Insurrection

Still stunned from the blast, as well as the horror before him, Adewale realize what was in his forearm: a small metal hinge—undoubtedly from the pulpit.

The bishop rose to his knees. “No! Don’t leave!” he yelled. Under the current conditions they were safest right where they were, inside the ruins of the building.

He knew what awaited any bishops who made it outside.

Adewale tried to shout again, but when he drew in a breath he was choked by the dust. He fell back to his hands and knees, as the panicked clergymen surged forward.

Someone at the front of the stampede of men finally got the door open and the bishops who had survived the explosion began fleeing into the sunlight. Adewale reached the door just in time to see Boko Haram terrorists surround the clergymen, their razor-sharp machetes gleaming in the sunlight.

Then what was left of the chapel roof behind him collapsed, and something struck the back of his head.

As his eyelids fluttered shut, Bishop Joshua Adewale knew he would be spared.

There was something he still had to do.

* * *

SIX BLOCKS FROM the main chapel of Saints Peter and Paul Seminary, Fazel Hayat sat cross-legged on top of the tin roof of a mud-and-plaster house. A pair of Steiner 10x50 power binoculars were pressed to his forehead. They had provided a close-up view of the explosion in the chapel, and now did the same for the machete slaughter.

Hayat couldn’t help but smile. Dhul Agbede’s improvised explosive device had worked perfectly. But then the man’s weaponry always did. Hayat’s right-hand man, and Boko Haram’s top assault expert, knew more about weapons than anyone else in their network.

Hayat glanced to his side, where his second-in-command now sat quietly. For a moment, he wondered just how much Dhul’s given names might have influenced his interests and studies as he’d grown up. DhulFiqar meant “name of the Prophet’s sword” in the Yoruba tongue, and the man’s last name, Agbede, translated roughly as “blacksmith.” Dhul was a blacksmith by trade, and in addition to the elaborate gold-inlaid and ivory-handled machetes both he and Hayat wore in the sashes around their waists, he had forged the more rustic, yet equally deadly blades the Boko men in the distance now used to eliminate the Catholic bishops who had survived the bomb inside the chapel.

Hayat kept the binoculars close to his face, but watched Dhul in his peripheral vision.

The man’s eyes betrayed no emotion of any kind. The fact was, they were a dull black, and reminded Hayat of a shark. The Boko Haram leader shook his head. He had seen Dhul construct bombs and then put them in place with a completely deadpan expression on his face. He had seen him kill innumerable Christians and Jews with his gold-inlaid, nickel-finished machete. Deadpan again.

Hayat wondered if the fact that the man never showed any outward emotion might be because he felt no emotions. If that was the case, it meant he was truly a psychopath.

The Boko Haram leader shrugged and turned his attention back to the slaughter going on at the seminary. It mattered little if Dhul was a sociopath. If so, he was certainly a useful one.

Hayat watched as two of the remaining bishops attempted to get away. A pair of his Bokos went to work, hacking them down. A heavyset clergyman had picked up a loose wooden plank with nails extending from one end. Grasping it with both hands, he swung it at one of his assailants. The Boko parried the spiked weapon of opportunity, then swung his machete in a reverse stroke. The overweight bishop fell to his knees, gripping his slashed neck. Fazel Hayat watched as his head threatened to separate from the rest of his body. But with his left hand clutching his throat and the fingers of his right encircling the large crucifix suspended around his neck, the heavy man hit the ground dead, but still in one piece.

The Boko who had killed him went back to the bishop he had been working on.

The discrepancy brought a shrug to Hayat’s shoulders. Men—even trained men such as his Boko Haram army—often reacted strangely in battle.

A second later, the entire building came crashing down behind the pile of dead bodies. The blood-splattered Boko Haram fighters stepped back when stone and scraps of wood flew through the air as if a second explosion had taken place. Dust rose as if a million hookahs were blasting their smoke toward the sky. Then the Bokos made their way through the killing field, clutching their blood-drenched machetes as they searched for any remaining life. Each time one of the men on the ground twitched— either as a last sign of life or in an involuntary muscle spasm after death—one or more machetes slashed downward, putting an end to the movement.

In all but one of them.

Suddenly rising from a pile of bodies, a bishop wearing a cassock more gray with dust than black climbed to his feet and began stumbling away. It was the bishop from America, Joshua Adewale. He walked directly past several of Hayat’s men, who appeared not to notice his presence.

