Rebel Trade Read online

  “It’s a good thing that we got the extra ammunition,” his companion said.

  “There’s no such thing as too much ammo,” Bolan readily agreed.

  “We still have several targets on the list in Windhoek,” Ulenga said. “Two or three of them are fairly close together. If they don’t anticipate our movements, we can hit them on our way out.”

  “Works for me,” Bolan agreed. “This one on Prum Street takes us to the B1 highway and the second spot on New Castle, then it’s a straight run north. A call before we leave might shake things up and keep them guessing.”

  “You would telephone the MLF?” Ulenga asked.

  “A little agitation with some misdirection,” Bolan said. “It’s worked for me before.”

  “What would you say?”

  “I play these kinds of things by ear,” Bolan replied. “Ideally, I can get the top man wondering about his aides, looking for traitors where they don’t exist. The more time he spends looking over his shoulder, the better for us.”

  “How will you prevent the call from being traced?” Ulenga asked.

  “I won’t be on that long,” Bolan said, “and they have to be set to run a triangulation. By the time they think of it, we’ll be long gone.”

  Ulenga seemed about to ask another question, settled for a shrug instead, and said, “We should get started, then, before they send more soldiers north.”

  “Sounds good,” Bolan replied. “Next target coming up.”

  * * *

  THE TRILLING CELL PHONE startled Boavida with a glass of rum raised halfway to his mouth. He stopped and frowned, considering who might be calling him, counting the individuals who knew his private number. When he thought of José Dembo, Boavida nearly dropped his glass, scooped up the phone and answered it.

  “Hello?” He’d nearly said “José?” but caught himself in time to dodge embarrassment if it was someone else.

  And so it was.

  “José can’t talk right now,” a stranger’s voice replied. “He’s tied up at the moment.”

  “Who is this?” Boavida asked, hating the shiver in his voice.

  “You can’t guess?” the caller asked.

  Boavida thought he sounded white, not European, and it clicked. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

  “Here’s a better question,” the stranger said, dodging Boavida’s. “Who in Windhoek wants you gone, but wouldn’t care to have a trial where you could tell your side of things? I’ll bet somebody comes to mind.”

  In fact, the MLF commander could not think of all his living enemies while standing with the cell phone pressed against his ear, discussing life and death with someone he had never met. The same man who had killed three dozen of his men so far, and cost him several hundred thousand dollars worth of property.

  “I don’t have time for guessing games,” Boavida said, feeling foolish. “If you want to tell me something, spit it out!”

  “Okay, two things,” the unknown caller said. “First, that gambling spot on Prum Street that you forgot to register just went out of business. If you hurry, maybe you can help the fire brigade.”

  “Goddamn you!”

  “The second thing,” his tormentor pressed on. “That dive you run on New Castle—the Cheetah Club—should be collapsing right about…now.”

  As punctuation to the caller’s comment, Boavida heard the sound of an explosion relayed through his cell phone from a distance.

  “There it goes,” the stranger said. “Closed for remodeling.”

  “Just tell me why you’re doing this!” Boavida snapped.

  “I did tell you,” the caller answered. “Someone wants you out, humiliated and disgraced. Not dead, or you’d be in a box by now. Maybe this person hopes you’ll run and leave a mess behind for someone else to clean up and put right. Maybe he hopes you’ll stand and fight, which means you will die, guaranteed. I don’t inquire about a client’s motive when I take a job.”

  “You are a mercenary?” Boavida asked.

  “I always thought soldier of fortune had a nicer ring. Whatever,” the caller said, “I’m just tipping you because the sooner you wise up and leave, the quicker I can cash in and get out of here. Leave now, some of your men may live to work for your replacement. What’s the difference? You’ve likely got some money put away for—”

  “I’m not leaving!” Boavida thundered. “I’m not going anywhere!”

  “Your call,” the stranger said. “More work for me, of course…unless you get it in the back before we meet.”

