Blood Vortex

by Don Pendleton

  What that meant, for starters, was reasserting Venezuelan sovereignty over its oil reserves, reversing privatization of the state-owned oil company, raising royalties for foreign firms and eventually doubling the country’s gross domestic product. America’s top one percent appreciated Chávez no more than they had Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, Cuba’s Fidel Castro in 1959, or Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973.

  This time around, however, nothing the fat cats tried—a coup, strikes and a recall referendum—managed to dislodge Chávez. He’d forged ties with Castro and OPEC, taking dubious honors as the first foreign leader to visit Iraq’s Saddam Hussein after Operation Desert Storm. Finally, it took his own army’s human rights violations, denunciation of the US for killing Osama bin Laden, and implication of the president’s top aides in cocaine smuggling to replace Chávez in 2013.

  At that point, things had gone from bad to worse.

  The new president insulted successive US presidents in starkly personal terms as “devils,” strengthened Venezuela’s ties to Cuba and Iran, Russia, China and Syria. When domestic opponents and foreign observers caught him profiting from food shortages verging on starvation, he branded his critics “snobs.” In August 2018, when two drones exploded near the site where the president was addressing army officers, he blamed American saboteurs.

  In short, the man was a rogue who struck most neutral observers as a would-be dictator. His harshest critics claimed he was insane, although no analysts stepped forward to support that charge.

  “So, what’s he up to now?” Bolan asked.

  “You’ve memorized the State Department’s list of FTOs, I guess?”

  Another nod from Bolan, recognizing Brognola’s reference to officially designated foreign terrorist organizations. “Not light reading,” he replied, “but I’ve been through it.”

  “Right. The intel Stony Man’s receiving claims we’re looking at a summit meeting of their representatives in Venezuela, kicking off tomorrow or the next day.”

  “How many of them?”

  “Out of the twenty-three FTOs ‘invited,’” Brognola said, “our sources have named somewhere between fifteen and twenty. Of course, most of the starters are no more than offshoots from al-Qaeda.”

  “Who was invited?” Bolan probed.

  “Everybody,” the big Fed replied. “Kahane Chai begged off because they’re Jewish and so many of the rest are anti-Semites. Others have been taking too much heat and hoping that the weather breaks.”

  “Which leaves...?”

  “You want them alphabetically?” Brognola asked.

  “Suits me.”

  “Okay. Let’s start with the Al-Nusra Front from Syria.”

  The ANF, Bolan knew, was a Salafi jihadist offshoot of Sunni Islam—and a sometime collaborator with al-Qaeda—currently led by Abu Mohammad al-Julani, presently fighting a war on two fronts against ISIL and any Western power you could name.

  “Next up, no list would be complete without al-Qaeda.”

  Founded by the late Osama bin Laden, its name meant “the base” in Arabic. Another Salafist outfit spawned by CIA support during Russia’s occupation of Afghanistan, al-Qaeda claimed credit for various attacks ranging from 1992’s Yemeni hotel bombings, US embassy blasts during 1998, damage to the destroyer USS Cole in 2000, and the catastrophic 9/11 hijackings a year later. Bin Laden’s death in May 2011 had not curbed his brainchild. Instead, like the mythical hydra, it had sprouted heads throughout the Eastern Hemisphere.

  “Third up,” Brognola said, “we’ve got al-Shabaab.”

  That name was shorthand for Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. The youth part hardly fit, since current leader, Sheikh Ahmad Umar was pushing fifty, but the would-be martyrs he recruited for suicide missions tended to be in their teens or early twenties—an age when most guys thought they’d live forever, while a few looked forward to a hero’s death and an eternity in Paradise, surrounded by nubile virgins.

  “And next in line?” Bolan asked.

  “That would be Ansar al-Sharia.”

  Translating to Supporters of Islamic Law, confined thus far to Libya and operating from Benghazi, its present leaders unidentified since founding fathers Mohamed al-Zahawi and Abu Khalil al-Madani had been killed in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Attendance at the coming conference could mean the group was planning to expand its war beyond the late and unlamented Muammar Gaddafi’s fiefdom.

