Shadow Search

It was now early evening. Since returning to his room Bolan had showered and dressed in fresh clothing. The gash on his cheek had stopped bleeding. It stung occasionally, reminding him of the day’s violent event. He decided it was time to eat, so he called room service and asked if they could send him up something light and a pot of coffee. He was promised something very shortly.

Picking up his cell phone Bolan speed-dialed the Farm and waited until he heard the distant connection lock in. The voice that came on was instantly recognizable as Barbara Price’s.

“How’s it going, Striker?” the mission controller asked.

He told her about the bomb incident.

“Sounds like you walked right into trouble.”

“I’ve had pleasanter days. Has the Bear come up with anything on those names and the cell phone number I gave him?”

“Hold on.”

He heard paper rustling.

“Aaron didn’t find anything very interesting on either man. They both look clean. Nkoya is down as a loyal member of the government. Backs President Karima all the way down the line. He does a lot of traveling on behalf of the Tempala administration. He was on some kind of government trip about three weeks ago to London and Paris.”

“Sounds like a man who moves around a lot.”

“I suppose.” Price hesitated. “You want to share that with me?”

“Share what?”

“Striker, I know the way your mind works. You can make the most casual remark sound like an accusation.”

“Maybe I have a suspicious nature. Go with me on this. Have the Bear dig a little deeper. Look at Nkoya’s finances. See if he has anything tucked away. Money. Stock. You know the routine. Same with Simon Chakra, the military guy.”

“There’s nothing on the cell phone number yet.”

“Tell the Bear to stay with it.”

“Okay. We’ll talk later.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Striker, you take care.”

Bolan broke the connection and put the cell phone down. He stood for a while, staring at the phone. Was he being too suspicious? Looking for things that didn’t actually exist? If he was wrong no harm had been done. On the other hand…

He heard the tap on his door. Room service. Bolan crossed the room and opened the door. The muzzle of an automatic pistol was thrust in his face.

“Step away from the door,” the man holding the gun said.

Bolan eased back, the man following. Without warning Bolan’s hands swept up, fingers clamping around the gunman’s wrist. The Executioner pulled the man toward him, half turning and throwing the gunman over his hip. The African gave a startled yell as he was hurled across the room. He hit the floor hard, the gun bouncing from his hand. He squirmed over on his back, bleeding from a split lip. He saw Bolan closing in and tried to stand. He barely managed to get his feet under him before Bolan reached him, driving a hard foot into the man’s chest that knocked him back down.

The Executioner wondered if the man was on his own and turned to check the open doorway. He caught a glimpse of a dark shape lunging at him, saw the glint of metal an instant before something hard clubbed him across the side of the head. The blow stunned him. Bolan stumbled, fell to his knees, nausea rising. A second blow drove him to the floor, and he felt the room shrink around him, turning black and swallowing him.

BOLAN CAME AROUND SLOWLY, staying still so as not to alert his captors he was awake. He was on the seat of a car by the sounds and movement. He could hear the sound of the motor, feel the bump and sway as the vehicle sped along an uneven road.

There were at least two of them that he knew of. Maybe there were more. It was hard to tell from his current position. He was aware of the pulse of pain in his skull. He could also feel the sticky streaks of blood that had run down the left side of his face from the gash in his temple.

Bolan assessed his situation. He had walked right into the attack. Opening the door without verifying who was there. He made no excuses. The opportunity to check had been in his own hands. His momentary lapse had let his captors subdue him. The next question asked where they were taking him and why? The options were few. They would either question him or kill him. Bolan couldn’t see any other variants. Either way his evening looked grim.

He decided that playing dead wasn’t going to gain him a great deal. He moved and uttered a low groan, pushing upright on the seat, then flopping against the backrest. Within those few seconds he checked out the passengers. One man behind the wheel, a second sitting across from Bolan on the rear seat, holding a gun on him.

“Wake-up time, brother. Wouldn’t want you to waste your last ride missing all the local sights.”

“I can live with that.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” the driver said. “You’re not going to live at all.”

