Don Pendleton - Path To War

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Don Pendleton - Path To War» — ознакомительный отрывок электронной книги совершенно бесплатно, а после прочтения отрывка купить полную версию. В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: unrecognised, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Path To War: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Path To War»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Stomping GroundsWar for sole ownership of blood-soaked Angola has begun, but now the ruthless shadow hand is a cabal of former CIA-DOD top operatives calling themselves Phoenix Consortium. Backed by millions in stolen black funds, the goal is a new world order, gained by control of the world's oil and diamond monopolies. It's a despotic vision that requires partnerships in the right places: the North Koreans willing to trade suitcase nukes for a piece of the new world order; Arab fanatics willing to buy into any kind of war that guarantees spilled American blood; and an army of former special ops mercs with no loyalties. It's an agenda of human savagery at its worst, unleashed by traitors to the country they pledged to serve. And it deserves nothing less than justice at the hands of Mack Bolan.

Path To War — читать онлайн ознакомительный отрывок

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Path To War», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Someday, he told himself as another black-clad sentry opened the ornately carved teak doors, allowing him entrance to a marbled foyer, the walls fairly splashed with frescoes, the corridor lined with statues of what he guessed were Roman and Greek gods and goddesses. For the foreseeable future it was all business, grim and savage, he considered, to the point of…

What? Madness?

The good news, as far as he could tell, was that he’d been allowed to hold on to his twin Beretta M-9 piston in shoulder holsters beneath his Italian silk sports jacket.

As his escort led him down another frescoed corridor, chandeliers the size of small automobiles hovering above him, he briefly considered the past, what had led him to man the helm of what would prove the most ambitious undertaking—in terms of conquering foreign land—since the Nazis blitzkrieged across Europe and into Russia. He was now “retired” from active duty, but his track record as assassin, saboteur and leader of covert operations for the CIA, from West Africa to the Far East, had shot him to the front of the employment line at present. No wife, no family of any kind, there was only himself and his work to consider. That, and the monumental task set before him.

And what was he? he wondered. Black bag operations was all he’d known, but was he simply their cannon fodder? An errand boy? A hired gun? For damn sure, he wasn’t like the Consortium, these men who called the shots from behind the front lines, never getting their own hands dirty, never having to dodge bullets or to worry about stepping on a landmine that could amputate on the spot. Hell, he couldn’t even begin to count all the men—and women and children—he’d killed. At times, when he felt the wear and tear of the years, it seemed as if an army of ghosts was marching behind him—or the dead were eagerly waiting for him to check out to the other side, anxious to take back their pounds of flesh. And what were his motives at present? he wondered as another black-clad sentry opened the door to the room where the men waited. On that score, he wasn’t one hundred percent certain. Money, lots of it, shot to the top of the list. Beyond basic greed, though, he couldn’t say why he had agreed to lead the charge into a New World for the Consortium. Where they wanted power, were perhaps looking to dictate whatever their terms and conditions to the rest of the world, he simply wanted to secure whatever was left of his future, retire for good. They wanted Africa, all of it, and Angola was the springboard. Madness? he wondered again. Or was it?

They had the means, he knew, to pull it off.

And that, he thought, should have scared him into a sprint for the setting sun.

Striding toward the long mahogany table, Baraka ran a look over the five men seated on the other side. He didn’t know their names, figured in the long run that was for the best, if it hit the fan and he was forced to go for number one. Considering their clout—the endless parade of contacts in the intelligence world, the way they could access intelligence and arms on the spot—clued him in they were former big shots. CIA? DIA? NSA? Pentagon honchos? He wasn’t about to ask or to go digging around for information. In his mind, their ambition—delusional or not—made them every bit as dangerous as he was. Even if they only drew the battle maps in the safety of this cocoon, they knew enough bad folks around the globe to yank his ticket if he became insubordinate, careless or didn’t perform to expectations.

