Don Pendleton: Volatile Agent

“Saragossa had better damn well be worth this,” he muttered.

Du Toit lowered his pistols and watched the plane taking off into the storm.

Rain beat into his upturned face, and he fairly shook with the energy required to suppress his anger. He turned and looked at the girl before spitting on the ground, then he examined his helicopter, his beloved Super Puma.

The cargo bay was a slaughterhouse. Du Toit turned away, disgusted. His stomach was twisted in knots. Not again, he thought. He stalked away from the carnage of the ambush toward the terminal building. Bile was sour in his mouth.

A few years earlier du Toit had been part of a small mercenary force headed for Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, to initiate a coup. Instead, the mercenaries were taken at an airport in Zimbabwe while onboard their Boeing 727, awaiting the loading of weapons and equipment.

Du Toit had spent eighteen months incarcerated in Chikurubi Prison, where high tides frequently submerged the first floor with filthy water. He would die before he would go back to another African prison.

As du Toit walked, he grabbed his sat phone and punched in numbers.

“This is du Toit,” he said when the other end was picked up. “We’ve had a snag,” he stated.

Du Toit went on to tell his contact what had occurred, using curt, clipped tones.

“Tell the principal that an intelligence intercept must have happened on their end. If it had been an African or UN based leak it would have been a regiment of Burkina police who stopped us. A single operator using tight coordination air support? That’s Western capabilities only. There isn’t a military or secret service on this whole continent capable of this, besides us or our associates. You tell him he screwed it. Double the price, and tell him to get me operational funds to the bank in Ouagadougou immediately.”

Du Toit stopped and turned, holding the sat phone to his ear. The girl had started to wander in his direction, a blank indifferent look on her face. He ignored her.

“We can still buy our way out of this problem,” du Toit said into the phone. “Good, I’m glad to hear it. I’ll be in contact shortly.”

Du Toit looked at his vehicle and cursed when he realized it was completely unserviceable. It didn’t matter, he realized, and some of the tension in him began to bleed away. As long as the international press didn’t get wind of the situation, then money could make everything right in Burkina Faso. The third world nation wasn’t so backward that bribes were useless.

“Get inside and sit down,” du Toit suddenly said to the girl, speaking French.

He had to organize his men, secure medical evacuation for the wounded and eventually a cargo plane back to South Africa for the dead. He needed to uncrate and arm the men he had left before securing motorized transportation. He needed to get into town and pull money out of the transfer account he’d set up. He had to start bribing people, starting with Le Crème.

He looked up into the sky, turning his face into the deluge. He could see the face of the man who had ambushed him very clearly, each stark line and even the graveyard gaze of the man’s cold blue eyes. He felt a grudging admiration. That feeling changed nothing. If he saw the man again, he’d kill him.

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