Path To War

“And you’re going to cut us out?” Bolan demanded.

“Hardly. I need your assistance. I will even allow you,” Tachjine told Bolan, “to review my strike plan, as co-commander. I regret this encounter, but as I said, I needed to know which side you were on.”

Bolan grunted. “We could wonder the same about you.”

“Indeed.”

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not getting the whole picture?” Bolan posed.

“There is no picture,” Tachjine said, “other than my desire to rid my country of terrorist vermin.”

Dawkins chuckled as he lowered his weapon. “You want that suitcase nuke, don’t you? You want a trophy, something to hold up to your bosses so you can—”

“Nonsense!” Tachjine growled. “I am one of the most powerful men in Morocco. As for career advancement, I have gone as far as I wish to go, and politics has no appeal to me. I do not wish for my country to be viewed as a safe haven where tactical nuclear devices or any other weapons of mass destruction can be shipped and purchased here as easily as one might buy a carpet in the souk.”

Bolan stowed the Beretta, but held on to the Uzi, dropping it by his side as he stepped out into the open. “I needed this man, Tachjine. I suspected he knew where I could find three assassins who call themselves Al-Jassaca.”

“Yes, I know of whom you speak. They are in Pakistan.”

“That much I could have figured out on my own,” Bolan said.

“There is a strong possibility I can steer you to a cell here in the city who can give you the information you seek on Al-Jassaca. But, first—do you wish to assist us in our surgical strike against the camp?”

Bolan felt Dawkins staring at him as he stepped toward the Moroccan counterterrorist commander. “Let’s hear what you have.”

BARAKA FELT HIS NERVES, taut as a garrote around some victim’s neck, a hot anger bubbling in his gut the longer he stood around, sensing the heat build in the tent, mentally hashing over everything that could go wrong. The NKs were busy rolling the cash through their battery-powered money counters, grunting, mumbling to one another in their native tongue, while he and his men stood their ground like lackeys waiting for approval. Their granite expressions didn’t shift an inch from what he read as either contempt or disdain, their stares fixed on the numbers scrolling up on the digital readouts. And Baraka was on the verge of a quasi-tirade, figured to kick some life into their smug asses, eager for Colonel Kimsung to show him how to activate the suitcase nuke. He wanted out of Morocco, every bit as bad as the NKs, his paranoia radar all of a sudden blipping off the screen. So far the operation was running smoothly, but when it all looked and felt too easy…

He’d never known easy. Easy street was for brass, or the fat cats of the Consortium.

To throw gasoline onto the potential firestorm, Baraka could tell Engels and Morallis had shot themselves up with Z-Clops. Of course, he had passed on the order—it was up to each soldier whether he chose to inject the steroid-meth derivative—but this was the first time he was watching his own men morphing into possible rabid werewolves before his eyes. Even with the bite of the cold night air seeping into the tent, beads of sweat were mottling their faces, eyes bugging, the air practically whistling out their nostrils as if they were on the verge of hyperventilating or exploding out of their skin. A glance at their hands, and he found them trembling, knuckles stark white as if they were about to snap their subguns in two or rush the North Koreans in a wild cannibal frenzy. How many others under his command had gone ahead and fueled themselves with Z-Clops?

Baraka silently cursed. This wasn’t good. The stocky little Kimsung was throwing them dark looks, eyelids slitting so narrow Baraka could barely see his beady eyes, but suspected the North Korean Special Forces colonel knew they weren’t playing with a full deck, or were so edged out on fear and paranoia he believed they might start blasting any second. Baraka knew there were soldiers under his command who had track records of drug and alcohol abuse, wouldn’t think twice about juicing their systems with Z-Clops, if only to propel them into battle with an edge. Luckily the North Koreans only toted shoulder-holstered pistols, but the last problem Baraka needed was a shootout when he was surrounded by a few platoons of fanatics, many of whom, he was sure, wanted to seize that suitcase for their jihad.

“It’s all there, Colonel,” Engels suddenly said, eyes bulging, flickering over the North Koreans like ricocheting pinballs. “Close to ten mil, just like we said. So how much longer do we need to stand here and watch you count Kim Jong’s booty?”

Morallis jumped into the act, as Kimsung glowered at Engels. “Your little tyrant-buffoon you bow and scrape before while millions of your countrymen starve to death? That pint-size clown who spends his day swilling imported Scotch and watching Star Trek reruns and Rambo, and who claims he’s a god descendant from the UFO mothership? He isn’t going let you see the first Franklin of that, so let’s stop dicking around here and break open that suitcase.”

“Other words,” Engels growled, “we’re busy men. Places to go, things to do, Angolans to kill.”

“Take it easy,” Baraka snapped, his heart racing, poised for the worst as Kimsung wheeled on him.

“What is wrong with your men to talk to me with such insolence and disrespect?” Kimsung rasped.

“They’re tired and they’re stressed. That’s all.”

Kimsung held his furious stare on Engels and Morallis, and said, “I am not so sure. I have been to your America. I have seen the inhuman faces of your citizens who are on drugs…”

“Look, Colonel,” Baraka said, taking a step toward the North Koreans, “they’re fine. Can we get on with it?”

“Yes,” Kimsung said quietly voice. “We shall get on with it. But if we’re to share in the future we have planned, I would strongly urge you to tell your men to watch their tongues.”

