Книга - Insurrection

Insurrection
Don Pendleton


MURDER DOCTRINEA jihadist bomb brings down a massive church in Ibadan, and injured Catholic bishops flee the sanctuary-turned-death-trap…straight into the machetes of Nigeria's most fearsome terrorist group, Boko Haram. This bloodbath is only the beginning of a reign of terror linked to al Qaeda. As the gloating leader amps up the massacres of Christians across the country, Mack Bolan sets out to hunt him down and smash al Qaeda's hopes of building another major African power base.Yet the moment Bolan hits Nigerian soil, his identity is compromised. His only allies have little training, and their priority is protecting children orphaned by the terrorists' brutal attacks. Now survival means fighting his way through the crowded city, ambush by lethal ambush, and staying one step ahead of a traitor moving in for the kill. With the death toll rising, the Executioner will have to play one last gamble to restore the region's rightful government–and send this unholy gang of jihadists into fiery oblivion.







MURDER DOCTRINE

A jihadist bomb brings down a massive church in Ibadan, and injured Catholic bishops flee the sanctuary-turned-death-trap...straight into the machetes of Nigeria’s most fearsome terrorist group, Boko Haram. This bloodbath is only the beginning of a reign of terror linked to al Qaeda. As the gloating leader amps up the massacres of Christians across the country, Mack Bolan sets out to hunt him down and smash al Qaeda’s hopes of building another major African power base.

Yet the moment Bolan hits Nigerian soil, his identity is compromised. His only allies have little training, and their priority is protecting children orphaned by the terrorists’ brutal attacks. Now survival means fighting his way through the crowded city, ambush by lethal ambush, and staying one step ahead of a traitor moving in for the kill. With the death toll rising, the Executioner will have to play one last gamble to restore the region’s rightful government—and send this unholy gang of jihadists into fiery oblivion.


Bolan had to protect Paul and Jabari at all costs

Leading the terrorist a yard or so, the Executioner pulled the trigger and drilled a round through his target’s chest. The Boko Haram gunner looked shocked, as if he’d just awakened from a strange dream he didn’t understand. With his last few ounces of strength, he tried to lift his weapon.

Another round caught him in the nose, and he dropped to the floor.

The echoes of gunfire suddenly stopped. And when they did, Bolan heard distant shots coming from the direction he’d sent Paul and Jabari. The gunfire told him one thing: the battle raged on.

Pivoting on the balls of his feet, Bolan changed directions, Kel-Tac leading the way.


Insurrection

Don Pendleton







We make war that we may live in peace.

—Aristotle

Some people seem to have nothing on their agenda other than murder and mayhem. We call those people terrorists and must track down that evil and eradicate it. No quarter given.

—Mack Bolan


Table of Contents

Cover (#u871c878b-92b9-5ac9-b027-a879e8604557)

Back Cover Text (#uf3371273-b895-5f11-ae00-fb37fb73cc74)

Introduction (#uc10e6d0b-7a09-59ef-8ea9-440872e66e7c)

Title Page (#ua4245961-fde1-58c8-be52-0904c8aa9529)

Quotes (#u8c46484d-a8db-5c3b-af3d-b335a08d08b6)

PROLOGUE (#u70915c60-366a-5c39-a15b-a65e26498144)

CHAPTER ONE (#u55a2c098-3d62-5532-bff8-2ef919b7a4ed)

CHAPTER TWO (#u12c25cd6-44ce-5bf8-8048-7a671970a0ea)

CHAPTER THREE (#ua666d39a-868e-5c0f-b63d-c83fdcbacacb)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


PROLOGUE (#ulink_408a9bb5-e4c0-565f-9af0-7ed0f9922f80)

A disconcerting premonition of impending doom fell over Bishop Joshua Adewale like a cloak as his name was announced over the loudspeaker. He rose from his seat amid the applause all around him. The sinking feeling that had appeared so suddenly in his chest now dropped to his stomach. The anxiety intensified even further, making his legs feel as if they were filled with wet concrete that was one step away from setting.

Adewale walked down the aisle to the stage and mounted the steps. He stopped behind the pulpit, then turned to face the congregation.

The bishop took a deep breath as he looked out over the sea of faces that made up the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria. Even now, as the gathering applauded, he realized his emotions were in conflict. He was delighted—and somewhat nostalgic—to have been invited back from New York to address the conference at this seminary where he had studied so many years ago. In the country of his birth. But at the same time, he couldn’t shake that sense of foreboding.

There had been rumors of an Islamic extremist attack planned against the conference attendees. And in Nigeria, Islamic-based terror almost always meant Boko Haram.

Adewale squeezed his fingers even tighter on the wooden podium as he cleared his throat. He knew in his heart that if he died this very second he would be on the fast train to meet Christ. Yet a small amount of the fear of death remained.

“My brothers,” he said into the microphone in front of him, “it is an honor to—”

Adewale never finished the sentence.

The bomb shook the chapel as if hurricanes were assaulting it from all four sides. Bricks flew out of the walls like missiles, several finding human targets at the same time as a section of the roof blew down and fell in a huge chunk on one section of the pews. The screaming men in those pews disappeared in a cloud of plaster and splintered wood.

Amid the shock of noise, Adewale felt helpless as debris continued to fly. The roiling smoke overtook him on the stage. It was only then that he realized he was no longer behind the pulpit. The blast had thrown him to the floor on his side. The pulpit was no longer in sight. It had been uprooted by the blast and sent sailing somewhere out over the congregation.

Through the dust Adewale could make out dozens of other bishops whose black cassocks were now dingy gray. Those who were still mobile were scrambling toward the aisles. Many of the wooden pews had been blown from the bolts fastening them to the floor, and jagged pieces of wood and steel acted as shrapnel, slicing through flesh in the panic.

For a moment Adewale lay frozen in surprise. Then pain seared through his left forearm and he looked down to see that something had cut deeply into him just below his elbow. But the dust was so thick, he couldn’t identify the object.

His eyes burning, Adewale clamped his right hand over the wound in his left arm, and the bleeding slowed slightly.

Through openings in the thick dust clouds the bishop could see human remains—a few bodies, others blown to pieces. The few who had been spared serious injury helped others down the aisles.

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.

“So tell me what I’m getting into, Hal,” he said.

“I could tell you, but I think it’ll mean more if I show you.”

The screen went blank for a few moments. Then a grainy video, probably shot by a cell phone, began to run. In the short clip Bolan saw the ruins of what looked to have once been a church building. Bodies were strewn among the rubble of what might have been a chapel. Partially burned books—Bibles and hymnals, perhaps—were scattered here and there. Chunks of scorched wood that resembled the corners of pews and the top half of a broken crucifix lay among smoldering embers.

But the setting took a backseat to what was happening in front of the decimated church. Men dressed in the odd combination of civilian and military clothing so often found in warring, developing countries, were swinging their machetes at other men wearing the long cassocks of Catholic clergy. The weaponless men in the long garments all looked as if they’d been inside when the explosion had detonated; they were covered head to foot with ash.

The Executioner felt his eyebrows lower and his jaws tighten as he watched the barbaric mass murder. The clip ended with one of the bishops being slashed across the throat and falling forward to the ground. Bolan concentrated. Something had caught his attention, but he wasn’t sure exactly what.

Brognola’s face returned to the screen. “Ugly stuff, Striker.”

“Some of the worst I’ve seen. Where’d you get it?”

“A CIA snitch happened to be close to the action and recorded it,” Brognola replied. “We hacked into the Company and made a copy.”

Bolan paused, letting the righteous anger filling his chest recede slightly. Out-of-control anger would not serve him. If a warrior let rage take over, he ended up like the men bleeding out on the ground in the clip. And no one was helped.

“That was a meeting to kick off the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria,” Brognola said. “In Ibadan. Opening day.”

“Aside from the fact that no one deserves that type of treatment,” Bolan said, “how do we fit into this picture?”

“One of the men in attendance was a Nigerian-born but naturalized US citizen. Bishop Joshua Adewale, from New York.”

“I take it the bad guys are Boko Haram?”

“Have to be,” Brognola replied. “It’s Nigeria, after all. What’s a little unusual, though, is that the Bokos have operated primarily in the northern part of the country up until now. Kano, Maiduguri and the surrounding regions. But I guess the Catholic bishops conference in the south was more than they could resist. Made it worth the trip.”

Bolan’s ears popped and he realized that Grimaldi was still bringing the Learjet down through the sky. Glancing at the pilot, he said, “How much longer, Jack?”

“About five more minutes.”

Turning his attention back to the screen, Bolan said, “The Bokos have ties to al Qaeda, don’t they, Hal?”

“We’re 99 percent sure of it. There’s a rumor about some ‘super assassin’ from al Qaeda who’s running with the Nigerian terrorists.” Brognola pulled the cigar from his mouth for a second. “Informants don’t know who, though.”

Bolan squinted slightly at the screen. “I saw something on that clip,” he mused. “I’m not sure exactly what, but it got caught on the radar between my ears. Can you run that video again?”

“Sure thing, big guy.” A moment later the grainy film was on the screen again and the machete massacre was repeated. The Executioner continued to frown, concentrating more on the top, bottom and sides of the screen than the main action on which the photographer had focused. As the clip neared its end, he saw what only his subconscious had caught the first time.

