Threat Factor Read online

  Basra was not ready to accept the white man’s word on faith alone, but simple logic told him that Musse Guleed was the most likely in the unprovoked attack. They had been friends, once—or, at least, comrades—until Basra had realized that he could do what Guleed did, and likely do it better.

  That, of course, was not the sort of thing Guleed could tolerate. He hated competition, crushed it without thinking twice. Hassan had known that, had been one of those who stood beside Guleed and helped him slay his enemies, but pride and greed had made Basra act in haste, before he was prepared.

  His scars reminded him of that miscalculation every time he saw his own reflection in a windowpane or mirror, and he would not make the same mistake again. Hassan knew he was lucky to be scarred and breathing, when he might have been no more than rat-gnawed bones discarded on a rubbish heap.

  His first and worst mistake had been failing to kill Guleed by stealth before the man suspected any treachery. It would have been so simple, riding in a car or loitering around headquarters, when he was alone with Guleed. Even if Hassan was there, so what?

  Firing two shots was no more difficult than firing one. And with his own men in attendance to dispose of any die-hard loyalists…

  But that was all behind him now. Through youthful negligence, he’d missed a golden opportunity and nearly died as a result. Only that same youth, with its natural resilience, had enabled Basra to survive when the enforcers came for him. That, and the fact that they chose pangas as their weapons in a bid to make him suffer.

  So he had, indeed. But he had suffered and survived, while Guleed’s executioners were slain as much by arrogance as by the hideout pistol he had reached in time to save his right eye and his life.

  Since then, Guleed and Basra had existed in a state of endless warfare. Basra’s army was outnumbered, but the nature of their conflict—fought guerrilla-style, without pitched battles that might prove decisive—kept Guleed from using numbers to their best advantage. Basra had survived seven direct attempts upon his life, ranging from sniper fire to poison, and his men had stalked Guleed in vain, missing the lucky pig no fewer than a dozen times, so far.

  This time, Basra assured himself, it would be different.

  Even without the white man’s call, Basra knew that he would have blamed Guleed for the previous night’s raid. He might have wasted precious time in the pursuit of other suspects, but the end result would still have been the same.

  Now, he would use that time to plan Guleed’s downfall.

  And what about the white man?

  One way to dispose of him, Basra supposed, would be to call Guleed and thank him for allowing his new mercenary to be merciful. Detail the white man’s warning and pretend that he, Basra, was giving thought to a retreat from Mogadishu. If Guleed had ordered the communication, he would gloat. If not, he would undoubtedly retaliate against his pawn.

  The thought made Basra smile, but he preferred to deal with the white man himself. Before or after he had killed Guleed, what difference did it make?

  And if the white man happened to escape somehow, in the confusion, it would make no difference. He was a hireling, who would flee in any case, once the prospect of a payday was eliminated.

  Seated at his desk, Basra used a red felt-tipped pen to mark locations on a detailed map of Mogadishu. Guleed’s home, his headquarters, the places of amusement that he frequented, the sites where he stashed men, weapons or merchandise. Each crimson circle was a target, and before another day had passed, Basra meant to see the bulk of them obliterated.

  When the smoke and dust had cleared away, he would control the city, ruling it for all intents and purposes. The change was overdue, but it would not be long delayed.

  9

  Uadan Highway Strip, Mile 5

  Merca was a seaport with some three-hundred-fifty-thousand inhabitants, compared to Mogadishu’s two million. It would make sense, Bolan supposed, to unload the Vasylna somewhere well away from Mogadishu, relatively safe from prying eyes, and stash its deadly cargo under guard.

  The normal course of action for Somalian pirates was to seize a ship and wire it with explosives, holding it offshore until a ransom was negotiated for the crew and cargo. It had worked before, but in this case they stood to earn more from selling the hardware themselves.

  So, what had become of the ship and its crew?

