Predator Paradise. Don Pendleton
Asp, turning to make sure the lone black commando on the team—Python—heard him loud and clear. “There’s been a little change in plans.”
DUGULA WAS beyond troubled, and he couldn’t simply will away the gnawing in his belly. Something was shooting him to new heights of fear, a feeling so alive it had become a living monster in his face.
As the day ground on, everything appearing to go as planned, the worm in his belly squirmed harder, terror not far behind the unease, threatening, he imagined, to uncoil an adder in his guts, devour him from the inside out.
He had placed the call to the man in Saudi Arabia, more out of nagging paranoia than curiosity. Sure enough, the cutout who had arranged safe transport for freedom fighters he was harboring, so high up the chain of command in the Islamic jihad that disobedience was a death sentence, had confirmed what the whites had told him.
There was, so the middleman said, a series of big events about to unfold, fear not, perform the holy duty, whatever it was. The Saudi had instructed him to comply with whatever the foreigners wanted him to do, no matter how bizarre their requests seemed. Again he was told he would know when it started, but not knowing when or what disturbed him the most, visions of the noose once more tightening around his neck flaming to mind. He was to have faith as strong as steel, ask no questions. He would be an important, even a glorious instrument exercising the will of God in the coming days. He was being called, perhaps by the Prophet himself, a holy decree he was to carry out, once again, on faith. And he would be paid—the bottom line in his ultimate decision—more than he could ever spend in two lifetimes. Woe be to anyone who attempted to betray any of them, chisel out of the bargain, or so the Saudi told him.
Still, he had many questions, all of them bringing on doubt and worry that would see him thrash through one or many sleepless nights before this big event. Beyond that, he was angered that forces beyond his control had assumed he would obey their mysterious dictates, even order him to relegate his power to the enemy. Being on an overseas line, though, the conversation was brief, code words and phrases that should leave any enemy eavesdroppers guessing.
Dugula watched as the giant UN cargo plane descended from the direction of Kenya, touched down, hurled up spools of dust, began to taxi. For a moment, attempting to calm himself, he marveled at the naiveté of these relief workers. Surely by now they knew what became of their cargo. Were they stupid? Or did they actually believe one more attempt to funnel food and medicine into this region would buy the masses a few more days, even weeks before they succumbed to the inevitable fate of the weak? That he would actually distribute the relief to the surrounding villages?
Fools.
They had long since given up attempting airdrops, or trekking to the villages themselves, on foot or by truck, since a few relief workers had mysteriously vanished.
It occurred to him, the thought dredging up more paranoia, that perhaps this time they had brought along a few guns to test his will. If that happened, it would prove no contest at all. If they made demands at gunpoint, they were all dead, shot on sight, and he would simply load the trucks with the cargo, burn the bodies, destroy the plane, take his chances. This was Somalia, after all, and only a massive invading army would dare attempt to…
He was out of his jeep, standing his ground, ordering his clansmen to move up on the plane when the C-130 swung around, ramp lowering, the bay out of view. Strange, he thought, since the previous attempts were done in full view of the ramp coming down. It could have been paranoia, anxiety getting the better of him, but something felt terribly wrong all of a sudden. Dust in his face, he found himself easing back toward his jeep. It was a faint and distant rattle, buzzing in his head, but a chatter that blew the lid on his fear.
Dugula knew the sound of autofire when he heard it.
CHAPTER TWO
Collins wished he could see Dugula’s face, the horrifying reality that this wasn’t the usual candy raid doing far more than just ruining the warlord’s day. He could well imagine Dugula right then, nuts going numb, knifing chest pains, pasta legs, a scream of outrage no one but himself could hear, much less cared to, the whole shrieking nine yards of terror and confusion over why and who had come to yank his ticket. It was a fleeting impulse, wanting to be there, grinning in the guy’s face of fear, but any gloating, Collins knew, was on hold.
Collins had a full shooting gallery before him to contend with. Getting hands on the Kewpie doll was the ultimate prize, but since the moment at hand was no guaranteed straight flush, Dugula had to keep.
The Cobra leader flamed away with his M-16, Mamba on the starboard side, likewise clamping down with autofire on the stunned opposition. So far they were on the money, Collins thought, shock appearing on the verge of winning the opening round, but the going would get a lot tougher once they were off the ramp. Figure ten had ventured up the ramp, AKs not even up and out, their faces laughing, maybe a private joke bandied about between them in their native tongue, but the Somali thugs lost all arrogant composure when the first few rounds began chopping into their ranks. White caftans were shredded to red ruins before they were even aware they were chewed and screwed, Collins and Mamba sweeping long bursts, port to starboard and back. Somalis tumbled, screamed, sailed down the ramp, a whirling dervish or two losing a sandal in midflight.
“Go!” Collins roared, but he heard engines revving already, pedal to the metal, the Hummers streaking away from their starting line, amidships.
The Hummer known as Thunder Three was a blur in Collins’s eye. Holding back on the trigger of his assault rifle, he gutted another Somali with a short burst. Diamondback, he saw, manning the M-60, cut loose with the heavy-metal thunder. Two heartbeats’ worth of pounding of 7.62 mm lead erased the terror on the face of a goon peeking over ramp, head erupting, the shattered crimson eggshell gone with the vanishing corpse. Thunder Four was right on their bumper, the point Hummer, Collins saw, about to bulldoze through a bloody scarecrow rising on the lip of the ramp, his arms shooting up as if they were supposed to slam on the brakes or veer around him. There was a thud on impact, Collins catching the sound of bones cracking like matchsticks, the scream flying away with the ramp kill.
One, two, and both Hummers were airborne, tires slamming to earth a moment later at the end of the ramp, his drivers straightening next, cutting the wheels hard, whipping around and gone to charge into what Collins figured was fifty percent of what was left of Dugula’s shooters. According to intel, there were twenty-plus more Somali gunmen, either moving from the command hut or sitting tight, depending on Dugula’s mood, but those numbers would be handled, he hoped, by his Apache and the colonel.
Collins was picking up the pace, Mamba on the march, both of them feeding fresh clips to their M-16s when the Cobra leader sighted on a downed Somali. He was dragging himself through the pooling blood on his elbows, toward the edge of the ramp, head cocked. The spurting hole in the middle of his back, the way he slithered ahead, legs limp weight, told Collins he’d taken one through the spine. Paralysis below the waist would prove the least of his woes; Collins unable to understand Somali but believed he caught the gist of it. Sounded like the guy wanted mercy, he thought, or was trying to tell him this was all some hideous mistake. Whoever he was, Collins knew he wasn’t one of the catches of the day.
“Welcome to the big leagues, son,” Collins told him, then drilled a 3-round burst into his face.
Halfway down the ramp, Collins leaped, landing on hard-packed earth, M-16 searching out fresh blood off to the port side of the Hercules. The trick now, he knew, would be taking Dugula and a few top lieutenants alive. He already had that figured out beforehand, though, his hand ready to unleather the tranquilizer gun on his right hip just as soon as he made eyeball confirmation. The dicey part would be getting close enough to drop Dugula and trophies in the sleeping bag. As for his other commandos, the running scheme was to encircle them before they could bolt. Thunders One and Two would race in from the north, a sweeping left hook to their flank. It was a tactical page, he thought with a moment’s pride, ripped straight out of Genghis Khan’s war book. If one of his troops got close enough to Dugula first, they were ordered to lob a canister his way, where a cloud of barbituate-laced gas would disperse.