Desert mercenary c-16 Read online

  Desert mercenary

  ( Casca - 16 )

  Barry Sadler

  Barry Sadler

  Desert mercenary

  CHAPTER ONE

  Tunis still bore the scars of World War II. In the harbor the hulks of dead ships were serving as breakwaters. From the docks the last survivors of Rommel's Afrika Korps had tried to escape under the guns of the Allied forces. Few made it back to Germany. Most of the shell holes pockmarking the streets had been filled, but many buildings still stood as gutted ruins inhabited only by rats, scorpions, and some occasional human vermin.

  Gustof Beidemann sat, contentedly enough on the surface, stuffing his mouth with dates and sweet rice, using his fingers as a spoon. His companion was more silent. The last months had been exceedingly boring. Their last job had been merely that of shotgun riders on convoys taking supplies out to where some American and British companies had been putting up drilling rigs. Not much action, only a plenitude of sun, flies, and bad water when you could get it.

  Carl Langers rinsed his mouth with sips of wine grown from French cuttings in Algeria. It was good.

  "Gus?"

  The chewing stopped only long enough for the bear of a man to quickly respond, " Ja? "

  "Where do we go from here? Central Africa?''

  The bear belched, drawing an appreciative look from the other customers of the harbor-side bistro.

  "I don't know. There are the Gulf Emirates. I would prefer them to working in Central Africa. There are too many uncertainties there, and it is not always easy to get your money."

  Langers leaned back in the chair of woven reeds. To the north he could see the Mediterranean, the calm blue sea as clear as glass, but the sense of peacefulness that it inspired was only temporary. He had long ago determined that conflict, not peace, was the natural order of man, for peace and calm were always transitory things for Carl Langers aka Casca Rufio Longinus. Since that fateful moment 2,000 years ago when he had sunk his spear into the crucified body of Christ, Casca had been denied the rest of the weary, dying countless times only to wake once again in the world of the living. Eternal death would have been sweet salvation for Casca alias Langers. But he was destined to live the hell of one damned to immortality until the Second Coming would reprieve him.

  He and his giant friend would have preferred to be in Algiers, but the memory of that notorious time in the Legion Etrangere there was still too fresh. Too many knew them by sight and old grudges die hard. That had been a bad and bloody time when he and Gus had come back from Indochina after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, a very bad and bloody time. They had taken their discharges as soon as their time was up, not wishing to participate any further in the seemingly random and insane slaughter that had taken place between the French Colonials and the Algerian Nationalists. It was one of those cases where everyone was the bad guy and there was no absolute right or wrong-only the fanatics.

  Gus opened his throat to take in a handful of couscous, then farted with satisfaction. Several nearby diners promptly left their tables, meals uneaten.

  "Don't be impatient, Carl. Monpelier said he would meet us here and he will. He said only that he would arrive by the fifteenth. It is as of yet only the thirteenth. Two days is not such a long time to wait. Perhaps, as he said, he will have some work for us."

  Claude Monpelier had been their boss when they were working the supply lines. He had had the job of contracting and locating specialists for many companies in North Africa. Prior to that, the Belgian-born Monpelier had served as sergent chef with the Troisieme Battalion Parachutiste des Etrangere. It was from there he knew Langers and Beidemann.

  "Well, I hope he comes soon. The way you eat up our money, it won't last much longer."

  Gus gulped down half a liter of wine to top off his meal. "Carl, I am surprised at you. You never have any faith in our luck. Something will happen. It always does."

  Sourly Langers grunted back, "I know, but when you're around it usually means trouble."

  Gus finished his wine, blithely ignoring the slander. Suddenly he rose from his seat, beaming with smugness. "See! I told you he would come. Trust me, I know that he brings our fortune with him. Claude is not one to waste talent such as ours."

