Rogue Assault Read online

  “No, please!”

  Medina reached up for the wire cutters, saying, “Do not humiliate yourself, Major. You know the way to stop this, anytime you care to.”

  “But the general will have me killed!”

  “Your more immediate concern is what we mean to do, if you will not cooperate,” Medina said.

  “I can’t betray my oath!”

  “Too late. You did that when you started smuggling drugs...how many years ago?”

  “I serve my country!”

  “No. You serve yourself.” Medina eyed Ocante’s naked feet and said, “Where shall we start? Which little piggy goes to market, eh?”

  * * *

  “YOU HAVE MADE CONTACT? That’s confirmed?” Edouard Camara asked.

  “The ship is on its way,” his caller said. “I’ve spoken to the captain. Five, perhaps six hours yet, before they dock.”

  “And all the cargo is aboard?” Camara pressed him.

  “He confirms five hundred kilograms, sir.”

  “All right. Call me the minute he docks, and make sure that you supervise the unloading yourself, with all your men on hand.”

  “You need have no concerns about security, sir.”

  “You’re right,” Camara said. “It’s your concern. And your head if you fail.”

  He hung up then, before the caller could respond, preferring that the threat be his last word. Camara turned to Aristide Ialá, standing off to one side of his desk, and nodded confirmation.

  “How much longer?” Ialá asked.

  “Five or six more hours to the island, then unloading, packing it aboard the plane. Another hour for the flight to Penha-Bor. Say early afternoon for the delivery.”

  “I have a new facility for cutting,” Ialá said. “Tight security. We’ve never used the place before. It’s clear.”

  “You stake your life on that?” Camara asked him.

  “Absolutely,” Ialá answered, after no more than a heartbeat’s hesitation.

  “Let that be the price of failure, then,” Camara said.

  He was in no mood to be generous or optimistic, after three strikes overnight had cost him dearly. Now, he had to recoup his losses by cutting the new cocaine shipment more than usual, stretching it further to cover his costs for the shipment he’d lost. No break on price from the Colombians, of course. They didn’t care if he lost product on his end or snorted all of it himself, as long as they received the current wholesale rate of seven million West African CFA francs per kilo. Call it seven and a half million U.S. dollars for the latest shipment, and to profit from it, Camara had to stretch five hundred kilos into two thousand.

  Aristide Ialá had already done the math, and now he said, “Some of our buyers will be disappointed by the quality.”

  “We’ll make adjustments,” Camara said. “When you supervise the cutting, use a lighter hand for our preferred customers. Take more from the product assigned to street sales.”

  “You see the risk in that, Edouard.”

  Ialá wasn’t asking him. Street customers, if badly disappointed with the quality of drugs sold by Camara’s vendors, might look elsewhere for their shopping next time. If he lost that base, drove buyers to do business with his rivals fronting for the navy or the air force, General Diallo would be angry. Still...

  “A risk that we must take, for now,” Camara said.

  Ialá nodded, whether in agreement or to ward off argument, Camara couldn’t say. His second in command clearly wasn’t pleased with the current state of their affairs; how could he be? Camara’s stomach felt as if he might be working on an ulcer, but it didn’t stop him sipping at his coca-leaf liqueur. A man required some comfort in his life, and while the bottle offered precious little, he would take what he could get.

  And he would watch his back, meanwhile. The new cocaine shipment should be large enough to keep his operation solvent and assuage Diallo’s trepidation for the moment, but Camara knew that he couldn’t ensure his own survival without tracking down the man or men responsible for pushing him so near the edge. Each hour that passed with no word from his soldiers on the street was torture, forcing him to wonder what would happen if they never found the enemy. How many more attacks could he survive, before Diallo or one of the city’s other drug lords moved decisively against him?

  Not much longer.

  In a cutthroat business, if you weren’t cutting throats, it meant that someone else was primed to slash yours.

  His trusted aide, perhaps?

  “I would feel better,” Camara said, “if you went to supervise the landing of this shipment personally. You can leave at once?”

  Ialá blinked at him and said, “Of course. I’ll call our pilot now.”

  One down, Camara thought, if anything goes wrong.

  * * *

  SÉRGIO OCANTE CRACKED before the wire cutters closed on the little toe of his left foot. On the verge of furious, humiliated tears, he blurted out, “Bastard! I’ll tell you!”

  “So,” the man crouched at his feet replied. “You know the question. Answer it.”

  “There is a shipment coming in today,” Ocante said. “Replacing that which you destroyed.”

  “Delivered where?” the tall American inquired.

  “The same as always,” Ocante said.

  “Make believe that we don’t know where that is,” the white man said.

  Could they truly be so ignorant? Ocante took a deep breath, poised for ultimate betrayal and whatever fate it brought him. “Shipments always come in to Bubaque,” he replied.

  His captors looked at each other, the American raising an eyebrow. Hunched before Ocante’s chair, the man holding the clippers said, “It is an island. One of the Bijagós, known for wildlife in its forest. It has ferry service to the mainland, and there is an airstrip.”

  “So, the drugs come in by water?” the white man asked.

  “Normally,” Ocante said. “Sometimes by air from Costa do Marfim, but rarely.”

