Don Pendleton - Trial By Fire

“Yes, brother.”

“Our brothers were gassed.”

“Gassed?”

“That is how he overcame nine of the brethren.”

“He?”

“Yes.”

“What do you tell me, Brother Obua?”

“I tell you the children of Uncle Sam were beneath your hand, and then Satan’s child fell from the sky and took them back.”

“One man?” Segawa looked askance at his most mighty of minions. “Truly, brother?”

“We saw nor heard no choppers. He must have jumped from a plane, from high above the clouds.”

Segawa shook his braids and stared up through the rain at the unforgiving, Old Testament God who approved of the old ways. His men waited for Segawa to speak wisdom. “He came from the south.”

Obua smiled. “Yes, brother.”

“From South Africa, only from that benighted land could he have acquired his apparel of war, and a jet to speed him here.”

“It makes perfect sense. He is some kind of mercenary, or commando.”

“Sent by the begetters of these pale children of privilege.”

“Expendable.” Obua grinned. “Deniable.”

“Alone,” Segawa added.

“I have an idea. I think—”

“I know what you think, brother.” Segawa stared unblinkingly up into the rain as if God on high seemed to beam him information. “You think of who would want to shoot down the plane. I ask you who hates the Americans most.”

“The heathens who serve Mohammed.”

“You think they will pay a pretty penny to have the children in their grasp.”

Obua looked into the sky happily. “They would shower pennies upon us like the rain.”

Segawa’s head snapped around. His judging finger stabbed at Obua. “You cannot serve both God and mammon, brother!”

Obua cast his eyes down. “I thought of God’s Army, brother, and our rebuilding.” The fact was that the last open battle God’s Army had fought with the Uganda People’s Defence Force had gone rather badly. It was God’s Army’s intention to overthrow Uganda and establish paradise on Earth. At the moment, though, they found terrorizing pagan villages across the Democratic Republic of the Congo—DRC—border a safer and more profitable activity.

Segawa slowly lowered his finger. “I, too, think of our rebuilding, brother.” He smiled unexpectedly. “I think of eight new recruits.”

Obua straightened at the thought. “Yes, brother…”

“God’s child-soldiers have served us so well.” Segawa gestured at several of the men who had at one time been kidnapped from their villages as children and brutally adopted into God’s Army. “But now they have grown so tall and strong!”

The men shook their weapons and shouted their allegiance.

Segawa turned his gaze heavenward once more. “Eight ghost-faced children of privilege! Striking down God’s enemies! The children of the colonizers! Destroying the heirs of colonialism who spoil our sweet land! What shall our enemies make of it? What shall the world make of it? This is my vision.” Segawa raised his hands and roared into the rain. “So let it be written! So let it be done!”

Obua leaned in while the men cheered wildly. “If what we surmise is true, then he must walk east to cross the Ugandan border.”

“Uganda, our Promised Land,” Segawa intoned. “Zion.”

Religious fervor mixed with the sociopathic need to kill filled and inflamed Obua’s belly. “The White Satan’s servant marches with an army of children. He will be slow, Caesar.”

“Then find him, brother. Find him.”

“HALT!” BOLAN CALLED. The cadets sagged in place. The two cadets carrying the copilot lowered him to the ground. The flight attendant knelt and cradled Pieter’s head in her lap. Bolan glanced at the sun. They had route marched for four hours. The rain had stopped. The sun was sinking and turning orange. “Everybody line up, I want—”

A cadet shook his head and rubbed his wrists. “Man, who are you? Where the hell are the helicopters? Where’re—”

Bolan roared at parade-ground decibels. He would have exactly one opportunity to weld these young men and women into a unit. It was their only chance for survival. “Line up for inspection!”

The eight military cadets snapped into line and to attention as if Bolan had cracked a whip. The Executioner rounded on the questioning cadet. “What is your name, Cadet?” It was embroidered on the front of the young man’s uniform jacket, but Bolan demanded it anyway.

“Jovich, Sir! Martin—”

“Don’t you ‘sir’ me, Jock-itch! I made sergeant back in the day! I worked for a living and I still do!”

“Yes, Sergeant!”

The next cadet in line snickered. “Jock-itch…”

Bolan stepped in front of the sneering youth. He didn’t like what he saw. The tall blond cadet was too handsome for his own good and knew it. He stank just a bit of an excess of privilege and a distinct lack of discipline. Unfortunately, he was priority number one, and Bolan knew there was a very good chance that he was going to die for this egotistical cadet. “You got a name?”

The cadet mockingly looked at the front of his tunic. A vague Southern drawl inflected his insolence. “Yeah, Metard, John.”

Bolan smiled. “Full name?”

The cadet bristled. He looked Bolan in the eye and what he saw there snapped his eyes front once more. “Metard…Jean-Marie.”

“Thank you, Meatwad.”

Metard clenched his jaw but kept his retort behind his teeth. Mirth was visibly suppressed up and down the line. Bolan wasn’t surprised to find that Metard wasn’t well-liked by his fellow cadets. The soldier moved down the line and looked at another blond cadet. He was shorter than Metard, but even at fifteen years of age he had the shoulders of an Olympic swimmer. The cadet grinned and stood at perfect attention. “Eischen, Alexander Charles, Sergeant!”

Bolan raised one eyebrow slightly. “Felt the need to sneak that Charles in on me, did you?”

Eischen slid a hostile eye towards Metard. “It’s no Jean-Marie, Sergeant, but we do our best.”

Bolan liked Eischen’s attitude. “Alexander Charles Eischen, fine. Ace it is.”

The female cadet standing next to Eischen gave him an approving look. Bolan stepped up to the lone female in the group. She had dark hair, dark eyes and an olive complexion. She squared her shoulders as she fell under Bolan’s scrutiny. “Shelby, Sergeant! Maria Dirazar!”

Bolan’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Shelby…”

“Most people just call me Shel–”

Bolan lunged in eyeball to eyeball. “Do I look like most people to you, Cadet?”

“No, Sergeant!” Shelby went to ramrod attention. “You are like no man I have ever met!”

“Good answer, Snake.”

Shelby blinked. “Snake, Sergeant?”

“Shelby. Carroll Shelby. Greatest American car designer of the twentieth century. You’ve heard of the Cobra? Super Cobra? Super Snake?” Bolan shook his head with weariness. “You’re Snake, Cadet.”

Shelby’s whisper followed Bolan as he walked down the line. “Sweet…”

Bolan found himself in front of a fifteen-year-old youth who could look him in the eye. The young, lantern-jawed mesomorph in the making stared straight ahead with a grim look on his face. Bolan looked long and hard at the name embroidered on the front of the young man’s uniform.

Hudjak.

“Cadet?”

“Yes, Sergeant.” The tall young man was a tower of stoicism.

“I think we’ll just call you Huge.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Until you screw up, Huge.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Next cadet in line was the only black cadet. Except for Huge, he was the biggest in the group. Bolan read his tag. “Johnson.”

“Yes, Sergeant. John Henry.”