Just before the final bishop’s throat was slashed, to his side and almost out of the frame, two men with machetes were attacking other victims. One chopped at an arm. The other went for the neck. But what seemed weirdly out of place was that another bishop walked unsteadily right between them. Both men with machetes turned and saw him, but ignored him.

“Take it back a little, Hal,” Bolan said. “Then pause it.”

The clip ran in reverse, with machetes leaving the cuts they’d made on the bishops and returning to the raised hands of the attackers. Blood flew back through the air, reentered the bodies of the men in the black cassocks, and the bishops who had fallen stood up.

“Stop it right there,” the Executioner said, and the clip froze on the screen. “Did you see what I just saw?” he asked Brognola.

“I didn’t until just now,” the director of Stony Man Farm admitted. “There’s barely enough room between those two Bokos for the man to squeeze through. And they both obviously saw him—they turned their heads and looked directly at him. I’ll have our computer team run a facial recognition comparison, to make sure, but I recognize the man who walked out of the picture. That’s our American. Bishop Joshua Adewale.”

“Any idea where Adewale went?” Bolan asked.

“No. Like I said, I hadn’t even noticed him until you pointed him out. But I—”

Bolan heard a phone ring in the background and Brognola said, “Hang on. That’s Aaron. He’s got a copy of this footage and he may have found something.”

Bolan waited. By now he could see the runway below. Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman was Stony Man Farm’s resident computer genius and one of the most knowledgeable computer experts in the world. He viewed what he sometimes called his “magic machines” with an eye for both science and art, and was an invaluable asset to the Farm.

As the plane’s tires hit the tarmac, Brognola came back online. The frozen image of Joshua Adewale walking between the two Boko Haram terrorists was still on the screen, but Brognola’s voice could be heard behind it. “I’m putting you on speakerphone, Aaron,” he said. “Tell our man in Nigeria what you just told me.”

A second later Kurtzman’s familiar voice said, “Hello, Striker.”

“Hello, Bear. What have you got for me?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. I’m staying tapped into the CIA because it was their snitch who shot the clip. I noticed the bishop walking between the two machete-wielders myself.”

“Great minds working independently,” Brognola said with a trace of humor.

“Yes, whatever,” Kurtzman replied. “In any case, the same informant tried to follow Adewale. They walked away from the university chapel and into a low-rent housing area, where the snitch lost him.”

“But we know he’s alive someplace?” Bolan asked.

“Well,” Kurtzman replied. “We know he was alive. At least for a while after the bombing and machete attack. But we’ve got no idea where he might be now.”

“Thanks, Bear,” Bolan said. He turned his attention to Brognola. “Okay, Hal. My guess is you’d like me to find Adewale, as well as track down the terrorists responsible for this and eliminate them?” Before the big Fed could answer, he went on. “I’m assuming the rest of the conference has been canceled?”

“There aren’t enough bishops left to continue it,” Brognola replied. “There were two who arrived late and were still at the airport when the explosion occurred. The Vatican ordered them to get out of the country immediately. The Nigerian officials recommended they do the same. So they’re on their way to Rome. The church is going to have to reorganize its entire structure in Nigeria, and that’s going to be a monumental job.”

“Sounds like my mission’s clear,” the Executioner said. “Rescue Joshua Adewale. But with no more to go on in locating him, I’ll plan on going after Boko Haram. I’ve got a feeling the bishop will pop up somewhere along the way.”

“How you operate is your call,” Brognola agreed. “As always.”

“How do I stand on entering the country, Hal?” he asked.

Brognola knew exactly what he meant. “I pulled a few strings through a CIA friend of mine. You’ll be met by a customs agent named Sean Azizi. He’ll walk you through customs and immigration and stamp your passport himself. No search of your bags or person.”

“Sounds a little too good to be true.”

“My friend just happened to have an informant in the right place at the right time,” Brognola said. “You know how that goes. A guy who knew a guy who knew a guy, the last guy being Azizi. Anyway, unless Azizi or one of the other guys can’t keep from flapping their gums—and they’re all getting paid big bucks to keep it a secret—no one else in Nigeria should be aware that Matt Cooper is anything other than the photojournalist he says he is. And even Azizi won’t know who you really are or why you’re there.”

Bolan cleared his throat. “It won’t matter,” he said. “Everyone in Nigeria will know about the chapel bomb and the machete attack. If my cover ID gets burned, it won’t take a genius to guess why I’m there.”

“True,” Brognola said. “Their first thought’ll be that you’re CIA.”

“It always is. Okay. I’ll play it by ear, Hal. Who’s my initial contact?”

“A woman named Layla Galab,” Brognola said. “You’ll find her at the Isaac Center. Any cabdriver should be able to take you there.”

“Affirmative.”

“Good luck, big guy.”

Bolan paused before answering. He and Brognola both knew that luck rarely entered the picture. For the most part, a warrior made his own luck. So finally, he said, “Thanks,” as the Learjet’s wheels quit rolling on the tarmac of Ibadan Airport in the state of Oyo, Nigeria.

* * *

BISHOP JOSHUA ADEWALE’S unconsciousness couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, he realized, as he opened his eyes again. He could still hear the screams and shrieks he had heard right before being knocked out by whatever had hit him in the back of the head. And as he rose to a sitting position on top of the bodies of several other bishops who had been cut down by the machetes, he saw the massacre still going on outside the chapel.

The pain in the back of his head was bad but tolerable as he stood. A strange feeling of remoteness seemed to come over him. He could see the angry, cursing men with the wicked blades, cutting and slashing and severing heads and limbs from the bodies of men who were dressed similarly to him. The sight made him sick to his stomach. But he knew, somehow, that he was invulnerable to their attack.

Adewale began to walk forward. He had no idea where he was going and only the vaguest memory of where he was and even who he was. His body ached from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, as if someone had punched him repeatedly in the face, then the sides of his head, then his chest and every other square inch of his body. Each step he took brought on new pain. It hurt to walk, but when he stopped briefly between two of the blood-crazed attackers, he realized it hurt just as much to stand still. Turning a full 360 degrees in an attempt to get his bearings and remember where and who he was, he saw the remnants of what looked to have once been a chapel.

Only one wall still stood, and the bishop did his best to focus his fuzzy eyes on a stained-glass window that had miraculously been spared. Spared from what? he wondered for a moment. Then he recalled a loud noise. As his vision began to clear, he continued to look at the stained glass. It featured Jesus Christ on the cross, his forehead bleeding from the crown of thorns that had been placed on his brow. The sight brought back another piece of Adewale’s past, and he remembered that he was a priest—no, a bishop.

He turned away from the ruins and saw the men on both sides of him. One swung his machete at Adewale’s neck. Miraculously, the assault fell short, but the ugly black steel came close enough that he felt the air move against his throat.

The compulsion to walk came over him again, and he moved on, passing between the two attackers and wondering why he had no desire to run. But the same remoteness, a feeling that even though he was in the presence of evil, he was invulnerable to the blades, continued to coax him on.

Still wondering why he felt no fear, the bishop left the screams and cries behind him and walked on. He did his best to take stock of the situation, focusing his brain on what he could remember as he continued to walk down an asphalt street.

He was a bishop; he remembered that now. A bishop in New York City. But he was not in New York at the moment. Was he back in his home country of Nigeria? He thought so.

Adewale pushed himself on, one wobbling step after another. Something had happened in the chapel, where he’d been speaking to a group of fellow bishops. A bomb? Yes. A bomb set by terrorists. Thugs who were now chopping the survivors to pieces with their machetes. He had been spared. Why, he didn’t know, but he knew that they might still find him and kill him.

The bishop realized he had entered a low-income housing area. Every block he passed exhibited a little more poverty than the last. Soon the rough asphalt ran out and was replaced with dirt streets.

Finally, the bishop came to a corner and halted abruptly. Why he’d stopped was as big a mystery as why he’d felt compelled to walk. He found himself next to a wood-frame house, and his eyes were drawn to the backyard, where a clothesline had been stretched from the building to a rough wooden pole in the ground. Most of the clothes hanging on the line looked like women’s, but right in the center, waving gently in the breeze, were a pair of khaki pants and a matching work shirt.

The bishop glanced down at his cassock. It had been black, but was now covered in so much dust it was gray. It would still identify him as a Christian bishop if the terrorists who had bombed the chapel came looking for him.

Adewale knew he needed to change clothes. He would take the pants and a shirt from the line. He started that way, then halted again.

Thou shalt not steal ran through the bishop’s mind. Taking these pants and the shirt would be wrong. He didn’t want to steal. He particularly didn’t want to steal from anyone so poor they had to live in this crumbling shack.

But what if he took the pants and shirt and left the cassock? That would be a trade rather than a theft. Wouldn’t that be all right with God?

The bishop’s mind was finally losing the fuzziness he’d been experiencing since the explosion. He looked back at the line, then reached into a pocket of his cassock and felt his money clip. Then he looked at the house, and now that the haze that had hampered his thinking was gone, he realized that the people who lived here would probably be eager to sell him the shirt and pants. Particularly since he would pay them far more than the clothes were worth.

That was the answer, the bishop thought. He would buy the clothes from them.

