Don Pendleton - 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.