Unconventional Warfare

Already sweating, Blancanales nodded. “Whatever you say, boss.”

CHAPTER TWO

Pan African Cross-Country Rally

Kenya

The dirt road cut a dusty brown seam through the rough terrain.

The Nissan 4x4 pickup tore along the road at break-neck speed, sheets of dust streaming behind it. The engine growled as the driver gunned it hard, putting it through its paces like a trainer working a racehorse.

The heavily modified off-road vehicle was painted black and yellow with heavy grilles placed over enhanced headlights. In the back, two extra wheels, jerricans filled with reserves of high-octane gasoline, motor oil and pioneer tools of ax, shovel and pick were strapped down in the bed.

David McCarter took his foot off the gas, slapped the clutch and shifted up out of third gear. He stutter-stepped back on the gas and the tricked-out pickup lunged forward, gaining speed.

The left front tire dropped into a pothole on the dirt track and the steering wheel jerked in his hands. He rode out the recoil and guided the truck out of the hole, his teeth clenched under his helmet against the jolt.

“Jesus Christ!” T. J. Hawkins protested from the passenger seat. “I think I just tasted my own balls!”

“If that were true you wouldn’t be complaining, mate!” McCarter shouted back.

The road turned in a brutal switchback, and the ex-SAS trooper casually used the emergency brake to slide around the turn. He released the brake and pushed the gas. The big knobby tires gripped the hard dirt, and the Nissan shot forward out of the fishtail.

“Screw you,” Hawkins replied.

The Texan was an ex-Army Ranger and ex-Delta Force commando. He held a Audiovox Jensen NVXM 1000 GPS system and was furiously working applications on the unit’s four-inch screen.

A Nexus Google phone set to speaker rested on his lap, providing communication uplinks to the support team. The device chirped and Gary Manning spoke up.

“How’s your engine temp, David?” the burly Canadian demanded. “My diagnostic uplink shows it climbing into the red.”

“Don’t be a bleeding wanker, you mother hen,” McCarter snapped. “I’m treating your baby fine.”

“You sure are different when you own the vehicle Dave’s driving instead of the U.S. government,” Hawkins pointed out, laughing.

“I’m a consultant, not an owner,” Manning argued. “But still, you blow an engine in the middle of the race and it’s over.”

“Mr. McCarter,” said a cool and utterly feminine voice, “this represents a significant investment on the part of my company.”

“Your company?” McCarter answered.

Up ahead a line of broken hills suddenly appeared in the windshield. To the west of the rocky ridgeline the terrain fell away into a deep, wide valley. A wall of dust cleared enough for the two Phoenix Force commandos to see the French racers of Team Gauloises in their Citroën Méhari running full-out ahead of them.

“Yes, Mr. McCarter,” Monica Fischer, CEO at North American, Inc., answered, “my company.”

“Maybe so,” McCarter snapped. “But I’m driving here!”

Just ahead of his pickup the French vehicle was a foot off his bumper. McCarter slammed the gas down and jerked his wheel to the side, running the Nissan up onto a wide shoulder. Rooster tails of sand spun out behind his grinding wheels as he gunned it past the Méhari.

He powered around the front of the French vehicle and snapped the pickup back onto the track, cutting off the Team Gauloises vehicle.

The Frenchmen shook their fists in anger but their shouted curses were lost to the roar of the big racing engines. Hawkins stuck his arm out the window and casually flipped them the bird as McCarter sped away.

“We’re coming up to the first branch here,” the Texan warned. “Have you got any better route intelligence to give us?”

There was a slight pause, then Manning, trailing behind the racing pickup in the team’s matinee vehicle, a stripped-down Suburban SUV, answered.

“Negative,” he replied. “I tried to get updated information about road conditions in the valley, but everybody around here is playing tight to the vest.”

McCarter snarled in frustration as the fork in the road appeared. To one side lay the road running through the hills while to the other was the track cutting across the valley.

The dirt road winding through the hills meant slower speeds and some climbing; it had, however, been thoroughly scouted before the race and was shorter. There would be little in the way of surprises.

The valley was flatter, allowing for faster driving that should also be easier on the vehicle. It would have been McCarter’s automatic choice in a race except that the racers hadn’t been informed of the option until an hour before the starting gun had gone off.

As such, the route was poorly marked, unscouted and about the only thing they knew for sure was that the road was cut several times by the 440-mile-long Tana River.

“Screw it,” McCarter mumbled and downshifted. “Let’s do the hills.”

“Ah, Christ,” Hawkins replied immediately. “You’re gonna shake my cherries right off their stem!”

“That’s what separates the rock stars from the groupies,” McCarter snapped.

He turned onto the hill road at the Y-intersection, going fast enough to fishtail sideways. Hawkins checked his passenger-side mirror.

“I guess you’re right,” he said, voice droll. “Because the French team just took the valley road.”

THE SUN SLID RAPIDLY toward the horizon, bringing on a rapidly gathering twilight.

Monica Fischer swore.

She fought with the power steering of the big Suburban chase vehicle as they drove flat out in an attempt to keep within striking distance of McCarter and Hawkins. Beside her in the passenger seat Manning was downloading a weather report from a commercial satellite service.

“Damn,” he muttered. “We’re getting a build up of nimbi in the highlands.”

“Nimbi?”

“Rain clouds. We have a pressure system stacking up against the mountains. There’s going to be rain before the night is out.”

“Great.” Fischer laughed. She glanced at her dashboard, then added, “We’re running low on fuel.”

Manning looked up from his screen. “Fine. Pull over and we’ll gas up while I tell David about the weather change.”

Monica pulled the heavy steering wheel to the side and guided the SUV off the road and under the slight protection offered by a grove of acacia trees. She shut off the engine and hopped out as Manning finished relaying the weather information to the racers.

Walking around back, he stepped up next to Monica as she pulled open the rear cargo doors. He hesitated as her arm brushed his. He could smell her very clearly next to him. It was a good smell. They both reached for the same jerrican of fuel.

“I got this, muscleman,” she teased. “You check the oil, we don’t want our engine temp to spike.”