Bishop Joshua Adewale’s legs still felt a little unsteady as he left the road and walked across the ragged grass toward the front door. The three steps leading up to the porch were made of wood that had rotted long ago. As he mounted the second one, he heard a loud crack, and his left foot broke through the plank to the ground.

That confused him again, and for several seconds he simply stood where he was and looked down at his trapped leg. Finally, he reached down with both hands and, pulling with all his strength, managed to get his foot free of the shattered stair.

The effort left him exhausted.

The bishop realized that while some of his thinking had returned to normal, other aspects of his mind were still numb with shock. Such as the leg he had just skinned. He knew there was pain along his shin, but it was almost as if someone else was hurting.

He moved onto the porch without further incident and stopped in front of the door. The wood in the lower half was as rotten as the steps. The top half featured a large cracked pane of glass, behind which hung a blanket.

As he had done when he’d broken through the step, Adewale stood still, just staring for a moment, wondering what to do next.

Knock. It was almost as if he heard an actual voice in his head, and he realized he was not entirely over the shock he had experienced. His rational brain faded in, then out, then in again and...

The man in the dust-covered cassock slapped himself across the face. Suddenly, the world came back into focus. At least for the moment. He reached out and rapped three times on the flimsy wooden door. He waited, frowning, again trying to remember why he was here.

To change clothes, said the voice in his head. He could hear it more clearly now. You are going to offer to buy clothes from these poor people, and you are going to pay them much more than the clothing is worth because they need it.

But why did he need different clothes? Oh yes. The terrorists. Boko Haram.

Finally, the blanket behind the glass moved slightly at the lower left-hand corner.

Through the tiny opening, Adewale saw a dark brown eye.

Then the door opened slightly and he looked down to see a little girl holding the doorknob. She stared out through the crack, gazing up into the bishop’s face. She wore a tiny red T-shirt and blue shorts that looked as if they had originated in America or Europe. Her hair was a mass of braided pigtails that shot out from her head and had rags securing them at the ends.

“Who is it?” called a voice from somewhere behind the child.

The tiny brown figure on the other side of the door didn’t speak. She just kept staring up at Adewale.

Footsteps tapped on the wood floor. A moment later, a woman with caramel-colored skin opened the door wider and looked out at him. Her brown eyes opened wide and her mouth opened in a silent “Oh.”

The bishop and woman looked at each other for a good ten seconds before she finally found her voice. “We heard an explosion,” she said in a half whisper, as if she was afraid the neighbors might hear her. “We did not know where it came from. Was it the Boko Haram monsters?”

Adewale shrugged. “That would be my guess,” he said. “But I do not know for sure.”

“It was Boko Haram,” she stated, nodding vigorously. “They started out in the north, but now they have come south. And no one will ever be safe again.”

“May I come in?” the bishop asked. A low buzzing sound had been in his ears ever since he’d awakened after the explosion, while the pain throughout his body had been so severe that he had barely acknowledged it. Now, as he continued to regain his senses, the sound seemed to grow louder.

“Most certainly,” the woman replied, and opened the door the rest of the way. As soon as he was inside, she stuck her head out, looked nervously both ways, then hurriedly closed the door again.

Turning to the bishop, she said, “How did you escape?”

“I don’t know. I just walked away.”

“God was with you,” the woman declared. “But the Bokos will still be looking for you,”

“I know. I would like to buy some clothing from you...” As he reached into his pocket for his money clip, the hum in his ears grew to a roar and he collapsed to the floor.


CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_986d3df7-5246-5e76-90c0-8277c29e8301)

Mack Bolan couldn’t resist a slight jab at his old friend Jack Grimaldi as the plane taxied off the runway and onto the asphalt access road. “May I assume you brought a good book to keep you occupied while you await my return, Jack?” he asked.

“Of course.” Grimaldi smiled. He tapped the front of his worn leather bomber jacket. “The best book I own.” Reaching inside, he pulled out a weathered address book. “Fact is,” he went on, “there are a couple of ladies in Ibadan who would like to have a good time with an American pilot.”

The Executioner laughed softly. There were few airports in the world that weren’t within quick access of some attractive female acquainted with Jack Grimaldi. Not that the pilot ever let a woman interfere with his work. As Bolan reached over the seat for his bags, he thought of all the times he and Grimaldi had taken off one step ahead of pursuing criminals, terrorists, enemy military or police. Too numerous to count.

A Nigerian customs official carrying a clipboard walked toward Bolan as he lugged his bags away from the private plane. As the man drew closer, Bolan noted the broad smile on his face. The two of them stopped, facing each other, and Bolan saw that the nameplate on his chest read Sean Azizi.

Bolan set a bag down and extended his right hand in greeting.

“Matt Cooper,” the customs agent said, before he could utter a word. “You are a photojournalist. If you please, Mr. Matt Cooper, just call me Sean. I was advised that you were coming.” His speech had the sharply clipped accent that came from an African heritage combined with a British higher education.

Yes, Bolan thought as he shook the man’s hand. You were advised, all right. And smile or no smile, you were paid off royally as well, no doubt.

For a second the men stared into each other’s eyes, both sizing the other up. The soldier reminded himself that most officials who were willing to break their own laws for money played both sides of the fence for all they were worth. Most were also willing to go back on their original agreements if an offer of additional bribery presented itself.

The Executioner made a mental note not to forget about Sean Azizi and the potential threat he represented. The customs agent might not know exactly who “Matt Cooper” was or what he was doing in Nigeria, but he knew he was American, and that he was there under false pretenses and using false identification. So somewhere down the line the man might just find another market where he could sell such information. And if he did, Bolan definitely got the feeling that the man would take advantage of it.

But for now, everything went as smoothly as Brognola had promised it would.

The customs agent guided Bolan through both customs and immigration and updated his passport. Their last stop was at a currency exchange.

Fifteen minutes after the Learjet had touched down, Bolan said goodbye to Azizi, loaded his luggage into the trunk of a battered taxicab and settled into the backseat.

“The Isaac Center,” he told the driver, who nodded, threw the transmission of his twenty-year-old Chevy into Drive and pulled away from the airport.

The man tried several times to start up a conversation, mentioning the unseasonably cool weather, suggesting a few tourist spots that Bolan should see and finally offering to get him the most beautiful prostitute in Nigeria at a fair price.

“Beware,” the cabbie went on, as he moved the steering wheel back and forth. “Other taxi drivers and men will tell you they will get you the best women cheap. I do not promise cheap—that means ugly and diseased. You get what you pay for.” Bolan saw him look up into the rearview mirror, waiting for a response.

When he didn’t get one, the driver finally shrugged, gave up and fell into silence. Bolan stared through the open windows as the taxi passed block after block of mud-and-plaster dwellings with shiny tin roofs. Ibadan, he knew, was the home of close to a million Nigerians, and the capital of the Western Region. One of the largest cities in Africa between Johannesburg and Cairo, it boasted a top-notch hospital and medical school, as well as the country’s premier university.

They drove through three market areas crowded with pedestrians buying fresh vegetables, yams and spices, as well as clucking chickens. They passed huge piles of cotton cloth, much of it the blue color favored by Yoruba tribesmen. Twice the cabdriver was forced to stop as wedding processions of dancing and singing men and women streamed by.

Bolan took in the sights, sounds and smells around the cab as they passed more pedestrians on the crowded streets and sidewalks. It was a colorful and vibrant city.

The taxi began climbing a steep upgrade, and at the top Bolan saw the destination he had given the driver. The center had been named after Isaac, the son of Abraham, whose faith and devotion to God had been demonstrated by his willingness to sacrifice his only son. Not only was the story of Abraham and Isaac a prelude to the sacrifice of God’s own son, it symbolized the orphans who lived at the center. Isaac had been spared at the last second by the hand of an angel. But Boko Haram had shown no such mercy. In their own twisted version of the Old Testament story, the terrorists had sacrificed the parents instead of the children in their ongoing war against Christians in Nigeria.

The Isaac Center now provided a home to over three hundred Nigerian orphans. The main entrance to the relatively modern building was centered on a circular drive. Behind what appeared to be a one-story reception and office area stood a three-story section that could hold dorm rooms. To the right, new construction was going on, with framers raising skeletal two-by-four walls on top of a concrete slab. From the general layout, it looked to Bolan as if more dorms were in progress, which could mean only one thing.

The Isaac Center was expecting even more orphans.

The sharp hiss of electrical-powered nail guns sounded as the cabbie pulled up to the front door and killed the engine. Bolan got out of the backseat. Together, they lugged his bags through the front doors and into the lobby.

“This is far enough,” Bolan said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out several naira bills, pushed them into the hand of the driver, then turned back toward the building’s interior.

Under the watchful eye of an elderly black woman, roughly a dozen little boys and girls were playing on wooden rocking horses and other handmade toys to the right side of the lobby. Their laughter made it obvious that they had been too young to know how much they had lost. At least they had been spared the bloody memories that would haunt the Isaac Center’s older residents for life. The Executioner vowed that the terrorists responsible would pay.

The big American stepped up to the front counter as the cabbie exited the building. English had been the official language of Nigeria since British colonial days, so he had no trouble when he said, “My name is Matt Cooper and I’m looking for Layla Galab.”

“One moment, please,” the receptionist answered pleasantly.

