Rebel Trade

The hunt was on, and it would not end until all of them were dead.

* * *

JACKSON ANDJABA SCANNED the treeline, searching for the enemy who had discharged the blast among his men. He’d recognized the sound of the grenade launcher—most of the weapons issued to Namibia’s armed forces had been made in Russia, after all—but one pop did not help him place the shooter, and the detonation told him only that the camp was under fire.

Not from the army, though. Andjaba knew that if a team of soldiers had been sent against them, they’d be charging from the forest already, spraying the camp with automatic weapons, shouting for surrender even as they shot his scrambling men without remorse. War in Namibia had never been an exercise in surgical precision. Winners claimed their victory by standing on a heap of corpses, satisfied that no one had survived to challenge them.

Andjaba shouted orders at his men: the obvious, commanding that they look for cover, watch the trees, control their fire until they had a target. They were well supplied with ammunition, but could not afford to waste it blasting trees and shadows while their adversaries used the night against them as a weapon.

“Douse that fire!” Andjaba bellowed. “And those torches! Keep your damned heads down!”

He heard another pop, and braced himself for the explosion that he knew was coming, no way to prepare for it or save himself except by dropping prone with arms over his head. More screams followed the detonation, and his men were firing now without a trace of discipline, spraying the night with their Kalashnikovs, one blasting with the NSV heavy machine gun mounted on the second boat in line, shredding the darkness with its muzzle-flashes and its 12.7x108 mm rounds. One in every seven bullets was a tracer, drawing ruby arcs across the weapon’s field of fire.

Seen from a distant bird’s-eye view, the camp might have appeared to be engaged in a frenetic celebration, but it was hell at ground level and getting worse by the second. Andjaba’s soldiers couldn’t hope to hear him now over the racket of their guns. And what would he have told them anyway? Keep firing? Cut and run? Offer a prayer to gods they’d long forgotten and ignored?

Crawling on his belly like a lizard, any trace of pride abandoned in that moment on the killing ground, Andjaba searched the treeline for a muzzle-flash that would betray one of their enemies. He could not separate incoming fire from that which his men were laying down, but after seeing first one pirate drop, and then another, he knew that the enemy was using something besides just grenades.

Where were they? How had they approached to killing range without a warning from the guard he’d posted on the river?

That was easy. They had killed the lookout, young Paolo Alves, without making any fuss about it. Andjaba would find his body later, if he managed to survive the trap that had been sprung against him. In the meantime, though, survival was his top priority.

Survival, and elimination of his foes.

Or was it wiser to attempt escape?

Three of their boats were still unharmed. If he could rally his surviving men in time to board and flee, their enemies—who clearly had approached on foot somehow—could only stand and watch them disappear into the night. The river flowed another fifty, maybe sixty miles inland, to Lake Mbuende. He could ditch the boats there and lead his people overland, a forced march to the nearest town, where they could pick up any vehicles available and make good their escape.

But first, he needed some way to communicate amidst the hellish racket in the compound. Some way to reassert command and turn his panicked men into a fighting force once more.

Which meant that he would have to take a risk.

Andjaba bolted upright, daring any sniper in the woods to cut him down. He stalked among his men, cursing and shouting at them, striking those who still ignored him in their urgency to waste more bullets on the hostile night. A third grenade exploded in the camp, sent shrapnel whispering around him, but Andjaba braved it, rallying his men.

They won’t believe this later, he decided, but it made no difference. They had to get away. Nothing else mattered at the moment.

If they did not move, and soon, they wouldn’t have another chance.

* * *

BOLAN WATCHED THE LEADER of the pirates rallying his men, lined up a shot to drop him, but the NSV machine gunner unleashed another roaring burst just then, his heavy slugs hacking across the trees and undergrowth where Bolan was concealed. The Executioner fell prone, as leaves and bark rained down around him, knowing that he’d missed his opportunity.

The gunner with the big gun had to go.

Bolan rolled to his left, stayed low as the machine gun tried to find him. There was no good reason to believe the shooter had him spotted, but so powerful a weapon, firing thirteen rounds per second, didn’t need precision aiming. It could shatter trees and chop down shrubbery in search of targets, tearing up a field of fire where nothing larger than a mouse or creeping reptile might survive.

