while she went on about the drapes she was planning on buying for the living room.
“At first I thought beige would match the décor,” she said, flashing the smile that came anytime she was talking about spending his money.
“Hmm,” he said, absently taking a battered cigarette case from the chest pocket of his BDUs.
“But I was wrong.”
“Wait, what?” he asked, plucking a Gauloises from the case.
“I said I was wrong about the drapes matching.”
“A Soro . . . admitting they were wrong? Now that’s something you don’t hear every day,” he grinned, snapping the case shut.
“I thought you were quitting. Does Laurence know?”
“No,” he said, getting to his feet and moving around the table, his six-foot-three frame dwarfing his diminutive wife as he bent to kiss her forehead. “And don’t you go telling him, either.”
“And why is that?” she asked, a coy, mischievous sparkle in her almond eyes. “You worried he will sack you again?”
“President Soro, fire me?” Dábo laughed. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“Because you control the Republican Guard?”
“No, because I told your brother the next time he fired me, I’d send you back to live with him,” he grinned, ducking out of the kitchen before his wife could throw something at him.
Dábo was still smiling when he stepped out the front door and returned the salute of the two guards posted on the porch on his way to the up-armored Mercedes G-Class waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He climbed into the backseat, nodded to the driver, and leaned back, the custom Corinthian leather seat conforming to his frame.
The Mercedes glided away from the curb and Dábo pulled a pair of gold-rimmed Versace aviators from his pocket, slipped them over his intelligent eyes, and turned his gaze to the window.
The view took him back to 1999 when he was just another illiterate son of a farmer from Doropo hoping to make it in Abidjan. If someone had told him, back then, that one day he would be living in a three-thousand-square-foot villa in Cocody, the upscale enclave that housed Ivorian cultural elite, prominent expats, and foreign embassies, it would have seemed impossible. He’d come to the capital not to make it rich, but because he wanted to be a pilot. Unfortunately, the army had other ideas, sending him to the motor pool instead of flight school.
Being a mechanic was boring work, but he didn’t mind; after all, he was getting paid. But that changed in 2002 when troops from the northern provinces staged an armed uprising and stormed the capital.
Sensing an opportunity, Dábo resigned from the army and joined the rebels, who were now calling themselves the Ivorian Popular Front, or FPI.
While there was fighting all over the country, the rebels’ main goal was to take the capital. During the first few months of close and brutal fighting, Dábo showed natural aptitude for the ruthlessness and tenacity that would earn him the attention of Laurence Soro—the leader of the FPI.
By the end of the year, Dábo was promoted to captain and six months later he was made an area commander. Soon he established himself as one of Soro’s most able commanders, a role he ultimately used to bring his now brother-in-law to power.
Which was how at the young age of thirty-seven General Joseph Dábo became commander of the Republican Guard, a position that made him the second most powerful man in the country, but it also put a target on his back—especially among the groups that had broken off from the FPI and continued to fight Soro’s government from their strongholds in the north.
It was this continued hostility and the rebels’ willingness to try and kill Dábo at home that explained the blast-resistant gate at the bottom of the hill. The driver came to a halt next to a pair of concrete pillboxes and two soldiers stepped out. One of the men flashed a salute, then hustled to open the gate while the machine gunners on the roof swiveled the barrels of the belt-fed PKMs toward the street, ready and willing to kill anyone stupid enough to try and enter the compound.
The gate slid open on well-oiled rollers and the driver was pulling onto the street when Dábo’s satellite phone chirped to life. He pulled it out, ready to ignore the call until he saw the number on the screen.
Cabot, Jesus, why is he calling me? he wondered before answering.
“Yes, sir?”
As usual, Cabot cut right to the point.
“The airfield in Korhogo, I need it opened.”
Since President Soro had taken power, he’d authorized Dábo to use the Republican Guard to stamp out the opposition, but his brutal methods had garnered unwanted attention and the general had been told to stand down. In fact, the president had been adamant that no additional incursions would be made without his direct authorization.
“General, are you there?” Cabot asked.
“Y-yes . . .” Dábo stammered, “but you know the president’s orders.”
More than anyone else who he’d met during his journey from lowly private to commander of the Republican Guard, Dábo was in Cabot’s debt—the man had literally saved his life.
Even now he could remember every detail of that day, the convoy leaving the presidential palace and turning onto Boulevard Clozel, driving south, through the rain, toward the Heden Golf Hotel—and then the ambush.
The IED blew his truck off the road, killing the driver and mangling the armored Mercedes. He could still remember the caustic burn of the smoke in his lungs, the flames licking at his clothes.
By the time he got out, crawled free of the burning truck, Dábo had second-degree burns on half of his body and his left arm was broken. He managed to roll into a ditch, the rainwater extinguishing the fire as the attackers raked the area with machine gun fire.
He killed three of them with his pistol, saving the last bullet for himself, when Cabot and his squad of French paratroopers arrived and saved his life.
Dábo owed the man, that much went without saying, but this . . . this was impossible.
“General, are you there?”
