“Our enemies outnumber us, but we are the superior force.”

The Executioner rose to his feet. “Nenad’s men are terrorists, not soldiers. They get others to commit their atrocities for them. But here in the jungle they are going to have to do their own fighting. They are not ready for what Niner Squad has become.”

Cadet Jovich rose and the rest of the squad rose with him. “No way in hell they’re ready for us.”

“Caesar’s men are jungle fighters, but they have been terrorizing unarmed villages for far too long. They are not ready for what you have become.”

Cadet Eischen intoned Bolan’s earlier words. “We shoot them until they’re all down or we are.”

Bolan shoved his right hand out into the middle of the circle. The rest of the squad huddled up and put their hands on top of his. “And though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil…for we are Niner Squad, the apex predators and the meanest sons of bitches in the valley.”

“Amen, Sergeant,” Cadet Johnson said.

“On me, call out!” Bolan looked around and saw the steel in the backbone of his people. “Niner!”

The squad instantly shouted back, “Squad!”

Bolan raised his hand beneath the squad’s and they snapped their hands down to break the huddle. “Be ready to move in an hour.”

The Executioner ®

Trial by Fire
Don Pendleton’s

www.mirabooks.co.uk

A brave man may fall, but he cannot yield.

—Latin Proverb

When odds are stacked against you, and the enemy seems too big, stand up. Stand up and fight. It is might and heart that are the deciding factors in every great battle.

—Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN LEGEND

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

1

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The flight attendant screamed as the machete was brandished beneath her nose and recoiled against the fuselage. The men laughed unpleasantly. The captives cowered cross-legged with their wrists bound behind them beneath the remaining wing. The man with the machete dragged the tip of his blade down the woman’s throat and let it rest on her collarbone. He grinned over his shoulder and said something choice to his confederates in Swahili. The men laughed again.

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, screwed the launcher-adapter onto the muzzle of his submachine gun and began his creep.

The Bombardier Challenger 604 jet lay in the little valley below like a stricken bird. This type of aircraft was classified as a heavy private jet. The twin-engine bird was configured to carry up to ten passengers in very swanky style. The smoldering scar in the 604’s tail section said someone had salted its tail with a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile.

The pilot had been good. It was obvious that he had crash-landed rather than crashed. He’d aimed for the little valley that opened up a slot in the jungle canopy and hit the creek that divided it like a runway. He’d lost his starboard wing on a tree, but the fuselage looked to be mostly intact. A heavy tree bough hung brutally speared through the cockpit in a way that looked like it had gone very badly for the pilot.

Bolan descended to the valley floor. He caught the unmistakable stench of burned human flesh.

Rescue missions were one of the soldier’s least favorite activities. If the situation was bad enough to send him as the final option, the situation was just about FUBAR. Solo missions on foot in equatorial Africa in summertime were about as bad as rescue missions got. Among the host of all things FUBAR about this mission was the fact that all of his equipment had been begged, borrowed or stolen for him by the CIA station in Pretoria. By the same token it could have been worse. South Africans had a well-deserved reputation for solid kit. The old L42A1 “Enforcer” sniper rifle over Bolan’s shoulder was a forty-year-old Pretoria police issue, but it was tough. The BXP submachine gun in Bolan’s hand was the size of a large pistol and a cleaned up, optical-sighted version of the old US 1980s-era MAC-10.

An example of the BXP’s more interesting features was that it was one of the few submachine guns that had ever been adapted to fire rifle grenades.

Bolan clicked a riot grenade onto the launching rings of his weapon as he came within one hundred yards of the situation.

He counted nine hostiles. They were Africans, but they wore no uniforms of any of the local armies within shouting distance. Most of them were armed with ChiCom AK knock-offs. The bad guys were at an extremely low state of alert and seemed to be in a jovial mood. While half were busy ransacking suitcases and carry-ons taken from the plane, the rest were watching what the man wielding the machete was going to do to the flight attendant next with avid and concupiscent interest.

Bolan counted ten captives. Eight were U.S. Military preparatory school cadets huddled in a line beneath the wing. The remaining two were crew. The flight attendant was in midassault, and a person who appeared to be the copilot lay off to one side and in very bad shape. As the soldier circled in, he found his assessment of the pilot’s fate was correct. He had been killed in the crash, and the survivors had buried him. The invaders had exhumed the pilot’s corpse, stripped it, emasculated it and pinned it upside down against the fuselage with tent spikes and burned it.

The flight attendant screamed as the man with the machete hacked off the pilot’s hand. The corpse sagged on the three points still holding it in place. Machete man picked up the charred, fallen extremity and breathed over it like a man smelling pork chop that had just come out of the oven. The flight attendant crushed herself against the curve of the fuselage. Machete man raised his blade and pushed it hard enough between the woman’s clavicles to draw blood. He shoved the severed hand beneath her nose and snarled. Bolan didn’t speak Swahili but he was pretty sure the man had said “Eat!”

The man shoved the hand against the woman’s face and shouted in English, “Eat!”

The other invaders laughed.

Bolan raised his BXP and fired.

The one-and-half-pound South African riot grenade hit the man in the side of the head at about eighty miles per hour. He dropped the machete and rubbernecked three steps sideways into the wing with the embedded grenade ejecting its multiple skip-chaser bomblets out of his skull like a slot machine paying off. Bolan wrenched the rifle-grenade rings off his weapon and spun the suppressor tube onto his smoking muzzle. Thick gray gas began to fill the camp like a fog.

Two men turned towards the sound of the grenade’s launch-thump, but Bolan had already moved. The two men sprayed the underbrush on full-auto. Bolan put 3-round bursts through each man’s chest and kept circling. South Africans knew something about riots, and the bomblets were filling the area with gas with remarkable efficiency. The jungle fighters had clearly never been exposed to CS. They stumbled about waving their arms and firing their guns in all directions. Two of the smarter ones turned their weapons on the captives. Bolan burned down both men before they could get off a shot.

A guerrilla caught sight of Bolan through his streaming eyes and charged, waving a panga and screaming hysterically. The Executioner’s first burst staggered him, and the second sent him sprawling into the mud by the creek. The soldier kept circling. His weapon made a suppressed snapping noise, but between the gas, the screaming and AK full-auto fire the enemy still hadn’t spotted him.

Two of the cadets jumped up to make a run for it.

“Cadets! Stay down!” Bolan roared.

They were teenagers, but they were U.S. Military teenagers and they were used to being bellowed at. The two cadets dropped like rocks. Bolan’s yell had a wonderfully focusing effect on the remaining five guerrillas. They spun on their oppressor. The soldier knocked them down like bowling pins. The BXP racked open on a smoking empty chamber with two targets still standing. Bolan dropped the spent weapon and slapped leather for the South African police pistol on his belt. A rifle bullet cracked by his head far too close for comfort. Bolan double-tapped each assailant in the chest to cease hostilities and two more in the face to put them down.

The pistol racked open on empty. The screaming and shooting had stopped. The camp was quiet except for sobbing and choking, and the hiss of the CS munitions.

Bolan took a deep breath and strode into the gas.

He drew his knife and slashed the bonds of each cadet “Get out of the gas! Stick your heads in the creek! Go! Go! Go!” Bolan hooked the copilot under the arms. He had two broken legs, was gut-shot and the gas wasn’t doing him any favors.

“You!” Bolan shouted at the flight attendant. “Help me!” Bolan dragged the copilot to the creek. Cadets lay prone in a line with their heads in the water like horses that had galloped a hundred miles.

Bolan lay the copilot down and grabbed a fallen canteen. He shoved it into the flight attendant’s hands. “Wash out your eyes, then his!” Bolan stuck his head beneath the water and blinked repeatedly. He rose and reloaded his submachine gun and pistol, then scooped up a blood-spattered knit cap and strode back into the gas. He gathered up the still hissing gas bomblets and hurled them downstream.

The soldier went back to the crew and took a knee beside the blonde flight attendant. Her eyes were red, swollen and still streaming from the gas. The copilot’s inflamed eyes rolled with delirium. He moaned as the woman flushed them out. Her Boer accent was thick enough to cut with a knife. “His legs were broken in the crash.”

