way one might expect in Equatorial Africa. The looters had simply taken whatever they wanted rather than every last thing of value.
That didn’t bode well.
Bolan walked over to the growing piles of plunder.
The weapons were nearly all Chinese Type 56 AK-47s with folding spike bayonets. The standouts were a Russian RPD machine gun and a Dragunov sniper rifle that was missing its telescopic sight. Bolan found two South African RAP-401 pistols like the one he carried, which likely belonged to the pilot and copilot, since machetes and pangas seemed to be the usual weapon of choice for the locals.
The loot from the plane was nearly as welcome as the firearms. Bolan had brought a first-aid kit, but the plane’s kit was the kind of medical smorgasbord that only a private luxury craft that never expected to have a medical emergency insisted on including. This jet also had a survival kit.
The random pile included books of matches, several lighters, watches, cell phones and the personal effects of tribal militias.
Bolan frowned at the last and unfortunately smallest pile before him.
There was very little in the way of rations, and what there was consisted of three small bags of rice. The universal mess of irregular forces in sub-Saharan Africa was boiled rice and bush meat of the day. It was going to be Bolan and his squad’s as well for the foreseeable future. What was missing told him a lot. There were no blankets. No sleeping bags or hammocks. All these men carried were their weapons and a light lunch. The fact that these men were so lightly outfitted told Bolan that they were a patrol, broken off from a much larger camp, not far away, and probably expected back for dinner. Someone was going to start wondering just where they had gotten to, and sooner than Bolan liked. He swiftly divvied up the piles into working loads and packed them into the luggage that had shoulder straps.
He nodded at the tallest and largest cadet as the youth laced up his commandeered boots. “You.”
The young man leaped to his feet. “Sir?”
Bolan checked the load in the RPD. “You’re my pig man.”
“Sir?”
Bolan shoved the RPD into the young man’s hands. “You’re my pig man. You are humping this pig.” Bolan draped two canvas sacks containing spare 100-round drums across the oxlike shoulders before him. “You copy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who can shoot a pistol?”
A diminutive cadet and the flight attendant raised their hands. Bolan handed out South African steel to the woman and gave the cadet a rifle and spare magazines. “Who knows how to make a litter?”
A black cadet raised his hand.
“Good, grab a buddy and get the copilot loaded up.”
Bolan looked at the dead enemies. Their tracks said they had come from the west. The creek was flowing south. “Put the bodies in the creek.”
The cadets stared. They were close to losing it. “Move!” One advantage Bolan had on this mission was that his charges were U.S. Military preparatory school cadets. Unlike a lot of American teenagers, they knew how to take orders. “I have to make a call.”
The cadets and crew all gave Bolan very hopeful looks
He walked a bit away and pressed a preset button on the CIA satellite phone he’d picked up in Pretoria. He waited while his signal moved through significant filters. Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman answered. “Striker, this is Bear. Sitrep.”
“Objectives were taken. I took them back. Pilot is dead. Copilot is badly injured and going septic.”
“Describe ‘taken,’ Striker.”
“Nine hostiles down. Believe hostiles happened upon crash site by chance. They’re not our shooters, but they’re not alone. They were a patrol for a larger force.”
“Any identifiers?”
“Leaders possibly named Caesar and Mama. Check the scuttlebutt for the area.”
“Copy that, Striker.”
“Pilot died in crash. His body was exhumed. Things were done. I interrupted an atrocity in the making. I have a worst-case scenario. Requesting immediate extraction.”
“Negative, Striker. No extraction assets within range.”
“Requesting immediate backup. SEALs, Rangers, anyone within airborne range.”
“Negative on U.S. Military personnel, Striker.”
“Request Farm personnel, Able, Phoenix, any and all available.”
“Negative on Farm personnel.” Bolan could hear the regret in Kurtzman’s voice. “Exposure is already too high.”
The vault of the African heavens broke open. Rain sheeted down as if liquid curtains falling out of the sky. The silver lining was that maybe it would cover their tracks and help obscure the crime scene.
“Striker…”
Bolan knew by Kurtzman’s voice it was bad. “Copy, Bear.”
“I have been instructed to tell you that if you can extract the primary objective, secondary objectives can be considered…expendable.”
Bolan’s blood went cold. “I understand. Farm Protocol 4. Mission understood.”
“Copy that, Striker. Will advise.”
There was no Farm Protocol 4. It was a code word arranged by Bolan and Kurtzman. It could have been Corn Flakes or Looks Like Rain. What Bolan had just told Kurtzman was that he had gone rogue. It was Bolan’s mission, and he was operating outside government jurisdiction. No one was expendable save himself, and the Stony Man Farm computer expert should establish a private link between Bolan and the Farm.
“Any chance on a supply drop?”
“Working on it. Must advise not to plan on it.”
“Copy that. Striker out.”
Bolan strode back into the center of camp. “Everyone, take a gun. Take a pack. Take a machete.” Bolan glanced up as the African sky continued to unload. “We’re out of here.”
2
“Dead!” Julius Caesar Segawa was incensed. As far as he was concerned, this section of the rain forest was his private reservation. Anything that entered was either prey or asked and paid for permission to enter. He stared down at the naked, bloated, bullet-perforated, logjam of his men clogging a bend in the creek. “Dead! I want them dead! Whoever has committed this atrocity! They burn in my fire! Their livers sizzle upon my plate with onions!”
Segawa’s men shook their rifles as they became willingly infected with their savior’s rage.
Solomon Obua knelt his mighty frame by the creek bed and stared at the bodies. Obua had been a Ugandan superheavyweight Olympic boxing contender. His
