Читать книгу Final Coup - Don Pendleton - Страница 8

The initial meeting with Prime Minister Jean Antangana, other chiefs of state, and Cameroonian cabinet members who had not fled with ex-President Robert Menye, had been transferred to the commercial area of the airport as soon as the gunfire had broken out. The jeeps stopped in front of a cruder, more industrial-looking Quonset hut.

Bolan had replenished the Desert Eagle with a full magazine and now held it in his right hand, resting across his lap. He took notice of the fact that John Lareby, who was seated in front of him in the jeep, still had his Walther unholstered, while he gripped Grimaldi’s shoulder with his other hand.

The ace pilot had fallen asleep.

A swarthy man wearing the trappings of a colonel strutted out the front door and instinctively walked toward Bolan. “I am Colonel Luc Pierre Essam,” he said as he shrugged back his shoulders in pride and extended his hand to the Executioner. “I am in charge of the military protection squads, and it was my men who just saved you.”

Bolan just stared him in the eye as he transferred the Desert Eagle to his left hand and gripped Essam’s.

It was CIA field agent Lareby who spoke next. “Well, I guess we can’t thank you enough for clarifying that misconception, Colonel Essam,” he said. “Until this minute, I’d have sworn that we pretty much saved ourselves.”

The colonel’s smile faded. There was an awkward pause, and then he stepped back and said, “If you please, gentlemen. We are set up in a private room inside the hut.” He waved his hand toward the door.

Bolan hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward Grimaldi. “Our pilot needs medical attention,” he said.

Colonel Essam nodded. “I have already called for ambulances,” he said. “Your man will leave for the hospital in the first to arrive.”

Bolan nodded his understanding, and he and the other men stepped down from the jeeps before following Essam into the building. Once inside, the Executioner finally holstered his .44. There was a short row of bunk beds that had been slept in but not made, and he had to remind himself that while tidiness was insisted upon to instill discipline in the armed forces of the U.S., that was not the case in many Third World countries.

Essam opened the door to a large room. Bolan led the way inside and saw a variety of men already seated around a long conference table. Some wore suits and ties. Others were decked out in dress uniforms or battle gear. But no two sets of BDUs matched—in some cases, not even the blouse and pants on the same soldiers.

In short, they were barely better dressed than the terrorists who had attacked the aircraft.

With oil, timber and coffee exports, Cameroon’s economy was better than many other African nations. But “good” was a relative term. The mismatched uniforms meant the army was scrounging out its existence as best it could. And as mismatched as the uniforms were, Bolan knew from experience that with egomaniacs like Menye, the troops “ate first.” He had yet to meet any of Cameroon’s civilians, but he knew they would be in even worse shape than these military men.

The pompous Colonel Essam escorted Bolan to an empty chair just to the right of the head of the table. The other men found open seats among the Cameroonians still loyal to their prime minister.

“Gentlemen,” Essam said as he moved to the head of the table but remained standing. “We are in what English-speaking people call ‘dire straits.’ Does everyone know what I mean by that?”

The men around the table nodded.

“Then I will turn this meeting over to Prime Minister Jean Antangana,” Essam said. “But I would like to say one more thing first. To the men in this room who serve directly under me within the security force—the Americans who have just entered the room are in charge. And you will obey their orders. I do not like this any more than any other man would like having to call upon an outside nation for help, but that is, unfortunately, the case.” He stopped speaking for a moment and looked toward Bolan. “I am sure the Americans understand our hesitancy.”

Bolan, and the other newcomers to the room, nodded.

“Nevertheless,” Essam restated, “that is the reality of the situation. We need their expertise, and they have graciously agreed to provide it.” He stepped back from the seat and a coffee-colored man of mixed race, wearing a blue business suit, white shirt and paisley tie took his place.

Essam moved to the chair the man had just vacated, directly across from Bolan.

The soldier could see that the prime minister was sick before he even opened his mouth.

Jean Antangana cleared his throat and his chest sounded as if marbles were rattling around against one another. “For those of you who have graciously come to our aid, I thank you.” Now that the man was standing, Bolan could see that Antangana’s suit was at least two sizes too large. The bony features of his face, along with a slightly yellow tint to his tanned skin, furthered his observation that the man was seriously ill. And had been for a long time.

“We are facing hard times,” Antangana finally went on. “Our president has left office and is on the run. Which, considering some of the outrageous actions he has taken, is not such a bad thing.”

There were chuckles around the room, but they had a fearful ring to them.

“And we have two men running for office who may be even more evil than Menye was.” He cleared his throat once more with the same peculiar rattling sound. When the spasm had passed, he said, “We cannot have this. Neither candidate, or party, is acceptable.”

A man toward the end of the table wearing BDU pants and a soiled brown T-shirt butted in. “If I might be so bold,” he said. “I see no reason not to kill them both.”

Antangana shook his head. “That would do no good,” he said. “Both the Cameroon People’s Union and the Kamerun National Democratic Party would simply install other men in their place. Keep in mind that this is an emergency election, and candidates are allowed to file right up to the day before the election.”

“Sir,” a black man wearing a lightweight tropical suit said, “why don’t you file for the position?” He cleared his throat nervously. “I am sure all of the men in this room would support you.”

There was a murmur of assent around the room.

“I cannot do that,” Antangana said in his gravelly voice. “You all know why.”

Bolan didn’t know exactly why, and he knew the other Americans who had flown with him from Washington, D.C., to Cameroon didn’t either. But he could guess.

The Executioner was no medical doctor like Lareby. But it didn’t take an “M.D.” after your name to see that some form of cancer was eating Antangana down to the bone. Bolan guessed that the man viewed the unification of Cameroon under a true democracy with a fair and honest president as the last great deed he could perform for his homeland before he died.