“And after?”

“Bastards came at dawn. Pieter took a shot at them, didn’t he, but he was hurt and missed. They shot him in the stomach, twice. Called him long pig. Said he was going to taste better if he died slow. Made us dig up the pilot.” The woman shuddered. “Did some kind of voodoo with him.”

Bolan gave the flight attendant a frank look. “You all right?”

“Yes, I mean, no, I mean, it was bad, but I’m not like you mean. I think they wanted to have more fun with us. But from the way they talked? They got a boss man, some fella called Caesar, and a boss woman, Mama-something. They’re shite-scared of them.” The woman nodded at the female cadet, and the rest as they worked. “Me, the girl? God help us, the boys? I think the boss man and his cronies get first crack.”

“Stay with Pieter. We’ll make a litter.”

The cadets began to rise up from the creek. They milled around looking between the battlefield and Bolan as the remaining gas dispersed. The soldier glanced upward as he heard thunder roll. This neck of the rain forest was known to average eighty inches of rain per year, and the daily deluge was about to unload. They had to get moving. Bolan grimaced as he took in what had once been the cadets’ mirror-bright, full dress uniform shoes. They would all be lame by nightfall.

“Lose the shoes!” The cadets gazed at him numbly. Bolan pointed at the corpses. “If you didn’t pack boots or sneakers, you’ve got six pairs of boots and three pairs of sandals right there. Strip the bodies. Cut off the shirtsleeves and pant legs. If the boots are too big, wrap your feet until they fit.” The cadets just stared. Bolan bellowed at the shell-shocked military cadets. “Move!”

A very large cadet wiped at his streaming eyes. He tottered over to the nearest corpse and began tugging off its pants. He threw up but moved on to the shirt. Another cadet moved to help him. “Once you got your feet taken care of, take anything of use and pile it here,” Bolan ordered. “Weapons, cell phones, matches, money, spare clothes, anything of value.”

The soldier stuck his head in the cabin as two of the cadets went through it.

The interior had been ransacked in an inefficient fashion. Clothes and personal effects were scattered from the cockpit to the lavatory. The plane hadn’t been stripped clean like the bones of a kill the way one might expect in Equatorial Africa. The looters had simply taken whatever they wanted rather than every last thing of value.

That didn’t bode well.

Bolan walked over to the growing piles of plunder.

The weapons were nearly all Chinese Type 56 AK-47s with folding spike bayonets. The standouts were a Russian RPD machine gun and a Dragunov sniper rifle that was missing its telescopic sight. Bolan found two South African RAP-401 pistols like the one he carried, which likely belonged to the pilot and copilot, since machetes and pangas seemed to be the usual weapon of choice for the locals.

The loot from the plane was nearly as welcome as the firearms. Bolan had brought a first-aid kit, but the plane’s kit was the kind of medical smorgasbord that only a private luxury craft that never expected to have a medical emergency insisted on including. This jet also had a survival kit.

The random pile included books of matches, several lighters, watches, cell phones and the personal effects of tribal militias.

Bolan frowned at the last and unfortunately smallest pile before him.

There was very little in the way of rations, and what there was consisted of three small bags of rice. The universal mess of irregular forces in sub-Saharan Africa was boiled rice and bush meat of the day. It was going to be Bolan and his squad’s as well for the foreseeable future. What was missing told him a lot. There were no blankets. No sleeping bags or hammocks. All these men carried were their weapons and a light lunch. The fact that these men were so lightly outfitted told Bolan that they were a patrol, broken off from a much larger camp, not far away, and probably expected back for dinner. Someone was going to start wondering just where they had gotten to, and sooner than Bolan liked. He swiftly divvied up the piles into working loads and packed them into the luggage that had shoulder straps.

He nodded at the tallest and largest cadet as the youth laced up his commandeered boots. “You.”

The young man leaped to his feet. “Sir?”

Bolan checked the load in the RPD. “You’re my pig man.”

“Sir?”

Bolan shoved the RPD into the young man’s hands. “You’re my pig man. You are humping this pig.” Bolan draped two canvas sacks containing spare 100-round drums across the oxlike shoulders before him. “You copy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who can shoot a pistol?”

A diminutive cadet and the flight attendant raised their hands. Bolan handed out South African steel to the woman and gave the cadet a rifle and spare magazines. “Who knows how to make a litter?”

A black cadet raised his hand.

“Good, grab a buddy and get the copilot loaded up.”

Bolan looked at the dead enemies. Their tracks said they had come from the west. The creek was flowing south. “Put the bodies in the creek.”

The cadets stared. They were close to losing it. “Move!” One advantage Bolan had on this mission was that his charges were U.S. Military preparatory school cadets. Unlike a lot of American teenagers, they knew how to take orders. “I have to make a call.”

The cadets and crew all gave Bolan very hopeful looks

He walked a bit away and pressed a preset button on the CIA satellite phone he’d picked up in Pretoria. He waited while his signal moved through significant filters. Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman answered. “Striker, this is Bear. Sitrep.”

“Objectives were taken. I took them back. Pilot is dead. Copilot is badly injured and going septic.”

“Describe ‘taken,’ Striker.”

“Nine hostiles down. Believe hostiles happened upon crash site by chance. They’re not our shooters, but they’re not alone. They were a patrol for a larger force.”

“Any identifiers?”

“Leaders possibly named Caesar and Mama. Check the scuttlebutt for the area.”

“Copy that, Striker.”

“Pilot died in crash. His body was exhumed. Things were done. I interrupted an atrocity in the making. I have a worst-case scenario. Requesting immediate extraction.”

“Negative, Striker. No extraction assets within range.”

“Requesting immediate backup. SEALs, Rangers, anyone within airborne range.”

“Negative on U.S. Military personnel, Striker.”

“Request Farm personnel, Able, Phoenix, any and all available.”

“Negative on Farm personnel.” Bolan could hear the regret in Kurtzman’s voice. “Exposure is already too high.”

The vault of the African heavens broke open. Rain sheeted down as if liquid curtains falling out of the sky. The silver lining was that maybe it would cover their tracks and help obscure the crime scene.

“Striker…”

Bolan knew by Kurtzman’s voice it was bad. “Copy, Bear.”

“I have been instructed to tell you that if you can extract the primary objective, secondary objectives can be considered…expendable.”

Bolan’s blood went cold. “I understand. Farm Protocol 4. Mission understood.”

“Copy that, Striker. Will advise.”

There was no Farm Protocol 4. It was a code word arranged by Bolan and Kurtzman. It could have been Corn Flakes or Looks Like Rain. What Bolan had just told Kurtzman was that he had gone rogue. It was Bolan’s mission, and he was operating outside government jurisdiction. No one was expendable save himself, and the Stony Man Farm computer expert should establish a private link between Bolan and the Farm.

“Any chance on a supply drop?”

“Working on it. Must advise not to plan on it.”

“Copy that. Striker out.”

Bolan strode back into the center of camp. “Everyone, take a gun. Take a pack. Take a machete.” Bolan glanced up as the African sky continued to unload. “We’re out of here.”

2

“Dead!” Julius Caesar Segawa was incensed. As far as he was concerned, this section of the rain forest was his private reservation. Anything that entered was either prey or asked and paid for permission to enter. He stared down at the naked, bloated, bullet-perforated, logjam of his men clogging a bend in the creek. “Dead! I want them dead! Whoever has committed this atrocity! They burn in my fire! Their livers sizzle upon my plate with onions!”

Segawa’s men shook their rifles as they became willingly infected with their savior’s rage.

Solomon Obua knelt his mighty frame by the creek bed and stared at the bodies. Obua had been a Ugandan superheavyweight Olympic boxing contender. His dreams of Olympic and professional boxing glory had ended after he had killed his second opponent in the ring in his second Pan-African game. Obua had joined the army, and in the forest he had heard the call of Julius Caesar Segawa—his true calling. Years of jungle fighting had stripped Obua’s six-foot-six, 250 pound physique down to 210 pounds, which left him looking like a bodybuilder who had spent the last six months in a death camp. His body consisted of little else but muscle and sinew that crawled across his bones. Segawa’s men grew their hair and beards out to be more like Jesus, and Segawa, but Obua still shaved his head as he had when he was a boxer. Segawa ruled through religious intimidation and willpower. Obua enforced Segawa’s will through sheer physical intimidation.

