There would be no Habir Dugula.
Of course, wherever this place existed, it was only just a dream, Mack Bolan knew, and all too painfully well. For the man also known as the Executioner this Nirvana or Heaven, this imagined place on Earth, where all men were free, created equal to follow the tenets of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was the stuff of fantasy and angst, best left to the poets and the songwriters.
He was a soldier, first and last, brutally aware after walking countless miles in the arena of the savage, that as long as animal man existed, preying on the weak and the innocent, going for number one, peace was just a word.
The latest in a long line of vicious warlords in Somalia was all the proof he needed that evil was alive and well on Earth. But Habir Dugula was only one reason Bolan had undertaken this mission.
They were almost there, in place to give Dugula’s mass murderers and armed profiteers a dose of their own poison. Hearing the familiar thunder, Bolan spotted the C-130, coming in for a landing on the plain, due south, the giant bird vanishing from sight a moment later above the lip of the wadi. Fisting his M-16/M-203 combo, adrenaline burning, Bolan shot a look at his driver, a twist to Cobra Leader’s original attack plan flaring to mind. On the surface, the strike could in all probability work, he reasoned. For openers, they were all seasoned pros, whereas Dugula and goons were accustomed, for the most part, to slaughtering their unarmed countrymen. Sure, there was the usual street fighting in Mogadishu with rival clans, but as a rule of thumb, Dugula’s thugs outnumbered the competition, and any sustained shooting match was spurred more by hair-trigger impulse than skill and cold tactics on an even battlefield. Just the same, he knew a wild bullet, even one fired in haste or panic, could score flesh.
Timing was the key ingredient to get it started, the soldier knew, ground forces unleashing the lightning and thunder in sync. It was a brazen play, no two ways about it, Collins and company shooting their way off the ramp, Hummers rampaging into the stunned forces of Dugula, mowing them down off the starting line. The Black Hawks and the Apache, a mile or more to their rear, flying nap of the earth and jamming any atypical Somali substandard radar in the area, were a definite added bonus. If Dugula stuck to form, according to UN and CIA reports, he would hang back while his thugs boarded the C-130, then loaded up the APCs and transports parked at the command post of the warlord’s airfield. They would stock their warehouses with food and medicine slated for the sick and starving, sell it to other lesser-ranking warlords or whoever else could pay the going rate. Bolan expected once Dugula found they weren’t faced with well-intentioned UN or Red Cross workers, the warlord would bolt.
The soldier gave a moment’s thought to the mission, the parameters, endgame, reasons why he had accepted. For starters, it angered Bolan deeply that in this part of the world, where those who needed food and medicine the most, cried out for a helping hand just to get through the day, were not only denied the basics, but viewed as a blight to be removed from the body whole. In other words, those unfortunate enough not to be able to defend or fend for themselves, whatever the circumstance, weren’t worth protecting or sustaining, seen as deadweight, a possible contagion to the power structure, worthy of only subjugation or death.
Dugula had been on the soldier’s removal list for some time, the warlord living up to his ghoul’s handle given him by the UN for too long now. In a land where lawlessness ruled, where there wasn’t even the first fundamental institution, bureaucracy, no media or government whatsoever, it was impossible for even the World Health Organization to state the number of Dugula’s victims. Western intelligence could emphatically claim that entire villages had been wiped off the plains in a genocide campaign where Bolan assumed the warlord meant to do nothing but spread fear and terror.
The soldier had been around long enough to know that whatever they did here would make little difference in the long run. One less Dugula, one less army of murderers, though, terrorizing the countryside might tip the scales an inch or so in favor of the oppressed. What was true, in his mind at least, that all it took for evil to triumph was for good men to turn a blind eye, wash their hands of atrocity and man’s inhumanity to man as long as it didn’t encroach on their own world. If all of it boiled down to the power of the gun winning over evil, the Executioner was a proved old hand at the game.
