“Ah, faith,” Camara said. “The evidence of things not seen. Your Bible.”
“Not my bible,” Bolan answered, “but it gets around.”
“I’ve seen too much of life to trust in gods or live in fear of devils. Men, I find, are bad enough.”
“Then work together with the ones who want to help you,” Bolan said. “And keep your eyes peeled, now. We’re almost there.”
13
The former United States embassy in Bissau occupied a corner lot, two blocks south of the capital’s central market. Office workers currently occupied the site during business hours, but it remained a landmark of sorts for the few Western tourists who spent time in Guinea-Bissau. Bolan found it easily, reaching the site ahead of time, and boxed the block, scanning for anything that might suggest an ambush.
He found nothing, but consulted his reluctant passenger to be on the safe side. “See anything? It’s your life on the line if anybody pulls a fast one.”
“Nothing,” Camara replied. “You see what I see.”
“Okay, then.”
Bolan found an empty stretch of curb, southwest of what had once been legally considered U.S. territory, and parked the Peugeot. He killed its engine as he half turned in his seat to face Camara. “It’s an easy walk,” he said. “No more than half a block, but we’re exposed. Wide open. If you bolt, there’s no place you can hide.”
“I’ve come this far,” Camara said. “Let us complete my degradation.”
Bolan left the car first, walked around to get Camara’s door and let him out. It was an act of common sense, not chivalry. He didn’t plan to give his prisoner a hint of breathing room until he was secure in custody.
And sure, it was a short walk, but it felt like miles. The streetlights—those that worked—made Bolan feel that the two of them were sitting ducks. The FAL assault rifle he carried underneath a lightweight raincoat occupied Bolan’s right hand. His left hung loose but was prepared at any moment for a snatch and grab, if his companion tried to break away and run for it.
When they were halfway to the former embassy, a man rounded the corner, stopped and watched them drawing closer. He was African, about five-nine and husky, with a gun’s bulge beneath the suit jacket he wore unbuttoned. Bolan wished he had a photo of Joseph Mansaré, but he couldn’t get one now.
Nothing to do but play it out and hope for the best.
When they were close enough to speak in normal tones, the new arrival said, “I am Captain Mansaré. And you are...?”
“Delivering, as we agreed,” Bolan said. “I believe you know Edouard Camara?”
“We have never met,” Mansaré said, “but I’ve been looking forward to this moment.”
“I love being popular,” Camara stated. His sour face and tone belied his words.
“You will enjoy the grand accommodations I’ve arranged for you,” Mansaré said. And then, to Bolan, “I accept this prisoner—”
The bullet struck Camara just behind and below his right ear, producing hydrostatic shock that pushed the left side of his face completely out of true within a heartbeat, then erupting from his left cheek in a cloud of crimson spray and mutilated tissue. Bolan heard the shot a fraction of a second later, echoing along the street from somewhere at his back, perhaps a hundred yards away.
He didn’t have to warn Joseph Mansaré they were under sniper fire. The cop was on his way to cover, lurching toward the former embassy’s facade and recessed doorway, clutching at his own face as he ran. Wounded? Bolan glimpsed blood as he was turning, looking for a muzzle flash, not finding it.
He had a choice to make and made it, following Mansaré toward the nearby building in a sprint.
* * *
JOSEPH MANSARÉ HUDDLED in the doorway, shielded for the moment by a concrete pillar. Withdrawing his hand from his cheek, where the bullet or something had stung him, he found the palm bloody. A sticky sensation told him there was blood on his forehead, as well, but it wouldn’t be his.
“Just a graze,” the American said, crouched beside him in deep shadow cast by the nearest streetlight. “The slug or bone fragments. It’s bound to get worse if we hang around here.”
Mansaré risked a look around the pillar, toward the place where Camara’s corpse lay on the sidewalk, a dark pool spreading from his shattered skull. So much for any fantasy he’d cherished of indicting General Diallo and bringing him to trial. That fleeting hope was dead, and Mansaré would be, too, unless he escaped from the trap in short order.
He fumbled for his cell phone, stopped to wipe his blood-slick fingers on his slacks, then tried again. Just as he opened it, the man beside him closed a hand around Mansaré’s wrist. “Calling for backup?”
“Should I not?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” the American replied, and plucked the phone out of his hand, making it disappear into a pocket.
“What are we to do, then?” Mansaré asked.
“Take a detour, for starters.”
As he spoke, the tall man turned and drew a pistol with a sound suppressor attached, stepped to the nearby door and fired a muffled shot into its dead-bolt lock. He pushed it open and stepped across the threshold, pausing as he asked Mansaré, “Are you coming?”
Mansaré followed him reluctantly, drawing his Beretta 92 and feeling better with the weapon in his hand. He didn’t reckon that the white man meant him any harm, but neither did Mansaré trust the stranger to protect him absolutely.
Once inside the building, they were faced with choices. Stairs rose on their left and right to reach a mezzanine, while from the lobby where they stood a hallway led straight through to a back door, perhaps one hundred feet away. The corridor was lined with offices on either side.
