The Executioner expected to die a violent death someday

But the civilians in the lobby had not signed up for battle pay, and if Bolan failed in the action he had to take within the next few seconds, they would surely die.

The bomber had almost reached the CIA man when the Executioner turned around.

As Bolan increased his pace to catch up with the man in the vest, the CIA agent moved smoothly into the bomber’s path and grabbed both of his wrists. Bolan drew his fixed-blade knife from behind his back and raised it high over his head. All other movement in the lobby had stopped.

The bomber screamed something in Arabic as Bolan dived through the air, the blade clenched in a reverse grip. As he collided with the man’s back, he brought the blade down with all his strength, penetrating the man’s skull.

A few gasps came from around the lobby. Then the screams of men and women filled the air. Bolan pried the blade out of the bomber’s skull and wiped it on the back of the man’s vest before turning him over.

“Murderers!” a high-pitched female voice shouted. “Call the police.”

The Executioner unzipped the bomber’s vest and a collective gasp came from the crowd when the people saw a good two-dozen sticks of dynamite strapped to the dead man’s body.

There were no more accusations of homicide.

Final Coup

The Executioner®

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

—Ronald Reagan

1911–2004

All people have a right to live and die freely. Anyone who dares to take that away will face my wrath and suffer inevitable defeat. That’s a promise.

—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

Epilogue

1

It was hardly the way Mack Bolan had expected the mission to begin.

When the sudden explosion of rifle-fire blew past him on both sides, the man known as the Executioner drew the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle from the Kydex hip holster beneath his navy blue blazer. He automatically crouched into a classic “point shooting” position as his eyes scanned the Yaounde, Cameroon, airport terminal with the speed of lightning, looking for a target to return fire.

At the same time, he wondered what had gone wrong.

As it always did in times of grave danger, the Executioner’s mind geared into overdrive, working at the speed of light, and outdistancing even the most sophisticated computers. His brain took in the information provided by his senses, processed it all in a thousandth of a second and began kicking out potential answers to the assault.

Bolan saw a small movement in a second-story window of the terminal, and at the same time a flash of light. The sun had just bounced off what had to be the lens of a rifle scope.

The target was beyond the distance for point shooting, so Bolan rose into a classic isosceles stance and lined up the Desert Eagle’s sights. He squeezed the trigger, sending his first .44 Magnum jacketed lead round toward the flash of light, while his mind continued to process the information it was receiving.

Who were the shooters? The sniper rifle scope and the rapid autofire didn’t go together. That told him there was at least one more man shooting at them.

But why had the onslaught begun in the first place? Bolan didn’t know. But one thing was certain: they knew what they were doing.

They had waited until all of the men who’d accompanied him had walked down the steps of the jet before opening fire. That, in turn, told the Executioner two more things.

Word of their coming had preceded their arrival.

And the enemy knew exactly how many men were on board.

Somewhere there was a deadly leak in security. But finding it would have to take a backseat to what was happening at the moment. Before he even thought about the mole, the Executioner and the other men had to survive this surprise attack.

Another rifle barrel poked out of a second-floor window of the terminal, roughly a hundred yards away. With both hands gripping the Desert Eagle, Bolan took careful aim once more and gently squeezed the trigger. As all distant and precisely aimed shots should, his second Magnum round came as a slight surprise. He had aimed at the top of the window, but the bullet drop at that distance sent the lethal, fragmenting hollowpoint round into a blurry headlike shape just above the rifle. Almost exactly like the first sniper had done a second earlier, whoever held this weapon fell backward, out of sight. But not before he had dropped his long gun from the window, and sent a shot of residual blood and brain tissue after it.

One down. But how many to go? The soldier had no way of knowing.

Bolan looked quickly around him. Most of the men who had accompanied him were from the U.S. Secret Service, and their hands had found Glocks, SIG-Sauers or Berettas. Dr. John Lareby—an expert in counterterrorism, guerrilla warfare, survival and executive protection—and the only representative of the CIA within the group—held a modest little Walther PPK .380 in his fist.

More shots rang out, and one of them ripped the shoulder out of Bolan’s jacket. Beneath its path, the soldier felt the heat and a slight sting. It had been ability and training, but also a good deal of luck, that he had spotted either of the two shooters. Although he could hear more gunfire and feel other bullets whizzing past to make loud clinks in the body of the plane, it was impossible to determine the exact points of origin.

Bolan knew they had only two choices: they could sprint toward the terminal and try to get below the line of fire, or they could retreat into, or behind, the plane.

It didn’t take long for him to determine which option made more sense. There was still a football field between them and the terminal, and the chances of him, Lareby and the Secret Service agents all running into the fire without getting killed was slim to say the least.

“Get back!” Bolan yelled, and a moment later he and the rest of the Americans had hit the ground and were rolling beneath the plane. By the time they were on the other side, a few shots continued coming at them, hitting the tarmac next to the Concorde and ricocheting past their feet.

The Executioner moved toward the rear of the aircraft. Peering around one of the tail fins he stared toward the terminal. A pause had come in the shooting, and Bolan suspected the gunmen were planning their next strategy. As Lareby and the Secret Service agents crowded around him, the Executioner waited, thinking, taking in received data and combining it with what was happening, his thoughts racing through his brain at the speed of light.

But then the gunfire, which had disappeared for a few minutes, suddenly returned with a vengeance. Bolan, Lareby and the Secret Service agents who had again crowded around him, ducked back away from the tail of the plane and waited. A few random shots skidded beneath the jet, but the majority of fire just punched more holes in the fuselage.

Bolan’s mind flashed to the man who had piloted them to Cameroon. Jack Grimaldi was an old friend, fellow warrior and arguably the best pilot in the world. He was the only man who had not exited the plane, and he would have taken refuge behind the cockpit, where shields of bullet-resistant Kevlar and steel plating had been installed along the walls. The Executioner grinned slightly as he pictured the man in his mind’s eye. At this moment, Grimaldi would have his beloved Smith & Wesson Model 66 out of its holster and gripped in his right hand. In his left would be a pair of .38/357 speedloaders.

Both would be loaded with RBCD total fragmentation .357 rounds.

Should everything else go south, and Bolan, Lareby and the Secret Service agents were killed, Grimaldi would take out as many of the assailants as he could before the jet was rushed and he, too, was shot. Like the captain of a seagoing vessel, Grimaldi would go down with his “ship.”

Grimaldi’s primary contribution to America and the rest of the free world were his aviation skills. He could fly everything from a kite to a space shuttle. But he was as much a warrior at heart as any of the other men accompanying Bolan.

And he’d die like one if he had to.

As the gunfire continued, the Executioner decided to wait them out. Sometimes doing nothing was doing something, and the best course of action. Sooner or later, the shooters were going to run out of ammo. Or perhaps the local police or the military would arrive to send them scattering back to whatever rocks they’d crawled out from under.

For the time being, however, the best plan of action was no plan of action. And that was the hardest thing a true soldier ever had to do.

