Divband turned and exited the room. Several minutes were required for the last member of the Brotherhood to file out behind him, leaving Mastana alone with her terror.
Could her life truly end like this? Were all her youthful aspirations in vain? Having escaped the lethal intentions of her uncle, Mastana could scarcely believe she was embroiled in the deadly schemes of an even greater madman. The joy she had experienced at Kamaal’s house, anticipating a bright future, seemed a lifetime away.
Despite the earlier promise to herself to weep no more, bitter tears ran down her cheeks. “Mother,” she whispered, “I will see you sooner than expected. I rejoice in the reunion but mourn the loss of my earthly life, a life that could have been so full. I pray I will find tranquility with you at the end of today’s journey.”
She twisted her head toward the stone doorway through which the members of the Brotherhood had exited the chamber, fearing more than anything their return yet unable to pull her eyes from the ominous space.
CHAPTER 67
While still out of sight inside the prison building, Alton consulted his map of the compound. The building containing the ceremonial chamber was easy to spot.
“Look here,” he said to the others. “This is our current location. We need to make our way up to this central building.” He motioned with his finger in a northwesterly direction.
“Isn’t that where we saw the most people on our way in?” asked Mallory. “It’s going to be a challenge getting there without being spotted.”
“Yes, but that’s where Mastana is. So that’s where we’ll go.”
David nodded in grim determination. “What’s the plan?”
Alton studied the map. A pair of buildings to the south of their target sat close together, forming an alley between them. The narrow space seemed to provide plenty of concealment. “See how these two buildings have buttresses? Maybe we can use those to advance up this alley a little at a time. Once we get to the northern end of the alley, we’ll have a clear line of site to the central building, the one containing the ceremonial chamber. We can plan our next step once we see the central building’s access points, and if anyone’s guarding them.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Mallory.
“Let’s turn our mikes on. We’ll need to stick to sub-vocalization from here on out.”
The rescue party plunged into the darkness. The night’s absolute quiet proved more unnerving than noise would have been. Alton knew scores of cultists lay between his band and Mastana. But lacking the audible cues of his enemy’s location, the soundless blanket that enveloped the compound felt suffocating.
Alton felt himself slipping away to another still night, a night in the deserts of Gazib several years ago, when he had traveled from his mobcom van back to his quarters.
As the stars in the sky shifted to that long-ago night, he felt a warm touch on his face. The heavens realigned to their proper locations.
“Sweetie?” asked Mallory, her worried eyes studying his face.
“Thanks. I’m good.” Alton felt relieved that the rest of his band were busy turning on their communications equipment, oblivious to the exchange.
Alton moved to the front of the group. “Sawtooth formation until we reach the alley between the buildings. Everyone who has a SIG Sauer, take it out. Those will be our primary weapons. Only use the A-fours if you have to.”
They slipped their way back to the cleared trail of the compound’s inner perimeter. Sliding southwest around the edge of the compound, they reached the alley without incident.
The map had proved correct. Alternating buttresses between the two buildings, while not large, nonetheless provided sufficient opportunities for concealment.
“Okay, advance by twos. One group covers while the other advances. Kamaal, you stick with me and Mallory.”
They darted down the alleyway, Alton doing his best to limit the duration of his forays into the dim moonlight, despite his limp. Within minutes, they reached a pair of buttresses at the northern end of the alley.
The central chamber, a large building whose walls curved north in both directions, lay directly in front of them. On the wall to the right, enormous stone blocks framed a spacious door. Several cultists stood watch at this entrance. Several others lingered in the yard outside, and presumably more waited inside. It seemed an unlikely avenue for entering undetected.
To the left of them, on the building’s southwestern side, lay a smaller door manned by two guards with no other cultists in sight.
Alton studied the building’s defenses. Apparently, the Brotherhood had bet all its chips on defending itself via the series of guard huts. Except for the prison guards, none of the interior sentinels carried weapons, at least none that Alton had detected.
He motioned to his companions. “We’ll go in through the left door.”
“Do you have a map of the interior of the building?” whispered Mallory.
Alton brought up Professor Aziz’s document. “No, it only shows the layout of the buildings within the compound, not the interiors of the buildings themselves. We’ll just have to get inside and hope we can find her, before…”
Mallory nodded, not needing to vocalize the fear on everyone’s mind.
“I’ll take the one on the left,” murmured Alton, motioning to one of the guards. “You take the guy on the right. On my mark…three, two, one.”
The two silencers sighed in the night. Both guards fell, but the one on the right began to call out in agony. Alton and Mallory send a stream of silent lead in his direction, and the cultist fell still.
Scanning the thirty-yard gap between the buildings and seeing no one, Alton waved the others forward. They made a dash for the now-unguarded entrance.
“Pull the bodies inside,” said Alton. Kamaal dragged one, while David pulled the other. They entered a hallway strung with florescent lights. A tiny room the size of a closet provided just enough space to dump the bodies out of sight.
“Where to now, boss?” subvocalized David.
“We’re almost on the southern end of this building, so let’s head north, to the left. That will take us to the rest of the building and, hopefully, Mastana.”
