Plains Of Fire. Don Pendleton

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      Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

      —1 Peter 5:8

      Human predators abound, preying on the weak, the helpless. These lions do not need taming. They need to be put down.

      —Mack Bolan

      To those who have made a stand and refuse to let the

       world ignore the horrors at work in Darfur.

      Special thanks and acknowledgment to Douglas P. Wojtowicz for his contribution to this work.

      Contents

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      CHAPTER NINETEEN

      CHAPTER TWENTY

      CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

      CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

      CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

      CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

      CHAPTER ONE

      Darfur, Sudan

      General Thormun “Thor” Bitturumba watched with approval as his artillery crews screwed the canister warheads onto the 240 mm rockets. The fat tubes, nearly ten inches thick, each held a concentrated mixture of biological weaponry in an inert suspension. The suspension had a vaporization point that was well over fifty degrees Fahrenheit. In the blazing African afternoon, the carrier fluid would evaporate swiftly, assisted in its dispersal by a low-temperature, high-velocity explosion designed to hurl the weaponized microbes into the air.

      The viruses had toughened cellular membranes, enabling them to survive as their long cilia spread out to catch air currents and ride the wind.

      Bitturumba’s satellite phone rang. He knew who it was.

      “How goes the preparations, Thor?” Alonzo Cruz asked. Bitturumba smirked. Here he was, speaking with one of Spain’s most prominent businessmen, on the eve of a biological weapons test, seemingly as a gigantic spit in the face to the world. Certainly, the general realized, the multimillionaire’s sat phone had incredible encryption protection, much like his own phone. But the call, only hours before a preview of hell on Earth, would have been detected despite its indecipherable nature.

      “They’re going well, Lonzo,” Bitturumba answered. “The hammer will fall at dawn.”

      “No need to be cryptic, brother,” Cruz replied, the quality of the digital signal so clear and free of static that it was as if the man were right next to the African. “No one could break this call down.”

      “Never say never, Lonzo,” Bitturumba admonished. “Just when we think that our keenest laid plans are going to go one way, reality takes over.”

      Cruz chuckled. “The cunning animal wisdom of a warrior.”

      Bitturumba sighed. “One does not rise to the rank of general without being absolutely prepared for the worst. Idi Amin was an optimist when it came to attempts on his life.”

      Bitturumba’s hand absently dropped to the .50-caliber Desert Eagle on his hip. Though most experts declined to recommend the massive Israeli-designed hand-howitzer for self-defense due to its need for perfectly tailored ammunition, Bitturumba was careful in his feeding of the Desert Eagle. Its reliability and power had protected the general’s life on numerous occasions, tearing through the body armor of assassins and even shattering the thick, armored skull of an enraged bull charging at him. In no instance had the thunder pistol ever failed him. Given that his half brother, Cruz, always called him Thor, after the Norse god of thunder, the big. 50 was a welcome companion.

      Bitturumba had been deemed the African god of war by many in the press, and his army had been given the nickname “Thunder Lions.” The roar of launching rockets and the thunder of 105 mm shells were his militia’s heralds on the field of battle.

      “Just remember not to get caught downwind of your barrage,” Cruz warned. “I’d hate to lose blood just to run a quick test.”

      “Fear not, little brother. We are prepared,” Bitturumba replied.

      The phone call ended and Bitturumba raised the binoculars to his eyes once more, scanning the refugee camp in the distance. It had been established and was currently under the protection of members of the Ethiopian Expeditionary Force, a trained army of African veterans who had been subjected to enough of the horror stories emanating from Sudan. They had come in hard and fast, putting the Janjaweed forces on the defensive. Only Bitturumba’s army had been unfazed by the Ethiopian interference, but that was because Bitturumba had the same intensive military education that the EEF’s leader possessed. Both men were students of war, and theirs wasn’t a brutal slugfest as much СКАЧАТЬ