Читать книгу Volatile Agent - Don Pendleton - Страница 9

Bolan shoved a fistful of local currency over the battered seat to the cabdriver and got out. He leaned in the open window of the passenger door and instructed the driver to wait for him around the block. The taxi sped away, leaving him standing on the edge of an unpaved street. There was an open sewer off to his right, and the stench was ripe in his nose.

The Executioner looked around. He was on the opposite side of the township of Banfora from the international airport. Banfora was the capital of Komoe, Burkina Faso’s south-westernmost province and the one sharing a border with Ivory Coast. The dirt street was lined with shanties, and what light there was escaped from boarded-up windows or from beneath shut doors. A pair of mongrels fought over some scraps in a refuse pile several yards up the road. Other than those dogs fighting, the stretch of grimy road was deserted.

The previous day, intelligence had noted that a brigade-sized element complete with field artillery and armored vehicles had been speeding through the regional center toward the villages of the border area. War had come once again to one of the poorest countries in the world.

Faintly, Bolan could hear the sound of music playing and then voices raised in argument. A baby started crying somewhere, and farther away more dogs began barking in response. Bolan looked up at the sky, noting the low cloud cover. The road was thick with muck from the seasonal rains, and it clung to the soles of his hiking boots.

Bolan set down the attaché case he was holding and reached around behind his back to pull his pistol clear. He jacked the slide and chambered a .44 Magnum round before sliding it into his jeans behind his belt buckle, leaving it in plain sight. He leaned down and picked up the case. He shifted his grip on the handle so that his gun hand was free.

Bolan took a quick look around before crossing the road and stepping up to the front door of one of the innumerable shacks lining the road. He lifted his big hand and pounded three times on the door. He heard a hushed conversation break out momentarily before the voices fell quiet.

“Le Crème?” Bolan asked.

Bolan felt a sudden damp and realized it had started to rain while he was standing there. Despite the wet, he was still uncomfortably warm in his short-sleeve, button-down khaki shirt and battered blue jeans.

The door opened slowly and a bar of soft light spilled out and illuminated him. A silhouette stood in the doorway, and Bolan narrowed his eyes to take in the figure’s features. It was a male, wearing an unbuttoned and disheveled gendarme uniform.

He held a bottle of grain alcohol in one hand, and the other rested on the pistol grip of a French MAT-49 submachine gun hanging from a strap slung across his neck like a guitar. He leaned forward, crowding Bolan’s space. The big American made no move to back up.

“Cooper?” the man asked.

His breath reeked with alcohol fumes, and the light around him reflected wildly off the glaze in his eyes. His words were softly slurred, but his gaze was steady as he eyed Bolan up and down. The finger on the trigger of the MAT-49 seemed firm enough.

“Yes.” Bolan repeated. “Is Le Crème here?”

“Colonel Le Crème,” the man corrected.

“Is Colonel Le Crème here?”

“You have the money?”

Bolan lifted the attaché case, though he knew the man had already seen it when he’d opened the door. The gendarme ignored the displayed satchel, his eyes never leaving Bolan’s face. His hair was closely cropped, and Bolan could see bullets of sweat beading on the man’s forehead.

“Give me the pistol,” the man ordered.

“Go to hell,” Bolan replied.

The drunken gendarme’s eyes widened in shock and his face twisted in sudden, instant outrage. He snapped straight up and twisted the MAT-49 around on its sling, trying to bring the muzzle up in the cramped quarters.

Bolan’s free hand shot out and grabbed the submachine gun behind its front sight. He locked his arm and pushed down, preventing the gendarme from raising the weapon. The gendarme’s eyeballs bulged in anger, and the cords of his neck stood out as he strained to bring the submachine gun to bear.

“Leave him!” A deep bass voice barked from somewhere behind the struggling gendarme.

The man cursed and tried to step back and swing his weapon up and away from Bolan’s grip. The Executioner stepped forward as the man stepped back, preventing the smaller man from bringing any leverage to bear.

They moved into the room, and Bolan heard chair legs scrape against floorboards as men jumped to their feet. He ignored them, making no move for the butt of the Desert Eagle sticking out of his jeans.

The man grunted his exertion and tried to step to the outside. Bolan danced with him, keeping the gendarme’s body between him and the others in the smoky room. Bolan’s grip on the front sling swivel remained unbroken. Finally, the gendarme dropped his bottle and grabbed the submachine gun with both his hands. The bottle thumped loudly as it struck the floor but did not break. Liquid began to gurgle out and stain the floorboards.

“I said enough!” the voice roared.

The gendarme was already using both his hands to snatch the submachine gun free as the order came. Bolan released the front sling swivel and stepped to the side. The gendarme found his center of balance around the struggle abruptly gone and overextended himself. Already drunk, he toppled backward and struck the floor in the pool of alcohol spilling from his fallen bottle.

Cursing and sputtering, the man tried to rise. Bolan surveyed the room. He saw four other men in the same soiled and rumpled police uniforms, each one armed either with a pistol or a submachine gun. All of them were gaunt and lanky with short hair, except for the bear of a man with the gold braid epaulets of an officer.

The officer rose from behind a table and hurled a heavy glass tumbler at the gendarme Bolan had left on the floor. The glass struck the man in the face and opened a gash under his eye.

“I said leave him!”

