Don Pendleton: Ambush Force

Everyone took a seat and began tearing into the cubed lamb and rice. Stanislawski took beers out of the bucket, twisted off the caps and passed them around.

“Well, now, gentlemen, I’ll tell you I’ve got a line of applicants stretched from here to Baghdad. I got Alaskan National Guardsmen who’ve never done anything but paint snow in Nome sending me love letters. The good news is this. Dirk? Delta Force says it all. I’d be a fool not to hire you. Short of Navy SEAL, you just don’t get a better résumé in this line of business.”

Dirk grabbed a fresh box of kebab. “SEALs are pussies.”

Beer nearly spewed out of Dinatale’s nose. “Well…like I said, Dirk. I’ve checked your bona fides, and save for a certain incident with a British brigadier, you’re rock solid.”

Dirk stiffened, but Dinatale dismissed the incident with a wave of his beer. “Hell, my one regret is that I’m going to go to my grave without ever having punched out a superior officer. That’s one you’ve got on me. Man! How’d that feel?”

“Well, at the expense of shooting myself in the foot?” Dirk smiled and shook his head. “Fantastic.”

Dinatale sighed in envy. “The good news is if you take the job I’m not your superior officer. I’m your boss. You don’t have to kick my ass. You can quit any time you want.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Dinatale. I like your style.”

“Thanks. So let me ask you a question.”

“What’s that, Mr. Dinatale?”

“Call me Dino—everyone does.”

“Okay, Dino, shoot.”

Dinatale’s eyes went hard as he looked at Bolan. “Who’s this civilian son of a bitch?”

Dirk didn’t bat an eye. “He’s the baddest asshole you’re likely to meet today, and you already met me, so that’s sayin’ somethin’.”

“Well, that is sweet,” Dinatale admitted, but he kept his eyes unblinkingly on Bolan. Few human beings could do the hard-stare harder than a veteran sniper. “But who are you, cowboy?”

Bolan was a veteran sniper himself, and he didn’t blink. “Short version, I’m a spook without a contract.”

Dinatale broke the staring contest with a sigh and leaned back in his chair. “You got a single reference I can check?”

“Well…I done dastardly deeds with the Diggler,” Bolan suggested hopefully.

Dinatale rolled his eyes in defeat. “I’ve heard a couple people say that recently, and I must admit it does give me something of a chubby.” The CEO of Shield turned to Dirk. “So you’re willing to vouch for this spook son of a bitch?”

“He’s the only white man I currently like, present company included, of course.”

“I’ll buy that, but for the moment. On your good word, Dirk. But he’s your responsibility. It’s like he’s on parole. Got it?”

“Trust must be earned,” Dirk agreed.

“Truer words were never spoken.” The former sniper measured the two of them. “I dig you, Diggler, and I want to dig him. I really want to.”

“Give him time.” Dirk cracked himself open another beer. “He grows on you.”

Dinatale laughed. “Well, I’ll look forward to it, then.”

Dirk put on his poker face. “Forgive my impertinence, Dino, but we don’t look forward to nothin’ till we talk cash money.”

“Fair enough. You’re ex-Delta, Dirk. ’Nough said. I’ll start you at a thousand dollars a day.”

“God…damn.”

“And since you’re holding Cooper’s parole, I’ll start him at the same and give you both a thousand up front. Deal?”

“Oh, hell, yes.”

Dinatale’s eyes were on Bolan. “Coop?”

Bolan put a little eagerness in his voice. “Oh, I’m in.”

“Good enough. We’re negotiating a job right now. You may be getting your feet wet as early as tomorrow night. Meanwhile, what are you boys carrying?”

Dirk pulled out his Model 92. “Cooper got his hands on a couple of Army Berettas, but they ain’t my first choice.”

“Well, here at Shield we have a weapons-standardization policy.”

Dirk’s face soured. Delta Force personnel were used to being allowed to carry whatever they thought they required. “You gotta be shitting me.”

“No, I’m not.” Dinatale grinned. “But it isn’t to please any bean counters back in the States or for the sake of uniformity.”

“Then what are you talking about, Dino?”

Dinatale held up a happy finger. “Did you know Shield is the first private security group to have corporate sponsorship?”

Even Bolan hadn’t heard that. “Really.”

“Show ’em, Dob.”

Stanislawski went to a painted steel panel in the wall and punched in a key code. The door slid open to reveal a walk-in arms closet. The Pole pulled out an automatic carbine with a grin. “Polish Mini-Beryl short assault weapon.”

Dinatale smiled happily. “Dob’s our resident gun bunny and armorer here in the Kabul office. He used to be GROM, and with Shield’s reputation, he got the Zaklady Metalowe company of Poland to provide us with all the small arms and ammo we can use as long as every time the U.S. merc magazines, that French rag or the evening news runs a story on Shield our boys are festooned with Polish steel. Zaklady Metalowe manufactures almost all the small arms the Polish military uses and exports widely. They give us everything from pocket pistols to antitank rockets. It’s really not a bad deal. It’s good kit, and it’s done well by us here in Afghanistan and in our sister operation in Iraq.”

Bolan had used Polish weapons, as well as been on the wrong end of them. Zaklady Metalowe weapons were nothing if not reliable, and the Polish designers had brought their version of the venerable AK into the twenty-first century with all the latest electronic sights and modifications.

“Dob’ll get you checked out on all our current issue equipment tomorrow. Speaking of which, where’re you boys staying?”

Dirk scowled. “Well, I spent the last week in the stockade, and I’m still picking lice from the inn we stayed at last night.”

“We actually have a suite of room downstairs and hold down a floor in an apartment block two buildings down. We like to keep our people together in case of emergencies, and quite frankly, once it’s known around town you’re Shield, you’re as much of a target as the people we’re paid to protect. We’ll put you up here tonight.”

“Thanks, Dino.”

“No problem. Dob will draw two grand from petty cash to give you some walking-around money.”

Bolan nodded. “Not a problem, and thanks.”

“Good, all settled, then.” Dinatale nodded to Stanislawski, who rose to show Bolan and Dirk out of the office.

The assault rifle racked open on a smoking empty chamber, and the last spent brass casing tinkled to the concrete floor of the Shield shooting range. Dirk unshouldered the weapon and blew on the smoke oozing from the action. The silhouette target downrange had been torn to shreds by his series of 5-round bursts. “Ain’t bad. Ain’t bad.”

Bolan lowered his own smoking weapon and turned to Stanislawski. “We’ll take them.”

“Ha!” The Pole clenched a meaty fist. “Polish steel, the best!”

Bolan and Dirk had raided the Shield armory. Each man now had a .223-caliber Mini-Beryl automatic carbine to call his own. The carbines came equipped with EO Tech holographic optical sights. The stubby carbines were too short to mount grenade launchers, but both weapons had launching rings for Polish Dezamet rifle grenades machined onto their barrels. Grenades, whether hand, rifle, rocket propelled or otherwise, were issued on an as-needed basis at Shield. Everything else was available at a kid-in-the-candy-store level of need.

Dirk had selected a polymer framed WIST-94 automatic pistol. Bolan had gone for an all-steel MAG-95. He’d also picked up a little P-64 pocket automatic. The pistol was just about the size and shape of James Bond’s famous Walther PPK, only chambered for the far more powerful 9 mm Makarov round. The little gun kicked like a mule and was inaccurate beyond spitting distance, but it was a lethal little surprise to pull from deep cover, and Bolan had learned long ago that drawing a second gun was faster than reloading.