Blood Vortex

by Don Pendleton

  Both men held high-ranking posts in the EA—in English, “the Revolutionary Struggle”—active since 2003 in Greece, trying to expand from there throughout the European Union and beyond. Its targets had so far included banks, police stations and prisons, multinational oil companies, the US embassy in Athens and the Greek Ministry of Public Order, the Athens stock exchange and restaurants.

  The Venezuelan conference might grant the EA entry to a larger field of operations, not to mention access to a better class of weapons, and Marios worried now—perhaps too late—that Georgios might let his bourgeois bigotry subvert the gathering and make them look like fools.

  “Where are the soldiers meeting us again?” Xenakis asked.

  “Outside. And don’t expect an honor guard in uniform.”

  “I’m not a fool, Marios.”

  Before Lekka could answer, a voice with a distinctly Irish brogue spoke up from behind him. “Well now, look at what the cat dragged in.”

  The Greeks turned to confront a pair of Irishmen they recognized from brief association in years past. Brendan McGarry and Dara O’Banion were both Continuity Irish Republican Army, hunted men in Ulster and throughout the rest of the United Kingdom, sought on charges that could put them behind bars for life unless they died exchanging gunfire with arresting officers.

  “Jesus,” Xenakis said, “they’re letting anybody in these days, I take it.”

  “My thoughts in a nutshell,” O’Banion replied.

  “All here for the great shindig, is it?” McGarry asked.

  “We have a car waiting,” Xenakis said, half gloating.

  “As do we,” McGarry told him. “We may as well go look for the chauffeurs together, eh?”

  Outside, two matching Ford Flex SUVs, both white, stood at the curb, their drivers talking quietly until they saw four hard-faced men approaching them with bags in hand. One of them stepped toward Lekka and Xenakis, saying, “Greece, party of two.”

  The other turned to face McGarry and O’Banion. “Belfast,” he declared and let it go at that.

  “Well, so much for togetherness,” O’Banion quipped. “I hope we’ll see you gentlemen again, and soon.”

  General José Francisco Bermúdez Airport

  Carúpano, Venezuela

  “There he is,” Namadi Giwa said, cocking his head in the direction of a forty-something Venezuelan standing by a jet-black Chevrolet Blazer.

  “I hope so, Captain,” Lieutenant Dele Okonji replied.

  Their military ranks were unrecognized outside of the paramilitary group they served. Most Western officials and journalists called their private army Boko Haram, though it was founded with the long-winded title “Jama’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihad,” which translated from Arabic to English as “Group of the People of Sunnah for Preaching and Jihad.” Lest anyone mistake them for wandering ministers, jihad drove the message home with its reference to waging war against Allah’s foes. Loosely affiliated with ISIL, leaders of Boko Haram leaned toward calling their group the Islamic State’s West Africa Province.

  By any name, it never hurt to keep the West confused.

  To that end, Giwa and Okonji had accepted an invitation from Venezuela’s vice president and director of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service—SEBIN—to rally with other freedom fighters and devise a plan for pressing their mutual goals. Those invitations, black letters embossed on ivory vellum, cited the meeting’s goal as “promotion of world peace,” but any fool could read between the lines.

  Captain Namadi Giwa was accustomed to double-talk and euphemisms, self-taught to see through politicians’ statements as if they—the statements, not the politicians—had been crafted out of glass. Was not the motto of his own homeland “Unity and Faith, Peace and Progress”? Truth be told, none of those qualities was readily observed within the borders of Nigeria.

  The country had been ruled by Britain from 1800 to 1960 and then granted independence, whereupon it briefly merged with Cameroon. A three-year civil war erupted in 1967—manipulated by Britain, France, Egypt, Israel and the Soviet Union—followed by a series of military juntas that ruled with iron hands from 1970 to 1999. “Democratization” followed, moving at glacial speed, and had yet to cure Nigeria’s myriad problems.

  Boko Haram aimed to succeed where civilian government had manifestly failed, by converting Nigeria’s people to Islam at gunpoint if need be, drafting the nation’s children to fight and die for Allah.

