Threat Factor

We’ll see, Boorama thought, and braced himself against the dashboard of the lead car as it sped after their prey.

Someone had snatched Dirie Waabberi and the white man from his very clutches, and it shamed Boorama that he didn’t have a clue who that might be. He thought he’d glimpsed a white woman behind the wheel of the vehicle they were chasing, but Boorama knew that in his present state he could have been mistaken.

“Get after them!” he snapped at his own driver, as if angry words could make their car go any faster. When the driver cut a surly glance in his direction, Boorama punched the man’s shoulder hard enough to make the car swerve, as he shouted, “Faster, damn you!”

He had made an enemy, but that was life. In his world, fear was more important than respect, while kindness had no place at all.

Boorama wondered if the white man who had struck him also had his submachine gun. It was logical, but anyone could easily have snatched it while he lay unconscious back in the Bakaara Market.

Yet another cause to be ashamed.

At least he had not lost the Tanfoglio TA-90 automatic pistol that was wedged into his belt when he went down. Boorama clutched it now in his right hand, half-turning painfully to make sure that the second carload of his soldiers was behind him, staying close.

In order to redeem himself, he had to kill Waabberi and his white friend, plus whoever had arrived so providentially to offer them a ride. Three heads instead of two. But that meant nothing to Boorama at the moment.

Catching them meant everything.

“What’s wrong with this pezzo di merda?” he demanded, punching the dashboard with his free hand. “Hurry up, you cretino!”

His driver said nothing, but stood on the gas pedal, making the car’s engine whine in response. They were closing in now, and Boorama was weighing the odds of a shot from his window when the lead car braked, swung hard to the left with tires screeching, then roared down a side street.

“It’s Hamarwein, then. The old town. After them!”

His driver followed, mouthing a curse and missing the corner of a building by inches as he cut the turn short. Boorama did all he could to remain in his seat, without checking to see if the second car followed their lead.

Boorama thumbed back his pistol’s hammer and hunched forward in his seat, shaking his head to clear the fog of pain. He instantly regretted it and cursed the man who had humiliated him.

The man he planned to kill within a few short minutes.

“HOW MUCH FARTHER to this old town?” Bolan asked Natalia Mironov.

“Five minutes. Maybe less,” she said.

“We may not have the time,” he answered, and a muzzle-flash exploded from the first chase car, as if to punctuate his words.

That shot missed, but the second scored a ringing hit on Mironov’s trunk or bumper. She muttered a curse, and started swerving as she raced along the narrow street. There wasn’t much leeway for fancy driving, but her skill under the circumstances left Bolan impressed.

He could have tried a burst from the Benelli SMG, but that meant wasting bullets to take out the car’s back window, and he guessed that he’d be needing all of the rounds in its short magazine when they stopped to confront their pursuers. Until then, the best move was to keep his head down and trusting his driver to cook up a plan.

Unfortunately, trust was scarce in Bolan’s world, and trusting Russian agents on short acquaintance was a double challenge.

They cleared the narrow street and sped across a kind of open square, came kissing close to an old fountain that was dry and crumbling into ruins, then roared down another street that seemed more claustrophobic than the last one. Bolan had a fleeting hope they might be saved by accident, when their pursuers split and passed on opposite sides of the fountain, nearly colliding as they cleared it, but the one-eyed lead car surged ahead and held its lead.

“I thought we had them there,” Mironov said. “Those idiots nearly did our work for us.”

“Still, no cigar,” Bolan said.

“We can smoke one when we’re finished with them,” Mironov replied.

“And when would that be?” Bolan asked her.

“Any minute now.”

Bolan had refamiliarized himself with Mogadishu and Somalia by studying maps on his last night in the States. He knew the Hamarwein was close, but Mironov’s zigzag approach had managed to confuse him, even if it didn’t shake their enemies. He was relieved, then, when they cleared the narrow street and rolled into a sort of plaza flanked on every side by buildings that had once been shops.

He had a chance to see that most of them were empty now, their facades bullet-scarred and blackened by flames during one of the city’s innumerable firefights. A couple of the buildings had collapsed entirely, and it seemed that no one was in any hurry to rebuild them.