  Bolan had no idea, as yet, but he was reasonably sure Guleed had no use for a cargo ship that could be instantly identified by sight, even if he repainted it and changed its registry. More likely, the Vasylna was already gone, deep-sixed with plastique charges in the cargo holds. It wouldn’t have surprised him to discover that the crew, alive or dead, was still on board when she went down.

  His focus, now, was on the thirty-three T-90 tanks and other killing gear that had been stolen with them, to destroy the cargo if he could. Natalia Mironov still spoke as if the massive vehicles and other items could be salvaged, but he didn’t see that happening without a full-scale military operation to retrieve them, put them back on shipboard and deliver them belatedly to Kenya.

  That kind of move, the Executioner knew, would cause Russia a world of trouble at the UN and throughout Africa. On top of which, unless he missed his guess, a rescue operation on that scale would cost more than the Kenyans planned to pay for their diverted merchandise.

  When they were five miles out of Mogadishu, rolling over what passed for a superhighway in Somalia, he asked Mironov, “So, what happens to your team while you’re in Merca?”

  “There’s not much team,” she said. “Two others, one of whom you’ve met. They wait for orders and prepare to sanitize the various facilities we’ve used.”

  “They won’t be popping up in Merca, then?”

  She laughed and answered, “Not if they obey my orders. And if they do not, their reasons must be excellent.”

  That spared Bolan one concern—if he could trust Mironov. He’d been considering the possibility that her support team might turn up and try to keep him from destroying the T-90s and the rest of the Vasylna’s cargo.

  If, that was, he had the chance to do so.

  They were still some forty miles from Merca proper, traveling along a road patrolled in equal force by bandits, rogue militiamen and AMISOM peacekeepers, all of whom might try to stop and rob them—or, at least in AMISOM’s case, disarm them. Then, they had to find the camp where Guleed’s men were guarding the Russian equipment, get past his gunmen and destroy everything.

  All without getting killed in the process.

  The last bit was dicey, as usual.

  Bolan had long since given up expecting to return from combat missions.

  Some odds were simply undefeatable, no matter how gungho a soldier was. But in his personal experience, a dedicated, well-trained fighting man—or team—could beat the long odds eight times out of ten, provided that the warrior didn’t go in with a kamikaze mind-set or a secret death wish riding on his shoulder.

  Bolan was prepared to die at any time, but looking forward to it? Not a chance in hell.

  And if he went down this time, it was guaranteed that he would not be going down alone.

  DUALEH ADAM AWRALA checked his smile in the three-inch-square mirror he carried for just such a purpose. The gold incisor winked at him, and he saw nothing caught between his teeth from lunch. Convinced that he had done his best, he pocketed the mirror and emerged from the backseat of his Lincoln Navigator, ignoring the armed guard who held his door open.

  The guard would not accompany Awrala to his meeting with Guleed. That stiuplation was inviolate, and always left Awrala wondering if he would see the light of day again, once he had crossed Guleed’s threshold.

  Of course, he served a purpose for the warlord, with his stockpile of official documents, permits and licenses, assorted stamps and seals. But after years of anarchy in Mogadishu and environs, both Awrala and his richest client knew he was a figurehead at best. At worst, a total fraud.

  Officially, he w
as the deputy assistant to the Minister of Economic, Medical and Agricultural Affairs. In fact, he was accountable to no one, since his various superiors had abdicated or been killed. His two-man staff was good for nothing beyond filing the assorted documents he generated for a price, permitting various outlaws to seem as if their crimes were sanctioned by a nonexistent state.

  And sometimes—though very rarely, all thanks be to Allah—he was called upon to solve some other problem, if he could.

  Like now.

  Guleed was scowling when Awrala stepped into his office, flanked by street soldiers in mufti, wearing automatic weapons slung across their shoulders, knives and pistols jutting from their belts. The armed-camp atmosphere was worse than usual, and it unnerved Awrala from the moment he set foot inside Guleed’s headquarters.

  “You’re aware of what’s been happening?” Guleed demanded without even a pretense of common courtesy.

  It was a vague question. Awrala did his best with it and asked, “You mean the killing?”