The Executioner’s mind raced back once more over what had happened during the past few days. The Cameroonian president, Robert Menye, was on the run, having abandoned his position of leadership the same day the International Criminal Court—ICC—issued arrest warrants for his war crimes. An emergency election had been called for under the Cameroon constitution, and the suddenly growing Cameroon People’s Union had continued to combine with a whole new lot of men awakening to nationalism amid the turbulence. In short the Cameroon People’s Union and the Kamerun National Democratic Party had both named candidates.

Cameroon’s prime minister—the only man left with any power during the chaos—had frantically called upon the U.S. President for help. The man in the White House had sent Secret Service agents to spearhead the protection of both candidates. The CIA, for its part, had sent Lareby, who was being billed as a so-called observer.

And Bolan. Who wasn’t on the grid as anything except a Department of Justice agent named Matt Cooper. Not even the Secret Service agents or CIA field operative John Lareby knew any more about him.

Except that he was in charge. And that his orders were not to be questioned.

The pungent odor of jet fuel began to fill the Executioner’s nostrils, and suddenly the new tack the shooters were taking became clear to him. They had shot hundreds of rounds that had dented but bounced off the reinforced sides of the plane. But somewhere along the way the fuel storage walls— despite being reinforced with Kevlar and steel—had been penetrated.

The Executioner was reminded that the proper adjective for items such as Kevlar and steel plates was “bullet-resistant” not “bulletproof.” One or more of the snipers either had a tremendously powerful rifle, or a multitude of lesser calibers had all hit in the same area, eventually wearing down the protective shielding.

As he stared at the ground beneath the wing, the Executioner heard more rounds explode. A small flame started beneath the plane. At almost the same time, Lareby shouted out, “We’ve got to get out of here! This thing’s going up in about half a minute!”

Bolan ignored the warning. But in his peripheral vision he saw several of the Secret Service agents sprinting away from the plane, farther from the snipers in the terminal. Hurrying toward the cabin, the soldier pulled himself up and in through the opened window.

Grimaldi was not in the pilot’s seat, but Bolan hadn’t expected him to be. As he started to enter the still-open doorway into the plane, a pair of strong arms reached up and grabbed him, surprising the Executioner, and tugged him back to the ground.

The soldier turned toward the man who had just pulled him back and saw it was a young blond-haired Secret Service agent. He couldn’t remember the man’s name.

“Forget the pilot!” the young man screamed. “He’s toast!”

Before he even realized what he was doing, Bolan slammed a right cross into the Secret Service man’s chin, which sent him into dreamland on the tarmac. Then he looked at the nearer of the other Secret Service agents. “I may have to carry the pilot out of here,” he shouted above the continuing roar of rifle-fire. “Which means that if I have to knock you out, too, there won’t be anyone left to carry the two of you. Do you get my drift?”

“We get it,” one of the agents said, then stooped to begin trying to lift the unconscious man into his arms.

“Good,” Bolan said. He holstered the Desert Eagle, turned back toward the plane and climbed aboard once more.

Grimaldi was exactly where Bolan knew he’d be. His back rested against the side of the fuselage. Blood was splattered all over the cabin, and dark red stains dripped down behind the pilot. “Whoever said this was bullet-resistant,” the pilot said in dry humor, “might have been stretching the truth a little.”

Bolan hurried toward him. “How bad are you hit, Jack?” he asked.

“Not all that bad, I don’t think. One round in the chest. High above the heart. The other one’s in my leg. Dangerously close to the femoral artery. But like they say, a miss is as good as a mile.” He coughed. “It tore through my pants, barely missing a part of my anatomy that I’d just as soon die as lose.”

“Then let’s get you out of here so you can use it again,” Bolan responded.

Grimaldi shook his head. “Uh-uh, Sarge. I can smell the gas and I know there’s fire. This thing’s going to blow any second. You’ll never make it carrying me. Take off. On your own. There’s no point in both of us dying.”

“Neither one of us is going to die,” Bolan said as he reached down, grabbed Grimaldi’s hand, pulled him up and threw him over his shoulder in a classic fireman’s carry.

“Well, if we both get vaporized in the next two seconds, don’t blame me,” the pilot said.

But Bolan wasn’t listening. He made his way to the doorway, opened it and looked down, surprised to see the Secret Service agents waiting. The man with the blond brush cut was awake again. He had a swollen chin, which had turned red and promised to be black and blue by tomorrow. But he didn’t seem angry.

The soldier dropped down to the tarmac and yelled over the continuing gunfire, “Go! Get out of here. Do it!”

The men turned and took off away from the plane. The Executioner—with Grimaldi still over his shoulder—followed. He was well aware of the fact that the farther they got behind the plane, the better targets they provided for the snipers. But taking the chance of being hit by a bullet at that range was far smarter than awaiting certain death when the fire finally reached the aircraft’s fuel tanks.

They were roughly 150 yards from the aircraft when it finally exploded.

Bolan set Grimaldi on the tarmac and turned back toward the plane. Flames and smoke rose high enough to hide them no matter how skilled, how well-armed the snipers were—or how many of them were out there.

“So much for our low-profile entry into the country,” Lareby said. Bolan watched him as he stared back at the flames jumping from what was quickly beginning to look like a fiery dinosaur skeleton in a museum. The fire had spread to all parts of the plane.

Lareby knelt next to where Grimaldi sat. “Better check you out, sport,” he said. “Hold still. I’m a physician, after all.”

“Then get to work and prove it,” Grimaldi came back. “But I’m okay, seriously.”

“You’re okay for the moment,” Lareby said. “But in about ten minutes the adrenaline is going to wear off, and you’ll feel like someone jammed a hot branding iron through you.”

“I’ve lived through worse than this before,” the pilot said.

Bolan had been too busy to notice Lareby’s black leather bag. But he watched as the man pulled out a stethoscope, a hypodermic needle and a small vial. “What are you giving him?” he asked in a stern voice.

“Morphine,” Lareby said. “He’s right—his wounds aren’t life-threatening. The material in the ballistic siding slowed the bullets, and you couldn’t have asked for cleaner shots. Upper chest, then on out the back. Missed the lung. Worse-case scenario, it may have chipped a shoulder blade.”

“How about the leg wound?” Bolan pressed.

“He won’t be running any marathons for a while,” the CIA man said. “But it’s nothing. The blood’s already starting to coagulate.”

“I said I was all right,” Grimaldi said as the tried to get up off the ground. This time Bolan helped Lareby hold him back down, twisting him onto his back.

Only then did Bolan see how much pain there actually was in his old friend’s eyes. But the eyes were the only place it showed. His face looked more angry than hurt.

“They had to be loaded up with armor-piercing rounds,” Lareby said as he probed further at the pilot below him. “The wound channel is so straight you could stick a pencil through it. Hardly any tissue damage to the sides of the bullet’s path.” The CIA doctor pulled off the cap on the hypodermic needle with his teeth, spit it to the side, then punctured the top of the tiny vial with the needle. Holding it upward, he injected Grimaldi’s arm with the morphine and, one by one, Bolan watched the wrinkles in the Stony Man pilot’s face smooth out as the drug hit his system.

Grimaldi finally grinned. “You know,” he said. “On second thought, I think the adrenaline is wearing off. You wouldn’t by any chance have a six-pack of that stuff you can leave with me?” His tongue suddenly loosened, Grimaldi continued with, “They got any flowers around here?” he asked jokingly. “I’m getting this uncontrollable urge to wear flowers in my hair and go to San Francisco.”

