"The quality of mercy…"
"…is not strained."
"I am Hafez Kasm."
"Mike Belasko."
The Arab's grasp was firm and dry.
Bolan tugged the helmet off and dropped his harness, reeling in the parachute until it foamed around his knees like surf. He was unfolding the collapsible entrenching tool when Kasm cleared his throat.
"A waste of time," the Arab said.
"How's that?"
"This ground is hard for digging. We will be here after sunrise."
"I can't leave this gear exposed."
"There is a better way."
Hafez Kasm helped to gather up the gear, then led the Executioner across the rocky landscape, climbing fifty feet or so as they traversed a hundred yards. The ridge was broken into stony shelves, with recessed niches underneath, and Kasm spent a moment with his flashlight, searching for a niche to meet his needs.
"No cobras here," he said. "If they come later, it is all the same to us." With no more explanation, he began to stuff the parachute and other gear beneath the rocky outcrop, Bolan helping once he saw what the man meant to do. The arid soil revealed no footprints when they finished, and the evidence of Bolan's midnight touchdown was invisible without determined scrutiny.
"We go."
"How far?"
"One day, if we are lucky. There is climbing to be done. Our road is upside all the way."
"Uphill," Bolan corrected.
The Arab grinned. "Okay."
Kasm had not exaggerated. It was uphill all the way, and Bolan's legs were aching by the time they put a mile behind them, winding in and out among huge stones, along a track that seemed to be reserved for mountain goats. There was a road nearby, but it was dangerous to travel in the open, even after nightfall, and Kasm refused to take the risk. In any case, the moon provided them with ample light for navigation, warning them of hooded cobras in their path on two occasions. The guide pelted them with stones until they slithered out of sight among the boulders.
The desert night was crisp and clear, the temperature belying latitude and longitude. By day, the barren land would bake beneath a brutal sun, but after nightfall, human flesh would chill if left exposed to the eternal, moaning wind. A land of contradictions and anomalies, where the love of Allah and mankind walked hand in hand with the concept of jihad — holy war against the infidel.
As Bolan climbed the rocky slope, he wondered at the motives of his guide. Hafez Kasm was from all appearances a native Syrian, presumably a follower of Islam, but he also drew a covert paycheck from the CIA. Without assistance from Kasm and others like him, Bolan's present mission would have been impossible.
He had a target and an enemy in mind; the rest was open, blank. He had no estimate of hostile numbers, arms, deployment. He was winging it, from touchdown onward, and he did not like the feeling. Not at all.
There were trees in the landscape now, stunted, ghostly shapes by moonlight, twisted shadow arms outstretched in supplication, knotty roots like serpents, writhing on the surface of the arid ground. They would provide no cover in a firefight, but their very presence told him that the worst part of the desert was behind them. If he looked closely, sprouts of brittle grass were visible between the jagged stones, around the crooked tree roots. After six or seven miles, they had already climbed a thousand feet above the desert floor. Meager rain would fall more often here, although it would not come with frequency sufficient to support abundant life. In five or six more miles, they would be truly in the mountains, reasonably safe from observation by pursuers on the flats.
Kasm had stopped ahead, a silhouette against the sky, which had gone pallid with approaching dawn. "We have the sunrise soon," he said. "Time now for us to rest."
"You have a camp in mind?"
"This way."
He trailed the Arab for another hundred yards, until they reached a cave concealed from aerial reconnaissance by trees and overhanging rocks. Inside, the guide had hidden his bedroll, water bags and a satchel filled with food.
"No fire," he said and pointed toward the sky. "The smoke may bring us uninvited visitors." Extracting dates, raisins and strips of cured beef from the food bag, he offered some to Bolan, who accepted, washing down the fruit and salty meat with water from one of his canteens.
"How far?" he asked, when he was finished.
"Twenty-five kilometers, approximate. If we begin this afternoon, we should arrive this evening, late."
"Is there a faster way?"
