Executioner 058 - Ambush On Blood River

by Pendleton, Don

  It was only sixty yards across the swaying span but the American had to raise his voice above the noise level of the bustling, vibrant gorge. However, the staggered ranks of huge fluted tree trunks formed an effective shield to prevent his shouted instructions from carrying beyond the immediate area of the bridge.

  He turned away again and walked up the road, counting his paces as he measured off a selected distance. Manning scrambled along through the undergrowth trying to keep up.

  "That's about it," Bolan said, turning to face the blank green wall of scrub that edged the track. "Anything suitable up there?"

  Manning judged he was in line with the spot chosen by the colonel. "Yes. I think this mahogany looks big enough."

  Bolan did not try to break through to join Manning, as the other man notched a mark into the trunk. On no account did he want the underbrush disturbed—there should be nothing that would give them away.

  He strolled back to the bridge checking both sides for potential spots to station the men, then waited for Manning to retrace his steps.

  "There's a small depression here—be a good pit for the automatic weapons," Manning called out. "It has a clear field of . . . .Geez!"

  The Canadian bounded out onto the track. "A bloody, great mottled snake . . . hardly saw the damn thing!"

  "Gabon viper, I expect," Bolan remarked dryly, trying not to smile at seeing the burly engineer as shaken as if he'd seen a ghost. "This is just their kind of country."

  "Lethal?"

  "Fatal," Bolan said, nodding. "Almost always."

  By the time they had walked back across the bridge, Manning had recovered his usual taciturn poise. He went straight to the cases of explosives and began sorting out what he needed.

  Encizo had already made a careful inspection of the posts supporting the cables. "I'll have to swing down underneath and mine the concrete reinforcements."

  Ohara went to fetch a coil of rope from the back of the Land Rover. The Phoenix men were working together smoothly as a team; it was the others who needed to be told what to do.

  "Kambolo, give Gary a hand with that C-4," ordered Bolan. The black driver looked startled. He opened his mouth to protest. The American would have none of it. "Yes, you. Take that stuff over to the other side!"

  Hearing the stern instructions, Rawson skipped nimbly toward the Rover. "I'll get the transport turned around."

  "Mulanda, give him a hand. Hide the truck in those bushes there. Make sure everything's set to roll when we need it."

  Ziemba had not needed to be shouted at, he was pitching in already. The big villager was carrying spare ammunition and a case of grenades across the swaying bridge. Kambolo and the Canadian were ahead of him.

  Bolan was going to risk as few men as he dared on the far side of the river. He had the M-16 sloped on his shoulder as he strode back to the bridgehead, where Encizo was checking to see that the line was secure before lowering himself over the side.

  Katz stood in Bolan's path, the thumb of his good hand hooked in his clutch belt. With the slightest shake of his head, he said quietly, "You're not leaving me out of it, Mack."

  "Wouldn't dream of it," replied Bolan, instantly making the decision. He turned to McCarter, who was setting up the captured RPK. "You're in charge."

  "After you." Bolan gestured toward the planks. The Israeli led the way over. It was hardly wide enough for a truck, and even then it would have to be guided at a walking pace. And no one in their right mind would allow more than one vehicle to cross at a time.

  Bolan steadied himself against one of the side cables and peered over to watch the Cuban dangling in front of the rock face, packing his deadly putty into cracks around the concrete buttresses.

  "The bird's coming back!" yelled McCarter, pointing to the western leg of the canyon. Bolan was still covered by the nearby outcrop that marked the bend in the Makala gorge. He ran to the far side of the bridge.

  Encizo froze, spread-eagled against the rock. The plane was skimming along slightly above the treetops. It would clear the bridge with only a few feet to spare.

  Bolan reached the dense shrubbery on the north rim, remembered the snake Manning had seen and plunged into the bushes on the right.

  Hanging on the end of his safety line, Rafael Encizo felt totally exposed and vulnerable. Surely the pilot or his spotter must be staring straight at him! But the explosives expert's camouflage blended perfectly with the gray rock, green moss, orange lichen and the banded shadows of the bridge.