Obua’s father had been a game guide for safari hunters before Ugandan independence from the United Kingdom. There was nothing Obua didn’t know about tracking in Equatorial Africa. It was Obua’s belief that over the past ten years God had told him directly that his best quarry, and his best food, was man.

They had found the crash site, and what Obua had discovered there intrigued him. There had clearly been a mighty battle but no trace of any of the brethren. The rain had washed away much of the evidence, but throwing the bodies in the creek was simple deduction. Obua slid into the water and pulled a corpse to him. He stuck an inhumanly long and bony finger into a bullet hole and probed. A bullet came up beneath his ministrations. “A 9 mm round, Caesar. Subsonic hollowpoint.” He turned to the next closest body and dug another mushroom-shaped bullet out his best scout’s spleen. “Another 9 mm, subsonic hollowpoint.”

Segawa’s men had committed the worst atrocities that Africa had seen in the new century, yet several soldiers turned from the sight of Obua’s hands-on crime-scene investigation and threw up. Obua probed every last injury of every corpse. William Wagaluka had been the squad leader. The burned and bone-crushed wound in the side of his head confounded even Obua. He pulled the bullets out of the last two bodies and peered at them. “More 9 mms…solids.”

“Brother William said he had Uncle Sam’s children in his grasp.” Segawa mentally reviewed the pictures of the cowering cadets Wagaluka had texted him. The flight attendant would be given to the men. The female cadet had intrigued Segawa particularly. The single cell-phone picture he had seen of her had painted an entirely new ritual in his mind. “You say the Americans have reached out for their children so fast?”

Obua looked long and hard at a bloody bullet and then flicked it into the water. The more he examined the situation the more it intrigued him. “The Americans, they no use 9 mms except in their pistols. They all carbined up.”

“English?” Segawa scowled. “French?”

“Same-same.” Obua stared down into the face of one of the corpses. The eyes of the dead were usually flat and glassy as a fish’s. Every brother’s eyes were inflamed like blood-engorged golf balls. Obua pulled a body onto the bank. He leaned his huge hands on its belly and shoved. More men turned away in nausea and horror as Obua smelled what came out of the dead man’s lungs. “Caesar?”

“Yes, brother.”

“Our brothers were gassed.”

“Gassed?”

“That is how he overcame nine of the brethren.”

“He?”

“Yes.”

“What do you tell me, Brother Obua?”

“I tell you the children of Uncle Sam were beneath your hand, and then Satan’s child fell from the sky and took them back.”

“One man?” Segawa looked askance at his most mighty of minions. “Truly, brother?”

“We saw nor heard no choppers. He must have jumped from a plane, from high above the clouds.”

Segawa shook his braids and stared up through the rain at the unforgiving, Old Testament God who approved of the old ways. His men waited for Segawa to speak wisdom. “He came from the south.”

Obua smiled. “Yes, brother.”

“From South Africa, only from that benighted land could he have acquired his apparel of war, and a jet to speed him here.”

“It makes perfect sense. He is some kind of mercenary, or commando.”

“Sent by the begetters of these pale children of privilege.”

“Expendable.” Obua grinned. “Deniable.”

“Alone,” Segawa added.

“I have an idea. I think—”

“I know what you think, brother.” Segawa stared unblinkingly up into the rain as if God on high seemed to beam him information. “You think of who would want to shoot down the plane. I ask you who hates the Americans most.”

“The heathens who serve Mohammed.”

“You think they will pay a pretty penny to have the children in their grasp.”

Obua looked into the sky happily. “They would shower pennies upon us like the rain.”

Segawa’s head snapped around. His judging finger stabbed at Obua. “You cannot serve both God and mammon, brother!”

Obua cast his eyes down. “I thought of God’s Army, brother, and our rebuilding.” The fact was that the last open battle God’s Army had fought with the Uganda People’s Defence Force had gone rather badly. It was God’s Army’s intention to overthrow Uganda and establish paradise on Earth. At the moment, though, they found terrorizing pagan villages across the Democratic Republic of the Congo—DRC—border a safer and more profitable activity.

Segawa slowly lowered his finger. “I, too, think of our rebuilding, brother.” He smiled unexpectedly. “I think of eight new recruits.”

Obua straightened at the thought. “Yes, brother…”

“God’s child-soldiers have served us so well.” Segawa gestured at several of the men who had at one time been kidnapped from their villages as children and brutally adopted into God’s Army. “But now they have grown so tall and strong!”

The men shook their weapons and shouted their allegiance.

Segawa turned his gaze heavenward once more. “Eight ghost-faced children of privilege! Striking down God’s enemies! The children of the colonizers! Destroying the heirs of colonialism who spoil our sweet land! What shall our enemies make of it? What shall the world make of it? This is my vision.” Segawa raised his hands and roared into the rain. “So let it be written! So let it be done!”

Obua leaned in while the men cheered wildly. “If what we surmise is true, then he must walk east to cross the Ugandan border.”

“Uganda, our Promised Land,” Segawa intoned. “Zion.”

Religious fervor mixed with the sociopathic need to kill filled and inflamed Obua’s belly. “The White Satan’s servant marches with an army of children. He will be slow, Caesar.”

“Then find him, brother. Find him.”

“HALT!” BOLAN CALLED. The cadets sagged in place. The two cadets carrying the copilot lowered him to the ground. The flight attendant knelt and cradled Pieter’s head in her lap. Bolan glanced at the sun. They had route marched for four hours. The rain had stopped. The sun was sinking and turning orange. “Everybody line up, I want—”

A cadet shook his head and rubbed his wrists. “Man, who are you? Where the hell are the helicopters? Where’re—”

Bolan roared at parade-ground decibels. He would have exactly one opportunity to weld these young men and women into a unit. It was their only chance for survival. “Line up for inspection!”

The eight military cadets snapped into line and to attention as if Bolan had cracked a whip. The Executioner rounded on the questioning cadet. “What is your name, Cadet?” It was embroidered on the front of the young man’s uniform jacket, but Bolan demanded it anyway.

“Jovich, Sir! Martin—”

“Don’t you ‘sir’ me, Jock-itch! I made sergeant back in the day! I worked for a living and I still do!”

“Yes, Sergeant!”

The next cadet in line snickered. “Jock-itch…”

Bolan stepped in front of the sneering youth. He didn’t like what he saw. The tall blond cadet was too handsome for his own good and knew it. He stank just a bit of an excess of privilege and a distinct lack of discipline. Unfortunately, he was priority number one, and Bolan knew there was a very good chance that he was going to die for this egotistical cadet. “You got a name?”

The cadet mockingly looked at the front of his tunic. A vague Southern drawl inflected his insolence. “Yeah, Metard, John.”

Bolan smiled. “Full name?”

The cadet bristled. He looked Bolan in the eye and what he saw there snapped his eyes front once more. “Metard…Jean-Marie.”

“Thank you, Meatwad.”

Metard clenched his jaw but kept his retort behind his teeth. Mirth was visibly suppressed up and down the line. Bolan wasn’t surprised to find that Metard wasn’t well-liked by his fellow cadets. The soldier moved down the line and looked at another blond cadet. He was shorter than Metard, but even at fifteen years of age he had the shoulders of an Olympic swimmer. The cadet grinned and stood at perfect attention. “Eischen, Alexander Charles, Sergeant!”

Bolan raised one eyebrow slightly. “Felt the need to sneak that Charles in on me, did you?”

Eischen slid a hostile eye towards Metard. “It’s no Jean-Marie, Sergeant, but we do our best.”

Bolan liked Eischen’s attitude. “Alexander Charles Eischen, fine. Ace it is.”

The female cadet standing next to Eischen gave him an approving look. Bolan stepped up to the lone female in the group. She had dark hair, dark eyes and an olive complexion. She squared her shoulders as she fell under Bolan’s scrutiny. “Shelby, Sergeant! Maria Dirazar!”

