Ground Zero

by Don Pendleton

  He gestured to one of the men who had been standing by the tent flap. There were four other men in the room. One had a digital audio recorder, waiting for Frank to talk. Another stood at his rear, cradling an AK-47. Two were at the tent flaps. Such a guard was hardly necessary for a naked, trussed man. They were there to add intimidation, and Frank knew that. By not looking at them, he sought to nullify the effect, but he couldn’t help but wonder where the guard was headed as he pulled back the flap, allowing in a glaring burst of late daylight. This question had to have shown in his face.

  “It is sometimes necessary to use methods that we would condemn in others. For the greater glory there is occasionally a need to plumb depths.”

  Foster’s gut flipped. He knew what the bearded man meant.

  “You bastard. What has she got to do with this? If you harm her—”

  “That’s up to you, Foster. It matters not to me. Your people always speak of freedom of choice. Well, now is your chance to exercise that freedom.”

  It was only a matter of a minute or two, but it seemed like an eternity until Marina was dragged into the tent. She was silent, her eyes full of fear. They widened as she saw her husband, and she stifled a cry.

  “You have strength, too, woman. Let us see how much....”

  * * *

  “ARE YOU SURE he’s the right guy?” Grimaldi asked as he watched Bolan drag the unconscious man across the sand by the back of his neck.

  “He was in front of the tent where I found the phone, and he used those helpless women as a shield,” the soldier replied, indicating the corpses fanned out between the tent and the flatbed truck pitted by shrapnel.

  “Nice guy,” Grimaldi commented. “Can I kick the bastard yet, Sarge?”

  “What’s the point? He’s out cold and won’t feel a thing. But you could give me a hand here.”

  Grimaldi grinned and jumped down from Dragonslayer, then helped Bolan lift the unconscious man into the chopper. He had brought the helicopter in and landed on Bolan’s request, and was now wondering just what the next move would be.

  “How much juice have you got in this thing?” the soldier asked, banging the fuselage.

  “Depending on how I push her, maybe five, six hours. What’s the plan, Sarge?”

  “They can’t have gone that far in the time frame we’ve given them,” Bolan explained. “The question is where, and in which direction. We’re looking for another camp, or maybe even a convoy or one flatbed or jeep on the trail. I want to narrow that down by asking our friend here a few questions. That’s if I don’t get what I need from this,” he added, holding up the smartphone. “If I do, then we can lose our passenger.”

  “You’ll want me to put down again.”

  “Maybe.” Bolan grinned mirthlessly. “I’m not sure he deserves to be treated with such humanity.” He looked out the hatch at the camp. It was still quiet; survivors were reluctant to reveal their presence.

  “Let’s get her up and out of here, Jack. The less time we waste, the better.”

  With his unwilling and unconscious passenger and the hatch secured, Bolan began to scroll through the intel on the smartphone as Grimaldi took the chopper into the air.

  “I’ll take her high and circle, see if I can pick out anything while you check the phone,” the pilot said over the comm link. “The whole country looks empty, though. I can’t even spot any wildlife.”

  “It’s not an easy place to live,” Bolan murmured as he continued his search. “Most of the people hug the coast. And there’s not much for any wildlife to survive on.”

  The smartphone held some photographs of a personal nature, no voice mail, no texts and no stored numbers: the directory and call log had been wiped. There was an email address that had been left signed in, and from that Bolan could see that there were messages in Arabic and French. His French was good. His ability to read Arabic as rusty and basic but functional, so he was able to read the messages without asking Stony Man for translation. What he read made his blood cool: information about the hostages had been exchanged, and it seemed that Foster was considered valuable by one of the warlords who dealt with some pirate groups. One with links to al-Shabaab, a chain that linked Foster directly to al Qaeda.

  It was not just the lives of Foster and his fellow hostages that were now at stake. The knowledge he carried, if taken from him, could contribute to the deaths of countless others.