  In any case the flier's attention was devoted to navigating the turn in the Makala Gorge safely. The single-engined Porter filled the canyon with a roaring reverberation of echoes. At this close range they could have concentrated enough firepower to bring it down, but they were after a bigger prize. So Bolan watched as the plane flashed past, climbed away from the river and headed north.

  Encizo steadied himself against the turbulent backwash. He took a deep breath, pulled another one-pound block of plastic explosive from his satchel and packed it into the cracks around the pillar support.

  "YOU DIDN'T BURY IT?" Yagoda sounded incredulous, as if it offended his sense of efficiency.

  Scarr offered no explanation. With the Simbas hot on his heels, there had not been time. . . nor anyone left alive to help him. "It's still here, isn't it?"

  The tires were gone, gnawed away by countless curious, hungry teeth over the years. The axles had settled deep in the leaf mold that had drifted into the entrance of the long-abandoned mine. The truck sat slightly tilted to one side, but otherwise intact.

  The renegade tugged at the canvas cover and the rotted fabric fell away in his hands. Yagoda peered over his shoulder to see that the safe-deposit boxes, once neatly stacked, were scattered on the truckbed. Twenty-eight locked metal containers, their black enamel finish dulled by the passage of years, were lying right where Scarr had left them—just as he had promised the Russian. He breathed a sigh of relief and walked back out into the open clearing.

  "Bring that truck over here. Back it up to the entrance," instructed Yagoda. He knew the men had been speculating on what they would find, but he certainly wasn't going to risk opening the boxes here. He swallowed hard, stifling his own impulse to check them out immediately.

  Scarr looked up at the sky as he first hunched then relaxed his shoulders, feeling the flush of vindication after the tensions of the past few days. He had not been allowed a weapon for the duration of the journey. But now Private Pablo Lomez had gotten careless! The Cuban soldier walked over to the mine for a closer look at the treasure truck and left his rifle leaning against a fallen log.

  As nonchalantly as he could, Scarr began to edge nearer to the forgotten gun. It was the chance he was looking for . . . seize it and run! Yagoda would not risk chasing him far through this impenetrable forest.

  He circled slowly toward the log Lomez had been using as a backrest. It went against the grain to abandon the diamonds, but saving his own skin came first.

  The forest canopy had muffled the sound of Mumungo's plane. One of the Angolans fell as he swung around pointing up, shouting a warning that came too late. His bellow of surprise was drowned out by the 340-horsepower engine.

  The surrounding greenery was still riffled by the propwash as the spotter plane turned for a second, closer inspection of the mine workings.

  "Get the last of those boxes transferred," Yagoda yelled. "Scarr! Come over here!"

  Lomez knocked into the merc as he scrambled past to retrieve his rifle. Scarr had made his move too late. He had no choice but to obey Yagoda.

  As half a dozen of the Angolans formed a human chain to shift the last of the cargo into the back of Yagoda's truck, the KGB officer unfolded his map. "If we get back across the river and go due east, how far is it to the border?"

  "About three hours if we hit the Mabuti road."

  Scarr had to raise his voice above the sound of the plane. Yagoda glanced upward for a moment. He was glad that he'd brought two additional truckloads of t
roops. It looked as if they might be needed now. Even under cover of darkness, they might have to fight their way out.

  "Can we then swing south along the edge of Shaba province and get back into Angola that way?"

  Scarr wasn't sure, but he was not going to admit it. Yagoda needed the mercenary alive. "Yes," he said, nodding decisively. "I know a route through there."

  He reached up to swing the cab door open.

  "No—" Yagoda laid a hand on his arm "—this time you ride in the truck behind until we reach that railway depot . . . then you can take the lead."

  "GARY HAS GOT THE TREE all wired to blow," reported Katz. "He wants to know if you'd like him to place a charge in the middle of the road."

  "No time for that," said Bolan. The unpredictable breezes swirling around the canyon area had shifted yet again and they both caught the faraway drone of the Swiss-made spotter plane. "Just make sure everyone's in position, Yakov."

