Nigeria Meltdown Read online

  BROTHERHOOD OF TRAITORS

  Hidden in the Nigerian jungle, a secret military brotherhood is plotting revolution. When rumors of this terrorist force reach Washington, the government must act quickly—without raising red flags in the African country. U.S. military forces can’t be part of the equation, which means there’s only one man who can fly in under the radar and get the job done.

  Mack Bolan teams up with Nigerian soldiers and a small group of local fighters to seek out the brotherhood’s base camp and expose its leaders. But he soon learns corruption within the country runs deep. Someone on his team is a hired killer, and Bolan is his target. With the traitor poised to strike at any time, Bolan must rely on instinct alone as the group closes in on the camp and the battle begins. His enemies may try to run, but they can never hide from The Executioner.

  “Hey,” the cab driver yelled, “come on, my friend, quick!”

  The two motorbikes were closing on them. They’d hit the brakes as the cab came to a halt, but were skidding on the loose surface of the road, fighting to keep control.

  Bolan flung open the rear door, catching bike and rider full-on.

  “My cab!” the driver cried in anguish, but it didn’t stop him from doing likewise, his own door catching the second biker and spinning him into the low brick wall of a yard where goats bleated in fright at the impact.

  The cab driver muttered a prayer as he hit the ignition. “Now I will take you to your meeting, Captain America.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “You will hear from me again. Do not worry about that....”

  Mack Bolan

  The Executioner

  #347 Dragon’s Den

  #348 Carnage Code

  #349 Firestorm

  #350 Volatile Agent

  #351 Hell Night

  #352 Killing Trade

  #353 Black Death Reprise

  #354 Ambush Force

  #355 Outback Assault

  #356 Defense Breach

  #357 Extreme Justice

  #358 Blood Toll

  #359 Desperate Passage

  #360 Mission to Burma

  #361 Final Resort

  #362 Patriot Acts

  #363 Face of Terror

  #364 Hostile Odds

  #365 Collision Course

  #366 Pele’s Fire

  #367 Loose Cannon

  #368 Crisis Nation

  #369 Dangerous Tides

  #370 Dark Alliance

  #371 Fire Zone

  #372 Lethal Compound

  #373 Code of Honor

  #374 System Corruption

  #375 Salvador Strike

  #376 Frontier Fury

  #377 Desperate Cargo

  #378 Death Run

  #379 Deep Recon

  #380 Silent Threat

  #381 Killing Ground

  #382 Threat Factor

  #383 Raw Fury

  #384 Cartel Clash

  #385 Recovery Force

  #386 Crucial Intercept

  #387 Powder Burn

  #388 Final Coup

  #389 Deadly Command

  #390 Toxic Terrain

  #391 Enemy Agents

  #392 Shadow Hunt

  #393 Stand Down

  #394 Trial by Fire

  #395 Hazard Zone

  #396 Fatal Combat

  #397 Damage Radius

  #398 Battle Cry

  #399 Nuclear Storm

  #400 Blind Justice

  #401 Jungle Hunt

  #402 Rebel Trade

  #403 Line of Honor

  #404 Final Judgment

  #405 Lethal Diversion

  #406 Survival Mission

  #407 Throw Down

  #408 Border Offensive

  #409 Blood Vendetta

  #410 Hostile Force

  #411 Cold Fusion

  #412 Night’s Reckoning

  #413 Double Cross

  #414 Prison Code

  #415 Ivory Wave

  #416 Extraction

  #417 Rogue Assault

  #418 Viral Siege

  #419 Sleeping Dragons

  #420 Rebel Blast

  #421 Hard Targets

  #422 Nigeria Meltdown

  Nigeria Meltdown

  You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

  —Mahatma Gandhi

  I’m all for change if it has a positive effect. But I object to change forced to come about by the barrel of a gun.

  —Mack Bolan

  THE

  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 com-mand 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 One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter One

  He could hear them through the rain forest that clustered thickly about him. Even the chatter of birds and the rustle of animal life in the undergrowth around him could not deaden the sound of their calling. Anyone who was unfamiliar with the region would assume that they were hearing animal cries. Joseph Yobo was all too familiar with the region, so he knew that the sounds he heard could not come from an indigenous animal.

  His enemy was communicating, and they were closing rapidly on him.

  Sweat streamed from his forehead and into his eyes. He blinked and tried to wipe it away with either his forearm or what was left of his sleeve. The former was equally drenched in sweat and left behind as much as it removed; the latter was soaked in gasoline and stung horribly. In both cases, the salt of the sweat or the chemicals of the gasoline inflicted a direct, liquid and heated pain into the cuts that formed a jagged line across his forehead. The dripping perspiration of his brow was little more than an irritant compared to sudden agonies incurred by any attempt to remove it.

