Ramrod intercept, p.13
Ramrod Intercept, page 13
Bolan rang up two more on the other side, when the survivors started scattering, beating hasty exit paths for the northern hills.
The soldier moved out from his fiery cover, on something of an intercept course, fresh clip in the AK-47, and hit them with precision bursts from the rear, stitching them up into crimson rag dolls.
Four more down.
He’d already glimpsed what he hoped was the camp’s commander, going down under a raining slab of wreckage. If he was still breathing, that was fine with Bolan. If not, he’d simply vacate the premises, move on. His shopping list was long and extensive, his memory having filed away the photo lineups, the past crimes of the various thugs he was set to hunt down after the mop-up here. No mistake, there was plenty of work yet to do in Sudan.
He caught sight of yet more runners, shadows bolting from the rear of the tents, racing from the flames. The Executioner set off in pursuit for more human but very savage game.
The sun wasn’t even up yet, but they wouldn’t live to see it anyway.
NHOUBAFF CLAIMED a spot on top of the ridge and took in the massacre.
It was a one-sided slaughter, damn near taking his breath away, the tall American’s ruthlessness, skill and audacity stunning to watch, a morbid sight to behold, in fact.
He made out the tall shape of Cooper, near the flaming ruins of the motor pool. He watched as the man mowed down Iranians on the rabbit run from behind. If he thought about it—which he really didn’t want to, since this was a glimpse of things to come—the man was a killing machine, with guts and experience to back him up, all the way to the wall.
So, where did it go from here? How would he move about Port Sudan at large like this, shooting down his enemies, and staying free? He wasn’t sure, but he decided after viewing the grim fruits of the man’s death harvest, he would be there. That was if he wanted to live to see the next day.
Cooper didn’t play games.
The tall American, however, didn’t see the shadow playing possum rise off the ground. Nhoubaff decided it was time he joined the fray. He lifted the AK-47, gauged the distance, took up slack on the trigger and cut free with a long burst, stitching the possum up the side, the rising burst all but lopping off an arm just below the shoulder. If nothing else, he hoped that scored a couple of points in the trust column with the Angel of Death.
THE EXECUTIONER WAS whirling toward the source of the autofire, sprinting ahead, braced for the bullets to tear into him, when he saw the shadow topple after a jerky three-step dance to hell. A look up the hill, and he saw the silhouette lift and wave his AK-47.
So Nhoubaff was going the distance. The Executioner allowed a tight smile, then picked up the pace, edging around the rear of the tents. A few of the more hearty were swinging assault rifles in his direction when he poured on the message of doom, dropping them in their tracks. The firestorm in his ears, the soldier gave it a moment, waiting to see if any other takers emerged from the tents.
Looked like a wrap, just about.
It was then he spotted a distant runner, long gone, out of range of his AK-47. A lone survivor to tell the tale, but Bolan didn’t think there was much he could relay to anyone who chose to listen. The Sudanese army would eventually head out here, comb the carnage, wonder what in the world had happened.
Of course, by then Bolan intended to be knocking, or, rather, kicking down some doors close to Port Sudan. He was a long way from any home stretch; in fact, it was just beginning to get ugly.
He moved back to the front, claiming five spare clips from the dead for his AK-47 on the way to see if Qassar was still among the living.
QASSAR COULDN’T BE SURE how bad he was injured, but the pain shooting down his back told him he was still alive. His mouth, though, was full of blood, and it took several long moments before he cleared the bitter fluid with a few vicious hacks.
He was pulling himself up on his knees, aware of some presence closing on him, when he reached for his AK-47.
“Uh-uh.”
The eyes either mirrored the flames, or they were burning with raw determination. Whichever, the look froze him up.
“If you’re going to kill me, may I stand up?”
“Slow and easy, hands in the air.”
“You are alone? You are…American?”
“Yes to both. I’ll ask the questions.”
“You will kill me, then.”
“Quick and easy, or long and hard. Your choice. It’s a done deal for you, Colonel.”