“Exit,” the American said, and set off for the back door, which, Mansaré knew from personal experience, opened onto a parking lot surrounded by an eight-foot wall. He followed, picturing the rolling gate that granted access to the lot from a side street, where he had parked his car.
Easy.
Within two minutes, likely less, they stood at the back door. Mansaré watched as the American unlocked it without peering through its wire-mesh window at the lot outside. Of course, with the lights behind them, nothing could be seen in the darkness. Gunmen could be waiting out there, primed to cut them down.
“I doubt they’ve got this covered, but you’re free to wait around and greet whoever answers the alarm,” the American said.
“Alarm?”
“Sure. You saw the tape, right? Silent here, but I imagine that it’s ringing off the wall right now at your headquarters.”
“Ah.”
“Sorry about our deal,” the American said.
“Where are you going now?” Mansaré asked.
“First thing, I need to find out if the sniper’s waiting. Probably he’s gone by now. From here, I still have business with the general.”
“He’ll kill you,” Mansaré said, “as he did Camara.”
“If you know that,” the American replied, “you know he has a spy among your people. I’d take care of that, if I were you.”
And he was gone into the night, a shadow merging with the darkness, lost to sight.
* * *
OUTSIDE, BOLAN WAS COVERED by the wall around the parking lot as he turned to his left, or south, back toward the main road. Picking out a spot that should be sheltered by a row of trees from sniper fire, assuming that the shooter had remained in place, he scaled the wall and dropped to a sidewalk on the other side. His Peugeot stood a block away, most of that distance open ground, and there was no way to conceal himself en route.
Just do it, Bolan thought, and stepped from cover, carrying his FAL as he had done before, partly concealed but ready to respond at any sign of opposition. No shots exploded from the darkness, th
ough he would have been an easy target through a scope at any reasonable range. Camara’s fatal wound, from what he’d glimpsed of it, suggested that the sniper had been firing from street level, either from the sidewalk or a vehicle. Whichever, he’d have known Mansaré was a cop and clearly hadn’t wished to hang around waiting for reinforcements to arrive.
Bolan was at the Peugeot’s wheel and pulling out when he heard sirens in the distance, drawing closer by the moment. He then remembered the policeman’s cell phone, and pitched it from his open window as he drove, thereby eliminating any prospect of a tail by GPS.
Camara’s death was inconvenient for Mansaré, but the odds against successful prosecution of Diallo in his homeland had been astronomical to start with. Perhaps the ambush would convince Mansaré that his own police force needed cleaning up. However that turned out, the mobster’s execution put no crimp in Bolan’s plans. He hadn’t counted on a court to deal with General Diallo—and, in fact, preferred to do the job himself.
He knew now, beyond speculating, that whatever kind of meeting he arranged to swap Nilson Medina for the liberated drugs would be a trap. Diallo literally had an army to command, some forty-five hundred members in all, but some of those were support troops, while others would be scattered nationwide, patrolling borders and pursuing other tasks. With that in mind, before he even set the meet, Bolan began thinking of ways to level out the playing field.
How could eleven hundred pounds of pure Colombian cocaine play into his offensive strategy? For starters, it was too damned much to carry, so he’d have to ditch most of it before going in. Bolan had no compunction about cheating General Diallo, since he’d never planned to give up the coke, in any case. On the other hand, some of it might prove useful as a weapon.
He would need a few things first, additions to his mobile arsenal, and Bolan knew exactly where to find them. Granted, it was risky going back to shop for more, but no one would expect him, and if he had any trouble with the dealer...well, at this point, what was one more dead offender added to his ever-growing list?
Nothing at all.
* * *
NILSON MEDINA FINALLY knew where he was, and it wasn’t good. Delivery to army headquarters confirmed that his captors were either regular soldiers or “police” from the Special Intervention Force. In either case, Medina reckoned that he was as good as dead.
And thinking that, he hoped that they would finish with him soon.
Instead, to his surprise, they took him to see General Diallo. Two of his interrogators held Medina upright, more or less, before Diallo’s desk. The man who’d been in charge of grilling Medina regretfully explained that they had drawn no useful information from their prisoner, but vowed success if he was only granted further time.
“Forget it,” Diallo said. “It no longer matters. I expect to hear from his accomplice soon, with details for exchanging this one.”
“An exchange, sir?” the torturer asked. It was his turn to be surprised, apparently, but he stopped short of questioning Diallo’s judgment.
“Don’t concern yourself with details,” the general told him. “Arrangements will be made, delivery accepted, then we’ll have the second man as well. I’ll let you question him, but if you cannot get results within a reasonable time, I will be forced to call on someone more...experienced.”
“We will not fail you, sir,” he replied, spreading responsibility among the other members of his crew.
“I hope not, Captain,” Diallo said. “But, in any case, I plan to take precautions. We must cancel out this threat tonight. No more delays, no more excuses.”
“Sir,” the captain—torturer, to Medina—said, “I hope we won’t be using any of Camara’s men.”
“Forget about Camara. He is no longer a matter of concern. In fact, he’s history,” Diallo said.