  His ch
est ached and throbbed with a dull pain that was like a shard of glass left in the muscle to grind at the fibers. He had been weak when he had made his escape. Only the desperation and desire to stay alive and avoid a slow, painful death had given his feebled and battered body any kind of impetus. His legs were leaden, and his feet, he could no longer feel. Barefoot, cut to ribbons by the tortures he had been subjected to, he could not tell if there were any foreign bodies or infection in them.

  He knew he was a dead man walking. Dead man stumbling, to be more accurate. His desire to keep moving meant that his upper body willed him forward faster than his shaking legs could manage, perpetually on the verge of tumbling onto his face. His willpower prevented that. Once down, he would not be able to rise, and then they would easily descend on him. While he was on his feet—even though his inability to retain complete control of his movements meant any subterfuge was doomed—he could still keep moving, making it just that much harder for them to pin him down.

  Yobo had little doubt now that they would catch him before he reached the border. If he could reach Cameroon, he would be marginally safer. Even though the exact border between Cameroon and Nigeria was hidden by the rain forest of Cross River State, he knew that there was a village just into Cameroon where he could seek shelter. Celestine N’Joffi, a comrade from happier times—when Yobo had been seeking to graduate medical school as a military doctor—lived there. His was a small practice, but like many of the doctors in small villages and towns dotted around the highlands of Cameroon, it was doubtful if the settlements could maintain stability.

  That had been especially true of the past few years, as the Brotherhood of the Eagle had soared over Nigeria and sought to spread its wings across the borders. Although the Yoruba-speaking men of Lagos chose to say little about the threat, the way in which it had pervaded the military culture of some sections, and the manner in which it had sought to finance itself, had been a thorn in the side of the government. Aware of the reputation that Nigeria had outside its borders for the widespread corruption within, this had been one such manifestation, which it had wanted to play down.

  Joseph Yobo was an honorable man. When he had been taken from medical school during his last year—after being told that he could resume his studies when this mission was complete—and briefed on the secret mission that only he could undertake, as a man of integrity and new to the service, he had been only too pleased to serve the greater good.

  Bitterly now, as acrid as the bile in his throat burning with every stumbling step, he knew that he had been set up to be betrayed from the beginning.

  A root hidden in the damp soil caught on his foot. He didn’t feel it as his ankle twisted, but by the way he fell, he knew that he had further injured the foot. Not that it mattered. His feet could never be saved, even if the rest of him somehow survived. They would need amputation—hopefully before the poisons in them spread through his bloodstream.

  He had a more pressing problem: if the position of the sun was correct, as seen through the canopy of trees above him, then he was still three kilometers from the village, at the very least. He tried to haul himself to his feet, and the effort dragged every searing breath from his lungs. Lights flickered and burned bright before his eyes, his ears sang and his balance was disturbed by the feeling that he was about to lose consciousness. It was only the trunk of the very tree whose root had tripped him that enabled him to gain enough of a hold to keep himself upright.

  Yobo moved forward on the bad ankle. It didn’t hurt, but by the same token, it gave way under him, pitching him forward. He swore. It would have been loudly, as the force of his anger had yanked it from his body, but his lack of strength rendered it as little more than a hoarse whisper. Still, it took him seconds to recover what little strength he had left. Seconds in which he could hear the sounds of alien animal cries as his pursuers gained ground.

  How he wished that the engine on the old Mercedes truck had held for just a few kilometers more. He had rarely been able to get it out of second gear, and it had whined and bucked over the rough track that had been hacked from the terrain, but it had enabled him to make a head start as the sun had risen. How he had been able to muster the energy to loosen the leads on the other trucks, throwing them into the bush surrounding the camp, he did not know. It was all he had been able to do to take advantage of the one time that a lazy guard fell asleep on him. The Brotherhood guard had assumed Yobo had no strength and no fight left in him. He had been almost right about the former but never about the latter. Yobo had the flint-hard determination of a man who knew his own end was soon to come yet was determined that it would not be in vain. The man’s own knife, slipped from its sheath while the fool slumbered, had taken his life before he had any inclination that things were wrong. His grunt of death could have been nothing more than a disturbance of his sleep.