Bolan ignored the threat. He was checking their location. They were speeding along a dusty strip of rutted road between boarded-up buildings. It looked like an abandoned industrial area. Weeds were already choking the empty lots and creeping up the walls of derelict structures. The bush regaining its own. Beyond the rooftops the sky was starting to show red as the sun sank lower. Shadows were spreading.

The car swayed as the driver took a sharp turn, sweeping across a littered area and heading for the gaping doors of a large, empty building. The car rolled inside the cavernous building, coming to a jerky stop.

The gunman nudged Bolan with his boot. “End of the line, brother. Get your white ass out of the car. I don’t want to shoot you in here. Makes too much mess.”

The driver switched off the motor and pushed open his door.

Backing out of the car the gunman held his autopistol on Bolan, gesturing with his free hand. “You make it faster or I’ll change my mind.”

Bolan slid across the seat, his reflexes setting themselves for a fast reaction. He needed to move now, not in five minutes, because by then he would be incapable of doing anything.

“Speed it up, Benjo,” the driver said.

The gunman—Benjo—glared at the driver for using his name.

The Executioner burst into action the moment the man’s eyes flickered away from him. He launched himself off the rear seat of the car, powering himself upright. He grabbed Benjo’s gun arm, curling powerful fingers around the man’s wrist. Bolan ducked under the gunman’s arm, coming up behind the man and snaking his left arm around the man’s neck, jerking back hard. Benjo gasped, trying to suck in air through his restricted windpipe. Bolan slid his hand down to the gun in the hardman’s right hand, slipping his finger inside the guard, over Benjo’s own trigger finger. He jerked Benjo’s arm around, lining the muzzle on the driver as the man rushed around the front of the car, reaching for the handgun he kept tucked in the waistband of his trousers.

Bolan pulled the trigger. The autopistol fired, the bullet hitting the driver high in the chest. He stumbled, yelling in pain, his body bouncing off the front of the car. He was still fumbling for his weapon, feeling the pain from the wound, when Bolan fired a second time. This time he took the bullet in the side of his head. The impact knocked him to the ground and he lay in a jerking heap, blood spreading from under his shattered skull.

Benjo, shocked by the sudden, unexpected reversal of roles, struggled in Bolan’s grip. He was weakening fast, desperately attempting to suck in air. He offered little resistance when Bolan spun him and slammed him against the side of the car, snatching the pistol from his hand. Benjo felt the muzzle grind into his forehead.

“This can be easy or hard, depending on how you deal with the next couple of minutes,” Bolan said.

“I don’t know what you want.”

“We can start with why?”

“You were interfering in something that was none of your damn business. We took a contract to kill you.”

“That answers my second question then. All I need is the name of the one who gave the order.”

Despite his position Benjo managed a nervous laugh. “You expect me to tell? You might as well shoot me. I give you names I’m a dead man.”

“Don’t fool yourself I won’t do it,” Bolan said. “Your people went over the line when you set off that bomb yesterday. You killed innocent children in the name of your struggle and expect mercy?”

“Hey, man, I’m no rebel. I just took a job from them. The ones who died in that blast were just unlucky they were in the way.”

“Pity they weren’t asked if they wanted it that way.”

Benjo pushed against the muzzle pressed to his head. His face showed the anger inside. “So go home, Yank. This is not your fight. Go home before you die, too.”

Bolan’s smile was all the more chilling because it failed to reach his eyes. They were hard and cold, without a shred of pity.

“Tell me what I have to be frightened of? A bunch of backstreet thugs who bomb women and children? Real hardmen who can only kidnap the president’s young kids because they don’t have the guts to challenge him in the open?”

Bolan spun Benjo aside and pushed him away. He leveled the pistol.

“Game’s over, Benjo. You had your chance and wasted it. Time’s up.”

Benjo looked back over his shoulder. Maybe gauging how far he had to go to reach the freedom of the dark night. He even made a tentative movement with his foot. His manner changed abruptly. Benjo dropped to a crouch, yanking up the leg of his trousers, and snatched a slim-bladed knife from an ankle sheath. His arm went back in the first stage of a throw.

Bolan reacted quickly, twisting to one side, bringing the pistol back on line.