  “Our next delegation might surprise you,” Brognola said. “It’s Boko Haram.”

  Another Muslim militant outfit, but this one, Bolan knew, was operating in Nigeria. Linguists said that its name translated into English as “Western education is a sin.” The founder had gone down in summer of 2009. His dual successors, Abubakar Shekau and Abu Musab al-Barnawi, operated chiefly from the nation’s Borno State. The group’s campaign of terrorism, dating from 2008, had provoked the declaration of a national emergency three years later, with fifteen attacks claiming 550 lives. By 2014, units were active in northern Cameroon, attacking Catholic churches and “infidel” mosques alike. By 2016, they had infiltrated Chad, recruiting kidnapped child “soldiers” as suicide bombers.

  Brognola pressed on, saying, “I take it that you’re current on the Communist Party of the Philippines, aka the New People’s Army?”

  “I know its honcho is a guy named José Maria Sison, born in 1939. The NPA is his party’s armed wing. They push ‘proletarian revolution’ in the style of Marx, Lenin and Mao. Assassinated Colonel James Rowe in Quezon City, back in 1989, and they’ve been at it ever since.”

  “Correct. That brings us sixty-seven hundred miles around the globe to Belfast, and the CIRA.”

  Bolan, recognizing the Continuity Irish Republican Army’s initials, said, “A spinoff from the Provisional IRA back in 1986, still fighting for united Ireland with the Brits expelled. They’re at odds with the ‘Real’ IRA last I heard.”

  “And the RIRA won’t be attending this sit-down. They considered it, but backed out when they heard CIRA reps were coming. Claimed it was a plot to ambush them.”

  “No trust among extremists,” Bolan said.

  “Which may turn out to be our saving grace,” Brognola told him. “More delegations should be coming from the ETA, Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Hamas and the Hizbul Mujahideen, Jemaah Islamiya, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ELN, Revolutionary Struggle and the TTP.”

  “A full house, then,” Bolan observed.

  He recognized the other groups by name or acronym, of course. Euskadi Ta Askatasuna—translated “Basque Fatherland and Liberty”—was an ethnic outfit based in the Pyrenees Mountains, forming a natural border between France and Spain, despising both. Egypt’s Gama’a al-Islamiyya recruited Sunni Muslims opposed to secular government and had lately planted outposts in Croatia. Hamas, the “Islamic Resistance Movement,” had been battling Israel for the Palestinian Territories since 1987.

  The Hizbul Mujahideen—“Party of Holy Warriors”—had its roots in Kashmir, the northernmost region of India, with ownership disputed by Pakistan since October 1947. Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was the only group named by Brognola that claimed official sanction from its homeland, serving as part of Iran’s military, created to protect the country’s Islamic regime while the larger Islamic Republic of Iran Army dealt with other internal security matters.

  “Quite a collection,” Bolan stated after the big Fed had added several “possibles” to the list.

  “The bad news,” Brognola explained, “is that none of the groups is sending their top men, just high-ranking subordinates. Still, once we get them all together in one place...”

  “Rid the world of them,” Bolan agreed. “Maybe in such a way that rivalry between them gets the blame.”

  “Great minds. We think alike.” The Justice man reached inside his jacket, dr
awing out an airline ticket folder and computer thumb drive. “I’ve got you booked into a flight from Dulles International this afternoon. The jet lag shouldn’t be too bad with just one hour’s difference.”

  “And someone’s waiting on the ground?”

  “Affirmative. The thumb drive has a number you can text ahead, to let them prep a shopping list. It’s also got as much as I can tell you about who has RSVP’d their invitations to the party.”

  Bolan checked his flight’s departure time, nodding. “No problem making that from here,” he said. “I’ll keep the Farm updated as the opportunity arises.”

  Brognola turned somber as they shook hands, and said, “Stay frosty, eh?”

  “The only way to fly,” Bolan replied.