  “What do—”

  The line went dead, a click, then nothing. Boavida fought an urge to hurl his phone across the room, taking a deep breath to relax himself as he replaced it on his desk.

  The deep breath didn’t help.

  A stranger calls his private line to say that he’s been hired by someone close to Boavida, someone seeking to embarrass and depose him without killing him outright. The reason? Boavida knew that if his efforts in Namibia produced great losses and humiliation for the MLF, his own superiors might have him killed—but if that was their aim, why not simply be done with it?

  Who else was close to him, and still might wish him harm? Not Dembo, who was likely dead. Which, in Boavida’s mind, only left Lúcio Jamba.

  Ridiculous! They had been friends for years, advancing through the ranks together—although Jamba, granted, had always lagged a bit behind. Had Boavida’s personal success embittered his lieutenant? Could it be that Jamba plotted to depose him?

  Boavida stopped that train of thought, deciding that he must confirm the caller’s other statements first, before he gave free rein to paranoia. Step one was to call the manager of his shebeen on New Castle and verify a blast at that location. Next, the gambling club on Prum Street. If he found that both facilities had been destroyed, it meant the call had been no sick joke to unnerve him. In that case, the men around him would require more scrutiny.

  But he’d sent Jamba out of town.

  No matter. If he turned up any evidence of the man’s betrayal, Boavida could surprise him with it when he got back to Windhoek.

  The last surprise of Jamba’s life, perhaps.

  * * *

  THE DRIVE NORTH WAS A long one, and the B1 highway barely qualified as such by any normal standard. Although it was the country’s most important artery of travel, bisecting Namibia from south to north, the B1 was still only two lanes wide, and maintenance left much to be desired. It ran from Noordoewer on the South African border to Oshikango on the border with Angola, but Ulenga knew they would be leaving it before they reached that terminus, after they’d passed through Okahandja, Otjiwarongo, Otavi, Tsumeb and Ondangwa.

  Once they left the B1 and the towns behind, the road would narrow and there would be stretches where the pavement disappeared entirely. During rainstorms, which were rare, it might become impassable, but at the present time their greatest problem should be ruts and potholes deep enough to blow a tire or even snap an axle if a driver did not spot them in advance and cut his speed. Sergeant Ulenga reckoned he could help his partner watch for road hazards along the way, but they were sly and unpredictable.

  In fact, Ulenga drove the Volkswagen from Windhoek to Okahandja, forty-odd miles to the north. Its name translates from the Herero language as “The place where two rivers flow into each other to form one wide one.” The next town, Otjiwarongo, “Where the fat cattle graze,” was the district capital of Namibia’s Otjozondjupa Region and the site where German troops had massacred Herero tribesmen by the hundreds in 1904. After topping off the Jetta’s fuel tank in Otavi, once a mining center where South Africans defeated German troops in 1915 to secure the district for themselves, the big American took the driver’s seat and let Ulenga catch up on his sleep.

  A
s if he could.

  Within the past day and a half, his life had been turned upside-down by choices he had made himself. Ulenga wondered whether there was any going back to his career, assuming he survived the mission he had taken on, or if he would be hounded from his homeland as a fugitive.

  Despite the chaos back in Windhoek, he assumed that Nampol headquarters must realize that he was out of touch. Namibia had fifteen thousand law-enforcement officers, but fewer than a thousand sergeants. By this time, it stood to reason that headquarters would have tried to reach him, passing orders down the ladder of command, and when Ulenga proved unreachable, inquiries would be made. They could not track him physically—the Nampol budget did not stretch to GPS devices in department cars, much less to the purchase of equipment needed for triangulating cell phones—and he’d left his phone turned off since joining this mission, in any case. Ulenga had not even checked for waiting messages, content to tell himself that he would think about that problem later, when the smoke cleared.

  But by that time, it would likely be too late.

  Best-case scenario: he faced demotion, probably suspension, possibly dismissal, for dereliction of duty during a crisis. Worst-case, if his superiors found evidence of his involvement in the deadly raids, would be a term of life imprisonment.