The shock of being struck snapped the embarrassed man out of his rage. He touched a hand to the cut under his eye and held up his bloody fingers. He looked away from his hand and nodded once toward the man looming behind the table.

The officer turned toward Bolan. “My apologizes,” he said. “My men worry about my safety.”

“Understandable, Colonel Le Crème.” Bolan nodded. “I worry about my own safety.”

“Come now, you are in the company of police officers.”

“Yes, I am,” Bolan agreed.

“Foreigners are not usually permitted to carry weapons in our land.”

Bolan threw the attaché case on the table. “That should more than cover any administrative fees.”

“Is it in euros?”

“As you specified.”

Le Crème nodded, and one of the gendarmes at the table reached over and picked up the case. He had a sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeve. Bolan saw there were two very young girls pressed up against the back wall of the shack. Their eyes were as hard as diamonds and glittered as they took him in.

The sergeant pulled the case over and opened it. The sudden light of avarice flared in his eyes, impossible to disguise. Bolan shrugged it off. He was tempted to believe that if he’d been born into the kind of poverty these men took for granted he might have been just as greedy.

While the sergeant counted the stacks of bills, the colonel reseated himself. He snapped his fingers at one of the girls, and she jumped to pick a fresh glass off a shelf beside her. She brought it over to the table and poured the colonel a drink from an already open bottle. Bolan could feel the intensity of her gaze.

Le Crème regarded Bolan through squinty, bloodshot eyes. He picked a smoldering cigar off the table and drew heavily from it. His men made no move to return to their seats. Le Crème pulled his cigar out of his mouth and gestured with it.

“Sit down.”

Bolan pulled out the chair opposite Le Crème and eased himself into it. The two men regarded each other with coolly assessing gazes while the sergeant beside Le Crème continued counting the money. Le Crème lifted his new glass and downed its contents without changing expression.

“Shouldn’t a man like you be out hunting terrorists?” Le Crème asked.

“Shouldn’t you be down in Banfora with the fighting?” Bolan asked.

Le Crème shrugged. “That’s what the army is for. I fight crime.”

“Just so.”

The sergeant looked up from the money. Le Crème’s eyes never left Bolan. “Is it all there?” he asked.

“More,” the sergeant replied.

“Why?” Le Crème asked Bolan.

“There’s a bonus in there. The shipment came in at a few more kilos than we’d originally talked about.”

“Still tractor parts?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then, no problem. It’s St. Pierre’s day on the Customs Desk,” Colonel Le Crème said, smirking.

Bolan followed the line of Le Crème’s sight across the room to where the gendarme Bolan had scuffled with stood glowering.

“Any way you want it, Colonel,” Bolan said.

“Yes. Yes, it usually is.”

Le Crème leaned back from the table and stretched out his arm. The girl who’d poured his drink slid into his lap. She regarded Bolan from beneath hooded lids. He guessed she could have been no older than sixteen. She was beautiful, her eyes so darkly brown they were almost black, but still nearly luminescent. The effect was disquieting. In America she would be in high school. In Burkina Faso she was the paramour of a corrupt warlord three times her age.

Bolan forced himself to look away.

The sergeant on Le Crème’s right shut the briefcase and placed it on the floor at his colonel’s feet. Bolan looked around the room. An expensive-looking portable stereo played hip-hop music featuring a French rapper. A bar stood against one wall and a motley collection of bottles sat on it, devoid of import tax stamps. Cigar smoke was thick in the room.

Bolan placed his hands palm down on the table and pushed himself up. He rose slowly and nodded to the colonel, who didn’t bother to return the favor. Bolan looked over at the gendarme who had opened the door. The man’s eyes were slits of hate.

The big American crossed the room, keenly aware of how many guns were at his back. He placed his hand on the door and slowly turned the knob. Coolly he swung it open and stepped out into the falling rain.

As he pulled the door closed behind him, Bolan saw headlights coming down the road. He stepped into the shadows beside the door and let his hand rest on the butt of the Desert Eagle. He didn’t want to offer too great a silhouette in case this was some kind of hit squad, nor was he eager to be splashed by any of the offal in the ditches lining the road.

The headlights slowed and finally the car stopped directly in front of Bolan. He saw it was a taxi, not unlike the one he had waiting for him around the corner. The back door opened and a big man climbed out. He was Caucasian, and as he climbed out his windbreaker swung open. Bolan saw two pistols tucked into twin shoulder holsters.

Bolan let his hand fall away from the butt of his pistol and assumed a neutral stance. The man rose to his full height and turned toward Bolan. He was square jawed and wide shouldered, his hair and beard both full and reddish tinged. When he faced the Executioner they stood eye to eye.

A scar turned the corner of the man’s mouth up in a perpetual sneer, and his skin was ruddy and heavily pockmarked over strong, almost bluntly Germanic features. He was holding a battered leather briefcase in one big hand. A gold signet ring sat on one thick pinkie.

Bolan nodded. The man sized him up like a professional boxer and then, almost grudgingly, nodded back. The man obviously knew why Bolan, a Westerner, was there. It was the same reason the man himself had come to this place.

Bolan turned and began walking down the street toward where he had instructed his own taxi to wait for him. Behind him Bolan heard the man knock on the same door he himself had, just minutes before. A voice answered from inside, and the man said something in a crude French patois. His accent was unmistakably Afrikaans.

As soon as he heard the voice any doubt Bolan might have held was gone. That was the man he had been sent to stop.