Don Pendleton: Desert Fallout

Masozi tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“Mubarak had a weapons stash that he was parceling out to us,” Bolan stated. “We want our gear.”

The Shabaab leader turned to Kamau. “Does this sound like a good idea?”

“I’m just in this to get some payback. Those were my men murdered by the sneaky bastard.”

Bolan realized that something bigger had just replaced his mission to destroy the Shabaab militia under Masozi. Something dark and ominous threatened more than just the shipping lanes around the Horn of Africa.

The incinerated remains of jars full of ricin seed, buried in the collapsed storeroom, were the portent of an apocalyptic threat….

Mack Bolan ®

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Asclepius, why do you weep? Egypt herself will be persuaded to deeds much wickeder than these, and she will be steeped in evils far worse. A land once holy, most loving of divinity, by reason of her reverence the only land on earth where the neteru (gods) settled, she who taught holiness and fidelity will be an example of utter [un]belief.

—Hermetica,

Asclepius III: 25

No nation is immune to the tragedy of being fooled into wicked deeds. But it is for the sake of those who still believe in justice that I never rest. My fidelity to them will never waver, and I shall defend their faith.

—Mack Bolan

To Fe. Patience, compassion and wisdom are gifts that grow the more you give them away.

Thank you, sir.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The southern coast of Somalia

This was Africa.

That phrase popped into Mack Bolan’s mind as his lean, powerful frame sliced through the air over the hood of a rusty automobile, only moments ahead of the rattle of an AK-47 firing on full automatic. The fender and engine block stopped the swarm of rifle rounds looking to rend the Executioner’s flesh. He wouldn’t have more than a moment’s respite, but he made the most of it, reloading his Beretta 93-R and closing the slide on a fresh round.

The phrase was a cynical response to the violence that stalked through the continent, a place where life was cheap, and the forces of Animal Man reigned supremely. A child, starving despite tons of food in a nearby port? This was Africa. A family chopped to pieces by machete-wielding sociopaths? This was Africa. One violent government replaced by scum just as murderous? It often happened.

Bolan didn’t believe that any place in the world was more doomed than any other, that innocent people couldn’t be saved from the forces of greed and misery.

The Somali gunmen who had targeted him were fast and ferocious, already flanking the automobile to get a line of fire on the big American who had infiltrated their stronghold. One of the gunmen pivoted his AK to take out Bolan, but the Beretta machine pistol snarled, ripping a line of 9 mm bullets into the man from sternum to throat. The pirate stopped as if he hit an invisible wall, and the rifleman behind him staggered wildly, tumbling as he collided with the still-standing corpse. Bolan whirled and with one smooth movement pulled a knife from its sheath on his battle harness. The wicked, double-bladed, spear-point weapon gleamed in the sunlight, the only warning that another of the Somali killers had before the six inches of merciless steel plunged through the fragile bone triangle between the eyes.

Lobotomized by the razor-sharp blade, the pirate lost his grip on the FN FAL battle rifle he carried. Bolan released the handle on his knife and caught the big gun before it could clatter on the ground.

The Somali pirates skidded to a halt, gawking now that their opponent was suddenly in possession of a full-powered automatic weapon. Bolan let the partially spent Beretta fall to the ground, his trigger finger caressing the assault rifle to life. A volley of 7.62 mm NATO thunderbolts tore into the distracted rifleman who had been stopped by a collision with his dead partner. At over 2500 feet per second, the 165-grain rounds plowed aside bone and flesh like bulldozers.

“Get back! Get back!” another rifleman shouted in warning. Bolan swung the assault rifle around and took off the gunner’s head with a single bullet through the chin.

Retreating gunmen poured fire from their AKs into the car, but the fender and engine block proved sufficient to stop the much lighter 7.62 mm COMBLOC rounds that they fired. Knowing that their enemy was implacable and now much more heavily armed than he was when he’d whittled down their numbers with only a pistol, the Somali raiders retreated toward their compound.

Bolan gave them a few seconds’ lead, retrieving his Beretta, his knife and a bandolier of ammunition for the FN rifle he’d acquired.

Bolan checked his Beretta for any damage from its sudden meeting with the dirt. It was in perfect working order, so he slipped it back into its shoulder holster, keeping in mind that it had a few rounds missing from its magazine. The FAL was given a reload, simply because he had the luxury of seven full boxes for the rifle. The partially spent magazine went into the empty pouch on the bandolier. Fully armed, the big American scanned for signs that one of the Somali gunmen had hung back, ready to take a shot at him.

No snipers were in evidence, and Bolan took off on the trail that the remaining compound guards had left behind them. As the only white man in the streets, Bolan knew he’d draw a lot of attention. He’d lost track of a shipment of diamonds illegally mined across the continent in Liberia. Actually, it wasn’t a matter of losing the shipment. He had determined where the bloodstones were going—the port city of Kismayo to be exact. However, Bolan fell behind in pursuit of the diamonds in order to free the slaves who had been sent to hard labor by Liberian militiamen who were still sympathetic to al Qaeda, the Hizbul Shabaab. The precious gems were going to Kismayo as part of a plan to reinforce the finances for their pirates operating out of the hard-line Islamist-controlled southwestern coast of Somalia. Both the Ethiopian army and the Islamic Courts Union had tried to tame the port city, but there was still violent lawlessness.

Unfortunately, the ICU was standing by its claim of Kismayo, even after being pushed into retreat by the Ethiopians and Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, and were reluctant to act against the renegade Shabaab militia, which had worked so diligently as an impromptu special forces assisting the Islamic Courts’ military units against the Ethiopians.

It didn’t bode well for the country that the authorities turned a blind eye to Shabaabist activities that included kidnapping Western journalists and murdering unarmed and wounded enemy soldiers in their hospital beds.

Bolan wasn’t in Kismayo to determine the legitimacy of the ICU and the Taliban-like enforcement methods of their youth wing. He was here to make sure the murderous thugs who collaborated with slavers wouldn’t profit from the blood and sweat of Liberians kidnapped and abused on the other side of the continent.