Conflict Zone

“It’s getting dark outside,” he said, “but anyone who’s looking won’t have any problem seeing us. Say nothing. Follow where I lead, no questions and no deviations. If we make it to the tree line unobserved, we’ve got a fighting chance.”

“And if we don’t?”

He shrugged. “We still fight, but it may not go so well.”

“Okay,” she said. “It beats waiting for them to come dismember me. Let’s do it.”

Bolan stooped and drew the dead man’s pistol from its holster. It was a Polish MAG-95 in 9 mm Parabellum, with a full magazine and a round already in the chamber. He handed the weapon to Mandy and asked, “Have you ever fired a pistol?”

“A couple of times, at the country club range.”

“This is easy,” he told her. “The trigger’s double-action. All you have to do is aim and squeeze—but not unless I say so or you see someone I’ve missed sneaking around behind us. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“You should have sixteen shots,” Bolan went on, rolling the dead man onto his back and plucking two more magazines from pouches on his belt. “With these, it’s forty-six. Reload by—”

“I know this part,” Mandy interrupted him. “You push a button—this one?—and the clip falls out.”

“That’s it. Ready to leave now?”

“Yes, please.”

Bolan cracked the door and scanned the slice of compound he could see without emerging, then stepped clear with Mandy on his heels. No one was watching that he noticed, and the shadowed tree line beckoned to him, forty yards or less from where he stood.

Without another word, he moved in that direction, walking with a purpose, trusting Mandy to keep up with him. She had the world’s best motivation to avoid falling behind: survival.

They were halfway to the outskirts of the camp before a harsh voice bellowed an alarm behind them. Bolan half turned, saw a soldier sprinting toward them with his pistol drawn, rousing the camp with shouted warnings. Almost instantly sentries appeared on Bolan’s left, racing to cut off his retreat into the forest.

“Change of plans,” he snapped at Mandy. “Follow me!”

She did as instructed, running after Bolan as he turned and raced toward the line of vehicles that formed the compound’s motor pool. A shot rang out behind them, followed instantly by half a dozen more.

Before Bolan could turn and counter that incoming fire, the same harsh voice commanded, “Not the woman! She must not be harmed!”

Which gave Bolan an edge, of sorts. He might be fair game for the rebels, but that didn’t mean he had to take it lying down.

Turning, he raked the compound with a long burst from his Steyr AUG. Mandy was firing at the same time, yelping as the first shot stung her palm and ears, then getting used to it.

Bolan saw one of their opponents drop, and then another. When a third fell and the rest scattered for cover, he called to Mandy, “Hurry up! We’re going for a ride.”

Most military vehicles had simple starter mechanisms, since ignition keys were quickly lost or broken in adverse conditions. Bolan chose a Jeep at random, slid behind the wheel and gunned its engine into snarling life while Mandy scrambled for the shotgun seat.

“Hang on!” he said, and floored the gas pedal, aiming the Jeep’s nose at the nearest gunmen, barreling through the middle of the camp to reach the only access road beyond.

CHAPTER FOUR

In a rush of panic, Azuka Bankole forgot his own orders and those he’d received from his commander. He tracked the speeding Jeep with his pistol, rapid-firing round after round toward its tires, then the driver, praying for a lucky shot to stop the fleeing vehicle.

Around him, every soldier with a weapon followed his example, laying down a storm of fire that somehow failed to halt the Jeep. How was it possible?

His parents might have said that forest demons were responsible. Bankole had abandoned superstition as a child—or thought he had, at least—and reckoned careless shooting was responsible. He had been taught to squeeze a trigger, not to jerk it, but the lessons learned while practicing on lifeless stationary targets were too easily forgotten in the heat of combat.

Bankole’s pistol slide locked open on a smoking chamber, and he dropped the empty magazine, groping for a replacement from his gun belt. By the time he found it, the Jeep was out of sight, vanished into the dark maw of the forest road that granted access to the camp for vehicles.

Behind it lay chaos.

The Jeep had flattened several of Bankole’s soldiers, and at least two of their tents. From one, a man’s pained voice called out for help. Others, still fit and frantic, had begun to chase the Jeep on foot, firing into the night.

Bankole strained his throat calling them back, knowing that every second wasted gave his enemy a greater lead. As his guerrillas rallied to him, Bankole was on the move, leading them to the motor pool.

“Go after them!” he shouted. “The woman must not get away!”

Whatever happened in the next half hour could decide Bankole’s fate. If he allowed the hostage to escape, he had no doubt that Ekon Afolabi would demand his life in payment for that failure. If his soldiers killed the woman, trying to recapture her, his fate might be the same—but he could offer the defense of having told his men she had to be caught alive.

Bankole’s only other option was to send his men in pursuit, then flee alone in some other direction and try to escape Afolabi’s long reach. The prospect was attractive, for perhaps two seconds, then his mind snapped back to harsh reality.

What did he know of life outside of Delta State, much less outside Nigeria? He would be lost beyond the relatively small and violent world where he had grown into a savage semblance of manhood.

Bankole could run, but he couldn’t hide.

The only realistic choice, then, was to stay and fight; take apparent defeat and turn it into something that would pass for triumph.

Two Jeeps and three dirt bikes were already in hot pursuit of the escaping hostage and her rescuer, whoever he might be. Bankole leaped into the final Jeep, hammered the dashboard starter button with his fist and revved the engine, hesitating only for a moment while three soldiers filled the empty seats.

“Remember that we need the girl alive,” he said before he gunned the Jeep and followed those who’d gone before.

But did they, really?

Granted, he had orders to protect her, but he hadn’t counted on a bold escape. Bankole knew there was a good chance that his men would wound or kill the hostage, either accidentally or for the hell of it. And what would happen to Bankole then?

A sudden inspiration made him smile.

If anything went wrong, it was the white man’s fault for meddling where he didn’t belong. Who was to say that he didn’t kill the woman himself? If he was dead, then he couldn’t dispute Bankole’s version of events.

Perfect, Bankole thought, plunging down the tunnel of the forest road, his headlights burning through the night.

THE JEEP BOLAN HAD chosen was a rattletrap, but it could move. He drove with the accelerator nearly floored, knowing that he was finished if an antelope or some other creature charged out in front of him. He couldn’t stop short at his present speed, and anything he struck would likely wind up in his lap or Mandy’s.

She was swiveled in her seat, up on one knee and watching their trail for any sign of a pursuit. It wasn’t long in coming.

“Dirt bikes,” she informed him half a heartbeat after Bolan saw the first headlight reflected in his trembling, sagging mirror. Two more joined the chase almost immediately, followed farther back by the first Jeep to join the chase.

“Is this as fast as we can go?” she asked, then squealed as their Jeep hit a pothole, nearly pitching her out of her seat.

“Sit down and hang on!” Bolan snapped. “We’re lucky to have wheels at all, but it isn’t a racer.”

“So sorry,” she said. “But I don’t feel like going back into my cage.”