Ambush Force

“That’s citizen Diggler to you, Lars. Hell, I ain’t even the Diggler no more. I’m just…Dick.” Dirk sighed and took a massive swallow of whiskey. “That’s who I am and what I got right now. Dick.”

“How could such thing happen? You are good soldier.”

“I ate the big chicken dinner.” Dirk downed the rest of his drink with a grimace and slid the glass forward for another. “Can you believe that shit?”

“I had heard this, and could not believe.” Obiada leaned his bulk in conspiratorially as he poured brandy. “Is it true you struck British major?”

“No, oh hell, no.” Dirk grinned and spoke a little too loud. “I bitch-slapped a goddamn brigadier!”

Bolan noticed a pair of heads turn their way down the bar.

“You do everything in style.” Obiada laughed and turned an eye on Bolan. “And who is friend?”

Bolan stuck out his hand. “Cooper.”

The bartender pumped Bolan’s hand with pleasure. “Cooper. You, too, were involved in the…altercation?”

Bolan played a card. “Let’s just say it influenced me to not renew my contract.”

Wheels moved behind Lars Obiada’s eyes at the word contract. “I am sorry to hear. First round is on me.”

“You’re a gentleman and a scholar,” Dirk pronounced.

“I am scholar of life. As for gentleman…” Obiada suddenly frowned. “I think you have attracted attention of gentlemen at end of bar.”

A voice with a Welsh accent snarled over the music. “’Ey, you.”

Dirk and Bolan ignored him.

“’Ey you! Blackie!”

Just about the entire bar turned. Dirk let out a long sigh and brought his hands to his chest. “Who? Me?”

“Yeah, you.” A lanky man leaned forward and thrust out his jaw. He and his companion wore the green beret of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines. “Was that you I ’eard bragging about sucker punching our beloved brigadier, then?”

Dirk raised his hands and gestured at his bruised and battered face. “Listen, man, I already took my lumps from the RMPs and got busted out of the service. I’m a civilian now. You already won. Let it go. I’ll buy your next round.”

The other marine was a skinny little rat-faced man, but he had a mean look about him. “Colour Sergeant, I believe the word he used was ‘bitch-slap,’ and he smiled when he said it, didn’t he, then?”

“Mmm.” The colour sergeant rose, and his head nearly brushed the ceiling. “You know, Jonesy? I don’t believe he’s repentant, not in the least.”

Bolan lowered his liter of beer. “Listen, fellas, we don’t want any trouble.”

“You don’t want trouble, Yank? You’d better stay out of it, then, shouldn’t you?”

“I’m afraid the man’s with me.”

“Really?” The skinny one smiled unpleasantly. “Who’s pitchin’ and who’s catchin’, then?”

Bolan smiled back. “I hear the queen does both.”

The colour sergeant took a moment to do the math, and a beatific smile spread across his face. So far it had just been an exchange of pleasantries. Now? The stomping was on.

“Aw, now. Who’s a clever dick?” The sergeant pointed a finger at Bolan. “It’s ’im, isn’t it, Jonesy? ’Ee’s—”

Bolan shot-putted his beer. It wasn’t a heavy blow, but it was a thick, cut-glass liter mug full to the brim, and the Executioner fired it forward, mouth first. The sergeant took the stein across the bridge of the nose, and beer and lemon juice filled his eyes. Dirk spun on his stool and snap-kicked him in the groin, which dropped him to his knees clutching his crotch in beer-blinded agony. Dirk stepped up onto the sergeant’s shoulder to gain some altitude, and rat-face Jones took Dirk’s heel through his teeth.

“I swear to God!” Dirk boomed. “If one more English asshole so much as—damn it!”

Four English sailors in full white middy shirts, trousers and hats came roaring forward.

Bolan stood and scooped up his bar stool. He raised it high and then pitched it low into the leading man’s legs, sending him tumbling to the tiles. The man behind him tripped and fell over his fellow sailor. The third sailor did a credible hurdle over the mass of Englishmen littering the floor, but the second he touched down, he took Dirk’s fist to the jaw and joined them. The fourth sailor took a step back and yelled for assistance to the room at large. “Tommy! Queue up!”

The UK was the second-largest supplier of coalition troops to the Afghanistan situation. There were a lot of Tommys at the Shishlik Haus at any given time. British soldiers, sailors and airmen rose from their tables.

Bolan upped the ante. “I need every dogface in this shit hole to stand tall!”

American soldiers came crawling out of the woodwork.