  To learn this much was one thing. Frustratingly, there was nothing else on the phone that gave a clue as to where the hostages had been taken.

  “Jack, can you see anything?” Bolan said over the comm link.

  “Negative, Sarge. I take it there’s nothing on the phone that’s of any use?”

  “Second that negative. Keep her up but use as little juice as possible. I think it’s time to wake up our friend and ask him a few questions.”

  The pirate was still unconscious, laying on the deck on the chopper. Bolan stood up, took a bottle of water from the supplies and cracked it open. He emptied its contents over the face of the supine prisoner. The steady flow caused him to splutter, choke and return to consciousness. He cursed in Arabic and tried to move, struggling against his bonds.

  “What’s your English like?” Bolan asked, standing astride him. The man looked at him and feigned incomprehension, but his eyes betrayed him.

  “Okay, if you want to play it that way, we’ll play it,” he continued, switching to Arabic and noting the fear creeping into the pirate’s face. “There’s no escaping by pretending you don’t understand me, because I know you do. I’m going to ask you a question and you’re going to answer me. The four people you had in your camp. The Americans. Where have they been taken?”

  The pirate shook his head and said nothing. Bolan sighed. “If you want to make this hard, then that’s your call. It doesn’t have to be that way. You see that rope around your ankles?” He indicated the rappelling cord, which he had secured around the pirate’s ankles when he had tied him earlier. “Now watch...”

  Bolan opened the hatch, steadying himself for the change in pressure and the rush of air. He strode back to where the pirate lay.

  “This rope is all that keeps you from falling. Remember that.”

  He pushed the prone man toward the hatch, rolling him over. The pirate voiced his fear with imprecations and pleas. When the man was near the edge, Bolan leaned over him and yelled, “Your choice. Tell me now or you go out.”

  The pirate shook his head. Bolan sighed and took a knife from where it had been sheathed in his blacksuit. He showed the man the blade before wrapping the cord around his other arm. Bracing himself, he began to push the pirate’s head and shoulders out of the open hatch, so that the rushing air whipped at his face. The man began to scream.

  Bolan hoped this would work quickly. From the man’s previous behavior, he had him marked as a coward. There was no way that he could play the man out slowly without risking himself. He would have to throw him out and hope that his own weight wouldn’t rip his feet off at the cord. No one would win that way. But the psychodrama with the knife and the cord might just work.

  Still screaming, the pirate was pulled back from the edge.

  “I can be merciful,” Bolan yelled above the roar of the chopper and the rushing air. “Tell me now.”

  Sobbing, the pirate gave him the name of a wadi, swearing that it was marked on any map. He even blurted half a map reference, swearing that he could not remember the rest. Bolan slammed the hatch, glad for the relief from the noise and air pressure. He relayed the name of the wadi and the half reference to Grimaldi.

  “No worries, Sarge, I can find it from that.” Grimaldi’s voice crackled over the comm link.

  Bolan’s attention was distracted by the pirate speaking nonstop to him, words flowing and rushing over each other in such a way that it was hard
for him to keep up. He barked at the pirate to slow down, and as the man repeated himself, Bolan realized what it was he was trying to say.

  He fixed the man with an iron-hard stare. “You’re going back with us to face trial for what you’ve done. You’re lucky that I’m not the coldhearted bastard you are.” He pushed the prone man so that he rolled over and fell against the side of the fuselage. He untied the cord because he would need it. The pirate made a feeble attempt to fight but was soon dissuaded when the soldier rapped his temple with the butt of his pistol. Prisoner suitably subdued, Bolan left him there while he spoke to Grimaldi.

  “Jack, listen up. We’ve got no time to waste, and we’re going to have to go in with guns blazing.”

