incensed. “Someone done gone and gooed my girl! Rat…bastards!”
It was a trick Bolan himself had used. You could design chemicals to give off infrared light at specific wavelengths, suspend them in a clear, fast-drying gel and use them to mark objects or even people for unwitting targeting or tracing. If Bolan had to bet, someone had unloaded on Dragonslayer with a silenced, high-powered air rifle loaded with the equivalent of paint balls filled with infrared-emitting gel. It wasn’t the sort of assault that would have triggered any of Dragonslayer’s security sensors, and if Bolan was the shooter he would have timed his shots to the nearly constant 24/7 roar of takeoffs and landings.
The soldier glanced over at the fuel truck and found his spackle-sniper’s position. It was currently parked fifty yards away and serviced the helicopter park. Bolan looked out across the shelters and prefabs to the airport proper.
He had a very strong feeling he was under surveillance.
“Bear, I’m calling this mission FUBAR. We’re marked and can’t operate out of this theater.”
“So the whole thing is a wash?”
“No—” Bolan stared northeast toward the cauldron that was the Sudan “—we’re just going to have to do it the hard way.”
“We’re running out of time, Striker.”
“You said Able and Phoenix are currently operating?”
“That is their status.”
“I can’t use blacksuits for this gig. I need mercs.” Blacksuits were the military and police personnel who rotated onto the Farm to provide security duty for a period of time.
“Oh…my…God…”
“Find them for me, Bear. Break into databases and find me some reliable men.”
“I don’t know if I can get that authorized by—”
“Don’t authorize it. Just do it.”
“And to finance and equip this little jaunt I am…” Kurtzman’s voice trailed off.
“I’m going to give you a password and an account number and authorize your access to an account a friend opened for me in Labuan. I had to stash away someone’s ill-gotten gains.”
Kurtzman paused a moment. “In Malaysia.”
“Yeah. Malaysia.”
“What will you need?” Kurtzman asked.
“About a squad, a lean one. Like I said, I want you to hack the databases, deal with each individual directly.”
“Anything specific you’re looking for?”
Bolan considered the Sudan again. “Any experience in the desert is good. Some French or Arabic is a plus, so would being able to ride a horse.”
“What’s the pitch?”
“I’ll make the pitch. You offer them a first-class round-trip ticket and ten thousand euros to hear me out.”
“Some of them might think its some kind of trap. I think you need to give me a little more.”
“All right, we’ll lead with the truth. Tell them it’s a rescue mission that’s probably suicide, and tell them to meet me in Chad.” Bolan smiled tiredly. “Then let’s see who comes.”
2
CIA safehouse, Abeche, Chad
Bolan regarded the files in front of him. He had turned his back on whatever flapping and squawking was going on in Washington and charted his own course. He now found himself in Chad. He trusted Kurtzman and the Stony Man cyberteam implicitly, but privately even Bolan had been forced to wonder what kind of men would fly halfway around the world on twenty-four hours’ notice to hear a suicide proposition in Chad. Bolan had his answer, and he had his men.
And his woman.
Kurtzman spoke from four thousand miles away over the tablet’s sat link. “So what do you think?”
Bolan swiped his finger across the tablet and flipped the files back to the beginning. He had been expecting to see mostly Americans. Bolan looked at the sole Yankee on his team. Yankee was a loose term. Corporal Alejandro “Sancho” Ochoa wasn’t exactly a Yankee. In his mug shot, the corporal was built like the light-middleweight boxer he had been. The tattoo of an outrageously buxom Latina in a sombrero and peasant dress covered his right arm from shoulder to elbow. A similarly shaped woman dressed like an Aztec priestess covered his left. An Aztec pyramid with the sun rising behind it covered his abdomen from belt line to sternum. Above that, San Jose 408 designated his hometown in California and its area code across his pecs.
Ochoa was grinning and throwing gang signs at the photographer. The only thing even vaguely military about the man was his high and tight haircut. Bolan shook his head. The jailhouse mug shot was hard to reconcile with the Army file photo of a grimly determined young corporal in dress uniform with the ranger tab on his shoulder.
“What happened?”
“It’s hushed up, but basically his unit was involved in a bad civilian casualty situation in Iraq. He was individually cleared, but…”
“But his unit was made an example of. I remember something about it.”
“His unit was sent home, then he had some brushes with the law,” Kurtzman stated.
“Tell me he wasn’t dishonorably discharged.”
“Corporal Ochoa was given the opportunity to take an early discharge rather than face trial. He took it.”
“And?” Bolan prompted.
“Our boy turns right around, joins Blackwater as a private contractor and heads right back to Iraq. He distinguishes himself and—”
“And Blackwater gets thrown out of Iraq for a civilian massacre.”
“So Sancho went south and was doing bodyguard work in Central America, and, can you guess?” Kurtzman asked.
“He shot some people he shouldn’t have.”
“Well, rumor is they needed shooting, and rumor is a cartel down there wants him dead. Regardless, his privileges below the Rio Grande have been revoked.”
“What’s he up to now?”
“He’s eking out living as a bounty hunter in the L.A. Latino community. His name is in every private security database in the U.S., but his record and his brushes with the law have him kind of blackballed.”
Bolan sighed.
“You gave me forty-eight hours and some very interesting recruitment parameters, Striker.”
Things looked a little better with the next two. Both men were South African National Defense Force, 44th Parachute Regiment, Pathfinder Platoon and had made