Qassar struggled to his feet, amazed for some reason how calm he felt, knowing he was going to die.
“What is it you wish to know before you execute me?”
BOLAN COULDN’T BE certain whether any roving army patrols were in the neighborhood, thus knew time was running out. He had several questions, and let Qassar know that the first time he even sensed he was lying it was over. Spelling it out next that a long painful death was the only offer on the table if the colonel even hedged around the truth.
“I understand some high-tech weapons of American origin have made it into Sudan.”
Qassar nodded. “You understand correctly.”
“Don’t make me drag it out of you.”
“I know of men in a suburb outside Port Sudan, others in the city proper.” He rattled off several addresses, and Bolan put them to memory. “They are part of the National Islamic Front, and they work with agents of my country. They have rivals, the Muslim Brothers, or the Iqwhan, who are envious that the NIF has curried favor with the Sudanese intelligence agents. What I am saying is that these weapons could be spread among the two groups, a bribe here, a midnight theft of a certain crate or two on the waterfront, you understand.”
“I’m familiar with the drill.”
“A contact who established this camp, a Colonel Issad Bhoutami, leader of the NIF, is a feared man. He has the weapons, or most of them, I believe. He commands a small army of killers.”
“Telling me I’m about to go swimming with the sharks.”
“Man-eaters. Big ones.”
“I’ve been there before.”
Qassar’s grin was ugly, the eyes telling Bolan that his life was numbered in hours. Or so he was hoping. “The colonel is an especially brutal and ruthless man. He has even been known to forcibly take young boys from local schools as cannon fodder to go kill or be killed against the black rebels to the south. Those young men, teenagers, who do not wish to go are shot and sent back in a trash bag to their parents.”
The soldier knew the name, had the file on this particular savage stored to memory. “He’s the AWOL General Arakkhan’s boy, right?”
“Boy?”
“Stooge. Spy. Contact. Word I hear is he’s set to pave the way for the return of Arakkhan. An overthrow of the government in Khartoum, a number of assassinations lined up to land him the throne.”
“Yes. I have heard the same rumors. You will want to speak with a man named Gamil Abu Said. He, I understand, knows who has these weapons. I also hear a shipment is en route for Port Sudan from these American suppliers, perhaps even as we speak. High-tech goods. Microchips, a data and technical manual that help assemble some sort of prototype satellite-disabling system. My countrymen have already bought and paid Arakkhan and his ‘boy’ the money for delivery of this merchandise.”
“And you’re saying there will trouble in paradise if they don’t get what they paid for.”
“The streets from Port Sudan to Khartoum will run red in blood.”
The game plan was shaping up in Bolan’s head. In short order, he would start lighting some fires around the suburbs of Port Sudan and the city proper. He already had a list of locations for various butchers, arms dealers and the like, gathered for the Farm, courtesy of the CIA and the DIA. It never hurt his cause, though, to dump a few extra heads on the chopping block.
“Beyond what I have told you there is little else.”
The Executioner believed it, after a deep probe into the man’s eyes. He was drawing a bead with the AK-47 on Qassar’s chest, the moment of truth, when the Iranian decided to go out with a roar. The Iranian was reaching for a holstered side arm when the soldier cut him down.
One terrorist training down for the count. There were others spread around Sudan, he knew. Time and circumstance allowing, the Executioner decided he might pay one or two more a courtesy call.
Of the killing kind.
NHOUBAFF WAITED until the final shots rang out, then ventured down into the camp. The overpowering stench of death was the first thing he noticed. It was a mixed shroud of odors, ranging from cooked flesh to emptied bowels and bladders, that wanted to knock him off his feet. He had seen death before, plenty of it in a country awash in violence, witnessed cold-blooded murder, in fact. But this was something else altogether.
This was a microscopic vision of Armageddon. No, he corrected himself, this was pure hell on Earth.