A cold chill twisted down Hayat’s nape and along his spine to his lower back. What he was seeing was impossible. It was unnatural. It could not have been happening. He had personally witnessed a huge concrete block strike this man in the back of the head. It should not only have rendered him unconscious, it should have killed him.

He turned toward his second-in-command. “Dhul,” he said quietly, “did you see that?”

“Did I see what?”

“That bishop. The one who just stood up and walked away.”

“I saw it,” Agbede said. “He was lucky. But do not worry. We will get him soon, somewhere else.”

“Then it was not my imagination?”

“Not unless it was my imagination, too.”

“It was the American, Adewale,” Hayat said. “The one who was scheduled to speak first.” He let his binoculars fall for a moment, resting his eyes. “He was holding his arm. It appeared he was injured.”

“He was lucky,” Agbede repeated.

Hayat watched the gray-black, ghostlike figure as it stumbled on, growing smaller and smaller, walking away from the chapel. The phrase “It was more than luck” fluttered through his brain, but the thought was disturbing, and he repressed it.

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_57f228cc-bd82-5848-9aa3-da6fdee6127c)

The Learjet bore no military, police, national or corporate emblems, only the bare minimum of markings required by international law. It had flown directly from the United States to Argentina, where the big man, who was Jack Grimaldi’s only passenger, had provided officials with documentation that he was an executive for Gulf Oil.

The trip from the US to South America had been nothing but show. It was a simple ruse on the million-to-one chance that any of the world’s antagonists had stumbled across the Learjet’s real destination.

After refueling, Grimaldi, the number-one pilot at Stony Man Farm, had charted a new route, from South America across the Atlantic Ocean and then the Gulf of Guinea, allowing them to enter Nigerian airspace from the south without tripping the radar of any other country.

During the flight, the big man had changed from the perfectly tailored suit he had worn in the guise of an oil mogul into faded blue jeans, well-worn and scuffed hiking boots, and a gray T-shirt beneath a khaki photographer’s vest. Now he was a freelance photojournalist.

But beneath this outer shell was the man’s true identity. He was not a photographer.

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, was a warrior.

Hidden beneath his long, multipocketed vest, on the left side, was a Concealex nylon shoulder holster that had been specially designed to carry his Beretta 93-R machine pistol. The weapon was equipped with a custom-made sound suppressor threaded onto the barrel.

On his right side, connected to the other end of the shoulder rig, was a double magazine carrier. Its rigid form held the twin mags securely, without the need for retaining straps or other devices that would slow down a reload. Also on Bolan’s right side, secured on the thick leather belt threaded through the loops on his jeans, was a holster that toted his mammoth .44 Magnum Desert Eagle.

At the small of Bolan’s back was a Cold Steel Espada knife, which bore a notch in the top of the blade that enabled it to be drawn, hooked on a pocket or belt, and snapped open in one fluid motion.

Last but not least was a tiny North American Arms .22 Magnum PUG mini-revolver. The small but mighty weapon had saved Bolan’s life on more than one occasion as a last-ditch, hidden “hold out” weapon.

The landing gear of the Learjet descended and locked into place. Ahead and below, Bolan saw the runway. He knew that much of the clothing and other gear he had brought along would not be needed. But the cameras and other photographic equipment backed up his cover story. And in regard to his combat accessories, the soldier’s philosophy had always been that it was better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

The largest of several screens set into the control panel in front of the two men blinked twice. Then the head, shoulders and chest of a man wearing a gray suit and burgundy necktie appeared. “Good evening, Striker,” the man said.

“Evening, Hal?” Bolan queried. “Does that mean it’s evening where you are or where Jack and I are getting ready to land?”

Hal Brognola, the man on the screen, pulled a ragged-looking cigar from the breast pocket of his jacket and shoved it into a corner his mouth. “Sounds like you just woke up,” he said around the cigar stub.

“I caught a few winks after we left Argentina,” Bolan answered.

“It’ll be early evening by the time you touch down in Ibadan. You may want to reset your watch. How much sleep did you get?” Brognola looked slightly concerned.

“Enough. I slept all the way from the US to Argentina. Then caught another nap after we took off again. I’m good to go.” He studied the man on the screen. Hal Brognola was a high-ranking official at the United States Department of Justice. But he was also the director of Sensitive Operations at Stony Man Farm, the top secret counterterrorist command center with which Bolan often worked.