“Welcome to old town,” Mironov announced, as she slammed on the brakes and cranked the steering wheel, putting her car into a long and noisy slide.

Bolan held until it came to rest, then bolted from the backseat with his SMG and crouched behind his open door. Waabberi did the same thing on the far side of the car, leaving Mironov to use her own door as a shield.

As the pursuit cars reached the plaza, she turned back to look at Bolan and surprised him with a smile.

“Just shoot the fools who are chasing us, not me,” she said. “Okay?”

DIRIE WAABBERI HAD been witness to a hundred shootings in his lifetime, maybe more, but this would be the first where he was a participant. His hands were trembling slightly as they clutched the black Beretta, and he wondered whether he should be the first to fire a shot.

The hunters had already fired at him, of course—not once, but several times. He wondered how many they’d killed or wounded by mistake at the Bakaara Market, but he could not dwell on such things if he wanted to survive the night.

He had to focus on the enemies in front of him and do his best to kill them, hopefully with the assistance of his two new allies.

An American, and then a Russian! It was too much for his mind to cope with, when his life was riding on the line.

The chase cars roared into the plaza, and Waabberi had a momentary fear that they would ram the Russian’s car, but both screeched to a halt in front of him, breaking respectively to right and left. Four men leaped out of each car, weapons in hand, and then a shot rang out before Waabberi had a chance to fire.

Within a heartbeat, every weapon in the plaza opened up, pistols and submachine guns hammering at one another, shiny cartridges clinking on paving stones. All of the cars were taking hits, and he could hear the Russian agent cursing as she fought.

Waabberi’s first selected target was the driver of the second chase car, barely visible behind his open door, some twenty feet downrange. Waabberi’s first shot missed the car completely, while his second struck the door but failed to make it out the other side.

Waabberi ducked a couple of incoming bullets, frowning as an idea came to him. He backed up slightly, then lay down beside Mironov’s car to aim beneath his open door. And as he’d hoped, he had a clean view of his target’s knees.

Waabberi took a breath and held it, squinting with his left eye as his right took aim. He knew he’d only have one chance to get this right. A miss would warn his adversary, and the man would bolt before Waabberi could correct his aim.

His index finger seemed to take forever, squeezing the Beretta’s trigger, then the pistol bucked against his palm and his opponent howled in pain, sprawling into the open as he clutched the bloody ruin of a mangled knee.

Waabberi wasted no time gloating. Still without exhaling, he lined up another shot and put his fourth round through the wounded gunman’s gaping mouth.

Simple.

Perhaps it was his background, all the death that he had witnessed growing up in Mogadishu, but Waabberi felt no pity for the man he’d killed, no sickness at the thought of having snuffed out a human life. The gunman was no better than a snake or scorpion, in his opinion.

All Waabberi felt was sweet relief—and pressing need to drop his other enemies before they did the same to him.

Rising to crouch behind his open door again, he scanned the battleground in search of ready prey.

SIMEON BOORAMA TRIGGERED three quick shots and broke for cover, sprinting toward a burned-out building to his right. He hoped a change of vantage point would help him kill the adversaries who were shooting up his men and cars, before he found himself alone and trapped.

In truth, Boorama didn’t care that much about his men, and both the cars were stolen. If he had to leave the battle site on foot, so be it. All that mattered was eliminating those whom he’d been sent to kill—and the white woman who’d come from nowhere to assist them.

Bullets rattled past Boorama as he ran, head throb bing with the jolt of every stride, sweat burning in his eyes. Boorama nearly reached his goal, then stumbled on the paving stones and sprawled facedown, gasping in pain. He fired a wild shot toward his enemies, then scrambled toward the nearest cover, scraping knees and elbows bloody in the process.

A bullet clipped the heel of Boorama’s left boot as he lurched through the open doorway of a burned-out shop, sending a rough jolt up his leg that echoed in his aching skull. Cursing, he huddled under cover, pausing long enough to catch his breath before he risked another look outside.