From somewhere behind Benjo a handgun fired, briefly illuminating the shadows with its muzzle-flash. The bullet hit Benjo between the shoulders, exiting through his upper chest. The velocity of the powerful slug created a substantial wound, shards of bone mingled with the lacerated flesh. Benjo fell facedown on the concrete floor, his limbs in spasm for a time.

Bolan watched the spot where the shot had come from. He wasn’t exactly surprised when he saw the tall figure of Sergeant Christopher Jomo appear. The man was in civilian clothing this time. He came to stand over Benjo, tucking his .44 Magnum revolver into his belt.

“You have a strange way of relaxing, Mr. Belasko.”

“I wasn’t given any choice in the matter.”

“I saw them bringing you out of the hotel.”

“Which you just happened to be passing?”

Jomo smiled. “I was on my way to see you.”

“About?”

“I was curious. Something made me want to know more about you.”

“Such as?”

“The real reason you are here in Tempala. I was just parking my car when I saw those two coming from the rear of the hotel dragging you along with them.”

“Lucky for me you have a curious streak.”

Jomo glanced at the bodies, then back at Bolan. “I think you’ve satisfied my curiosity here tonight. Especially why you are in Tempala.” Jomo stepped forward. “It wasn’t hard to overhear what you were saying. Now I’ll tell you something. If the president’s children have been taken, let me help. You’re going to need someone who knows the country. I was born on a farm and spent my childhood in the bush country.”

Bolan held back only for a moment. “What about these terrorists? Any thoughts on where they might take the children?”

“Out of the city, that’s for certain. Too many chances of being spotted if they stayed here. The children are known by the people. They would be recognized.”

“Sounds logical. Do they have a base? A central place they operate from?”

Jomo smiled. “My friend, this is Africa, not New York. The whole country is their base. Which is why they are hard to locate. These people live in the bush, move around as they have done for centuries. They can live off the land so they have no need for bases to store their food. They get water from the springs they know or from the water holes the animals use.”

“I get the message. So where do we start?”

“In the bush,” Jomo said.

“What about these two? Any thoughts?”

“I know the one you shot. Petty criminal. Native Kirandi. Been in prison a couple of times. Has a history of violence. He would have ended up shot sooner or later.”

“Any political leanings?”

Jomo shook his head. “He wasn’t the committed type. If you are asking if he was with the rebels I’d say no. Most likely he was hired to kill you because he was on the spot.”

“Pretty much what I heard.”

Jomo bent over the man and searched his pockets. He stood up again, waving a thick roll of banknotes. “Check Benjo. He’ll be carrying the same. He was a brother criminal.”

Bolan found a similar roll of bills. He threw it to Jomo.

“Plain and simple, Belasko. They were paid to make you disappear.”

AS THEY DROVE BACK to the hotel in Jomo’s battered Land Rover, Bolan told the sergeant about Karima’s kids. He knew he could trust Jomo, and he needed someone with Jomo’s knowledge on his side. The light was starting to fail by the time they reached the hotel. The hard heat of the day had begun to fade as Jomo parked in a dark corner of the parking lot. Bolan went in and up to his room. Nothing had been touched. His captors had even closed the door when they had left, taking him with them. They must have used the fire escape to avoid being seen. He took the shoulder bag from the wardrobe. Bolan stripped and pulled on his blacksuit and boots. He spent a few minutes in the bathroom doctoring his head wound. He packed his weapons and gear into the backpack, then filled the canteen with water from the fridge. Slipping his cell phone into one of his zippered pockets he left the room and made his way back downstairs, using the fire escape. He walked around the side of the building and rejoined Jomo.

The policeman took a look at the blacksuit. “Now you dress for business?”

“Something like that,” Bolan replied.

4

Jomo drove first to the area where Karima’s house was situated. He kept up a steady speed so as not to alert the security men stationed around the property.

“We should go that way,” he stated, pointing along the street. “Out of the city. If I had Karima’s kids that’s the way I’d go. Up country, into the bush. And I’d keep going until I was in rebel country.”

He kept driving, passing other houses, each with its own large grounds.

“They would go this way,” Jomo said. “To the places they know and where they can hide. And they will have friends out there. Their followers.”