The bodies were strewed everywhere, eyes wide open, brimmed with shock and horror, searching for answers that were only now coming in the next life. Burning fuel and the acrid clouds of smoke added to the odor, the deeper he forged into the killing field. He had just seen Cooper gun down Colonel Qassar after a couple minutes of getting some answers, more fuel for the killing machine’s tank, no doubt. He was beginning to think he would live to regret ever having been marched out by the agent from Port Sudan to aid this Cooper. But the thing was, he was also starting to believe he would probably be safest if he remained glued to the dark stranger’s hip.
Where was Cooper? he wondered, having seen the stranger vanish at some point between the walls of fire eating up the tents. What in the world was he doing? Searching for wounded, who might be able and willing under the threat of death to beef up his information log on who was doing what in Sudan? He couldn’t believe the big American would get lucky again, finding a live one to grill before…
Executing him. But Nhoubaff had seen the colonel reach for a weapon. Would Cooper have shot him down even if he hadn’t gone for his gun? He would never know, and he could be sure it didn’t make much difference in the final analysis of this lopsided massacre. Qassar had been a dead man all along, just like the Iranian youth who had been shipped here to become future killers for the jihad.
That was something else about this Cooper that was unnerving Nhoubaff a little. The man seemed to be pulled along by some…what? Divine force? Steering him toward evil that needed to be eliminated? Along that train of thought, if that was true, then Qassar and these misguided youth had been destined to go to the afterlife long ago.
The tall American finally materialized, rolling just past the crackling tips of flames reaching out, acting as if not even the firestorm could touch him. Or as if he was simply part of a living fire.
“Let’s go,” Bolan said. “All done here. The thing is, I lost one. A rabbit made it out.”
Nhoubaff grimaced. “That could be a problem.”
“Understood.”
“If he reaches the nearest army outpost, about eight kilometers to the south, and he has your description…”
“I don’t have the time to waste on worry.”
And that was that. Cooper would deal with that particular problem, if and when it reared up. He didn’t want to admit it, but Nhoubaff was starting to admire the way this man handled himself. Cooper simply rolled on, a human juggernaut, ready to deal with both the known and the unknown.
Yes, Nhoubaff concluded, in Sudan, a country rife with nothing but fear and uncertainty, with death and sabotage and misery all around, he was much safer sticking it out with the American.
IT WAS SOMETHING of a fluke, catching the faintest sounds of the explosions to the northeast minutes ago in the wind lashing him through the open window. It was a sound that made him aware some sort of battle was well under way in the distance, and they were late for whatever was happening.
But Captain Nafi Hassan had set out with a squad from the Wad al-Orawa post when he’d first heard the report of a strange Volkswagen van lurking about in an area that most Sudanese knew to stay out of, unless they wanted to spend a few long hours under interrogation, and sometimes worse. When Sergeant Hafeh hadn’t reported back, the alarm bells began chiming in his head.
And thus he was out there, moving in the APC toward the Iranian camp. Without question, he knew something was wrong in this off-limits sector of the Wad al-Orawa.
There would be consequences and repercussions from Khartoum, Hassan knew, if foreign spies nailed down the location of the Iranian training camp. In fact, Hassan would suffer more than a simple demotion if it was learned the CIA had uncovered the whereabouts, learned the numbers of recruits and sang another tale of horror to the Western intelligence agencies how Sudan was harboring terrorists. The way the jihad was shaping up recently, Hassan knew the rumors were abounding how the Americans were shipping out whole teams of black-ops commandos to hunt down and kill terrorists wherever they were located these days. The Iranians, he knew, shelled out good money, lots of it, to use Sudan as a safe haven to conduct the training and deployment of freedom fighters. The Iranians wouldn’t be pleased, might even trim back on their payments, if even one of their camps was attacked.
He was cradling his AK-74 when he spotted the sheen of headlights hitting a rise where the desert table-land broke for higher ground.
A moment later the VW van in question came to a lurching halt along the rise, sitting there, and Hassan could almost feel the occupants planning some strategy, some way to run from the approaching APC.