Bolan studied the woman as she reached for the telephone. Around thirty years old, she had well-defined but still feminine arm muscles revealed by her sleeveless blouse. She worked out at a gym—a fairly unusual luxury in such a country as Nigeria. And while Bolan was hardly a fashion expert, what he could see of her skirt looked to be more expensive than the clothing on most of the other women he’d seen since landing. Two gold rings, one featuring a large diamond, the other an opal, flashed on her hand as she lifted the receiver to her ear.

As was the case in many developing countries, the rich got richer as the poor became poorer, and Bolan guessed this woman had come from a wealthy family. Perhaps her conscience had gotten to her and she had taken this job to help those less fortunate than herself. In any case, he doubted the rings or clothing had been purchased with money from her Isaac Center salary.

A moment later, the woman placed a call and spoke into the receiver. “Miss Layla, there’s a Mr. Cooper here to see you.” A short pause ensued and then she said, “Okay,” and hung up. Rising, she took the time to bend and smooth her short skirt over her thighs. “If you will follow me, please, Mr. Cooper.” She strode around the end of the counter, then stopped and looked down at his baggage. “Your luggage should be perfectly safe right where it is,” she said.

Bolan thought of what the bags contained, then glanced in the direction of the children. “I think I’d better take it with me, just to be careful,” he replied.

The receptionist frowned. “Perhaps you are right,” she said. “You must have many thousands of dollars’ worth of photographic equipment inside, and even the most well-behaved children become curious. I would hate for them to break any of it.”

The soldier reached down and grabbed the handles and straps of the bags. He wasn’t worried about the “equipment” inside the bags getting broken. He was worried that some of it might harm any curious children who got their hands on it. All the firearms inside were loaded, cocked and locked. It wouldn’t take much for a kid to accidentally blow one or more of his friends away. And Bolan didn’t intend to take the chance of that happening.

The receptionist started down the hall, her hips swaying in what the Executioner suspected was a slight exaggeration for his benefit. He followed, his rubber lug-soled hiking boots making soft thuds in time with the woman’s clattering high heels as they crossed the tile.

A moment later, she stopped at a door on the right side of the hall, twisted the knob and pushed it open. Then she stepped back from the opening.

“If you would, Mr. Cooper,” she said, smiling up at him.

Bolan had to turn sideways to get the equipment bags strapped over his shoulders through the doorway. But as soon as he had, the door closed behind him, and he found himself alone in a small office with a strikingly beautiful woman.

She had risen from behind her desk, but held a cell phone to her ear as Bolan entered. “Yes, Mother,” she said, looking up and smiling. “No, Mother. Leave the laundry for me. I will do it as soon as my duties permit. Yes, Mother. I love you, too. Goodbye.” She lowered the phone from her ear and clicked it off.

Layla Galab smiled as she extended her hand across the desk. “Mr. Cooper,” she said. “You will excuse me, please. My mother’s mind is failing and I must check on her several times a day.”

Bolan nodded in understanding as he set his bags on the floor. Her smile appeared genuine, but he noted that her lips stayed pressed together as they curled up at the corners.

The Executioner took her small hand in his, noticing that while it was delicate, her fingers and palm were covered by calluses. This woman was not just a sit-behind-the-desk paper pusher. She got out and worked for the welfare of the children who lived at the Isaac Center, perhaps even helping with the ongoing construction next door.

“Miss Galab.”

“You will excuse me, also, I hope,” she said, turning her hands palm up and glancing down at them. “But as you no doubt saw when you arrived, we are constructing new housing, and I often go out to help. I am afraid it has taken away the femininity from my hands.”

“No,” he said. “It just emphasizes your other feminine qualities.” The Executioner stared down into the woman’s chocolate-brown eyes. She was indeed beautiful, and he could feel the electricity passing back and forth between them.

Breaking eye contact, Galab pointed to a chair in front of her desk and said, “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Cooper?”

“Thanks.” He sat, then looked back across the desktop and said, “But call me Matt.”

“Thank you. Please call me Layla.”

She resumed her seat and said, “Now, Mr. Photojournalist Matt Cooper, can you tell me the real reason you are here? I do not think it is to take pictures for NationalGeographic.”

Bolan crossed one leg over the other. “I understand you’ve helped Americans before,” he said.

Galab gave the room a 180-degree glance, as if it might be bugged, before nodding. Then, in a low voice, she said, “And I will help you in any way I can.” A second round-the-room glance seemed to take some of the stress from her face. “I will do anything to keep the terrorists from murdering more mothers and fathers and creating more orphans.” She leaned down and pulled open a drawer in her desk. A moment later, a bottle of antacid appeared in her hand. “You will excuse me if I—” she began.

Bolan interrupted her. “Of course.”

“I’m afraid I have developed an ulcer from all of this,” the woman said, as she twisted off the cap.

A faint odor of chalk floated across the room as she took a long drink. Bolan chuckled to himself. The woman was self-conscious about the calluses on her hands, but didn’t seem to mind looking like a wino who’d just found a bottle of Mogen David 20/20 when it came to her ulcer.

Enough pain, Bolan knew, had a way of chasing self-consciousness right out of the soul. Besides, he thought. Like her calluses, chugging the medicine straight from the bottle somehow emphasized her femininity rather than detracted from it. It made her seem more human.

When she had finished, Galab screwed the cap back on and returned the bottle to her desk drawer. She pulled a tissue from the same drawer and dabbed daintily at her lips before turning her attention back to Bolan. “Let us get to the topic at hand,” she said. “Are you able to tell me what you have planned?”

“Up to a point,” Bolan replied. “I’m primarily here to find Bishop Joshua Adewale and get him safely back to the US. But I also plan to do all I can to rid your country of men like those who killed the parents of the orphans you have here. I just haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to accomplish that.”

The statement was meant to be blunt, and Galab took it that way, shrinking back slightly at Bolan’s words. “Let us make sure I understand you correctly,” she said in a small voice. “Do you intend to arrest or simply kill these men?”

Bolan paused a moment, looking deeply into the woman’s eyes. “I have no power of arrest in Nigeria,” he said. “But Boko Haram has gone way past that point. Even if I could arrest them, with all due respect, the Nigerian government has become so corrupt they’d probably be set free again.” He stopped speaking for a moment to let his words sink in. “So I intend to do what I have to do.”

The woman got the message. But instead of recoiling further, as Bolan would have expected, she seemed to relax. “I would like to help you, Matt, but I am neither trained as a fighter nor do I have the temperament to be one.” She paused and took in a deep breath. “I can, however, take you to men who can and will help you.”

“Can these men be trusted?” Bolan asked. “Both to be on our side and keep their mouths shut?”

“I believe so,” Galab said. “They are good men, I think. But they do not have a good leader.” She paused a moment, then added, “At least they haven’t had a good leader so far.”

Bolan uncrossed his legs and leaned forward slightly. While Galab seemed to be a caring person, he didn’t particularly trust her judgment on who could be counted on and who couldn’t. Many “good” people tended to think others thought, and behaved, as they did. And that was often not the case.

The soldier’s only option was to meet these men and decide for himself.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll need a base of operations, too. Someplace I can store my gear and hide out when it becomes necessary.”

“Do you think it will become necessary?”

“At one point or another,” Bolan replied, “it always does.”

“Do you want to meet these men now?”

“There’s no time like the present,” he told her, standing. “Do you have a car?”

“I do.” Galab rose in turn. “Since I suspect I know what some of the things in your luggage are, I think we should take it with us.”

Bolan nodded. They left the building through a back door and found themselves in an alley. Two minutes later, they had loaded Bolan’s bags into the back of Galab’s Nissan Maxima.

The Isaac Center director was backing the vehicle out of her parking space behind the building when the first explosion of gunfire erupted.

A volley of rounds shattered the car window next to Bolan, missing both his and Galab’s heads by centimeters. Then more gunfire broke the side window next to the woman behind the wheel.

She screamed.

Another burst of bullets, this one coming from the front, turned the windshield into tiny fragments of glass. In his peripheral vision, Bolan saw a man wearing green fatigue pants appear to the side of the Maxima, pull the pin on a fragmentation grenade and roll the bomb under the vehicle.

“Hit it!” Bolan yelled. His left foot shot across the front seat and stomped down on Galab’s right, flooring the accelerator. She shrieked again, her voice blending in with the screech of the Maxima’s tires. They tore away from the grenade in reverse, peeling rubber like some teenage show-off leaving the local youth hangout.

Two seconds later, the grenade detonated, but they had cleared the kill zone and nothing but a few pieces of shrapnel hit the Maxima and skidded off.

Bolan had drawn the sound-suppressed Beretta, but not for the usual reason. He didn’t need to try to keep the 9 mm explosions from being heard by whoever was attacking them—in fact, the sound of return fire would actually have helped, telling their attackers that he didn’t plan to go down without a fight. But that aspect of the impromptu battle was overshadowed by the fact that Bolan didn’t want to burst his and Galab’s eardrums inside the Maxima. And if he counterfired with the massive Desert Eagle, there was every chance of that happening. Even with the windshield and side windows blown out, the .44 Magnum explosions inside the car would be deafening.

The Executioner dropped the front sight of the Beretta on the man who had thrown the grenade as the Maxima fishtailed farther away. Thumbing the selector switch to 3-round burst, he squeezed the trigger and sent two 9 mm rounds into the attacker’s chest. The third hollowpoint round rode high, grazing the top of the white turban on the man’s head.

