Читать книгу Desert Fallout - Don Pendleton - Страница 10

Isoba Kamau thought about the twisting journey that had brought him from his youth as the child of ethnic Somali parents in Addis Ababa to the Sinai Peninsula, specifically the most recent stretch. The Ethiopian army Intelligence Division had sent Kamau undercover into Somalia, since his physical features and the Somali and Arabic taught to him by his parents enabled him to blend in, despite his great size and strength. Working his way through the ranks of infighting among the radical Islamists who had dissolved into competing factions with the defeat of the Islamic Courts Union in 2006, Kamau had risen to a position of trust under one small unit leader of the Shabaab. With his strength and fighting ability, he had proved himself to Masozi, and managed to limit his violence to rivals of the Shabaab splinter. Uncovering the pipeline of illegal Liberian diamonds that helped the young militia commander had been Kamau’s goal.

That was when the American, Matt Cooper, arrived and the Shabaab splinter was hammered mercilessly. Cooper admitted that he had been behind some of the damage wrought among the renegade Islamists, but the major issue had been where the Egyptian Mubarak had gotten his hands on potential weapons of mass destruction like ricinus seeds. Whoever the American really was, he had seen through Kamau’s position as Shabaab security chief.

It was probably Kamau’s polylinguistic ability, as well as the reaction to the deaths of his supposed comrades. Cooper had a sharp eye, and had betrayed that he was on his own mission of justice in the war-torn Somalia. Kamau was glad to finally drop the act of fanatic. Though he was familiar with Islam as practiced by his mother, the zero-tolerance xenophobic variety practiced by the hordes swarming southern Somalia was a heavy weight on Kamau’s broad, powerful shoulders.

He whispered the Lord’s Prayer, the Somali-Orthodox version of it in Amharic, thanking God for the relief of breaking away from the Shabaab on a scouting mission to seek Mubarak’s stash of deadly arms and poisons.

Masozi had whispered, before he and Cooper left for Egypt, to keep a close eye on the American. Masozi was paranoid and utterly bigoted. A white man was a devil in disguise, and Cooper’s guise as a mercenary only reinforced the Shabaab leader’s anxiety that he would betray them. Kamau, being a fellow African who knelt to Mecca five times a day, was utterly trustworthy.

Kamau smiled at the irony as he knelt behind a rock, observing the guards at the entrance to the catacombs of Set Akhon. The AK-47 gripped in his massive hands felt like a toy, but anything larger would be impractical. He noticed movement at the entrance, and in the late-afternoon sun, he was able to finally see what the enemy looked like.

Each was dressed in a black Nomex flight suit, the de rigueur uniform of special operations teams in the field. The suits had multiple pockets and were made of environmentally resistant materials that protected the wearer from anything from fire to ice. They allowed easy, unrestrained movement, and could be kept as warm or cold as necessary, thanks to the use of chemical-pack inserts. Under the jumpsuits, the men likely had on body armor, or they had incorporated it into the load-bearing vests that held their ammunition. The mystery killers were packing modern, twenty-first-century weaponry. Their black rifles were compact bullpup weapons with rail sights. Kamau wasn’t quite certain what they were, but they bore enough resemblance to the Israeli Tavor assault rifle that he had to wonder exactly whom the commandos worked for.

The Tavor had been around long enough that some models had been found on the black market, and undoubtedly, there were knockoff producers who had reverse engineered the guns to make their own versions. It was also entirely possible that these were some form of gun produced in Brazil or China, Kamau thought. The “Uzi” pistol that rode on his hip was actually a Brazilian look-alike, and the Beretta he wore in a shoulder holster had been built in South America.

Cooper was similarly rearmed, since both men had had to dispose of their weaponry to avoid undue attention by customs officials in Egypt. Unlike in southern Somalia, Egyptian law enforcement was on its toes, alert and ready for trouble at all times, being a target of extremists who thought that the rightful, democratically elected government in Cairo didn’t adhere strictly enough to the principles of Islam.

Men had appeared at the mouth of the cave, pushing a small cart loaded with crates. Kamau knew that the mystery commandos had retrieved some of their deadly cargo from within the catacombs. It was likely that more of the raiders were following with their own containers. Kamau gritted his teeth, knowing that he and Cooper were outgunned as well as outnumbered.

He turned and raced on quiet feet back to the camp. The woman student was on her feet, her long, reddish-brown hair pulled out of her face in a ponytail so that a damp bandage could be wrapped around her head. She didn’t look as if she could fight, but Bolan had given her a handgun in a belt holster that had been cinched around her hips.

