Conflict Zone

“They are,” he told her. “And we’re running late.”

“For what?”

“Our lift back to your father.”

“Daddy? Really?”

“I didn’t go through all of this to tell you lies,” Bolan said.

“The Jeep’s wrecked,” she reminded him.

“We’ve got more wheels to choose from,” he replied. “You feel like two, or four.”

“Whatever’s fastest.”

“Two it is,” he said, slinging his rifle as he moved toward the nearest dirt bike.

GRIMALDI BROUGHT a chopper for his second run into Nigeria. There’d be no room to land a plane, and paperwork had been completed—forged, of course, but still impressive—on the whirlybird.

It was a Bell 206L LongRanger, seating seven, powered by an Allison 250-C20B turboshaft engine. Its 430-mile range was adequate, since he’d be refueling in Warri, and its cruising speed of 139 miles per hour would put him over the LZ in two hours and change, if he met no opposition along the way.

And if he did, well, he was done.

The Bell wasn’t a gunship, and it wouldn’t outrun military aircraft if the Nigerian air force happened to spot him, despite his running underneath their radar. At last count, they had six Mil Mi-24 helicopters on tap, assuming they didn’t send one of their fifteen Chengdu F-7 jet fighters to blast him out of the sky with rockets or twin 30 mm cannons.

Either way, he’d be dead, leaving Bolan and his damsel stranded. Which was simply unacceptable.

Pickups were always worse than drops. This time, he’d actually have to set down on the ground while Bolan and the girl scrambled aboard. If they had company, the best that the ace pilot could do to help was wave the Springfield .45 he carried in a shoulder rig and tell them what he thought about their ancestors.

But leaving without Bolan and his charge wasn’t an option. Never had been, never would be.

Only if Grimaldi reached the arranged LZ and saw them dead, beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt, would he return alone the way he’d come. And what would happen then?

A sat-phone message to the Farm, for starters, bearing news that everyone on-site had dreaded from the day they first broke ground.

And after that?

Grimaldi didn’t want to think about what Brognola would do, how he’d react. Whether retaliation would be ordered, or the whole thing would be written off as fubar from the jump.

Who would they even target, in retaliation for eliminating Bolan? Could they pin it on an individual or group of heavies beyond question? Would the scorched-earth treatment help to ease their suffering?

Grimaldi couldn’t answer that, but if it happened, he intended to be part of the first wave.

And then all thoughts of loss and grief were banished as he saw Bolan astride a dirt bike, on the chosen hilltop, with a young blonde just dismounting. Leave it to the big guy to pick up a stylish date.

Smiling, Grimaldi took the chopper down.

CHAPTER FIVE

Effurun, Delta State

Ekon Afolabi often stroked his sparse, red-tinged goatee when he was in a thoughtful mood. This day, pacing his office like a caged animal, he yanked the wiry hairs as if attempting to uproot them.

“Say it again, Taiwo. How many dead?”

“Fifteen, at least,” Babatunde replied. His voice rumbled out of his massive body as if he were speaking from deep in a pit.

“And then, the woman gone, of course.”

“I need to speak with Bankole,” Afolabi said.

“He’s one of those who died, Ekon.”

“Lucky for him. Who is still alive, then?”

“From the camp?”

“I don’t mean from the Lagos red-light district. Think, Taiwo!”

“Sorry.” The huge man looked as if he meant it. “There were thirty-five or forty men in camp. Subtract fifteen, you have—”

“For God’s sake, don’t start doing math,” Afolabi snapped. “Question all of them. They must remember something more about this shambles than a ‘big white man.’ Did he say anything? If so, was there an accent to his voice? Did he leave anything behind, aside from bodies? Can we find out who he was and where he came from?”

“I will ask them, Ekon.”

“No. Send Pius to do it. I can’t spare you here, with this shit going on.”

The lie was intended to soothe his lieutenant’s feelings, in case he worked out for himself that Pius was smarter, more adept at drawing the truth out of people without using brute force as a first resort. Pius would obtain the information Afolabi wanted and report it without stumbling over any bits, forgetting what was most important in the lot.

And once he had that information, then Afolabi could unleash Babatunde to do what he did best.

“It could have been the girl’s father,” Babatunde said, as if talking to himself.

“Too soft,” Afolabi replied. “The only way he could kill fifteen men is by stealing their savings online and letting them starve.”

“I mean, he could have hired someone,” Babatunde explained.

Afolabi paused in the midst of his pacing and beard-tugging, just long enough to close his eyes and offer up a silent prayer for strength. He had no special god in mind, nor any hope of a response, but it relaxed him all the same.

“You may be onto something, Taiwo,” Afolabi granted, having reached the same conclusion within seconds of discovering that Mandy Ross had been rescued. “We must look into that.”

“It will be done,” his chief lieutenant promised.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” the MEND warlord replied dismissively.

As Babatunde lumbered from his office, Afolabi turned his mind to what had to follow in his campaign against K-Tech Petroleum. There was no question of receiving any ransom, now that Mandy Ross was free. He took for granted that there would be no chance to recapture her. The men in charge of K-Tech’s corporate security would see to that, most likely flying her back to the States as soon as she was cleared for travel by a battery of high-priced doctors.

Afolabi had no fear of being charged with her abduction. First, State Security would have to catch him. Then they’d have to prove he was responsible for the kidnapping, which should be impossible. He’d never met the hostage, hadn’t spoken to a soul from K-Tech Petroleum about the ransom and hadn’t touched any of the letters sent demanding payment. Some of those whom Mandy Ross had seen were dead now, and the rest would soon be scattered to MEND’s outposts in the hinterlands of Delta State.