When the van backed up, vanishing down the other side of the rise, Hassan felt his pulse race. They had a definite problem here. Someone with nothing to hide didn’t run. Hassan barked at his driver, “Step on it!”
Hassan clutched his assault rifle. He hadn’t seen much action in the province, other than driving away a few cattle herders, and he was beginning to wonder whether or not his lack of performance was the reason why he hadn’t yet been promoted. If the occupants of the van had attacked the Iranian camp, then he needed a big kill, a fat notch on his belt to take to the provincial commandant.
He needed a victory, and blood on his hands to show he was worthy of swift promotion, to seize the spotlight for his own day in the sun.
BOLAN WASN’T about to slow, get bogged down or sidetracked by any prowling army patrol, no matter what the numbers. The mere fact they were heading in the direction of the graveyard he’d left behind spelled trouble.
Time to dial up some more killing heat.
The Executioner had given the order for Nhoubaff to drop the van back over the rise, sit tight while he went to work to take care of another unforeseen problem.
He was out the door with the RPG-7, a spare warhead clutched in his hand, the AK-47 hung across a shoulder, when the lights struck the rise. Bolan was on the run, veering away from the point where the APC would show. Figure a full squad in the troop carrier, two men in the cab. Fourteen, sixteen guns tops.
The Executioner got lucky, found a shallow swath cut into the slope. He hunkered down to wait it out. It wasn’t more than five seconds before the APC came barreling over the rise. The driver then put on the brakes when he spotted the van waiting on the other side.
Bolan didn’t intend to dance around with this bunch. The APC was slowing, stopping, a billow of dust boiling up from the rear, when he let the 40 mm warhead fly. The fin-stabilized, shape-charged HEAT round was capable of cutting through 320 mm of armor. He didn’t think the Sudanese version of the APC had that much protective shell on it, and a moment later he was certain one round could have done the job. The warhead plowed into the engine housing, cleaving up the hood, and demolished the engine works in a fiery thunderclap. The cab all but disintegrated, sheared off from the troop housing in a jagged cloud of metal and body parts, ripping away the canvas covering of the hold, flinging a few stick figures into the air. In two shakes, Bolan had another charge loaded up and streaking on. They were tumbling out the back end, hacking and flailing away when the second missile vaporized the troop hold.
Even then, a few survivors managed to clear ground zero.
The Executioner was up and surging, holding back on the trigger of the AK-47. Two shadows, staggering about, trying to get it together but losing reflex time to various injuries and a certain loss of hearing, were chopped down first under the impact of Bolan’s stream of 7.62 mm rounds. A few yards closer to the fire and smoke, the Executioner finished it with a few short bursts, dropping two more just as they plunged out of the smoke. Closing in, swift and senses tuned to the slightest groan or hack, and the soldier made a full circle. One gunner was minus an arm, scrabbling through the hard-packed earth for his AK-74. A quick stitching, and the Executioner pinned him to the ground.
Bolan malingered a moment among the snarling wrath of the firestorm, then realized it was finished here.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Major Thalib Ghaziz was having some serious difficulty swallowing the young Iranian’s version of what the youth was calling the great slaughter. No, actually this Aziz Ahad was sitting there, squirming around in the metal chair, calling it the mother of all slaughters, as if he’d heard that so many times from Saddam it was the phrase of the ultimate warrior who had survived the ultimate battle. But who among even the wisest of older men, Ghaziz thought, could account for either the wild imagination or the simple inexperience of the young, who thought they both knew it all and were invincible?
In truth, he knew they were neither. He had been around for a long while, and he had learned the hard way whatever truths there were in life. The young, like this Iranian, like his own children, tended to think of only their own role in whatever scheme of things were the day’s events, how they matched up, how they looked, how they came out of it.
Self-centered.
They also believed, he thought, they could lie to their elders, those placid old goats who had been around for decades, feeble and decaying before youth. But he saw himself as a stalwart agent of reality, bred out of hardship and deprivation, climbing the ladders of life’s success before this Iranian was even a twinkle in the eyes of his father.