There were two ways to take the gunner: from a distance, with the AK-47, or by getting closer, circling around his blind side somehow, while he concentrated on the havoc he was wreaking with his NSV. Both methods had their drawbacks, with the worst scenario involving sudden death.

What else was new?

Bolan made his decision, saw potential in it if he reached the boat and boarded it without having his head blown off. The pirate craft was larger than his Zodiac, and faster, vastly better armed. If he could capture it, empty the NSV into the camp, then take the boat and flee, he thought there was a good chance that his targets would pursue him in the other two.

Or, they might take off in the opposite direction, sure.

It was a gamble, just like every other move he’d made in combat since the first time he’d seen action as a Green Beret. Audacity was half the battle, and the rest, sometimes, came down to luck.

Bolan moved out, scuttling crablike through darkness where he knew a deadly snake or scorpion might strike at any second, hoping the hellacious racket and vibrations from the battle would have sent them fleeing toward a safer hunting ground. Venom was way down on the list of Bolan’s worries at the moment, while lead poisoning was at the top.

A fleeing pirate stumbled over one of Bolan’s legs, then rose and ran on without looking back, perhaps thinking a tree root had upended him. The bruising impact hurt, but Bolan had no time or opportunity to walk it off. He kept on crawling, reached the river’s bank, and slithered down its muddy slope into the water.

Thinking, crocodiles.

If they were there, none found him as he struck off toward the line of tethered speedboats, three presumably in shape to travel, while the fourth one might be out of whack from his grenade blast. He passed the first boat, clinging to its gunwale with his free hand, still unnoticed, focused on the second craft in line and its machine gunner.

A few more yards… .

Up close, his ears rang with the NSV’s staccatto hammering, an almost deafening cacophony. The man behind the weapon obviously wouldn’t hear him coming, but he ought to feel the speedboat tip as Bolan hauled himself aboard. That was the crucial moment, when it all came down to do or die.

No time to waste, as Bolan clutched the speedboat’s rail and lunged out of the murky river, water streaming from him in a dark cascade. Boarding took both hands, leaving him effectively unarmed as he set foot on the deck—but The Executioner was never quite defenseless.

As the pirate turned to face him, gaping, Bolan rushed his startled enemy and lashed out with the long edge of one flattened hand. It caught the shooter’s throat, cracked something vital inside there and swept him overboard.

Crouching behind the NSV, Bolan grabbed its pistol grip and swung the weapon’s smoking muzzle toward his enemies.

Chapter 2

Windhoek Hosea Kutako International Airport:

One day earlier

Bolan had entered Namibia without fanfare, traveling as Matthew Cooper. His passport was legitimate, within its limits: printed on one of the blanks Stony Man Farm secured from the State Department, correct in every way except for the false name and address listed for its holder. It would pass inspection anywhere on earth, taking the worry factor out of border crossings. After that, however, he was on his own.

Customs was easy, sliding through without inspection of his bag. The uniformed attendant didn’t really seem to notice Bolan, looking past him toward the couple that was next in line. Young, Arabic and nervous-looking, they were virtually begging for a shakedown. Bolan wished them well—or not, if they were smugglers, terrorists, whatever—and moved on to claim his rental car.

The clerk was middle-age, ebony-skinned and spoke excellent English—Namibia’s official language in a nation that also recognized German from colonial times, plus a half dozen regional dialects. Bolan’s rental car was a Volkswagen Jetta NCS—a compact sedan, four-door, with a 170-horsepower 2.5-liter engine. The white paint job, with any luck, would pass unnoticed in the city and hold dust on rural roads to cut the polished shine. The credit card that Bolan used also identified him as Matt Cooper. It was an AmEx Platinum, no limit, billed to a Virginia mail drop where the tab was always paid on time, in full. It cleared without a hitch, and he was on his way.

The airport, named for a Herero tribal chief and early nationalist leader, was located twenty-eight miles east of Windhoek. Modernized in 2009, it had one terminal plus an arrivals and departures hall. Bolan had no problem finding his way out of the parking lot and onto Highway B6 westbound toward the capital. He kept pace with the traffic flow around him, watching out for speed signs on the way and spotting none. The good news: he saw no police, either.

