Don Pendleton - Desert Fallout

He whispered the Lord’s Prayer, the Somali-Orthodox version of it in Amharic, thanking God for the relief of breaking away from the Shabaab on a scouting mission to seek Mubarak’s stash of deadly arms and poisons.

Masozi had whispered, before he and Cooper left for Egypt, to keep a close eye on the American. Masozi was paranoid and utterly bigoted. A white man was a devil in disguise, and Cooper’s guise as a mercenary only reinforced the Shabaab leader’s anxiety that he would betray them. Kamau, being a fellow African who knelt to Mecca five times a day, was utterly trustworthy.

Kamau smiled at the irony as he knelt behind a rock, observing the guards at the entrance to the catacombs of Set Akhon. The AK-47 gripped in his massive hands felt like a toy, but anything larger would be impractical. He noticed movement at the entrance, and in the late-afternoon sun, he was able to finally see what the enemy looked like.

Each was dressed in a black Nomex flight suit, the de rigueur uniform of special operations teams in the field. The suits had multiple pockets and were made of environmentally resistant materials that protected the wearer from anything from fire to ice. They allowed easy, unrestrained movement, and could be kept as warm or cold as necessary, thanks to the use of chemical-pack inserts. Under the jumpsuits, the men likely had on body armor, or they had incorporated it into the load-bearing vests that held their ammunition. The mystery killers were packing modern, twenty-first-century weaponry. Their black rifles were compact bullpup weapons with rail sights. Kamau wasn’t quite certain what they were, but they bore enough resemblance to the Israeli Tavor assault rifle that he had to wonder exactly whom the commandos worked for.

The Tavor had been around long enough that some models had been found on the black market, and undoubtedly, there were knockoff producers who had reverse engineered the guns to make their own versions. It was also entirely possible that these were some form of gun produced in Brazil or China, Kamau thought. The “Uzi” pistol that rode on his hip was actually a Brazilian look-alike, and the Beretta he wore in a shoulder holster had been built in South America.

Cooper was similarly rearmed, since both men had had to dispose of their weaponry to avoid undue attention by customs officials in Egypt. Unlike in southern Somalia, Egyptian law enforcement was on its toes, alert and ready for trouble at all times, being a target of extremists who thought that the rightful, democratically elected government in Cairo didn’t adhere strictly enough to the principles of Islam.

Men had appeared at the mouth of the cave, pushing a small cart loaded with crates. Kamau knew that the mystery commandos had retrieved some of their deadly cargo from within the catacombs. It was likely that more of the raiders were following with their own containers. Kamau gritted his teeth, knowing that he and Cooper were outgunned as well as outnumbered.

He turned and raced on quiet feet back to the camp. The woman student was on her feet, her long, reddish-brown hair pulled out of her face in a ponytail so that a damp bandage could be wrapped around her head. She didn’t look as if she could fight, but Bolan had given her a handgun in a belt holster that had been cinched around her hips.

Bolan nodded as he saw Kamau and turned to Metit. “They’re on their way back here. They’ll notice that you’re gone, so we need to move.”

Metit’s eyes at least looked as if they could focus. She rested her shaky hand on the grip of her pistol. “We’re going to let them get away with this?”

“No,” Bolan answered. “Kamau?”

“I saw four, but four people couldn’t take down this camp that fast. There’s at least another squad of four,” he answered.

Bolan turned to Metit. “Go with him, Rashida. I’ll make certain they don’t follow us.”

“Alone?” Metit and Kamau asked in unison.

“I’m used to long odds, and I won’t take any action until I’m certain they’re moving on us, and you haven’t gotten to a safe distance,” Bolan replied. “Inside those parameters, I won’t even have to take any action if you get moving quickly.”

“You heard the man,” Kamau said, gently taking Metit by the arm. “I’m just going to help you along.”

Metit nodded. “I know.”

Kamau shot a look to Bolan.

“She’ll be fine. Move it,” he ordered.

Kamau gave the American a small salute and led Metit toward a gully off to the side of the camp.

MACK BOLAN WAS no stranger to this situation, alone in the desert, unarmed and outnumbered, providing a firebreak in defense of allies. Luckily, the enemy hadn’t become aware of their presence yet, but once they returned to the camp, and if they happened into the tent where Metit had lain, they’d discover that the woman they thought was dead was very much alive.

The team had been sent to ruthlessly eliminate anyone involved in the archaeological dig and who knew about the discovery that was made. Mubarak had gotten away by a couple of days, so the arrival of the enemy in Egypt meant that this may have been the same group that had struck in Kismayo, and had a better means of transportation available to them than Bolan and Kamau.

Judging by the state of the corpses strewed about the camp, Bolan calculated that the students and their kidnappers had been dead for only a couple of hours. The Executioner bit off his anger and the accompanying recriminations that had delayed his arrival. Even if he had gotten here in time, there was no indication that he and Kamau could have taken down the murderers before innocents were harmed, especially if they’d stumbled onto the situation with Mubarak’s allies still holding unarmed, frightened people hostage. Two men rescuing dozens of frightened people from itchy, panicky terrorists would have been a prescription for mayhem, especially since the pair hadn’t thought to bring along secure communications. It had been a risk that they had taken, the illicit arms dealer only having weapons, ammunition and desert-survival gear.

Bolan remained hidden, crouched as he watched the mystery men as they brought out five containers from the cavern that concealed Set Akhon’s tomb. Thirteen men were in this group, and they were outfitted with all manner of equipment. Safety goggles and head wraps made determining their nationality difficult, and the way they handled their weapons indicated that they were well-trained professionals. With their index fingers straight and off the trigger, muzzles pointed to the ground, never sweeping their allies, they betrayed themselves as skilled warriors.

One of the group brought a hand unit with an antenna to his mouth. It was somewhat bulky, so that meant the man was in contact with someone far away. Cellular phones could be made tiny due to the fact that they were in contact with local broadcast networks. The bulk of the commando’s comm unit indicated that it was high-powered, able to transmit to satellites and communicate with people as far as the other side of the planet. His use of the satellite phone also indicated that he was in a position of leadership among the fighters at the tomb’s entrance. Commanders were the ones who tended to report back to whoever had financed and assigned the death squad.

Bolan knew that if he could get his hands on the mercenary’s sat phone, it was likely he’d have a handle on who was running this operation. Outnumbered, however, Bolan wasn’t certain that he could take the enemy by force. It would have to be by stealth. Luckily, the Executioner’s combat PDA had a series of universal connectors, and generally sat phones had their own ports for communication with computers, allowing the download of encryption and important information to secure transmissions. The software and hardwire links built into the Personal Data Assistant built for Bolan by Hermann Schwarz might be able to give him an edge in finding out who the enemy was.