Bolan’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Shelby…”

“Most people just call me Shel–”

Bolan lunged in eyeball to eyeball. “Do I look like most people to you, Cadet?”

“No, Sergeant!” Shelby went to ramrod attention. “You are like no man I have ever met!”

“Good answer, Snake.”

Shelby blinked. “Snake, Sergeant?”

“Shelby. Carroll Shelby. Greatest American car designer of the twentieth century. You’ve heard of the Cobra? Super Cobra? Super Snake?” Bolan shook his head with weariness. “You’re Snake, Cadet.”

Shelby’s whisper followed Bolan as he walked down the line. “Sweet…”

Bolan found himself in front of a fifteen-year-old youth who could look him in the eye. The young, lantern-jawed mesomorph in the making stared straight ahead with a grim look on his face. Bolan looked long and hard at the name embroidered on the front of the young man’s uniform.

Hudjak.

“Cadet?”

“Yes, Sergeant.” The tall young man was a tower of stoicism.

“I think we’ll just call you Huge.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Until you screw up, Huge.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Next cadet in line was the only black cadet. Except for Huge, he was the biggest in the group. Bolan read his tag. “Johnson.”

“Yes, Sergeant. John Henry.”

“You know the legend of the man you were named after, Cadet?”

“Heard it every day growing up, Sergeant. Told every day it was something I’d better live up to.”

Bolan smelled leadership potential. “Good to know, Hammer.”

Hudjak elbowed Johnson in congratulations as Bolan moved on.

A young Chinese man stood at attention. “King, Donald, Sergeant!” The cadet’s voice dropped low. “Sergeant?”

Bolan dropped his voice in return. “Cadet?”

“Sergeant, please don’t call me Donkey Kong. It takes a fistfight every year at the start of school to scrape that one off.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, Cadet. We’ll keep it Don King.”

The cadet looked confusedly for the rub. “But, Sergeant, that’s my name.”

“Don King,” Bolan prompted. “The Rumble in the Jungle? The Thrilla in Manila?”

Cadet King stared at Bolan vacantly.

“The Sign from God hairstyle?” Bolan tried. He was becoming painfully aware of the fact that it had been some time since he had spent any quality time with the latest generation of America. “Fine, what’s your real name?”

“Sergeant?”

“You’re second-generation Chinese.”

“Yes, Sergeant. My parents came from Taiwan.”

“So ‘Donald’ is the American name they picked for you. Chinese put the family name first and the given second. That makes your family name King. What’s your real name, Cadet?”

The cadet sighed painfully. “Dong, Sergeant.”

“Donger, I tried to be merciful.”

Cadet King rolled his eyes. “I knew it.”

Bolan lunged. “I will roll your eyes right out of your head, Donger!”

Cadet King snapped to attention. “Cadet Donger! Ready for duty, Sergeant!”

Bolan came to the last cadet in line. If he hadn’t looked down, he might have missed him. The cadet was clearly Indian or Pakistani. The young man just cracked five foot two, and if he was more than ninety-eight pounds dripping wet Bolan would be surprised. He read the young man’s moniker.

The cadet just barely kept his shoulders from sagging.

Bolan heard Metard snicker back in line and made a note of it.

For the moment the soldier looked at the cadet before him with a modicum of sympathy. “Son of the Indian subcontinent?”

“Technically I was born in California, Sergeant, but we went back to West Bengal right after for five years for my father’s job. Then we came back again.”

“Lovely country,” Bolan opined. “Been there several times.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. My family goes back to visit every year.”

“Well,” Bolan mused. “Might as well get this over with.”

The young man nodded bravely. “Yes, Sergeant.”

Bolan read the embroidery again—Rudipu.

“Hell of a handle,” Bolan admitted.

“Yes, Sergeant. Thank you.”

“You got a first name, Cadet?”

“Gupti, Sergeant.”

Metard snickered again. The young man was digging a deeper hole for himself. Bolan stayed with the business at hand. “Gupti Rudipu.” Bolan nodded. “Hell of a handle.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“You know the possibilities are mind-boggling.”

“Yes, Sergeant. I know.”

“I bet you do. Any mitigating factors before I pass judgment, Cadet?”

The teenaged cadet considered his résumé. “Well, I am captain of the rifle team at the academy.”

Bolan perked an eyebrow. “NRA Whistler Boy High-Power Junior Team Match?”

The sack of chicken bones Cadet Rudipu called a chest swelled with pride. “This will be my second year, Sergeant.”

Bolan nodded. “Never met a rifleman I didn’t like, Rude.”

Rudipu beamed. “Yes, Sergeant! Thank you, Sergeant! I’ll make you proud of me, Sergeant! I promise I will!”

“No one likes the squad cocksucker, Rude.”

Rudipu snapped back to attention. “No, Sergeant!”

Bolan turned back to face the line. “All right, I want—”

“Hey!” Metard’s outrage boiled over. “How come everyone else gets cool names and me and Jovich’s suck?”

King held his peace on that one. Jovich stepped away from Metard like he was radioactive.

Bolan rounded on Metard. “Because they know when to have themselves a tall frosty STFU when certain others I can name ran their mouths.”

Metard’s face flushed scarlet.

Bolan regarded the cadet like something he had just scraped off his shoe. “You want another nickname, Meatwad? You earn it. You read me?”

Metard shook with impotent rage.

“I asked you a question!” Bolan bellowed.

“Yes, Sergeant!”

“Yes, what?”

“I read you, Sergeant!”

Bolan took a few steps back and eyed his squad. “You have questions. Let me answer ninety percent of them right now. I am the angry god of your universe. You will do what I say when I say it. You are cadets, in training to become officers in the United States Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. I expect you to act like it. Do those two things, and you might just live through this. I hope that clears things up.”

The eight cadets stared at Bolan in a mixture of shock and awe.

Bolan glanced up at the sinking sun. “We need to do distance, but given the nature of the situation, I am going to allow each of you to ask me one question, once. After that, every last question had better be pertinent and about survival. Now. Go.”

The cadets glanced around at one another. Johnson raised his hand.

“This isn’t the classroom, Hammer. We’re in the jungle. We don’t raise our hands. We don’t have the time.”

Johnson nodded. “Sorry, Sarge, I just—” Johnson suddenly balked at his own temerity. “I mean, may I call you Sarge, Sergeant?”

“If it’ll speed things up.”

Johnson gazed on Metard with cold pleasure. “Well, I don’t want a new nickname or anything, Sarge, but I’m with Meatwad. I mean, what’s going on? Don’t get me wrong, you are super-bad, but, like, where are the choppers and Navy SEALs and shit?”

“There are no choppers. There are no Navy SEALs and shit. There are no carriers or special operations teams currently in range. Don’t hold your breath waiting for them. All you have is each other and me.”

Jovich eyed Bolan warily.

“You got something to say Jock-itch?” Bolan asked.

“We’re American citizens. Our plane got shot down. I mean, why isn’t anyone coming?”

Bolan looked around the squad. “Anyone know why not?”

It was Johnson who spoke. “Because all modern U.S. administrations have had a reluctance to have American soldiers shooting black Africans.”

Bolan nodded. “And?”

“And neither the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Sudan or anyone else has authorized the United States to send military flights over their airspace, much less Egypt, Libya or any other North African countries, and the DRC sure as hell hasn’t given Uncle Sam permission to mount a military rescue mission within its borders.”

“You just made squad leader, Hammer.”

Johnson seemed to have mixed emotions about the promotion. “Thanks, Sarge.”

Eischen gave Bolan an appraising look. “So, who are you?”

“I don’t know, Ace, you tell me.”

Cadet Eischen continued to maintain his positive attitude. “Expendable, deniable and…super-bad?”

“Something like that.”

The truth was dawning on Metard. “So who sent you?”

“You tell me.”

Cadet Shelby addressed the five-hundred-pound gorilla in the camp. “He’s here because you’re the son of a United States senator, Meatwad.”

Metard reappraised Bolan. “My father sent you?”