“Consider it done. The suitcase, Colonel?”

Huffing and scowling, Kimsung went and crouched beside the large black suitcase. Glowering back at Baraka, he produced a key, inserted it into two latches on each end. “I trust you are a quick study and have a good memory?”

Baraka unclipped the Personal Digital Assistant off his belt. The small handheld computer was custom-built by Consortium technicians. Complete with e-mail, Internet and even fax capacity, the supermicrochip they had installed was capable of saving all the data, what with its powerful random access memory, that he would require for the operation.

“You are going to store such critical information on a PDA?” Kimsung inquired, looking slightly aghast.

“My memory’s not what it used to be, Colonel. Proceed.”

Heaving a breath, as if disgusted or amazed, Kimsung took a pair of keys, one larger than the other, from his coat pocket, tossed them to Baraka. “Pay attention. The small one is for opening the case itself, the larger key will turn on the device, but for complete activation and to keep it running, you will need the power pack. That is a backup set of keys. Do not lose them.”

While his comrades kept slapping the wads of hundred dollar bills through their counters, Kimsung punched in a series of numbers that Baraka, using a pen, scribbled down on his touch pad. A snick, and the colonel opened the suitcase. Taking a knee beside Kimsung, his men hovering behind him, Baraka looked at the blackmail instrument of the coming revolution. It didn’t look like much, but he wasn’t quite sure what he’d expected. He had heard about but never seen the Special Forces version of the tactical, or what was lately dubbed as the landmine nuke. Supposedly the lifespan of the weapons-grade plutonium didn’t last more than a few weeks, but Baraka didn’t intend to test that educated theory beyond the next few days. The backpack specials, he’d heard, were primarily meant to destroy railroads, bridges, large compounds, or annihilate the spearhead of an advancing army. Whatever it was meant to do, he knew it would be nasty beyond any human comprehension. There would be ground-zero blast, then fires, outsweeping fallout, radiation for years to come that would drop thousands with an invisible web of cancer. According to Consortium brains, this particular device could obliterate ten to twelve city blocks. Thirteen kilotons had vaporized 130,000 in Hiroshima, he knew, another 70,000 dropping eventually from radiation sickness, and the Devil only knew how many cancer deaths beyond that or the number of deformed babies born just after the world’s first Big Bang. At eight kilotons, this suitcase nuke, depending on where in Luanda it was touched off, could produce six-figure casualties, in and near ground zero.

Kimsung showed him the large key, grunted, then inserted it into a slot beside what he suspected was the control panel. He reached into the small nylon bag beside him and showed a small black box. “Power pack,” he said, then snapped the box into place beside the keypad. “I will provide you with one backup pack. They will only last for ten days.”

“I don’t plan on keeping the thing around as a conversation piece, Colonel.”

Kimsung grunted. “Indeed. I would think not.” The digital readout flashed on in red, the colonel tapping in the first set of numbers, Baraka writing them down as fast as he could. “Two more sets of numbers,” Kimsung said, then began tapping on the keypad.

Baraka took them down, then saved the data.

“This switch here,” Kimsung said, his finger hovering over a slender lever at the top right-hand corner. “Once the access codes I gave you are set—once you flip this switch up—there is no deactivating the device. The equivalent of eight thousand tons of TNT.”

Baraka felt his body go utterly still, sensed his men, jacked up as they were on Z-Clops, paralyzed by the mere notion of the power of the utter destruction before them. If he didn’t know better, Baraka would have sworn a smile ghosted Kimsung’s lips. Did his finger just move an inch closer to the switch? It did, and Engels nearly shouted, “What the hell are you doing?”

Kimsung chuckled. “I wanted to make certain you were paying close attention.”

“Cut the crap,” Baraka said. “I need time-setting and shutdown instructions.”

Quickly, Kimsung showed Baraka how to set the doomsday timer on the keypad, then wrapped it up with deactivating instructions, then, digital readout winking out, the colonel finally twisted the key and removed it. He shut the case, locked it, Baraka noticing the Colonel pocketed the other set of keys.

“Yes,” Kimsung said, “I will keep the original keys, in the event some unforeseen disaster befalls us.”

Baraka didn’t like it, noted Durban’s dark stare, Engels and Moralllis fidgetting, jaws clenched. “You don’t trust us?”

Kimsung stood. “Understand, this is a highly volatile and what will be a fluid situation when the time comes. The buffoon-tyrant,” he said, glancing at Engels and Morallis, “your soldiers so flippantly referred to, has put us under orders to see this operation is a one-hundred percent success—or we do not return to Pyongyang. Should you or your men fall in battle, I will become your Plan B. Is that a problem for you or your men?”

It was, but Baraka had the Consortium’s deal nailed down. Whatever glitch thrust itself into the operation down the road, he’d deal with it on the spot, by the barrel of his weapon if he had to. If he had to cut the NKs out of whatever they believed would be their lion’s share of Angola…

“You’re aware the people I work for want to acquire two, perhaps three more of these devices?”

“This would be the second time you mentioned the matter.”

Engels took a step toward the colonel. “Hey, we just handed you ten million bucks.”

“Relax!” Baraka growled. “What about that, Colonel? We negotiated a price of five mil per suitcase.”