  At the meeting, all Giwa and Okonji had to do was to listen carefully and speak their minds when called upon.

  If all else failed, should other delegates turn out to be their mortal enemies, Giwa was confident that they could soldier through. Although unarmed during the transatlantic flight, he’d learned that there were always options to be found in crisis situations, and he was prepared to strike if need be, trusting that Okonji had his back.

  José Leonardo Chirino Airport, Coro, Venezuela

  Most of the passengers deplaning from Avianca Airlines Flight 152 were Venezuelans, most of those residing in Coro, the capital of Falcón State and oldest city in western Venezuela. Two among them traveling together from Morocco did not fit that mold—one of them black, the other clearly Arabic. They were a novelty of sorts, passing from their arrival gate toward baggage claims, but casual observers would have been hard-pressed to see how truly out of place they were.

  The ebon-skinned Somali was Ifrah Tako, a unit commander of al-Shabaab. His companion, born in Yemen, was Boushra Damari, four years younger than Tako and three inches shorter, but no less deadly.

  Both men lingered at the airport’s creaky baggage carousel just long enough to snatch a single suitcase each and press on toward the terminal’s street exit, moving past the rank of booths that offered rental cars. Their fake passports were both handcrafted by professionals, but why take any chances that were not required?

  Outside, Tako addressed Damari in Italian, the official language of Somalia for some three-quarters of a century, only abandoned formally by the nation’s Provisional Constitution in 2012. “Why is this place so fucking hot?” he asked.

  “It’s not the heat,” Damari said. “Blame the humidity.”

  “Oh, yes. I feel much better now.”

  They were accustomed to the mostly dry heat of Africa’s semi-arid “horn,” where daytime temperatures typically exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit and often topped 113. It was the same story in Yemen, just 250 miles northward, across the Gulf of Aden. There, within the virtually treeless hot plain, 104 degrees Fahrenheit was considered a moderate heat, relieved only by erratic tropical cyclones.

  “Where’s the damn soldier?” Tako grumbled. “One is supposed to meet us.”

  “Use your eyes, alghabi,” his companion answered, lapsing into Arabic for the mild insult. “Did you think he’d come in uniform, waving a flag to draw attention?”

  That said, the one and only obvious contender was a thirty-something, clean-cut fellow in a tailored suit of gray, standing beside a Mercedes-Benz GLC four-wheel-drive SUV. He seemed to recognize the new arrivals, likely from a copy of the doctored passport photographs he’d been given, and welcomed them in English with a lilting Latin accent.

  Once inside the SUV’s back seat, treated to frosty air-conditioning, Tako seemed to relax, his mood improving as they pulled out from the curb. Boushra Damari, for his part, thought he would have to wait to see what happened next.

  And once again—too late—he wished that they were armed.

  La Chinita International Airport

  Maracaibo, Venezuela

  Locals—some 5.3 million of them at last count—called Maracaibo La Tierra del Sol Amada, “The Beloved Land of the Sun.” It ranked as Venezuela’s second largest city and the capital of Zulia State, some nineteen thousand square miles vastly rich in oil, natural gas and minerals.

  Mohammad Bajwa, of the Tehr
eek-e-Taliban Pakistan, carefully studied each new territory that he visited while pressing home his endless war against the USA and all her Western allies. Travel took a fair amount of time, since thirteen groups of Taliban commandos had combined to form the TTP in December 2007, later incorporating Afghan units and members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant—Khorasan Province. As the roving representative of TTP leader Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, Bajwa had seen a fair amount of planet Earth over the past eight years, spreading the revolutionary word and sowing dragon’s teeth.

  This afternoon, his traveling companion was Tariq Sattar, a slightly younger Pakistani sought on charges linking him to thirteen murders in the past three years. Those were the killings known to Interpol, the FBI and Britain’s MI6, although he could have listed others to enlighten them if he was so inclined.

  Today, they had begun a journey that, if fortune smiled upon them, might expand the TTP’s influence and its striking range worldwide.

  Or, if it failed, the trip might get them killed.