Two of his men were down, either dead or wounded, and the three they’d come to kill showed no signs of surrendering. Why should they, when it would mean instant death? Boorama hoped they would run out of bullets soon, and let his soldiers rush them with impunity. But then he felt a surge of panic that he might have no men left when that occurred.

Boorama cursed the white man, who appeared to have his submachine gun, after all. The good news was that he had failed to take the extra magazines Boorama carried in his pockets, and the gun should soon be empty. Then, even with four guns against two, Boorama thought his soldiers should prevail.

Just then, as if his thought had been a curse, he saw another of his men go down, flopping across the pavement like a fish flung out of water. In another instant the man lay still, either dead or unconscious. A useless lump of flesh.

Boorama knew he had to get back in the fight, but he was frightened. The feeling galled him, made him nearly sick with shame. Infuriated by his own weakness, he scrambled to his feet and dropped his pistol’s magazine into his palm. Six or seven rounds remained, but he stuffed it in a pocket and replaced it with another that held fifteen rounds.

Better to be prepared than find himself exposed, unable to return fire from his enemies. If he was swift and bold enough, he might surprise his adversaries and take them down before they recognized the danger on their flank.

If not…

Before logic could rob him of his courage, Boorama broke from cover, charging toward the target from the driver’s side, the TA-90 blazing in his fist. Running and aiming at the same time was a challenge, all the more so with one eye swollen shut and epic pain throbbing inside his head, but rage and a commitment to preserve his reputation drove him forward.

He was halfway to the car and gaining when the white man swung around to face him, sighting down the stubby barrel of Boorama’s submachine gun. Two more shots went wild, before a burst of slugs ripped through Boorama’s chest.

Collapsing to the pavement, slain with his own gun, Boorama wasn’t sure if he should weep or laugh. Instead, he simply died.

THE SLIDE ON BOLAN’S captured SMG locked open as his adversary fell, sprawling, some thirty feet in front of him. The guy was down and out, but so was Bolan’s only ammo magazine, with three or four opponents still confronting him.

He had two ways to go. He could lie back and let his companions finish off the set as best they could, or he could act.

For Bolan, lying back had never been an option.

Good news: he had recognized the last man down, from his loud shirt and battered face, as the same shooter who’d donated the Benelli SMG to Bolan back at the Bakaara Market. Odds were fair that he’d be carrying spare ammunition in the pockets of his baggy cargo pants—and even if he wasn’t, there was still a pistol lying near his outflung hand.

Bad news: the thirty feet that separated Bolan from his goal was open ground. He would be totally exposed to hostile fire, coming and going, all the way.

He hated to distract the woman who had saved him once already, but there seemed to be no choice. Bolan waited until she had paused to feed her pistol a fresh magazine, then said, “Can you cover me?”

She frowned. “What did you have in mind?”

He let her see him drop the SMG’s spent mag and nodded toward the nearby corpse. “A little shopping run,” he said.

“If I were you,” she answered, “I would stress the running part.”

“That’s the plan.”

She nodded then and said, “I’ll do my best. Be quick, eh?”

As she turned away and rose to fire across her open door, he bolted from the cover of the bullet-scarred sedan. There was no point in trying any broken-field maneuvers, since his enemies were all to Bolan’s right, sighting across his path of travel. All that he could do was keep his head down, offer up a silent prayer to anybody listening, and run like hell.

He left the SMG behind and took off.

Two seconds, give or take, and he was at the body. Fumbling with the pocket flaps would use up too much precious time. Instead, he scooped up the Beretta pistol in one hand and gripped the corpse’s collar with the other, dragging the deadweight back toward Mironov’s vehicle and firing as he ran.

Three rounds, in fact, before an empty chamber finished it. By that time, though, he’d reached the car and had started rifling the remains.

The first pocket he tried held three spare clips for the Beretta. Number two Benelli magazines. A third gave up a formidible-looking switchblade knife. He pocketed the blade, reloaded both Italian guns and spent another second charting his next move.

His luck had held so far. Bolan decided it could stand a bit more stress.

“I’m going in,” he told Mironov, rising even as he spoke and rushing past her, angling toward the nearer of the two chase cars.