Their attacker jerked with each shot, but kept running. And as he did, he pulled the pin on a second grenade. His final burst of energy ended abruptly. The grenade slipped from his fingers as he fell, dead before he hit the ground.

But the grenade was far from dead.

Galab had twisted the steering wheel, skidding the car in a half-circle. But then her mind seemed to stall and she froze in place. Bolan started to reach down and throw the transmission from Reverse into Drive, but before he could, the director seemed to come out of her trance and did it herself.

Bolan twisted in his seat, now seeing through the back window the man who had just fallen. His lifeless body lay on the concrete in the parking space they had just vacated. Next to him, the second fragmentation grenade still rolled and wobbled.

Then it came to a halt and prepared to explode.

Another man—by now the Executioner had seen enough to convince him that they were indeed Boko Haram terrorists—appeared dangerously close to the grenade. Bolan aimed the Beretta his way and sent another trio of rounds through the back window of the car to pound into his throat and head. This time the turban stayed on but turned red.

Bolan switched his attention back to the grenade in the parking space. It still lay where it had come to rest, and he was surprised that it had failed to explode. There had been more than ample time for it to detonate, since the pin had been pulled.

A dud. It happened. Particularly when weapons and munitions were purchased on the black market, the way terrorists usually obtained them.

But the Executioner had no more time or need to contemplate the stroke of luck. The workmen had all hit the concrete or found other cover. Bolan glanced toward the front of the Isaac Center and the dorms just beyond.

None of the bullets flying through the air, or the grenades, were heading that way.

“Get us out of here,” he ordered.

“But the children—” the center’s director started to say.

“Aren’t the target,” Bolan stated. “Weare. Now move it!”

She floored the accelerator, moving forward this time. The Maxima began to fishtail again, but the woman behind the wheel kept control and straightened it. They sped to the end of the alley, turned right and emerged onto a street. Suddenly they were cruising away from the attack, and the only danger left was the possibility of severing an artery on all the broken glass inside the Nissan.

“Praise God, Christ and the Holy Spirit,” Galab said around choking gasps for oxygen. Then, as the Maxima blended in with the other traffic, she drove on, skillfully weaving in and out of the flow until they reached the edge of the last market area the cabbie had driven through when he’d brought Bolan to the Isaac Center. The soldier thought back on their escape from the alley. At first the woman next to him had panicked, but then, suddenly, she’d settled down and reacted almost like a professional stock car driver. It was as if she’d become a different person.

“I thought you told me you weren’t a fighter,” Bolan said.

Galab glanced his way, her expression curious. “I did. I am not.”

“Well,” Bolan said, “once you got over your initial fear, you operated that steering wheel and foot feed like a lifelong hillbilly moonshiner trying to lose the Feds.”

The metaphor was obviously out of Galab’s frame of reference. “I do not understand,” she said, frowning.

“It just meant that you’ve got the skills of a well-practiced race car driver,” Bolan said.

“Ah, yes,” Galab said as she patted the steering wheel with both hands. “I have driven in rescue missions many times to get the children. I suppose I have picked up some skills along the way.” She paused, took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “But driving is not fighting. I do not think I could ever pull the trigger of a gun and take a human life.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” Bolan said, chuckling softly. “You could always just run them over in the street.”

The woman’s only answer was a smile. A moment later she turned into a parking lot, then settled the Maxima in an empty space. “It is better if we go from here on foot,” she said.

The soldier glanced around at the shattered windshield, shards of broken glass and bullet holes now decorating the vehicle. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose we might draw a little unwanted attention in this thing.”

“And we should take your bags,” Galab stated. “Where we are going will be as good a place as you will find to store them until they are needed.”

Bolan nodded, got out and pulled the straps of several bags over his head to hang from his shoulders. “Aren’t I going to draw a lot of attention with all this?” he asked.

“Certainly,” the woman said. “But the path down which I will lead you will be away from interested eyes. At least for the most part.”

A second later they left the parking lot and started down a deserted alley behind the busy market.


CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_4d3ecbd8-ca0f-5fc5-8bdb-fd0c19cd483c)

He had designed the room himself, all the while keeping his tongue pressed firmly into his cheek. It was a joke in many ways, a humorous glimpse into the life of an old-style caliph. A cross between modern reality and a cartoon view of what it was like to be a wealthy oil sheikh. But to Fazel Hayat it was fun and certainly exciting. Maybe not quite as exciting as blowing up a chapel full of Christian bishops, or watching on his laptop screen as his men shot at this mysterious American agent.

Hayat thought back to the bombing of the seminary chapel. They had killed many of the bishops. But the primary target—Bishop Joshua Adewale—had escaped, and that made the Boko leader angry. He had wanted to kill the man because he was a Christian bishop, but also because he was an American. In addition to disrupting the bishops’ conference and destroying the seminary, Hayat had been planning to humiliate the United States and show the world how the Satanic democracy had lost power, will and influence.

That part of the plan had failed, but he would correct the error.

The soft purr and splash of the artificial waterfall built into the wall and leading down into the indoor swimming pool had a relaxing effect on Hayat, and he stretched out on his side atop the large stuffed pillows. In front of him now was a beautiful shapely blonde wearing nothing but sheer capri pants. Behind him, he felt the large-breasted brunette he had just been kissing reach up with both hands to massage his neck.

The waterfall and pool were the room’s central features, but the scantily clad young women swimming and playing in the water also commanded the leader’s attention. Other members of what Hayat jokingly called his Boko Haram Harem lounged on huge silk pillows around the room.

The walls of the Haram Harem were of tile, and each one featured a saying from the Koran. At least that was what Hayat had been told. He had never bothered to actually read any of them. For that matter, he had read very little of the Koran.

When he wasn’t engaged in some sort of sexual act with the women, Hayat kept busy eating and drinking or planning the next attack on Nigerians who paid homage to the ways of the West. It mattered not if they were Christians or Muslims.

On the other side of the room, across the pool, were two violinists, a string bass player and a harpist. All four were beautiful females. Eerie sounds of music in a minor key came from their strings and guided the steps of three dancers in front of them. These women wore completely transparent pantaloons and blouses, and veils that covered their faces except for their alluring eyes.

Hayat listened to the music and stared at the dancers and musicians. But even in this atmosphere, which had been designed totally for pleasure and pleasure alone, his mind kept wandering. He was now aware that an American agent of some kind—a true specialist, a man whose skills went far beyond those of the usual commando or intelligence officer—had come to Nigeria. He had learned about the man from his contact at the airport, who had been paid by the Americans to guide the man through customs. Hayat did not yet know exactly what this American agent’s mission was, but until he received that information, and the man was eliminated, he could not completely rest.

He felt himself frowning. Some of his tracking agents had followed the man as he left the airport in a taxicab. They had tailed him to the Isaac Center, where they had attacked, but been unsuccessful in eliminating him. That was Hayat’s own fault, he had decided. He had not taken the threat as seriously as he should have, and had allowed his second team to attempt the assassination. He would not make that mistake again. As soon as they located the American again, he would put Dhul Agbede on the job. And Hayat had not forgotten the Nigerian-born American bishop, either. Joshua Adewale had somehow escaped both the explosion and the machetes of the Bokos sent to the chapel.

He was another enemy who needed to be located. And killed. But Dhul had enough on his plate. Hayat would send Sam to find and kill the bishop from New York.

The second problem on the mind of the Boko Haram leader was almost as troubling as the first. One of his own men—Enitan—had gone over to the enemy. He’d had a dream of meeting Jesus or some such nonsense, and was now calling himself “Paul” after some ancient Christian missionary.

This man, Hayat knew, could be just as dangerous as the American. He, too, needed to be found and killed before he infected other Muslims with his fairy tales and insanity.

That made three men who had to be found and killed: the mysterious American agent, the Nigerian-born New York bishop and Enitan, aka Paul.

In his peripheral vision, Hayat saw a beautiful redheaded woman. She was Canadian by birth, if Hayat remembered correctly. He turned to her as she squeezed in on the pillow between him and the blonde. Her lips were bright red and wet-looking with lipstick, and she smiled seductively into his eyes. She looked as if she wanted to speak, so Hayat said, “Yes, my dear?”

“I am special, am I not?” she purred.

He smiled back at her. “You are all special,” he said, as his eyes swept the room. “And what was your name?”

The red lips took on a pouty appearance. “You do not even remember my name?” she cried, in what Hayat knew to be exaggerated offense. “Why, just this morning you and I and Kamilah—”

“I remember what the three of us did,” Hayat said. “And it was most enjoyable. But I do not remember your name.” He leaned over and kissed the woman on the forehead.

“My name is Patsy.”

“From Toronto,” Hayat interjected.

Again, she looked slightly put out. “Montreal,” she corrected.

“I was close. There are nearly fifty women here,” he went on, sweeping a hand around the room. “And new ones arrive every day. I cannot be expected to remember all of your names.”

“I suppose not.”

“But,” Hayat said, “I never forget your specialties.”

The redhead smiled at him, but to Hayat, the expression looked a little false.