Bolan studied the far-reaching spread of the empty plain. It was mostly flat land in the region, though there were mountains to the north and some hills in between. Between the plains and the mountain range, according to Jomo, there were great swathes of deep forest country.

“Give it your best shot, Jomo.”

The African nodded and set the Land Rover along the road. They traveled for a couple of miles until the last of the houses were well behind them. Then he slowed the SUV, stopping a couple of times to climb out and check the edge of the road. The third time he did it he beckoned for Bolan to join him. There was a full moon. It cast a pale light across the land, allowing them to see reasonably well.

“A four-wheel drive vehicle left the road here,” he said, indicating faint marks in the dust. He squatted on his heels, staring down at the tracks. “Since the kidnapping the weather’s been pretty calm. Not a lot of wind so these tracks haven’t been filled yet. I say they are two days old. No more.”

Bolan studied the tire marks. There was no doubt they had been made only a couple of days ago. Jomo’s evaluation rang true. If the tread marks had been any older they would have been obliterated by now. The edges were dry and starting to crumble, some of the upper rims starting to fall in.

“One good gust of wind and these are gone,” Jomo said.

“Heading straight north,” Bolan said. “How far to the cover of the forest?”

“Three days’ steady travel before they reach the hard growth. They would have to leave the vehicle then. Go on foot. The forest is too dense to drive through. That’s if they go that far. They might have a rendezvous point closer. Somewhere out in the bush.”

Jomo pushed to his feet and followed Bolan back to the Land Rover. They climbed in and Jomo started the motor, swinging the vehicle around and driving off the road. The tires sank into the dusty ground. Jomo pushed down on the gas pedal and the SUV surged forward. They drove for a while before Jomo spoke.

“I don’t think they’ll use the forest. More likely to stay on the plain and use the villages to the north. The tribes who back the rebels occupy that region.”

“You know them?”

Jomo laughed. “Know them? I’m from the Tempai tribe. Karima’s people. The rebels are Kirandi. The two tribes have been at each other’s throats for decades. Things don’t change as fast once you leave the big cities.”

As full darkness fell and the moon vanished behind clouds, Jomo switched on the headlights. The powerful beams cut through the gloom. Even in the dark Jomo seemed to know where he was going. The ride was bumpy. Land Rovers were not designed for smooth riding and every jolt and bounce was transmitted to Bolan’s spine. They drove at a steady speed for the next three hours. Bolan was silently grateful when Jomo rolled to a stop and cut the motor.

The night was alive with the chatter of insects and the deeper sounds of animals. There was little chance of concealing the vehicle out on the flat, featureless plain so they didn’t bother.

“It’s safer to sleep inside the vehicle,” Jomo said. “You want the front or the rear?”

“I don’t care,” Bolan answered.

From the equipment in the rear of the SUV Jomo produced blankets. He tossed one to Bolan. He also produced an SA-80 carbine, a short version of the British SA-80 battle rifle, chambered for the 5.56 mm round. This second version of the carbine was capable of taking 30-round magazines from the M-16. It was a sturdy, hard-wearing weapon, and though it had failed to excite the British military as had its predecessor, the SA-80 carbine had found its own market by being sold abroad. There were a bunch of long, beautifully marked feathers fixed to the stock, held in place by tight rawhide thongs. Jomo noticed Bolan studying the feathers.

“From an eagle. Took them myself when I was younger. I kept them all these years, part of Tempai tradition.” The African laughed. “You see, Belasko, we are all still held by our beliefs.”

“Eagle feathers beat murdering children any day,” Bolan said.

The soldier took time to remove his 9 mm Uzi from his bag before he pulled his blanket round him and settled in the passenger seat.

“I’ll take first watch,” Bolan said. “Wake you in a few hours.”

Jomo sighed. “I knew you were going to say that,” he grumbled before he settled himself down to catch some sleep.

