Line Of Honor

Bolan considered the Sudan again. “Any experience in the desert is good. Some French or Arabic is a plus, so would being able to ride a horse.”

“What’s the pitch?”

“I’ll make the pitch. You offer them a first-class round-trip ticket and ten thousand euros to hear me out.”

“Some of them might think its some kind of trap. I think you need to give me a little more.”

“All right, we’ll lead with the truth. Tell them it’s a rescue mission that’s probably suicide, and tell them to meet me in Chad.” Bolan smiled tiredly. “Then let’s see who comes.”

2

CIA safehouse, Abeche, Chad

Bolan regarded the files in front of him. He had turned his back on whatever flapping and squawking was going on in Washington and charted his own course. He now found himself in Chad. He trusted Kurtzman and the Stony Man cyberteam implicitly, but privately even Bolan had been forced to wonder what kind of men would fly halfway around the world on twenty-four hours’ notice to hear a suicide proposition in Chad. Bolan had his answer, and he had his men.

And his woman.

Kurtzman spoke from four thousand miles away over the tablet’s sat link. “So what do you think?”

Bolan swiped his finger across the tablet and flipped the files back to the beginning. He had been expecting to see mostly Americans. Bolan looked at the sole Yankee on his team. Yankee was a loose term. Corporal Alejandro “Sancho” Ochoa wasn’t exactly a Yankee. In his mug shot, the corporal was built like the light-middleweight boxer he had been. The tattoo of an outrageously buxom Latina in a sombrero and peasant dress covered his right arm from shoulder to elbow. A similarly shaped woman dressed like an Aztec priestess covered his left. An Aztec pyramid with the sun rising behind it covered his abdomen from belt line to sternum. Above that, San Jose 408 designated his hometown in California and its area code across his pecs.

Ochoa was grinning and throwing gang signs at the photographer. The only thing even vaguely military about the man was his high and tight haircut. Bolan shook his head. The jailhouse mug shot was hard to reconcile with the Army file photo of a grimly determined young corporal in dress uniform with the ranger tab on his shoulder.

“What happened?”

“It’s hushed up, but basically his unit was involved in a bad civilian casualty situation in Iraq. He was individually cleared, but…”

“But his unit was made an example of. I remember something about it.”

“His unit was sent home, then he had some brushes with the law,” Kurtzman stated.

“Tell me he wasn’t dishonorably discharged.”

“Corporal Ochoa was given the opportunity to take an early discharge rather than face trial. He took it.”

“And?” Bolan prompted.

“Our boy turns right around, joins Blackwater as a private contractor and heads right back to Iraq. He distinguishes himself and—”

“And Blackwater gets thrown out of Iraq for a civilian massacre.”

“So Sancho went south and was doing bodyguard work in Central America, and, can you guess?” Kurtzman asked.

“He shot some people he shouldn’t have.”

“Well, rumor is they needed shooting, and rumor is a cartel down there wants him dead. Regardless, his privileges below the Rio Grande have been revoked.”

“What’s he up to now?”

“He’s eking out living as a bounty hunter in the L.A. Latino community. His name is in every private security database in the U.S., but his record and his brushes with the law have him kind of blackballed.”

Bolan sighed.

“You gave me forty-eight hours and some very interesting recruitment parameters, Striker.”

Things looked a little better with the next two. Both men were South African National Defense Force, 44th Parachute Regiment, Pathfinder Platoon and had made warrant officer. The pair currently worked for Transvaal Security Incorporated. TS Inc. provided security for African VIPs and were widely reputed to have supplied mercs during the Diamond Wars. The similarities ended when you looked at the picture of the two grinning men arm in arm holding up steins of beer. Gus Pienaar looked like a 1980s vintage Clint Eastwood with a mild case of albinism. Tlou Tshabalala bore a disturbing resemblance to a young Bill Cosby except with a shaved head and shrapnel scars on his left cheek and neck.

Bolan blinked at their bios. “They both married the other one’s sister?”

“So it seems.”

“Well, racial harmony is a good thing.” Bolan had fought alongside and against South African mercs. They just didn’t come much tougher.

He glanced over the recruit that came straight out of left field. Togsbayar Lkhümbengarav was Mongolian. It was a little known fact that Mongolia was a nearly constant provider of forces to United Nations peacekeeping missions. Sergeant Lkhümbengarav had been serving nearly continuously from Kosovo to Afghanistan. The previous year he had been right there in Chad. His specialty was a small arms instructor for indigenous peoples forming their own security forces. “Definitely keeping him.”

“Thought you’d say that.”

Bolan examined the one commissioned officer in the group, 1st Lieutenant Tien Ching from Taiwan. He had been a demolition man in the 101st Reconnaissance Battalion, better known as the Sea Dragon Frogmen. He had transferred to the 871 Special Operations Group and twice gone to the United States to cross-train with the Navy SEALs. He held numerous Republic of China army medals and citations but nearly all of his deployment records were redacted. “Anything else on Ching?”

“Just that the rumor that he has engaged in some very black operations in Mainland China. Then he went private in Japan. He seemed eager for work outside of Asia when we contacted him. I think the PRC may know who he is and is gunning for him.”

Bolan dragged his finger across the screen and flipped open the next file.

Colour Sergeant Scott Ceallach had been one of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines of 3 Commando Brigade. His individual formation in the Royal Marines had the name 30 Commando Information Exploitation Group. That meant the colour sergeant’s job was to move ahead of the main marine force and find out information about the enemy, by fair means or foul, and exploit it as imaginatively as possible. It seemed he’d done some exploiting in Afghanistan before he had gone private.

“You like him?” Kurtzman asked.

“Royal Marine. What’s not to like?”

Bolan looked wonderingly at the absolute wild card of the bunch, and askance at the baggage she had brought with her.

Elodie-Rousseau Nelsonne had been an agent for the French General Directorate for External Security, Action Division. Female DGSE agent spoke volumes.

“You sure about this, Bear?”

“I know, Action Division has a cowboy reputation, but you know what else they’re also famous for?” Kurtzman queried.

Bolan did. “International rescues.”

“That’s right, and I have it on very high authority she’s been involved in some of their more recent high-profile success stories, as well as some that never made the papers. She’s been in Africa, and is currently doing work with Groupe Belge de Tour.”

Belgian Tower Group was one of the premier European private contractors. That said a lot about Mademoiselle Nelsonne, as well.

Nelsonne had drafted two men of her own choice to fill out the squad. Valeri Onopkov was Russian and Radomir Mrda was a Serb. According to Nelsonne, both men were veterans in their own lands and had seen service in Africa. To Bolan that meant the wars in Chechnya and Bosnia respectively, and Russians and Serbians serving in Africa usually meant war crimes that could appall even the native militias that considered atrocity a national sport.

The phrase “beggars can’t be choosers” came to mind. Bolan was running out of time and running out of options, and Kurtzman had delivered. Counting himself, it was a lean squad, and along with the target, if Dragonslayer was stripped for transport and they stacked everyone like cordwood, Grimaldi just might be able to extract them.

“What’s the team’s status?”