The soldier moved out from his fiery cover, on something of an intercept course, fresh clip in the AK-47, and hit them with precision bursts from the rear, stitching them up into crimson rag dolls.
Four more down.
He’d already glimpsed what he hoped was the camp’s commander, going down under a raining slab of wreckage. If he was still breathing, that was fine with Bolan. If not, he’d simply vacate the premises, move on. His shopping list was long and extensive, his memory having filed away the photo lineups, the past crimes of the various thugs he was set to hunt down after the mop-up here. No mistake, there was plenty of work yet to do in Sudan.
He caught sight of yet more runners, shadows bolting from the rear of the tents, racing from the flames. The Executioner set off in pursuit for more human but very savage game.
The sun wasn’t even up yet, but they wouldn’t live to see it anyway.
NHOUBAFF CLAIMED a spot on top of the ridge and took in the massacre.
It was a one-sided slaughter, damn near taking his breath away, the tall American’s ruthlessness, skill and audacity stunning to watch, a morbid sight to behold, in fact.
He made out the tall shape of Cooper, near the flaming ruins of the motor pool. He watched as the man mowed down Iranians on the rabbit run from behind. If he thought about it—which he really didn’t want to, since this was a glimpse of things to come—the man was a killing machine, with guts and experience to back him up, all the way to the wall.
So, where did it go from here? How would he move about Port Sudan at large like this, shooting down his enemies, and staying free? He wasn’t sure, but he decided after viewing the grim fruits of the man’s death harvest, he would be there. That was if he wanted to live to see the next day.
Cooper didn’t play games.
The tall American, however, didn’t see the shadow playing possum rise off the ground. Nhoubaff decided it was time he joined the fray. He lifted the AK-47, gauged the distance, took up slack on the trigger and cut free with a long burst, stitching the possum up the side, the rising burst all but lopping off an arm just below the shoulder. If nothing else, he hoped that scored a couple of points in the trust column with the Angel of Death.
THE EXECUTIONER WAS whirling toward the source of the autofire, sprinting ahead, braced for the bullets to tear into him, when he saw the shadow topple after a jerky three-step dance to hell. A look up the hill, and he saw the silhouette lift and wave his AK-47.
So Nhoubaff was going the distance. The Executioner allowed a tight smile, then picked up the pace, edging around the rear of the tents. A few of the more hearty were swinging assault rifles in his direction when he poured on the message of doom, dropping them in their tracks. The firestorm in his ears, the soldier gave it a moment, waiting to see if any other takers emerged from the tents.
Looked like a wrap, just about.
It was then he spotted a distant runner, long gone, out of range of his AK-47. A lone survivor to tell the tale, but Bolan didn’t think there was much he could relay to anyone who chose to listen. The Sudanese army would eventually head out here, comb the carnage, wonder what in the world had happened.
Of course, by then Bolan intended to be knocking, or, rather, kicking down some doors close to Port Sudan. He was a long way from any home stretch; in fact, it was just beginning to get ugly.
He moved back to the front, claiming five spare clips from the dead for his AK-47 on the way to see if Qassar was still among the living.
QASSAR COULDN’T BE SURE how bad he was injured, but the pain shooting down his back told him he was still alive. His mouth, though, was full of blood, and it took several long moments before he cleared the bitter fluid with a few vicious hacks.
He was pulling himself up on his knees, aware of some presence closing on him, when he reached for his AK-47.
“Uh-uh.”
The eyes either mirrored the flames, or they were burning with raw determination. Whichever, the look froze him up.
“If you’re going to kill me, may I stand up?”
“Slow and easy, hands in the air.”
“You are alone? You are…American?”
“Yes to both. I’ll ask the questions.”
“You will kill me, then.”
“Quick and easy, or long and hard. Your choice. It’s a done deal for you, Colonel.”
Qassar struggled to his feet, amazed for some reason how calm he felt, knowing he was going to die.