A single man was hanging on behind its open driver’s door. He’d ducked, perhaps reloading, just as Bolan made his move, and was surprised to find an adversary bearing down upon him when he rose to fire again. A 4-round burst from Bolan’s SMG tore off three-quarters of the gunner’s face and dropped him twitching to the pavement.

That left two, huddled behind the second car.

Bolan considered setting fire to it, but couldn’t trust the plaza’s paving stones to strike a proper spark from ricochets, even if he could hit the fuel tank first and start a spill of gasoline.

Bolan’s companions had the targets pinned, giving him time to circle wide around their vehicle and come in from behind them. One of them saw Bolan coming, tried to raise his SMG too late and took a short burst in the chest. His friend was far too late recovering from the surprise, half-turned in profile when the Parabellum manglers hit him, tore him up beyond repair and put him down for good.

Mironov joined the Executioner beside the corpses, ready with her pistol if one of them tried to pull a Lazarus routine. When she was satified that they were dead, she said, “You run well, for a man…and an American.”

“I do my best,” he said, then nodded toward her car. “Will that still run?”

She smiled again. “Let’s try it and find out.”

4

Natalia Mironov made a call on her cell phone as they were leaving the plaza, speaking rapidly in Russian with a sharp bite to her tone. Five minutes later, when the trio reached a side street off Corso della Repubblica, a grim-faced thirty-something man was waiting with another plain sedan. They switched cars without speaking to the man, leaving him to dump their shot-up ride.

“The backup must be handy,” Bolan said, when they were on the move again.

“I use him sparingly,” Mironov answered, making eye contact with Bolan in the rearview mirror. “He won’t know where we’re going now.”

Bolan would have to take her word on that, unless he decided to bolt and drag Waabberi with him. Instead, he told her, “I have wheels back at the market.”

“Did you leave something you can’t afford to lose?” Mironov asked.

“Nothing.”

“It’s best to write the car off, then, I think. Not wise to go back when the wasps are swarming and you may be stung, yes?”

Bolan nodded. He could always get another car.

“I take it that we have a destination, then?” he asked.

“A safe place,” she responded. “For a talk.”

He could have asked for her definition of safe, but Bolan let it go and watched for landmarks as she drove through winding, mostly darkened streets. Their destination was a small apartment block located two blocks west of Via Casa Popolare, in what passed for one of Mogadishu’s quasi-upscale neighborhoods. He noted the other cars parked on the street, most of them aging and in need of bodywork or fresh paint jobs, and building windows shuttered against roaming peril in the night.

Inside Mironov’s flat, Bolan took a quick look around, opening each door and peering into darkened rooms while the Russian tracked him with eyes that mirrored vague amusement.

“You don’t trust me yet,” she said, not making it a question.

“It’s a little soon for me,” he said.

“I understand, of course. Perhaps I saved your life to bring you here and kill you.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Bolan told her.

“Perhaps. But that is not the case here. The two of you have me outnumbered.”

Right, he thought. Unless the two of you set all this up.

Bolan kept that thought to himself. “Let me guess,” he said. “You’re here for the Vasylna.”

“For her cargo,” she corrected him. “Ukrainians can take care of themselves.”

“That sounds more like the KGB,” Bolan replied.

“Americans are fond of clinging to the past,” she said.

“What’s changed, except the name?” he challenged.

Her shrug seemed unaffected, drew attention to the way she filled her clinging blouse. “For one thing, we’re not communists. Well, most of us, at least. And we do not give arms to terrorists.”

“Are you upset because they’re headed for the wrong hands, or because you got ripped off?” he asked.

“I think it must be a bit of both,” she said.

“Our interests may conflict on this,” Bolan said.

“You object to lawful sales between my country and the government of Kenya?” she inquired. “Your embassy is in Nairobi. Surely Washington does not object to reinforcing the stability of that regime…and earning money in the process? We are capitalists, after all. You win.”

“Nobody wins, with all that hardware on the open market in Somalia,” Bolan said.

“And once again, we’re in agreement,” Mironov said. “Let’s speak frankly. I was sent to find the missing cargo and recover it, if possible. Failing in that, my orders are to render it inoperable and deprive the thieves of any value. Are your orders similar?”