Antangana seemed to read the soldier’s mind. Turning toward Bolan, he made the man’s suspicions a reality. “I am sorry,” the prime minister said. “For saying that everyone in this room knows why I cannot run for office. To our new friends from America, I have throat cancer. It has spread, and continues to do so at an alarming rate.”

Bolan nodded his understanding. “Have the doctors told you how long you might have?” he asked.

Antangana shrugged. “A few weeks. Perhaps a few months. No two cases, they tell me, are quite the same.” His words were becoming lower and more like growls than speech. The effort it took him to talk was obviously taking its toll. “I am due for another round of chemotherapy in a few days,” he managed to choke out.

Bolan stood up next to the man. “With all due respect, Mr. Prime Minister,” he said, “I think it’s time for me to take charge.”

Antangana nodded. Suddenly, he had run out of air completely and had to take in a deep, wheezy-sounding breath. Then, leaning low to speak into Bolan’s ear, he whispered, “I love my country. Please. Save it.”

Before Bolan could respond, Antangana had stumbled around him and taken the chair the soldier had previously occupied. Bolan watched him out of the corner of his eye. As he sat, the lapel of the man’s suit jacket rode up around his ears, making him appear to shrink and look even thinner and more worn out than he’d appeared when he’d stood.

“Gentlemen,” Bolan said as soon as the prime minister was seated. “A few of you I know, others I don’t. But during this time of peril for Cameroon, we’re all going to get to know each other as we go.” He leaned forward and pressed the palms of his hands on the top of the table. “As I see it, we’ve got two missions here. To keep the candidates alive, and to find former president Robert Menye and either deliver him to the International Criminal Court or kill him.”

“But what about the candidates?” the young soldier who had spoken earlier blurted out. “They are no better than Menye. Maybe worse. Why should we waste our time protecting them when either one would begin a genocide against the other’s followers as soon as he took office?”

“Because with our presence in your country,” Bolan said as he swept his hand along the line of chairs where the Secret Service men and Lareby sat, “the world will blame the United States for the assassination of either or both candidates. As to how to handle things once one of them is elected,” he went on, “I can’t answer that yet. Maybe NATO will send in peacekeeping troops until things stabilize. Maybe the International Criminal Court will sanction America to handle it. In any case, I can’t afford to worry about that yet. We’ve got to take things one step at a time, and that means making sure both candidates stay alive.”

“Pardon me, sir,” an older black man in a gray suit said, “but it is unclear to me exactly who you are.” He waited for an answer.

When he didn’t get one, he said, “Perhaps I was the one who was unclear. We would be in your debt if you would tell us what American law-enforcement agencies or espionage bureaus you represent.”

Bolan nodded. “The men in the dark suits are U.S. Secret Service agents. Every one of them has protected our own President at one time or another, and they’ll be split into teams to help cover the candidates.” He cast a quick glance at Lareby whose head moved slightly side to side. This was not the kind of situation where the CIA would want to be outed. So he left it at that, hoping the Cameroonians would believe Lareby was also a Secret Service agent.

“And you?” the same elderly man asked the soldier.

Bolan reached into the inside pocket of his sports coat and pulled out a badge case. “United States Department of Justice,” he said, holding up the phony credentials that identified him as Special Agent Matt Cooper. “My field of specialization is counterterrorism.”

That seemed to satisfy the men around the table.

All except for the same elderly black man.

“Thank you,” the man said. “But all but one of the men you have introduced are dressed in suits. Are we to believe that the gentleman in the khaki vest seated here is also Secret Service?” He paused a second, then added, “It is not just his clothing. There is something different about him. Something I cannot ‘put my finger on’ as you Americans sometimes say.”

Before Bolan could speak, Dr. John Lareby began patting his vest down like an underage kid looking for a fake driver’s license to buy beer. “Damn,” he finally said, “I know I had my credentials when we took off from Washington.” A sudden look of revelation combined with embarrassment fell over his face. “I must have left them in my carry-on on the plane.”

“Then the ID card is in cinders and the badge has melted,” one of the Secret Service men with a well-trimmed mustache said. Bolan could tell by his face that the man sensed Lareby was CIA, and was adding his own two cents to help cover the fact.

“I’m Secret Service, too,” Lareby finally said. “I’m just not as fancy a dresser as the rest of these guys.”

His remark brought another round of chuckles from around the table.

“Then we shall have to take your word for who you are,” the gray-haired Cameroonian said. Bolan read his face just like he had Lareby’s, and the thin smile told him that this man knew Lareby had to be with the Central Intelligence Agency. “I am sure when you are resupplied for the items you lost in the plane, a new badge and credentials will be included.”

Lareby nodded. “I’ll make sure of it,” he said with a straight face.

Bolan found himself impressed with both men’s performances. When working in any type of undercover capacity, it was the little things that counted. And although most of the Cameroonians obviously sensed that the Justice Department story for Bolan and Lareby’s association with the Secret Service were lies, their faces still looked sincere as a tacit agreement to keep playing this game fell into place.

Sometimes, it was more important not to know something than it was to know it.

“I’ll vouch for him until we can get duplicate credentials sent over,” Bolan said. “He’ll be working directly with me rather than being part of either of the candidate-protection details.”

“Doing what, exactly, then?” the older man asked.

Bolan looked the man directly in the eye. “While the rest of the Secret Service looks after your candidates’ protection, Dr. Lareby and I are going hunting.”

“Hunting?” another young soldier almost screamed from farther down the table. “At a time like this, when all of Cameroon depends on what happens in the election, you two are planning on taking an African safari?”

He was interrupted by the older, gray-haired man. “They are not planning to shoot wildebeest and lions, my young friend,” he said. “I believe what he meant was that they are going hunting for our former president.”

Bolan’s nod was slight, but everyone at the table caught it.

And understood what it meant.