Final Coup

Bolan nodded. “We’ll try to take Menye alive so his war crimes can be exposed to the rest of the world. But I can’t promise you that’ll be possible,” he said.

“It is possible that if he is tried in the International Criminal Court that he might go free,” Antangana said, and for the first time since he’d entered the room his smile became a frown. “One never knows what can happen during a trial. Evidence can become tainted and thrown out. The truth can be twisted.” A few beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. “Menye is the most guilty man I have ever known,” he said as he wiped his face with the sleeve of the dashiki. “He has sacked this nation worse than Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun ever dreamed about, using embezzlement, nationalization of the oil, timber and coffee industries, and outright murder to funnel millions of dollars into his bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.” He fell silent for a moment and closed his eyes. “But still, it is quite possible that he could walk free.”

“Maybe,” Bolan said. “But it didn’t work that way for Saddam Hussein.” He turned and jerked his bullet-ridden sports coat from the back of the chair. One shoulder was still ripped out but until more equipment, clothing and supplies arrived from America, it would have to do as a cover for his Beretta and Desert Eagle.

“But if the worst should happen and he is found not guilty…” Antangana stared at the big man across the room, letting the sentence trail off unfinished. But the quiver in his voice betrayed his terror at the possibility that Menye might once again take the reins of power in Cameroon.

“Then I’ll personally carry out the execution,” Bolan said, as he stuck his arms into his jacket.

Since he was going by the name Matt Cooper, neither of the other two men in the room caught the double meaning in the Executioner’s last statement. “Is there anything else you’ve got to tell us?” Bolan asked.

“I know where Menye is hiding,” he said simply.

Bolan stopped with one arm in the jacket, the other still out. He had begun to expect some good intel from this new informant, but not a bombshell like this. The soldier had to remind himself that Antangana’s story still needed to be confirmed. If the man was playing double agent, it could all be a trap.

Lareby was less diplomatic about his suspicions. “How do you know where he is if you’re not still in league with him?” the CIA man asked gruffly.

“In Cameroon there are very few secrets,” Antangana said. “Although Menye’s location is one of them.”

“Get to the point,” Bolan said as he finished shrugging into his jacket and sat back against the chair.

“I have an informant of my own who saw suspicious men entering through the alley door of an old abandoned warehouse,” the prime minister said. “He recognized one of Menye’s personal bodyguards who had disappeared when Menye took off.” He frowned a moment. “I believe you Americans call it ‘going away with sheep?’”

Lareby suppressed a laugh. “Close. It’s called ‘going on the lamb.’”

Bolan looked across the room, through the window, and saw that dusk was falling over Yaounde. “Yeah,” he said. “It means he’s running.”

“Where does it come from?” Antangana asked, frowning. “I know of no lambs that—”

The Executioner was growing impatient with this man who was obviously easily sidetracked. “I don’t know where it comes from and it doesn’t matter. You have an address for this warehouse location?”

“I do,” Antangana said. “But it is in the most dangerous slum in Yaounde. Murders occur every night.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Bolan rose from his chair. He had relied on his Desert Eagle during the gun battle back at the airport, and was down to one full magazine and one partially loaded with five shots. Until his supplies arrived, he would have to make do with what he had. He patted the Beretta beneath his jacket. It was still filled with 9 mm fragmentation rounds, and he had two extra magazines under his right arm opposite the pistol in his shoulder holster.

It might be enough. Or it might not. In any case, he would be sure to pick up the weapons of his enemies as he went.

Looking quickly across the room, he saw Lareby checking his own weapon. “How are you fixed?” Bolan asked.

“Full gun, one extra mag,” the CIA man said.

Bolan knew the small double action .380 held eight rounds, with one in the chamber. The other magazine would give Lareby an additional seven. “Better make them count then,” he said.

The CIA counterterrorist expert nodded.

The soldier took another glance outside and saw that darkness was replacing the twilight he had seen a few moments earlier. Antangana had held the closed Okapi folding knife in his fist ever since Bolan tossed it back to him, but now he watched the man drop it back into the same pocket where it had been found during the search.

“Let’s go,” Antangana said simply, then led the men out the door, into the elevator and out of the hotel into the night.