  Time was running against them now. Mumungo's troops were bound to be on the way, but just how far had they got?

  This covert operation had been launched with the express purpose of preventing the Russians from exploiting the local tensions to their advantage. Bolan remembered Brognola's lecture on how at any moment the U.S. could be drawn into a new peacekeeping role in the ongoing Namibian crisis, and Moscow would love to aggravate that situation by opening old sores. Now their position looked as if it might provoke an ugly international confrontation. And they could expect no help from Washington. Phoenix Force operated alone in the field—that was their mandate.

  Bolan looked south across the suspension bridge. He knew where his men were positioned, but he could see no sign of them.

  McCarter was on the left with the Soviet machine gun. On the Englishman's immediate flank, Ohara was ready to back him up with grenades. And Encizo was standing by at the detonator control. He had not had to tell them to keep a close watch on Rawson.

  It was time for Bolan to make sure his own team was as well concealed.

  At the end of the bridge where he stood was a flattened pan of hard dirt about thirty feet across by fifty. It quickly narrowed as the road led away from the edge of the gorge, angling up through the trees to the right. After a quarter of a mile it twisted again, crossed over a ridge and ran north toward the Copperhill mines. Kambolo was keeping watch at the bend.

  The underbrush was not so dense back in the perpetual green twilight under the trees. But where the light penetrated, around the bridgehead area and along the trail itself, the vegetation was thick and luxuriant, affording the ambush team perfect cover.

  Bolan walked slowly up the path to make certain they had left no sign that might warn a watchful enemy of their presence; then, just as carefully, he began to retrace his steps.

  "All set here!" Manning's muffled voice came from the bushes.

  Only when Ziemba actually shook his bow in a defiant salute could the American spot the ebony warrior perched among the branches of a shorter tree festooned with vines.

  Katz stood waiting beside the path. He gestured to the rotten hulk of a fallen log. "I'll take the other side over there," he said.

  "Okay, I'll cover the bridge approach itself."

  "They're coming!" It was Kambolo. He was racing down the path. He stumbled over a root but, with arms windmilling, managing not to fall. "I saw the first truck coming over the hill," he panted.

  Kambolo was sweating profusely, more from fear than sudden exertion. Why had Rawson brought along a citified black who was less at home in the bush than any of the whites on the team? For one split second Bolan recalled an image of Malakesi in his tailored business suit and wondered how Barnbabele's aide had fared in the guerrilla days of their original campaign. "Come on, you better hide with me."

  The sharp metallic click of Katz's signaller carried clearly across the gorge. The Israeli thought he heard McCarter cock the RPK, then he turned to take up his station.

  Kambolo nervously tugged a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and dabbed at his shiny brow as he followed the big foreigner behind the cover of the bushes.

  Neither of them noticed he had dropped his cigarette lighter in the middle of the track.

  THAT THERE WAS simply nowhere to land the Porter did not frustrate Mumungo as much as the fact that he could not even begin to comprehend what was gong on.

  Nothing made any sense from up here!

  If Bambabele had sent these troops in to mount a counter revolution, what were they doing on these jungle trails miles from any populated areas, lines of communication, or strategic centers?

  "How much fuel have we got left?"

  "We'll be all right for a while, sir. I think something's coming through on the radio."

  It was the commander of the army detachment from Camp Usomo. His motorized troops had reached the junction with the highlands road. Should they move up toward the Makala Gorge?

  Mumungo checked from the window again. He caught a fleeting glimpse of one of the trucks between the trees. They were driving fast.

  "No," he barked. "Stand by at full readiness to move when I give you further orders."

  Would these raiders turn south toward the desert again? Or, now they had been spotted, would they try to run for the border? Either way his soldiers could cut them off.

  Mumungo ran a pudgy finger around his collar, easing it away from the thick roll of sticky flesh. Whether they planned to retrace their steps or escape into Zaire, he would catch them.