Bolan and Lareby hauled Grimaldi to his feet. “Sorry, Flower Child,” Bolan said. “But Timothy Leary’s dead and the Age of Aquarius is long gone.”

“Maybe for you, Sarge.” Grimaldi laughed. He was standing on his own now, but his feet were still wobbly. “But I’ve got all of Janice Joplin, Blind Faith and Cream on CDs back in my car. It’s to drown out the ‘rap’ I have to endure at stop-lights.” He frowned for a moment, scratching his chin. “Or they might be in my room back at the main house. But I’m gonna look until I find them and—”

Bolan cleared his throat. “Jack?” he said.

“Yeah?” the pilot said.

“No more morphine-speak, okay? Just shut up.”

Grimaldi lost his grin. “Gotcha,” he said.

A moment later, Bolan had taken him by the arm and was moving him backward, farther away from the fiery plane. When he had gotten the pilot out of earshot of the other men, Bolan turned to look at them.

They all stared back. And unless he missed his guess, they were all wondering just what the “main house” was.

Jack Grimaldi had realized his mistake even before Bolan spoke, and he said, “Sorry, Sarge. I guess I could blame it on the morphine, but that’s no excuse.”

Bolan turned his back to the rest of the men in case any of them read lips. “It’s no big deal, Jack,” he said. “But these guys are paid to be suspicious of anybody and everybody. Look at it from their point of view for a moment. We suddenly appear, seemingly out of nowhere, and they get orders directly from the White House that we’re in charge. And while we know all about them, they know nothing about us. We’ve got to be cautious.”

Grimaldi nodded. “Rest assured it won’t happen again, big guy,” he said. “I suppose I’ll have to get checked out by some hospital here. But from now on my only topic of conversation around strangers will be my health.”

The Executioner smiled. “One slipup in…how many years have we been working together?”

“More than I’d like to count,” Grimaldi said.

Bolan chuckled under his breath. “It’s time to regroup and replan.” He took Grimaldi by the arm and guided him back toward the rest of the Americans.

By now, the flames and smoke from the jet were dying down, and they’d soon be visible targets again. With absolutely no cover or concealment on the vast, wide-open runway. The sounds of gunfire from the terminal had all but vanished, but Bolan didn’t kid himself.

The snipers had not fled the area. They, like Bolan himself, were waiting for the smoke to clear before they resumed fire. And as he half-carried Grimaldi farther from the inferno, the fog began to disperse.

And the soldier saw a half-dozen Cameroonian army jeeps racing toward them.

That was the greeting he’d been briefed to expect, but he’d had no advance intel that it would be during a pitched gun battle.

For a brief moment, the Executioner glanced back at the skeletal aircraft. The fire and smoke was close to burning itself out, which meant that he had to get all his men away from what was about to become a disaster zone.

The smoke continued to float apart in the air as they advanced, allowing Bolan a better view of where they were headed. But it was a mixed blessing. The clearing air also allowed the snipers to pick out their targets again, and the blasts from the rifles in the windows of the terminal building came back with a vengeance.

The fog had all but been left behind them when Bolan spotted the corrugated steel shack between the runways. It stood at an angle that would be difficult to shoot at from the terminal and, with the wounded men, it appeared to be their best objective. It would not stop high-powered rifle rounds but if they could get behind its walls, it would at least keep the enemy from locking in on specific targets.

Specific targets meaning human beings.

Them.

Bolan began to run toward the small building as the bullets from the snipers’ scoped rifles spit past him. With Grimaldi still in tow, he utilized a “serpentine” tactic, running an S pattern that changed in speed, shape and size so that it became no true pattern at all. Behind him, he could hear the other men following.

The soldier dropped Grimaldi to the grass as soon as he was behind the shack. And then, just as suddenly as it had started, the rifle-fire ceased. Bolan glanced around the corner of the building and saw why.

On both sides, as well as behind the terminal, stood a ten-foot-high chain-link fence. Topped with coil after coil of rolled razor-wire, it was meant to stop or slow anyone trying to transverse it. It would be easy to scale the fence. But passing through the razor-wire without getting shredded to pieces—or at least tangled and providing an easy, stationary target for the sharpshooters in the terminal—would be all but impossible.

But the fence and wire didn’t do a very good job of retarding the tank that was pushing slowly through it to the left of the runway where the jet’s remains still stood. The armored vehicle began snapping the fence and the steel poles between, which it stretched as if they were dry wooden matchsticks.

Bolan stared at the tank for a moment. An older-model Chieftain, it was of British design and had obviously been left behind when Great Britain moved out of Cameroon. Originally meant for use by a legitimate new government, it had, not surprisingly, fallen into the hands of terrorists instead. Bolan knew that the Chieftain had been created as a result of Britain’s World War II warfare experience. It was built to give priority to both firepower and armored protection.

The soldier felt the muscles in his face tighten. Earlier, he had had a brief moment of regret that his team’s rifles, grenades, extra ammo, clothes and other gear had been left on the jet and were now either in ashes or otherwise useless. But watching the tank roll forward undeterred, he realized they had carried nothing that would stop the British Chieftain.

No, Bolan thought, as the jeeps arrived and their occupants began scooting closer to make room for the Americans. Until more firepower could arrive via diplomatic pouches, he and the other men would have only the weapons they had carried on them and anything they could beg, borrow, or steal from the Cameroonians.

Taking a seat next to the dark-skinned sergeant in one of the jeeps, Bolan held on to the top of his door as the man cut a sharp U-turn and picked up speed again. A 60 mm machine gun was mounted in each jeep, but they would be of little more use against the Chieftain than his .44 Magnum Desert Eagle. They led the convoy of jeeps to escape the inevitable aim of the tank’s antitank rounds or machine gun— either of which could turn the jeeps into fiery infernos like the jet.

Bolan had learned many truths during his career as a warrior. And one of them was that when you were outgunned and unable to go toe-to-toe with a superior weapon itself, the only plan of action that had any chance of succeeding was to take out the man whose finger was on the trigger.

The soldier’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration as a head suddenly rose through the hatch on top of the tank. All Bolan could see was the man’s hair and eyes.

The men inside would not be expecting any significant return fire from the Americans’ pistols or the AK-47s carried by the Cameroonian regulars in the jeeps. So as soon as their speed had leveled off, Bolan twisted and rested the Desert Eagle on the side of the jeep. Aiming high, he lined up the front and rear sights of the big .44 Magnum pistol just above the head sticking out of the tank’s hatch.

But before he could squeeze the trigger, he heard the boom of the Chieftain’s gun and saw the tank literally thrown backward with the recoil.

What was left of the airplane finally crumbled into an unrecognizable mass of broken steel. Bolan tried to line up the Desert Eagle’s sights again. But before he could shoot at the eyes and scalp he’d seen, the terrorist in the tank had disappeared into the vehicle.

Who were these assailants? Bolan couldn’t help but wonder again. Were they Cameroonian People’s Union or Kamerun Democratic National Party? He didn’t know, but their attack was just as deadly no matter which side of the genocide they were on.