  “Where’s that? The Costa...”

  “Côte d’Ivoire,” the white man’s African companion said. “You would say Ivory Coast.”

  “But this load’s coming in by ship?”

  Ocante knew the question was addressed to him and nodded. “On the Southern Star, registered in Liberia. How they receive it, I could not explain.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” the American informed him. “Do you have an ETA?”

  Ocante frowned until the man holding the wire cutters translated for him. “Hora prevista de chegada.”

  “The arrival time,” Ocante said, “would only be confirmed once the ship is closer to Bubaque. I should think sometime in early afternoon.”

  “And how much is it carrying?” the American asked.

  “Five hundred kilos were ordered. You’ve created an emergency.”

  “How many guards are stationed on this island?”

  “Soldiers, fewer than a dozen,” Ocante said. “I can’t say how many men Camara may have waiting.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?” the American asked.

  “I’m helping you!” Ocante said. “We don’t consult with him on such things as security, unless he asks for help.”

  “And there’s been no request?”

  “I think Camara knows it would be best for him to deal with this himself,” Ocante answered. “General Diallo is displeased already, with the losses as they are. Camara knows the saying, ‘Salve sua ave antes de parar de bater.’”

  “Save your fowl before it stops flapping,” the man crouched at Ocante’s feet translated for his companion. “It means take care of what you have, essentially.”

  “Okay,” the American said. “I guess we need to go and see a man about a bird.”

  “I’ve helped you, yes?�
�� Ocante asked. “You can release me now.”

  “And have you warn the general?” The man at his feet drew his pistol as he said, “No way.”

  8

  Bubaque, Bijagós Archipelago

  Aristide Ialá still wasn’t sure whether he should be disgruntled or relieved by his assignment to protect and transport the five hundred kilos of cocaine from Bubaque on to Penha-Bor. It was a great responsibility, and he knew that the job had only come to him because Camara knew he would require a scapegoat if disaster struck again, but it could only help Ialá if he brought the merchandise in safe and sound. Camara would claim credit for it with the general, of course, that was a given. But he couldn’t blame Ialá for whatever happened once the drugs were placed into his own two hands.

  Or could he?

  No. Camara could attempt to shift the blame for any future mishaps, but Ialá would take measures to protect himself. He might contact the general directly, brief Diallo on his own success and start accumulating goodwill with the man who pulled their strings.

  But for the moment, he was focused on the Southern Star, a mile offshore and closing toward the dock Ialá shared with five uniformed soldiers and fourteen of his own men, all armed with automatic weapons. Others, wearing knives but otherwise unarmed, stood by to start unloading the ship’s pricey cargo as soon as the boat had been secured to the dock.

  Five hundred kilos, or eleven hundred pounds. Packed in twenty-kilo crates, the cargo had to be unloaded and removed from its present packaging, then loaded into duffel bags for transfer to the waiting plane. He’d flown in on a Beechcraft Model 99 with his men, and would be taking him back with him, still a few pounds under the plane’s maximum takeoff weight after they’d packed the cocaine on board. Cars would be waiting at the Penha-Bor airstrip, and from that point it was a relatively short drive back to Bissau.

  Easy, under normal circumstances, but this day wasn’t normal. Anything but. Ialá’s future, and perhaps that of the whole Camara Family, was riding on the outcome of this last-minute delivery. Failure wasn’t an option.

  But it still could happen, anyway.

  Warily, he addressed his men, leaving the soldiers to their sergeant. “You are on alert,” he told them, “from this moment until we have stored the cargo in Bissau. No one may interfere with this delivery for any reason. If they try, immediately use your weapons. Do not wait for orders. Leave no enemy alive.”

  In lieu of answering, they charged their weapons, jacking live rounds into firing chambers. All of them were seasoned killers, and Ialá had no fear that they would freeze up under fire, if it should come to that. Ideally, though, the transfer and their takeoff should go down without a hitch. He wanted—needed—a smooth operation to assuage Camara’s agitation and restore a measure of his confidence, while bolstering Ialá’s status as Camara’s strong right arm.

  They had observed no strangers since arriving on the island, which was good. There’d been no rumors of their latest shipment, and it broke the normal schedule, to throw off any spies. It should be fine, but there was still a yawning chasm between should and would. The utmost caution was required, and Ialá thought that he was up to it.

  What did he have to lose, except his life?

  * * *

  BOLAN HAD BOOKED a charter flight from Bissau to Galinhas in the Bijagós Archipelago, landing on an airstrip used by tourists who wanted to see the old governor’s mansion and one-time Portuguese prison. From there, it was a quick run in a rented powerboat to Bubaque, landing on a beach a half mile from the island’s small airport. Medina helped him drag the boat ashore and hide it prior to hiking overland through forest rife with monkeys, brightly colored birds and snakes that wriggled out of sight at their approach.

  Bubaque’s airfield and its main port were located close together, which facilitated sport fishing excursions and delivery of cargo that, this day, was scheduled to include five hundred kilos of cocaine.

