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Grimaldi reddened. You didn’t see the man lose his cool very often. However, the Stony Man pilot was nearly always the ambusher rather than the ambushee. He had flown into suicidal situations and threaded the eye of the needle more times than Bolan could count. Getting ghosted and jumped out of the blue, or in this case the black, was an infrequent and unwelcome experience. Grimaldi glared at Bolan and raised his hands heavenward.
“Copy that, Bear,” Bolan acknowledged.
“Then let’s break it down. Who would have noticed you?”
Bolan grabbed his tablet and his beer, and stepped outside the tent. Grimaldi followed. Lokichogio Airport was a small facility and also extremely busy. It had become a hub for international and private aid and mercy missions in heartbreaking numbers. A small city of tents, container-unit shelters and prefabs littered the grounds around the main airport. Bolan and Grimaldi were posing as a private courier operation for a Farm-fabricated nongovernmental organization, or NGO. The tent they had brought with them. Dragonslayer’s landing pad was a mostly level square of ground that someone had packed down with a lawn roller. Amenities were few. Bolan wanted to stay out of town, but the ad hoc city of aid workers was serviced morning, noon and night by roach coaches and street hawkers of all descriptions.
The fact was, between the humanitarian crises in the Congo, South Sudan, Darfur, as well as Ethiopia and Somalia, dozens of nations and NGOs were in a constant flux of representation. With that many interests, and that much money and aid flying in from all over the world and flying out in all directions, the city had also become a hotbed of smuggling and international intrigue. Kurtzman was right. Bolan’s two-man team and Dragonslayer had attracted attention. They had barely been in Kenya more than forty-eight hours and had hoped to be out in the morning, long before any interest they attracted could materialize into anything.
The next question was how had they been tracked.
Anyone stupid enough to walk up to Dragonslayer to try to put a GPS tracking device on her would have set off her security suite, incurring Bolan’s and Grimaldi’s immediate wrath. Assuming someone with ninja-quality skills had succeeded, Grimaldi’s pre- and postflight electronic security sweeps would have detected any invading electronic device.
Bolan considered how he would have done it.
“Bear, can you get me some satellite imaging?”
“What are you looking for?”
“I want some high-magnification infrared on Dragonslayer,” Bolan replied.
“Well…” Kurtzman considered the weird request. “She isn’t moving, is she?”
“No.”
“Well, what I’m most likely to see is a pair of glowing exhausts.”
“Run a full infrared spectrum analysis,” Bolan ordered.
“Okay…that’s going to take a few minutes.”
“Fast-track it if you can.”
“All right.” Far off in Virginia, Kurtzman clicked keys and made the magic happen. “The Pentagon has two birds that have a window on your position. You officially have high priority, but it’s going to take a few moments to receive the command codes. Hold on. Syncing in your tablet…”
Bolan’s tablet peeped at him and he touched an icon. The farthest flung, northwest corner of Kenya appeared in infinite shades of gray. The view plunged down through the atmosphere as the satellite locked on to his signal and began increasing its magnification. The haphazard mess that was Lokichogio resolved into a city and then an airport. Suddenly, Bolan found himself with a top-down view of Dragonslayer.
In the infrared imaging, her engine cowls still glowed a dull bone-white against the green-gray of the fuselage from the evening’s earlier excursion.
“Tracking is locked and imager is calibrated, Striker. We looking for anything in particular?”
“Just a hunch. Let’s start from the bottom and take it through the spectrum.”
“That’s not exactly this bird’s job, but let’s see what we can do. Starting at 0.7 micrometers.”
A micrometer was one millionth of one meter, and it was often used in measuring infrared wavelengths. Point seven micrometers was the nominal edge of visible red light, and the spectrum extended out to 300. Such measurements went far beyond the ability of the human eye. Dragonslayer’s engines were one-offs, custom built specifically for a single aircraft, and powerful out of all proportion to her size. Like staring into the sun, most minor fluctuations in her infrared signature would be impossible for most instruments to detect. However, the right instrument using the proper filters could stare directly into the sun and detect heat variations all over the sun’s surface as well as within it. Bolan was looking for a fluctuation that a high-intensity infrared imaging satellite, most likely a hostile one, would detect. Particularly a satellite that was on station, for that purpose, and that knew exactly what it was looking for and had a good idea where.
Bolan was looking for a cold spot.
The image of Dragonslayer slowly changed like a black-and-white photo polarizing. “There,” Bolan said.
“I see it,” Kurtzman acknowledged. “Increasing magnification.”
The corner of Bolan’s mouth quirked as his hunch was vindicated. The back slope of the main rotor housing was spackled with mysterious spatters of glittering white light.
