Jaws dropped.
“Any medical care needed afterward will be fully paid at my expense. If for some reason there are delays or we need to extract and redeploy, I’m willing to entertain bonus pay.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
Bolan shot a killer grin. “Who’s in?”
Pienaar whistled and stared down the neck of his beer. “Tentatively, china, but what’s the plan?”
“We’re going to deploy on the ground posing as an NGO humanitarian convoy and then take a very unexpected turn.”
Tshabalala visibly relaxed as he saw it. “And when we get close to the package we go low in the bush and acquire the package.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
The Russian lit a contemplative cigarette. “And we drive back?”
“Maybe.” Bolan nodded at Grimaldi. “Or he extracts us.”
“And if there are more Sukhois?”
Grimaldi sipped his beer nonchalantly. “We already shot down two.”
Bolan cracked himself another beer. “So, who’s in?”
Ochoa shot his hand up. “Me!”
“Sounds like a bloody movie.” Ceallach shook his head and raised his hand. “I’m in.”
“Sounds like shit,” Pienaar said.
“Sounds like kak,” Tshabalala agreed.
The two men grinned and spoke in unison. “We’re in.”
Ching finished his beer. “Well, I have never been to the Sudan, and I have no pressing engagements.”
Lkhümbengarav inclined his beer at Ching. “What he said, hot rod.”
Bolan looked at Nelsonne, who reached for another beer. “I was already decided in Bruges.”
Bolan didn’t bother to ask the Russian or the Serb. He was pretty sure Nelsonne had decided them in Bruges, as well. “All right, real quick. We can all get to know one another later, but our mission language is going to be English, and I need to keep things simple.” Bolan looked at Tlou Tshabalala. “You got a lot of la-la-las for tactical communications.”
“Call me T-Lo, everyone does.”
“Done.”
Gus Pienaar piped up without being asked. “Goose, been my name since I was kid.”
Bolan looked at his Royal Marine. “Ceallach?”
Scott Ceallach rolled his eyes and put the “lock” in Ceallach. “Cee-a-laaahckh.”
“How about we just call you Scotty?” Bolan suggested.
“And I’ve been living with you Yanks’ Star Trek fetish all my life, haven’t I, then? And I’m not even Scottish!”
“Good to know.” Bolan glanced at the Mongolian. “Luck-um-ben…?”
The former sergeant smiled like he’d seen it coming from a long way off. “Been ‘Lucky’ on the last three UN deployments, GI.”
Tien Ching raised his beer at Bolan. “T.C.”
Valeri Onopkov nodded at Bolan. “Val.”
Radomir Mrda grunted. “Rad.”
Bolan perked an eyebrow at Nelsonne. “Mademoiselle?”
She nodded. “Russo.”
Ochoa frowned. “Aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what, Sancho?”
“Hey! How did you— Oh, man, never mind, and what do we call you, Jefe?” Ochoa looked at Ceallach. “Squire?”
“You can call me Striker.”
Nelsonne made an amused noise. “Très Américain.”
“I am that,” Bolan admitted. “Last question. Who besides me can drive a Unimog?”
“Me,” Pienaar replied.
“We have two Land Rovers. Who’s volunteering to drive?”
Mrda and Lkhümbengarav raised their hands.
“Good enough. Everyone finish eating. Take a nap. I’ve got nine beds set up. We’re leaving at sunset.”
The team resumed tucking in. Nelsonne hadn’t taken her eyes off Bolan, and she was still smiling. There was a saying in the United States spook community that there was no such thing as an ex-CIA agent. Until they buried you, you were just on standby.
Bolan was pretty sure there was no such thing as ex-DGSE in France, either.
3
“I believe they call this flying by the seat of your pants,” Grimaldi said.
“That’s your job,” Bolan replied.
Bolan and the Stony Man pilot sat in the conference room comparing notes. The team had collapsed in their beds with mild heatstroke and food comas. Grimaldi gave his old friend an amused look. “I mean, did you actually look at these yahoos?”
“I’ll admit Sancho is a little squirrelly.”
“No, big guy, Sancho’s the only one I trust.” Grimaldi frowned. “Except for maybe the Brixton Bomber and the Mongolian, and the South Africans are okay, except every time I see them I hear the song “Ebony and Ivory” in my head, oh, and T.C. He seems like a stone-cold killer of men.”
That was two-thirds of the squad. “So…you don’t like Russo?” Bolan asked.
“Oh, I like her a lot, but she makes me nervous, and so do those ex-Communist-bloc savages she has with her.”
Bolan controlled his bemusement. “Bear picked her.”
Grimaldi made a noise.
“How we doing on gear?”
“I’ve got a Hercules on the airstrip with all three vehicles and all requested equipment stowed and ready to go. I’ll get you and the team on the ground and in the saddle. After that it’s up to you.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
The pilot shifted in his seat uneasily. “This is messed up. I should be going with you. I should be driving.”
Bolan kept his poker face. It was an interesting phenomenon that pilots automatically assumed they were NASCAR drivers in the making. In Bolan’s experience, “knight of the air” and “rubber meets the road” were two different sciences entirely and rarely mixed well. “I need you hot on the pad, Jack. Ready for extraction from a hot LZ at heartbeat’s notice.”
“Well, if you put it that way,” the pilot said, “I’ll drop you off and be waiting by the phone.”
Both men turned at a polite knock. “Come in,” Bolan said.
Nelsonne walked in smiling, went to the sideboard and made herself a whiskey and soda. “I have taken the liberty of acquiring us a pair of guides.”
Bolan regarded the French agent drily. “Where will they be guiding us to?”
“That is up to you, but they are men of Central Sudan, and have acted as guides and interpreters before. I think you will find them useful in a myriad of ways.”
“You vouch for them?”
“I have worked with them. They are good men.”
“Where are they?”
“Waiting