Before he could speak again a sultry brunette approached timidly. He did remember her name. Kamilah. The woman who had joined him and Patsy that very morning. Now, she looked nervous, and Hayat could not help wondering why.

He soon learned the answer, as Kamilah stopped in front of him and Patsy and whispered, “You have a visitor.”

Hayat paused. While he allowed other men to watch what went on in his harem through the windows, only two were ever allowed to enter. The most frequent visitor was Agbede. Less frequent, and never showing as much interest in the women as Dhul, was Boko Haram’s liaison to al Qaeda, a man who went simply by the name of Sam. So Hayat knew it had to be one of those two when he said, “Who is this visitor?”

“That...man,” she replied. “Dhul Agbede. The ugly, perverse one who makes my skin crawl. Please do not make me go with him. The last time—”

Hayat held a hand up and the woman knew to quit speaking. “We will see what he has to say and what he has done,” he said. “Go let him in.”

She was still shivering as she turned and walked away. Hayat lay back in a half sitting, half prone position on the pillow as he waited. A moment later, Kamilah returned, with Agbede a step ahead of her. Finally, the wretched man reached the pillow where Hayat reclined. Dhul stopped, and Kamilah paused behind him. Then she circled the man and dropped to her side on another pillow, as close to Hayat as she could get.

The terrorist leader chuckled softly to himself. Kamilah was obviously attempting to psychologically distance herself from Agbede and make it appear that she was Hayat’s exclusive property. Or else she was just doing her best to get him to forget about her for the time being.

Hayat leaned across the woman, reached over and playfully tapped Kamilah’s cheek. He wanted her to know that he had not forgotten her. Kamilah, like all the other women in his harem, came and went according to his pleasure. Most had come to him through the human trafficking division of Boko Haram. He doubted that most of them were overjoyed to be where they were. But they knew things could always get worse. Once one of his women was led out of the room with the swimming pool and big pillows, she was either executed or sold again.

“So,” Hayat said, looking up at his number-two man. “What do you have to report?”

Agbede dropped onto a pillow directly across from him and reached for a tray holding oysters. After sucking down a half-dozen with a loud, smacking sound, he looked up again. “The man our informant warned us was coming has arrived,” he said.

“I am already aware of that. I sent men to eliminate him. They failed. What can you add to this knowledge?”

“I should have been sent to do the job myself,” Agbede said.

Hayat stared back at the dirty, greasy man, now splattered with oyster juice. No one else in the organization would have dared speak to him that way. But Dhul’s talents brought him special privileges. On the other hand, the women were listening, and he refused to lose face or look weak in front of them. They had very little to distract them when they weren’t pleasuring him, and they gossiped like old hags.

“Yes,” Hayat said. “I am aware that I should have assigned that strike to you, as well. But for your own sake, my old and dear friend, be wise in how you speak to me. I am still in charge, and you would do well to keep that in mind.”

The veiled threat appeared to have little if any effect on the man. Hayat wasn’t sure if it was because he was too dense to pick up on the true meaning of the words, or the fact that due to the outrageous combination of personality disorders that made up Agbede’s thinking, he simply had no capacity for fear.

Hayat waved an arm, indicating the laptop that had slid between two pillows. “In any case,” he said, “the job now falls to you.”

“The man was lucky,” Agbede said as he raised another oyster shell to his lips and sucked the contents into his mouth and down his throat. “But I will get him.”

“Have we confirmed that he is, indeed, American?” Hayat asked.

Agbede grabbed a handful of red caviar and stuffed it into his mouth. Dozens of the tiny eggs smeared his cheeks instead of his tongue, but he seemed not to notice or care. “I spoke with Azizi, who walked him through customs. He was traveling under the guise of an American journalist.”

“Is he from the CIA?” Hayat asked.

“That I do not know. I will try to find out before I kill him if you like.”

“If you can, fine. But killing him must be the number-one priority.” Hayat shifted his weight on the pillow. “And what of the American bishop? Adewale?”

Agbede grunted, then burped loudly, the sound reverberating around the room. “We have received word that he disappeared somewhere in the slums a half mile or so from the explosion site,” he said. “I have men searching for him.”

Hayat peered deeply into Dhul’s sharklike eyes. Having satisfied his desire for food and drink, the man had begun to stare at the women surrounding him. They had noticed his interest, and all but Patsy had averted their eyes from his, looking at the floor or in some other direction, as if doing their best to make themselves invisible.

Patsy just smiled and snuggled closer to Hayat.

He was growing tired of Dhul’s presence. As good as the man might be at his job, there was a limit as to how much filth and grotesqueness Hayat could tolerate. “Go and clean yourself up,” he ordered.

Then, turning to Patsy, he said, “Go with him.” He felt a leering smile creep over his face. “He will need help. And you will do whatever he asks of you.”

Patsy’s smile turned to an instant mask of horror. “But...no...please...” she whispered in a trembling, throaty voice.

“You wanted to be special,” he said. “Don’t you remember? Well, I am making you special. And I am sure that Dhul will think of some very special things for you to do.”

Tears began to roll down Patsy’s cheeks as Agbede jumped to his feet and grabbed her elbow. Hayat’s grin broadened even further. He liked playing these little psychological games with his women.

As Agbede pulled her toward him, the redhead looked over her shoulder and pleaded one last time. “Please...” she whimpered in a tiny voice.

“Go!” Hayat shouted, looking her directly in the eye. “And please him. Or you will be sold to the first trader who passes by, and live the rest of your short life in far more unpleasant surroundings than this.”

Laughing loudly, Agbede slapped her buttocks, then turned and started out of the room.

“You will be going out in public,” Hayat called after him. “Allow her some clothing for appearances sake, at least.”

A tall, long-legged blonde had anticipated the Boko Haram leader’s words and now appeared in front of Agbede holding two garments. The man set Patsy back down on her feet and waited impatiently while she twisted a wrapper around her body and then shrugged into a traditional Yoruba top known as a buba.

“Do not take too long with her, my friend,” Hayat called after him. “You have an American and a Boko Haram traitor to kill. And other attacks for which we need to plan.”

Hayat had settled back on his pillow as Agbede retreated, and was eyeing the women around him again, when Kamilah appeared once more. Stopping directly in front of him, she looked down and smiled. “The other man is here,” she said. “Sam.”

“Bring him to me then.”

She pivoted and walked off, her hips wiggling provocatively. Hayat knew the reason for her sudden change in attitude. He would offer Sam one or more of the women before the man left. But experience had taught him that Sam would not only not hurt them as Agbede did, the liaison to al Qaeda would politely refuse.

A few moments later, Kamilah returned, followed by a short, slightly built man. He was an Arab, originally from Yemen, but his skin was only a slight shade darker than the average Caucasian. His face, which was clean shaved, denoted no particular heritage. And in his work for both al Qaeda and Boko Haram, he made full use of the DNA, which allowed him to portray practically any race he chose to imitate simply by changing his clothes, language and attitude.

The bottom line was that Sam always looked like anything but what he actually was—a radical Islamic terrorist.

Hayat noted that this day, like most days when he was not undercover and gathering information within a specific ethnic group, Sam wore a gray pin-striped, three-piece business suit and a conservative burgundy-colored tie. His jacket was unbuttoned as usual, and Hayat saw the gold watch chain drooping across his abdomen from one pocket in his vest to the other.

Invisible at the small of his back, Sam would undoubtedly have his kris. The wavy, snakelike blade was encased in worn leather and secured by a steel clip to his belt.

Sam had used a wide variety of weapons during the time he had been liaison between al Qaeda and Boko Haram. But Hayat knew a .32 derringer and the kris were his favorites. They were simple, like Sam himself was simple, and they were always with him.

Although, as a member of al Qaeda rather than Boko Haram, Sam didn’t answer directly to Fazel Hayat, he had always treated the Nigerian with the utmost respect. So now, as he stopped in front of Hayat’s pillow and stood there looking more like some Latin American lawyer than the terrorist he was, he said, “You summoned me, sir?”

Hayat liked the man and liked his manners. They were in such contrast to Agbede’s. “Let us say I requested your presence,” he said now. “It sounds so much friendlier.” He indicated the empty pillow next to him where Patsy had been a few minutes earlier. “Would you like a seat?”

“No, thank you. I would prefer to stand.”

“As you wish, then,” Hayat said. “I have something I would like for you to do if you would.”

Sam nodded. “That is why I was sent here,” he said. “To assist Boko Haram in our mutual war against the West, Christianity and Judaism. To unite our two groups.”

“The bishop from New York City,” Hayat said. “The one who was born here and attended the local Christian seminary, then immigrated to the United States. He returned to be a speaker at their conference.”

“So I have been told,” Sam replied.

“And somehow,” Fazel went on, “he escaped both the bomb inside the chapel and our men outside.”

“So I also heard.”

“His name is Bishop Joshua Adewale, and how this happened, I do not know. Dhul and I were watching through binoculars from a few blocks away. And I had one man videotaping the machete executions as the bomb survivors tried to run out of the rubble. Dhul and I saw, and our man with the video camera recorded, Adewale clearly walking right between two of my other men and out of the picture.”

“I have watched the video,” Sam said. “I did not think you would mind.”

Hayat shook his head. “Of course not. I am happy that you are already familiar with the problem.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Sam said. “It appears that the two men he walked between were simply preoccupied with the killing of other bishops. And by the time they were finished, Adewale had left the scene.”