“Man!” Grimaldi was incensed. “Someone done gone and gooed my girl! Rat…bastards!”
It was a trick Bolan himself had used. You could design chemicals to give off infrared light at specific wavelengths, suspend them in a clear, fast-drying gel and use them to mark objects or even people for unwitting targeting or tracing. If Bolan had to bet, someone had unloaded on Dragonslayer with a silenced, high-powered air rifle loaded with the equivalent of paint balls filled with infrared-emitting gel. It wasn’t the sort of assault that would have triggered any of Dragonslayer’s security sensors, and if Bolan was the shooter he would have timed his shots to the nearly constant 24/7 roar of takeoffs and landings.
The soldier glanced over at the fuel truck and found his spackle-sniper’s position. It was currently parked fifty yards away and serviced the helicopter park. Bolan looked out across the shelters and prefabs to the airport proper.
He had a very strong feeling he was under surveillance.
“Bear, I’m calling this mission FUBAR. We’re marked and can’t operate out of this theater.”
“So the whole thing is a wash?”
“No—” Bolan stared northeast toward the cauldron that was the Sudan “—we’re just going to have to do it the hard way.”
“We’re running out of time, Striker.”
“You said Able and Phoenix are currently operating?”
“That is their status.”
“I can’t use blacksuits for this gig. I need mercs.” Blacksuits were the military and police personnel who rotated onto the Farm to provide security duty for a period of time.
“Oh…my…God…”
“Find them for me, Bear. Break into databases and find me some reliable men.”
“I don’t know if I can get that authorized by—”
“Don’t authorize it. Just do it.”
“And to finance and equip this little jaunt I am…” Kurtzman’s voice trailed off.
“I’m going to give you a password and an account number and authorize your access to an account a friend opened for me in Labuan. I had to stash away someone’s ill-gotten gains.”
Kurtzman paused a moment. “In Malaysia.”
“Yeah. Malaysia.”
“What will you need?” Kurtzman asked.
“About a squad, a lean one. Like I said, I want you to hack the databases, deal with each individual directly.”
“Anything specific you’re looking for?”
Bolan considered the Sudan again. “Any experience in the desert is good. Some French or Arabic is a plus, so would being able to ride a horse.”
“What’s the pitch?”
“I’ll make the pitch. You offer them a first-class round-trip ticket and ten thousand euros to hear me out.”
“Some of them might think its some kind of trap. I think you need to give me a little more.”
“All right, we’ll lead with the truth. Tell them it’s a rescue mission that’s probably suicide, and tell them to meet me in Chad.” Bolan smiled tiredly. “Then let’s see who comes.”
2
CIA safehouse, Abeche, Chad
Bolan regarded the files in front of him. He had turned his back on whatever flapping and squawking was going on in Washington and charted his own course. He now found himself in Chad. He trusted Kurtzman and the Stony Man cyberteam implicitly, but privately even Bolan had been forced to wonder what kind of men would fly halfway around the world on twenty-four hours’ notice to hear a suicide proposition in Chad. Bolan had his answer, and he had his men.
And his woman.
Kurtzman spoke from four thousand miles away over the tablet’s sat link. “So what do you think?”
Bolan swiped his finger across the tablet and flipped the files back to the beginning. He had been expecting to see mostly Americans. Bolan looked at the sole Yankee on his team. Yankee was a loose term. Corporal Alejandro “Sancho” Ochoa wasn’t exactly a Yankee. In his mug shot, the corporal was built like the light-middleweight boxer he had been. The tattoo of an outrageously buxom Latina in a sombrero and peasant dress covered his right arm from shoulder to elbow. A similarly shaped woman dressed like an Aztec priestess covered his left. An Aztec pyramid with the sun rising behind it covered his abdomen from belt line to sternum. Above that, San Jose 408 designated his hometown in California and its area code across his pecs.
Ochoa was grinning and throwing gang signs at the photographer. The only thing even vaguely military about the man was his high and tight haircut. Bolan shook his head. The jailhouse mug shot was hard to reconcile with the Army file photo of a grimly determined young corporal in dress uniform with the ranger tab on his shoulder.
“What happened?”
“It’s hushed up, but basically his unit was involved in a bad civilian casualty situation in Iraq. He was individually cleared, but…”
“But his unit was made an example of. I remember something about it.”
“His unit was sent home, then he had some brushes with the law,” Kurtzman stated.
“Tell me he wasn’t dishonorably discharged.”
“Corporal Ochoa was given the opportunity to take an early discharge rather than face trial. He took it.”
“And?” Bolan prompted.