"If we had vehicles, perhaps, but on the highway…" Bolan's guide looked sorrowful and shook his head, as if the very thought of driving to their destination was abhorrent, perilous beyond imagining.
"I don't have lots of extra time."
"Rest now. We will continue when the sun begins to fall. Less heat, more shadows for the blanket."
"That's 'cover. You've seen the target?"
Hafez nodded, frowning. "I have seen it, yes."
"Describe it for me."
"How does one describe a legend? I am not a storyteller."
"Take a shot."
The Arab shook his head. "To understand the enemy, you must know something of his past."
"I'm listening."
"The story has its roots in ancient Persia, many, many years ago…"
2
Mack Bolan's mission had its roots at Stony Man, among the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, half a world away from the embattled Middle East. He seldom showed his face around the Farm these days, preferring to avoid the ghosts and memories that lingered there, but on occasion it was unavoidable. Some messages could not be trusted to a runner or the telephone; some briefings could not be postponed. And it was better now, he told himself. New faces, for the most part. New ideas. Fresh blood.
He had been winding up a brutal skirmish with some cocaine cowboys when his brother Johnny had relayed Hal Brognola's message from their San Diego Strongbase. It was not a summons — Hal had never worked that way with Bolan — but the Executioner had come to recognize his old friend's moods, his turn of phrase, and Hal's oppressive sense of urgency was obvious when Johnny rolled the tape.
"I need to see the man as soon as possible. We've got a situation here that needs some personal attention, soonest."
Only that, nothing more, but he could read between the lines, inferring volumes from the tension in Brognola's voice. Hal would not call unless he thought it was important; he would not request a face-to-face unless the situation needed swift attention to avert catastrophe. It was enough for Bolan; he had wrapped up his current mission in record time and headed to Stony Man without delay.
Arrival at the Farm by air had never failed to spark a sense of unreality in Bolan's mind. The setting was idyllic, overlooking the historic Shenandoah Valley, heavily forested with hardwoods and conifers, the ground cover broken by gently rolling meadows on the Blue Ridge crest. The Farm had been named for neighboring Stony Man Mountain, one of the highest peaks in the range, and its sprawling acreage was less than a hundred air miles from Washington, D.C.
The pilot made a single pass before he set the chopper down, and Bolan scanned the layout — clustered buildings, cultivated fields. It was a working farm, from all appearances, but anyone who found his way inside the razor-wire perimeter would be surprised by the reactions of the farmhands. All of them had learned to handle automatic weapons first, before they took a turn with tractors, rakes and hoes. Beyond the planted acreage, in the trees, a team of mounted sentries kept their watch around the clock. Intruders would be taken into custody alive, if possible, but at the first sign of resistance, there would be no hesitation in the use of deadly force. Invasion of restricted space could get you killed, and anyone who opted to ignore the posted warnings took his own life in his hands.
Standing off to one side of the helipad, a solitary figure waited for him, hands in pockets, eyes invisible behind dark glasses. A smile was tugging at the corners of Bolan's mouth, and he let it win as he deplaned.<
br />
"Good morning, Mack," Barbara Price said in greeting. "I've missed you."
He followed her inside the ranch house, through the dining hall and kitchen to the elevators, for a short ride down. They found Brognola pacing in the basement War Room, Aaron "The Bear" Kurtzman watching from his wheelchair.
"Greetings," said The Bear. His grip was solid, firm, and Bolan marveled once again that Kurtzman's spirit had survived his crippling wounds, apparently unscathed. If he was suffering, the Stony Man «librarian» had learned to keep it under wraps.
Brognola crossed the room to greet the new arrival, brand-new worry lines around the big Fed's mouth and eyes confirming that Bolan had not been invited for a social visit.
"Everything turn out okay?" Brognola asked. It was a measure of the man's anxiety that he had been reduced to making small talk.
"Fine."
"You need to freshen up or anything before we start?"
"I'd rather get to business."
"Right. Okay."