“What is it you wish to know before you execute me?”
BOLAN COULDN’T BE certain whether any roving army patrols were in the neighborhood, thus knew time was running out. He had several questions, and let Qassar know that the first time he even sensed he was lying it was over. Spelling it out next that a long painful death was the only offer on the table if the colonel even hedged around the truth.
“I understand some high-tech weapons of American origin have made it into Sudan.”
Qassar nodded. “You understand correctly.”
“Don’t make me drag it out of you.”
“I know of men in a suburb outside Port Sudan, others in the city proper.” He rattled off several addresses, and Bolan put them to memory. “They are part of the National Islamic Front, and they work with agents of my country. They have rivals, the Muslim Brothers, or the Iqwhan, who are envious that the NIF has curried favor with the Sudanese intelligence agents. What I am saying is that these weapons could be spread among the two groups, a bribe here, a midnight theft of a certain crate or two on the waterfront, you understand.”
“I’m familiar with the drill.”
“A contact who established this camp, a Colonel Issad Bhoutami, leader of the NIF, is a feared man. He has the weapons, or most of them, I believe. He commands a small army of killers.”
“Telling me I’m about to go swimming with the sharks.”
“Man-eaters. Big ones.”
“I’ve been there before.”
Qassar’s grin was ugly, the eyes telling Bolan that his life was numbered in hours. Or so he was hoping. “The colonel is an especially brutal and ruthless man. He has even been known to forcibly take young boys from local schools as cannon fodder to go kill or be killed against the black rebels to the south. Those young men, teenagers, who do not wish to go are shot and sent back in a trash bag to their parents.”
The soldier knew the name, had the file on this particular savage stored to memory. “He’s the AWOL General Arakkhan’s boy, right?”
“Boy?”
“Stooge. Spy. Contact. Word I hear is he’s set to pave the way for the return of Arakkhan. An overthrow of the government in Khartoum, a number of assassinations lined up to land him the throne.”
“Yes. I have heard the same rumors. You will want to speak with a man named Gamil Abu Said. He, I understand, knows who has these weapons. I also hear a shipment is en route for Port Sudan from these American suppliers, perhaps even as we speak. High-tech goods. Microchips, a data and technical manual that help assemble some sort of prototype satellite-disabling system. My countrymen have already bought and paid Arakkhan and his ‘boy’ the money for delivery of this merchandise.”
“And you’re saying there will trouble in paradise if they don’t get what they paid for.”
“The streets from Port Sudan to Khartoum will run red in blood.”
The game plan was shaping up in Bolan’s head. In short order, he would start lighting some fires around the suburbs of Port Sudan and the city proper. He already had a list of locations for various butchers, arms dealers and the like, gathered for the Farm, courtesy of the CIA and the DIA. It never hurt his cause, though, to dump a few extra heads on the chopping block.
“Beyond what I have told you there is little else.”
The Executioner believed it, after a deep probe into the man’s eyes. He was drawing a bead with the AK-47 on Qassar’s chest, the moment of truth, when the Iranian decided to go out with a roar. The Iranian was reaching for a holstered side arm when the soldier cut him down.
One terrorist training down for the count. There were others spread around Sudan, he knew. Time and circumstance allowing, the Executioner decided he might pay one or two more a courtesy call.
Of the killing kind.
NHOUBAFF WAITED until the final shots rang out, then ventured down into the camp. The overpowering stench of death was the first thing he noticed. It was a mixed shroud of odors, ranging from cooked flesh to emptied bowels and bladders, that wanted to knock him off his feet. He had seen death before, plenty of it in a country awash in violence, witnessed cold-blooded murder, in fact. But this was something else altogether.
This was a microscopic vision of Armageddon. No, he corrected himself, this was pure hell on Earth.