  Looking over his shoulder in the direction Gus was facing, Carl did indeed see Monpelier coming toward them: sunburned, hair and eyebrows bleached by years in the desert sun to an albino white. He still had the look of the Legion to him, straight back, strong, spare body. His face might have once been handsome, but too many fights had rearranged the bone structure. A once-proud Gallic nose now rested between his cheekbones like a mutilated piece of sausage.

  Gus swept him into a chair, gurgling happily, "Welcome, mon vieux. What is it you have for us?"

  Claude merely gave Gus one of the looks he normally reserved for jackals, vultures, and other vile things that crawled upon the face of the earth. Carl ignored both of them. It was an old and time-honored ritual between them.

  "Well first, you great hulking beast, can you not see that I am faint from lack of wine?"

  " Good idea!'' Gus roared out loud enough that the snakes living in the ruins of nearby Carthage could hear. "Wine, do you hear? Wine for the troops. We've been raping and ravaging all day and we thirst.'' He collared a terrified waiter with a fez on his curly head and barked, "Bring wine, and while you're at it water my mule.'' The waiter started to ask the effendi, or master, where his mule was, but a playful slap on his shoulder sent him reeling toward the kitchen.

  Claude sighed wearily and cast a doleful look at Langers. "Can't you put a leash or at least a muzzle on this foul creature?"

  Langers smiled for the first time. "No, but I give you permission to do so if you want to try."

  Claude knew he was being outmaneuvered and as any wise, old soldier would do, he ignored the remarks completely and got straight to business once he was certain that the other tables were not listening in.

  "If you can lower your voices to a normal level, we will get on with what I wish to speak to you about, my friends," he said.

  The timid approach of the waiter bearing a liter of the Algerian wine gave them a moment's pause before Claude continued, leaving Gus to pour for them. Gus had no real interest in the details of the job at this point. If Langers liked it, then they would do it, so why bother himself with superfluous dialogue? He was, after all, a most practical man.

  Sipping his wine after first testing the bouquet, Claude began.

  "Am I not correct in saying that before I had the dubious honor of serving with you, you and your animal here were stationed for a time out of Fort Lapperrine in the Ahaggar Mountains, and from there went on several raids into the territory of the Azbine Tuaregs, the Berber Moslems who inhabit the land between the Talak Air Plains and the Tenere Desert?"

  Carl nodded. "Yes, we spent some time there. Bad country, hard people. Why?"

  "Well, my friends," he touched his forefinger to the side of his nose to indicate a matter of great confidence, "I have an acquaintance in need of men who know the area and are not afraid to take a small risk." That worried Carl a bit. When Claude referred to anything as a "small risk,'' he meant the equivalent of trying to mount a bayonet attack across quicksand with sixty-pound packs on your back.

  "Just what is this small risk, Sergent Chef?" Carl automatically went back into addressing Monpelier by his old rank.

  "You know that since we were 'invited' to leave Algeria, there have been many troubles. One of them has to do with a chieftain of the Azbini. He is trying to form an alliance with the other Tuareg tribes, the Allimideni, Ifora, Azjeri, and Ahaggerni, and even those of the Bedouin. He wishes to form an autonomous state of their own. You and I know this will not happen, but it takes
only a few fanatics to cause great trouble. And the trouble is this." He paused to refresh his palate. "One of the Azbine chieftains who calls himself Sunni Ali has captives. The son of a rich man and the son's wife, an American girl. They are being held for ransom."

  Langers took a drink of his own wine. This was beginning to get interesting. "What do they want, money?''

  Claude shook his head. "No, my old one. The son's father is an arms manufacturer. They want weapons, many weapons: machine guns, mortars, anti-aircraft guns. But the father cannot supply them. His government has found out about the ransom and will not permit the exchange for as you know, it does not take much to start a guerrilla war and keep it going for some years with a few thousand modern rifles and machine guns.

  "So, as he cannot give them what they ask for, he has come to me to find men who will attempt a rescue. That is all. You just go in, get the boy and his wife, and bring them out. Tres simple, n'est-ce pas? "

  " That's all! You know that country. It's hell out there. How do we get in and how do we get out? There's nothing but thousands of miles of nothing out there!"