Crouching down, they moved in silence along the curved, stone hallway.
Alton held up a hand. He discerned a curious sound, like the bubbling flow of water in a creek. “Do you hear something?”
“It sounds like a lot of people walking,” said Mallory.
“That’s right. We should follow that sound. If there’s a ceremony going on, that’s probably where they’re going to.”
“Or leaving from,” added Fahima.
Alton didn’t like to consider the implications of Fahima’s observation. Had they struggled to find Mastana all these many days, only to miss the opportunity of saving her by the space of minutes?
He waved the group forward, moving as quietly as possible. As they glided up the hallway, the sound of shuffling feet, which had been growing louder, abruptly stopped.
Alton noticed a cutout entrance to the wall on the right. If their curved hallway surrounded the ceremonial chamber, the door should take them right to it.
He motioned with his head towards the entrance. Crouching down, they entered a large, circular chamber, finding themselves in one of many dark alcoves built into the wall.
Lit by dozens of candles, the chamber gave the appearance of another world—or at least another time. Scores of cultists in black robes stood along the walls, the closest only a dozen or so yards away.
Alton spotted a cultist making his way to an imposing stone altar in the middle. Unlike the other members of the Brotherhood, the man wore a sash of crimson red, probably denoting his leadership role in the organization.
Then Alton saw her. Already strapped to the altar was a teenage girl. Was it really Mastana, or was he guilty of wishful thinking? The crown of her head faced Alton, so he had no way of making a proper determination.
With his back towards Alton, the l
eader placed his hands on the girl’s shoulders and mumbled an incantation. He withdrew some kind of pendant and placed it on the prone figure’s body, then raised his head and began speaking to the assemblage.
“He says the spirits are here,” translated Kamaal in the faintest of murmurs, a sound nearly drowned out by the cult leader’s booming voice. “He says Iblis has agreed to make the usual exchange.”
Remembering Professor Aziz’s explanations, Alton knew what that meant. If he was to save the girl on the stone table, whoever she was, he had little time to act.
The cult leader moved around the altar and grabbed an object off a small, adjacent table. As he turned back to the figure on the stone slab, Alton gave a start of recognition.
He had no time to ponder his surprise. Knowing he must act, Alton considered his tactical position. He and his friends had the element of surprise, but they were outnumbered in the chamber at least ten to one. He hadn’t spotted any visible weapons on the members of the Brotherhood, but with their flowing robes, any one of them could be concealing an arsenal. It was a chance he’d have to take.
The cult members began to chant, and their leader—the Divband, Professor Aziz had called him—continued his oration as he placed a black cloth over the prone figure’s face and raised an ornate knife over her body while making a bold proclamation.
“Young one, it is time for you to meet Iblis, your groom,” whispered Kamaal in translation.
Without thinking, Alton emerged from the shadows and limped three paces forward. “How about you meet him instead, asshole?”
Alton brought the A4 to his shoulder and fired. The shot impacted Divband’s temple, propelling the Satanist and his dagger away from the altar. The cult leader landed in a lifeless, bloody heap on the floor, brain matter spilling onto his red sash and blood oozing into the stone floor’s bas-relief carvings of flying dragons and scowling soldiers.
The time for Alton to glory in his victory was short. The chamber erupted with shouts. In the chaos, a half-dozen members of the Brotherhood ran towards Alton, while another three sprinted for the altar on which the girl lay bound.
CHAPTER 68
Alton heard the blast of three-round bursts erupt from behind him. Their element of surprise eradicated, his companions had dispensed with the SIG Sauers and now pounded the cultists with their A4s. The advancing hostiles fell like wheat under a sickle.
Alton used his A4 to line up the three cultists advancing toward Mastana and took them out with several well-placed bursts.
Moving toward the altar in his fastest trot, Alton picked up the engraved dagger the dead leader had dropped to the ground and turned to the girl strapped to the table. Snatching the cloth from her head, he found himself face-to-face with Mastana—a few years older and clearly fatigued and terrified, but definitely her. The girl’s eyes widened to a size Alton wouldn’t have thought possible, and she began to struggle against her restraints.
Alton used the dagger to cut through Mastana’s gag and the cloth straps binding her to the table, then passed her the knife with an enjoinder. “Hang on to this. You might need it.” As he leaned over, Alton’s helmet slipped off and nearly hit the teen as it tumbled to the floor.
Mastana struggled to stand, and Alton recognized her weakened state. Wrapping an arm around her waist to support her, he staggered back to his waiting friends, who had been laying down a barrage of fire to protect him during his rescue operation.
Now that the extraction of Mastana from the altar was complete, Alton refocused on the tactical situation. The enemy combatants had scattered at the first sounds of gunfire, most fleeing the chamber altogether. Alton assumed many of them had no military training and would not return, now that they faced a group of adversaries more formidable than a restrained teenage girl.
But some of them appeared to be regrouping. Now armed, several dozen streamed back into the room. These returning cultists clearly knew their business with weapons and launched into a counteroffensive.
“Back-to-back,” Alton told the others. Their military training asserting itself, the three former soldiers ducked behind their alcove’s waist-high stone wall. They formed a semi-circle around Fahima, Kamaal, and Mastana, protecting them and each other from a flank attack.