The bodies were strewed everywhere, eyes wide open, brimmed with shock and horror, searching for answers that were only now coming in the next life. Burning fuel and the acrid clouds of smoke added to the odor, the deeper he forged into the killing field. He had just seen Cooper gun down Colonel Qassar after a couple minutes of getting some answers, more fuel for the killing machine’s tank, no doubt. He was beginning to think he would live to regret ever having been marched out by the agent from Port Sudan to aid this Cooper. But the thing was, he was also starting to believe he would probably be safest if he remained glued to the dark stranger’s hip.
Where was Cooper? he wondered, having seen the stranger vanish at some point between the walls of fire eating up the tents. What in the world was he doing? Searching for wounded, who might be able and willing under the threat of death to beef up his information log on who was doing what in Sudan? He couldn’t believe the big American would get lucky again, finding a live one to grill before…
Executing him. But Nhoubaff had seen the colonel reach for a weapon. Would Cooper have shot him down even if he hadn’t gone for his gun? He would never know, and he could be sure it didn’t make much difference in the final analysis of this lopsided massacre. Qassar had been a dead man all along, just like the Iranian youth who had been shipped here to become future killers for the jihad.
That was something else about this Cooper that was unnerving Nhoubaff a little. The man seemed to be pulled along by some…what? Divine force? Steering him toward evil that needed to be eliminated? Along that train of thought, if that was true, then Qassar and these misguided youth had been destined to go to the afterlife long ago.
The tall American finally materialized, rolling just past the crackling tips of flames reaching out, acting as if not even the firestorm could touch him. Or as if he was simply part of a living fire.
“Let’s go,” Bolan said. “All done here. The thing is, I lost one. A rabbit made it out.”
Nhoubaff grimaced. “That could be a problem.”
“Understood.”
“If he reaches the nearest army outpost, about eight kilometers to the south, and he has your description…”
“I don’t have the time to waste on worry.”
And that was that. Cooper would deal with that particular problem, if and when it reared up. He didn’t want to admit it, but Nhoubaff was starting to admire the way this man handled himself. Cooper simply rolled on, a human juggernaut, ready to deal with both the known and the unknown.
Yes, Nhoubaff concluded, in Sudan, a country rife with nothing but fear and uncertainty, with death and sabotage and misery all around, he was much safer sticking it out with the American.
IT WAS SOMETHING of a fluke, catching the faintest sounds of the explosions to the northeast minutes ago in the wind lashing him through the open window. It was a sound that made him aware some sort of battle was well under way in the distance, and they were late for whatever was happening.
But Captain Nafi Hassan had set out with a squad from the Wad al-Orawa post when he’d first heard the report of a strange Volkswagen van lurking about in an area that most Sudanese knew to stay out of, unless they wanted to spend a few long hours under interrogation, and sometimes worse. When Sergeant Hafeh hadn’t reported back, the alarm bells began chiming in his head.
And thus he was out there, moving in the APC toward the Iranian camp. Without question, he knew something was wrong in this off-limits sector of the Wad al-Orawa.
There would be consequences and repercussions from Khartoum, Hassan knew, if foreign spies nailed down the location of the Iranian training camp. In fact, Hassan would suffer more than a simple demotion if it was learned the CIA had uncovered the whereabouts, learned the numbers of recruits and sang another tale of horror to the Western intelligence agencies how Sudan was harboring terrorists. The way the jihad was shaping up recently, Hassan knew the rumors were abounding how the Americans were shipping out whole teams of black-ops commandos to hunt down and kill terrorists wherever they were located these days. The Iranians, he knew, shelled out good money, lots of it, to use Sudan as a safe haven to conduct the training and deployment of freedom fighters. The Iranians wouldn’t be pleased, might even trim back on their payments, if even one of their camps was attacked.
He was cradling his AK-74 when he spotted the sheen of headlights hitting a rise where the desert table-land broke for higher ground.
A moment later the VW van in question came to a lurching halt along the rise, sitting there, and Hassan could almost feel the occupants planning some strategy, some way to run from the approaching APC.
