Warlord actual the trigg.., p.1
Warlord Actual (The Trigger Man Book 4), page 1
WARLORD ACTUAL
A TRIGGER MAN THRILLER
ADIEN BAILEY
Published by Inkubator Books
www.inkubatorbooks.com
Copyright © 2024 by Aiden Bailey
Aiden Bailey has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-83756-457-6
ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-83756-458-3
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-83756-459-0
WARLORD ACTUAL is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.
CONTENTS
Inkubator Books
O
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Inkubator Newsletter
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Adien Bailey
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For the memory of Terrill D. Carpenter
1
Tigray, Ethiopia
Two and a half years ago…
Mark Pierce could do nothing to prevent the taxi driver’s execution, but he saw it all.
One moment, a Tigray People’s Liberation Front soldier was asking the old man questions. The next, the soldier had shot the taxi driver through the side window with an AK-47 assault rifle set in single-select mode. The noise that echoed through the dusty streets, and the blood that instantly splashed across the inside of the taxi’s window, caused Pierce, a seasoned CIA Ground Branch operator who was supposed to be hardened against such brutal violence, to shudder.
He shuddered because that bullet could have been for him.
It was only luck that Pierce was some distance from the altercation and, for the moment, uninvolved. But he had been approaching because the taxi driver might have known something related to his mission, but if he had, that information was now gone like he was. So Pierce kept walking, passed the security fencing, and entered the decrepit airport before the TPLF soldiers found a reason to be interested in him too.
“Mark?” sounded a voice in his discreet earpiece.
It was Mackenzie Summerfield, his handler back in the United States’ military base Camp Lemonnier in the neighbouring African country of Djibouti, and his only link to the world outside this war zone.
“You okay? You suddenly went silent?”
Pierce responded in a low voice and barely moved his lips. “The TPLF just executed the taxi driver who brought the British spy here, who I was supposed to extract.”
“Oh, shit!”
Pierce swallowed against the lump forming in his throat. “Indeed. Our man must now be inside the terminal, hoping for an aerial escape route out of this war zone, as you predicted.”
“Are you in danger? Do we need to abort?”
“No. I’m okay, Summerfield, but if we keep chatting, I’ll be spotted.”
“Oh. Okay. Look after yourself.” He heard her clear her throat. “I’m here for you, Mark, should you need me.”
“Thanks, and I appreciate that. I’ll call you back.”
With his comms line disconnected, Pierce moved. The unimpressive airport comprised a couple of neglected and shelled single-storey buildings, a lone rusted radio mast, ancient trolleys still used to transfer passenger luggage, and little else. With nothing here to interest him, Pierce passed through the building and out the other side, to mingle with the crowds where his target would be best suited to hide himself.
The scene soon depressed Pierce. Women, men and children in their hundreds crowded outside the bombed ruins. Flies moved in the stifling heat like lines scratched on an old movie. Dust hung in the air like an alien presence, painting the skies an off-yellow colour. Bullet holes, partially collapsed walls, scattered rubble and scorch marks showed signs of a recent battle, yet the airstrip had survived the assault intact. Technically, aircraft could still land and take off, and therefore, Pierce knew, a United Nations cargo plane would arrive soon to deliver food aid to this war zone. The crowds hadn’t gathered for the spectacle. They were all starved and waited patiently for food relief. Pierce saw it in their gaunt faces, crinkled skin and ectomorphic bodies.
He stretched his stiff muscles and searched the crowds with eyes hidden behind cheap sunglasses. At least two dozen Tigray People’s Liberation Front soldiers patrolled the airport, congregating in groups with their desert dappled camouflage uniforms, black soldier’s boots, and enough AK-47s, AK-74s, Uzis, and Russian RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launchers for everyone.
Pierce recalled his pre-mission briefing on this site. The TPLF had captured this airfield from Ethiopian Ground Forces a week ago, had provoked most of the present destruction, and now, as a publicity stunt, used their win to distribute life-saving food supplies for the masses to win their “hearts and minds.” They’d even convinced a few UN and African Union officials to join their party for added legitimacy. This from a paramilitary group that were responsible for as many of the war atrocities as those imposed by their opposition, the pro-Addis Ababa military forces who even now must scheme to take back this airfield by force. Pierce just had to hope he was long gone from here before that happened.
He was subconsciously alerted to one TPLF soldier who moved with purpose and authority.
