Mitchell heard the noise, spun about on his heel, brought up his AK to his shoulder, and saw a jeep emerge out of a trail in the jungle, like a lion charging after its fleeing victim. A machine gun mounted on the roll bar, manned by a Liberian soldier, fired wildly into the sky, trying to hit Yuri’s chopper before it disappeared from sight. Tracers reached skyward as a steady stream of bullets struck the underside of MI-8. The sound of the bullets hitting the fuselage sounded like hail on a metal roof during a violent summer storm.
A shot rang out.
The machine gunner let go of his weapon and tumbled over the side of the speeding vehicle. Mitchell looked over his shoulder and saw Cardinal take careful aim at the driver, before pulling the trigger of his Russian-made Dragunov sniper rifle. The weapon fired sharply, the shot echoing across the narrow clearing. A second later, the driver slumped to one side, dead. The jeep kept rolling forward for a couple more seconds, before turning sharply to the left, and then jarringly stopped, barely twenty meters away, its engine still running.
Mitchell and Jackson sprinted from the jungle. They could see the driver of the jeep lying slumped over the steering wheel, a large, bloody hole torn straight through his chest. Jackson stopped by the driver and checked to make sure he was dead. There was little doubt in his mind; Cardinal rarely missed. Mitchell swore under his breath at the less-than-auspicious start to their mission. Looking in the back of the auto, he was relieved to see that there wasn’t any communications gear in it.
“Looks like Cardinal got them both,” said Jackson, as he dragged the second dead soldier’s body to the vehicle and then unceremoniously dumped it in the back.
“Yeah, looks that way,” said Mitchell. “I doubt they were out here by themselves. We do things in pairs, and I bet they do too, so there’s bound to be another one out there somewhere and all this shooting has probably made him mighty suspicious. He’s almost certainly on his way here as we speak.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Leave the vehicle where it is. If we move it, it will look too suspicious. Perhaps they will think the chopper got them.”
Jackson agreed. As fast as they could, Mitchell and Jackson made a beeline straight for the cover of the trees.
Sam met them with a look of concern in her eyes. “Yuri says the chopper was hit pretty bad. He’s lost a lot of hydraulic fluid,” explained Sam.
“Damn! Can he make it back home?” asked Mitchell.
“He thinks so, but the chopper might be beyond even his ability to repair in short order.”
“If anyone can fix it, it will be Yuri,” said Jackson, trying to sound optimistic.
Mitchell thought about it for a moment and then said, “Cardinal, get a hold of Hannah and warn her that Yuri’s chopper has been shot up and that they may need to have emergency vehicles on standby when he tries to land. After that, call Fahimah and tell her to get to work with Yuri on a backup escape plan immediately. I have a horrible feeling in my gut that we may just need it.”
Cardinal nodded and then dug out his phone to pass on the messages.
A minute later, with Jackson on point, Mitchell, Sam, and Cardinal headed deeper into the tropical rainforest, disappearing from view as easily as jungle cats, hoping to make their first RV overlooking the Liberian Army camp in a couple hours.
A short while later, in the clearing, another jeep arrived. The soldiers quickly found the bodies of their dead comrades. A grizzled sergeant, with tribal scars cut into his cheeks when was still a child, stood dispassionately looking over the bodies of his dead men. His eyes squinted as he stared at the shadows in the jungle, looking for clues as to what had happened. He had heard the shooting and saw the MI-8 fly away to the west, trailing smoke, but his gut told him something wasn’t right. Carefully walking around the vehicle, the sergeant saw trampled-down grass . . . footsteps.
He picked up his radio handset and passed on to his headquarters in Belle Yella that he suspected that anti-government guerrillas were operating in the area.
Kilometers away, the camp holding Emily and Cristoval came to life.