Bolan nodded as he saw Kamau and turned to Metit. “They’re on their way back here. They’ll notice that you’re gone, so we need to move.”

Metit’s eyes at least looked as if they could focus. She rested her shaky hand on the grip of her pistol. “We’re going to let them get away with this?”

“No,” Bolan answered. “Kamau?”

“I saw four, but four people couldn’t take down this camp that fast. There’s at least another squad of four,” he answered.

Bolan turned to Metit. “Go with him, Rashida. I’ll make certain they don’t follow us.”

“Alone?” Metit and Kamau asked in unison.

“I’m used to long odds, and I won’t take any action until I’m certain they’re moving on us, and you haven’t gotten to a safe distance,” Bolan replied. “Inside those parameters, I won’t even have to take any action if you get moving quickly.”

“You heard the man,” Kamau said, gently taking Metit by the arm. “I’m just going to help you along.”

Metit nodded. “I know.”

Kamau shot a look to Bolan.

“She’ll be fine. Move it,” he ordered.

Kamau gave the American a small salute and led Metit toward a gully off to the side of the camp.

MACK BOLAN WAS no stranger to this situation, alone in the desert, unarmed and outnumbered, providing a firebreak in defense of allies. Luckily, the enemy hadn’t become aware of their presence yet, but once they returned to the camp, and if they happened into the tent where Metit had lain, they’d discover that the woman they thought was dead was very much alive.

The team had been sent to ruthlessly eliminate anyone involved in the archaeological dig and who knew about the discovery that was made. Mubarak had gotten away by a couple of days, so the arrival of the enemy in Egypt meant that this may have been the same group that had struck in Kismayo, and had a better means of transportation available to them than Bolan and Kamau.

Judging by the state of the corpses strewed about the camp, Bolan calculated that the students and their kidnappers had been dead for only a couple of hours. The Executioner bit off his anger and the accompanying recriminations that had delayed his arrival. Even if he had gotten here in time, there was no indication that he and Kamau could have taken down the murderers before innocents were harmed, especially if they’d stumbled onto the situation with Mubarak’s allies still holding unarmed, frightened people hostage. Two men rescuing dozens of frightened people from itchy, panicky terrorists would have been a prescription for mayhem, especially since the pair hadn’t thought to bring along secure communications. It had been a risk that they had taken, the illicit arms dealer only having weapons, ammunition and desert-survival gear.

Bolan remained hidden, crouched as he watched the mystery men as they brought out five containers from the cavern that concealed Set Akhon’s tomb. Thirteen men were in this group, and they were outfitted with all manner of equipment. Safety goggles and head wraps made determining their nationality difficult, and the way they handled their weapons indicated that they were well-trained professionals. With their index fingers straight and off the trigger, muzzles pointed to the ground, never sweeping their allies, they betrayed themselves as skilled warriors.

One of the group brought a hand unit with an antenna to his mouth. It was somewhat bulky, so that meant the man was in contact with someone far away. Cellular phones could be made tiny due to the fact that they were in contact with local broadcast networks. The bulk of the commando’s comm unit indicated that it was high-powered, able to transmit to satellites and communicate with people as far as the other side of the planet. His use of the satellite phone also indicated that he was in a position of leadership among the fighters at the tomb’s entrance. Commanders were the ones who tended to report back to whoever had financed and assigned the death squad.

Bolan knew that if he could get his hands on the mercenary’s sat phone, it was likely he’d have a handle on who was running this operation. Outnumbered, however, Bolan wasn’t certain that he could take the enemy by force. It would have to be by stealth. Luckily, the Executioner’s combat PDA had a series of universal connectors, and generally sat phones had their own ports for communication with computers, allowing the download of encryption and important information to secure transmissions. The software and hardwire links built into the Personal Data Assistant built for Bolan by Hermann Schwarz might be able to give him an edge in finding out who the enemy was.

Bolan reined in his speculative plans on intercepting the enemy’s communications. There was too much at risk with one hostage still alive, but in no condition to survive an intense fight. While the mission was important, the life of a noncombatant was too precious to endanger. There would be ways to pursue the opposition without getting hold of that sat phone. They’d be less efficient, increasing the risk that the deadly poison could be utilized before he caught up with it again, but Bolan knew that if the enemy was willing to backtrack and kill anyone aware of the ricin, they had to have had a plan that was running on its own timetable.

It was a gamble, and Bolan didn’t like it, but he decided to bide his time.

