Final Coup. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ “Rest assured it won’t happen again, big guy,” he said. “I suppose I’ll have to get checked out by some hospital here. But from now on my only topic of conversation around strangers will be my health.”

      The Executioner smiled. “One slipup in…how many years have we been working together?”

      “More than I’d like to count,” Grimaldi said.

      Bolan chuckled under his breath. “It’s time to regroup and replan.” He took Grimaldi by the arm and guided him back toward the rest of the Americans.

      By now, the flames and smoke from the jet were dying down, and they’d soon be visible targets again. With absolutely no cover or concealment on the vast, wide-open runway. The sounds of gunfire from the terminal had all but vanished, but Bolan didn’t kid himself.

      The snipers had not fled the area. They, like Bolan himself, were waiting for the smoke to clear before they resumed fire. And as he half-carried Grimaldi farther from the inferno, the fog began to disperse.

      And the soldier saw a half-dozen Cameroonian army jeeps racing toward them.

      That was the greeting he’d been briefed to expect, but he’d had no advance intel that it would be during a pitched gun battle.

      For a brief moment, the Executioner glanced back at the skeletal aircraft. The fire and smoke was close to burning itself out, which meant that he had to get all his men away from what was about to become a disaster zone.

      The smoke continued to float apart in the air as they advanced, allowing Bolan a better view of where they were headed. But it was a mixed blessing. The clearing air also allowed the snipers to pick out their targets again, and the blasts from the rifles in the windows of the terminal building came back with a vengeance.

      The fog had all but been left behind them when Bolan spotted the corrugated steel shack between the runways. It stood at an angle that would be difficult to shoot at from the terminal and, with the wounded men, it appeared to be their best objective. It would not stop high-powered rifle rounds but if they could get behind its walls, it would at least keep the enemy from locking in on specific targets.

      Specific targets meaning human beings.

      Them.

      Bolan began to run toward the small building as the bullets from the snipers’ scoped rifles spit past him. With Grimaldi still in tow, he utilized a “serpentine” tactic, running an S pattern that changed in speed, shape and size so that it became no true pattern at all. Behind him, he could hear the other men following.

      The soldier dropped Grimaldi to the grass as soon as he was behind the shack. And then, just as suddenly as it had started, the rifle-fire ceased. Bolan glanced around the corner of the building and saw why.

      On both sides, as well as behind the terminal, stood a ten-foot-high chain-link fence. Topped with coil after coil of rolled razor-wire, it was meant to stop or slow anyone trying to transverse it. It would be easy to scale the fence. But passing through the razor-wire without getting shredded to pieces—or at least tangled and providing an easy, stationary target for the sharpshooters in the terminal—would be all but impossible.

      But the fence and wire didn’t do a very good job of retarding the tank that was pushing slowly through it to the left of the runway where the jet’s remains still stood. The armored vehicle began snapping the fence and the steel poles between, which it stretched as if they were dry wooden matchsticks.

      Bolan stared at the tank for a moment. An older-model Chieftain, it was of British design and had obviously been left behind when Great Britain moved out of Cameroon. Originally meant for use by a legitimate new government, it had, not surprisingly, fallen into the hands of terrorists instead. Bolan knew that the Chieftain had been created as a result of Britain’s World War II warfare experience. It was built to give priority to both firepower and armored protection.

      The soldier felt the muscles in his face tighten. Earlier, he had had a brief moment of regret that his team’s rifles, grenades, extra ammo, clothes and other gear had been left on the jet and were now either in ashes or otherwise useless. But watching the tank roll forward undeterred, he realized they had carried nothing that would stop the British Chieftain.

      No, Bolan thought, as the jeeps arrived and their occupants began scooting closer to make room for the Americans. Until more firepower could arrive via diplomatic pouches, he and the other men would have only the weapons they had carried on them and anything they could beg, borrow, or steal from the Cameroonians.

      Taking a seat next to the dark-skinned sergeant in one of the jeeps, Bolan held on to the top of his door as the man cut a sharp U-turn and picked up speed again. A 60 mm machine gun was mounted in each jeep, but they would be of little more use against the Chieftain than his .44 Magnum Desert Eagle. They led the convoy of jeeps to escape the inevitable aim of the tank’s antitank rounds or machine gun— either of which could turn the jeeps into fiery infernos like the jet.

      Bolan had learned many truths during his career as a warrior. And one of them was that when you were outgunned and unable to go toe-to-toe with a superior weapon itself, the only plan of action that had any chance of succeeding was to take out the man whose finger was on the trigger.

      The soldier’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration as a head suddenly rose through the hatch on top of the tank. All Bolan could see was the man’s hair and eyes.

      The men inside would not be expecting any significant return fire from the Americans’ pistols or the AK-47s carried by the Cameroonian regulars in the jeeps. So as soon as their speed had leveled off, Bolan twisted and rested the Desert Eagle on the side of the jeep. Aiming high, he lined up the front and rear sights of the big .44 Magnum pistol just above the head sticking out of the tank’s hatch.

      But before he could squeeze the trigger, he heard the boom of the Chieftain’s gun and saw the tank literally thrown backward with the recoil.

      What was left of the airplane finally crumbled into an unrecognizable mass of broken steel. Bolan tried to line up the Desert Eagle’s sights again. But before he could shoot at the eyes and scalp he’d seen, the terrorist in the tank had disappeared into the vehicle.

      Who were these assailants? Bolan couldn’t help but wonder again. Were they Cameroonian People’s Union or Kamerun Democratic National Party? He didn’t know, but their attack was just as deadly no matter which side of the genocide they were on.

      As the jeeps raced on, the rushing wind made conversation difficult. “We still having the meeting with the prime minister here at the airport?” Bolan shouted.

      “The meeting is still scheduled,” the sergeant behind the wheel yelled back to him. “But I doubt it will be here.” He pointed toward the terminal and Bolan could see that it was rivaling the jet in the burning category.

      Whoever was behind this “Welcome to Cameroon” fiasco was taking out the airport building as well as his plane.

      “Who were we fighting?” Bolan finally got a chance to ask.

      The sergeant shrugged as he answered. “Either the CPU or the KDNP,” he said. “Take your pick. They wear the same old combination of battle-dress uniforms and civilian clothes, and it’s hard to tell who they are unless you can get them to talk. CPUs usually speak English with a heavy accent. KDNP-ers have the same accent but almost always speak French. Most, however, are bilingual.”

      By then the jeeps had slowed СКАЧАТЬ