Conflict Zone

Of course, the foreigners were still involved, and if they didn’t always have traditional white faces, they were every bit as rapacious as Belgium’s old King Leopold or Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm. Africa still had treasures to steal or buy cheaply, and Nigeria’s main claim to fame was petroleum.

Which brought Bolan’s mind back front and center to his mission as he slogged through a forest whose upper canopy steamed, while its floor lay in warm, muggy shade.

The oil rush was on in Nigeria, had been for years now, and like any mineral boom, it spawned winners and losers. The haves and have-nots. In Nigeria’s case, the have-nots—or rather, some of them—had taken up arms to demand a piece of the action. Barring concessions that pleased them, they aimed to make life untenable for the haves.

Which led to Bolan traveling halfway around the world, sleeping on planes and later jumping out of one to drop from more than four miles high and land on hostile ground where he’d be hunted by both sides, if either one detected him.

All for a young woman he’d never met or heard of previously, whom he’d never really get to know, and whom he’d never see again if he pulled off the job at hand and saved her life.

The really weird part, from a “normal” individual’s perspective, was that none of it seemed strange to Bolan. Hell, it wasn’t even new. The maps and faces changed, of course, but it was what Mack Bolan did.

Well, some of what he did.

The rest of it was killing, plain but often far from simple. He’d received the Executioner nickname the hard way, earning it. A few had nearly rivaled Bolan’s record as a sniper when he wore his country’s uniform.

As for the rest, forget it.

If there was another fighting man or woman who could match his body count since Bolan had retired from military service to pursue a one-man war, it ranked among the best-kept secrets of all time.

He had a job to do, now, in Nigeria. Helping a total stranger out of trouble.

And there would be blood.

CHAPTER TWO

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Thirty-three hours prior to touchdown in Nigeria, Bolan had cruised along Skyline Drive in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, watching the marvels of nature scroll past his windows. As always, he knew that the drive was only the start of another long journey.

His destination that morning wasn’t the end.

It was a launching pad.

He blanked that out and took the Blue Ridge drive for what it was: a small slice of serenity within a life comprising primarily tension, violent action and occasional side trips into Bizarro Land.

Bolan enjoyed the drive, the trees and ferns flanking the two-lane blacktop, and the chance of seeing deer or other wildlife while en route. He’d never been a hunter in the “sporting” sense, and while he’d never thought of carrying a placard for the other side, it pleased him to see animals alive and well, wearing the skins or feathers they were born with.

When you’d dropped the hammer on enough men, he supposed, the “game” of killing lost its dubious appeal.

But stalking human predators, well, that was Bolan’s job. And it would never end, as long as he survived.

So be it. He had made a choice, in full knowledge that there could be no turning back, no change of mind or heart once the decision was translated into action. Bolan was the Executioner, and always would be.

War without end. Amen.

Which didn’t mean he couldn’t stop and smell the roses when he had the opportunity. What was he fighting for, if not the chance to lead a better and more peaceful life?

Of course, he fought for others. Sacrificed his future, in effect. There’d be no wife and kiddies, no white picket fence, no PTA meetings or Christmas parties at the nine-to-five office. No pension or gold watch when he’d put in his time.

Just death.

And he’d already had a preview of his own, stage-managed in Manhattan by the same folks who had built the installation that lay five or six miles down the scenic route.

Mack Bolan was no more.

Long live the Executioner.

BOLAN CLEARED security without a hitch. He passed a tractor harrowing one of the fields on his left as he drove toward the main house. Stony Man was a working farm, which paid some of the bills and supported its cover, since aerial photos would show cultivated fields and farmhands pursuing their normal duties.

Those photos wouldn’t reveal that the workers were extremely motivated cops and members of America’s elite military teams—Navy SEALs, Special Forces, Army Rangers, Marine Corps Force Recon—who spent duty rotations at Stony Man under a lifetime oath of secrecy. All armed. All dangerous.

There were risks involved in spying on Stony Man Farm. Each aircraft passing overhead was monitored on radar and by other means. If one appeared too nosy, there were means for dealing with the problem.

