Rebel Trade

by Don Pendleton

  “I am Jakova Ulenga,” the driver said, as he palmed a wallet made of faded leather, molded to the shape of his backside. “Sergeant Ulenga, I should say, with the Namibian Police.”

  The badge he showed to prove it was a flat eleven-pointed star, with some kind of shield embossed at the center. Bolan guessed the metal might be brass, in need of polishing. The ID card that went along with it confirmed what he had just been told, but he could not confirm its authenticity.

  Two choices, then. He could order Ulenga to stop the car and answer questions, with a little encouragement, or Bolan could play along and see what happened next. He weighed the odds in record time and took a leap of faith.

  “Have you been trailing me?” he asked.

  “In truth, sir, no,” Ulenga said. “I had no hint of your existence until you arrived at my surveillance scene. Now, if you don’t mind…?”

  Bolan got the hint. “Matthew Cooper,” he said. “Matt, if you prefer.”

  “You are on a mission, yes?” Ulenga asked. “You strike me as a man with purpose, and you came prepared.” He nodded toward the AK-47 as he spoke the last four words.

  Bolan sidestepped that probe and answered with a question of his own. “You have surveillance teams watching the MLF?”

  Ulenga frowned, considering his answer, then replied, “I am the team, Matt. My superiors, unfortunately, do not see the job as high priority.”

  “You either miss a lot of sleep or miss a lot of leads,” Bolan suggested.

  “Both are true, to some extent,” the sergeant granted. “I’m doing what I can. Collecting evidence.”

  “Of what?” Bolan asked. “Can you say?”

  Another pregnant pause, before Ulenga made a choice and said, “It hardly matters, I suppose, since the Ministry of Justice has no interest in the case.”

  “But you stay on it.”

  “I am a policeman. What else can I do?”

  “Go with the flow,” Bolan suggested. “Make your quota somewhere else. Work on your office politics.”

  “Is that what you were doing, back on Bloekom Street just now?” Ulenga challenged him.

  Time for another leap. “I’m not a cop,” he said.

  “And you are not Namibian,” Ulenga said. “Nor British, by the sound of you. Not Afrikaner. How are things these days in the United States?”

  “Like anywhere else you go,” Bolan replied. “We have our problems.”

  “But you’ve chosen to come here and deal with one of ours?” the sergeant prodded him. “With that?” Another sharp glance toward the piece resting in Bolan’s lap, still angled toward the driver’s seat.

  “The MLF isn’t a local problem anymore,” Bolan replied. “Their actions aren’t restricted to Namibia or raids across the border to Angola.”

  “Ah. The U.S. merchant ships,” Ulenga said. “I should have known.”

  “Where I come from, they grease the squeaky wheels,” Bolan explained. “At least, the wheels with cash behind them. I don’t care who gets it started, if I think the job’s worth doing.”

  “And you’ve found work in Namibia,” the sergeant said.

  “Let’s say I’ve got some applications out there,” Bolan answered.

  “You’re too modest, I suspect. And I believe you’re hunting pirates.”

  “Where? In Windhoek?” Bolan hoped he had the proper airy tone, but doubted he could sell the bluff. Not with the AK/GP-30 combo sitting in his lap.

  “There was a bulletin last night,” Sergeant Ulenga said. “A group of sportsmen murdered at their camp, somewhere around Durissa Bay.”

  “Sportsmen?”

  “Hunters, I think,” Ulenga said. “At least, from what I hear, they were well-armed.”

  “And hunting what, do you suppose?” Bolan inquired.

  “I’m more concerned with who was hunting them,” the sergeant answered.

  “What’s the difference, if a dirty job gets done?”

  “There are procedures, as I’m sure you understand,” Ulenga said. He drove another block before he added, “But they do not seem to work as well in some cases as others.”

  “That’s true no matter where you go,” Bolan replied.

  “Even America?”

  “I’ve heard it said.”

  “But you have Dirty Harry, eh?” Ulenga asked him, smiling.

  “Only in the movies,” Bolan replied.

  “Too bad. I sometimes think that we could use him here,” Ulenga said.

  “So make a wish,” Bolan said. “See what happens.”

  * * *

  “A WISH,” ULENGA SAID. “As in the story of Aladdin and his lamp?”

  “I’m not a genie,” the big American replied, “but I can get things done.”

  Ulenga steered the Opel north along Robert Mugabe Street, taking his passenger from Southern Industrial into the avenues of Luxury Hill. Some of the mansions had a slightly rundown look these days, but they were still vast worlds away from the slums of Katutura. One home here could house a dozen families from Windhoek’s impoverished western suburbs, with room to spare.

  “You understand that I am bound by certain rules and regulations,” Ulenga said, “as in your country.”

  “I know the rules were laid down with the best intentions,” the man replied. “Back home, the basics were decided in the eighteenth century, when people carried muzzle-loading flintlocks and the only hatchets they had were tomahawks. Rules evolve, but anywhere you go, they always lag behind the criminals.”

  “Of course,” Ulenga said. “Because society reacts. Rarely does it anticipate.”

  “The nature of the beast.”