  They would be paraded through the streets. And they would know the full force of General Mumungo's fury.

  IT COULD NOT BE FAR NOW. They must be close to the bridge. But Yagoda could not tell one stretch of this interminable jungle from another. And that damn plane buzzing overhead like an angry insect only aggravated the tension.

  They had made much better time coming back from the mines. The trail was broken in a dozen places by shallow streams, huge root systems that buckled through the surface and matted creepers. But Yagoda had set the pace, pushing his unit as fast as he dared.

  Once over that bridge it would not be too far to the railroad yard. Then Scarr could earn his stay of execution. He would have to lead them to the border. But the Russian knew he would have to keep the mercenary separated from the treasure or Scarr might get ideas of his own.

  "The bridge is at the bottom of the hill, sir," said Hector, the driver. He eased his foot slightly off the gas, not looking forward to another perilous ride so high above that raging river.

  "Don't slow down, man! Keep going. We have to get out of here. . . ."

  CROUCHING IN THE DAPPLED SHADOWS, Bolan brushed aside a flowering vine that drooped from the branches above him. His face was set hard, his eyes unflinching as his concentration was focused on the jungle road.

  The moment was here.

  This was the rendezvous that had been established by those few casual remarks uttered by Jeff Clayton. But this was no game. The rifle in his hand carried thirty rounds of high-velocity ammunition, not yellow marker paint. And the prize wasn't a colored pennant, but a king's ransom in diamonds. A fortune that one man had already murdered for, and that now others would die for.

  Here, high above Blood River, it was the killing time.

  The first of the trucks appeared, rattled over the roots that had almost tripped Kambolo, and sped down the slope. A thin-faced Cuban with long sideburns was hunched behind the wheel. Bolan recognized the blond passenger, with his flat cheekbones and narrowed eyes, from an earlier sighting at Shoba Well. Boris Yagoda looked remarkably young to be a colonel. He must have proven his dedication to the state.

  The Russian looked angry. As the East German vehicle drew level with Bolan's position he could see that Yagoda had his lips tightly compressed and his face was bathed in a film of sweat.

  Brendan Scarr was not riding up front with his erstwhile master. Perhaps he had been dealt with and left behind at the mines, dead or alive. No matter. This only confirmed Bolan's suspicions that the payload wa
s in the lead truck. There was no way that the KGB adviser would entrust it to anyone else's care.

  The American glanced over to his reluctant subordinate. At least Kambolo seemed to have settled down. The captured Dragunov looked like an unfamiliar object in his hands. All these years the black driver had watched from the edges, standing on the sidelines of life, and now he was caught up in the thick of danger. He cowered in the undergrowth as the Star passed by then rolled to a stop on the bare dirt approach in front of the bridge.

  The second of the foreign trucks braked to a halt in the leafy funnel where the road started, just a few feet forward of the position Bolan had calculated. The driver lit a cigarette as he waited for the first vehicle to cross over.

  Yagoda climbed out and walked stiffly to the side of the bridge. He automatically looked down at the surging torrent of the Makala before checking the gorge in both directions. All was clear. The far end of the bridge appeared completely deserted. Even the plane had vanished from sight, although it could still be heard in the distance.

  Three men had jumped down from the back of the truck—two Cubans and an Angolan, presumably handpicked as the most trustworthy. From Bolan's vantage point, he could see no one else in there.

  The two Cubans trotted forward when Yagoda called them. They did not relish the task to which they had been assigned, but they would do whatever was needed to get themselves out of this accursed country. The Russian commander nodded and they stepped onto the uneven planking of the span, walked out twenty feet and turned. They would be watching that Hector kept the wheels safely aligned.

  The Angolan trooper was thankful he had not been ordered to back his way across the bridge giving hand signals for the truck. He slung his rifle on his shoulder and extracted a crumpled cigarette pack from his shirt pocket.

  Yagoda gave a quick circling wave to indicate the driver should proceed. Hector let out the clutch slowly, lining up precisely with the bridge entrance. Ten more feet and he would bump out onto that rotted surface.