Bolan locked eyes with the prize. “I wasn’t sent. I was begged.”

Metard flinched.

“Your father is a senior United States senator and a war hero. When you went missing, he called in every marker he had. Then he begged the President of the United States—your soon-to-be commander in chief, assuming you live that long—for his son’s life. The powers that be begged me. I said yes.”

Metard cast his eyes down.

Hudjak frowned. “So if there are no carriers in range, where did you come from?”

“Where do you think?”

“You parachuted in.”

“You think?”

“From where?”

Bolan gave the hulking cadet a pointed look.

“South Africa?”

Bolan nodded.

“Why were you in South Africa?”

“That’s three questions, Huge.”

Cadet Hudjak smiled. “Sorry, Sarge. I beg forgiveness and ask that my multiple questions not impose on Snake’s rights of inquiry.”

Shelby gave the guy a winning smile.

“Forgiven. You got a question, Snake?”

“So we’re walking out of here, Sarge?”

“That is the long and short of it.”

Visible alarm spread down the line. King almost raised his hand and stopped himself. “Sarge?”

“Donger?”

“What happened?”

“You tell me.”

King did some math. “Terrorists figured out that the son of a U.S. senator was on a private flight to an international military leadership seminar in South Africa. They decided to shoot us down.”

“Look at him go,” Bolan said.

“And those…guys—” King shuddered “—who found us are not them. Who were they?”

Shelby spoke quietly. “I did a paper on the Congo Wars last quarter. Those guys were tribal militia, rebels…or worse.”

“Last call.” Bolan looked up and down the group. “Anyone else?”

Rudipu perked up. “Sarge?”

“Rude?”

“Do you always answer a question with a question?”

The ghost of a smile passed across Bolan’s face. “No.”

A few nervous laughs broke out. “Cold camp tonight. I don’t want any fires giving us away. Divvy up the food from the plane. Sandwiches, power bars, whatever snacks you brought with you. Eat half now, save the rest for breakfast. Long day tomorrow, and we’re going to have to start catching whatever we eat real soon.”

Bolan turned before a new round of questions started and went over to the crew. The copilot was in bad shape. His broken legs were swollen and smelled. There was nothing to be done about the bullets in his guts. “How’s he doing?”

The flight attendant just managed to choke back a sob.

The copilot opened red-rimmed eyes. They were lucid as he surveyed Bolan. He spoke in about the thickest Australian drawl Bolan had ever heard. “Heard your palaver with the kids, then. Reckon you got a nickname for me, too?”

Bolan gave the dying man a grin. “You prefer Bullet-stop or Brittle-bones?”

The copilot grimaced good-naturedly as a rale passed through his lungs, “You know it hurts when I laugh, then.”

The flight attendant mopped the bloody spittle from the copilot’s mouth. “And me? Do I get a name, too?”

“What is your name?”

The woman looked steadily into Bolan’s eyes. “Roos von Kwakkenbos.”

“The Rudester has nothing on you, and you and Hudjak may be related.”

Von Kwakkenbos laughed. “And?”

“We’re just going to stick with Blondie.” Bolan turned his attention back to the copilot. “How you doing?”

The copilot turned to Von Kwakkenbos. “Reckon you should take a look at the kids, get some tucker while the getting is good.”

The woman gave the copilot a long look and went to join the cadets.

Copilot Pieter Llewellyn sighed, and there was a bad gurgle at the end of it. “Reckon I’m done, then. It’s at least 150 klicks to the border.”

“The cadets are willing to carry you. So am I.”

“Fine bunch of lads. ’Preciate it. But those dipsticks following us? You’re not going to beat them in a footrace, specially toting my carcass about. ’Sides, we both know I’m gonna cark it long before we ever reach Uganda. Guess there’s nothing to be done.”

“I could give you some more morphine,” Bolan countered.

The copilot perked up. “Aw, that’d be bonzer, mate!”

Bolan readied an injector from the plane’s kit. “You know, you’re the only Australian I know who actually uses that word.”

“Well, then, you’ve never been to Maralinga, then, have you? There’s an—” Pieter’s eyes just about rolled back in his head as the morphine flooded his veins. “Aww, beauty…”

“Would you believe me if I said I had?” Bolan asked.

“Believe almost anything you tell me at the moment.”

“You saw what they did to the pilot.”

Pieter’s eyes hardened through the morphine haze. “Bill was always a bit of an asshole, but he didn’t deserve that.”

“Listen, if we bury you, they’re most likely going to dig you up.”

“Well, that’ll waste a little of their time, then, won’t it?” Pieter asked.

“Yeah, but then they’ll probably eat you.”

“Hope they choke.” Pieter grinned past his bloody teeth. “Or at least get indigestion.”

Bolan smiled. The copilot was a brave man.

“Well, your choice, then, mate. Burn me, bury me, leave me for the dipsticks. Reckon I’m fine with any of it.”

“Mighty reasonable of you, Pieter.” Bolan nodded. “How would you feel about all three?”

3

Arua, Uganda

Alireza Rhage looked out of his office window across the sea of lights just outside Arua proper. The constellations of campfires were a cosmos of misery. The twinkling lights were the result of thousands of refugees burning whatever flammable garbage they could find. Arua was swollen with those who had fled the internecine fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. The refugee camps were swiftly becoming suburban shantytowns rife with violence and despair.

They were fertile recruiting grounds.

Ostensibly Rhage was a businessman investing in Uganda’s northern tea cultivation. Years of corruption and warfare had turned that industry into a shadow of what it once was. In his year and a half as a tea exporter, agricultural attaché Rhage had never turned a dime of profit. That was of no consequence. In reality, Captain Rhage was an exporter, and what he exported had reaped untold dividends in blood and human misery.

Rhage turned to his personal secretary. “You say there has been no report of a crash, and Flight 499 never arrived at Wonderboom Airport in Pretoria?”

Sergeant Major Pakzad shook his head. “No, Captain.”

“Have there been any reported emergency landings?”

“There have been seven emergency landings by private planes reported in sub-Saharan Africa within Flight 499’s flight window, Captain, but none was reported by Flight 499.”

“Given the nature of the emergency, could they have landed under false identification?”

“That is possible, of course, but none of the emergency landings recorded in the last forty-eight hours were made within reasonable distance of Flight 499’s flight path.”

“Does it strike you as odd, Sergeant Major, that a private flight full of American military cadets, one of them the son of a United States senator, appears to have disappeared without a trace?”

Pakzad smiled with pride. “Well, Captain. We did shoot it down.”

Rhage smiled in return. It had been Sergeant Major Pakzad’s plan. He was a brilliant intelligence officer. He and his staff constantly processed information and devised scenarios. In the sergeant major’s fertile mind, Flight 499 and its passengers had gone from a nonactionable item of mild interest to an opportunity. “Yet, no international outcry. No rescue or salvage mission mounted that we know of. What does that tell you?”

“It says that perhaps the crash occurred in a place the United States cannot easily reach. A bad place, where they have no assets. So they are keeping the situation quiet.”

“Which implies that the cadets may be alive.”

“It is possible, given the nature of the emergency, the pilots did not get out a distress call. By the same token, it is possible that the United States has the power to suppress the situation. My best guess is that the plane crash-landed. If there are survivors they most likely used their cell phones to call for help, which we could not monitor or intercept. The United States has no realistic way to project force into the Congo, much less do so without creating an international incident. The northeastern corner of the DRC is one of the most violent, lawless places on Earth. The United States would not want to advertise they are missing people in the region. Any number of groups hostile to them could retrieve the survivors. A hostage situation involving U.S. military school cadets in Equatorial Africa would be a worst-case scenario for them.”

Rhage glanced at the tri-corner border region of Sudan, Uganda and the DRC. “The best they could immediately manage would be to drop in Special Forces operators.”

“Yes, but from where?” Pakzad pondered. “The United States? Divert them from operations in Afghanistan?”

“Nevertheless, I am taking this continuing silence to mean the Americans are up to something.”

“Very well, Captain. Let us assume the Americans have somehow dropped in a rescue team. That leaves them trying to walk out of the Congo. In that case, their best option would be to make for the Ugandan border.”