To avoid combat unless absolutely necessary was the strategy he’d plotted for now.

A conspiracy whose perpetrators were paranoid enough to pounce on Mubarak as he bartered the biological toxin in Somalia might have enough contingencies to frustrate the Executioner and his cybernetic allies back at Stony Man Farm. Protective software, dense encryption and even a simple self-destruct mechanism in the sat phone could be in place to cover the plotters.

He swept the approaching commandos with his binoculars. He’d shaded the lenses with a collar of PVC pipe duct-taped in place, preventing the glasses from creating a glare of reflected sunlight. As an experienced former Army sniper-scout, it was second nature for the Executioner to disappear, even in plain sight. Stealth was more than merely camouflage, though the soldier had unfurled a desert-pattern lightweight blanket and had fashioned it into a cloak that not only blended him in with the terrain at the edge of the archaeological camp, but also shielded him from the sun’s burning rays. His head scarf was in place to keep his head from getting too hot, absorbing any sweat he did give off, and to keep his jet-black hair from providing stark contrast, which would have betrayed his position.

As a sniper, Bolan had learned about human perception and how to avoid being noticed in the field. He could observe the commando team with relative impunity. Still, the big American knew that he could find himself in trouble if his own observational skills had failed him.

The leader of the group spoke to his men in Arabic, directing them to store the containers out of sight. Bolan didn’t speak much of the language, and he wasn’t capable of determining the dialect that they spoke, pinning down their nation of origin, but he could make out what was happening with the assistance of the commander’s hand movements and phrases he did recognize. He also heard the word helicopter and knew that there wasn’t going to be much time to spy upon this group. Depending on the tent where the commandos stored their ancient prize, it was also possible that they would discover Metit’s disappearance.

Just to be certain, Bolan readied his Egyptian Beretta to buy a few more moments of time. He screwed a sound suppressor onto the pistol’s threaded barrel. He would rob the hardball ammunition of some of its velocity as the silencer baffles would trap propelling gases as well as their resistance against the bullet. Fortunately, Bolan and Kamau had picked up a supply of military-grade ammunition, loaded to much higher levels than civilian rounds. Again, experience had taught the warrior that 9 mm full-metal-jacket bullets would do the job he needed them to do, if only his accuracy was dead-on.

With Bolan’s lifetime of shooting experience, as well as his training and familiarity with the Beretta 92 platform, he didn’t think the slightly lower velocity and lack of frangibility would hinder him from making swift, decisive kills. He slithered toward the rape tent, his senses reaching out not only for conspirators heading toward the enclosure, but for indications that the enemy had noticed his presence. Luckily, the Executioner’s stealth had kept him in the shadows, just outside their awareness.

He shadowed one of the teams that had been given the task of stowing the containers that the whole group had brought with them. They rolled one toward a tent next to where they had found Metit. It was a small bit of fortune on a mission that already seemed so wrought with troubles. Bolan had only two advantages so far, one of them being Kamau, an assistant who was luckily a man of the same moral caliber as the Executioner, and who had the skills to assist him. Kamau’s knowledge of Arabic dialects as well as African languages was worth the Somali’s weight in gold. The other advantage was that his enemy was unaware that Bolan was pursuing them. It wouldn’t last long, though. His luck couldn’t hold out forever.

Bolan glanced toward the gully and saw that Kamau and Metit were long gone from sight, but he wasn’t willing to risk that the gunmen couldn’t track the pair even on the hard rocky ground. An added problem was that the small gash in the earth was the most blatant route that an escaping woman would take. If the mystery soldiers headed out to capture Metit, they’d know that Bolan and Kamau were present. He turned his attention back to the two men who were retrieving one more of the containers, the last one that was out in the open.

There was some brief conversation as the two men spoke with their commander. They pointed at the storage tent, then over to the one that Metit had been in. The leader nodded and waved them toward the rape tent. Bolan grimaced and circled to the front, the hammer on the Beretta drawn back to give him an effortless pull of the trigger if necessary. From his new angle, he saw only one of the men push the container on its trolley through the flaps of the tent. He left, leaving the trolley just inside the entrance, then turned back to his leader.

It was a moment of laziness, a lapse in judgment that gave Bolan’s allies a reprieve. He allowed himself a brief smile when the clatter of a falling crate sounded just inside the flaps. The trolley had to have been on uneven ground, or worse, it had been shoved against the corpse of Metit’s rapist, an act of happenstance that blew things for Bolan.