  Using the various Bijagós islands for deliveries made perfect sense: foreign transporters weren’t forced to show their faces on the mainland, and whichever military branch controlled a given island could impose ironclad security. That troubled Bolan to a point, but he intended to remove this shipment from Edouard Camara’s hands at any cost.

  Which didn’t necessarily require the drugs to be destroyed.

  Bolan had pitched the notion to Medina on their flight from Bissau to Galinhas. If they saw a way to grab the shipment, hold it hostage, they might have a chance to draw Camara out—and maybe put the general behind him in their crosshairs while they were about it. If a pickup didn’t work, their fallback option was to torch the shipment, send Camara back to square one with the heat cranked extra high. Bolan thought he could run with either plan and make it work.

  Unless Bubaque turned into a death trap.

  Their informant had denied arranging any special military presence for the coke delivery, and Bolan thought that he’d been truthful. On the other hand, Diallo could have made the move behind his major’s back, particularly after they had snatched Ocante from the army HQ’s parking lot. The smart move was to be prepared for anything, and that was why he’d brought the disassembled RPG along for backup.

  Just in case.

  The half-mile hike took longer than it should have, moving through dense undergrowth and watching out for green bush vipers all the way. Their hemotoxic venom prompted hemorrhaging, and no specific antivenin yet existed to relieve the potentially lethal symptoms. Best-case scenario: avoid the snakes to start with, which meant checking every dangling vine they saw along their way.

  Forty-seven minutes from the beach, Bolan picked out the sound of voices coming from a point ahead of him. He slowed, Medina doing likewise, and they crept toward the tree line where it overlooked a cove and pier where workmen under guard by half a dozen soldiers and a larger force of shooters in civilian clothes stood waiting for an aging cargo ship to dock. Bolan could read the vessel’s name in faded paint across its rusty bow.

  It was the Southern Star.

  Off to their right, some fifty yards away, a twin-engined plane sat waiting on the single runway of Bubaque’s small airport. A man whom Bolan took to be the pilot lounged beside it, smoking, heedless of the group collected on the pier.

  “Plan A?” Medina whispered.

  Bolan nodded. “Let them do the grunt work,” he replied. “We’ll move in when the plane’s loaded, before they get aboard.”

  “And then?” Medina sounded anxious.

  “Then,” Bolan replied, “we see what happens next.”

  * * *

  MAURICIO HERRERA TOOK his M4 carbine with him when he left the wheelhouse of the Southern Star to meet the Africans below. He left behind four of his soldiers armed with Belgian FN Minimi light machine guns to cover his back, not because Herrera doubted these particular customers especially, but because he fully trusted no one who was still alive and breathing.

  Why take chances, after all?

  The leader of the Africans met Herrera at the bottom of the gangplank, introduced himself as Aristide Ialá and shook hands. A second member of the greeting party held a briefcase at chest level, opened it and showed Herrera banded stacks of ten-thousand-franc banknotes. Herrera riffled through a couple of the stacks, confirming that they weren’t padded with strips of newspaper, but didn’t try to calculate the total in his head. That would be left to an accountant later on, and if the payment came up short there would be hell to pay.

  “It’s in the forward hold,” Herrera told Ialá. “Twenty-five crates, as was agreed.”

  Ialá half turned toward his waiting stevedores and rattled off something that sounded like, “O porão em primeiro lugar, para a frente. Começar a trabalhar.” Herrera knew that trabalhar had to be the same as trabajo—or “work”—in Spanish, but the rest was gibberish. He thought about the curiosi
ty of two adjoining nations, Spain and Portugal, with common roots but such divergent languages, then shrugged it off as less than insignificant.

  Herrera’s men would cover the unloading crew, a matter of routine, but there was nothing else aboard the Southern Star that they might wish to steal, unless they felt a sudden craving for secondhand tractors earmarked for delivery to Gambia. Herrera had no realistic fear that any of Ialá’s men would try to take the money back once they had hauled their drugs ashore. That kind of double cross would lead to killing, and whichever side prevailed this afternoon, it would touch off a war of retribution, drying up the flow of cocaine to the military officers who pulled Edouard Camara’s strings. It was unlikely, but his shooters would stand ready with their weapons on full auto, as a hedge against some act of madness no one could predict.

  Herrera held the briefcase, nearly smiling at its weight, but stopped short of expressing pleasure in a stranger’s presence. Killing time as the first crate came down the gangplank, he asked, “Have the people who attacked your cutting plant been dealt with?”

  Scowling, Aristide Ialá answered, “That is no concern of yours.”

  Watching the African through narrowed eyes, Herrera said, “I am concerned with anything that jeopardizes business. Someone who attacks our customers today may come for us tomorrow.”

  “They are being dealt with,” Ialá said.

  “I hope so,” Herrera replied. “If you need any help...”

  “There is no need,” Ialá said. “With the army, we have ample forces to contain the problem.”

  Herrera nodded. “That’s good. Because my orders are to bring no further shipments here until the trouble is resolved.”

  Ialá blinked at that, delayed a moment, then replied, “This news will disappoint the general.”

  “If you’re on top of it,” Herrera said, “there should be no real interruption. By the time another shipment’s due, you’ll have the bastards wrapped up, eh?”