As the jeeps raced on, the rushing wind made conversation difficult. “We still having the meeting with the prime minister here at the airport?” Bolan shouted.

“The meeting is still scheduled,” the sergeant behind the wheel yelled back to him. “But I doubt it will be here.” He pointed toward the terminal and Bolan could see that it was rivaling the jet in the burning category.

Whoever was behind this “Welcome to Cameroon” fiasco was taking out the airport building as well as his plane.

“Who were we fighting?” Bolan finally got a chance to ask.

The sergeant shrugged as he answered. “Either the CPU or the KDNP,” he said. “Take your pick. They wear the same old combination of battle-dress uniforms and civilian clothes, and it’s hard to tell who they are unless you can get them to talk. CPUs usually speak English with a heavy accent. KDNP-ers have the same accent but almost always speak French. Most, however, are bilingual.”

By then the jeeps had slowed as they neared another set of buildings far from the terminal. Bolan guessed this to be the cargo plane landing area, and probably the airstrips used by the Cameroonian military forces. The structure was not nearly as architecturally pleasing or as well kept as the passengers’ terminal had been, but it was in a lot better shape than that building was going to be for a long time after the flames died down.

The Executioner looked over his shoulder at the still-burning airplane, far in the distance now. The old adage “between the devil and the deep blue sea” crossed his mind. But, somehow, that old saying didn’t quite sum up his, or his team’s, current situation.

It seemed far more likely that they were between two different kinds of hell.

The Chieftain was even farther away now than it had been before it finished off the airplane. But it was still following the jeeps across the runways toward the rough commercial buildings. And the same hair and eyes had risen again through the hatch.

Finally on flatter land, the Executioner once again rested the Desert Eagle on the jeep’s rear ledge and lined up the sights, allowing for even more bullet drop this time. Slowly, without allowing the big .44’s barrel to waver in the slightest, he squeezed the trigger.

The “scream of the Eagle” was still in his ears as the head sticking out of the British tank literally exploded like a watermelon. The tank ground to a halt. Three more men inside the old and battered war vehicle panicked and, rather than remain within the relative safety of the tank, pushed the headless man out through the exit hole. Clad in a variety of different patterned camouflage, OD-green BDU pants and blouses, and T-shirts, jeans and khaki work pants, they followed the corpse and dropped to the ground.

Bolan picked off all three of them as their boots hit the tarmac. The advance of the tank had ended, and with that failure, the sporadic sniper shots, which had already begun to die down from the flaming terminal, ended too.

“Stop the jeep,” Bolan ordered.

The driver hit the brakes.

The big American leaped from the jeep. The Desert Eagle still in his hand, he whirled in a quick 360-degree scan of the area.

The snipers he hadn’t already killed had fled the fiery inferno that had once been the terminal building. And the four men who had managed the Chieftain were dead. But as the rest of his American team and the army troops hopped over the sides of their vehicles, Bolan knew one thing for certain.

The enemy might have drawn the short stick here, in this battle, but the war was far from over.

Bolan and his team jumped back into the jeep, and the driver led the convoy on.

2

The initial meeting with Prime Minister Jean Antangana, other chiefs of state, and Cameroonian cabinet members who had not fled with ex-President Robert Menye, had been transferred to the commercial area of the airport as soon as the gunfire had broken out. The jeeps stopped in front of a cruder, more industrial-looking Quonset hut.

Bolan had replenished the Desert Eagle with a full magazine and now held it in his right hand, resting across his lap. He took notice of the fact that John Lareby, who was seated in front of him in the jeep, still had his Walther unholstered, while he gripped Grimaldi’s shoulder with his other hand.

The ace pilot had fallen asleep.

A swarthy man wearing the trappings of a colonel strutted out the front door and instinctively walked toward Bolan. “I am Colonel Luc Pierre Essam,” he said as he shrugged back his shoulders in pride and extended his hand to the Executioner. “I am in charge of the military protection squads, and it was my men who just saved you.”

Bolan just stared him in the eye as he transferred the Desert Eagle to his left hand and gripped Essam’s.

It was CIA field agent Lareby who spoke next. “Well, I guess we can’t thank you enough for clarifying that misconception, Colonel Essam,” he said. “Until this minute, I’d have sworn that we pretty much saved ourselves.”

The colonel’s smile faded. There was an awkward pause, and then he stepped back and said, “If you please, gentlemen. We are set up in a private room inside the hut.” He waved his hand toward the door.

Bolan hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward Grimaldi. “Our pilot needs medical attention,” he said.

Colonel Essam nodded. “I have already called for ambulances,” he said. “Your man will leave for the hospital in the first to arrive.”

Bolan nodded his understanding, and he and the other men stepped down from the jeeps before following Essam into the building. Once inside, the Executioner finally holstered his .44. There was a short row of bunk beds that had been slept in but not made, and he had to remind himself that while tidiness was insisted upon to instill discipline in the armed forces of the U.S., that was not the case in many Third World countries.

Essam opened the door to a large room. Bolan led the way inside and saw a variety of men already seated around a long conference table. Some wore suits and ties. Others were decked out in dress uniforms or battle gear. But no two sets of BDUs matched—in some cases, not even the blouse and pants on the same soldiers.

In short, they were barely better dressed than the terrorists who had attacked the aircraft.

With oil, timber and coffee exports, Cameroon’s economy was better than many other African nations. But “good” was a relative term. The mismatched uniforms meant the army was scrounging out its existence as best it could. And as mismatched as the uniforms were, Bolan knew from experience that with egomaniacs like Menye, the troops “ate first.” He had yet to meet any of Cameroon’s civilians, but he knew they would be in even worse shape than these military men.

The pompous Colonel Essam escorted Bolan to an empty chair just to the right of the head of the table. The other men found open seats among the Cameroonians still loyal to their prime minister.

“Gentlemen,” Essam said as he moved to the head of the table but remained standing. “We are in what English-speaking people call ‘dire straits.’ Does everyone know what I mean by that?”

The men around the table nodded.

“Then I will turn this meeting over to Prime Minister Jean Antangana,” Essam said. “But I would like to say one more thing first. To the men in this room who serve directly under me within the security force—the Americans who have just entered the room are in charge. And you will obey their orders. I do not like this any more than any other man would like having to call upon an outside nation for help, but that is, unfortunately, the case.” He stopped speaking for a moment and looked toward Bolan. “I am sure the Americans understand our hesitancy.”

Bolan, and the other newcomers to the room, nodded.

“Nevertheless,” Essam restated, “that is the reality of the situation. We need their expertise, and they have graciously agreed to provide it.” He stepped back from the seat and a coffee-colored man of mixed race, wearing a blue business suit, white shirt and paisley tie took his place.

Essam moved to the chair the man had just vacated, directly across from Bolan.

The soldier could see that the prime minister was sick before he even opened his mouth.

Jean Antangana cleared his throat and his chest sounded as if marbles were rattling around against one another. “For those of you who have graciously come to our aid, I thank you.” Now that the man was standing, Bolan could see that Antangana’s suit was at least two sizes too large. The bony features of his face, along with a slightly yellow tint to his tanned skin, furthered his observation that the man was seriously ill. And had been for a long time.