  “Oh, there’s more to it than that,” Guleed informed him. “Jama Hassan’s been abducted. I suppose he’s dead by now, unless he’s squealing everything he knows about my business to his kidnappers.”

  “That’s most unfortunate,” Awrala said. “I’m not sure how I—”

  “He knows everything, you see,” Guleed continued. “Well, nearly everything. Enough to ruin me, at least.”

  “That is distressing,” Awrala responded, not knowing what else to say.

  “I fear, specifically, that he may lead my enemies to something I have hidden. Something of supreme importance and value.”

  Awrala nodded, tried to look as if he understood where this was going.

  Guleed seemed finally to understand Awrala’s blank expression. “You must help me to defend my property,” he said.

  Awrala tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

  “But, how?” he asked. “You have an army.”

  “I have fewer men today than yesterday, you may have heard. And I need most of them in Mogadishu, at the moment,” Guleed said. “What can I do?” Awrala feared the answer, even as he asked the question.

  “You can use your title,” Guleed said. “Speak to the peacekeepers. Explain that evil men—white foreigners, at that—are on their way from Mogadishu to wreak havoc in Shabelle Hoose.”

  “I do not control them,” Awrala reminded him.

  “You must try. If they listen, I will tell you where to send them.”

  “And…if not?”

  “Then, I suppose,” Guleed replied, “that you shall be of no further use to me. It saddens me to think such a thing.”

  Awrala bobbed his head and vowed, “I’ll do my best.”

  Guleed smiled like a hungry crocodile.

  “And I,” he said, “will hope that it is good enough.”

  MIRONOV HAD EXPECTED MORE cars on the highway between Merca and Mogadishu. As it was, she’d only passed two vehicles, an ancient pickup and a motorcycle laboring along with three people aboard, including a child seated on the handlebars.

  It came as a surprise, then, when the heat haze in her rearview mirror parted to reveal a jeep trailed closely by some larger military vehicle.

  “We have a tail, Cooper,” she warned Bolan.

  Turning in his seat to scrutinize the followers, he said, “We can’t outrun them on this road. Pick up a lead and take the first turnoff that you can manage.”

  “Right.”

  The problem wasn’t soldiers. Somalia’s army, navy and air force had effectively dissolved in 1991, and the TFG Ministry of Defense ran a disorderly show, characterized by frequent desertion and little or no discipline.

  The problem lay in deciding whose vehicles were behind them. Were they AMISOM peacekeepers, or bandits? And, if bandits, which clique did they serve? Guleed and Basra were the biggest fish in Mogadishu’s tainted pond, but they were not the only fish. Out in the countryside, the odds of meeting gunmen from some unaffiliated gang increased dramatically.

  Mironov sped up, watching the jeep and trailing vehicle—or vehicles?—dwindle in her mirror. They were not accelerating yet, although the mere fact of her flight could be provocative. She needed somewhere to turn off that would conceal them without trapping them, forcing them into some indefensible position.

  And she needed it now.

  Mironov did not believe in prayer. She’d been thirteen when Russian communism had collapsed under its own deadweight, and while that change encouraged a more public practice of religion, she had seen too much of life’s dark side to believe that some ancient spirit floating in the clouds cared enough about Earth and its scrabbling insects to meddle in their fratricidal games.

  She would not ask the old man in the sky for miracles, but she needed a lucky break.

  And there it was!

  An unpaved side road, gravel over dirt, approached swiftly on her right. She made the sharp turn blindly, without time or means to calculate what it would mean to their survival. She could not tell if the one-lane track ran on for miles or ended at a cliff face within view of the highway.

  Either way, it was their only chance.

  NADIF ALI WAS HONORED to deliver the first blow against the enemy who had destroyed Basra’s refinery and killed more than a dozen of his men. They were Ali’s men, too, since he was Basra’s second in command, and so entitled to direct the troops in Basra’s name.

  Ali had favored striking at Guleed directly, visiting his headquarters in force and killing everyone he found there, from the top down. Basra had restrained him, telling him that they would need specific strategies to put Guleed out of their misery, reminding Ali of the other times they’d tried and failed to finish him.

