Conflict Zone. Don Pendleton

to steal. Somewhere along the way, he had discovered ethnic pride and politics. Depending on the point of view, he’d either learned to fake the former, or was using it to make himself the Next Big Thing within his sphere of influence.

      The candid shots of Afolabi showed a wiry man of average height, with close-cropped hair, a wild goatee and dark skin. In addition to tribal markings, his scrabble to the top, or thereabouts, had left him scarred in ways that would be useful for identifying his cadaver, but which didn’t seem to slow him in any kind of violent confrontation.

      Afolabi’s second in command was Taiwo Babatunde, a hulk who nearly dwarfed his boss at six foot three and some three hundred pounds, but from his photos and the file Bolan surmised that Babatunde lacked the wits required to plot a palace coup, much less to pull it off and run the tribal army on his own. Call him the boss man’s strong right arm, a blunt tool that would flatten Afolabi’s opposition on demand.

      And likely have a great time doing it.

      The file named Afolabi’s soldiers as prime suspects in a dozen oil field raids, at least that many pipeline bombings and the murder of a newscaster from Delta Rainbow Television Warri who had criticized MEND for its violence. Communiqués demanding ransom for the safe return of Mandy Ross, while carefully anonymous, had been dissected by the FBI’s profiling team at Quantico, who claimed that certain trademark phrases ID’d Afolabi as their author.

      Bolan hoped the Feds were right.

      The Ijaw tribal opposition’s leader was Agu Ajani, turning twenty-nine next week, if he survived that long. He was another bad guy from the get-go, and while anyone could blame it on his childhood—orphaned at age four, warehoused by the state, then written off the first time he went AWOL, living hand-to-mouth among eight million strangers on the streets of Lagos—Bolan only cared about Ajani’s actions in the here and now.

      By all accounts, he was a ruthless killer with a clear sadistic streak, one of the sort who’d rather leave his enemies shorthanded, courtesy of a machete or meat cleaver, than to kill them outright. Which was not to say he hadn’t put his share of bodies in the ground. Official sources credited his Ijaw faction with a thousand kills and counting in the ethnic war that ravaged Delta State.

      In photos, Ajani didn’t look the part. He favored floral-patterned shirts, the tourist kind, with short sleeves showing off his slender arms. A missing pinky finger on his left hand told the story of a near-miss in a knife fight, but he’d won that scrap and every one thereafter.

      Up to now.

      If Ekon Afolabi’s number two was a behemoth, Ajani’s was a smaller version of himself, some thirty pounds lighter and three or four inches shorter, with a bland face that belied his rap sheet. Daren Jumoke was a suspect in half a dozen murders before he turned political and started killing in the name of his people. Jumoke’s “civilian” victims had been women, who were also raped. Bolan guessed that his juvenile record, if such things existed where he was going, would reveal a violent bully with a hyperactive sex drive and a deaf ear when it came to females saying no.

      Killing Jumoke, Bolan thought, would be a public service. As it was, his gang apparently had no connection to the Ross kidnapping—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find a way to use them in a pinch, maybe as cannon fodder to distract his Itsekiri opposition.

      Bolan was starting to read about his native contact in Warri, one Obinna Umaru, when a muffled rapping on his door distracted him. He answered it and smiled at finding Barbara Price on his threshold.

      “Finished your homework yet?” she asked.

      “Almost.”

      “I don’t want to distract you.”

      “I could use a break,” he said, and stood aside.

      She brushed against him, passing, and it sent a tingle racing through his body, as if he had touched a bare low-voltage wire.

      “So, Africa again,” she said. “Your shots all up-to-date? Dengue fever? Yellow fever? Typhoid?”

      “My rabies shot is out of date,” he told her.

      “Don’t let anybody bite you, then.”

      “I’ll make a note. Coffee?”

      “It keeps me up all night,” she said, and smiled. “You have a few cups, though.”

      “Will I be needing it?” he asked.

      “Homework. You said it wasn’t finished.”

      It was Bolan’s turn to smile. “Now that I think of it, I’ve barely started.”

      “It’s best to be thorough.”

      “I hear you.” Still smiling, he said, “Maybe I ought to take a shower first. To freshen up and clear my head.”

      “Sounds good,” she said, hands rising to the buttons of her blouse. “I have to tell you, I’ve been feeling dirty all day long.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      Delta State, Nigeria

      Bolan smelled the Itsekiri camp before he saw it. Supper cooking and open latrines, gasoline and diesel fuel, gun oil and unwashed bodies.

      The unmistakable odors of men at war.

      He had to watch for lookouts, as well as snares and booby traps. MEND’s rebels knew that they were hunted by the state, and by their tribal adversaries. They’d be foolish not to post guards on the camp’s perimeter, but Bolan wouldn’t know how thorough they had been until he tested the defenses for himself.

      Beginning now.

      There’d be no cameras or other electronic gear, of course. He would’ve heard a generator running by the time he closed the gap to half a mile, and there was nothing on the wind but human voices and the clanking, clattering that no large group of humans in the wild seemed able to avoid. So much the better for his own quiet approach, if he could spot the posted guards and take them down without a fuss.

      He found the first one watering the ferns, his rifle propped against a nearby tree, well out of splatter range. The guy was actually humming to himself, eyes closed and head thrown back, enjoying one of nature’s little pleasures.

      It was easy, then, when Bolan stepped up close behind him, clapped a hand over his mouth and gave his head a twist, driving the black blade of his Ka-Bar fighting knife into the lookout’s throat. One thrust dealt with the vocal cords, the right carotid artery and jugular, ensuring silence even as it robbed the brain of vital oxygen and sent the guard’s lifeblood spouting in a geyser that would only stop when there was no more left for atricles and ventricles to pump.

      Which took about two minutes.

      Bolan didn’t wait around to watch. He left the dead-man-gasping where he lay, scooped up his battle-worn Kalashnikov, and moved on through the forest shadows, looking for his next target.

      Not victim, since—in Bolan’s mind at least—human predators invited mayhem with their daily actions, through their very lifestyle. He had no time for philosophical discussions with the folks who claimed that “every life has value” or that “everyone deserves a second chance.”

      Some lives, based on objective evidence, were worse than useless. They spread pain and misery every day that they continued. Most had scorned a thousand chances to reform and find a place within the millieu known as civilized society. They had not merely failed, but rather had defiantly refused to play the game by any rules except their own.

      And when they couldn’t be controlled, when the prisons couldn’t hold them, when they set themselves above humanity and any common decency, they earned a visit from the Executioner.

      He couldn’t reach them all, of course—only the worst of those who came to his attention, who were physically accessible and whose predation took priority over the other millions of corrupt, sadistic scum who flourished all around the globe.

      Right here,