“Minus recovering the shipment,” Bolan granted.

“So, no major conflict, then.”

“And do you know who has the merchandise?” he asked.

“We have suspects. Two groups in competition, I am told. The thieves are unidentified as of yet.”

“We’re in the same boat, then,” Bolan said.

“Should we sail together for a time, or would you rather work alone?” Mironov asked.

“I’m not alone,” Bolan replied, tipping a quick nod to Waabberi.

“Nor am I,” she said, “as you have seen.”

Bolan considered it and made his choice.

“Cooperation works for me,” he said, “if we’re agreed to trash the cargo when we find it.”

“If we find it,” she replied, “I may be open to persuasion.”

“Fair enough,” Bolan said, as he took her outstretched hand.

MUSSE GULEED WAS NOT accustomed to defeat. He’d risen from the gutter, literally, to command a private army known in Mogadishu and the surrounding Banaadir Region as a ferocious fighting unit. Foreign peacekeepers shied away from contact with his troops. Merchants and politicians paid him tribute on demand.

It came as something of a shock, therefore, to learn that eight of his men had been killed in Hamarwein, apparently without inflicting any damage on their enemies.

Guleed’s voice was an earthy rumble in the cluttered office as he asked, “I sent them to Bakaara Market, did I not?”

Seated across the desktop scarred by cigarettes and water rings, Jama Hassan nodded. “You did,” he said.

“Why are they dead in old town, then?”

Hassan shrugged. “I suppose they followed this Waabberi and his white man.”

“Did I tell Simeon to follow anyone?” Guleed demanded.

“No, Musse.”

“He was supposed to kill them in the market, was he not?”

“Something went wrong.”

“I know something went wrong! I’ve lost eight men for nothing! Where’s the man they were sent to liquidate?”

“I don’t know, Musse.”

“It’s your job to know, Jama.”

Hassan slumped lower in his chair, adopting a contrite posture. “You know that Simeon was no good at communication from the field. We found his radio still in the car, turned off.”

Guleed breathed deeply, focused on diminishing his rage before it sparked another blinding migraine and he had to chew more khat for pain relief. When he was calmer and the pulsing at his temples eased, he spoke again.

“You’re right about Boorama. And the others, pig shit on my boots. They’re easily replaced. My point is that they didn’t do their job, and that is what bothers me.”

“You’re right, Musse.”

“And as my second in command, I’m asking you, Jama, what will you do about it? How will you correct this error and redeem my reputation?”

“I have people questioning the market vendors,” Hassan said. “Some of them saw the white man running past their stalls. One claims a car was waiting for him on the west side of the market.”

“Not Waabberi,” Guleed said.

“No. He was running with the white man.”

“So? Who drove the car?”

“Our witness says it was a white woman.” Guleed cursed.

“It’s true, Musse. At least, he says it’s true. We’re trying to confirm it, but of course he didn’t see the license plate. The car was gray, he says.”

“Oh, gray,” Guleed said with a sneer. “That solves everything.”

“We’re looking for more witnesses.”

“Waabberi went to meet a white man at the market, yes?”

“So we were told, Musse.”

“And now, we have a white woman already here in Mogadishu, waiting with a car to spirit them away, one jump ahead of Simeon?” Hassan shrugged.

“If this is true,” Guleed pressed on, “what does it mean?”

“Someone from the United Nations possibly.”

“Someone from the UN who fights back and wins?” Guleed challenged.

“Or, maybe not.”

“Most definitely not. Waabberi’s new friend is supposed to be American?”

“So we were told,” Hassan confirmed.

“No mention of an agency or military branch?”

“Nothing.”

Their source had been a Mogadishu switchboard operator, paid to eavesdrop on specific lines and keep Hassan abreast of what selected individuals were saying, doing, thinking. She had listened to a certain businessman, believed to be a contract agent of the CIA, and heard him tell Waabberi when and where to meet a visitor from the United States. Waabberi had also been asking questions lately, about business that involved Musse Guleed. The combination was enough to make him a target, together with his unnamed Western guest.