Читать книгу Rogue Elements - Don Pendleton - Страница 8

Chapter One

Salalah, Oman

“We Viking guys get all the shit assignments.” Rafe Sifuentes scowled as he looked around the Café Américain. “And this place? Total latrine.”

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, nodded. The bar was in fact something of a dump. The name was a dim nod to the film Casablanca, and that was about all it had in common with Humphrey Bogart’s place. Café Américain was one of the few government-licensed bars in Oman not attached to an international hotel, and it catered to sailors and foreign dockworkers in the Port of Salalah, as well as locals who could afford the bribe and wished to drink illegally outside their homes. It sported several big-screen TVs tuned to FOX News and international football. Sifuentes, a former US Army Ranger, was Texan, in his early twenties and sported military and Mexican religious tattoos over much of his physique.

“I’ve been in worse places,” Bolan admitted.

“Is that even possible?”

The Executioner took a long pull of his lager. “At least the beer is cold.”

“Yeah, well, settle in then, pilgrim, ’cause this is where we R & R until further notice. I was talking to a Rampart asshole at the airport. You know where his team spent time off between ships? The Seychelles. You know where that is?”

Bolan nodded.

Sifuentes went on anyway. “I had to wiki that shit. Tropical island paradise. Before that? The guy was in Goa—girls, ganja and surfing. Me and you, amigo? We’re in Salalah. What the hell kind of name is that? Sounds like a kid made it up. What the hell are we supposed to do here?”

“Tell you what, Sifuentes. If you stand up on the bar and sing Feliz Salalah, your drinks are free the rest of the night.”

Sifuentes laughed despite himself.

Bolan shrugged. “The locals will love you.”

“Dude, you maintain what my XO in Afghanistan called an eternally sunny disposition.”

“Like I said, the beer is cold.” Bolan tipped his bottle at Sifuentes. “And we’re getting paid. I’ve been in situations where none of that was happening.”

Sifuentes stared at Bolan as they toasted. “I bet you have. One of these days we need to talk.”

“One of these days,” Bolan agreed, raising his bottle and his voice. “But in the meantime, here’s to the sultan! Long may he reign! Insha’Allah!”

Several Omani men at the closest table smiled around the wads of khat in their mouths and raised their illegal beers in toast to their sultan.

“Well, look at you, gaining friends and winning influence.”

“Best to keep the locals happy,” Bolan observed. “Besides. We’ve got problems.”

Sifuentes blinked. “What kind of problems?”

“A guy walked in a minute ago and sat at a table in the corner with three other guys.”

Sifuentes casually glanced at the four men, who looked local but were wearing Western clothing. “Yeah?”

“He was one of the two guys who followed us from our room half an hour ago.”

“I didn’t know we’d been followed.”

“I wasn’t positive. Now I am.”

“So, what do we do?”

Bolan admitted to himself it was a good question. Sifuentes worked security for Viking Associates. The company hired ex-military men as security guards aboard major ships whose trade routes passed through known piracy corridors. Bolan was a paid employee of Viking as well, but he was undercover. The most pressing problem facing him and Sifuentes was that they were armed guards who weren’t currently armed. They were not licensed bodyguards, or anyone’s VIP security detail with diplomatic immunity. They could not carry guns in the Sultanate of Oman. They were issued arms only when they were out at sea in international waters, and Bolan had not been out yet.

“Harsh language?” Sifuentes suggested.

“Broken bottles and bar stools might be better. But at least two of those guys are packing, and I don’t like the odds.”

“You’re an observant son of a bitch.”

“Here’s what we do. We break out of here.”

“Then what?”

“We split up.”

Sifuentes’s face fell. “Aww, shit, man. Don’t you pull a fade on me now! Just when I was starting to like you!”

“No, escape and evade. They left one guy outside. They can’t chase us both. These guys can’t keep up with you, and despite what you might think about a guy my age, I can shake these guys.”

Sifuentes began to see it. “So they got nothing left but to go back to staking out our room again.”

“Right.”