They included Stinger ground-to-air missiles and a dowdy-looking single-wide mobile home planted in the middle of the Farm’s airstrip. If friendly aircraft were expected, a tractor pulled the mobile home aside to permit landing. If intruders tried to land uninvited, the trailer not only blocked the runway, but could drop its walls on hinges to reveal quad-mounted TM-134 miniguns, each six-barreled weapon capable of firing four thousand 7.62 mm rounds per second.

Fifty yards out from the farmhouse, Bolan recognized Hal Brognola and Barbara Price waiting for him on the wide front porch. A couple of young shirtless warriors in blue jeans and work boots were painting the upper story of the house, a procedure that Bolan had never observed before. He caught Price glancing his way and couldn’t help smiling.

The home team waited for him where they stood. Bolan climbed the three porch steps and shook their hands in turn. Price’s greeting was professional, giving no hint of all the times they’d shared a bed in his upstairs quarters at the Farm, when he was passing through.

“Good trip?” Brognola asked, as always.

“Uneventful,” Bolan answered.

“That’s the best kind. Join us in the War Room?”

Bolan nodded, then followed Brognola and Price inside.

The War Room occupied roughly one-quarter of the farmhouse’s basement level. It was basically a high-tech conference room, with all the audiovisual bells and whistles, but Brognola had always called it the War Room, since discussions held around its meeting table always ended with an order to destroy some target that duly constituted authorities found themselves unable to touch by legitimate means.

Sooner or later, it came down to war.

Bolan supposed that somewhere in the Farm’s computer database there was a tally of the lives that had been terminated based on orders issued in that room. Bolan had never made a point of keeping score, and didn’t plan on starting now, but sometimes he got curious.

The Farm wasn’t his sole preserve. It issued orders to the fighting men of Able Team and Phoenix Force, as well, while dabbling here and there in God knew what covert attempts by other agencies to hold the savages at bay. Sometimes—most times—it worked, but only in the short-term. In the long war of Good versus Evil, whoever laid down the ground rules, there was no final victory, no irredeemable defeat.

There was only the struggle.

And it was about to resume.

Aaron Kurtzman—“the Bear” to his friends—was waiting when they reached the War Room, seated in the motorized wheelchair that was his chief mode of conveyance since a bullet in the back had left him paralyzed from the waist down. That had occurred during a raid on Stony Man, initiated by a traitor in the upper levels of the CIA, and it accounted for the ultrastrict security that cloaked the Farm today.

“I won’t ask you about your trip,” Kurtzman said, smiling as he put the crunch on Bolan’s hand.

Brognola humphed at that, making the others smile, then said, “Consistency’s a virtue.”

“Absolutely,” Price told him as she took her usual seat. “No one would ever doubt your virtue, Hal.”

“In my day, civilized discourse required amenities,” Brognola said. “But hey, screw it. Let’s get to work, shall we?”

“Sounds good,” Bolan replied, smiling.

“What do you know about Nigeria?” Brognola asked.

“It’s in West Africa,” Bolan said. “Ruled by France, then Britain, until independence in the early sixties. Trouble with Biafra in the same decade. There’s oil, and everybody wants it. Drugs, coming and going. Tribal conflict verging on a civil war at times, and throw in some religious upheaval. Advance-fee frauds that go around the world through e-mail. Bribes are the order of the day, never mind corruption. That’s it, in a nutshell.”

“You’ve hit all the basics,” the big Fed acknowledged. “Are you up to speed on MEND?”

“Guerrillas. Terrorists. The acronym escapes me at the moment,” Bolan said.

“You’re still well ahead of the norm,” Brognola said. “It’s the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta, waging armed resistance against the federal government and foreign oil companies. You’ve heard of Marion King Hubbert?”

“No,” Bolan replied. “Can’t say I have.”

“No sweat. He died in 1989,” the big Fed stated. “A geo-physicist with Shell Oil, out of Houston, best known for his theories on capacity of oil and natural gas reserves. It boils down to what they call Hubbert Peak Theory.”

“Which is?” Bolan coaxed.

“Bare bones, the idea that Earth and every part of it have finite petro-gas reserves. Extraction supposedly follows a bell curve, increasing until pumping hits the ‘Hubbert peak,’ and then declining after that.”

“Sounds right,” Bolan replied. “They aren’t making any more dinosaurs.”