A little over three days ago, Bolan recalled, he had been standing down at Stony Man Farm, the ultracovert intelligence agency in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and overseen by his longtime friend, Hal Brognola. Brognola, a high-ranking official of the Justice Department who was—in addition to routine Justice duties—a cutout between the President of the United States and the Farm, had presented the soldier with quite the unusual mission. How the channels ran through the various intelligence agencies to launch this mission and who, exactly, had brainstormed this campaign, not even Bolan or Brognola was sure. Assume Pentagon brass, CIA, NSA, but the Man—who green-lighted all Stony Man operations—wanted what he called the best of the best on board a black ops team called Cobra Force Twelve.
It seemed the President—or whoever had put the idea in his head—felt the need for a second holding pen outside Guantanamo Bay. Gitmo, or so Brognola had been told by the Man, Bolan recalled, had gotten a bit overcrowded with bad guys. And secondly, or so the line of reasoning went, there was too much spotlight glaring on Gitmo, thanks to the media, which, in the usual convoluted political thinking, could end up smacking Washington with a black eye. Prisoner mistreatment, abyssmal living conditions, individual rights of terrorists denied, and so on. It hadn’t been spelled out one hundred percent, but Bolan’s gut told him the next prison camp for international criminals wouldn’t pop up on CNN.
Usually the soldier operated alone, or as part of the two Stony Man commando teams. Working with unknown factors, CIA or bona fide military men with combat experience, had proved perilous to his health in the past. Brognola, however, had laid it out, convinced him to colead Cobra Force Twelve. Never one to unduly swaddle himself in the Stars and Stripes, the big Fed had told him twenty to thirty of some of the most wanted terrorists, depending on how many could be taken alive, could prove intelligence mother lodes in the war on terror. Somalia was first on the roundup list.
Not even Brognola had been told where this military tribunal would be held, and Bolan wasn’t quite sure what to make on the lack of concrete details. It smacked of dark secrecy to the soldier, all around, and Brognola had as much as said if it blew up in the faces of those in the field doing all the hunting and capturing then America would take a verbal shellacking by the UN, her supposed allies, not to mention the Muslim world cranking up the heat for jihad.
And even with intelligence operatives all over the map, guiding them from hit to hit, they were on their own. The Executioner understood and accepted his usual role as a deniable expendable if he was caught or killed by the enemy. That was acceptable. What wasn’t were a few nagging speculations tossed his way by Brognola before he headed out to Fort Bragg to introduce himself—Colonel Brandon Stone—to the Cobra troops. The file on Collins and Cobra was classified, but the cyber sleuths at the Farm had unearthed a few questions, framed as suspicion, about the man and his team. They were terrorist headhunters, with a trio of successful outings to their credit, only a “but” in caps hung over their heads. The thing was, they had been in the general vicinity when a spate of kidnappings and murders of American citizens in Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia sullied their record. Coincidence?
Another reason to hop on board.
The soldier was there now, willing to let battle and time tell the truth.
He turned to the driver—Asp—the op’s mane of black hair and facial scruff framing the portrait of a mercenary. The pager on Bolan’s hip vibrated, the same signal transmitted, he knew, to the other ground troops. The bird had landed.
“Listen up,” Bolan told Asp, turning to make sure the lone black commando on the team—Python—heard him loud and clear. “T
here’s been a little change in plans.”
DUGULA WAS beyond troubled, and he couldn’t simply will away the gnawing in his belly. Something was shooting him to new heights of fear, a feeling so alive it had become a living monster in his face.
As the day ground on, everything appearing to go as planned, the worm in his belly squirmed harder, terror not far behind the unease, threatening, he imagined, to uncoil an adder in his guts, devour him from the inside out.
He had placed the call to the man in Saudi Arabia, more out of nagging paranoia than curiosity. Sure enough, the cutout who had arranged safe transport for freedom fighters he was harboring, so high up the chain of command in the Islamic jihad that disobedience was a death sentence, had confirmed what the whites had told him.
