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“We tried to make their flights coincide. No one has been waiting at the airport more than four hours. Ochoa’s ETA is fifteen minutes from now. Then the shuttle will pick them up as a unit and bring them to the safehouse.”
“I’ll put out the welcome mat.”
* * *
BOLAN AND GRIMALDI STOOD on the inner upstairs balcony of the safehouse and watched the team file inside. The house followed the general urban geometry of the Sahel and consisted of an almost featureless, two-story brown cube. The thick clay walls insulated against the heat of the day and the often bitter cold of the night. Being a CIA establishment, Uncle Sam in his mercy had installed air-conditioning. The climate control hit the mercs coming in off the street like a hammer, and they gasped and shuddered like people who had just plunged into an unheated pool. Bolan hoped no one had a heart attack. Abeche was in the running for the hottest major city on Earth. Three hundred and thirty-six days a year it was always over 90 degrees Fahrenheit. This day it was 115.
Scott Ceallach dropped his bags and tilted his head back in near ecstasy. He was a big, sleepy-eyed man. The Brit had grown a short mustache and beard since the photo Bolan had seen. He opened his eyes and looked up at the big American. His cockney accent was thick enough to cut with an ax. “Have a pint about?”
“Lager or stout?”
Ceallach raised his hand. “Bloody hell, squire, forget the sales pitch, I’m all in.”
Ochoa grinned up, as well. The sport coat and mock turtleneck he wore hid his tattoos and his high and tight was freshly buzzed. “Yeah, me, too. Whatever it is, I’m down with it.”
Bolan was pretty sure Ceallach was joking. Ochoa seemed in earnest. Lkhümbengarav and Ching were glancing around and talking to each other in low-voiced Mandarin. Lkhümbengarav looked nothing like his military photo. He had grown his hair out so that it could be pulled into a short ponytail, and he was cultivating a Fu Manchu mustache. If you closed your eyes and thought “Mongol,” you would most likely picture Lkhümbengarav in a fur hat on a horse. He noticed Bolan’s gaze and gave back a grin and a head bob. Ching regarded Bolan in open scrutiny but inclined his head.
Pienaar and Tshabalala stood as a unit.
“Lager,” Pienaar stated. His accent told Bolan he was a South African of English descent.
Tshabalala grinned. “Stout for me.”
Bolan examined former DGSE agent Nelsonne, and the woman regarded him back. She had an aquiline nose, widely spaced eyes, a generous mouth and a firm chin. Along with Tshabalala she was the only one who hadn’t sweated through her clothes already. If someone had told Bolan she was a French movie star he would have believed it. Grimaldi clearly liked what he saw. She quirked an eyebrow at Bolan. “Bonjour!”
“Bonjour,” Bolan replied. Onopkov and Mrda flanked Nelsonne like bodyguards. They looked to be very hard men. The Russian was tall enough to look Bolan in the eye but lanky to the point of looking cadaverous. Pale eyes measured the soldier out of slightly sunken sockets that seemed to have permanent dark circles. The Serb was a head shorter and built like a fire hydrant. His flat-topped brown hair stood up out of his head like nerve endings.
One look told Bolan that Nelsonne and her entourage had somehow acquired sidearms after landing.
“Leave your bags.” He jerked his head. “C’mon up.”
Grimaldi opened a tote bag as they filed up the stairs. “Phones and all electronic devices.”
This was met with some grumbling, but phones, tablets, laptops and other devices were handed over.
The largest space upstairs had been converted into a conference room. Two folding tables had been pushed together, and ten chairs surrounded it. Bolan took the seat at the head of the table. Nelsonne took the foot and her two recruits flanked her. Everyone else filled in the sides. Without being prompted, servers entered, bringing roasted lamb, couscous, kebabs of vegetables and buckets of beer.
“That’s the ticket!” Ceallach announced, and immediately began tucking in. The rest of the team attacked the spread like a wolf pack. Bolan waited until the first plate and the first beers had been consumed. He glanced behind him and a server brought in a covered dish. It was uncovered with a flourish to reveal banded stacks of euros.
Eating and drinking around the table ceased.
Five thousand euros had been wired to each individual when they accepted their plane ticket. The other half had been promised on arrival. Bolan took a bundle and tossed it at Lkhümbengarav. The Mongol grinned and snatched it out of the air. Bolan tossed bundles of cash around the table like a cash machine with a throwing arm. Mercs grinned and riffled the stacks.
“May I have your attention?”
Ceallach cracked open a Heineken beer and grinned. “All ears, guv.”
“We’re going into the Sudan, and the Sudanese government won’t be pleased if we are discovered. We aren’t officially sanctioned by any government. No one will come to save our asses if we get in trouble.”
“Where in the Sudan?” Ching asked.
“Can’t tell you.”
That was met by a genuinely inscrutable look.
Tshabalala cocked his head. “What’s the objective?”
“Can’t tell you just yet.”
The majority of the faces around the table went flat. Pienaar scratched his thin platinum hair and spoke for everyone. “So, we’re just supposed to follow who knows who to who knows where to do who knows what? Sounds like shit to me, china.”
“Sounds like kak,” Tshabalala agreed.
Bolan shrugged. “Finish your beer, finish your food, take your money and walk.”
Lkhümbengarav turned his gaze on Bolan. “Okay, GI, you saying I can drink my fill, eat my fill, take this money and go home? Five thousand euros?”