Windhoek was established as an Afrikaner settlement in 1840, likely chosen for the local hot springs that led aboriginal inhabitants to call it Otjomuise, “place of steam.” Today, those springs lie near the city’s center and remain a draw for locals and tourists alike. Three hundred thousand people occupy the capital and its thirty-odd suburbs, seven percent of Namibia’s overall population. Highways linking Windhoek to the cities of Gobabis, Okahandja and Rehoboth were built with desert flash-flooding in mind, but the capital’s main drag—Independence Avenue, formerly Kaiserstraße—did not get its first coat of asphalt until 1928.

Germany had claimed Namibia—then German South-West Africa—in 1884, to forestall British incursions. When Herero and Namaqua tribesmen took up arms against the occupying army in 1904, General Lothar von Trotha had launched a three-year genocidal campaign that claimed 110,000 native lives within three years, many killed by systematic poisoning of desert wells. South Africa occupied the territory in 1915 and maintained its notorious racist standards until 1988, when independence climaxed two decades of armed rebellion by the South West Africa Peoples’ Organization. Today, SWAPO is Namibia’s dominant political party and a full member of the Socialist International, prone to denial of alleged human rights violations. While nominally allied with neighboring Angola, SWAPO has also granted sanctuary of a sort to Angolan rebels battling for radical change in their homeland, including independence for the small north-Angolan province of Cabinda.

And some of them were pirates, too, supporting their movement by ransoming ships and their cargoes collected at sea. Hal Brognola had briefed Bolan on the problem, stateside, before Bolan had caught a transatlantic flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Portugal’s Lisbon Portela Airport, and on from there to Windhoek. Attacks at sea included raids on U.S. merchant vessels, most recently the MV Cassowary with her captain and five crewmen murdered.

Piracy aside, the rebel movement also filled its coffers by importing illegal drugs from South Africa. Dagga—marijuana—was the drug of choice for most Namibian users, though cocaine, heroin and LSD were also making inroads, and legislative efforts to hike prison terms for drug addicts had failed in the face of widespread public opposition. That was good for the smugglers, since prohibition kept street prices inflated, and the insurrectionists who peddled drugs for profit evidently saw no conflict with their high-minded ideals.

Bolan himself had never been a blue-nosed moralist where drugs or any other substance was concerned. By most standards he was a libertarian, but he had also learned firsthand that vicious predators infested every form of traffic in forbidden goods and services. The profits gleaned from dagga sales loaded the weapons pirates used to hijack ships at sea, primed the explosives left by terrorists to murder innocent civilians and equipped assassins for attacks on democratically elected leaders.

He would stop that, if he could.

But first, he needed hardware.

* * *

ASSER TJIRIANGE RAN an import business in the Katutura suburb of Windhoek. According to the guidebook Bolan carried, Katutura translated from the Herero language as “the place where we do not want to live.” Created in 1961 for resettlement of blacks uprooted from the present-day Hochland Park sector, Katutura had overcome its stigma as a ghetto during recent years, boasting small but decent homes and the ten-thousand-seat Sam Nujoma Stadium.

Tjiriange’s shop was located in Katutura Central, on a short street featuring a jeweler, two automotive garages, a fast-food restaurant and a cut-rate furniture store. Ostensibly, Tjiriange imported native art and handicrafts from Angola, Botswana and South Africa, selling them at marked-up prices to collectors in Windhoek and overseas. And while, in fact, he earned a living from that trade, it was his other line of work that let him buy a mini mansion in the formerly all-white enclave of Pioneer Park.

Tjiriange’s other trade involved illicit arms.

* * *

NAMIBIA IS A WELL-ARMED country. Police estimate that some 260,000 firearms reside in civilian hands, though less than 98,000 are legally registered under the nation’s Arms and Ammunition Act. Authorities receive an average five hundred applications for gun licenses each week, many of which are denied. The street price for an AK-47 rifle averages $250, although military-style weapons and imitations of the same cannot be purchased legally without a special license. On the other hand, no permits are required to carry pistols in public places, concealed or otherwise. But the impact of those weapons on society is difficult to judge, since Namibian authorities stopped reporting homicide statistics in 2004.