“Yes . . . but Korhogo is—”
“Surrounded, cut off, yes I know. Why do you think I’m calling you?”
11
MOGADOR
One second Hayes was standing there, his hands empty, and in the next instant the STI was out of its holster and rotating on target. He fired a single shot, the bullet catching Luca in his hip, spinning him to the ground, and then Hayes pushed the pistol up into a two-handed grip, the reticle locked on Emil’s forehead.
Too slow, motherfucker.
He pulled the trigger. The 9-millimeter bucked in his hand, the bullet snapping the man’s head back, as Hayes turned. He dropped to a knee and vented the bartender with a double tap to the chest.
Near the door, one of the men had a pistol out and was pulling the trigger as fast as he could. Flame spit from the barrel as he sent a rapid string of shots toward Hayes.
The first round hit the floor, tearing a gouge in the wood, and the second zipped high over his head, but Hayes kept his composure, lined up the shot, and ended the man with a hollow point through the eyeball. Then he was on his feet, diving over the top of the bar, bullets slamming into the bottles on the back wall, glass and booze spraying down on him.
The bartender lay on his back, the contents of his skull splattered across the kegs of beer, eyes staring sightless at the ceiling, a shotgun lying across his chest.
Hello, beautiful, Hayes thought, ignoring the shots punching through the front of the bar.
He shoved the pistol into its holster and was leaning forward to retrieve the shotgun from the dead man’s chest. His hands were closing around the weapon when a bullet ricocheted off one of the kegs below the bar and slammed into his side.
The
impact blasted the breath from his lungs and shoved him sideways across the floor. Hayes landed on his back, the pain white-hot and all-consuming. His mouth yawned in a silent scream, his lungs begging for air as a second bullet slapped into the wall inches from his face.
Move or die, the voice commanded.
Hayes kicked at the ground, trying to scramble out of the line of fire, but the floor was slick with booze and the bartender’s blood. A second hail of lead came punching through the wood and he knew that the second shooter had followed his partner’s example and adjusted his aim.
He was stuck, the floor too slick to get out of the line of fire. His only option was to roll onto his side, bring the shotgun up to his shoulder, and center the barrel on the light streaming through the growing cluster of bullet holes.
Hayes pulled the trigger and the shotgun roared like a howitzer, the stock recoiling hard into his shoulder. The first blast of double-aught buck blew a hole the size of a dinner plate through the wood, but he still couldn’t see his attackers. As he fired a second shot, he managed a shaky breath.
He hacked on a lungful of gun smoke, the pain from his bruised ribs and the battery acid burn of the sweat in his eyes adding to his discomfort as he turned his full attention to kill his attackers.
The shotgun blast had punched a ragged hole through the front of the bar, and lying on his back, Hayes could see a pair of legs on the other side. Pushing everything away, he lined up the bead on the man’s thigh, waited for it to steady, and pulled the trigger.
The buckshot slammed into the shooter’s thigh at thirteen hundred feet per second and cut through the flesh and bone like a blade through butter.
Hayes dumped the shotgun, rolled onto his stomach, and low-crawled to the end of the bar. He jerked the pistol from the holster and forced himself up into a crouch, ignoring the dying screams of the man he’d left splayed out on the floor.
The remaining smuggler stood vapor-locked in the center of the room, the pistol in his hand forgotten as he gaped at his dying partner.
Quickly Hayes vaulted the bar, the slap of his shoes against the floor nudging the man back to reality.
“I’ll kill you,” the smuggler screamed, not realizing the pistol was empty until he pulled the trigger and heard the click of the hammer on the chamber.
Hayes stayed on target, knowing that the smuggler had tried to kill him and that he had every right to return the favor. “You just won the lottery, pal,” he said, lowering the pistol.
“You—you’re going to shoot me in the back,” the man said, his face white as bone.
“Not my style,” he said.
When the smuggler was gone, Hayes scanned the room, making sure all the threats were down before bringing the pistol in. He dropped the magazine and shoved a fresh one home, the simple act of holding the thirty-four-ounce pistol in front of his face sending lightning bolts of pain radiating from his damaged ribs. By the time he holstered up, Hayes was sweating.
He ripped his shirt open and ran his hand down the outside of his vest, fingers finding the indentation where the bullet had hit three inches below his armpit. He’d been lucky and knew that if the shooters’ aim had just been a little higher he’d be breathing blood bubbles right now.
But damn, did it hurt.
Hayes shuffled to the table, popped the lid of the Pelican case, and was grabbing the stack of pills when the radio hissed to life.
“Emil . . . Emil, do you copy?”
When there was no answer, the voice said, “Post one, head down to the bar and check it out.”
“On our way,” a man answered. His breathless voice telling Hayes that he was running.
That’s my cue.
Hayes stuffed the pills and the envelope of cash into the bag. Knowing that he needed to do something to disrupt their communications, he grabbed the radio. He scanned the surface of the table, looking for a rubber band or anything else he could use to hold down the transmit key and jam the frequency, so none of the men outside could use their radios. A cursory search proved fruitless.