This brawl was going to clear the benches. The only thing missing was the piano player diving out the window. Everyone froze as Lars Obiada emptied half a magazine from a Stechkin machine pistol into the roof. “Sit down!”

The potential gladiators sat back down to their liquor and kebabs. The remaining English sailor pointed a finger at Bolan. “This ain’t over, mate.”

Bolan ignored the sailor and took his seat as the bouncers arrived to clear the carnage.

“Not you two. You know my rule about brawls.”

Dirk shrugged. “Wasn’t a brawl, Lars. More like a friendly beat down between allies.”

“No fighting.”

“All right, we’ll go.”

“No, not out front. Go through back. This way.”

Bolan and Dirk exchanged looks and followed Obiada through a door behind the bar. A narrow passageway led them past the kitchen, and a turbaned goon stood in front of a heavy wooden door at the end of the hall. He gave Obiada a bow and opened it. The room was small and low, and several games of poker were in progress. A big man pulled in a pile of chips and looked up with a grin. His salt-and-pepper hair was buzzed short on the sides and slightly long on the top like a lot of Eastern European soldiers. It was clear he hadn’t done any PT in a while, but he was built like a refrigerator and radiated strength. He wore the almost universal khaki load-bearing vest of a private contractor, but the pockets were empty at the moment save for the bulge of a cell phone. The big man pointed a thick finger at a row of flat screen TVs on the wall. One was showing FOX news, another an adult film and a third showed security camera feed where Shishlik Haus employees were carrying out British servicemen in various states of disrepair. The man spoke with a Slavic accent.

“I enjoyed floor show. Much better than belly dancers. Even better than taking money from these losers.”

Two Italian airmen who sat bereft of chips gave the big man a sour look but wisely kept their thoughts to themselves. Bolan had the man pegged for a Pole. “GROM?”

“Good!” The man grinned. “Very good!”

GROM was the acronym for Poland’s Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego, or Operational Mobile Reaction Group. The acronym also formed the word thunder in Polish. Poland had been one of the first Eastern European nations to sign up for operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and their special forces had been the first people they sent. GROM was their best, and while somewhat inexperienced, their best had the reputation of not being bad, and they were busy soaking up operational lessons the hard way in the fiery crucibles of the Middle East and Asia.

The Pole turned to the Italians. “Why do you still sit here? What do you intend to wager with? Your pants?” He jerked his head toward the door. “Go!”

The two airmen stopped just short of running. The big man shook his head as they left and returned to business. “The lieutenant, we know something of. You—” the big Pole shrugged at Bolan “—I do not know, but if you are with Dirk, this speaks well of you.”

“Thanks. GROM spells badass anyplace I’ve ever been.”

The Pole smiled modestly. “You are too kind.” He pulled a business card out of his vest. “My name is Dobrus, Dobrus Stanislawski. Why do not you and the lieutenant come by the office tomorrow?”

Bolan took the card. It read Dobrus Stanislawski, Security Consultant, Shield Security Services and gave a phone number, e-mail and address in Kabul. He handed it to Dirk.

The former Delta Force commando nodded. “We gonna get lunch out of this? I been in the stockade eatin’ MREs for a week, and I didn’t get my kebabs tonight.”

Stanislawski waved a hand around the premises. “Take-out from here?”

“You got a date, sex machine.”

3

“Dick Diggler, agent of Shield.” Dirk clearly enjoyed the sound of it. “Think we’ll get our own business cards?”

“We don’t have the job yet.”

“Dude, we’re shoo-ins.”

Bolan and Dirk climbed out of the cab with their hands never far from their concealed Berettas. Shield’s Kabul office was part of the new construction going on in the capital. Prevailing conditions favored thick concrete walls and few windows. The walls were pockmarked with bullet strikes and the occasional deeper crater of an RPG hit. Shield provided private security for businessmen, politicians and foreign dignitaries in war-torn Afghanistan, and that made the office itself something of a target. Strategically placed concrete pylons on the surrounding sidewalk prevented anyone driving a car bomb from getting up a head of steam at the building. The few windows were all upstairs and were more like the firing slits of a medieval castle than ornamentation or sources of natural light.

Bolan pressed the button on the steel security door and stared up into a camera lens. The intercom crackled and a woman’s voice spoke. “Mr. Dirk and Mr. Cooper?”

“That’s us.”