None of which meant anything to Bolan as he went shopping for hardware in Katutura. Tjiriange greeted him like a long-lost friend, alerted by a phone call to expect a special customer with ample cash in hand. He locked the shop’s front door and hung a closed sign on it before leading Bolan through the aisles of wicker furniture, carved figurines and other items offered to the general public, to an office at the rear. From there, a door opened behind a rack of jackets hanging in a narrow closet, granting them admission to a second showroom, hidden from the public eye.

Bolan knew what he wanted, more or less, but looked at everything Tjiriange had for sale. In addition to the AK-47 with its GP-30 launcher and the sleek Beretta 92, he also took a Dragunov sniper rifle chambered in 7.62x54 mmR, fitted with a PSO-1 telescopic sight. Although uncertain whether he’d be making any long shots, Bolan still preferred to have an extra weapon and not need it, than to miss it in a crunch and find himself outgunned.

And, as an afterthought, he picked up half a dozen Mini MS-803 mines with radio-remote ignition switches, the South African equivalent of Claymores manufactured in the States.

He paid the tab with cash acquired before he’d left the States.

Once he left the shop, the next matter on Bolan’s mind was a meeting with a target who had no idea The Executioner existed, much less that he’d flown to Namibia specifically for their impending tête-à-tête. Forewarned, the man might have tried to leave the city—or the country—and that didn’t fit with Bolan’s plans.

One unexpected meeting coming up.

Whether the stranger Bolan sought survived the meet or not would be entirely up to him, depending on his level of cooperation and the prospect that he’d keep his mouth shut afterward.

On second thought, his chances didn’t look that good at all.

* * *

NITO CHIVUKUVUKU MISSED the nightlife in Luanda, where five million people thronged the streets, not counting foreign visitors, and anything you might imagine or desire was readily available for sale. Windhoek, one-fifth the size of the Angolan capital, had opportunities for sin, of course, but they were limited, mundane. It was like hoping for a giant, super-modern shopping mall and being stuck inside a rural village’s pathetic general store.

The bottom line: Chivukuvuku wished he could go home.

The other bottom line: if he went home, he likely would be dead within a month.

He had worn out his welcome in Luanda and—to be honest—throughout his homeland generally. The Angolan National Police would love to lay their hands on Chivukuvuku, and he did not relish the idea of screaming out his final breaths inside some filthy dungeon. When he went home, if he ever went home, it would be as a heroic liberator of his people, honored for his sacrifice on their behalf.

And yes, beloved by all the ladies, too.

But in the meantime, there was work to do in Windhoek and along the cruel coast of Namibia. So close to home, and yet so far away. Until the final day of victory, there would be guns and drugs to smuggle, ships to loot or hold for ransom, building up the MLF’s war chest. And if he skimmed some off the top, who in his right mind would suggest that any soldier in the field should be denied a taste of pleasure, every now and then?

On this night, for instance.

He had started off at the Ten Bells, a pub on Werner List Street that displayed no bells, much less the ten it advertised. From there, glowing from the Starr African rum inside him, he was headed for the brothel run by Madame Charmelle Jorse on Sam Nujoma Street. The night was warm, as always, and the four-block walk would sober him enough to make sure that he chose a pretty girl and not a discount special.

Buzzed as he was, and looking forward to the climax of his evening. Chivukuvuku paid no real attention to the traffic flowing past him. He kept his distance from the curb, where a less steady man might lurch into the street and spoil his happy ending. If questioned afterward, Chivukuvuku could not honestly have said he saw the white Volkswagen pass him by and turn into a cross street one block farther south. In terms of model, year or who was at the wheel, he would have been a hopeless case.

If anyone had asked.

As it turned out, however, no one would.

When Chivukuvuku reached the corner where the Volkswagen had turned unnoticed, he was mildly startled by the vision of a white man dressed in casual attire. Mildly surprised, because he knew, on some level, that roughly one-sixth of the city’s populace was white. And he saw them every so often, particularly if his dealings took him to the central business district, but he rarely met a white man on his nightly prowls.