“Then what—we camp on the beach and call for extraction?”

“No, their initial freak-out will give us some time. We lead them on a tour of the neighborhood and then go back to our room.”

“Then what?”

“You call Viking while I go shopping. Then we settle their hash.”

Sifuentes smiled. “You sexy bastard.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“So?”

“So, Sifuentes, one, two, three.” Bolan nodded. “Go!”

They shot to their feet and hit the door running. The men at the back table shouted in consternation. Two pulled pistols while the other two pulled phones. Bolan heard a gunshot, and patrons began shouting and screaming as he and Sifuentes burst out onto the waterfront. The sun was just starting to go down. Bolan broke west for the suq, dodging longshoremen, motor carts and a surprising number of camels.

“See ya!”

* * *

Viking Associates kept a couple of rooms in a crumbling Portuguese Colonial for employees in transition or on R & R in Salalah. Bolan did a perimeter check around the grounds and called Sifuentes. “Sitrep.”

“Clear in here.”

Bolan went around back and made a fairly risky rusty-drainpipe ascent to the third floor with his purchases from the suq. He spoke quietly at the open window. “Coming in.”

“Clear.”

Bolan rolled into the room.

Sifuentes was visibly relieved. “Oh, man. Tell me you got guns.”

“No, I couldn’t get any guns.”

“Oh, shit...”

“We’ll get guns.”

“Yeah? From where?”

Bolan reached into the doubled plastic bag he had brought from the suq. He drew a nine-inch, crescent-shaped blade of a khanjar dagger. He flipped the blade into his hand and held it out to Sifuentes. “From them.”

“Dude.” Sifuentes took the wickedly curved dagger. “You are so hard-core.”

“Did you call Viking?”

“Yeah, they’re sending a boat from the arsenal ship.”

“ETA?”

“Dawn. Or maybe noon. And they can’t bring any guns. And they gotta go through customs.” Sifuentes was an Army Ranger veteran of Afghanistan. He’d eaten a shit sandwich or two in his life. He got that “Rangers lead the way” look in his eyes. “They’ll let us know and pick us up at the pier.”

Bolan made his determination. “These guys are either going to hit us, or they’re not.”

Sifuentes nodded. “Sounds legit.”

“I think these guys are locals. I don’t think we got made for ship security, and the local chapter of the Arabian Sea Benevolent Pirate Association has a bounty on guys like us.”

“And?”

“They want to play pirate? Then quick’s the word and sharp’s the action. Repel all boarders.”

Sifuentes held up his blade. “With Port Salalah souvenir daggers?”

“It starts with that.” Bolan took out three more daggers and handed one more to Sifuentes. “Then it escalates.”

Sifuentes held a dagger in each hand. He laughed aloud. “Fuckin’ ay, Bubba! We got catapults and boiling oil?”

Bolan reached into his bag and took out four plastic squeeze bottles of French dish soap. “No, but this contains lanolin. Go pour one on both back windowsills and pour a bunch down the outside of the drainpipe I climbed up.”

Sifuentes smiled like it was Christmas and ran to lubricate all methods of third-floor rear access. Bolan did not share the young ex-Ranger’s enthusiasm. This was going to happen very fast or go south even faster. He took several moments to spritz out the second two bottles in ever-widening concentric circles on the tiles in front of the door. Sifuentes returned and was inordinately pleased by what he saw. “We can take these assholes! We can take ’em!”

Bolan tossed away the empty soap bottle. “With science.”

“Dude—” Sifuentes gazed at Bolan in awe. “You’re, like, Bill Nye the Assassin Guy.” He sniffed at the French aromatherapy filling the foyer. “Unless their Spidey senses detect lavender.”

“There is that. So I want you lurking in the door of the kitchenette. When they kick in the door, there’s going to be a puppy pile right here in front of me. It’s going to get all stabby. The first gun I reap I am kicking or throwing to you, and then it is all on you. If I still have a pulse, I’ll grab the next gun and we take them all down.” Bolan didn’t usually repeat himself, but he locked gazes with the young Ranger and held it. “This is going to happen real fast.”