  “In the year that I was born,” Ulenga said, “there was no internet. Russians were communists and hoarded their nuclear warheads instead of selling them abroad to the highest bidder. My country was an adjunct to South Africa, ruled by apartheid. I was fourteen years old when the Afrikaners renounced their claim to this land. So, yes, things change. But when I swore my oath—”

  “To what, exactly?” Bolan asked him. “Justice? Law and order? How’s that working out for you?”

  “I don’t claim that the system’s perfect,” Ulenga replied. “Far from it, in fact. The inefficiency alone could drive you mad. As for corruption…let us say that it is commonplace. You may not know it, Matt, but three out of every ten Namibians are unemployed. Half of the working population earns less than two of your American dollars per day. Fifteen percent of our adult population is HIV-positive, with an average sixteen thousand deaths from AIDS each year. Our doctors fight the plague, but there are only fifteen hundred of them in the country, one for every fourteen hundred citizens. As for the government, police, whatever—those who manage to obtain positions often manage to enrich themselves while serving others.”

  “You don’t look that rich to me,” Bolan said.

  “Perhaps I am the exception that proves the rule,” Ulenga said.

  “An honest man?”

  “Or a fool, you might say.”

  “Someone might,” his passenger said. “Not me.”

  “You’d be in the minority.”

  “Whatever,” the American replied. “I’m not a traveling evangelist. I’ve got nothing to sell. You have a problem in Namibia that’s started to affect the world at large.”

  “The MLF,” Ulenga said.

  “Aside from piracy, they’re into drug- and human-trafficking, arms-smuggling, acts of terrorism.” He ran down the list. “I wouldn’t be involved if it was just about Angola and Namibia, you understand. I don’t fight proxy wars.”

  “You’ve said you’re not political, Matt.”

  “Maybe I should have said, ‘Depending on your point of view.
’ What’s not political today, to some extent?” the man asked. “Religion, commerce, science, medicine—it’s all wrapped up in ideology for some. From prayer to stem-cell research and the price of oil, a politician can use anything to scare up votes. That isn’t me.”

  “What are you, then?” Ulenga asked.

  “A soldier, born and raised.”

  “And looking for a war?”

  “The wars find me,” the American said. “Call it my luck, maybe my curse. It all comes out the same.”

  “You understand that my superiors—the Powers That Be—desire no war in Windhoek or within the borders of Namibia? They are invested in the status quo. And when I say invested, I refer to both their politics and their finances. Having fought for independence from the Afrikaners, with support from both the Soviets and Cubans, they are sentimentally attached to underdogs and rebels. At the same time, if support for revolution in Angola makes them wealthy, why, so much the better.”

  Nodding, the man beside him declared, “It’s nothing that I haven’t seen before. But here’s the bottom line—whether they want a war or not, it’s happening right now, under their noses. Every pirate raid on foreign shipping that’s allowed to go unpunished is an act of war. Same thing whenever rebels cross the border. Running drugs and arms to other countries qualify along the same lines. Human trafficking brings disrepute across the board, and it accelerates the spread of AIDS. All acts of war, if someone wants to push the issue.”

  “Someone like yourself,” Ulenga said.

  “I’m just here for the MLF,” he said. “And anyone who tries to cover for them.”

  “What are you proposing?” Ulenga asked. Up ahead, he saw the National Museum approaching on their right.

  “That ought to be my question,” the big American said. “Remember, you stopped me.”

  And it was true. Ulenga swallowed with some difficulty, cleared his throat and said, “Perhaps there is a way that we can help each other, eh?”

  * * *

  “BUT WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED to do?” one of the men assembled in the MLF’s main office asked, his voice pitched in a whining, almost childlike tone.

  “You are supposed to be a man!” Oscar Boavida said, nearly shouting by the time he finished. “All of you who claim to be great freedom fighters are supposed to act like soldiers. Must I start all over from the first day of your training and remind you of your lessons?”

  No response from any of the sullen faces ranged around his desk. Feet shuffled on the cheap linoleum that needed cleaning. Fingers fidgeted and fists were clenched. One so-called soldier off to Boavida’s left muttered something but it was unintelligible.

  “What was that?” their chief demanded. “Speak up if you have something to say.”

  Dead silence, then. Boavida’s skull felt like a pressure cooker with a broken regulator. Any second, he thought, it might explode and spray the idiots before him with his seething brains. But he had no such luck.

  “All right,” he said at last into the silence, pointing at a short man on his right. “Stefan, you’ve had some time. What can you tell us of the killings at Durissa Bay?”

  Stefan considered it, his eyes downcast. He had the virus, and the others kept their distance from him, as if frightened that his taint might leap between them, like an insect seeking hosts. As yet, he showed no outward signs of the disease, but Boavida understood that he had tried the shaman’s “cure”—raping successive virgins by the light of a full moon—to no result. He had the smell of death about him.

  “I found the man who called you,” Stefan said, at last. “Hendrik Auala.”

  “I already know his name,” Boavida said. “What else did he tell you?”

  “Nothing you haven’t heard before,” Stefan replied. “He only saw one man. This man came from the darkness, killing. No one’s bullets touched him. Hendrik thinks he may be magical. Maybe a demon.”