Then Hayes’s eyes drifted to the dead bodyguard splayed out on the ground. He came around the table and dropped to a knee beside Emil.
“Hey, man, can you give me a hand here?” he asked, placing the radio into the man’s hand and closing his stiffening fingers around the transmit button.
The hiss of static from the speaker told him the radio was transmitting and Hayes moved to the door. He killed the lights, tugged the night vision over his eyes, and stepped outside.
He thought about making a play for the Mako, but knew it was pointless, since the powerboat was not only under guard, but damn near out of gas.
But whoever is coming up from the docks doesn’t know that.
Hayes burst from cover and, staying low, raced back the way he’d come. He made it to the path and spent a few seconds scraping his feet on the ground, leaving an obvious trail that he hoped the men coming from the docks would follow toward the scrub on the left side of the path.
He dove for cover behind a tree and was catching his breath when he saw the line of bodies running up from the east.
Here they come.
He figured they would start at the bar, check the interior, and then, if he was lucky, head north where the Mako was docked. If he was super lucky, they would see the tracks he’d made, assume he was an idiot, and haul ass up the hill.
It wasn’t the most solid plan, but he’d lived through worse. Hayes was craning his neck to the south, trying to get a clear look at the dock, when he heard a sound that sent ice rushing through his veins.
He snapped his head back toward the men running to the bar, fifty feet to his front. They were closing fast, and he could hear their angry chatter and see the assortment of eastern bloc hardware they were toting.
But while Hayes wasn’t worried about the exotic array of Kalashnikovs in the men’s hands, the same could not be said of the beast straining against the length of chain that ran from its collar to the handler’s waist.
What the hell is that, a bear?
With the branches and tall grass blocking his view, Hayes was able to get only brief glimpses of the animal, but what he saw made no logical sense. His first thought was that it was some kind of visual distortion, his brain trying to help out his eyes by boosting the magnification of what he was seeing through the night vision. But he rejected the thought when he realized the phenomenon didn’t carry over to the men.
Maybe they breed fighting dogs and one of those dudes got a lion drunk and got it to mate with a St. Bernard or something.
Hayes was forced to wait an agonizing couple of minutes before the men were close enough to get a clear view of the animal.
It’s a freaking Boerboel.
In most cases the fact that he was dealing with a dog and not some failed genetic experiment would have brought a modicum of relief. But knowing what he did about the Boerboel—that the males weighed close to two hundred pounds and had a bite pressure of more than 850 psi—Hayes wished he had a bigger gun.
And if the beast’s size wasn’t a big enough challenge, he realized that he had another problem when he felt the tickle of wind dance across his back, then dive down the incline toward the men.
Before the breeze, the Boerboel seemed almost passive, perfectly content to drag his handler through the undergrowth. Up to that point Hayes’s plan of lying still and waiting for the men to pass had seemed feasible. But the moment he felt the breeze, he realized the dog’s size was the least of his worries.
According to a study Hayes had read, the average human had six million scent receptors and was able to detect up to a trillion different odors. Both were big numbers, but even with the men standing downwind of him, he wasn’t worried about them catching his scent. Mainly because, like him, evolution had programmed his pursuers to process their environment visually.
The Boerboel, on the other hand, had come into the world blind and deaf and like all puppies had learned to process its environment not with its eyes, but with its nose and its up to three hundred million scent receptors. So it was no surprise when, seconds after sniffing the air, the Boerboel froze, its massive head snapping left, a mohawk of fur running up its back as its eyes locked on to Hayes’s hiding place.
Annnd . . . dammit.
The second the Boerboel turned in his direction, he had the reticle of the STI centered on the animal’s chest and his finger hovering over the trigger.
For God’s sake, shoot the dog, the voice urged.
While twenty yards was a long pistol shot for some, Hayes knew at this range he could shoot the wings off a gnat, but still he held his fire. Not because he had any ethical problems with shooting a dog but because he honestly wasn’t sure if the 9-millimeter had the ass to bring it down.
Better to go with what you know.
Hayes shifted targets, transitioned from the Boerboel to the handler, who was in the process of unclipping the chain from his waist when Hayes fired.
The 9-millimeter Corbon Pow’R Ball left the barrel at fourteen hundred feet per second and punched through the man’s skull, before mushrooming inside his cranial vault.
It was lights out—instant death.
The handler’s comrades spun in the direction of the shot, but before they could open fire, Hayes dumped the rest of the magazine, firing so fast that the STI sounded like it was on full auto, trying to keep their heads down long enough to unass his position.
But the men were well trained and reacted to the incoming hail of bullets by dropping prone and hosing the tree line with a wall of lead. The bullets came snapping through the brush, one of the rounds slamming into a tree two inches above Hayes’s head.
He rolled out of the line of fire, snagged a fresh mag from the magazine pouch clipped to his belt, and slammed it into the pistol. Then he was on his feet, bent at the waist, twisting and dodging through the trees, sprinting for higher ground, knowing from the hail of lead impacting all around him that he wasn’t going to make it.