“So true,” Brognola said. “Anyway, the word from so-called experts at State is that MEND wants to create an ‘artificial Hubbert peak,’ whatever the hell that means. I don’t claim to understand it, but one of MEND’s spokesmen—a character calling himself Major-General Godswill Tammo—says the group plans to seize total control of the oil reserves in Delta State.”

“How are they doing so far?” Bolan asked.

“They haven’t captured any fields or pumping stations, but it’s not for lack of trying,” Brognola replied. “Their main deal, at the moment, is attacking pipelines, storage tanks, whatever they can reach. Also, they’re big on snatching CEOs and members of their families, whenever they can find an opening. Which brings us to the job at hand.”

Bolan sat quietly, waiting.

“Bear, if you please,” the big Fed prompted.

A screen behind Brognola came to life, displaying a candid photo of a ruddy-faced, balding corporate type wearing a tailored suit that Bolan knew was expensive.

“Jared Ross,” Brognola said by way of introduction. “He’s an executive V.P. in charge of production for K-Tech Petroleum, based in Warri. That’s a Delta State oil town, with roughly one-fifth of the state’s four-point-seven million people. Most of the foreign oil companies working in Nigeria have their headquarters in Warri, operating refineries at Ekpan, more or less next door.”

Bolan made the connection, saying, “He’s been kidnapped?”

“Not exactly. First, some background on the local tribes. They’re mainly Itsekiri and Ijaw, with Ijaw outnumbering the Itsekiri something like nine million to four hundred and fifty thousand. Anyway, for centuries they seemed to get along okay, but back in 1997 some genius in Lagos created an Ijaw government council, then put its headquarters in the heart of Itsekiri turf, in Warri. Maybe the result was intentional. Who knows? Long story short, when the smoke cleared, hundreds were dead and half a dozen petro installations had been occupied by rebels, cutting back production until soldiers took them out. MEND got its start from there, and in addition to the oil issue, you now have tribal warfare going full-blast in a region where they once had peace.”

Kurtzman spoke up, saying, “Beware the Feds who say, ‘We’re here to help.’”

“Which would be us, in this case,” Brognola replied. “Except the government in Lagos doesn’t know it, and we weren’t invited.”

“What’s the angle?” Bolan asked.

“You nearly had it when you asked if Jared Ross was kidnapped. It’s his daughter,” Brognola elaborated as another photo filled the screen.

Bolan saw a young woman in her late teens, maybe early twenties, smiling for the camera. She was blond and blue-eyed, fresh-faced, living the American dream. Bolan hoped it hadn’t turned into a dead-end nightmare.

“How long ago?” he asked.

“Last week,” Brognola said. “Six days and counting, now.”

“Do they have proof of life?”

“Seems so. The ransom note was flexible. MEND will accept a hundred million dollars for her safe return, or K-Tech’s pull-out from Nigeria.”

“That’s optimistic,” Bolan said.

“It’s fantasy. And Daddy doesn’t trust the local law to get her back. At least, not in one piece and breathing.”

So that’s where I come in, Bolan thought.

“I’ve got a CD file with all the players covered,” Brognola informed him, “if you want to look it over on your own.”

“Sounds good,” Bolan replied. “When would I have to leave?”

He already knew the answer, nodding as Brognola frowned and said, “They should’ve had us on it from day one. Let’s say ASAP.”

ALONE IN THE second-floor bedroom he used when at the Farm, Bolan read through Brognola’s files on his laptop. He started with background on Jared and Mandy Ross, found nothing unique or remarkable on either, and moved on to meet his opposition.

MEND, as Brognola had noted, was the source of most guerrilla violence in Delta State, but pinning down its leadership was problematic. An anonymous online article from The Economist, published in September 2008, described MEND as a group that “portrays itself as political organisation that wants a greater share of Nigeria’s oil revenues to go to the impoverished region that sits atop the oil. In fact, it is more of an umbrella organisation for several armed groups, which it sometimes pays in cash or guns to launch attacks.” It’s so-called war against pollution, Bolan saw, consisted in large part of dynamiting pipelines, each of which then fouled the area with another flood of oil. And more often than not hundreds of villagers perished while collecting the free oil, engulfed in flames from inevitable explosions.