A group of armed cultists ducked behind the altar and began to send sporadic fire in the direction of Alton and his friends.
Alton lined up his rifle’s grenade launcher and fired. A deafening explosion sent shrapnel and shards of stone-altar fragments ripping through the cultists.
The scene shifted, and Alton found himself in a Kabul market, lancing pain in his leg nearly incapacitating him as he struggled to bring a wounded civilian into Camp Eggers after a bomb blast.
Through the fog of pain, Alton could discern distant voices.
“Alton, are you hurt?” cried Mallory. “Where are you hit?”
“Maybe he can’t hear you,” said David.
“No,” said Mallory. “It’s PTSD.”
As the noise of the cultists grew closer, a distant corner of Alton’s mind screamed at him to move, to run. But despite his struggle, he could only stare into space as a waterfall of combat memories pinned him to the spot.
CHAPTER 69
An explosion from a Brotherhood grenade on their left flank sent shards of rock sailing in every direction. One of them grazed the top of Alton’s head, snapping him out of his reverie.
Cultists were advancing towards their position. Bullets whizzed by like angry bees, the crack of their impact on the stone behind them testifying to the precarious nature of their location.
“Return fire!” said Alton, himself opening up with A4 bursts.
Seeing their leader reengaged in the fight, his comrades likewise poured a fusillade of rounds into their enemy’s positions. In the enclosed space, the exchange of gunfire sounded more like cannons than firearms. The deep, explosive wave of each A4 burst nearly drowned out the smaller pop pop reports from the attackers’ small-caliber sidearms.
“Fire your grenades!” shouted Alton as he launched two successive rounds from his M203 into the center of the chamber. Mallory and David fired simultaneously to the left and right. The blasts produced a deafening roar, and the shockwave sent a wall of heat and pressure rolling across their faces.
In the ensuing confusion, Alton motioned to the others to head for the door behind them, the one leading back into the hallway. He moved his hand to feel the wound on his head and encountered the warm, sticky sensation of blood. But the pain wasn’t too bad. It was a flesh wound, not serious enough to slow him down.
“Alton,” said Mastana, ensconced under his arm once again, “there are others—girls like me. We must help them!”
His indecision lasted only a second. “Can you show me where?”
“I don’t think I can find my way back to that place. The other girls were prisoners, like me. We were in prison rooms near each other.”
Alton realized he had stood within feet of the other prisoners without realizing it. Why had they not called out?
“Let’s head back to the prison building,” he told the others. “We’ll use the same route, the alley between the two buildings to the south. These cultists might even lose us if we head that direction.”
Firing to cover their retreat, they scrambled down the curved hallway toward the exit as fast as caution and Alton’s limp would allow.
Bursting through the southwestern exit, they encountered a cacophony of shouts from all directions. Wasting no time, they raced across the open space, reaching the alley in seconds and darting straight down its length. Alton’s leg protested the exertion by sending bolts of pain up and down his limb as he ran. At last, they arrived at the southern end of the alley.
“Let me help Mastana,” said Kamaal, observing the deteriorating condition of Alton’s leg. The teen staggered to Kamaal’s side and grasped his arm.
Having reached the inner perimeter’s southern edge, they dashed east, darting from buildin
g to building. They neared the prison block, and Alton came face-to-face with a bearded cultist whose lips curled into a snarl of fury. Reacting on instinct, Alton pulled his field knife from its scabbard and attacked. As he plunged the knife into the cultist’s chest, the man’s last earthly breath produced an abrupt exhale, and he crumpled to the ground.
In a few more steps, the group reached a dilapidated edifice located across the courtyard from the prison building. Alton could see a half-dozen cultists scouring the area, peering into the dark recesses of each ancient building. Recognizing they would never reach the prison unseen, he turned to David. “Lay down suppressing fire on my mark. Once Mallory and I reach the archway over the prison-building door, we’ll cover so you all can join us.”
Alton gave the command, and David began firing. Two of the cultists dropped, while the others scattered for cover.
Trailing Mallory, Alton reached the prison building, the pain in his leg lancing out in time with his heartbeat and causing sweat to pour down his brow, despite the evening’s chill. Having no time to focus on his discomfort, he turned to Mallory, who had already raised her A4 into firing position. “Ready? Fire!”
They both opened up on the concealed members of the Brotherhood. Alton’s A4 ran out of ammunition on the second burst. He reached into his web gear for a magazine and reloaded. Looking up, he saw that his cessation of gunfire had apparently emboldened one cultist, who sprinted towards the prison from Alton’s side.
“Thanks for making it easy,” murmured Alton as he took down the zealot with his first shot.
David and the others reached the prison. Alton turned to his friends, who all panted with exertion. “Mastana will guide me and Fahima to the cells. The rest of you set up a defensive position at this doorway. Don’t let anything past.”
With Alton’s help, Mastana traveled back towards the prison’s narrow, stone hallway. On the way in, Alton lifted the key ring off the hook on the wall.
The Devil's Due (The Blackwell Files Book 5) Page 22