  * * *

  FOSTER BLINKED AS the tears rolled down his face. He felt as though his throat was constricted, and even if he wanted to talk he would find it hard to spit out the words. Come to that, he wanted to tell them everything so that they would stop. But he knew they wouldn’t. The U.S. government couldn’t kowtow to a ransom demand, and the security services would realize that he would be tortured for information. Even now there were factions that were probably acting to seal any leaks or cracks that would come from the information he could give, rendering it almost worthless. Meantime, these bastards would realize some of that and just amuse themselves as they extracted information.

  The whole thing was a nightmare from which he couldn’t wake. The throbbing pain in his groin, pulsing with his heartbeat, meant nothing to him. The greater pain came from his heart as he watched the bearded man take delight in torturing Marina. Whether the scum took pleasure from harming the woman or from the mental damage he knew it was inflicting on the man was a moot point. The simple fact was that as he extracted each painted toenail with pliers, he grinned at the agony of having the nail ripped from its bed. It was such a small thing to do, yet the nerve endings exposed and ripped screamed with a pain that was out of all proportion to the size of the damaged area.

  Marina had stopped screaming after the third nail, her voice reduced to a croak and sob. Only a low moan escaped from her throat.

  “Just stop. I’ll give you anything you want if you just stop,” Foster choked out.

  The man with the digital audio recorder stepped forward. “Speak first, then stop,” he barked.

  Foster opened his mouth, but there was no chance for him to utter a syllable.

  Because that was when the door to hell opened....

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Bolan reloaded the two BXP10s, having checked the recovered weapon for damage and replenished the ammunition and grenades. He would go with the same hardware as before.

  He made his way to the cockpit, ignoring the sullen glare of his captive.

  “Jack, progress report?” he queried.

  “Locked onto the map ref, Sarge. Dead easy. Not a lot of ground for us to cover, though a lot with a flatbed on that terrain. With luck, given the time, they’ve arrived but they haven’t been there long enough for any collateral damage.”

  “I hope so. It’d be shame to come all this way for nothing. Well, nothing except to wipe out a few thugs and cut the chances of it happening again.”

  “Something’s better than nothing, but I figure we can do better than that. See that, dead ahead?”

  Closing fast was an encampment not unlike the one they had recently left. A quick head count as they closed revealed that there were three more dwellings and six vehicles. Estimate up to twice as many enemy between them and their target.

  “Want me to set down some covering before I drop you, Sarge?”

  “Affirmative. More than that, Jack, once I’m down I want you to pull up and keep up a barrage. I can’t take them out and search for the hostages at the same time. I’m going to need you to try to knock out as many as possible for me. But do me a favor. Steer clear of the tents, okay?”

  “You don’t need to tell me. I’ll take out the vehicles. The smoke and fire from them should give you some ground cover. Get going, Sarge—twenty seconds and we’re on them.”

  Bolan moved back and prepared himself as the chopper banked into the sun to make its approach. He opened the hatch and prepared to pay out the rappelling cord. The wind whipped against him, and he felt the powerful 30 mm ordnance of the chopper pump out a covering fire. Under the roar of the rotors he could just about hear the dull whump of gasoline explosions as some of the heavy chopper fire hit the vehicles. He felt the chopper level out and start to drop and he paid out the rope, cradling one of the BXP10s as he prepared to drop.

  The sight that greeted him as he descended was one of chaos. Three of the vehicles were ablaze, and some of the men were torn between trying to put out the fires or engaging in a firefight. The confusion suggested that whoever was in charge of this team was either an idiot or absent.

  Bolan hoped that it was the former, as the latter would suggest that Frank Foster was being interrogated. Maybe it was already too late.

  Maybe for him, but not for the other three; there were four lives at stake here. Bolan hit the ground and swept an arc of fire as he moved toward the first piece of cover he could find—one of the vehicles that Grimaldi hadn’t successfully strafed. There were two men close by, but they were blinded both by the smoke that drifted across them and by fear. Easy to take two taps and eliminate their threat.