  Mohammad Bajwa prayed to Allah that his mission would succeed, but he harbored misgivings all the same. Some of the delegates expected at the conference awaiting him were old, established comrades in jihad. Others were total strangers to him, men—and one woman, according to reports he had received—were strangers drawn from other cultures and religions who might look down with disfavor on his own.

  If that turned out to be a fatal stumbling block, the vision that had lured Bajwa and his faithful comrade here could turn into a nightmare. It might even end his life in this forsaken land of cocaine, rampant crime and refried beans.

  Outside the terminal, each with a bag in hand, Bajwa and Sattar quickly spotted their designated escort to the conference. He was a slender man, approximately Bajwa’s height at five foot six or seven, in a single-breasted suit that showed the outline of a pistol in a shoulder holster under his left arm. The vehicle awaiting them was a year-old, pearl-gray Volvo XC90 midsize luxury crossover SUV. The driver picked them out and raised a hand, not quite saluting them, before he opened one of the Volvo’s rear doors.

  “You see the pistol?” Bajwa asked Sattar, half whispering in Arabic as they approached the SUV.

  “I do.”

  “We trust him only to a point,” Bajwa said, knowing the remark should be unnecessary.

  “I’ll be ready if he reaches for it,” Sattar replied.

  Between them, it should be no trick to snap the driver’s neck and steer the Volvo to a halt. They would then remove his corpse and flee to some point where they could discard the government conveyance and switch to another vehicle without a built-in tracking device to betray them.

  If that happened, it would mean an abject failure of their mission and would likely end in death for both the Pakistani visitors, but Bajwa was determined they would not fall without a fight.

  It was the very least he owed to Allah and His sacred cause.

  Chapter Three

  Maiquetía, Venezuela

  Sunset painted pastel tones across the blue Caribbean as Bolan steered his J70 Land Cruiser toward Maiquetía’s waterfront, three miles east of Simón Bolívar International Airport. The drive took him eight minutes through light traffic, although searching out the pier he sought required a bit more time.

  He had a fix on who would be arriving and precisely where, although their ETA was marginally flexible. Due to the rash of delegates arriving for their Venezuelan sit-down, new arrivals were dispersed around the country, entering through various airports or—in this case, at least—by sea. The mode of travel was supposed to be a “go-fast” boat, favored by racers and by smugglers running drugs or other contraband into South Florida.

  The men Bolan was seeking now, chosen at random for proximity to his arrival point, were members of the CPP/NPA—short for the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army.

  Since 1969, the NPA—Bagong Hukbong Bayan in Filipino—stood accused of terrorist attacks throughout the Philippines, financed by handouts from the Chinese and the North Korean governments, plus the now-defunct Japanese Red Army and “revolutionary taxes” extorted from legitimate Filipino companies that purchased peace with a percentage of their monthly profits. Outlawed by the Philippine government, branded a terrorist organization by the US State Department and the European Union, the CPP/NPA had endured through a cycle of revolts and cease-fires, always violating each new truce in turn with fresh demands.

  And now, if Stony Man was right, the outfit was expanding and recruiting allies for a global wave of terrorism unlike any witnessed since the tragedy of 9/11. If it worked, their soldiers might crop up most anywhere on Earth, striking at targets they would never have considered relevant before.

  Unless Bolan could head them off and shut them down.

  If they arrived on schedule, Bolan’s targets should be landing at the Terminal Marítima La Guaira, an extended urban area linking Maiquetía to La Guaira, the capital of Vargas State and Venezuela’s chief seaport. It accommodated large commercial ships and ocean liners packed with tourists, as well as smaller pleasure craft, and was considered one of the world’s top sport fishing destinations.

  Beyond that openly acknowledged traffic, La Guaira also shipped more than its share of marijuana and cocaine, illicit arms earmarked for drug cartels and revolutionaries, plus a steady flow of human trafficking that channeled women and children into the sex trade ranging from Mexico and the Caribbean to the US, Western Europe and the People’s Republic of China.

  Something for everyone. But Bolan sought only two men this evening, intent on cutting short their stay and closing out their misspent lives.