According to the files Brognola had provided, two men seemed to dominate the hostile tribal factions that were presently at war in Delta State. Ekon Afolabi led the Itsekiri militants, a thirty-six-year-old man who’d been in trouble with the law since he was old enough to steal. Somewhere along the way, he had discovered ethnic pride and politics. Depending on the point of view, he’d either learned to fake the former, or was using it to make himself the Next Big Thing within his sphere of influence.

The candid shots of Afolabi showed a wiry man of average height, with close-cropped hair, a wild goatee and dark skin. In addition to tribal markings, his scrabble to the top, or thereabouts, had left him scarred in ways that would be useful for identifying his cadaver, but which didn’t seem to slow him in any kind of violent confrontation.

Afolabi’s second in command was Taiwo Babatunde, a hulk who nearly dwarfed his boss at six foot three and some three hundred pounds, but from his photos and the file Bolan surmised that Babatunde lacked the wits required to plot a palace coup, much less to pull it off and run the tribal army on his own. Call him the boss man’s strong right arm, a blunt tool that would flatten Afolabi’s opposition on demand.

And likely have a great time doing it.

The file named Afolabi’s soldiers as prime suspects in a dozen oil field raids, at least that many pipeline bombings and the murder of a newscaster from Delta Rainbow Television Warri who had criticized MEND for its violence. Communiqués demanding ransom for the safe return of Mandy Ross, while carefully anonymous, had been dissected by the FBI’s profiling team at Quantico, who claimed that certain trademark phrases ID’d Afolabi as their author.

Bolan hoped the Feds were right.

The Ijaw tribal opposition’s leader was Agu Ajani, turning twenty-nine next week, if he survived that long. He was another bad guy from the get-go, and while anyone could blame it on his childhood—orphaned at age four, warehoused by the state, then written off the first time he went AWOL, living hand-to-mouth among eight million strangers on the streets of Lagos—Bolan only cared about Ajani’s actions in the here and now.

By all accounts, he was a ruthless killer with a clear sadistic streak, one of the sort who’d rather leave his enemies shorthanded, courtesy of a machete or meat cleaver, than to kill them outright. Which was not to say he hadn’t put his share of bodies in the ground. Official sources credited his Ijaw faction with a thousand kills and counting in the ethnic war that ravaged Delta State.

In photos, Ajani didn’t look the part. He favored floral-patterned shirts, the tourist kind, with short sleeves showing off his slender arms. A missing pinky finger on his left hand told the story of a near-miss in a knife fight, but he’d won that scrap and every one thereafter.

Up to now.

If Ekon Afolabi’s number two was a behemoth, Ajani’s was a smaller version of himself, some thirty pounds lighter and three or four inches shorter, with a bland face that belied his rap sheet. Daren Jumoke was a suspect in half a dozen murders before he turned political and started killing in the name of his people. Jumoke’s “civilian” victims had been women, who were also raped. Bolan guessed that his juvenile record, if such things existed where he was going, would reveal a violent bully with a hyperactive sex drive and a deaf ear when it came to females saying no.

Killing Jumoke, Bolan thought, would be a public service. As it was, his gang apparently had no connection to the Ross kidnapping—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find a way to use them in a pinch, maybe as cannon fodder to distract his Itsekiri opposition.

Bolan was starting to read about his native contact in Warri, one Obinna Umaru, when a muffled rapping on his door distracted him. He answered it and smiled at finding Barbara Price on his threshold.

“Finished your homework yet?” she asked.

“Almost.”

“I don’t want to distract you.”

“I could use a break,” he said, and stood aside.

She brushed against him, passing, and it sent a tingle racing through his body, as if he had touched a bare low-voltage wire.

“So, Africa again,” she said. “Your shots all up-to-date? Dengue fever? Yellow fever? Typhoid?”

“My rabies shot is out of date,” he told her.

“Don’t let anybody bite you, then.”

“I’ll make a note. Coffee?”

“It keeps me up all night,” she said, and smiled. “You have a few cups, though.”

“Will I be needing it?” he asked.

“Homework. You said it wasn’t finished.”

It was Bolan’s turn to smile. “Now that I think of it, I’ve barely started.”

“It’s best to be thorough.”