The intercom buzzed and the door unlocked. They had to pass through a switchback series of three Kevlar panels before reaching the foyer. A beautiful young Afghan woman in a gray business suit and skirt sat behind a teak desk with the Shield logo behind her. “Would you gentlemen care for coffee?”

Stanislawski came through a door behind her. “They have beer and take-out waiting for them upstairs. Follow me, boys.”

Bolan and Dirk followed the big Pole through a hall. It opened into a fairly spacious gym area with treadmills and weight machines. Dirk muttered appreciatively under his breath. “Goddamn…”

Dirk had a good eye. A woman in gray sweats was walking sideways on a stair-stepper machine. Wavy brown hair fell around a glowing face sheened with a healthy sweat. Savage work in the gym had turned her hourglass figure into sculpture, but not so much that she had lost any of her curves. She had big blue eyes, and her lips, nose and chin were sensuously sculpted.

Stanislawski called out jovially. “Connie! How long have you been on that machine?”

The woman’s eyes never wavered from some middle-distance point of concentration. “Forty-five minutes.”

“You are sick, little girl.”

A smile spread across her face. “I still have to do the other side. This old ass just turned forty-two.”

Bolan was sure many a woman in her twenties would have killed to have Connie’s rock-hard behind, but he kept that to himself for the moment. Stanislawski led them down another hall. The second they turned the corner, Dirk burst out eagerly. “Man! What’s her story?”

“Connie is our pilot. She flew Black Hawk helicopters for United States Army. She passed U.S. Army Ranger training, but of course was not allowed in ground combat. However, she flew combat missions in Desert Storm. Won Silver Star for bravery. Besides pilot, sometimes woman is useful in security missions. She can put on burka and blend with population or pose as Western nanny or tutor in ‘babysitting’ situations when armed man would be awkward.” Stanislawski raised a knowing eyebrow. “Very useful girl.”

“Oh, I got some uses for her.” Dirk grinned.

“Like others—” the Pole grinned back “—you will try.” He took them to the elevator, and they went to the third floor. The office at the end of the hall had “executive suite” written all over it. Stanislawski opened the door, and Bolan came face-to-face with a legend.

“Hello, men!”

Former Marine sniper David Dinatale had earned the moniker “Deadshot Dave” doing some very black operations work in Central America during the 1980s. During the 1990s, a mercenary soldiers’ magazine had done a story on him, giving him and his rifle the cover photo with the headline The Most Dangerous Man In Desert Storm. A framed copy of the cover shot hung on the wall behind him, as well as the United States Congressional Medal of Honor, pictures of him shaking hands with two presidents and a copy of his bestselling, semiautobiographical novel. Above all, in the place of honor, hung the battered Remington 700 sniper rifle with which he had done his damage and earned his accolades.

Like a lot of the world’s most dangerous men, Dinatale didn’t particularly look the part. He was a short, wiry man with sandy hair that was swiftly turning gray. He had a glowing tan and a generous smile that could sell toothpaste. Sitting in his shirtsleeves, he looked like a highly successful car salesman. However, there were certain signs of the operator about him. He sat in his leather chair with the lazy ease of a predator at rest and looked as if he could crank off a hundred push-ups without breaking a sweat. There was something very sniperlike around the eyes. He shot to his feet and stuck out his hand. “Thanks for coming around.”

“Morning, Mr. Dinatale.” Dirk stuck out his hand. “I must say this is an honor. I loved your book. It’s required reading over at Delta.”

“You keep up that kind of talk, and you’re gonna get yourself a date to the prom.”

He held out his hand to Bolan. “Cooper, is it?”

“Yes, sir, and it is an honor. You don’t get to meet a legend every day.”

“Jesus, you boys are butt-kissers!” Dinatale waggled his eyebrows. “But I like that in an employee! You taking notes there, Toe-jam, you Polack son of a bitch?”

Dobrus Stanislawski snorted.

Bolan smiled despite himself. Most snipers were quiet, introspective men. Dinatale was the exception that proved the rule, and he exuded the frat-boy charm of a lovable rogue. Bolan reminded himself that Deadshot Dave had forty confirmed kills, and those were just the ones that weren’t classified. Dinatale waved a hand at the cardboard boxes of take-out kebabs and roasted rice. A bucket of Moosehead beers on ice sat next to them. “Well, let’s tuck in and talk a little business.”

Everyone took a seat and began tearing into the cubed lamb and rice. Stanislawski took beers out of the bucket, twisted off the caps and passed them around.

