Predator Paradise. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ another group of unarmed do-gooders from Red Cross or UNICEF, he thought, getting ripped off by Dugula.

      He studied their faces, but there was no need to sound off with last-minute Patton speeches to shore up resolve. They knew the drill, briefed thoroughly for days, the details gone over one last time on the Company airbase just inside the Kenyan border, before he put the radio call on the special UN frequency to Dugula that they were moving, coordinate the drop-off. All of them were battle-hardened CIA men—specifically Special Operations Division—or ex-military, he knew, with more than a few Afghanistan forays notched on some of their belts.

      It was reassuring to know he was wading into the fire with pros. To an operative they had on their war faces, togged in brown camos, M-16/M-203 combos the lead weapon. Webbing, combat vests, all of it stuffed and hung with spare grenades and clips, then on down to Beretta 92-F side arms on the hip, commando daggers sheathed on the lower leg. The blades were last resort, Collins stating earlier this was blast and burn, the faces of Dugula and a few of his top lieutenants committed to memory.

      Once they blasted off the ramp it was going to be a turkey shoot for the most part, Somali thugs hemmed in, turning tail, unless he missed his guess, when the flying hammer dropped on them from above. He glanced at their own two armored Hummers, one mounted M-60 machine gun, belted and ready to rip. The other vehicle, showing off its TOW antitank launch pad, would be out of the gate first. Altogether, plenty of firepower, muscle, experience and determination to win the day against a bunch of one-time camel herders who now had control of Mogadishu, and into the deep south of the country, because none of the other competing clans had the guns or the guts to stand up to them.

      He took a moment next to ponder the sudden curve-ball thrown him by superiors. Cobra Force Twelve was his diamond, once in the rough, but with three successful missions under the belt, with his track record in Delta and later on working with the Company, he had made friends in high and powerful places. Hell, he was a damn hero, in fact, enough medals and ribbons to fill a steamer trunk, but this one wasn’t for God and country. What was now in motion—at least the campaign given the thumbs-up by the White House—was pretty much his show.

      But there was a wild card—the man’s handle—out there with the ground team.

      It wasn’t entirely true he was solely in charge, Collins knew. There was this odd man out preying on his thoughts, some hotshot hardballer, according to his dossier, dropped in his lap at the eleventh hour. The order to put the thirteenth man on the team had come straight from the President, Wild Card inserted as coleader of Cobra Force. Beyond some irritation and anxiety, a dig to professional pride he was forced to share all tactical and command decisions, the tall dark man tagged Wild Card made him a little nervous, what with the question as to exactly why the White House shoved him onto the mission in the first place.

      He wanted to believe the colonel—with a record full of deletions that left little doubt he was likewise black ops—was simply there as an extra gun, with supposedly all the combat experience in the world to aid, assist and kick much additional ass. Or was it something else? Was Wild Card a watchdog? Had the rumor mill churned at the Pentagon, spilling some seeds of doubt into the Oval Office? Had someone in the loop gotten cold feet, gone running to the higher-ups if just to save his own skin? Were his own people sharpening blades right then, poised to spring a trap?

      No matter. If Wild Card had some personal agenda, if he proved a threat to the bigger picture, well, Collins knew there was an answer for that problem.

      “Dragon One to Cobra Leader.”

      Collins strode to the intercom on the bulkhead. “Cobra Leader. Go.”

      “You boys strap in—we’re going down. Show time.”

      “Roger. Stick to the plan, Dragon One, no matter how hot it gets out there.”

      “Aye-aye. Catch you on the flip side. Good luck. Dragon One, over and out.”

      Collins grabbed a seat, fastened on the webbing as the bird began to descend. Round one, he thought, coming up, but it was only the beginning. Shortly, if nothing else, one question about Wild Card would be answered. And if the odd man out couldn’t pull his weight, wasn’t as good as advertised, he would just be one less hassle to eliminate with a bullet in the near future.

      The picture, small or large, both fuzzy at the moment, would clear up soon enough.

      Spilled blood, he concluded, always had a way of separating the lions from the jackals.

      IN A PERFECT WORLD all men and women, especially the poor and needy, would be fed, housed, educated. Beyond the basics even, the sick, the dying, the maimed, all manner of physical affliction would be cured, and they would rise to live, full, healthy, happy lives. In this world there would be opportunity for all, he thought, an even playing field where man could use whatever natural abilities and intelligence, not to attain wealth, privilege, stature or dominion over others, but to help his fellow man make the earth a bright, kind, gentle place. There would be mercy, compassion, tolerance. There would be peace, harmony, trust and understanding. There would be no crime, no killing, no greed, no lust for a bigger slice of everything at the expense of his fellows, no life wasted in self-destruction. There would be no famine, disease or war.

      There would be no Habir Dugula.

      Of course, wherever this place existed, it was only just a dream, Mack Bolan knew, and all too painfully well. For the man also known as the Executioner this Nirvana or Heaven, this imagined place on Earth, where all men were free, created equal to follow the tenets of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was the stuff of fantasy and angst, best left to the poets and the songwriters.

      He was a soldier, first and last, brutally aware after walking countless miles in the arena of the savage, that as long as animal man existed, preying on the weak and the innocent, going for number one, peace was just a word.

      The latest in a long line of vicious warlords in Somalia was all the proof he needed that evil was alive and well on Earth. But Habir Dugula was only one reason Bolan had undertaken this mission.

      They were almost there, in place to give Dugula’s mass murderers and armed profiteers a dose of their own poison. Hearing the familiar thunder, Bolan spotted the C-130, coming in for a landing on the plain, due south, the giant bird vanishing from sight a moment later above the lip of the wadi. Fisting his M-16/M-203 combo, adrenaline burning, Bolan shot a look at his driver, a twist to Cobra Leader’s original attack plan flaring to mind. On the surface, the strike could in all probability work, he reasoned. For openers, they were all seasoned pros, whereas Dugula and goons were accustomed, for the most part, to slaughtering their unarmed countrymen. Sure, there was the usual street fighting in Mogadishu with rival clans, but as a rule of thumb, Dugula’s thugs outnumbered the competition, and any sustained shooting match was spurred more by hair-trigger impulse than skill and cold tactics on an even battlefield. Just the same, he knew a wild bullet, even one fired in haste or panic, could score flesh.

      Timing was the key ingredient to get it started, the soldier knew, ground forces unleashing the lightning and thunder in sync. It was a brazen play, no two ways about it, Collins and company shooting their way off the ramp, Hummers rampaging into the stunned forces of Dugula, mowing them down off the starting line. The Black Hawks and the Apache, a mile or more to their rear, flying nap of the earth and jamming any atypical Somali substandard radar in the area, were a definite added bonus. If Dugula stuck to form, according to UN and CIA reports, he would hang back while his thugs boarded the C-130, then loaded up the APCs and transports parked at the command post of the warlord’s airfield. They would stock their warehouses with food and medicine slated for the sick and starving, sell it to other lesser-ranking warlords or whoever else could pay the going rate. Bolan expected СКАЧАТЬ