  Which left him no choice but to flee.

  No one who’d seen a prison in Namibia, as he had many times, would voluntarily submit to being caged in one. None of the country’s thirteen lockups, rife with AIDS and inmate violence, was fit for human habitation, much less for a lawman who had helped to populate the cells.

  Something to think about, as night fell on the highway and concealed the desert stretching on forever past the tunnel of their headlights. Shutting out that view, Sergeant Ulenga closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

  * * *

  BOLAN HAD SEEN worse highways than Namibia’s, but he was not complacent. There would be no Auto Club to help out if the Jetta failed, no explanation of their weapons that would satisfy police should an emergency arise. He filled the tank again in Ondangwa, prior to branching off the B1 road onto track that looked more like some of the desert roads he’d driven in America’s Southwest, between “towns” that consisted of a gas station, a burger joint and a cheesy tourist trap—someone’s idea of a museum or zoo.

  Beyond Ondangwa, though, he wouldn’t even find that kind of settlement until they crossed the border and were well inside Angola, where he didn’t plan to go. Ulenga had their destination narrowed to a two-mile stretch of the Kunene River where he said traffic often crossed without the knowledge of Namibia’s border patrol. There was a place where they could hide and watch the river, his companion had explained, then move in closer when they saw the convoy’s headlights. Not the best arrangement in the world, but Bolan was an expert at adapting to the circumstances of a given situation. The advantage of surprise was critical. Beyond that, it came down to sheer audacity and skill.

  Ulenga sat beside him in the Jetta’s shotgun seat, maybe asleep, more likely faking it. He couldn’t blame the cop for being nervous, thinking of the life that he had risked—perhaps abandoned—when he cast his lot with Bolan. Second thoughts were inescapable, but they had come too far for Ulenga to decide that it was all a huge mistake. Even if he left Bolan at this stage, the die was cast for him. His best hope, possibly his only hope, was to continue with the mission, see it through and hope for victory.

  Which would mean what, exactly, for the Nampol sergeant?

  Bolan couldn’t say, but if they managed to defeat the MLF’s Namibian contingent and the men in government who coddled it, Ulenga might acquire some leverage toward saving his career and staying out of jail. Failing that, there was the flight alternative, but would he take it? Would he let Bolan arrange an exit, courtesy of Stony Man Farm, that would resettle him halfway around the world?

  Maybe.

  It wasn’t time to think in those terms yet, but Bolan always did his best to plan ahead. Plotting the future out for someone else was doubly dicey, though, especially when he had only known that someone for a day and change.

  The plan that worked for him at the moment: push on and meet the weapons convoy crossing the Kunene, take it out, and see what happened next. If Boavida took the bait from Bolan’s phone call, he might help unravel the Mayombe Liberation Front from the inside. If not…

  Well, then it meant more work for Bolan, but he’d signed on for a wild ride to the end of the line. Ulenga could decide whether he remained on board, but one thing was predictable, as good as guaranteed.

  They hadn’t seen the end of bloodshed yet.

  Not even close.

  Chapter 11

  Fanuel Gurirab stared at the two files sitting on his desktop, side by side. Both represented Nampol officers who had been out of touch and absent without leave since the crisis in Windhoek began. An aide had brought the files five minutes earlier, but Gurirab had yet to open either one of them.

  Get on with it, he told himself. Stop wasting time!

  He started with the slim manila folder to his left, its index tab bearing the name Shipanga, Kartuutire. Opening the folder, Gurirab discovered that Shipanga was a new recruit with only eighteen months of service on the force. He had departed for a scheduled holiday the afternoon before all hell broke loose and was supposed to be visiting kinfolk in Botswana. So far, three attempts to reach his family by telephone in Ghanzi, at the number he’d provided, had been fruitless.

