Don Pendleton: Conflict Zone

“I won’t ask you about your trip,” Kurtzman said, smiling as he put the crunch on Bolan’s hand.

Brognola humphed at that, making the others smile, then said, “Consistency’s a virtue.”

“Absolutely,” Price told him as she took her usual seat. “No one would ever doubt your virtue, Hal.”

“In my day, civilized discourse required amenities,” Brognola said. “But hey, screw it. Let’s get to work, shall we?”

“Sounds good,” Bolan replied, smiling.

“What do you know about Nigeria?” Brognola asked.

“It’s in West Africa,” Bolan said. “Ruled by France, then Britain, until independence in the early sixties. Trouble with Biafra in the same decade. There’s oil, and everybody wants it. Drugs, coming and going. Tribal conflict verging on a civil war at times, and throw in some religious upheaval. Advance-fee frauds that go around the world through e-mail. Bribes are the order of the day, never mind corruption. That’s it, in a nutshell.”

“You’ve hit all the basics,” the big Fed acknowledged. “Are you up to speed on MEND?”

“Guerrillas. Terrorists. The acronym escapes me at the moment,” Bolan said.

“You’re still well ahead of the norm,” Brognola said. “It’s the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta, waging armed resistance against the federal government and foreign oil companies. You’ve heard of Marion King Hubbert?”

“No,” Bolan replied. “Can’t say I have.”

“No sweat. He died in 1989,” the big Fed stated. “A geo-physicist with Shell Oil, out of Houston, best known for his theories on capacity of oil and natural gas reserves. It boils down to what they call Hubbert Peak Theory.”

“Which is?” Bolan coaxed.

“Bare bones, the idea that Earth and every part of it have finite petro-gas reserves. Extraction supposedly follows a bell curve, increasing until pumping hits the ‘Hubbert peak,’ and then declining after that.”

“Sounds right,” Bolan replied. “They aren’t making any more dinosaurs.”

“So true,” Brognola said. “Anyway, the word from so-called experts at State is that MEND wants to create an ‘artificial Hubbert peak,’ whatever the hell that means. I don’t claim to understand it, but one of MEND’s spokesmen—a character calling himself Major-General Godswill Tammo—says the group plans to seize total control of the oil reserves in Delta State.”

“How are they doing so far?” Bolan asked.

“They haven’t captured any fields or pumping stations, but it’s not for lack of trying,” Brognola replied. “Their main deal, at the moment, is attacking pipelines, storage tanks, whatever they can reach. Also, they’re big on snatching CEOs and members of their families, whenever they can find an opening. Which brings us to the job at hand.”

Bolan sat quietly, waiting.

“Bear, if you please,” the big Fed prompted.

A screen behind Brognola came to life, displaying a candid photo of a ruddy-faced, balding corporate type wearing a tailored suit that Bolan knew was expensive.

“Jared Ross,” Brognola said by way of introduction. “He’s an executive V.P. in charge of production for K-Tech Petroleum, based in Warri. That’s a Delta State oil town, with roughly one-fifth of the state’s four-point-seven million people. Most of the foreign oil companies working in Nigeria have their headquarters in Warri, operating refineries at Ekpan, more or less next door.”

Bolan made the connection, saying, “He’s been kidnapped?”

“Not exactly. First, some background on the local tribes. They’re mainly Itsekiri and Ijaw, with Ijaw outnumbering the Itsekiri something like nine million to four hundred and fifty thousand. Anyway, for centuries they seemed to get along okay, but back in 1997 some genius in Lagos created an Ijaw government council, then put its headquarters in the heart of Itsekiri turf, in Warri. Maybe the result was intentional. Who knows? Long story short, when the smoke cleared, hundreds were dead and half a dozen petro installations had been occupied by rebels, cutting back production until soldiers took them out. MEND got its start from there, and in addition to the oil issue, you now have tribal warfare going full-blast in a region where they once had peace.”

Kurtzman spoke up, saying, “Beware the Feds who say, ‘We’re here to help.’”

“Which would be us, in this case,” Brognola replied. “Except the government in Lagos doesn’t know it, and we weren’t invited.”

“What’s the angle?” Bolan asked.

“You nearly had it when you asked if Jared Ross was kidnapped. It’s his daughter,” Brognola elaborated as another photo filled the screen.

Bolan saw a young woman in her late teens, maybe early twenties, smiling for the camera. She was blond and blue-eyed, fresh-faced, living the American dream. Bolan hoped it hadn’t turned into a dead-end nightmare.

“How long ago?” he asked.

“Last week,” Brognola said. “Six days and counting, now.”

“Do they have proof of life?”

“Seems so. The ransom note was flexible. MEND will accept a hundred million dollars for her safe return, or K-Tech’s pull-out from Nigeria.”

“That’s optimistic,” Bolan said.

“It’s fantasy. And Daddy doesn’t trust the local law to get her back. At least, not in one piece and breathing.”

So that’s where I come in, Bolan thought.

“I’ve got a CD file with all the players covered,” Brognola informed him, “if you want to look it over on your own.”

“Sounds good,” Bolan replied. “When would I have to leave?”

He already knew the answer, nodding as Brognola frowned and said, “They should’ve had us on it from day one. Let’s say ASAP.”

ALONE IN THE second-floor bedroom he used when at the Farm, Bolan read through Brognola’s files on his laptop. He started with background on Jared and Mandy Ross, found nothing unique or remarkable on either, and moved on to meet his opposition.

MEND, as Brognola had noted, was the source of most guerrilla violence in Delta State, but pinning down its leadership was problematic. An anonymous online article from The Economist, published in September 2008, described MEND as a group that “portrays itself as political organisation that wants a greater share of Nigeria’s oil revenues to go to the impoverished region that sits atop the oil. In fact, it is more of an umbrella organisation for several armed groups, which it sometimes pays in cash or guns to launch attacks.” It’s so-called war against pollution, Bolan saw, consisted in large part of dynamiting pipelines, each of which then fouled the area with another flood of oil. And more often than not hundreds of villagers perished while collecting the free oil, engulfed in flames from inevitable explosions.

According to the files Brognola had provided, two men seemed to dominate the hostile tribal factions that were presently at war in Delta State. Ekon Afolabi led the Itsekiri militants, a thirty-six-year-old man who’d been in trouble with the law since he was old enough to steal. Somewhere along the way, he had discovered ethnic pride and politics. Depending on the point of view, he’d either learned to fake the former, or was using it to make himself the Next Big Thing within his sphere of influence.

The candid shots of Afolabi showed a wiry man of average height, with close-cropped hair, a wild goatee and dark skin. In addition to tribal markings, his scrabble to the top, or thereabouts, had left him scarred in ways that would be useful for identifying his cadaver, but which didn’t seem to slow him in any kind of violent confrontation.

Afolabi’s second in command was Taiwo Babatunde, a hulk who nearly dwarfed his boss at six foot three and some three hundred pounds, but from his photos and the file Bolan surmised that Babatunde lacked the wits required to plot a palace coup, much less to pull it off and run the tribal army on his own. Call him the boss man’s strong right arm, a blunt tool that would flatten Afolabi’s opposition on demand.