  “Demon, dog shit!” Boavida raged. “Why would a demon need machine guns and grenades?”

  A listless shrug from Stefan, as if some invisible hand raised his shoulders, then dropped them again. “I don’t know, Oscar. It’s what Hendrik said, not me.”

  “Go on, then,” Boavida ordered. “Leaving out the ghosts and demons, if you please.”

  “There’s not much more. Hendrik was shot—more of a scratch, I’d say, along the left side of his head—and claims it left him in a daze. He could not find his weapon, could not run. How much of that is true, I cannot say. He saw the man on board one of their boats, firing the big machine gun. Then, this de—this stranger took off in the boat. Their captain and the others who could still fight followed him in two more boats, but none of them returned. The rest, I learned by talking to police.”

  “Which was?”

  “They found the boats and bodies. None who tried to catch this man survived. He either shot them, or they drowned after he wrecked their boats.”

  It was another puzzle Boavida reckoned he would never solve: pirates who fought a war at sea but never learned to swim.

  “There were survivors from the camp, yes?” he inquired.

  “There were,” Stefan agreed. “Aside from Hendrik, three more are alive. One’s in hospital at Swakopmund. He’s still unconscious, and the doctors think he’ll likely die. Two others, I found at the safe house outside Walvis Bay.”

  “And what did they say?” Boavida prodded.

  “Much the same as Hendrik. One man coming from the darkness, dressed in camouflage, face painted, killing everyone.”

  “Not everyone,” Boavida said. “They lived through it.”

  Stefan nodded, almost smiling for a second, then thought better of it and maintained his solemn air. “It’s true. They both had flimsy explanations. One claims a grenade knocked him unconscious, while his friend says sand or something got into his eyes.”

  “And neither of them had a chance to shoot this bastard standing right in front of them?” Boavida asked.

  “That’s the thing,” Stefan replied. “Both claim they shot him—one says that he fired a full clip from his rifle at close range—but nothing stopped this…well, this—”

  “Stop! I will not hear another word about some ghost or demon shooting up the camp and murdering your friends.” In fact, he didn’t know if they were friends or not, and Boavida didn’t care. If he could spark some kind of feeling in these flaccid drones, they might go out and do the job that was expected of them. Maybe they would act like men.

  Or maybe, Boavida thought, he’d set his sights too high.

  He asked, “Can any of the ones who saw this killer say if he was black or white?”

  “Not with the painting on his face,” Stefan replied.

  “And did he speak?”

  “No one heard him say anything.”

  “All right. We must assume that the attack was a beginning, not a solitary incident.”

  “Beginning of what?” one of the others asked.

  “A war,” Boavida said, as the pulse thumped in his ears. “What else?”

  * * *

  “WHEN YOU SAID HELP each other,” Bolan asked Sergeant Ulenga, “what exactly did you have in mind?”

  “Collaboration toward a common goal,” Ulenga said.

  “Which is?”

  “Destruction of the MLF,” Ulenga answered back, as if it should be obvious. “Or, at the very least, eliminating its ability to terrorize.”

  “By what means?” Bolan asked him, getting to the heart of it.

  The officer behind the Opel’s wheel considered that, proceeding for another block in silence. Finally, he said, “My own attempts have failed. I stay within the law and gather good intelligence, but nothing comes of it. Without support from my superiors and prosecutors at the Ministry of Justi
ce, nothing happens. Nothing ever will. But you…”

  Bolan didn’t help him, couldn’t force the thoughts into his mind or words into his mouth. Ulenga had a choice to make, and once he made it, there would be no turning back. He’d have to live with his decision.

  Or die trying.

  “You come in with no restrictions,” Ulenga said, finishing his thought. “You get results.”

  “But maybe not the kind you want,” Bolan suggested.

  “Is it worse than watching killers plot their crimes for weeks or months on end, and having nothing at the end to show for it except more bodies? I will never be allowed to prosecute the MLF,” Ulenga said, “unless I catch them in the act. And even then, I think, the court would find some technicality permitting it to drop the case.”

  “There is another way,” Bolan confirmed. “But if you go that route, you have to go with eyes wide open, and you can’t be all half-assed about it. If you plan to start a war, know what it means before you pull the trigger.”

  “I don’t start the war,” Ulenga said. “The MLF has brought their war to me, into my homeland, killing innocents who have no interest in Angolan politics or anything related to it. They have brought disgrace upon Namibia from every decent nation in the world.”

  “You take it seriously, then,” Bolan said.

  “Should I not?” Ulenga’s voice was taut, sounding offended.

  “All I’m saying,” Bolan answered, “is that if you join my team, there’s no time-out, no substitution and the only penalty is death.”

  Ulenga cocked an eyebrow at him and asked, “You don’t want help? Are you rejecting me?”

  “I’m telling you it’s all or nothing,” Bolan said. “No building up a case for court. No legal niceties. Rule books go out the window, and if you get caught…”

  “Prison or death,” Ulenga said. “I understand, believe me.”

  “Look, if you have any family—”

  “All gone,” Ulenga interrupted him. “You know that life is cheap here, eh?”