Pierce also noticed the shoulder mark that denoted him as captain, but the man’s distinguishing feature was a body that wasn’t thin, rather he was layered with muscles honed through an intense exercise regime and a strict diet. A physique that demanded money to perfect in Ethiopia, and the only people in war-ravished Tigray with spare cash had it because they wielded considerable power gained through force. This man watched the crowds with the same interest Pierce did. One hand always rested on a holstered Makarov pistol.
After secreting a photo of the Ethiopian officer with his encrypted sat phone, Pierce returned his attention to the crowds and searched for the British spy the CIA had sent him here to extract, to find him before the TPLF did.
Many of the locals dressed in loose western clothes, others in customary nomadic gear, while many women decorated themselves in patterned wrap-around skirts and white headscarves. People were a mixture of conservative Christians or Muslims, but there wasn’t a lot of choice here to believe in anything else. The few Westerners represented various non-government organisations or NGOs, the United Nations, frontline journalists, grizzled mercenaries, and one reckless hippy backpacker who seemed more interested in where he could score his next joint than in understanding the dangerous spectacle erupting around him.
Finally, Pierce spotted the asset.
The seasoned British Secret Intelligence Service officer had grown out his beard and wore cheap clothing to blend in, and sat in a crowd of men dressed in similar clothes. With a Christian upbringing in Lebanon and his ability to speak Arabic, French, Hebrew, and English all with the same native proficiency, he could fit in anywhere in the Middle East, or so claimed Eli Yaghi’s CIA dossier that Pierce had rapidly digested before his insertion into the Horn of Africa. That same dossier claimed he spoke Russian too and hel
Pierce approached an airport official dressed in a cheap but well-maintained uniform and asked when the aid flight would arrive. The official spoke too quickly with an answer rather than admit he didn’t know, because nobody knew the answer to this question in a country where nothing worked. Pierce shrugged, expecting the man’s response. With a frustrated but fake sigh, he sat on the concrete block, forcing a space next to Yaghi, as if their pairing were by chance.
Wiping the persistent flies from his face, Pierce spoke in a low whisper without looking at the SIS man. “The TPLF search for you. One officer in particular… but there will be more I haven’t seen. When the UN plane lands, and you try to talk your way on board, he will arrest you.”
To his credit, outwardly, Eli Yaghi did not react. Instead, he leaned forward and played with a pack of Camel cigarettes. Smokes were a common tool often employed by spies, as a tactic to spot a tail, a delay fuse for igniting explosives, an instrument of torture, or as a distraction while Yaghi slipped a knife between Pierce’s ribs.
To Pierce’s relief, the SIS man attempted none of these options. Instead, he offered a cigarette and took one for himself.
Pierce didn’t by habit smoke. Yaghi’s file said he didn’t either, but a disguise was a disguise. They both lit up using Yaghi’s lighter and dragged down on the nicotine vapours. As they shared a smoke for a moment without speaking, Pierce thought upon all the problems Ethiopia’s most northern state faced. The list ran as long as the Nile River and included civil war, mass casualties, civilian casualties, widespread displaced persons, widespread famine, aid blockades, overzealous checkpoints, media censorship, political prisoners, executions of gays and lesbians, rape as a weapon of war, ethnic cleansing, and strategic genocide. But he wasn’t here to solve any of those problems. No one here was. No one here could.
“Who exactly do you think I am?” The SIS operative’s voice was a matched whisper.
“Eli Yaghi. British SIS. Star sign Pisces. Apparently, you have a thing for collecting orchids—”
“Okay, so you know who I am.”
Pierce leaned forward while his peripheral vision monitored the TPLF captain’s movements, who still eyed the crowds. So far, Pierce’s engagement with the asset hadn’t piqued the officer’s interest, but that wouldn’t last much longer.
Knowing he was running short on time, Pierce spoke quickly without glancing at the asset. “You’ve triggered the interest of a half dozen intelligence agencies, including Ethiopia’s National Intelligence and Security Service. And, it seems, the TPLF as well. They all want to know the secret you have suddenly discovered. It is time sensitive, but you haven’t yet shared with anyone.”
Yaghi sniggered. “You CIA? Central Intelligence Agency?”
“What gave it away?”
“The Glock 19 in the small of your back. The Ratnik KAMPO tactical knife strapped to your forearm. Only an American would believe he could fight his way out of this situation if it turned bad.”