“Yes, that is the only answer I can come up with myself,” Hayat agreed. “But there is still something mysterious and unsettling about it all. Both men clearly looked at Adewale, but then seemed to immediately forget him and go back to what they were doing.” He cleared his throat. “Dhul and I saw Adewale leave the scene and head into a nearby neighborhood, walking unsteadily, as if in some kind of trance.”

Sam shuffled his feet slightly as if beginning to grow impatient. “And you would like me to find him and kill him?”

“Yes,” Hayat replied. “Dhul has gone after the American agent and the traitor who now calls himself Paul. He will be busy with them, I suspect.”

“Again, with all due respect,” Sam said, “I should have been sent after all of these men as soon as we recognized the threats they represented. In fact—and I do not wish to overstep my bounds—but I should also have been in charge of the strike against the university chapel itself.”

“You are correct,” Hayat said. “But I had Dhul manufacture the bomb, plant it and then position the men outside the chapel before he joined me on the rooftop. I thought that would be sufficient.”

Sam let a small smile of indulgence curl at the corners of his lips. “Would you allow me to speak freely, sir?” he asked.

“Of course. I value your input. And you possess the ability to disagree without being rude and offensive. Please continue.”

“Thank you, sir.” After clearing his throat, he said, “Dhul Agbede is an animal, sir,” he said. “A mindless mongrel dog more suited to the days of Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun or Shaka Zulu with his scorched earth policy. Granted, there is some use to be culled from the random and apparently conscienceless violence of which he is capable. And he does construct good explosives and forges fine-edged weaponry. Like this.” The wavy-bladed kris suddenly appeared in Sam’s hand, drawn from the small of his back so quickly Hayat saw only a flurry of movement as the man’s suit coat flared out and then fell back to his side. Sam rotated the kris into a reverse “ice pick” grip, then returned it to the sheath behind his back almost as quickly as he had produced it.

Hayat couldn’t help being awed. No one could forge steel into machetes and other edged weapons like Dhul Agbede, but he had never seen anyone who could use those blades with the skill that Sam possessed. The smartly dressed man from al Qaeda was famous for using his wavy blade. Many who knew him compared Sam to a mighty king cobra, who struck so fast with the kris that no man’s eyes could follow the movement.

Before Hayat could comment on his skill with the serpentine blade, Sam said, “If there is nothing else, sir, I shall begin my search. May I assume the last known sighting of this Nigerian-American bishop was when he was videotaped stumbling away from the scene?”

“It was,” Hayat replied.

“Is there anything else you can tell me that might help me get started?” Sam asked.

Hayat squinted, thinking hard. He knew something else had been unusual, but he couldn’t remember exactly what. “No—” He stopped as a memory suddenly returned. “Wait. Yes... It may be of no consequence, but he appeared to have injured his arm.”

“And what makes you say that, sir?” Sam asked.

“He was holding his left arm, right above the wrist, as he walked away,” Hayat replied. “I remember that clearly now. But it must have been a minor injury. It did not keep him from disappearing down the street.”

“Could you tell what type of injury it was? A broken bone, perhaps? Or a puncture...an abrasion?”

“I could not tell,” Hayat stated. “Even through the binoculars or on the laptop screen.”

Sam nodded and turned, starting to go.

Hayat stopped him, saying, “Would you like a woman or two before you leave?”

San shook his head. “No, thank you, sir. I appreciate the offer, but I am anxious to get to my task.”

“Do you think you will be able to find him?” Hayat asked.

Sam turned back briefly with a smile. “Of course,” he said. “It is what I do.”

Hayat shook his head, which caught Sam’s attention. “Is there something else, sir?”

“No. It was just the way you phrased your last comment. It made me think of Dhul. It is also what he does, but the two of you do it in such different ways.”

“I certainly hope so,” Sam replied. “I believe I would cut my own throat if I thought there were any similarities between the two of us.”

And with those final words, he turned quickly and was gone.

* * *

GALAB LED THE Executioner along what was primarily a series of alleys. But there were enough streets that had to be crossed, and enough curious eyes falling on them when they did, that the Executioner knew that they and his lime-green luggage would be remembered.

The bags had been an advantage at the airport, where they hid his weapons and other gear in what looked like typical tourist luggage. But here on the streets of Ibadan they had become a liability, drawing attention to him. Galab herself fitted into the landscape like a stalk of wheat in a wheat field, but with Bolan and his bags along, anyone could see that something out of the ordinary was taking place.

He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly through clenched teeth. Every mission he undertook had its ups and downs. Little things that worked for good as he progressed through the obstacles between him and his goal could easily turn around and hinder him a moment later. He was tempted to abandon the gaudy “sightseer” bags and carry on without them, but knew he might need much of the equipment the bags contained. And by now the damage had already been done. The only thing that would draw more attention than the lime-green monstrosities would be openly carrying the weapons and other equipment they contained.

The Executioner’s mind continued to work as they walked swiftly on, hurrying down alleys and crossing streets as quickly as they could. The bottom line was that he needed to find a different, lower-profile means of transporting his gear as soon as possible. But he needed to remember that some damage had already been done. The men and women who saw him and Galab would remember them, and that meant that soon the Boko Haram terrorists were going to learn that they had been in the area with their neon luggage.

Galab had to be thinking along similar lines. “We are almost there,” she said as they rushed on. “Soon we will be out of sight again and you can store those abominable bags in a safe place.”

Bolan just nodded. In all missions, he had found over the years, there were calculated risks that had to be taken. And at this point, the only alternative to allowing themselves to be seen was to turn and go back, forgoing this place where he planned to base his operations. And even then, he had already drawn too many curious looks. If the Bokos didn’t already know Bolan and the Isaac Center director were in the area, they soon would. So the best plan of action at this juncture was to make sure they didn’t learn exactly which building they’d be in.

The soldier clenched his teeth again and moved on. Finally, he and Galab hurried into another deserted alley and the woman from the Isaac Center led him to a back door. The asphalt on which they stood was crowded with stacks of building materials: wallboard, boxes of nails, plywood sheets and other items.

The door led into a building constructed long ago of clay, but that appeared to be undergoing a major remodeling. It was at the end of a half-dozen other clay buildings that shared common walls and looked like some ancient shopping center. A walkway led away from them to the right, and Bolan looked down it and saw that it would take them to the busy street in front of the buildings. As if to confirm his assumption that the building was getting a makeover, he could hear the sounds of various power tools on the roof overhead. Whoever was operating them was too far back from the edge to be visible from below.

Galab caught his line of sight and answered his question before he could ask it. “This structure is old and beginning to fall apart,” she said in a voice just loud enough to be heard over the racket. “The roof is currently being repaired. The men are back too far for us to see them.”

Bolan nodded. “Just get us out of sight, too,” he said, glancing up and down the alley to check if anyone was watching.

“In addition to the bakery out front, the repair work also adds to the cover,” the woman added as she raised a fist to knock on the door. “It gives us an excuse for people to be going and coming, in case any of the Boko Haram spies take note.”

Without another word she knocked three times on the door, waited a few seconds, then knocked four more times. A moment later, a soft single knock came from the other side. Galab replied with one last thump of her fist, and the door swung open.

A man wearing black slacks and a blue tunic unbuttoned at the neck ushered Galab quickly inside. Bolan took a final look both ways down the alley, satisfying himself that there were no prying eyes taking in this final leg of their trip, then followed.

The man in the tunic closed the door behind them.

Bolan found himself in a dimly lit hallway. Copper pipes and white PVC plumbing, heat and air-conditioning lines were exposed overhead. A steady hum came from the ceiling, punctuated occasionally by a strange buzzing sound. Bolan wondered briefly at its source, then turned his attention to the man who had opened the door.

Galab and he embraced quickly, then stepped back from each other. “Paul,” the woman said, “this is Matt Cooper, the American I told you would be coming.”

Paul extended his hand and Bolan shook it. “We can use all the help we can get.” He had evidently seen the Executioner’s glance toward the ceiling. “Many of our converts are skilled artisans,” he said. “They are in the process of making the currently unused areas of this building more livable for those who must hide here.”

Bolan nodded. Faintly, from the roof, he could hear the same hiss and snap of a nail gun that he’d heard at the construction site back at the Isaac Center. Men on the roof would indeed add to the secrecy of this Christian hideout. It made it even less conspicuous than if the building was left unoccupied. The construction was a perfect example of the old ruse of “hiding in plain sight.”

The soldier glanced at Paul, somehow knowing that having workers on the roof had been this man’s idea. It was strange, sometimes, how warriors could recognize each other—even in the most peaceful settings. As they’d traveled the alleys, Galab had told Bolan a little about Paul. The man’s main mission in life since his conversion to Christianity might be leading other souls to Christ, but his background as a member of Boko Haram—in short, his experience as a working terrorist—made him an excellent strategist.

As Bolan finished that line of thought, he heard the sound of the air-conditioning kick on from the pipes overhead. The sporadic buzz continued, but seemed now to be coming from some more distant source.

He looked upward again just as Paul said, “We have many elderly people here. They dehydrate and collapse easily. So we must keep things at least moderately comfortable for them.”

