Don Pendleton: Desert Fallout

So, walking in public, his general description known by the smugglers, was simply the best way to home in on the profiteers. The trail of wounded or frightened Shabaab militiamen was clear as they rushed back to their home base.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Bolan whispered softly.

He continued his pursuit, knowing that every moment he delayed, the longer the Shabaab gunmen would have to prepare against his assault.

ORIF MASOZI FROWNED as Ibrahim Mubarak patted the crate. Masozi’s briefcase full of diamonds was supposed to go toward buying rocket launchers for his fellow pirates. The crate, however, didn’t look as if it contained top-of-the-line Egyptian-issue 84 mm Carl Gustav recoilless rifles and the big, powerful rounds of ammunition they fired.

“What the hell is this?” Masozi asked. They shared the Arabic language, but the dialects were far enough removed from each other, and Masozi’s native Arabic was flavored with Somali phrases and dialects. They were forced to converse in English.

The Egyptian smiled to his Somali trading partner. “A little something extra for the Shabaab.”

Masozi’s frown deepened, and he was tempted to brush his fingertips over the 9 mm MAB pistol under his untucked white shirt. “The dimensions on that crate are all wrong for military armor-piercing shells and their launchers.”

“You’ve got your recoilless rifles,” Mubarak returned. He pointed at a pair of containers.

Masozi did some quick mental math, and realized that there was only room in the two standard crates for three-quarters of the shipment he’d needed. “Son of a bitch! You shorted me on the firepower, and now you’re making up for it with what?”

Mubarak pried open the crate with a crowbar. “Good stuff.”

Masozi looked and saw there were two Egyptian jars. “Artifacts? Who are we going to sell secondhand Egyptian treasure to?”

“You could throw the jars away for all I care,” Mubarak said. “They’re only replicas.”

Masozi took a deep breath, his patience starting to fade. “Give me a good reason not to open up your idiot skull, Mubarak.”

“Seeds of the castor oil plant, Orif,” Mubarak explained. “Ricinus communis, in Latin.”

Masozi’s eyes widened as he looked in the open-topped jar. “Ricin.”

Mubarak smiled. “The plants originated on this continent, my friend. And I’m a little off in the actual botanical title of this particular strain.”

Masozi raised an eyebrow. “But you can process this stuff into ricin.”

Mubarak nodded. “A particularly powerful strain. Just the thing your people would need to push back against the Ethiopians and the TFG.”

Masozi looked at the seeds, temptation tugging at him for a brief moment, then his frown returned.

“Weapons of mass destruction bring down some serious heat,” Masozi said.

“This is Somalia. The Americans went after North Korea, and lost. North Korea developed nuclear weapons, and all those cowards could do is negotiate. They were murdered up the coast in Mogadishu, and they will never come back. The sentiment among those who would have the courage to go against the Islamic revolution here is that Africa isn’t worth the effort. You don’t see them landing in the Sudan, or invading Libya. They’ll turn a blind eye, and you can poison all the Christians and Ethiopians you want,” Mubarak said.

Masozi ran his fingers over the case full of diamonds. “Why not sell this to someone with some real backing?”

“Because Syria already has those markets filled,” Mubarak replied.

“Don’t try to screw with me, Ibrahim,” Masozi snarled. “If your group had real, viable weapons of mass destruction, you wouldn’t be fucking around with a bunch of people who can barely afford rubber rafts and recoilless rifles and ammunition.”

Mubarak squeezed the skin between his eyebrows, his eyes clenched shut as he fought off a wave of frustration. “Fine, you don’t want it, keep the third of the diamonds that would have gone to the missiles I didn’t bring.”

“Don’t get testy with me. I wanted that firepower so that we could make damn sure that we could deal with the gunboats sent to escort freighters rolling past the Horn,” Masozi said. “Even if we have ricin on our side, how is that going to help against a twenty- or thirty-foot craft bristling with cannon?”

“It’s for whatever ground forces the TFG and Ethiopian government send after you,” Mubarak replied.

Masozi looked at the seeds in the jar. “Are they safe to touch?”

Mubarak nodded. “They haven’t been processed.”

“And if we do process them?” Masozi asked.

“Twice the yield of standard ricin,” Mubarak told him.

Masozi let the seeds sift through his fingers. “Twice the yield? Where did you get this shit? Syria?”

“Egypt,” Mubarak said.

Masozi frowned. “Not a lot of arable land to plant this stuff. Whatever there is, it’s all dedicated and you can’t mix it with other crops.”

“They were grown in a hydroponics laboratory,” Mubarak said.

“How’d you develop that?” Masozi asked.

“Are you buying it, or what?” Mubarak countered.

Masozi’s frown turned into a grimace. “I—”

There was commotion at the storehouse door. Masozi sighed and went to it.

“Sir, there’s an intruder in the compound,” his security chief, Kamau, announced. The Somali guard was well over six feet tall, and Masozi often imagined that there had to have been the blood of giants in his background.

“How long has he been here?” Masozi asked. He pulled his French MAB-15, flicking off its safety.

“We had a group encounter with a white man out on the docks. Two had gunshot wounds, and the other four were scared witless,” Kamau said. The muscles on the big African’s forearms swelled as he clenched his huge fists. “They arrived about fifteen minutes ago, and we’ve been securing the compound.”

“A white man,” Masozi said with a grunt. His brow furrowed at the thought of the stranger who had hit the mining camp in Liberia. “How did they describe him?”

“They said he was big, almost tall as me. Black hair, blue eyes.”

“It can’t be a coincidence,” Masozi replied. “That’s the one I told you about.”

Kamau nodded.

“What one?” Mubarak asked.

“An American agent was harassing the diamond mine we have in Liberia,” Masozi explained. “More than six feet tall, approximately two hundred pounds, all lean muscle. Fights like twenty men.”

Mubarak’s caramel-colored features paled. “Oh, hell.”

“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” Masozi said.

“It’s the man they call the soldier,” Mubarak whispered breathlessly.

“That’s a myth. A story spread to make us afraid of Americans now that they’re too lazy to send their Marines and Army,” Kamau replied.

“He’s real,” Mubarak said. “He’s been active in Egypt.”

“And there were rumors that this bogeyman took out another faction of pirates a little farther up the coast a while back,” Masozi said. “So what?”

Mubarak looked at the crate and its two jars of seed. His hands trembled. “You said your soldiers returned fifteen minutes ago?”

“I’ve heard the stories,” Kamau said. “The man is a ghost, and he could hide, even among black men, as one of their own.”

“Why did you come to me just now?” Masozi asked.

“We found one man, his neck broken, but positioned as if he were still on guard duty,” Kamau explained. “This was about two minutes ago, and he hasn’t been dead longer than ten minutes.”

Mubarak licked his lips and fumbled a pistol out of his belt. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

Masozi turned to see what had panicked the Egyptian so badly, when something metallic clattered onto the floor under a side window of the storehouse. He couldn’t get a clear look at what was on the ground as Kamau picked him up as if he were a rag doll. The Somali giant carried him several feet, behind the cover of a stack of crates, instants before a fragmentation grenade detonated with a roar of doom. The Shabaab leader’s ears rang in the aftermath of the detonation. Kamau shook his shoulder, mouthing words that didn’t penetrate the sonic haze of aching eardrums.