that he had standing by and make good his escape.
What was it they always said in the United States?
No sweat.
If only that were true in the Bakaara Market, where the floodlights seemed to amplify the fading heat of yet another muggy afternoon, forcing Boorama to mop his forehead with a shirtsleeve. He looked forward to the getaway, riding at high speed in a stolen car with all the windows open, chilling him with the evaporation of his sweat off his skin.
But first, the kill.
Tired as he was of waiting, Simeon Boorama felt it coming to an end. His man was moving now, with more assurance than he’d shown since entering the market. Not just drifting, killing time, but walking with a purpose, eyes straight forward, locked on someone he’d been waiting for.
Boorama saw the white man half a second later, knew that he had to be the contact Waabberi had been expecting. Who he was or where he’d come from mattered no more to Boorama than the stranger’s choice of underwear or aftershave.
It was Boorama’s job to kill him, nothing more.
“I see him,” he informed the others, speaking into the tiny microphone attached to his lapel. “It’s time. Move in, but remember, they belong to me.”
BOLAN IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZED Dirie Waabberi from his photograph and moved to intercept him near a market stall piled high with what appeared to be secondhand clothing. He kept it casual, no rushing, making himself as inconspicuous as a tall white man could be.
Waabberi drifted toward the clothing stall, not making any signal of acknowledgment as yet. Bolan took time to scan the crowd behind his contact, and to either side, looking for any evidence of urgent, hostile movement. But the shoppers surged in all directions, jostling one another, making it a tough call.
Moments later, Bolan stood beside Waabberi, studying a rack of mismatched scarves as he began the ritual.
“I always fancy red or white,” he said.
“I like the blue, myself,” Waabberi answered automatically. “Welcome to Mogadishu, Mr. Cooper.”
“Thanks. I need to get some things before we start. Hardware. But it’s too public here.”
“No problem,” Waabberi said. “I know a dealer who provides good quality.”
“Are you on foot?”
Waabberi nodded and replied, “I understood that you would have a car.”
“I do.” Bolan had paid to park it in a fenced lot, guarded by a one-eyed man who wore a rusty-bladed panga on his belt. “We may as well get started.”
They were turning when he saw the gunman coming at them, smiling in anticipation of an easy kill. The shooter wore a loose jacket, drawn back to bare a stubby submachine gun slung over his right shoulder, its muzzle rising as he closed the gap to fire at point-blank range.
Bolan reacted in a heartbeat, instinct stepping up to take the place of conscious thought. Instead of bolting from the shooter, he lunged forward, struck the weapon’s muzzle downward with his left hand, while the right snapped forward from the shoulder, slamming the heel of his palm into the gunman’s nose.
It might have been a fatal blow. He didn’t pull it, but the impact varied from one subject to another. Bolan didn’t know if he had driven shards of bone into the shooter’s brain or blinded him with splintered cartilage. The hit was hard enough to put the man down without a fight, and that was all that mattered at the moment, giving Bolan time to whip the right sleeve of the gunner’s jacket free and release the submachine gun from its shoulder sling.
“Let’s go!” he snapped, and steered Waabberi back along the path Bolan had followed as he entered the Bakaara Market, hoping that the shooter was alone. He wasn’t.
Bolan guessed it when he saw three others closing in, instead of shying from the crazy white man with a gun. He knew it when another fired a pistol shot from somewhere on his left flank, missed and struck an old man in the face.
Waabberi ducked and drew a pistol of his own, but held his fire as Bolan said, “Not here!”
The last thing Bolan wanted was a bloodbath to begin his mission in Somalia. He would not initiate a cross fire that endangered innocent civilians, even if the bulk of them were packing heat and long accustomed to surviving in an urban war zone.
“This way!” Bolan urged his contact, weaving through the crowd with shoulders hunched, as more shots sounded from behind them. Someone screamed—a child or woman, from the pitch of it—and then the panic started, as shoppers bolted every which way as they sought to clear the lines of fire.
The first few shots from handguns echoed flatly through the marketplace, but then an automatic rifle joined the chorus. Bolan recognized the stutter of an AK-47 and heard more screams as military rounds struck flesh and bone.
The shooters obviously didn’t care who else went down, as long as they dropped Bolan and/or Waabberi. The Executioner couldn’t pause to verify that he was on some hit list after only two short hours in Somalia, but it strained the notion of coincidence to think the ambush had been sprung by chance, just when Waabberi met him in the market.
He could sort through the details if and when they made it to the car alive and put some space between themselves and the remaining members of the hunting party.
Bolan knew that he could drop at least a couple of them with his liberated SMG, but he resisted the temptation. There was nothing he could do to help the panicked shoppers who were falling all around him, but he would not boost the ever-rising body count.
They’d reached the outskirts of the Bakaara Market, facing onto a street. There would be fewer bystanders out here. His enemies would have a relatively clear shot when they overtook him, and he’d have a chance to deal with them, in turn.
“Across the street,” he urged Waabberi, but they never made it.
As the Executioner stepped off the curb, a car screeched to a stop in front of him, its female driver craning toward the open window on his side.
“Get in,” she snapped, “unless you want to die right here!”
2
Baltimore, Maryland, Three Days Earlier
Meeting in public was a switch. When Hal Brognola met with Bolan to discuss a new assignment, the usual sites were at Stony Man Farm or the resting place of heroes at Arlington National Cemetery. This day, of all places, the meet had been scheduled at Baltimore’s Harborplace and The Gallery Mall.
Brognola had joked about it in their brief telephone conversation, explaining that he had to do some shopping for “the little woman.” Swarovski Crystal, no less, for an upcoming anniversary. Bolan was in the neighborhood, more or less, mopping up the stateside end of a Nigerian heroin pipeline in Newark, and he drove down for the day.
The mall was located on East Pratt Street, in the heart of Baltimore’s posh Inner Bay shopping district. Bolan checked out the sailboats in passing, then focused on the signs that told him where to park his rented car.
Swarovski’s was