Bolan nodded. Men and women lost resistance to both heat and cold as they grew older, and heatstroke or exhaustion, even hypothermia, could kill them in temperatures that younger, more able-bodied individuals barely noticed.

Paul raised the sleeve of his tunic to his mouth and coughed. Then, lowering his eyes from the ceiling to Galab’s, he said, “Did anyone see you?”

“Everyone saw us,” she replied, pointing at the gaudy green bags. “At least on the streets. But I do not believe anyone noticed our entry here.” She looked back over her shoulder at the door, then turned her eyes to Bolan for a second opinion.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see anyone when we came in, but that doesn’t mean someone didn’t see us. There are plenty of places up and down that alley to hide.” He turned to Paul. “Bottom line, it’s impossible to be sure.”

For the first time since Bolan and Galab had entered the building, Paul smiled. “That is the state in which we Christians constantly find ourselves. Not just here but all over Nigeria. We are never sure whether we are safe. Not since Boko Haram started its campaign of death and destruction.”

He raised his forearm to his mouth, turned his head and began coughing into his sleeve once again. But this time, instead of a single cough, a long series of choking sounds came out. When the fit finally ended, he turned back to Bolan and said, “At the very least, our Boko Haram enemies will soon know something unusual is happening in this area of town. But if we are lucky, they will not know exactly what or where.”

Fixing his attention on the Executioner, he spoke to the woman. “Tell me more about this man, Layla,” he said, changing the topic.

“As I said, his name is Matt Cooper.” She smiled up at the soldier. “At least that is the name I have been given. I do not know any more about him except that he is from the United States, he is supposed to be the best agent America has to offer and he has been sent here to help us.”

The man in the blue tunic nodded. “And you trust him?”

“Implicitly,” Galab said. “He has already proved himself in combat against the Bokos. They attacked us as we were leaving the center.” She gazed up at Bolan again, her brown eyes filled with feeling. “Without him I would be dead right now.”

Paul stared intensely at the Executioner. “Then I will trust him, too,” he said. “I will call him Matt Cooper, whether that is his real name or not.”

Bolan smiled. “And I’ll call you Paul. Although something tells me that wasn’t the name you were born with, either.”

Paul’s head moved back and forth as he returned the smile, but his expression was that of a weary man, one with too much on his mind to waste time or energy on formalities. “No,” he said. “I was born with the name Enitan. It means ‘person of the story’ in the Yoruba tongue. Paul is the name I took after Christ visited me in a dream.” He raised a fist to his mouth, coughed yet again, then said, “The dream was much like the experience the Apostle Paul had on the Damascus Road. Are you familiar with it?”

Bolan nodded, remembering the Catholic sermons of his youth. “His name was Saul up until then,” he said. “Jesus appeared to him in a waking vision rather than a dream, however. In a sudden light so bright it temporarily blinded him. Jesus asked why he was persecuting His followers.”

Paul nodded in turn, and for the first time since they had met let a real smile curl the corners of his mouth. “Exactly,” he said. “Up until my dream I had been active in Boko Haram. I had persecuted Nigerian Christians and even brother Muslims, just as the original Paul had persecuted the early Christians for the Sanhedrin.”

He stopped speaking and clenched his teeth for a moment. Pain spread across his face at the memory. “There is more to this story,” he said. “Background. But I will have to tell you the rest when we have time.” The hurt on his face seemed to disappear as quickly as it had come. “The bottom line is that Christ forgave my sins and changed my heart in that dream. And since then I have fought against the persecution meted out by Boko Haram and other Islamic terrorist groups.”

Bolan stared down at the shorter man. “That must have delighted your Boko buddies,” he said.

Paul let out a sudden laugh that sounded like gravel banging the insides of a washing machine. “At first they did not know. So I continued to pretend to be a part of them, but leaked information to the Christians.” He jerked his chin to one side, indicating that Nigerian Christians were hiding in the building, somewhere behind him. “But then my duplicity was discovered and a price was put on my head. Since that time, I have hidden here. I go out only at night, and even then I must wear a disguise.” He lifted his left arm and tapped the sleeve of his tunic. “But I will help you in any way I can. And like the original Paul, I will give my life for Christ if it comes to that.”

“It very well might,” Bolan told him.

Paul nodded again. “Then let me take you to meet some of the other Christians hiding out here,” he said. “A few are warriors and ready to assist us in our struggle. But most—as in any group of people—do not have the temperament for violence, even when it is warranted.”

“Not everyone does,” Bolan said.

Paul squinted slightly, looking as if he was taking the soldier’s measure. “But you do,” he said. “You have the capacity for violence. Wouldn’t you say you were a violent man?”

“No,” the Executioner replied. “I wouldn’t. I’m just good at it when it’s necessary.”

“I understand.” Paul looked down at the lime-green luggage Bolan and Galab had set on the floor. “Perhaps we can find some less eye-catching bags for you.”

The Executioner let out a small chuckle. “I was going to ask you to do that,” he said. “These bags have been an albatross around my neck ever since I left the airport.”

Paul turned to lead them down the hall. Overhead was more exposed wiring, plastic pipe, and long strips of insulation stapled to the ceiling. The unexplained buzzing had increased in volume threefold.

Now, the soldier recognized the sound as some sort of electric saw. It was just more of whatever construction was happening on the roof. In addition to the saw, he could still hear the sounds of electric guns spitting out nails, and other hand tools such as hammers, wrenches and pliers twisting metal.

The ancient structure’s outside belied its interior, and made a good hiding place for people who had been forced into going underground. The restoration wasn’t finished, but the place seemed livable. They passed two rooms that contained stored furniture, canned goods and other “survival” items. An armed man was stationed in each room. In the first, a dark-skinned Nigerian had a Smith & Wesson revolver stuck in his belt. The white-skinned guy in the other storage room held an Uzi in both hands.

Paul and Galab led Bolan through a confusing labyrinth of twists and turns.

“Many of these hallways lead to dead ends,” Paul told him. “We have designed it this way in order to confuse any attackers unfamiliar with the layout. Layla and I, and the people hiding here, know the place by heart.” He paused a moment and coughed several times. It was a low, grumbling, garbling sound that bespoke some serious upper respiratory problem rather than just a sore throat or allergies. When he had finished, he said, “I doubt that you will be here long enough to need to know the floor plan.”

“No, maybe not,” Bolan replied. “But it never hurts to know things like that. I’ve been memorizing these corners and turns as we’ve walked.”

The soldier found more of the same when he followed Paul and Layla around a bend to yet another doorway. The room it led to was larger, and appeared to have been chosen primarily as housing. Men and women sat scattered around the space. Bare mattresses covered much of the floor, and the furnishings consisted of a few mismatched chairs and tables, plus one well-worn sofa. Most people in the room sat on the mattresses or the tile floor. At the rear an open door exposed a white sink and toilet. Although he didn’t count them, it looked to Bolan as if there were roughly a dozen individuals present, and the single bathroom appeared to service them all.

Paul stopped just outside the doorway and turned to Bolan. A moment passed during which the Christian convert took in a deep breath prior to speaking. At the same time, the people in the room suddenly noticed their presence, and all eyes in the room swept to Bolan and Galab as conversation ceased.

In the quiet seconds that followed, the soldier heard faint crunching and swishing sounds somewhere in the distance. He could hardly be certain, but it sounded like someone digging. And it was not all that different from the sounds that issued from Paul’s congested chest.

Bolan looked through the door at the uprooted Christians gathered. There were slightly more men than women, and a good number of them suffered from one kind of physical disability or another. Wheelchairs and crutches were prevalent, and one man wore an oxygen nose piece that was attached to a tank by clear plastic tubing.

“I don’t see any children,” Bolan said.

Paul’s chest rumbled when he spoke. “We have shipped the children out of Nigeria to Christian families in neighboring countries,” he said. “Much like the British sent children to the United States during World War II. These are people who have been attacked by the Bokos and escaped. Or a few who we know were targeted, but got away in time with their families. Boko Haram has a death list, and most of these people are on it.”

Sweat had broken out on his forehead and he used his forearm to wipe it away. “I call this the congregation room. Like the congregation in a church,” he went on. “We have several such hiding places around Ibadan, and all are overcrowded like this one.” He stopped to draw in another raspy breath. “And we never know from one second to the next when one may have been compromised. We anxiously await attacks that are sure to come sooner or later.”

Bolan looked at the faces around the room that had fixed on him. They were dirty and weary and scared. His mind drifted to the happy, playing children he had seen back at the Isaac Center. They had been too young to understand what had happened to their families, but these people were adults, and they understood the danger they were in. Their expressions showed the strain of being forced into a constant survival state of mind. When he looked into their faces, however, Bolan got at least a thin smile from each and every one of them.

They were human, so they were worried. And they were scared. But in spite of all that there was a positive spirit that seemed to emanate from them.

Bolan set his bags on the floor and looked back up again. This time he took note of three men standing against the walls. One leaned back against the far wall of the room, an American-made M16A2 hanging from a sling looped over his shoulder. Two more men—one with a Belgian FAL and the other bearing an AK-47—did the same against the side walls. The man with the M16 was fiddling with the safety. The one holding the FAL was trying to figure out how to adjust the collapsible stock, and the Nigerian who bore the AK-47 was simply staring down at his weapon as if he’d just seen it for the first time.





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