“We are facing hard times,” Antangana finally went on. “Our president has left office and is on the run. Which, considering some of the outrageous actions he has taken, is not such a bad thing.”

There were chuckles around the room, but they had a fearful ring to them.

“And we have two men running for office who may be even more evil than Menye was.” He cleared his throat once more with the same peculiar rattling sound. When the spasm had passed, he said, “We cannot have this. Neither candidate, or party, is acceptable.”

A man toward the end of the table wearing BDU pants and a soiled brown T-shirt butted in. “If I might be so bold,” he said. “I see no reason not to kill them both.”

Antangana shook his head. “That would do no good,” he said. “Both the Cameroon People’s Union and the Kamerun National Democratic Party would simply install other men in their place. Keep in mind that this is an emergency election, and candidates are allowed to file right up to the day before the election.”

“Sir,” a black man wearing a lightweight tropical suit said, “why don’t you file for the position?” He cleared his throat nervously. “I am sure all of the men in this room would support you.”

There was a murmur of assent around the room.

“I cannot do that,” Antangana said in his gravelly voice. “You all know why.”

Bolan didn’t know exactly why, and he knew the other Americans who had flown with him from Washington, D.C., to Cameroon didn’t either. But he could guess.

The Executioner was no medical doctor like Lareby. But it didn’t take an “M.D.” after your name to see that some form of cancer was eating Antangana down to the bone. Bolan guessed that the man viewed the unification of Cameroon under a true democracy with a fair and honest president as the last great deed he could perform for his homeland before he died.

Antangana seemed to read the soldier’s mind. Turning toward Bolan, he made the man’s suspicions a reality. “I am sorry,” the prime minister said. “For saying that everyone in this room knows why I cannot run for office. To our new friends from America, I have throat cancer. It has spread, and continues to do so at an alarming rate.”

Bolan nodded his understanding. “Have the doctors told you how long you might have?” he asked.

Antangana shrugged. “A few weeks. Perhaps a few months. No two cases, they tell me, are quite the same.” His words were becoming lower and more like growls than speech. The effort it took him to talk was obviously taking its toll. “I am due for another round of chemotherapy in a few days,” he managed to choke out.

Bolan stood up next to the man. “With all due respect, Mr. Prime Minister,” he said, “I think it’s time for me to take charge.”

Antangana nodded. Suddenly, he had run out of air completely and had to take in a deep, wheezy-sounding breath. Then, leaning low to speak into Bolan’s ear, he whispered, “I love my country. Please. Save it.”

Before Bolan could respond, Antangana had stumbled around him and taken the chair the soldier had previously occupied. Bolan watched him out of the corner of his eye. As he sat, the lapel of the man’s suit jacket rode up around his ears, making him appear to shrink and look even thinner and more worn out than he’d appeared when he’d stood.

“Gentlemen,” Bolan said as soon as the prime minister was seated. “A few of you I know, others I don’t. But during this time of peril for Cameroon, we’re all going to get to know each other as we go.” He leaned forward and pressed the palms of his hands on the top of the table. “As I see it, we’ve got two missions here. To keep the candidates alive, and to find former president Robert Menye and either deliver him to the International Criminal Court or kill him.”

“But what about the candidates?” the young soldier who had spoken earlier blurted out. “They are no better than Menye. Maybe worse. Why should we waste our time protecting them when either one would begin a genocide against the other’s followers as soon as he took office?”

“Because with our presence in your country,” Bolan said as he swept his hand along the line of chairs where the Secret Service men and Lareby sat, “the world will blame the United States for the assassination of either or both candidates. As to how to handle things once one of them is elected,” he went on, “I can’t answer that yet. Maybe NATO will send in peacekeeping troops until things stabilize. Maybe the International Criminal Court will sanction America to handle it. In any case, I can’t afford to worry about that yet. We’ve got to take things one step at a time, and that means making sure both candidates stay alive.”

“Pardon me, sir,” an older black man in a gray suit said, “but it is unclear to me exactly who you are.” He waited for an answer.

When he didn’t get one, he said, “Perhaps I was the one who was unclear. We would be in your debt if you would tell us what American law-enforcement agencies or espionage bureaus you represent.”

Bolan nodded. “The men in the dark suits are U.S. Secret Service agents. Every one of them has protected our own President at one time or another, and they’ll be split into teams to help cover the candidates.” He cast a quick glance at Lareby whose head moved slightly side to side. This was not the kind of situation where the CIA would want to be outed. So he left it at that, hoping the Cameroonians would believe Lareby was also a Secret Service agent.

“And you?” the same elderly man asked the soldier.

Bolan reached into the inside pocket of his sports coat and pulled out a badge case. “United States Department of Justice,” he said, holding up the phony credentials that identified him as Special Agent Matt Cooper. “My field of specialization is counterterrorism.”

That seemed to satisfy the men around the table.

All except for the same elderly black man.

“Thank you,” the man said. “But all but one of the men you have introduced are dressed in suits. Are we to believe that the gentleman in the khaki vest seated here is also Secret Service?” He paused a second, then added, “It is not just his clothing. There is something different about him. Something I cannot ‘put my finger on’ as you Americans sometimes say.”

Before Bolan could speak, Dr. John Lareby began patting his vest down like an underage kid looking for a fake driver’s license to buy beer. “Damn,” he finally said, “I know I had my credentials when we took off from Washington.” A sudden look of revelation combined with embarrassment fell over his face. “I must have left them in my carry-on on the plane.”

“Then the ID card is in cinders and the badge has melted,” one of the Secret Service men with a well-trimmed mustache said. Bolan could tell by his face that the man sensed Lareby was CIA, and was adding his own two cents to help cover the fact.

“I’m Secret Service, too,” Lareby finally said. “I’m just not as fancy a dresser as the rest of these guys.”

His remark brought another round of chuckles from around the table.

“Then we shall have to take your word for who you are,” the gray-haired Cameroonian said. Bolan read his face just like he had Lareby’s, and the thin smile told him that this man knew Lareby had to be with the Central Intelligence Agency. “I am sure when you are resupplied for the items you lost in the plane, a new badge and credentials will be included.”

Lareby nodded. “I’ll make sure of it,” he said with a straight face.

Bolan found himself impressed with both men’s performances. When working in any type of undercover capacity, it was the little things that counted. And although most of the Cameroonians obviously sensed that the Justice Department story for Bolan and Lareby’s association with the Secret Service were lies, their faces still looked sincere as a tacit agreement to keep playing this game fell into place.

Sometimes, it was more important not to know something than it was to know it.

“I’ll vouch for him until we can get duplicate credentials sent over,” Bolan said. “He’ll be working directly with me rather than being part of either of the candidate-protection details.”

“Doing what, exactly, then?” the older man asked.

Bolan looked the man directly in the eye. “While the rest of the Secret Service looks after your candidates’ protection, Dr. Lareby and I are going hunting.”

“Hunting?” another young soldier almost screamed from farther down the table. “At a time like this, when all of Cameroon depends on what happens in the election, you two are planning on taking an African safari?”