Medina would have smiled at that, if he’d been able to control the muscles in his battered, swollen face. Regardless, he was smiling on the inside, knowing that whatever happened next—and he was surely bound to die—at least he had outlived Edouard Camara. Guinea-Bissau would be marginally better off without him, but there was no doubt that General Diallo would replace the mobster with another puppet under his control.
“What should we do with this one while we’re waiting, sir?” Captain Torturer asked.
“Clean him up as best you can,” Diallo ordered. “I suppose there’s little you can do about the injuries.”
“A medic, sir?”
“Don’t bother. I have never understood the concept of investing time and care in someone you plan to execute.”
And there it was, Medina’s death sentence pronounced in front of him. It would have been a time to curse and fight, but he had no strength left, couldn’t have stood upright without support from those who had abused him, close on either side. If they delayed his execution long enough he might regain some strength, perhaps even discover something he could turn into a weapon, though he doubted that. Diallo and his captain weren’t fools.
Medina’s only realistic hope, now, was to wait until the meeting General Diallo had described, then use his final ounce of strength, his dying breath, to warn Matt Cooper about the trap. It might already be too late—probably was, in fact—but at the very least Medina’s death could count for something, even if it proved to be a wasted token gesture.
And who knew? Perhaps Cooper would be lucky. In the time before they killed him, maybe he would put a bullet through Ismael Diallo’s brain.
* * *
THE DEALER LOOKED SURPRISED when Bolan showed up at his junkyard for the second time. He’d been accommodating to a point, but Bolan caught him fumbling around with something in his pants pocket and called him on it, quickly learning that the older man was trying to dispatch a speed-dial message on his cell phone, but arthritic fingers had delayed him. So he died, and Bolan saved the money he’d allotted for his second spending spree.
He took more rockets for his RPG, then found the item he had seen last time and filed away unconsciously. It was an E1 mortar, copied from venerable British two-inch model used in World War II, produced these days by India’s Ordnance Factory Board. It weighed eleven pounds, baseplate included, and could lob its two-pound HE ammo at a rate of twelve rounds per minute if the gunner was in a hurry. Depending on terrain and other circumstances, it could strike a target some 860 yards away.
It was the ammo that concerned Bolan, together with the RPG rounds he was carrying. He’d pondered what to do with all the general’s cocaine, and finally decided he should give it back piecemeal. Dismantling and refilling the mortar rounds was a relatively simple job for someone with Bolan’s skill as an armorer. Ditto the RPG rounds. It wasn’t a perfect delivery system, but it was better than nothing—120 projectiles packed with prime Colombian flake on top of their HE charges.
Call it a smokescreen of a different kind.
He torched the rest of the Bubaque shipment with a dose of gasoline, too much left over for the Peugeot 308 to carry, and he wore the gas mask he had added to his final shopping list while it went up in smoke. The mask was a model made in Israel for civilians, and it seemed to do the trick, no buzz or any other symptoms when the breeze shifted and let the smoke waft over him.
So far, so good.
When he was satisfied that nothing saleable remained, Bolan removed the mask, brushed off his clothes to rid himself of any residue and left the dying fire to burn itself out as the night wore on. He had another call to make, presumably his last, to set the meeting with Diallo for their merchandise exchange. Bolan was counting on a double cross, but hoped that his demand for proof of life had spared Nilson Medina for a few more hours, at least.
If not? Well, he still had Diallo’s product to deliver in an unexpected way, and Bolan meant to give the general his due, no matter what. Whether Medina was alive and waiting for him, or already six feet under
ground, Diallo had a tab to settle with the Executioner. He didn’t know it yet, but that bill had come due and Bolan was preparing to collect.
In blood.
* * *
“MY FRIEND,” ISMAEL DIALLO said, forcing a joviality he didn’t feel into his voice. “I have what you require.”
“So put him on,” the caller said.
Only ten minutes had passed since the stranger’s last call, asking for the proof that his accomplice was alive, and General Diallo had delayed him, answered honestly enough that he hadn’t known when the call would come and needed time to have Nilson Medina brought before him. Now, with the policeman sagging in a chair before his desk, Diallo passed the telephone across.
“Your comrade,” Diallo said. “Reassure him that you’re still alive, will you?”
Medina took the phone and raised it to one ragged-looking ear, speaking through lips swollen to half again their normal size. “I told them nothing,” he announced, without a salutation. Listened briefly, then said, “No, you must not. They—”
Diallo signaled Captain Loua, who immediately snatched the phone away, returned it to the general.
“There,” Diallo said. “You’re satisfied?”
“So far,” the American replied. “Best I can do to match it is a snapshot of your cargo, from my cell phone.”
“I’ll be pleased to see it, certainly.”
“Okay. It’s coming through.”
Diallo waited for a moment, then beheld a photograph of bundles wrapped in plastic, keeping the American on hold until he’d counted stacks and multiplied the number in his head. So many, seemingly intact.
“How will you transport them?” Diallo asked, at last.
“My problem,” the American replied. “We have a deal, or not?”
“By all means, if you’re willing to accommodate my terms for the delivery.”
“Let’s hear them.”
“I require a measure of security, you understand, after the havoc you and Officer Medina have created recently.”
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