Pierce nodded, impressed with the man’s observational skills. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
2
Together, the two spies studied the crowds. Nobody here put much effort into moving because that cost calories, and there were very little of those to share around in food-poor, war-rich Tigray. To move made one noticeable.
Yaghi stiffened and said to Pierce, “I’m getting on that plane. Staying is suicide, as you said.”
“You won’t live out the day if you do. Instead, why don’t you leave the extracting to me?”
Yaghi laughed again without humour, drew on the embers of his cigarette, then crushed the filter under his desert boots. “Your proposal stinks of a set-up.”
Pierce shrugged. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have bothered with conversation.” He didn’t say it would have been Pierce slipping a knife between Yaghi’s ribs.
“Fair point. What secret is it you think that I have uncovered?”
“It’s ‘need to know’.” Pierce stubbed out his cigarette, recognised that he had enjoyed its high, and smoking was an addiction he could grow to like if he wasn’t careful. He’d been seeking all forms of stress relief lately after the last big mission he had undertaken, but he also appreciated that cigarettes weren’t the answer if he wanted to secure a modicum of a future normal life. “And my superiors believe ‘need to know’ doesn’t apply to me.”
“A loyal terrier of the American government, following orders blindly.”
“I thought all terriers were British?”
A Dash 8 cargo plane appeared in the distant, dusty yellow haze, near the horizon where semi-desert mountainous peaks emerged from the semi-desert flatlands. Its wheel carriages dropped, and its engines changed pitch as the turboprop-powered airliner made its final descent. Pierce guessed it was with the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service, the UNHAS. No other organisation on the planet was brave enough to risk a landing in this battle-hardened country.
As the Dash 8 grew larger in the sky, the dense crowds moved forward, ready for the food packages they had patiently waited for all day. Their only other option was to starve to death, and nobody here had given in to that temptation yet.
“Time to vanish.” Pierce pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose as they both stood. The activity in the crowds now would conceal them. “In what still passes as a car park out the back is a white Toyota Land Cruiser. Scratched all over. Passenger-side headlight smashed up.” Pierce recited the number plate. “I’ll meet you there in one minute.”
Yaghi nodded, then shuffled on ahead.
Nearby, the Tigray captain eyed the crowds moving towards the taxiing aircraft. Pierce registered that his foe now openly carried his Makarov semi-automatic pistol. Pierce realised then that the TPLF weren’t here to detain Yaghi, but to kill him, and they wouldn’t be afraid to do so publicly.
Pierce pushed against the crowds while the press of bodies coming the other way slowed him. Too many people too desperate to reach the food refused to allow him a backwards passage.
Halted in his track momentarily, and then without meaning to, Pierce and the captain locked eyes.
For what was only a few seconds, but felt infinitely longer, the two men sized each other up. They were like a pair of maned lions. Each had realised they claimed the same hunting grounds when there was only room for one alpha predator to dominate.
Then the captain reacted suddenly as he yelled in what was presumably either Amharic or Tigrinya, neither of which Pierce understood, and fired his pistol skyward.
The noise was sudden and hurt Pierce’s eardrums.
The crowd reacted as any large gathering of desperate people would when a gun fired. They dropped low and spread thin in a mad scramble to both flee and to not die.
Suddenly exposed, Pierce ducked low and sprinted with them.
He felt and heard bullets whip around him.
An old man next to him dropped as his chest exploded with sudden patches of red.
Pierce pulled his Glock and fired backwards towards the captain and his gathering soldiers, but high enough so as not to hit civilians.
As he sprinted, his eyes searched for Yaghi, but the SIS operative was long gone.
Merging with a dense crowd of fleeing men and women, Pierce created distance between him and his foes. He heard, then spied the Dash 8 pass less than fifty metres overhead. Its engines drowned out all other noises for a long count of seconds, even the shooting. Wisely, the pilot had made a last-minute decision not to land now that violence had erupted on the ground, and the pilot pivoted the aircraft towards the direction of the Red Sea.
Without slowing his sprint, Pierce soon reached his Land Cruiser, disengaged the lock with his fob, and dived into the driver’s seat.
At the same moment, Yaghi clambered into the front passenger seat.
Pierce gunned the engine and shifted up the gears as they tore out onto the dusty road. Full-automatic fire sprayed the back of their vehicle as Pierce felt and heard bullets lodge into the chassis.
“You were right.” Yaghi used his cultured and very British university-mastered accent now that it was just the two of them and the pretence of a cover was no longer required. “I was never getting on that plane.”