  Ali agreed, because it was his nature to obey.

  For now.

  The target he’d selected, after Basra ruled out Guleed’s home and central clearing house, was a gambling club located on Via Medina, a quarter mile from the waterfront. At this time of day there would not be many people around, which was fine because Ali wasn’t interested in gunning down civilians.

  Not this day, at least.

  He wanted Guleed’s men, his property, he yearned to destroy them in partial repayment of the blood debt to his family. It would not be enough, but still, it was a start.

  The club was called Jebis—python—perhaps because it squeezed the money out of anyone who spent time there. Ali approached it with a dozen men in two cars, all well-armed with automatic weapons and spare magazines. The second car also had several cans of gasoline inside its trunk, which made it a rolling bomb in the event of a rear-end collision, whose driver had been instructed to maintain a distance of at least two car lengths from Ali’s sedan until they reached their target.

  Once parked on the street in front of Jebis, Ali felt his pulse racing. He watched his men spring out of the cars, cocking their weapons, forming a tight skirmish line along the curb. They watched for Ali’s signal, and he did not keep them waiting. Striding briskly to the club’s front door, he fired a short burst from his Kalashnikov into the door’s lock, then kicked it open, snarling as he rushed inside.

  A number of Guleed’s men scrambled for their weapons as Ali entered, his troops following close behind him. It became chaotic, with the invaders spraying bullets all around the smoky room, slugs striking flesh, walls, furniture and gambling equipment everywhere they turned. Some of Guleed’s men fell before they reached their guns, while others returned fire, crouched behind upended tables, from behind a short bar at the west end of the room and from a narrow hallway leading to the rear.

  Ali felt bullets sizzle past him, almost close enough to singe his flesh, and he fought on, uncaring. If he died here, it was meant to be. With his last ounce of strength, he’d reach out to kill another enemy. With his last breath, he’d curse them.

  He was startled, caught up in the killing moment, when the last rounds from his magazine were spent. He knelt in the open, reloading, then rose to rejoin the battle. F
ewer enemies remained to face him now, and Ali’s bullets chopped them down as if they were mannequins lined up for target practice. It was almost too easy, like shooting dogs trapped in a pen.

  When his second magazine ran dry, Ali had no more standing targets left. He moved among the fallen, seeking feeble signs of life he could extinguish, but they all seemed to be dead.

  And if a few were faking, better yet.

  They would be conscious when the flames reached them.

  Turning to find his nearest soldiers, Ali raised his voice to compensate for the hellacious ringing in his ears.

  “Go fetch the gasoline,” he commanded. “Burn this fucker down!”

  COLONEL AKELO KENYANGI stared across his desk at Dualeh Awrala, arms crossed over his barrel chest. A frown carved furrows into his ebony face.

  “What do you wish from me, exactly?” he inquired.

  Kenyangi was Ugandan, third in command of the AMISOM peacekeeping mission in Somalia. He clearly did not relish being stuck in Mogadishu, nine hundred miles from home and lacking any indication of precisely when he would be free to leave. A forked scar on his left cheek, long since healed, gave him a vaguely sinister aspect.

  “Colonel,” Awrala said, “as deputy assistant to the Minister of Economic, Medical and Agricultural Affairs, I have a charge to help protect the worthy citizens of Mogadishu.”

  “Humph!” The throat sound suggested that Kenyangi questioned whether any such persons existed.

  Cringing inwardly, Awrala forged ahead. “Sir, it has come to my attention that outsiders—more specifically, Americans or Europeans—are involved at present in a scheme to wreak more havoc in the district, at a tragic cost in life and property.”

  “Which is it—Americans or Europeans?”

  “Whites, in any case. As they are unidentified, I cannot state their nationality with any certitude.”

  “You’ve seen them?” Kenyangi asked.

  “No, sir. I myself have not, but I have information from a trusted source. Already, these outsiders are responsible for killing twenty men or more within the city.”