  Claude affected a wounded look. "Ah, but that is why the father will pay so well. However, if you feel it is beyond your talents and do not have the need for twenty-five thousand American dollars, I will go elsewhere, eh?" he said, shrugging his shoulders matter-of-factly.

  Carl pushed him back down in his chair. "Knock the crap off, Claude. We're interested, but we need to know more before making a decision."

  Monpelier knew he had them or he would not have been stopped from leaving. "Very well. This is what I can tell you now. Our weaponsmaker is a very rich man, and while he cannot get guns to trade for his son, he can supply you with whatever else you may require in terms of equipment. Airplanes, vehicles, communications equipment. His government knows what we wish to try and they have no objection to it. As long as the Tuaregs receive no weapons, we can do as we wish in the matter.''

  "You did say we, didn't you, Claude? Are you going in with us?"

  Claude hid behind his wine glass. "Alas, no, my friends, I am afraid that I have other duties which will prevent me from accompanying you on this minor excursion. I do wish that I could attend the festivities. I know you and your creature. I am confident the desert will never be the same after you two leave."

  Gus ordered two more bottles of wine, making certain the waiter knew to put them on Claude's bill.

  Langers went back to the subject. "Okay! The price is all right for me and Gus but there'll be other expenses, and we may have to hire a few more men. In fact, I know we will."

  "I have anticipated your needs, my friends. And if we have, as the Americans say, 'a deal,' I will leave you with advance funds now so that you may begin to plan the operation. But know that it must be done quickly. The Tuaregs can be stalled in the matter for only a short time. Then they will do horrible things to the boy and worse to the girl. Remember Medea?''

  Langers remembered. There had been great evil done there, torture and slaughter on both sides that would have left the Nazi Gestapo in awe. "All right, how much time do we have?"

  "Two, perhaps three weeks. No more."

  Sitting silently Langers tried to recall all he could of the terrain between the Talak and the Tenere. None of it was good. "I need more information," he said. "Do you have any idea of just where they are being held and by how many tribesmen?"

  Claude gave Gus another dirty look as the second order for two more liters of wine was given to the waiter, before replying, "Yes, of course we have some information and I hope to acquire more in a few days. For now concern yourself with transport and finding the other men you will require — I may be able to help you there. Also, the chieftain who has the prisoners has at best three hundred men, but probably less than half will be with him as the others will be needed to tend their flocks. So you will have to deal with perhaps only one to two hundred Tuaregs."

  Carl groaned. One to two hundred of some of the meanest and toughest men the desert had ever spawned. Speculating more to himself than to anyone else, he mumbled, "I'll give odds that they're holed up on Mt. Baguezane northeast of Agadez."

  Claude nodded in agreement. "You are probably correct. But it is not such a great mountain; it only rises to about six thousand feet. As I said, I have some more information coming. It should give us the exact location where they are being held. There cannot be too many places up there with enough water to sustain them. So we will find them."

  "Have confidence in me. I will contact you again in two days, three at the most. By this time you will have considered the worst possible conditions and will be able to give me your requirements in men and material."

  This was going to be a bit rough. But if it went down right the money was good for a few days' work. What was the name Claude had called the Azbine chief? Sunni Ali? To Claude he asked, "Sunni Ali? Wasn't that the name of the king of the old Songhai Empire in the fifteenth century?''

  Claude rose, leaving a stuffed envelope on the table. "But of course it was. I am so glad to see that you, unlike your pet ape, are not a complete illiterate. It makes me feel so much more reassured that I have been correct, as I always am, in my decisions. I will see you here at the same time in two or three days, no more. If I do not appear, then the money in the envelope is yours. Au revoir, mes amis.

  "

  "Yeah. Good-bye, Claude.''