He took a seat, with Barbara beside him, while Brognola pulled a chair out on the far side of the conference table. Kurtzman, at the console, was already dimming lights and calling up the video display. Downrange, a six-foot television screen filled up with silent snow, then cleared to present a battle scene.
No, he had been mistaken. This was not a battle. Rather, it had been a massacre, the twisted bodies of civilians piled on top of one another, seeming awkward and uncomfortable in their death throes. Panning now, the camera caught more bodies, dozens of them.
"Orly International," Brognola told him simply, calling up the memories of screaming headlines that were not yet two days old. "Four gunmen, thirty-seven dead, another fifty wounded."
As they watched, the screen went blank for several seconds, coming back to life with yet another scene of bloody chaos. This one was a street scene, shrouded bodies lined up! outside what seemed to be a synagogue. He counted fifteen pairs of feet before the camera made its way inside, examining the bullet-scarred interior, more bodies wedged between the pews, awaiting extrication and removal by the paramedics.
"Amsterdam. May. The Temple Beth Shalom. Two shooters, nineteen dead and twenty-seven wounded."
Cut to a nocturnal scene, illuminated by the pulsing strobe lights of emergency vehicles. Slick sidewalks, dark and wet. Policemen wearing yellow slickers in the drizzling rain. A double-decker bus was stalled with two wheels on the curb, its broad expanse of windshield starred with bullet holes. The silent camera moved inside, this time before the ambulance attendants had a chance to do their job, and Bolan had a close-up view of the dead and dying passengers, their bodies slumped in narrow seats or tangled in the aisle. One of them moved — a woman in her middle thirties, bloody hands outstretched in the direction of the cameraman, lips moving in a sluggish supplication.
"London, earlier this month. One man on the bus, two others in a crash car. Twelve dead, eighteen wounded."
And the giant screen revealed another street, this time by daylight. Gawking passersby surrounded the remains of what, presumably, had been a building. Now it was smoking rubble, with soldiers moving in the wreckage. Bolan recognized Israeli uniforms.
"Bene Beraq," Brognola said, "a few klicks south of Tel Aviv. What you're seeing used to be a school before a pair of terrorists went in with AK-47s and a satchel charge. Another fifty-seven dead, with roughly equal numbers injured."
Kurtzman killed the video and keyed a slide projector, throwing faces onto a screen that had descended from the War Room's ceiling. There were twelve in all, eleven young faces in their last repose, all similar in death, the twelfth still alive, glaring back at the camera with supreme defiance, managing a sneer despite swollen lips and other evidence of rugged handling.
"The shooters," the Fed explained, as Kurtzman left the last face on the screen. "Israelis captured this one at Bene Beraq, some kind of lookout for the two inside the school. He killed himself in custody — wedged his head between a drainpipe and the wall of his cell and broke his own neck, if you can believe that — but he did some talking first. Mossad can be persuasive."
Bolan knew a bit about persuasion. "And?"
"According to the horse's mouth, the shooters at Bene Beraq were members of a Shiite faction, the Ismailis, based in Syria. Normally a quiet group, as Shiites go… until the past couple months."
"I take it other members of the sect have been connected to the incidents you've shown us?"
"That's affirmative. It seems male converts must be branded, here…" a finger jabbed at his lapel"…above the heart. A star and crescent. We've been noticing the brands since Amsterdam, but no one knew exactly what to make of them until Mossad got lucky. All four gunners at the Orly shooting match were marked."
"That isn't much to go on."
"We've got more," Brognola said. "A little, anyway. The Company has ears in Syria, and they've been tuning in for anything and everything about this group. They claim to have a general fix on the Ismaili stronghold."
"That sounds like one for the Israeli air force."
"Oh, they're willing, bet on it… but we've got problems. When I say a fix, I'm speaking generally. It's nothing you could plan an air strike from, and anyway, its not confirmed. As much as Tel Aviv would like to fry the scum, they can't afford a fumble. Things are bad enough without their Phantoms taking out some rural mosque or orphanage by accident."
"They need an agent on the ground."
Brognola nodded. "Right. They've tried three times. So far, they've got an MIA and two men dead, for sure."