4

The strong odor of trash and human waste nearly blocked out the smell of the other odors in Yaounde’s darkened business district. The area was half-deserted. Bolan watched through the back window of the taxicab and saw gangs of young men walking up and down the streets. The teenagers were doing their best to look and act like American gangbangers, and wore an almost laughable combination of Western attire— baseball caps turned backward, and sleeveless T-shirts that emphasized elaborate tattoos—mixed with dashikis and other African attire. He remembered the cabdriver asking if this was really the part of town they wanted to visit. Bolan had said simply, “Yes.”

He continued to use all of his senses as he took in the atmosphere of this neighborhood. Barely present above the nauseous odors was the scent of oil, freshly cut pine and other woods, and coffee beans. But he saw no one on the streets who looked like they worked in any of those enterprises.

The workmen, he suspected, scuttled out as soon as closing time came each day, giving way to the human “vampires” who ruled the night. He remembered what Jean Antangana had said earlier, back at the hotel, about this being the most dangerous area of the city. And although the Executioner had seen even more poverty and crime in places like Calcutta and the fish market area of Iquitos, Peru, he sensed that violence could break out at any time.

Like in most Third World countries, tourists were forbidden to bear weapons, and their clothing and the large sums of money they likely carried made them easy targets. Bolan knew that while he—with the ripped shoulder and torn lapel of his coat—didn’t look like the typical tourist, the semi-ruined jacket could be misinterpreted as the result of an earlier mugging.

Lareby’s multipocketed vest, faded blue jeans and Timber-land hiking boots shouted “Visitor,” and even Antangana, with his expensive dashiki and carefully pressed slacks, looked out of place.

The soldier glanced at the scrap of paper Antangana had given him. The address of the warehouse where Menye and the men still loyal to him were supposedly hiding was accompanied by a crude, hand-drawn map of the area.

Bolan looked up at a street sign as they passed. Unless he had misinterpreted the map, they were roughly three blocks away from the address he had given the cabbie. Not wanting the driver to know their exact location lest he alert one or more of the roving gangsters of the “easy pickings,” he had told the man to drop him off two blocks before they reached the warehouse in question.

This was Yaounde—the capital city of a nation in tremendous upheaval.

And Bolan didn’t trust anyone.

The cabdriver finally pulled to a halt and Bolan leaned forward, handing him several Communauté Financière Africaine franc bills. He added several more to what would have been a normal tip, and said, “You never saw us. Right?”

“Right,” the cabbie said, smiling. But then his smile turned quickly to a frown. “One last time, my friends. Are you sure this is where you desire to be let out?” He paused for a second, then started to speak again before Bolan could answer. “I could take you to a very fine brothel in a safer part of the city. The women are all beautiful, and—”

Bolan interrupted with, “No thanks,” as he shut the door behind him. He stood silently as the cab drove quickly away. It was obvious that the driver didn’t care to spend any more time in this neighborhood than he had to.

Antangana stepped up next to Bolan. “According to my informant, there is a rear exit that Menye’s men use. Menye, of course, does not leave at all. He is too easily recognized. I suggest we follow the alleys, then make our entrance into the building in the same way.”

Bolan nodded. “You were the prime minister, right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why is it that the only thing even resembling a weapon you have is that cheap Okapi?” Bolan asked. “I remember seeing pictures of Menye and some of his other cabinet members. They were always in uniform and always armed.”

“I am not a fighter,” Antangana said. “I am a strategist.”

“Then strategize from a point about ten feet behind us,” Bolan said as he led the way down a darkened alley. “And don’t get in our way if trouble breaks out.”

Antangana nodded.

But trouble came even before the three men were expecting it.

The first thing Bolan saw as they entered the alley was the beam of a flashlight, aimed directly into his eyes. For a second, he was blinded. Then he closed his eyelids as quickly as he could. He knew the light had shifted when he felt the heat of the strong beam leave his face, and when he opened his eyes again he could see only blurry forms of Lareby and Antangana. Their eyes had been forced closed as well.

Bolan grimaced. He knew that they’d all lose their night vision for several minutes.

Turning back to the oncoming light, the Executioner saw the distinctive outline of a large halogen torchlight. It contained both a huge spotlight-style plastic beam, which was the one being used on them, and a softer, more regular flashlight mounted on the top. Holding the heated beam, Bolan could make out the dark and fuzzy form of a man wearing his baseball cap backward. A dashiki rivaling Antangana’s in flashy color fell halfway down his thighs.

To his sides and behind him, Bolan saw other barely visible forms in the darkness. He counted a total of six in addition to the torchbearer, and knew they were another of the roving night gangs he’d seen since entering the slum.