There was, so the middleman said, a series of big events about to unfold, fear not, perform the holy duty, whatever it was. The Saudi had instructed him to comply with whatever the foreigners wanted him to do, no matter how bizarre their requests seemed. Again he was told he would know when it started, but not knowing when or what disturbed him the most, visions of the noose once more tightening around his neck flaming to mind. He was to have faith as strong as steel, ask no questions. He would be an important, even a glorious instrument exercising the will of God in the coming days. He was being called, perhaps by the Prophet himself, a holy decree he was to carry out, once again, on faith. And he would be paid—the bottom line in his ultimate decision—more than he could ever spend in two lifetimes. Woe be to anyone who attempted to betray any of them, chisel out of the bargain, or so the Saudi told him.
Still, he had many questions, all of them bringing on doubt and worry that would see him thrash through one or many sleepless nights before this big event. Beyond that, he was angered that forces beyond his control had assumed he would obey their mysterious dictates, even order him to relegate his power to the enemy. Being on an overseas line, though, the conversation was brief, code words and phrases that should leave any enemy eavesdroppers guessing.
Dugula watched as the giant UN cargo plane descended from the direction of Kenya, touched down, hurled up spools of dust, began to taxi. For a moment, attempting to calm himself, he marveled at the naiveté of these relief workers. Surely by now they knew what became of their cargo. Were they stupid? Or did they actually believe one more attempt to funnel food and medicine into this region would buy the masses a few more days, even weeks before they succumbed to the inevitable fate of the weak? That he would actually distribute the relief to the surrounding villages?
Fools.
They had long since given up attempting airdrops, or trekking to the villages themselves, on foot or by truck, since a few relief workers had mysteriously vanished.
It occurred to him, the thought dredging up more paranoia, that perhaps this time they had brought along a few guns to test his will. If that happened, it would prove no contest at all. If they made demands at gunpoint, they were all dead, shot on sight, and he would simply load the trucks with the cargo, burn the bodies, destroy the plane, take his chances. This was Somalia, after all, and only a massive invading army would dare attempt to…
He was out of his jeep, standing his ground, ordering his clansmen to move up on the plane when the C-130 swung around, ramp lowering, the bay out of view. Strange, he thought, since the previous attempts were done in full view of the ramp coming down. It could have been paranoia, anxiety getting the better of him, but something felt terribly wrong all of a sudden. Dust in his face, he found himself easing back toward his jeep. It was a faint and distant rattle, buzzing in his head, but a chatter that blew the lid on his fear.
Dugula knew the sound of autofire when he heard it.
CHAPTER TWO
Collins wished he could see Dugula’s face, the horrifying reality that this wasn’t the usual candy raid doing far more than just ruining the warlord’s day. He could well imagine Dugula right then, nuts going numb, knifing chest pains, pasta legs, a scream of outrage no one but himself could hear, much less cared to, the whole shrieking nine yards of terror and confusion over why and who had come to yank his ticket. It was a fleeting impulse, wanting to be there, grinning in the guy’s face of fear, but any gloating, Collins knew, was on hold.
Collins had a full shooting gallery before him to contend with. Getting hands on the Kewpie doll was the ultimate prize, but since the moment at hand was no guaranteed straight flush, Dugula had to keep.
The Cobra leader flamed away with his M-16, Mamba on the starboard side, likewise clamping down with autofire on the stunned opposition. So far they were on the money, Collins thought, shock appearing on the verge of winning the opening round, but the going would get a lot tougher once they were off the ramp. Figure ten had ventured up the ramp, AKs not even up and out, their faces laughing, maybe a private joke bandied about between them in their native tongue, but the Somali thugs lost all arrogant composure when the first few rounds began chopping into their ranks. White caftans were shredded to red ruins before they were even aware they were chewed and screwed, Collins and Mamba sweeping long bursts, port to starboard and back. Somalis tumbled, screamed, sailed down the ramp, a whirling dervish or two losing a sandal in midflight.