When the van backed up, vanishing down the other side of the rise, Hassan felt his pulse race. They had a definite problem here. Someone with nothing to hide didn’t run. Hassan barked at his driver, “Step on it!”
Hassan clutched his assault rifle. He hadn’t seen much action in the province, other than driving away a few cattle herders, and he was beginning to wonder whether or not his lack of performance was the reason why he hadn’t yet been promoted. If the occupants of the van had attacked the Iranian camp, then he needed a big kill, a fat notch on his belt to take to the provincial commandant.
He needed a victory, and blood on his hands to show he was worthy of swift promotion, to seize the spotlight for his own day in the sun.
BOLAN WASN’T about to slow, get bogged down or sidetracked by any prowling army patrol, no matter what the numbers. The mere fact they were heading in the direction of the graveyard he’d left behind spelled trouble.
Time to dial up some more killing heat.
The Executioner had given the order for Nhoubaff to drop the van back over the rise, sit tight while he went to work to take care of another unforeseen problem.
He was out the door with the RPG-7, a spare warhead clutched in his hand, the AK-47 hung across a shoulder, when the lights struck the rise. Bolan was on the run, veering away from the point where the APC would show. Figure a full squad in the troop carrier, two men in the cab. Fourteen, sixteen guns tops.
The Executioner got lucky, found a shallow swath cut into the slope. He hunkered down to wait it out. It wasn’t more than five seconds before the APC came barreling over the rise. The driver then put on the brakes when he spotted the van waiting on the other side.
Bolan didn’t intend to dance around with this bunch. The APC was slowing, stopping, a billow of dust boiling up from the rear, when he let the 40 mm warhead fly. The fin-stabilized, shape-charged HEAT round was capable of cutting through 320 mm of armor. He didn’t think the Sudanese version of the APC had that much protective shell on it, and a moment later he was certain one round could have done the job. The warhead plowed into the engine housing, cleaving up the hood, and demolished the engine works in a fiery thunderclap. The cab all but disintegrated, sheared off from the troop housing in a jagged cloud of metal and body parts, ripping away the canvas covering of the hold, flinging a few stick figures into the air. In two shakes, Bolan had another charge loaded up and streaking on. They were tumbling out the back end, hacking and flailing away when the second missile vaporized the troop hold.
Even then, a few survivors managed to clear ground zero.
The Executioner was up and surging, holding back on the trigger of the AK-47. Two shadows, staggering about, trying to get it together but losing reflex time to various injuries and a certain loss of hearing, were chopped down first under the impact of Bolan’s stream of 7.62 mm rounds. A few yards closer to the fire and smoke, the Executioner finished it with a few short bursts, dropping two more just as they plunged out of the smoke. Closing in, swift and senses tuned to the slightest groan or hack, and the soldier made a full circle. One gunner was minus an arm, scrabbling through the hard-packed earth for his AK-74. A quick stitching, and the Executioner pinned him to the ground.
Bolan malingered a moment among the snarling wrath of the firestorm, then realized it was finished here.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Major Thalib Ghaziz was having some serious difficulty swallowing the young Iranian’s version of what the youth was calling the great slaughter. No, actually this Aziz Ahad was sitting there, squirming around in the metal chair, calling it the mother of all slaughters, as if he’d heard that so many times from Saddam it was the phrase of the ultimate warrior who had survived the ultimate battle. But who among even the wisest of older men, Ghaziz thought, could account for either the wild imagination or the simple inexperience of the young, who thought they both knew it all and were invincible?
In truth, he knew they were neither. He had been around for a long while, and he had learned the hard way whatever truths there were in life. The young, like this Iranian, like his own children, tended to think of only their own role in whatever scheme of things were the day’s events, how they matched up, how they looked, how they came out of it.
Self-centered.
They also believed, he thought, they could lie to their elders, those placid old goats who had been around for decades, feeble and decaying before youth. But he saw himself as a stalwart agent of reality, bred out of hardship and deprivation, climbing the ladders of life’s success before this Iranian was even a twinkle in the eyes of his father.
