Rebel Trade. Don Pendleton
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Название: Rebel Trade
Автор: Don Pendleton
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9781472085245
isbn:
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BOLAN WATCHED THE LEADER of the pirates rallying his men, lined up a shot to drop him, but the NSV machine gunner unleashed another roaring burst just then, his heavy slugs hacking across the trees and undergrowth where Bolan was concealed. The Executioner fell prone, as leaves and bark rained down around him, knowing that he’d missed his opportunity.
The gunner with the big gun had to go.
Bolan rolled to his left, stayed low as the machine gun tried to find him. There was no good reason to believe the shooter had him spotted, but so powerful a weapon, firing thirteen rounds per second, didn’t need precision aiming. It could shatter trees and chop down shrubbery in search of targets, tearing up a field of fire where nothing larger than a mouse or creeping reptile might survive.
There were two ways to take the gunner: from a distance, with the AK-47, or by getting closer, circling around his blind side somehow, while he concentrated on the havoc he was wreaking with his NSV. Both methods had their drawbacks, with the worst scenario involving sudden death.
What else was new?
Bolan made his decision, saw potential in it if he reached the boat and boarded it without having his head blown off. The pirate craft was larger than his Zodiac, and faster, vastly better armed. If he could capture it, empty the NSV into the camp, then take the boat and flee, he thought there was a good chance that his targets would pursue him in the other two.
Or, they might take off in the opposite direction, sure.
It was a gamble, just like every other move he’d made in combat since the first time he’d seen action as a Green Beret. Audacity was half the battle, and the rest, sometimes, came down to luck.
Bolan moved out, scuttling crablike through darkness where he knew a deadly snake or scorpion might strike at any second, hoping the hellacious racket and vibrations from the battle would have sent them fleeing toward a safer hunting ground. Venom was way down on the list of Bolan’s worries at the moment, while lead poisoning was at the top.
A fleeing pirate stumbled over one of Bolan’s legs, then rose and ran on without looking back, perhaps thinking a tree root had upended him. The bruising impact hurt, but Bolan had no time or opportunity to walk it off. He kept on crawling, reached the river’s bank, and slithered down its muddy slope into the water.
Thinking, crocodiles.
If they were there, none found him as he struck off toward the line of tethered speedboats, three presumably in shape to travel, while the fourth one might be out of whack from his grenade blast. He passed the first boat, clinging to its gunwale with his free hand, still unnoticed, focused on the second craft in line and its machine gunner.
A few more yards… .
Up close, his ears rang with the NSV’s staccatto hammering, an almost deafening cacophony. The man behind the weapon obviously wouldn’t hear him coming, but he ought to feel the speedboat tip as Bolan hauled himself aboard. That was the crucial moment, when it all came down to do or die.
No time to waste, as Bolan clutched the speedboat’s rail and lunged out of the murky river, water streaming from him in a dark cascade. Boarding took both hands, leaving him effectively unarmed as he set foot on the deck—but The Executioner was never quite defenseless.
As the pirate turned to face him, gaping, Bolan rushed his startled enemy and lashed out with the long edge of one flattened hand. It caught the shooter’s throat, cracked something vital inside there and swept him overboard.
Crouching behind the NSV, Bolan grabbed its pistol grip and swung the weapon’s smoking muzzle toward his enemies.
Chapter 2
Windhoek Hosea Kutako International Airport:
One day earlier
Bolan had entered Namibia without fanfare, traveling as Matthew Cooper. His passport was legitimate, within its limits: printed on one of the blanks Stony Man Farm secured from the State Department, correct in every way except for the false name and address listed for its holder. It would pass inspection anywhere on earth, taking the worry factor out of border crossings. After that, however, he was on his own.
Customs was easy, sliding through without inspection of his bag. The uniformed attendant didn’t really seem to notice Bolan, looking past him toward the couple that was next in line. Young, Arabic and nervous-looking, they were virtually begging for a shakedown. Bolan wished them well—or not, if they were smugglers, terrorists, whatever—and moved on to claim his rental car.
The clerk was middle-age, ebony-skinned and spoke excellent English—Namibia’s official language in a nation that also recognized German from colonial times, plus a half dozen regional dialects. Bolan’s rental car was a Volkswagen Jetta NCS—a compact sedan, four-door, with a 170-horsepower 2.5-liter engine. The white paint job, with any luck, would pass unnoticed in the city and hold dust on rural roads to cut the polished shine. The credit card that Bolan used also identified him as Matt Cooper. It was an AmEx Platinum, no limit, billed to a Virginia mail drop where the tab was always paid on time, in full. It cleared without a hitch, and he was on his way.
The airport, named for a Herero tribal chief and early nationalist leader, was located twenty-eight miles east of Windhoek. Modernized in 2009, it had one terminal plus an arrivals and departures hall. Bolan had no problem finding his way out of the parking lot and onto Highway B6 westbound toward the capital. He kept pace with the traffic flow around him, watching out for speed signs on the way and spotting none. The good news: he saw no police, either.
Windhoek was established as an Afrikaner settlement in 1840, likely chosen for the local hot springs that led aboriginal inhabitants to call it Otjomuise, “place of steam.” Today, those springs lie near the city’s center and remain a draw for locals and tourists alike. Three hundred thousand people occupy the capital and its thirty-odd suburbs, seven percent of Namibia’s overall population. Highways linking Windhoek to the cities of Gobabis, Okahandja and Rehoboth were built with desert flash-flooding in mind, but the capital’s main drag—Independence Avenue, formerly Kaiserstraße—did not get its first coat of asphalt until 1928.
Germany had claimed Namibia—then German South-West Africa—in 1884, to forestall British incursions. When Herero and Namaqua tribesmen took up arms against the occupying army in 1904, General Lothar von Trotha had launched a three-year genocidal campaign that claimed 110,000 native lives within three years, many killed by systematic poisoning of desert wells. South Africa occupied the territory in 1915 and maintained its notorious racist standards until 1988, when independence climaxed two decades of armed rebellion by the South West Africa Peoples’ Organization. Today, SWAPO is Namibia’s dominant political party and a full member of the Socialist International, prone to denial of alleged human rights violations. While nominally allied with neighboring Angola, SWAPO has also granted sanctuary of a sort to Angolan rebels battling for radical change in their homeland, including independence for the small north-Angolan province of Cabinda.
And some of them were pirates, too, supporting their movement by ransoming ships and their cargoes collected at sea. Hal Brognola had briefed Bolan on the problem, stateside, before Bolan had caught a transatlantic flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Portugal’s Lisbon Portela Airport, and on from there to Windhoek. Attacks at sea included raids on U.S. merchant vessels, most recently the MV Cassowary with her captain and five crewmen murdered.