“Go!” Collins roared, but he heard engines revving already, pedal to the metal, the Hummers streaking away from their starting line, amidships.
The Hummer known as Thunder Three was a blur in Collins’s eye. Holding back on the trigger of his assault rifle, he gutted another Somali with a short burst. Diamondback, he saw, manning the M-60, cut loose with the heavy-metal thunder. Two heartbeats’ worth of pounding of 7.62 mm lead erased the terror on the face of a goon peeking over ramp, head erupting, the shattered crimson eggshell gone with the vanishing corpse. Thunder Four was right on their bumper, the point Hummer, Collins saw, about to bulldoze through a bloody scarecrow rising on the lip of the ramp, his arms shooting up as if they were supposed to slam on the brakes or veer around him. There was a thud on impact, Collins catching the sound of bones cracking like matchsticks, the scream flying away with the ramp kill.
One, two, and both Hummers were airborne, tires slamming to earth a moment later at the end of the ramp, his drivers straightening next, cutting the wheels hard, whipping around and gone to charge into what Collins figured was fifty percent of what was left of Dugula’s shooters. According to intel, there were twenty-plus more Somali gunmen, either moving from the command hut or sitting tight, depending on Dugula’s mood, but those numbers would be handled, he hoped, by his Apache and the colonel.
Collins was picking up the pace, Mamba on the march, both of them feeding fresh clips to their M-16s when the Cobra leader sighted on a downed Somali. He was dragging himself through the pooling blood on his elbows, toward the edge of the ramp, head cocked. The spurting hole in the middle of his back, the way he slithered ahead, legs limp weight, told Collins he’d taken one through the spine. Paralysis below the waist would prove the least of his woes; Collins unable to understand Somali but believed he caught the gist of it. Sounded like the guy wanted mercy, he thought, or was trying to tell him this was all some hideous mistake. Whoever he was, Collins knew he wasn’t one of the catches of the day.
“Welcome to the big leagues, son,” Collins told him, then drilled a 3-round burst into his face.
Halfway down the ramp, Collins leaped, landing on hard-packed earth, M-16 searching out fresh blood off to the port side of the Hercules. The trick now, he knew, would be taking Dugula and a few top lieutenants alive. He already had that figured out beforehand, though, his hand ready to unleather the tranquilizer gun on his right hip just as soon as he made eyeball confirmation. The dicey part would be getting close enough to drop Dugula and trophies in the sleeping bag. As for his other commandos, the running scheme was to encircle them before they could bolt. Thunders One and Two would race in from the north, a sweeping left hook to their flank. It was a tactical page, he thought with a moment’s pride, ripped straight out of Genghis Khan’s war b
ook. If one of his troops got close enough to Dugula first, they were ordered to lob a canister his way, where a cloud of barbituate-laced gas would disperse.
Collins saw three, then four technicals already in flight, dust billowing around the vehicles as they reversed away from the C-130, Thunders Three and Four charging to outflank them. Collins took a moment to watch the action.
Autofire chattered around the technicals, two vehicles sitting, shooters steeled to go to the mat, two more murderous goon squads on wheels rolling to break out, but the noose was tightening, he saw. Screams of pain lanced out of all that swirling dust, but Collins felt grim satisfaction it was nearly a lock. Still, he saw two technicals break out of the ring, racing across the plain. His commandos were alternating bursts between shooting gunmen out of their technicals and blasting out tires.
He was grinning to himself, his Black Hawks soaring overhead to run down the rabbits, the Apache strafing the troops and transports at the command post to the northeast when he found only one of his ground Hummers barreling in from the wadi.
“What the—?”
The M-60 gunner on that rig—Lionteeth—told him the colonel was engaged somewhere with Somali gunmen. Or had he broken off, purposely changed their role on his own command? If so, why?
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