“I hear you, brother.” Sifuentes held a nine-inch Omani hand-scythe in each fist. “If the guns don’t come, then it’s you and me against them, bro. It gets all stabby. Real fast.”

Bolan nodded his approval. “Let’s do it.”

“Lights on or off?”

“On, and put on some music. Something inviting.”

Sifuentes’s thumb rapidly roamed the screen of his smartphone. “Here, dig this. It’s dope.” Angry, Mexican heavy metal thundered and snarled out of the phone’s surprisingly powerful speaker. Sifuentes made the horns with his other hand. “Zombie Bullfighters of Death.”

“Well, if a couple of brother Vikings have to have theme music for a pirate ambush on the Arabian Peninsula...”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Sifuentes enthused.

“Take your position.”

The former Ranger took his position in the kitchen doorway. Somewhere along the line Sifuentes had forgotten that he was the senior Viking associate in charge, but Bolan had that effect on people. The Executioner pushed an ottoman to the left of the door and proceeded to wait. Less than five minutes later he saw shadows beneath the door. Bolan pointed a dagger toward the floor. Sifuentes nodded that he had seen.

Bolan estimated at least three targets in the hallway. Sifuentes’s head snapped back toward the kitchen. He rapidly pantomimed hand-over-hand.

Someone was climbing the drainpipe.

That someone screamed as his hands suddenly closed around the soaped pipe and he fell two stories to the cobblestones below. A fist punched through the door in front of Bolan. It was gloved and holding a hand grenade.

The Executioner lashed out. The crescent moon of Arabian steel just about took off the assassin’s hand at the wrist. The grenadier screamed, and the bomb fell in a spray of blood as its cotter lever pinged away. Bolan snagged the falling grenade and went for the double play as he flung it at Sifuentes. “Hot potato!”

The younger man didn’t blink. He snagged the live grenade and hurled it out the kitchen window. The lethal orb detonated two stories down, and the fallen drainpipe climber screamed as he ate steel rain. The door smashed open beneath a boot.

“Allahu akhbar!”

A man charged in redecorating the flat with a stubby machine pistol. Bolan reversed his blade in his hand and lunged as lead flew and brass sprayed.

The man caught Bolan too late out of the corner of his eye. “Allahu akh—”

Bolan felt flesh part as he drew his sickle of steel from the killer’s left collarbone to his right ear. The assassin went boneless in double arterial spray. Bolan got two fingers on the falling machine pistol, but it fell away from his grasp and hit the floor. He got the toe of his boot into it and sent the Mini-Uzi spinning across the tiles toward Sifuentes. “Now or not at all!”

He dived for the weapon.

Bolan rose.

The third man leveled his weapon.

The Executioner hurled his blade. A curved khanjar dagger was no sticker, but about half a pound of steel and buffalo horn hit the assassin in the face and his shots went high and wide. The killer staggered as Sifuentes drilled a burst into his chest. Bolan ripped a grenade off the assassin’s belt as he fell, and pulled the pin. The remaining man in the hall fired burst after burst through the doorway, but he had no angle. He screamed in fear as Bolan pulled a bank shot and bounced the grenade off the far wall in the hall and sent it out of sight. The bomb whip-cracked. The killer in the hall’s scream was nearly lost in the explosion’s echoes as he fell.

Bolan scooped up a Mini-Uzi and wiped blood off the action. “Any movement out back?”

Sifuentes took a quick peek out the kitchen window. “Just one guy in puddles and piles.”

Executioner took a quick look down the hall. The last assassin had taken a Russian F1 hand grenade at kissing distance and turned the walls into modern art. Lodgers on the first and second floors were screaming. “Hey, you remember your plan about waiting down on the beach?”

Sifuentes nodded. “Yeah?”

“Call Viking. Tell them that’s where we’ll be.” Bolan quickly searched the fallen. “We’re going out the kitchen window and down the drainpipe.”

“Cool.”

“Don’t slip on the soap.”