“Well, now, gentlemen, I’ll tell you I’ve got a line of applicants stretched from here to Baghdad. I got Alaskan National Guardsmen who’ve never done anything but paint snow in Nome sending me love letters. The good news is this. Dirk? Delta Force says it all. I’d be a fool not to hire you. Short of Navy SEAL, you just don’t get a better résumé in this line of business.”

Dirk grabbed a fresh box of kebab. “SEALs are pussies.”

Beer nearly spewed out of Dinatale’s nose. “Well…like I said, Dirk. I’ve checked your bona fides, and save for a certain incident with a British brigadier, you’re rock solid.”

Dirk stiffened, but Dinatale dismissed the incident with a wave of his beer. “Hell, my one regret is that I’m going to go to my grave without ever having punched out a superior officer. That’s one you’ve got on me. Man! How’d that feel?”

“Well, at the expense of shooting myself in the foot?” Dirk smiled and shook his head. “Fantastic.”

Dinatale sighed in envy. “The good news is if you take the job I’m not your superior officer. I’m your boss. You don’t have to kick my ass. You can quit any time you want.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Dinatale. I like your style.”

“Thanks. So let me ask you a question.”

“What’s that, Mr. Dinatale?”

“Call me Dino—everyone does.”

“Okay, Dino, shoot.”

Dinatale’s eyes went hard as he looked at Bolan. “Who’s this civilian son of a bitch?”

Dirk didn’t bat an eye. “He’s the baddest asshole you’re likely to meet today, and you already met me, so that’s sayin’ somethin’.”

“Well, that is sweet,” Dinatale admitted, but he kept his eyes unblinkingly on Bolan. Few human beings could do the hard-stare harder than a veteran sniper. “But who are you, cowboy?”

Bolan was a veteran sniper himself, and he didn’t blink. “Short version, I’m a spook without a contract.”

Dinatale broke the staring contest with a sigh and leaned back in his chair. “You got a single reference I can check?”

“Well…I done dastardly deeds with the Diggler,” Bolan suggested hopefully.

Dinatale rolled his eyes in defeat. “I’ve heard a couple people say that recently, and I must admit it does give me something of a chubby.” The CEO of Shield turned to Dirk. “So you’re willing to vouch for this spook son of a bitch?”

“He’s the only white man I currently like, present company included, of course.”

“I’ll buy that, but for the moment. On your good word, Dirk. But he’s your responsibility. It’s like he’s on parole. Got it?”

“Trust must be earned,” Dirk agreed.

“Truer words were never spoken.” The former sniper measured the two of them. “I dig you, Diggler, and I want to dig him. I really want to.”

“Give him time.” Dirk cracked himself open another beer. “He grows on you.”

Dinatale laughed. “Well, I’ll look forward to it, then.”

Dirk put on his poker face. “Forgive my impertinence, Dino, but we don’t look forward to nothin’ till we talk cash money.”

“Fair enough. You’re ex-Delta, Dirk. ’Nough said. I’ll start you at a thousand dollars a day.”

“God…damn.”

“And since you’re holding Cooper’s parole, I’ll start him at the same and give you both a thousand up front. Deal?”

“Oh, hell, yes.”

Dinatale’s eyes were on Bolan. “Coop?”

Bolan put a little eagerness in his voice. “Oh, I’m in.”

“Good enough. We’re negotiating a job right now. You may be getting your feet wet as early as tomorrow night. Meanwhile, what are you boys carrying?”

Dirk pulled out his Model 92. “Cooper got his hands on a couple of Army Berettas, but they ain’t my first choice.”

“Well, here at Shield we have a weapons-standardization policy.”

Dirk’s face soured. Delta Force personnel were used to being allowed to carry whatever they thought they required. “You gotta be shitting me.”

“No, I’m not.” Dinatale grinned. “But it isn’t to please any bean counters back in the States or for the sake of uniformity.”

“Then what are you talking about, Dino?”

Dinatale held up a happy finger. “Did you know Shield is the first private security group to have corporate sponsorship?”

Even Bolan hadn’t heard that. “Really.”

“Show ’em, Dob.”

Stanislawski went to a painted steel panel in the wall and punched in a key code. The door slid open to reveal a walk-in arms closet. The Pole pulled out an automatic carbine with a grin. “Polish Mini-Beryl short assault weapon.”