The corner of Rhage’s mouth quirked up. Pakzad’s plan was growing more momentous by the minute. “Straight toward us.”

“Yes, Captain, and if you are correct, then I suspect the CIA station in Kampala is quietly arranging a team to meet them.”

“I want you to quietly assemble a team of our own, and we will need native trackers who know the area.”

“Yes, Captain!” Pakzad smiled. “We shall herd the little ducks and then pluck them!”

“You are confident, Sergeant Major. You are aware of the fact that U.S. Special Forces operatives are the best in the world.”

“Yes, Captain. Yet I doubt they could have mustered a full Delta Force team, and they will be saddled with children.”

“Military students, Sergeant Major.”

“American teenagers,” Pakzad scoffed. “Soft cadets.”

Rhage smiled tolerantly. “Did you know that I attended academy in my youth?”

“No, Captain. I did not.”

“Oh, I will admit, the greater proportion of my youthful studies stressed the glory of the Revolution and utter loyalty. Nevertheless, it was at academy where I first learned to read a map, use a compass, route march, and fire and field strip an automatic rifle.”

“Yes, Captain. I understand,” Pakzad’s smile suddenly turned sly. It was a smile Rhage knew all too well, and it always meant something was afoot in the man’s mind. “Captain?”

“Yes, Sergeant Major.”

“I have an idea.”

“I look forward very much to hearing it.”

“I am reminded of the siege of Troy…”

THE CADETS SQUATTED in the morning mist and made a cold and meager breakfast of the individually wrapped cress-and-cucumber finger sandwiches that they’d despised during the flight, the few packs of peanuts and remaining odds and ends. The cadets had changed out of their dress uniforms and wore the T-shirts and shorts or casual pants they had packed for South Africa. Jovich eyed his tiny sandwich that consisted mostly of leaves. “Man, who is that guy, Rambo?”

Cadet Shelby ate the last honey-roasted peanut. “Sarge rocks.” She carefully opened the empty foil pack like a letter and licked the salt and dust from the inside.

Metard and King immediately followed her lead and began licking foil.

Jovich shoved his sandwich into his mouth and glanced around to see if the sergeant was lurking. “And what’s with the fraternity pledge names?”

Johnson licked mayonnaise off his fingers. “Actually, I kind of liked it when he went all Heartbreak Ridge on us.”

Eischen took a swallow from the last can of Coke and passed it on. His eyes narrowed slyly. “He’s taking a ragtag band of pubescent cadets and turning them into a well-oiled fighting machine.”

Several cadets laughed. Rudipu eyed the battered ladder-sight of his Kalashnikov dubiously. “Man, I sure hope so.”

Bolan appeared out of the mist with the plane’s emergency folding shovel in hand. “Grave detail. Fall in.”

The cadets stared as a unit. “Sarge?” Johnson asked.

“The first officer died around 4:00 a.m. last night. Follow me.”

The cadets stared around at one another glumly. They rose and followed Bolan a little way through the trees. The copilot lay in an open grave about five feet deep and just long and wide enough to fit his frame. Miss von Kwakkenbos knelt beside the grave weeping. The copilot lay with his arms crossed over his chest holding his uniform cap. He looked at peace.

“I dug his grave, but he was your first officer. He was part of your flight. Flight 499. I figured you might want to cover him. Maybe say something over him.”

Hudjak took the shovel from Bolan’s hand without a word. He stood over the grave for a moment and then looked back at Bolan. “Sarge?”

“Huge?”

“They’re just going to dig him up, and do him voodoo-style like they did the captain. Probably going to eat him.”

“You’re right, Huge.” Bolan nodded. “Can anyone tell me why that doesn’t matter?”

“Because there’s nothing we can do about it.” Shelby looked down at the dead copilot. “It doesn’t matter what they do. What matters is what we do, and we respect our fallen.”

Hudjak nodded and began shoveling.

The cadets watched silently as Flight 499’s first officer went beneath the ground. “Hey,” Metard said. “Huge.”

The young man didn’t look up from his work. “What do you want, Meatwad?”

“A turn.”

Hudjak straightened. He gave Metard a look and handed over the entrenching tool. One by one each cadet took a turn burying their flight officer. Rudipu spent long moments patting the grave flat and even.

Bolan nodded. “Anyone want to say anything?”

Rudipu smiled and wiped the sweat from his brow. “He called me Sprout.” A few of the cadets laughed quietly or smiled. Rudipu wiped tears from his face as he gazed upon the grave. “But he gave me a tour of the cockpit before we took off. He showed me his gun.”

Shelby sniffed and pushed at her face. “He called me Sheila. When I said I was Air Force, he said he liked lady pilots. I liked him.”

“He fought them.” Johnson stared long and hard at the grave. “Even with two broken legs. He fought them.”

Tears spilled down Cadet Eischen’s cheeks. “Even when we didn’t.”

The cadets lowered their heads.

Bolan spoke over the grave. “He was Pieter Llewellyn, Lieutenant. He flew 604s for the Royal Australian Air Force, Transport Wing. He was honorably discharged after two enlistments and became a private contractor, specializing in the African VIP hub. He fought that plane to the ground.” Bolan looked around at the survivors of Flight 499. “He said you were a likeable bunch of lads and sheilas. He said he’d brought you down, but it was up to me to keep you safe. He said take care of his Niners. He said take them home.”

The cadets nodded at Bolan, who shook his head. “I couldn’t promise him that.”

The squad stared.

“I can only promise you two things. I leave no one behind, and I’ll die before I let any of you get taken again.”

Profound silence filled the gravesite.

“Flight Officer Llewellyn,” Bolan intoned. “Niner Squad! Salute!”

The cadets saluted their fallen copilot with parade-ground precision.

“Fall out,” Bolan ordered. “Gear up. Line up for inspection in one minute.” The cadets and Von Kwakkenbos fell out and grabbed their kit. They were armed and in line in fifty seconds.

Bolan took Johnson’s AK. “How many of you have fired a gun?”

Rudipu, Metard, Eischen and Von Kwakkenbos raised their hands.

“How many have fired an AK?”

All hands dropped.

“This is a Kalashnikov.” Bolan swiftly ran through the manual of arms. “This is your selector lever.” He pushed the lever through the settings, “Safe. Rock ’n’ roll. Semiautomatic. These are your sights. They graduate from 100 to 800 meters. This is the fixed battle setting for all ranges up to 300 meters. This is your folding bayonet.” The squad members eyes widened as Bolan snapped out the foot-long, quadrangular spike. Bolan snapped it back and returned the weapon to Johnson.

“Set your sights to fixed battle setting. Set your selectors to semiauto. You will not change these settings without permission. Unless the enemy is directly engaging you, you will not fire without permission. Our ammo supply is extremely limited. Every shot has to count. Some of the weapons have folding stocks. You will keep them deployed at all times. You will not fix bayonets unless you are out of ammunition or I have ordered you to do so. Does everyone understand?”

“Yes, sergeant!” the squad said in unison.

“Huge.”

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“I have no time to train you. You’re going to have learn the joys of supporting fire on the fly.” Bolan pointed at the light machine gun Huge cradled. “Don’t go Rambo on me. Use your bipod. Get on and off the trigger fast. Short bursts.”

“Short bursts.” Huge nodded. “Yes, Sergeant.”

“Rude.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“So you’re a rifleman.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Bolan eyed the Dragunov sniper rifle Metard was holding. “Switch with Meat.”

Metard noted the “wad” suffix had been left off his name and smiled. “But Sarge, it’s bigger than he is.”

“He’s just going to have to grow into it,” Bolan said, as Rudipu took the Dragunov. The four-foot-long, nine and a half pound rifle nearly reached his chin. Bolan gave the cadet a meaningful look. “Fast.”

Bolan looked at several abandoned dress uniforms. “Uncle Sam still makes his full dress uniforms out of wool, Niners. You’re going to want those jackets and slacks when it gets cold.”

King glanced about as the morning mist turned to rainbowing steam in the morning sun. “Sarge?”

“Donger.”