The flap had been pushed aside by the dolly’s back. There was a moment of grumbling as the guy bent to pick it up. He stood, his head tilted at a quizzical angle. Bolan rested the Beretta’s front sight on the commando’s goggles. The beginning of a question escaped the soldier’s lips, and Bolan applied just over three pounds of pressure. The Beretta 92 wasn’t a gun that kicked much, and with the suppressor weighing down its muzzle, the recoil impulse was nonexistent. Plexiglas imploded as the 115-grain FMJ round speared through it, driving deep through facial bones. Splinters of shattered skull exploded through the soldier’s brain and his head snapped back violently.

The sudden, violent death of one of their own froze two of the mercenaries in their tracks as they watched their comrade collapse to the dirt in a lifeless pile. Their confusion gave the Executioner a couple more targets while the rest of the group sprang into motion. The commandos’ training and experience was readily apparent as most of them broke for cover at the first sign of violence.

Bolan took one of the stunned gunmen with a second Beretta round to the throat. The sneeze of the 9 mm’s passage was discreet, but he knew that even that gentle sound would betray his position. He didn’t wait to see the effects of his shot on the second of the marauders, sidestepping to the shelter of a slab of sandstone before he rose from the ground, his camouflaging cloak fluttering behind him. The burp of 5.56 mm rifles popped through the air, and Bolan slid around the other side of the flat stone he’d swung behind. In the transition from one side of the rock to the other, Bolan had holstered the sidearm and gripped the AK on its sling. Two of the Arab-speaking gunmen were visible to the Executioner from his new vantage point, firing their bullpup assault rifles in profile to him. He shouldered his AK and triggered his own autoweapon.

The first of the enemy gunners jerked violently, his skull smashed under the hammering force of 7.62 mm steel-cored slugs. A grisly, thick soup of brains and blood slashed from the remains of his head, smearing across the goggles of his compatriot. With a curse, the other rifleman wiped his bloodied lenses and spun. Bolan triggered a second triburst from the AK, this blast of autofire crashing through the man’s shoulder and upper chest. The gunner’s arm flopped limply at his side, but his body armor had prevented serious trauma to his torso. All that mattered was that the second gunman was temporarily out of the fight.

The Executioner scanned for fresh targets as he began a short retreat to a man-size column of stone. It was a calculated move that allowed Bolan to draw the attention of the marauders away from Kamau and Metit. The chatter of gunfire would hopefully give Metit a little more pep in her step, but Bolan was concerned that Kamau might double back and assist him. Bullets smashed clouds of pulverized stone off the column, and the big American knew he had to make certain that this engagement ended quickly. Four men were out of action, but nine trained fighters were still operating, and the torrent of gunfire that they threw at him was consistent. It wasn’t panic fire, it was concentrated autofire that would pin down any lesser man.

Bolan realized that the covering fire would only have been provided by a few of his opponents, alternating their bursts in order to keep up the pace while they reloaded. He reached under his cloak, grabbing a hand grenade hooked onto his harness. He jammed his thumb through the cotter pin’s ring, then flicked the safety out of the minibomb. Once the pin was pulled, the grenade was no longer a friend to anyone on the battlefield. Bolan loosened his fingers on the fragger so that its spoon lever would pop free, beginning the countdown on its fuse. It was a process called cooking the grenade, burning off a fraction of the bomb’s timer to make it less likely that the recipients could throw it away from them. With a powerful lob, Bolan sailed the grenade high over his cover.

Bolan had heard the cry of “Grenade!” in dozens of languages over his years of combat, so he knew that the enemy saw death drop from above. The concentrated autofire that held Bolan in place sputtered and died out. The subsequent detonation of several ounces of military-grade high explosives shook the ground and filled the air with thousands of pieces of notched wire and the grenade’s broken steel shell.

Bolan kicked into the open and charged toward the next position he’d picked to take cover behind. To his right, an assault rifle opened up, chewing at the ground and plucking at the camo-pattern blanket that had given the Executioner his concealment. The flowing cloak no longer provided a stealth function now that the enemy was aware of his presence, but the cloth obscured Bolan’s body. The enemy gunners had been trained to fire at center of mass, and the concealing cape altered that target, moving it away from Bolan’s body and saving his life by a matter of inches.

With a wild dive, the Executioner returned to the column he’d previously evacuated. Bullets slammed into the ground, chasing him.

The enemy was smart and fast. The gunners didn’t have a good angle on the Executioner yet, but it would only be a matter of moments before they could get him in their sights.

The doomsday numbers tumbled as Bolan looked for a way out of this trap.