  With the sun still below the horizon, it had taken everything within Yobo to limp and stumble to the trucks and disable all but the one he would use. It had seen better days, but it appeared the best of a poor bunch. The engines had been covered in oil and gasoline, and he had smeared and ripped his sleeves as he disabled them. Cuts to his arms made no difference. The tattered camo pants and shirt that he had been given to cover himself after each torture session provided no warmth and protection. Their sole use to be in the humiliation that stripping him at the start of each session would cause.

  Yobo was not a good driver, and that had cost him valuable time. He had no idea how much of a start he could really hope to expect—as long as it took them, once wakened by the sound of the ancient engine splitting the air, to discover who had escaped, and to recover and fit the leads he had taken from the remaining vehicles, he supposed. Even so, he knew that his lack of skill had reduced whatever chances he had and that rankled him.

  His slow progress once on foot had not had the same effect. He had enough medical training to realize how badly debilitated he had been by his torture. Even when he had told them all that he knew, they had continued. First because they did not believe him and then for the sheer sport of seeing what further damage they could inflict.

  They could not believe that General Oboko had sent him to infiltrate and report on the activities of the Brotherhood. Worse, whatever he reported was sure to be doctored before being passed onward and upward to Oboko’s superiors, as the general was himself a member of the Brotherhood. His captors could not believe that Yobo had been so naive as to accept such a mission. But he was, and that was why the general had chosen him. That way Oboko could pay service to both sets of masters and keep himself on the right side of each.

  Yobo felt like a fool. His payment for his naïveté would be his life, he knew that, but he would make sure that Oboko felt the wrath of any who may come after. Celestine would be able to help him. He had contacts outside Nigeria or Cameroon who would find this situation of interest. The Brotherhood was still a secret within Nigeria to a great degree, but even a fool like Joseph Yobo did not expect a complete blanket of silence to be without a few holes.

  The coast was only a few kilometers away in the opposite direction. Port Harcourt, in the Rivers State, had been an area where he had spent some happy times with Abby. He knew he would never see her again. Knowing Oboko as he did, he had little doubt that the general had already made a point of personally calling to tell her that Yobo had been killed in the line of duty and offered her his own personal brand of consolation. Tears welled in his eyes when he thought of her face, but he realized that these were as much tears of self-pity that he would not see or touch her again as much as they were tears for what would happen to her. She would do what she had to in order to stay alive.

  Gathering himself and sighting by the sun, Yobo blocked out the cries of those enemies closing in. There was nothing he could do about them. If they came upon him, then it was God’s will that he would not live to tell.

  God would provide some kind of salvation for
him, he knew. Using his faith as a spur to dig deep within himself, Yobo began to hobble and hop painfully onward in the direction of the village that was his one remaining goal.

  It would seem that God had deserted him in his hour of need. With howls of triumph, four men sprang from the undergrowth, pawing at him and dragging him to the ground. Speaking in Yoruba, one of them hissed in his ear that he would suffer before he died, so much so that he would be begging them to kill him.

  He was wondering if he could suffer more, when a muted gunshot choked any further words in the man’s throat, his eyes glazing and blood bubbling from his lips. Yobo was stunned. Could God have answered his pleas in a way that was too prosaic for him to understand?

  A second shot sounded, and another of the men pitched forward, a hole ripped in his chest by the exit wound, spraying the remaining two men and the prone Yobo with his viscera.

  The pair of Brotherhood fighters were less brave and forthcoming when confronted with a sure-shot enemy that they could not see. Their bravado ebbed away to be replaced by panic as they looked around them, eyes wide with fear. Yobo lay pinned down by the corpse of the first man to be shot. He couldn’t have managed to do much by way of escape, even if that had not been the case, but the two fighters left alive had forgotten him, shielded as he was by the dead man.

  There were other animal calls and some shouts in Yoruba that gave away the panic of the men who made up the remainder of the separated Brotherhood pursuit party. Forgetting Yobo—perhaps to write him off as dead to their superiors if they should be questioned or indeed get out of the rain forest alive—the two warriors were less than fierce as they blundered noisily through the undergrowth, calling as they did. They were answered by bursts of gunfire that Yobo could identify as coming from Kalashnikovs—the Brotherhood weapon of choice, as the unit Yobo had been held by were holders of a large number of stolen AKs—which ripped into their own men as they approached.

  For Joseph Yobo, there was a kind of irony in the fact that these pursuers were wiping each other out by sheer panic. In the camps and in training, they spoke of their courage at great length. Yet they had mostly been men from the northern territories, where the vast plains had no dense, enclosed jungle like the borders. Take them out of their comfort zones and they were reduced to panicking like schoolchildren.