  Chapter Two

  Oswaldo Guevara Mujica Airport

  Acarigua, Venezuela

  Ibrahim al-Mihdhar wondered, not for the first time, if traveling halfway around the world to Venezuela was a critical mistake. He was uncertain as to the motives of the men who had invited him, and he mistrusted other delegates who would allegedly be gathered at his final destination.

  Even that phrase—“final destination”—put him off, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

  “They call this place an airport?” asked his second-in-command, Fahd Julaidan. “Why could we not have gone directly from Caracas?”

  “Matters of security,” al-Mihdhar said, repeating what his traveling companion knew already.

  “Yes, but honestly! A place like this? At home they have better facilities at Rafha and Dawadmi.”

  Home, for both men, was Saudi Arabia. There, they had joined al-Qaeda in the heady days of triumph after 9/11 and had served in various positions, rising through the ranks and mourning Osama bin Laden’s demise ten years later, afterward pledging loyalty to his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Today al-Mihdhar served the group’s Military Committee, tasked with conceiving and planning operations, as well as managing al-Qaeda’s training camps. He ranked as a battalion commander, while Julaidan served as his chief lieutenant.

  “Show tolerance,” al-Mihdhar cautioned his subordinate. “We are invited guests.”

  “I understand,” Julaidan said. “But to divert us here...”

  “Enough complaining, Fahd. I need your full attention focused in the case of any difficulties.”

  The airport, such as it was, served Acarigua, a city in the northwestern Venezuelan state of Portuguesa. From his background research online, al-Mihdhar knew that Acarigua was once the state’s capital, replaced in that role by Guanare. Acarigua claimed some 210,000 year-round residents who rarely traveled far, predominantly Roman Catholics.

  Acariguans who wished to travel had three basic options. The very poor could walk or ride a donkey, maybe catch a bus. Those with enough money to buy or rent a car could drive themselves. Their more affluent neighbors could fly out of Oswaldo Guevara Mujica Airport to Caracas, and on from there to any place on Earth if they were wealthy enough to buy tickets. But mostly they remained at home, working in agriculture or at factories that processed sugar, rice and corn.

  As instructed, al-Mihdhar and Julaidan were both unarmed upon arrival, an uncomfortable situation that confronted them only when traveling by air. Al-Mihdhar recognized the irony in that, modern airline security precautions owing much to al-Qaeda’s coup, now ten years past, which had claimed 2,977 lives while wounding more than six thousand others. Each year, he celebrated that occasion, saying earnest prayers for the nineteen martyrs who had accomplished that feat. In retrospect, removing his shoes for airport security staff was a small price to pay in return.

  Perhaps, from the impending conference, fresh ideas would arise for new operations surpassing that great day of fury and fire.

  “Where is the car?” Julaidan asked when they’d retrieved their nondescript luggage. “Do you see it?”

  “Not yet,” al-Mihdhar said, scanning the small concourse.

  They followed the other passengers who’d been aboard their flight and made their way out of the terminal. There, at curbside and standing by a shiny black Toyota 4Runner, al-Mihdhar saw a stocky man of military bearing whose gray suit fit him as if it were a tailored uniform. He held no greeting sign but tracked them with dark brown suspicious eyes.

  Al-Mihdhar led Julaidan over to the watchman, speaking up to say, “You may be waiting for us.”

  “Señors Ali and Hadil?” the stranger asked him in reply.

  Those were the false names al-Mihdhar and Julaidan had been ordered to adopt upon receiving their instructions to attend the conference.

  “Correct,” al-Mihdhar said.

  Their greeter opened the Toyota’s right rear door and held it while they slid into the back seat, then he removed their luggage from the sidewalk and stored it inside the SUV’s cargo compartment. Moments later he was at the wheel and rolling out, the airport terminal already dwindling in the one wing mirror that al-Mihdhar could observe.

  He hoped that they were not proceeding toward their deaths.

  And if that proved to be the case, al-Mihdhar would at least attempt to take the stoic driver with him as his life faded to black.

  Simón Bolívar International Airport

  Caracas, Venezuela

  Venezuela’s nonstop crises since 2012 hampered operations at the country’s largest airport, as they had in every other walk of life.