  Meaning what? That they were traveling together, unaware of what had happened—was still happening—in Windhoek, totally oblivious to the emergency? Or was Shipanga’s holiday part of a finely tuned conspiracy? Had he chosen the dates because he knew trouble was coming and he needed free time to participate? Could it be even worse than that? Was there the slightest possibility that he had joined Nampol more than a year ago already planning these events? Had the recruit used his position on the force to gather information for the killers? Was he now part of their murder spree?

  Unfortunately, Gurirab could answer none of those distressing questions. Since he had not located Katuutire Shipanga yet, he had no way of knowing whether the young officer was lolling with his loved ones in the bush somewhere, or stalking members of the MLF around Windhoek.

  In short, he had learned nothing.

  Muttering a curse, he closed Shipanga’s file, pushed it aside and opened up the second, fatter one, which bore the name Ulenga, Sgt. Jakova. The sergeant, he saw, was thirty-one years old. He’d spent eleven years with Nampol after two years in the army, and had been promoted to his present rank in March 2010. Prior to his promotion, Ulenga had served on Nampol’s Motor Vehicle Theft Unit and its Crime Investigation Unit. Since promotion he had been assigned to Serious Crimes—which included piracy, gunrunning and human trafficking.

  All sources of revenue for the Mayombe Liberation Front.

  What did that prove? Nothing, in and of itself.

  Where was Sergeant Ulenga at the moment, when he should have been on duty? No one seemed to know.

  His last check-in with headquarters was logged approximately fourteen hours earlier—or, put another way, some ninety minutes prior to the attack on Rieckmann Street against the MLF drug lab. Coincidence? More to the point, if he was not involved in the successive incidents, where was Ulenga? Why had he been out of touch this long? Why were the several calls from Nampol headquarters unanswered?

  Gurirab had sent an officer to check Ulenga’s flat, but no one was at home. Neither, by peering through its windows, could the officer discover any sign of foul play on the premises. Gurirab wondered whether he should send a search team next, ransack the flat for clues, or use some other method to locate his missing sergeant.

  And what method would that be? Perhaps a television bulletin: “Sergeant Ulenga, please check in”?

&nbs
p; Absurd.

  But Gurirab knew that he must try something, and he had to do it soon. The thought of harboring a traitor in the ranks unnerved him. And if there were two traitors—Ulenga and Shipanga, working as a team—he would have some epic explaining to do.

  That prospect made Gurirab’s head ache, as he reached out for the telephone.

  The Kunene Rive, Kaokoland, Namibia

  HEADLIGHTS APPROACHING in the distance. Bolan watched them through Ulenga’s Opticron pocket binoculars from three miles out, the 8x25 magnification transforming them from tiny fireflies into harbingers of death. Three trucks loaded with military hardware on its way to members of the MLF who would employ the deadly tools in acts of terrorism, piracy and the defense of a criminal syndicate.

  Bolan had other ideas.

  “We’ll let them start across,” he said, “then hit them while they’re in the water. That should slow down their reaction while we take them, quick and clean.”

  Ulenga nodded at his side, and Bolan had to wonder if he bought the last part. Quick and clean was optimistic—some might say delusional—where any form of combat was concerned. It worked out sometimes, sure, but in the crunch, often as not, things started to unravel and a soldier had to play it all by ear. On instinct.

  Their rifles had an effective range of three hundred yards, give or take, but anything approaching accuracy meant they had to cut that distance by two-thirds. Bolan was hoping he could stop the first truck with his GP-30 launcher, then move on to numbers two and three before they started picking off the riders individually. Return fire was a given, but the key advantage of surprise gave them an edge—at least, until his first grenade went off.

  Success meant hampering the MLF’s war effort and taking a hefty bite out of its treasury. Failure…well, the price of that was constant and unchanging.

  If they failed, they died.

  The rub: Bolan had no idea how many soldiers would accompany the shipment. Standard military truck cabs seated two men comfortably, but might accommodate three. Extra shooters could ride with the cargo in back, if the trucks weren’t chock-full.