Not quite anticipating trouble, Chivukuvuku edged a little closer to the curb, putting some extra space between the white man and himself, still conscious of the traffic passing on his left. A tight spot, viewed from one perspective, but he had survived in tighter and emerged the winner.

Besides, Chivukuvuku had a gun.

So did the white man, as he soon found out. One moment, as they stood at the corner, waiting for the light to change, there was a safe six feet between them. The next, he saw the white man moving, felt the firm touch of a gun’s muzzle against his ribs.

“It’s silenced,” the stranger said, speaking perfect English. “You can come with me or have a fall in traffic. Time to choose.”

“Who are you? What do you—”

“I’ll ask the questions, somewhere else. Time’s up.”

“All right! I’ll come with you.”

A hand snaked underneath Chivukuvuku’s lightweight jacket, found his gun and made it vanish.

“This way,” the white man said, steering Chivukuvuku to their right, along a side street that seemed suddenly deserted. When they reached a white car and the right rear door was already opened for him, his abductor said, “Climb in and take a nap.”

“A nap?” Chivukuvuku was confused, as well as frightened.

“In,” the stranger said, his silenced pistol prodding.

Chivukuvuku stooped to do as he was told, felt something strike his skull behind one ear and tumbled into darkness streaked by shooting stars.

* * *

THE YOUNG ANGOLAN REBEL didn’t want to die. That much was clear when he awoke, bound to a tree with duct tape, on the outskirts of a Windhoek suburb curiously called Havana. There’d been no time for The Executioner to rent a private space, and he had not believed that there would be a need.

His business with the captive wouldn’t take that long.

“I only have three questions,” Bolan said. “The first—where can I find your boats?”

“What boats?” the prisoner replied. “I don’t know—”

The Beretta coughed. Its bullet clipped the target’s left earlobe. His mouth fell open and a cry of pain was building in his throat when Bolan plugged it with the pistol’s silence.

“I don’t like torture,” he informed the prisoner. “I’ve never trusted it, and, frankly, don’t have time to do it properly this evening. I’ll ask again and you can live or die, okay?”

The rebel tried to nod, then settled for a grunt that Bolan took for his agreement. With the silencer removed, the young man made a gagging sound, then spat, careful to turn his face away from Bolan as he did so.

“So? The boats,” Bolan said.

“They’re upriver from Durissa Bay,” his prisoner replied. “About a mile inland.”

“How many men will I find there?”

“It varies. Twenty-five or thirty usually. Sometimes more, sometimes less.”

It sounded reasonable, but Bolan had no way to verify it short of visiting the site, which he planned to do tomorrow night. First, though, there was more shopping to be done in Windhoek. Final preparations to be made.

“Last question,” he informed the hostage. “Where’s the MLF headquarters in Windhoek?”

“What do you want with—”

“Simple question, simple answer,” Bolan warned him.

The taped-up man gave him an address in the Hakahana suburb, translated in Bolan’s travel guide as hurry up.

And that was sound advice.

“You said three questions, eh? So, can I go now?”

“What’s your name?” Bolan asked.

“Nito—”

The Beretta came down on the man’s temple and temporarily silenced him. Bolan didn’t want the rebel running back to his comrades, telling tales. This way, when he was found, likely in a few days at the earliest, it would confuse them, maybe even bring some heat down on his fellow rebels from police. What Bolan absolutely didn’t need was anyone alerting his intended targets as to where he might be going next.

Not Hakahana. Later, certainly, but not this night, and not tomorrow.

In the morning, he would have to find the smallest watercraft available. Something inflatable that could be packed into the backseat of the Volkswagen, or maybe strapped atop its roof. Failing that, he’d have to rent or buy a trailer, make himself just that much more conspicuous. His first concern was hanging on to the advantage of surprise.

“They won’t expect you,” Brognola had told him, as they walked among the graves at Arlington, with slate-gray clouds hiding the sun. “All over Africa, the pirates are convinced that they’re untouchable.”