He was interrupted by the older, gray-haired man. “They are not planning to shoot wildebeest and lions, my young friend,” he said. “I believe what he meant was that they are going hunting for our former president.”

Bolan’s nod was slight, but everyone at the table caught it.

And understood what it meant.

3

The prime minister’s staff had arranged for three suites to house the Americans. They were located on the third floor of the Hilton downtown, and would be used as a meeting place for the entire team; a location where both interviews and interrogations could be conducted, and a site for the Secret Service agents to “crash” when they weren’t on duty.

Each of the two Cameroonian presidential candidates would have a pair of Secret Service agents by his side at all times. They would also be in charge of the Cameroon military protection agents who worked for Colonel Essam, and deal with the private bodyguards from within the two political parties.

As for Essam and his men, Bolan had assigned them to create an “outer circle” around the block on which the Hilton stood. They would be the first line of defense against perceived threats and, with luck, be able to end the problems before they got any closer to the men in the hotel.

Essam had not liked being so far away from the nucleus of the action, but Bolan had encountered his type before. It had taken only a few words to convince the colonel just how important the outer ring was before he puffed out his chest and agreed to the assignment.

As he shoved the key card into the door of suite 307, the Executioner wondered just how well it was all going to work. The colonel had left their brief encounter after the meeting with a smile. But the Executioner thought that smile had looked forced. It was clear that the colonel was more accustomed to giving orders than taking them, and Bolan wondered just how long it would be before his resentment overcame the thin flattery.

The light atop the lock turned green and Bolan twisted the doorknob open. His plan was a somewhat unconventional setup in regard to bodyguarding, or VIP protection, as it was commonly referred to these days. The U.S. Secret Service would be with the two presidential candidates in the suites and anywhere else they moved them, while Colonel Essam and his men ran a “roving guard” throughout the hotel’s halls and lobby, as well as circling the Hilton in unmarked street vehicles.

Bolan wasn’t crazy about the arrangement. It gave him no view of what Essam and his men were doing, and their abilities were a far cry from those of the expert Secret Service men. This meant the outer ring of protection was vulnerable to penetration, and assassination attempts that should have been seen and halted before they got anywhere near the two candidates might very well be executed.

But such was the game Bolan had walked into. And while his jurisdiction over the Secret Service and Lareby was a definite, it extended to the Cameroonian military only on paper. He had little doubt that if Essam contradicted his orders, the soldiers under him would obey their colonel.

The situation was “iffy” at best.

There was another aspect that troubled Bolan even more, and was constantly at the back of his mind. The enemy had known when his aircraft was landing, and how many men were getting off. And those two things spelled traitor to the Executioner. He was going to have to keep his eyes on his own men as well as those of the CPU and KDNP.

Lareby followed the soldier into their separate suite next to that of the Secret Service and said, “Which bedroom do you want?”

Bolan scanned the area, then said, “I’ll probably end up sleeping out here on the couch. If I get a chance to sleep at all. I want to keep one ear open for anything going on to our sides or in the hall.”

Lareby nodded. “We’ll probably hear Essam’s lackeys pounding up and down the halls most of the time,” he said. “But you think I should do the same? I could pull that other couch up near the door and—” he pointed across the room at a slightly shorter version of the sofa Bolan had indicated “—and I could rack out next to—”

The big American shook his head. “There’s no need for both of us to do that,” he said. “Besides, we’re going to spend a lot more time away from this room than in it.”

“Okay,” the CIA man said and headed for the nearest bedroom.

Bolan walked to the phone on a nightstand next to the couch and lifted the receiver to his ear, at the same time pulling a business card out of his jacket pocket. A moment later he had punched in the number printed on the card, and a moment after that the hospital answered.

“Jack Grimaldi’s room, please,” Bolan said.

As he waited, he caught himself grinning. Grimaldi had awakened before the ambulance could arrive and, still under the influence of the morphine Lareby had administered, tried to get out of the jeep just as the meeting had broken up. He was raring to go after the men who had shot him, and it had been difficult to get him to go to the hospital. Just as the ambulance had arrived, Bolan had finally convinced him by saying, “Look, Jack. It doesn’t hurt to be careful. Besides, you’ll just be hanging around, waiting for our folks to send one of the other jets. Just do it for me, okay? I can’t afford to use a pilot who isn’t running at one hundred percent.”

Even under the drug’s influence, Grimaldi had seen through the ruse. But he had finally nodded in agreement.

The phone buzzed in Bolan’s ear, and a second later he heard Grimaldi pick up the receiver next to his hospital bed. “It must be you, Sarge,” the pilot growled. “Nobody else knows I’m here.”

“Ease up, old buddy,” he said. “Actually, everybody back home at the Farm knows where you are. I told them when I called for another plane to be sent over. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Grimaldi said. “Got a few stitches is all. But they want to keep me overnight for observation. Frankly, it all makes me feel like something growing in a test tube. There’s only one reason I haven’t already walked out of here.”

“And I’ll just bet she has a name,” the Executioner said with a chuckle.

“As a matter of fact, she does.” Grimaldi laughed back. “Although I can’t pronounce it. In any case, she’s promised me a sponge bath as soon as her shift is over.”

“You get well,” Bolan came back. “There’s no telling when we might need you.”

“Affirmative, big guy,” the pilot said.

In the background, Bolan heard what sounded like a hospital privacy curtain closing.

“Gotta go,” Grimaldi said. “Got a visitor. And she’s armed with a sponge.”

The Executioner was still smirking as he hung up. But his momentary light spirit disappeared when he heard the sudden knock on the door to the hall. It came in the form of five strikes with little-to-no pauses in between.

It was not the two knocks, pause, and then two more raps that he and the Secret Service men had agreed upon as their “code knock” when visiting one anothers rooms.

From beneath his torn and battle-rumpled sports coat, the Executioner drew the sound-suppressed 9 mm Beretta 93-R.

Then he walked toward the peephole.

Bolan held the 93-R in front of the peephole for a good three seconds before dropping the Beretta to his side. More than one man had been shot through a peephole when the gunman on the other side saw it darken, and the Executioner had no intention of joining that club. Finally satisfied that it wasn’t a ruse, he stuck an eye in front of the hole.

A moment later, he opened the door. “What are you doing here?” the soldier asked bluntly. “You should be in bed. Or getting your chemotherapy.”

A brief expression of sadness covered Antangana’s face. Then it switched almost magically into a knowing grin. “I do not restart my treatments for another couple of days,” he said. “So I thought I would come to assist you.”

Bolan opened the door wider and let the man into the room.

The soldier had barely recognized Antangana. The man had changed out of his suit into a pair of worn brown slacks, sandals and a brightly colored dashiki. The loose garment—like the suit coat before it—seemed to emphasize his emaciation.

“I was President Menye’s prime minister,” the man said as soon as Bolan had swung the door closed and replaced the Beretta in his shoulder rig. “And no one knows that evil man better than I do. I will help you find him, and I will help you kill him.” His grin seemed to take up all of his face, and Bolan saw a perfect row of gleaming white teeth behind his upper lip.