13
Kenema
Sierra Leone
Since getting the call from Cardinal nearly an hour ago, Hannah had stood outside of the makeshift office and stared impatiently up at the cloudless sky. She was a skinny, young woman, with bright eyes that seemed to sparkle in the light. A recent graduate of the Sierra Leonean Police Academy, her first assignment was in Kenema. She began to nervously pace back and forth. Hannah wondered how long it would take, or even if Yuri would make it back to Kenema.
The phone in Hannah’s hand went off, startling her. In her haste to answer it, she almost dropped it.
It was Yuri; he was five minutes out. He was going to make it. A wave of relief swept over Hannah. She let out a deep breath and dropped her slender frame down on a dusty, old crate. She barely knew the people she had been asked to work with, but that didn’t stop her from worrying about them. Looking across the airstrip for the first time since the sun had come up, Hannah was surprised to see a half-dozen, brand-new, green Land Rovers fuelling up at a local gas station. With only one working pump, it was taking them some time to fill the several dozen extra jerry cans they had with them. A mixed crew of men and women stood around the Land Rovers, checking over their vehicles. They all appeared to be in their early thirties, and looked to Hannah like they were a multinational crew of police or military from the way they dressed and acted. Curiosity started to get the better of her, when a tall, athletic-looking Asian man, dressed from head to toe in black, came from behind the lead vehicle, an expensive satphone in his hand. He had thick, salt-and-pepper hair, and looked to be in his forties, with a rugged-looking face; however, the most striking feature that stood out was that he wore an eye patch over his left eye. Hannah thought he would have looked at home on a pirate ship sailing the Spanish Main.
When she saw her sergeant walking across the small airfield, Hannah walked over to him. “Sergeant, who are those people?” she asked, nonchalantly pointing over at the Rovers.
“I was told that they are a camera team making a nature documentary,” replied the sergeant.
“They don’t look like the usual crews we see coming through here.”
“I chatted with their boss. He showed me papers signed off by the Minister of Tourism in Freetown.”
“Really?”
“Hannah, I suspect that they bought the requisite papers from one of the Minister’s staff. Don’t be too alarmed, this sort of thing happens a lot these days. Our country needs the hard currency they bring with them. Besides, from the look of them, they won’t be our problem much longer.” With that, the sergeant went about his business.
Hannah shook her head. She didn’t like it one bit. He probably took a bribe himself to look the other way, thought Hannah. She was about to go in search of a bite to eat when she heard the rhythmic beating of a helicopter’s rotor blades on the wind. She looked up. A smile broke on her face when she saw Yuri’s MI-8, trailing smoke, fly over the treetops and begin to pivot over the landing strip.
Lining up his helicopter with an open spot in the grassy field, Yuri brought his stricken helicopter in to land. He wearily reached over and killed the power. The engines whined for a moment and then went silent as the large rotor blades came to a shuddering halt. Black smoke escaped through the holes in the engine cover.
Hannah ran over to the helicopter just as Yuri threw open the side door, looking as if he had been fighting a marlin for hours on the open sea. Stepping out of his helicopter, he collapsed onto the dirt-covered field. His clothes were drenched in perspiration. Hannah reached down, placed her hand on his shoulder, and then offered him a water bottle, only to have Yuri smile at her and turn the bottle away. With his hand shaking, he reached into his dirty Hawaiian shirt and pulled out a silver flask. He unscrewed the lid, winked at and then toasted Hannah, then his badly damaged helicopter, before downing the rest of the flask in one long swig.
“Are you all right, sir?” asked Hannah, staring unbelievingly at the dozens of holes shot into the helicopter. The area around the engine housing looked as perforated as Swiss cheese.
“Da, I am okay, pretty girl,” said Yuri, smiling. “But my helicopter, she won’t fly for weeks unless we can find some spare parts somewhere out there.”
“I don’t know about that. I can ask around,” said Hannah as she helped Yuri to his feet. “You need to get cleaned up, have some food and then you must get some rest.”
A smile broke on Yuri’s unshaven face. “You going to help me get clean?”