  Beginning any moment now.

  If he could pull this off as planned, it meant the first round of his Venezuelan purge, continuing until a clean sweep was achieved.

  * * *

  Rico Baes held the rank of captain in the CPP/NPA. Seated beside him in the red-striped cigarette boat was Sergeant Pascual Sandico, five years younger than Baes at twenty-six, a revolutionary who had proved himself in jungle skirmishes against the Philippine Army and through a series of urban assassinations.

  Their vessel was a fifty-foot Marauder SS constructed from fiberglass, Kevlar and carbon fiber, molded into a deep V-shaped hull favored by speed racers but also highly prized by offshore smugglers. Painted white, with red flames curling up around its prow, the boat sported twin turbocharged Mercury racing engines, the 1350-horsepower models with M8 drives, capable of propelling the boat at ninety miles per hour in smooth seas, roughly half that speed if the waters turned choppy.

  Since they’d chosen an approach by sea rather than using a commercial airline and enduring exhaustive security checks in transit, Baes and Sandico were the first and only delegates arriving armed in Venezuela.

  Baes guessed that others would have made connections in advance for buying weapons in that troubled nation, but he didn’t like to run the risk of traveling on open water with no means of self-defense beyond a flare gun and a two-way radio.

  Accordingly, the Filipinos had acquired two AK101 selective-fire assault rifles, chambered in 5.56 mm NATO. The AKs measured twenty-eight inches with stocks folded and weighed 8.8 pounds with a fully loaded 30-round magazine in place. Set to fire full-auto, the weapons had a cyclic rate of six hundred rounds per minute, effective out to 550 yards.

  Baes and Sandico were approaching Venezuela’s coastline from Bonaire, an island of the Leeward Antilles located fifty miles offshore.

  “Almost there,” Sandico said unnecessarily.

  Baes could see the coastline for himself, teeming with pleasure craft and hulking commercial vessels. He carried cash with which to grease whichever customs agents were assigned to welcome them, trusting mordida and their first-rate forged Mexican passports to nip any threats in the bud. In fact, the bribe should be unnecessary since they had been assigned an escort from SEBIN, ofte
n described by journalists as the country’s secret police.

  That agent would convey them to the meeting, which Baes suspected would turn out to be a waste of time, but he was under orders from NPA’s aged leader, commanded to observe, participate, and go along with any plans that might serve the organization’s needs specific to the Philippines.

  As they approached the designated pier, Baes sat with the duffel bags of scuba gear, which also had their weapons stashed inside. He could retrieve them at a moment’s notice, but if that happened, he knew their mission should be written off as hopeless, their names added to the ever-growing martyrs list at NPA headquarters.

  Either way, Baes thought he was ready for whatever would happen next.

  * * *

  Bolan’s wish list for his present mission had not listed a specific sound suppressor for one of his Glocks. A wide range was available and, trusting his embassy contact to get it right, he’d received a Cobra M2 manufactured by Yankee Hill Machine in Easthampton, Massachusetts, fifty-seven miles southeast of Bolan’s Pittsfield hometown. That cosmic linkup was not lost on Bolan, though he stopped short of assigning it a mystical significance.

  It really was a small world, after all.

  The Cobra M2 measured eight inches precisely, doubling the length of his Glock 22, adding 11.5 ounces to the pistol’s overall weight. Constructed from aircraft-quality aluminum and stainless steel, with a black-matte hard-coat finish, it should reduce the sound of a shot below twenty-two decibels, ranked midway between “faint” and “very faint” on most decibel charts, equated with the sound of rustling forest leaves.

  That should be all Bolan required for this job and going forward as he proceeded with his South American sojourn.

  Now, waiting for his targets to arrive, the Glock hanging below his left arm in its special holster to accommodate the Cobra M2, Bolan scanned the pier he’d chosen as an ambush site, spotting civilians whom he hoped would stay the hell out of his way during the hit-and-run scenario he’d mapped out in his mind. Some risk to bystanders was unavoidable, of course, but he would do his best to spare them any injury.