Bolan cradled the Uzi across his thighs. He gave himself time to adjust to the African night, his eyes gradually focussing on distant shapes and the deeper shadows that enveloped them. He could distinguish between solid objects and the false shapes formed from light and dark. It was easy to become fooled by imaginary shapes, believing them to exist until close examination identified them as nothing more than illusions. He changed his line of vision often, not allowing himself to concentrate on one spot for too long. When the eyes became fixed on one spot it was not unknown for the mind to start seeing things moving. Inanimate objects took on a phantom life, seeming to shift from spot to spot. The mind, the night, and the boredom that could set in during long sentry spells combined to distract the man on duty. It was all too easy to fall under the spell.

Bolan thought about Karima’s children. What would be going through those young minds? Snatched from their normal existence to be dragged off into the wilds, surrounded by strangers who, on their own admission, were opposed to everything their father stood for. It would be a far from pleasant episode. The other side of the coin might ease the burden for them. Children were resilient beings, often showing a surprising tenacity when placed in dangerous situations. Bolan hoped that Karima’s son and daughter would be able to exhibit those characteristics.

Thinking about the children brought his attention back to the bomb incident. He hadn’t voiced his real feelings about it to Karima. That the terrorists had set off the bomb because they might no longer have the children as bargaining chips. The unexpected turn of events, coming in the middle of the kidnap process didn’t gel as far as Bolan was concerned. Why make such a dramatic gesture when they already had their lever? He accepted that trying to fathom the terrorists was difficult. They were by definition unstable and liable to unexpected changes in their procedures. But he still felt the bombing had come out of left field.

The soldier didn’t dwell on the matter for too long. Speculation only led to confusion. If there was a logical reason behind the bombing it would reveal itself in time. It wouldn’t be hurried no matter how long Bolan deliberated over it.

As the night closed in, the heat of the day slipped away, replaced by a noticeable chill. Cold air coming in from the west, drifting in from the coast. Bolan pulled his blanket tight over his shoulders. Behind him he could hear Jomo’s heavy breathing. The African was taking full advantage of his time out.

An hour passed. Bolan had just checked his watch when he heard the gentle, insistent sound of his cell phone. He took it from his pocket and accepted the call.

“Did I wake you?” Aaron Kurtzman asked, without a trace of regret.

“No,” Bolan said. “I felt guilty keeping you awake so I decided to sit up all night.”

“It’s called teamwork,” the computer expert replied. “Okay, we ran more checks on your people out there. Can’t find a damn thing out of place as far as the vice-president is concerned. If he’s off the rails he’s keeping it well hidden.”

“Okay.”

“Simon Chakra on the other hand,” Kurtzman went on, then paused. “You still awake?”

“What do you think?”

Kurtzman chuckled.

“Native Kirandi. He’s been in the army since he was big enough to hold a rifle without falling over. He came up through the ranks, then went to the U.K. to complete his officer training, as a lot of African officers seem to do. I got into some reports written about him by the officer school. It seems our boy always had a thing about Tempala’s national identity. Back then he talked a streak but didn’t show any radical tendencies. It was written down as a sort of home-boy zeal. He went back to Tempala and worked his ass off in the army. Good combat record during some internal strife over ten years back. Good officer. So much so that when Karima was made top man he promoted Chakra to military commander. Chakra has never been shy at declaring his full support for Karima and his policies.”

“All sounds good, Bear.”

“I’ll bet Karima doesn’t know about his boy having an account in the Cayman Islands. Cash deposits over the last few months. The guy has close on three and a half million in U.S. dollars. It also seems he was seen in the company of two Cuban advisor-types on an unofficial trip to Havana last month. One of our covert units in Cuba spotted him in deep talks with these guys at a villa just outside the city. They keep watch on anything happening in Cuba, take pictures and send them through to their agency. No one had recognized Chakra until a few days ago. On the global scale he’s not a real player. Sit him back down in Tempala, I guess you’d have him a good way up the ladder.”

“Be interesting to find out if any of the so-called rebels from Tempala have been cosying up to Castro’s advisors,” Bolan said.

“Way ahead there, Striker. I did some more trawling and came up with IDs on two Tempalan nationals. Rudolph Zimbala and Shempi Harruri. They are part of the ruling council of the rebel faction. Both have been mixing with our Cuban buddies. The same faces cropped up from the pictures taken with Chakra.”