“No, but I know where there is a powerful hose to spray you down,” said Hannah with a straight face.
Yuri chuckled.
While heading back to Hannah’s office, Yuri stopped in his tracks when he saw the column of Land Rovers at the gas station. He looked at Hannah and asked, “Who are those people?”
“My sergeant said that they are a nature documentary crew.”
“And I am czar of all Russia.”
“I personally think they are bad news,” Hannah said, as the people made ready to leave.
“You’re right,” said Yuri, his voice growing serious. He took her by the arm and moved Hannah over until she stood with her back to the gas station. He dug out his phone. Yuri smiled and told Hannah to stand still for a moment while he took a couple quick pictures.
With a beep from the lead Rover’s horn, the column headed out of the gas station, turned onto a dusty, red-dirt road, and then hastily sped off in the direction of the Liberian border.
With Hannah by his side, Yuri thumbed through the pictures he had just taken. Stopping on one, he enlarged the image and then swore.
“What’s wrong?” Hannah asked.
“I know that man; he’s a former Spetsnaz commando. These people aren’t out to film anything. They are mercenaries.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, pretty lady, I am sure,” said Yuri. “Come on, let’s get to your office. I need to call back to the States as well as Ryan. They both need to know that that someone else is up to no good here.”
14
Military compound
Belle Yella, Liberia
Emily sat at the table across from DuFour, her eyes still filled with tears. She was still in shock after seeing her husband forcibly dragged from her side and thrown into the back of a jeep before being driven away. She had screamed and kicked like a banshee as she fought the soldiers holding onto her. It was futile; they were too strong for her to escape their hold. Emily had been told that Cristoval was joining their friends. However, her heart told her that they were lying and that her husband was in grave danger. As she watched the vehicle drive out of the compound, she dropped to her knees and let out a mournful cry, not knowing if she would ever see her husband again.
Sarah DuFour ignored Emily for a moment. Her mind was elsewhere, while she reached into her briefcase and carefully placed on the table several photocopied papers.
Emily wiped the tears from her eyes. She reluctantly looked over at the papers.
DuFour looked at Emily. “I suggest that you cooperate with me or your husband will be killed. It’s that simple. Work or he will be shot!”
Emily fought to check her emotions. If helping the harpy sitting across from her would help reunite her with her husband, then so be it, resolved Emily.
Next, DuFour carefully laid out a couple of hand-drawn maps that seemed to crudely show the area around the Lofa River, where Jen and her friends had been digging the foundations for their school.
“What is all this?” asked Emily, looking down at the items spread out on the table.
“These, Mrs. Martinez, are the only known documents written by Thomas Gordon,” said DuFour almost reverently.
“I’ve never heard of him.”
“That is not a surprise. Gordon was a mere boy when he sailed with one of the most notorious pirates of the era, Captain James Lucifer. A bloodthirsty pirate who terrorized the Spanish Main before sailing east where he made a fortune sinking ships belonging to the Spanish, Portuguese, and most importantly the Arab traders who plied the waters of the Arabian Sea,” explained DuFour. “Regrettably, there is barely anything written about Lucifer and his exploits, as he disappeared off the face of the earth before he could be brought to justice for his crimes.”
“I still don’t understand what any of this means.”
“Mrs. Martinez, if you will let me explain, you soon will,” said DuFour irritably. “Thomas Gordon wrote that he was with James Lucifer when he, along with his crew, was massacred by natives while defending an old Arab trader’s fort. Walking out of the jungle, he eventually made his way back to England, where he lived under an assumed name to avoid prosecution for crimes that he and his shipmates had committed in the New World. He lived out the remainder of his life as a gentleman in London, off the profits made from the sale of several exquisite diamonds that he claimed were family heirlooms. However, on his deathbed he dictated his life story. The pages in front of you come from that journal.”
Emily looked around the table. “Where’s the rest of the journal?”