Bolan looked the man up and down. He was still getting into this mission, and the one thing he’d learned so far was that he couldn’t be certain who could be trusted and who could not. Antangana’s multicolored African-patterned dashiki was so large on him it could have hidden any number of weapons.

“Don’t take this personally,” the soldier said as he reached out, twisted the man to face away from him and patted him down. The closest thing to a weapon he found was an Okapi folding knife in the man’s right front pocket. Opening the folding blade, he looked down at the inexpensive steel. Patterned loosely after the centuries-renowned Spanish navajas, the Okapis were manufactured in South Africa and although nonlocking and difficult to sharpen, they could be deadly in the hand of a man who knew how to use them.

Antangana’s knife didn’t look as if it had been used for much more than peeling apples or cutting vegetables. Bolan folded the knife closed again and dropped it in his pocket for the time being.

“With all due respect, Mr. Prime Minister,” the soldier asked, “exactly what is it you think you can do to help, considering your health?”

“I know this country,” Antangana stated. “I know it as well as I know myself. And I know the people and our customs. I can help you deal with them without accidentally offending them and turning them to stone.” He paused to catch his breath. “I believe you Americans say something like I can ‘cut through the bullshit.’”

Bolan had to fight to keep a smile from forming on his own face. “Well,” he said, “have a seat.” Unleathering the Beretta again and gesturing with it at the couch.

Antangana dropped down on the couch as Bolan took a padded armchair. A second later, Lareby came out of the bedroom. The CIA man had taken off his vest and rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. He was drying his hands with a white towel as he crossed the threshold. “I see we have company,” he said.

Bolan kept his eyes on the man in the dashiki. “Yes, we do,” he said. “You remember him, I’m sure. Antangana— Jean—Antangana. Unfortunately at this point, he belongs to the group of men I trust the least in the world.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lareby said as he finished drying his hands and arms. “And what group might that be?”

“Volunteer informants,” the Executioner replied. “They’re almost always playing both ends against the middle.”

By this point, Antangana had bent one knee beneath him and was sitting on his own foot while his other leg extended to the floor. In spite of Bolan’s words, the smile he had entered the room wearing never left his face. “I understand your logic,” he said. “And I must admit I would probably distrust you if our roles were reversed. But I promise you I am an exception. So. What can I do to gain your confidence?”

“You can start by telling us why you didn’t volunteer your help earlier at the meeting.”

“Because there were men present who I do not trust,” Antangana said simply. “And I did not want them to know any more about your plans than necessary.”

The man’s sickly appearance seemed to loom even larger as he tried to take a deep breath. There was something about him—something Bolan couldn’t put his finger on—that made the Executioner believe he was sincere in his desire to assist them. “Who don’t you trust?” he asked.

“There are several I suspect of sympathizing with the KDNP. Others with the CPU. And one or two, I am relatively certain, are still loyal to President Menye.”

Bolan thought about the man’s words for a moment. His gut still told him that this man was telling the truth. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to grow up in a country such as Cameroon without taking on prejudices of one sort or another. While the remaining leaders of the nation might not be actual members of the KDNP or CPU, they would likely lean one way or the other.

“Assuming I believe you,” Bolan finally said. “What would make you want to help us at this time? Particularly since you were one of Menye’s top men before he vacated his little throne.” The Executioner rarely used sarcasm, but when he did, it cut all the way to the bone.

Antangana shrugged. “The answer to your question is really not very complicated,” he said. “When he first took office, Menye was not the self-inflated potentate that he gradually became. I was proud to work for him then. But, little by little, he began to change. A small lie here. An execution carried out for personal reasons there. Before long, he had created a regime far more remorselessly cruel than Cameroon had ever known in the past.” Antangana paused and drew in another deep breath. “And so I was stuck.”

“You tried to resign?” Bolan asked.

“I did,” Antangana said. “I do not remember Menye’s exact words, but they included that my head might look attractive on top of a spear stuck into the ground.” He paused and traded legs beneath him. “That dampened my enthusiasm for resigning rather quickly.”

Lareby had pulled one of the chairs away from the dining-room table, flipped it backward, then sat with his arms crossed over the back, his chin resting on them. “I can see how it might,” the CIA man said. “But why didn’t you just leave the country and seek asylum in America or somewhere else?”

“Because by the time I realized how power-crazed he had become,” Antangana said, staring hard at the man, “too much had already occurred. I was afraid any country in which I sought refuge would consider me as guilty as Menye himself. Besides, the man had already murdered two of his staff who he only suspected of plotting against him. I had no desire to be the third.”

Lareby and Bolan exchanged glances and nods. The story sounded believable. The soldier turned back to Antangana. “All right,” he said, standing up. “I’m going to give you a shot. And you can take that statement both literally and figuratively. If you’re on the level and really want to help us, great. But if it turns out that you have your own personal agenda that conflicts with ours, all I can promise you is a faster and more humane death than your old boss would have given you.” He reholstered the Beretta and pulled the Okapi out of his pocket, flipping it across the room to Antangana. “Try to use that piece of steel on me or anyone else, and I’ll kill you with it,” he said. “Understood?”

“Quite well,” the prime minister said. “And please believe me when I tell you I have no hidden agenda of any sort. My only goals are to save my country and pray that my chemotherapy is successful. If I cannot be successful with the second goal, I hope to see my country become a peaceful democracy before I die. And, oh, yes…I want to see Menye caught or killed, of course.”

Bolan and Lareby remained silent.

“May I assume, then,” Antangana said after another breath, “that we are all in agreement?” He rocked forward and came back to his feet, pulling the leg on which he sat out from the couch and returning it to the floor.

Bolan nodded. “We’ll try to take Menye alive so his war crimes can be exposed to the rest of the world. But I can’t promise you that’ll be possible,” he said.

“It is possible that if he is tried in the International Criminal Court that he might go free,” Antangana said, and for the first time since he’d entered the room his smile became a frown. “One never knows what can happen during a trial. Evidence can become tainted and thrown out. The truth can be twisted.” A few beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. “Menye is the most guilty man I have ever known,” he said as he wiped his face with the sleeve of the dashiki. “He has sacked this nation worse than Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun ever dreamed about, using embezzlement, nationalization of the oil, timber and coffee industries, and outright murder to funnel millions of dollars into his bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.” He fell silent for a moment and closed his eyes. “But still, it is quite possible that he could walk free.”

“Maybe,” Bolan said. “But it didn’t work that way for Saddam Hussein.” He turned and jerked his bullet-ridden sports coat from the back of the chair. One shoulder was still ripped out but until more equipment, clothing and supplies arrived from America, it would have to do as a cover for his Beretta and Desert Eagle.

“But if the worst should happen and he is found not guilty…” Antangana stared at the big man across the room, letting the sentence trail off unfinished. But the quiver in his voice betrayed his terror at the possibility that Menye might once again take the reins of power in Cameroon.

“Then I’ll personally carry out the execution,” Bolan said, as he stuck his arms into his jacket.

Since he was going by the name Matt Cooper, neither of the other two men in the room caught the double meaning in the Executioner’s last statement. “Is there anything else you’ve got to tell us?” Bolan asked.

“I know where Menye is hiding,” he said simply.