  Racing to cover, the soldier took stock of the situation. His presence had been noted, but there was no concerted attempt to attack his position. Grimaldi had taken Dragonslayer up and was now circling, firing bursts at the remaining vehicles and tearing up the sandy soil between them. He was staying conspicuously clear of the tents and shacks, and Bolan wondered if the pirates would realize that. Best to give them no opportunity. He tried a quick head count, but it was difficult to establish enemy numbers. All he could tell for sure was there were more of them here than at the previous camp.

  They were giving themselves away. Forming up into something approaching a unit, a group had been detached to cover one of the shacks, while another was moving toward a tent that already had two armed guards outside, both of whom were uselessly firing at Dragonslayer rather than concentrating on the man on the ground.

  Obviously the two dwellings were where the hostages were kept, separated in some way and for whatever reason. The question was: Which to take first?

  There was, however, a more immediate problem. Two of the pirates appeared from the direction of one of the tents carrying a two-man version of what looked like an SA2 Russian surface-to-air missile launcher. They dropped down into a space between the fire zone and the tents, preparing to sight and fire on the helicopter.

  With a grim smile, Bolan saw that they were close enough to the remaining group of pirates—who had not as yet fanned out to approach him—to put them in his firing line. Their idea was obviously to take out the aerial threat and then attack him with impunity.

  It was a terrible decision for them. Not so for Bolan. He took a shrapnel grenade and primed it, sending it in an arc toward the two men with the missile launcher. They were distracted by their task, and although some of the men behind them tried to shoot the grenade out of the air, that was a foolish and desperate measure that could only end one way.

  The grenade landed softly in the sand at the feet of the man shouldering the launcher. The cries of his compatriots were drowned out in the fury of combat, and he looked down with an expression of surprise. Bolan ducked as the grenade detonated. He flattened against the ground, knowing that the vehicle he used for cover would take one hell of a beating.

  He opened his mouth to equalize pressure, almost able to taste the explosive that went up with the grenade, the launcher and the missile it carried. A wave of heat swept across him. He couldn’t hear the shrapnel hit the side panels and couldn’t feel it in the rocking of the vehicle that the blast wave generated.

&n
bsp; He was the first man on his feet, and the sight that greeted him was one that caused him both content and worry. The entire group of pirates had been eradicated in one swoop, but the blast had also taken out some of the tents and shacks, while others were damaged.

  Had he inadvertently made casualties of the hostages he had been sent to rescue?

  * * *

  GEORGE AND CARLA were huddled together in their shack. Her husband had regained consciousness, and when the sound of heavy gunfire began outside, he had gathered her to him protectively. They had no weapons, nothing other than their bedding, and were alone. Even so, he felt the need to put his body between his wife and any harm that may befall them. They could hear yelling outside, over the sound of combat, but as they couldn’t comprehend Arabic they had no notion of what was happening.

  They were defenseless, and as the wave of heat hit them, the heavy fabric of the tent splitting with the explosion beyond, George gathered Carla closer to him, so that she almost lay beneath him and he could shield her from the sand, rocks and God alone knew what else showered in on them.

  They may be about to die, but he would still do whatever he could, no matter how little, to protect her.

  * * *

  WHEN THE EXPLOSION hit, Frank and Marina were thrown sideways as the sides of the tent were ripped asunder. A terrible tearing pain ripped through Frank as he was thrown off the chair and skin tore from the cane work that trapped it. He felt bile in his throat as nausea washed over him; he coughed and choked as it spilled from his mouth. His wife was almost unconscious from the torture she had received, yet the first wave of gunfire had stopped it, and being bowled over by the shock wave of the explosion had the paradoxical effect of waking her up.

  She could see her husband on his side, vomit dribbling from his mouth and his groin covered with blood. She was sure that they were about to die. The one consolation she had was that before the attack had started there had been no time for Frank to speak. He had not given anything away, and there was no record left behind even if the bastards in this tent with them were all to die—as she hoped they would.