“Where does it get cold around here?”

Bolan pointed directly west at the mist-shrouded peaks that lay between the Niner squad and the Ugandan border. “There.”

4

“What have you got for me, Bear?” Bolan asked. Kurtzman looked at his bank of monitors. One screen was devoted to the weather over Equatorial Africa. Three more coordinated satellite feeds as high-resolution imagery intelligence birds became available. Another screen was coordinated with signals intelligence satellites that were eavesdropping on the region. The largest screen, the one directly in front of Kurtzman, was dedicated to what he considered the “footwork” of the Computer Room—his own research and information processing.

“I have Julius Caesar Segawa.”

“Cute,” Bolan replied.

“Nothing cute about him.” Kurtzman looked at the only known photograph of the madman. With his knit cap, dreads and beard, Segawa could have passed for a reggae singer, except that reggae singers didn’t pose for portraits holding an automatic weapon while sitting on a pile of human heads. “We have very little confirmed on this guy, Striker, but what we do know is bad, and I mean bad.”

“This Caesar, he’s Lord’s Resistance Army?”

“Worse.”

“What does that mean?”

Kurtzman looked Segawa’s picture again. The Lord’s Resistance Army had been engaged in armed rebellion against the Ugandan government more or less since 1987. They believed in a heady blend of traditional African religion, spirit-medium mysticism and Apocalyptic Christianity. Kurtzman knew that the group certainly was not the first to use murder, abduction, rape, mutilation and sexual enslavement against civilian populations, but they had gone at it with an enthusiasm unseen in the twentieth century, and it is thought they had pioneered the use of child-soldiers in African conflicts.

“It seems Segawa got kicked out for going too far in his atrocities.”

“Isn’t that kind of like getting thrown out of a rock band for doing too many drugs, Bear?”

“Yeah, well, imagine if the lead singer started eating people.” Kurtzman smiled in spite of himself. “You yourself told me you have firsthand evidence of the cannibalism thing here on the ground.”

“I’ve seen firsthand that they eat hands. What else do we know?”

“Not much. Segawa split off and formed his own group called God’s Army. They haven’t had much success taking over the Lord’s Resistance Army, much less overthrowing the Ugandan government. They pulled a big fade into Congo a few years back and have been under the radar ever since. All I can find are second-and thirdhand horror stories about them that missionaries and aid workers have heard from refugees.”

“Anything pertinent?”

“He’s supposed to have some woman with him. A witch doctor. Rumor is people in the region are even more scared of her than him.” Kurtzman stared at the image of Segawa sitting on heads. “To be honest? I’m worried. I don’t think he’ll stop at just holding those kids for ransom. God only knows what he’ll do.”

“Any idea of their troop strength?”

“Depending who you listen to the Lord’s Resistance Army has an estimated strength of fifteen hundred to three thousand men at any given time. Caesar and his God’s Army are a splinter group and have been in the bush for several years. They’re strong enough to raid villages with impunity, but in recent years they’ve been strictly avoiding the militaries on both sides of the border as well as their former brethren. I’d say Caesar’s got to have at least one platoon. Possibly two.”

The math was ugly. Bolan and his little troop were outnumbered by at least five if not possibly ten to one. Bolan changed the subject. “Any clue on our shooters?”

“That is something of a poser. All we have to go on are the photos of the plane you sent and the location of the crash site itself. Walking it backward from the crash site, the air defense guys I spoke with figure Flight 499 was probably at cruising altitude. For a Challenger 604 max is about forty-one thousand feet. Flight 499 would have been well below that, and given the prevailing weather maybe half that or less, but certainly well out of range of anything shoulder-launched. Going by the pictures, put together the damage to the plane and the pilots’ ability to land it, our best guess is that 499 took a near miss by something using a proximity fuse. I’m thinking something vehicle-launched.”

“More likely towed,” Bolan surmised. “You got any probable launch sites?”

“Hard to imagine it was actually fired from the DRC. There just isn’t anything in your neck of the woods with that kind of range. Best bet would be a launch from the northeastern extreme of Uganda or the southern tip of Sudan, but they would have had to have been very close to 499’s flight path. We’re talking right under it. The other two things of interest are that the only air defense weapons the Ugandans have are obsolete Russian antiaircraft guns. But the Sudanese do have a few Russian SA-2 Guideline missile batteries. Those could have reached out and touched Flight 499.”

“But the few they have are all tasked with defending the capital and their air bases, they’re all out of range of Flight 499’s flight path, and even the yahoos in Khartoum aren’t dumb enough to start firing at commercial flights, particularly ones with a U.S. senator’s son aboard.”

“That’s how I see it, too, which leaves us with players we don’t know about misbehaving in the tri-border region. Though it’s hard to imagine any bad guys I can think of planning this operation. The logistics are too extreme to match the target.”

“It wasn’t planned. Our players were misbehaving as you said, but Flight 499 came up as a target of opportunity.” Bolan’s voice went cold. “And since we have unknown enemies playing with surface-to-air missiles in the area, I’m not going to get my resupply flight, am I?”

“Resupply is currently considered too dangerous. If the bad guys have access to medium range surface-to-air missiles, we must assume they have shoulder-launched weapons as well and may be moving into your area. How are your supplies?”

“On average everyone has four loaded magazines. We’ve got three pints of rice and some sandwich spread. After that we go directly to eating endangered animals.”

Kurtzman scrolled the files on the cadets and the flight attendant. “How are your people holding up?”

Bolan’s voice brightened. “Good, better than I’d expected. Pieter was right, they’re a good bunch of lads and sheilas.”

“So what is your current plan?”

“We keep heading west.”

“I don’t know if you can out march these guys, Striker.”

“I know.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to reach out and show Caesar the Ides of March are upon him. Striker out.”

BOLAN SCANNED THE SKIES as he clicked off. The daily downpour was just about due. “Rude! Hammer!” he called. “On me.”

Cadets Johnson and Rudipu ran up and snapped to attention front and center. “Sarge?” Johnson asked.

“Squad leader, rumor is you intend to be a Marine.”

“Yes, Sergeant. I hope to be Force Recon, like my father.”

Bolan held out his compass and his spare map. “You know how to use these?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“You’re going to take Niner Squad straight up that mountain. If you push hard, you should be able to summit before dark.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“You’re keeping a cold camp. I’ve had one of the bags of rice soaking in water since this morning in a plastic bag. Ace is carrying it, but he doesn’t know it yet. It should be edible by the time you hit the top. Don’t tell anybody, but Blondie has peanut butter and jelly. Tonight everyone in the squad gets a cup of rice and three tablespoons of the PB and J. Blondie will provision it out. Meat is carrying the second rice bag. You will put it in the plastic bag Ace is carrying and soak it overnight. If Rude and I are not back by morning, that and the other half of the peanut butter are breakfast and dinner. If we’re still not back, you soak bag number three and continue to head due west.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“You will not engage the enemy unless you are attacked. Escape and evade. If you come across a village, do not make contact. They may be hostile. Even if they aren’t, if they take you in, it could be a death sentence for them. Mark the position on the map and continue on.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Bolan handed Johnson one of the collected cell phones and five batteries. “I’ve put two presets at the top of the contact list. Number one is SARGE and number two is BEAR. Do not call out unless you’re being attacked or run into unforeseen difficulties. If I am not back by tomorrow, call preset SARGE. If I do not respond, call preset BEAR. Do not answer any incoming calls unless the Caller ID says SARGE or BEAR. If you receive a call from BEAR at any time and I’m not here, you do anything and everything the Bear tells you. Got it?”

“Copy that, Sarge.”

“You may hear gunfire. You’ll probably see smoke. Remember the enemy likes to spray and pray. Single shots are probably me or Rude.” Bolan looked into the earnest young cadet’s face and saw doubt and fear. It was Johnson’s first command, at age seventeen, in the jungles of Africa. “Hammer?”

“Sarge?”

Bolan knew from long experience that there was something about cold steel that braced backbones. “Have the men fix bayonets.”

Johnson snapped his steel in place. “Yes, Sergeant!” The cadet frowned. “How are you going to catch up?”