“I hear you.” Still smiling, he said, “Maybe I ought to take a shower first. To freshen up and clear my head.”

“Sounds good,” she said, hands rising to the buttons of her blouse. “I have to tell you, I’ve been feeling dirty all day long.”

CHAPTER THREE

Delta State, Nigeria

Bolan smelled the Itsekiri camp before he saw it. Supper cooking and open latrines, gasoline and diesel fuel, gun oil and unwashed bodies.

The unmistakable odors of men at war.

He had to watch for lookouts, as well as snares and booby traps. MEND’s rebels knew that they were hunted by the state, and by their tribal adversaries. They’d be foolish not to post guards on the camp’s perimeter, but Bolan wouldn’t know how thorough they had been until he tested the defenses for himself.

Beginning now.

There’d be no cameras or other electronic gear, of course. He would’ve heard a generator running by the time he closed the gap to half a mile, and there was nothing on the wind but human voices and the clanking, clattering that no large group of humans in the wild seemed able to avoid. So much the better for his own quiet approach, if he could spot the posted guards and take them down without a fuss.

He found the first one watering the ferns, his rifle propped against a nearby tree, well out of splatter range. The guy was actually humming to himself, eyes closed and head thrown back, enjoying one of nature’s little pleasures.

It was easy, then, when Bolan stepped up close behind him, clapped a hand over his mouth and gave his head a twist, driving the black blade of his Ka-Bar fighting knife into the lookout’s throat. One thrust dealt with the vocal cords, the right carotid artery and jugular, ensuring silence even as it robbed the brain of vital oxygen and sent the guard’s lifeblood spouting in a geyser that would only stop when there was no more left for atricles and ventricles to pump.

Which took about two minutes.

Bolan didn’t wait around to watch. He left the dead-man-gasping where he lay, scooped up his battle-worn Kalashnikov, and moved on through the forest shadows, looking for his next target.

Not victim, since—in Bolan’s mind at least—human predators invited mayhem with their daily actions, through their very lifestyle. He had no time for philosophical discussions with the folks who claimed that “every life has value” or that “everyone deserves a second chance.”

Some lives, based on objective evidence, were worse than useless. They spread pain and misery every day that they continued. Most had scorned a thousand chances to reform and find a place within the millieu known as civilized society. They had not merely failed, but rather had defiantly refused to play the game by any rules except their own.

And when they couldn’t be controlled, when the prisons couldn’t hold them, when they set themselves above humanity and any common decency, they earned a visit from the Executioner.

He couldn’t reach them all, of course—only the worst of those who came to his attention, who were physically accessible and whose predation took priority over the other millions of corrupt, sadistic scum who flourished all around the globe.

Right here, right now, he had a job to do.

The second guard wasn’t exactly napping, but he had allowed his mind to wander, maybe thinking of his next trip into Warri, all the sex and liquor he’d enjoy when his commanders let him off his leash. A party to remember when they shipped him off to raid another oilfield, blow another pipeline, blitz another Ijaw village to the ground.

The pipe dream ended with a subtle sound behind him, not alarming, but enough to make the young man turn, one eyebrow raised, to check it out. Both eyebrows vaulted toward his hairline as a strong hand clutched his throat and slammed him back against the nearest tree before the Ka-Bar’s blade ripped through his diaphragm to find his heart.

Two down. How many left?

Bolan moved on, seeking more targets—and the one life he had come to save.

THERE WAS A POINT where even fear became mundane, when human flesh and senses had to let go of panic or collapse. No conscious choice determined when the mind and soul had had enough. No individual could say with any certainty what his or her limit was, and resolve to fear no more.

But on her seventh morning of captivity, when Mandy Ross awoke from fitful sleep, she realized that somehow she was less afraid than she had been on waking yesterday. She had survived another night intact, and misty daylight lancing through the forest shadows didn’t bring the sense of waking terror that had been her only real emotion for the past six days.

Of course, she was afraid, convinced the worst still lay ahead of her, but there was nothing she could do about it. It was all out of her hands.

For instance, Mandy’s captors hadn’t raped her yet, although she recognized the looks they gave her, and she didn’t need a crash course in whatever dialect they spoke to understand what some of them were saying when they flashed grins in her direction.