“A private collector in New Haven has it. We are in the process of obtaining it as we speak. The two maps on the table are reputed to have been hand drawn by Gordon himself the day before he died.”
“Aside from the monetary value, why are these diamonds so important to you?”
“That, frankly, is none of your business,” said DuFour. “What I need you to do is
help me sift through the hundreds of papers and notes that I have amassed over the past few years researching James Lucifer. Perhaps together we can discover where the diamonds can be found.”
Emily looked over at the boxes on the floor filled with paper and grimaced. It would take weeks, not days, to go painstakingly through DuFour’s notes.
DuFour saw the look in Emily’s eyes. “I suggest that you grab a box and get to work. Remember, your husband’s life is in your hands.”
Emily took a deep breath to calm herself. She stood up, walked over, and picked up the closest box. Placing it down on the floor beside her, she reached down, grabbed a handful of pages, and began to read. Her stomach felt as though it were tied in knots. She had never been so scared in her life. Emily stared down at the piece of paper in her hand and thought of Cristoval and their friends and the danger they were in. Slowly, she began to read, hoping to find the clue that would help set them all free.
15
The sun hung high in the noonday sky, baking the world below it. The damp jungle was as humid as a sauna.
Mitchell crawled on his stomach until he could see the Liberian Army compound spread out below him at the base of the hill. He judged it was no more than five hundred meters from the top of the hill to the nearest buildings, an easy shot for Cardinal, should he need to engage anyone. Ignoring the buzz from the swarm of mosquitoes flying around his head, he brought his binoculars up to his eyes and surveyed the Liberian camp. Right away, he bit his lip. The security walking the perimeter had increased dramatically since the last time a satellite photo was taken. The change was no surprise to Mitchell. Their entrance into Liberia hadn’t gone smoothly. He was certain that the army was aware that someone had landed and was now looking for them.
Jackson crept up beside Mitchell and let out a low whistle at the extra soldiers moving around down below. “Well, so much for the element of surprise,” said Jackson.
“Nate, you worry too much,” said Mitchell. “Our friends guarding the compound are all busy watching the main road leading into the camp. All we need do is keep to the tree line and make our way around to the far side of the camp. If we wait until they do a shift change, we should be able to get in unobserved.”
“Ryan, did anyone ever tell you that you are an eternal optimist?”
“It’s better than being pessimistic when we’re hundreds of kilometers from safety. Come on, let’s get to work.”
Both men crawled back until they were off the crest off the hill and hid from sight under the cover of the jungle. Sam and Cardinal were waiting for them.
Mitchell quickly filled them in on how he and Jackson intended to infiltrate the camp. When he was finished, Sam and Cardinal nodded their heads. Their task was to remain on the hill and keep watch over their friends while they tried to sneak into the camp.
Cardinal said, “Ryan, while you were gone, I got a call from Yuri. He’s okay, but the MI-8 is a total write-off.”
“That’s great news about Yuri,” responded Mitchell. “Not so much about the chopper.”
“Wait, it gets better. Yuri identified a former Spetsnaz commando with a suspect crew of people heading for the Liberian border. He’s convinced they are mercs. It would seem that we’re not the only people interested in poking around Liberia.”
“Damn,” muttered Mitchell.
“It never rains but it pours,” observed Jackson.
“Yuri forwarded some pics of the mercs to Donaldson. He expects to receive some intel on them within the hour,” explained Cardinal.
“Well, there’s no point in worrying about them,” said Mitchell. “I doubt that we’ll ever see them. It’s a big jungle out there.”
“With our luck, I wouldn’t bet on it,” said Jackson. “We’ll probably be tripping over them, before too long.”
“Regardless, we still have a job to do,” said Mitchell. “So I say we get to work.”
Jackson nodded, and then with a quick nod of his head at Sam and Cardinal, he picked up his AK and followed Mitchell as he started to make his way through the thick jungle to the far side of the camp.
Lucifer's Fire Page 9