Dinatale smiled happily. “Dob’s our resident gun bunny and armorer here in the Kabul office. He used to be GROM, and with Shield’s reputation, he got the Zaklady Metalowe company of Poland to provide us with all the small arms and ammo we can use as long as every time the U.S. merc magazines, that French rag or the evening news runs a story on Shield our boys are festooned with Polish steel. Zaklady Metalowe manufactures almost all the small arms the Polish military uses and exports widely. They give us everything from pocket pistols to antitank rockets. It’s really not a bad deal. It’s good kit, and it’s done well by us here in Afghanistan and in our sister operation in Iraq.”

Bolan had used Polish weapons, as well as been on the wrong end of them. Zaklady Metalowe weapons were nothing if not reliable, and the Polish designers had brought their version of the venerable AK into the twenty-first century with all the latest electronic sights and modifications.

“Dob’ll get you checked out on all our current issue equipment tomorrow. Speaking of which, where’re you boys staying?”

Dirk scowled. “Well, I spent the last week in the stockade, and I’m still picking lice from the inn we stayed at last night.”

“We actually have a suite of room downstairs and hold down a floor in an apartment block two buildings down. We like to keep our people together in case of emergencies, and quite frankly, once it’s known around town you’re Shield, you’re as much of a target as the people we’re paid to protect. We’ll put you up here tonight.”

“Thanks, Dino.”

“No problem. Dob will draw two grand from petty cash to give you some walking-around money.”

Bolan nodded. “Not a problem, and thanks.”

“Good, all settled, then.” Dinatale nodded to Stanislawski, who rose to show Bolan and Dirk out of the office.

4

The assault rifle racked open on a smoking empty chamber, and the last spent brass casing tinkled to the concrete floor of the Shield shooting range. Dirk unshouldered the weapon and blew on the smoke oozing from the action. The silhouette target downrange had been torn to shreds by his series of 5-round bursts. “Ain’t bad. Ain’t bad.”

Bolan lowered his own smoking weapon and turned to Stanislawski. “We’ll take them.”

“Ha!” The Pole clenched a meaty fist. “Polish steel, the best!”

Bolan and Dirk had raided the Shield armory. Each man now had a .223-caliber Mini-Beryl automatic carbine to call his own. The carbines came equipped with EO Tech holographic optical sights. The stubby carbines were too short to mount grenade launchers, but both weapons had launching rings for Polish Dezamet rifle grenades machined onto their barrels. Grenades, whether hand, rifle, rocket propelled or otherwise, were issued on an as-needed basis at Shield. Everything else was available at a kid-in-the-candy-store level of need.

Dirk had selected a polymer framed WIST-94 automatic pistol. Bolan had gone for an all-steel MAG-95. He’d also picked up a little P-64 pocket automatic. The pistol was just about the size and shape of James Bond’s famous Walther PPK, only chambered for the far more powerful 9 mm Makarov round. The little gun kicked like a mule and was inaccurate beyond spitting distance, but it was a lethal little surprise to pull from deep cover, and Bolan had learned long ago that drawing a second gun was faster than reloading.

Bolan laid his rifle down on the shooting bench. Stanislawski did good work. Both the optical and iron sights were dead-on. The basement level beneath the Shield offices was split between an underground parking lot and an indoor fifty-meter shooting range.

The Pole was eyeing Bolan shrewdly. “You are excellent shot.”

“Fifty meters, a carbine with an optical sight.” Bolan shrugged. “It isn’t hard.”

“No, but your every move upon range betrays you as marksman.”

“Well, I’m no Deadshot Dave, but I try to keep my hand in.”

Stanislawski laughed. “Who is?”

A woman’s voice rang out across the range. “I’ll give the son of a bitch a run for his money if he’s man enough to bring a six-gun.” Connie Zanotto walked up to the shooting bench, unzipped her range bag and pulled out a pair of revolvers.

Bolan peered at them. At first glance they looked like Smith & Wesson .38s but the grip angles were slightly wrong, as were the fixed sights.

Zanotto looked at Bolan challengingly. “You know, I told them I didn’t want some Polish jamamatic. I told them I’d been using a four-inch Smith since I made pilot back in the eighties. So what does fat boy do?” She looked ruefully at Stanislawski.

“Zaklady Metalowe?” Bolan suggested.

“Yup, Gward .38.” Zanotto twirled the Polish revolvers around her fingers like a gunfighter. “They work just fine. I swear, you work for Shield long enough and you end up with a hard-on for Polish steel.”

“I already have a hard-on,” Dirk admitted.

Zanotto favored the commando with a very appraising look. “Oh, I’m sure you do. I hear they call you the Diggler.”

Dirk flinched at the nickname. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”