“You’ll be cutting the trail for us, Hammer.”

“But won’t the enemy find it, too?”

“Hammer, I’m counting on it.”

Johnson grinned. “Copy that!”

Bolan clapped Johnson on the shoulder. “You have your orders, Squad Leader. Inform the team and get them moving. I will rendezvous within twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Johnson jogged back to the group. “Niner Squad! On me!”

Bolan turned to Rudipu as Johnson shouted in a decent imitation of a drill sergeant. “Fix bayonets!”

Bolan spoke quietly over steel clicking in place. “Rude, you’re with me.”

“Where’re we going, Sarge?”

“To check on Flight Officer Llewellyn.”

Rudipu considered that. “Really?”

“What, you don’t want to see his big send-off?”

“Of…course I do, Sergeant.”

“Good.”

“Sarge?”

“Yeah?”

“What does that mean?”

“You and I are a sniper-scout team,” Bolan replied. “We’re going to go establish the position of the enemy.”

“Oh, shit!”

“You with me, Rude? You can say no and I’ll get somebody else, but I’m still thinking you’re the best shot in Niner Squad. I’ll do the heavy lifting on this one, but every sniper team needs a spotter and a backup shooter.”

“Sarge? I don’t know if I’m cut out to be a sniper.”

“Enlighten me,” Bolan said.

“I mean, I love shooting, but I’m with Shelby.”

“Who?” Bolan asked.

Rudipu grinned. “I mean, Snake, Sergeant. She and I are both Air Force academy cadets. I want jets.”

“I noticed you want Miss von Kwakkenbos, too, Rude. Noticed you noticing someone cut off the top three buttons of her blouse with a machete whenever you thought no one is watching.”

Rudipu flushed scarlet, but he salvaged some dignity. “Well, I do like blondes, Sarge.”

“Who doesn’t?” Bolan liked the cadet’s attitude. “So does the enemy, and you do know what they’re going to do to her if they catch her?”

Rude looked down unhappily. “Yeah.”

“What they’ll do to Snake?”

“Yeah.”

“What they’ll do to you?”

“Sarge!” Rudipu was appalled.

“Rude, this isn’t quite the Ninth Circle of Hell, but you can see it from here. There are predators in these woods, four-legged and otherwise. And around here, someone like you is considered a light snack. You understand?”

The diminutive cadet looked down glumly. “Yeah.”

“But you have an advantage, Rude. Do you know what that is?”

Rudipu raised his Dragunov. “Precision rifle-fire?”

“That’s right, Rude. Precision rifle-fire.”

The cadet took a deep breath. “You’re right, Sarge. It’s time to cowboy up.”

“Time to marksman up, Rude.” Bolan turned and broke into a light jog. “Try to keep up.”

OBUA POINTED AT THE GLADE. “They have buried another one of their dead, Caesar.”

“The wounded one?” Segawa asked. “The copilot?”

“That would be my guess.” Obua nodded in obeisance to Caesar’s consort. “Mama Waldi.”

The woman was six feet tall. Though she had the breasts and hips of a fertility goddess, her limbs and waist stretched out like those of a famine victim. Her matted dreadlocks fell to her tailbone. Amulets and fetishes mounded her neck and shoulders. She carried a butcher knife on her belt, and in her hands she carried a hunga munga. The African throwing weapon looked like a cross between a hand sickle, a hatchet and a scythe, with a couple of extra knife blades for added effect. It was a weapon that Mama Waldi always sharpened but never cleaned. The edges of the pitted blades gleamed out of the dried gore caking them like quicksilver. Obua had seen Mama Waldi take off a fleeing man’s leg just below the knee with one throw. The woman had the flat black eyes of a shark, and she had filed her teeth to points to match. “I want ’em bones, Brother Obua, and all the brethren shall partake of the white bread of his flesh.”

Obua licked his lips. It had been some time since he had eaten the long pig done right. The pilot had been crucified and burned with gasoline. It had made his poor flesh a tough and acrid meal. Obua thought about the copilot a day and night in the ground with his juices running. That would be toothsome, meat-falling-off-the-bone fare. “As you say, Mama.”

“I want the little one. The girl.”

Segawa smiled. “And she shall be delivered to you, Mama.”

“Blue-eyed devil woman die in my fire and be our bread.”

Obua gave Segawa an alarmed look. The army leader put his hand on Mama Waldi’s shoulder. “Not before Brother Obua and the brethren have shown her paradise.”

Mama Waldi exposed her pointed teeth. “Then they shall know her flesh in sin and then partake of her flesh as the bread of forgiveness.”

“You are wise, Mama.” Segawa to where Obua had pointed. Four of the men were busily disinterring the copilot’s body with their machetes. “They bury him, brother? Knowing what we would do? Why would they waste the time?”

Obua shrugged. “They are Americans, pale, poor-relation Christians. They are…sentimental.”

“Where do you find them now, brother?”

“They make no effort to hide their tracks. They make for the mountains. They make for the Ugandan border.”

“Zion,” Mama Waldi intoned.

Segawa and Obua spoke in unison. “Holy Zion, the promised land.” Obua stared up into the misty mountaintops. “Someone has given them backbone. Given them courage.”

“These our mountains. These our forests.” Segawa looked at the trail their quarry had left. “They cannot outrun us.”

Mama Waldi gazed westward. “I wonder if the white children will turn and fight?”

A huge door-slamming sound answered the witch doctor’s question. Birds erupted out of the trees and monkeys screamed as pale orange fire pulsed at the gravesite. The men digging screamed and disappeared in white streamers of burning particulate. Fire crawled up the trees ringing the glade in a burn that moisture would not stop. Only one of the four diggers came out of the smoking curtain. Vusi was barely recognizable as a man. He screamed and flailed at the white phosphorus covering his body in swathes and burning his flesh to the bone.

Segawa drew his panga. He took a skipping run forward and wheeled his chopper like a bowler about to pitch a cricket ball. Vusi fell to his knees shrieking and burning. Segawa swung, and Vusi’s head flew from his shoulders. His body slumped bonelessly, and his head tumbled down the slope.

Kayizi broke out of the underbrush. He had taken a wide berth around the white phosphorus. He took one glance at Vusi’s decapitated corpse and got on with his message. “Caesar! Caesar!”

Segawa took a look at his panga. One of Vusi’s vertebrae had turned the edge of his weapon. Kayizi was one of the youngest of God’s Army. Segawa had turned him into a warrior. Mama Waldi had turned him into a man. Obua had turned him into a tracker. The young man could scent a shadow on a cloudy day. He was one of the most fanatic of the brethren. “Brother Kayizi.”

“The trail is clear, Caesar! Ten continue towards the mountain!”

“You count ten, brother?”

“With the pilot and copilot dead? I see all eight cadets, the flight attendant and the commando who leads them! They burn for the Ugandan border!”

Mama Waldi came to stand beside her man. “The American. The commando.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Mama Waldi’s black eyes narrowed. “You would think, a grenade on a body, a playground trick, one we have used ourselves many times.”

Segawa nodded. “Yes, Mama. We have.”

“Yet we fell for this trick, because we have pulled up their dead before.”

Segawa nodded once more. “Yes, Mama.”

“The American,” Obua scowled. “He reads us, he reads our ways and he has turned to fight.”

Mama Waldi ran a disturbingly large tongue over her filed teeth. “Good.”

5

“You buried him with a grenade.” Rudipu lowered Bolan’s binoculars. “A Willie Pete?”

“I asked him if he wanted to be buried, cremated or left for the enemy. Llewellyn chose all of the above.”

“Where was it?”

“He was keeping it under his hat. I kept it under mine, too. I didn’t want any arguments. It was his decision.”

“I understand, Sarge.” The cadet raised Bolan’s laser range-finding binoculars once more and watched the milling revolutionaries. They had stopped after the grenade detonation and were having some kind of late-afternoon powwow and boiling a caldron of rice. Rude didn’t want to think about what they were having for an entrée. “I count at least thirty. More seem to be arriving. So, should we…?”

“Thin them out a bit?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Range me.”

“What?”

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