Bolan stopped with one arm in the jacket, the other still out. He had begun to expect some good intel from this new informant, but not a bombshell like this. The soldier had to remind himself that Antangana’s story still needed to be confirmed. If the man was playing double agent, it could all be a trap.

Lareby was less diplomatic about his suspicions. “How do you know where he is if you’re not still in league with him?” the CIA man asked gruffly.

“In Cameroon there are very few secrets,” Antangana said. “Although Menye’s location is one of them.”

“Get to the point,” Bolan said as he finished shrugging into his jacket and sat back against the chair.

“I have an informant of my own who saw suspicious men entering through the alley door of an old abandoned warehouse,” the prime minister said. “He recognized one of Menye’s personal bodyguards who had disappeared when Menye took off.” He frowned a moment. “I believe you Americans call it ‘going away with sheep?’”

Lareby suppressed a laugh. “Close. It’s called ‘going on the lamb.’”

Bolan looked across the room, through the window, and saw that dusk was falling over Yaounde. “Yeah,” he said. “It means he’s running.”

“Where does it come from?” Antangana asked, frowning. “I know of no lambs that—”

The Executioner was growing impatient with this man who was obviously easily sidetracked. “I don’t know where it comes from and it doesn’t matter. You have an address for this warehouse location?”

“I do,” Antangana said. “But it is in the most dangerous slum in Yaounde. Murders occur every night.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Bolan rose from his chair. He had relied on his Desert Eagle during the gun battle back at the airport, and was down to one full magazine and one partially loaded with five shots. Until his supplies arrived, he would have to make do with what he had. He patted the Beretta beneath his jacket. It was still filled with 9 mm fragmentation rounds, and he had two extra magazines under his right arm opposite the pistol in his shoulder holster.

It might be enough. Or it might not. In any case, he would be sure to pick up the weapons of his enemies as he went.

Looking quickly across the room, he saw Lareby checking his own weapon. “How are you fixed?” Bolan asked.

“Full gun, one extra mag,” the CIA man said.

Bolan knew the small double action .380 held eight rounds, with one in the chamber. The other magazine would give Lareby an additional seven. “Better make them count then,” he said.

The CIA counterterrorist expert nodded.

The soldier took another glance outside and saw that darkness was replacing the twilight he had seen a few moments earlier. Antangana had held the closed Okapi folding knife in his fist ever since Bolan tossed it back to him, but now he watched the man drop it back into the same pocket where it had been found during the search.

“Let’s go,” Antangana said simply, then led the men out the door, into the elevator and out of the hotel into the night.

4

The strong odor of trash and human waste nearly blocked out the smell of the other odors in Yaounde’s darkened business district. The area was half-deserted. Bolan watched through the back window of the taxicab and saw gangs of young men walking up and down the streets. The teenagers were doing their best to look and act like American gangbangers, and wore an almost laughable combination of Western attire— baseball caps turned backward, and sleeveless T-shirts that emphasized elaborate tattoos—mixed with dashikis and other African attire. He remembered the cabdriver asking if this was really the part of town they wanted to visit. Bolan had said simply, “Yes.”

He continued to use all of his senses as he took in the atmosphere of this neighborhood. Barely present above the nauseous odors was the scent of oil, freshly cut pine and other woods, and coffee beans. But he saw no one on the streets who looked like they worked in any of those enterprises.

The workmen, he suspected, scuttled out as soon as closing time came each day, giving way to the human “vampires” who ruled the night. He remembered what Jean Antangana had said earlier, back at the hotel, about this being the most dangerous area of the city. And although the Executioner had seen even more poverty and crime in places like Calcutta and the fish market area of Iquitos, Peru, he sensed that violence could break out at any time.

Like in most Third World countries, tourists were forbidden to bear weapons, and their clothing and the large sums of money they likely carried made them easy targets. Bolan knew that while he—with the ripped shoulder and torn lapel of his coat—didn’t look like the typical tourist, the semi-ruined jacket could be misinterpreted as the result of an earlier mugging.

Lareby’s multipocketed vest, faded blue jeans and Timber-land hiking boots shouted “Visitor,” and even Antangana, with his expensive dashiki and carefully pressed slacks, looked out of place.

The soldier glanced at the scrap of paper Antangana had given him. The address of the warehouse where Menye and the men still loyal to him were supposedly hiding was accompanied by a crude, hand-drawn map of the area.

Bolan looked up at a street sign as they passed. Unless he had misinterpreted the map, they were roughly three blocks away from the address he had given the cabbie. Not wanting the driver to know their exact location lest he alert one or more of the roving gangsters of the “easy pickings,” he had told the man to drop him off two blocks before they reached the warehouse in question.

This was Yaounde—the capital city of a nation in tremendous upheaval.

And Bolan didn’t trust anyone.

The cabdriver finally pulled to a halt and Bolan leaned forward, handing him several Communauté Financière Africaine franc bills. He added several more to what would have been a normal tip, and said, “You never saw us. Right?”

“Right,” the cabbie said, smiling. But then his smile turned quickly to a frown. “One last time, my friends. Are you sure this is where you desire to be let out?” He paused for a second, then started to speak again before Bolan could answer. “I could take you to a very fine brothel in a safer part of the city. The women are all beautiful, and—”

Bolan interrupted with, “No thanks,” as he shut the door behind him. He stood silently as the cab drove quickly away. It was obvious that the driver didn’t care to spend any more time in this neighborhood than he had to.

Antangana stepped up next to Bolan. “According to my informant, there is a rear exit that Menye’s men use. Menye, of course, does not leave at all. He is too easily recognized. I suggest we follow the alleys, then make our entrance into the building in the same way.”

Bolan nodded. “You were the prime minister, right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why is it that the only thing even resembling a weapon you have is that cheap Okapi?” Bolan asked. “I remember seeing pictures of Menye and some of his other cabinet members. They were always in uniform and always armed.”

“I am not a fighter,” Antangana said. “I am a strategist.”

“Then strategize from a point about ten feet behind us,” Bolan said as he led the way down a darkened alley. “And don’t get in our way if trouble breaks out.”

Antangana nodded.

But trouble came even before the three men were expecting it.

The first thing Bolan saw as they entered the alley was the beam of a flashlight, aimed directly into his eyes. For a second, he was blinded. Then he closed his eyelids as quickly as he could. He knew the light had shifted when he felt the heat of the strong beam leave his face, and when he opened his eyes again he could see only blurry forms of Lareby and Antangana. Their eyes had been forced closed as well.

Bolan grimaced. He knew that they’d all lose their night vision for several minutes.

Turning back to the oncoming light, the Executioner saw the distinctive outline of a large halogen torchlight. It contained both a huge spotlight-style plastic beam, which was the one being used on them, and a softer, more regular flashlight mounted on the top. Holding the heated beam, Bolan could make out the dark and fuzzy form of a man wearing his baseball cap backward. A dashiki rivaling Antangana’s in flashy color fell halfway down his thighs.

To his sides and behind him, Bolan saw other barely visible forms in the darkness. He counted a total of six in addition to the torchbearer, and knew they were another of the roving night gangs he’d seen since entering the slum.

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