"I've heard of these Ismailis," Barbara interrupted. "Haven't I?"
Brognola frowned. "You might've, if you're up on your religious history. They date back to Mohammed's time, or thereabouts, but they were best known in the Middle Ages. They were known as the Assassins."
Bolan felt his stomach tighten.
Barbara Price leaned forward, arguing with Brognola. "There must be some mistake. The cult of the Assassins was suppressed more than a hundred years ago. Its members were annihilated, temples razed."
Brognola spread his hands. "They're back," he said, "or else someone is trading on their reputation. Hell, for all I know, it may be like the Klan. Each time you break one up, some pinhead takes the name and starts all over. Either way, we've got a situation on our hands, and we can count on more of what you've seen today, unless we take the bastards down."
"We'll need a better fix," the soldier said.
"I'm working on it," Brognola replied. "The Company's got a guide on tap. He's ready when we are."
"This wouldn't be the same guide the Israelis used?"
The big Fed made a sour face. "I understand that he's no longer with us."
"It's a risky business."
"More so, all the time."
"When do I leave?"
Brognola looked both relieved and troubled. "Tomorrow morning… if you're sure."
"I'm sure."
"I ought to tell you that the Man has some misgivings."
"Oh?"
"He knows we need to do it, but he doesn't like the risks involved, the chances of exposure."
"We'll just have to be discreet."
"Exposure?" Barbara Price was livid. "Damn it, the Israelis should be doing this! Let them make the connection with this so-called guide."
Brognola kept his eyes on Bolan, trying to ignore the woman's outburst. "Word from Tel Aviv is that the operation's cost too much already. They're prepared to launch an air strike — random targets, if it comes to that — but they won't put another agent on the ground until they find out what became of number three."
"They figure he's alive?"
"They don't know what to think, but they're not buying any offers of assistance from a Syrian, regardless of his contacts with the Company."
"Can't say I blame them."
"Well…"
"Go on and set it up. I'll pick the necessary gear tonight. How are we penetrating?"
"Airdrop."
"One request?"
"I'm way ahead of you. Grimaldi's standing by. He'll meet you in the morning."
"Fair enough,"
"I've got a briefing back in Wonderland at two o'clock," Brognola said. "Unless you've got some other questions…?"
"No."
"Okay. The Company's arranged a recognition signal; you can pick it up before you leave. Beyond the drop…"
"I know — I'm on my own.
Brognola scowled. "I hate this job."
The soldier smiled. "I don't believe that for a minute."
"No? I tell you, sometimes… ah, the hell with it. Be careful, will you?"
"It's my middle name."
"And I'm the secret son of Howard Hughes. Just watch yourself, all right?"
"All right."
Brognola shook his hand and left them there, returning to the helipad for the short ride to Washington.
"Anybody up for lunch?"
The soldier's appetite was fading fast, but he would eat. Every ounce of strength and stamina would be required on touchdown in a hostile land, and once across the battle lines, he would not have the luxury of dining rooms and catered meals. Desire for food bore no relationship to the necessity of nourishment. It was a lot like life, that way.
3
"More than nine hundred years ago," Kasm began, "three young men met at a religious school in Nishapur, becoming friends and brothers of the blood. A pact was made, that each would help the others when and where he could, throughout the years to come. If any one should prosper, all would share in his good fortune."
Feeling rather like a character from One Thousand and One Nights, held captive by Scheherazade, Mack Bolan kept his peace and listened.
"Each of these young men had hopes of doing well in life, especially since the students of their school never failed to find power and fame. One of them was Omar Khayydm, a great poet, author of The Rubdiydt. The second, Nizam-ul-mulk, became the Grand Vizier — what you in the United States might call the president — and he went on to offer each of his friends a governorship. Omar Khayyam declined, believing that he was not destined for a life of civil service, so the vizier granted him a pension for life, permitting him to lead a carefree life at Nishapur, pursuing the studies of poetry, astronomy and mathematics.
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