“Our boy turns right around, joins Blackwater as a private contractor and heads right back to Iraq. He distinguishes himself and—”
“And Blackwater gets thrown out of Iraq for a civilian massacre.”
“So Sancho went south and was doing bodyguard work in Central America, and, can you guess?” Kurtzman asked.
“He shot some people he shouldn’t have.”
“Well, rumor is they needed shooting, and rumor is a cartel down there wants him dead. Regardless, his privileges below the Rio Grande have been revoked.”
“What’s he up to now?”
“He’s eking out living as a bounty hunter in the L.A. Latino community. His name is in every private security database in the U.S., but his record and his brushes with the law have him kind of blackballed.”
Bolan sighed.
“You gave me forty-eight hours and some very interesting recruitment parameters, Striker.”
Things looked a little better with the next two. Both men were South African National Defense Force, 44th Parachute Regiment, Pathfinder Platoon and had made warrant officer. The pair currently worked for Transvaal Security Incorporated. TS Inc. provided security for African VIPs and were widely reputed to have supplied mercs during the Diamond Wars. The similarities ended when you looked at the picture of the two grinning men arm in arm holding up steins of beer. Gus Pienaar looked like a 1980s vintage Clint Eastwood with a mild case of albinism. Tlou Tshabalala bore a disturbing resemblance to a young Bill Cosby except with a shaved head and shrapnel scars on his left cheek and neck.
Bolan blinked at their bios. “They both married the other one’s sister?”
“So it seems.”
“Well, racial harmony is a good thing.” Bolan had fought alongside and against South African mercs. They just didn’t come much tougher.
He glanced over the recruit that came straight out of left field. Togsbayar Lkhümbengarav was Mongolian. It was a little known fact that Mongolia was a nearly constant provider of forces to United Nations peacekeeping missions. Sergeant Lkhümbengarav had been serving nearly continuously from Kosovo to Afghanistan. The previous year he had been right there in Chad. His specialty was a small arms instructor for indigenous peoples forming their own security forces. “Definitely keeping him.”
“Thought you’d say that.”
Bolan examined the one commissioned officer in the group, 1st Lieutenant Tien Ching from Taiwan. He had been a demolition man in the 101st Reconnaissance Battalion, better known as the Sea Dragon Frogmen. He had transferred to the 871 Special Operations Group and twice gone to the United States to cross-train with the Navy SEALs. He held numerous Republic of China army medals and citations but nearly all of his deployment records were redacted. “Anything else on Ching?”
“Just that the rumor that he has engaged in some very black operations in Mainland China. Then he went private in Japan. He seemed eager for work outside of Asia when we contacted him. I think the PRC may know who he is and is gunning for him.”
Bolan dragged his finger across the screen and flipped open the next file.
Colour Sergeant Scott Ceallach had been one of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines of 3 Commando Brigade. His individual formation in the Royal Marines had the name 30 Commando Information Exploitation Group. That meant the colour sergeant’s job was to move ahead of the main marine force and find out information about the enemy, by fair means or foul, and exploit it as imaginatively as possible. It seemed he’d done some exploiting in Afghanistan before he had gone private.
“You like him?” Kurtzman asked.
“Royal Marine. What’s not to like?”
Bolan looked wonderingly at the absolute wild card of the bunch, and askance at the baggage she had brought with her.
Elodie-Rousseau Nelsonne had been an agent for the French General Directorate for External Security, Action Division. Female DGSE agent spoke volumes.
“You sure about this, Bear?”
“I know, Action Division has a cowboy reputation, but you know what else they’re also famous for?” Kurtzman queried.
Bolan did. “International rescues.”
“That’s right, and I have it on very high authority she’s been involved in some of their more recent high-profile success stories, as well as some that never made the papers. She’s been in Africa, and is currently doing work with Groupe Belge de Tour.”
Belgian Tower Group was one of the premier European private contractors. That said a lot about Mademoiselle Nelsonne, as well.
Nelsonne had drafted two men of her own choice to fill out the squad. Valeri Onopkov was Russian and Radomir Mrda was a Serb. According to Nelsonne, both men were veterans in their own lands and had seen service in Africa. To Bolan that meant the wars in Chechnya and Bosnia respectively, and Russians and Serbians serving in Africa usually meant war crimes that could appall even the native militias that considered atrocity a national sport.
The phrase “beggars can’t be choosers” came to mind. Bolan was running out of time and running out of options, and Kurtzman had delivered. Counting himself, it was a lean squad, and along with the target, if Dragonslayer was stripped for transport and they stacked everyone like cordwood, Grimaldi just might be able to extract them.
“What’s the team’s status?”