“At this point it’s ten, but yeah.”
“Round eye?” The Mongolian snorted. “You fascinate me. Uncle Sam just tossing his money away these days?”
“It’s not Uncle Sam’s money. It’s mine, and I want you all in or on your way. It’s going to get rough and mean really fast.”
Nelsonne laced her fingers together and made a hammock for her chin. She smiled demurely. “Why all the secrecy?”
“We already made one attempt on the target. We got compromised and got jumped by Sudanese fighters.”
“Sudanese fighters?” The Serbian spoke for the first time.
“A pair of Su-25s.”
The Russian’s eyes locked on Bolan. “And?”
“We shot them down.”
Nelsonne kept smiling. “I have heard nothing about this.”
Bolan nodded. “Yeah, funny about that.”
Ochoa leaned back in his chair. “Jefe, I don’t care if we’re marching to Mars. I need the job. Ten thousands euros is a nice fat chunk of change, but you can’t retire on it or start over. I’ve got no prospects and I got mi madre and nine brothers and sisters who really need a cash infusion. What’s the pay?”
“Fifty thousand euros or its equivalent in any currency you want wired to the accounts I set up for you as soon as we deploy.” Every face around the table save Grimaldi’s and Nelsonne’s went flat again. “Fifty thousand more to anyone who makes it out alive, success or failure.”
Jaws dropped.
“Any medical care needed afterward will be fully paid at my expense. If for some reason there are delays or we need to extract and redeploy, I’m willing to entertain bonus pay.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
Bolan shot a killer grin. “Who’s in?”
Pienaar whistled and stared down the neck of his beer. “Tentatively, china, but what’s the plan?”
“We’re going to deploy on the ground posing as an NGO humanitarian convoy and then take a very unexpected turn.”
Tshabalala visibly relaxed as he saw it. “And when we get close to the package we go low in the bush and acquire the package.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
The Russian lit a contemplative cigarette. “And we drive back?”
“Maybe.” Bolan nodded at Grimaldi. “Or he extracts us.”
“And if there are more Sukhois?”
Grimaldi sipped his beer nonchalantly. “We already shot down two.”
Bolan cracked himself another beer. “So, who’s in?”
Ochoa shot his hand up. “Me!”
“Sounds like a bloody movie.” Ceallach shook his head and raised his hand. “I’m in.”
“Sounds like shit,” Pienaar said.
“Sounds like kak,” Tshabalala agreed.
The two men grinned and spoke in unison. “We’re in.”
Ching finished his beer. “Well, I have never been to the Sudan, and I have no pressing engagements.”
Lkhümbengarav inclined his beer at Ching. “What he said, hot rod.”
Bolan looked at Nelsonne, who reached for another beer. “I was already decided in Bruges.”
Bolan didn’t bother to ask the Russian or the Serb. He was pretty sure Nelsonne had decided them in Bruges, as well. “All right, real quick. We can all get to know one another later, but our mission language is going to be English, and I need to keep things simple.” Bolan looked at Tlou Tshabalala. “You got a lot of la-la-las for tactical communications.”
“Call me T-Lo, everyone does.”
“Done.”
Gus Pienaar piped up without being asked. “Goose, been my name since I was kid.”
Bolan looked at his Royal Marine. “Ceallach?”
Scott Ceallach rolled his eyes and put the “lock” in Ceallach. “Cee-a-laaahckh.”
“How about we just call you Scotty?” Bolan suggested.
“And I’ve been living with you Yanks’ Star Trek fetish all my life, haven’t I, then? And I’m not even Scottish!”
“Good to know.” Bolan glanced at the Mongolian. “Luck-um-ben…?”
The former sergeant smiled like he’d seen it coming from a long way off. “Been ‘Lucky’ on the last three UN deployments, GI.”
Tien Ching raised his beer at Bolan. “T.C.”
Valeri Onopkov nodded at Bolan. “Val.”
Radomir Mrda grunted. “Rad.”
Bolan perked an eyebrow at Nelsonne. “Mademoiselle?”
She nodded. “Russo.”
Ochoa frowned. “Aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what, Sancho?”
“Hey! How did you— Oh, man, never mind, and what do we call you, Jefe?” Ochoa looked at Ceallach. “Squire?”
“You can call me Striker.”
Nelsonne made an amused noise. “Très Américain.”
“I am that,” Bolan admitted. “Last question. Who besides me can drive a Unimog?”
“Me,” Pienaar replied.
“We have two Land Rovers. Who’s volunteering to drive?”
Mrda and Lkhümbengarav raised their hands.
“Good enough. Everyone finish eating. Take a nap. I’ve got nine beds set up. We’re leaving at sunset.”
The team resumed tucking in. Nelsonne hadn’t taken her eyes off Bolan, and she was still smiling. There was a saying in the United States spook community that there was no such thing as an ex-CIA agent. Until they buried you, you were just on standby.
Bolan was pretty sure there was no such thing as ex-DGSE in France, either.
3
“I believe they call this flying by the seat of your pants,” Grimaldi said.
“That’s your job,” Bolan replied.
Bolan and the Stony Man pilot sat in the conference room comparing notes. The team had collapsed in their beds with mild heatstroke and food comas. Grimaldi gave his old friend an amused look. “I mean, did you actually look at these yahoos?”
“I’ll admit Sancho is a little squirrelly.”