  Monpelier was headed for the door when Gus yelled to the waiter, "Be sure to collect for the wine from the little shit before he gets away."

  Claude Monpelier shrugged his shoulders as only the French can do and paid the waiter. He left the cafe murmuring the word merde over and over.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Leaving the cafe they wandered back into the streets. They were laid with cobblestones hundreds of years old, many taken from buildings that had seen the coming and the passing of Crusaders. The faces that watched the backs of the two ferengi, as the foreigners were disdainfully referred to, could have belonged to that distant time.

  In the envelope was enough money, a mixture of enough dinars and American dollars, to last them for a week or two, or to buy passage to another place if the deal with Monpelier didn't work out. Either way they were better off than they were before. But there was one thing about Monpelier: he didn't pass out money unless he wanted you committed. As far as Carl was concerned, this job was a go.

  A change of residence to a hotel which had telephone service and showers was their first move. Tunis was baking beneath the hammer of the North African sun. It was near the midday hour and, as in all hot climes, activity slowed down. Those that could found shade to take naps or ate slow lunches and sipped sweet mint tea served from brass pots. Carl and Gus took the opportunity to avail themselves of the hotel's shower. There was no hot water but it didn't matter. The water temperature was warmer than blood, anyway, yet it still cooled the skin.

  Gus settled on his single bed by the window where he could catch what little breeze existed. Carl lay back on his bed, naked save for shorts, his eyes closed as he felt the moisture left on his skin from his shower evaporate. Soon it would be gone, then his own body fluids would replace the water from the shower.

  A horrible rasping, gurgling noise broke through the hum of flies swarming outside the screened window. Gus was snoring. Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, Langers thought for a moment about strangling the sleeping giant, but the desire passed quickly. It was much too warm to keep such hostile thoughts for very long. It simply required too much effort. Besides which, Gus did have some good qualities. One day, Langers promised himself when he had time he would take a few hours and try to think of one.

  Outside he heard the plaintive cry of an Arab water vendor wandering the narrow streets, filling the cups of the thirsty with water he promised was as pure as the tears of a virgin, but smelled like the bladder of a dead camel. He rolled over to get on a dry spot. Beneath him the thin cover was already soaked with his sweat.

  Gods! It had b
een a long time since he and Gus had frozen on the steppes of Russia. There had been the ice and the snow winds that peeled frostbitten skin from the face and froze the delicate tissue in the lungs. He almost wished they were back. No! That was a lie. There was no way he could ever wish for that time to return. The Twenty-sixth Panzer Regiment. He and Gustaf Beidemann were the last survivors of their tank crew. All the others were long dead, left on the frozen fields of Mother Russia along with hundreds of thousands of others who had fought and died — for what? An ideology of some sort.

  Memories overcame the present. Once more Langers smelled diesel fumes and cordite, heard the rasping rumble of tank treads as they crashed into each other during the Battle of Kursk. There the smoke of battle was so thick, tanks couldn't see each other at a distance of thirty meters and a hundred thousand men a day were killed or wounded. Kursk! The Dnieper River Line! Red Guards, SS, Kalmuks, and partisans. Trains filled with munitions and living cargo that was to be taken to extermination centers. German soldiers with shell casings hammered into the backs of their necks or left crucified on battlefields. On both sides such an incredible madness.

  Mind half-awake, half-numb he dreamed. Faces passed before and around him, hundreds of dead men. Storms of lightning, caused by thousands of heavy guns, crashed, ripping open the earth to receive the dead. Faces, faces…

  His eyes jerked open. He couldn't take anymore. Through his nightmare Gus had slept the sleep of a child. He was the only true innocent Carl had ever known. Nothing bothered him. His memories of pain were short, therefore he could sleep when others cried out in the night.

  Carl slept no more, afraid of what might come. It was easier to just put his mind at a distance and wait for the sun to begin its decline. When the shadows at last grew longer, he rose and showered again, changed into his cleanest dirty shirt, and shook Gus back into the real world.