There was no chair for him to sit, so he was forced to stand at attention, as usual. Mentally, he tagged the men according to appearance or vice, giving each one a look as they chewed on their own thoughts. Quickly, then, he gave the circular, whitewashed room a once-over. Other than a wet bar, there were two black-clad men manning what he knew was the Consortium’s supercomputer. It was above and beyond NSA quality, he had once been informed, with multiple processors linked and connected to a massive memory by a bus called a hyperchannel. Not only did it monitor all the world’s hot spots, capable of hacking into the mainframes of every intelligence and law-enforcement agency around the globe, it controlled the Serpent Tank. In fact, when one of the many tank’s accounts was electronically manipulated, cash could be ready and available in any Bank of America for any operative in about a dozen countries.

He knew. He’d seen cold cash in the six figures dumped in his hand in Luanda, Casablanca and Madrid to finance the ongoing operation.

Goatee got the ball rolling. “What is your take on the Madrid situation?”

“Renegade operation. One man going for himself. I have the diamonds in the van. Quite a sizable haul. I’d say he had about five, six million in uncut stones.”

“Good,” Pipe Smoker said, tamping fresh tobacco in his bowl. “There is no room in the Consortium for loose cannons.”

Baraka found that statement somewhat ironic, since their army was made up of mostly mercenaries, disgruntled ex-Special Forces with a smattering of criminal rabble in it purely for the buck. “Wilders lost a man.”

Cigar Man spoke up. “We will handle Wilders. Several of their executives are aware of the coming situation and they will accept the loss of one man who, as it would appear, wasn’t a team player.”

“We have other investors,” Whiskey Man chimed in, “who are most anxious for us to proceed. Once your operators in Morocco have acquired the package, we will launch the operation within forty-eight hours. Do you see a problem with that?”

Baraka did, but he’d come this far, what was he going to say? “As long as we have the backing of our contingent in the Angolan Armed Forces—FAA—and UNITA, there should be no problem taking down the palace. I’m assuming you will want the sitting president executed?”

“We will hand him over to his shadow adversaries,” White Suit said, “in the Angolan Armed Forces. According to our intelligence, there are some officers under our command in-country who have had family members ‘disappear.’ They believe the sitting president and some of his rabble are responsible.”

“And they will want answers,” Cigar Man said, “or retribution.”

“What we need,” Goatee said, “is to seize complete control of the diamond fields and as soon as the smoke of battle clears.”

“And,” Whiskey Man said, “the oil fields. Including the offshore platforms. Your men and trusted FAA officers will take charge of that area of responsibility. It will be difficult, considering we’re but a few hundred strong, but not impossible. Once the situation is explained and passed on to their army, with cash incentives being distributed, we should be able to bring the army under our control.”

Should, Baraka thought. Why did that make him so nervous? Loyalty wasn’t a common trait among West African grunts, unless, of course, cold hard cash was distributed and they were promised a slice of the pie. All things considered, it was going to be messy, dangerous, with his own neck in a noose that could tighten at any time.

“As you know,” Pipe Smoker said, “Angola is capable of pumping out two billion—count that—two billion barrels per day.”

Cigar Man shrouded his grizzled face in smoke. “But they are presently only producing six hundred thousand.”

Goatee cleared his throat. “In other words, we need to take the hands of the savages off the spigots.”

“This is common throughout all of Africa, sadly even South Africa,” Whiskey Man said. “When the Europeans bailed and the United Nations stepped in, anarchy swept the continent, complete meltdown of infrastructures, but, of course, you already know that. We need to regain control, even if it’s by way of strategic genocide. Should we prevail then…”

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Path To War»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Path To War» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Don Pendleton - Twisted Path
Don Pendleton
Don Pendleton - Tiger War
Don Pendleton
libcat.ru: книга без обложки
Don Pendleton
Don Pendleton - War Tactic
Don Pendleton
Don Pendleton - State Of War
Don Pendleton
Don Pendleton - Shadow War
Don Pendleton
Don Pendleton - War Everlasting
Don Pendleton
Don Pendleton - Cold War Reprise
Don Pendleton
Don Pendleton - Act Of War
Don Pendleton
Don Pendleton - War Tides
Don Pendleton
Don Pendleton - War Drums
Don Pendleton
Отзывы о книге «Path To War»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Path To War» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x