  According to the International Air Transport Association, the Venezuelan government had failed to pay various international airlines $3.8 billion, citing “issues” with converting local currency to US dollars, while other problems included poor runway maintenance, adulterated jet fuel, baggage thefts and rampant crime against flight crews. The net result: passenger stats had dropped by fifty percent from the airport’s high of 2.25 million served in 2013.

  None of that bothered Bolan as his flight from Washington touched down, almost on time. His only luggage was a carry-on and he had nothing to declare for customs, nor had he contracted for a rental car.

  His needs were being handled by an asset. A guy working for Brognola as an FBI legal attaché at the US embassy on Suapure Street downtown.

  Said asset was a fresh-faced youngster in his early twenties, looking like he’d barely hit the ground between his college graduation and admission to the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia. Blond hair, blue eyes, a chiseled jaw—he hardly fit the mold of what a pair of 1950s novelists had called “the ugly American.” More likely, this one did all right with the señoritas in his free time, but today had seen him saddled with important work beyond his normal field of expertise.

  “Matt Cooper.”

  “Right.”

  “Zach Thomas.” They shook hands and he continued, “Your ride’s in short-term parking, if you’ll follow me, sir.”

  It turned out to be a Toyota J70 Land Cruiser. It was a two-door, painted what a dealer would claim was “predawn gray mica” on the outside, sporting a beige interior. Nobody else was close enough to see as Thomas opened up the rear to show Bolan the gear he’d ordered while in transit from Washington.

  Justice had pegged his wish list to a tee, although it might have raised some eyebrows at the embassy.

  Bolan’s lead weapon was a Steyr AUG assault rifle, a 5.56 mm weapon with integral Swarovski 1.5× telescopic sight and flash hider that doubled as a launcher for NATO STANAG type 22 mm rifle grenades. Its double-column box magazines, holding thirty rounds each, were molded from translucent plastic, allowing shooters to see and count their remaining rounds in the heat of combat.

  For backup, he’d ordered two Glock 22 semiauto pistols, the .40-caliber S&W version, each packing fifteen rounds in its mag plus one in the chamber. The sidearms would have been twins, but one had an extended muzzle threaded to receive a sound suppressor, which Zach Thomas had included on demand.

  Beyond firearms, the stash inclu
ded twenty 22 mm rifle grenades for the Steyr AUG, twenty M26 fragmentation grenades and a Cold Steel Recon Tanto SK-5 with a black anodized seven-inch blade.

  With any luck, he hoped all of that would be enough.

  While Bolan donned the shoulder rig for one of his Glocks, Thomas produced a batch of Venezuelan highway maps. “Word is the delegates are flying into various airports throughout today and being met by local military personnel. We’re also tracking one team coming in by water, landing at Maiquetía on the Caribbean coastline.”

  “Thanks,” Bolan said. “The best thing you can do right now is put this whole thing out of mind.”

  Thomas frowned at that, said, “I was thinking it sounds like something I might want to lend a hand with.”

  Bolan pinned him with ice-blue eyes. “No. You really don’t.”

  “Okay then. Well, good luck, I guess. I’ve been instructed to stand by in case you need some help with exfiltration. If I don’t hear from you...”

  “Then forget we ever met.” Bolan finished the sentence for him and climbed into the Land Cruiser’s driver’s seat.

  He had places to go, people to kill.

  Jacinto Lara International Airport

  Barquisimeto, Venezuela

  “Why is it so damned hot here?” Georgios Xenakis groused.

  “It’s called the tropics,” Marios Lekka replied.

  “So, you’re a comic now? How long must we remain here?”

  “As I’ve told you more than once, until our business is completed.”

  “Business with the goddamned Arabs,” Xenakis said, sneering.

  “Not only them, but they’re included, yes,” Lekka replied. “You’d do well to treat them civilly. Remember who and what you represent.”

  A flush suffused Xenakis’s face. Lekka preferred to blame the heat rather than his subordinate’s erratic temper.